Parts of M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender You Acutally Liked

[Winter]

Thanks to Netflix's rather train-wreck of an adaptation in Avatar: The Last Airbender I've been thinking back to the first attempt of The Last Airbender and was wondering if it's really all that bad? And the answer is... yeah it's still terrible but there are few things I actually enjoy about... it's not much.

The Design of Aang's Arrow Tattoo

I honestly like this Tattoo in the film a LOT better then the one in the show. The shows version looks so bad, yeah it looks more like the one in the original but the original was a 2D animated series and the reason for that kind of design was because it was easier to animate and trying to maintain that look in live-action, well, it looks terrible. Honestly it looks like they just tapped it on the kids head.

The tattoo in the film LOOKS like a Tattoo and resembles the one in the show enough that it is faithful to the original while still being it's own thing. And it looks awesome on top of it. Honestly if not for the fact that this would be a pain to animate I would like to see this design in the series proper.

The Teaser Trailer


youtu.be/WdoiHMCVqMQ

Seriously this teaser trailer is underrated. It's well directed, well choreographed, the narration helps to give us a hint of what the film will be about and that final shot as the camera pans away from Aang to show the Fire Nation Navy closing in on him while the music grows louder and more bombastic is fantastic.

This feels like it would make a perfect Teaser for the series proper and tricked me into thinking this would be a decent adaptation at the time it was released.

The Music

The Score for this movie is honestly underrated and the best part of the whole thing. Most of the tracks are good and it's clear that James Newton Howard was doing his best to both match the music from the original show and did a pretty decent job in my opinion as I saw a few fan made videos of both Avatar series that used music from this movie and I thought it was a track from the show as it blended so well into the show's usual music.

The best score for this film is, without a doubt Flow Like Water which is companies one of the better scenes of the movie where Aang creates a giant wave to scare the Fire Nation away from the North.


youtu.be/9oCNrycGMCY

Honestly, if I ever get a chance to make my own Avatar series (I have one which is basically The Witcher/The Mandalorian that follows a Spirit Hunter who becomes the Avatar's guardian/surrogate mother) I would actually want to use this song for the main character because the tone fits her so well. I mean if Star Trek: The Next Generation can just reuse a theme from Star Trek: The Motion Picture then surely I could do the same.

And... yeah that's it.

There are somethings that are okay like the locations or sets they shot in, the costumes are pretty good, and the actors for the Fire Nation are all doing their best but there isn't a whole lot to help this film. I will say that after watching the show I think it's a better adaptation in some places but honestly I think this series should just stick to animated projects for now as those tend to be a LOT more enjoyable then the either adaptation of The Last Airbender.

[stryke]

The tease of Azula showed an amusing level of misplaced confidence.

Rufftoon's comics on it's myriad flaws genuinely taught me something about film theory.

That's it.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Iroh getting a pedicure seemed like something that he would do.

Not so easy to make a live action adaptation of Avatar the Last Airbender that isn't dog shit, is it, huh?

-M Night Shamalan

[phantom000]

The first few minutes are not bad. I think they are handled about as well as could be hoped for, given that they have to adapt animation to live action and they have to compress the first 40 minutes of the TV show into 15 minutes of film.

It shows what people can do by bending just one element, water, fire and air, so for the rest of the film its easy to imagine what someone could do with all four elements. I also like the scene where Zuko and Iroh test Aang, it works visually and its not that much of a stretch to imagine something like this even in the series.

[Winter]

The first few minutes are not bad. I think they are handled about as well as could be hoped for, given that they have to adapt animation to live action and they have to compress the first 40 minutes of the TV show into 15 minutes of film.

It shows what people can do by bending just one element, water, fire and air, so for the rest of the film its easy to imagine what someone could do with all four elements. I also like the scene where Zuko and Iroh test Aang, it works visually and its not that much of a stretch to imagine something like this even in the series.

I like that bit to, honestly. My head canon is that the candle, the rock and the water are somehow tied to the Avatar and react when their near them. We know from the Kyoshi novels that each nation has different ways of identifying the Avatar and that the toys aren't the only method to figure out who the Avatar is that's just the Air Nomads method.

[clearspira]

What I liked most about this film is just how IMPRESSIVE a failure it is.

I know, that is going against the spirit of your question. But I am being sincere. This is an IMPRESSIVE failure. The sort of thing that should be studied in writing classes as an example of how to write something worse in every conceivable way than the source you are copying from.

For example, making the Firebenders restricted to actual sources of fire meaning that you could defeat their entire empire if you just invaded them on a rainy day.

Or by changing the Earthbender prison from a metal rig to a camp absolutely surrounded by earth.

Or by having the Waterbenders say out loud that they need to extinguish all of their flaming torches prior to the Firebender attack - and then not doing it, leaving hundreds of torches all throughout their base for the Firebenders to use against them.

See what I mean? Absolute chef's kiss. This is a failure with layers, baby.