My name is Sokka, It's pronounced with an "OKKA!"

[I Can Fly Now]

Okay, so I just got back from the midnight showing. And the only question I have now is....
did the director actually watch a single episode of the show, or was he just handed a summary of the basic storyline.
It could have been a good movie. It really could have. But it would have required at least a basic understanding of the series.
First and foremost, almost every single name was pronounced wrong. My soul died when Katara first referred to her brother as "Soak-ah." And let's not forget good old "Ong" and "Uncle Eeroh," I wish I could say I was making this up. I really do. And this made me mad, because it's not like mispronouncing a name from an anime or something, where it's in another language, so it can be hard to get the pronunciation right, The show was aired in English! Watch one episode of the show, and it'll tell you how to say the names. What's worse is that several of the characters seemed to think "Ong" was the "Ah-vatar." Dude, "avatar" is a real word! And it's the name of the James Cameron film everyone was talking about for months. How in the world can you screw that up?!
And then there were the characters themselved. A huge part about what endeared me to the show was the care that was taken with each character, and how you got to know what each of them was like and what they were feeling. I was very disappointed with how subdued Sokka was. Jackson Rathbone seemed to be stuck in his "Twilight" role, because he barely cracked a smile and he showed no sense of humor. He was playing this serious, stoic teenager, and that's just not who Sokka IS.
Iroh was a weird one, because his actor did a good job, but his character design was kind of...sleazy, so he sometimes came across as creepy rather than kind.
Aang was adorable, but he was also much more serious and mellow. In fact, there was very little of that wonderful Avatar-style humor at all. It seems they were concentrating less on the human element of the show and more on making it a straight-up action flick.
All in all, what disappointed me most was that the director seemed to miss the mark on what the series was about.. It's not just some teenagers throwing magic around fighting the bad guys--it's about hope, and love, and courage, and finding your inner strength. I think this could have been a really good movie if they'd just gone a little deeper.
And if they could figure out how to pronounce peoples' names.

[asian malaysian]

The changes in name pronounciation were intentional. Some discussion on the point:

distanthorizons.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=avmovie&action=display&thread=21913&page=1

distanthorizons.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=avmovie&action=display&thread=21905&page=2

Thanks for the review.

[thedarkone]

That was the most difficult thing to get through in the movie. But the hardest name they changed was Aang! ONG is not AANG.

[truwaterbender]

I came back from the movie not too long ago and though I understand Shyamalan's reasoning behind the name change, I really wished he would have appeased the loyal fans and kept such a simple thing like pronunciation. I can see where he was coming from as far as his changes, but I was still very disappointed about the changes he made.

What I was also very sad to see was that the characters and the heart of what Avatar is and what makes it special wasn't there. The actors weren't on their game with the personalities attitudes. Like Aang, happy, go lucky, energetic little 12 year old kid. I didn't see that at all in my opinion. And I Can Fly Now is totally right when she said;

All in all, what disappointed me most was that the director seemed to miss the mark on what the series was about.. It's not just some teenagers throwing magic around fighting the bad guys--it's about hope, and love, and courage, and finding your inner strength. I think this could have been a really good movie if they'd just gone a little deeper"

That doesn't cease to disappoint me.

In my opinion, I'd rather have Avatar in live action kept the same than have changes to make the movie unique and original from the series. Especially the costuming, the Avatar clothes in the sereis were perfect and amazing, the changes in hair and makeup *cough*Zuko*cough* were depressing.

But one good thing came out of this; I'm going to be re watching the series about a million times so I can have my Avatar and Aang back. Not Ah-vatar and Ong.

[mizzliz]

Now I am just too paranoid to watch the movie because of the whole name issue... I mean... really.... what was wrong with doing it the english way! Obviously he was going to lose a bunch of people right there with the movie

[HeroicOutlaw]

I saw the movie also, and I have to agree with I Can Fly. The character depth was...well, there wasn't any. I should've known the movie was going to be difficult. The area where I was vacationing didn't have a midnight premiere for the movie, I should've taken that as a sign. The different puncuations of the names did make me wince and the interesting style of special effects they used did catch my attention. But not in a good way. The bending had an odd time-delay, and the only thing that The Last Airbender and Eragon had in common, i both said the same words after i finished watching them: re-do.

[teamsokka321]

IM SOOOOOO WITH YOUUU !!!!!! & Whats up with those weird namess ! The director says it sounds more , Magestic O.o i think it just sounds plain WEIRDDDD ! xP
I really hope one dayy Some director will directt this movie the RIGHT WAYY ! with everything rightt ! xD
P.s. HAPPY SOKKA DAYY !

[Chaobunny]

I forgot about that Sokka quote from Tales of Ba Sing Se! When I make a parody of this film when it comes out on cable, I'm DEFINATELY using that quote. Thanks for the reminder!!

And also, I haven't seen the film and don't plan on it until it comes out on TV, but I think it's insulting to Mike and Bryan that Shyamalan insists that his pronunciations of the names are the "correct" ones. They're Mike and Bryan's characters, for goodness sake!

[Paraiba Ocean]

I read Shyamalan's comments on the name changes, but basically his justification was making it more "Asian."

However, there are many types of Asian, including Indian, Russian, and then your Chinese, Thai, Filipino, Korean, etc., so it isn't a very sound argument. But I think we should also give props to Bryke because they seemed to do a lot of homework when it came to keeping the East Asian influence, and I'd bet that would include most of the names as well. Yue is the Chinese word for moon, and though it isn't omg the most ~proper~ form ever, it was a decent Americanization of the word as far as I can tell. (Though I'm not [fluent in] Chinese, so that's not really an expert opinion.)

So to me, it seems like Shyamalan is dissing on Bryke if he's saying the show was "doing it wrong."

[WarriorSokka]

I HAVE COME BEARING GOOD NEWS.

Well you can take it however you want

I'm currently a film student with aspiration to become a director. Before M. Night even announced his movie I wanted to make a live action movie of Avatar and was disappointed when he announced it, and was even more disappointed when I realized he was the failure that director The Village ! (the worst movie of all time in my opinion). So in about 10...maybe 20 years i'm going to try and get the rights to Avatar and remake it (once i'm an established director). I even started work on a script draft.

My movie would be completely to appease the fans. No drastic changes to plot or storyline, no name changes, no racebending, no major character visual changes ! (lul zuko...)

I could write a better version of the movie in my sleep. I've seen every episode multiple times, have quotes memorized, have almost every piece of Avatar merchandise...I mean M. Night, you havent made a good movie in YEARS why ruin a series which you claim to love. I mean did HE even like his movie?

But anyways yeah, the name changes were SO ANNOYING. I understand that apparently Bryke got the name wrong originally, but it's STILL their show and they should be entitled to keeping the original names. Honestly if the names were Ong and Soaka in the series, it would have made it a little less appealing to me. Well not Soaka I can deal with it (even though i go by the identity of Sokka on SOOOO many forums and websites) but Ong I just wouldnt be able to handle for an entire series. It seems like the actors even dont like saying it !