Review: The Last Airbender

 Even if you haven't seen it yet, you've probably heard a lot of criticism about it. While it certainly had some problems, I did not think it was without its redeeming qualities.

The problems stemmed mostly from the changes M. Night Shamylan made. I expected a lot of changes; you can't condense an entire season of television (over 6 hours) into a movie without making some adjustments. And not all of the changes were bad.

Changing the pronunciations of the names. This was annoying, but considering that M. Night specifically adjusted the names to the Asian pronunciation, I was willing to overlook it. He didn't change the names themselves, and I could understand the change at least.

Changing firebending to require pre-existing fire. Not something I was thrilled with. The fact that firebenders could generate their element was part of what made them such a threatening element. However, this is a reasonable change, and doesn't really change the dynamic of the story that much.

One change that really bothered me though was Fire Lord Ozai. We see him walking around his palace, not silhouetted behind a wall of fire which made him far, far more intimidating and evil looking. He also seemed to have a much softer feeling for his son than he did in the series. That really irritated me. One of the main driving forces behind the story was how much the Fire Lord disliked his son. I would have to say that this, above all else, angered me more than anything about the movie.

Another thing that really bothered me about the movie was how underdeveloped both Sokka and Katara were. Neither of them were clearly defined, nor given real purpose throughout the movie. For me, this was just a half-step behind the changes to Fire Lord Ozai in terms of causing anger and damaging the movie. They didn't even develop why Sokka and Yue fell for each other, it was just "love at first sight" happy happy. (Oh, and they made Yue an orphan who ruled the Northern Water Tribe. A meaningless change that while it didn't affect the plot at all, was unneeded.)

However, I felt that Aang and Zuko were well developed, especially given the limited scope of Season 1 in this regard. All the important groundwork was laid for future episodes. We see Aang giving over to duty, and Zuko's anger and desperation to regain his honor. Uncle Iroh was also well portrayed, even if his character lost the goofy manner he had in the series. I was actually very happy with his development, and his change to a more adult and less jokerly character.

 Finally, Aang says the Avatar is not allowed to have a family. Thanks to season 3 and knowing that Avatar Roku had a family (which, while able to be worked around, provides some very important insight to events following this revelation), this was obviously bull. It's been a while since I've watched the first season, so I don't know if Aang said it then, and the creators adjusted later, but with the series in its completion, there was no reason to put it into the movie. Aang had plenty of motivation with just the stress and pressures of being the Avatar to justify his running away.

However, it was not without its upsides. M. Night kept very close to the series, and it was cool being able to say "Omg, I remember this episode!" The scenery was beautiful, and matched, by and large, the vistas in the show. The 3D effects weren't needed, but at the same time seemed to work as the 3D in James Cameron's Avatar and simply added depth, without getting the vibe of "Omg! Look at my 3D!" (I have heard that many people had issues with the the 3D making it hard to see what was going on, but the only time I had this problem was with the Spirit Dragon that replaced Roku as Aang's mentor. But he was supposed to be hard to see. Your experience may vary.)

I also liked how he put larger chunks of description and exposition into voice over by Katara, keeping awkward dialogue to a minimum, though not completely absent.

All in all, if you go in knowing that the film is flawed, I think the enjoyment level goes up immensely over what others have said about the movie. M. Night was given the difficult task of adapting an entire television season (and a largely expositional one at that as the creators laid out the Avatar world) into a movie with a largely limited time frame. While he certainly did not hit the mark, I think it is undeserving of the hate that it has received. The largest cause of problems seemed to be that he waffled between laying out the world for new viewers, as well as trying to explain his changes to the fans. I think if he had just laid it out for new viewers, it would have been received better by the fans.