I heard about it a while ago and also was really hoping for it to be anywhere near as good as the series. Unfortunately it seems it's not... 
The Last Airbender is now this year's Eragon?!
- Thread starter ScarletScapegrace
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I wasn't planning on seeing it, and I don't think bad reviews will change that.
You know what's funny? The first time I saw a trailer for Avatar it was so vague and ambiguous that I thought it was for Avatar: The Last Airbender.
You know what's funny? The first time I saw a trailer for Avatar it was so vague and ambiguous that I thought it was for Avatar: The Last Airbender.
D: awwwwwwwwwwwww. I was actually pretty excited for this. 6% on RT does look like a pretty definite bullet to the head though...
So, people are still basing their opinion off of the opinions of critics?
If you're interested, go see it. If you're not, don't. It's that simple.
Critics don't state many facts during their reviews. It comes down to their personal taste. Why would you care about the opinion of someone else?
If you're interested, go see it. If you're not, don't. It's that simple.
Critics don't state many facts during their reviews. It comes down to their personal taste. Why would you care about the opinion of someone else?
I never watched the anime, but I just saw the midnight show with a few of my friends who liked the anime.ScarletScapegrace said:
My advice: Save your money. The acting is sub-par, and the directing and pacing is atrocious. Scenes will sometimes cut themselves off, and a lot of the time, I had no idea just what the hell was going on.
Also, it seems the movie can't seem to figure out what tone it wants to go for, which results in some serious Mood Whiplash. There's more than one instance of overblown comic relief in the EXACT SAME SCENE of a devastating reveal to the main character. That's just bad writing.
Though I thought the 3rd Act was very well done, and it did manage to get my interest back. They also did a pretty good job with writing the characters, especially the Anti-Villain Prince character. So I'm starting to think that at least some of what's wrong with the movie was bad editing, not unlike Kingdom of Heaven.
But I thought the premise behind the movie was pretty cool, and the story (the parts I got, at least) seemed interesting. So I might just have to take a look at the anime.
i am not going to and i am really into teh last airbender, if i am right it will turn out to be like eragon/ spiderwick chronicles and be no where near as good as the series/books
yeah it completed sucked. but atleast eragon was somewhat okay and had okay acting and graphics...
this movie was complete and utter crap.
this movie was complete and utter crap.
Just got back from seeing it and honestly it could have been a lot worse.
I'm a huge fan of the show but I went into this movie knowing that they would be changing a lot, as almost any adaptation like this does. I've always felt a little sorry for fans who are so wrapped up in the original version of something being redone that they can't enjoy a different interpretation of the story. That said, there are definitely things about this movie to criticize.
The pacing was bad, flat out. It felt rushed for most of the movie up until the North Pole and then it became more enjoyable. If I had my way I would have fleshed out the Sokka-Yue relationship, Aang learning waterbending, the trip to Kyoshi and generally added more character interaction.
They did indeed mispronounce several names, which I can't really think of a good excuse for since there isn't even a translation issue here.
Those were my two biggest gripes with the movie. Things I thought they did well;
Iroh was badass. He's my favorite character in the show and he didn't disappoint in the movie. Yes, he's not as funny as he used to be but he wasn't evil like someone above claimed.
On the subject of Iroh; Shaun Toub and Dev Patel did good jobs as Iroh and Zuko respectively. Aasif Mandvi didn't do badly as Zhao but I thought that the uncle and prince were the best parts of the movie.
The bending looked cool. I don't mind so much that they made the firebenders require a source of fire since they used it to highlight the frightening power of the Fire Nation war machine and just how effective they are. Plus it set up Iroh for the best part of the movie.
Azula's smile at the end was f'ing creepy.
So without going into a huge review of the movie I'll say; no it wasn't amazing but I appreciated it for what it was and I was thoroughly entertained while watching it. I hope you guys can be too.
I'm a huge fan of the show but I went into this movie knowing that they would be changing a lot, as almost any adaptation like this does. I've always felt a little sorry for fans who are so wrapped up in the original version of something being redone that they can't enjoy a different interpretation of the story. That said, there are definitely things about this movie to criticize.
The pacing was bad, flat out. It felt rushed for most of the movie up until the North Pole and then it became more enjoyable. If I had my way I would have fleshed out the Sokka-Yue relationship, Aang learning waterbending, the trip to Kyoshi and generally added more character interaction.
They did indeed mispronounce several names, which I can't really think of a good excuse for since there isn't even a translation issue here.
Those were my two biggest gripes with the movie. Things I thought they did well;
Iroh was badass. He's my favorite character in the show and he didn't disappoint in the movie. Yes, he's not as funny as he used to be but he wasn't evil like someone above claimed.
On the subject of Iroh; Shaun Toub and Dev Patel did good jobs as Iroh and Zuko respectively. Aasif Mandvi didn't do badly as Zhao but I thought that the uncle and prince were the best parts of the movie.
The bending looked cool. I don't mind so much that they made the firebenders require a source of fire since they used it to highlight the frightening power of the Fire Nation war machine and just how effective they are. Plus it set up Iroh for the best part of the movie.
Azula's smile at the end was f'ing creepy.
So without going into a huge review of the movie I'll say; no it wasn't amazing but I appreciated it for what it was and I was thoroughly entertained while watching it. I hope you guys can be too.
*raises hand* Called it. I knew the moment I heard they were making this movie it would suck.
I loved the animated series. It had wit, it had action, it had a romance between a lemur and a bison.
I loved the animated series. It had wit, it had action, it had a romance between a lemur and a bison.
I think that this actually sums it up perfectly. Most of the problems with the movie were just bad directing and editing. And the acting could've been better, but with such a young cast for many of the most important characters, that's to be expected.BladesofReason said:
-edit-
Oh, and the 3D is a load of bullshit. Except for a few of the powers, and that one flyby scene of the one temple, the whole movie is in 2D.
For all those people that "called it," I saw Signs and determined that every movie Shmammy would ever do after that would be complete and utter shit, so I called this shit before anyone had ever heard of that cartoon.
Filmmakers are idiots. They see a popular game, book, or T.V. show and assume it will translate well to the almighty silver screen. And what happens? They either completely miss the point, (Prince of Persia) pick the wrong material entirely, (Twilight) or just flatout butcher it in every way possible. (Last Airbender)
And now we can look forward to the Mass Effect and Smurfs movies sucking as well.
And now we can look forward to the Mass Effect and Smurfs movies sucking as well.
Im going to see it eventually but if it truly turns out like shit then I will pretend it never existed like the 4th Indiana Jones Movie.
Honestly I loved the show but the movie was just a flat out disappointment. I spent half my time facepalming because the dialog was terrible (run on sentences, poor acting, and just bad writing in general) and the whole thing just seemed like it was butchered and rushed there was just a complete lack of pacing and a lot of missed potential.
On the upside at least the bending was O.K. for the most part. I mean the effects didn't have me wowed like I thought I would be but it was passably enjoyable especially at film's climax.
On the upside at least the bending was O.K. for the most part. I mean the effects didn't have me wowed like I thought I would be but it was passably enjoyable especially at film's climax.
On the subject of favorite characters, I wonder how badly they'll handle Toph's blind jokes or if they would even include them at all, though seeing how terrible the reviews were for the first installment I doubt the series will progress.NameIsRobertPaulson said:
Well, I never saw Eragon. But here's what a guy who heard The Last Airbender sucked thought about it when he saw it:
Haha, oh wow. This movie is genuinely awful. You can even strip out the elements that could have just been awful because of the initial bad idea of turning a season's worth of TV episodes into a single movie -- you'd still see that everything left is awful on their own merits.
The biggest slap-your-forehead-this-is-dumb problem is that the element-bending dances are often accompanied by no actual element-bending. You're just watching a shitload of Tai Chi, watching your patience bending. Even when this IS accompanied by special effects, the bending lags FAR behind the actions of the bender most of the time (To the point where they will complete their bending dances before any CG shows up). Despite how nice the post-production effects look, they just don't decently affect the real world around them. Sometimes they have none, which is pretty shitty for air-bending (Because, well, real air blows hair around). It's a problem.
But the larger problem is that the entire movie is a poorly-edited mishmash of exposition voice-overs, exposition scenes, emotionless scenes to show off scenery, scenes of Prince Zuko being angry (The only mildly-professional emotional displays within the film), and scenes of characters we know literally nothing about pretending that they have forged bonds or grown as individuals sometime during the five weeks that they tell us we just missed. The editor fucking sucked, and does things like cut a voice-over of Katara talking about Aang (By name) directly in front of a scene that starts with her asking Aang what his name is (Which is... distressingly far into the movie, yet gives him only his second or third line).
It's really amazing! Everything I thought that the director MIGHT have trouble with -- you know, this being such a huge leap from the type of film he knows how to do -- and everything I thought seemed bad about the casting, turned out to be even worse than anticipated. M. Night seems like the kind of guy who only juggles two balls at a time with any success, and only when those two balls belong to extremely talented, successful actors. This movie had too many balls, and the balls were too challengingly hairy for that amateur. I really feel that I must stress that there is no ball left un-dropped in this film. It is as stilted and laughable of an affair as you could ever wish to avoid.
Ethnicity choices really felt weird. Not just in looks, but the strange influences on pronunciation as well (I assume that was meant to be some sort of "ethnic" choice, at least). "Ovatar"? A single black guy in the entire movie? It's absurd, although speaking as a fan of the show (Since these could be construed as fan-related complaints) not as bad as how none of the characters except Prince Zuko and Aang (Barely) are even remotely true to their original counterparts. This is mostly because none of them ever have scenes where they're allowed to be personable or have a good time.
Too bad.
Haha, oh wow. This movie is genuinely awful. You can even strip out the elements that could have just been awful because of the initial bad idea of turning a season's worth of TV episodes into a single movie -- you'd still see that everything left is awful on their own merits.
The biggest slap-your-forehead-this-is-dumb problem is that the element-bending dances are often accompanied by no actual element-bending. You're just watching a shitload of Tai Chi, watching your patience bending. Even when this IS accompanied by special effects, the bending lags FAR behind the actions of the bender most of the time (To the point where they will complete their bending dances before any CG shows up). Despite how nice the post-production effects look, they just don't decently affect the real world around them. Sometimes they have none, which is pretty shitty for air-bending (Because, well, real air blows hair around). It's a problem.
But the larger problem is that the entire movie is a poorly-edited mishmash of exposition voice-overs, exposition scenes, emotionless scenes to show off scenery, scenes of Prince Zuko being angry (The only mildly-professional emotional displays within the film), and scenes of characters we know literally nothing about pretending that they have forged bonds or grown as individuals sometime during the five weeks that they tell us we just missed. The editor fucking sucked, and does things like cut a voice-over of Katara talking about Aang (By name) directly in front of a scene that starts with her asking Aang what his name is (Which is... distressingly far into the movie, yet gives him only his second or third line).
It's really amazing! Everything I thought that the director MIGHT have trouble with -- you know, this being such a huge leap from the type of film he knows how to do -- and everything I thought seemed bad about the casting, turned out to be even worse than anticipated. M. Night seems like the kind of guy who only juggles two balls at a time with any success, and only when those two balls belong to extremely talented, successful actors. This movie had too many balls, and the balls were too challengingly hairy for that amateur. I really feel that I must stress that there is no ball left un-dropped in this film. It is as stilted and laughable of an affair as you could ever wish to avoid.
Ethnicity choices really felt weird. Not just in looks, but the strange influences on pronunciation as well (I assume that was meant to be some sort of "ethnic" choice, at least). "Ovatar"? A single black guy in the entire movie? It's absurd, although speaking as a fan of the show (Since these could be construed as fan-related complaints) not as bad as how none of the characters except Prince Zuko and Aang (Barely) are even remotely true to their original counterparts. This is mostly because none of them ever have scenes where they're allowed to be personable or have a good time.
Too bad.