More News from The Last Airbender!

Hello again for all 2 and a half of you who keep up with my Last Airbender Updates [pause for laughter]. As long as one person reads them, I'll continue putting out information! Now down to business. I've been keeping up with everything Avatar [not James Cameron >:O] and I've come across enough new information for another Update, so here we go!

Firstly, who likes to read Manga? I've never been into it myself, but about two weeks ago it was announced that TWO Manga's would be released along with the film [or sometime around it]. The first will be more or less the same storyline as the film, but the second will be a prequel to the film. My guess is something along the lines of Aang's life in the Air Temple or something like that... how else could you make an Avatar prequel? maybe Roku's story--the start of the war, but I doubt it.

For those of you who don't know, a 'Manga' is a black and white comic, traditionally unique to Japan. Most Anime's have Manga's that go along with them. Something like this, but not in color: [no this isn't the real thing it's just a random manga comic from Avatar, but you get the idea]

---

Okay, that's the least interesting of our news, today. Continuing on, Do you remember a month or so ago, when the company who is making the Water Tribe weapons leaked photos of the movie props? Well it's happened again. Here for you're viewing pleasure are some of the leaked Water Tribe weaponry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t95P2b68H3A&fmt=22

I lol'd when I saw that whoever put it up did so in HD. Very nice right? I don't really like the trident-thingy's but the knives are pretty badass. Moving on--

---

As you may or may not know, the film's score is being composed by James Newton Howard. Howard has done several of Shyamalan's films, and worked with Hans Zimmer on The Dark Knight. Needless to say, this guy knows his music. He composed the score for the Teaser Trailer that was released back at the end of June. [and it was epic]

There was an interview done with Howard a few weeks ago about his music, but it really had nothing to do with The Last Airbender. In one scene you can see a paused screen-cap of the Teaser Trailer in the background, indicating that he was working on it at the time--but that's it. He doesn't say anything about the film at all, thus its not really news.

So why am I telling you this? Well because we have some rumors to sift through. Turn on your bullshit radars and lets get to it, shall we?

Recently on Youtube, a channel calling itself 'TLA Music' surfaced with four clips of what this person claimed to be "unfinished versions" of James Newton Howard's score for the film. Needless to say, every Youtube user called him out on the fact that this couldn't be real, forcing the channel operator to claim that he has a "source very close to Mr. Howard."

I listened to it, I liked it, but I also thought it sounded very... well unfinished. There's not the epic scope that we come to expect from not only Howard, but film scores in general. So that leaves us with two conclusions:
1. It's bullshit that some bored guy made via unprecedented skills with Garageband and a Mac.
2. It's very very unfinished, and more or less the real thing. But I doubt it.

Here, listen for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TLAMusic

The fire nation bit ALMOST sounds badass for a second. almost. I guess the only logical way to determine whether or not this is the real thing is how quickly it gets pulled off of the internet. I'd say if it's still there in a month, it's most likely bullshit. Thoughts? Opinions?

---

And now, finally, I've saved the best for last. Enough rumors and speculation, lets get some facts and pictures in here yes? Something like two days ago more set photos surfaced, this time of the filming location at Gerard College. They used some main hall at this school for a particular Fire Nation set. Have a look:

Imagine a roaring fire on top of this one ^ Fire Nation ahoy!

Impressed by the level of detail here^ M. Night if you deceive me I will hunt you down. This movie must be awesome!

^ Add more imaginary roaring fires...

That ^ is just bitchin'

Again fans have been screaming that these photos MUST be from [insert every fire nation location from book 1.]
so far I've heard that it is 'definitely'
1. Zhao's fortress that he holds Aang in for the Blue Spirit
2. The Fire Nation royal palace
3. Roku's temple
4. Zuko and Zhao's Agni Kai location (wasn't that near a dock?)

Decide for yourself, but I think it is most likely just the Royal Palace. No way to be sure though, and it doesn't really matter. What matters is the level of detail that they are putting into making Avatar come to life. No, not James Cameron's. Dammit.

---

And as a little bonus, here is a picture of another building that is being used as an unnamed Fire Nation location. This photo is just of the building, it is not on set, or during filming or anything [as far as I know]. But it looks cool.

---

So there you have it, as of 8/18/09 That's all we know about Avatar [for the last time, no, NOT James Cameron's! Dammit!] . I'll keep watching over the sources, and be back as soon as I have a reasonable amount of details, or a big score. Fingers crossed, and let me know what you think!