The Last Airbender

[jpanimation]

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KAD9ke15FuU&hl ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KAD9ke15FuU&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

[ajmrowland]

1:27 obviously THAT fan's never seen the dvd features.

Boy, I'm really getting put down by the negativity.

[MutantEnemy]

I just got back from my showing and the reviews are right. They pronounce every name wrong, the actors were miscast for every part except Aang (or should I say Ong), the scenarios in which events were happening are not how they happened in the series. It is a mess. There is a black airbender amidst a sea of asian airbenders. The firebenders are all middle eastern. Zuko doesn't look like his character (scar sucks). I can't say it loud enough, EVERY ASPECT OF THIS FILM IS WRONG. DON'T GO SEE IT! SAVE YOUR MONEY!!! The sooner this film fades the sooner we can get a faithful adaptation...

[ajmrowland]

Somehow, I get the feeling the Studio really screwed with this film for it to get such reviews.

[UmbrellaFish]

I ended up not joining my friends to see this, but I figured it would suck anyway. Too bad, though, I'm sure the series deserves a much better movie.

[dvdjunkie]

I should have known that with the name M. Night Shamalan on the credits that this movie would be totally a mess, and from the critics reviews I am not wrong.

I reluctantly went to see this 'thing' in 3-D, and it was horrible as a movie. The effects were great, and the scenery was gorgeous, but it takes more than that to make a movie good. I am glad that I am not out the $8 to see this.

M.Night Shamalan should be banished from Hollywood forever!!!

[pap64]

M.Night Shamalan should be banished from Hollywood forever!!!

As much as I detest M.Night there are others I would banish first from Hollywood and filmmaking in general (Uwe Boll and Michael Bay come to mind).

[dvdjunkie]

I agree with you on Uwe Boll, but have to defend Michael Bay because I think he does know how to make an action block-buster that makes money at the box office - good example of which is "Transformers".

[TheValentineBros]

I think Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer should be banished from Hollywood forever for make crappy parody films.

[disneyboy20022]

M.Night Shamalan should be banished from Hollywood forever!!!

As much as I detest M.Night there are others I would banish first from Hollywood and filmmaking in general (Uwe Boll and Michael Bay come to mind).

Hmm....I smell an idea for a new game in the Polls and Games Section


Hurt or Heal: Hollywood Filmmakers edition

If someone does start that....mention they idea came from me

[jpanimation]

The way I see it, M. Night Shamalan is a good director but he doesn't know the first thing about writing. I'm surprised that after each failure, Hollywood continues to give him full creative control (writer, producer, director). This is the problem; no one has ever told him NO. What needs to happen is the following: 1) Shamalan will no longer write his own screenplays but will be handed a preexisting one and 2) Shamalan will step down as producer and someone else will oversee his work to make sure it's working for more then just him (also, Shamalan will NOT direct the action scenes, but an action director will come in for that).

I have a feeling that if The Last Airbender had been given a screenplay by the co-creators of the show, it would've been great. Instead, and this comes from Shamalan himself, he locked himself in a room (alone) and wrote the screenplay (alone). You can see the fault with that is, when you're a bad writer, there is no one to bounce ideas off of and guarantee that they work for more then just yourself. From what I've heard, most of the movie's faults can be traced right back to the screenplay (full of horrible dialog, wooden characters, and a CliffsNotes version of the animated series' story). While it retains many of the adult themes from the show, it lacks the humor and character development that the show handled so well, not to mention the animated series signature action scenes.

I enjoyed The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable but this cliff that Shamalan dropped off of just seems to get steeper and steeper.

Disclaimer: I haven't seen The Last Airbender yet.

[pap64]

The way I see it, M. Night Shamalan is a good director but he doesn't know the first thing about writing. I'm surprised that after each failure, Hollywood continues to give him full creative control (writer, producer, director). This is the problem; no one has ever told him NO. What needs to happen is the following: 1) Shamalan will no longer write his own screenplays but will be handed a preexisting one and 2) Shamalan will step down as producer and someone else will oversee his work to make sure it's working for more then just him (also, Shamalan will NOT direct the action scenes, but an action director will come in for that).

I have a feeling that if The Last Airbender had been given a screenplay by the co-creators of the show, it would've been great. Instead, and this comes from Shamalan himself, he locked himself in a room (alone) and wrote the screenplay (alone). You can see the fault with that is, when you're a bad writer, there is no one to bounce ideas off of and guarantee that they work for more then just yourself. From what I've heard, most of the movie's faults can be traced right back to the screenplay (full of horrible dialog, wooden characters, and a CliffsNotes version of the animated series' story). While it retains many of the adult themes from the show, it lacks the humor and character development that the show handled so well, not to mention the animated series signature action scenes.

I enjoyed The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable but this cliff that Shamalan dropped off of just seems to get steeper and steeper.

Disclaimer: I haven't seen The Last Airbender yet.

The other problem I see with M.Night is that he wants to be like Alfred Hitchcock, but lacks the creativity and flexibility. What I mean by this is that no matter what genre he was working with (mystery, horror, dark humor etc.) Hitchcock wanted to bring his ideas to the film. But the difference is that Hitchcock didn't always use the same tricks, the same techniques and the same ideals for every movie he made. He knew that just because something worked in, say, Psycho, it doesn't mean it's going to work for everything else. Plus, he knew how to get the most out of his performers (take Cary Grant and James Stewart for example, both who were known for dramas and comedies and turned them into believable suspense actors).

M.Night just does the same tricks over and over again, not realizing that just because it worked with The Sixth Sense it doesn't mean it will work with every other story. He also fails to inspire genuine emotions in the actors. I always hated how all of the characters seem tired, bored and uninterested even when some great things happen before them. Some say that this is a REALISTIC portrayal of human emotions, but I truly disagree with that notion.

I confess that one of my favorite M.Night moments is in Unbreakable, when Samuel L. Jackson's character is talking to a man about a comic book painting. The guy then says "This will be a great present for my son", then Sam's characters goes on a monologue about how comic book art is not a child's toy. This scene KILLED me when I first saw it simply because he is having a nerd rage attack, but M.Night staged it so carefully is looks very ridiculous!

The even funnier thing is that when I talked to some comic book fans about this scene they say that this scene isn't meant to be funny because it's true, people HAVE tried to buy very expensive pieces of artwork just to give them to their kid. I'm not saying that this is a stupid thing. What I am saying is how M.Night staged it was very ridiculous.

As for Last Airbender I haven't seen the movie yet, but I expected that story would be a major problem. The TV show is a massive, epic, LONG series that develops its characters throughout the course of its hundreds of episodes. Trying to compress that into a movie just spells disaster. You are bound to forget a major plot element and you feel the story was very rushed and forced.

[Super Aurora]

LOL I heard how bad it is. Not planing on seeing it then. I think this did worse than Dragonball: Evolution in reviews.

[pap64]

Perhaps the most ironic review ever made...
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UfDk3I6di5E&hl ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UfDk3I6di5E&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

[Super Aurora]

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/164306 ... tory.jhtml


I facepalm'ed

[ajmrowland]

pap, I love that episode!

[jpanimation]

Just to give you a preview of how bad the bending is in this movie



A whole group of earthbenders has to do a Power Rangers-esque dance just to throw a single rock. It looks absolutely ridiculous. I've seen a preview on Nicktoons that had Aang training with his waterbending master and after that, I finally understood reviewer's complaints that the bending is slow. Both Aang and his master had to do all kinds of dumb looking motions just to make the littlest things happen. His teacher throws him a waterball (a "think-fast" moment) and it moves like a slow ball from an old Looney Tunes short. The series' signature fast paced action is non-existent.

This whole thing kind of reminds me of Spawn, in that the live action movie is completely inferior to the animated series in every way possible (not to mention campy in comparison).

[Super Aurora]

Just to give you a preview of how bad the bending is in this movie

That gif is hilarious. when I first saw it, I thought I was watching like a behind the scene scenario. The picture look so dated and fake.



Also Can you spy what's int his picture:

[jpanimation]

^You're bad

Anyways, someone posted another one of these embarrassing moments:



That's some action packed push-bending.

[ajmrowland]

^