M.Night.Shyamalan ought to be ashamed of himself. I went to the midnight premier of the Last Airbender as a hopeful long time fan of the wonderful animated series. Less than thirty minutes into the feature however I realized that my hopes would be dead on the ground by the time the movie ended.
Over the past few months this film has been surrounded by controversy. The casting choices have caused accusations of racism to be leveled and many fans were left feeling disappointed months before the film even premiered. Now, I don't think M.Night Shyamalan is a racist. I don't know him well enough to make such a slanderous claim. Would I have preferred that the characters in the movie had appeared as the fans had come to know them over the past five years? Of course. However at the heart of Avatar fans, I don't think changing the appearances of certain nations was a racial issue. Simply put, I think people just wanted the characters to look the way they were supposed to look. However, had this movie been written well and had the acting been terrific, changing the appearances of the nations wouldn't have mattered. Because at its heart the story of Avatar is a human story with strong themes of redemption and forgiveness. I think people would have been able to look past their disgruntlement and see the beauty of the story. That is, if the movie had been well written. And I'm sorry to say, it was not.
Naturally, it was always going to be difficult to condense over eight hours worth of animated material into two-hours of movie. How do you choose what goes and what stays in a series where almost everything is interconnected? It was a daunting task indeed. But successful adaption of books, television series, and even video games have been done before. If the works of Tolkien, the master of intricate detail, could be adapted into a series that left a decent amount of his life long fans pleased, surely Avatar: The Last Airbender could be adapted with the same success. Unfortunately, this adaption was far from successful. In fact I think this movie officially joins the list of the most atrocious film adaptions, right along side of the horrendous Earthsea mini-series, the painful Eragon flop, and perhaps the even worse Dark is Rising catastrophe.
So where did this movie go wrong? The better question would be: where didn't it go wrong? The writing was horrendous. High school freshmen could probably manage to come up with a better screenplay. I'm not sure who gave Shyamalan permission to write this film, but whoever it was needs to formally apologize to the fans and to the people who wasted their money hoping to see something worthwhile. The direction was choppy—certain scenes made little sense, the camera lingered on other similarly senseless scenes, and at times the camera angles were difficult to follow. The lighting in the film was too dark throughout and when color was added, it was in too much excess. Overall, there was a lack of balance and cohesion in the way this movie was filmed. The plot was a mess. People who weren't familiar with the series would have been left lost, and people who were familiar with the series were left confused. Certain characters that were supposed to do things didn't, lines weren't said when they should have been said, and elements of the plot were just erased entirely. There was no Avatar Roku, only a dragon spirit that may have been an attempt at Fang, but a very bad one. There was no Omashu, no Kiyoshi warriors, there were no refugees at the northern air temple and Aang never attempted to master fire bending. In fact, in the movie he was too timid to learn water bending, which fans know to be a fallacy. And the characters that were featured were not only acted and written poorly, but many of them modeled new pronunciations of their names. I'm not sure of the reasoning behind this. Perhaps the changes in pronunciation were more accurate. Even if that was the case, they never should have strayed from the pronunciations in the series. Fans grew accustomed to a certain way of a saying and hearing a name. To change the pronunciations only led to confusion and distastes. I heard many people in the theatre around me growling in frustration every time Aang was pronounced "Ah-ng".
I won't get into my dislike of the graphics in detail. Appa and Momo were fairly horrendous, the bending was decent but done incorrectly(actors had to make a hell of a lot of movement for anything to happen, whereas in the series each movement corresponds to the movement of the elements), and the 3D was pointless.
Overall, I'd give this movie a 0 out of 10. Fans of the series, don't waste your money. People who are not fans and areconsidering giving this film a chance, use the money you would have spent on the ticket to rent the first season at the nearest video store.
Over the past few months this film has been surrounded by controversy. The casting choices have caused accusations of racism to be leveled and many fans were left feeling disappointed months before the film even premiered. Now, I don't think M.Night Shyamalan is a racist. I don't know him well enough to make such a slanderous claim. Would I have preferred that the characters in the movie had appeared as the fans had come to know them over the past five years? Of course. However at the heart of Avatar fans, I don't think changing the appearances of certain nations was a racial issue. Simply put, I think people just wanted the characters to look the way they were supposed to look. However, had this movie been written well and had the acting been terrific, changing the appearances of the nations wouldn't have mattered. Because at its heart the story of Avatar is a human story with strong themes of redemption and forgiveness. I think people would have been able to look past their disgruntlement and see the beauty of the story. That is, if the movie had been well written. And I'm sorry to say, it was not.
Naturally, it was always going to be difficult to condense over eight hours worth of animated material into two-hours of movie. How do you choose what goes and what stays in a series where almost everything is interconnected? It was a daunting task indeed. But successful adaption of books, television series, and even video games have been done before. If the works of Tolkien, the master of intricate detail, could be adapted into a series that left a decent amount of his life long fans pleased, surely Avatar: The Last Airbender could be adapted with the same success. Unfortunately, this adaption was far from successful. In fact I think this movie officially joins the list of the most atrocious film adaptions, right along side of the horrendous Earthsea mini-series, the painful Eragon flop, and perhaps the even worse Dark is Rising catastrophe.
So where did this movie go wrong? The better question would be: where didn't it go wrong? The writing was horrendous. High school freshmen could probably manage to come up with a better screenplay. I'm not sure who gave Shyamalan permission to write this film, but whoever it was needs to formally apologize to the fans and to the people who wasted their money hoping to see something worthwhile. The direction was choppy—certain scenes made little sense, the camera lingered on other similarly senseless scenes, and at times the camera angles were difficult to follow. The lighting in the film was too dark throughout and when color was added, it was in too much excess. Overall, there was a lack of balance and cohesion in the way this movie was filmed. The plot was a mess. People who weren't familiar with the series would have been left lost, and people who were familiar with the series were left confused. Certain characters that were supposed to do things didn't, lines weren't said when they should have been said, and elements of the plot were just erased entirely. There was no Avatar Roku, only a dragon spirit that may have been an attempt at Fang, but a very bad one. There was no Omashu, no Kiyoshi warriors, there were no refugees at the northern air temple and Aang never attempted to master fire bending. In fact, in the movie he was too timid to learn water bending, which fans know to be a fallacy. And the characters that were featured were not only acted and written poorly, but many of them modeled new pronunciations of their names. I'm not sure of the reasoning behind this. Perhaps the changes in pronunciation were more accurate. Even if that was the case, they never should have strayed from the pronunciations in the series. Fans grew accustomed to a certain way of a saying and hearing a name. To change the pronunciations only led to confusion and distastes. I heard many people in the theatre around me growling in frustration every time Aang was pronounced "Ah-ng".
I won't get into my dislike of the graphics in detail. Appa and Momo were fairly horrendous, the bending was decent but done incorrectly(actors had to make a hell of a lot of movement for anything to happen, whereas in the series each movement corresponds to the movement of the elements), and the 3D was pointless.
Overall, I'd give this movie a 0 out of 10. Fans of the series, don't waste your money. People who are not fans and areconsidering giving this film a chance, use the money you would have spent on the ticket to rent the first season at the nearest video store.