Yin and Yang to Avatar

The Last Airbender review

This M. Night Shyamalan film is based on the first book of the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar the Last Airbender. The story is about four nations who are in a sense each governed by one of the four elements of earth, water, fire, and air. Certain people in these nations can bend and control their respectable element, but only one person known as the Avatar can bend all four elements and is able to communicate with the spirit world. Aang, a small airbender, upon learning he is the Avatar flees the Air Nation and his responsibilities and gets trapped beneath the ice. A hundred years pass and a brother and a sister from the Southern Water tribe find him. Their destinies become entwined. With the help of Katara and Sokka, Aang needs to master the elements in order to bring the ruling Fire Nation down to restore balance to the world.

I use to be on the fence with the cartoon thinking it was simply an Americanized anime made for children, and I sneered more when I heard that a film was being made...but then I saw the trailers and actually became interested. Within two weeks, I finished the animated series and was thoroughly impressed. The series is smart, complex, epic, and spiritual to a degree in how it conveys it's messages. Sadly, I do not think the film carries these messages. The film is covering the storyline of the first season, nearly 20 episodes packed into 94 minutes, and it shows. In my opinion the film is rushed, but does cover the most important plot points which should be good. It's just that in rushing, the soul and complexity of the story is stripped away to reveal almost a generic heroes' journey. The character's lack what makes them unique to the story line, becoming more one dimensional than how the cartoon portrays them as being multi dimensional in personality. Aang in the movie is completely overwhelmed by his emotions, but in the series you see that he masks quite a bit of that with a fun loving, seemingly care free personality. Katara lacks a lot of power and spunk. Her sarcastic joker of a brother, Sokka takes on more of a brotherly role than using his humor to charm the crowd. He does make me laugh, but maybe twice, when usually it's multiple times in one episode. Uncle Iroh in the film takes on just the sage sort of role, when really he too is cheerful and optimistic. Zuko was one of the only character's that almost fully took on his role, but still lacked the (dare I say) fiery passion he needed in his journey to gain back honor and dignity.

While keeping fairly faithful to the storyline, they did unnecessarily change a few things. Three names are mispronounced, and I would honestly love an explanation as to why. Aang is pronounced in the film Ah-ung, Sokka pronounced Soh-ka, and Uncle Iroh pronounced Ear-oh. It was actually kind of funny when they said “Ah-ung” and I thought to myself...no, it's AANG...and then I heard an echo behind me. Several children in the audience whispered “It's Aang.” During their journey they come across an Earth Village that's taken over by the Fire Nation. In the cartoon the Earth Benders are imprisoned at sea in a metal prison. You know...so that they can't Earth Bend. The prison here is just their village...surrounded by Earth. This didn't make much sense to me, for the sake of rushing plot development?

I'll dedicate this paragraph to my hate of 3-D. I hate it with a fire bending fucking passion. Real cinema does not need 3-D to be amazing. It is an old gimmick used to make money and get seats in theaters nationwide filled with butts, big and small. * breathe * I appreciate directors who don't use this tactic, Christopher Nolan for example. I would have appreciated The Last Airbender just as much without the headache inducing bullshit of EYE POPPING 3-D TECHNOLOGY.

All my analyzing and fan girling aside, the film is a joy to watch. The story is still intriguing however watered down it is. The element bending is graceful and beautiful to watch in live action. I'm just a silly film fag, who grew up watching way too much film. I would still recommend this to watch for both fans of the series and people who know nothing about it.