The unintentional hyuks are sparser in this one though, because they’re embedded in a film that leans on voiceover exposition from Katara (Nicola Peltz) for at least 50 percent of its story, filling in huge gaps in the narrative rather than trying to work around the limited feature running time. That movie would be a legitimate modern masterpiece of schlock if only anybody involved with it had been in on the joke. The style of this one should be all too familiar to those who endured Shyamalan’s weaker films that are filled with unintentional hilarity, such as 2008’s The Happening. Yes, the characters are funny in the series, so that’s an example of something going bad in the adaptation, but then most films need a sense of humor of some kind. There’s not a bit of intentional humor in the whole thing. It’s not just that they took liberties in adapting the story, or that the characters were the wrong race, or even that the 3D looked crummy – it’s just a trainwreck of a movie.įor starters, it is absolutely deadpan. It may well be that the studio wasn’t convinced that anybody would be fooled again, looking at how bad the first one turned out. So what was wrong with the film itself? As You Know… Unlike The Golden Compass, this isn’t one of those movies where poor box office returns fettled the trilogy as a whole. Talking specifically about the seven week turnaround on the notoriously bad post-conversion job on Clash of the Titans, he said: “You can slap a 3D label on it and call it 3D, but there’s no possible way that it can be done up to a standard that anybody would consider high enough.” Perhaps Cameron really was the Big Bad of this project, but it seems more likely that the filmmakers and studio bosses played the largest part in the film’s failure with critics and fans alike.Īside from all of this negative hype, the film didn’t do too badly at the box office. We don’t know if James Cameron has ever seen The Last Airbender, or if he was out to get this production in any way, but it just so happened that on the very same day as Paramount announced the conversion, he gave an interview to the Toronto Star, slating such post-3D jobs. The film ditched the prefix of the animated series to avoid confusion with James Cameron’s Avatar, which broke box office records in the early months of 2010, and also led to many of that year’s live-action tentpole movies being converted into 3D in post-production to ride the wave of audience interest, including Clash of the Titans, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and, of course, The Last Airbender.Īside from adding to the budget, this reportedly led to half an hour being cut from the movie so that they could convert it in time for its US release date, before the lucrative Independence Day weekend. Paramount and Nickelodeon Movies committed to spend $250 million over the course of a trilogy of films, one for each season, styled after successful fantasy franchises like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Shyamalan discovered the show when his daughter dressed up as Katara for Halloween and was also attracted to the spiritual and martial arts influences in the story. But the century since he shrugged off the responsibilities of his role has allowed the Fire Nation to take a foothold and the three youngsters must travel the world so that the Avatar may master the other elements, in addition to his native airbending, in order to bring peace. This is Aang, the reincarnated Avatar who can control all four elements and usually keeps the order. At the start of the series, two siblings from the Northern Water Tribe, Katara and Sokka, discover a boy encased beneath their icy homeland. The Fire Nation rules with an iron fist, using their powers and technological mastery to keep the others down. The series, created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, takes place in a world torn by war, in which gifted people can control each of the four elements: Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. What went wrong? It’s almost harder to try and figure out what, if anything, went right. It was the first of a planned trilogy based on the beloved Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was hugely acclaimed for its visual sense, engrossing storytelling and lively, vibrant characters. Night Shyamalan‘s most expensive and, ultimately, most derided film yet. But unlike other misfires from Shyamalan, this wasn’t based on his own original idea. It sounds harsh, but Ebert’s half-star verdict was fairly representative of the tidal wave of criticism that engulfed director M. “ The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.” So began Roger Ebert’s review of The Last Airbender.
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