Last Airbender (Movie Review)

The Last Air Bender by IMDb

From the story-line that made people twitch on their seats, the lack of the accurate representation of the characters on this remake from the actual childhood favorite’s show to the budget wrongly used for catastrophic special effects: The Last Airbender is one of the worst movies of 2010. For those who do not know this movie, it is based on the Nickelodeon cartoon from 2005  The Avatar: The Last Airbender where it relates how the four nations on earth where the four principal elements were born (Water, Fire, Earth, and Air) was under attack by the Fire Nation due to their seek of power and eternal control. The Avatar has the mission to protect and bring peace among the four nations, but he disappears after trying to escape from his duty because he was only 11 years old. After a hundred years, he (Aang) along with his flying bison (Appa) was found by two members of the north water tribe (Sokka and Katara), and from that moment, they started to travel all together to bring world peace after hundred years of war and to defeat the Fire Lord who was responsible for the chaos in the world. Throughout the Journey, the avatar is being hunted by Prince Zuko (Fire Lord’s son) who is trying to capture the avatar to restore his honor and gain a spot in the Fire Kingdom. Aang has to master the four elements to defeat The Fire Lord Ozai, but for that, he goes through many obstacles and emotional paths to become the perfect avatar for the world.

However, in 2010, Night Shyamalan decided to bring the audience a live-action version of the show on a more summarized film even for the people who didn’t read the comics or watched the cartoon series; it did not turn well and the audience felt betrayed after buying the tickets for the first premier in New York on June 30th, 2010.

Let’s start from the most essential attribute that makes a movie good: The Plot. Do you remember the background story that I previously gave at the beginning? This film took the story and threw it out to the nearest waste disposal. At the beginning of the film, we can observe how Sokka and Katara “approach the avatar”, it was inaccurate from start to finish. These two siblings were originally on a boat fishing when they discovered a giant ice ball with a person and a bison in it that came out of the water, the avatar after coming out of the water, he got out using his bending abilities. However, the film just shows a kid who was found by the siblings while they were unconscious in the middle of the tundra, and right away, the avatar had the trust of everybody in the village which does not happen in the original series. 

The Last AIrbender Aang fighting against the fire nation by CBC

Another thing to consider from this outrageous film the budget wrongly executed on this project. Around 16M dollars were earned out of the 326M dollars spent on this movie. The special effects are inaccurate, the flaws when trying to display the people bending the elements are similar to something you would do on a cheap school computer. On top of looking unnatural and lack of vibrant colors, the movements do not coordinate with the different types of bendings. While water benders tend to move with their hands and have much body flow while fighting, earth benders are more rigid and defensive when battling with their opponents. However, it seems like every single different bender was throwing air punches to each other making the special effects look off and awkward. The way this movie tried to show the different ways of fighting and battle among the nations is something that I and millions of fans would not be able to remember without throwing up.

Benders fight (Last Air Bender) on YouTube

Lastly and the most significant part of this type of remakes is the nostalgia that is pulled out of the deepest rooms of our memories, what made us fall in love with any childhood classic and what makes us go back to the purest years of our lives. Overall, when nostalgia brings you to your carved memories and brings the kid in you, this movie brought deception and confusion to the fans and to those who were having their first avatar experience. The movie fails on bringing the nostalgia feeling since around the beginning of the conflict when uncle Iroh and Zuko (the villains who are trying to catch the avatar) come from the fire nations to the water tribe and just take the avatar Aang to their ship and make him complete the test. The avatar test applied was that if the person being tested made the elements presented react (such as water, fire, and earth), then it means that it was the “one”. A problem with this is that this defeats the purpose of the whole avatar story because in the original series this test is not an actual thing that the fire nation performs. On the other hand, the real test is performed by the nation’s leader where the avatar may be reincarnated, who presents 4 different toys to the person being tested when they are around 2-4 years old and if they choose the correct toy, that means that they were the “chosen one”. This test was performed by monk Gyatzo (Aang’s mentor) in the original series.

Last Airbender Scape scenes on YouTube 

After all, this movie might have been good for some, but we are for sure aware of how hated was by many and how the hype was not worth 12$ dollars worth of movie tickets. This is for sure a movie that the creator might want to change the title to “Disappointment of the century”