Happy 4th of July everyone! Both to Americans who celebrate it and other countries who don't. If you chose to celebrate this weekend of independence by watching
The Last Airbender, you have my sympathies.
It's been a while since I've done an lengthy analysis/recap/review thing but I had been planning it for a while, especially since I never did any for season 1 episodes and since this live action movie is based on season 1, I can cover book 1 in one fell swoop. Or at least, the live action version of book 1. I had a bit of an introduction pre-planned before going in to see the movie but that would make a long review already longer and pointless.
Speaking of... (Yes, I went there!)
Where do I begin? First off, as much as it pains and angers me, this movie broke my heart. Long and pointless doesn't begin to cover it (actually, it's more on the short and hurried side but more on that later). Now, I'm sure you all know of my legendary dislike for Nickelodeon; they made us wait forever between the seasons, they barely advertised or promoted their only brilliant show in a long time, and they're owned by the evil Youtube-hating Viacom among other things. Yes, I've hated Nickelodeon for many
Avatar: The Last Airbender reasons but after seeing this movie, I've added a new reason: "signing off on this movie script and ruining my cartoon hopes and dreams". As a bonus, M. Night Shyamalan has joined the Nickelodeon hate list, right above "3D movies/shows" but below "obnoxious fangirls".
I guess I'll kick this off by going through a rundown of the movie plot, and pointing out the things they left out and switched up (a comprehensive list can be found here). Is a Spoiler Alert even necessary? We've all seen the cartoon and despite the fact that they didn't include some dire character traits and episodes, the outcome is still the same. Even so, "
Spoiler Alert" for those who haven't seen the cartoon!
~~~~~
We begin with a narration of the war and everything that has happened. It's narrated by Katara but we don't get any corresponding flashback images like in the cartoon. Instead we get a black screen with scrolling white text. Some people would compare it to the
Star Wars intros except it's not nearly as iconic or cool. Seriously, it looks like it was done in Windows movie maker. (BTW, we got a live action version of the four benders in front of the red background bending their respective element: "Water" "Earth" "Fire" "Air" but I forget if it came after the narration of before. In any case this little sequence was the highpoint of the movie.
)
The actual story begins within the icy tundra that is the Avatar version of the South Pole, home of the Southern Water Tribe. We see two familiar siblings hunting around the snowy cliffs because the war has made meat scarce. In no time at all, they find a frozen Aang in some underwater iceberg and after Katara cracks it open, the holy light of Avatar goodness shines and we see Prince Zuko's fire nation ship. Iceberg boy is conscious and so is his large, ride-able, CGI air bison. We immediately cut to Aang getting dressed and showing off his tats in a Southern Water tribe igloo. Already? No whimsical penguin sledding? Only mild Sokka and Appa antics? This is going to be a dreary kids movie, isn't it?
Prince Zuko’s ship lands on the tiny tribe and he storms the igloos with his troops. Katara tells Aang to stay inside with some other kids while the Fire Nation gather up the elderly but don't really explain why (Those who saw the cartoon know that it's because the Avatar has been missing for about 100 years therefore he'd be around that age if he returned as per the holy ice light indicated). Pretty quickly, Aang gets found out to be an airbender on account of his elaborate tattoos, which I’ve got to say are fancier looking than the plain ole' blue arrow on cartoon Aang. With barely a fight, Zuko takes Aang prisoner and the water tribe siblings meet up with their grandmother to do some exposition about destiny and spirits and what exactly is the Avatar. It's worth noting that this movie is virtually half expositional dialogue but still seems kind of confusing; the characters explain important plot points (like the different kinds of bending and what happened to people in the war) and we hear Katara narrate in the background once in a while (which gives this weird
Wonder Years quality, like she's already lived through it and she's telling us the story in retrospect which means she's alive and survived every battle we'll be seeing from here on in so suspense = diminished. If you're toning down the comedy you're gonna be needing the suspense and action. Geez.
) Anyway, Sokka is fine letting them take Aang but Katara is all “We have to save him! He's our responsibility! Blah blah, I'm feeling motherly or something.” I don't particularly find this believable because she hasn't spent enough time bonding with him as far as the movie showed us. I mean she just freed this weird, quiet kid (I miss happy/hyper Aang!) from some ice and I guess she gets sympathy pangs when he gets taken away like her mother did. That's the only reason she decides they should go rescue him. No kickass adventure in a booby-trap ship or the idea of learning waterbending from him because he’s a bender. Plus her acting is horrible.
On the Fire Nation ship, the older cast members show us better acting and give Aang a test that signifies he's not only an airbender, but the Avatar! He doesn't want any of that noise so he escapes with lots of swooshy wind effects which look admittedly good. Out on the ship deck he spies Appa and flies out to him, thus sparing Sokka and Katara any fighting experience (and much needed comic relief) with incompetent fire soldiers. The trio decide to go to Aang's place because, well why the hell not. Katara and Sokka still don't know he's the Avatar.
**
Sidenote**: They don't pronounce Sokka's name like in the established canon of the cartoon. Nope. Instead of "Sock-a", like a warm and fuzzy sock with an "uh" at the end, we get "Soak-a", like "I wanna
soak this guy's stupid head in the icy ocean because he's not funny." If you think I'm being a little too oversensitive about one name change, you'd be right. If it was only the one name change. Aang (like "gang" without the "g") becomes "Ong" (like "Gong") and Iroh ("eye-row") becomes "Eee-row" (Eek!) Oh, and an Agni Kai ("Kai" pronounced like "tie") is now an Agni "Key". I just don’t even…
There's an attempt to make Aang a kid and all when he runs around the Southern Air Temple looking for Monk Gyatso, thinking that they’re hiding from him. He finds a winged lemur (I think they call it a bat lemur) who doesn't get named Momo. I'd be sad that not!Momo appears in only 2 brief scenes if he weren't so horribly CGI. I guess the effects budget were blown on the element fighting scenes. In any case, more wandering around as Katara puts two and two together when she realizes he's friends with monks but they're extinct so he might've been in the ice for 100 years (of course we don't get that info so tough luck non-cartoon enthusiasts). Katara tries to run after Aang and tell him something important while Sokka is... I don't know. Not being funny would be a safe assessment. Aang finds the bones of his dead friends and guardians, there's a flashback of happy air nomad monks somewhere in there, and then Aang visits the spirit world. Wait, what? Okay, so he's in his Avatar state, eyes and tattoos glowing blue, and he's floating but then we see what's supposedly his spirit wandering a blue forest. Spirit!Aang encounters a dragon spirit (sadly, there is no Avatar Roku in this movie). Katara somehow gets him calmed down by spouting stuff about being family but it doesn't lack the emotional punch that a bunch of drawings and voice actors gave this scene in the original cartoon. I should really stop comparing the movie to the cartoon. It makes me a sad panda.
After that, the order of the scenes and specific details are kind of blurry to me (I may have blocked out specifics in the movie to spare me further pain) but it probably doesn't matter. A lot of things in this movie were jumbled up and changed – for all you know Haru was some scaredy-cat kindergartner with no mom and Zuko and Iroh talked about pretty girls in the town square. Oh wait, that
did happen. Well anyway, the middle of the movie isn't really important. But I shall include it because I owe it to my lovely and curious A:TLA fans. Katara and Sokka decide they're going to follow Aang around even after he leaves the temple of sadness. I forget if they gave a reason why. Probably not. While camping they encounter some angry firebenders chasing some little six or seven year old Asian kid. An earthbender! Sokka is ready to do some boomerang-ing but Katara's craptastic waterbending skills gets him accidentally frozen and they're all captured (an amusing scene involving Sokka and Katara? I'm channeling Foaming Mouth Guy here, I'm so surprised.
)
The four kids find that instead of imprisoning earthbenders on a metal ship, they're just refugees in huts who are too scared to use the dirt beneath their feet to fight back. And you know how Katara had that shining moment in the cartoon getting herself captured and rallying the men into fighting back, thus earning Haru's respect and giving them courage and hope? Yeah she doesn't get that here. Instead it's
Aang who shouts at the earthbenders to get up and fight. He's all “What would you do if the Avatar were back?” They're all “We'd be pretty happy, I guess, but the Avatar isn't here.” ORLY!? Surprise! Aang reveals he's the Avatar to Katara, Sokka, and a whole bunch of firebending guards. About time, damn it. The choreographed dancing makes me think I'm watching a
West Side Story rumble minus the singing but that's what we get when firebenders and earthbenders collide with some airbending on the side. Earthbenders win and celebrate the Avatar's return. They show them some of the bending items that the Fire Nation locked away (waterbending scroll!) and they show off the statue of Aang's previous life, Avatar Kyoshi. I don't know if that's important but it did remind me that Suki isn't in this movie. The hell, Shyamalan!? Suki kicked ass and took names while looking like a hot girly clown warrior. Grr. :irked:
In any case, now that Katara and Sokka find out he's the Avatar they exposition his need to master all four elements, and since he has to do them in order, he needs a waterbending teacher (and hey, so does Katara!) so they decide to head north to find him a master from their sister tribe in the Avatar version of the North Pole. Sokka decides they could go around helping villages against fire nation tyranny on the way. And so they do. In montage form. You want specifics, you'll have to watch the cartoon, people. Just so you know, Aang's discovery of being the Avatar is (of course) different in the movie. Instead of the morose story we got in the episode The Storm, this Aang ran away because they told him he could never have a family if he was the Avatar. Nothing really about being separated from his close friend and father figure. I guess family is just as important but they could've added that instead of swap out one reasoning for another. Later on we get a flashback that's supposedly symbolic to remember for the end, where all the monks bow before newly declared Avatar Aang but he runs off like a chicken he wouldn’t eat because he’s a vegetarian. But they never mention his vegetarianism. Also, the kid is cute but he sooner needs an acting teacher than a waterbending teacher.
I haven't covered Zuko's escapades so let's do that now. He and Uncle Iroh are having dinner with Admiral Zhao (Daily Show represent! Woo!
) on his ship Zhao tells his crew (and the audience who don’t already know) about Zuko's quest for honor. We all know the drill: Zuko’s been banished by his evil daddy and the only way he can get reclaim his throne is by bringing home the Avatar. Zhao acts appropriately snarky and condescending when he says Zuko shouldn't even be wearing their Fire Nation uniform but they'll let him keep it on for that night, "like a child in a costume". I think I like him! Zuko does not and he leaves in a huff with Iroh at his heels. At some point Zhao finds out the Avatar is alive but it wasn't some big reveal because I don't remember it. I think at one point, Zuko does some hand-to-hand training with his crew (no firebending, just fighting). And I must say he's pretty damn good. This is more or less necessary to note because his alternate persona, the Blue Spirit, doesn't fight with bending but with swords and regular fists of fury. Did I spoil it? Whoops. Except I don't care. I want to get this movie over with already but my long tangents don't will it so.
The bad acting trio camp out and Aang takes the time to practice waterbending. And I thought Katara was bad. She tries to give some pointers but he still doesn't get it. What he does get is a freaky vision or something and he's back in the spirit world. Dragon spirit guy is there, lurking in the shadows like he's trying to be Koh the Face Stealer (who also doesn't appear but I don't blame the writers; Koh's relevance was never really explained in the cartoon either.) Aang gets told about his past lives or something. I don't think I was listening. Aang decides he needs help so he does what he does best; he runs off.
(To his credit, earlier on he told Katara that he wanted to go to the Northern Air temple which is nearby to, I don't know, find more clues about the 100 years he slept through? Katara didn't think he should go off along and for a while he stayed put. But then he air glided out of there, waking them up from an unconvincing nap). We get here a prime example of true jumbling switch-a-roo when the movie combines some of the Northern Air Temple excursion with The Blue Spirit episode and a dash of Southern Air Temple discovery. Aang doesn't find a kid in a wheelchair and his inventor father at the temple. Instead he finds some guy in monk's clothing who leads Aang to a room filled with statues of his past Avatar incarnations arranged in circles in a large room (like what should’ve been in the southern air temple). Turns out it's a trap – a bunch of Fire Nation guys were hiding behind the statues and Zhao appears, all gloating and evil.
Now the script is back to following the actual cartoon and we see Aang in chains while Zhao (once again) explains to the audience members who didn't see the show that he can't kill Aang or he'll be reborn into the next cycle of the Avatar (waterbender). Zhao is off to rally the Fire Nation crowds and we see some grotesque blue masked dude in black with long hair sneaking in. It's the Blue Spirit coming to save the day. He rescues Aang, there's an "epic" fight scene (including some moves and actions not in the cartoon) and after some silent threatening, the Blue Spirit takes Aang away, gets hit by an archer and then Aang discovers he's Zuko. Blah blah blah, the scene in the woods where Aang laments he could've been friends with Zuko is crappily edited and weirdly cut short. There is no emotion in it at all. And we don't see much Zuko angsting over this. Later on (or maybe it was earlier on? Blergh. Doesn't matter), Zuko does some flashbacking of his own about the "Agni Key" (
) that resulted in his scar. A young Azula along with Iroh is seen in the flashback. Just thought you'd like to know that. He does this angsting and flashback exposition in the aforementioned square where Iroh suggests he find a pretty girl, get married, and lead a peaceful life as a Fire Nation civilian rather than a disgraced prince. It's actually some pretty sound advice but Zuko's got daddy issues so that's a no go.
What are we up to? Umm... Oh! We actually see the Fire Lord's face. Yeah, that was a bit surprising. It kind of takes away from the shadowy, unearthly evil that Book 1's Fire Lord Ozai gave us. Zhao is talking with him about some scrolls he found in The Library (they actually mention the Great Library a lot more than in the first season.) There's no flashback, just him saying that the scrolls are being deciphered and they should tell him where the ocean and moon spirits' earthly forms live. I think Fire Lord Ozai makes some comment about the Avatar sightings being real or not. And something about him letting Aang escape. Zhao doesn't really confirm or deny and promises to capture him. It's a race between him and Zuko. There's some awkward voice over of these two talking over some other scenes that I guess might be related but it was done so shoddily I don't even care to explain. Let's just skip to the last three chapters of the season, okay?
The amateur acting troupe make it to the Northern Water Tribe and Katara's voice over tells us that they were welcomed, particularly the Avatar, and that Sokka became fast friends with the princess. Have they not heard of the cardinal rule "Show, Don't Tell"? Besides crappy editing, lousy emoting, and varied quality CGI, this movie suffers greatly from trying to fit 20 episodes, which is about 400 minutes of material, into a run time of about 100 minutes. This should be a two hour movie minimum. The Harry Potter movies got raked across the coals by many fans for leaving out fairly important plot points and side stories but even if you didn't read the books, you had a pretty good idea of what was going on. This is not so for the movie that aspired to be the next Harry Potter. If they didn't watch
Avatar: The Last Airbender, chances are they'd be kind of wowed by the effects but find themselves lost a quarter way into the movie, thus leaving them annoyed and with a feeling of dislike directed at anything
The Last Airbender related (hopefully they'd give the cartoon a chance). But for those who did see the animated series it was based on, their high expectations going into the theater led to their crushing disappointment despite the fact that they were able to follow the badly mangled plot (maybe they made a game of it; spot the difference!) I just had to get that off my chest. It's one thing to have the problem of rushed, frenzied pacing, underwhelming acting, and weird editing/framing but to have all these and more is just unforgivable.
So while Yue and Sokka "bond" off screen, Aang and Katara train with the non-misogynistic waterbending master who is not named Pakku. Over on the fiery side of the war, Zuko broods in his ship cabin while Iroh gets a foot rub on the dock and the little race between Zhao and Zuko may be cinched when a bomb in Zuko's ship goes off. You don't even need to see the cartoon to predict Zuko will survive. Let's see... okay, some waterbending coolness training, Sokka gets appointed Yue's bodyguard (she's not engaged because there's enough drama in this children's movie, thank you very much). Under the guise of "cutesy" banter Yue expositions/explains the origins of her white hair to Sokka. She does it rather poorly (I think a flashback could've helped). Black snow falleth. And we've got ourselves enemy ships on the horizon. Iroh has joined Zhao's side on his battle ship and Zhao doesn't resist bringing up the siege on Ba Sing Se where he lost his son. Iroh's pretty cool and zen even in this version (he's one of the few characters who've transitioned their personality traits fairly well into live action. :nod
He goes down to meet up with an unharmed Zuko and he bids his nephew a worried goodbye as the young prince rows out a few feet into the ocean before just plain diving in and swimming towards the fancy Northern Water Tribe. So what was the point of the canoe? Well whatever, let the epic final battle begin!
There's a whole lot of choreographed, CGI bending as well as hand to hand combat and machines (BTW, throughout the movie they've been hammering the point that the Fire Nation have conquered lands with their MACHINES and that MACHINES are bad. Those who have seen the blue alien-cat, 3-D
Avatar movie would probably cry “plagiarism”. In response I would sigh in a fit of frustrated depression. That sigh would be more emotive than Aang and Katara’s acting.) Aang is pretty powerless so he decides he needs some spirit help and Yue leads him to the secret underground field thing we all know from the cartoon. It's pretty. (What? I can give compliments when I have to). Aang sits down and channels his inner spirit and Sokka and Yue decide to leave because... I guess the battle is more exciting than staying around watching the bald kid meditate. Katara stays behind because he's her squishy and she's totally adopted him. Hmm. There's not much romance or even a hint of a childish crush in this movie except for the underdeveloped relationship between Yue and Sokka.
Once again we're in the forest of blue light filters and Aang finds the dragon spirit who advises him to defeat the Fire Nation with the ocean and to let his emotions flow or something. Zuko finds the meditation field and we have finally get to see the Zuko & Katara showdown! Aaaaand... it's over. :goof: Katara defends about two fire blasts before getting knocked back. Wow. She has not improved at all. Isn’t she supposed to be the representative of ATLA girl power? We don't have Kyoshi Warrior Suki, we don't have that Crazy Bounty Hunter Jun, and at the rate this movie is going there will be no sequel to introduce us to the badassery of Ozai's Angel's or Blind Earthbender Toph. Anyway, he kidnaps Aang and hides away in a little house in the city, probably hoping whoever lives there is too busy being killed in the battle. Aang wakes up from his spirit trance to hear the tail end of Zuko's story about his prodigy firebending sister and he tries to run away. The chase sequence is actual pretty exciting as they use actual martial arts and flips and stuff. Katara finds him and finally manages to freeze Zuko and save Aang. Now the Avatar joins the fight and you can sort of imagine the fight if you see the dark blue tinted snow scene in the trailer. Zhao manages to find his way to the meditation area Aang was in and that’s coincidentally where the moon and ocean spirit live (their earthy incarnations are fish, in case you didn't see the cartoon). Despite Iroh's sage wisdom about not messing with the spirits or bad things will happen, Zhao totally messes with the spirits and bad things happen. He stabs the fish and suddenly the moon and sky go all red. Now here's something I forgot to mention about firebenders that I guess is important; instead of being able to generate their own fire, they need a source to bend and attack (Just like all the other benders. So throughout the movie the Fire Nation soldiers carried or situated themselves near candles, torches, fire pits, and other open flames). I mention this because after the moon fishy is killed, Yue faints, Aang feels a "disturbance in the force" and Iroh gets a weird look in his eye and starts creating his own fire from his hands. Like in the cartoon. (So even in the movie there are strong hints that Iroh has been to the spirit world but nothing concrete). :shrug:
I'm trying really hard to wrap this up but a whole lot of things are happening and three episodes compressed into, like, 25 minutes is a lot to summarize. At this rate, my recap will be longer than the damn movie. Alright, so Aang goes into the Avatar state but he does not merge with ocean fish and create a giant water fish. He does however create a giant tidal wave that could drown the entire fleet of Fire Nation ships in one fell swoop... except he doesn't do that because he's a peace loving monk, I suppose. The giant wave simply scares away the ships and the soldiers. Seriously. Meanwhile, Zuko melts his way out of the ice and faces Zhao, and since the giant water fish isn't there to kill Zhao, you'd think Zuko would do it but no. Iroh comes to his side and tells Zuko not to fight (and he recreates the cartoon scene when Zhao attacks Zuko after their Agni Ki - you know, Zhao's fire attack when they turn their backs but Iroh turns and quickly blocks it? That one.) So if Iroh doesn't kill him, and Zuko doesn't kill him, who does? Would you believe 4 random waterbenders? No, really. I think Iroh justifies it by saying something like how Zhao's weakness is that he always battles alone so, hey let's get a quartet of unknown benders who represent working together or something to drown him in a water bubble and plop his lifeless body onto the bridge. The kids will love it.
With the climax/battle over, all that’s left to say is that Yue gives up her life to save the moon spirit, she shares a tearful goodbye kiss with Sokka that would probably mean a lot more had she been onscreen longer than 8 minutes, and Aang's batteries die out so he stops glowing. He accepts his role as Avatar when the entire Northern Water Tribe (including
Sokka and
Katara!) kneel before him and instead of running away screaming he does some fancy karate stance and bows back. Thus he saved the day and the movie is over. Except for the cliffhanger where Fire Lord Ozai condemns Zuko and Iroh as traitors and appoints his daughter to capture the Avatar. I can only hope that IF (Big If!) there is a sequel, the acting will have improved, the editing will be refined, and the director will have been locked in a cellar somewhere. Bryan and Mike have experience directing the cartoon series. I can't imagine it'd be that hard to step up and bring honor to the Avatar franchise.
And that ends my review. There have been many, many harsh reviews on the net already. I didn't want to go that route because I like to look on the bright side of things. Plus I went into to the movie with low expectations, something I advise anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet to do. Seriously lower your expectations. Lower. No, lower than that. Abysmally low! Are they the lowest you can possibly get them without turning you off the idea of even stepping foot inside a movie theater playing this movie? Good. Now let's get them a little lower.
For those who can't be bothered to read a long, rambling review/recap of a disappointing movie (And I don't blame you a bit. If I didn’t write it, I wouldn’t read it.) Please take a look at this brief, ironic and oh so brilliant summation:
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(BTW If you can't see this Youtube clip it's most likely because Viacom took it down in an attempt to cover up the truth. Also cuz they suck.)
So after a Zutura reference by Jun, eliciting an embarrassed reply from our resident waterbender and firebender, we join them outside where a now named Shirshu gets a whiff of Aang's staff and tries to look for him. A bit of circling around and we got nothing. The shirshu couldn't find Aang because, according to Jun, he doesn't exist. Say what!? 
