The Last Airbender

Movie vs TV show

Avatar: The Last Airbender is considered to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, television series of all time.  Especially given how simple the premise is with a group of kids who can control the four elements; air, water, earth, and fire respectively, with one of them being able to control all four at once, otherwise known as The Avatar.  These kids band together to stop an evil ruler from taking over the world, which sounds way too simple on paper and yet it works to the shows advantage.  The main points of praise are directed towards the colorful animation, personality-driven characters, and the several real-world and relatable issues that are tackled in various episodes.  In terms of personal experience, it took me a while to really get into the series as I didn't think too much of it when it was airing on TV.  However, I rewatched the series a few years later and I find myself enjoying it much more than I ever have in the past.  It still isn't my favorite TV show, that slot is taken by Code Lyoko, but it is crystal clear where the praise comes from.  Nowadays, this show is in my top 5 favorite shows of all time along with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Steven Universe.  And it wasn't too long before a movie based on this beloved show was in the works.

Unfortunately, the film itself is a complete mess with story that rushes itself out every chance it gets, poor character presentation, and poor special effects.  Not only that, but M Night Shyamalan, the director, made several changes to the story with most of them making little to no sense in the long run.  The main one of these changes being more focus on the establishment of the world around our heroes as opposed to our heroes themselves.  Another example of an unnecessary change is that the movie shows the enemy holding a group of earth benders in a prison made almost entirely of earth, the very element that they can manipulate to their will.  In comparison, the show has the prison set on a metal oil rig where their abilities are rendered null and void.

Top: movie
Bottom: show

Another point of comparison is the action sequences.  In the show, these scenes are very quick and really know how to get the blood pumping.  However, the action scenes in the movie are mostly tracking shots that quickly get boring after not even a minute.  Most of that is due to the timing between the bending and the actual movements of the characters.  In the aforementioned prison scene, six earthbenders are shown to be moving a small boulder and using it to hit a firebender.  This is nothing short of a copout considering that in the show, that many benders were able to easily send a tank flying with one or two synchronized movements.

The characters in the movie are also poor representations of their TV counterparts.  Sokka, the undisputed king of comedy in the show, is changed to a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud, as well as a complete pessimist who can't see the bright side of anything.  Katara, with her unwavering devotion to her friends, is made no better due to her nonexistent contributions to the plot that basically turn her into one of those non-playable characters (NPCs) in video game who spoon feed information to the player during a boss battle.  And possibly the worst offender is the main character, Aang.  In the show, he has a kind spirit who never tries to sugarcoat the harsh reality of his situation and recognizes his inevitable fate while desperately searching for another path to victory.  In the movie, he's completely naive and too attached to the past to see what's directly in front of him, like a more annoying and less interesting version of Captain America.  The only two characters that retain their original identities are Zuko and Iroh as the former does give this sense that he's been hurt by his father in more ways than one and the latter does seem at least somewhat like a real uncle to Zuko.

Despite that however, the movie still has too many flaws to be considered worth checking out in the slightest.  There have actually been a few rumors about a sequel floating about and if that is the case, I just hope that it will be at least somewhat more tolerable than this Titanic of a movie.  But until that hope comes to fruition, I'll stick with the great show that we already have and its sequel series, Legend of Korra.  Which by the way, has reviews that are a bit more mixed, but I still enjoy it and consider it a worthwhile entry into the Avatar Franchise.  As for the movie, the only way I go back to it nowadays is a review from the Nostalgia Critic.  His review of the movie is what inspired me to make this comparison blog and if any of you get the chance, definitely take a look.  He goes into much greater detail about the show, the movie, and even a bit about Shyamalan himself.  There is also an article that explains not only the events that are missing from the movie, but also the characters with quotes from Shyamalan himself put into it.  I'm not sure if this does the movie justice or not or even if it's completely valid, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.  Even if it is, this movie is still getting a 2.5/10 from me with the 2.5 going to the fact that it was the first Shyamalan movie I saw and the fact that when I first saw it, the only pressing issue for me was how they pronounced the names of certain characters.  With that said, thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it, and I'll see you all very soon.