I found that the tone was off too, it was all too serious all of the humour from the series was totally lost.
Escape to the Movies: The Last Airbender
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I disagree on the point "it had Great Cinematography" it didn't. it had Shit Cinematography so much so that i had to triple check that this actually even MADE by M Night. But it was; and it sucked balls.
Here's a rule that I think we should all follow, not just for movies, but for media in general:
(ahem)
Please, do not make an adaptation of something that worked perfectly well by itself.
If the movie did nothing but re-state everything the series did verbatim -without even any alternate character interpretation, interesting new subplots or understanding- then it just hasn't added anything of value to the mythology.
The best adaptations completely rewrite the original in a way that is familiar but completely fresh. Or use the best aspects of their form of media to make the adaptation necessary.
(ahem)
Please, do not make an adaptation of something that worked perfectly well by itself.
If the movie did nothing but re-state everything the series did verbatim -without even any alternate character interpretation, interesting new subplots or understanding- then it just hasn't added anything of value to the mythology.
The best adaptations completely rewrite the original in a way that is familiar but completely fresh. Or use the best aspects of their form of media to make the adaptation necessary.
So a funny thing about the Sixth Sense. I saw it twice, and between viewings, I forgot the twist ending. So I got stunned twice by it. That's mostly made me amiable towards Shyamylan, even in the context of his bad movies.
Having said that, if you're someone who never saw the animated series, I suggest you go see it. Probably one of the best (anime?) animated series you'll watch for a while, and easily one of the best examples of compelling storytelling in an animated medium.
Having said that, if you're someone who never saw the animated series, I suggest you go see it. Probably one of the best (anime?) animated series you'll watch for a while, and easily one of the best examples of compelling storytelling in an animated medium.
I've only recently watched the entire series in about a week and fell madly in love with it. It truly is one of the best TV shows I've ever seen, let alone an animated one. The whole series has an incredibly well thought out arc, the characters are fleshed out and likeable like no others (except Azula, who is awesomely hateable) and the crazy switch in tone between serious and comically silly is brilliant.
Then I watched this movie. I had heard it was bad, much more so than Bob's review let on. But I thought they just left out too many details important to fans, or alter the basic story so that it's maybe less of an adaptation and more of an "inspired by" thing.
Boy was I wrong. Instead of a film that tries something and fails we get the most pointless and soulless assortment of filmed scenes possible.
Every character in the show was immensely likable. The movie didn't even have characters, it had bipedal lifeforms spouting exposition. To be fair, Shyamalan got it right that Zuko was probably the most interesting character, but getting a hint of insight into one out of dozens of non-characters is hardly a saving grace. And then Zhao still had more screentime. Full of incredibly clichéd, predictable, one-dimensional lines. Mandvi probably did a good job, but then he gets plenty of practice on The Daily Show, where he constantly plays one-note dicks.
What story was this thing trying to tell anyway? The Gaang arrives at the Northern Water Tribe at the half-point of the movie. So Shyamalan didn't compress the entire first season into an hour and a half, he compressed it into 45 minutes. They apparently start a rebellion in the Earth Kingdom, partly in a half-assed fighting montage, mostly because at one point someone said "We started a rebellion".
So the second half of the movie is setting up the "big finale". What big finale? It was at this point that I wondered why this movie was made in the first place. 1998's american Godzilla remake was made because Hollywood wanted a big CG lizard rampaging through New York. That's a reason. Still didn't make for a very good movie, but at least we know why they wanted to make it.
Why did they want to make M. Night's The Last Airbender? Certainly not to have an awesome battle or fight scene at the end, because that never happens. The movie's big bad stands defiantly against 4 nameless waterbenders, takes off his cloak, assumes a fighting stance.... and promptly drowns without even pretending to start firebending. What.
But there wasn't anyone to fight Zhao anyway, because the hero didn't kill him in the show, so he can't do it in the movie. Needs to be faithful after all, right?
Wrong. Again, why make this movie? For an impressive finale where this bending-magic stuff kicks the bad guys' ass, maybe? That'd be an idea. Why did I bring up the much-derided Godzilla 2 paragraphs up? Well... because of Kaizilla. Surely, if you saw the Season 1 finale of Avatar your watery eyes popped open at the sight of the Avatar become the Ocean Spirit, laying waste to - oh what's the point in gushing over it when all "Oong" does is raise a wall of water. Which makes the Fire Nation armada run away. What.
I have to correct myself. The movie didn't fail. It couldn't fail. For in order to fail you need to set out to achieve something. M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender wasn't trying to achieve anything. Anything at all. It didn't try to introduce anyone to the show or its world, it didn't try to capture one iota of the show's spirit, it didn't even try to show off cool magic-fu or a giant sea monster.
It only tried to film some scenes reminiscient enough of the show to wear its title to dupe moms into seeing it with their kids. After all, it was "just some show on Nickelodean", right?
Ugh
Then I watched this movie. I had heard it was bad, much more so than Bob's review let on. But I thought they just left out too many details important to fans, or alter the basic story so that it's maybe less of an adaptation and more of an "inspired by" thing.
Boy was I wrong. Instead of a film that tries something and fails we get the most pointless and soulless assortment of filmed scenes possible.
Every character in the show was immensely likable. The movie didn't even have characters, it had bipedal lifeforms spouting exposition. To be fair, Shyamalan got it right that Zuko was probably the most interesting character, but getting a hint of insight into one out of dozens of non-characters is hardly a saving grace. And then Zhao still had more screentime. Full of incredibly clichéd, predictable, one-dimensional lines. Mandvi probably did a good job, but then he gets plenty of practice on The Daily Show, where he constantly plays one-note dicks.
What story was this thing trying to tell anyway? The Gaang arrives at the Northern Water Tribe at the half-point of the movie. So Shyamalan didn't compress the entire first season into an hour and a half, he compressed it into 45 minutes. They apparently start a rebellion in the Earth Kingdom, partly in a half-assed fighting montage, mostly because at one point someone said "We started a rebellion".
So the second half of the movie is setting up the "big finale". What big finale? It was at this point that I wondered why this movie was made in the first place. 1998's american Godzilla remake was made because Hollywood wanted a big CG lizard rampaging through New York. That's a reason. Still didn't make for a very good movie, but at least we know why they wanted to make it.
Why did they want to make M. Night's The Last Airbender? Certainly not to have an awesome battle or fight scene at the end, because that never happens. The movie's big bad stands defiantly against 4 nameless waterbenders, takes off his cloak, assumes a fighting stance.... and promptly drowns without even pretending to start firebending. What.
But there wasn't anyone to fight Zhao anyway, because the hero didn't kill him in the show, so he can't do it in the movie. Needs to be faithful after all, right?
Wrong. Again, why make this movie? For an impressive finale where this bending-magic stuff kicks the bad guys' ass, maybe? That'd be an idea. Why did I bring up the much-derided Godzilla 2 paragraphs up? Well... because of Kaizilla. Surely, if you saw the Season 1 finale of Avatar your watery eyes popped open at the sight of the Avatar become the Ocean Spirit, laying waste to - oh what's the point in gushing over it when all "Oong" does is raise a wall of water. Which makes the Fire Nation armada run away. What.
I have to correct myself. The movie didn't fail. It couldn't fail. For in order to fail you need to set out to achieve something. M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender wasn't trying to achieve anything. Anything at all. It didn't try to introduce anyone to the show or its world, it didn't try to capture one iota of the show's spirit, it didn't even try to show off cool magic-fu or a giant sea monster.
It only tried to film some scenes reminiscient enough of the show to wear its title to dupe moms into seeing it with their kids. After all, it was "just some show on Nickelodean", right?
Ugh
Bob, I'll say this much. If you ever, watched at least three episodes of the cartoon, you'd know three things...
1) Why you ca't go to ANY site which may show artwork (IE: Deviantart and so on...) without seein at least ONE piece of bad-phenominal fan-art. (Also see YouTube vids/amv's/other crap. Seriously, these kids ATE. IT. UP.)
2) Why Nickelodeon insisted on showing episodes of it almost CONSTANTLY for several months on end upon the ending of it's final season, even making a separate sequence with little text boxes popping in with info.
3) Why the fans of it were A-B-S-O-L-U-T-L-Y P-I-S-S-E-D O-F-F.
I didn't keep up with Shyamalan much after 'The 6th Sense', but I didn't have to really to hear and see where his career was going. Call it an odd pessemistic hunch, or possibly just some horror-film-hater's hopes, but I think he was just a director who got lucky a few times, and nothing more. If ever a shot at redemption had been offered, his career had recieved a blow from the proverbial guilotine the moment he decided to tackle making a movie around a showwith such an absolutly massive fan-following.
In essence, in the fan's eyes, he had, somehow, inexplicably, managed to re-create Dragonball: The Movie. [Insert Shuddering Here]
1) Why you ca't go to ANY site which may show artwork (IE: Deviantart and so on...) without seein at least ONE piece of bad-phenominal fan-art. (Also see YouTube vids/amv's/other crap. Seriously, these kids ATE. IT. UP.)
2) Why Nickelodeon insisted on showing episodes of it almost CONSTANTLY for several months on end upon the ending of it's final season, even making a separate sequence with little text boxes popping in with info.
3) Why the fans of it were A-B-S-O-L-U-T-L-Y P-I-S-S-E-D O-F-F.
I didn't keep up with Shyamalan much after 'The 6th Sense', but I didn't have to really to hear and see where his career was going. Call it an odd pessemistic hunch, or possibly just some horror-film-hater's hopes, but I think he was just a director who got lucky a few times, and nothing more. If ever a shot at redemption had been offered, his career had recieved a blow from the proverbial guilotine the moment he decided to tackle making a movie around a showwith such an absolutly massive fan-following.
In essence, in the fan's eyes, he had, somehow, inexplicably, managed to re-create Dragonball: The Movie. [Insert Shuddering Here]
"Harry Potter didn't really find out how to be good until the third one" mind you that was the one when they fired Chris Columbus (who couldn't direct traffic let alone a movie), and hired Alfonso Cuarón. MORE PROOF that letting go of Shyamalan could do Airbender some good.
I'm surprised at your ending recommendation there Bob. After watching the movie myself when it came out (which was the worst movie I had seen in 2010) I tuned in to your thoughts on it... out of all the bad things you said, how could you still recommend we go see it?
I know I'm late to the table here (almost 6 months late) but it took me forever to find the comments on the Escapist site. Now that I have, I must comment my wonder at why you would call a movie bad and then recommend people to go and see it?
For a critic it may not cost you money to see a movie so from your perspective, a meh film is no skin off your back. It cost me 10 bucks for the tickets though. Now I didn't see it based on your recommendation but I was looking forward to hearing you bash this film to bits which you did! And then ended saying, "So yeah you know what, give it a shot."
I do enjoy your show and thoughts on movies, I just don't know if I can trust your recommendation on things. Perhaps it's simply a difference of opinion and taste. Yet in this instance we both agreed it was bad movie... so I'm a bit confused here.
On another note my friend said the cartoon is wonderful. I recommend you Skip the movie and go watch that instead.
I know I'm late to the table here (almost 6 months late) but it took me forever to find the comments on the Escapist site. Now that I have, I must comment my wonder at why you would call a movie bad and then recommend people to go and see it?
For a critic it may not cost you money to see a movie so from your perspective, a meh film is no skin off your back. It cost me 10 bucks for the tickets though. Now I didn't see it based on your recommendation but I was looking forward to hearing you bash this film to bits which you did! And then ended saying, "So yeah you know what, give it a shot."
I do enjoy your show and thoughts on movies, I just don't know if I can trust your recommendation on things. Perhaps it's simply a difference of opinion and taste. Yet in this instance we both agreed it was bad movie... so I'm a bit confused here.
On another note my friend said the cartoon is wonderful. I recommend you Skip the movie and go watch that instead.
This movie was my Transformers. The movie was worse than I thought it was going to be, which is pretty bad. It's worse than Twilight (although I don't think Twilight is as bad as everyone says, I will say Twilight is pretty bad.) This movie is just a direct F U to the Avatar fans. I don't even think Edd Wood could screw up this bad.
It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it's probably the 2nd or 3rd worst.
You need to see it in order to understand what I'm talking about, but I wouldn't recommend paying to rent it. I'd advise to see it at a friends house or watch it on Netflix if you want to watch it.
It's not the worst movie I've ever seen, but it's probably the 2nd or 3rd worst.
You need to see it in order to understand what I'm talking about, but I wouldn't recommend paying to rent it. I'd advise to see it at a friends house or watch it on Netflix if you want to watch it.
I agree with this review a lot. I mean theres no way to cram all of season 1 into an hour and a half without some major fine tuning. If only it were longer maybe so they could have some time for character development kinda like how lord of the rings ran kinda long but in the end was worth it. Lets cross our fingers for the second last airbender to be more compelling.
This might be a bit off-topic but, how the hell could moviebob think Unbreakable was "excellent", it was terrible in pretty much every way, the script was terrible, the characters were uninteresting and incredibly stupid, and the acting wasnt very good either.
On-Topic: The fighting scenes in this movie was just fucking annoying, when in the cartoon did the characters have to dance for 40 minutes to fire/water/air/earth bend?
On-Topic: The fighting scenes in this movie was just fucking annoying, when in the cartoon did the characters have to dance for 40 minutes to fire/water/air/earth bend?
I just came back to this following the Spider Man review. As someone who really does like the television show, "disappointed" doesn't quite cover how I reacted to this movie. The fight choreography was so awful I actually laughed in the theater, the main actors were all static or barely one dimensional, and frankly even the casting seems racist given how the original characters looked. Though props to Aasif Mandvi, he's hilarious without even trying.
Just to back this up, meet "pebble bending". http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa396/melancholy-scarecrow/pebblebending.gif
My whole point here is, why does this get such a pass in your book? In your other reviews anything like this earns a howl of corporate cash-in, but here you seem to overlook just about all of its flaws except that it's "too ambitious". Just a question that kind of bugs me about your reviews.
Just to back this up, meet "pebble bending". http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa396/melancholy-scarecrow/pebblebending.gif
My whole point here is, why does this get such a pass in your book? In your other reviews anything like this earns a howl of corporate cash-in, but here you seem to overlook just about all of its flaws except that it's "too ambitious". Just a question that kind of bugs me about your reviews.
I'm going to have to disagree with you on the action scenes. It was one of the things that bothered me, next to characters pronouncing names wrong and the 3D that wasn't there. When the characters were fighting it took so long for the moves they made to give a result, it pulled me out of it. Maybe it's because I've seen the animated series and I already have an opinion on how the fighting should go, but the way I see it, action scenes are supposed to be more than just well executed choreography. I think that in an action scene, specifically a scene where some characters fight, has to give the impression that those characters are truly fighting, not just dancing. They have to look like they're trying to hurt each other, and in this film, because it took so long for the moves to generate a response, it doesn't feel that way. Remove the elements 'bending' and you have a padded dance. It's been long since I have seen the movie, so the other action scenes have been forgotten, but this is what bothered me about them, and I don't think they come close to fantastic.