So What Went Wrong with The Last Airbender?
M. Night Shyamalan just can't please you people! For once, he does a movie without all his usual trademarks -- the surprise ending, the Philadelphia setting, the vainglorious directorial cameo -- and still, he can't catch a critical break. What went wrong with his latest effort, The Last Airbender? Here are four of the biggest problems:
The 3D
A la Clash of the Titans, Airbender got a terrible post-production conversion to 3D that made it look dark and blurry (at worst) and flat and 2D (at best). I watched almost half of it with my 3D glasses off, and in non-action scenes, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. Actually, that's not true: those scenes looked even better with the glasses off, because they were suddenly brighter and more colorful. "M. Night Shyamalan's retrofit produces the drabbest, darkest, dingiest movie of any sort I've seen in years," complained Roger Ebert in his review. "You know something is wrong when the screen is filled with flames that have the vibrancy of faded Polaroids."
Dialogue
Shyamalan is no Shakespeare, but he knows how to get a catchphrase into the lexicon, as The Sixth Sense proved. Even Signs had some clever lines ("There's a monster outside my room, can I have a glass of water?"). In Airbender, alas, it's like he didn't even try. All the dialogue is expository, leaving no room for character or memorable turns of phrase. It's like watching your least favorite Final Fantasy cut scenes come to life.
Sequels
By the way, all that expository dialogue? It's spent setting up events that don't even happen in this movie. We're told numerous times that the hero, Aang, has to master bending water, fire, and earth before he can complete his journey. All he gets to is water. The big bad guys? They mostly stay out of the final battle. The teased-at confrontation between Zuko and his evil sister? We don't even meet the sister until the last shot of the movie. Guys, it's pointless to set up the second and third movies if this one isn't any good.
Sense of Humor
Also, why so serious? This is a movie about kids with magic powers, and yet everyone is so freakin' grim all the time. I get that the filmmakers hoped this would be a mythological franchise on par with Star Wars. Unfortunately, instead of learning from the fun and adventure of A New Hope, they've made a CG grind that apes the prequels. Sorry, Night. Maybe next time?
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Comments
what I find annoying (offensive?) about his movies is that he's constantly striving to shove his religious agenda down our throats, both overtly and covertly, and he thinks we don't even notice it (or are actually appreciative of it). That may not even be the case with this movie, but he's worn out his welcome for me.
Clearly the author of this article isn't a fan or watcher of the series. Most of his commentary is about general gripes with nothing poignant about how the adaptation squares up with the cartoon series, which I think is an important distinction to make.
Yes, each "Chapter" in the series was named after the element Aang was learning. He learns waterbending first so it stands to reason that the movie series with keep with that. I'd hate it more if Shyamalan tried to shove too much into one movie. It'll be hard enough as it is with just the first book.
I'm dismayed to hear that the movie is incredibly serious and not just because "This is a movie about kids with magic powers, and yet everyone is so freakin’ grim all the time." But because Aang's personality is to be carefree and fun loving above all else only getting serious when he really needed to focus or surrounding emotional turmoil harshed his mood mellow. Sokka was also comic relief and if he's not quirky then he's not Sokka. Eliminating the jokes takes away from the dialogue. Even Uncle should be funny at times.
Finally, 3D or not, if the above mentioned qualities are suffering then then visual appeal will definitely fail to prop up the deficiencies. Props for the Finfal Fantasy comment though!
"We’re told numerous times that the hero, Aang, has to master bending water, fire, and earth before he can complete his journey. All he gets to is water"
HINT: Three season of the show, Each season represents another element (Water, Earth, Fire) that he has to learn.
"We don’t even meet the sister until the last shot of the movie"
Same in the cartoon we don't meet her till the end.
It's a movie with white actors playing asian characters that might bother some people. Racebending covered why so many people were offended.
M. Night Shyamalan: The Last Plot Bender. All he needed was a child to whisper, " I see dead franchises."
But if Shyamalan is following the first season of the show so slavishly (instead of adapting it for a feature film), then shouldn't I just be watching the show instead?
"A la Clash of the Titans, Airbender got a terrible post-production conversion to 3D that made it look dark and blurry (at worst) and flat and 2D (at best)."
I can't fault a movie for bad 3D when it was meant to be seen in 2D. I don't know why people go to see movies in 3D that they know were converted after it was filmed. They should know by now it will look like crap.
I think being serious applies to a broader audience, the show wasn't that funny even with the jokes. It sounds like its good, because of the quality of negative remarks. Also people being offended is humorous, because its an excuse not a reason. Science is nothing but humans saying they are superior to whats already there. Science isn't a explanation of anything. Also I was made fun of when I was a child, if that is belittled by people as a child? How can anyone be expected to care about grown adults complaining about people trying to save them? Insulted in the best way possible.
from all the other reviews this is a terrible movie which is a shame i did noticed from the trailers that it had some type of dark tone which the show especially th 1st season didnt have i just need to see how normal veiwers more importantly fans of the show feel about it .. hopefully m night wont direct the sequel
A lot of folks here seem to be missing the point of the article. "Hey, dude, there are three seasons of the show" ... "hope m night won't direct the sequel"... Folks, it's looking increasingly likely that there won't *be* a sequel, no matter what Shyamalan says.
Me? I'm coming at it from no knowledge of the show at all, but from the sure and certain knowledge that, if I'm in a box-office queue with my girlfriend, neither of us wants to be the one to turn to the other and say "Let's see The Last Airbender". Farting around corners may be a prized subcultural skill, but it dies a death in the multiplex.
Comment of the week! Comment of the week!
So the robot from "Futurama" is not even in this installment?
Yes, you should, actually. The show was great (for kids and kids-at-heart), but from the sound of it this movie is not.
A gypsy lady cursed him: every movie he makes will be half as good as the one that came before it.
I thought it was a Michael Jordan biopic.
Yeah, I kind of expected the movie to be pretty terrible. A lot of the original show was based on the complexity of the characters and each of their burdens from the past and future and how they come to cope with them. I don't think a single movie could cover all of that, and with Shyamalan not even picking a proper cast to stay true to the original story, I was already doubting how much of the original plot and characterization he would keep. Apparently, even the action scenes suck, so I guess it's an all-around loss for him. He just messed it up.
I believe this is a big bump in the road.Part 2 & 3 will be way better than the first.How many people liked Star Wars New Hope?
Hardly any. In and out of cinemas in '77, as I recall - rushed out by the feverish demand for extra screens for William Friedkin's "Sorcerer".
Excuse me? "Star Wars: A New Hope" was one of the biggest blockbusters of all time. In return for a budget of $11 million, "the film's original total U.S. and Canada gross came to $307,263,857, and it earned $6,806,951 during its first weekend in wide release" It was the highest grossing film of 1977 and the all-time highest until ET in 1982 (Wikipedia). IMHO, it was also by far the most fun, fresh and exciting of all the Star Wars pictures. The next two became darker and much more serious, and the three "prequels" were an unmitigated disaster.
agreed. it's clear that the author doesn't know that this movie is based off of an animated series.
My daughter (now 11 y.o.) and I would rush home to watch Avatar on television. We found it to be an interesting, amusing, and intelligent story with excellent character development and ethically pertinent issues that we discussed when courses of action were not always clear or concise and right and wrong not easily discerned. We learned that even the best of us have weaknesses and the worst of us have strengths.
Avatar opened up for us as father and daughter, the opportunity to discuss and explore this morality play, albeit born out in a mythopoeic world, how to treat each other and what to expect from ourselves. This was a high standard to attain in a film of a duration about 1/10th that of the series. We saw the first showing of The Last Airbender here in the Detroit area and we were somewhat surprised by the "ethnicity" of the characters but we applied to the film our previous experience with the series, to in effect, fill in the gap, to the those left in the movie. (I suppose many reviewers would admit that those gaps were numerous!). Our surprise in the racial issues has not been mentioned however in the reviews I've read. Specifically, we thought the FIRE nation characters seemed to mostly appear as middle eastern in ethnicity and less Asian. To make the "bad guys" coming from this population seemed to us somewhat inconsistent to the story but play upon the current political arena in which we find ourselves. Kind of an easy ploy by the movie makers.
Of course, even my eleven year old daughter recognizes that the 3-D element might be used to the sacrifice of a good story or character development. It all comes down to that doesn't it. Do we care about the story? Do we care about the characters? Do they have something to teach us as we watch as they themselves learn about themselves in their quest to "save the world?" The Avatar episodes did this at a surprisingly sophisticated level for a cartoon show. The bar was high. If sequels are made, we hope that that standard will be attained.
EJ LEVY and Alana
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Quote:
"Sense of Humor
Also, why so serious? This is a movie about kids with magic powers, and yet everyone is so freakin’ grim all the time. "
Ouch! The Last Airbender is a fun series!
If you've seen the Last Airbender opening credits, the main character always happens to be in mishaps and when there's a battle, he ever so often commits funny mistakes!
When I read this part of your review, I was like, "That's enough to say that this movie is a flop!"
I don't think familiarty with the series is really all the relevent as to why the movie is such a disaster. I've seen the TV show and enjoyed it, but I'm not really enough of a fanboy to demand slavish accuracy in adaptation. Why the film is such a disaster has little to do with the original series, or even muddy conversions or whitewashed casting, and everything to do with the scripts complete and utter failure to dramatically invest it's audience in the story. When Kyle Buchanan says that the majority of dialogue is expository, he's not whistling dixie--all of it is expository, and to such a ridiculous degree that the effect is almost Pythonesque.
You hit upon a great reason the show was such a hit: families could enjoy it together. Instead of being simple kid-fare that adults had to endure, or an adult show that bored kids, "Avatar: The Last Airbender" appealed perfectly to all ages (I'm in my 40's) because it had a well-crafted storylines, realistic characters, a fascinating mythology, and consistent touches of humor.
It's truly a crime Shyamalan took such excellent source material -- a TV show that actually helped create a bonding experience for families -- and turned out this amateurish dud of a movie. I hope Parts 2 and 3 proceed without his involvement, and this crummy first installment doesn't consign "The Last Airbender" to the dustbin of pop-culture history.
- mattmchugh
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