M. Night Shyamalan Projector
For those who do not know the principle behind the Last airbender series, here is a brief summary. Long ago, the four nations of the world lived in peace. Each tribe had a spiritual connection with one of the four elements: earth, fire, water and air. A single individual could exercise control over the four elements. He was known as the Avatar and he kept the balance in the world. However, one day “when it was most needed” it disappeared and the Fire Nation arose and almost conquered every other nation. One hundred years later, an eleven-year-old boy emerges from a frozen water bubble. He is the last of the Air Nomads and the only one capable of stopping the Fire Nation’s vicious campaign.
The cartoon series that is the source of this film make it clear that manipulating the elements does not require magic. It is a birthright and a will that allows various members of the four tribes to control (or “bend”) their respective elements. “It’s not magic. It’s waterbending, ”Katara tells her brother in the first episode. Well, the movie version is completely devoid of magic in every sense of the word. It totally lacks the feeling of admiration, enthusiasm and above all the heart that the cartoon has delivered with such reliable regularity.
The great fall of The last air Master the film is a flawed narrative, pure and simple. I’m not a big fan of Shyamalan, but I have always respected the subtlety of his early writing. Not once have I doubted his ability to invest a simple story with a deeper meaning – so I wonder why he adjusted his method of writing this film. For The last air Master, Shyamalan trades subtlety for over-clarification. He speaks to his audience and therefore treats us all like children – especially stupid children. Her characters constantly explain their motivations: Zuko’s obsession with regaining her honor, Katara’s needy desire to emulate her late mother’s moral standards, Aang’s guilt for giving up her Avatar duties. This relentless exposure robs the characters’ actions of any significance, ironically making the characters less dimensional than their cartoonish counterparts.
In the director’s defense, the cartoon had twenty episodes and ten hours to flesh out its story and characters, while Shyamalan had less than two hours. He would have been better off following the Lord of the Rings route and making an epic feature film. I’m sure a lot of his limitations in recreating the cartoon world and epic journey were tied to his budget. But in my mind, if you can’t make the movie you want to make, then you shouldn’t do it at all. He had to know that at least half, if not more, of this adaptation’s audience would come to the film to see how he planned to replicate some pivotal moments from the TV series. So if he intended to reinterpret the final battle and skip Aang’s transformation into a monstrous water spirit, then he should have offered something a little more than a tidal wave. not so epic tide that doesn’t even knock over enemy ships but somehow succeeds in scaring the bad guys away anyway.
The biggest flaws of all are at the character level. Shyamalan’s script just drops information into its audience’s tricks and hopes they’ll accept it without really giving them a chance to digest it. Sokka’s relationship with Princess Yue unfolds over a glance and a voiceover narration clip. Aang’s crush on Katara, such an important and defining plot point in the cartoon, never shows up in the film, and the story suffers from its absence. The characters in Shyamalan’s story are put together at random, and the kinship and responsibility they feel for each other never gets much attention. For example, Sokka initially treats Aang with suspicion and apprehension, but he undertakes the potentially deadly mission of escorting him to the Northern Water Tribe without much reluctance. Basically, the random pacing and patchy storytelling doesn’t give the heroes enough time for respect to grow between them. Plus, I would say there isn’t enough time or motivation for a relationship to form between the characters and the audience either. I struggled to identify a reason to put down roots or sympathize with Aang and the others.
Perhaps Shyamalan’s biggest violation involves his misinterpretation of the personality of the main actors, especially in Aang’s case. He seems to forget that they are children. Yes, “with great power comes great responsibility”, but it also comes with opportunities to have fun. The kids in this movie don’t have time to have fun or be funny for that matter. The humor and levity of the series is completely absent from the adaptation of Shyamalan. As a result, Aang comes across as a dark, brooding religious figure and not the adorable and always playful sprite that he is in the cartoon.
Character arcs are also becoming a victim of the accelerated pace. Shyamalan overloads the dialogue with such consideration of the past that he fails to get the characters to consider their current situation. The characters don’t actually learn anything; they just realize their mistakes. Maybe the writer / director intended for them to fully explore their arcs during a multi-movie franchise (a possibility offered by the movie’s final scene), but the movie always left me with a feeling persistent incompleteness when the credits roll.
Kenneth broadway
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published under our old brand, Sound On Sight.