well there's not much to say at this point but a full movie trailer has been released.
The Last Airbender
The Last Airbender
The last airbender
- Thread starter jaredstar
- Start date
Azula wouldn't show up in the first movie. She didn't show up until the end of season 1, I believe and that was more as a fore-shadowing. So... 2nd movie would likely have Azula...
Gods, I would LOVE to see Azula being done well... who cares about the Avatar or his team of side kicks, I want to see team Azula... well her and Toph, the greatest bender EVER! :lol:
Gods, I would LOVE to see Azula being done well... who cares about the Avatar or his team of side kicks, I want to see team Azula... well her and Toph, the greatest bender EVER! :lol:
In all fairness if you're not familiar with the source material, and I'm pretty sure Ebert isn't, the base concept for Last Airbender seems like a total crock. It might be hard to get into the story when you're trying to figure out why the hell Appa is flying.
Somehow I don't see many professional movie reviewers being the types to watch ATLA to begin with to have any idea of what to expect.
Somehow I don't see many professional movie reviewers being the types to watch ATLA to begin with to have any idea of what to expect.
Why? Quite a few reasons.
-Mispronouncing names: Ahng, Ih-Roh, and I think Suekka or Sohkka.
-Character rape: Sokka even said, he's the meat and sarcasm guy in Season Two. Movie!Sokka? No food craings, no sarcasm. Sokka's a straight man, and he sucks.
-Aang acts like an adult, instead of the goofy kid he is.
-Iroh is too serious.
-Ozai isn't an evil bastard
-I suppose just poor characterization in general.
-Zuko's scar is pretty unnoticable, instea dof taking up half his face like it should. Heck, he could grow out his hair and cover it up.
-Missing characters: Suki, Bumi (I WANT MY PSYCHO KING!!!), Roku
-Pansy Zhao.
-Pansy Zuko (Not as bad as Zhao, but still not the hate filled bastard I'm used to from Season One.)
-Not Evil!Azula (Granted, not much to go off of, but she didn't seem like the original.)
-Avatar can't have a family (WTF?)
-Appa and Momo weren't very interesting. I didn't really like how Appa appearance.
-Plot idiocy
-Roku is replaced with a Dragon spirit, despite the fact that Dragons aren't spirits ion
-Killing the spirits doesn't seem to have any bad effects. The Moon turned red and waterbenders stopped, bending, but it didn't disappear, and it didn't trigger Koizilla's wrath.
-No Fire Nation Buttrape. Aang raised the Ocean, and they just left. No sinking the fleet, no Koizilla
-Pansy Firebenders. Considering that only true masters can create fire, it's amazing that they didn't get schooled during Aang's 100 year, since all it takes is some basic fire precautions and you can stop their benders cold.
-Lack of awesome fights (Cartoon has way cooler fight scenes.)
See, this is why we need to have a Bat Policy in movie making contracts. If the movie sucks, we're allowed to take you out back and beat you with a baseball bat.
I'm sure there is more that I've blocked out for now. Needless to say, definitely not a good movie. I'd watch it again, but I wouldn't pay for it, and i would need alcohol.
Edit: Ah yes, initial opening annoyed me, because they couldn't be bothered to ad on the full title to any of them except the Air Nomads, which implied that all nations were nomads. Seriously, if time was a factor, cut nomads as well so each nation can just be the element.
Edit 2: The community of Rotten Tomatoes give it 57% at my last check.
Edit Three: It's movies like this that make Bat clauses in contracts a necessity. If the writer/directer/whoever fucks up badly enough, you are legally allowed to take them out back and beat them with a bat.
Edit 4: Damn it! I wanted to see the abomination that is the platypus bear!
-Mispronouncing names: Ahng, Ih-Roh, and I think Suekka or Sohkka.
-Character rape: Sokka even said, he's the meat and sarcasm guy in Season Two. Movie!Sokka? No food craings, no sarcasm. Sokka's a straight man, and he sucks.
-Aang acts like an adult, instead of the goofy kid he is.
-Iroh is too serious.
-Ozai isn't an evil bastard
-I suppose just poor characterization in general.
-Zuko's scar is pretty unnoticable, instea dof taking up half his face like it should. Heck, he could grow out his hair and cover it up.
-Missing characters: Suki, Bumi (I WANT MY PSYCHO KING!!!), Roku
-Pansy Zhao.
-Pansy Zuko (Not as bad as Zhao, but still not the hate filled bastard I'm used to from Season One.)
-Not Evil!Azula (Granted, not much to go off of, but she didn't seem like the original.)
-Avatar can't have a family (WTF?)
-Appa and Momo weren't very interesting. I didn't really like how Appa appearance.
-Plot idiocy
-Roku is replaced with a Dragon spirit, despite the fact that Dragons aren't spirits ion
-Killing the spirits doesn't seem to have any bad effects. The Moon turned red and waterbenders stopped, bending, but it didn't disappear, and it didn't trigger Koizilla's wrath.
-No Fire Nation Buttrape. Aang raised the Ocean, and they just left. No sinking the fleet, no Koizilla
-Pansy Firebenders. Considering that only true masters can create fire, it's amazing that they didn't get schooled during Aang's 100 year, since all it takes is some basic fire precautions and you can stop their benders cold.
-Lack of awesome fights (Cartoon has way cooler fight scenes.)
See, this is why we need to have a Bat Policy in movie making contracts. If the movie sucks, we're allowed to take you out back and beat you with a baseball bat.
I'm sure there is more that I've blocked out for now. Needless to say, definitely not a good movie. I'd watch it again, but I wouldn't pay for it, and i would need alcohol.
Edit: Ah yes, initial opening annoyed me, because they couldn't be bothered to ad on the full title to any of them except the Air Nomads, which implied that all nations were nomads. Seriously, if time was a factor, cut nomads as well so each nation can just be the element.
Edit 2: The community of Rotten Tomatoes give it 57% at my last check.
Edit Three: It's movies like this that make Bat clauses in contracts a necessity. If the writer/directer/whoever fucks up badly enough, you are legally allowed to take them out back and beat them with a bat.
Edit 4: Damn it! I wanted to see the abomination that is the platypus bear!
I seem to be in the minority when i say I liked it. Admittedly, it was not fantastic, jaw-dropping awesome like the cartoon was, but I don't it is as bad as a lot of people are saying. Shyamalan had to compress 20 episodes into less than 2 hrs, and given the time constraints, I think he did a respectable job.
Most of your points are valid zerohour, but most of your complaints are, in my opinion, pretty minor. The three things that really, really bugged me was Aang's wooden personality in the beginning, the dragon and no Koizilla. Otherwise, I think it is about as good as possible given that Shyamalan was the guy directing it.
Some of the things that I did like was Aang's Aibending Master's tattoos, a lot of the fights, and the bending scenes in general. The pacing was about right-on, and I rather liked Ozai here. Has less of a 'submit or die' attitude about him, and more of a 'you will submit eventually, and I can wait' thing. His comment to Zhao about how he had better hope that Zuko doesn't get to the Avatar first, 'coz if he does, Zuko will be his superior, and not a very happy one was very nice.
All in all, I would give it a B+. Could be better, but it could also be a lot worse.
Most of your points are valid zerohour, but most of your complaints are, in my opinion, pretty minor. The three things that really, really bugged me was Aang's wooden personality in the beginning, the dragon and no Koizilla. Otherwise, I think it is about as good as possible given that Shyamalan was the guy directing it.
Some of the things that I did like was Aang's Aibending Master's tattoos, a lot of the fights, and the bending scenes in general. The pacing was about right-on, and I rather liked Ozai here. Has less of a 'submit or die' attitude about him, and more of a 'you will submit eventually, and I can wait' thing. His comment to Zhao about how he had better hope that Zuko doesn't get to the Avatar first, 'coz if he does, Zuko will be his superior, and not a very happy one was very nice.
All in all, I would give it a B+. Could be better, but it could also be a lot worse.
Hm.. let's see if I could do a better job with this...
I'll give myself 3 hours of time, and try to condense it into two. That's between 6 and 8 episodes, and is a reasonable amount of time for a movie.
Episodes to cut:
7, 10, 11, 12 14, 15, 16, that brings us down to 13 episodes to condense into 6-8. Even just condensing them
Episodes 1-3: Condense into about 30 minutes, possibly 40.
Episodes 4 and 5: Condense into one. It wouldn't be too out there for the Warriors of Kyoshi to be Bumi's elite guard, and you can eliminate the tests Bumi imposed, or replace them with Battles against Kyoshi Warriors, possibly one for each member of the GAang. It wouldn't be too hard to set up the Waterbending scroll, since Bumi probably has a good stash of rare treasures.
Total Time: 50 minutes
Put off Episode six and combine with Episodes 13 at a later time. It wouldn't be too out there for Aang to run off to buy time for the Earhbenders and his friends to escape, and have it go wrong.
Total Time: 1 hour, ten minutes.
Episode 8 is easy enough to integrate, since you just replace Hei Bai with a dream about Roku. Cut Zuko or Zhao from the equation, and you can condense it fairly easily.
Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.
That leave us with 4 episodes, or 80 minutes, which totals around 2 hours, 40 minutes. You can probably cut episode 17 without too much work, and integrate episode 18, 19, and 20 in a similar manner to the first three episodes.
Total Time: About 2 hours, 20 minutes, with around 40 minutes to add here and there to expand on important points and fight scenes if so desired.
Now that that's out of my system, I feel a bit better. Maybe I'll come back and fiddle with this a bit to make it a bit more plausible than just throwing things together.
I'll give myself 3 hours of time, and try to condense it into two. That's between 6 and 8 episodes, and is a reasonable amount of time for a movie.
Episodes to cut:
7, 10, 11, 12 14, 15, 16, that brings us down to 13 episodes to condense into 6-8. Even just condensing them
Episodes 1-3: Condense into about 30 minutes, possibly 40.
Episodes 4 and 5: Condense into one. It wouldn't be too out there for the Warriors of Kyoshi to be Bumi's elite guard, and you can eliminate the tests Bumi imposed, or replace them with Battles against Kyoshi Warriors, possibly one for each member of the GAang. It wouldn't be too hard to set up the Waterbending scroll, since Bumi probably has a good stash of rare treasures.
Total Time: 50 minutes
Put off Episode six and combine with Episodes 13 at a later time. It wouldn't be too out there for Aang to run off to buy time for the Earhbenders and his friends to escape, and have it go wrong.
Total Time: 1 hour, ten minutes.
Episode 8 is easy enough to integrate, since you just replace Hei Bai with a dream about Roku. Cut Zuko or Zhao from the equation, and you can condense it fairly easily.
Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.
That leave us with 4 episodes, or 80 minutes, which totals around 2 hours, 40 minutes. You can probably cut episode 17 without too much work, and integrate episode 18, 19, and 20 in a similar manner to the first three episodes.
Total Time: About 2 hours, 20 minutes, with around 40 minutes to add here and there to expand on important points and fight scenes if so desired.
Now that that's out of my system, I feel a bit better. Maybe I'll come back and fiddle with this a bit to make it a bit more plausible than just throwing things together.
Actually, I didn't think it was that bad, though I certainly agree that it wasn't something particularly exciting/fantastic.
I'll also note that I'm not familiar with the original series (I've got it downloaded, just need to find the time to sit down and watch it though), so a lot of Zerohour's gripes didn't bother me. That's not to say I didn't have complaints of my own though.
The acting overall is bland. The kid playing Aang in particular feels really weak as an actor, even if his martial arts/airbending was nice. I did like Iroh though.
I didn't have any issue with the personalities, but c'mon, be a bit more emotional, people. Just reading your dialogue isn't going to convey everything.
A few times, they just kinda gloss over a scene and summarize what's going on. Okay, I can understand that they're condensing 20 episodes's 400 minutes into a 100 minute film. But seriously?
Biggest example: Sokka's 'romance' with the water princess chick. That feels like something they grabbed from the series and just tossed it in, but there were absolutely NO sparks. Seriously, the only way we'd really know something is happening? Katara outright tells the audience as we are introduced to the white haired princess "My brother and the princess immediately hit it off".
Wow, great job, exposition fairy. The closest we get to something showing attraction is where Sokka asks her about the white hair thing. Even her fishy goodbye was just meh compared to that scene, and seriously, that was supposed to be a tearful goodbye. I blame the wooden acting, they just really needed the exposition fairy to pull that shit off.
Also, it's been 11 years since the Matrix came out. Overusing the slow-motion trick is old. You ruined a great deal of the fights by overusing it. Some fights it worked really well. Other fights, all I could do was look at the screen and wonder 'Why?!?'
A lot of the fights prior to the actual invasion of the water city were more impressive in terms of use of bending techniques. C'mon, what's up with that? It's a full-scale war instead of those skirmishes we've been seeing, and they pulled out more bending combined prior to that.
It's a war, they really should have been using more bending, -especially- the water guys who are freaking surrounded by the stuff. The fire guys at least had the excuse that they could only use the fire coming from the explosive cannons they shot out of their ships, but given the amount of fire available after a while, it was still weak to see it used so little.
Plus when Aang goes into his little epiphany and just goes running around pulling airbending/waterbending tricks, combined with the slow-mo abuse? Meeeeh... I'll just say it looked better in the trailer than it did when we actually saw those scenes strung together in the actual movie.
I'll also note that I was highly disappointed that the wave he summoned was nothing but a bluff. Okay, sure, the spirit dragon thing told you your powers weren't meant to kill. C'mon, at least use the waves to rough 'em up and push the ships away if you don't want to sink them under!
Also, they totally played with me in that scene where they gutted the fish god/spirit thing. As the moon turns red, you see Iroh's eyes also turn red, and a faint whisper from an earlier scene as the commander admonished him for his weakness/superstitiousness (Iroh also warned about the effect killing half of the spirit of balance might do), you totally see him take an evil look before he starts summoning up fire from nowhere and looking like he wants to fry everyone up.
I seriously expected the murder of the balance spirit pushed his spiritual balance out of whack and he had just become the movie's new BIG BAD (capital letters even), and the villain for the sequels.
Nope! He didn't, he was just scaring his former team, bluffing them/making them retreat, turning traitor, and pussying out as he advices team good guys on how to restore balance.
And Iroh was actually one of the more interesting characters in the movie, so I really was hoping for it.
Overall, the movie wasn't -bad-, nowhere near the horrible thing a lot of reviews are making it out to be, but it has some serious/strong issues and was certainly a bit dull because of weak actors. I still enjoyed it enough for $5.
I'll also note that I'm not familiar with the original series (I've got it downloaded, just need to find the time to sit down and watch it though), so a lot of Zerohour's gripes didn't bother me. That's not to say I didn't have complaints of my own though.
The acting overall is bland. The kid playing Aang in particular feels really weak as an actor, even if his martial arts/airbending was nice. I did like Iroh though.
I didn't have any issue with the personalities, but c'mon, be a bit more emotional, people. Just reading your dialogue isn't going to convey everything.
A few times, they just kinda gloss over a scene and summarize what's going on. Okay, I can understand that they're condensing 20 episodes's 400 minutes into a 100 minute film. But seriously?
Biggest example: Sokka's 'romance' with the water princess chick. That feels like something they grabbed from the series and just tossed it in, but there were absolutely NO sparks. Seriously, the only way we'd really know something is happening? Katara outright tells the audience as we are introduced to the white haired princess "My brother and the princess immediately hit it off".
Wow, great job, exposition fairy. The closest we get to something showing attraction is where Sokka asks her about the white hair thing. Even her fishy goodbye was just meh compared to that scene, and seriously, that was supposed to be a tearful goodbye. I blame the wooden acting, they just really needed the exposition fairy to pull that shit off.
Also, it's been 11 years since the Matrix came out. Overusing the slow-motion trick is old. You ruined a great deal of the fights by overusing it. Some fights it worked really well. Other fights, all I could do was look at the screen and wonder 'Why?!?'
A lot of the fights prior to the actual invasion of the water city were more impressive in terms of use of bending techniques. C'mon, what's up with that? It's a full-scale war instead of those skirmishes we've been seeing, and they pulled out more bending combined prior to that.
It's a war, they really should have been using more bending, -especially- the water guys who are freaking surrounded by the stuff. The fire guys at least had the excuse that they could only use the fire coming from the explosive cannons they shot out of their ships, but given the amount of fire available after a while, it was still weak to see it used so little.
Plus when Aang goes into his little epiphany and just goes running around pulling airbending/waterbending tricks, combined with the slow-mo abuse? Meeeeh... I'll just say it looked better in the trailer than it did when we actually saw those scenes strung together in the actual movie.
I'll also note that I was highly disappointed that the wave he summoned was nothing but a bluff. Okay, sure, the spirit dragon thing told you your powers weren't meant to kill. C'mon, at least use the waves to rough 'em up and push the ships away if you don't want to sink them under!
Also, they totally played with me in that scene where they gutted the fish god/spirit thing. As the moon turns red, you see Iroh's eyes also turn red, and a faint whisper from an earlier scene as the commander admonished him for his weakness/superstitiousness (Iroh also warned about the effect killing half of the spirit of balance might do), you totally see him take an evil look before he starts summoning up fire from nowhere and looking like he wants to fry everyone up.
I seriously expected the murder of the balance spirit pushed his spiritual balance out of whack and he had just become the movie's new BIG BAD (capital letters even), and the villain for the sequels.
Nope! He didn't, he was just scaring his former team, bluffing them/making them retreat, turning traitor, and pussying out as he advices team good guys on how to restore balance.
And Iroh was actually one of the more interesting characters in the movie, so I really was hoping for it.
Overall, the movie wasn't -bad-, nowhere near the horrible thing a lot of reviews are making it out to be, but it has some serious/strong issues and was certainly a bit dull because of weak actors. I still enjoyed it enough for $5.
