all right so if you didn't know Avatar
The Last Airbender is getting a new
live-action adaptation on Netflix bubble
but what you probably did know and wish
you could forget forever is that it
already got a live-action movie and it
was terrible but today I'm gonna remind
you of just how terrible this travesty
really was I'm Jocelyn the intern I do
all the research nobody else wants to
straight from the desk on battle
obviously spoilers if you haven't
watched the film duh
alright let's kick things off by talking
about the trailer you remember it has
egg doing some sweet avatar moves with
the candles
well this two minute trailer was just
about all the good footage in the entire
movie you see the film is actually just
M night Shyamalan the director trying to
embody the fire nation and kill the
avatar which he does a pretty good job
at and it's not like he didn't have good
material to work with either the
original Nickelodeon series has an
amazing story dope-ass character
development and awesome action scenes
but what did we get we got a bunch of
horrible exposition like a [ __ ] ton of
it if you don't know what exposition is
it's telling not showing basically the
opposite of what you want to do in a
film for instance just in the first
three minutes we get some scrolling text
followed by some poorly read narration
and then a hundred years ago he just
disappeared
I get it people can bend elements and
the world needs this boy aka V avatar
I don't need animatronic guitar a spoon
feeding me narratives to understand
what's going on it would be an
understatement to say exposition killed
the film oh no no no it burned its house
down wiped out its family and sewed its
fields with salt but oh it doesn't stop
there in fact M night Shyamalan didn't
just wipe out a family he wiped out an
entire race of people you remember how
the Water Tribe was supposed to be based
on real-life Arctic cultures like the
Inuits well not here here they're all
white and maybe just maybe it was
because the actors were really good but
[Laughter]
Wow with delivery like that not even
face stealer Co would be interested it's
a little avatar joke for you guys
seriously though in the series Aang is
supposed to be childlike and whimsical
Katara the humble sidekick Sokka the
comical relief but in the movie Aang is
an emotionless body of turmoil Katara
sounds like an airhead and Sokka seems
like he's just reading off a script I
wants what side of the fin tracks are
more indented that shows you which
direction they're going I saw how long
the drug's kids are that shows you how
fast they're going the characters are so
shallow that you could care less if one
of them takes a fireball to the face
which Katara does and nope not even a
twinge of emotion even the CGI Appa had
more range than these actors and all he
can say is Wow
the film is so inconsistent that it
started to break down its own world
building like instead of imprisoning
earthbenders on a metal boat where they
can't use their powers they imprison
them on land next to I [ __ ] you not
rocks you know the thing they can
manipulate with their powers at any
point these earth benders could just
literally crush the outnumbered
firebenders so why don't they oh I don't
know maybe they're as dumb as the rocks
they Bend but when they finally fight
back it takes six of them doing a well
choreographed dance to make one small
rock float across the screen let's just
do a little side-by-side here and see if
it matches up with the original source
material at all this bender bigotry
doesn't end there to add to the
stupidity firebenders need a
pre-existing fire to bend they can't
just make fire Oh unless you're an
advanced firebender like Zuko's uncle
Iroh who does nothing with this power he
just stands there looking like an idiot
good awesome keep doing that maybe they
just ran out of special effects budget
which would explain why Aang and Zuko
have a long drawn-out fistfight yeah
that's right the Airbender and the
firebender fight each other without
using a single flame or gust of wind
it's like showing up for a duel at high
noon only to get into a slap fight the
movie did do a great job at one thing
though and that's giving Netflix a long
detailed list of what not to do thanks M
night Shyamalan
I knew Bruce was dead the whole time and
the ending of split was stupid fun fact
the producers for the Netflix series who
are also the original creators took a
low-key jab at the movie when they said
we can't wait
to realize Aang's world as cinematically
as we always imagined it to be and with
a culturally appropriate non whitewashed
caste so at least we know they won't
make that mistake again