@@rubenlopez3364 At least the room is entertaining and holds up on its own. Watching the room is like watching a fat guy backflop, while watching this movie is like watching someone toss a child into a pool.
IT is weird indeed. Everywhere I comment, people tell me how much they love me and my content. Sometimes IT is annoying. But right now, IT would be okay. So say something nice about my content, dear eva
To my understanding, M Night got inspired to make this movie because his daughter loved the show. Imagine going to school being known as the girl whose dad made the shitty Avatar film.
dude Imagine being a kid and bonding with your dad over a cartoon and you're super exited he's adapting it into a movie, and you finally see it and it's clear he didn't pay attention to anything about the show you loved :/
There's an interview where Shyamalan actually states that he felt fire benders were too powerful, and that's why in the movie he changed it to where they need an existing fire source in order to bend fire. Which is hilarious cause like. _Yeah._ *That's the fucking point* The fire nation waged an offensive war against both the water tribe and earth kingdom for a hundred years, and with the help of Sozin's comet they wiped out the air nomads in one day. Hell, the whole reason the war began in the first place is because fire gave them a technological advantage over the rest of the world and Sozin wanted to "spread their greatness". The fact that fire benders in the movie are pretty much worthless completely breaks the story, but it was an intentional decision they made.
Also I completely forgot until this moment re-reading my own comment, but they actually did name drop Sozin's comet in the movie too. And it's said that this amazing power the comet grants the is the ability to _create their own fire_ Yes, literally just the thing every fire bender in the show is capable of. That's supposed to be the scary thing that will allow the fire nation to win the war if Aang doesn't stop them
@Leon Russell They didn't really defeat the water benders, but one-on-one a fire bender could about match them. Water benders could use water to put out fires, but at the same time their water would turn to steam, and eventually without a source to pull from they'd run out.
How tf was he going to sell the fact that the Fire Nation caused the 100 year war and eliminated the Air Nomads when all the other benders had to do was put them out? Night Shamalayn is what you get when a director is too caught up in making a story look cool, add twists or enhance characters without bothering to see if it even makes sense.
@@DeathKittayeah the southern water tribe didn’t have a military. They had a couple dozen powerful water benders but the fire nation had an entire army and a huge technological advantage-tbh I think it wouldn’t have mattered how powerful the water tribe was because the fire nation would have had them beat due to sheer numbers. If I recall correctly there were actually several raids on the south that captured at least a few water benders every time making them weaker and weaker until they were all gone
Non benders like the kyoshi warriors would be the most OP fighters in this world....an entire team of benders would be incapacitated before they could do a single ability
@@Saiaxs Every single animated character in the franchise with even a minimum of combat training (as in, *almost all major characters in either animated series*) would be able to singlehandedly conquer the entire live action verse.
M. Night makes some some weird changes, but the one that sticks out to me the most is how much he doesn't seem to care about the Spirit World aspect of the show. That's one of the Avatar's most important duties, and it's basically ignored other than a few scenes of him talking to Not Roku. The biggest example of this is the end of this movie. The Water Spirit basically hijacking Aang after the Moon Spirit dies is just such a great moment for the show. It for one, just shows how strong the Spirits can really be. Secondly it shows that the Spirits are "living" beings with thoughts and feelings. And thirdly it demonstrates how Zhao's arrogance in the end is what kills him. The movie having Aang just go into the Avatar State not only gets rid of this scene, but invalidates Aang's entire Book 2 Arc. A big part of Book 2 is about how Aang can't control the Avatar State which is why he can't just go waltzing into Ozai's Palace like a fully fledged Avatar might be able to. And yet here, he just kind of decides to go into it without any of the terrifying power we see in the show.
There’s actually a fanfic where the animated characters think this movie is so awful, they go into it to change everything and take Shaymalan’s credibility as a director away.
2:09 Fun fact, the Aang and Toph voice actors were child voice actors both being the actual age of their characters (at show start). This is why Aang's voice got deeper throughout the show, because the actor was actually going through puberty. They did pretty incredible for their age I think.
That actually makes so much sense! Occasionally I’d recognize something’s where I though “oh that’s weird, they kinda stumbled there” they did amazingly but I just noticed a few moments that makes way more sense if they were kids
I met Michaela Murphy aka Jessie Flower, Toph’s VA, at a convention 2 years ago. I was so surprised that she was only a few years older than me, as she was also a kid when I was watching it air as a child. She’s really cool btw, stopped acting after childhood because she wanted to be a normal teenager and go to medical school one day. Then, as an adult, she’s returned to voice work and now does anime dub acting.
On a positive note, I’m so happy for Alex. It’s awesome that he got to fall in love with the original series. I feel nothing but intrinsic, vicarious joy when others, even as adults in the 2020’s, get to feel what I felt as a kid over a decade ago, sitting in front of the TV on premiere day. It actually makes me giddy.
Same here! Loved it back when I was a kid but it’s aged so well with time I really gained a new appreciation for it. Glad anyone can learn such a great story.
I loved it so much when I first saw it on tv that I told my parents and my dad downloaded the whole thing for us to watch together (it was hard to do it otherwise, timetables)
I’ve rewatchef the original show soooooooooooo many times since I was a kid. Still hands down on of my favourite series ever. Just great world building, character growth, in world “magic” system... it just did everything right.... unlike the lie action movie, which honestly took ALOT from the original, they just did not do a good job or even understand the original show
Want some depression to go with that? In the season 2 episode "Tales of Ba Singh Se," Uncle Iroh's tears were 100% real, because the voice actor had just found out he had terminal cancer. Rest in peace, Mako.
The worse part to me is the impact this movie had on the audience. Ihe alluded to it but let me set the stage. It's already a big hurdle to overcome that Avatar is a Nickelodeon kids show. That will lead to a lot of the older crowd questioning why it is so highly regarded. But then the movie comes out and it fails on all fronts. It's a bad movie in general and a bad adaptation. I'm sure there were so many people who saw this movie knowing nothing about the show and this God awful movie was their first experience with Avatar. Now that this was their first experience, a lot of them may be turned off from ever seeing the show. Ihe said it himself in this video that movie turned him off of seeing the show for the longest time and it was only when he completely forgot about the movie that he actually watched the show.
I mentioned to my mom that I was watching avatar and how it's probably the most well done show I have seen and she REFUSES to watch it because of how bad the movie was
Saying this film is a bad adaptation would be a complement it's not bad it's an INSULT!!!!!!!!! To not just this really fun and awesome show but to filmmaking in general!
Earthbenders in show: one person can hurl multi-ton boulders with ease. Earthbenders in movie: it takes eight dudes doing a coordinated dance to make some pebbles float.
The one thing that would save that scene in the movie (sorta) would be if someone, maybe Sokka, after watching that pathetic and time-consuming display, just picked up a rock and threw it at a firebender and knocked them out with it.
I'm really pissed off at how dirty they did Noah Ringer. He could've been great in this. His actual, real life personality is actually closer to Aang's than the personality M. Night gave him. It's clear he's a decent actor who was just really, _really_ badly directed.
I mean his audition tape was a video of him doin flips and shit cuz he's a black belt in tae kwon do. They literally only hired him cuz he could do stunts not for his acting ability
I don't blame any of the actors in this movie at all for their performances. Between their lifeless dialogue turning them into human exposition machines and Shyamalan's infamous poor directing, they didn't stand a chance.
I mean... this is the guy who got the "What? No!" from Wahlberg that was so wooder it's become a heating source in many a house and has staved off frostbite from many a weary traveler in the cold harsh northern tundra. For a director, I get the idea M. Night doesn't... really know how to direct his actors. Which I would say is weird, since he does have good movies under his belt. But then you watch those movies and you see that the acting is the same in all of them. The difference is that the acting works in the good movies because it adds to the atmosphere and demolishes the bad ones because it detracts from it.
Even then Shama-man fucked that part up. Firebenders don't just conjure flames from nothing like wizards, they generate fire from the heat around them. It's why they don't do well in extremely cold environments.
@@anuradhaliyanage5208 I get that too, and you're totally right, but I read somewhere they they also draw heat from their surroundings too. One of the Lost Scrolls books. It sort of explains why some firebenders are kept in icy prisons to impair their abilities. Like the coolers in the Boiling Rock and P'li's prison in the North Pole.
They did Sokka so dirty… Also, that whole “there needs to be fire around for the fire nation to use their powers, and oh look, Iroh can conjure fire out of thin air!” Is sooo stupid… every person in the fire nation could conjure fire out of thin air in the show, how are we supposed to take the threat seriously if they have such as obvious flaw… when they attack the freaking water tribe, all they have to do is put the fires out, there we go their bending is useless.
I didn't though that this was something as I was a kid (watched some part of the show); only now as an adult I found out the fact that they *really needed fire near*... I was like: wdf?! But even as a child I knew who boring this whole thing is...
@@TheOctavian316 How can he misunderstand it? Is he blind or stupid? Or maybe he actually didn't watch the show, even babies can see that firebenders create their own fire.
@@n64p3 But fire is different from other elements. I would rather describe firebenders bending energy within themselves or inner spark and let it out as fire. Besides all other elements exist in natural way, fire is created.
Zuko's monologue while trying to figure out how to apologize to Aang is not only hilarious, but also relatable. When you've hurt people and made an ass of yourself and you're both judging and feeling guilty looking in the mirror, yet you genuinely want to make it better so you breathe and practice and muster up the courage to say: "Hey! Zuko here."
It was genuinely one of the hardest things to watch… yeah, saying “Hey, Zuko Here!” Is inherently a stupid way to start, but it’s so endearing because we know that Zuko has no idea how to even start apologizing… and if they’ll even accept him. So, it’s almost like he’s trying for a fresh start… I love my boi so much but he does NOT people well.
The only good things that came out of this movie were 1) Aangs tattoos. I'm glad they changed them to be more detailed, both because a solid blue arrow would be a little boring and it's more accurate to real life Tibetan tattoos (Which the airbenders are heavily based on) and 2) The actress for Princess Yue who later went on to voice Asami Sato in The Legend of Korra
Personally I didn't really like the tattoo. It may be more accurate to the inspiration, but it's less accurate to the actual source material: the show itself. Plus it just felt distracting. Every time he was on screen, all I could focus on was the tattoo. Then again, maybe the focus issue is just because the movie itself was so boring.
I think the idea of Firebenders needing an already burning fire was a pretty good. But just like anything else in this, they didn't do enough with it and when they did it was poorly executed
The one thing about this movie that I would consider the worst thing is what they decided to put in vs what they left out. For example: They name drop Hama (the puppet master in season 3) but then they completely leave out any traces of Avatar Roku.
This has always really bugged me. I honestly can't think of why he would write the movie and leave out Roku and instead have a random dragon (I guess because Roku had a dragon?) mentoring him. There's zero reason for that NOT to just be Roku.
This movie is like the SparkNotes of the first season of The Last Airbender. They get most of the bulletpoints of the plot, but none of the meat of it.
Except SparkNotes gives the reader enough context to make sense of what they're reading without having to already be familiar with the source material ahead of time. This is more akin to a really bad trailer than an actual retelling of the story-it's got some action beats and visuals, but no context or logic to connect them.
Soka blinks twice I’m not kidding This man is not human When we finally saw him blink me and my sibling freaked out and just turned off the movie because that was all we where waiting for
"Shaymalan couldn't have wanted to do this, there's obviously no passion in it" - amazingly M. Night was in fact the main reason this film got made, his daughter introduced him to the show when she wanted to dress as Katara for holloween and he loved it so much that he immediately negotiated the film rights. He actually was trying with this movie, he's just that incompetent of a filmmaker...
@@marineFR3A What else is there to like? Definitely not the casting and acting, not the sfx and not the plot or cinematography. I guess maybe the scenery's nice or something.
And as divisive as LOK is (and I do think it has a few glaring flaws that I really can’t understand, especially in Book 2), it’s still a pretty good show in its own right and 10000x better than this move crap.
The worst thing about this movie to me isn’t the butchered characters, the stuff that was changed or cut out, or the typical Shyamalan garbage. To me, the worst part is the total lack of color. The show was just so vibrant and colorful, and this movie has none of that. It’s just so visually dull, that it’s hard for me to look at, like the Fantastic Beasts movies. Some of the movie is so bad it’s funny, like the Pebble Dance scene, but most of it’s completely boring. I’m so glad they didn’t make a sequel, because I don’t think I could handle them fucking up Azula, my favorite character in the show. Okay, I probably could, but I don’t want to.
Azula? Jeez... with how they depicted Kamara, I'd be more worried for Toph Bei Fong, a young blind rebellious earth bending, tough as badger nails princess, being chickified to very less of who we remember (weak, whiney in a bad way and having no awesome moments).
Even as 8 year old kids me and my cousins were disgusted with this movie. We were genuinely angry cause we were so excited for our parents to take the show seriously and this was just....embarassing
Yea I remember being Soo excited to go see this movie in theaters, and when watching it that excitement turned into disappointment and anger, I remember complaining to my dad who was sitting next to me the entire time saying "they got everything wrong!"...
As a kid who loved the show I could subconsciously just tell from the trailers and interviews and behind the scenes stuff it was garbage and by the time it came out couldn't care less and have still never watched the full movie. I think right from when I heard all the names mispronounced and seeing the bending my brain just flipped the switch off on it.
In regards to the movie having to cast young, not-so-great actors, the main team on the show, (Aang, Toph, Katara and Sokka) was actually voiced by kids, ages 8, 11, 17 and 18, and they did a great job. The exception was Dante Basco who voiced Zuko, he was around 30. Also a phenomenal performance, though.
Wow, I honestly couldn't tell they were real children, that's how good they were. Funny enough it's fitting--on a meta level--that Zuko was played by an adult, since he never had a real childhood and was just groomed to be another weapon of the Fire Nation. The more mature, fatigued tone fits his character well.
Silent Hill 2 had a kid voice actress for Laura too and it shows. I absolutely HATE when they get high pitched women to try to sound like children, it's so obvious to me and it sounds awful. I'd much rather have a really bad child actor, than a fake child voice that doesn't fit.
The thing with the earthbender prison is interesting; I think Shyamalan wanted to go down the route of the earthbenders being psychologically damaged by the firebenders but it's not very well shown in the movie and I don't really understand how not a single earthbender just went "wait, I could just take out the fire and crush these guys in seconds with a wave of my hands, why don't I just do that?" whilst in the TV show it was a combination of psychological damage and a lack of anything for them to use as a weapon.
To be fair, in the movie it took a group of earthbenders ten seconds of a synchronised dance number to bend one rock - it would probably take one guy a whole five minutes of dancing to do something similar. See, this movie makes perfect sense when you think about it! /s
@@undeadMonk LOL you could just throw a rock with your arm and it would do more. I like the idea of the psychological damage aspect, but the botched the hell out of it.
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 true but I seem to remember Aang having to use his airbending to vent the coal over to the prisoners first. Plus one of the themes I noticed in the show is that most people have a very black and white understanding of what they can bend which is why a lot of firebenders are rarely seen bending lightning, a lot of earthbenders are rarely seen bending coal or metal, and there's barely any waterbenders who use bloodbending.
The worst thing about this movie is how boring it is. Even setting aside my bias as someone who's seen the show multiple times, The Last Airbender still fails to be an entertaining movie. No joke, I'd rather watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen than this movie. At least that had some pretty fun moments, Last Airbender was nothing but a tedious slog that feels longer than it actually is.
@@mr.preston1632 I'll give the Emoji Movie one bit of credit; there's actually something to talk about there. That movie's an abomination and everything wrong with America but it's something you could write a novel about how shit it is. It's a movie everyone can hate regardless of religion, skin colour, race or whatever and that's beautiful. This movie is worse than the goddamn Emoji Movie to me; if you've seen the show, it's the equivalent of rape. If you're a random Joe Schmo, it's a dull as dishwater action movie with acting that makes Power Rangers Megaforce look like The Godfather.
Bay movies are always fun. He is a master of action and puts a lot of effort into getting it right. All those movies are a fun romp at least. This has neither a good story or action.
I was at summer camp when this hit theaters. Two of my friends went with their dads to see the movie on the day it came out. Every one at camp was excited to hear about it. They saw it in the morning, and when they got back, word spread so fast of how bad it was, that everyone at dinner was elaborating about how bad it actually was. This was 2010, not long ago, but not to the point where everyone especially kids carried smartphones. So the guys who did have phones pulled up pirated copies. I remember like 30 guys staring at a 3in screen. Every time some bullshit happened, there were loud jeers, heard from other campsites. It was actually a magical experience.
The nostalgia critic had a bit that quite literally was Ember island players with this instead of the play. it was actually amazing how well it synced up.
hell ember island players mainlines us fire nation propaganda, so it has a poignant addition to the world building and story. This movie isn't a poignant addition to anything, it's a cancerous growth
@@cameron6538 and, ironically, ember island players only existed because of this movie - there was meant to be a fourth book air, to round off the show and focused on the reparations after the war, including Zuko finding his mother. But Nickelodeon thought a movie was a better investment than actually finishing all the storylines, so they took out all the setup episodes they could, tweaked the finale, and ended the show a season early. They even joke about it in Korra’s first episode. One of the replacement episodes was ember island players.
Mike and Brian’s experience is very reflective of what they had with the Netflix show, seems like everyone who wants to adapt the show has no interest in the legacy of the franchise, instead just wanting to squeeze what money they can from what was once a magical and special show
In the movie i remember specifically that only Iroh was "skilled enough" to make fire out of nothing that's why there was only that one scene where that happens
Iroh already knew a bunch of unique and advanced fire bending skills in the show. Why even make up a fake one for the movie? Also, Iroh wouldn't need to exert himself to beat a bunch of pedestrian ass fire benders. He was supposed to be on another level. This movie just boggles my mind.
Yep. They didn't have enough time in the movie to properly develop his character (one of the more complex ones in the series, mind you), so they just nerfed the others to make him seem cooler bt default.
My biggest problem with the movie is: Shows are already visual media, and Avatar has some of the best animation of all time. So why make another visual version of it, you gain nothing, and actually probably lose a lot as animation has much more freedom.
You're forgetting two important things: Animation is "childish" and "can't tell serious/adult stories". And Hollywood has an obsession with remaking and adapting everything... no matter if it adds anything or not.
@@wertm123 Well, yes, most ADULT adults think animation = kids visual diarrhea fodder to keep em distracted. My problem is why an adaptation SO SOON? Lord of the Rings had an animated movie before a live action one ( R. Bakshi 1978 to P. Jackson 2001) at least a 20 year gap to revitalize a franchise from its potential. But AtLA is still good for spin offs... which Sadly Nick was not interested... heck I just think that AtLA was gonna be the Megas XLR or Thundercats 2011 of cartoons, made, forgotten and screwed over by their networks, tax write off and all. But AtLA got lucky... along with Korra. Seriously, what is with Nick with the crappy business decisions and even crappier creators leaving or getting fired from Nick (Paramount and worst of all: Viacom).
14:40 that's the thing. Firebenders never needed a fire source external to themselves to bend. Since Fire mirrors Air, and Water mirrors Earth. eg. You can build things with Earth and Water (ice), while Fire and Air are temporary. It balances the elements. If Fire benders can be made impotent just by putting out the fire sources, they'll be waaaay too impotent.
I always saw Fire Benders as just bending the heat and warmth within their body. Life has all 4 elements within itself, so that was a good enough reason for me. But I really like your interpretation of Earth and Water being physical materials while Air and Fire and temporary instances. It does add more dynamics to the elements and like you stated creates a nice balance. (Also I don't believe in the show we ever see Fire Benders control fire or heat that doesn't come from themselves, so it makes more sense that they create it.)
@@feathero3 Ozai and Azula control the torches/fire pits in the throne room in the show and iroh redirects lightning that just comes out of the sky so I think that they can actually do that but its just not very useful when you can just generate fire from nothing lol
About Sokka's character. In the original Pilot episode he was actually a LOT like his movie counterpart but when the producers heard actor Jack DeSena do his vocal warm ups with all those crazy yelps, shouts and pitch shiftings, the production team went back to the drawing board on Sokka as DeSena's vocalizations were too funny NOT to use.
I also heard he was not supposed to continue as a charcter after the first few episodes but they liked Jack DeSena's voice acting so much they kept him in the rest of the series.
@@Rainbowthewindsage damn, just shows how much of a story come to life during the making of it, and how you shouldn't hold onto your original outline too closely
that was a character building thing, part of a character arc, you do it in good story telling to make characters feel multifaceted and interesting..... you can see why it wasnt included in the movie.
yeah because it shows that you cant rush things and have to learn the elements slowly, while fire is the most dangerous.... Guess the movie got non of all of that
My favorite part is when M. explained the different pronunciations of the names as being more accurate to the native languages while having a pretty much all white cast (except for the villains)
It's like trying to bejewel a shit progressive wise. "Yeah we white washed pretty much the entire main cast but at least we kept their names accurate to the native pronunciations!" Freaking bs
This is such a stupid misconception. It's really only Katara and Sokka who were white-washed. You could possibly also count Aang. That being said, what "native" pronunciations??? This show takes place in a fantasy world. The pronunciations from the show ARE the native pronunciations! OBVIOUSLY THEY ARE! China and Japan don't exist in Avatar.
I remember begging my grandpa to take me to this movie when it first came out in theaters, and even as a kid I remember apologizing to him afterwards for making him go to the movie with me.
The earth bender prison episode wasn’t even that crucial to the plot in the show. They could have easily cut it out but nah they needed to have a dude yell and throw a tiny rock.
I think they wanted to show all four elements in the first movie so people who didn't watch the show wouldn't wonder where the fourth element is. Plus Haru (who's not in the movie for some reason) was our first introduction to Earthbending in the show
In defense to Shyamalan, a lot of the worst stuff in this movie wasn't his fault. The Studio forced him to use Nicole Pelz which forced him to white wash Sokka, although as far as I know he was okay with Noah Ringer playing Aang after watching him perform martial arts. He also intented for the movie to be around 2 hours and 20 minutes long, but the studio trimmed it down to 100 minutes which forced him to include all the awkward exposition narration. And the horrendous 3D special effects was mandated by Paramount and rushed through post production behind Shyamalan's back. This is not to say that Shyamalan did nothing wrong, he did write and direct most of these scenes, but he got all the blame for this disaster while the nameless studio heads of Paramount got away scot free.
It makes me think that producers and other higher ups make Shyamalan as the fall guy for all the stupid things in this movie. He may make characters do awkward expositions and philosophical rant. However, castings and other problematic things like you mentioned above are usually not exist in his other movies.
@@ggraverobber there are conflicting rumors. Some source said Patel (Zuko's actor) was supposed to play Sokka, but because of the casting above, all Fire Nation were recast. But other source said Patel was already auditioning to Zuko, and because he's good at it (and famous), Fire Nation were recasted. They both still boil down to miscast though, because if Patel is the only Indian in Fire Nation, the uproar would be worse
People who use "whitewashing" as genuine criticism are in my honest opinion, very petty and desperate to look for ways to criticise a director. Like I couldn't give a shit if a black kid casted Aang either. As long as the acting was actually done *good* I literally don't care one bit whichever race casted a character. I agree that TLAB was shit in every possible way. But I never once cared one bit about the actors' appearance. (aside from Zuko's scar. They needed to make that scar a lot more visible)
Looking at the production, the push of the dominoes that destroyed this movie was the casting of Nicole Peltz as Katara. Her audition tape was described as "sub-par" and only cast because Paramount owed her billionaire father a favor. This "forced" them to cast a caucasian actor as Sokka and then that led them to recast the entire Fire Nation in order to have some actors of color in the movie because up to that point they had only cast white actors. All this effort that failed to pay off for some stupid nepotism appeasement.
@@Edaphosaurus Tbh that's not really true. The fire nation was "brown washed" and monk gyatso also got brown'd. They obviously just didn't care on any level... i really dont think that it was racist or white-washing; just sheer incompetence.
@@dandynoble2875 Are you saying that my comment displays the casual racism in others, or that it practices it itself? If it is the latter could you explain to me how I specifically displayed casual racism so I can apologize and correct myself, because I feel like I'm only relating the story of this movie's messed up production.
@@dandynoble2875 What on earth are you talking about? The characters in questions aren't even supposed to be Asian (or Asian allegories). The Watertribe are basically Inuit, with a little bit of Aboriginese.
@@ShadowEclipse777 welp Netflix is working on live action tv series. For it being series and not a movie is already better choice. Still Im not expecting anything great
Fire benders can regulate the temperature of the room they're in, detect the body heat of others nearby, and even have shamans that practice a more medical use of firebending, similar to waterbenders, but rather than mending flesh, they can diagnose and repair one's spirit. Firebenders need only oxygen to create fire, and don't even need that to create lightning.
@@captainfiri7619 Well the shamans are showcased in Legend of Korra, in probably one of my favorite episodes, Beginnings. You notice it a lot more in the original Avatar series after you know about it. They're very subtle in the last airbender, but I also bought some of the comics. This is one of my favorite universes, so I've just seen a lot.
What a bullshit.. atleast according to atla standarts! Because in Atla only Airbenders could control temperature! Aang walks trough arctic temperature in light garments, while fire benders wear isolating clothes. Only Zuko and Iroh had access to temperature control, but only because Iroh included teachings from other nations into his style, and him being a more than extra ordinary fire bender. Pure firebenders can neither sense nor control heat! They can only raise temperatures by using their energy in the form of bending! Only the Avatar, ancient beings (Dragons) and Masters that exceed their elemental limitations (Iroh) would be able to achieve feats as you described.
I remember watching this movie and then thinking the tv show was trash because of it. Then I finally binged the show (and absolutely loved the story and the characters) and decided to try the movie again. I mean, now that I had some context maybe I would like it? Bahahaha as soon as Sokka couldn't land a joke I knew I was in for a horrible 1 hour and 43 minutes
2:15, I believe Aang's actor in the show was about 11 when book 1 started, so there's a similar age in that regard. But every other character was voiced by an adult.
The issue with adapting a series into a movie is that it can be hard to find a satisfying stopping point. The final episode of the season is a fine stopping point, but then you have to cram everything else in and it just doesn't fit. You can't necessarily rely on a natural stopping point at some other point in the season, and any that you can draw out could easily end being distributed weirdly and cause you to cram or stretch content. The best way of adapting something like this would be to just tell a different story. Either future or past avatar, or maybe even Aang at another point in his life. There are lots of options, and redoing something worse shouldn't really be one of them.
I think they should have made two movies per season. But that would have been impossible to market. I think the stopping point for the first movie could after Aang finds roku for the first time and gets to hear about the comment.
There is something cathartic to me as a fan of the show as it was airing seeing people watch the movie after watching the show. Because I was there in the cinema, seeing the entire thing unfold before my very eyes. Then going home and seeing the reaction around the world as if we all took a collective sigh. "If they had just called Aang, ONCE!!!"
Bruh same!! Watched it with my whole family too cuz I always recorded the episodes in VHS so we could later all watch together and then the movie was trash
I'm so happy that you watched it and fell in love with it too! It's never too late to join the fandom and I'm so happy that you loved it as much as we do!
Hey do you you remember that part where Zhao challenges Zuko to an Agni Kai, and we foreshadow the most important moment of Zuko’s life? And we learn about how the Fire Nation’s cultural myth of honor is kind of bullshit, because Zhao disgraces himself at the end? Yeah nah neither does Shalayman.
The sad part is the kid who is playing aang. Is acting much more like aang when he is being himself in bts. It’s like shamalaya-dingdong sucks out the talent and energy from the actors.
@Logia SD The kid was not even an actor I think. He was just a kid trained in the respective martial art air-bending was based on that also happened to be in the right age, so they casted him.
Yes; Aang’s actor would pull pranks and run around the set with so much energy! The idiot Shaman sucked all the fun and light out of him. He ruined the kids career before it even started.
We need to start a missionary project to reach everyone who's seen the movie but not the animated series. They can't live not knowing that "The Last Airbender" is actually good.
I'm one of those who has seen the movie before the show, and also many reviews for the movie talking about how much it butchered the show, which got me interested in watching it. I have been saved.
Everyone has said this before, but the casting in this movie, other than Aang, is so visually jarring. It will NEVER not be weird to see Katara and Sokka as 2 white kids, the man they got for Iroh looks nothing like our cuddly tea uncle, he is so intimidating he should've been Ozai. istg M. Night changed the race of all Firebenders simply so he could cameo as a Firebender (which he does, in the prison camp scene) There's a cheapness and shoddiness to this movie that baffles me even 11 years on, HOW does this exist. Many choices were made, and all of them were wrong, legitimately there is not a single thing right about this film, and it's why over a decade later so many people STILL talk about how bad it is. Yes Dragon Ball Evolution was bad, and Death Note awful, but everyone on earth knows The Last Airbender is the WORST adaptation of all time and I don't think anything will take that crown. EVER.
@@saoliath5000 I keep seeing excuses that that's how their names would have been pronounced the right way and this is so stupid. After all the disrespect for original cultures playing this card is the last thing he should do. And plus even though their cultures are INSPIRED by real life, it's still fantasy world and their names can be pronounced whatever. Besides they all speak one language xD
I don't mind the race swapping or "whitewashing" that much. Well,I do, but the wrong characterization is what really pissed me off! It's so bad it doesn't even resemble the original! I watched the avatar when it aired for the first time and my daughter and I bonded watching and theorizing what will happen and made this show so much more special for us! We couldn't even laugh at how bad the movie was! I don't think any new version of Avatar can surpass the original! It wasn't made with profit as the ultimate goal!
Fun fact: the actress who plays Princess Yue in the film, Seychelle Gabriel (one of the only decent performances in the whole movie) ended up getting asked to return by the creators to play “Asami Sato” in the Avatar sequel-series “The Legend of Korra.”
I dont like how they tried to make creating fire an elite skill. iroh is skilled enough that he can create his own fire here, but the show already had that within the series without it making the fire nation weak. even with fire bending being op there are ways to put iroh above the rest. the movies attempt cheapened the power of the fire nation to give iroh a scene that isnt explained well and just further confuses the world building. It also destroys the lessen aang learns about fire. with air water and earth(debatable) you are far less likely to harm someone on accident. you can cause accidents, but the second fire goes out of control it can burn, destroy, and kill. its alot harder to accidentally harm someone when the fire needs a source
the bending is somehow the worst thing in this. the choreography is fine, but the martial art is so elaborate and then it fizzles out into this..hilarious shitty bending. The earth bending perfectly shows it. Aang escaping from the ship with his bending feels like Zuko could easily have stopped him because there's just such a HUGE buildup to the air bending being released, just grab Aang's hands and he can't bend?! Fuck I need to rewatch the show. It's been 12 years since I watched it and its still so vivid in my mind. This film shits on ATLA harder than Korra ever could.
Korra is actually a great follow up to aangs story line. Yes the first two seasons are a drag but after that all the build up is worth it for the last 2 seasons. They've even given me one of my favorite villains of all times, Zaher.
@@Crazy1Girl1Riders I don't think it's worth it for even 1 season... Even though I agree Zaher (and all the Red Lotus members really) were good villains. I think I just had too high of expectations after the original show. And there were too many decisions or ideas I feel didn't make sense or go anywhere interesting. I might give it another chance someday. Much rather re-watch Avatar: The Last Airbender though.
@@Crazy1Girl1Riders honestly, the worst part about korra is season 3 doesn't make sense if you skip season 2 Ya just gotta sit through that for the good shit
I also remember that a friend of mine who’s Native American was utterly thrilled this was going to be a live action movie. He told me that it was the first time a Native American would be a main character without all the stereotypes. I won’t tell you his reaction to the news that the roles were given to white people.
@@Raya-ir4tm Yeah but the OG show was based off of largely Asian and Native culture. Plus I think it's impossible to like this film, even if you haven't seen the show.
I think it’s more about feeling represented without the stereotypes instead of assigning worth. I mean they could go hand in hand, but I don’t think OP’s friend would base a movie off of the cast’s race, hopefully!
@@Raya-ir4tm native representation is very hard to come by, especially when it’s authentic. A lot of the native depictions we see in media usually have racist stereotypes, or don’t even cast aboriginal people (look at twilight or example, many of the “natives” were actually Asian or Just brown skinned). I think especially in fantasy, we see a lot of whiteness in these stories, and I don’t thinks is unfair to be upset when you see possible representation for your people (especially one as historically damaged as the native Americans) destroyed by whitewashing
Ah yes, Ovotor Ong. The way god intended for that to sound. Also, the race swapping is so bizarre considering Shamalan himself was indian. Never seen so many strange deliberate changes from the source materials, as if they were aiming to make the worst possible outcome.
I was in highschool when the movie came out and I was so excited - I still feel traumatized by the memory of watching it at my grandma's house on DVD in growing horror of how terrible it is. I left feeling so empty.
Can't believe IHE filmed an entire parody movie of The Last Airbender just for this out-of-season April Fools joke because obviously there was no TLA movie.
man all the elements got nerfed HARD in this movie. Let's make a comparison just to see how bad they got nerfed. Water TLA: Snake-like, precise, can be used like a whip or a cannonball, perfect as an all-rounder since it can be offensive, defensive, and supportive. Movie: Drippy ball of water, or a splash. Fire TLA: Dominating, fueled by anger or the sun, threat to the other nations, BIG BALL OF FIRE, will burn anyone, Mostly offensive, Just as beautiful as it can be deadly, flammenwerfher or ball of fire. Movie: Needs an already burning fire to be used, no flammenwerffher, small ball of fire Earth: Strong, stiff, and will make a mountain move. Straightforward, can be offensive but mostly defensive, can be very deadly, can be either catapults, rock spears, earthquakes, or any other move that involves using the earth, needed to be away from earth to be nullified. Movie: Needs 5 benders to chuck a small rock very slowly, can't even fight against fire-benders even with earth all around them. Air TLA: Invisible, moves just like water but faster, deadly but mostly used for recreation, means freedom Movie: is nothing more than strong winds.
I will never , ever forgive M . Night Charlatan for the how fucking dirty he did Uncle Iroh. He was a complex , funny, layered and nuanced character. The series didn't treat the audience like idiots and they showed regret ,sorrow, and determination to change for the better through Iroh. Night made Iroh so one dimensional and empty. I was so fucking angry when I watched the movie. He had an opportunity to bring this wonderful story full of characters that felt real in a fantastical world to a wider audience and he fucking wrecked it.
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 I don't know Tibetan, so I can only go by pronunciations I can find by natives. They got "Tenzin" wrong in Korra, it is closer to "Tenze".
@@xero2715 Sokka, which sounds Japanese because Avatar really mish-mashed different Asian cultures together, probably would be pronounced Soh-Ka, not Sah-Ka. This is a show made, written, and mostly voiced by white Americans after all.
I'll never forget seeing this with my mom and sister. We saw the non-3D version, and during most fight scenes the action was taken out, since they were 3D.. So you would have the start of the fight and then immediately the end or a different scene. It was the most confusing thing to witness, considering the fact a large portion of the movie is action..
Not long ago I have watched the movie again after a very long time . Back in the day my thought about it was : what an awful movie ......... but last time I have seen the movie : what an awesome movie , I love it - what a nice fantasy movie .
@@heckingbamboozled8097 Not really ^^ You should just try to watch The Last Airbender again like you someone who got no idea what Avatar is and you will see that the movie got everything a good fantasy movie needs . Through the eyes of a hardcore Avatar fan is the movie the worst thing ever .... and that is understandable . ^^
@@paluxyl.8682 The effects were awesome (maybe not their presentation). But this movie was so bad and unnecessary. It didn’t have any other good points to exist at all. If someone wanted to know about ATLA, then they should just watch the show.
@@notamemethememe589 I would not say that the movie was "unnecessary" , because some people want to see life action movies . Beliefe it or not , but I know many people who hates any kind of cartoons (+ anime) ....... they just need to see few seconds of a cartoon and they turn off . Not long ago I have met someone who wanted to watch a Frozen life action movie because she can't stand animated movies , but she loves the songs and story of Frozen . In the case of the Avatar show , back in the days many hated the artstye of the show ....... lol It could be that for you some movies got no points to exist , but other love it .
It's always shocking to me when people my age say they've never seen Avatar because it was such a staple for me and my brother/cousins growing up. The series means so much to me and has had a big impact on my life. At a young age it taught me a lot about redemption and forgiveness. I remember when this movie came out everyone was shocked haha. I don't know how they managed to turn such a wholesome amazing show into such a disaster.. it's quite an incredible feat to be honest.
Actually aang's VA was an actual 12 year old who did an incredible job and matured throughout the span of the show which made his character growth feel more real and authentic
That earthbending scene has been immortalized in my mind as the most stupid sequence in cinema history.
They're building a wall brick by brick, hang in there
Man, what would happen if Toph was a part of that earth bending... "sequence".
This movie IMO is second to "The Room" in being one of the so bad its good movies
All that for a fucking pebble that hits ONE dude
@@rubenlopez3364 At least the room is entertaining and holds up on its own. Watching the room is like watching a fat guy backflop, while watching this movie is like watching someone toss a child into a pool.
Show: One Earthbender can make the Earth shatter around him
Movie: Takes five guys to lift up a rock
Someone literally could've picked up the rock and chucked it and it would've done the same thing lol
IT is weird indeed. Everywhere I comment, people tell me how much they love me and my content. Sometimes IT is annoying. But right now, IT would be okay. So say something nice about my content, dear eva
@@AxxLAfriku what?
@@AxxLAfriku The people who tell you that everywhere you comment wouldn't happen to be the voices in your head, would they?
@@ProfiteerProphet 💀💀
"They just skipped, like, a really good scene from the show."
You mean the entire show?
Let's be fair, they didn't just skip scenes... they butchered the ones they didn't skip.
To my understanding, M Night got inspired to make this movie because his daughter loved the show. Imagine going to school being known as the girl whose dad made the shitty Avatar film.
God I couldn't even begin to FATHOM the embarrassment like Jesus
That...is tragic.
dude Imagine being a kid and bonding with your dad over a cartoon and you're super exited he's adapting it into a movie, and you finally see it and it's clear he didn't pay attention to anything about the show you loved :/
@@lizardlanier831 smh
@@lizardlanier831 Absolutely depressing.
There's an interview where Shyamalan actually states that he felt fire benders were too powerful, and that's why in the movie he changed it to where they need an existing fire source in order to bend fire. Which is hilarious cause like. _Yeah._ *That's the fucking point*
The fire nation waged an offensive war against both the water tribe and earth kingdom for a hundred years, and with the help of Sozin's comet they wiped out the air nomads in one day. Hell, the whole reason the war began in the first place is because fire gave them a technological advantage over the rest of the world and Sozin wanted to "spread their greatness". The fact that fire benders in the movie are pretty much worthless completely breaks the story, but it was an intentional decision they made.
Also I completely forgot until this moment re-reading my own comment, but they actually did name drop Sozin's comet in the movie too. And it's said that this amazing power the comet grants the is the ability to _create their own fire_
Yes, literally just the thing every fire bender in the show is capable of. That's supposed to be the scary thing that will allow the fire nation to win the war if Aang doesn't stop them
@Leon Russell They didn't really defeat the water benders, but one-on-one a fire bender could about match them. Water benders could use water to put out fires, but at the same time their water would turn to steam, and eventually without a source to pull from they'd run out.
How tf was he going to sell the fact that the Fire Nation caused the 100 year war and eliminated the Air Nomads when all the other benders had to do was put them out? Night Shamalayn is what you get when a director is too caught up in making a story look cool, add twists or enhance characters without bothering to see if it even makes sense.
@@squiddler7731 Well Water Tribe live surrounding by ocean so it's kinda hard to run out of water xD Maybe Southen Tribe was weak in the first place?
@@DeathKittayeah the southern water tribe didn’t have a military. They had a couple dozen powerful water benders but the fire nation had an entire army and a huge technological advantage-tbh I think it wouldn’t have mattered how powerful the water tribe was because the fire nation would have had them beat due to sheer numbers. If I recall correctly there were actually several raids on the south that captured at least a few water benders every time making them weaker and weaker until they were all gone
Non benders like the kyoshi warriors would be the most OP fighters in this world....an entire team of benders would be incapacitated before they could do a single ability
The Equalists, in their tiny numbers, could beat EVERYONE in the movie verse
@@Saiaxs
Every single animated character in the franchise with even a minimum of combat training (as in, *almost all major characters in either animated series*) would be able to singlehandedly conquer the entire live action verse.
@@bkjeong4302 I m someone with lvl 4 stamina and lvl 3 speed and even I would be able to do it...
@@bkjeong4302 it’d be the cabbage salesman. Dudes got a lot of built up aggression.
@@Saiaxs they almost did it in the show too
M. Night makes some some weird changes, but the one that sticks out to me the most is how much he doesn't seem to care about the Spirit World aspect of the show. That's one of the Avatar's most important duties, and it's basically ignored other than a few scenes of him talking to Not Roku. The biggest example of this is the end of this movie. The Water Spirit basically hijacking Aang after the Moon Spirit dies is just such a great moment for the show. It for one, just shows how strong the Spirits can really be. Secondly it shows that the Spirits are "living" beings with thoughts and feelings. And thirdly it demonstrates how Zhao's arrogance in the end is what kills him. The movie having Aang just go into the Avatar State not only gets rid of this scene, but invalidates Aang's entire Book 2 Arc. A big part of Book 2 is about how Aang can't control the Avatar State which is why he can't just go waltzing into Ozai's Palace like a fully fledged Avatar might be able to. And yet here, he just kind of decides to go into it without any of the terrifying power we see in the show.
When the Ember Island players did a better adaptation of ATLA than this whole movie
For real tho
There’s actually a fanfic where the animated characters think this movie is so awful, they go into it to change everything and take Shaymalan’s credibility as a director away.
@ParagonV5
Look up Bring Me All Your Elderly!
fuk, u right
"Avatar state, yip yip!"
2:09 Fun fact, the Aang and Toph voice actors were child voice actors both being the actual age of their characters (at show start). This is why Aang's voice got deeper throughout the show, because the actor was actually going through puberty. They did pretty incredible for their age I think.
That actually makes so much sense! Occasionally I’d recognize something’s where I though “oh that’s weird, they kinda stumbled there” they did amazingly but I just noticed a few moments that makes way more sense if they were kids
I met Michaela Murphy aka Jessie Flower, Toph’s VA, at a convention 2 years ago. I was so surprised that she was only a few years older than me, as she was also a kid when I was watching it air as a child. She’s really cool btw, stopped acting after childhood because she wanted to be a normal teenager and go to medical school one day. Then, as an adult, she’s returned to voice work and now does anime dub acting.
They did amazing!
On a positive note, I’m so happy for Alex. It’s awesome that he got to fall in love with the original series. I feel nothing but intrinsic, vicarious joy when others, even as adults in the 2020’s, get to feel what I felt as a kid over a decade ago, sitting in front of the TV on premiere day. It actually makes me giddy.
Same here! Loved it back when I was a kid but it’s aged so well with time I really gained a new appreciation for it. Glad anyone can learn such a great story.
Yeah, when I first saw the title, all I felt was joy.
I loved it so much when I first saw it on tv that I told my parents and my dad downloaded the whole thing for us to watch together (it was hard to do it otherwise, timetables)
I’ve rewatchef the original show soooooooooooo many times since I was a kid. Still hands down on of my favourite series ever. Just great world building, character growth, in world “magic” system... it just did everything right.... unlike the lie action movie, which honestly took ALOT from the original, they just did not do a good job or even understand the original show
Want some depression to go with that? In the season 2 episode "Tales of Ba Singh Se," Uncle Iroh's tears were 100% real, because the voice actor had just found out he had terminal cancer. Rest in peace, Mako.
The worse part to me is the impact this movie had on the audience. Ihe alluded to it but let me set the stage. It's already a big hurdle to overcome that Avatar is a Nickelodeon kids show. That will lead to a lot of the older crowd questioning why it is so highly regarded. But then the movie comes out and it fails on all fronts. It's a bad movie in general and a bad adaptation. I'm sure there were so many people who saw this movie knowing nothing about the show and this God awful movie was their first experience with Avatar. Now that this was their first experience, a lot of them may be turned off from ever seeing the show. Ihe said it himself in this video that movie turned him off of seeing the show for the longest time and it was only when he completely forgot about the movie that he actually watched the show.
I mentioned to my mom that I was watching avatar and how it's probably the most well done show I have seen and she REFUSES to watch it because of how bad the movie was
@@nriracha Force her to watch it.
Saying this film is a bad adaptation would be a complement it's not bad it's an INSULT!!!!!!!!! To not just this really fun and awesome show but to filmmaking in general!
Yea hearing that the movie sucked drew me away from watching the show for so long. I finally watched it a few months ago and loved it!
imagine someone watching this and thinking the show is live action and this shitty
Earthbenders in show: one person can hurl multi-ton boulders with ease.
Earthbenders in movie: it takes eight dudes doing a coordinated dance to make some pebbles float.
Seriously. The Aang vs. Bumi fight in the show proves how powerful one Earthbender can really be, and then this movie was like "LOL no."
at snail speed mind u.
The one thing that would save that scene in the movie (sorta) would be if someone, maybe Sokka, after watching that pathetic and time-consuming display, just picked up a rock and threw it at a firebender and knocked them out with it.
@@happychaosofthenorth That's exactly what the *real* Sokka would've done XD
That scene is literally where me and my fiance stopped. We couldn't take it anymore.
I'm really pissed off at how dirty they did Noah Ringer. He could've been great in this. His actual, real life personality is actually closer to Aang's than the personality M. Night gave him. It's clear he's a decent actor who was just really, _really_ badly directed.
I think I read somewhere that he was really looking forward to acting Aang, but was not given a good script at all
I mean his audition tape was a video of him doin flips and shit cuz he's a black belt in tae kwon do. They literally only hired him cuz he could do stunts not for his acting ability
I don't blame any of the actors in this movie at all for their performances. Between their lifeless dialogue turning them into human exposition machines and Shyamalan's infamous poor directing, they didn't stand a chance.
I mean... this is the guy who got the "What? No!" from Wahlberg that was so wooder it's become a heating source in many a house and has staved off frostbite from many a weary traveler in the cold harsh northern tundra.
For a director, I get the idea M. Night doesn't... really know how to direct his actors. Which I would say is weird, since he does have good movies under his belt. But then you watch those movies and you see that the acting is the same in all of them. The difference is that the acting works in the good movies because it adds to the atmosphere and demolishes the bad ones because it detracts from it.
Yeah they killed his career before it even started
Iroh: bends fire normally
Firebenders: He’s bending fire out of nothing!!??😱😰🏃🏻
Even then Shama-man fucked that part up. Firebenders don't just conjure flames from nothing like wizards, they generate fire from the heat around them. It's why they don't do well in extremely cold environments.
@@kira-dk2mx No. The cartoon explained well that they draw fire from the breath (as well as the sun) , not heat.
@@anuradhaliyanage5208 I get that too, and you're totally right, but I read somewhere they they also draw heat from their surroundings too. One of the Lost Scrolls books. It sort of explains why some firebenders are kept in icy prisons to impair their abilities. Like the coolers in the Boiling Rock and P'li's prison in the North Pole.
@@kira-dk2mx They draw fire from their Chi.
@@lyly_lei_lei No, they don't, but okay.
I never get tired of watching people rip apart this travesty of a movie.
Same
I saw this in theaters with my parents in 3D, massive waste of money
@@Golfman489 i'm sorry for you, you didn't deserve this torture
In my opinion it really isnt that bad compared to other movies
I remember watching this movie when it came out as a kid. I remember it being the first ever movie I had ever seen that I did not enjoy.
They did Sokka so dirty…
Also, that whole “there needs to be fire around for the fire nation to use their powers, and oh look, Iroh can conjure fire out of thin air!” Is sooo stupid… every person in the fire nation could conjure fire out of thin air in the show, how are we supposed to take the threat seriously if they have such as obvious flaw… when they attack the freaking water tribe, all they have to do is put the fires out, there we go their bending is useless.
I always assumed M. Night misunderstood the whole Dragon of the West thing, and Iroh's ability to firebend without anger.
I didn't though that this was something as I was a kid (watched some part of the show); only now as an adult I found out the fact that they *really needed fire near*...
I was like: wdf?!
But even as a child I knew who boring this whole thing is...
@@TheOctavian316 How can he misunderstand it? Is he blind or stupid? Or maybe he actually didn't watch the show, even babies can see that firebenders create their own fire.
Do be fair, it makes way more sense that they can only bend fire and not conjure fire since no other benders can conjure what they bend
@@n64p3 But fire is different from other elements. I would rather describe firebenders bending energy within themselves or inner spark and let it out as fire. Besides all other elements exist in natural way, fire is created.
The final scene is hilarious. Sozin’s Comet is coming in 3 years? Firebenders need it to create fire? How does that even work?
You get a complete fucking hack who was only lucky with his first few films and give him creative control.
This happened a few years before the show
@@acat3772 uhhh what? This movie came out in 2010.
@@jeltje50 Ozai said Sozin’s comet would be coming in 3 years
@@acat3772 Are you trying to claim that this movie just changes the timeline of the story? Because that's not really an excuse for it.
Zuko's monologue while trying to figure out how to apologize to Aang is not only hilarious, but also relatable. When you've hurt people and made an ass of yourself and you're both judging and feeling guilty looking in the mirror, yet you genuinely want to make it better so you breathe and practice and muster up the courage to say:
"Hey! Zuko here."
Hey! Zuko here.
It was genuinely one of the hardest things to watch… yeah, saying “Hey, Zuko Here!” Is inherently a stupid way to start, but it’s so endearing because we know that Zuko has no idea how to even start apologizing… and if they’ll even accept him. So, it’s almost like he’s trying for a fresh start… I love my boi so much but he does NOT people well.
@@mikefrost5575 His sister seems to have the same issue.
Hey, Vsauce! Zuko here.
deep down he's kind of wholesome
like when he throws iroh's tea down in the earth kingdom
I'm glad they didn't have time to ruin Toph.
I'm so glad you said this. Seriously. He ruined everything he touched with this trash. Toph, Tai lee, Mai and June remain pure
They would have made her angsty over the fact that she was blind. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
@@MartianEnby Chan and Rion-Jian tho
@@MartianEnby Duuuuude, that would ruin the show for me. I don't think I would watch TLOK if that happened. I'm almost crying just thinking about it.
"Hi I am Top. It rhymes with TOUGH. I see things BY SCREAMING"
The only good things that came out of this movie were
1) Aangs tattoos. I'm glad they changed them to be more detailed, both because a solid blue arrow would be a little boring and it's more accurate to real life Tibetan tattoos (Which the airbenders are heavily based on) and
2) The actress for Princess Yue who later went on to voice Asami Sato in The Legend of Korra
Personally I didn't really like the tattoo. It may be more accurate to the inspiration, but it's less accurate to the actual source material: the show itself. Plus it just felt distracting. Every time he was on screen, all I could focus on was the tattoo. Then again, maybe the focus issue is just because the movie itself was so boring.
@@_Stormfather but a blue arrow would look even more silly
@@_Stormfather The blue arrow works in the show, but would've looked real dumb
@@AllesZuSpaet53 I mean, blue looked cool in Braveheart.
I think the idea of Firebenders needing an already burning fire was a pretty good. But just like anything else in this, they didn't do enough with it and when they did it was poorly executed
The one thing about this movie that I would consider the worst thing is what they decided to put in vs what they left out.
For example:
They name drop Hama (the puppet master in season 3) but then they completely leave out any traces of Avatar Roku.
Why is everyone just watching Aang do backflips? They could have used that time to shoot him with an arrow.
Wth.
This has always really bugged me. I honestly can't think of why he would write the movie and leave out Roku and instead have a random dragon (I guess because Roku had a dragon?) mentoring him. There's zero reason for that NOT to just be Roku.
@@consistentlystupid4726 Yeah if they thought a dragon was cooler then just call it Roku
When do they mention hama in the movie?
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 Kinda ruins the importance of dragons to the story too... They were special. Exotic. Near-extinct. And important to Zuko.
This movie is like the SparkNotes of the first season of The Last Airbender. They get most of the bulletpoints of the plot, but none of the meat of it.
they even fucked up the plot tho
No bread, no cold cuts, just the mustard
put some respect in sparknotes name. got me through a lot of books i did not want to read.
Except SparkNotes gives the reader enough context to make sense of what they're reading without having to already be familiar with the source material ahead of time.
This is more akin to a really bad trailer than an actual retelling of the story-it's got some action beats and visuals, but no context or logic to connect them.
Sparknotes does a waaaaay better job conveying meaning.
Soka blinks twice
I’m not kidding
This man is not human
When we finally saw him blink me and my sibling freaked out and just turned off the movie because that was all we where waiting for
What? Is this actually true?
@@jackthelucario yes
🤣🤣🤣
Lmaooo
Ong the Ovatar
"Shaymalan couldn't have wanted to do this, there's obviously no passion in it" - amazingly M. Night was in fact the main reason this film got made, his daughter introduced him to the show when she wanted to dress as Katara for holloween and he loved it so much that he immediately negotiated the film rights. He actually was trying with this movie, he's just that incompetent of a filmmaker...
Plus too many producers on the project from Nick.
I.e. executive meddling.
That's pretty sad.
That poor daughter, she has to live with the shame
Iirc I thought he wanted to make it more accurate
Can't blame a child. I shall blame M. Night double now.
The only thing I like about this movie is Aangs tattoos. The change from filled blue to intricate patterns I felt looked really nice
Yeah it would look too plain in live action, that's the problem I had with the Bleach movie, everyone look like they were in cosplay
I wish they made it a bit more dark though
@@MJ_71312 I'd actually prefer sky blue
@@marineFR3A What else is there to like? Definitely not the casting and acting, not the sfx and not the plot or cinematography. I guess maybe the scenery's nice or something.
LITERALLY the only good thing XD
The only good thing about this movie: the actress who played Yue ended up voicing Asami in The Legend Of Korra.
And as divisive as LOK is (and I do think it has a few glaring flaws that I really can’t understand, especially in Book 2), it’s still a pretty good show in its own right and 10000x better than this move crap.
Amen to that brother.
pretty sure she also voiced yue in the show
@@blindsloth364 That was Johanna Braddy, not Seychelle Gabriel ^^
@@OshawottLuke ah okay i just thought i had heard that somewhere
The worst thing about this movie to me isn’t the butchered characters, the stuff that was changed or cut out, or the typical Shyamalan garbage. To me, the worst part is the total lack of color. The show was just so vibrant and colorful, and this movie has none of that. It’s just so visually dull, that it’s hard for me to look at, like the Fantastic Beasts movies. Some of the movie is so bad it’s funny, like the Pebble Dance scene, but most of it’s completely boring. I’m so glad they didn’t make a sequel, because I don’t think I could handle them fucking up Azula, my favorite character in the show. Okay, I probably could, but I don’t want to.
The use of colour was amazing like rember how creepy hamas bit was and when everything went red like the use of colour worked really well
I am also glad they never got the chance to ruin Toph on the big screen.
Avatar the last air bender sucks
I mean...
The action was ass too
Azula? Jeez... with how they depicted Kamara, I'd be more worried for Toph Bei Fong, a young blind rebellious earth bending, tough as badger nails princess, being chickified to very less of who we remember (weak, whiney in a bad way and having no awesome moments).
Even as 8 year old kids me and my cousins were disgusted with this movie. We were genuinely angry cause we were so excited for our parents to take the show seriously and this was just....embarassing
Completely agree, I remember that myself, my brother, and my friend all thought it was utter crap when we were little kids
Yea I remember being Soo excited to go see this movie in theaters, and when watching it that excitement turned into disappointment and anger, I remember complaining to my dad who was sitting next to me the entire time saying "they got everything wrong!"...
As a kid who loved the show I could subconsciously just tell from the trailers and interviews and behind the scenes stuff it was garbage and by the time it came out couldn't care less and have still never watched the full movie. I think right from when I heard all the names mispronounced and seeing the bending my brain just flipped the switch off on it.
I watched it with my dad and my brothers on the cinema and we all thought it was shit since we all were big fans
@@Edge-xy3fv Even kids new it was absolute garbo!!
The only way someone will get me to ever watch this movie again is if they blood-bend my head towards the screen.
I completely agree. Even then, they would probably kill me from the stress of my not-this-dumbster-fire-again fighting.
If you want to end your suffering just tell them to firebend... well, fire... at your body.
i'd die from the movie before i have the chance to die from my blood being manipulated
Me proceeding to blood bend you into watching it🤓
In regards to the movie having to cast young, not-so-great actors, the main team on the show, (Aang, Toph, Katara and Sokka) was actually voiced by kids, ages 8, 11, 17 and 18, and they did a great job. The exception was Dante Basco who voiced Zuko, he was around 30. Also a phenomenal performance, though.
Wow, I honestly couldn't tell they were real children, that's how good they were. Funny enough it's fitting--on a meta level--that Zuko was played by an adult, since he never had a real childhood and was just groomed to be another weapon of the Fire Nation. The more mature, fatigued tone fits his character well.
Silent Hill 2 had a kid voice actress for Laura too and it shows. I absolutely HATE when they get high pitched women to try to sound like children, it's so obvious to me and it sounds awful. I'd much rather have a really bad child actor, than a fake child voice that doesn't fit.
Dante Dasco is Asian, we Asian do not age tho.
@@thanhtungbui8935 as someone with hypersensitive hearing, your voices don't age either XD it's really interesting
@@thanhtungbui8935 Even when you do, it's graceful. Not like spoilt milk.
The thing with the earthbender prison is interesting; I think Shyamalan wanted to go down the route of the earthbenders being psychologically damaged by the firebenders but it's not very well shown in the movie and I don't really understand how not a single earthbender just went "wait, I could just take out the fire and crush these guys in seconds with a wave of my hands, why don't I just do that?" whilst in the TV show it was a combination of psychological damage and a lack of anything for them to use as a weapon.
They had the coal remember?
To be fair, in the movie it took a group of earthbenders ten seconds of a synchronised dance number to bend one rock - it would probably take one guy a whole five minutes of dancing to do something similar. See, this movie makes perfect sense when you think about it! /s
@@undeadMonk LOL you could just throw a rock with your arm and it would do more. I like the idea of the psychological damage aspect, but the botched the hell out of it.
They had no chance because it takes them 12 minutes of dancing and waving their hands in the air to actually do any bending in this movie
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 true but I seem to remember Aang having to use his airbending to vent the coal over to the prisoners first. Plus one of the themes I noticed in the show is that most people have a very black and white understanding of what they can bend which is why a lot of firebenders are rarely seen bending lightning, a lot of earthbenders are rarely seen bending coal or metal, and there's barely any waterbenders who use bloodbending.
The worst thing about this movie is how boring it is.
Even setting aside my bias as someone who's seen the show multiple times, The Last Airbender still fails to be an entertaining movie.
No joke, I'd rather watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen than this movie. At least that had some pretty fun moments, Last Airbender was nothing but a tedious slog that feels longer than it actually is.
Would you rather watch the Emoji movie, or this?
That's a tough question, since that's also a nothing movie to me.
@@mr.preston1632 I'll give the Emoji Movie one bit of credit; there's actually something to talk about there. That movie's an abomination and everything wrong with America but it's something you could write a novel about how shit it is. It's a movie everyone can hate regardless of religion, skin colour, race or whatever and that's beautiful. This movie is worse than the goddamn Emoji Movie to me; if you've seen the show, it's the equivalent of rape. If you're a random Joe Schmo, it's a dull as dishwater action movie with acting that makes Power Rangers Megaforce look like The Godfather.
Bay movies are always fun. He is a master of action and puts a lot of effort into getting it right. All those movies are a fun romp at least. This has neither a good story or action.
Having never watched the show, i can absolutely confirm that this movie just isn't very interesting.
I was at summer camp when this hit theaters. Two of my friends went with their dads to see the movie on the day it came out. Every one at camp was excited to hear about it. They saw it in the morning, and when they got back, word spread so fast of how bad it was, that everyone at dinner was elaborating about how bad it actually was. This was 2010, not long ago, but not to the point where everyone especially kids carried smartphones. So the guys who did have phones pulled up pirated copies. I remember like 30 guys staring at a 3in screen. Every time some bullshit happened, there were loud jeers, heard from other campsites. It was actually a magical experience.
“It’s not magic, it’s waterbending!” -said the character from the actually good one.
I would love to experience that 🤣🤣
This movie makes "the Ember Island players" 10 times better.
The nostalgia critic had a bit that quite literally was Ember island players with this instead of the play. it was actually amazing how well it synced up.
Atleast "the ember island players" were entertaining than this movie
hell ember island players mainlines us fire nation propaganda, so it has a poignant addition to the world building and story. This movie isn't a poignant addition to anything, it's a cancerous growth
@@cameron6538 and, ironically, ember island players only existed because of this movie - there was meant to be a fourth book air, to round off the show and focused on the reparations after the war, including Zuko finding his mother. But Nickelodeon thought a movie was a better investment than actually finishing all the storylines, so they took out all the setup episodes they could, tweaked the finale, and ended the show a season early. They even joke about it in Korra’s first episode. One of the replacement episodes was ember island players.
@@Belac_LoTH That was such a fun joke/tease. Korra gets way too much hate for literally no good reason.
Mike and Brian’s experience is very reflective of what they had with the Netflix show, seems like everyone who wants to adapt the show has no interest in the legacy of the franchise, instead just wanting to squeeze what money they can from what was once a magical and special show
In the movie i remember specifically that only Iroh was "skilled enough" to make fire out of nothing that's why there was only that one scene where that happens
Iroh already knew a bunch of unique and advanced fire bending skills in the show. Why even make up a fake one for the movie? Also, Iroh wouldn't need to exert himself to beat a bunch of pedestrian ass fire benders. He was supposed to be on another level. This movie just boggles my mind.
Yep. They didn't have enough time in the movie to properly develop his character (one of the more complex ones in the series, mind you), so they just nerfed the others to make him seem cooler bt default.
Seriously..he was THE DRAGON OF THE WEST ffs..the only one could breath fire..thats even more fucking awesome
My biggest problem with the movie is: Shows are already visual media, and Avatar has some of the best animation of all time. So why make another visual version of it, you gain nothing, and actually probably lose a lot as animation has much more freedom.
You're forgetting two important things: Animation is "childish" and "can't tell serious/adult stories". And Hollywood has an obsession with remaking and adapting everything... no matter if it adds anything or not.
Money.
$$$$$
@@wertm123 Well, yes, most ADULT adults think animation = kids visual diarrhea fodder to keep em distracted.
My problem is why an adaptation SO SOON?
Lord of the Rings had an animated movie before a live action one ( R. Bakshi 1978 to P. Jackson 2001) at least a 20 year gap to revitalize a franchise from its potential.
But AtLA is still good for spin offs... which Sadly Nick was not interested... heck I just think that AtLA was gonna be the Megas XLR or Thundercats 2011 of cartoons, made, forgotten and screwed over by their networks, tax write off and all. But AtLA got lucky... along with Korra. Seriously, what is with Nick with the crappy business decisions and even crappier creators leaving or getting fired from Nick (Paramount and worst of all: Viacom).
This sounds like the Disney live action remakes (and yes I'm including lion king in there).
14:40 that's the thing. Firebenders never needed a fire source external to themselves to bend. Since Fire mirrors Air, and Water mirrors Earth. eg. You can build things with Earth and Water (ice), while Fire and Air are temporary. It balances the elements. If Fire benders can be made impotent just by putting out the fire sources, they'll be waaaay too impotent.
I always saw Fire Benders as just bending the heat and warmth within their body. Life has all 4 elements within itself, so that was a good enough reason for me. But I really like your interpretation of Earth and Water being physical materials while Air and Fire and temporary instances. It does add more dynamics to the elements and like you stated creates a nice balance.
(Also I don't believe in the show we ever see Fire Benders control fire or heat that doesn't come from themselves, so it makes more sense that they create it.)
@@feathero3 Ozai and Azula control the torches/fire pits in the throne room in the show and iroh redirects lightning that just comes out of the sky so I think that they can actually do that but its just not very useful when you can just generate fire from nothing lol
@@imeanilikecookies
Good point, that even if they can control it they probably wouldn't bother when they can just create it lol.
"Since Fire mirrors Air, and Water mirrors Earth" [Citation Needed]
@@kidkangaroo5213 yeah in the show it's pretty well established that it's actually fire is the opposite of water, and earth is the opposite of air.
About Sokka's character. In the original Pilot episode he was actually a LOT like his movie counterpart but when the producers heard actor Jack DeSena do his vocal warm ups with all those crazy yelps, shouts and pitch shiftings, the production team went back to the drawing board on Sokka as DeSena's vocalizations were too funny NOT to use.
And thank god they did, because he was PERFECT
I also heard he was not supposed to continue as a charcter after the first few episodes but they liked Jack DeSena's voice acting so much they kept him in the rest of the series.
@@Rainbowthewindsage damn, just shows how much of a story come to life during the making of it, and how you shouldn't hold onto your original outline too closely
The worst cut thing is probably the part where he tries to learn firebending and accidentally hurts Katara.
That scene still gets me anxious after all these years
YUUP
that was a character building thing, part of a character arc, you do it in good story telling to make characters feel multifaceted and interesting..... you can see why it wasnt included in the movie.
Ok, but to be fair, even if the film was good that seems like the type of thing that would have been cut to reduce the runtime.
yeah because it shows that you cant rush things and have to learn the elements slowly, while fire is the most dangerous.... Guess the movie got non of all of that
Dev Patel apologizing for the movie is just amazing. I love it when actors hate the movie as much as we do
M night shamalan will forever haunt the avatar last airbender community, lurking in the shadows.. attracting folks into a trap.
He redeemed himself a bit with Split and Glass
ATLA fans should turn on their Sixth Sense then
seriously I hope nobody ever will be told to "watch avatar" and check out this shit first, it will be pure pain in crystaline form
There is no live action movie in Ba Sing Se
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 Drowning in a puddle, yeah not really
My favorite part is when M. explained the different pronunciations of the names as being more accurate to the native languages while having a pretty much all white cast (except for the villains)
Him trying to justify it with that shit gives me a headache.
It's like trying to bejewel a shit progressive wise. "Yeah we white washed pretty much the entire main cast but at least we kept their names accurate to the native pronunciations!" Freaking bs
@@tarotsushima3332 and by 'kept' he meant changed from the original because fuck the original amIright xD
This is such a stupid misconception. It's really only Katara and Sokka who were white-washed. You could possibly also count Aang. That being said, what "native" pronunciations??? This show takes place in a fantasy world. The pronunciations from the show ARE the native pronunciations! OBVIOUSLY THEY ARE! China and Japan don't exist in Avatar.
@@trequor I won't even say white-washing but changing everyone's race of the main cast. That's not bettera at all.
Children actually voiced most of the characters in the series. It's very impressive, I'd say
Holy shit, I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy
the dark fire will not avail you
There's a semi tone difference between these two monotone voices.
There could be a third for all I know.
I legitimately thought that it was just Alex doing two voices for the first 3 mins lmao
Are they twins?
the best part about them is that they look completely different lmao
but then when they open their mouths, bam it's the same person
They are brothers. Watch the JAR media podcast to see them both talk. You’ll be able to tell them apart easier if you put faces to the voices
@@oddlem James is slightly more lively and a bit raspier
I’m honestly jealous of Alex, I would do anything to watch the animated series for the first time again.
I remember begging my grandpa to take me to this movie when it first came out in theaters, and even as a kid I remember apologizing to him afterwards for making him go to the movie with me.
Lol
The earth bender prison episode wasn’t even that crucial to the plot in the show. They could have easily cut it out but nah they needed to have a dude yell and throw a tiny rock.
I think they wanted to show all four elements in the first movie so people who didn't watch the show wouldn't wonder where the fourth element is. Plus Haru (who's not in the movie for some reason) was our first introduction to Earthbending in the show
Even worse, that arc was literally created as a way to develop Katara, but the only thing she did in the movie was pushing a guy😐
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 No the first time earthbending showed up was in the episode king bumi was introduced
@@nopenot6704 Was it?
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 yeah i checked the episode list
In defense to Shyamalan, a lot of the worst stuff in this movie wasn't his fault. The Studio forced him to use Nicole Pelz which forced him to white wash Sokka, although as far as I know he was okay with Noah Ringer playing Aang after watching him perform martial arts. He also intented for the movie to be around 2 hours and 20 minutes long, but the studio trimmed it down to 100 minutes which forced him to include all the awkward exposition narration. And the horrendous 3D special effects was mandated by Paramount and rushed through post production behind Shyamalan's back.
This is not to say that Shyamalan did nothing wrong, he did write and direct most of these scenes, but he got all the blame for this disaster while the nameless studio heads of Paramount got away scot free.
I actually found out that a ghost writer changed the script without his knowledge. So he's not fully at fault there eithet.
It makes me think that producers and other higher ups make Shyamalan as the fall guy for all the stupid things in this movie.
He may make characters do awkward expositions and philosophical rant. However, castings and other problematic things like you mentioned above are usually not exist in his other movies.
They brown-washed Zuko and an entire nation as well. How come you didn't mention that?
@@ggraverobber there are conflicting rumors. Some source said Patel (Zuko's actor) was supposed to play Sokka, but because of the casting above, all Fire Nation were recast. But other source said Patel was already auditioning to Zuko, and because he's good at it (and famous), Fire Nation were recasted.
They both still boil down to miscast though, because if Patel is the only Indian in Fire Nation, the uproar would be worse
People who use "whitewashing" as genuine criticism are in my honest opinion, very petty and desperate to look for ways to criticise a director.
Like I couldn't give a shit if a black kid casted Aang either. As long as the acting was actually done *good* I literally don't care one bit whichever race casted a character.
I agree that TLAB was shit in every possible way. But I never once cared one bit about the actors' appearance. (aside from Zuko's scar. They needed to make that scar a lot more visible)
when the world needed him the most… he returned
The voice actors in the original were actually mostly kids (at least the ones that were supposed to be), but they did an absolutely fantastic job
"Why'd they pick him?"
It's hard to explain now the utter contempt Nickelodeon had for the show when it was airing.
Looking at the production, the push of the dominoes that destroyed this movie was the casting of Nicole Peltz as Katara. Her audition tape was described as "sub-par" and only cast because Paramount owed her billionaire father a favor. This "forced" them to cast a caucasian actor as Sokka and then that led them to recast the entire Fire Nation in order to have some actors of color in the movie because up to that point they had only cast white actors. All this effort that failed to pay off for some stupid nepotism appeasement.
Holy shit, I’d always wondered why they white washed the entire cast but this makes it so much worse
@@Edaphosaurus Tbh that's not really true. The fire nation was "brown washed" and monk gyatso also got brown'd. They obviously just didn't care on any level... i really dont think that it was racist or white-washing; just sheer incompetence.
Your comment here is a prime example of how casual racism towards asians is just accepted.
@@dandynoble2875 Are you saying that my comment displays the casual racism in others, or that it practices it itself? If it is the latter could you explain to me how I specifically displayed casual racism so I can apologize and correct myself, because I feel like I'm only relating the story of this movie's messed up production.
@@dandynoble2875 What on earth are you talking about? The characters in questions aren't even supposed to be Asian (or Asian allegories). The Watertribe are basically Inuit, with a little bit of Aboriginese.
And to think, they were planning on making sequels to this train wreck.
wait theres no way that anyone even thought of making another 90min of this
@@donovanchilton5817 thankfully
@@donovanchilton5817 I wish it wasn't shit so we could have had a proper live action trilogy
@@ShadowEclipse777 welp Netflix is working on live action tv series. For it being series and not a movie is already better choice. Still Im not expecting anything great
@@GenetMJF Netflix produce nothing but trash now. Absolute trash.
Fire benders can regulate the temperature of the room they're in, detect the body heat of others nearby, and even have shamans that practice a more medical use of firebending, similar to waterbenders, but rather than mending flesh, they can diagnose and repair one's spirit. Firebenders need only oxygen to create fire, and don't even need that to create lightning.
Wow that's so cool! Where did you find all of this?
@@captainfiri7619 Well the shamans are showcased in Legend of Korra, in probably one of my favorite episodes, Beginnings. You notice it a lot more in the original Avatar series after you know about it. They're very subtle in the last airbender, but I also bought some of the comics. This is one of my favorite universes, so I've just seen a lot.
@@markfarmer7534 Great!
What a bullshit.. atleast according to atla standarts!
Because in Atla only Airbenders could control temperature!
Aang walks trough arctic temperature in light garments, while fire benders wear isolating clothes.
Only Zuko and Iroh had access to temperature control, but only because Iroh included teachings from other nations into his style, and him being a more than extra ordinary fire bender.
Pure firebenders can neither sense nor control heat! They can only raise temperatures by using their energy in the form of bending!
Only the Avatar, ancient beings (Dragons) and Masters that exceed their elemental limitations (Iroh) would be able to achieve feats as you described.
The Last Airbender is one of the greatest movie adaptations of an animated series of all time. It’s rivaled only by Dragon Ball Evolution.
Love this comment
FUCK don't remind me about Evolution, I was happy to forget that movie existed
Don't forget Death Note!
@@NerdMiGerd Like the Shyamalan movie it's funny how the sequel to DBZ was far worse
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 Look GT and Super had their issues but I would *never* in a million years put them below Evolution
This movie could be better directed by literally any child who has seen season 1
I remember watching this movie and then thinking the tv show was trash because of it. Then I finally binged the show (and absolutely loved the story and the characters) and decided to try the movie again. I mean, now that I had some context maybe I would like it? Bahahaha as soon as Sokka couldn't land a joke I knew I was in for a horrible 1 hour and 43 minutes
2:15, I believe Aang's actor in the show was about 11 when book 1 started, so there's a similar age in that regard. But every other character was voiced by an adult.
Really? That's pretty interesting
@@bradenmerriman5206 yeah, it's really rare you find a child actor who's good at expressing their emotions as that character.
Yuup. Usually child actors are not that great but he was! He nailed the role
And he did almost all his voicework remotely.
Toph?
M Night loved the Ember Island players episode so much he made a movie based on it
Except the Ember Island Players did it 100000000000000000% better lol
The issue with adapting a series into a movie is that it can be hard to find a satisfying stopping point. The final episode of the season is a fine stopping point, but then you have to cram everything else in and it just doesn't fit. You can't necessarily rely on a natural stopping point at some other point in the season, and any that you can draw out could easily end being distributed weirdly and cause you to cram or stretch content.
The best way of adapting something like this would be to just tell a different story. Either future or past avatar, or maybe even Aang at another point in his life. There are lots of options, and redoing something worse shouldn't really be one of them.
That would be evan assuming you had a competent director. Night is only good at writing nothing else.
I think they should have made two movies per season. But that would have been impossible to market.
I think the stopping point for the first movie could after Aang finds roku for the first time and gets to hear about the comment.
On the bright side: he finally saw the show boys!
There is something cathartic to me as a fan of the show as it was airing seeing people watch the movie after watching the show.
Because I was there in the cinema, seeing the entire thing unfold before my very eyes. Then going home and seeing the reaction around the world as if we all took a collective sigh.
"If they had just called Aang, ONCE!!!"
Bruh same!! Watched it with my whole family too cuz I always recorded the episodes in VHS so we could later all watch together and then the movie was trash
I'm so happy that you watched it and fell in love with it too! It's never too late to join the fandom and I'm so happy that you loved it as much as we do!
Hey do you you remember that part where Zhao challenges Zuko to an Agni Kai, and we foreshadow the most important moment of Zuko’s life? And we learn about how the Fire Nation’s cultural myth of honor is kind of bullshit, because Zhao disgraces himself at the end?
Yeah nah neither does Shalayman.
I've missed seeing Alex suffer for my amusement
Knowing Alex finally watched the show and loves it as much as a lot of us do makes me so happy!
The sad part is the kid who is playing aang. Is acting much more like aang when he is being himself in bts. It’s like shamalaya-dingdong sucks out the talent and energy from the actors.
I snorted at shamalaya dingdong
@@acedetective9542 Forceful nasal exhale
@Logia SD The kid was not even an actor I think.
He was just a kid trained in the respective martial art air-bending was based on that also happened to be in the right age, so they casted him.
they're being Shamalized...
Yes; Aang’s actor would pull pranks and run around the set with so much energy! The idiot Shaman sucked all the fun and light out of him. He ruined the kids career before it even started.
We need to start a missionary project to reach everyone who's seen the movie but not the animated series. They can't live not knowing that "The Last Airbender" is actually good.
my sister has seen the film but not the show and won't watch the show because she likes the film and doesn't want to ruin it for her
@@rex2546 my condolences
@@rex2546 Force her eyes open. She needs the truth.
I'm one of those who has seen the movie before the show, and also many reviews for the movie talking about how much it butchered the show, which got me interested in watching it. I have been saved.
Why the quotation marks
6 years, can't believe I've been following you for over half a decade
thrilled to hear IHE has finally gotten around to watching ATLA
Everyone has said this before, but the casting in this movie, other than Aang, is so visually jarring. It will NEVER not be weird to see Katara and Sokka as 2 white kids, the man they got for Iroh looks nothing like our cuddly tea uncle, he is so intimidating he should've been Ozai. istg M. Night changed the race of all Firebenders simply so he could cameo as a Firebender (which he does, in the prison camp scene) There's a cheapness and shoddiness to this movie that baffles me even 11 years on, HOW does this exist. Many choices were made, and all of them were wrong, legitimately there is not a single thing right about this film, and it's why over a decade later so many people STILL talk about how bad it is. Yes Dragon Ball Evolution was bad, and Death Note awful, but everyone on earth knows The Last Airbender is the WORST adaptation of all time and I don't think anything will take that crown. EVER.
yeah, it comes across as just disrespectful to the source material. i mean, he didnt even know how to pronounce the main character's name
well fucking said!
@@saoliath5000 I keep seeing excuses that that's how their names would have been pronounced the right way and this is so stupid. After all the disrespect for original cultures playing this card is the last thing he should do. And plus even though their cultures are INSPIRED by real life, it's still fantasy world and their names can be pronounced whatever. Besides they all speak one language xD
I don't mind the race swapping or "whitewashing" that much. Well,I do, but the wrong characterization is what really pissed me off! It's so bad it doesn't even resemble the original! I watched the avatar when it aired for the first time and my daughter and I bonded watching and theorizing what will happen and made this show so much more special for us! We couldn't even laugh at how bad the movie was! I don't think any new version of Avatar can surpass the original! It wasn't made with profit as the ultimate goal!
artemis fowl will give this a run for its money. Another case of where everything that could go wrong, was wrong.
I’m Joo Dee. Welcome to Ba Sing Se. We’re so lucky to have our walls to create order.
QUICK I NEED TO SEE THE KING ABOUT THE WAR ITS URGENT
@@char1363 Silly child, there is no war here in Ba Sing Se
Hi joo deeeeeeee
The earth king has invited you to lake Lao Gai
There is no Avatar movie.
Fun fact: the actress who plays Princess Yue in the film, Seychelle Gabriel (one of the only decent performances in the whole movie) ended up getting asked to return by the creators to play “Asami Sato” in the Avatar sequel-series “The Legend of Korra.”
Sokka in this movie always gave me HUGE Anakin in Attack of the Clones vibes in the worst way possible
I thought it was the same actor for the longest time
I dont like how they tried to make creating fire an elite skill. iroh is skilled enough that he can create his own fire here, but the show already had that within the series without it making the fire nation weak. even with fire bending being op there are ways to put iroh above the rest. the movies attempt cheapened the power of the fire nation to give iroh a scene that isnt explained well and just further confuses the world building.
It also destroys the lessen aang learns about fire. with air water and earth(debatable) you are far less likely to harm someone on accident. you can cause accidents, but the second fire goes out of control it can burn, destroy, and kill. its alot harder to accidentally harm someone when the fire needs a source
the bending is somehow the worst thing in this. the choreography is fine, but the martial art is so elaborate and then it fizzles out into this..hilarious shitty bending. The earth bending perfectly shows it. Aang escaping from the ship with his bending feels like Zuko could easily have stopped him because there's just such a HUGE buildup to the air bending being released, just grab Aang's hands and he can't bend?!
Fuck I need to rewatch the show. It's been 12 years since I watched it and its still so vivid in my mind.
This film shits on ATLA harder than Korra ever could.
nice jojo pfp
Korra is actually a great follow up to aangs story line. Yes the first two seasons are a drag but after that all the build up is worth it for the last 2 seasons. They've even given me one of my favorite villains of all times, Zaher.
@@Crazy1Girl1Riders I don't think it's worth it for even 1 season... Even though I agree Zaher (and all the Red Lotus members really) were good villains.
I think I just had too high of expectations after the original show. And there were too many decisions or ideas I feel didn't make sense or go anywhere interesting.
I might give it another chance someday. Much rather re-watch Avatar: The Last Airbender though.
@@Crazy1Girl1Riders honestly, the worst part about korra is season 3 doesn't make sense if you skip season 2
Ya just gotta sit through that for the good shit
I also remember that a friend of mine who’s Native American was utterly thrilled this was going to be a live action movie. He told me that it was the first time a Native American would be a main character without all the stereotypes.
I won’t tell you his reaction to the news that the roles were given to white people.
@@Raya-ir4tm He saw the movie, years later.
His opinion is not fit for print on the movie .
@@Raya-ir4tm Yeah but the OG show was based off of largely Asian and Native culture. Plus I think it's impossible to like this film, even if you haven't seen the show.
@@Raya-ir4tm ugh
I think it’s more about feeling represented without the stereotypes instead of assigning worth. I mean they could go hand in hand, but I don’t think OP’s friend would base a movie off of the cast’s race, hopefully!
@@Raya-ir4tm native representation is very hard to come by, especially when it’s authentic. A lot of the native depictions we see in media usually have racist stereotypes, or don’t even cast aboriginal people (look at twilight or example, many of the “natives” were actually Asian or Just brown skinned). I think especially in fantasy, we see a lot of whiteness in these stories, and I don’t thinks is unfair to be upset when you see possible representation for your people (especially one as historically damaged as the native Americans) destroyed by whitewashing
Ah yes, Ovotor Ong. The way god intended for that to sound. Also, the race swapping is so bizarre considering Shamalan himself was indian. Never seen so many strange deliberate changes from the source materials, as if they were aiming to make the worst possible outcome.
you mean race swapping? Lol
@@erravi oh right hahaha
"What a twist!"
-M. Night Shyamalan
I was in highschool when the movie came out and I was so excited - I still feel traumatized by the memory of watching it at my grandma's house on DVD in growing horror of how terrible it is. I left feeling so empty.
Can't believe IHE filmed an entire parody movie of The Last Airbender just for this out-of-season April Fools joke because obviously there was no TLA movie.
“There is no movie in the walls of Ba Sing Se.”
i like the idea of the Avatar Arrow on his head being designed tattoos. I really liked that.
man all the elements got nerfed HARD in this movie. Let's make a comparison just to see how bad they got nerfed.
Water
TLA: Snake-like, precise, can be used like a whip or a cannonball, perfect as an all-rounder since it can be offensive, defensive, and supportive.
Movie: Drippy ball of water, or a splash.
Fire
TLA: Dominating, fueled by anger or the sun, threat to the other nations, BIG BALL OF FIRE, will burn anyone, Mostly offensive, Just as beautiful as it can be deadly, flammenwerfher or ball of fire.
Movie: Needs an already burning fire to be used, no flammenwerffher, small ball of fire
Earth: Strong, stiff, and will make a mountain move. Straightforward, can be offensive but mostly defensive, can be very deadly, can be either catapults, rock spears, earthquakes, or any other move that involves using the earth, needed to be away from earth to be nullified.
Movie: Needs 5 benders to chuck a small rock very slowly, can't even fight against fire-benders even with earth all around them.
Air
TLA: Invisible, moves just like water but faster, deadly but mostly used for recreation, means freedom
Movie: is nothing more than strong winds.
I will never , ever forgive M . Night Charlatan for the how fucking dirty he did Uncle Iroh.
He was a complex , funny, layered and nuanced character.
The series didn't treat the audience like idiots and they showed regret ,sorrow, and determination to change for the better through Iroh. Night made Iroh so one dimensional and empty. I was so fucking angry when I watched the movie. He had an opportunity to bring this wonderful story full of characters that felt real in a fantastical world to a wider audience and he fucking wrecked it.
He fucked every single character up. Even their damn names! Almost feels intentional how shit this movie is
Angry is a bit hyperbolic. Just laugh
@@jon1819 Tbf I don't think an Asian would pronounce Aang as Ayng, Avatar as Ahvitar, and Iroh as Eyero, especially the last one, it's pronounced Eero
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 I don't know Tibetan, so I can only go by pronunciations I can find by natives. They got "Tenzin" wrong in Korra, it is closer to "Tenze".
@@xero2715 Sokka, which sounds Japanese because Avatar really mish-mashed different Asian cultures together, probably would be pronounced Soh-Ka, not Sah-Ka. This is a show made, written, and mostly voiced by white Americans after all.
Hearing IHE endlessly praising the show makes me so happy :)
Watched this when I was sick with the flu once and it made me significantly more sick
😂☠️
Hooray, another IHE video to watch a million times!
he absolutely was trying to make Avatar his LOTR. he for sure was trying and showed just what kind of director he is.
It definitely feels like the movie was written by someone who either doesn’t like or hasn’t seen the show.
I'm pretty sure Shamalan confirmed that he has never watched the show
I’m happy to hear you watched and enjoyed the show. It’s a childhood favourite of mine.
The kid who played Aang was cast solely because of his martial arts capabilities
well no fucking wonder his performance was like watching paint dry
"the best thing about zuko's arc in the show is-"
"wait-"
(pause)
"his relationship with his family"
This sounds like IHE talking to his younger self.
Jamie is his younger brother. Go to the JAR media channel and watch recent videos to put faces to the voices.
Wow you're really spoiling us with these more frequent uploads as of late
Love to see it
I'll never forget seeing this with my mom and sister. We saw the non-3D version, and during most fight scenes the action was taken out, since they were 3D.. So you would have the start of the fight and then immediately the end or a different scene. It was the most confusing thing to witness, considering the fact a large portion of the movie is action..
I’m amazed that M Night was allowed to direct any more movies after this.
Not long ago I have watched the movie again after a very long time .
Back in the day my thought about it was : what an awful movie ......... but last time I have seen the movie : what an awesome movie , I love it - what a nice fantasy movie .
@@paluxyl.8682 I'm sorry your taste in movies got worse, I guess
@@heckingbamboozled8097 Not really ^^
You should just try to watch The Last Airbender again like you someone who got no idea what Avatar is and you will see that the movie got everything a good fantasy movie needs .
Through the eyes of a hardcore Avatar fan is the movie the worst thing ever .... and that is understandable . ^^
@@paluxyl.8682 The effects were awesome (maybe not their presentation). But this movie was so bad and unnecessary. It didn’t have any other good points to exist at all. If someone wanted to know about ATLA, then they should just watch the show.
@@notamemethememe589 I would not say that the movie was "unnecessary" , because some people want to see life action movies .
Beliefe it or not , but I know many people who hates any kind of cartoons (+ anime) ....... they just need to see few seconds of a cartoon and they turn off . Not long ago I have met someone who wanted to watch a Frozen life action movie because she can't stand animated movies , but she loves the songs and story of Frozen .
In the case of the Avatar show , back in the days many hated the artstye of the show ....... lol
It could be that for you some movies got no points to exist , but other love it .
It's always shocking to me when people my age say they've never seen Avatar because it was such a staple for me and my brother/cousins growing up. The series means so much to me and has had a big impact on my life. At a young age it taught me a lot about redemption and forgiveness. I remember when this movie came out everyone was shocked haha. I don't know how they managed to turn such a wholesome amazing show into such a disaster.. it's quite an incredible feat to be honest.
Actually aang's VA was an actual 12 year old who did an incredible job and matured throughout the span of the show which made his character growth feel more real and authentic
Alex you poor bastard you didn't have to do this to yourself
he didn't have to do this to Jamie either