The Last Airbender 2010 film Review

Title: The last Airbender
Release date:  2010
Written and Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Thoughts:  As I have mentioned in my past blog reviews about the Avatar series, I’ve been a fan of this series ever since I was in my elementary days. And when this movie was released in 2010, I am one of those children or fans who watched this work. I was satisfied that time (well since I never knew how the story went and as I’ve mentioned, I never had a chance to finish the whole series until recently.) I think I will have a lot of things to say about the positive and negative things about this movie.

I want to point out first about the good things about this film. First! I love how the characters or the actors were selected. I saw this comment, “The fire lord is an Indian hahahahaha!”. In the story of “Avatar: the last Airbender” it involves the people of the world and in the film they made a perfect line of actors for the characters. Yes in the movie, the fire nation consists of Indians and if you think about it Indians live in the hottest countries of the world while the Earth benders are all Asians, specifically Chinese. In the animation, the city of Ba Sing Se(In Earth Kingdom) is surrounded by a great wall and it can be represented “The Great Wall of China”. Make sense? So I think those kinds of racist comments has no point in talking bad things about the film.

Second! Appa and Momo are present! YAAAAY! I was actually worried that the movie won’t let us see those cute creatures. The best thing I can say about them is they looks really real. A big furball Appa and cutie Momo <3 <3 Third! The characters performed the martial arts really well. Though I am not knowledgeable about Martial Arts, I always knew how the 4 kinds of benders move while bending.  Like an Airbender is very free. A water bender has a graceful move . An earthbender is tough and solid. And a firebender is very offensive. They managed to take note of those and did it in the film. My favorite one was when Aang fought with Zuko. That was a quite short one but impressive.

Aang and Zuko's fight in the Northern Tribe war.

So here go all my negative thoughts about the film. FIRST OF ALL FIRST, WHY DID THEY MAKE A SAD AANG IN THE MOVIE?! WHY DID THEY MAKE ALL THE CHARATERS OUT OF THEIR CHARACTERS?! Okay I am really mad about this thing. I think of all of the characters, it’s only Katara and Yue cleared the character test if I made one. Seriously, we all know that in the book one, Aang is such a kid and never wanted to the Avatar, BUT HE NEVER BECAME AN IMMATURE KIND OF AVATAR WHEN HE CAME BACK FROM A HUNDRED OF YEARS TRAPPEN IN AN ICEBURG. In the animation, though he was sad about the death of his family and all the Air nomads, he accepted it as well as of him being the Avatar. He was strong and became more confident as he made his way towards the Northern Water Tribe. He even learned how to bend Water before coming to the North Pole! We expected an easy going and playful Aang like in the animation unlike an awkward loner sad kid that we saw from the movie, because that’s why we loved Aang so much.

Also Sokka, WHY DID YOU LET SOKKA APPEAR IN THE MOVIE IF YOU MADE HIM SO HELPLESS! But I will be mad too if there is no Sokka in the film. Sokka is the best strategist in the story. They should’ve made him like the one who planned the defense of the Northern Tribe and so on. WHY?! AND WHY HE’S NOT SARCASTIC AND FUNNY? BRING BACK OUR SOKKA! Zuko is supposed to be a hot headed prince, so where did he buy all of those patience that we saw in the movie? I would rather see his grieve in the absence of his honor BUT THE WORD ITSELF WAS ONLY SAID ONCE IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE! I also dislike how the firelord appeared in the whole movie. I was like, “Oh he’s here again.”, “There he is again” “HEY AREN’T YOU APPEARING MORE THAN ZUKO?!” I would more appreciate if they made the firelord secret and appeared at the last part wherein he talked with Azula.

Second, All those slow motions. I am not actually against it but it happened most of the time. It ate a lot of minutes in the film. They should have made more bending fights with the Avatar. I wanted to see more fight scenes but it disappointed me. I am quite disappointed too with small scripts or lines in each scene. Though I understand that the director made the whole Book one shown in one film and I know that it’s really hard to shorten the story while not leaving any important information behind (and they actually did it, good thing) but I would appreciate if they made more talks especially with the protagonists. I felt like these three, Aang, Sokka and Katara were not close enough to fight together in the Northern war. They make really awkward talks.

Third, WHY DID THE DIRECTOR MAKE AANG AS IF HE’S A FAILURE?! In the scene where Yue brought the Moon spirit’s life back, Aang should be in the Avatar state due to his anger BUT WHERE THE HELL WAS IT?! I was actually looking forward to it! Now it looked like it was Yue who saved the Northern Tribe cause she became the moon and waterbenders need moon. Yes, I know that’s actually the way it is but should’ve been Aang saved the Tribe first before Yue became the moon? Aang looked like a real failure. You loner sad kid is a failure to mankind!

Fourth, It was great that dealing with the spirit world was in the film but why Aang kept on talking with Avatar Roku’s dragon? It’s supposed to be Roku though, giving the present Avatar wisdom for the success.

Aang's Avatar State making the ships of the Fire Nation to back off

Cinematography: 8/10
It was actually great for a film from 2010. No negative reactions for here.

Soundtrack: 7/10
I would appreciate it if they made an old kind of music for the background like the animation.

Overall: 7/10
The characters are actually the thing that disappointed me in the movie. Seeing in the first part of the movie, stating the words “Book One: Water”, it seemed like they’re gonna make another movie for book 2. Please don’t.