The Last Airbender
So yes, this article is way overdue and I meant to post it sometime last week but I got hung up on other things. Let’s get into this though, I saw The Last Airbender and I’ve had a lot of mixed opinions about it when I came out of the theater. Even during the movie I had a hard time believing what I was seeing. It was a good movie don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t understand how they could take the great and popular TV show and turn it into something so much worse.
If you didn’t figure out by now, the movie was based on a cartoon show called Avatar: The Last Airbender and had a lot of comedy, the characters were fun, and had a greatly addicting storyline.
The Storyline
Let’s start with the story first. The show is split into 4 parts which are called books, the movie only showed Book One: Water. The books are meant to focus on the four different tribes, which are Water, Earth, Fire, and Air (usually referred to Air Nomads). Aang, the main character is believed to be the Avatar. Unlike all the other tribes, he is the only one who can bend (a.k.a. manipulate/control) all of the four elements. Every hundred years or so a new avatar is born into a tribe, and Aang was born into the air nomads. The fire nation wanted complete power so they despised the avatar, and thus exterminated the air nomads.
Hence the name, The Last Airbender, Aang is left as the last living person of his native tribe. I don’t want to reveal too much of the storyline but he finds two friends from the water tribe (Katara and Sokka) and they begin on the quest for Aang to train and master all of the four elements. Hopefully you’ve been a fan of the show and watched all of the seasons. If not, check out the movie for a gist of what it’s about and know that it’s never too late to watch it as it’s a really great show for all ages.
Movie Wrongness
Now that I’ve explained most of the storyline, let’s see what the movie got wrong. First off is the easy parts, like the pronunciations of the names. Aang is meant to be pronounced eng, and it was really weird having to hear his name said wrong throughout the whole movie.
Next is the acting. I realize that this can be said about any movie, but I was hoping that the director and actors would capture the characters in their proper form. Aang is usually making a lot of jokes and is somewhat a trouble maker. He can be serious when he needs to be though. Sokka on the other hand is somewhat like Aang, but he tries to act like he’s a strong warrior which is probably the only good acting I’ve seen in the movie. Sokka also makes a lot of mistakes usually, making up most of the show’s comedy. Katara is hard to explain, but she’s definitely the deepest of the three, and is always hard at work on Aang’s training and quest.
Because the show was very strong in terms of “emotion,” I cannot say that the movie did not have that either. It did, but it could’ve been improved ten fold.
Lastly is the story, which I think the movie rushed way too much. I realize that time is an issue and perhaps the budget as well, but that didn’t stop Harry Potter movies from being 3 or even 4 hours long. I feel that they should have slowed the beginning down so people could understand what was going on, and then speeded up the end to finally end the movie.
Is It Worth It?
I’d probably give the movie a 3.5 out of 5, and despite the movie being a bit cheesy and having gotten so many things wrong, I still think it’s very enjoyable and entertaining. I’ve definitely seen a lot of bad movies and wanted to leave really badly in the middle of it, and this movie was not one of those. For those who were not fans of the show, I think the movie will be somewhat confusing but still good. For those who were fans like me will be disappointed, but it’s still worth it to see it anyway. Not only does the ending really get the story going, but it finally looks like how it did in the show so if it means waiting through an hour of mistakes, do so.