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.