The Last Airbender 2

[MageTank]

I don't know how many people here were fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender (or Legend of Aang for non-Americans) but growing up, it was one of my favorite cartoons. The entire series was flawless in my eyes (with the exception of what felt like a rushed, deus ex machina style ending) and has been well received by not only children at the time, but even adults. One adult in particular, M. Night Shyamalan, decided to make a movie out of the series. This movie decided not to stick with the source material, and instead decided to change everything about the series. The cast was bland and resembled none of the lovable character traits from the animated series, and even the pronunciation of the characters was changed without a valid reason.

 

The result? A terrible film, that dealt a huge blow to Shyamalan's career. Sadly, the story does not end here. They are coming out with a sequel to the first film. The Last Airbender 2. As if the first one was not bad enough, we need to see more likable characters turned into lifeless zombies by more unknown actors, and hear their names pronounced even more incorrectly than the last. For those of you that are probably in disbelief at this moment, here is the proof.

 

http://www.movienewsguide.com/shyamalan-confirms-avatar-last-airbender-2-release-defends-highly-criticized-first-part/87629

 

 

 

The Indian-American director has bluntly defended the first part saying, “It’s really weird because on the show the average age was, like, nine-years-old. So you could make it one of two ways: You could make it for that same audience, which is what I did – for nine and 10-year-olds – or you could do the Transformers version and have Megan Fox… I didn’t do that.” shared Venture Capital Post.

 

So, fans of the show, how do you feel about seeing another childhood classic be destroyed for a second time? Or did you like the first movie? If so, are you willing to pay to see the second one? I am curious to see if anyone actually liked the first one, let alone be willing to pay to see the second one. This almost seems like career suicide.

[PlayStation 2]

Oh fuck no...

*insert shitty plot twist here*

[Zeke]

Bring it on, I'd like to see Nostalgia Critic review that one

[AlwaysFSX]

Oh boy! We get the watered down, condensed version of Book 2 this time!

 

What the fuck.

[minibois]

 

You ruined the first movie, don't do it again

I like Avatar, the series.. But the movie.. no.

[stealth80]

Hey no one cried when they destroyed my childhood cartoon - Transformers !

[Volbet]

The result? A terrible film, that dealt a huge blow to Shyamalan's career.

M. Night Shyamalan's career was in shambles way before The Last Airbender.

The Happening was aweful, Lady in the Water was boring and Signs was just plain dumb.

At this point M. Night Shyamalan is like the Wachowski siblings. They made one (maybe two) good movies, and everyone is still throwing money in their general direction.

I have never seen the series Avatar, but The Last Airbender was just a horrible movie periode.

[DarkBlade2117]

I liked it. I was also like 9 when seen it though. Haven't watched the show in years.

[Charger]

the first film was bad I can only assume the second will not be much better.

I like both avatar and korra but they were not a part of my childhood or anything since i was already out of highschool when I started watching the first one.

[MageTank]

The problem i had with the film was the direction and the actors. Most people bring up the "THEY ARE NOT EVEN ASIAN!" rant when bringing up the film, but my disdain for it isn't even that petty. Hell, Will Smith could play Uncle Iroh for all i care, as long as he acts good and stays true to the character he is representing. None of the characters felt like they were from the show. Sokka lost his humor, Katara became a very bland, useless girl, and Aang was just a terrible choice of an actor all around. Then the name thing killed it for me. The reasoning behind this was that "The shows creators got the names and their pronunciation wrong, i fixed it in the film". It only added more frustration than what it was worth.

 

The effects was garbage, with firebenders having to carry around lanterns and taking several earthbenders to throw an average size rock. I can't wait to see how vastly underwhelming Toph's abilities are. If they are great, then they clearly undersold that original earthbender village.

 

 

M. Night Shyamalan's career was in shambles way before The Last Airbender.
The Happening was aweful, Lady in the Water was boring and Signs was just plain dumb.
At this point M. Night Shyamalan is like the Wachowski siblings. They made one (maybe two) good movies, and everyone is still throwing money in their general direction.

I have never seen the series Avatar, but The Last Airbender was just a horrible movie periode.

Your perspective is highly appreciated. I always wondered if my terrible experience with the film was because i was introduced to the animated series first, and enjoyed it so much that the bar was raised too high for the film to compete. Seeing someone dislike it without having seen the series only makes me feel better knowing the movie was just all around bad.

 

 

Hey no one cried when they destroyed my childhood cartoon - Transformers !

I hated the Transformers movies too. When i think Transformers, i think kickass robot battles, not humanoid love interests. Sure, the cartoon series had human sidekicks from time to time, but they were never the series main focus. Why Michael Bay centered his story around one random kid (and then Mark Wahlberg) is beyond me. It didn't even make any sense to me. Had the cut out the love stories, and just left it to the transformers fighting over earth and the morality of destroying a planet that does not belong to them, it would have made it a far more enjoyable film to me.

 

Then again, what do i know? I am just a dude that watches cartoons, lol.

[TopWargamer]

The first movie was terrible. So much of the story was cut out, and what was there was so clunky and did not connect/flow well. Plus the actors kinda blew. 

 

And yes, me and my dad were some of the suckers to watch it in 3D. I kid you not, there was NO 3D effect at all. Legit. None. 

[MageTank]

The first movie was terrible. So much of the story was cut out, and what was there was so clunky and did not connect/flow well. Plus the actors kinda blew. 

 

And yes, me and my dad were some of the suckers to watch it in 3D. I kid you not, there was NO 3D effect at all. Legit. None. 

Wow, that would indeed suck. Luckily i didn't pay to go see it, my grandpa gave me the DVD after he got it, except he forgot to tell me it sucked. I should have known it was bad, because he only ever gives away the really bad DVD's to me. Like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

 

He was just as disappointed as i was, because he liked the original series too. Poor man was already set back by that terrible Dragonball Evolution movie, and had to live through the same thing twice with The Last Airbender. 

[roastduck]

Sequel? but they never made a first movie...

[Ekpyrosis]

I really like the cartoon, it has strong character development and the amount of thought that went into creating the world is quite exceptional for a children's series.

But the movie? It's awful. Shyamalan deserves all the flak he gets for it. And his attempts to defend it are ridiculous, making something primarily for 10-year olds doesn't justify bad quality and it doesn't prevent you from making it enjoyable for a wide range of audiences. The very series it is based on is a great example for that. In fact, the quality of acting, direction and screenplay can all be evaluated regardless of which audience it is intended for.

[AlwaysFSX]

Let's not forget they can't pronounce Aang's name.. Something that's said an unbelievable amount of times in the show.

[Albatross]

At least it wasn't an Eragon quality movie. As a stand alone film, it actually wasn't that bad. If people weren't expecting the quality of the show, which any sane person would have known was impossible, they probably would have come out liking the movie. In fact, if I remember correctly, people who never heard of Avatar or watched the show, came out of the film liking it and so did the target audience—children.

 

That said, I hope they make another one. The first had its moments of frustration and change, but as entainment value, it was decent enough. Maybe the next movie will be better, or maybe they will come to deal to act like the first never happened or to reboot the first.

 

Plus...we gotta see Toph and Azula!

 

Let's not forget they can't pronounce Aang's name.. Something that's said an unbelievable amount of times in the show.

 

It wasn't that they couldn't. "Aang" was the victim of Anglicization in the tv show, so was Sokka and many other names. So they pronounced Aang as /oːŋ/, instead of /ɛːŋ/ or /æŋ/, like the tv show did. They were fully aware of how it was pronounced in the show.

[Sovek]

Ok, I call BS. You can make family friendly movies and STILL make it entertaining for the adults, look at How To Train Your Dragon. Kids movie (for the most part) but even the parents loved it.

 

Avatar? It was bad from start to finish. You simply CANNOT cut down 8 hours of story and stick it into a not even 2 hour movie.

 

As for the pronunciation? I think they decided to try pronouncing them like they came from asia and fans didn't like that one bit.

[MageTank]

At least it wasn't an Eragon quality movie. As a stand alone film, it actually wasn't that bad. If people weren't expecting the quality of the show, which any sane person would have known was impossible, they probably would have come out liking the movie. In fact, if I remember correctly, people who never heard of Avatar or watched the show, came out of the film liking it and so did the target audience—children.

 

Seeing as they had a budget of $150 million, i kinda expected some quality resembling that of the low budget animated series. Sure, getting the bending properly animated probably cost a large chunk of the budget, but we've seen great films of the past having insane special effects with a much lower budget. I could ignore the terrible bending effects,and forgive the mispronouncing of names (i know he wanted to use the correct real world pronunciations, but doing so adds absolutely nothing to the film anyways) but i cannot forgive the terrible acting in this film. 

 

I could do a better film than this, and i know nothing of films. That's it, time for a dream team.

 

Coming soon to a theater near you...

 

Act 1:

 

Aang (Jadan Smith), is the avatar, and is supposed to balance the world or something. To do so, he is going to need help from two random Eskimo's(Ashton Kutcher, and Mila Kunis) he met after dozing off for 100 years. Before he can get started on his journey. an enemy shows up to cause trouble. This enemy is a prince, whose honor was taken from him. His name is Prince Zuko (Liam Neeson) and he intends to get his honor back, with his very particular set of skills. Aiding Prince Zuko in his exile, is his uncle (Gary Busey) who always has cryptic anecdotes to say that at first, is not helpful, but eventually becomes helpful. Escaping these two fearsome foes thanks to the help of his Flying Bison (Voiced by Vin Diesel), he heads off to go find a bunch of dead monks (Played by Skeletor, from He-Man). There, he finds a tiny Lemur (Inner Monologue done by Patrick Stewart) who only goes along with them because living companions are better than a bunch of dead dudes. 

 

Act 2:

 

So the group of heroes show up at some random earth village, where a bunch of fire guys run the place. Katara (pronounced Kat-tay-ra) convinces the earth guys (Multiple shirtless Channing Tatums on a green screen) to do a dance from his Step-Up movie, in order to throw a rock at a bad guy. Meanwhile, Aang (pronounced uhhhh....ng) makes no emotional expression while twirling a stick in a circle at all the bad guys. Sokka (pronounced soccer) will make witty one-liners everytime a bad guy gets hit. Like "Oh, looks like you got BURNED". 

 

Act 3:

 

Our heroes end up making it to the north pole, and find out Santa isn't real, while also noticing that the fire people brought an entire army to get them. However, Zuko, using his very particular set of skills, has managed to keep up with them and even stole Aang from the good guys. Some stuff happens, Aaang becomes a giant water monster, nobody gets killed on screen because we still need to market this to kids, and everything is peachy keen. Zuko and his uncle vow to continue chasing the avatar some other time and what not, while the others celebrate what was essentially a brutal war in what is now a destroyed village. Cut to the credits.

 

Post Credits:

 

We get a glimpse of the second movies antagonists. Fire Lord Ozai (Nicholas Cage) orders his daughter, Princess Azula (Betty White) to slay the Avatar. Cut to black.

 

Directed by Kevin Smith. Produced by Will Smith (He wants Jaden to be famous at any cost). 

 

There, i did it. I made a better film than M. Night. Shyamalan. Send me my check.

[Gale]

What is with the mentality that shows/cartoons for kids cannot be enjoyed by adults? Doesn't Shyamalan know that Avatar drew a huge adult crowd while being a children's show? "One of two ways" my butt, he didn't succeed in either.

[Murdoch]

I always thought the hate towards this movie was overblown. It's a mediocre kids movie, with some pretty wooden acting, and a blatant disregard (apparently) for the source material. That pretty much describes every live action kids movie ever.

[Albatross]

Seeing as they had a budget of $150 million, i kinda expected some quality resembling that of the low budget animated series. Sure, getting the bending properly animated probably cost a large chunk of the budget, but we've seen great films of the past having insane special effects with a much lower budget. I could ignore the terrible bending effects,and forgive the mispronouncing of names (i know he wanted to use the correct real world pronunciations, but doing so adds absolutely nothing to the film anyways) but i cannot forgive the terrible acting in this film. 

 

I could do a better film than this, and i know nothing of films. That's it, time for a dream team.

 

 

The quality of the show could run over the course of an hour. The movie did not have this luxury. If you expected half of the quality of the tv show in a child's short movie, then you need to prepare yourself better for the reality of things. And yes, they spent most of that budget on the animation and advertising. Too much on the later, in my opinion.

 

 

 

That actually reminds me of something.  I bet the movie would have been better if Paramount didn't stick its nose into everything and told him how to make the movie, and how long/short it should be. The original script was "so good" that Bryke commented on it, saying "they liked it a lot". But as soon as shite hit the fan, they acted like they had never seen the script before and knew it was trash from the start. They helped write the script, though obviously not as much as they did for the show. They hamper off the success of others (Sokka, Toph, best-moments etc), or rather refuse to acknowledge others' involvement less it makes them look less important.

 

 

They proceed to repeat what M.Night says in the interview above in a written interview. So either they really did like it and then changed their opinion to suit fans, or they lied from the start and are just distasteful people to start with. Sure we would have still  had the bad acting, but at least the content wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for Paramount meddeling, as well as Bryke either lying about the quality of the movie or helping.

 

Once Bryke was left alone with Korra, it really showed how the entire staff of the original series made it was it was. We have Bryke to thank for the world, and the wonderful story, but they weren't the only people involved and I think that was the problem with the movie (and with Korra!). They shouldn't have been the only people consulting with M.Night on the movie.

[alicskysareblue]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUU !!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

(sorry for the spam post but seriously....)

[MageTank]

The quality of the show could run over the course of an hour. The movie did not have this luxury. If you expected half of the quality of the tv show in a child's short movie, then you need to prepare yourself better for the reality of things. And yes, they spent most of that budget on the animation and advertising. Too much on the later, in my opinion.

 

 

 

That actually reminds me of something.  I bet the movie would have been better if Paramount didn't stick its nose into everything and told him how to make the movie, and how long/short it should be. The original script was "so good" that Bryke commented on it, saying "they liked it a lot". But as soon as shite hit the fan, they acted like they had never seen the script before and knew it was trash from the start. They helped write the script, though obviously not as much as they did for the show. They hamper off the success of others (Sokka, Toph, best-moments etc), or rather refuse to acknowledge others' involvement less it makes them look less important.

 

 

They proceed to repeat what M.Night says in the interview above in a written interview. So either they really did like it and then changed their opinion to suit fans, or they lied from the start and are just distasteful people to start with. Sure we would have still  had the bad acting, but at least the content wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for Paramount meddeling, as well as Bryke either lying about the quality of the movie or helping.

 

Once Bryke was left alone with Korra, it really showed how the entire staff of the original series made it was it was. We have Bryke to thank for the world, and the wonderful story, but they weren't the only people involved and I think that was the problem with the movie (and with Korra!). They shouldn't have been the only people consulting with M.Night on the movie.

Korra would have been a great one off series, or if they would have stuck with Amon being the bad guy. He, like Zuko, was a very interesting villain. He was scary in the sense that he was just a man, yet capable of going toe to toe with essentially the strongest being in the world with nothing more than his fingertips. Then they killed him off like some sort of weakling. Season 2 was utter garbage, and season 3 was milking the series dry.

 

As far as the movie goes, you are right. It was an impossible setup to try to fit a 10 hour series into 1 or 2 hours. Even if you cut out all the filler (The trip to meet King Bumi, the kyoshi warriors, the little odd jobs they take to earn money, and even the smaller characters like Jet) you still end up with around 4-5 hours of very important dialogue that cannot be summed up with exposition or narration. It is impossible to get to know the characters fast enough. They had the same problem with the Dragonball movie, and the same problem will exist for pretty much any movie made around an animated series.

 

The only animated series i could ever see being possible, would be something like Samurai Champloo, where the effects are not entirely impossible to reproduce, characters can be expressed fairly easily, and it wasn't that long of a series that you would miss plot if they cut out some of the filler. Either way, we do not need a second Airbender movie. I think one was more than enough of a guinea pig for this type of thing.

[TetraSky]

Yes! Finally! About time they announced that second movie.

I've watched the entire avatar cartoon, as well as the legend of korra, and I still enjoyed the movie for what it was.

 

Yes it's not 100% accurate to the original series, but as its own entity it was certainly not as bad as people make it out to be.

It's like resident evil fans bashing the resident evil movies. Yes they are bad compared to the game, but as far as movies goes, not THAT bad.

[Albatross]

Um, where is the source for movie 2? I know he has talked about it, but we haven't had news on a second movie since the first came out.

 

Korra would have been a great one off series, or if they would have stuck with Amon being the bad guy. He, like Zuko, was a very interesting villain. He was scary in the sense that he was just a man, yet capable of going toe to toe with essentially the strongest being in the world with nothing more than his fingertips. Then they killed him off like some sort of weakling. Season 2 was utter garbage, and season 3 was milking the series dry.

 

As far as the movie goes, you are right. It was an impossible setup to try to fit a 10 hour series into 1 or 2 hours. Even if you cut out all the filler (The trip to meet King Bumi, the kyoshi warriors, the little odd jobs they take to earn money, and even the smaller characters like Jet) you still end up with around 4-5 hours of very important dialogue that cannot be summed up with exposition or narration. It is impossible to get to know the characters fast enough. They had the same problem with the Dragonball movie, and the same problem will exist for pretty much any movie made around an animated series.

 

The only animated series i could ever see being possible, would be something like Samurai Champloo, where the effects are not entirely impossible to reproduce, characters can be expressed fairly easily, and it wasn't that long of a series that you would miss plot if they cut out some of the filler. Either way, we do not need a second Airbender movie. I think one was more than enough of a guinea pig for this type of thing.

 

Legend of Korra could have been good if they stuck to one season, or like you said, stick with Amon. He had a cause I could even rally against, and had development until the rest in the series (Kuvira was awesome though). If they had made him the new Ozai, the series could have been great. But then again, I am one of the fans that would have loved to see Korra master all the elements instead of just pathetically "learning" Airbending.

 

Exactly. M.Night never stood a chance with budget, time restrictions and Paramount barking at him. If he had been allowed to keep his orinal two hour long movie, I am pretty sure the movie would have been a hit, even if it differed a lot from the source or suffered from poor acting.

 

I don't think we need another one, but I would like it. I would even like a reboot. Stories like this are so beautiful that seeing them on tv, in CGI as if right before you, can be an amazing experiance. Even though Eragon was shtako, I really loved seeing Saphira and Brom. I'm still hoping we get another Eragon movie, a reboot for sure, because even though his story is a rip off, it was really nice.