The Last Airbender: The House Review

Before the House begins its review of M. Night Shyamalan's motion picture adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, let me sit down and tell you a little story.

On February 21st, 2005, the sun rose just as it had always done, in its everyday way, casting its once miraculous but now commonplace rays upon the world. People awoke in their bedrooms, some groggy, some anxious, some excited, and went down to their breakfast tables to drink their milk and eat their morning bagel. They rushed along in their routines, just as they had done so many times before, with parents pushing their children onto their buses and reminding them of band practice the following night. They drove to work, and they worked from home. They were bullies and they were bullied, and they scored top marks on their SATs. They found out they were expecting, and they found out they were making arrangements. They came home from their schools, their mothers and fathers came home from work, and they came home to greet their kids. They cooked dinner and fed their dogs and their cats and their fish and their gerbils, cleaning their kitchens with either care or neglect, their dinner tables ready to be breakfast tables once more. They sat down on their couches with their girlfriends and boyfriends, their husbands and their wives, their sons and their daughters. Some went to their rooms, while some did not. Others did their homework and made their conference calls, while others did not. February 21st, 2005 passed along into the annals of history just as any other day before it had done, in its everyday way, casting its once miraculous but now commonplace happenings into the maelstrom of the world, save one exception.

Because on February 21st, 2005, the world, my friends, was introduced to a spectacle.

And that spectacle, as it would turn out, would come from one of the most unlikely of places, a children's television network, Nickelodeon.

Of course, the event to which I am referring is the premier of Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko's animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

And what a premier it would turn out to be.

But, I will be the first to admit that I, too, was among those people mentioned above. I, too, was not there, sitting on my couch, ready for the premier. I had missed it, just as so many others had. Only years later, in early 2009, when I finally sat down and viewed the entire series with one of my friends, would I begin to wonder how I could have missed such a monumental event, the likes of which only comes around to American television once every other decade.

Needless to say, I never found an answer; I was too enthralled. The writing was in immaculate balance, the acting was spot on, and the animation was something worthy of Japan. The mythology was of the most original ideas I had seen in years, and the themes contained therein were those of all the world's greatest epics. The show was a masterpiece of creative power, from conception to execution.

And yet, the show itself was simple in its premise, following the journey of three friends, Aang, Sokka, and Katara, on a quest to save their world from an evil, imperialistic regime. It was recollective of the original Star Wars saga in that regard, and, dare I say it, it even carried with it the same inspirational magic that has kept those classic films and their fans reeling for decades. There were more similarities than just that though, I must say, for yes, those three friends also possessed unique powers, just like their Star Wars counterparts, only instead of possessing "the Force" with a capital F, they instead had the ability to manipulate the very elements of the world around them, their particular specialty depending on their place of birth.

Aang, as you should certainly know by now, was the last of his kind, the last airbender in the world, his race wiped out by the fire nation. He was also blessed with being the Avatar, the only person in existence who was capable of controlling all four of the basic elements, and ultimately the last and only hope for the survival of his world.

His friend Katara, too, was an elemental bender, but of another sort. Since she was from the Southern Water Tribe, she had a mastery over the element of water, even developing an insidious technique later in the series that allowed her to manipulate the water in a person's body and control their actions. Her brother Sokka, however, was not a bender at all, of any kind, only a warrior of his people that had a penchant for relying on a boomerang that never returned to him.

Immediately one can see the similarities to the now world famous Star Wars saga, with Aang being Luke, Katara being Leia, and Sokka being the infamous Han Solo. Perhaps this was intentional of the creators, perhaps it was not: perhaps all epic stories have a similar trifecta of personalities that simply must exist for them to be just that: epic.

All things must eventually come to an end however, whether they be Star Wars or some other grand, all-encompassing saga. Yes, all stories must come to a close. The groundbreaking series that inspired millions continued on for two more seasons before it came to its predestined conclusion, raking in legions of viewers, a heap of critical praise, and even a couple of Emmys along the way. The series finale aired on July 19th, 2008, and brought with it a two hour event the likes of which a children's television network had never seen before.

I remember sitting down to watch the three part finale with my friend, both of us sitting there waiting for it to load on our computer with eager eyes and ears, and I remember thinking, right after it had ended, "You finally got it right, world. That's how stories are supposed to go. That's how all stories should be. They should be as fulfilling as Avatar: The Last Airbender."

The credits rolled, and I got up feeling as if I had just finished a good book. Surely, if you take the time out of your day to read the opinions of someone you have never met, then surely you know the feeling I'm writing about. That feeling in the pit of your stomach, that feeling that aches like you have just said goodbye.

Now the reasons, if you must know, as to why I'm telling you all of this before going into my House review really begins with just a simple fact: I'm about to be cruel. And why, my friends, I'm about to be cruel is because Avatar: The Last Airbender, by none other than a Mr. M. Night Shyamalan, has the most unfortunate position of being the first creative endeavor the House has ever negatively reviewed, and also because I have to make sure that this kind of crime against humanity NEVER. HAPPENS. AGAIN.

Yes, the special effects teams and set designers did a miraculous job. Yes, they recreated the settings from the show and the bending phenomena with incredibly realistic CGI. And yes, when I laid my eyes upon what they did with the Northern Water Tribe, the flying bison Appa, and the flying monkey Momo, I was amazed beyond belief. But no amount of fancy effects was going to save this film, no amount of perfect martial arts choreography was going to redeem this motion picture. In fact, the special effects and martial arts were the only things that worked in this entire movie. The plot, even to a well seasoned Avatar fan, was practically incomprehensible, so I can't even imagine what the parents bringing their children were thinking. And the acting, oh God, the acting was so flat I could make origami out of it, origami so well done, even, that I could make them into little Avatar puppets and put on a better show than this movie, and I have absolutely no acting or directing experience at all.

Though let's be frank. We can't condemn the actors and actresses. They were young, and I'm pretty certain most of them, aside from a couple of the supporting characters, were in their first big production, or second one at the very least. I knew that going in. I knew the acting was going to be a little shaky, and I was ready to excuse it in the presence of good writing. People do this kind of thing all the time. Not to mention the standards and expectations they all had to live up to. I know full well that if I were their age and cast in a movie like this I wouldn't know how to handle that kind of pressure. So many people hold this series in an infinitely high esteem, myself included, so I'm sure all sorts of doubts and what-ifs were running through the young actors' minds.

But, you know what wasn't running through their minds?

The script.

Because there wasn't one.

I swear, this script had more exposition than Frank Herbert's Dune and Tolkien's Lord of Rings put together. There was a voice over and script scroll at the beginning, and even a title heading that read Book One: Water, just like in the series, but by the time the film actually starts, the audience is left with so much exposition it doesn't know what to do with itself. And you know why? Because the conflict of the movie was never, not once, within the entirety of the film, presented in an understandable and accessible way. M. Night gave us a doctoral dissertation's worth of exposition on the world of the characters, its history and their history, but he left out the thesis statement. We, the audience, ended up having no investment in the characters, their destinies, the plot, or its outcome.

Not to mention, the dialogue, too, was saturated with exposition. Every single line a character uttered wound up justifying that character's entire existence to the audience. Every single time Aang uttered a phrase, it was about how he lost his entire race of people, and how he was the avatar, and how he was supposed to save the world. Every single time Prince Zuko uttered a phrase, it was about how his father had exiled him, how he was in debt to his father, how the only way his father, Firelord Ozai, would take him back was if he captured the avatar. Even a character completely made up for the film, some earthbending villager Aang finds in the ruins of one of the lost air temples, ends up explaining his entire existence to the audience, and why he betrayed Aang to the fire nation, and how he needed the money to feed his starving family, etc., etc., etc.

I mean, you could reduce the entire script to one single, all-encompassing, master formula:

(Detail about current action) + (How detail relates to character's entire life) + (General character biography) = Line of Dialogue.

I shit thee not. The whole movie was written that way.

Now, I understand perfectly well that The Last Airbender series holds an overwhelmingly vast amount of information, and that as a writer, M. Night had to somehow compress all of that information into an hour and forty-five minutes, but honestly, the exposition is so ever present in the film that the characters never actually have room to breathe. In fact, the exposition is so dense and so pervasive that the movie never feels as if it actually starts, but rather the entire length of the film is building up to one grand beginning of something even bigger, even though that beginning never actually happens. The whole movie felt like a popped balloon.

Another thing about the script that really pissed me off was the fact that several of the character's names were pronounced incorrectly. And before you go off on some kind of stupid anti-fandom rant, let me put this into perspective.

Throughout the series, Aang's name is pronounced "Ayng," but in the movie, it's pronounced "Ahng." His friend Sokka's name is pronounced "Sahkka," but in the movie it's pronounced "Sookka," or "Suukka." Even Katara's name, pronounced "Katahrah" in the series, is pronounced differently as "Kutahrah." Why the pronunciation change? I have not a fucking clue, but the effect would be similar to, taking another cue from Star Wars, changing the pronunciation of Yoda's name to Yado. It just doesn't make any fucking sense, and I'm sure you would find it not only just as odd, but also just as annoying.

Going back to the "acting," M. Night Shyamalamadingdong's adaptation also had one of the most epic failures of miscasting in recent memory. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Aasif Mandvi's work on The Daily Show. The guy's hilarious, and I love it when they air his "investigative reports," but honestly, casting him as the infamous Admiral Zhao was a horrible, horrible idea, one that I may not forgive Hollywood for for a very long time. You see, the Admiral Zhao of the animated series has the distinction of being one of the most hated fantasy antagonists of all time. By the end of the first season, where he and Aang and his friends face off to defend the Northern Water Tribe, you want to fucking murder this mother fucker. He's just that kind of villain; one that you absolutely love to hate. And in my opinion, those are always the best kinds of villains.

Going back to Star Wars again, sure, Darth Vader was a pretty evil guy, but did you hate him? No. In Harry Potter, sure, Voldemort was also a pretty evil guy, but did you hate him? What about Sauron in Lord of the Rings, yes, he too was a pretty evil guy, but did you hate him? No. Now, Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter? She was a villain you could hate. In fiction, fantasy especially, your reader should always feel for the antagonist with the same intensity that the reader feels for the protagonist, only expressed as a negative. If the reader loves the protagonist as if he or she loves a real life person, then the reader should hate the antagonist just as realistically. Otherwise, the reader just doesn't care.

And that, my friends, is exactly what happened in the adaptation. Every time Admiral Zhao appeared on screen, I kept expecting a header to come on screen, too, one that read "Admiral Zhao: Senior Firebending Correspondent". I just couldn't take him seriously, and that's why his casting failed. I was so disappointed; I wanted to hate him as much as I did the animated version, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

As for the other casting, I suppose it was decent enough, although I wish Iroh was played by a bigger guy, like he was portrayed in the series. Although, if I could have had the movie done over again, I would really want Jackson Rathbone recast, or at least given more lines. Sokka was mainly a comic relief character in the show, and the script didn't give him any opportunities to be funny at all. In fact, he was probably the least developed character out of all of them, which isn't saying that much,because honestly all of the characters were about as two-dimensional as they could be. I don't even know how that's even possible really, because for the most part the animated series is a character driven show, despite the epic characteristics of its plot. It just seems like something M. Night. Shyamalamasassafrass wouldn't have passed up.

Speaking of plot, this film didn't really have one of these, either. Then again, with everything being force-fed to you through the mountains of exposition, there didn't really need to be one. Since every character explained his or her entire backstory every time he or she spoke, the plot around them essentially became meaningless, as it appeared to the audience that the characters had no where to grow, leaving the audience disengaged and passive to the events within the film. In all stories, regardless of their content, the audience needs to feel as if they are a part of the action, as if they are an anonymous character of sorts that exists somewhere between the story and the medium through which it is being told. In M. Night. Shyamalamafifaifofama's adaptation, there is none of this. The strings are too visible in his puppet show, and people are constantly reminded that they are just an audience, and have no reason to feel involved with the character's lives or their development, that is, even if the screenplay M. Night Shyamalama'alibaba wrote had a coherent plot in the first place. The snail's pace of the combat and the light speed of the "plot" were just too at odds with one another to make any kind of sense, leaving the audience with yet more questions to grapple with, ones already stacked onto the litany of questions posed by the endless exposition and metaphorical descriptions of the world's mythology.

Questions like, "Wait a minute, they have to dance around for a couple of minutes like circus clowns before they can bend elements? That seems so impractical for high speed, martial arts combat. And yet "Ahng" just delivered a five second speech to a group of people that have been oppressed for over a hundred years and now suddenly have the will and determination to fight back? What the fuck? M. Night ShyamalamaIwishIwasGeorgeLucas, you got it all wrong."

All that having been said, there was one scene right near the end that I felt got it right. It was a one shot that had to be less than ten seconds long, maybe twelve, but after it ended my younger brother and I, who came to the premier with me, looked at each other and knew that that single scene was what we had come for. If the entire movie had been shot and paced this way, this review may have turned out to be much, much nicer.

It was when AANG was running across a pavilion in the Northern Water Tribe, past a pack of fire nation guards. The score, the cinematography, the correct pacing, and the action all came together in that one shot, the beat of the orchestra synchronizing perfectly with the running steps of the young Aang, and the waterbending techniques he used to encase those fire nation soldiers in blocks of ice, even complimenting the raining down of huge icicles down onto his foes. That one shot was perfect, and almost redeemed that part of the film. But alas, the characters opened their mouths again soon after, and the illusion was ruined once again.

Overall, I was extremely disappointed with this film. The source material had so much potential it was mind-boggling. I mean, this could have been the film to save M. Night ShyamalamaIguessImissedmychance's career. It could have been the beginning of a new Star Wars trilogy, doing for kids and young adults what George Lucas' vision did for the previous generation. But sadly, it didn't live up to that, and it didn't rise to the occasion. After coming from the premier, I remember going online and reading how other fans, people just like me, already wanted a series reboot. So sad.

I mean, how can you screw up a story that's already been written for you? How do you honestly do that? How is that even possible? There has to be Avatar fan fiction out there that's better put together than the script he offered. I just can't believe it.

In any case, I better go ahead and offer my final verdict. Ultimately, I have decided that his adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender deserves 1 Natural 20 out of ten, as this has to not only be one of the biggest disappointments I have ever had, but also because it's, quite ironically, one of the finest examples of bad film making I have ever seen.