The Last Airbender

[Megabyte]

Well they had a special on nicktoons the other night about The Last Airbender and one of things M. Knight touched upon was 2 main differences that he made in his movies compared to the toon:

#1 was that he changed some of the name pronunciations. Something about wanting to have it closer to it's Asian source material.....WAIT. I had to stop and pause my DVR on this one. WTH is he talking about? "...source material..." Last I checked Avatar: The Last Airbender was an American made anime...and though the theming is DEFINITELY Asian, the pronunciations I always thought were correct...so I'm not sure what the hell he was talking about on that one. They didn't go in depth about what names were changed, but they showed clips of people talking to Aang and pronouncing it like 'Ong'...that short amount of time ANNOYED THE crap OUT OF ME 

#2...well truthfully I forgot what #2 was, but you get where I'm going with this one...but another thing he mentioned was that his favorite part of the show were the Kyoshi Warriors...and he did a BUNCH of filming of them for the movie originally...but there was so much of them that it almost took over the movie so he took them COMPLETELY out of the film

I typically don't HATE M.K.S...but I'm sorry with what I had already known about the movie from the 30 min special and the reviews you guys have been giving I think I am gonna sit this one out as well...which is sad cause I absolutely LOVE the series Starting to think my friend was right about M.K.S. trying to make this movie reminiscent of the Iraq war with his character casting choices (namely Zuko)...though I have to say that the kid they got to play Aang to ME kinda looks and sounds like his Book 3 self...well the Book 3 sound I mean but he does look like Aang a bit to me.

[MaverickZr0]

wtf did I just sit through.

[Spidermew]

The fact that no one could pronounce the word Avatar correctly annoyed the f**k out of me. Did the director actualy watch the show, in english?
Yeah its a triligy. This was book one, the first seasion of a television show cramed into 1 movie, a movie that was too short for the fact that it cut out too much that should have been there. And some of the changes were annoying. Like fire benders not being able to produce fire except for one, who should have shot it from his mouth in that part to be really cool. And the change to the end of book 1, i was really hopeing for a giant spirt monster rampaging those fire nation ships and whatnot.
Too much was missing that i wanted to see. If it were longer he might have been able to put it in, and if everyone could pronouce their own f**k*** names correctly it would have been allot better.

[b.easy]

wtf did I just sit through.

I heard this movie was really bad. Also heard that it was

(click to show/hide)

set in a post-apocalyptic future Earth. 

[Spidermew]

I heard this movie was really bad. Also heard that it was set in a post-apocalyptic future Earth. 

Dont worry, no post-apocalyptic futer earth mentioned here
Just people who dont even know how to pronounce their own names.

[Tha Lando ( Le CROM )]

OK... i finally watched it....err painfully sat there i would say.  the movie was.... well damn i really dont know what to say.  yes i do. WHAT IN THE WHOLLY ALMIGHTY UNIVERSE IS M.K.S thinking? why have peeps pronouce their names like they forgot them and made something similar on the fly? Why wasnt Suko as funny as he is in the cartoon i mean he is hilarious. this kid is like non funny dumb. as far as the bending... thats really the best part but just not as exciting to see. the kid that is Aang, and its not Ong MKS!  he does resemble him if he was a human in real life. i could see that. my nephew, the real peeps who i think get to critic on this kind of flick , gave it a thumbs down and a half thumb up sideways. and he is 8. he said he rather go see an old godzilla movie, by the way he is a HUGE godzilla fanatic. just like Me. and its supposidly tryin to go for a trilogy? Not if MKS is going to be the director then NO, please god no!!!!!! i really recant my old post , this movie is not worthy of MEGA movie money, maybe a dvd release at best. yeah i really gave it a shot Dark Talbain, this movie does Tank big time. .

[DARKTALBAIN]

wtf did I just sit through.

This post describes everything.

OK... i finally watched it....err painfully sat there i would say.  the movie was.... well damn i really dont know what to say.  yes i do. WHAT IN THE WHOLLY ALMIGHTY UNIVERSE IS M.K.S thinking? why have peeps pronouce their names like they forgot them and made something similar on the fly? Why wasnt Suko as funny as he is in the cartoon i mean he is hilarious. this kid is like non funny dumb. as far as the bending... thats really the best part but just not as exciting to see. the kid that is Aang, and its not Ong MKS!  he does resemble him if he was a human in real life. i could see that. my nephew, the real peeps who i think get to critic on this kind of flick , gave it a thumbs down and a half thumb up sideways. and he is 8. he said he rather go see an old godzilla movie, by the way he is a HUGE godzilla fanatic. just like Me. and its supposidly tryin to go for a trilogy? Not if MKS is going to be the director then NO, please god no!!!!!! i really recant my old post , this movie is not worthy of MEGA movie money, maybe a dvd release at best. yeah i really gave it a shot Dark Talbain, this movie does Tank big time. .

I should have listened to my own instinct & went to see Toy Story 3.

WTF!!!! The cartoon is comical & lighthearted . WhereTF was that The comedy was pretty much completely gone from this movie.

I have never felt like I wasted $11.00 & my time more than this. Oh wait, yes I have I completely felt like I wasted 2 hours of my life after The Village & Lady In the water. More MKS garbage!!!! It's crazy how this guy made acouplegood movies & all crap after that. But yet we still get our hopes up when he comes out with something new thinking that it will be the next unbreakable. This shouldn't have been bad, since it wasn't his story. But he managed to find a way to screw it up.   

[DizzyTheConquer]

So does anyone have their own opinions on why this movie sucks, besides, " OMG! THIS MOVIE SUCKS!!!1" and "its M.Night"? Not knocking anyone down, but I would like to hear valid reasons and not just links to a bunch of "critics" that have never seen the show themselves.

I haven't seen it, but I still might(if I'm not too busy).

I do.

1) They change "Aang's" name to "Aung". Seriously, they changed it to the Asain pronunciation. They should never change a main character's name at all. Not to mention that they couldn't pronounce all the other name as well.

2) It was mostly nothing but Caucasians, no Asians but the casting didn't get me that bad.

3) Now next to casting was the acting. They're alright for beginners but for a big thing like Avatar: The Last Airbender... not so much.

4) The Firebenders way to use they're fire bending powers was base on realism. For me, realism is kinda good... if you was making something like a documentary or a sequel to the untouchables.

5) The reason Nolan Withers is in the movie is because he knows how to do the bending tricks, that's just me.
If he had someone to work on his acting, then I would've like it a little more. But, I have to admit, he looks just like the Avatar, so, I'll let him slide off that one.

6) It sound like they just rushed from the series premiere to the first season finale in the movie. If I was the director, I would've done the movie like 1 hour with the waterbenders, 1 hour with traveling to the south air temple with learning about the firebenders, and the last hour with the Kyoshi warriors then seeing the firebenders for the first time, then work my way up.

7) Which brings me to the fact that this movie was not accurate once with the show. In stead it was brought to the fact that the movie needed to be more realistic. I think it safe to say that, when there's some cartoons of videos games that don't have no realistic things but it's still fun to play or watch, don't try to base it into reality.

To me, it looks like all they did was making the action sequences & the effects look good as possible, and they did a good job. I hope it was worth it for them because it shows they clearly didn't spend they time in the drama the show had.

9) 3-D? That was a last minute idea, I can tell.

====================================BONUS======================================
Now I want you to hear me out on this one. This really don't have to deal with the movie but this has to be heard. The advertisement was nothing but lies to get everyone to see this suck-fest. They had sponsors from Candymania to Target.

Now for my verdict, I made a list of the movies you can go see other then the last airbender.

Jonan Hex
Toy Story 3
Prince of Persia
Iron Man 2
The Karate Kid
Eclipse

[Warcueid]

^^Nice to see a nice detailed post. I'll still have to see this movie to form my own opinion.

1) Why would he change the name pronunciation? Its really odd to me that someone would do that.

2) Its good that casting didn't much affect you. It must be hard for them to find actors that have the same ethnic traits as the characters in the cartoon. Though I'm still not sure what Aang's ethnicity is. But it seems the rest might be asian with the exception of the water benders. I think they're eskimo?

4) What do you mean by realism? In the show i did think it odd for them to just generate fire out of no where, maybe they explained this? I do remember the other benders needing to have their elements near them. Katara and the earth benders displayed this a lot.

I would tackle your other points as well, but I haven't seen the movie myself. Going into this, I'm not expecting a carbon copy of the show, so I'm on the fence as to how I'll feel about the movie once I see it.

[DizzyTheConquer]

M. Night said that he want the names to be like their Asian counterpart. The boy that played "Aung" is white. M. Night said that with the realism that is displayed in the movie is the fact that they brought torches with them because that's their source.

[Jelux Da Casual]

Okay, I went and saw this movie today finally. I could go on about everything that's been said both here and outside this walls, and if I happen to re-hash anything someone said, please don't take it that I pulled "tl:dr", cause I did read through here, and it was a rough read.

The Last Airbender is suffering from several major factors going in.

1) The Fanbase: Avatar's fan following is right up there with damn near every great cartoon/Anime fanbase that exists in the known world and considering that it's creation and development is not sourced from Japan, that is an amazing feat in itself. There's no way that ANYTHING Avatar based outside of creating a continuation/sequel of the show can please these people (and for some, I doubt even that would satisfy.) That having been said, when has a movie ever catered exclusively to the core fanbase of what it's based on?

The best example I can think of it this situation is "Serenity", a movie that provided closure to "Firefly", a show that was canceled after it's 1ST SEASON (which I highly recommend, btw). The only reason that movie got made was because of the fury of the fanbase, both in their visibly presence and their purchases of the DVD. Even then, that movie had enough that if you've never seen "Firefly", which most people who saw the movie didn't, there was enough exposition so that you could understand what was happening then and now. That having been said, I GUARANTEE there will be more people who watch this movie than there are people who have seen the series.

P.S. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was nothing like the cartoon.

2) Time vs. Material: Going in, everyone knew this wasn't going to be anything more than a 3 series set. People have a hard enough time holding on to actors both pricewise and attention span wise. Actors nowadays are starting to realize how fast "Skywalker Syndrome"* sets in. I mean look at those damn Twi-tard stars, they hate having to work on those movies now, and they still have two more to do.

In all honesty, for cramming 20 episodes worth of material into a 100min+ session, TLA does a fairly decent job. Stuff that wasn't pertinent to the actual storyline were of course cut out, that was a given going in. Most peoples complaints are Sokka, but look at it this way. Sokka is unrealistically funny. Stop and really think about why he's funny. Now try to imagine that character in a live-action presentation, it'd be downright awkward. Animation allows a bigger leash on expressive content because you can be totally immersed and engrossed in a character and at the same time be able to take a step back when awkard stuff happens and say "Meh, it's just a cartoon".

Live action doesn't have that luxury, which is why I'm also cool with non-master firebenders needing a source. I always though it was unfair that they could "utilize the fire inside themselves" as their source to create fire at will where everyone else needed their source from the exterior. That premise also escalates the importance of Sozin's Comet.

P.S. Really, the deviations from the source material could have been a lot worse. DB Evo anyone?

3) M. Night himself: Ok, Lady in the Water, The Village and The Happening weren't all that great overall, but it was mostly because of the bullcrap endings for the movies and well... for Lady in the Water's self-imposed deitism (<- not a word, but it sounds right doesn't it?). But on the other side of the coin, does anybody remember The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs? Dude's 3 for 6, 50/50. But this time, the dude's not trying to tell his own story, and aside from some sketchy actor choices, the overall is pretty good. Let's do a quick rundown.

Cinematography: great, costume and locations: great, special fx: great, music: great, action sequences: they're bending, and it's believeable. (btw, I knew the 3D was tacked on, go see this as is in 2D for full enjoyment). Where he struggles is the the plot, (no, not the story) itself. The story is easy to follow enough but remember, he's gotta cover the entirety of Book One in one movie. That means we get characters introduced at rapid-fire, with everybody explaining the story as it goes along so no one really gets time to develop as a character. By the time the movie stops explaining itself and settles it, we're close to the end of it.

Bottom line, don't listen to anyone about this movie. The Last Airbender is a movie is one of those that you have to experience for yourself. Also, if you go into it not expecting it to be EXACTLY LIKE the show it's coming from, you won't feel all butthurt from seeing it like apparently everyone did.

*"Skywalker Syndrome is defined as this: Mark Hamill will forever be known as Luke Skywalker, no matter what else he appears in physically, which is why he prefers to voice act. Another examples of "SS" are Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe. Won't matter what else you see them in, they're gonna be Harry and Hermione.

[[Asian-Jesus]]

I still love M. Night "TWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST" Shamalamadingdong.

[Spidermew]

@G Yeah Unbreakable is one of my fav movies, and the sixth sence is ok. But Signs put me to sleep. I like drama and non action movies, its the only movie i ever sat though that put me to sleep, while the sun was still out.

Shamalamadingdong has only made 2 good movies IMO. Unbreakable and Sixth Sence.

[DizzyTheConquer]

I just found the overview of this movie from Asa the Comic. This video has some comedic satirical parts and it's censored.

[Kriven]

^^Nice to see a nice detailed post. I'll still have to see this movie to form my own opinion.

1) Why would he change the name pronunciation? Its really odd to me that someone would do that.

2) Its good that casting didn't much affect you. It must be hard for them to find actors that have the same ethnic traits as the characters in the cartoon. Though I'm still not sure what Aang's ethnicity is. But it seems the rest might be asian with the exception of the water benders. I think they're eskimo?

4) What do you mean by realism? In the show i did think it odd for them to just generate fire out of no where, maybe they explained this? I do remember the other benders needing to have their elements near them. Katara and the earth benders displayed this a lot.

I would tackle your other points as well, but I haven't seen the movie myself. Going into this, I'm not expecting a carbon copy of the show, so I'm on the fence as to how I'll feel about the movie once I see it.

The fire benders could generate the fire by superheating their body and igniting the frenzied air molecules around them. They basically create a ton of friction in the air and that's like flint.

[eg6gsr]

So it was a slow day today and super savers at the movies so I went to saw The Last Airbender and you know what it was not that bad and I was glad I saw it. Why you ask well because everyone made it seem like that movie was just terrible and was in no way shape or from like the show and that's just not true.


First everyone said it was rushed and it was but come on people it had to be M.Knight had to condense 10 hours worth of book one into a less than 2 hour movie which the studio's made him cut that short. What made it being so short a bad thing were the scenes be pick to stay in and the ones that should have stayed, like yes there should have been Kyoshi Warriors so suki could be introduced and King Boomy should also have been as well as jong jong(white lotus). Seems to me when the DVD is release and it has all the extras it will make for better viewing.

Second the names. This did not really bother me seeing as how they did not really use their names that much so I got over it quick. Oh and for everyone that was upset that momo named was not used......it was aang called him momo in the spirit room and the Northern water tribe "Momo be nice"

Third and last. Everyone said that they hated how the lightheartedness of the show was not represented in the movie and that it was to serious and how sokka was also no goofy and yes this is true but honestly tell me when in they had the chance to be like this. Every scene of this movie focused on the more serious parts of the show and not the little side adventures where most of the "silliness" happend.



Now the parts that upset me. Only thing really it what was changed the fact that Aang had trouble water bending(he got that right away), the fact that it was Aang and not Katara that had the earth town prisoners rebel against the fire nation, the fact that right away they did not know he was the avatar, and the biggest fact Aang could somewhat control his avatar state and had no help from the water spirit. With those changes I can guess somethings happening seeing how it played out, like Aang not meeting the guru and at the end of each book Roku's dragon(where the freak is roku) will help him unlock his new bending and go further into the avatar state which sucks but oh well.


All in all its worth it if you can get a cheap movie ticket like I did(5 dollars) but full price you will most likely hate the movie and what really help me kinda like it was all the negative that everyone had to say(which was all the same thing everyone else had to say)

[DEMONKAI]

hmm a lotta mixed views i see. here and even with my fam. i guess ill have to check it out for my self

[Jelux Da Casual]

You know, it retrospect, I think the biggest problem this movie has working against it is that it is released as a Nickelodeon Movies production. That has a huge affect on how long the movie CAN be. I did a lookup of previous movies made by this division and to date, The Last Airbender is so far their longest movie. Nick movies are shorter length because of who they're targeting and unfortunately the general audiance that are really into Avatar: TLA are not the target audience.

If M. Night had even another hour to play with, this movie would have been way better.

[DizzyTheConquer]

You know, it retrospect, I think the biggest problem this movie has working against it is that it is released as a Nickelodeon Movies production. That has a huge affect on how long the movie CAN be. I did a lookup of previous movies made by this division and to date, The Last Airbender is so far their longest movie. Nick movies are shorter length because of who they're targeting and unfortunately the general audiance that are really into Avatar: TLA are not the target audience.

If M. Night had even another hour to play with, this movie would have been way better.

I agree

[Roosta7]

Based on what been said I think I'll wait for the DVD release.

[eg6gsr]

You know, it retrospect, I think the biggest problem this movie has working against it is that it is released as a Nickelodeon Movies production. That has a huge affect on how long the movie CAN be. I did a lookup of previous movies made by this division and to date, The Last Airbender is so far their longest movie. Nick movies are shorter length because of who they're targeting and unfortunately the general audiance that are really into Avatar: TLA are not the target audience.

If M. Night had even another hour to play with, this movie would have been way better.

 Exactly and that's why I feel the DVD release will be great and even better as a directors cut release DVD(if it happens that way) and it sucks that it got such a bad rating on RT cause I think its worth a watch

[Theendgamelv3]

Yea.....I am gonna wait on the DVD release of this movie.