"Last Airbender" Supersize Review/Analysis/Critique, Part 3!
The One Where I Talk about Atmosphere in "Last Airbender," Specifically Why This Works Better in Animation Instead of Live-Action (In Terms of Visual And Character Design), The Bizarre Absence of Wildlife and The Film's Antagonists.
PART THREE: POOR ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS
(BACK TO PART TWO)
7) Realism and the Suspension of Disbelief
So if we apply the metaphor of how the Gaang took down The Drill in Season 2 to this review-- with "Last Airbender" being the "Drill" and these exceedingly long nerdy analyses to be "cutting through the support beams," this is the point where the movie starts to fall apart under its own weight. "Its own weight" being The Atmosphere of the movie.
Now this is going to sound like the sort of lazy, slavenly purist ultra adamant fan who can't cope when things aren't exactly like they are in the original, but I'm just going to say it anyway:
"The Last Airbender" should have been an animated movie and it has no business being live-action. Not just because it would have been closer to what we hoped for and because it would have probably meant a return of the original cast at least, but because I'm firmly convinced that "Avatar" simply works better as a cartoon, the same way that "Watchmen" simply works better as a comic book.
I'd like to share, if I may, a theory I have regarding animation vs. live-action in general as it relates to our perception of events therewith.
See, all fiction-- regardless of genre or medium-- ask us at some point to accept that what it's relaying to us isn't real but to essentially ignore that unreality and proceed. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as 'suspension of disbelief.' This nonverbal request is made at various times no matter how strictly a series may claim to be adhering to reality-- it might be in asking us to accept a world where elves and dwarves and dragons not only exist but are a common fact of everyday life,
It might involve an improbably dangerous car chase or fight scene,
or it might even be something as large as blue ghosts popping out of the ether to give advice to people.
How well the story ultimately succeeds is dependent both on how far it tries to take these things, and how willing the audience is to accept them. So suspending our disbelief is not only a basic requirement of enjoying genre work, but in some cases going against those predetermined bits of unrealism can actually negatively affect how we percieve it.
(Again, there are exceptions to everything, but it's important to remember that these established guidelines are established guidelines for a reason.)
This is part of the problem with live-action in the modern age of cinema-- by recording reality-- even greatly imitated in the form of sound stages and bluescreen sets and such-- the film is putting a stake in realism, which is fine on its own until the markedly fantastical concepts start coming into play, and they WILL come into play.
In some cases this can be countered by trying to make something 'unreal' as 'real' as possible, like the extensive use of puppetry in "Star Wars"
or highly detailed costumes and setpieces a la "Pan's Labyrinth."
But in most cases, CGI-- generally a faster and more cost-efficient method-- is the stopgap for rendering these 'unreal' things. However, while CGI is by no means ugly in and of itself, in almost all cases it's not nearly 'accurate' or seamless enough to go unnoticed.
This superimposition of something clearly 'fake' accompanying the screen with real people or sets (or even real people on fake sets) creates a cognitive dissonance that ultimately (in most cases) breaks the spell of the movie and kills the tension. And considering that without tension there's no story and film is a storytelling form, if this happens something has clearly gone wrong.
By contrast, animation isn't attempting anything towards an accurate recording of reality, because by the very nature of being animated, it's already unrealistic, which makes it easier to swallow the 'unreal' things that may occur.
What I'm trying to say is that live-action requires smaller but more frequent requests to banish our disbelief that can ultimately undo the production, whereas animation tends to ask this of us in a single, larger chunk. Once we've accepted the unreality of animation, it's easier to lose yourself in the world and story because just about anything it can come up with is fair game (within certain boundaries of course).
For example, "Tom and Jerry" features extreme, outlandish violence applied to comedic effect-- its frequent dips into absurdism and defiance of realistic consequences would make it an absolute logistical nightmare if it featured real animals buffed with CGI or puppets. But as animation, it's not only classic slapstick comedy but a timeless hit.
The idea of living, breathing toys who come to life when we're not around would be a bit hard to swallow in a live-action film, but it becomes a little easier to accept in the colorful all-CGI world of "Toy Story."
Hell, we know for a fact that fish cannot talk, much less that talking is even possible underwater unless you're a dolphin or something, but we accept that conceit in "Little Mermaid" and "Finding Nemo" without a second thought.
Even at its best, in alot of ways special effects in live-action films are just imitating what can be accomplished in animation much more effectively, but with more distracting results.
At its heart, "Avatar" is inextricably tied to animation itself, to the extent where, while a film adaptation as I said before isn't impossible, pulling it off well is considerably harder in a live-action format, as Shyamalan has discovered himself in "Last Airbender."
8) Not a Discussion of Whitewashing: The vital role of color and character design in "Avatar"
Right down to the very look of the world itself, the "Avatar" universe is revelling in the freedom that not being tied to visual realism offers. And even considering the costs and limitations of syndicated TV animation, it's still easily one of the most gorgeous looking shows on television PERIOD-- its own genre or medium or location notwithstanding.
Even for being set in a time of war and considering some of the dark places the series goes, "Avatar" boasts a rich and vibrant color palatte. It captures alot of the spirit of a big adventure series just from the way it utilizes bright tones and shades. It makes the world seem beautiful and inviting,
but can also make it dangerous, like the more fascinating and idealized version of our own world that often comes across in mythology itself.
"The Last Airbender" is dingy, muted, color-washed and flat out bland looking, even without the tacked-on 3D taken into account.
Hell, even the strong, distinct Nation clothing hues of the show are so dull now that Aang's beige-colored gi is probably the BRIGHTEST OF ALL OF THEM (and maybe Gyatso's robe but he's only there in flashback).
And remember the lunar eclipse in Seige of the North Part II? Remember how that interplay of strong reds and monochrome and deep blues really helped make that scene so much more visually interesting and dramatic?
Shyamalan doesn't, because the most we get during the corresponding moment in "Last Airbender" is about five seconds of a red lamp shining offscreen.
SURE NOT GETTING EXCITED OVER THIS.
Taking into account one of the most basic principles of character design, the look of the show's cast is distinct and straightforward-- we get a variety of easily identifiable silhouettes, but with details that help to give us information about them as well.
Katara's necklace is a beloved gift from her mother (and becomes an important detail in more than a few episodes in Season One).
Toph's bare feet give her an advantage as an Earthbender.
Aang's Airbender tattoos give him an immediately recognizable design element, and stand out more with him being the last of his people.
Zuko's scar instantly sets him apart from every other character and also ends up being key to his backstory and our understanding of him.
Even Sokka's little ponytail (or 'warrior's wolf-tail' if you want to be accurate) is indicative of who he is in terms of his place in Water Tribe society, along with being a little telling of their culture overall.
Now with all this taken into consideration, I want you to tell me what "The Last Airbender" retains from the show in terms of character design philosophy (outside the whitewashing issue of course).
Yes, Aang's tattoos are more detailed, but the desaturated blue they're rendered in makes it almost impossible to see the damn things.
Katara's necklace-- remember that thing, and how big a deal Katara made of it and how still broken-up she was about her dead mom?-- while it's there, it's never once acknowledged by her or noticed by anyone. So it being there does nothing at all.
Even Zuko's all-important scar is barely visible, and even then less a third-degree burn as a rash or something.
Well, I suppose maybe Shyamalan downplayed it because he wouldn't seem as pretty with it and no one could find Zuko a hero OR attractive with something like th--
...Oh wait.
If you're going to attempt to bring "Avatar" to the big screen in a live-action version, as hard as it would be you can still DO it if you can approach it visually and in terms of design with the same kind of youthful energy and depth that the show displays. It requires the understanding that these things are not just objects for the sake of being objects or details to be stapled in to placate fans, but important artifacts of each character and how they tie into this world. It gives THEM depth and ALSO provides a little more versimilitude to the world.
Shyamalan should've attempted that at least a bit, if only to give "Airbender" some sense of familiarity.
9) Blame it on the Fire Nation for Burning Down Forests I Guess
Now this is a smaller point and to be honest I really only noticed it around the second time I watched the damn thing, but I feel it's important enough to consider at least:
Where the hell are all the animals at?
"Avatar" featured a bizarre menagerie of hybrid creatures throughout its 61 episodes. None of them were particularly important to be sure, save for Appa and Momo, but they were a consideration that added a great deal to the atmosphere and believability of the world. From 'little things' like flying lemurs
to tigerseals
to platypusbears
all the way to 'traditional' fantasy staples like dragons and the walking (flying) Miyazaki-homage of the skybison,
they served as a reminder of the bizzareness of this fantasy universe while also bearing enough familiar elements to real animals that we accept their existence pretty easily (not to mention that fantastical beasts and hybrid animals are a large part of foundational mythology in the first place).
But none of that imaginative wierdness shows itself in "Last Airbender." While Momo and Appa are there, the plot-point Ocean and Moon Spirits are there, some big-ass Komodo Dragons and we do get to see A regular-ass dragon (though since it's in the Spirit World I'm not sure if that counts as a proper 'animal' but we're clutching at straws here anyway so whatever), but that's about it as far as the bestiary of "Last Airbender" goes.
In fact, nevermind the HYBRID animals-- I don't remember seeing ANY ambient animals at all. Not even basic shit like songbirds or squirrels or fish or ANYTHING. Doesn't that seem kind of... off? Instead of feeling like a world that would be fascinating enough WITHOUT the narrative proper attached to it, it's basically now just a hollow shell for our equally hollow cast to do... something in.
I know "Avatar" is all about the characters and I'm not suggesting that it should have been Mutual of Omaha's Freaky Animal Kingdom, but at least a few of these creatures in the establishing shots or something would have been nice.
It would have also been nice for Momo and Appa to have some semblance of themselves come through as well. Yeah they don't talk, but they do have hints of personality that come through the way they behave in the show. Despite what every other tenured newspaper comic in the world thinks, animals don't need to talk in order to be memorable or have character.
In "Last Airbender" Appa is literally just the excuse for how they get from place to place that occasionally growls or something.
Momo wasn't even going to be in the movie until Shyamalan tossed him in to placate the fandom, but considering he's just something else to digitally insert with CGI and he doesn't even do anything, his only real contribution to the story is to be yet another lousy effect to undermine the film.
I mean, all you really need is a scene or two (maybe not even that) to make them feel a bit more 'real' by way of some indirect or visual storytelling--
Oh wait. Nevermind.
10) The Villains or The Thin Line Between Dr. Doom and Dr. Evil
So we've established by now that "Avatar" is a high-fantasy adventure epic with a clear overarching goal, but the thing about a fantasy epic is that its stakes (drama) are only as grand as the forces there to cause challenges and obstacles for our heroes to overcome.
Put another way, heroes are only as good as their villains, and this is something that "Avatar" very clearly understood.
From so-called 'Big Bads' like Ozai and Azula
all the way down to adversaries covering a few episodes or even only one,
the series has no shortage of baddies, themselves ranging from the conniving and subtle
to straightforward and destructive.
Not only do they succeed in helping us believe in the gravity of the Avatar's struggle, but they leave a strong impression on their own, like any good villain should.
So when we got Aasif Mandvi-- an established comedy actor and "Daily Show" regular-- announced as Shyamalan's pick for Zhao, one of "Avatar's" best and most memorable foes, the overall reaction was admittedly less rage as it was complete and utter bewilderment.
Well, to be fair the guy's never really attempted dramatic stuff before... maybe there's something to this. Maybe he'll be a good Zhao after a--
Click to view...Oh.
It says something that in a film packed to bursting with awkward casting choices, that Mandvi's is probably the most misplaced of them all. He seems like he's reading his lines as if he's part of a sketch on... well, "The Daily Show." Which makes for some amusing unintended comic relief and gives the impression that he might be trolling Shyamalan in plain sight, but in the end does little to change the fact that a good opportunity to at least have a strong bad guy was missed here.
In "Avatar," Zhao is menacing, powerful, arrogant, smart, prideful, vicious and tempramental. He has clear flaws beyond 'just being evil' and the exact way he meets his end is perfectly fitting based on how he's developed throughout Season One (both in terms of what causes it and his last action up to actually dying).
Yeah, he's not a particularly deep villain, but sometimes all you need is a clearly evil bad guy with a clear motivation in order to have a GREAT bad guy.
He also serves a larger purpose to the narrative as a whole too-- in him we get a "proper" Fire Nation adversary to help Zuko shine by comparison, which in fact reveals him to ultimately be more of a hero than one might have considered up to that point,
and he sets the stage for Azula's introduction in Season 2 by giving us a bar of villainy for her to match up to (and she does easily).
In "Last Airbender" Zhao is a dick.
No, really, that's about it. He's... just kind of a dick.
None of that real menace in show!Zhao is here at all, and in fact other than shanking the Moon Spirit and sabotaging Zuko's ship based on his wild (though accurate) supposition that he's the Blue Spirit, he doesn't even really do anything BAD.
We never see him fight with Zuko so we never get a sense of what exactly their conflict is or why they're so at odds(nor even the impression that he's this formidable Firebender in the first place).
Despite the whole "eets-a RACE!" thing, he doesn't seem all that interested in going after Aang-- he just kinda gets him for about five minutes then doesn't seem too worried when he escapes.
Hell, even the idea that he was pretty much acting on his own for most of Season One is dissolved by his constantly running back and forth to the Fire Nation capital to hang with the Firelord and pick up his dry-cleaning or something (hey if anything else you'd think this crap would at LEAST inspire some Ozai/Zhao fic. Fandom I am surprised disappointed in you), so alot of the things he did that were basically ego-driven projects like killing the Moon Spirit and invading the Northern Water Tribe are now just errands from Brozai.
Well, I guess it's not all bad-- remember this scene from "Tales of Ba Sing Se?"
Remember how Lu Ten's death was mentioned offhand in a few previous episodes, but it had never really been addressed full on? Remember how sad and real and beautiful that moment was?
Welp, now it's just a factoid dropped by Zhao out of the blue to taunt Iroh. Barely moments BEFORE LOLing over his nephew's supposed death.
...Jesus Christ movie!Zhao, even SHOW!ZHAO wasn't THAT big of an asshole.
Oh, and hey let's move on to this-- how about that whole deal of revealing Ozai by the half-hour mark of "Last Airbender?"
...Okay, that's... odd, but maybe there's a good reason for why Shyamalan chose to--
Oh wait there isn't. Awkward.
In the show, this is the very first glimpse we get of Firelord Ozai, all the way back in Winter Solstice Part II.
Note the aggressive stance, the surrounding flames, the ominous silhouette and him BREATHING A HUGE WALL OF FIRE.
Conclusion: HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE GUY AANG HAS TO BEAT?! OH GODDAMN, THERE'S NO WAY HE CAN FIGHT THIS SCARY DUDE!
Despite Ozai not formally 'appearing' until Season Three, and even then not actually doing anything until the midway point of said season, he's still a very tangible threat and a very constant presence.
This is because Konietzko and DiMartino understood that for a mostly-offscreen overlord-style antagonist to work, they basically need to be treated like Keyzer Soze in "The Usual Suspects," The Emperor in "Star Wars" or Sauron in "The Lord of the Rings":
-Build them up as much as possible by keeping them obscured/offscreen. After all, the scariest kind of enemy is the kind you can't attach a face to, and if this person runs a HUGE EVIL ORGANIZATION they need to be as scary as possible.
-Have alot of people either talking about them, or introduce some bad motherfuckers to act on their behalf. Alot of worried, frightened people combined with that amorphous identity does alot to build up the tension, and the more wicked the underling, the more you start to think "shit, if these are the LACKEYS, I really hate to see what the boss is like..."
-Do not reveal them any sooner than you ABSOLUTELY NEED TO, and when you do, prove all those suspicions and fears to be absolutely on the money.
q.e.d., up to the point when Ozai actually gives a display of his power in Day of Black Sun Part II, Azula is the basis we have for the Most Powerful Enemy of The Avatar via her Lightningbending that ACTUALLY KILLED AANG.
The time it took her to warm up this ability, from spark to bolt, was about five seconds.
It takes Ozai ONE SECOND to do the exact same thing.
Conclusion: HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
So what was so important for Ozai to do that required him to basically give himself away and spoil the vital tension for that character to work?
A scene where he talk-n-walks, a scene where he sits on a throne and talks some more, and a scene where he talks while looking out a window.
That's it. For revealing the MAJOR VILLAIN OF THE ENTIRE SERIES THAT IS ALL SHYAMALAN CAN THINK TO MAKE HIM DO. He doesn't even do the ol' Megatron-esque villain standby of killing some anonymous underling that dares to question him or something like that.
For fuck's sake. And the worst thing is, like Zhao he doesn't even seem THAT bad-- he even seems like he genuinely cares about Zuko a little bit by telling Zhao not to kill Zuko or do anything to him EVEN WHEN ZHAO-- one of his most trusted commanders and the leader of the entire Fire Navy-- HAS GIVEN HIM HIS PERSONAL ASSURANCE THAT THE SON HE BANISHED OUT OF DISGRACE IS A STRAIGHT-UP TRAITOR. Though in truth he doesn't even seem to care that much-- you'd think with an accusation that serious against his own family (and Fire Nation society being all about honor and formal tradition and all that fun stuff), he'd at least want him captured and put before a tribunal or something.
The Agni Kai being so downplayed doesn't help either. You know, the Agni Kai that was THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN ZUKO'S DEVELOPMENT AS WE NOW KNOW HIM AND THE REASON FOR HIS BEING DRIVEN TO GET THE AVATAR AT ALL?
The most perplexing thing about all this is that, once again, Shyamalan knows how to build up an adversary over the course of a film. Other than a brief glimpse at the midpoint we don't get a good look at the aliens in "Signs" until the end of the movie! Even in "The Village" all we see of the 'monsters' are flashes of red and ominous shadows in the woods until the actual reality kills it! You would think that Shyamalan, of ALL PEOPLE, would have been able to at least keep THIS intact!
So without strong, effective villains in this first entry of this planned franchise, how are we supposed to believe that the stakes the Gaang is struggling for are that serious in the first place?
The long answer is that this clear separation between what we're being shown and what the movie is repeatedly trying to tell us ends up breaking our suspension of disbelief and sucking out the tension in the film. Without tension there's no drama, and without drama there's no real movie and no reason to be invested in it.
The short answer is that we just fucking don't.
###\*TO BE CONTINUED!*/###
(ONTO PART 4!)