@@_mdgamer4289 The lion turtles bend energy, and they gave/formed the bending elements for the original benders (sky bisons, dragons, etc) with their energy bending. Since all of the bending elements utilize energy (or Chi), it does make sense that they were able to give them bending abilities.
Nah screw the Boulder, me and all my homies are gonna get together and do a dance routine to lethargically move a rock towards him, that's REAL Earthbending! -M Night, apparently.
I always thought it was, after many rewatches, the bender crowd was slowly moving the rock and the extra guy providing the force to launch the rock lol
Yeah the magic system seems very unbalanced. Aang does lots of dancemoves which either; a) blast a bitch in 0,1 seconds or b) take forever and makes something go "poof".
Another issue is that you can’t gather what bending moves do what from the movie very well. In the show, you stomp your foot and something happens with the ground. Aang spins his staff in a circle and a circular funnel of air is made. Zuko punches at someone and fire goes at that person. You can guess what will happen from each movement for bending moves. Meanwhile in the movie, 10 dudes wave their hands around and a wall moves up nearby? What, is doing tai chi just signialing to the universe you want to move stuff, and what, where, and how it moves is all mental? That just doesn’t seem as good, and doesn’t make for as interesting combat.
Also, firebenders really drew the short straw here. In the show, they can generate fire by using their chi, so firebending doesn't need to use a pre-existing source of its element like the other three styles do. But in the film, they need to use torches or other existing sources of fire. They're at war with people who can control earth, water and air. So the ruthless expansionists who are currently fighting the rest of the world and winning are at a severe disadvantage compared to all their enemies. And they're somehow still winning.
Timeliness... If you're going to take 5 seconds to manipulate water, just grab a bow and take a shot or two. It'll be faster and more efficient. Scenes where basic combat principles don't apply grind my gears...
On that note, I love how in the legend of Korra nobody seems to have invented guns. Sure, the police can break them, if they get close enough? But that is only one group of highly trained benders...
@@ferinzz To be fair, a bender who is swift with their maneuvers is going to be much better than a bow. But these movie benders would lose against an unarmed foe...
@@migueeeelet I haven't watched the cartoon, but surely in theory, having Bending and a back-up weapon would be better than just Bending by itself. Right?
For a movie with probably hundreds of TH-cam essays about why it sucks, this carves out some good insights I haven't heard elsewhere- Like the problem with the Earth Bender scene being that it's a oner with bad timing that the effects team had no way to edit around. Great point!
My favorite fan theory (that I will forever accept as canon) is that this movie isn't an adaptation of the show, it's an adaptation of the episode "The Ember Island Players". I mean look at the bending and tell me this isn't put on by some dramatic theater production with questionable sources.
"Let's pretend that I meant them." You ALWAYS get credit for puns, unintentional or otherwise. Just you know... not all of that credit is good. Some people hate puns XD
One of the reasons that The Force [tm] works without an effort to weight ratio, narratively, is that before we we see it happen, Yoda explains that's the way the force works; that size (and thus mass) doesn't matter. We get a narrative establishment of that 'reality' of The Force by a figure who, at that point, we have established as the only living 'master' of the ways of The Force.
And yet, even Master Yoda expends effort to lift the ship. He concentrates, and the ship moves with mass and momentum. Those are what makes the force seem like "real" magic and not short-circuit the film.
Also, in most of the films, Force users are rare, the ones we spend the most time with are still in training and you get the impression that their mentors are only showing us glimpses of what the Force is capable of. It's rare, it's vague, it gives off the sense that we're only seeing a fraction of what it can do. So you can forgive a lack of defined limits regarding the power of the Force and its application. ...You couldn't forgive not clarifying the rules if Force sensitivity was about as common as having type A blood, which is pretty much the case in this world. Not everyone can bend, but bending is common enough that in the show, it's used for everything from public transport to mail delivery. When the setting's combat magic is so common that it's part of the infrastructure, you need to start establishing some ground rules. And the show does have a clear cause to effect ratio. But the film...
Katara's fireball-blocking dance is so elegant and cool... or, at least, it would be if it was the movie's way of summoning Octopus Form instead of a puddle splash. Excellent vid!
The kid playing Aang wasn't exactly the ghost of Olivier, but you can see why M. Night cast him when you see him on that battle run. Those moves aren't easy for anyone to pull off, much less a little kid.
As far as i know the kid was already pretty trained in martial arts (I think was training very ambitiously and shaved his head for that) and his friends were saying "hey, you really look like Aang from ATLA" so that's why he auditioned for the role.
@@appelofdoom8211 The really crazy part is that he's actually pretty chill/more Aang like in the interviews etc. Really makes me wonder how much of it was Shamylan's bad directing.
Zachary H. Stagefright might also be a factor, getting interviewed is a lot different from playing a pivotal part of a scene after all. Though yeah the directing probably isn’t helping him.
@@tf7602 My understanding is that they sought out a highly skilled martial artist, not an actor. So the kid was a great martial artist but didn't have any training in acting until the movie. Can't really fault a non-actor for not being an actor, in my opinion.
I've never seen ATLA: animated or Live action. I am here to pretend to know what you're saying and agree blindly, I love the way you break the combat scenes down.
The thing that really stands out to me in the fight scenes here is this; all of the movie benders would be shot dead by a halfway competent archer at those ranges before they could summon their element to attack or even defend themselves. Although as you pretty much pointed out, most of the moves are so slow that you could run at them and stick them with a sword or a spear and still win nine times out of ten.
It feels like instead of the bender moving the element with them, M has them performing quick rituals to cast a spell, which feels like him injecting Euro style magic into an Asian-inspired series.
Yes! The flow of each of the fighting styles translates to how the element itself would move (mostly), thus the element should move with the performer, rather than the movement be a spell.
Well, Asian magic folklore also has ritual movement spells made of combining stances, like the ones inspired by the Mudras or hand seals, so it's not necessarily an euro influence problem. But in any Xianxia story I've read where they use hand seals they practice to do them as fast as possible, supernaturally fast, so they work as martial techniques.
@@daalelli Yes, this! Bending was originally presented as an elemental extension to the martial moves being performed - it is as swift and bursty as the attacks and blocks being done, and will attack or block in the same paths the movements travel. Meanwhile, the movie... even in the part Jill praises, Ang does a horizontal spinny motion over his head causing water icicles to fly overhead and back down (he did horizontal, his ice went vertical), followed up with a straight push outward which sends a guy flying upwards. Even when the timing matches up, the directions often didn't. It was so frustrating and disjointed.
Great episode as ever. I really appreciated the in-depth look at the problems of choreographical display in particular when citing the editing issues alongside them. That group of Earth benders moving a pebble is still hilarious!
The Katara vs Zuko thing makes sense if each waterbending action draws deeper on Katara’s magical resources and thereby takes more effort than the last. I would love a setting with a magic system where that’s one of the rules, and where the consequences can include getting overwhelmed in exactly the way this scene shows. But I’m sure the rest of the movie does not follow this rule. Hell, I might just write that into the magic system I’m working on. Greater magical skill allows greater physical endurance, as a mechanism for showing character growth. If this movie does anything well, aside from the sporadic moments of good combat you’ve pointed out, it’s suggest endless variations on the rules of bending that will spawn their own internally consistent universes.
This is a very good point. A moment like that could be made to work, if the principles were established appropriately so the audience could understand what was happening. It's just that in the movie, that's not established at all.
There's a pretty fun arc in Magi: Kingdom of Magic where the character who is a Magi goes through essentially a _gym class_ at _magic school._ He was already naturally able to call upon magic from outside his body due to being a Magi, but after the intense physical course he (and the rest of his class) are able to perform really well using their internal magic (what most wizards use). The explanation goes that their "magical potential held itself back to protect their body from the strain." Fit wizards is just a fun idea to play with. "All my spellbooks have lead hardcovers." "My bookstand is 7ft tall and has a chin-up bar." "I hold a book in each hand and read while doing squats." "This cane isn't for walking. It's for when I'm too tired to cast, but not too tired to thump a fool. Then it's for walking."
See that would work if she knew this and took it into account, what we instead see is her clearly seeing the two bolts of fire coming for her, doing something rather underwhelming to block one, and then somehow being surprised when the other one also strikes her? Like holy hell, dive away or something.
Your perspective is such a breath of fresh air as opposed to what I am used to in movie fight analysis on youtube. The stage combat aspect is something I didn't fully realize until I found you on here by accident. Really nice stuff you're making, here
I actually think Aang was forming a shield of air in that scene, and that the dudes bounced off it. He holds that arm position as the wind swirls around him and they run into it. Can't fault anything else you said though and I love this channel 🙂
that's what i thought so too but it also looks like the fire nation army had time to stop and change strategy but still decided to bump into the air wall. so... meh????
Except the soldiers ran at it after it formed...... The reason he most likely held his stance was because the actor knew he wasn't supposed to drop it until after the guards were pulled back, and since they took longer to get to him than planned, he had to hold it for longer than really useful
@@ithalathegayguy I think a case could be made that Firebender soldiers are both ignorant of Airbender tactics (I don't know what that is) and arrogant (I can push past whatever it is) due to their successes.
Finally someone makes the distinction between bad cgi and bad choreography! I've been thinking this for a while because when you actually pull still frames a lot of the VFX look really photorealistic, it's only when you play the scenes when you realize that the integration with the characters is what makes it so laughable, great video and I'm glad someone actually said it!
5:03 Although I agree with everything else that's being said here I don't think Avatar has a soft magic system, it's more of a medium magic system (except for Energy bending in the finale and Legend of Korra) Yes its not defined exactly how much a bender can bend or how the proportion to skill and power however it does have rules, only earth benders can bend earth, only water benders can bend water only the avatar can bend all as well as water benders being stronger at night etc and it never breaks these rules, and when it has things like metal bending and vine bending these are natural extensions of these bending principles, especially when compared to the other soft magic systems Avatar is much harder and has more rules and limitations. If you're interested in hard/soft magic systems as well as Avatars magic system go check out Hello Future Me's video on them
Yeah, the fact that Tim (Hello Future Me) got people to start using "hard magic system" and "soft magic system" as legitimate technical terms is the largest beef I have with him, because he gets it almost entirely wrong and then has persuaded the rest of the internet to get it wrong, too. The difference is honestly pretty simple: do you explain your magic system sufficiently that readers can use that logic to understand how it solves problems that arise due to the plot? That's it. Even the softest of soft magic systems, Tolkien's Middle Earth, has rules. It's just that Tolkien didn't deign to share them with us because explaining the magic system wasn't important to what he was trying to convey. Was Gandalf able to stir hearts and do cool fireworks because he held Narya? Or was that because he was good at his job? We don't know, because only once was he forced to use it within Frodo's sight. In A:TLA, the rules are explained in terms of Aang's coming-of-age story and actualization as the Avatar: he has to travel the world and master the four elements. That's the hard magic system: who is the Avatar. There's also other stuff: a solar eclipse kills firebending; a fiery comet enhances it. We're told how this works because it's important to the plot: the rebels fight back on the day of the eclipse; Ozai plans to leverage the enhanced power to lay waste to the Earth Kingdom. That's hard magic. The push-and-pull of the Moon is what powers waterbending, so kidnapping Tui was a goal of Zhao's that the good guys had to intervene against. That's hard magic. It's a facet of the magic system that solves a problem presented by the plot. Other things are soft magic. Why does Katara have healing powers? :shrug: How was Aang chosen to be the Avatar? :shrug: What moves are actually required to perform bending? :shrug: The answers to these questions don't solve any problems posed by the plot, so we aren't given those answers. (At least, not during A:TLA.) For all we know, bending is a purely mental activity that happens to be facilitated by fancy martial arts. That would explain a lot, but it wouldn't explain anything that _needed_ explaining. Look up "Sanderson's First Law" for the original rundown.
@@Duiker36 It does seem that some movement is required for bending, though, since they often prevent bending by restraining someone's movement. When they try to rescue Bumi and it turns out he could bend the whole time, his explanation is that they didn't restrain his head, so he moves that to do the bending. This implies that if he couldn't move his head, he couldn't earthbend. Also when Aang was imprisoned by Zhao, he couldn't just will a cyclone into existence; he needs to move his arms to do that. The only possible exceptions to this are when Aang is in the Avatar State, and seems to be able to cause massive effects with little or no movement at all. But that has to do with reincarnation spirit magic, the "softest" magic in the show. As for regular bending, I'd say part of the "hard" magic system is that bending requires some physical movement of some kind in order to work.
Bending works by the flow of energy through the body, the movements help manage that movement. That is why Iroh talks about redirecting to the stomach and then out again for lightning redirection. It's also why Energy Bending works. Certain Elements use certain paths in the body. By blocking those paths you block the persons ability to use that form of bending. It's also why Amon doesn't block Korra's ability to air bend, he has never dealt with an air bender he doesn't know what paths they use, he blocks the other paths but leaves that one open. Waterbending healing probably has more to do with eastern mysticism around water than thinking about it as H2O.
@@Duiker36 Katara having healing powers does actually have some logic to it: remember, the human body is mostly water. Water + magic control over water + injury = healing kind of makes sense. ...The fact that she can apparently use her powers to heal mental trauma as well (and only does so once, when there are plenty of other occasions where that would have been incredibly useful), though...that is pure *shrug.*
Jill, have you ever considered analyzing a character throughout their film-fighting tenure? The first example that comes to mind is Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. He goes from an immortal berserker to a man who can barely draw his primary weapon.
Is bending really a soft maic system though? We know it has set rules and effects. A few rule examples are: Waterbending draws power from the moon - Thus waterbending is stronger at night. Power in firebending comes from the breath, not the muscles - Thus Aang's theory that the high altitude might be effecting Zuko's firebending. The key to earthbending is your stance - Thus in order to move a rock, you need to me an imovable object. We also know alot about the phylosophies behind the bending styles and how they determin how the bender behaves. In firebending, a firebender has to have a strong enough will to control the fire or it will overpower them and go out of control. Like a river, water bending deals with the flow of energy. This is why waterbending often employs alot of counter attacks. Earth is a stuborn element and so requires alot of energy to bend. This is why Boomie says that in order to master earth bending you need to listen and wait for the right time to strike. Air... moves alot... I guess.
Man, I love you. You're so spot on and so clever and so funny and, well... every time I watch you, I realize WHY I wasn't impressed with a film, instead of just thinking "Well, that wasn't that good, was it?" So thank you, thank you, thank you for being such a good teacher. And making it fun, too!
It is amazing to hear somebody watch something that terrible and say, "It wasn't all bad." I strongly suspect Jill has some teaching experience, working with beginners.
I never realized how beautiful that one fight scene is. Someone once commented that the reason it's interesting to watch Elsa from Frozen use her powers is because you feel like she's dancing with power instead of just moving and things going "poof". I think combat magic needs to be like that; like a dance of energy and light rather than what we usually get.
Uhhhh. I mean. Tbf aang is a much better bender at this point in the show. Never watched the movie but it seems she loses in the same places she lost in the show, just in different ways. So I'm not seeing your sexism claim.
Although she was way more proficient in the series than she was in the movie, she was still pretty whiny. That was her whole point, acting like a mother to the Gaang the way she thought a mother should act. While still being a young teen
@@johnathanera5863 Everything she actually does in the show is either cut out entirely, given to the men around her (usually Aang) or made much less impressive in the film. For example, they include the story beat where the Gaang inspires earthbending prisoners to fight back, but it's Aang who rekindles their spirits in the film, not Katara. This video doesn't really show it, because it's not the focus, but Katara is undercut and sidelined to an unforgivable degree.
@@Talisguy Katara and Annabeth Chase have that in common. (Alexadria Daddario's character was built up as strong at Camp,then on the Quest she's baggage.)
This is the smallest chanel that's popped up on my feed and I clicked on... Awesome video I'm gonna follow 😁 Holy shit those guys were lifting the wall? My life is a lie 😂
It's always weird to me that they messed up the bending because it's really good in the show. I know it won't always translate well, but at least for move sets they could have ripped it straight out of the show.
@Jermare They wanted to show and establish the kung fu behind it all. However, it appeared as if the scene pre-planning kept the kung fu as an afterthought to improvise into the scenes. So what we're left with is a bunch of arbitrary moves, by people with only the vaguest idea of how it might be linked through effects editing. Wouldn't be surprised if the crew with the clearest comprehension of the scenes were the people without any martial art knowledge.
@@charlescourtwright2229 one of the issue was the script. they took something that was an entire season to make and trim it down to 2hours or less. That a lot of plot and event that was zip along. the really needed to rewrite that script so the action and event flow better. they also needed a montage
@@Marveryn The script is basically little moments from the show (earth bender prison, water bending scroll kiyoshi statue, blue spirit, northern air temple) one after the other without a through line for a plot. If they had not tried to put in so many 'hey you recognize this moment from the show?' things, it might have been different. Keep the basics (aang needs to learn water bending, they go to the north pole for teachers) and ditch the scenes that don't really add anything. And then you can see if you can put in little call backs to specific episodes etc. But they went the wrong way round here, I think. Keep this little scene and that moment and those call backs, and then instead of a story, you have a series of loose unconnected scenes that don't do character development or plot advancement.
3:15 Are you sure about that...? That the five guys that are dancing put up the wall, while only that one guy shoot the rock? Because to me, it looks like they controlled the rock to flow over there into position of the last guy, who then takes control as he hurls it towards the enemies. I mean, either way, it's horrendous. Because we either have a moment where the five guys make their motion AFTER the wall has already been completed and done its job OR we have a moment where five guys hover a small rock into place for one guy to then essentially throw it. Whichever version is correct, this is just awful. I also love this moment: 2:34 It's insane how slowly the fire crawls towards Katara, just so she has time to do her water bending moves. She could just as well have stepped to the side and avoided it. Heck, with the time she had, she wouldn't even have had to rush it :-p What really makes this entire thing hurt is: The way this movie was filmed, especially the action, all these huge, long one-shots... that was difficult to set up! Not just the choreography, but imagine how much efford it takes to put together camera movement, whire work, actors, all the timing... This stuff isn't being made by lazy people. You see that there was EFFORD there, they TRIED to make it something good. Which is why it hurts that it probably would have looked better if they did the usual hollywood-fast-cut-action, where you can barely make out any details... but at least it feels fast.
Heck yeah, catch this stuff at launch, or like a few minutes after launch. Always looking forward to seeing what you think about stuff in movies or things like this!
I never would've noticed the difference in movement vs. effect without it being pointed out in movies like this or animations in games. I've been learning a lot lately about the way to make animation and sfx look good and I just remembered this movie being pretty terrible but not how inconsistent the fighting was. Crazy how close they are to getting it right sometimes
I think the flaw in the movie magic system is that it treats bending like casting spells, instead of as it's own extension of the Bender's body, movement, and energy the way the tv show does. A spell/sigil to do something super complicated might be very simple and vice versa because
Everything just feels so weak and ineffectual in the movie. The show sometimes suffers this issue as well, especially early on, where Aang gets hit by some fire and nothing really happens but he falls over. Obviously we're not going to set the child on fire, so instead fire bending does some...like...chi damage, or something.
Just found this channel. Love fighting, love magic, love her Irish accent. Instant subscriber. Also don't flame me if it isn't Irish but let me know what it is xD
Re the mistimed air blast around Aang (9:45), I read that more as forming an air shield around himself - not just to stop the dudes that are knocked back, but also deflect any fire that other dudes might throw at him. See how the swirling starts around him and then they run into it and are knocked back? He's not pushing them directly, he's forming a whirlwind that will knock *anything* away from him, which then does its job when they reach it.
The choreograph of katara in the fight was also really weird. The movement should be influenced by the flowyness of water (I guess?) and she's bending water so, the water should bend the way she moves. There she's making Sailor Moon transformation sequence with unnecessary movements while all she does is simple "blocking the fire with some water"?
I watcha a lotta tokusatsu, annd they tend to get around this problem by having some amount of stylization. It doesn't matter if that one move took forever, if you cut it into it's own closeup shot with the music swelling and the character yelling impassioned commands - by playing it more realistic it stops making sense.
Everybody in tokusatsu does that too, so it's very consistent. the only people who don't do that are either incompetent or are very deadly enemies that will be a major challenge to overcome if not being the outright final villain of an arc.
I remember watching The Last Airbender and loving it. Told my better half how amazing it was, he watched it, love it too. I had no idea why you went on about how bad it was. THEN I remembered I had watched the animated movie. I had no idea there was an actual movie movie. With your commentary fresh in my mind, I won't bother with the action movie and just rejoice with the cartoon again.
Wait, the six dancing fools erected the wall of stone? I NEVER figured that out until now. Bloody hell, that's terrible editing. Oh wait, it's terrible directing because it's all ONE SHOT. Also, why does it take a whole Stomp the Yard troupe? In the show, a single person could do that.
Thank you! Couldn’t figure out what seemed so aggravating about that movie. Something drove me crazy about the way things worked/didn’t work and I couldn’t figure what it was. Again, Jill, wonderful video, again.
The one explanation that I found in most of the bending problem is the connexion to the element and the stress. Ex for Katara against Zuko, even if she’s a genius in water bending, she does not know how to fight and she’s in stress, and when your in stress you are bound to regress to what you really know. The 5 movements bending is what she’s ground to, she has no time to think and she needs to connect to her element, the one mouvement needs focus and she has loose it because of stress. It’s why Zuko is able to create 2 fire balls, because he is train to fight he know how to react.
This is the first video I've seen on this subject, and I've seen many, where someone actually noticed/cared that the rock was the other guy's. Top notch!
I recently found out M. Night wanted to make a more faithful or "good" adaptation but the higher-ups at Paramount were completely apathetic to the production and undermined him at every turn. As it turns out, Katara's casting of a white actress was an act of complete nepotism because her father was a rich ceo that someone at Paramount owed a favor to, explaining the casting inconsistency of white and POC. By the middle of production, M. Night just gave up and surrendered to the slog. Nowadays, people hold the movie over Paramount's heads and never let them forget what they've done.
To be honest, I let... well... EVERYTHING about the Combat in the movie slide. There was so much more that I thought was more worthy of criticism and discussion, so I let the combat off the hook when it came to actually criticizing the movie. The most I ever did was go "The combat was badly done." and left it at that. I wasn't that I was excusing the combat, or that I was quietly promoting it, I just thought it wasn't worth analyzing so that it could be criticized in depth. So I completely forgot about that Water and Air bending scene that upon looking at it again, WAS done extremely well. Glad this video did decide to critique the combat.
"For a multiplier"... Such a dad joke... I love it! Even more because I actually believe it wasn't intentional! It's just the kind of serendipitous thing that happens when you get commentary by an actual nerd. 😁 Keep it up Jill!
CONTROVERSIAL OPINION: I actual quite liked the idea of bending being very slowed down for the film. The way Bending worked in the show is very overpower, bending attacks are very power, as fast if not faster than physical ones and have no downside. That's fine in a cartoon, but in live action I think it would bee to much. Slowing down bending, but having it still be powerful is a great idea! It would mean benders can't just use bending to win every battle, but have to plan out moves, fights against non-benders have tension because the solder could get a lucky hit while a bender was charging an attack and it would make fights epic fights with master benders destroying everyone feel earned cause we know they're show skill not just power. I always liked the idea of slowed down bending BUT for so reason I never liked the execution. THIS VIDEO helped my finally understand why i didn't like it. It was the inconsistence, sometimes it was slow sometimes, fast something's, sometimes before the action often after. Great video Thanks
One of the changes to the source material I hated (and that nobody else mentions for some reason) is that in the movie, almost no firebenders can create fire (Iroh can and it's considered a big deal). It's bad on a visual level because it makes all the firebending look clumsy and weird instead of powerful and aggressive, but it's also bad on a deeper level because in the show, the fire comes from the characters' own internal energy and drive. It tells you something about these characters, their culture and what they value. It stands out to me because a lot of what's bad about this movie can be explained by the people involved not caring (the studio, the writers, the director) or by them being incompetent (the child actors, Shyamalan at action scenes...), but this seems like a very deliberate change. It baffles me because I now have to assume somebody put some thought into this even though they moved the earthbender prison camp from an offshore metal shipyard to a quarry.
This wasn't the video that I first saw of yours (it was the Turner vs Sparrow video, so good it made me immediately subscribe) but I wish this was the first I've watched because your free flowing puns are a delight 👌
The consistency of moves and cause and effect makes a really good case for how live-action (with CGI) is not always inherently superior to animation or full CGI. Yes, those issues could have been solved with better directing or more takes or more cuts which in turn allow for more takes, but that's still an additional challenge imposed by the medium. In a setting like AtLa, where the perfect harmony between the movement of bending and the movement of the bent element are such a huge point, it is extremely advantageous to go with full animation that allows for perfect synchrony between bending and element - because you're drawing both of them - which is part of what made the show such a pleasure to watch.
Specifically Katara keeping hit by the second fire ball, and the effort to get the water up to defend: Where was she in relation to the land bridge and water? With the first fire ball, she was near the bridge with water on two sides. By the time she's facing the double attack, how far back from the water is she? That doesn't excuse the scene, or the fact that she completely turned away from Zuko to watch the fire blast, but it does seem to fit the effort needed aspect. The "freezing Zuko" scene has the same set up. Except this time there are multiple sources of water around her. Again, doesn't excuse the inconsistencies, but it's something that I've thought of every time I watch the show and try to figure out how everything works.
It seems super obvious now you've mentioned it, but I didn't know the different bending styles had different martial arts behind them. Just another reason the cartoon series was one of the best ever made! 🥰
I love this video but I just wanted to say you give out strong middle school science teacher vibes. It's just the combo of the hair and the glasses and the outfit, I love it.
I haven't seen the movie, but from the fighting clips I've seen, I think the most frustrating part is definitely the fact that the effort isn't proportional to the effect. Except I'm not talking about the 5 moves versus 1, but rather fast, sharp movements = slow, small effect. Like in that one clip where Katara is doing all these moves and you'd expect multiple streams of water, shooting out from everywhere but instead it's just one random ball of water floating calmly through the air, which would make more sense if she was bending slowly and deliberately. When the movements don't carry over into effects, it just feels futile and you just feel the secondhand frustration.
i remember someone pointing out that during the prison break scene that a lot of the actors were just standing till it became their turn to do a sequence its understandable that they might not be able to have *everyone* do something in a fight scene where *everyone* is supposed to be fighting but it just looks super off that while they're escaping theres a bunch of guards just standing still
9:57 I feel they could have had hidden cuts in this scene. there are 3 moments where the screen is only showing dust or a rock wall. 10:06 entirely dust 10:09 rock wall 10:10 nothing but dust
Charming and balanced commentary, spiced with wit (albeit occasionally unintentional), and with a voice and dialect (being from the USA, I’m the one with the accent) that I would be happy to listen to reading a phone book... Bravo!
THE WATERBENDING MOVES THEMSELVES, OH MY GOD! The BASIS of waterbending means you GUIDE the water, making a path of least resistance for it. You can´t make a circle with your hands and make the water go up! Hand movement= Element movement. The ONE thing ALL elements have in common is the elements follow the benders! THAT'S WHY THEY'RE CALLED BENDERS! Even earthbenders, who basically have to drag their element into moving by being more stubborn than the earth itself, follow this rule! GOD! Earthbenders and airbenders, waterbenders and firebenders, they're "opposed" and yet they still follow that one rule! Agh! YOU HAD ONE JOB, PEOPLE! (okay, now I can go back to ignoring this movie exists)
I did like how in the movie the fire benders manipulate existing fire, as the other benders do with their element, rather than creating it out of nothing. It always bothered me in the series as fire needs fuel. This is the only good thing i've said about the film.
While it does “even” things up in the movie, I think fire’s independence was sort of the point in the show, to help explain why firebenders and the fire nation are able to conquer the other nations: they can make their element when the other three can’t.
@@Ryvieous i know the in universe explanation but chi is energy and i'm happy to believe the heat is transformed chi but fire needs fuel, oxygen and heat. Chi or no Chi there is no fuel.
I really loved the rules behind the magic in Eragon, where you can use magic to do almost anything... Anything that you can actually do physically, that is. It's such a genius concept, and creates a really unqiue premise for the dangers of magic. _(Because yes, sometimes the idea of using magic and then being drawn to some dark side of all things as a the main issue... is frequently overused. Not that it can't be enjoyable or interesting. We just see it a lot. So it's very cool to see something unique.)_ So say you're going to climb a mountain to get away from baddies. You can use magic to do it instantly. But if you are physically unable to scale that mountain of your own power magic aside, using magic to do it will take more energy than you have or are capable of expending. Which can at best will severely exhaust you, and at worst will actually kill you. _(And after using magic to that end, you feel like you just did it physically.)_ So using magic is very much a constant study and knowledge of one's own ability and weighing what is the more viable option. Another scenario, you're fighting someone in hand to hand combat. You can either choose to physically engage and fight normally, or use magic to whatever end you seek. Be it disarming, injuring, killing, et cetera, to make that happen instantaneous. But if you misjudge the energy it will take you to kill them, be it because you overestimated your own abilities or underestimated theirs... You suffer whatever consequence that would bring, like the mountain. Will it just exhaust you to do so? Or will it actually be too much and take your life? I loved the Eragon novels, by Paolini. They really made me think and engrossed me. The movie however? A travesty of the highest order. I watched half of it and then proceeded to attempt to drink enough to black out heavily enough to perhaps erase my previous sober memory of the movie. It didn't work unfortunately.
Taking a closer look at Katara's blocks in that fight with Zuko (well, closer than I've taken before) specifically in that double fireball but, it looks less like martial arts and more like... how I imagine you'd cast a high-level single-action (as in casting time, not as in this context's action) spell in a D&D type setting. Like, she's not lifting water to block a blast of fire, she's summoning a Devil of challenge rating 6 or lower.
Haven't seen the movie, but from the scenes you've shown it is worth pointing out that the benders also don't combine the martial arts with the bending. It is as if you see a scene of fencers who can only use their swords if they stand still instead of lunging forward, dashing back, stabbing from an unexpected angle or drive the opponent to the edge of the cliff. God I love the fight scenes of the original series, especially Aang vs king Bumi. The uncatchable wind versus the unyielding mountain and the battle is not even fought on the battlefield but rather in the memory of a hundred and twelve year old kid. How often do you get to write a sentence a sentence like that?
I was really hurt by this film...but not as an Avatar-fan, but a Shyamalan-fan. He became my favourite director in early 2009 and then I learned what his next project would be and binged the show as preperation absolutely loving it. And the trailers looked great. The bending looks snappy, the sets and effects...wow....but the film was....well...we know what it was I don't hate it as much as everyone else, I think there are a few things in there that show me the Shyamalan I love, there are some bad things that definitely have his sensibilities, but others are weird even for him. I read a few times that Paramount and Nickelodeon shortned this movie down 30 minutes to convert it to 3D and I totally believe that. The weird opening crawl, all the voice overs over forced montages...I genuinely believe Shyamalan made, maybe not the masterpiece I expected, but a good film, because so many of the bafflingly bad scenes feel like rushed reshoots (that dialogue scene where the camera is almost in their nostrils...apparently the sets were already broken down, so they just rebuilt a tiiinyyy portion, thus the close ups). Also, apparently a lot of VFX got thrown out as well to make the conversion cheaper. That's why when they practice, it's just movements with no effects. There is this one scene, where Katara's voice over says that Aang struggles with waterbending but she is doing well, yet both movements do nothing. I am convinced that there was supposed to be a bad bubble effect for Aang and a fluent one for Katara that got cut. Regarding the weird timing...my feeling is that with the longer moves, they wanted a Naruto effect, where the Ninja's are performing the gestures and THEN the effect happens, but that show is so much faster paced in that. And all my theories don't excuse the prison fight. Like, yes, maybe there were more earthy things happening when the group of inmates perform their weird dance, but even if so, as you said, the timing of the long-take is stilted. And since it is a long take with lots of camera movement and full set and extras, it's unlikely at best that this was a reshoot. One thing if flawless though and that's the music. Gosh I love that soundtrack. James Newton Howard should have been nominated for an Oscar and won it.
My personal head canon to explain the amount of moves need to bend goeth thusly 1 move is obviously the most efficient for combat, so it requires the most effort For each move added you proportionally reduce the strength of each move so that’s why more moves are needed to match the single movement So you can use a single more powerful move, or you can use lots of less powerful moves. Sort of like one big/strong/heavy attack or lots of smaller/weak/light attacks So you can start a fight with 1 move, but the longer it goes on the more you need to do in order to match the same level of output. But in a combat situation that’s obviously not ideal because someone more experienced can do 3 single move attacks in the time it takes you to do a single 4 move block for just 1 of those attacks Basically weaker (in terms of magic ability) characters would need more moves for each individual bend they do
I studied Northern Long Fist for 25 years, taught Kung Fu for 7 years of that, and studied Tai Chi for six months. When this came out, me and three of my students who had other experience went to go see it together. We were all fans of the series. We opted for the 3D tickets. It was all we could talk about for weeks leading up to it. We were so excited going in. We left the theater in silence. A week later, the youngest of the three of us finally asked, "So, are we going to discuss the movie?" "What exactly would you like to say?" I asked. "So I wasn't the only one that thought it was bad?" And that's the last we ever discussed it.
The scene where Katara gets hit by the fireball was so easily fixable. Having Zuko throw out several fire attacks in rapid succession and have Katara be unable to keep up would make perfect sense and have the right pacing as Zuko is an experienced firebender while Katara may be talented and know the moves but be unable to fight well under extreme pressure.
10:01 it probably isn’t actually a single shot, the rapid pan might be hiding a cut, and the full screen fire/earth collision is almost definitely a wipe.
there is no movie in Ba Sing Se
I came here to say this, but knew in my heart that it had already been said.
Fancy a trip to Lake Laogai?
@@XperimentalOdin only if the Earth King has invited me
@@_mdgamer4289 There were no turtles in the movie
@@_mdgamer4289 I think that was before the avatars
@@_mdgamer4289 The lion turtles bend energy, and they gave/formed the bending elements for the original benders (sky bisons, dragons, etc) with their energy bending. Since all of the bending elements utilize energy (or Chi), it does make sense that they were able to give them bending abilities.
THE BOULDER takes issue with the Earth Bender Prison scene
hah! more like the PEBBLE- toph
Nah screw the Boulder, me and all my homies are gonna get together and do a dance routine to lethargically move a rock towards him, that's REAL Earthbending!
-M Night, apparently.
@@ashlyn6145 THE BOULDER IS OVER HIS CONFLICTED FEELINGS!
Omg I read this in his voice 😂 you brought back memories from my childhood that I didn't k ie I had
@@ashlyn6145 M night took that line a bit too seriously
"To be continued never because audiences were not impressed"... Love that line
Yeah, me too 😄👌.
The good, the true, and the faintly bemused
That's my favorite thing about the movie, it never gets a sequel
The audience was impressed how bad it is
Critically ineffective
Accidental puns? Surely you mean they were... punintentional.
👉🚪
@@verymuchadisappointment168 We both know you're just jealous you didn't think of it first 😘
@@verymuchadisappointment168 okay but your name is so accurate for this 😂😂😂
@@TheMightySwash I am very jealous
why didn't i think of this holy shit
I love how you explain how the bolder thing happened. It makes sense now.
I always thought it was, after many rewatches, the bender crowd was slowly moving the rock and the extra guy providing the force to launch the rock lol
@@june9914 Same! And I've hate-watched this clip a lot haha
Yeah this was the first channel I've seen where someone points that out.
I had no idea before this video.
That's SUICIDE SQUAD level editing problems. Oh that was PHYSICALLY PAINFUL.
Yes! I've been so confused by that! There is a reason and that makes me feel much better about it.
Crazy how she just talked about a hypothetical movie that doesn't exist this whole video.
And how she got her friends to help her film it
There is no movie in Ba Sing Se
@@gabriellloyd The Dai Li are here to protect us
you know, i was coming to the comments to say that exact same thing
Yeah the magic system seems very unbalanced. Aang does lots of dancemoves which either; a) blast a bitch in 0,1 seconds or b) take forever and makes something go "poof".
I'm picturing Ty lee saying "poof"
@@fightingfaerie I'm picturing Aang saying "I'm gonna blast a bitch."
Another issue is that you can’t gather what bending moves do what from the movie very well. In the show, you stomp your foot and something happens with the ground. Aang spins his staff in a circle and a circular funnel of air is made. Zuko punches at someone and fire goes at that person. You can guess what will happen from each movement for bending moves. Meanwhile in the movie, 10 dudes wave their hands around and a wall moves up nearby? What, is doing tai chi just signialing to the universe you want to move stuff, and what, where, and how it moves is all mental? That just doesn’t seem as good, and doesn’t make for as interesting combat.
Also, firebenders really drew the short straw here. In the show, they can generate fire by using their chi, so firebending doesn't need to use a pre-existing source of its element like the other three styles do. But in the film, they need to use torches or other existing sources of fire. They're at war with people who can control earth, water and air. So the ruthless expansionists who are currently fighting the rest of the world and winning are at a severe disadvantage compared to all their enemies. And they're somehow still winning.
@@SwordTune Aang would never blast a bitch, he has compassion for all bitches 🙏
Timeliness... If you're going to take 5 seconds to manipulate water, just grab a bow and take a shot or two. It'll be faster and more efficient.
Scenes where basic combat principles don't apply grind my gears...
On that note, I love how in the legend of Korra nobody seems to have invented guns. Sure, the police can break them, if they get close enough? But that is only one group of highly trained benders...
@@ferinzz To be fair, a bender who is swift with their maneuvers is going to be much better than a bow.
But these movie benders would lose against an unarmed foe...
@@migueeeelet I haven't watched the cartoon, but surely in theory, having Bending and a back-up weapon would be better than just Bending by itself. Right?
@@TheEndKing There is a reason we fans respect the power of the boomerang.
@@TheEndKing True that!
To say that this film is inconsistent is just the tip of the boy in the iceberg-iceberg. I’ll leave now.
I was today years old when i realized that squad of earthbenders weren’t doing all that to move a single small-medium rock
I think this movie’s problem is everything.
You don’t think. You know.
Exactly
oh i don't know, they managed to get the shots in focus ;-)
@@feldegast For this movie, that could be counted as a negative.
The movie's problem is M. Night Shamalamadingdong.
For a movie with probably hundreds of TH-cam essays about why it sucks, this carves out some good insights I haven't heard elsewhere- Like the problem with the Earth Bender scene being that it's a oner with bad timing that the effects team had no way to edit around. Great point!
My favorite fan theory (that I will forever accept as canon) is that this movie isn't an adaptation of the show, it's an adaptation of the episode "The Ember Island Players". I mean look at the bending and tell me this isn't put on by some dramatic theater production with questionable sources.
I accept this headcanon.
I also accept this headcanon
I accept this headcannon as well
It also explains why the some of the names get mispronounced.
@@hyperbiscuit2284 yup🥲Just a bad play, just a bad play
Free flowing, accidental puns granted by the will of the universe are the most powerful kind! Just go with them! Embrace them!
It's 2021 and I only JUST NOW realized that the earth bending choreography was intended to be for the earth wall.
"Let's pretend that I meant them."
You ALWAYS get credit for puns, unintentional or otherwise. Just you know... not all of that credit is good. Some people hate puns XD
3:59 "you can make your element *do the thing*"
...
ZHU LI DO THE THING
One of the reasons that The Force [tm] works without an effort to weight ratio, narratively, is that before we we see it happen, Yoda explains that's the way the force works; that size (and thus mass) doesn't matter. We get a narrative establishment of that 'reality' of The Force by a figure who, at that point, we have established as the only living 'master' of the ways of The Force.
And yet, even Master Yoda expends effort to lift the ship. He concentrates, and the ship moves with mass and momentum. Those are what makes the force seem like "real" magic and not short-circuit the film.
Also, in most of the films, Force users are rare, the ones we spend the most time with are still in training and you get the impression that their mentors are only showing us glimpses of what the Force is capable of. It's rare, it's vague, it gives off the sense that we're only seeing a fraction of what it can do. So you can forgive a lack of defined limits regarding the power of the Force and its application.
...You couldn't forgive not clarifying the rules if Force sensitivity was about as common as having type A blood, which is pretty much the case in this world. Not everyone can bend, but bending is common enough that in the show, it's used for everything from public transport to mail delivery. When the setting's combat magic is so common that it's part of the infrastructure, you need to start establishing some ground rules. And the show does have a clear cause to effect ratio. But the film...
Katara's fireball-blocking dance is so elegant and cool... or, at least, it would be if it was the movie's way of summoning Octopus Form instead of a puddle splash. Excellent vid!
The kid playing Aang wasn't exactly the ghost of Olivier, but you can see why M. Night cast him when you see him on that battle run. Those moves aren't easy for anyone to pull off, much less a little kid.
As far as i know the kid was already pretty trained in martial arts (I think was training very ambitiously and shaved his head for that) and his friends were saying "hey, you really look like Aang from ATLA" so that's why he auditioned for the role.
It’s a shame because he’s a terrible actor. Not that i blame him for it (he’s a kid) but he probably would’ve been better off as an aang stunt double.
@@appelofdoom8211 The really crazy part is that he's actually pretty chill/more Aang like in the interviews etc. Really makes me wonder how much of it was Shamylan's bad directing.
Zachary H. Stagefright might also be a factor, getting interviewed is a lot different from playing a pivotal part of a scene after all. Though yeah the directing probably isn’t helping him.
@@tf7602
My understanding is that they sought out a highly skilled martial artist, not an actor. So the kid was a great martial artist but didn't have any training in acting until the movie.
Can't really fault a non-actor for not being an actor, in my opinion.
I've never seen ATLA: animated or Live action. I am here to pretend to know what you're saying and agree blindly, I love the way you break the combat scenes down.
The animated series is awesome, which both lead to the film's creation, and set it up with unreasonable expectations. It really works best animated.
Definitely watch the original series!
If you as very much as tolerate animation, go watch it. It's great.
The animated series is amazing. Watch it if you got time
I might be the only person in the world to think this, but you're not missing much.
4:00 - "Zhu Li! Do the thing!"
That was a callback, right? It has to be
@@alejandroojeda1572 th-cam.com/video/mofRHlO1E_A/w-d-xo.html
Such an underrated channel
Amen to that
There needs to be a credible effort-to-oomph ratio. Otherwise, why bother with magic when you can just stab someone?
The thing that really stands out to me in the fight scenes here is this; all of the movie benders would be shot dead by a halfway competent archer at those ranges before they could summon their element to attack or even defend themselves.
Although as you pretty much pointed out, most of the moves are so slow that you could run at them and stick them with a sword or a spear and still win nine times out of ten.
It feels like instead of the bender moving the element with them, M has them performing quick rituals to cast a spell, which feels like him injecting Euro style magic into an Asian-inspired series.
Yes! The flow of each of the fighting styles translates to how the element itself would move (mostly), thus the element should move with the performer, rather than the movement be a spell.
Well, Asian magic folklore also has ritual movement spells made of combining stances, like the ones inspired by the Mudras or hand seals, so it's not necessarily an euro influence problem. But in any Xianxia story I've read where they use hand seals they practice to do them as fast as possible, supernaturally fast, so they work as martial techniques.
@@yadiracamacho499 Yeah but that was never in play in Avatar
@@archevenault oh, yeah. I'm not saying it was the right decision for Avatar, just that the influence was not necessarily European.
@@daalelli Yes, this! Bending was originally presented as an elemental extension to the martial moves being performed - it is as swift and bursty as the attacks and blocks being done, and will attack or block in the same paths the movements travel. Meanwhile, the movie... even in the part Jill praises, Ang does a horizontal spinny motion over his head causing water icicles to fly overhead and back down (he did horizontal, his ice went vertical), followed up with a straight push outward which sends a guy flying upwards. Even when the timing matches up, the directions often didn't. It was so frustrating and disjointed.
Great episode as ever. I really appreciated the in-depth look at the problems of choreographical display in particular when citing the editing issues alongside them. That group of Earth benders moving a pebble is still hilarious!
The Katara vs Zuko thing makes sense if each waterbending action draws deeper on Katara’s magical resources and thereby takes more effort than the last. I would love a setting with a magic system where that’s one of the rules, and where the consequences can include getting overwhelmed in exactly the way this scene shows. But I’m sure the rest of the movie does not follow this rule.
Hell, I might just write that into the magic system I’m working on. Greater magical skill allows greater physical endurance, as a mechanism for showing character growth. If this movie does anything well, aside from the sporadic moments of good combat you’ve pointed out, it’s suggest endless variations on the rules of bending that will spawn their own internally consistent universes.
This is a very good point. A moment like that could be made to work, if the principles were established appropriately so the audience could understand what was happening. It's just that in the movie, that's not established at all.
There's a pretty fun arc in Magi: Kingdom of Magic where the character who is a Magi goes through essentially a _gym class_ at _magic school._ He was already naturally able to call upon magic from outside his body due to being a Magi, but after the intense physical course he (and the rest of his class) are able to perform really well using their internal magic (what most wizards use).
The explanation goes that their "magical potential held itself back to protect their body from the strain."
Fit wizards is just a fun idea to play with. "All my spellbooks have lead hardcovers." "My bookstand is 7ft tall and has a chin-up bar." "I hold a book in each hand and read while doing squats." "This cane isn't for walking. It's for when I'm too tired to cast, but not too tired to thump a fool. Then it's for walking."
See that would work if she knew this and took it into account, what we instead see is her clearly seeing the two bolts of fire coming for her, doing something rather underwhelming to block one, and then somehow being surprised when the other one also strikes her?
Like holy hell, dive away or something.
"find aang or oong" ah I see how you subverted my expectations there
Fascinating half of footage is just blank. Either movie doesn’t exist or mind blocks trauma
I corroborate. Movie doesn't exist.
Its impressive that you made a whole video about a movie that doesn't exist
"There is no movie" is the real-world equivalent of "There is no war". Which means by invoking it, you risk a Book 2 movie popping into existence.
Cj Hedrick there is no spoon
@@willmungas8964 OH GOD NOT SPOON 2!
Your perspective is such a breath of fresh air as opposed to what I am used to in movie fight analysis on youtube. The stage combat aspect is something I didn't fully realize until I found you on here by accident. Really nice stuff you're making, here
I actually think Aang was forming a shield of air in that scene, and that the dudes bounced off it. He holds that arm position as the wind swirls around him and they run into it. Can't fault anything else you said though and I love this channel 🙂
That's what it looks like to me, too.
that's what i thought so too but it also looks like the fire nation army had time to stop and change strategy but still decided to bump into the air wall. so... meh????
That one's arguable for sure. But things that are arguably-believable are still bad when your audience is already low on suspension of disbelief.
Except the soldiers ran at it after it formed......
The reason he most likely held his stance was because the actor knew he wasn't supposed to drop it until after the guards were pulled back, and since they took longer to get to him than planned, he had to hold it for longer than really useful
@@ithalathegayguy I think a case could be made that Firebender soldiers are both ignorant of Airbender tactics (I don't know what that is) and arrogant (I can push past whatever it is) due to their successes.
Finally someone makes the distinction between bad cgi and bad choreography! I've been thinking this for a while because when you actually pull still frames a lot of the VFX look really photorealistic, it's only when you play the scenes when you realize that the integration with the characters is what makes it so laughable, great video and I'm glad someone actually said it!
I love how the title says “combat problem” just to clarify which part of the enormous problem is being referred to.
5:03 Although I agree with everything else that's being said here I don't think Avatar has a soft magic system, it's more of a medium magic system (except for Energy bending in the finale and Legend of Korra) Yes its not defined exactly how much a bender can bend or how the proportion to skill and power however it does have rules, only earth benders can bend earth, only water benders can bend water only the avatar can bend all as well as water benders being stronger at night etc and it never breaks these rules, and when it has things like metal bending and vine bending these are natural extensions of these bending principles, especially when compared to the other soft magic systems Avatar is much harder and has more rules and limitations. If you're interested in hard/soft magic systems as well as Avatars magic system go check out Hello Future Me's video on them
Yeah, the fact that Tim (Hello Future Me) got people to start using "hard magic system" and "soft magic system" as legitimate technical terms is the largest beef I have with him, because he gets it almost entirely wrong and then has persuaded the rest of the internet to get it wrong, too.
The difference is honestly pretty simple: do you explain your magic system sufficiently that readers can use that logic to understand how it solves problems that arise due to the plot? That's it.
Even the softest of soft magic systems, Tolkien's Middle Earth, has rules. It's just that Tolkien didn't deign to share them with us because explaining the magic system wasn't important to what he was trying to convey. Was Gandalf able to stir hearts and do cool fireworks because he held Narya? Or was that because he was good at his job? We don't know, because only once was he forced to use it within Frodo's sight.
In A:TLA, the rules are explained in terms of Aang's coming-of-age story and actualization as the Avatar: he has to travel the world and master the four elements. That's the hard magic system: who is the Avatar. There's also other stuff: a solar eclipse kills firebending; a fiery comet enhances it. We're told how this works because it's important to the plot: the rebels fight back on the day of the eclipse; Ozai plans to leverage the enhanced power to lay waste to the Earth Kingdom. That's hard magic. The push-and-pull of the Moon is what powers waterbending, so kidnapping Tui was a goal of Zhao's that the good guys had to intervene against. That's hard magic. It's a facet of the magic system that solves a problem presented by the plot.
Other things are soft magic. Why does Katara have healing powers? :shrug: How was Aang chosen to be the Avatar? :shrug: What moves are actually required to perform bending? :shrug: The answers to these questions don't solve any problems posed by the plot, so we aren't given those answers. (At least, not during A:TLA.) For all we know, bending is a purely mental activity that happens to be facilitated by fancy martial arts. That would explain a lot, but it wouldn't explain anything that _needed_ explaining.
Look up "Sanderson's First Law" for the original rundown.
@@Duiker36 It does seem that some movement is required for bending, though, since they often prevent bending by restraining someone's movement. When they try to rescue Bumi and it turns out he could bend the whole time, his explanation is that they didn't restrain his head, so he moves that to do the bending. This implies that if he couldn't move his head, he couldn't earthbend. Also when Aang was imprisoned by Zhao, he couldn't just will a cyclone into existence; he needs to move his arms to do that. The only possible exceptions to this are when Aang is in the Avatar State, and seems to be able to cause massive effects with little or no movement at all. But that has to do with reincarnation spirit magic, the "softest" magic in the show. As for regular bending, I'd say part of the "hard" magic system is that bending requires some physical movement of some kind in order to work.
Bending works by the flow of energy through the body, the movements help manage that movement. That is why Iroh talks about redirecting to the stomach and then out again for lightning redirection. It's also why Energy Bending works. Certain Elements use certain paths in the body. By blocking those paths you block the persons ability to use that form of bending. It's also why Amon doesn't block Korra's ability to air bend, he has never dealt with an air bender he doesn't know what paths they use, he blocks the other paths but leaves that one open.
Waterbending healing probably has more to do with eastern mysticism around water than thinking about it as H2O.
@@Duiker36 Katara having healing powers does actually have some logic to it: remember, the human body is mostly water. Water + magic control over water + injury = healing kind of makes sense.
...The fact that she can apparently use her powers to heal mental trauma as well (and only does so once, when there are plenty of other occasions where that would have been incredibly useful), though...that is pure *shrug.*
Jill, have you ever considered analyzing a character throughout their film-fighting tenure? The first example that comes to mind is Hugh Jackman's Wolverine. He goes from an immortal berserker to a man who can barely draw his primary weapon.
Didn't she do that? I know I watched a video like that. Bit I don't know who did it...
Is bending really a soft maic system though? We know it has set rules and effects. A few rule examples are:
Waterbending draws power from the moon - Thus waterbending is stronger at night.
Power in firebending comes from the breath, not the muscles - Thus Aang's theory that the high altitude might be effecting Zuko's firebending.
The key to earthbending is your stance - Thus in order to move a rock, you need to me an imovable object.
We also know alot about the phylosophies behind the bending styles and how they determin how the bender behaves.
In firebending, a firebender has to have a strong enough will to control the fire or it will overpower them and go out of control.
Like a river, water bending deals with the flow of energy. This is why waterbending often employs alot of counter attacks.
Earth is a stuborn element and so requires alot of energy to bend. This is why Boomie says that in order to master earth bending you need to listen and wait for the right time to strike.
Air... moves alot... I guess.
Man, I love you. You're so spot on and so clever and so funny and, well... every time I watch you, I realize WHY I wasn't impressed with a film, instead of just thinking "Well, that wasn't that good, was it?" So thank you, thank you, thank you for being such a good teacher. And making it fun, too!
It is amazing to hear somebody watch something that terrible and say, "It wasn't all bad."
I strongly suspect Jill has some teaching experience, working with beginners.
I never realized how beautiful that one fight scene is. Someone once commented that the reason it's interesting to watch Elsa from Frozen use her powers is because you feel like she's dancing with power instead of just moving and things going "poof". I think combat magic needs to be like that; like a dance of energy and light rather than what we usually get.
making the bad ass female fighter with strong mother instincts a whiny incompetent that needs saving a lot doesn't reflect well on M.Knight.
Uhhhh. I mean. Tbf aang is a much better bender at this point in the show. Never watched the movie but it seems she loses in the same places she lost in the show, just in different ways. So I'm not seeing your sexism claim.
@@johnathanera5863 maybe try watching the movie before judging me?
Although she was way more proficient in the series than she was in the movie, she was still pretty whiny. That was her whole point, acting like a mother to the Gaang the way she thought a mother should act. While still being a young teen
@@johnathanera5863 Everything she actually does in the show is either cut out entirely, given to the men around her (usually Aang) or made much less impressive in the film. For example, they include the story beat where the Gaang inspires earthbending prisoners to fight back, but it's Aang who rekindles their spirits in the film, not Katara. This video doesn't really show it, because it's not the focus, but Katara is undercut and sidelined to an unforgivable degree.
@@Talisguy Katara and Annabeth Chase have that in common.
(Alexadria Daddario's character was built up as strong at Camp,then on the Quest she's baggage.)
This is the smallest chanel that's popped up on my feed and I clicked on... Awesome video I'm gonna follow 😁
Holy shit those guys were lifting the wall? My life is a lie 😂
It's always weird to me that they messed up the bending because it's really good in the show. I know it won't always translate well, but at least for move sets they could have ripped it straight out of the show.
They were giving the most clear-cut and successful magic systems ever commited to televised media, and Mr M. Night fucked it up.
@Jermare They wanted to show and establish the kung fu behind it all. However, it appeared as if the scene pre-planning kept the kung fu as an afterthought to improvise into the scenes. So what we're left with is a bunch of arbitrary moves, by people with only the vaguest idea of how it might be linked through effects editing. Wouldn't be surprised if the crew with the clearest comprehension of the scenes were the people without any martial art knowledge.
I love the series. The movie was massively disappointing, but I agree that it had a good bit here and there.
That's part of what made it even more disappointing, no? The times they got something right, and if they had only...
Honestly, I wouldn't mind a remake with someone who is a fan directing and the original people involved
@@charlescourtwright2229 one of the issue was the script. they took something that was an entire season to make and trim it down to 2hours or less. That a lot of plot and event that was zip along. the really needed to rewrite that script so the action and event flow better. they also needed a montage
@@Marveryn The script is basically little moments from the show (earth bender prison, water bending scroll kiyoshi statue, blue spirit, northern air temple) one after the other without a through line for a plot. If they had not tried to put in so many 'hey you recognize this moment from the show?' things, it might have been different. Keep the basics (aang needs to learn water bending, they go to the north pole for teachers) and ditch the scenes that don't really add anything. And then you can see if you can put in little call backs to specific episodes etc. But they went the wrong way round here, I think. Keep this little scene and that moment and those call backs, and then instead of a story, you have a series of loose unconnected scenes that don't do character development or plot advancement.
Jill’s puns are better than the film
3:15
Are you sure about that...?
That the five guys that are dancing put up the wall, while only that one guy shoot the rock?
Because to me, it looks like they controlled the rock to flow over there into position of the last guy, who then takes control as he hurls it towards the enemies.
I mean, either way, it's horrendous. Because we either have a moment where the five guys make their motion AFTER the wall has already been completed and done its job OR we have a moment where five guys hover a small rock into place for one guy to then essentially throw it.
Whichever version is correct, this is just awful.
I also love this moment:
2:34
It's insane how slowly the fire crawls towards Katara, just so she has time to do her water bending moves.
She could just as well have stepped to the side and avoided it. Heck, with the time she had, she wouldn't even have had to rush it :-p
What really makes this entire thing hurt is: The way this movie was filmed, especially the action, all these huge, long one-shots... that was difficult to set up! Not just the choreography, but imagine how much efford it takes to put together camera movement, whire work, actors, all the timing...
This stuff isn't being made by lazy people. You see that there was EFFORD there, they TRIED to make it something good. Which is why it hurts that it probably would have looked better if they did the usual hollywood-fast-cut-action, where you can barely make out any details... but at least it feels fast.
Heck yeah, catch this stuff at launch, or like a few minutes after launch. Always looking forward to seeing what you think about stuff in movies or things like this!
I never would've noticed the difference in movement vs. effect without it being pointed out in movies like this or animations in games. I've been learning a lot lately about the way to make animation and sfx look good and I just remembered this movie being pretty terrible but not how inconsistent the fighting was. Crazy how close they are to getting it right sometimes
I think the flaw in the movie magic system is that it treats bending like casting spells, instead of as it's own extension of the Bender's body, movement, and energy the way the tv show does. A spell/sigil to do something super complicated might be very simple and vice versa because
How dare you insult Avatar the Last Airbender... movie? What movie? I don't know what you're talking about.
I know a few people who feel this way about the Matrix sequels. :D
There is no movie in ba sing se
@@neatoburrito5839 We have been invited to lake laogai
That thing when you find a new-to-you TH-camr and watch 20 of her videos in a bingefest. Hi all 🤙
Could have stopped at 0:02. "The Last Airbender is a movie that has real trouble" But for real this is very interesting to watch. Thank you
(happy sigh) Love the way your mind works Jill. Including the unintended but we're calling them intended puns.
Everything just feels so weak and ineffectual in the movie. The show sometimes suffers this issue as well, especially early on, where Aang gets hit by some fire and nothing really happens but he falls over. Obviously we're not going to set the child on fire, so instead fire bending does some...like...chi damage, or something.
As someone who hasn't seen the movie... how often do water attacks actually leave the struck target sopping wet?
Aang falls over because he learned to always stop, drop, and roll when on fire.
"Hung Gar Kung Fu, mostly"
Thanks Toph
Avatar(TV): Does basically everything right.
Avater(Movie): Hold my beer.
Hello, I found you in my recommended once and now I am subscribed.
Just found this channel. Love fighting, love magic, love her Irish accent. Instant subscriber. Also don't flame me if it isn't Irish but let me know what it is xD
it brings a tear to my eyes every time i think about how great this movie could have been.
Re the mistimed air blast around Aang (9:45), I read that more as forming an air shield around himself - not just to stop the dudes that are knocked back, but also deflect any fire that other dudes might throw at him. See how the swirling starts around him and then they run into it and are knocked back? He's not pushing them directly, he's forming a whirlwind that will knock *anything* away from him, which then does its job when they reach it.
The choreograph of katara in the fight was also really weird. The movement should be influenced by the flowyness of water (I guess?) and she's bending water so, the water should bend the way she moves. There she's making Sailor Moon transformation sequence with unnecessary movements while all she does is simple "blocking the fire with some water"?
I watcha a lotta tokusatsu, annd they tend to get around this problem by having some amount of stylization. It doesn't matter if that one move took forever, if you cut it into it's own closeup shot with the music swelling and the character yelling impassioned commands - by playing it more realistic it stops making sense.
Everybody in tokusatsu does that too, so it's very consistent.
the only people who don't do that are either incompetent or are very deadly enemies that will be a major challenge to overcome if not being the outright final villain of an arc.
I remember watching The Last Airbender and loving it. Told my better half how amazing it was, he watched it, love it too. I had no idea why you went on about how bad it was. THEN I remembered I had watched the animated movie. I had no idea there was an actual movie movie. With your commentary fresh in my mind, I won't bother with the action movie and just rejoice with the cartoon again.
Please. You are better off not watching the movie movie. It is actually depressing.
@@nicolaszan1845 good advice, which I'm taking.
Idk, sometimes happens that you need to cry a bit, but you require something extra to make it possible: that movie helps a lot
There was an animated movie?
@@Liam-qr7zn yeah, i realyy enjoyed it.
Wait, the six dancing fools erected the wall of stone? I NEVER figured that out until now. Bloody hell, that's terrible editing. Oh wait, it's terrible directing because it's all ONE SHOT. Also, why does it take a whole Stomp the Yard troupe? In the show, a single person could do that.
Thank you! Couldn’t figure out what seemed so aggravating about that movie. Something drove me crazy about the way things worked/didn’t work and I couldn’t figure what it was. Again, Jill, wonderful video, again.
The one explanation that I found in most of the bending problem is the connexion to the element and the stress. Ex for Katara against Zuko, even if she’s a genius in water bending, she does not know how to fight and she’s in stress, and when your in stress you are bound to regress to what you really know. The 5 movements bending is what she’s ground to, she has no time to think and she needs to connect to her element, the one mouvement needs focus and she has loose it because of stress. It’s why Zuko is able to create 2 fire balls, because he is train to fight he know how to react.
This is the first video I've seen on this subject, and I've seen many, where someone actually noticed/cared that the rock was the other guy's.
Top notch!
I recently found out M. Night wanted to make a more faithful or "good" adaptation but the higher-ups at Paramount were completely apathetic to the production and undermined him at every turn. As it turns out, Katara's casting of a white actress was an act of complete nepotism because her father was a rich ceo that someone at Paramount owed a favor to, explaining the casting inconsistency of white and POC. By the middle of production, M. Night just gave up and surrendered to the slog.
Nowadays, people hold the movie over Paramount's heads and never let them forget what they've done.
To be honest, I let... well... EVERYTHING about the Combat in the movie slide. There was so much more that I thought was more worthy of criticism and discussion, so I let the combat off the hook when it came to actually criticizing the movie. The most I ever did was go "The combat was badly done." and left it at that. I wasn't that I was excusing the combat, or that I was quietly promoting it, I just thought it wasn't worth analyzing so that it could be criticized in depth.
So I completely forgot about that Water and Air bending scene that upon looking at it again, WAS done extremely well. Glad this video did decide to critique the combat.
"For a multiplier"... Such a dad joke... I love it! Even more because I actually believe it wasn't intentional! It's just the kind of serendipitous thing that happens when you get commentary by an actual nerd. 😁 Keep it up Jill!
CONTROVERSIAL OPINION:
I actual quite liked the idea of bending being very slowed down for the film.
The way Bending worked in the show is very overpower, bending attacks are very power, as fast if not faster than physical ones and have no downside. That's fine in a cartoon, but in live action I think it would bee to much.
Slowing down bending, but having it still be powerful is a great idea!
It would mean benders can't just use bending to win every battle, but have to plan out moves, fights against non-benders have tension because the solder could get a lucky hit while a bender was charging an attack and it would make fights epic fights with master benders destroying everyone feel earned cause we know they're show skill not just power.
I always liked the idea of slowed down bending BUT for so reason I never liked the execution. THIS VIDEO helped my finally understand why i didn't like it.
It was the inconsistence, sometimes it was slow sometimes, fast something's, sometimes before the action often after.
Great video
Thanks
There is an slight undercurrent of rage beneath your pleasant presentation. Bravo.
Man I love your videos and passion for your craft
I thoroughly enjoy your videos. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with the internet (...even if it IS illegal).
One of the changes to the source material I hated (and that nobody else mentions for some reason) is that in the movie, almost no firebenders can create fire (Iroh can and it's considered a big deal). It's bad on a visual level because it makes all the firebending look clumsy and weird instead of powerful and aggressive, but it's also bad on a deeper level because in the show, the fire comes from the characters' own internal energy and drive. It tells you something about these characters, their culture and what they value. It stands out to me because a lot of what's bad about this movie can be explained by the people involved not caring (the studio, the writers, the director) or by them being incompetent (the child actors, Shyamalan at action scenes...), but this seems like a very deliberate change. It baffles me because I now have to assume somebody put some thought into this even though they moved the earthbender prison camp from an offshore metal shipyard to a quarry.
This wasn't the video that I first saw of yours (it was the Turner vs Sparrow video, so good it made me immediately subscribe) but I wish this was the first I've watched because your free flowing puns are a delight 👌
The consistency of moves and cause and effect makes a really good case for how live-action (with CGI) is not always inherently superior to animation or full CGI. Yes, those issues could have been solved with better directing or more takes or more cuts which in turn allow for more takes, but that's still an additional challenge imposed by the medium. In a setting like AtLa, where the perfect harmony between the movement of bending and the movement of the bent element are such a huge point, it is extremely advantageous to go with full animation that allows for perfect synchrony between bending and element - because you're drawing both of them - which is part of what made the show such a pleasure to watch.
Specifically Katara keeping hit by the second fire ball, and the effort to get the water up to defend: Where was she in relation to the land bridge and water? With the first fire ball, she was near the bridge with water on two sides. By the time she's facing the double attack, how far back from the water is she? That doesn't excuse the scene, or the fact that she completely turned away from Zuko to watch the fire blast, but it does seem to fit the effort needed aspect. The "freezing Zuko" scene has the same set up. Except this time there are multiple sources of water around her. Again, doesn't excuse the inconsistencies, but it's something that I've thought of every time I watch the show and try to figure out how everything works.
It seems super obvious now you've mentioned it, but I didn't know the different bending styles had different martial arts behind them. Just another reason the cartoon series was one of the best ever made! 🥰
I love this video but I just wanted to say you give out strong middle school science teacher vibes. It's just the combo of the hair and the glasses and the outfit, I love it.
I haven't seen the movie, but from the fighting clips I've seen, I think the most frustrating part is definitely the fact that the effort isn't proportional to the effect. Except I'm not talking about the 5 moves versus 1, but rather fast, sharp movements = slow, small effect. Like in that one clip where Katara is doing all these moves and you'd expect multiple streams of water, shooting out from everywhere but instead it's just one random ball of water floating calmly through the air, which would make more sense if she was bending slowly and deliberately. When the movements don't carry over into effects, it just feels futile and you just feel the secondhand frustration.
i remember someone pointing out that during the prison break scene that a lot of the actors were just standing till it became their turn to do a sequence
its understandable that they might not be able to have *everyone* do something in a fight scene where *everyone* is supposed to be fighting but it just looks super off that while they're escaping theres a bunch of guards just standing still
Too much stuff, not enough space!
9:57 I feel they could have had hidden cuts in this scene. there are 3 moments where the screen is only showing dust or a rock wall.
10:06 entirely dust
10:09 rock wall
10:10 nothing but dust
Charming and balanced commentary, spiced with wit (albeit occasionally unintentional), and with a voice and dialect (being from the USA, I’m the one with the accent) that I would be happy to listen to reading a phone book... Bravo!
Jill: This scene is messy and inexplicable... like guys.
Me: lol... Sick burn... oh that wasn’t intentional.
THE WATERBENDING MOVES THEMSELVES, OH MY GOD! The BASIS of waterbending means you GUIDE the water, making a path of least resistance for it. You can´t make a circle with your hands and make the water go up! Hand movement= Element movement. The ONE thing ALL elements have in common is the elements follow the benders! THAT'S WHY THEY'RE CALLED BENDERS! Even earthbenders, who basically have to drag their element into moving by being more stubborn than the earth itself, follow this rule!
GOD! Earthbenders and airbenders, waterbenders and firebenders, they're "opposed" and yet they still follow that one rule! Agh! YOU HAD ONE JOB, PEOPLE!
(okay, now I can go back to ignoring this movie exists)
I did like how in the movie the fire benders manipulate existing fire, as the other benders do with their element, rather than creating it out of nothing. It always bothered me in the series as fire needs fuel. This is the only good thing i've said about the film.
While it does “even” things up in the movie, I think fire’s independence was sort of the point in the show, to help explain why firebenders and the fire nation are able to conquer the other nations: they can make their element when the other three can’t.
@@KRJayster It's not that easy to run out of air, though, either.
Fire is fueled by the user's own chi. This is something Iroh goes over with Zuko at some point. It does not come out of nothing.
@@Ryvieous i know the in universe explanation but chi is energy and i'm happy to believe the heat is transformed chi but fire needs fuel, oxygen and heat. Chi or no Chi there is no fuel.
It does even things up, but it places fire squarely in the status of worst form of bending, which kind of ruins the threat of the Fire Nation.
I really loved the rules behind the magic in Eragon, where you can use magic to do almost anything... Anything that you can actually do physically, that is. It's such a genius concept, and creates a really unqiue premise for the dangers of magic. _(Because yes, sometimes the idea of using magic and then being drawn to some dark side of all things as a the main issue... is frequently overused. Not that it can't be enjoyable or interesting. We just see it a lot. So it's very cool to see something unique.)_ So say you're going to climb a mountain to get away from baddies. You can use magic to do it instantly. But if you are physically unable to scale that mountain of your own power magic aside, using magic to do it will take more energy than you have or are capable of expending. Which can at best will severely exhaust you, and at worst will actually kill you. _(And after using magic to that end, you feel like you just did it physically.)_ So using magic is very much a constant study and knowledge of one's own ability and weighing what is the more viable option. Another scenario, you're fighting someone in hand to hand combat. You can either choose to physically engage and fight normally, or use magic to whatever end you seek. Be it disarming, injuring, killing, et cetera, to make that happen instantaneous. But if you misjudge the energy it will take you to kill them, be it because you overestimated your own abilities or underestimated theirs... You suffer whatever consequence that would bring, like the mountain. Will it just exhaust you to do so? Or will it actually be too much and take your life? I loved the Eragon novels, by Paolini. They really made me think and engrossed me.
The movie however? A travesty of the highest order. I watched half of it and then proceeded to attempt to drink enough to black out heavily enough to perhaps erase my previous sober memory of the movie. It didn't work unfortunately.
Wow!!! 1st video and I luv your frank, dry wit delivery....I'm hooked. You're beautiful too!
Well done Jill, you've just got me to start watching the animated series 😊
One episode down 🤣
You’re welcome 😁
Taking a closer look at Katara's blocks in that fight with Zuko (well, closer than I've taken before) specifically in that double fireball but, it looks less like martial arts and more like... how I imagine you'd cast a high-level single-action (as in casting time, not as in this context's action) spell in a D&D type setting. Like, she's not lifting water to block a blast of fire, she's summoning a Devil of challenge rating 6 or lower.
Haven't seen the movie, but from the scenes you've shown it is worth pointing out that the benders also don't combine the martial arts with the bending. It is as if you see a scene of fencers who can only use their swords if they stand still instead of lunging forward, dashing back, stabbing from an unexpected angle or drive the opponent to the edge of the cliff.
God I love the fight scenes of the original series, especially Aang vs king Bumi. The uncatchable wind versus the unyielding mountain and the battle is not even fought on the battlefield but rather in the memory of a hundred and twelve year old kid. How often do you get to write a sentence a sentence like that?
I was really hurt by this film...but not as an Avatar-fan, but a Shyamalan-fan. He became my favourite director in early 2009 and then I learned what his next project would be and binged the show as preperation absolutely loving it.
And the trailers looked great. The bending looks snappy, the sets and effects...wow....but the film was....well...we know what it was
I don't hate it as much as everyone else, I think there are a few things in there that show me the Shyamalan I love, there are some bad things that definitely have his sensibilities, but others are weird even for him.
I read a few times that Paramount and Nickelodeon shortned this movie down 30 minutes to convert it to 3D and I totally believe that. The weird opening crawl, all the voice overs over forced montages...I genuinely believe Shyamalan made, maybe not the masterpiece I expected, but a good film, because so many of the bafflingly bad scenes feel like rushed reshoots (that dialogue scene where the camera is almost in their nostrils...apparently the sets were already broken down, so they just rebuilt a tiiinyyy portion, thus the close ups). Also, apparently a lot of VFX got thrown out as well to make the conversion cheaper. That's why when they practice, it's just movements with no effects.
There is this one scene, where Katara's voice over says that Aang struggles with waterbending but she is doing well, yet both movements do nothing. I am convinced that there was supposed to be a bad bubble effect for Aang and a fluent one for Katara that got cut.
Regarding the weird timing...my feeling is that with the longer moves, they wanted a Naruto effect, where the Ninja's are performing the gestures and THEN the effect happens, but that show is so much faster paced in that.
And all my theories don't excuse the prison fight. Like, yes, maybe there were more earthy things happening when the group of inmates perform their weird dance, but even if so, as you said, the timing of the long-take is stilted. And since it is a long take with lots of camera movement and full set and extras, it's unlikely at best that this was a reshoot.
One thing if flawless though and that's the music. Gosh I love that soundtrack. James Newton Howard should have been nominated for an Oscar and won it.
My personal head canon to explain the amount of moves need to bend goeth thusly
1 move is obviously the most efficient for combat, so it requires the most effort
For each move added you proportionally reduce the strength of each move so that’s why more moves are needed to match the single movement
So you can use a single more powerful move, or you can use lots of less powerful moves. Sort of like one big/strong/heavy attack or lots of smaller/weak/light attacks
So you can start a fight with 1 move, but the longer it goes on the more you need to do in order to match the same level of output.
But in a combat situation that’s obviously not ideal because someone more experienced can do 3 single move attacks in the time it takes you to do a single 4 move block for just 1 of those attacks
Basically weaker (in terms of magic ability) characters would need more moves for each individual bend they do
I studied Northern Long Fist for 25 years, taught Kung Fu for 7 years of that, and studied Tai Chi for six months. When this came out, me and three of my students who had other experience went to go see it together. We were all fans of the series. We opted for the 3D tickets. It was all we could talk about for weeks leading up to it. We were so excited going in. We left the theater in silence.
A week later, the youngest of the three of us finally asked, "So, are we going to discuss the movie?"
"What exactly would you like to say?" I asked.
"So I wasn't the only one that thought it was bad?"
And that's the last we ever discussed it.
I would love to see a video like this on the hallway right from Oldboy
The scene where Katara gets hit by the fireball was so easily fixable. Having Zuko throw out several fire attacks in rapid succession and have Katara be unable to keep up would make perfect sense and have the right pacing as Zuko is an experienced firebender while Katara may be talented and know the moves but be unable to fight well under extreme pressure.
If Netflix does end up making a live action version of the series, they should hire Jill to supervise their work lol
10:01 it probably isn’t actually a single shot, the rapid pan might be hiding a cut, and the full screen fire/earth collision is almost definitely a wipe.