Avatar-The Last Airbender

One of my favorite TV shows ever, is a three season cartoon on Nickelodeon called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Look it up, watch it repeatedly, and enjoy it. It does not disappoint. To quote Katara, one of the main characters, from the introduction to the shows pilot, “Water. Earth. Fire. Air. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the old days. A time of peace. When the Avatar kept balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. But that all changed when the fire nation attacked. Only the Avatar mastered all four elements, only he could stop the ruthless fire benders. But when the world needed him most he vanished. A hundred years have passed and the fire nation is nearing victory in the war… Some people believe that the Avatar was never reborn into the Air Nomads and that the cycle is broken, but I haven’t lost hope. I still believe that somehow the Avatar will return to save the world.”

So when I heard that one of my favorite film makers, M. Night Shayamalan, was making three live action movies from this series I was so excited. The first of the three is now in theaters, and I excitedly saw it. It was terrible! It is hard for me to remember all the things that Night did well, they exist beside all this things that made this film terrible. Sadness. I can’t talk about it very much right now. But I will say this, the problem is similar to what made the last three Star Wars movies terrible. Visual effects can not save terrible dialogue. Remember how terrible the Architect scene in the second Matrix movie was. It was like: insert ridiculous information monologue here. The Last Airbender falls into these camps quite often. Night struggled with how to reveal the mythology of the “Avatar” world, and how much of it was necessary to reveal. My personal opinion is that less is more. And dialogue should be written for the characters, not for the audience. If the audience only gets hints into the mythology of the world and belief systems of the characters, then it enhances the mystery. And the cartoon exists for anyone intrigued to have more. Anyway, here is the movie trailer, which looks amazing.