The Last Airbender

Plot synopsis:
15-year-old Sokka and his 14-year-old sister, Katara, are near a river at the Southern Water Tribe, a small village in the South Pole. While hunting, they discover an iceberg that when broken open shoots a beam of light into the sky. Inside of the iceberg is a 12-year-old boy named Aang and a giant flying bison named Appa. Unknown to them, Aang is the long-lost Avatar — the only person capable of "bending" all 4 elements of Air, Water, Earth and Fire. A century (100 years) has passed since the Fire Nation has declared war on the other 3 nations of Air, Water, and Earth in their attempt to conquer the world.
Zuko is the scarred 16-year-old exiled prince of the Fire Nation on a quest to find the Avatar and bring him to his father, Fire Lord Ozai, so he can regain his honor. Seeing the light that appeared from Aang's release, Zuko and some Fire Nation soldiers arrive at the Southern Water Tribe to demand the villagers hand over the Avatar. Aang reveals himself and surrenders to Zuko on the condition that he agrees to leave the village alone. On the ship, Aang is tested by Zuko's paternal uncle Iroh to confirm he is the Avatar. After being informed that he is to be their prisoner for passing the test, Aang escapes using his glider and flies to his flying bison brought by Katara and Sokka. Aang and his new friends visit the Southern Air Temple where they meet a winged lemur, who Aang later names Momo. Aang also learns that he was in the ice for a whole century and that the Fire Nation wiped out all of the Air Nomads, including his guardian, Monk Gyatso. In despair, he enters the Avatar State and finds himself in the Spirit World where he encounters a Dragon Spirit. Katara's pleas bring Aang back out of the Avatar State.
To seek shelter, Aang's group arrives at a little Earth Kingdom village controlled by the Fire Nation, but are arrested and taken to a prison for Earthbenders surrounded by earth  because Katara tries to help a young boy escape from Fire Nation soldiers. They incite a rebellion by reminding the disgruntled Earthbenders that Earth was given to them. Aang tells Katara and Sokka that he only knows airbending and must master the other three elements. Katara is given a waterbending scroll that she uses to greatly strengthen and hone her waterbending abilities and to help Aang learn as they make their way to the Northern Water Tribe (where Aang will be able to learn from waterbending masters) and liberate more Earth Kingdom villages in the process, weakening the Fire Nation's food and water supplies.
During a side track to the Northern Air Temple on his own, Aang is betrayed by a Southern Earth Kingdom peasant and captured by a group of Fire Nation archers, led by Commander Zhao, a Fire Nation Commander appointed by the Fire Lord. However, a masked marauder, the "Blue Spirit", helps Aang escape from his imprisonment, fighting off the Fire Nation soldiers under Zhao's command until the blue spirit realises they will be overwhelmed, at which point he takes Aang hostage to negotiate their way out. During the prison break, Zhao realizes that Zuko is the masked vigilante. He arranges to kill the prince, first by having a crossbowman fire a bolt over a huge distance that shatters the lower half of Zuko's mask and knocks him out, however Aang uses his skills to bend a cloud across the bridge connecting the prison to the other side of the valley, causing the Fire Nation soldiers in pursuit to stop in fear. With the cloud covering their escape, Aang escapes with an unconscious Zuko into a nearby forest and watches over Zuko until morning, when he leaves to reunite with Sokka and Katara. Zhao tries again to kill Zuko, this time by rupturing a gas pipe running through Zuko's quarters on Iroh's ship. Noticing the danger, Zuko manages to survive the attempt on his life with Iroh's help. He sneaks aboard Zhao's lead ship as his fleet departs for the Northern Water Tribe, which is a heavy fortress, to capture the Avatar. Upon arriving, Aang's group is welcomed warmly by the citizens of the Northern Water Tribe. Sokka quickly befriends the Northern Water Tribe princess, Yue. After a few agreements, a waterbending master, Pakku, teaches Aang waterbending. Katara also becomes a much stronger and more powerful waterbender due to her training with Master Pakku.
Soon, the Fire Nation arrives and Zhao begins his attack while Zuko begins his search for the Avatar on his own. After defeating Katara in a battle, Zuko captures Aang as he enters the Spirit World to find the Dragon Spirit to give him the wisdom to defeat the Fire Nation who tells him to let his emotions "flow like water". Returning to his body, Aang battles Zuko before Katara freezes him. Before leaving to join the battle, Aang lowers the ice so that Zuko can breathe. As the battle escalates, Iroh watches Zhao capture the Moon Spirit, with which its Ocean Spirit counterpart had assumed the form of a fish. Despite Iroh's pleas, Zhao kills the Moon Spirit to strip all of the waterbenders of their ability to waterbend. Iroh, enraged by Zhao's disrespect for sacredness and by his actions to unbalance the world, reveals the extent of his mastery of firebending by using his chi to create huge flame jets from his wrists, scaring Zhao and his entourage of Fire Nation Soldiers out of the sacred cave. Yue explains to everyone that the Moon Spirit gave her life and, with Iroh's help, realises she can give her life back to the Moon Spirit as she dies in the process. With the tables turned, Zhao finds out Zuko survived. They almost fight before Iroh appears and tells Zuko it's not worth it. Zhao attempts one more time to kill Zuko with a massive blast of fire, which Iroh manages to deflect. Zhao is drowned by waterbenders after Zuko and Iroh leave him to his fate. Aang remembers his life before being trapped in the ice, including when he left his home, seeing his master's face. With his waterbending powers and his emotions "flowing like water", Aang enters the Avatar State and raises the ocean into a gigantic wall to drive the armada back. Aang now fully embraces his destiny as the Avatar as he, Katara and Sokka prepare to continue their journey to the Earth Kingdom to find an earthbending teacher for Aang. The Fire Lord learns of the defeat; angry over the betrayal of his brother Iroh and the failure of his eldest son Zuko, he tasks his youngest daughter, Zuko's sister, Azula to stop the Avatar from mastering Earth and Fire before the arrival of Sozin's Comet.

Tags: fantasy, bleak, flashback, good versus evil, psychedelic, philosophical, romantic, revenge

Review:
From the script to the visuals, the directing, the acting, there is absolutely nothing that did well, either as an adaptation or as a film in its own right.Characters who were once powerful and spitfire (Katara) or entertainingly sarcastic (Sokka) are now bland and exist solely for the purpose of exposition.
The scenes seem episodic and unconnected, and the film never comfortably establishes its universe, always retreading with an "as you know" or "aren't you that guy who..." to establish (often unnecessary) continuity.The style, too, is disappointing, capturing none of the magic of the series.
Most noticeable was the "bending"--while the series took its martial arts seriously, carefully aligning real-world arts with elements and making the benders' movements coincide with those of their elements, the film gives us characters flailing in generic martial arts forms for a few minutes, only to effect one splash, boulder, or blast of fire.
In the series, every movement had a meaning; in the film, only about one in ten does.Many fans of the series who were angry at the "whitewashing" of the cast hoped that it had at least resulted in the best actors for the parts.
All the major parts of the Book of Water were skimmed over, while things like the freeing of the earth nation village (while important) were given screen time that could have been given to major events like the southern air temple.The actors were dismal, with the exception of Dev Patel as Zuko and to a lesser extent Shaun Toub as Iroh, who wasn't an accurate portrayal of Iroh visually but at least captured the character's wisdom much better than many of the other actors on board for the movie.
It felt kind of disgusting to see as I've lately been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (with extras) almost religiously for the past month.The script in itself should have been tossed into the garbage and burnt and it's remains locked away so that no one would ever have to suffer looking at such garbage.
As well, suddenly deciding to change the pronunciation of the characters name is definitely not the best idea, while I do understand that he wanted the names to sound like their Asian origin, it didn't go over well and the whole time I was just cringing at the mere mention of Aang and Sokka's names.This movie does not hold a candle to the original show.
Most of the fighting was like fifteen minutes of martial arts with like the occasional bit of air bending and a little water being splashed around.There was nothing to love in this movie not even the most adorable of characters such as Momo.
Not much here is salvageable.Obviously Shyamalan got completely caught up in the mythology of the world and missed the fact that what made the original cartoon so great were the CHARACTERS.
If you have seen the series, you'll hate it, if you haven't seen the series, the lack of plot line and the anti-climatic story will make you hate it even more: seeing as how you won't understand what you just watched for almost 2 hours.This movie was horrible.
In the case of the critically acclaimed television series Avatar: The Last Airbender it would be impossible to adequately recreate or adapt every single thing in the entire first season in to a movie.
I have watched Book 1 of the Nickelodeon series and quite enjoyed it, but for the sake of the medium of film I try to take an objective stance on my review of the film on terms of how it stands by itself, as opposed to how well it adapted the source material.First, however, in terms of the adaptation, let me say that with such brilliant source material as Avatar: The Last Airbender it'd be easy to take the script and scenes word-for-word from the source material and simply plug in actors to say the lines.
The "talkies" became quite popular with the masses however, and as history will show us, filmmakers adapted to new techniques and new ways of integrating pictures with sound, and the silent film has almost completely gone the way of the dinosaur except for some notable art-house exceptions.Movies like The Last Airbender almost make me wish that silent film still existed.
These two actually have some good moments among all the poorly written lines and end up being the best part about the film script-wise.Watching The Last Airbender makes me wonder if anyone besides the special effects supervisors and the fight choreographers even cared about what they were doing.
This highlights the spectacular of the choreography, but makes me wonder what could have been done had at least a few of the fight scenes been left in real-time.Another quick note related to the adaptation, most of the film is dedicated to the last episode of the first season.
I realize that a series adaptation is tough, but to skimp out on important character details makes it near impossible to identify or even care about a single character.The Last Airbender is not only a terrible adaptation, it's a pretty terrible movie on its own right, and may even go down in history as Shyamalan's worst.
"The Last Airbender" follows a brother and sister from the Water Tribe,  Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and Katara (Nicola Peltz), who discover a  12-year-old monk-child from the Air tribe frozen in a block of ice and  his gigantic furry steed (that resembles the luck dragon in "The Never  Ending Story").His name is Aang (Noah Ringer), and he, of course is the  missing Avatar.
M. Night Shyamalan decided two years ago that he would recreate the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender as a live action film.
It's not explained, and makes no sense, like everything else in the movie.Last bending note; Katara never learns how to heal.There are twenty episodes in the first season of Avatar.
No kick ass animals except for Appa and Momo (who is never called Momo in the movie, by the way).Shyamalan changed around how scenes occur, and the order in which they happen, too.
Aside from bad acting, the pronunciations were horrendous, maybe because Shyamalan couldn't purchase the full rights to the words "Ong"(Aang), "Ovatar" (Avatar) and "So-ka" (Sokka).There was nothing good or fun about this movie, and even the 'bending' was over acting.
I want to paint a picture as to how bad this movie was, My 10 year old got me to watch, DVR and purchase all of the Avatar Cartoon series, and I got into it with him.
This is the first film I have been to that the whole theater booed at the end and made demands for the return of their money.I can count on one hand how many times I saw 3d effects and those not very good.
His ego got too big for him, and rather than take responsibility for his blunder he blames the viewing public and critics for not understanding his art of filmmaking.This movie is one of the worst films to ever be made, the worst anime adaptation of all time and an example of bad filmmaking itself.
Half the movie is useless exposition, cardboard characters, terrible acting, racial miscasting (I am Indian and was astonished that Shyamalan made the Fire Nation Indian because his ego called for it).
You know there is something wrong when there is more back-story than actual dialogue.As someone who has personally watched both the original series, as well as is someone who staying with the current post-series (as per this review, season 4, episode 5,) there does not seem to be something here for either the fans of the series or others, even with the white-washing of the acting aside.Why it wouldn't appeal to fans: They got the four fighting styles/bending methods all wrong.
The avoidance of major characters from the show, among others the Kioshi warriors (who serve a major plot point later.) They concentrate the movie on 5-6 episodes.Why it wouldn't appeal to others: The movie itself is devoid of a lot of action and what isn't shown is conveyed in both a meaningless and boring way.There is more back-story than actual viewable plot.3D is bad, the general graphics are bad as well..
The film misses out a good 89% of what makes up the amazing Nickelodeon series and misrepresents the other 11%.I feel that no one in this movie bothered to watch a single episode.
Unless you count the moment Aang blatantly told Zuko they could be friends...Yeah.My recommendation would be not to waste your money on this abysmal movie or any sequels (please no!) but purchase the original box sets instead, they are a much better investment..
The character's names are slaughtered, the 6 year old kid behind me even knew that the names were wrong telling the whole audience each time "Aang" not "Ung" as pronounced in the movie.
I am a HUGE fan of the show AVATAR, I watched the series many, many times and I've been waiting for this movie to come out.
I must concede that you, sir, have certainly won the honor of now being one of my most disliked directors of all time.Let me begin by saying this: Avatar: The Last Airbender began in 2005 as an animated series on Nickelodeon.
However, the editing team seemed to tie a cloth around their eyes and swing an axe at random scenes before finalizing the movie.For those who may have interest in the film and are unacquainted with the original series, you undoubtedly will not enjoy the film either: the camera frames were either uncomfortably close to a character, or panning so quickly that the focus was blurry and gave you a headache.
The actors' of the film were unable to portray any characteristics of the original characters, and some remained static throughout the hour and forty minute movie.
The reason that this movie sucked was that it was just plain old impossible to follow, maybe you need to take some kind of hallucinogenic drug to follow it.Now I'll admit I never watched the cartoon, I went to see this movie because some friends of mine wanted to go but any good adaptation of a TV show or novel should be accessible to someone who has never see the source material.
At the beginning with a great start up i was amazed by the 3d and the beauty of animation I was so happy i paid for the 3d version, with in 10 minutes to the movie, with incredibly bad acting, awful scripting ruined the movie for me.
It was so bad that i lost interest and check the time multiple times.I just cant believe some screenwriter can mess up an astonishing, sophisticated, an original story line this badly.I'm assuming people that haven't seen the original series liked the movie.
As a person that loved the original i was extremely irritated.If your have seen the original series DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE.
M. Night Shyalaman has only told one good story in his film making career-The Sixth Sense and since that time he could tell a good story if one hit him on the head, like a rock thrown by a earth bender.
Horrible acting, filming, directing and a terrible story line.If I hadn't seen every series in the cartoon at least a dozen times each I wouldn't even know what movie I was watching!It was SOOOO bad, it's not even worth mentioning what stood out as being worse than something else - it all failed equally!Shyamalan has been getting worse and worse - in fact, I now think it was exuberance by critics that made me think he was ever any good!Ang Lee, we missed you again...To think there are going to be more in this franchise....yikes!.
Obviously things had to be cut out but half of the key parts of the story were changed and turned into freak, hybrid blends of characters, places, and events.Tone: The whole feel of the movie is completely different from the show.
Instead of having a light hearted, enjoyable, go gettum vibe like the show, the movie was just somber and emotionally dry.Directing: Shyamalan definitely never watched the Avatar series.
Before this movie was on air there was a great animation series with good dialogs, educational responsibility and depth in the story accompanied with truth and parallels to our own reality.
The right-holders for the series had the best opportunities to make a blockbuster with the movie.the decision to involve M.Night Shyamalan was the worst they might could have chosen.
i cant believe that the right-holders of the series were such ignorant in choosing this producer, economically they could have created a waterfall of money by choosing a capable producer.M.Night Shyamalan certainly does not have the quality for big movies, i do hope this was the last one that i see airing on cinema in the US..
But this movie is an over-complicated telling of the animated series that skims over important details and reduces characters to the most forced lines of weak and laughable dialog I have ever heard.
The acting here is the worst I've seen, the actors feel almost removed from this movie, which is understandable with how it ended out.
But instead all I got was a poor excuse of what could have been a good movie.The first BIG problem I had (and I know this may sound silly, but if you watched the show, I'm sure you are with me) was that they pronounced the main character's name wrong.
After months of waiting for this movie and planning my week around seeing it I knew within the first 5 minutes that the film would be absolutely nothing like the animated series that I love.
Not even getting started with the characters personality, or the actual story at all.This movie is a huge insult to everything that is the real Avatar series.Such a shame..
not surprising considering Shyamalan is as well, but the characters are not Indian most are Asian like with some being a little less so like Sokka and Katara, who's characters looked the best to me in the movie.
This movie had so much potential I hope M.Night doesn't try to destroy anymore of the Avatar series.
But when I started watching it I noticed how horrifyingly inaccurate it was, they changed the names of the characters such as Sokka and Aang, and they missed a lot of important parts in the show wasting them on other things, along with that they didn't get the characters look right either, the only accurate costume and hair was Sokka, in the show Katara is supposed to have waist length hair in a braid with to strand of hair separate, they had her hair down the whole time.
They did not even bother making sure they got it right they used a white actor for Katara when Katara isn't white she is somewhat tan compare the two pictures to see for yourself they did not even bother to use makeup to make her look more like Katarahttp://www.freewebs.com/avatararza/people/Katara.png http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3502605056/ch0046906Like many others have said the acting/script is horrible and the actors failed to portray the characters correctly but that wouldn't be a first it happened before in the X-men "live action" where wolverine killed jean at the end which the real wolverine would never do.Overall whoever was in charge of this film really should be banned from making any more live action movies and any future live action movies of avatar should not be made unless they get all the details right otherwise it will be another disgrace to a great cartoon..
I am trying EVERYTHING I can to forget this GOD Awful MOVIE I have just endured.I feel violated just watching this movie - it was BOOORING, the script is a mess, it was all over the place, the acting is wooden, the characters are all mess up from the series - there is nothing good about this movie.
Seriously, this movie makes "Alone in the Dark" and even that GOD Awful "BloodRayne" looks like a MASTERPIECE !!!Another thing, when I came out of the cinema, I actually saw couple of kids in distress, one of them actually crying.
the story was weird..Acting was bad..i don't recommend to watch that movie if u wanna have good time.!
This is the first time i have ever seen a movie with absolutely zero character development.
What was wrong with the way they said the names in the show?Now call me a purist, but because this movie was so rushed, it left out many crucial facts needed to develop a full story and character personalities as stated before.
It will always be lacking enough detail to complete the story, unless of course you made 6 hour movie, but no one would want to see that.As for the 3D, I recommend watching it in 2D it's the same thing.
As fan of the series I was extremely excited when I heard they were making an Avatar movie.I am writing this review with great sadness.
He doesn't tell us a story, he simply cuts and pastes epic moments and expects that the audience will be dazzled enough to dismiss wooden acting and choppy dialogue.There were not enough moments of comic relief and all the redeeming qualities of these characters was stripped away.If you loved the series there is no need to watch this catastrophe of a movie.
Night to Write, Direct, Produce & Cast this film!Things you might hate if you've haven't seen the Cartoon & wasn't a fan...The Acting, The badly done Action scenes, The 3D converted version, not being able to follow whats going on in the film, the slow motion action scenes, the story development, the character development, The person who hired M.
All three of us are huge fans of the Avatar cartoon series, and even my daughter walked out of the movie disappointed and listing numerous ways M.
When I got home that night I had to watch the cartoon series for some time to completely forget about the movie!