The Last Airbender and the Art of Terrible Adaptation | Big Joel
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ส.ค. 2018
- I talk about The Last Airbender!!
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Patricia Taxxon was nice enough to let me use her music. I took songs from the Albums Telecommunications, Traveller, Nostalgia, Gallery, and Paul. You can find them here: / @patricia_taxxon
To watch the bit of animation by Lilly Ashton that didn't make its way into final video, go here: • On Exactitude in Science
Two places where I used poetic license.
1) The final short in the Rip Van Winkle series was released a few years after 1896.
2) In the scene with an Aang poster in the film, it's actually not a wanted poster, she's putting it up to signal to the world that the avatar has returned. Still, the scene visually evokes The Deserter
Notes on the episodes of Avatar name dropped:
Jet: The Gaang encounters a radical who believes that liberation is worth any price and who is willing to act immorally in order to reach his goals. His belief is challenged by the notion that revolution must always be moral.
The Northern Air Temple: Aang must come to terms with the fact that his traditional world is gone. He has to accept that progress happens and that it can be good even when it hurts his sense of self and history.
The Fortune Teller: A town has been so indoctrinated into believing the words of a mystic, and they have staked their egos so thoroughly on their trust for her, that they aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to save their own lives.
The Waterbending Master: Pakku, a waterbending master, refuses to teach Katara because she’s a woman. He realizes, in the end, that his dogmatism and rigidness came at the cost of his fiance. - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
![Yoshi Rinrada - 'มาทำไม' [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/r41xbfRLkLs/mqdefault.jpg)
Early on in the process of writing this, I thought I’d feature a short story titled "On Exactitude in Science”. I recorded my reading the story and got animator Lilly Ashton to make an animated version of it. In the end, I didn't include the story, but it's still very pertinent to what I'm talking about here and I think Lilly did a great job. You can find the animation here: th-cam.com/video/Odggf2SoGK4/w-d-xo.html
U ●・ ᴥ ・● U っ♡*+♬•*
This speaks to the Deep Nerd in me. Very cool all on its own.
Subbed! But it's because you like Borges. Here is the orginal Spanish for those interested: ciudadseva.com/texto/del-rigor-en-la-ciencia/
How old are you?
Ear-o? Fuck you.
most offensive thing about this movie is firebenders needing pre-existing flames to bend
Meh, it's like Midochlorians. I actually like the idea, but in this case it was added just to be new for the sake of new, not because they actually wanted to craft a story around changing that element of the worldbuilding.
Patrick Flores Nah, it was making the earthbending weak af.
and how are we supposed to believe that a nation that needs pre-existing fire started a war and took over almost the whole world? The waterbenders could easily put out those "fires" with their spit
And then, like, Iroh just fucking doesn't because of reasons never described, alluded to, or foreshadowed lol.
8Kazuja8
Fire bending is based on the concentration and manipulation of surrounding heat, with the weakest and most basic form of fire bending consisting of warming your body by drawing heat from your surroundings into your body. Giant blasts of fire are created when someone uses that heat to ignite the surrounding air and properly controls the heat flow to maintain the flames. Anger can create a burst of intense heat using the internal resources contributed by the user's body, but true fire bending occurs when an individual achieves an absolute degree of calm control and awareness of their surroundings, creating a constant flow of minimal movement and precise flame control.
This manipulation of heat is exactly why fire bending is worse at night and in cold places, as it's not hot enough for benders to easily find sources of outside heat to generate fireballs. Also, there's a heavy implication that fire comes from the sun (something Jeong Jeong instructs Aang when he was his teacher), so eclipses, which smother the sun, also smother fire bending.
The movie version of fire bending is the ultimate exaggeration of what an inexperienced fire bender would look like: an idiot reliant on a torch to do anything meaningful. Incidentally, this ties back to the bending lessons imparted by the Sun Warriors to Zuko, where the chief tells him the real way to bend fire, which is far more powerful than the anger-fueled shortcut adopted by the modern benders. If it helps, imagine that "fire benders" from the movie are so far removed from the actual art of bending that they've regressed into novices.
This was the most neutral, balanced, well explained, generous way of saying "this was shit" I've ever seen.
That's what I wanted to say
Agreed.
Thank you, there was no reason for this mess of a movie to be made. I thought that live action adaptations of anime just couldn't be good but that was before I saw Bleach on Netflix. It proved that they could be done right if the people making them had even an ounce of respect for the source material.
ikr
Ok but “ahng” and “sowka” are how I thought their names were pronounced before I watched the show and had only read about it. Therefor, my theory is that no one in the entire production ever bothered to actually watch the show.
Actually,that is how the Asian and Latin American broadcasts pronounce the names so there is precedence.
Shyamalan changed the names to be more "culturally appropriate" which I could maybe understand, but it feels very shallow since he also cast all the good guys as white and all the bad guys as Indian/Middle Eastern when the 4 nations are very distinctly Japanese(Fire), Chinese(Earth), Inuit(Water) and Tibetan(Air).
The only guy in the original show that called Sokka sowka was the guy who was supposed to marry yue and called admiral Zhao, Choi
@@AspieMediaBobby yes, but then why didn't they make the rest of the stuff with their accent? they also made the characters white, which then destroyed the whole point of pronouncing their names the way that they do
@@Ghostly_writer Shaymalan was basically just trying to force a franchise to save his ass after "The Mist" and "The Lady in The Water" bombed so epically which backfired and destroyed what was left of his credibility as a director,causing the rights to revert to the original creators and Netflix.
I laughed soo hard when it took 5 earth benders to move one boulder. That's shit was embarrassing
Toph disagrees with you and thinks it was a pebble
The boulder is over his conflicted feelings.
* disgruntled Toph Beifong noises *
There's actually six. In a masterful act of bad cinema, one is almost perfectly hidden behind another
It would have only taken 4 people to carry it
There is no movie in Ba Sing Se, The earth king has invited you to Lake Logai.
I accept his invitation
Hell ya
I am honored to accept his invitation.
I am honoured to accept his invitation
I am honored to accept his invitation.
I've never seen the film, but that scene where Katara was saying, "I'm sorry!" at first playfully, and then fearfully as Sohka came at her in a very angry intense way had me scared for her. Sokka would've never done that. I actually feared in that moment thinking Sohka would hit her, he looked and walked so angrily.
Agreed and also I appreciate the spelling lmao
That scene just makes Sohka look like he is abusive towards his sister. Sokka would NEVER do anything like that.
That was like, the most out of charachter thing ever.
Also when would Katara EVER take shit off of anyone? She wouldn’t. Not even from sokka.
@@hoodieninja4983 the best emotional beats Sokka has in the show involve his love and protectiveness of his sister. He will bitch and moan at her all day long but he would NEVER be abusive towards her. And she would never be afraid of him.
You know whats sad? Viewing media as a collection of facts is becoming more and more common in fan discussions
In Layment's terms, don't look at a base as point A to point Z. It's about the journey there.
I blame Cinema Sins. No scratch that, I blame the Nostalgia Critic. Cinema Sins is just the logical end result of what he started.
djaevlenselv Please elaborate. How did the NC contribute to film discussion as a collection of facts? I like his stuff, but I'd like think more critically about it 🤔
I'm guessing the accusation is that Nostalgia Critic was one of the first online people to pick apart movies for very petty things that everyone feels inclined to point out over time (like how some people think the original Spider-Man movies are bad now because Tobey Maguire cried once or how Space Jam is bad, which is honestly still is regardless, because Lola Bunny had "Bunny Boobies"). Honestly, I'm a lot more indifferent about about the two-except maybe with Doug now after Channel Awesome was exposed and his videos turned into dumb skits accusing Deadpool of being unoriginal with pastiche characters created after DP was created under the banner of an AVGN follow-up-seeing that films aren't perfect and sometimes need a little riffing, but there definitely has been a toxic shift after both debuted to focus on really weak problems rather serious criticism of films under the claim of "the facts don't line up."
Wow. That last sentence went on forever. My apologies!
Sorry, this will be a bit of a wall-of-text
NC was to my knowledge the person who started the style of review/comedy that consists of showing clips of the movie in viewing order as a sort of 'distillation' of the movie itself interspersed with the comedian/reviewer narrating what's happening in the movie to tie the clips together while explaining why it sucks in a humorous way (obviously inspired by MST3K, but still very distinct from its style).
This sort of review/comedy, if viewed as film criticism (a notoriously contentious subject especially in regards to Cinemasins, but I maintain that a significant part of the audience of such videos view them as legit film crit. and that this makes it worth discussing them as such) can pretty much only lend itself to the most simplistic way of viewing any element in a movie, pretty much in the way Kraig Goss says in his OP. When you enter the movie with a deliberate negative bias and lock yourself into commenting on every snippet of the movie in view order and in relative isolation from any overarching themes the movie may or may not have, you really limit your own ability to say anything meaningful about the movie (qv. my own comment on this video about what I like about Joel's style of critique, and also qv. MST3K which riffed on movies without presenting itself as critique).
I think the best way to explain my point would be to ask you to view videos with contrasting methods: Watch the NC review of The Room, and then compare with Joel's own video essay on that movie. Notice how NC's style locks him into making only the most superficial observations (fitting Kraig's 'collection of facts' remark). For a similar example watch Phelous' review of Funny Games (and perhaps also his follow-up video 'Funny Games Again'), and then compare with Eric Taxxon's video essay on that movie.
Also, Iroh almost never delivers his wisdom in anger like he did in that scene. With Zuko it’s almost always a mix of sincerity and humour. Against enemies it’s usually with mockery. The only time I remember him being genuinely angry or stern in the show is when he advises the female guard whose been nice to him to take the next day off and when telling Zhao to let the moon spirit go.
Also when Zuko was trying to 'steal' Appa. He wasn't angry, but he was desperate for Zuko to understand so he pushed.
He threatens the fuck out of Zhao at the North Pole fam:
"Destroying the Moon won't hurt _just_ the Water Tribe, Zhao. The Fire Nation needs the the Moon too. Whatever you unleash upon that spirit I will unleash upon you _tenfold._ LET IT GO ZHAO!"
And then he goes apeshit on all Zhao's soldiers so hard he scares Zhao away.
@@lettuceprime4922 Well that WAS important plus Zhao is not the brightest and is after fame and power.
And when he’s at ba sing se and burns the fire nation flag I saw the scene in the finale with him and I was like wow iroh really is a badass
Uncle Iroh is my favorite character in the show and that movie did him dirty.
Excellent work. I think M. Night Shyamalan made his feelings towards the source material very clear when he said he "made a movie for 8-year-olds" to justify his poorly written script. He doesn't believe the source material has any real value, he thinks it's a dumb show for kids because it's a cartoon.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote the script by reading the Wikipedia article and not actually watching the show.
From what I've read it sounds like he just watched the series once, and then wrote the script with very little time or care
Shir Deutch What's sad is that according to many reports, Shyamalan's original Last Airbender script was so much better than the final product. Not only all the infamous crap in the movie from the pebble dance to the name mispronunciations to even the depowered firebending etc weren't in his original draft but the characters acted like the characters and it wasn't all dark and super serious. It was darker but had levity and life to it. I guess Just Write was right - M Night did have a script that was rich in character and drama but he kept cutting it down til he squeezed all the life out of it. One thing I do find funny is the only good scene in the movie (the ending with Aang raising the ocean) was the only thing brought over from the guy's first draft.
I think thats one of the reasons life action adoptations are made in the first place. Cause these people and studios have no respect for animation. They see it only as kids crap, that can only be supperior by being turned into live action. Yet often animation can do so much more than live action and pretty much every movie who tried to adapt that way was an absolute flop.
The tone of the movie would have been almost identical to the show if he had actually made a story for 8-year-olds.
@@burningexeter4365 Have you read any early drafts of Shyamalan scripts? This sounds impossible to me.
I was 9 when the movie came out and went in a Kiyoshi cosplay my mom had made for me.
It was the first time I actually ever watched a movie and went "wait. That sucked"
being a 9 year old kiyoshi sounds sick, i'm jealous
i can just imagine going in a kyoshi costume and not being able to see any of the warriors
Lmao
Isn’t it kyoshi
SAME! i watched the movie when i was young, and although i hadn't watched the entire series, just some episodes here and there, i still thought, "that was.....bad"
I look at the episode in the final season of A:TLA where all the main characters are watching the Fire Nation play of the opening events of the series, and how they’re all laughing & insulted by the caricatures of themselves, and I think just how much better that single filler episode was at representing the core of each character (and contrasting it with whom they’ve become by the end) than the entire M. Night movie did.
yep
War propaganda. Not really filler.
Luke Wilson that was the real adaptation he was going for
Deinny Does While it is war propaganda I don't think that doesn't make it filler. The episode is ultimately inconsequential to the plot and is really more of a reflection on the show as a whole for both the characters and the audience. Its some damn good filler but it is filler.
That's one of (like top 15) my favorite episodes, it's filler but it's so good
Jackson Rathbone was casted as Sokka, but acts like a boring Jet
Elijah Pointer oh my gawd! on point
He was written and directed as a boring Jet. Shamalamadingdong has a habit of making otherwise competent actors look like idiots.
Yeah, I won't go so far as to say that Mark Wahlberg or Zooey Deschanel are great actors, but they've never been so terrible as in The Happening. They are almost unconvincing as even being human people in that movie
Jackson Rathbone:
I hate fire, its hot, irritating, and just gets everywhere.
Also putting aside the whole race issue, the guy who plays Sokka looks way too old. He looks like he's almost 30 when he's supposed to be 15.
The choreography is so bad it cringes me.
How in the hell is your name highlighted like you're the OP of this video? I saw the vlogbrothers on Lindsay Ellis and they didn't have a highlight on her video just because their account was verified?
Earthbenders: do intense motions for like 2 minutes
Single pebble: zoom
meanwhile in the "show made for kids", each step breaks the ground
I actually thought the choreography on its own was pretty good, the actors with the exception of Katara were trying pretty hard, the problem was the effects were so garbage that
My favorite scenes in the show were earthbenders doing earthbending. It just looks so badass and awesome. The way they adapted it in the movie was just hilarious.
The more I think about it, the more the movie feels like a little kid retelling the story of the first season: All jumbled and confused and tripping over itself.
Nah, if it was retold by a child, it would at least be interesting to listen to. You'd have no idea what the show had been about, but you'd hear the passion in the kid's telling of it. This has no passion or joy.
Laura Williams sgreed
I’m offended that it took 7 earthbenders to move a rock the size of a watermelon
Like... that's a practice rock for a 10 year old in training in the show.
Not to mention they had apparently been practicing that perfectly synchronized little dance of theirs and apparently knew the exact moment when to use said dance for the most dramatic effect, all for an oversized pebble moving at walking speed.
and then bumi moves an entire city by himself
Aang: I need to tell you something.
Katara: What is it Aang.
Aang: I skipped acting school
i think you mean Ong
What is it awng*
Well, the actor who played "aang" was casted because he was good at martial arts... he had no ream acting experience to speak of, so yeah.
Its not like there's a huge department in hollywood devoted to turn actors who know nothing about acrobatics, fighting and so on into believable fighters or make it look like so.....
Oh, wait, there is.
Well, at least there is a department to make sure every person with no acting experience can perform a part flawlessly despite not knowing how to act...
Oh wait, there isnt.
So they casted a kid who couldnt act but could spin a staff without the ability to make him a good actor, instead of casting a good actor and being able to teach him to spin a staff
@@Fede_uyz yeah thats one of the worst parts of this movie. the fact that the LEAD CHARACTER, is terrible at acting and only good at martial arts. which only makes up 10% of the movie. if not less.
@@Fede_uyz they could've just had a good actor plus a stunt double. But I guess every single shot has to be a boring one take with no excitement, according to m night.
"who does stuff like live in a society..."
nice
Bottom text
Shyamalan's body of work is a great argument against auteur theory. The more unrestrained creative freedom he has, the worse his movies get. The real puzzle is that some of his films are genuinely good, which makes me wonder what's going on behind the curtain there.
I love engineering and art. And I feel like a lot of us operate that way. My best work comes with the most constraints. How can I make something impressive looking on a small budget? Limited materials? A lot of rules? No problem, now my brain is racing, thinking of loopholes and work arounds
Limey Lassen The thing is he apparently DIDN’T have any creative freedom on this film. There was rumors making the rounds awhile back from someone who worked on the movie who claimed that the producers were the ones twisting his arm and ruining everything.
www.cinemablend.com/new/Why-Last-Airbender-Was-Terrible-It-Maybe-Wasn-t-Night-Fault-66676.html
There's a great video essay that uses the making of Star Wars to argue against auteur theory. It talks about all the behind-the-scenes conflict between Lucas and his collaborators, and how that friction improved the film. How it was really even ultimately saved on the editing floor, without George's input at all.
Check put the channel StoryBrain I think he does a greak breakdown of him
Well, there are your Shyamalans and then there are your Kubricks. Mileage may vary.
One of the things that I appreciate the most about your videos is that you refuse to ever sum up a work as just "bad". Saying "this movie/song/book/etc. is bad (or 'good', even)" is in many ways a way to limit your own ability to fully engage with the work, and try to figure out what it says or what you can glean from it. This is something I never thought about until I started watching you, and you pointed it out to me simply by not doing it.
I like "effective" versus "ineffective", because it's always relative to what we perceive the work to be attempting. "Bad" is easy because it's subjective. "Effective" means you have to really examine what the art is doing.
This is a sweet thought, and I find it mostly to be the case in his videos, but he put out a video a month prior to this one, titled "Incredibles 2 was pretty bad" and started the video saying he thought it was "sooo bad." Kinda wish he would have applied that objectivity in that video!
@@thatonegirludontknow sure, but that video came off as a "summation of thoughts after having watched the film" and not a full-fledged video essay with points and objectives.
It's physically painful to watch even small amounts of that movie, it just feels so wrong
15:38 An essential part of this scene is that, not only is Zhao acting out of an aggrandized sense of pride, he’s also displaying genuine respect for one of his own-showing through only in a micro expression as he pulls his hand away.
Despite the competitive nature of his character, especially towards a shunned and honorless combatant, Zhao refuses to drag Zuko down with him-returning the mercy that Zuko showed him in their previous AgniKai. But he does so only with a prideful expression to hide behind.
This ambiguity of motivation is vital to the success of that moment and even the show as a whole. Was Zhao showing Zuko ‘what real honor looks like’ by denying the assistance of a lesser individual? Or was he refusing to let this sixteen year old kid get drowned because of him? This moment more than any other from Book 1 showed us what kind of show we were being treated to: an all-time great with deeper motivations and complexities to consider.
Wow, I never thought about it that way!
March 20, 2019
This is amazing.
oh wow, this is a great reading!
May 25, 2022
This is amazing.
August 25 2023
This is incredible
I’ve often thought that most of the best film adaptations have very little to do with plot mirroring and much more to do with thematic mirroring. I look at movies like this one, The Golden Compass, or Ender’s Game, which were huge disappointments despite trying their best to lay out the same events; and then compare them to movies such as the 2018 film Annihilation or Scott Pilgrim, which have the bare structures of the source materials’ plots but focus much more closely on matching the emotions & themes those books were wanting to covey.
Luke Wilson Also, The Giver. :'(
babahu15 Yikes, I’m sure! I never ended up seeing it myself for that exact reason; it was too important of a book to me and I’d learned my lesson about adaptations by then. I never watched The Book Thief, either.
I'd put How To Train Your Dragon and Pirate! In An Adventure With Scientists on the good loose list too.
i feel like howls moving castle is an example as well, the ghibli adaptation hits on very few plot points but conveys the general feeling of strange whimsy the book has. both are excellent, even if the movie isnt accurate.
Scott Pilgrim actually is quite close to the comics.
I also think Watchmen is a fantastic adaptation, which is also kinda close in many parts.
But Edge of Tomorrow is (look-wise) really far from the manga and has the basic theme and still is really bad (if you read the manga before)
8:49 "So, are you the Avotar Ung."
Who tf thought this would be a good idea
I saw this movie in the theater when I was 12 while at a summer camp for blind and low vision kids. The audio description headphones weren’t working (sadly not an uncommon problem), so we all sat there with our heads together comparing notes on what we could see with our various amounts of vision. By the way, the movie was also in 3-D, and none of us had depth perception, so the glasses didn’t work for us and everything was fuzzy. Anyway, the most enjoyable moment of the entire experience was when my friend was describing some waterbender fight and said, “She hurls this…bomb of wet.“ But yeah, after two hours that movie theater was flooded with a crowd of angry blind 12-year-olds, none of whom were earthbenders.
I can't agree that they wanted to make the movie similar to the source because they got so many things fundamentally wrong. They wanted to blend together everything you remember from the show but couldn't be bothered to give Zuko the right haircut. I'm sure a bunch of cosplayers could make a better cast of actors. Seriously, the back of Yue's head looked like a dick in that one shot. WHY
I think that's the entire point of his argument. It didn't want to be an adaption of Avatar, it wanted to be the show itself. As with any adaption of a popular work of fiction, you'll inherently get an audience because "it's that thing we like!" The crew of this film knew that and tried throw in as many nods to the show as possible. The writers probably weren't intimately familiar with Avatar. Couple those together and you get something that superficially resembles the source, but doesn't quite get at the core of what made said source so popular in the first place.
I say, let keep the "what would this cartoon look in real life" stuff to the fans, with cosplay and fan projects, cause appearently, big studios seem to have no idea how to do it right. Heck, often the adapated characters don't even resemble the characters they are based on at all caughstarfirecaugh so what is than the point in making these live action adoptations besides having no respect for the medium of animation?
Southern Gothic they definitely understood wrong the nature of bending at all... moves are a part of bending, not random moves and after them bending comes... that's so obvious, but the director missed it... he didn't even care
@@user-lj8mr6fk6s Yeah the choreography was a freaking mockery of the show's.
Zuko's hair being short in the movie irks me so much. It's such a significant turning point when he cuts his ponytail off in the show - a total change in his character, in appearance, but especially mentally... Zuko with his long hair is almost an entirely different character from Zuko with short hair.
But, who am I kidding, the producers of this movie probably didn't even watch that far, considering that happens during the first episode of Season 2.
(Also don't get me started on how his scar wasn't nearly visible enough. In some scenes you could hardly even see he had it).
im v happy to be the resident music guy for left-tube
To think once you aspired only to read shitty asshole comments aloud for leftist videos
You are very talented Mr Taxxon :)
Eric Taxxon I _knew_ it. I _knew_ it was you.
Yes you are amazing
Residential music *girl* now ;)
Do you think it's possible he based the movie on the play in the show??
Even that play is a million times better. Sokka at least tries to be funny and Aang is light hearted and fun loving.
It is claimed quite frequently that the movie wrapped production, or at least pre-production before that episode aired. Or that the episode is a jab at the film. I am unable to verify this. The episode aired two years before the release of the film. However Shyamalan was known to have completed a draft of the script before he'd seen anything from the third season. Since the creators of Avatar ask him if he's excited to see it during a featurette about the film. This of course does not mean that the show hadn't aired, just that Shyamalan hadn't seen it either way. The other two were also "involved" in the film's production, so they had at least some insider information, these facts coupled with the long production schedule of most feature films, especially presumed blockbusters means it's _possible_ but still doesn't seem likely that Ember Island Players was a direct reference to Shyamalan's film.
The kid's reactions to the play was based on our reactions to the movie, so that episode came after the movie.
Yeah, its like a bad ripoff of the play, which is probably the only episode they saw before making the ripoff.
That's the twist lol
“Who would be free? Everyone would be dead.” Wow relevant Sokka is relevant
wait is this a COVID reference?
A potentially interesting point about 'people recoiling in their seats' at "The Arrival of a Train..." - current film scholarship holds this to be an urban legend, with the primary article on the subject being 'Lumiere's Arrival of the Train: Cinema's Founding Myth'. However, the fact that this legend resonated with audiences at the time - and still resonates today - is worth acknowledging. It suggests that we collectively have a sense that film truly is a more visceral, more immediate form of art, and that it can seem in a sense 'more real' than reading a book might be. So we believe that a naive audience could mistake an illusory train for a real threat, and we appreciate the wonder that early moviegoers would have felt at seeing such images realized in such spectacular fashion. And it may really have happened - there just isn't enough primary evidence to say.
At the same time, the story is also a fascinating example of early elitism among moviegoers. Just five years after the release of Lumiere's film, R.W. Paul released a 1901 film making comedy on the subject of 'yokels' or 'rubes' who didn't understand that it was all just images on a screen. And Edison released a similar film the next year, lampooning the character 'Uncle Josh' who likewise acts out the urban legend. So in a sense, this has been a 'founding myth' or central story to the art of film nearly since its inception, and there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the story and the way that it has been passed on. Incidentally, you can see R.W. Paul and Edison's films on the subject (or whatever parts remain) here on youtube:
th-cam.com/video/MjufyLPKsEw/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/1PSMcqvbB7s/w-d-xo.html
Idk about you but that trains mad scary bro.
Yeah, the way I learned about it in my film studies’ class, the current consensus on the train clip was that people knew what the film would show going into it, but that was part of why it was so successful. I look at it in terms of a modern day VR horror game: we know it’s going to be a terrifying experience we’ve never had before, but that’s exactly why we’re so intrigued to try it out. People have always shelled out money to experience adrenaline rushes from a safe distance.
I just realised why I was always a bit confused about people criticising the pronunciation; The adaptation uses the same pronunciation as the German Dub with which I grew up !
Okto Pussy I just wanted to say that!
I was actually confused when i heared it for the first time in english, i know its supposed to sound like the german Aang but it ends up sounding like Oang instead of the fast Ang xD
Um no. Which German dub did you grow up with? I never heard Ong. It always was Aang. A long A not an O
I dont think you understood my comment, i said that in the german dub, it was a fast Ang or a longer Aang. But in the english dub the name ended up sounding like Oang.
@@astralaris8712 I know. My comment was directed at the op
I think a movie adaptation of a:tla could work, but it would need to be a 6 movie series splitting each season up into 2 movies. I'd even do 7 movies since the finale could fill one movie on it's own. One of the adaptation's biggest problems is that there's not enough time to flesh out the world, establish the plot, and develop the characters. Everything is sacrificed to explain what's going on and race to the finish line.
aacsmiles or a live action tv series since it could flesh everything out more but I don’t think ppl would be more inclined to watch it then a movie series
Aquila A they actually are creating a live action tv series with Bryke
Maybe not that many movies. There is filler in the show that wouldn't be a good idea to adapt into a movie. Things can be condensed with a good enough writer.
The best way to adapt the series would be not to focus on portraying all the events like a laundry list, but rather to figure out how to condense, change and truncate them in order to lay the themes and emotions across.
@@cinnamoroll740 this aged horribly 🥺😔
I laughed my ass off when there was like 5 dudes earthbending 1 small rock that was barely floating
And why is everyone in the film white when the characters look or seem like they’re probably from different parts of Asia or even Eastern Europe?
Oh, it's worse than that. All the _heroes_ are white. The villains and the extras on the other hand are mostly Asians. The Southern Water Tribe is full of properly Inuit looking folks, and then you've got pasty-faced Katara, Sokka, and grandma.
It's the US equivalent of anime hair
Eastern Europe? You are talking about Azeibarjan "Eastern" or Belarus "Eastern"?
Eastern Europe? You are talking about Azeibarjan "Eastern" or Belarus "Eastern"?
Yeah I thought that was so weird
I don't know if I'm going to be able to watch this whole video, hearing the characters pronounce "Aang" as "Ong" hurts my heart.
7:15 was really hard to watch, even when it was only a clip. It made Sokka seem like a heartless abuser, that had gone to such extremes before. With the desperation of Katara's voice, it made her seem like she was begging for forgiveness.
The voice acting of George Tekai as the warden was amazing.
The gif of those earth-benders all working in unison to slowly move one rugby ball sized stone is an all time great
If only Nick made another series as great as The Last Airbender. It was a wild ride.
Justin Y. You need to go to rehab man
Dude your everywhere
Well maybe not Nick, but I'd argue Steven Universe is at roughly the same level as Airbender.
Heather Calun accept the artstyle sucks
Steven Universe's art style is gorgeous. I don't know why people keep saying that. It reminds me of Yoshi's Island.
Whenever you cut to the animated show in this video its like a breath of fresh air
I actually thought this was going to be about how Avatar was an adaptation of Rip van Winkle.
When you talked about this adaptation being just a compilation of facts, I couldn't stop thinking about the last seasons of Game of Thrones, and how they went from a compelling set of well structured stories with thematic coherence to... well, a succession of facts
In short, the life-action film is aggressively faithful to the letter of the source material, at the expense of its spirit.
Joel, as always, another fascinating and thought-provoking video!
Maybe the Iroh says to Zhao could've been "You have respect for nothing but yourself. And that will be your downfall". Seems more in line with the characters
Avatar is one of my favorite shows ever, but I was old enough to hear M. Night Shyamalan and know it was going to be a dumpster fire. And still, he somehow managed to make it worse than I expected.
The sense I got from the movie was that it wanted to be Lord of the Rings....but Avatar flavoured
Do you guys know how many people saw this when they were filming and just excepted them as "Augh" and "Soaka" it's actually pretty sad that not one person stood up and said, "Hey, wtf man, that's not how you say it"
I just have to say I've only recently discovered your channel a few days ago and have been binging your content since. love the energy, bro. never change.
They should have combined the 'Aang is held on a Fire Nation ship/Earthbenders are trapped on Fire Nation ships' episodes into one longer sequence, where Katara and Sokka go and rescue Aang while also rallying the Earthbenders that are also trapped there.
Wow, I never thought of it like that. This is definitely the best breakdown of The Last Airbender I've ever seen. Most of the videos you'll find on the topic are just rants about its unfaithfulness to the source material, the bland, boring characters, and that it's a Shyamalan film, so it must be bad. This video actually deeply analyzed the movie in a unique way, trying to understand it at its core.
It is the quintessential bad adaption, as it does not simply ignore the source material, but actually gives it the middle finger and does its own thing with it. It's not a movie adaptation of the Avatar:TLA series, its rather an offshoot film, loosely based around the series its reading the index card notes of. The story is boring, the characters are bland, and the world is uninspiring because the movie took a siphon to the source material and drained it off all its essence; everything that made it good, everything that made it the Avatar: The Last Airbender we all know and love.
You can make more Airbender videos if you want to.
6:08 We live in a society
Bottom text
I don't get it.
Fuck yuo veronica
now yuo see
If Avatar was adapted back then in 1896 it would have done a lot better and more successful than M. Night’s film
"Hes a bit of a grump, and I love him" me toooo
Hi Joel. Everything you said about adaptation is perfect and it made me want to watch Nicolas cage be creepy in Adaptation again. However, I think your interpretation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is flawed.
Aang's journey is not opposed to egoism. In fact, it is Aang's strict adherence to his own moral code against the will of the world at large, his past lives, and his friends that leads to him sparing the life of the Fire Lord in the climactic final battle. Rather, A:TLA explores two conflicting views of DESTINY. There are those who "know" their destiny and those who "choose" their destiny.
Ozai does not conquer the world because he has an ego. He does it because he knows he is destined to follow in his grandfather's footsteps. Zuko knows that he is destined to capture the Avatar. Jet, destined for revenge; Toph, destined to remain helpless; and our main villains all feel it is their destiny to be remembered as great warriors. A:TLA elevates choice to a divine act and supports any character who acts against their presumed roles. Even Aang's inital moral failing: running away from his destiny, only happens because he feels that he knows where that path will lead him. It is only when he decides that being the Avatar is his desire and not his duty that he truly becomes a heroic figure.
Destiny is an aspect of the show, but egoism is far more central. If anything, destiny is important largely to the extent that it's a reflection of the ego. Ozai thinks he has this great divine purpose because he has a massive ego. Yeah, he's following in his father's footsteps, but what am I to think when he stands before his troops and declares himself the Phoenix King? It is a ridiculously egotistical thing, and has little connection to any sort of previously established destiny.
Continuing on, on Aang's decision to not kill Ozai, that decision was explicitly partially a refutation of the past air avatar claiming that the avatar cannot claim a lack of connection to the world. Getting into the avatar state at all is an act of disconnection from the self, and his ascension is an expression of that. I don't think that Toph ever expresses any sort of "destiny to remain helpless". She initially doesn't go because her parents are trying to override her desires. Jet, too, mostly just wants revenge, and feels it's his responsibility. He never really expresses any divine truth guiding that. He's sad his parents died and such.
Destiny shows up. The Fortune Teller, Aang being the avatar and getting the mission from Roku, and yeah, Zuko capturing him, all have connections to the idea. But you're just wrong claiming that ego isn't incredibly important. The show is constantly concerned with the main character seeking enlightenment. That means disconnecting from the ego.
@Jake K idk man, if you watch the show, they talk about destiny a lot. At one point, Zuko wants to kill his dad who is defenseless and right in front of him and he says he won't do it because it's not his destiny, it's the Avatar's destiny. There's an episode titled "the crossroads of destiny." To be fair, there's also a lot of talk about pride and hubris which are both closely related to ego. I just feel that destiny plays a more central thematic role. All stories include characters who have egos, and those are often portrayed as negative, but in Avatar, having a sense of self and believing yourself to be morally right is not always a bad thing. Aang's ego is what saves him in the end, rather than surrendering his ego and just performing his duty. That was my main point.
@@eggynack You're missing one salient point though, especially when it concerns the Avatar state and the ultimate disconnection from the world. Aang's willingness to disconnect results in him getting shot with lightning, and he has to overcome his enlightenment in order to impose his own will on how to handle Ozai. Ultimately, Aang had to be very "selfish" (not a judgement call, but the terminology that describes his actions) and impose his own moral code onto the situation despite the fact that his "duty to the world" fully justifies killing Ozai. If anything he is not perfectly enlightened, that's the ultimate dissolution of the ego into the oneness of nirvana, he's a bodhisatva who understands the enlightened principles and returns in the ego-centric human form in order to lead others to enlightenment. I don't mean to say that Avatar is a Buddhist text, I think that the show attempts to allude to certain ideas central to Buddhism, but Aang's personal journey reflects some of those principles and ends on a note of him expressing his own ego over the tremendous power of disassociation and enlightenment.
So...ARE you the Ohvitar, Ong?
One line he could have used: "even in banishment, zuko is more honorable then you" not the exact line from the show, but it would have worked
People also make the assumption that a live action movie is better than an animated series.
On a different note, I loved the 2017 IT because it captured most of the essential parts of the book, like the importance of friendship ( I like to pretend the part where they all start fighting didn't happen). Also they felt like real 12/11 year olds. I'd still rather see an animated series adapting IT.
oh geez i asked that patreon question and then you listed all my favorite youtubers wow!
I feel like crawling out of my skin every time they say “ahng”
It took me like 40 minutes to realize the connection between Aang and Rip Van Winkle (they both take magical slumbers and awaken to a new foreign world).I thought it was just how a story changes when it's told in a different medium.
Big Joel. Please, please could you do a Marxist reading of the animated movie Robots.
I thought about it the other day and it’s literally about the lower class destroying a capitalist and trying to defeat an unjust system.
+1 upvote
I saw an interview with Chris Wedge and, no joke, this movie made the interviewer ask Wedge if he was a socialist
I don't know. It's not so much about fighting capitalism as it is about fighting monopolization
I often feel like animation is more real than live action.
In live action, the characters are played by actors, people who you know, have a life outside of the movie.
In animation, the characters and locations are specifically created to tell the story, the world you see, is the world of those characters.
The difference in names you point out is a real weird point to make from my perspective, since I know both the show and the movie in the German language, and there the names you point out as unusual is just… well, that's their names.
Like, the thing is, English has this weird thing where names and words are not adapted by their original phonology but by their orthography and with how weird English spelling translates into English phonology, even when writing a story in a setting where the English language doesn't seem to be the language of the "imagined original", if that makes sense, the characters end up with names that would seem wrong in the language of that "imagined original".
To me, pronouncing Aang, Sokka, Iro… in the way it apparently is in the English language version of the show makes those names seem like English translations of foreign names, not like the names that they themselves would use for themselves.
That's not to say that, say, a German adaptation would get the "real" names right, but to me the attempt to approximate how those names actually would be pronounced in the depicted culture seems just natural.
exactly! the fire nation seems to be based on japanese aesthetics and culture and the air nomads on tibetan monks, right? why would a japanese person pronounce "iroh" the way they do in the original show? why would they pronounce "aang" as a frankly extremely american sounding "ääng"? the german versions (and sadly, also the m. night versions) of the names make more sense to me. except that i also hate everything about the movie so honestly, whatever it takes to find more reasons to hate it, im all game. so, still, fuck you m. night.
I get it with Aang and Sokka, but with Iroh I'm not too sure. Canonically they have been given characters (Chinese characters) for their names, and Aang and Sokka's pronunciations in the movie fit them. Iroh's name was written as 艾洛 (ài luò) and that's closer to the original pronunciation. So the way their names are written aren't exactly a romanisation of the characters; it's also reflective of how they're supposed to be pronounced.
Janne Capelle the fire nation is not japan
@@NoName-ls6jn okay? fine? i did say "seem to be" but fine. they sure as hell are not inspired by india either tho, so whats your point?
This is one of those things where it wouldn't have been an issue if that's how it had been made from the start (as was evidently the case in the German dub). In the English version we get Ääng, Sah-kah, and Eye-roh, and this is what we heard for all three seasons of the show. It might not be as authentic to the Asian cultures that inspired the show, but we looked past that initially and the names stuck with us, so there wasn't really any point in changing it as far down the road as the series was when this movie was released.
In reference to your point about the "imagined original", the names were written with the "imagined original" in mind (hence Aang and Katara instead of Bob and Kayla) but the pronunciation wasn't. And it didn't really need to be, for that matter, since all the dialogue would be in English for the original version anyway, and the names were already unique enough even without taking the theoretical "true pronunciation" into account, and the average American (the foremost primary audience) doesn't care about such details.
I do personally think that Ahng and ee-roh are better pronunciations but "Sohh-kah" in particular rubs me very poorly and frankly feels less authentic. I much prefer the original "Sah-kah", even if his name had to be respelled from "Sokka" to "Sakka" for the pronunciation to fit.
Sometimes I wonder how they would have portrayed Toph if they had adapted the second season. Would she be Tooph? Would she, instead of sensing vibrations with her feet, emit a sonic wave through her mouth?
the part about how the real life setting makes it feel like theres less power to bending. i think it might also have to do with how this movie is edited and the framing and shots too. im not very good at putting this into words which is why i dont do video essays. but there doesnt feel to be much weight behind their movements. like at 14:15 i feel a pretty distinct disconnect between aang's hand movements and whats actually happening. i dont feel convinced. at 14:26 you have these dudes stomping and yelling together and its supposed to feel "powerful" i guess but then this dinky little rock comes into frame (from another bender) in just a few seconds and it makes me laugh at how nonthreatening it feels. the shot and the camera angle just makes them feel small too? like am i supposed to be in awe of their power or something? what the hell is going on
edit: i watched this movie once when it came out and never watched it again and i was really young. so seeing these clips again feels new to me. another thing is that the movements of the characters seem to reflect less of their personality but that might also just have to do with the medium. i feel like everything about this movie was setup to fail from the very beginning. i dont understand how they could've hoped to show the action of the animated show with live action. or how they couldve hoped to fit a full season packed with content into a few hours at best
I completely agree! In the show, you can tell the writers tried their best to incorporate martial art moves to correspond with the respective element being bended but in the movie, the choreographers put together some arm-wavey moves and called it a day. It's just sad that this whole movie is built upon lazy decisions because ATLA had so much potential to be made into a blockbuster Harry Potter-esque franchise.
Jane Y maybe its for the best that didn't happen. as bad as the live action is, it leaving a sour taste in my mouth reminds me of how good the original animated series is.
So nobody's gonna mentioned how he pronounced "homogeneous"
Weirdly enough the pronounciation of names matches the Dutch dub very closely. I have no idea how that happend.
Fantastic video. And love your list of influences!
Skutch who are they? Links?
Civilly Barbaric Hbomberguy, Contrapoints, Lindsey Ellis, Shaun and Jen, Jenny Nicholson. All great channels.
@@skutch2439 Didn't mention Philosophy Tube... the son of a bitch.... **shakes fist like old man at clouds**
i remember being so excited to show my parents the movie, because they could never appreciate one of my favorite shows. i was like 12. i just remember leaving the theater, being so disappointed, trying so hard to explain that the movie wasnt what the show was like.
Can I say that I just love your videos Big Joel? Your analysis is really beautiful and thought-provoking and your delivery is so calm and pleasant.
My favorite kind of video on TH-cam are ones that give me insight into things that I never bothered to think too deeply about. This video and the one on Shrek are simply amazing!
The amount of work you put into the editing for this one really shows, well done. And you make very good points here, things I've tried to express to others while discussing Spider-Man adaptations. I do wonder how much of the same points apply to sequels though, especially sequels with large gaps of time between them, and what that might mean for sequels.
Well... if the facts were followed more accurately we'd at least have a better movie than what we got. Pure imitation would be better than missing the point. That said I want to hear you talk about successful adaptations.
Your probably one of the most underrated youtubers I’ve seen. I sub cus the amount of work in these videos and how you make me think of things I’ve never thought of. 👏🏻
Amazing video essay! I love your script, your intonation, the editing, and above all the argument you explore. I can't wait to subscribe and watch more of your stuff; keep up the good work, fam!
What are the odds that about a month later, Netflix announced another live action Avatar adaptation?
Hoo boy i cant wait to see what netflix does with ATLA
Don't worry, they have this to make sure they don't do worse
Somehow I guessed who your youtube inspiration would be, because for me, you're on my inspiration list alongside those people. Awesome video :) I really love your stuff and this vid made me see this movie in a new light
This is MUCH longer than your other videos. So happy.
Holy crap has it been that long?
Now I feel old.
That's why Matrix is the perfect adaptation of Ghost in the Shell
Change my mind.
Every time I have a slight urge to watch this movie, either out of spite or humor at how bad it is, I hear one of the characters say "Ong" and my body has a visceral, painful, unsettling reaction, like something is deeply wrong with the world.
I really enjoy how you approach works, by being so open and receptive to a works central themes, even when you disagree with them
Wow they really white washed the entire cast. I always assumed that if the characters of Avatar were real they would probably look Asian for obvious reasons and for some reason the Fire nation are all Indian? The show already had an Indian like character if I recall (That one Yogi guy who teaches Aang how to unblock his chakra pathways or something). And why did they change the pronunciation of Aang's name??
also they made the main characters white(which in itself is already ???) and the 'bad characters' the more dark skinned.....like i might not be saying what you think but....i totally am.
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
I saw your beginners guide video and thought it was awesome. You're a cool dude.
Thanks for pointing out the Zhou death difference. Of all the videos ripping this movie, no one points out just how important a character moment that was, for both men, and how the film utterly failed that moment by dropping it. That was the absolute worst mistake of the movie to me, even more than the Earthbender 'prison'.
This movie is like the real life version of that play from book 3 😂
Don't you dare insult that glorious play!!!
This is honestly the most in-depth and thought-provoking video essay I've seen on the AtLA movie, hands down.
I feel SO lucky I missed this on Nickelodeon, having to watch this movie come out would have been painful. I already knew the movie was awful, but now I've seen the show and I'm thinking "awful" isn't even close. It's like everyone in the movie read, studied, and practiced the script without watching a single episode.
Great vid btw just stumbled on this channel.
When I was a kid I was hyped... because I was mistaken James Cameron was the director.
Lol "Amazing Take Joel"
1:55 I'm angry all over again seeing the intro and how it actually reflects bending, motion directly correlating to bended elements, vs in the movie with the 10 guys swinging their arms and stomping their feet for one laughably small rock after 10 seconds.
the shot with the earthebnder bending a tiny slow rcok in a group effort always gets me
Just said this elsewhere, but I remember having some fun with other Avatar fans trying to "fix" this movie with some broad ideas and general outlines, and yeah, what kept coming back to was that TLA just recreated scenes from Book One without actually investigating what made them important or significant. A much better film would have focused on the themes and arcs of Avatar and its characters, and not just what happened in the TV show; you can't take a full season's worth of TV and make it into a 90-120 minute film, it's just not feasible.
I should try and look up the ideas we came up with, but it was a long time ago, so maybe I'll kill some quarantine time trying to think up new ones.
quickly realizing that big Joel is part is left tube after I just got into him for non leftist reasons is honestly giving me life rn
I honestly don’t understand the obsession with adapting animation to live-action. Animation is a beautiful medium that allows for a distinct individual style and gives the creators greater freedom to to do include more fantastical elements. There have been many terrible live-action adaptations (Disney, Netflix, I’m looking at you), which to me proves that it’s very difficult. It can be done, but it requires a team of creators that are truly passionate for the source material AND understand its essence, not just trying to recreate the shallow surface elements
You managed to calmly distill all my intense hatred of this movie into something that doesn’t involve any expletives at all. [strokes Fu Manchu mustache] Impressive.
The Christmas Carol is truly an adaptators gift that keeps on giving
Great review , most people like to pretend the film never happened, you must have loads of confidence to take it head on 😄