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The Last Airbender is a 2010 American fantasy adventure film written, produced, and directed
by M. Night Shyamalan. It is based on the first season of the Nickelodeon animated series
Avatar: The Last Airbender. The film stars Noah Ringer as Aang, with Dev Patel as Prince
Zuko, Nicola Peltz as Katara, and Jackson Rathbone as Sokka.
Development for the film began in 2007. It was produced by Nickelodeon Movies and distributed
by Paramount Pictures. The Last Airbender was made for $150 million. Premiering in New
York City on June 30, 2010, it opened in the United States the following day, grossing
an estimated $16 million. It received extremely negative reviews by
critics, who cited many flaws on the movie, such as inconsistencies both over the plot
and source material, acting, writing and cast choices, which most of the actors have different
racial traits from the characters of the original series, creating several controversial responses,
both by fans of the original series and even viewers of the film who were unfamiliar with
the series. The movie swept the Golden Raspberry Awards in 2010, with five wins including Worst
Picture and has been considered to be one of the worst films of all time.
Despite negative reviews, The Last Airbender opened in second place at the box office behind
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, and eventually grossed $131 million domestically and $319
million worldwide.
Plot Fourteen-year-old Katara and her fifteen-year-old
brother, Sokka, are near a river at the Southern Water Tribe, a small village in the South
Pole. While hunting, they discover an iceberg that shoots a beam of light into the sky.
Inside of the iceberg is a twelve-year-old boy named Aang and a giant flying bison named
Appa. Unknown to them, Aang is the long-lost, mighty Avatar — the only person on the planet
able to "bend" all four elements. One hundred years have passed since the Fire Nation has
declared war on the other three nations of Water, Earth, and Air in their attempt to
conquer the world. Zuko, is an exiled prince of the Fire Nation
on a quest to find the Avatar and bring him as prisoner to his father, Fire Lord Ozai,
so he can return home. Seeing the light that appeared from Aang's release, Zuko and some
Fire Nation soldiers arrive at the Southern Water Tribe to demand the villagers hand over
the Avatar. Aang reveals himself as he surrenders himself to Zuko on the condition that he agrees
to leave the village alone. On the ship, Aang is tested by Zuko's paternal uncle Iroh to
confirm him to be the Avatar. After being informed that he is to be their prisoner for
passing the test, Aang escapes using his glider and flies to his flying bison brought by Katara
and Sokka. Aang and his new friends visit the Southern Air Temple where they meet a
winged lemur, who Aang later names Momo. Aang also learns that he was in the ice for a whole
century and that the Fire Nation wiped out all of the Air Nomads, including his guardian,
Monk Gyatso. In despair, he enters the Avatar State and finds himself in the Spirit World
where he encounters a Dragon Spirit that tells him that he only knows Airbending, and that
he also needs to learn Waterbending, Earthbending and Firebending in order to become a fully
realized Avatar. The Dragon Spirit tells him that he should learn Waterbending first, and
that the best teachers are in the Northern Water Tribe as there are no more experienced,
master waterbenders in the Southern Water Tribe.
To seek shelter, Aang's group arrives at a little Earth Kingdom village controlled by
the Fire Nation, and they are arrested because Katara tries to help a young boy escape from
Fire Nation patrol soldiers. They incite a rebellion by reminding the disgruntled Earthbenders
that earth was given to them. Katara is given a Waterbending scroll that she uses to greatly
strengthen and hone her Waterbending and to help Aang learn as they make their way to
the Northern Water Tribe and liberate and secure more Earth Kingdom villages in the
process, weakening the Fire Nation's food and water supplies.
During a side track to the Northern Air Temple on his own, Aang is betrayed by a peasant
and captured by a group of Fire Nation archers, led by Commander Zhao, a Fire Nation Commander
appointed by the Fire Lord. However, a masked marauder, the "Blue Spirit", helps Aang escape
from his imprisonment. Zuko is the masked vigilante, and Zhao realizes this. He arranges
to kill the prince. Zuko survives the assassination attempt on his life with Iroh's help. He sneaks
aboard Zhao's lead ship as his fleet departs for the Northern Water Tribe, which is a heavy
fortress, to capture the Avatar. Upon arriving, Aang's group is welcomed warmly by the citizens
of the Northern Water Tribe. Immediately, Sokka quickly befriends the Northern Water
Tribe princess, Yue. After a few agreements, a Waterbending master, Pakku, teaches Aang
waterbending. Katara also becomes a much stronger and more powerful waterbender due her training
with Master Pakku. Soon, the Fire Nation arrives and Zhao begins
his attack while Zuko begins his search for the Avatar on his own. After defeating Katara
in a battle, Zuko captures Aang as he enters the Spirit World to find the Dragon Spirit
to give him the wisdom to defeat the Fire Nation who tells him to let his emotions flow
like water. Returning to his body, Aang battles Zuko before Katara freezes him. Before leaving
to join the battle, Aang lowers the ice so that Zuko can breathe. As the battle escalates,
Iroh watches Zhao capture the Moon Spirit, with which its Ocean Spirit counterpart had
assumed the form of a fish. Despite Iroh's pleas, Zhao kills the Moon Spirit to strip
all of the Waterbenders of their powers and abilities to Waterbend. Yue explains to everyone
that the Moon Spirit gave her life, willing to give it back as she dies in the process.
With the tables turned, Zhao finds out Zuko survived. They almost fight before Iroh appears
and tells Zuko it's not worth it. Zhao is drowned by Waterbenders after Zuko and Iroh
leave him to his fate. Aang remembers his life before being trapped in the ice, including
when he left his home, seeing his master's face. With his Waterbending powers and his
emotions "flowing like water", Aang enters the Avatar State and raises the ocean into
a gigantic wall in order to drive the armada back. Aang now fully embraces his destiny
as the Avatar as he, Katara and Sokka prepare to continue their journey to the Earth Kingdom
to find an Earthbending teacher for Aang. The Fire Lord learns of the defeat, and angry
about the betrayal of his brother Iroh and the failure of his eldest son Zuko, he tasks
his youngest daughter Azula to stop the Avatar from mastering Earth and Fire before the arrival
of Sozin's Comet, which she accepts, giving a sinister smile.
Cast
Noah Ringer as Aang He is an Airbender who disappeared from public sight a hundred years
ago. While chronologically one hundred and twelve years old, Aang still retains his biological
age of twelve. He is the latest incarnation of the Avatar Spirit. Though he is capable
of bending all four elements, at the beginning of the film he has only learned to Airbend.
It is also his duty to maintain balance in the world, which conflicts with his easy-going,
fun-loving personality Dev Patel as Prince Zuko a sixteen-year-old
Fire Nation prince who travels with his Uncle Iroh. The former heir to the throne, he was
exiled by his father, Fire Lord Ozai, and ordered to capture the Avatar in order to
regain his lost honor. Nicola Peltz as Katara a fourteen-year-old
girl of the Southern Water Tribe and its last remaining waterbender. Since the death of
her mother, Kya, she has served as the maternal, motherly figure in her family, and is no stranger
to responsibility despite her young age. Jackson Rathbone as Sokka a fifteen-year-old
warrior from the Southern Water Tribe and Katara's older brother. He can be condescending,
and has no waterbending abilities. He often takes up leadership roles by virtue of coming
up with most of the workable plans and tactics. Shaun Toub as Uncle Iroh Zuko's paternal uncle.
He is extremely easy-going and friendly, and often acts as a surrogate father to Zuko.
Formerly a great general of the Fire Nation, personal tragedies led to his retirement,
and the role of heir-presumptive passed to his younger brother Ozai.
Aasif Mandvi as Commander Zhao a hot-tempered Fire Nation Commander in pursuit of the Avatar.
He is Zuko's principal rival. He has an obsession with libraries.
Seychelle Gabriel as Princess Yue The princess of the Northern Water Tribe,
who was Sokka's first girlfriend, and romantic love interest. In a tragic turn of events,
she sacrificed herself to save the water tribe and the balance of the earth, by turning into
the moon. Cliff Curtis as Fire Lord Ozai
The leader of the Fire Nation as well as Prince Zuko's father.
Summer Bishil as Princess Azula She appears once at the battle where Zuko
refuses to fight and again at the end where she accepts the role as hunter of her older
brother and uncle, and destroying the Avatar. Francis Guinan as Master Pakku
He is a water bending master of the Northern Water Tribe; he taught Aang to water bend.
Randall Duk Kim as Old man in temple He is an Earth Kingdom villager, who often
visits the remains of the Northern Air Temple. Isaac Jin Solstein as Earth bending boy
He is based on Haru of the cartoon series. He started the prison uprising by earth bending
a pebble to the back of the lead Fire Nation soldier's head.
Keong Sim as earthbending father He is based on Tyro of the cartoon series.
He and other Earth benders in his occupied village agreed to be imprisoned in exchange
for the non-benders to live in peace. He reneged the terms of surrender by bending an earth-barrier
to protect his son from the lead soldier's retaliatory Fire bending attack.
John Noble as Dragon Spirit He is a new composite character taking over
the roles of Avatar Roku, Fang, Koh and Guru Pathik from the cartoon series.
Production Development
According to an interview with the co-creators in SFX magazine, Shyamalan came across Avatar
when his daughter wanted to be Katara for Halloween. Intrigued, Shyamalan researched
and watched the series with his family. "Watching Avatar has become a family event in my house
... so we are looking forward to how the story develops in season three," said Shyamalan.
"Once I saw the amazing world that Mike and Bryan created, I knew it would make a great
feature film." He added he was attracted to the spiritual and martial arts influences
on the show. Avatar: The Last Airbender co-creators Michael
Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko voiced their opinion within an interview regarding
M. Night Shyamalan writing, directing and producing the film. The two displayed much
enthusiasm over Shyamalan's decision for the adaptation, stating that they admire his work
and, in turn, he respects their material. Producer Frank Marshall explained that they
have high hopes to stick to a PG rating. "I'm not even sure we want to get in the PG-13
realm. Furthermore, Shyamalan said, "A lot of the inspiration for the direction we took
comes from a friend of mine. A Nathan Blackmer helped shape this Idea into the film it became.
I took away a little bit of the slapsticky stuff that was there for the little little
kids, the fart jokes and things like that...We grounded Katara's brother...and that really
did wonderful things for the whole theme of the movie." Paramount's president Brad Grey
said that despite the director's career being inconsistent, he "believed in [Shyamalan's]
vision and that he could execute it," adding that "It's a bold step because he had to create
a potential new family franchise." The studio was willing to spend $250 million in a trilogy
of films, one for each season. The Last Airbender's budget wound up being $150 million, with later
over $130 million being spent on marketing costs, making it Shyamalan's most expensive
film. Casting
M. Night Shyamalan originally offered the roles of Aang to Noah Ringer; Sokka to Jackson
Rathbone; Katara to Nicola Peltz; and Zuko to Jesse McCartney. In an interview with People,
Shyamalan claimed that he did not want to make The Last Airbender without Nicola Peltz,
"I said that only once before in my career, and that was when I met Haley in The Sixth
Sense auditions." In February 2009, Dev Patel replaced Jesse McCartney, whose tour dates
conflicted with a boot camp scheduled for the cast to train in martial arts. Katharine
Houghton played "Gran Gran", the grandmother of Katara and Sokka, and Seychelle Gabriel
portrayed Princess Yue, another of Sokka's love interests and princess of the Northern
Water Tribe. Isaac Jin Solstein played an earthbending boy. Comedian Aasif Mandvi played
Commander Zhao, Cliff Curtis played Fire Lord Ozai, and Keong Sim was cast in the role of
an Earthbender. Ringer began practicing Taekwondo - the martial
art and national sport of South Korea - at the age of 10. His skills later garnered accolades,
including the title of American Taekwondo Association Texas State Champion. He began
shaving his head during his martial arts training to help cool off, which gave him the nickname
"Avatar" due to his resemblance to Aang from the animated series. When he heard about the
film adaptation, he made an audition tape with his instructor and sent it to the filmmakers.
He hadn't worked on a film before, but his resemblance to Aang—enhanced by painting
a blue arrow on his already shaved head, swung him the role. Having not acted before, Ringer
was required to attend acting school a month before filming commenced. Peltz was familiar
with the character before submitting for the part of Katara, having faithfully watched
Avatar: The Last Airbender, the animated series on which the film is based, with her younger
twin brothers. She describes her character as being a big role model with young girls
and women, "She's really mentally and physically strong, strong-willed and -minded, but she's
also caring and compassionate... The movie has a lot of values, but it's also fun. It's
fantasy, but it's also a really cool battle between good and evil." She explained that
she initially didn't know about Rathbone starring in the Twilight films until after she met
him and said that working with Shyamalan was an amazing experience. Rathbone, who originally
auditioned for the role of Zuko, was approached by Shyamalan to audition for the film. After
waiting for six months, he received a call informing him that he was cast as Sokka. Rathbone
stated that his favorite scenes were the fight sequences, which he prepared for by stickfighting.
Before Slumdog Millionaire was released, Patel auditioned for the role of Zuko by submitting
a tape to the studio. Shyamalan called Patel personally to inform him that he got the part.
Training for the film was intense, as he had to learn Wushu and different martial arts.
Patel recalls fighting, punching, and throwing and said the experience was "truly amazing."
While he was filming Slumdog in India, he would finish a take and turn one of the channels
over to the animated series. Even though it is based on a cartoon, he wanted to bring
as much of himself as possible to the character he was portraying. Shaun Toub, who was cast
as Iroh, describes his character in the first film as "loose" and "free". He compares Zuko's
"obsession" to his childhood memories and how kids are always looking for their parents'
approval, saying that Zuko just wants his father's. "He isn't necessarily bad, he just
has a great deal of built up anger and forgets to consider others. I think people will understand
that he's not bad, he's just angry and hurting because he really wants his father to love
him, but his father is too busy with other things." He says that Patel is an "18 year
old with all this energy," and that Patel was able to influence him into appreciating
the business of filmmaking more. While comparing the animated series to the film, he says the
film is much more serious. He attributed this change to the director trying to relate to
every age group, rather than just kids. Filming
Pre-production began in late 2008, while filming began in March 2009 in Greenland. After two
weeks, the cast and crew moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, where production designers and
special-effects crews worked for several weeks, preparing the local site for the film. A production
team scouting the area found the pagoda on Mount Penn, which served as an ancient temple
in the film. Reading mayor Tom McMahon explained that crews made road improvements and buried
electrical lines surrounding the structure. Filming also took place in Ontelaunee Township
and at the William Penn Memorial Fire Tower in Pennsylvania after the production crew
finished at the Pagoda. When asked about shooting the film in Reading, Pamela Shupp, vice president
of Berks Economic Development said, "They needed buildings to shoot all the interiors,
and were looking for a group of buildings with high ceilings and specific column spacing.
We showed them a number of buildings, but we couldn't come up with enough to meet their
requirements. So the interiors will be shot in Philadelphia."
Visual effects With a film as technologically advanced as
Avatar, the expectations of realistically throwing balls of fire and water were pushed
to the limit on The Last Airbender. Pablo Helman, who previously worked on Star Wars
Episode II: Attack of the Clones, was the visual effects supervisor for the Industrial
Light and Magic team on the film. He worked closely with Shyamalan, reviewing each scene
and talking about the visual effects needed to tell the story, and ultimately worked with
about 300 people to reflect the director's vision, who he said planned it all in a story-board
book.
Industrial Light and Magic was posed with visualizing the elemental tribes of Air, Water,
Earth, and Fire; most importantly creating the "bending" styles of these elements. Additionally,
they were required to animate inanimate creatures and enhance stunt work with digital doubles.
"The work was challenging," shares Helman. "We had to figure out what "bending" is for
fire, water, air and earth." The project was started without the desired technology needed
to create the effects. Rather than software, computer graphic cards were the basis for
"bending" the elements, allowing previews to be viewed more swiftly. This resulted in
Shyamalan having to direct more than sixty takes before the effect was finished and lined
up with his visions. Due to reality-based expectations, fire and
water were the hardest elements to effectively bend, and because of particle work which was
unable to be rendered in hardware, earth bending also was difficult to create. With water,
the variety in different scales required Helman and his team to create different techniques.
The concept for air was derived from the animation of the television series. In order to create
the air bending effect, visual effects art director Christian Alzman and digital matte
department supervisor Barry Williams explained that seeing dust and snow particles, rather
than seeing the air itself, helped shape the real world effect of bending the element.
Before the bending effects could be applied though, the actor's movements had to be matched;
Shyamalan therefore wanted each character's bending styles to be unique in order to fit
with their unique personalities. The challenge for fire didn't come with making
it look realistic, but rather making the fire behave in an unrealistic way that would be
believable to the audience. The film that inspired The Last Airbender's fire style was
the sixth Harry Potter film, which was re-engineered in order to reflect two-dimensional simulations.
Helman's team referenced images of flames being pushed through the air by giant fans
for certain shots needed throughout the film. The team also considered using a meshed image
of real and digital fire, but in the end, went with the richer, deeper texture of computer
generated flame. In terms of matte paintings, this was the
biggest show that Helman had ever done. The paintings had to be in 3D because the visual
style included long duration shots in which the camera always moved. The climax, which
was enacted on a 200 by 200 feet set, had to be incorporated with still of the landscapes
shot in Greenland, as well as the low-angle lighting that was captured on location there.
The camera was animated to get angles needed for different shots in the film by importing
these stills into the computer. Multiple cameras were used to capture the different wire-work
and animation that was used to create the creatures and many fight scenes within the
film. In creating these creatures, the team referenced nature. In order for them to be
believable, they looked for examples of the same size and weight as the animated character
and then developed hybrids from different animals to make each species unique. This
was done by observing actual animals to get a take on how they would act. Shyamalan's
take on the personality of each creature also influenced the creation stage of the creatures.
For example, the lemur Momo has flying mechanics based on a giant fruit bat. Other elements,
such as texturing, hair or scale simulation, and light and shadow complimentary to the
live action, were added to make the final animation appear as real as possible during
the later stages of character development. Paramount Pictures made an announcement in
late April 2010, revealing that The Last Airbender would be released in 3D. This decision came
after an increased amount of films being made or converted to 3D, such as Avatar, Alice
in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans, made a decent profit at the box office. Although
Helman stated that Shyamalan's way of shooting without fast edits and the film's visuals
could lend itself to the 3D conversion well, James Cameron voiced his disapproval on any
film being converted using this process, saying, "You can slap a 3-D label on it and call it
3-D, but there's no possible way that it can be done up to a standard that anybody would
consider high enough." Despite this, Shyamalan opted to work with Stereo D LLC, the company
who worked on James Cameron's own Avatar. The conversion process for the film cost between
$5 million and $10 million, adding to the reported $100 million that already went into
the film. Music
In December 2008, James Newton Howard was announced as the composer for The Last Airbender.
The film would mark the seventh collaboration between Howard and M. Night Shyamalan, after
the 2008 film The Happening. Most recently, Howard received acclaim for his work with
Hans Zimmer on The Dark Knight. On May 13, 2009, producer Frank Marshall announced that
Howard was recording music for the teaser trailer that was later released that summer;
it was later confirmed by Frank Marshall that all of the film's trailers featured original
music by Howard himself. The soundtrack, released by Lakeshore Records on June 29, 2010, required
Howard to hire a 119-member ensemble. Running at approximately 66 minutes, it contains eleven
tracks ranging from three to seven minutes, with a twelfth track, called "Airbender Suite"
running at nearly eleven minutes. Reviews for the score were overwhelmingly positive.
Casting controversy The casting of white actors in the Asian-influenced
Avatar universe triggered negative reactions from some fans marked by accusations of racism,
a letter-writing campaign, and various protests. "To take this incredibly loved children's
series, and really distort not only the ethnicity of the individual characters but the message
of acceptance and cultural diversity that the original series advocated, is a huge blow,"
said Michael Le of Racebending.com, a fan site calling for a boycott of the martial-arts
fantasy. As a result of the casting, the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans urged a
film boycott for the first time in the organization's 18-year history. "This was a great opportunity
to create new Asian-American stars...I'm disappointed." stated Guy Aoki, president of the organization.
After a casting call specifically looking for "Caucasians and other ethnicities," Shyamalan
explained that "Ultimately, this movie, and then the three movies, will be the most culturally
diverse tent-pole movies ever released, period." Furthermore, Paramount provided a statement
about the casting choices, "The movie has 23 credited speaking roles — more than half
of which feature Asian and Pan Asian actors of Korean, Japanese and Indian descent. The
filmmaker's interpretation reflects the myriad qualities that have made this series a global
phenomenon. We believe fans of the original and new audiences alike will respond positively
once they see it." M. Night Shyamalan commented on the issues
regarding fans' perceptions of the casting in an interview with Washington Post columnist
Jen Chaney, saying, "Anime is based on ambiguous facial features. It's meant to be interpretive.
It's meant to be inclusive of all races, and you can see yourself in all these characters...This
is a multicultural movie and I'm going to make it even more multicultural in my approach
to its casting. There's African-Americans in the movie...so it's a source of pride for
me. The irony that [protesters] would label this with anything but the greatest pride,
that the movie poster has Noah and Dev on it and my name on it. I don't know what else
to do." Rathbone was also one to dismiss the complaints in an interview with MTV, saying,
"I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely
need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief
a little bit." The controversy was poorly received by critics as well. Film critic Roger
Ebert was one of the critical voices against the casting. When asked about casting a white
cast to portray the characters, he said, "The original series Avatar: The Last Airbender
was highly regarded and popular for three seasons on Nickelodeon. Its fans take it for
granted that its heroes are Asian. Why would Paramount and Shyamalan go out of their way
to offend these fans? There are many young Asian actors capable of playing the parts."
Jevon Phillips of the Los Angeles Times noted that despite Shyamalan's attempts to defuse
the situation, the issue will "not or be overlooked", and that this film exemplifies the need for
a debate within Hollywood about racial diversity in its films.
In July 2013, series co-creator Bryan Konietzko responded to an online comment about skin
color in The Legend of Korra. Konietzko wrote that his work on the two series "speaks for
itself which obviously DOES NOT include the gross misinterpretations and misrepresentations
of our work in [Shyamalan]’s work." Marketing
Promotion The teaser trailer for the film was attached
to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, released in theaters on June 24, 2009. The teaser trailer
was also shown exclusively on the June 22, 2009 episode of Entertainment Tonight. The
trailer shows Aang airbending in a temple which is being attacked by a multitude of
Fire Nation ships. A theatrical trailer was to be released around Christmas 2009, but
it was pushed back until February 2010 because not enough visual effects shots were completed.
This trailer was attached to the first Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
film released on February 12, 2010. A theatrical trailer was later released on March 25, 2010.
It was then attached with How to Train Your Dragon. The last theatrical trailer is attached
to Iron Man 2 which was released May 7, 2010. The first TV spot for the film aired during
Super Bowl XLIV on February 7, 2010. It showed parts of the film that were not shown in the
teaser trailer and had no diagetic dialogue, but merely narration. On February 10, the
theatrical trailer was released online. It shows multiple scenes from the film and is
an expanded version of the first TV spot. McDonald's sold Happy Meals to promote the
film. On February 9, 2010, Nickelodeon Consumer
Products also debuted the upcoming line of toys based on The Last Airbender. It includes
various 33⁄4-inch action figures, as well as larger, action-enabled figures, costumes
and other props. Among the toys featured in the line were figures based on Aang, Prince
Zuko, Sokka, Katara, and a fully ride-able Appa the Sky Bison. "We worked very closely
with M. Night, the rest of the Paramount team and our in-house design team, along with our
partner Spin-Master, to come up with the right assortment, the right size for these action
figures and make sure we had representation of all the nations within the 'Airbender'
series," said Nickelodeon's Lourdes Arocho. The Last Airbender action figures are expected
to be released in three "waves"; wave one on June 1, wave two near the film's July release
date, and wave three near the 2010 holiday season. THQ Studio Australia also developed
a video game based on the film. Titled The Last Airbender, it was released on June 29,
2010 for the Wii and the Nintendo DS. Graphic novels
Two original black-and-white graphic novels, entitled The Last Airbender Prequel: Zuko's
Story and The Last Airbender, drawn in the manga style, were written by Dave Roman and
Alison Wilgus. "We're excited to be working with Nickelodeon to bring these great stories
to the manga audience", says Dallas Middaugh, Associate Publisher of Del Rey Manga. "Avatar:
The Last Airbender has shown incredible crossover appeal with manga fans. The release of The
Last Airbender movie and original tie-in manga gives us the chance to share completely new
stories with Avatar fans looking for more about Aang, Zuko, and their favorite characters."
The second manga, The Last Airbender, illustrated by Joon Choi, was released on June 22, 2010.
The plot, like the film, is a condensed version of the first season of the series.
The prequel, Zuko's Story, is co-written by Alison Wilgus and Dave Roman and illustrated
by Nina Matsumoto and was released on May 18, 2010. The synopsis for the graphic novel
was released in early 2010, "When Prince Zuko dared to question authority, his father, Fire
Lord Ozai, banished him from the Fire Nation. Horribly scarred and stripped of everything
he held dear, Zuko has wandered the earth for almost three years in search of his only
chance at redemption: the Avatar, a mystical being who once kept the four nations in balance.
Everyone he encounters believes that this is an impossible task, as the Avatar disappeared
a century ago. But Zuko stubbornly continues the search. He must regain his honor, so his
quest is all he has left." Roman and Wilgus, who developed comics based
on Avatar: The Last Airbender for Nick Magazine, consulted Avatar: The Last Airbender creators
Mike Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and head writer for the show Aaron Ehasz while
they were developing Zuko's Story. The four wanted to try a comic that would fit into
with the continuity of the show. The prequel, though mostly associated with the film, was
meant to be a prequel to the series. Roman explained, "In a lot of ways, it's like an
expanded origin. With the film and the series, there are differences and there are places
where they split off, but the setup for both is exactly the same — so when you're introduced
to the characters, that's the part where they're completely identical." The prequel allowed
the expansions of different details told in the series; for example, an episode called
"The Blue Spirit" in the series was seen in the film. However, since explaining everything
that happened in that episode was hard to translate onto film, the prequel allowed for
them to "delve" into that specific story. What more, when asked about whether he answered
some questions that were left open at the end of the series, Roman stated that, while
he had a very good relationship with the show's creators and got their blessing for his project,
it wasn't his plot to address. Release
The Last Airbender was rumored to be released in the summer of 2010 before it received a
formal release date of July 1, 2010. In order to avoid confusion with James Cameron's Avatar,
the title was changed from Avatar: The Last Airbender to simply The Last Airbender. On
June 16, 2010, it was revealed that the film would be released on July 1, 2010, and after
questions about the definition of the release being limited or wide, was later confirmed
by the studio to be a full nationwide release. The film premiered in New York City on June
30, 2010, and opened the following day in 3,169 theaters, against The Twilight Saga:
Eclipse which also stars Jackson Rathbone. Box office
On its opening day in the United States, The Last Airbender made $16 million, ranking fifth
overall for Thursday openings. For its opening three-day, Fourth of July weekend, The Last
Airbender accumulated a total of $40.3 million. The following Monday, it grossed another $11.5
million. 54% of its total gross was from 3D presentations at 1,606 screens. On Thursday,
July 1, 2010, its opening day, it debuted at #2 behind The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. It
stayed #2 until Monday, July 5, 2010, when it went down to #3 now behind The Twilight
Saga: Eclipse and Toy Story 3. On July 9, it went down to #5 behind Despicable Me, The
Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Predators and Toy Story 3. By Friday, July 23, it was down to
#9 behind Inception, Salt, Despicable Me, Ramona and Beezus, The Sorcerer's Apprentice,
Toy Story 3, Grown Ups and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
Opening overseas in 923 sites, the film grossed an estimated $9 million, $8 million of which
was from 870 sites in Russia, making it the number one film there. The film grossed $9.4
million from its second weekend in overseas markets.
The Last Airbender had grossed $131,772,187 in the United States box office. It had also
grossed $187,941,694 in other countries, making for a total of $319,713,881 worldwide.
The film is the 20th highest grossing film of 2010.
Reception Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes sampled
175 reviews and judged 6% of them to be positive, with an average score of 2.9/10 and the critical
consensus stating: "The Last Airbender squanders its popular source material with incomprehensible
plotting, horrible acting, and detached joyless direction." By comparison, Metacritic, which
assigns a normalized rating based on reviews from the top mainstream critics, calculated
an average score of 20 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable
reviews". CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film
was "C" on an A+ to F scale. Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail stated the
film had little chance to develop its characters and therefore suffered, with the overall storyline
of the film becoming a run-on narrative. According to Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly,
who gave the film a C, "The Last Airbender keeps throwing things at you, but its final
effect is, in every way, flat." Roger Ebert gave the film half a star in his review, stating
that it "bores and alienates its audiences," and notes the poor use of 3D among the film's
faults. The A.V. Club gave the film an F, criticizing the performances of the child
actors, overuse of exposition, and shoehorned 3D special effects, calling it the worst summer
blockbuster of 2010. The Hollywood Reporter said the lack of correct casting caused the
film to lose substantial credibility in regard to its source material but did praise the
casting and acting of Noah Ringer as Aang. Variety criticized the casting and the score,
and said the overall effect each play into making the film a bore. Rifftrax also put
it at #5 of The top 10 Worst Movies of All Time, saying "We CAN state for the record
that it is quite easy to detest this movie even if you've never seen a frame of the TV
show." Charlie Jane Anders in the review by io9 criticized
"the personality-free hero, the nonsensical plot twists, the CG clutter, the bland romance,
the new-age pablum...", concluding that "Shyamalan's true achievement in this film is that he takes
a thrilling cult TV series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and he systematically leeches all
the personality and soul out of it — in order to create something generic enough to
serve as a universal spoof of every epic, ever." Anders summarized the experience of
watching the film by stating that, "Actually, my exact words when I walked out of this film
were, 'Wow, this makes Dragonball Evolution look like a masterpiece.'" Ain't It Cool News'
review questioned why Shyamalan was allowed to write the script, as well as why he was
even chosen to direct such a high-profile film after a string of previous flops: "Burdened
by [a] never-ending onslaught of expository dialogue awkwardly delivered by actors giving
career-worst performances across the board, The Last Airbender is so outrageously bad
it's a wonder it ever got before cameras." On August 29, 2012 on The Daily Show, Aasif
Mandvi joked that the script to the movie was decent, but said that M. Night Shyamalan
should be blamed for its failure. Scott Bowles of USA Today gave a generally
favorable review, claiming that Shyamalan delivered on fight scenes and the film worked
as a kid's film, although he also added that poor scriptwriting made some of the performances
sound wooden. Another favorable review came from Stephanie Zacharek of MovieLine, who
praises the way Shyamalan captures the art of action and human motion. David Roark of
Relevant Magazine accused other critics of having a bias against Shyamalan and gave the
film a positive review, stating that its visuals and heart far outweighed the clunky plotting
and "awful" dialogue. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian noted an unfortunate
linguistic problem that reduced British viewers to "a state of nervous collapse" due to laughter.
In British English, 'bent' is a slang term for gay, with 'bender' meaning a gay man,
giving an entirely different meaning to lines such as, "I could tell at once that you were
a bender." Bradshaw commented that the response from the audience to such lines was "deafeningly
immature" and would "inevitably be repeated in every cinema in the land showing The Last
Airbender."
Director's responses In a Vulture interview, Shyamalan argued that
his style and art-form of storytelling resulted in the negative reviews of the film and compared
it to asking a painter to change to a different style, "I bring as much integrity to the table
as humanly possible. It must be a language thing, in terms of a particular accent, a
storytelling accent. I can only see it this certain way and I don't know how to think
in another language. I think these are exactly the visions that are in my head, so I don't
know how to adjust it without being me." Shyamalan also addressed criticisms about
the barely 90 minute runtime of the film, which was considered bizarre given that it
had to condense a 20-episode TV season into one film, and is a far shorter runtime than
is typical for summer blockbusters. Shyamalan's response was that all of his previous movies
were 90 minutes, because they were small-scale supernatural thrillers, and as a result his
instinct for the pacing of the film was to edit it down to 90 minutes. This short runtime
indirectly led to several other problems which multiple critics listed above objected to:
characters frequently resort to giving long speeches of exposition to summarize entire
scenes that were cut for time, and a running voiceover commentary by Katara was added in
which she summarizes entire subplots that barely appear on screen.
Awards The Last Airbender received nine nominations
at the 31st Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Picture. The film went on to sweep the
Razzies with five awards: Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting
Actor, and a special award, "Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3D."
Home media The Last Airbender was released on DVD and
Blu-ray on November 16, 2010. At the same time, a Blu-ray 3D version was also made available
exclusively at Best Buy locations. The Last Airbender grossed $12,757,094 and sold a total
of 750,859 units in its first week on DVD. Awards and nominations
Possible sequels No official announcement by Shyamalan or Paramount
Studios and Nickelodeon has been made regarding the "go-ahead" or whether the plug will be
pulled on the trilogy. While filming The Last Airbender, Shyamalan mapped out a rough draft
for a second film that is "darker" and includes Azula, portrayed by Summer Bishil, as the
main antagonist. In a July 2010 interview with New York Magazine, Shyamalan commented
"In the next few months we'll be able to know whether we have that opportunity or not" when
asked about the sequel. No such announcement was made and in a September 2010 interview
when asked if he knew when the sequel will be made, he replied, "I don't, because there
are so many factors they take into account", adding, "I guess it will get into an area
where it becomes a discussion—like pros and cons."
References
External links
Official website The Last Airbender at the Internet Movie Database
The Last Airbender at Box Office Mojo The Last Airbender at Rotten Tomatoes
Ba Gua Demonstration representing style used for Air Nation characters on YouTube.