So let me clarify some of my thoughts on race. I made this video a year ago, and it’s one of my earlier ones, so I didn’t really expect it to get a lot of views and I don’t think I had the experience to really formalize my arguments. Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of reoccurring comments, and I feel like I can clear up some things. TOPIC ONE: “Race shouldn’t matter.” I agree with that. But you can’t really ignore it either. The overall point of this video is how every category of filmmaking affects the other. Editing makes the acting look bad. The acting makes the writing look bad, and vice versa. I’ve seen a lot of comments from people who are excited about the Netflix adaptation coming out, and my question is, “Why?” The show is the show, and for the fans, any other iteration will either be wrong (because it fails to do what the original did) or a replica of the original work (therefore useless.) But Live Action also forces filmmakers to draw hard lines, especially deciding who to cast, and ultimately how their race fits into the cultural zeitgeist. My point in the beginning of the video is how adapting Animation to Live Action loses certain benefits that only animation can provide. One of those things is ambiguous race…(I can’t believe I’m siding with Shyamalan on this one.) Take Sokka and Katara. Their skin is brown, their culture borrows from the Ainu/Inuit, their eyes are blue, and they’re voiced by American actors. Picking one race to represent all of those traits is impossible. But I’m someone who looks at results. What I see, given all the challenges in respecting race in casting, is lazy work. Which is why I say, “You can come up with any excuse to cast a white lead.” All the comments arguing why they can be white are totally valid. They make sense. But the result of these American-made adaptations is continually excluding other perspectives in media. TOPIC TWO: “I hate white people.” I feel like it should go without saying, but I don’t hate white people. I’m white. Most of the media I consume is white. But rather, I feel like the Last Airbender is a missed opportunity for diversity, especially when the character inspirations are rooted in non-white cultures. I find it more perplexing than I do offensive. The race-issue is less about moral outrage, and more about the filmmakers misunderstanding every aspect of the story they were telling. TOPIC THREE: “The majority of America is white.” I’ve seen something like this a lot: “America is mostly white, so why is it bad to cast white people to represent that race?” My point wasn’t to say that studio executives should make counter-intuitive decisions when it comes to appealing to audiences, but rather why do we rely on one blanket race to represent the faces that we see in our media? Black Panther was a huge milestone (and not because it was an amazing film.) It was because before that film, it was thought that movies with a predominately non-white cast didn’t make money/didn’t appeal to everyone. But Black Panther made more money than Avengers: Infinity War. Probably because it offered a fresh storytelling perspective by black actors/filmmakers.
Again, given how heavily the story of Avatar relies on Asian perspectives, I see it as a missed opportunity not to show that perspective. If suggesting, ‘Roles like these should be played by non-white actors,’ makes you angry, I can’t help you with that.
Diversity isn't inherently good or bad. In any case I'd say that diversity for the sake of diversity is actually quite damaging, it implies that a person can only enjoy a movie if his or her skin color match with the person on the screen and that's BS. That said, I agree with you when you say that The last airbender was a missed opportunity, of all things, this movie giving opportunities to non-caucasian actors wouldn't be forced at all and it would've actually benefit the movie (sorry, seeing white and hindu people with those clothes and in that setting took me out of the movie immediately).
"The majority of America is white" is not an argument that white people like white faces. Its an argument of merit. Do you assume all races have equal talent with acting? I'm hoping you'll say yes, unless you're somewhat racist. So given that, if we're looking for talent, we're going to be looking at people who are emotionally expressive at 2SD+/- the mean, yes, emotional expression is a skill like any other. And since all skills operate on bell curves, and the sum total of skill in regards to amount of population its in operates within a power law (A Pareto curve), it pretty much means only 1-5% of each population is going to be truly excellent at acting. (So we're dealing with somewhat small pools here). Due to the Demographics of the U.S. for every great black actor you find, you'll most likely find 7 great white actors. (63% of America is white, but 50% of Hispanic people ID as white, and are pretty much indistinguishable from white people, because they are majority Spanish, rather than having a more native American phenotype. I'm sure you remember the term "white hispanic"? Yeah, that's actually a majority of Latino people in the U.S.) Anyway, in addition, Hollywood draws from other English speaking countries as well, the two major ones being Britain and Australia, and they are both 90% white. But lets just make this simple and say our general population pool breaks down to 70% white, 5% Asian, 15% Hispanic, 10% black (Should be 13% black, but again, simplicity). So, again, you have 1 great black actor for every 7 great white ones. Unless you are SPECIFICALLY thinking of race, and forcing race to be a major factor, the majority of your cast will always be white thanks to the prolific amount of talent you have. And this larger talent pool has a multi-variable effect on outcome, which actually makes it disproportionately effective. (More people means higher likelihood of finding the correct physical features for the job, the correct temperament to work with other talent, the correct KIND of ability to express emotion, the ability to sync up a schedule ect.) So by having a larger pool, it has an outsized impact of checking all these boxes and being useful for the film. Which is why, again, unless you're specifically going for race (like with Black Panther) most of your actors and actresses should be white, not because you want to sell to white people, but just because the likelihood of finding talent is much, much easier. Not to mention, the fact is, diversity already has an outsized impact on American media--so I'm not sure why we get so sore at missed opportunities. Black Americans have a higher proportion of actors in speaking roles than their population proportion. Hispanics are under-represented, sure. But because their migration to the U.S. only began 40 years ago, most latinos in this country are second generation, second generation immigrants still face tons of economic issues--and Hollywood isn't exactly a stable career path (We didn't see an explosion of Italian actors until they matured 3-4 generations here. And even then, they tried casting godfather with mostly non-Italians. It takes a while.) So, its not an argument to prefer white faces. It's simply a statistical reality. Forcing diversity means discriminating against white people. In some cases, I find that's acceptable--like if you're going to make black panther, race is a NEEDED element. Because race is PART of the movie. But in most films where race does not matter, like Airbender, calling for diversity as if its a need is simply discrimination. Which is what people get sick of. (Especially due to the double-think on it. Because Troy can have a black achillies. Queens in France/Britain during the middle ages can be black. Nobles in provincial towns in late middle age France can be black. Asgardians can be black..ect, ect. It's pretty clear when race doesn't matter in typically "white" settings (mythological or historical), we are gung ho about casting "regardless of skin color". People are just sick of this working fine in one direction, but cause absolute outrage in the other.) But please don't take this the wrong way. I know it comes from a good place. Everyone wants to help everyone "feel equal"--and that makes it so people don't stop and think about the reality of how things are. So I know its coming from a good place. But the mantra that Hollywood or other places are racist and that's why you don't see more people of color, and we need to "fix that" is misguided benevolence.
Now I know why this popped up in my feed (TH-cam algorithm favors creators who comment. I fact, they can resurrect a video that was thought to be dead. I don't have much to say other than that, sorry).
Are you kidding that would have been awesome I am 1000% sure Toph would have been a 6'5" muscular man with a hair band, and would scream at his surroundings and use it as Eco location to get a good look at people. I will tell you someone this movie did get right. The comedic play of the story of the Avatar and his friends in the fire nation. I really do think that's what Shamalan was aiming for, he got the casting right, he got the bad acting right, he pretty much made a movie based off of that play lol.
zuko's scar was so important BECAUSE it marred half of his face. when people looked at zuko it was all they could see, all HE could see. zuko is a highly self-conscious individual, rooted in his failure as a prince, with a gruesome reminder on his face. his scar also sets up the firelord, it shows ozai's character in a way no dialogue could. if he could do that to his own son, what will he do to everyone else?
yeah exactly, I completely agree with you. You took the words right out of my house. Honestly, the scar is important because it's who he is and it kinda guides him? Like eventually he realises that he lost his way, but he finds it. The scar shows that his father was a brutal man and he only cared for power.
Everyone defined Zuko by his scar, it was the only thing they saw. It was almost like it completely defined him for years because of his honour, but he overcame that and chose his own destiny.
And another insulting thing is, making a face-destroying scar with makeup is fucking _easy._ Zuko's scar is even pretty much perfect for safe application. The most intense ridging is away from his socket, with a smoother center--meaning, liquid latex or a prosthetic can be applied around the area you typically don't want glue/latex in. Cream paint or other makeup can then fill the hole left from latex/prosthetics--made all the more easy by the fact it's a deeper color. (Makeup sits and pigments differently on skin vs latex; it's usually an obnoxious process to perfectly color-match between the two.) Honestly, the _most_ you would need to do is either Vaseline the _shit_ out of the actor's eyebrow and sideburns or ask them to shave them to ensure a totally comfortable and safe application and removal. There is literally no excuse to allow _such_ a shitty scar to replace Zuko's defining feature.
It’s actually kind of ridiculous. When we’re first shown Zuko’s scar, the music has a big dramatic sting, and the music and camera angles continue to keep making it look like the scar is some big dramatic thing that truly makes Zuko look almost inhuman as he threatens the main characters. And like it really singles him out from the rest of his people when he’s surrounded by the Fire Nation, alone, separate. And the whole time it’s practically invisible! Nothing like the show where it’s dark red and obvious. You can’t even tell it’s there if the screen resolution is bad! If they wanted to make it look like a huge deal, they should have actually made it look like something, it doesn’t take much money or effort for that. Maybe they wanted him to look handsome or something, but then they shouldn’t have even acted like it was so hideous and scary at all. It’s just awkward watching the poor actor glowering dramatically like a lonesome monster when he really isn’t ugly at all. I have to admit, I didn’t even see it the first time they showed it. I was confused for a second by the music sting.
@@nkbujvytcygvujno6006 Funnily enough, even with Zuko's scar, I still think he's handsome. The scar doesn't make him look hideous in my opinion. It makes him look cool and mysterious. Dark and brooding.
@@OriginalWarblade Furthermore, it's literally a fantasy world. Even if it takes inspiration from various different Asian cultures, the world of Avatar is not actually Asia. Inspiration does not imply emulation. Just as phonetics in Cantonese don't equate to phonetics in Korean or Thai, neither are any of the languages in Avatar required to perfectly emulate the phonetics of any specific Asian language. And if anyone wants to go down the path of "yeah, but the Aa of Aang doesn't exist in any Asian language!" well... that wouldn't be true. The "Aa" sound in "Aang" is called a near-open front unrounded vowel in the International Phonetic Alphabet, and it's prominent in a very specific Asian language - Sinhala, the primary language of Sri Lanka. Go look up some Sri Lankan Buddhist temples. Tell me what culture in Avatar the architecture it reminds you of.
9:24-10:38: ABSOLUTELY! There are clear Differences but many dont even realize this for real. It's sad how many Prejudices i see about this. And yeah, it's true though that there ARE 'americanized' versions of things as well as 'Asianized' versions - and it makes me sad to see those things.
Since that episode did air after the movie, I'd bet it was written in out of revenge. Like "this is what we think about that movie." It'd be perfect, honestly.
@@justanawkwardnerd Clever way of reminding people of what had happened the passed seasons whilst throwing some heavy shade at the abomination M. Night Shyamalan made. --in my opinion, that man should never get the rights to make any movie adaptations ever again. He can fuck up his own stuff, don't need him to ruin the good stuff someone else could've turned into a masterpiece. Let's hope Netflix won't follow his footsteps, and instead actually make something brilliant with the new live action Avatar series.
J Lupus I’m genuinely curious as to 1) what they planned to do for the invasion? They all have torches? 2) to point one, why are the “over powered”? If the did the invasion that way, all you would need to do is put out their torches? 3) to THAT point, the show did a great job of showing the potential of the other elements. Toph (and in the future, all earth benders) can LITERALLY metal bend, and katara makes water out of sweat + blood blending + plant bending. And air is literally everywhere. Gah, this movie hurts my head!
m night was an idiot. He didn't respect nor understand the Avatar universe... Sadly very few directors adapting cartoon or game universes to film do...
@spooky... Your number two point was the biggest plot hole in the movie... That new way of fire bending literally made fire benders the weakest because they have to have a lot fire going to be useful making defeating them one of the easiest feat... Their bending literally relies on matches which didn't exist then so they'll first have to struggle with lighting their bending source with a very taxing spark rocks that are totally almost useless in snowy tundras and high altitude like water tribes and the air monasteries... The playing field was already levelled with earth benders having almost infinite amount of bending sources around them and most especially air benders and water benders can use just a flask of water in versatile and powerful ways (katara in season was pretty powerful with just one flask and war prepared with four)... So the fire benders were just unnecessary nerfed since they don't have a natural source (like the sun and breathing in the animated series) and have to first create their own sources with spark rocks... Shows how MNS doesn't understand avatar and animes in general and even action films as a whole and he didn't pay attention to the animated series at all)...
Honestly, making the firebenders dependent on fire being present is not even "leveling the playing field" at all. It's actually giving the firebenders a HUGE disadvantage, because while the other benders do need to have their element present, at least air, water and accessible in most places, especially if benders are resourceful, and occur naturally. Fire does not. Fire needs to be produced.
Like... the reason Fire could be considered superior is because they didn't need a source.. How would they conquer anything if they needed to set up fires beforehand to be able to use fire...
Yep. If Shyamalan truly wanted to go with firebenders not producing their own fire route, then they should have made the Fire Nation armours have a built in mechanism that allowed the user to ignite a spark that could be bent into fire, just to show how much technical ingenuity the Fire Nation had. Not saying that it would have been a good idea to change what wasn't broken from the show, but at least it would have been an improvement over what ended up on the big screen.
Yeah it just made no sense. It makes the firebenders the only ones who have to actively create their own element in order to use it. Outside of extreme circumstances the water benders don't have to make their own water. While extreme circumstances are the only times that fire occurs naturally. It puts the firebenders at a huge disadvantage and would naturally direct their culture to rely less on their bending or become less likely to start a war. And seriously did he think that this was a sporting event? This isn't a story about fair play.
This is what I've always said. It doesn't level the playing field at all, it just puts the Fire Nation at a serious disadvantage against the other elements. Air, Water and Earth are everywhere. You have to go to crazy lengths to separate the other benders from their elements, and even then they can find new creative ways to bend (see: metalbending and bloodbending). The only thing that puts Firebenders on an equal level with the others is the fact that they can use their own energy to produce fire. Take that away and you're basically forcing them to fight with their hands tied. On top of that, the movie isn't even consistent about the rules, because near the end Iroh is shown to produce his own fire, which freaks everyone out. It's supposed to be a sign that he's super powerful, but it also goes against the entire point of changing the rules in the first place. *facepalm*
Jesseinator1000 Gaming and More yeah it was messed up 😂😂😂 the fire nation is SO clearly based on Japanese architecture and clothes etc it’s tragic how badly they fucked the film tbh
@@NoName-ls6jn no. Its based on imperialistic japan. Which multiple times historically invaded and conquered parts of china and korea. (Almost always with virtualy no major resistence put up by the chinese/koreans till years into the war) The earth kingdom is china. The superior technology of the fire nation in part shows this. And the water tribes are inuit and air bender are Tibetan monks. The style of architecture and clothing also matches japanese style.
17:55 If I remember right you don't even see The Firelord's face until towards the last season, him always being shown in shadow looming over people. He was so dehumanized that a powerful turning point in the story was Aang seeing his baby picture and thinking it was Zuko, someone he knew and cared about by this point, as opposed to Ozai, the monster he had to face. The monster *was* human. And Aang could not bring himself to kill another human. It's a very important narrative moment the movie doesn't even _attempt._
Avatar is the apotheosis of writing in an animated series. The Last Airbender took all of that, tore it to shit, burned it and then did a crude drawing of it with the ashes, declaring it to be stunning art and a wonderful adaptation
Yup. Ozai was always depicted with an air of terror and power behind him. Always lurking in the shadows, and always pulling the strings, even if indirectly. Meanwhile, this movie is just like "O HAI GAIZ! HOW R U? MY NAMEZ OZAI!"
Holy shit I forgot the fire lord Ozai was Cliff Curtis. I loved him in Fear the walking dead he's a great Maori actor despite the fact that he probably got cast because he looks ambiguous enough to look Indian. This isn't the first time an ambiguous Maori actor has been cast in a fucking random ass role I recall Taika Waititi (the director of Thor Ragnarok) got cast in green lantern as like a nerdy friend of Ryan Reynolds because he looked potentially Mexican or Hispanic to Americans? I wouldn't know we don't have hispanic people in NZ the closest we got is Filipinos. Of course Ryan Reynolds will continue to be cast in every movie ever because hes generically white even though hes already gotten a bit too old for young roles like Deadpool. The same for Scarlet johassen who vaguely had asianish styling for Ghost in the Shell but very bluntly was white. In saying this I don't entirely agree with the viewpoint that anime characters look asian they just don't objectively asians despise their own monolid eyes so there's no chance they'd illustrate modern characters as accurate representations of real world people only a rare bunch would. I am so sick of seeing white people in everything though.
The actor for aang was seemingly too disciplined, i think that made his performance really stiff. and too serious for a character with so much change in his moods
I agree with this one. The character of Aang was a child by heart, and he was dealing with the enormous responsibility given to him. The actor who played Aang in the live action movie seemed more melancholy. You don't really feel the child.
The movie is just much more serious than the show. Sokka doesnt have all the enthusiasm with his quips and jokes it all feels stiff and we barely see Aang's child at heart personality.
The funniest part is this simple logic: the fire nation invaded the northern WATER tribe with torches and campfires. Everything in that zone is made of water and ice, even if the waterbenders were as weak as those 10 earthbenders who moved a mini rock together they'd be able to pour those ridiculous campfires out.
I had a wtf moment when fire benders needed a source to fire bend since then they would be so weak af that people could just put the fire out and then “Oh shit i don’t got fire” and ded
Yeah, the most frustrating thing for me was the disjointed, slow moving elements. A group of men stomping and punching the air, then a little rock wiggles forward at a snails pace. Who signed off on that crap?
I’m a tiny girl, and I could’ve hauled that rock the same distance they pushed it in half the time. Why would anyone bend if they could do more damage by just dropping the rock on someone’s foot?
The best/worst part of is was that it was meant to be a large boulder, but they ran out of funds so they couldn't CGI anything bigger (or that's the claim, at least).
I'm just telling you what I head (from a couple different sources, actually). I don't know the technicalities behind it and if I'm wrong I'm wrong. But until someone shows me where they got information elsewhere, I'm going to continue to stand by what I said.
That then quickly gets send flying by one guy...How does that make sense?..Also why does everyone just stand still?! "Okay his turn to fight!..Now him..okay now..yeah my turn oka ahh!" It is a movie not a fucking RPG!
“Why can’t the Avatar have a family?” “I asked that. They said that’s a sacrifice the Avatar always has to make.” Zuko being a descendent of Avatar Roku: am I a joke to you?
So Aang is really the last airbender. If he cant have a family it would be impossible for another airbender to be born. Gosh I hate this movie! They clearly didnt understand the basic elements of the show and made so many pointless changes! I'll just join the others and pretend this movie doesnt exist.
@@myoldhandlewasmadewheniwas9 that's not costume that's makeup but yeah the entire art department was firing on all cylinders and I'd say that the effects teams did well given what they had to work with.
@@LanK111er Are they not the same main department at that time? I mean, that isn't something like covering a blemish, that's an iconic trait of the character. I don't know when makeup ends and costume begins.
@@myoldhandlewasmadewheniwas9 They are all under the umbrella of the "art department" so it's possible that it was handled by many facets including costume and makeup but I would generally assume that a fake tattoo would be handled by the makeup department more than the costume. They may have even used SFX artists or a specialized team to do it given the size of the production.
@@myoldhandlewasmadewheniwas9 They aced the arrow. I didn't think it was possible to make it look cool on a real human head. If they made it look like it does on the show, it would have been ridiculous. Aang's tattoos are the best thing in this entire movie.
Frog Bloop It looks like you’re talking to yourself they probably removed their comments. If this was another show and they black washed and white washed more people would care about the white washing than the black washing, but since it’s the A:TLA fandom they actually cared. And of course they did it’s important to each nation’s culture.
I auditioned for the part of Katara when I was in middle school (around 12/13 years old) and got to the last 5 girls they were choosing from (they were online auditions where we sent in videos of us reading scripts). The casting call was white girls with dark hair and blue eyes. At the time, I didn't understand the importance of casting appropriate actors to play rolls, I was just excited to be part of a project about my favorite series. But now as an adult, I am so happy that I wasn't cast and I'm disappointed about what they did. (also, for more selfish reasons, I'm happy I wasn't part of such a shit show lol!)
Immigrant Mentality Stiopic that’s so heartbreaking to hear. She seriously cannot act but because of her connections & billionaire status, she got hired. Such bullshit.
There is no live action of avatar There is no live action of avatar There is no live action of avatar There is no live action of avatar There is no live action of avatar There is no live action of avatar There is no live action of avatar Here we are safe
You know what's weird? He feels more like Aang to me. Especially with how... ill-suited he felt to playing "evil". Like he'd be much more natural if he were a carefree hero type.
My guess is that they tried to use the actual Indian/Sanskrit pronunciation. Avatar is pronounced like how it is in the movie, not the show. There is a word in Hindi or Sanskrit "Aang" and it's pronounced like how it is in the movie. I could be wrong about the Aang part but the way "Avatar" is pronounced in the movie is actually how the word is supposed to be pronounced, since the meaning of that word is the same as the Sanskrit/Hindi word.
The amount of disrespect y’all are putting on Ember Island Players is ridiculous. Ember Island Players was such a great episode and show. To compare it to this trash is truly disheartening
if you think about it it was basically the shows like flashback episode yk? I heard on a podcast they had issues with the budget as far as making and airing such a long final episode. They decided to do something creative to recap the season and show while actually progressing characters. In turn the JM Animation was able to actually do a really good job with the episode and how great it looked, hence you have Sokkas line "at least the special effects were pretty good"
I laughed at the fact that you saved the pebble dance for the very last shot. Like you said, any ten seconds of the film sums it all up in some way... but *especially* the pebble dance
That part where the small rock slowly flies across the screen because of 6 earthbenders... I went to see this movie at midnight on release. That exact moment in the movie is when I knew I was extremely disappointed. I physically cringed in the theater, watching a movie made from my favorite TV show ever. It's quite sad.
i did the same thing, same reaction, same time. After the film ended we were outside until almost sunrise laughing at how bad it was. I was a senior in high school when it came out and we got to customize our parking spot so I lovingly named my spot after the night we lost our shit to how bad TLA was. Woodbender.
Zuko literally said that he used to think that his scar marked him "the mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the avatar forever" it's plays a role in his struggle and then in the movie they make it look like a barely noticeable smudge of dirt
@@yourlocalarchaeologist1897 it felt like a little bit of a cop out compared to the whole show, like I didn't think it was set up as well as others Don't get me wrong, put that episode in another show and it would be one of its best but here it's just mediocre not bad but still ok
That joke about Katara being constantly on the verge of crying in the movie and the ember island play was so good. Just enough time that I thought of the play and then you showed the clip👌😂😂
That scene where there's like 7 earth benders doing these serious, choreographed movements just to make a rock slowly float towards the enemy always makes me laugh. Like, how on Earth did so many people work on that and the lot of them didn't look at it and were like "wow this is bad, maybe we should rethink some things"
the actors couldn't see the cgi edit, they were doing as instructed to the best of their ability the editors and cgi animators were the ones responsible for making it looks as such in accordance to the director's demands; im sure the majority of the actors didn't see it until the final product was released
I came for a new dose of hate on the movie, but it's funny to see how these videos criticizing it still find new content to present. I liked the editing examples, the change in mood was immediate!
Ember Island Players were true to character tho - Sokka funny, Katara tearbending drama-queen, Toph epic and Aang - a flying bald lady. Movie is pure pain.. "But the effects were decent"
16:03 Holy shit he's right about the actor who should've played Sokka. One millisecond of seeing that other guy and I could already imagine him being way better than what we got.
They took the Ember Island Players literally. Unfortunate. Sokka becomes Sooka Aang is Uung Zuko is Zuko Katara is Katara Toph would probably have been Toof God that's sad.
The thing about this movie that angered me the most was that they didn't have Aang say "will you go penguin sledding with me?" when he's broken out of the ice😭
My favorite scene in the movie is when Katara says she had always known the avatar was real and prayed for his return. Only for zuko to interrupt the moment saying "me too". Seriously the only change I liked.
the last airbender: worldbuilding that literally doesnt have any white-coded characters, the 4 nations are all heavily coded as different asian groups m knight: theyre culturally ambiguous
wait did you say the ATLA movie was made before the third season was out? This has to prove that the ember island players was to poke fun at the movie, I will not take no as an answer
Collin Williams writing the script and casting and shooting the movie takes a long time. The director prob told the writers that he was gonna make a live action back before he actually started working on it. Because it came out in 2010 it was shot in 2009 maybe a year the show ended (depends what month, before July or after July) but writing the screen play takes quite some time, in addition to this, the movie was 1 hour and 43 minutes. M. Night Shyamalan had already created a couple of movies before this I believe, but because this was a series with 20 episodes, it's difficult finding out what you want to keep and take out. Trying to fit 20 episodes worth into 1 hour 43 minutes (idk how long the credits are) would be really difficult. But the fact that M. Night Shyamalan decided to change things up to make it more ”realistic” is just annoying. Now I know that really was unnecessary in this comment but I'm trying to get say that making a movie takes a long time and it's obvious he had started working on it before 2008 ( in 2007 they announce that M. Night Shyamalan was gonna make the film) when the series ended. So yes, it would be very possible that this claim could possibly be true
My problem is Aang's personality, in the show he's so flamboyant, jolly, happy, naive and prankster. In the movie they made him so serious and depressing
You know what's funny about 5:39 where he said "Had to concise the entire first season into a movie" Bro, in season 3 where they go to the Theatre, they condensed the entire 3 seasons in a mere 20 minutes.
That part of this video really pissed me off. It shows how little effort on their end was that some youtuber was able to use solely the resources the final version of the movie gave us was able to make the scenes significantly better.
the scene between Voldemort and Dumbledore on the Order of the phoenix always seems closer to fire/water bending due to the fluid motions and quick response, compared to the mundane movie
The worst part is Order of the Phoenix came out in ‘07. Last Airbender came out in 2010 nearly 3 years later. Isn’t technology supposed to get better with time?!
The best part: The water tribe and the esrth kingdom people and the swamp people are the only tan race in A: TLA. Why are all fire nation people indian? And why are Sokka and Katara pale white?
Whiterun Guard to be fair my ass. Funny how the entire tribe are Asian/Inuit but only if they’re the background characters. That in it self shows they knew katana and sokka weren’t meant to be white but specifically chose them to be
They didn't even hire a color grader or a sound artist. It was literally made by 5 people with shyamalan being taking 4 roles in 1 person... like some sort of avatar
the last airbender really is a 1:1 adaptation of the Ember Island episode from season 3 - aang has no chemistry with katara - sokka is unfunny - katara is always on the brink of tears - zuko is, as he says "stiff and humorless" if M. Night adapted book two with screaming muscular toph I'd have to forgive him
Yeah it’s the other way around you ninny xD He says in the video they started making this movie before the third season finished. Before that episode came out lol.
People always forget about Aaron Ehasz. He was the man behind the writing, the consistency, of the show. He knows to not treat his viewers like they are stupid. It may have been born from Brike, but it was raised by Aaron Ehasz. His absence is keenly felt in LoK.
Good thing someone commented on it. I was about to myself. In my opinion he was to avatar what Lawrence kasdan( I think that’s his name) was to Star Wars.
Truer words never spoken. His absence from TLOK created a monster of a sequel that was every bit of a travesty as the movie, but this time it is lore. I really encourage people to view video essays detailing why The Legend of Korra is such an awful show.
The dialogue is stiff and dull too. Y'know what? I'll give myself 20 seconds to think of a better line and I'll write it here. And, GO! "If the water falls, the fire will reign!" 13 seconds left. I am officially a better writer than M. Night Shyamalan.
@@MegumiCiBear 😂😂 it's very disturbing, like what the heck were they trying to achieve. Just when I thought this crappy movie couldn't get any worse, it has a horrible deleted scene 🤦🏾♂️
@@teabearchurchill5600 Maybe there is a more meta explanation at work here. Maybe he set out to make a bad movie on purpose, and wanted to grate on the ears of every single fan of the series by having the main character's name pronounced wrong.
I've never gotten so mad about a movie in my life. I was so excited to see this and then I had to sit in a theater and watch it be ruined in like 50 ways. Its the reason I don't have high expectations for the new avatar the last airbender thing that might come to Netflix. I shudder to think how much worse this wonderful show can be trashed.
I know this comment is months old, but I have some hope that the Netflix adaption won't ne too bad (and will likely be 10x better that the M. Night movie) due to the creators working on it themselves as far as I know.
Same, I hated the movie but the one part that interested me was the world. It ended up leading me to discover the show (which is now possibly my favourite of all time).
TheTasteful Toastie that’s probably the only good thing that can come from bad adaptations. I probably wouldn’t have watched the death note anime if the live action plot summary didn’t make me interested in the story making me decide to watch the show instead
"The opening title sequence doesn't even say that the fire nation invaded everyone." I laughed so hard! As someone who'll never see the film, I can say that this one statement validates my choice.
A guy who never watched the show reviewed the movie and he asked: "So are the fire people bad because they're fire? Or what?" I laughed my butt off realising they didn't even include that xD
Earth Kingdom: Chinese Fire Nation: Japanese/Korean/Taiwanese Water Tribes: Eskimo/Native American/Samoan/Islanders Air Nomads: Tibetan there shouldn't have been so many white people in the movie
@@courts1436 White washing. Ghost in the Shell, Dragon Ball, Avatar and nobody bats an eye. Cast a black Ariel in Little Mermaid and everyone loses their mind.
@@themiragereigns for Avatar, the movie, the Fandom did get really mad about it a lot of people got mad about it, to the point where people act like the movie doesn't exist
It occurs to me that The Last Airbender is to Avatar as Dragonball: Evolution is to Dragon Ball. They're both movie adaptations so bad that the creators of the originals came back to make a new series
Difference is, Evolution only had 30 million budget and no great names. This had 150 million dollars budget and Shyamalan and some more wellknown actors in it. And to be fair, Atla is a better show in most aspects, apart from action and characters (although this is just an opinion, it is shared by everyone I kmow that has seen both series.) Both are an insult to their sourcematerial, but this one more so because it had more to work with.
26:54 is the perfect example of what I hate most about this movie. Take these guys doing all of that to move one rock the size of a watermelon. Then compare that to earthbending in the show... let alone what toph does.
this part pissed me off the most!!! toph could literally create a whole ba sing se 2.0 within like a week and even though she's crazily overpowered im pretty sure the other earthbenders could do something almost as good as that, but in the movie it takes 6 men to lift a pebble- they might as well have just picked it up with their hands and thrown it because they were so weak
Earthbending in show: slams foot and builds a wall of earth before launching it out at the opponent Earthbending in movie: ha ha, little rock goes whoosh
in ATLA one earthbender could move an entire mountain by himself at a young age, and in the movie it took 7 grown earthbenders to move a stone that would travel faster by throwing it with your hands
i also hate how their movements didn’t sync up with the bending. It’s makes no sense for a martial art in if attacking takes so long and leaves you open
Tbh I’ve always sort of been thankful this movie turned out so disastrously bad. I cherish the animated series so much, imagine if it was just an ok adaptation, enough so it didn’t alienate everyone. I would still hate it because it would still be shit compared to the show but there would be no cathartic release of all the layman hating it also. This way whenever I say “the show is 1000 times better” anyone can say “yeah, I bet you’re right”.
As an Indian it's great to see indian representation but this, it wasn't needed and very much pissed me off. There is a time and place for representation. It felt forced an unnatural. To me the decision to make the fore nation indian felt biased. Shyamalan made Indians, his own race the cool fire benders ( they sucked in the move but whatevs ). Don't get me wrong I'm a little biased myself when it comes to things but I know when it comes to wokrs like movies, writing or character creation that I have to include little to no bias. Shyamalan obviously didn't get that
It's less a problem of animation vs live action: the big problem was that shymalan tried to stuff an entire 20-episode season of content into a movie, but (somehow) still made it feel like half of the dialogue was unnecessary exposition
I think that while hating it is fun it doesn't quite make up for the loss of Avatar's cinematic potential. Avatar could have been a house hold name today were it made as compitently as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.
M.Night Shamalan should have never gotten to direct this. They could have just looked at the Lady in the water movie and said no. Because holy shit that was bad
Is the Last Airbender not a household name already? I don't know very many people who can't recognize the opening lines of the show, or the concept of bending it created.
I remember people walking out of the theater after hearing "ong" for the first time. This one woman said "I Didn't pay to watch the last ARE Bender" so many people complained that the theater owner gave out coupons like mad
:D I loved how the Hair Culture was reflected in the characters but also reflected the characters them selves. Kataras Hair was balanced on both sides with loops that look like water bending but when she had her hair down it turns into a fluid stream with waves. Sokkas hair is in a knot which shows pride and stance in his tribe as the leaders son and a warrior but is also sharp and militaristic. Tophs is solid, it looks heavy, it looks strong and literally like a rock. it doesn't move around like Kataras loops... it remains still at all times. Aang 's hair... well it is unseen :d like his culture ... special, and not there but when he is hidden ant though as dead he becomes like everyone else. and Zuko.... Fire nation as a nation has the greatest importance on hair as it represents ones status. ...
Really interesting point! Aang has no hair, like air, it's not visible. And Zuko's sustained long hair, then cut, then regrown is like fire that can be snuffed/put out or can grow (whereas the others' hair lengths, apart from Aang's, seem to stay the same) - his season 4 hair kinda looks like a black fire symbol.
Also Zuko's hairstyle changes throughout the series. Azula and Ozai always have perfect haircut, on the other side in flashback some of Zuko's hairs out of place, and when he becomes new firelord he gets his ponytail back but his hairstyles is still , different from his family.
M. Night Shyamalan must’ve got his Avatar information from a “surprisingly knowledgeable” merchant of cabbage. Also, I heard he butchered Love Amongst the Dragons last year.
Original series: Zuko is almost bald, he wears a ponytail, he has a burn that his father caused him and is white-skinned. And Sokka and Katara have dark hair, are slightly dark-skinned. Got it? Producer: Yeah *Zuko is slightly dark-skinned with dark hair and Sokka and Katara are white-skinned* OS: You know? Do what you want. I QUIT
Cassandra M Actually, the Earth Kingdom is huge and was shown to have been a land of several kinds of different cultures that was conquered by one man and his huge army. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure there are white, black and others in the Earth Kingdom.
I mostly hate that they made Zukos scar not that visible I mean in the show its kinda hard to miss it. Well characters are fine but the animation is bu**sh**
Well, If fire benders have to be near a fire to bend it the fields are not even, they are in clear disadvantage. I mean, air is everywhere, earth is everywhere, and Hama shows Katara that an skilled waterbender can condensate the water of the air. It's hard to find a "natural" source of fire, let alone kept it burning during a fight.
Hal da Costa I wonder if anyone on the internet actually bothered to attempt a recut of the whole movie - by editing the scenes like we just saw, replacing some of the bending effects with newer ones that hopefully look more on par with the show’s styles, some deleted scenes placed back in that help with pacing, a more accurate music score, etc.
Hal da Costa in addition, if I had the time and skills, I would attempt to re-edit the scene with the 6 guys throwing that puny small-ass rock and replace it with something more flashy and swift, in order to match a more urgent and fast-paced tone.
Right? They're so simple but they improve things so immensely! The material is still crap but the simple edits can do so much just thru rearranged juxtaposition
@@tljoshh I've heard that rumor about a relative on staff so many times about the hp movies. Last time it was a producer and Alan Rickman, and before that it was the first Dumbledore and Rickman were long lost brothers. The internet is a funny place.
Zuko's scar was such a big part of his design it inspired the designer of My Hero Academia make a character with a scar like Zuko's. To mess that up is to mess up the whole character's design.
I first watched this film when I was 10 and I highly anticipated it. Up until then I had never truly thought a film was terrible... This was the first film that I finished and thought was absolute trash. This film made me a critic lol.
I remember going to see it when I was 16 and it just reminded me never to go see live action adaptations of my favorite animated shows ever again. I thought Dragonball Evolution was an unlucky circumstance then I saw The Last Airbender and well... I haven't watched Netflix's Death Note nor have I seen the live action Ghost in the Shell. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me and all that, you know?
You should try the two part japanese live action death note. That is probably the perfect example of doing an adaptation right I've ever seen.@@LordOfDarkness8296
I was around 10 or 11, and Avatar was a series both me and my father really enjoyed. We went to see the movie, and I remember walking out of that theatre with obvious disdain; okay, to be frank I will never hate another movie more than this one. But my father actually likes the movie, and that astounds me.
@@LordOfDarkness8296 GOTS is my favorite anime movie, and is up there contending with some of my favorite anime series too. But I actually liked the live action film. Maybe it's because I'm a huge Scarlett Johansson fan. It really wasn't that bad though. It mostly got hate because of the whitewashing. It's probably the best adaption I've seen, but that's not saying very much because adaptations are generally awful.
Actually, relegating the firebenders to using fire that is already burning doesn't level the playing field, it makes it unbalanced. The reason firebenders can conjure fire our of thin air is because fire isn't naturally burning all around us like earth, water, and air.
Thinking about it, that aspect of the movie's lore makes it much less likely the Fire Nation would stand a chance at conquering the world since all the Water Tribe needs to do is drench the FN's fire sources and have capable fighters to resist the FN's tech with.
One small thing: the top knot hairstyle and the clothing of the fire nation is largely based on ancient China not Japan. I read somewhere the creators didn't want to pin the big bad nation on japan, so they expanded it to include more Chinese influence. I think that kind of ambiguity/mix& match is better especially when it comes to the villains.
![Avatar: A Study in Worldbuilding - the Earth Kingdom [ The Last Airbender l Legend of Korra ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I-FNPuIM9jg/mqdefault.jpg)
![Zaheer: Why kill the Avatar? - video essay [Avatar The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OWcetuR3Jv0/mqdefault.jpg)
![ทุกครั้งที่หลับตา (Lucid Dream) - AYLA's [ Official MV ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4i1OBAQyv58/mqdefault.jpg)
So let me clarify some of my thoughts on race.
I made this video a year ago, and it’s one of my earlier ones, so I didn’t really expect it to get a lot of views and I don’t think I had the experience to really formalize my arguments. Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of reoccurring comments, and I feel like I can clear up some things.
TOPIC ONE: “Race shouldn’t matter.”
I agree with that. But you can’t really ignore it either. The overall point of this video is how every category of filmmaking affects the other. Editing makes the acting look bad. The acting makes the writing look bad, and vice versa. I’ve seen a lot of comments from people who are excited about the Netflix adaptation coming out, and my question is, “Why?” The show is the show, and for the fans, any other iteration will either be wrong (because it fails to do what the original did) or a replica of the original work (therefore useless.)
But Live Action also forces filmmakers to draw hard lines, especially deciding who to cast, and ultimately how their race fits into the cultural zeitgeist. My point in the beginning of the video is how adapting Animation to Live Action loses certain benefits that only animation can provide. One of those things is ambiguous race…(I can’t believe I’m siding with Shyamalan on this one.) Take Sokka and Katara. Their skin is brown, their culture borrows from the Ainu/Inuit, their eyes are blue, and they’re voiced by American actors. Picking one race to represent all of those traits is impossible.
But I’m someone who looks at results. What I see, given all the challenges in respecting race in casting, is lazy work. Which is why I say, “You can come up with any excuse to cast a white lead.” All the comments arguing why they can be white are totally valid. They make sense. But the result of these American-made adaptations is continually excluding other perspectives in media.
TOPIC TWO: “I hate white people.”
I feel like it should go without saying, but I don’t hate white people. I’m white. Most of the media I consume is white. But rather, I feel like the Last Airbender is a missed opportunity for diversity, especially when the character inspirations are rooted in non-white cultures. I find it more perplexing than I do offensive. The race-issue is less about moral outrage, and more about the filmmakers misunderstanding every aspect of the story they were telling.
TOPIC THREE: “The majority of America is white.”
I’ve seen something like this a lot: “America is mostly white, so why is it bad to cast white people to represent that race?”
My point wasn’t to say that studio executives should make counter-intuitive decisions when it comes to appealing to audiences, but rather why do we rely on one blanket race to represent the faces that we see in our media?
Black Panther was a huge milestone (and not because it was an amazing film.) It was because before that film, it was thought that movies with a predominately non-white cast didn’t make money/didn’t appeal to everyone. But Black Panther made more money than Avengers: Infinity War. Probably because it offered a fresh storytelling perspective by black actors/filmmakers.
Again, given how heavily the story of Avatar relies on Asian perspectives, I see it as a missed opportunity not to show that perspective.
If suggesting, ‘Roles like these should be played by non-white actors,’ makes you angry, I can’t help you with that.
Diversity isn't inherently good or bad. In any case I'd say that diversity for the sake of diversity is actually quite damaging, it implies that a person can only enjoy a movie if his or her skin color match with the person on the screen and that's BS. That said, I agree with you when you say that The last airbender was a missed opportunity, of all things, this movie giving opportunities to non-caucasian actors wouldn't be forced at all and it would've actually benefit the movie (sorry, seeing white and hindu people with those clothes and in that setting took me out of the movie immediately).
@@attaggee Looks like Makoto Shinkai's Garden of words
"The majority of America is white" is not an argument that white people like white faces. Its an argument of merit. Do you assume all races have equal talent with acting? I'm hoping you'll say yes, unless you're somewhat racist. So given that, if we're looking for talent, we're going to be looking at people who are emotionally expressive at 2SD+/- the mean, yes, emotional expression is a skill like any other. And since all skills operate on bell curves, and the sum total of skill in regards to amount of population its in operates within a power law (A Pareto curve), it pretty much means only 1-5% of each population is going to be truly excellent at acting. (So we're dealing with somewhat small pools here).
Due to the Demographics of the U.S. for every great black actor you find, you'll most likely find 7 great white actors. (63% of America is white, but 50% of Hispanic people ID as white, and are pretty much indistinguishable from white people, because they are majority Spanish, rather than having a more native American phenotype. I'm sure you remember the term "white hispanic"? Yeah, that's actually a majority of Latino people in the U.S.) Anyway, in addition, Hollywood draws from other English speaking countries as well, the two major ones being Britain and Australia, and they are both 90% white. But lets just make this simple and say our general population pool breaks down to 70% white, 5% Asian, 15% Hispanic, 10% black (Should be 13% black, but again, simplicity).
So, again, you have 1 great black actor for every 7 great white ones. Unless you are SPECIFICALLY thinking of race, and forcing race to be a major factor, the majority of your cast will always be white thanks to the prolific amount of talent you have. And this larger talent pool has a multi-variable effect on outcome, which actually makes it disproportionately effective. (More people means higher likelihood of finding the correct physical features for the job, the correct temperament to work with other talent, the correct KIND of ability to express emotion, the ability to sync up a schedule ect.) So by having a larger pool, it has an outsized impact of checking all these boxes and being useful for the film. Which is why, again, unless you're specifically going for race (like with Black Panther) most of your actors and actresses should be white, not because you want to sell to white people, but just because the likelihood of finding talent is much, much easier.
Not to mention, the fact is, diversity already has an outsized impact on American media--so I'm not sure why we get so sore at missed opportunities. Black Americans have a higher proportion of actors in speaking roles than their population proportion. Hispanics are under-represented, sure. But because their migration to the U.S. only began 40 years ago, most latinos in this country are second generation, second generation immigrants still face tons of economic issues--and Hollywood isn't exactly a stable career path (We didn't see an explosion of Italian actors until they matured 3-4 generations here. And even then, they tried casting godfather with mostly non-Italians. It takes a while.)
So, its not an argument to prefer white faces. It's simply a statistical reality. Forcing diversity means discriminating against white people. In some cases, I find that's acceptable--like if you're going to make black panther, race is a NEEDED element. Because race is PART of the movie. But in most films where race does not matter, like Airbender, calling for diversity as if its a need is simply discrimination. Which is what people get sick of. (Especially due to the double-think on it. Because Troy can have a black achillies. Queens in France/Britain during the middle ages can be black. Nobles in provincial towns in late middle age France can be black. Asgardians can be black..ect, ect. It's pretty clear when race doesn't matter in typically "white" settings (mythological or historical), we are gung ho about casting "regardless of skin color". People are just sick of this working fine in one direction, but cause absolute outrage in the other.)
But please don't take this the wrong way. I know it comes from a good place. Everyone wants to help everyone "feel equal"--and that makes it so people don't stop and think about the reality of how things are. So I know its coming from a good place. But the mantra that Hollywood or other places are racist and that's why you don't see more people of color, and we need to "fix that" is misguided benevolence.
Now I know why this popped up in my feed (TH-cam algorithm favors creators who comment. I fact, they can resurrect a video that was thought to be dead. I don't have much to say other than that, sorry).
@Mad Jack You would probably lose your shit when we get a black Superman and call it SJW-Propaganda/Agenda
Imagine if they casted toph as a muscular man that screams to visualise his surroundings.
an entire film with just him and the cabbage man
@@hotelbellamuerte3669 I'd watch a spin-off series featuring cabbage man and THE BOULDER!
they totally would pull that shit up xD
tbh the play of them was more accurate then the actual show LMAO
I'm screaming
There is no A:TLA movie, and there is no war in Ba Sing Se.
The earth king has invited you to lake laogai
There is evidence to support the war in ba sing se though........
@@oldladywhocantdrivewell7545 The earth king has extended an invitation to you to visit lake laogai.
Joo Dee will guide you
oldladywhocantdrive well one beheading for each head of cabbage
I am honored to accept his invitation
I’m just glad they never got to ruin Toph.
Are you kidding that would have been awesome I am 1000% sure Toph would have been a 6'5" muscular man with a hair band, and would scream at his surroundings and use it as Eco location to get a good look at people. I will tell you someone this movie did get right. The comedic play of the story of the Avatar and his friends in the fire nation. I really do think that's what Shamalan was aiming for, he got the casting right, he got the bad acting right, he pretty much made a movie based off of that play lol.
@Henrik iirc, Azula appeared at the end of the film. no big lines at least!
Blazing Wind
It’s true
@@belbercike2344 She had a really stupid look on her face tho.
Or Azula...or Suki...or Boomy...or Ty-Lee...or Mai...or the Freedom Fighters...or Sparky Sparky Boom Man!-
Why doesn’t Katara have her hair loopies
I was literally screamed this in the theater when I saw for the first time....
Jesse Bogdonoff exactly
Also, Zuko’s hair should not be that spiky.
Why does Zuko got no scar
Because it's all a lie. She's been brained washed
This movie doesn’t exist. This is just a hallucination we all just drank some cactus juice
It's the quenchiest!
So what happened to my cabbages?
THATS RIGHT
What movie
It'll quench ya!
zuko's scar was so important BECAUSE it marred half of his face. when people looked at zuko it was all they could see, all HE could see. zuko is a highly self-conscious individual, rooted in his failure as a prince, with a gruesome reminder on his face. his scar also sets up the firelord, it shows ozai's character in a way no dialogue could. if he could do that to his own son, what will he do to everyone else?
yeah exactly, I completely agree with you. You took the words right out of my house. Honestly, the scar is important because it's who he is and it kinda guides him? Like eventually he realises that he lost his way, but he finds it. The scar shows that his father was a brutal man and he only cared for power.
Everyone defined Zuko by his scar, it was the only thing they saw. It was almost like it completely defined him for years because of his honour, but he overcame that and chose his own destiny.
Jelly Bean barely putting effort into the scar makes me wanna cry
And another insulting thing is, making a face-destroying scar with makeup is fucking _easy._ Zuko's scar is even pretty much perfect for safe application. The most intense ridging is away from his socket, with a smoother center--meaning, liquid latex or a prosthetic can be applied around the area you typically don't want glue/latex in. Cream paint or other makeup can then fill the hole left from latex/prosthetics--made all the more easy by the fact it's a deeper color. (Makeup sits and pigments differently on skin vs latex; it's usually an obnoxious process to perfectly color-match between the two.)
Honestly, the _most_ you would need to do is either Vaseline the _shit_ out of the actor's eyebrow and sideburns or ask them to shave them to ensure a totally comfortable and safe application and removal.
There is literally no excuse to allow _such_ a shitty scar to replace Zuko's defining feature.
They made exactly this mistake with the Mortal Engines movie.
They were scared to get Zuko's scar on the wrong side, so they just didn't put it there at all.
"great zuko cosplay but your scar is on the wrong side"
"THE SCAR IS NOT ON THE WRONG SIDE!"
It’s actually kind of ridiculous. When we’re first shown Zuko’s scar, the music has a big dramatic sting, and the music and camera angles continue to keep making it look like the scar is some big dramatic thing that truly makes Zuko look almost inhuman as he threatens the main characters. And like it really singles him out from the rest of his people when he’s surrounded by the Fire Nation, alone, separate.
And the whole time it’s practically invisible! Nothing like the show where it’s dark red and obvious. You can’t even tell it’s there if the screen resolution is bad! If they wanted to make it look like a huge deal, they should have actually made it look like something, it doesn’t take much money or effort for that.
Maybe they wanted him to look handsome or something, but then they shouldn’t have even acted like it was so hideous and scary at all. It’s just awkward watching the poor actor glowering dramatically like a lonesome monster when he really isn’t ugly at all.
I have to admit, I didn’t even see it the first time they showed it. I was confused for a second by the music sting.
They should have taken a page from how the hound was handled, that’s how you portray a hideous lifechanging scar
That's EASY, scar is on the left eye
@@nkbujvytcygvujno6006 Funnily enough, even with Zuko's scar, I still think he's handsome. The scar doesn't make him look hideous in my opinion. It makes him look cool and mysterious. Dark and brooding.
*They couldn’t even get the main character’s name right*
Oong
crystal cat oung
I mean, it sounds more Chinese, less anglicized. But if you're gonna do that, why the hell would you give all the roles to white people?
And I'm pretty sure Katara said "soka" in the movie (like soda)
@@OriginalWarblade Furthermore, it's literally a fantasy world. Even if it takes inspiration from various different Asian cultures, the world of Avatar is not actually Asia. Inspiration does not imply emulation. Just as phonetics in Cantonese don't equate to phonetics in Korean or Thai, neither are any of the languages in Avatar required to perfectly emulate the phonetics of any specific Asian language.
And if anyone wants to go down the path of "yeah, but the Aa of Aang doesn't exist in any Asian language!" well... that wouldn't be true. The "Aa" sound in "Aang" is called a near-open front unrounded vowel in the International Phonetic Alphabet, and it's prominent in a very specific Asian language - Sinhala, the primary language of Sri Lanka. Go look up some Sri Lankan Buddhist temples. Tell me what culture in Avatar the architecture it reminds you of.
Not gonna lie, I expected “it’s bad” and then 27 minutes of a black screen but this is cool too!
andyr roopram thank you sir
9:24-10:38: ABSOLUTELY!
There are clear Differences but many dont even realize this for real.
It's sad how many Prejudices i see about this.
And yeah, it's true though that there ARE 'americanized' versions of things as well as 'Asianized' versions - and it makes me sad to see those things.
My theory is that the movie is just a live action version of the Ember Island Players stage production...
Isn't that like low-key confirmed, that episode would have aired after the movie
Alejandra Rosales that must be it
Alejandra Rosales LOL! Yes, makes sense!
Since that episode did air after the movie, I'd bet it was written in out of revenge. Like "this is what we think about that movie." It'd be perfect, honestly.
@@justanawkwardnerd Clever way of reminding people of what had happened the passed seasons whilst throwing some heavy shade at the abomination M. Night Shyamalan made.
--in my opinion, that man should never get the rights to make any movie adaptations ever again. He can fuck up his own stuff, don't need him to ruin the good stuff someone else could've turned into a masterpiece. Let's hope Netflix won't follow his footsteps, and instead actually make something brilliant with the new live action Avatar series.
“Ready for invasion, Sozin?”
“Gimme a minute, my matches aren’t working”
“But that’s the only way we can bend!”
*INVASION POSTPONED*
J Lupus I’m genuinely curious as to 1) what they planned to do for the invasion? They all have torches?
2) to point one, why are the “over powered”? If the did the invasion that way, all you would need to do is put out their torches?
3) to THAT point, the show did a great job of showing the potential of the other elements. Toph (and in the future, all earth benders) can LITERALLY metal bend, and katara makes water out of sweat + blood blending + plant bending. And air is literally everywhere.
Gah, this movie hurts my head!
m night was an idiot. He didn't respect nor understand the Avatar universe... Sadly very few directors adapting cartoon or game universes to film do...
😂
They treated Fire Benders like Roy from FMA
''Its raining? Well fuck that then'' xD
@spooky... Your number two point was the biggest plot hole in the movie... That new way of fire bending literally made fire benders the weakest because they have to have a lot fire going to be useful making defeating them one of the easiest feat... Their bending literally relies on matches which didn't exist then so they'll first have to struggle with lighting their bending source with a very taxing spark rocks that are totally almost useless in snowy tundras and high altitude like water tribes and the air monasteries... The playing field was already levelled with earth benders having almost infinite amount of bending sources around them and most especially air benders and water benders can use just a flask of water in versatile and powerful ways (katara in season was pretty powerful with just one flask and war prepared with four)... So the fire benders were just unnecessary nerfed since they don't have a natural source (like the sun and breathing in the animated series) and have to first create their own sources with spark rocks... Shows how MNS doesn't understand avatar and animes in general and even action films as a whole and he didn't pay attention to the animated series at all)...
My therapist is very wealthy because of this movie.
@Abigail Chaiyasate Sure, if mean for an actual video, link it because Id like to watch it lol
Appa is my new sleep paralysis demon.
00
This is a dead horse I will never, ever tire of beating.
just like my meat
Same
I hate this director sooo much he has no idea wtf he's doing
same here!!!
*beat* *beat* *beat*
Honestly, making the firebenders dependent on fire being present is not even "leveling the playing field" at all. It's actually giving the firebenders a HUGE disadvantage, because while the other benders do need to have their element present, at least air, water and accessible in most places, especially if benders are resourceful, and occur naturally. Fire does not. Fire needs to be produced.
Sofia A its what made firebending so special, it was the energie within one self
Like... the reason Fire could be considered superior is because they didn't need a source..
How would they conquer anything if they needed to set up fires beforehand to be able to use fire...
Yep. If Shyamalan truly wanted to go with firebenders not producing their own fire route, then they should have made the Fire Nation armours have a built in mechanism that allowed the user to ignite a spark that could be bent into fire, just to show how much technical ingenuity the Fire Nation had.
Not saying that it would have been a good idea to change what wasn't broken from the show, but at least it would have been an improvement over what ended up on the big screen.
Yeah it just made no sense. It makes the firebenders the only ones who have to actively create their own element in order to use it. Outside of extreme circumstances the water benders don't have to make their own water. While extreme circumstances are the only times that fire occurs naturally. It puts the firebenders at a huge disadvantage and would naturally direct their culture to rely less on their bending or become less likely to start a war.
And seriously did he think that this was a sporting event? This isn't a story about fair play.
This is what I've always said. It doesn't level the playing field at all, it just puts the Fire Nation at a serious disadvantage against the other elements. Air, Water and Earth are everywhere. You have to go to crazy lengths to separate the other benders from their elements, and even then they can find new creative ways to bend (see: metalbending and bloodbending). The only thing that puts Firebenders on an equal level with the others is the fact that they can use their own energy to produce fire. Take that away and you're basically forcing them to fight with their hands tied. On top of that, the movie isn't even consistent about the rules, because near the end Iroh is shown to produce his own fire, which freaks everyone out. It's supposed to be a sign that he's super powerful, but it also goes against the entire point of changing the rules in the first place. *facepalm*
The character design isnt even that anime. You can clearly see the characters distinct ethnicitys.
literally!! there was no excuse for the whitewashing :')
@@RunOnBarbaro whitewashing AND the Fire Nation being south asian instead of y'know, japanese? Or at LEAST Chinese
Jesseinator1000 Gaming and More yeah it was messed up 😂😂😂 the fire nation is SO clearly based on Japanese architecture and clothes etc it’s tragic how badly they fucked the film tbh
RunOnBarbaro the fire nation is not based on Japan. It is based mostly on China and has more Thai influences than Japanese
@@NoName-ls6jn no. Its based on imperialistic japan. Which multiple times historically invaded and conquered parts of china and korea. (Almost always with virtualy no major resistence put up by the chinese/koreans till years into the war) The earth kingdom is china. The superior technology of the fire nation in part shows this. And the water tribes are inuit and air bender are Tibetan monks. The style of architecture and clothing also matches japanese style.
Why they changed his name to “Oong” it made me Aang-ry.
Oong-ry*
I don't wanna defend him but that pronunciation is used in the German dub of the cartoon too. But idk why he used it for a English movie
And Soeka
@Liew Po huh?
I know right! Everytime I heard the kids say his name was Oong. I was like Its Aang!
17:55 If I remember right you don't even see The Firelord's face until towards the last season, him always being shown in shadow looming over people. He was so dehumanized that a powerful turning point in the story was Aang seeing his baby picture and thinking it was Zuko, someone he knew and cared about by this point, as opposed to Ozai, the monster he had to face. The monster *was* human. And Aang could not bring himself to kill another human. It's a very important narrative moment the movie doesn't even _attempt._
Avatar is the apotheosis of writing in an animated series. The Last Airbender took all of that, tore it to shit, burned it and then did a crude drawing of it with the ashes, declaring it to be stunning art and a wonderful adaptation
Yup. Just seeing Ozai was so weird. It was like: “so he’s just here? That’s him? Oh. Okay”
No build up, no real tension or threat. It was just so lame
Yup. Ozai was always depicted with an air of terror and power behind him. Always lurking in the shadows, and always pulling the strings, even if indirectly.
Meanwhile, this movie is just like "O HAI GAIZ! HOW R U? MY NAMEZ OZAI!"
So true, he was built up and then made simple. It jarred us, in the perfect way. We were not fighting a faceless monster, we are facing a person.
Holy shit I forgot the fire lord Ozai was Cliff Curtis. I loved him in Fear the walking dead he's a great Maori actor despite the fact that he probably got cast because he looks ambiguous enough to look Indian. This isn't the first time an ambiguous Maori actor has been cast in a fucking random ass role I recall Taika Waititi (the director of Thor Ragnarok) got cast in green lantern as like a nerdy friend of Ryan Reynolds because he looked potentially Mexican or Hispanic to Americans? I wouldn't know we don't have hispanic people in NZ the closest we got is Filipinos.
Of course Ryan Reynolds will continue to be cast in every movie ever because hes generically white even though hes already gotten a bit too old for young roles like Deadpool. The same for Scarlet johassen who vaguely had asianish styling for Ghost in the Shell but very bluntly was white. In saying this I don't entirely agree with the viewpoint that anime characters look asian they just don't objectively asians despise their own monolid eyes so there's no chance they'd illustrate modern characters as accurate representations of real world people only a rare bunch would. I am so sick of seeing white people in everything though.
The actor for aang was seemingly too disciplined, i think that made his performance really stiff. and too serious for a character with so much change in his moods
I agree with this one. The character of Aang was a child by heart, and he was dealing with the enormous responsibility given to him. The actor who played Aang in the live action movie seemed more melancholy. You don't really feel the child.
it's not his fault, a director is meant to give direction to his cast. he should've told him otherwise
IN NETFLIX'S LIVE ACTION MOVIE, SO HELP ME, IF THEY DON'T GT AANGS FUNNINESS AND AMAZINGNESS(is that even a word XD) I WILL STRANGLE THEM
@@coldtea7 You're right. they're making a series XD sorry, my bad
The movie is just much more serious than the show. Sokka doesnt have all the enthusiasm with his quips and jokes it all feels stiff and we barely see Aang's child at heart personality.
I remember watching it at the theater and the first time Aang says his name, the entire audience goes "ONG?!"
Sarara R 😂😂
Sarara R same
Yeah
I remember people walking out because of that. This one woman said "I Didn't pay to watch the last ARE Bender."
I watched it at my house and I was confused when they said his name like that
The funniest part is this simple logic: the fire nation invaded the northern WATER tribe with torches and campfires. Everything in that zone is made of water and ice, even if the waterbenders were as weak as those 10 earthbenders who moved a mini rock together they'd be able to pour those ridiculous campfires out.
But they would never think of doing that because Shyamalan doesn't understand basic logic.
It seems insane to me that everyone was completely on board with whatever shit was going on in this movie
I had a wtf moment when fire benders needed a source to fire bend since then they would be so weak af that people could just put the fire out and then “Oh shit i don’t got fire” and ded
Why are sokka and katara the only non Inuit people in their tribe
Nepotism
gram gram too
@@Vanlifecrisis "gram gram" she's not an SI unit
Because the other people aren't in front of the camera much. You can't have *those* people in front of the camera too much >:(
Its Saka Not Souka
Yeah, the most frustrating thing for me was the disjointed, slow moving elements. A group of men stomping and punching the air, then a little rock wiggles forward at a snails pace. Who signed off on that crap?
Not to mention the fact the FIREBENDERS NEEDED FIRE AROUND TO FIREBEND?!?!?!?! 😤😤😤😤😤
I’m a tiny girl, and I could’ve hauled that rock the same distance they pushed it in half the time. Why would anyone bend if they could do more damage by just dropping the rock on someone’s foot?
Meanwhile in the cartoon: Toph earthbending the whole fucking palace stairs
@@Raven_Black_252 and Katara literally bloodbending
well said indeed..
That scene was terribly disturbing to watch.
I forgot about that scene! SIX earthbenders to move one tiny ass rock!
I forgot how much I hated this thing. TY for rekindling that flame.
The best/worst part of is was that it was meant to be a large boulder, but they ran out of funds so they couldn't CGI anything bigger (or that's the claim, at least).
Phillip Marsh couldn't cgi a bigger rock? All they had to do was make the rock bigger! Its a digital effect! There's no smoke or wires.
I'm just telling you what I head (from a couple different sources, actually). I don't know the technicalities behind it and if I'm wrong I'm wrong. But until someone shows me where they got information elsewhere, I'm going to continue to stand by what I said.
That then quickly gets send flying by one guy...How does that make sense?..Also why does everyone just stand still?! "Okay his turn to fight!..Now him..okay now..yeah my turn oka ahh!" It is a movie not a fucking RPG!
I'M A LITTLE TEAPOT SHORT AND STOUT
“Why can’t the Avatar have a family?”
“I asked that. They said that’s a sacrifice the Avatar always has to make.”
Zuko being a descendent of Avatar Roku: am I a joke to you?
@@Someone-qi3zz Yes but aang isnt a monk. He's a nomad. Not all airbenders are monks, and they are allowed to have families.
So Aang is really the last airbender. If he cant have a family it would be impossible for another airbender to be born. Gosh I hate this movie! They clearly didnt understand the basic elements of the show and made so many pointless changes! I'll just join the others and pretend this movie doesnt exist.
"Being the Avatar doesn't hurt your chances with the ladies."
Aang, with a wife, 3 children and 4 grandchildren: Am I a joke to you?
VIVID DEMAND Aang had a family, he married Katara and had 3 kids and 4 grandkids
every department screwed up except the costume department they did their absolute best
I agree. I liked Aang's really intricate arrow patterns. It was a neat touch that made it look more deliberate and earned than the plain stripes.
@@myoldhandlewasmadewheniwas9 that's not costume that's makeup but yeah the entire art department was firing on all cylinders and I'd say that the effects teams did well given what they had to work with.
@@LanK111er Are they not the same main department at that time? I mean, that isn't something like covering a blemish, that's an iconic trait of the character. I don't know when makeup ends and costume begins.
@@myoldhandlewasmadewheniwas9 They are all under the umbrella of the "art department" so it's possible that it was handled by many facets including costume and makeup but I would generally assume that a fake tattoo would be handled by the makeup department more than the costume. They may have even used SFX artists or a specialized team to do it given the size of the production.
@@myoldhandlewasmadewheniwas9 They aced the arrow. I didn't think it was possible to make it look cool on a real human head. If they made it look like it does on the show, it would have been ridiculous. Aang's tattoos are the best thing in this entire movie.
I don't know why you would spend 27 minutes talking about something that doesn't exist but ok
There is no ATLA remake, and there is no war in Ba Sing Se.
Cow the earth king has invited you to lake laogai
Bryan Sullivan I am honored to accept his invitation
@@Danimorales zuko: someone said honor?
Jk I love redemption arc boi
You had me in the first half not gonna lie.
Southern Water Tribe: inspired by the Inuit tribe people
M. Night Shmaylan: *** w h i t e p e o p l e ***
Frog Bloop
It looks like you’re talking to yourself they probably removed their comments.
If this was another show and they black washed and white washed more people would care about the white washing than the black washing, but since it’s the A:TLA fandom they actually cared. And of course they did it’s important to each nation’s culture.
It's funny that the first time I ever heard the term "whitewashing" it was about this movie
I auditioned for the part of Katara when I was in middle school (around 12/13 years old) and got to the last 5 girls they were choosing from (they were online auditions where we sent in videos of us reading scripts). The casting call was white girls with dark hair and blue eyes. At the time, I didn't understand the importance of casting appropriate actors to play rolls, I was just excited to be part of a project about my favorite series. But now as an adult, I am so happy that I wasn't cast and I'm disappointed about what they did. (also, for more selfish reasons, I'm happy I wasn't part of such a shit show lol!)
13:26 Nicola Peltz her father is a billionaire that's why she is Katara.
Immigrant Mentality Stiopic that’s so heartbreaking to hear. She seriously cannot act but because of her connections & billionaire status, she got hired. Such bullshit.
There is no live action of avatar
There is no live action of avatar
There is no live action of avatar
There is no live action of avatar
There is no live action of avatar
There is no live action of avatar
There is no live action of avatar
Here we are safe
Here we are free
Here we are sane
There is no live action movie in Ba Sing Sae
In ba sing se
honestly the actor for zuko would have made a good sokka
Poor Dev Patel 😔 He deserved so much better 🤦🏻♀️
You know what's weird? He feels more like Aang to me. Especially with how... ill-suited he felt to playing "evil". Like he'd be much more natural if he were a carefree hero type.
I think he actually auditioned for Sokka but was given the role of Zuko instead
I agree. And I think the actor who played Sokka would make a great Zuko! They should have been switched.
The funny thing is he audition for Sokka but got Zuko almost the complete opposite 🤔
No one:
Zhao: THE GREAT LIBRARY
Zhao didn't respect spirits, so idk why they would put that in the script. He more likely would have said "some old library" or something
Haha he said the no one: word it made the comment so much funnier
“I want to spend my vacation at the LIBRARY!”
@@zarrowthehorse Go fuck yourself.
MY TRIP TO THE GREAT LIBRARY HAS BROUGHT ME SOME VALUABLE INFORMATION LORD OZAI
i remember turning off the tv the moment they called him "oNg"
"UNG" IFKR I WAS LIKE DUDEEEER WTF
And Sowca, like wtf!!?
right? the pronunciation was right there they didn't need to guess like book to movie.
My guess is that they tried to use the actual Indian/Sanskrit pronunciation. Avatar is pronounced like how it is in the movie, not the show. There is a word in Hindi or Sanskrit "Aang" and it's pronounced like how it is in the movie. I could be wrong about the Aang part but the way "Avatar" is pronounced in the movie is actually how the word is supposed to be pronounced, since the meaning of that word is the same as the Sanskrit/Hindi word.
Not defending the POS movie...jus talkin about the pronunciations
The amount of disrespect y’all are putting on Ember Island Players is ridiculous. Ember Island Players was such a great episode and show. To compare it to this trash is truly disheartening
The point of the play was that it was bad. But it was bad in all the right ways to push characters forwards
if you think about it it was basically the shows like flashback episode yk? I heard on a podcast they had issues with the budget as far as making and airing such a long final episode. They decided to do something creative to recap the season and show while actually progressing characters. In turn the JM Animation was able to actually do a really good job with the episode and how great it looked, hence you have Sokkas line "at least the special effects were pretty good"
@@HvacHeathen huh, I thought that last line was a shot at the Movie
Ember Island Players was at least TEN TIMES better than the movie.
Laverne Blaszczyk cool
I laughed at the fact that you saved the pebble dance for the very last shot. Like you said, any ten seconds of the film sums it all up in some way... but *especially* the pebble dance
PEBBLE DANCE- okay that's what i'm calling it now lmao
"Pebble dance" 😂
Pebble Dance sounds cute though but also tragic XD
Well, I'm referring to that scene as the "Pebble Dance" from now on
Thought it was called pebble bending, but I like this better. 😂
When a youtuber edit better than your movie, it means there is something really wrong
TSG KiLLem Twice hell, I'm sure any of us could make an edit like that lmao
After seeing his edits I had this same thought. fr tho
@@Lucid_Waking Buuuuuuut, his edit is still better, thats the point xD
That part where the small rock slowly flies across the screen because of 6 earthbenders... I went to see this movie at midnight on release. That exact moment in the movie is when I knew I was extremely disappointed. I physically cringed in the theater, watching a movie made from my favorite TV show ever. It's quite sad.
I remember laughing so hard. I'd be embarrassed if I was an earthbender.
i did the same thing, same reaction, same time. After the film ended we were outside until almost sunrise laughing at how bad it was. I was a senior in high school when it came out and we got to customize our parking spot so I lovingly named my spot after the night we lost our shit to how bad TLA was. Woodbender.
That scene was SO bad. It still pisses me off!
Every time I see that scene I cry from laughing
I died with laughter when i saw that scene. All that movement and 6 earthbenders just for a single small rock to fly across.
Zuko literally said that he used to think that his scar marked him "the mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the avatar forever" it's plays a role in his struggle and then in the movie they make it look like a barely noticeable smudge of dirt
When aang has to tell earthbenders that they're surrounded by earth wow what a revelation
Honestly, I personally didn't really like the coal thing on the boat
BUT AT LEAST IT MADE SENSE
It was also a gross adaption of one of Katara's lines??
Also "you guys are amazing and strong!"
@@whalesharko4465 why
@@yourlocalarchaeologist1897 it felt like a little bit of a cop out compared to the whole show, like I didn't think it was set up as well as others
Don't get me wrong, put that episode in another show and it would be one of its best but here it's just mediocre not bad but still ok
That joke about Katara being constantly on the verge of crying in the movie and the ember island play was so good. Just enough time that I thought of the play and then you showed the clip👌😂😂
That scene where there's like 7 earth benders doing these serious, choreographed movements just to make a rock slowly float towards the enemy always makes me laugh. Like, how on Earth did so many people work on that and the lot of them didn't look at it and were like "wow this is bad, maybe we should rethink some things"
the actors couldn't see the cgi edit, they were doing as instructed to the best of their ability
the editors and cgi animators were the ones responsible for making it looks as such in accordance to the director's demands; im sure the majority of the actors didn't see it until the final product was released
I"M A LITTLE TEA POT SHORT AND STOUT!
Andrew Rivera Don’t worry guys I got it. Take that!
I thought the same shit. 😁 All those guys, all that intense movement, and the rock doesn't even move at a threatening speed.
Joseph Tucker Pun intended?
There is no movie adaptation of The Last Airbender.
The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai.
I am honoured to accept his invitation
I am honoured to accept his invitation
lmaoo
I am honored to accept his invitation
I am honored to accept his invitation!
I came for a new dose of hate on the movie, but it's funny to see how these videos criticizing it still find new content to present. I liked the editing examples, the change in mood was immediate!
im just waiting until rock the Dwayne Johnson is cast as the boulder in the new series that's gonna come out
What's the series called? I haven't heard of it yet
@@TheNewTH-camHandlesAreDumb netflix is making a live action series of avatar
Saaaaaammmeeee
"rock the dwayne johnson"
You meant the pebble
I'll always treat this Movie, as an adaptation of the Ember Island Players episode
Kabuzzo Akawara that’s exactly what it was, lol
Ember Island Players were true to character tho - Sokka funny, Katara tearbending drama-queen, Toph epic and Aang - a flying bald lady. Movie is pure pain.. "But the effects were decent"
Lol i do love how weakly they portrayed Ozai
Zuko’s scar in the film makes me think Ozai farted on his eye
This is too funny
Pink eye
16:03
Holy shit he's right about the actor who should've played Sokka. One millisecond of seeing that other guy and I could already imagine him being way better than what we got.
literally, how’d they even decide to cast him as zuko? He’s a perfect sokka
He really wanted to inflict suffering on us :(
@@mertarican5456 maalesef :(
What made the producers think he'd be a good Zuko when they missed the opportunity to have a great Sokka.
you should get the races right
Something's wrong here, all I'm getting is a blank video titled "The Earth King Has Invited You to Lake Laogai"
Nooo! Close your web browser immediately!
You should humbly accept his invitation...
Oh goodie, Di Lee brainwashing!
There is no live action movie in Ba Sing Se!
I am happy to receive his invitation.
They took the Ember Island Players literally. Unfortunate.
Sokka becomes Sooka
Aang is Uung
Zuko is Zuko
Katara is Katara
Toph would probably have been Toof
God that's sad.
LMFAO bruh Ember Island Players is UNIRONICALLY better than this movie
it was more like "soka" if you ask me
Toph would have been T-oh-ph, like Tofu.
Let’s not forget the ahhvatar
You forgot Eeroh.
He's the uncle of Zuko, the one who lost to his father in an Agni Key dual.
The thing about this movie that angered me the most was that they didn't have Aang say "will you go penguin sledding with me?" when he's broken out of the ice😭
Isn’t it penguin sledding ?
@@SpectralRains yeah it is, my b
My favorite scene in the movie is when Katara says she had always known the avatar was real and prayed for his return. Only for zuko to interrupt the moment saying "me too".
Seriously the only change I liked.
the last airbender: worldbuilding that literally doesnt have any white-coded characters, the 4 nations are all heavily coded as different asian groups
m knight: theyre culturally ambiguous
The hell are you talking about no white coded characters...
What about my swamp benders???
Cloud King ya what about the Floridians in the swamp
Querps they don’t belong to the main character group or the four nations. You are right to rebuttal that sentence, but his overall point still stands
@Nob the Knave technically their ancestors crossed alaska when there was a land bridge from asia
@Nob the Knave okay fair enough
wait did you say the ATLA movie was made before the third season was out? This has to prove that the ember island players was to poke fun at the movie, I will not take no as an answer
Blurryink OMG
I highly doubt that
@@PlagueJ
Don't doubt it: Blurryink will not take "no" as an answer!!
@Collin Williams yeah but i heard somewhere, I forget where, but the movie actually prevented the creators from making a season 4 of ATLA.
Collin Williams writing the script and casting and shooting the movie takes a long time. The director prob told the writers that he was gonna make a live action back before he actually started working on it. Because it came out in 2010 it was shot in 2009 maybe a year the show ended (depends what month, before July or after July) but writing the screen play takes quite some time, in addition to this, the movie was 1 hour and 43 minutes. M. Night Shyamalan had already created a couple of movies before this I believe, but because this was a series with 20 episodes, it's difficult finding out what you want to keep and take out. Trying to fit 20 episodes worth into 1 hour 43 minutes (idk how long the credits are) would be really difficult. But the fact that M. Night Shyamalan decided to change things up to make it more ”realistic” is just annoying. Now I know that really was unnecessary in this comment but I'm trying to get say that making a movie takes a long time and it's obvious he had started working on it before 2008 ( in 2007 they announce that M. Night Shyamalan was gonna make the film) when the series ended. So yes, it would be very possible that this claim could possibly be true
My problem is Aang's personality, in the show he's so flamboyant, jolly, happy, naive and prankster. In the movie they made him so serious and depressing
You know what's funny about 5:39 where he said "Had to concise the entire first season into a movie" Bro, in season 3 where they go to the Theatre, they condensed the entire 3 seasons in a mere 20 minutes.
True
And despite the joke-y approach at that episode, it was a infinitely better to watch than that non-existing movie!
Yep it was better
"I've never seen such a perfect storm of getting everything wrong in a film."
Wow. The best roasts are always hidden inside "compliments"...
The Last Jedi
dragonball evolution
Gordon Ramsay style.
Try death note
I lost it when you edited those three scenes. For f*ck sake! You made them ten times better and it only took like 2 to 4 cuts and pauses each!
Myths & Monsters Exactly!
It's means they didn't give two shits about that movie
+Jesse Tribble
With such skill at correcting blunders with limited raw material, I would go and watch a remake that you wrote, directed and edited!
That part of this video really pissed me off. It shows how little effort on their end was that some youtuber was able to use solely the resources the final version of the movie gave us was able to make the scenes significantly better.
Zuko's live action actor also has both eyebrows.
That is just unforgivable
@@spectralquill1810 Where is the honor in this Uncle?!
the scene between Voldemort and Dumbledore on the Order of the phoenix always seems closer to fire/water bending due to the fluid motions and quick response, compared to the mundane movie
Now that you've mentioned this, I wonder what the budget difference is for the 2 films' cgi dept.
th-cam.com/video/2r71I8lvTIA/w-d-xo.html Someone seems to have read this and/or agreed with you
The worst part is Order of the Phoenix came out in ‘07. Last Airbender came out in 2010 nearly 3 years later. Isn’t technology supposed to get better with time?!
11:03 "except any race continues to be white"
iconic
They even turned a fish white.🤦🏾♀️
The best part: The water tribe and the esrth kingdom people and the swamp people are the only tan race in A: TLA. Why are all fire nation people indian? And why are Sokka and Katara pale white?
Ocean To be fair, their eyes are blue in the show
Whiterun Guard still they are clearly not white the blue eyes are a nod to them being water tribe
Whiterun Guard to be fair my ass. Funny how the entire tribe are Asian/Inuit but only if they’re the background characters. That in it self shows they knew katana and sokka weren’t meant to be white but specifically chose them to be
They didn't even hire a color grader or a sound artist. It was literally made by 5 people with shyamalan being taking 4 roles in 1 person... like some sort of avatar
the last airbender really is a 1:1 adaptation of the Ember Island episode from season 3
- aang has no chemistry with katara
- sokka is unfunny
- katara is always on the brink of tears
- zuko is, as he says "stiff and humorless"
if M. Night adapted book two with screaming muscular toph I'd have to forgive him
Well, special effects were quite good. For a fire nation theatre.
There's actually a pretty neat (Or at least comforting) fan theory that the movie was actually based on the Ember Island Players' interperetation
Colin Williams That definitely makes me feel better
That would so make sense. Thank you
Sorry to say this, but it’s the other way around
Yeah it’s the other way around you ninny xD
He says in the video they started making this movie before the third season finished.
Before that episode came out lol.
Makes sense then!
People always forget about Aaron Ehasz. He was the man behind the writing, the consistency, of the show. He knows to not treat his viewers like they are stupid. It may have been born from Brike, but it was raised by Aaron Ehasz. His absence is keenly felt in LoK.
Good thing someone commented on it. I was about to myself. In my opinion he was to avatar what Lawrence kasdan( I think that’s his name) was to Star Wars.
Truer words never spoken. His absence from TLOK created a monster of a sequel that was every bit of a travesty as the movie, but this time it is lore. I really encourage people to view video essays detailing why The Legend of Korra is such an awful show.
Ironically I'd say it's pretty terrible for different reasons most of the time (appart from shitting on TLA's lore)
I mean.. LoK is still pretty good my guy, and for their target audience it was pretty well done, but I agree it wasnt as good as the last airbender
Moiz Rafay What!? The legend of Korra was fantastic, you’re speaking nonsense.
JESUS CHRIST THAT DELETED SCENE @8:38 OMG
Some fat chick blubbering about nothing with a masculine voice. Classic.
The dialogue is stiff and dull too. Y'know what? I'll give myself 20 seconds to think of a better line and I'll write it here. And, GO!
"If the water falls, the fire will reign!"
13 seconds left. I am officially a better writer than M. Night Shyamalan.
😂😂😂 who the heck was that? I was so confused.
GARRY K honestly. I am disturbed lmao 😂
@@MegumiCiBear 😂😂 it's very disturbing, like what the heck were they trying to achieve. Just when I thought this crappy movie couldn't get any worse, it has a horrible deleted scene 🤦🏾♂️
Can we all agree that this movie, 1: doesn’t exist, just as there is no war in Ba Sing Se, and 2: is not canon under any circumstances.
This movie is anti canon
What movie?
Wanna hear a joke? An intimidating Firelord Ozai
@@nasifc3785 😂😂😂
The movie lost me the minute they called him "Ong"
Don't forget Soaka
They got me at ovatar it was at that point I was like "Oh no...this is going to be bad isn't it."
It's absolutely absurd too, because all they'd have to do is watch ANY episode of the show, to have heard what his name was.
@@TheJadeFist MNS said it was more accurate to what the real pronunciation would be. I don't buy his excuse.
@@teabearchurchill5600 Maybe there is a more meta explanation at work here. Maybe he set out to make a bad movie on purpose, and wanted to grate on the ears of every single fan of the series by having the main character's name pronounced wrong.
Your edits show a lot, just a little more time makes it seem much more natural and builds tension, amazing what a second here or there can do.
I'd completely forgotten about this part until I got to 19:40.
"Soh-Kah"
Lol they really dropped the ball on this one
technically though, as much as people hated them, these are actually more accurate pronunciations.
ong im dead
@@Cr4z3d No there not. Their name's are pronounced the way they would be spoken in Japanese.
Ong
Damn the director was trash bending when he made this
No, it's the script writer
@@lifestarmoonlight7460 all of the people who made this movie
@@lifestarmoonlight7460 didnt shamalamadingdong wrote this?
@@ihaveapjoobsession except for the person who acted ong(aang).That was his first experience and imagine how much hate he got
@@lifestarmoonlight7460 and shyamalan
I've never gotten so mad about a movie in my life. I was so excited to see this and then I had to sit in a theater and watch it be ruined in like 50 ways. Its the reason I don't have high expectations for the new avatar the last airbender thing that might come to Netflix. I shudder to think how much worse this wonderful show can be trashed.
I know this comment is months old, but I have some hope that the Netflix adaption won't ne too bad (and will likely be 10x better that the M. Night movie) due to the creators working on it themselves as far as I know.
I heard they'll do a worldwide casting shoutout.
I'm so excited to see the final product!
Dumpster Takumi 10x better isn’t enough
No matter what you say, this movie will hold a special place in my heart.
...it introduced me to an animated series of the same name.
And it was much better!
Same, I hated the movie but the one part that interested me was the world. It ended up leading me to discover the show (which is now possibly my favourite of all time).
That's pretty much me and Dragon Ball Evolution. If I didn't watch it, I would never have watched the anime
Same here lol
TheTasteful Toastie that’s probably the only good thing that can come from bad adaptations. I probably wouldn’t have watched the death note anime if the live action plot summary didn’t make me interested in the story making me decide to watch the show instead
"The opening title sequence doesn't even say that the fire nation invaded everyone." I laughed so hard! As someone who'll never see the film, I can say that this one statement validates my choice.
A guy who never watched the show reviewed the movie and he asked: "So are the fire people bad because they're fire? Or what?"
I laughed my butt off realising they didn't even include that xD
Where, comparing it to the animated show, that fact was stated within the first few lines of each episode.
Adam J. Harper animated not anime
Adam J. Harper ok thats your opinion
Adam J. Harper what does that mean
Earth Kingdom: Chinese
Fire Nation: Japanese/Korean/Taiwanese
Water Tribes: Eskimo/Native American/Samoan/Islanders
Air Nomads: Tibetan
there shouldn't have been so many white people in the movie
They made Goku white, so anything white is possible.
@@themiragereigns explain
@@themiragereigns
That movie fucking sucked too.
@@courts1436 White washing. Ghost in the Shell, Dragon Ball, Avatar and nobody bats an eye. Cast a black Ariel in Little Mermaid and everyone loses their mind.
@@themiragereigns for Avatar, the movie, the Fandom did get really mad about it a lot of people got mad about it, to the point where people act like the movie doesn't exist
It occurs to me that The Last Airbender is to Avatar as Dragonball: Evolution is to Dragon Ball. They're both movie adaptations so bad that the creators of the originals came back to make a new series
Both are fan fictions, not movies!
Unfortunally most people don't like Dragonball Super
Alessandro Biondi
Why’s that? From what I’ve heard it seems to be a fantastic anime!
@@victorhernandez8723 I'm not a big fan of the saga
Difference is, Evolution only had 30 million budget and no great names. This had 150 million dollars budget and Shyamalan and some more wellknown actors in it. And to be fair, Atla is a better show in most aspects, apart from action and characters (although this is just an opinion, it is shared by everyone I kmow that has seen both series.)
Both are an insult to their sourcematerial, but this one more so because it had more to work with.
26:54 is the perfect example of what I hate most about this movie.
Take these guys doing all of that to move one rock the size of a watermelon. Then compare that to earthbending in the show... let alone what toph does.
Honestly the scene with Haru saving the old man is enough to show what a single earthbender can do
this part pissed me off the most!!! toph could literally create a whole ba sing se 2.0 within like a week and even though she's crazily overpowered im pretty sure the other earthbenders could do something almost as good as that, but in the movie it takes 6 men to lift a pebble- they might as well have just picked it up with their hands and thrown it because they were so weak
Earthbending in show: slams foot and builds a wall of earth before launching it out at the opponent
Earthbending in movie: ha ha, little rock goes whoosh
in ATLA one earthbender could move an entire mountain by himself at a young age, and in the movie it took 7 grown earthbenders to move a stone that would travel faster by throwing it with your hands
i also hate how their movements didn’t sync up with the bending. It’s makes no sense for a martial art in if attacking takes so long and leaves you open
Tbh I’ve always sort of been thankful this movie turned out so disastrously bad. I cherish the animated series so much, imagine if it was just an ok adaptation, enough so it didn’t alienate everyone. I would still hate it because it would still be shit compared to the show but there would be no cathartic release of all the layman hating it also.
This way whenever I say “the show is 1000 times better” anyone can say “yeah, I bet you’re right”.
A lot of people don't bring up the fact the ENTIRE fire nation was Indian.
As an Indian it's great to see indian representation but this, it wasn't needed and very much pissed me off. There is a time and place for representation. It felt forced an unnatural. To me the decision to make the fore nation indian felt biased. Shyamalan made Indians, his own race the cool fire benders ( they sucked in the move but whatevs ). Don't get me wrong I'm a little biased myself when it comes to things but I know when it comes to wokrs like movies, writing or character creation that I have to include little to no bias. Shyamalan obviously didn't get that
Sure is a lot of brownwashing in this movie.
@@Thetarget1 is brownwashing even a thing? browns are literally invisible in movie industry; if we don't count indians and pakistanis as brown
The villains are the only non white people
The Fire Nation people in the series are either Chinese or Japanese
"she just looks so stupid"
LMAOOO
So rude
@@FishboyAbzu there was no lie
Katheryn
Lol.
@@FishboyAbzu he isn’t joking the main cast looks stupid
It's less a problem of animation vs live action: the big problem was that shymalan tried to stuff an entire 20-episode season of content into a movie, but (somehow) still made it feel like half of the dialogue was unnecessary exposition
Yeah, casting for Sokka was all wrong. Sokka is supposed to be sarcastic.
And eat meat.
Dev Patel as Sokka is gonna haunt me forever. We could have had it. It was right there and we could have had it.
I think that while hating it is fun it doesn't quite make up for the loss of Avatar's cinematic potential. Avatar could have been a house hold name today were it made as compitently as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.
M.Night Shamalan should have never gotten to direct this. They could have just looked at the Lady in the water movie and said no. Because holy shit that was bad
Here's to hoping the netflix one is good.
Too many bad choices, especially squeezing it all into one movie.
Is the Last Airbender not a household name already? I don't know very many people who can't recognize the opening lines of the show, or the concept of bending it created.
I don’t think Nickelodeon helped the IP. I recently bought the official dvd collection and the quality & aspect ratio is terrible!!
I remember people walking out of the theater after hearing "ong" for the first time. This one woman said "I Didn't pay to watch the last ARE Bender" so many people complained that the theater owner gave out coupons like mad
my family and I walked out too lol
Loooooool. My belly fat is quaking 🤣🤣🤣🤣
We watched til the end. The entire theatre I was sitting in booed at the end. It was something.
7:17
Long ago the four nations lived in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation didn't attack.
7:22 is that girl will become Azula...?
:D I loved how the Hair Culture was reflected in the characters but also reflected the characters them selves.
Kataras Hair was balanced on both sides with loops that look like water bending but when she had her hair down it turns into a fluid stream with waves.
Sokkas hair is in a knot which shows pride and stance in his tribe as the leaders son and a warrior but is also sharp and militaristic.
Tophs is solid, it looks heavy, it looks strong and literally like a rock. it doesn't move around like Kataras loops... it remains still at all times.
Aang 's hair... well it is unseen :d like his culture ... special, and not there but when he is hidden ant though as dead he becomes like everyone else.
and Zuko.... Fire nation as a nation has the greatest importance on hair as it represents ones status. ...
Really interesting point!
Aang has no hair, like air, it's not visible. And Zuko's sustained long hair, then cut, then regrown is like fire that can be snuffed/put out or can grow (whereas the others' hair lengths, apart from Aang's, seem to stay the same) - his season 4 hair kinda looks like a black fire symbol.
yo why is this makes so much sense XD
Also Zuko's hairstyle changes throughout the series. Azula and Ozai always have perfect haircut, on the other side in flashback some of Zuko's hairs out of place, and when he becomes new firelord he gets his ponytail back but his hairstyles is still , different from his family.
M. Night Shyamalan must’ve got his Avatar information from a “surprisingly knowledgeable” merchant of cabbage. Also, I heard he butchered Love Amongst the Dragons last year.
Steven Rathburn iirc, cabbage man didn't appear until the second season.
Nah man, he's in Omashu, which is Book 1.
Yet the “bending” in the play was still better than what was put in the live action film.
mad lad
NOT MY CABBAGE
That deep sigh in the beginning made me burst out in laughter because thats how everyone felt about this movie XD
At first I was like, "HOW CAN YOU HATE THE LAST AIRBENDER??!"
Continues watching: "Oh, the live action movie... Okay, carry on"
“The monks named me UnG”
“Sukkah”
“Sowkah”
“Zako”
“Uvatar”
This movie is to accurate for me
you missed ''guitaraa''
And Uncle Eeroh
Boomerung?
Agni key
Sohka, the veggies and straight talk fellow
Original series: Zuko is almost bald, he wears a ponytail, he has a burn that his father caused him and is white-skinned. And Sokka and Katara have dark hair, are slightly dark-skinned. Got it?
Producer: Yeah *Zuko is slightly dark-skinned with dark hair and Sokka and Katara are white-skinned*
OS: You know? Do what you want. I QUIT
No one in the entirety of ATLA is “white”
its actually important, water tribe generally have darker skin. its one of water tribe traits
Cassandra M White skin. SKIN.
Cassandra M
Actually, the Earth Kingdom is huge and was shown to have been a land of several kinds of different cultures that was conquered by one man and his huge army. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure there are white, black and others in the Earth Kingdom.
I mostly hate that they made Zukos scar not that visible I mean in the show its kinda hard to miss it. Well characters are fine but the animation is bu**sh**
I like your edits to the original scenes. Made all the difference to me
Didn't hide the elephant in the room that is bad acting.
Well, If fire benders have to be near a fire to bend it the fields are not even, they are in clear disadvantage.
I mean, air is everywhere, earth is everywhere, and Hama shows Katara that an skilled waterbender can condensate the water of the air. It's hard to find a "natural" source of fire, let alone kept it burning during a fight.
25:45 this guy never used a broom in his life
HAHAHAHAHA
I would pin this if I could bahahaha
LMaO
And that's another one on the list😅
Dude. Your re-edits were ASTRONOMICALLY better! You're awesome, great video
Hal da Costa I wonder if anyone on the internet actually bothered to attempt a recut of the whole movie - by editing the scenes like we just saw, replacing some of the bending effects with newer ones that hopefully look more on par with the show’s styles, some deleted scenes placed back in that help with pacing, a more accurate music score, etc.
Hal da Costa in addition, if I had the time and skills, I would attempt to re-edit the scene with the 6 guys throwing that puny small-ass rock and replace it with something more flashy and swift, in order to match a more urgent and fast-paced tone.
Right? They're so simple but they improve things so immensely! The material is still crap but the simple edits can do so much just thru rearranged juxtaposition
Adding Katara's actor was the niece of a producer, so they basically were like "hey we'll cut your budget unless you add my kids!"
I knew Shamwow was a greedy snake
prolet kult The producer and Daniel Radcliffe aren't related despite sharing the same name so...
@@tljoshh I've heard that rumor about a relative on staff so many times about the hp movies. Last time it was a producer and Alan Rickman, and before that it was the first Dumbledore and Rickman were long lost brothers. The internet is a funny place.
Valorous Owl the fact is that Radcliffe’s agent is his parents but people seem to confuse that with other people for some reason
Valorous Owl Didnt one of the actors get better and voiced a character in legend of korra.
Zuko's scar was such a big part of his design it inspired the designer of My Hero Academia make a character with a scar like Zuko's. To mess that up is to mess up the whole character's design.
Really?! What character?!
@@AngelRodriguez-ml9nh Shoto todoroki
21:17 I'm pretty sure this didn't happen in the Series, but did film-Zuko really just say he'll BURN DOWN a city completely made out of ICE?
more like melt
I first watched this film when I was 10 and I highly anticipated it. Up until then I had never truly thought a film was terrible... This was the first film that I finished and thought was absolute trash. This film made me a critic lol.
I remember going to see it when I was 16 and it just reminded me never to go see live action adaptations of my favorite animated shows ever again. I thought Dragonball Evolution was an unlucky circumstance then I saw The Last Airbender and well... I haven't watched Netflix's Death Note nor have I seen the live action Ghost in the Shell. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me and all that, you know?
You should try the two part japanese live action death note. That is probably the perfect example of doing an adaptation right I've ever seen.@@LordOfDarkness8296
@@beanstheclown I have actually. And I agree. It certainly was a perfect example of doing an adaptation. Too bad no one is taking notes.
I was around 10 or 11, and Avatar was a series both me and my father really enjoyed. We went to see the movie, and I remember walking out of that theatre with obvious disdain; okay, to be frank I will never hate another movie more than this one. But my father actually likes the movie, and that astounds me.
@@LordOfDarkness8296 GOTS is my favorite anime movie, and is up there contending with some of my favorite anime series too. But I actually liked the live action film. Maybe it's because I'm a huge Scarlett Johansson fan. It really wasn't that bad though. It mostly got hate because of the whitewashing. It's probably the best adaption I've seen, but that's not saying very much because adaptations are generally awful.
Actually, relegating the firebenders to using fire that is already burning doesn't level the playing field, it makes it unbalanced. The reason firebenders can conjure fire our of thin air is because fire isn't naturally burning all around us like earth, water, and air.
Thinking about it, that aspect of the movie's lore makes it much less likely the Fire Nation would stand a chance at conquering the world since all the Water Tribe needs to do is drench the FN's fire sources and have capable fighters to resist the FN's tech with.
One small thing: the top knot hairstyle and the clothing of the fire nation is largely based on ancient China not Japan. I read somewhere the creators didn't want to pin the big bad nation on japan, so they expanded it to include more Chinese influence. I think that kind of ambiguity/mix& match is better especially when it comes to the villains.