"We have to show them we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in their beliefs."
Please take a moment to welcome our special guest-blogger, Momo the winged lemur!
Oh hai, Momo, I did not see you zere.
Today Momo and I will be discussing M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. Momo, would you like to share any feelings on the film?
*hschhhhhhhhhhh*
Mm, I thought so.
The Last Airbender is the live-action big-screen version of the beloved animated series Avatar: the Last Airbender. It is set in a world of four nations, ruled by the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. Within each nation, certain individuals can harness the power of the elements. They are known as "benders."
Would have made the movie at least 700 times better.
The Avatar is the one human who can control all the elements, and thus is tasked with keeping the world in balance. 100 years before the action of the film, the last Avatar, born to the Air Nomads, disappeared, and the Fire Nation declared war on everybody in an effort to control all the other nations, I guess. While the film opens with a virtual shot-for-shot recreation of the series opening, and they could easily have used the opening monologue from the pilot to explain all this, Shyamalan opts to write his own version, with considerably less success.
Our narrator is a wide-eyed, hopeful young lady named Katara. Katara is a young waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe. She and her brother Sokka are out hunting unsuccessfully one day when they discover a boy and his flying bison (OH, APPA!) in an iceberg. The boy is, incidentally, an airbender. It doesn't take long for them to conclude that this young man, Aang, is the Avatar.
Possibly because he sometimes glows.
I'd like to point out that the film pronounces it "AHHng." It also pronounces Sokka's name "SOH-ka," not "SOCK-ah," and "EE-roh," not "EYE-roh."
I knows, Momo. I knows.
Katara is immediately taken with young Aang and his mighty bison.
Also his sweet ink.
Despite their apparent complete lack of skills and personality, Katara and Sokka decide it is important for them, specifically, to accompany Aang on his journey to master all four elements, take his place as Avatar, and save the world from the Fire Nation. It has something to do with Destiny. They are, one might say, children full of destiny.
Pictured here in Earth Kingdom disguises, L-R: Sokka, Aang, Katara.
The intrepid trio are pursued by nefarious Fire Nation villains: there is the disgraced Prince Zuko, who was banished by his father on account of something he did, I don't know, they covered it in some awkward exposition dialogue (incidentally: Awkward Exposition Dialogue and/or Awkward Exposition Voiceover comprises approximately 20% of the film. 60% of the rest of the film is kids doing tai chi.) ANYWAY, Zuko needs to find the Avatar and bring him to his father, Fire Lord Ozai, so he can have his banishment rescinded and regain his honor. Prince Zuko's guardian is his laid-back Uncle Iroh, who rocks some serious dreads and sometimes burns things the hell up. In the Avatar world, benders can't bend without their element being present, with Iroh being one of the few exceptions. This is how you know he's badass, because God love him, there's not really any other opportunity for him to demonstrate it.
"Even though my dreads and I have been acting as hard as we fucking can."
Opposing THEM is Commander Zhao, who wants to find the Avatar and bring him to Fire Lord Ozai because he's greedy and hungry for power. Zhao is played by Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show et. al., and the movie is exponentially more tolerable if you pretend each of his lines is prefaced by an arch "That's right, Jon," or similar.
"Well, Jon, it seems the Avatar has escaped yet again."
Also, Fire Lord Ozai has a deep, rich, imposing voice, but basically looks like some dude.
And some dude makes Momo sad.
The heroic trio's plan is to head to the Northern Water Tribe, an impenetrable fortress chock full of waterbenders, where Aang can master waterbending. Aang opts to detour to the Southern Air Temple, where he discovers that, just after he ran away from home and landed himself an Appa in an iceberg, the Fire Nation wiped out the Air Nomads, and everyone he ever knew or loved has been murdered.
"EMOOOTTTIOOOOOOOOONNN!"
Yes, Momo, it IS shocking! SHOCKINGLY BAD ACTING.
After getting all grievey and glowy and floaty and windy, Aang calms down long enough to fly his friends north, where they arrive at the Northern Water Tribe's impressive ice city and Sokka falls in love with the princess, which is explained to us through ever-helpful Awkward Exposition Voiceover.
"We're so lucky Awkward Exposition Voiceover brought us together, but do you think we need to invite it to the wedding?"
Somewhere in there, Aang is captured by the Fire Nation a few times but always manages to escape. Zhao tries to explode Zuko for blowing up his spot, so Zuko disguises himself to help Aang escape again, presumably so he can capture the Avatar himself, but is knocked cold, etc. Actually, now that I think of it, the film might just be a tremendous comedy of errors.
"It's like Twelfth Night with CGI and racism! Get it? I AM A GENIUS."
Back in the Water Blah Blah City Blah, Aang and Katara speedily master waterbending, Sokka and Princess Yue compare hair tips, and then the Fire Nation catches up with BIG SHIPS and FIRE and BAD. Then there's FIGHTING. LOTS OF FIGHTING. STEAM GETS EVERYWHERE. ALSO MORE TAI CHI.
Evil Commander Zhao has learned that the moon and ocean spirits live right in their own special grotto in Water Ice City Place, and he figures he can gain an advantage over the waterbenders by straight up murdering those magic fish.
Momo would've helped if the spirits had taken the form of apples.
Pretty much everybody tries to step in and stop him, because that is just CRAY CRAY, MAN, but even Uncle Iroh's badass firebending is not enough to save the moon spirit. Since the moon is such an important influence over water, and the moon is now dead or something, this spells bad news for Waterworld. Luckily, by a fortunate happenstance, it turns out Princess Yue owes her life to the moon spirit and can therefore exchange her life for that of the fish.
"Don't be sad, Soh-ka. I'll just be the moon from now on. Moons are sexy, right? Sure, it's a long distance relationship, but I think we can make it work."
"...And Suki didn't even make it into the film. WILL MY TERRIBLE HAIRCUTS ALWAYS KEEP ME FROM KNOWING TRUE LOVE?!?"
With the moon restored, the waterbenders regain their advantage over the firebenders, but it's going to take more than that to prevent Waterworld from being overrun. That's where Aang comes in, using his Avatar powers to create a threateningly large wave.
"WoooOOOOoooo, I may or may not destroy you, WOOOoooOO!"
This is all it takes to send the invaders running back to the Fire Nation like terrified little babies. I mean, they OBLITERATED AN ENTIRE RACE OF BENDERS, but can't face up to a big wave. I CALL BULLSHIT.
Bison bullshit whistle!
After that, all that's left is for everyone to bow down to Aang, and for him to possibly tenuously accept his tremendous responsibility, or possibly just do a complicated modern dance move, none of us were really sure. THE TWIST IS THAT THE MOVIE COULD'VE BEEN GOOD.
Momo's Summary: What should have been at least a 2 hour film was condensed down to 90 minutes of nearly incomprehensible schlock. Important elements from the series (such as any sense of humor at all and PRONOUNCING THE CHARACTER'S NAMES RIGHT, WHAT THE HELL) were missing for reasons that were obviously due to something other than time constraints. While most of the young actors weren't irredeemable, they were frequently wooden and dour and could have benefited from competent writing and directing. Everything appears dark (I can't imagine how bad it must have looked in converted 3D, since you can barely tell what's going on in 2D), and while there are some genuinely beautiful elements, you only get a moment to appreciate each of them. I'm sure little kids watching don't care about any of that, but you'd think for a series with such a large, vocal adult fan base, more effort would have been made to appeal to older viewers. While it's not the worst movie in the world-- or even the worst movie in recent memory, as some reviewers would like you to believe-- with such excellent source material and such a tremendous budget, there's really no excuse for producing such a poor end result.
Other Momo's Summary:
I agree, little buddy!
Oh hai, Momo, I did not see you zere.
Today Momo and I will be discussing M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. Momo, would you like to share any feelings on the film?
*hschhhhhhhhhhh*
Mm, I thought so.
The Last Airbender is the live-action big-screen version of the beloved animated series Avatar: the Last Airbender. It is set in a world of four nations, ruled by the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. Within each nation, certain individuals can harness the power of the elements. They are known as "benders."
Would have made the movie at least 700 times better.
The Avatar is the one human who can control all the elements, and thus is tasked with keeping the world in balance. 100 years before the action of the film, the last Avatar, born to the Air Nomads, disappeared, and the Fire Nation declared war on everybody in an effort to control all the other nations, I guess. While the film opens with a virtual shot-for-shot recreation of the series opening, and they could easily have used the opening monologue from the pilot to explain all this, Shyamalan opts to write his own version, with considerably less success.
Our narrator is a wide-eyed, hopeful young lady named Katara. Katara is a young waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe. She and her brother Sokka are out hunting unsuccessfully one day when they discover a boy and his flying bison (OH, APPA!) in an iceberg. The boy is, incidentally, an airbender. It doesn't take long for them to conclude that this young man, Aang, is the Avatar.
Possibly because he sometimes glows.
I'd like to point out that the film pronounces it "AHHng." It also pronounces Sokka's name "SOH-ka," not "SOCK-ah," and "EE-roh," not "EYE-roh."
I knows, Momo. I knows.
Katara is immediately taken with young Aang and his mighty bison.
Also his sweet ink.
Despite their apparent complete lack of skills and personality, Katara and Sokka decide it is important for them, specifically, to accompany Aang on his journey to master all four elements, take his place as Avatar, and save the world from the Fire Nation. It has something to do with Destiny. They are, one might say, children full of destiny.
Pictured here in Earth Kingdom disguises, L-R: Sokka, Aang, Katara.
The intrepid trio are pursued by nefarious Fire Nation villains: there is the disgraced Prince Zuko, who was banished by his father on account of something he did, I don't know, they covered it in some awkward exposition dialogue (incidentally: Awkward Exposition Dialogue and/or Awkward Exposition Voiceover comprises approximately 20% of the film. 60% of the rest of the film is kids doing tai chi.) ANYWAY, Zuko needs to find the Avatar and bring him to his father, Fire Lord Ozai, so he can have his banishment rescinded and regain his honor. Prince Zuko's guardian is his laid-back Uncle Iroh, who rocks some serious dreads and sometimes burns things the hell up. In the Avatar world, benders can't bend without their element being present, with Iroh being one of the few exceptions. This is how you know he's badass, because God love him, there's not really any other opportunity for him to demonstrate it.
"Even though my dreads and I have been acting as hard as we fucking can."
Opposing THEM is Commander Zhao, who wants to find the Avatar and bring him to Fire Lord Ozai because he's greedy and hungry for power. Zhao is played by Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show et. al., and the movie is exponentially more tolerable if you pretend each of his lines is prefaced by an arch "That's right, Jon," or similar.
"Well, Jon, it seems the Avatar has escaped yet again."
Also, Fire Lord Ozai has a deep, rich, imposing voice, but basically looks like some dude.
And some dude makes Momo sad.
The heroic trio's plan is to head to the Northern Water Tribe, an impenetrable fortress chock full of waterbenders, where Aang can master waterbending. Aang opts to detour to the Southern Air Temple, where he discovers that, just after he ran away from home and landed himself an Appa in an iceberg, the Fire Nation wiped out the Air Nomads, and everyone he ever knew or loved has been murdered.
"EMOOOTTTIOOOOOOOOONNN!"
Yes, Momo, it IS shocking! SHOCKINGLY BAD ACTING.
After getting all grievey and glowy and floaty and windy, Aang calms down long enough to fly his friends north, where they arrive at the Northern Water Tribe's impressive ice city and Sokka falls in love with the princess, which is explained to us through ever-helpful Awkward Exposition Voiceover.
"We're so lucky Awkward Exposition Voiceover brought us together, but do you think we need to invite it to the wedding?"
Somewhere in there, Aang is captured by the Fire Nation a few times but always manages to escape. Zhao tries to explode Zuko for blowing up his spot, so Zuko disguises himself to help Aang escape again, presumably so he can capture the Avatar himself, but is knocked cold, etc. Actually, now that I think of it, the film might just be a tremendous comedy of errors.
"It's like Twelfth Night with CGI and racism! Get it? I AM A GENIUS."
Back in the Water Blah Blah City Blah, Aang and Katara speedily master waterbending, Sokka and Princess Yue compare hair tips, and then the Fire Nation catches up with BIG SHIPS and FIRE and BAD. Then there's FIGHTING. LOTS OF FIGHTING. STEAM GETS EVERYWHERE. ALSO MORE TAI CHI.
Evil Commander Zhao has learned that the moon and ocean spirits live right in their own special grotto in Water Ice City Place, and he figures he can gain an advantage over the waterbenders by straight up murdering those magic fish.
Momo would've helped if the spirits had taken the form of apples.
Pretty much everybody tries to step in and stop him, because that is just CRAY CRAY, MAN, but even Uncle Iroh's badass firebending is not enough to save the moon spirit. Since the moon is such an important influence over water, and the moon is now dead or something, this spells bad news for Waterworld. Luckily, by a fortunate happenstance, it turns out Princess Yue owes her life to the moon spirit and can therefore exchange her life for that of the fish.
"Don't be sad, Soh-ka. I'll just be the moon from now on. Moons are sexy, right? Sure, it's a long distance relationship, but I think we can make it work."
"...And Suki didn't even make it into the film. WILL MY TERRIBLE HAIRCUTS ALWAYS KEEP ME FROM KNOWING TRUE LOVE?!?"
With the moon restored, the waterbenders regain their advantage over the firebenders, but it's going to take more than that to prevent Waterworld from being overrun. That's where Aang comes in, using his Avatar powers to create a threateningly large wave.
"WoooOOOOoooo, I may or may not destroy you, WOOOoooOO!"
This is all it takes to send the invaders running back to the Fire Nation like terrified little babies. I mean, they OBLITERATED AN ENTIRE RACE OF BENDERS, but can't face up to a big wave. I CALL BULLSHIT.
Bison bullshit whistle!
After that, all that's left is for everyone to bow down to Aang, and for him to possibly tenuously accept his tremendous responsibility, or possibly just do a complicated modern dance move, none of us were really sure. THE TWIST IS THAT THE MOVIE COULD'VE BEEN GOOD.
Momo's Summary: What should have been at least a 2 hour film was condensed down to 90 minutes of nearly incomprehensible schlock. Important elements from the series (such as any sense of humor at all and PRONOUNCING THE CHARACTER'S NAMES RIGHT, WHAT THE HELL) were missing for reasons that were obviously due to something other than time constraints. While most of the young actors weren't irredeemable, they were frequently wooden and dour and could have benefited from competent writing and directing. Everything appears dark (I can't imagine how bad it must have looked in converted 3D, since you can barely tell what's going on in 2D), and while there are some genuinely beautiful elements, you only get a moment to appreciate each of them. I'm sure little kids watching don't care about any of that, but you'd think for a series with such a large, vocal adult fan base, more effort would have been made to appeal to older viewers. While it's not the worst movie in the world-- or even the worst movie in recent memory, as some reviewers would like you to believe-- with such excellent source material and such a tremendous budget, there's really no excuse for producing such a poor end result.
Other Momo's Summary:
I agree, little buddy!