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The first of a planned trilogy, The Last Airbender was produced by Paramount Pictures andNickelodeon Movies. Development for a film began in 2007; it was adapted into a film by M. Night Shyamalan, who also directed and produced. Other producers include Frank Marshall,Kathleen Kennedy, Sam Mercer and Scott Aversano.The series from which it was adapted was influenced by Asian art, mythology and various martial arts fighting styles and was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. Filming began in mid-March 2009; the film was released in both traditional two-dimensional projectors, as well as in 3D (using the RealD 3D format).
The Last Airbender was made for $150 million and marketed with a budget of $130 million, making total costs at least $280 million. Other estimates put the cost between $100 million and $110 million, while various news sources reported the whole Last Airbendertrilogy would be made for around $250 million. Premiering in New York City on June 30, 2010, it opened in the United States the following day, grossing an estimated $16 million.
Plot
The film begins with fourteen-year-old The Last Airbender)">Katara and her fifteen-year-old warrior brother, Sokka, near a river at the South Pole. They soon followed some tracks of a tiger seal. When they looked beneath their feet, there was something glowing below. An ice sphere appeared with a boy named Aang and a flying bison named Appa trapped inside when Sokka hits the floor with his boomerang. Unknown to them, Aang is the long lost Avatar - a spiritual figure that holds the world in balance through every incarnation. However, his disappearance allowed the Fire Nation to declare war on the other nations (the Air Nomads, the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom) in their attempt to conquer the world. Zuko, an exiled prince of the Fire Nation, is on a quest to find the Avatar and bring him as prisoner to his father, the The Last Airbender)">Fire Lord Ozai. Seeing the light that appeared from Aang's release, Zuko and some Fire Nation soldiers arrive at the Southern Water Tribe to demand the villagers to bring out their elderly under the impression that the Avatar must be an old person. But Aang reveals himself as he surrenders himself to Zuko on the condition that he agrees to leave the village alone. On the ship Aang is tested by Zuko's Uncle Iroh to confirm him to be the Avatar. After being informed that he is to be their prisoner for passing the test, Aang escapes using his glider and flies to his flying bison brought by Katara and Sokka. Aang and his new friends visit the Southern Air Temple and he learns that he was in the ice for a whole century and that the Fire Nation wiped out all Air Nomads, including his guardian, Monk Gyatso. In despair, he enters the Avatar state and finds himself in the spirit world where he encounters a dragon spirit that tells him to make his way to the Northern Water Tribe to master Water Bending.
While at small Earth Kingdom town controlled by the Fire Nation, Aang's group is arrested because Katara tries to help a young boy from a patrol. They incite a rebellion by reminding the disgruntled Earthbenders that earth was given to them. Katara is given a Waterbending scroll that she uses to perfect her Waterbending and help Aang learn Waterbending as they make their way to the Northern Water Tribe and liberate more Earth Kingdom villages in the process. During a side track to the Northern Air Temple on his own, Aang is betrayed by a peasant and captured by a group of Fire Nation archers, led by Admiral Zhao. However, a masked marauder, the "Blue Spirit", helps Aang escape from his imprisonment. Aware that Zuko is the "Blue Spirit", Zhao arranges to kill the prince. Zuko survives the attempt on his life. With Iroh's help, he sneaks aboard Zhao's lead ship as his fleet departs for the Northern Water Tribe to execute the plan he and Ozai set up with the scrolls from the Library detailing the spirits there.
Upon arriving, Aang's group is welcomed warmly by the citizens of the Northern Water Tribe. Immediately, Sokka befriends the Northern Water Tribe princess, Yue. After a few agreements, a waterbending master, Pakku, teaches Aang waterbending. Soon, the Fire Nation arrives and Zhao begins his attack while Zuko begins his search for the Avatar on his own, capturing Aang as he enters the spirit world to find the dragon spirit to give him the wisdom to defeat the Fire Nation. Returning to his body, Aang battles Zuko before Katara freezes him. As the battle escalates, Iroh watches Zhao capture the moon spirit Tui, which with its water spirit counterpart had assumed the form of a fish. Despite Iroh's pleas, Zhao kills Tui to strip the Waterbenders to lose all of their powers and abilities to Waterbend. Yue explains to everyone that the moon spirit gave her life, willing to gave it back as she dies in the process. With the tables turned, Zhao is drowned by Waterbenders after Zuko and Iroh leave him to his fate. Aang uses the ocean to drive the armada back. Aang now fully embraces his destiny as the Avatar as he, Katara and Sokka prepare to continue their journey to the Earth Kingdom to find an earthbending teacher for Aang. When news of Zhao's death and Iroh's betrayal reaches Fire Lord Ozai, he appoints his daughter Azula to capture both her uncle and Zuko along with dealing with the Avatar before Sozin's Comet returns.
Cast
- Noah Ringer as Aang,who disappeared from public sight a hundred years ago. While chronologically 112 years old, Aang still retains his biological age of 12. He is the latest reincarnation of the Avatar. Though he is capable of bending all four elements, at the beginning of the film he has only learned to airbend. It is also his duty to maintain balance in the world, which conflicts with his easy-going, fun-loving personality.
- Dev Patel as Prince Zuko, a 16-year-old Fire Nation prince who travels with his uncle Iroh. The former heir to the throne, he was exiled by his father, Fire Lord Ozai, and ordered to capture the Avatar (who had not been seen in almost a century, making the assignment awild goose chase) in order to regain his lost honor. He is the secondary protagonist of the film.
- Nicola Peltz as The Last Airbender)">Katara,a 14-year-old girl of the Southern Water Tribe and its last remaining waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. Since the death of her mother, Kya, she has served as the maternal figure in her family, and is no stranger to responsibility despite her young age. She is Aang's good friend and love interest.
- Jackson Rathbone as Sokka, a 15-year-old warrior from the Southern Water Tribe and Katara's older brother. He can be condescending, and has no bending powers. He often takes up leadership roles by virtue of coming up with most of the workable plans and tactics.
- Shaun Toub as Iroh, Zuko's uncle. He is extremely easy-going and friendly, and often acts as a surrogate father to Zuko. Formerly a great general of the Fire Nation, personal tragedies led to his retirement, and the role of heir-presumptive passed to his younger brother Ozai.
- Aasif Mandvi as Commander Zhao, a hot-tempered Fire Nation Commander in pursuit of the Avatar. He is Zuko's principal rival. Hence, he serves as the primary antagonist of the film to both Aang and Zuko. In the show, he is promoted to Admiral when trying to appoint the Yuu Yan archers to capture Aang. In the film, there is no mention of Zhao's promotion but he dies an admiral in the cartoon.
- Seychelle Gabriel as Princess Yue, the princess of the Northern Water Tribe, who turned into the moon.
- Cliff Curtis as The Last Airbender)">Fire Lord Ozai, the leader of the Fire Nation as well as Prince Zuko's father. He is a secondary antagonist of the film, and the main antagonist of the cartoon series.
- Summer Bishil as Princess Azula, appears once at the battle where Zuko refuses to fight and again at the end where she accepts the role as hunter of her brother and uncle, and destroying the Avatar. She inherited her father's pleasure of killing which makes her father choose her to take over Zuko's previous task. She acts as a minor antagonist in this movie.
Production
Development
On January 8, 2007, Paramount Pictures' MTV Films and Nickelodeon Movies announced that they had signed M. Night Shyamalan to write, direct and produce a trilogy of live-action films based on the The Last Airbender">Avatar: The Last Airbender series; the first of which would encompass the main characters' adventures in Book One. An announcement, revealing the July 2, 2010 release date was made on April 15, 2008. The film, which was in a dispute with James Cameron's film Avatar regarding title ownership,was also titled The Last Airbender.
According to an interview with the co-creators in SFX magazine, Shyamalan came across Avatar when his daughter wanted to be The Last Airbender)">Katara forHalloween. Intrigued, Shyamalan researched and watched the series with his family. "Watching Avatar has become a family event in my house ... so we are looking forward to how the story develops in season three," said Shyamalan. "Once I saw the amazing world that Mikeand Bryan created, I knew it would make a great feature film." He added he was attracted to the spiritual and martial arts influences on the show.
Avatar: The Last Airbender co-creators Mike DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko voiced their opinion within an interview regarding M. Night Shyamalan writing, directing and producing the film. The two displayed much enthusiasm over Shyamalan's decision for the adaptation, stating that they admire his work and, in turn, he respects their material. Producer Frank Marshall explained that they have high hopes to stick to a PG rating. "I'm not even sure we want to get in the PG-13 realm. Furthermore, Shyamalan said, "I took away a little bit of the slapsticky stuff that was there for the little little kids, the fart jokes and things like that...We grounded Katara's brother...and that really did wonderful things for the whole theme of the movie."
Casting
M. Night Shyamalan originally offered the roles of Aang to Noah Ringer; Sokka to Jackson Rathbone; Katara to Nicola Peltz; and Zuko toJesse McCartney. In an interview with People, Shyamalan claimed that he did not want to make The Last Airbender without Nicola Peltz, "I said that only once before in my career, and that was when I met Haley in The Sixth Sense auditions." In February 2009, Dev Patelreplaced Jesse McCartney, whose tour dates conflicted with a boot camp scheduled for the cast to train in martial arts. Katharine Houghton and Seychelle Gabriel played "Gran Gran", the grandmother of Katara and Sokka, and Princess Yue, another of Sokka's love interests and princess of the Northern Water Tribe, respectively. Isaac Jin Solstein played an earthbending boy. Aasif Mandvi played Commander Zhao, Cliff Curtis played Fire Lord Ozai, and Keong Sim was cast in the role of an Earthbender.
Ringer, who had never before worked on a film, began practicing Taekwondo, the martial art and national sport of South Korea, at the age of 10.His skills later garnered accolades, including the title of American Taekwondo Association Texas State Champion.Since Aang was bald in the animated series, the actor who portrayed the character would either need to shave his head, or wear a "bald wig". However, Ringer began shaving his head during his martial arts training to help cool off, therefore causing his fans and instructor, all fans of the series, to call him "Avatar". Feeling the connection with the martial arts sequences from the series, Ringer heard about the film adaptation and, with the help of his instructor, submitted an audition tape.His painted blue arrow on his already shaved head helped secure him the lead role.Having not acted before, Ringer was required to attend acting school a month before filming commenced, calling the film a great experience. Peltz was familiar with the Waterbending character before submitting for the part of Katara, having faithfully watched The Last Airbender">Avatar: The Last Airbender, the animated series on which the film is based, with her younger twin brothers.She describes her character as being a big role model with young girls and women, "She's really mentally and physically strong, strong-willed and -minded, but she's also caring and compassionate... The movie has a lot of values, but it's also fun. It's fantasy, but it's also a really cool battle between good and evil."She explained that she initially didn't know about Rathbone starring in the Twilight films until after she met him and said that working with Shyamalan was an amazing experience. Rathbone, who originally auditioned for the role of Zuko, was approached by Shyamalan to audition for the film.After waiting for six months, he received a call informing him that he was cast as Sokka.Rathbone stated that his favorite scenes were the fight sequences, which he prepared for by stickfighting
The Last Airbender" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b3/Airbendertoub.jpg/250px-Airbendertoub.jpg" width="250" height="135">Before Slumdog Millionaire was released, Patel auditioned for the role of Zuko by submitting a tape to the studio. Shyamalan called Patel personally to inform him that he got the part. Training for the film was intense, as he had to learn Wushu and different martial arts.Patel's first fight scene filmed called for him to be in a tub of water on a ship; he was to look at a picture of his family, which would give him the urge to fight. Patel recalls fighting, punching, and throwing and said it was truly amazing. While he was filming Slumdog in India, he would finish a take and turn one of the channels over to the animated series.Even though it is based on a cartoon, he wanted to bring as much of himself as possible to the character he was portraying. Shaun Toub, who was cast as Uncle Iroh, describes his character in the first film as "loose" and "free". He compares Zuko's "obsession" to his childhood memories and how kids are always looking for their parents' approval, saying that Zuko just wants his father's. "He isn't necessarily bad, he just has a great deal of built up anger and forgets to consider others. I think people will understand that he's not bad, he's just angry and hurting because he really wants his father to love him, but his father is too busy with other things." He says that Patel is an "18 year old with all this energy," and that Patel was able to influence him into appreciating the business of film making more. While comparing the animated series to the film, he says the film is much more serious. He attributed this change to the director trying to relate to every age group, rather than just kids.
The casting of White actors in the Asian-influenced and Native American-influenced Avatar universe triggered negative reactions from some fans marked by accusations of racism, a letter-writing campaign, and various protests. "To take this incredibly loved children's series, and really distort not only the ethnicity of the individual characters but the message of acceptance and cultural diversity that the original series advocated, is a huge blow," Michael Le of Racebending.com, a fan site calling for a boycott of the martial-arts fantasy, said. As a result of the casting, the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans urged a film boycott for the first time in the organization's 18-year history. "This was a great opportunity to create new Asian-American stars...[nonetheless,] I'm disappointed." stated Guy Aoki, president of the organization. After a casting call specifically looking for "Caucasians and other ethnicities," Shyamalan explained that "Ultimately, this movie, and then the three movies, will be the most culturally diverse tent-pole movies ever released, period." Furthermore, Paramount provided a statement about the casting choices, "The movie has 23 credited speaking roles — more than half of which feature Asian and Pan Asian actors of Korean, Japanese and Indian decent. The filmmaker's interpretation reflects the myriad qualities that have made this series a global phenomenon. We believe fans of the original and new audiences alike will respond positively once they see it." The studio also took the initiative to screen the film to boycotters at Racebending.com after the 3D conversion was complete.
M. Night Shyamalan commented on the issues regarding fans' perceptive of the casting in an interview with Washington Post columnist Jen Chaney, saying, "Anime is based on ambiguous facial features. It's meant to be interpretive. It's meant to be inclusive of all races, and you can see yourself in all these characters...This is a multicultural movie and I'm going to make it even more multicultural in my approach to its casting. There's African-Americans in the movie...so it's a source of pride for me. The irony that [protesters] would label this with anything but the greatest pride, that the movie poster has Noah and Dev on it and my name on it. I don't know what else to do." Rathbone was also one to dismiss the complaints in an interview with MTV, saying, "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit."The controversy wasn't well received by critics either. Film critic Roger Ebert was one of the critical voices against the casting. When asked about casting a white cast to portray the characters, he said, "The original series Avatar: The Last Airbender was highly regarded and popular for three seasons on Nickelodeon. Its fans take it for granted that its heroes are Asian. Why would Paramount and Shyamalan go out of their way to offend these fans? There are many young Asian actors capable of playing the parts."Jevon Phillips of the Los Angeles Times noted that despite Shyamalan's attempts to defuse the situation, the issue will "not fade away or be overlooked", and that this film exemplifies the need for a debate within Hollywood about racial diversity in its films.
Filming
Pre-production began in late 2008, while filming began in March 2009 in Greenland. After two weeks, the cast and crew moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, where production designers and special-effects crews worked for several weeks, preparing the local site for the film. A production team scouting the area found the Pagoda on Mount Penn, which served as an ancient temple in the film. Reading,Pennsylvania mayor Tom McMahon explained that crews made road improvements and buried electrical lines surrounding the structure.
Filming also took place in Ontelaunee Township and at the William Penn Memorial Fire Tower in Pennsylvania after the production crew finished at the Pagoda. When asked about shooting the film in Reading, Pennsylvania, Pamela Shupp, vice president of Berks Economic Development said, "They needed buildings to shoot all the interiors, and were looking for a group of buildings with high ceilings and specific column spacing. We showed them a number of buildings, but we couldn't come up with enough to meet their requirements. So the interiors will be shot in Philadelphia."
Visual effects
With a film as technologically advanced as Avatar, the expectations of realistically throwing balls of fire and water were pushed to the limit onThe Last Airbender. The film presented the opportunity to create and work on a variety of things never seen before, and Pablo Helman, who previously worked on Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, was the visual effects supervisor for the Industrial Light and Magicteam on the film. He worked closely with Shyamalan, reviewing each scene and talking about the visual effects needed to tell the story, and ultimately worked with about 300 people to reflect the director's vision, who he said planned it all in a story-board book.
The Last Airbender" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6c/WateranimationLAM.jpg" width="241" height="260">Industrial Light and Magic was posed with visualizing the elemental tribes of Air, Water, Earth, and Fire; most importantly creating the "bending" styles of these elements. Additionally, they were required to animate inanimate creatures and enhance stunt work with digital doubles. "The work was challenging," shares Helman. "We had to figure out what "bending" is for fire, water, air and earth." The project was started without the desired technology needed to create the effects. Rather than software, computer graphic cards were the basis for "bending" the elements, allowing previews to be viewed more swiftly. This resulted in Shyamalan having to direct more than sixty takes before the effect was finished and lined up with his visions.
Due to reality-based expectations, fire and water were the hardest elements to effectively bend, and because of particle work which was unable to be rendered in hardware, earth bending also was difficult to create. With water, the variety in different scales required Helman and his team to create different techniques. The concept for air was derived from the animation of the television series. In order to create the air bending effect, visual effects art director Christian Alzman and digital matte department supervisor Barry Williams explained that seeing dust and snow particles, rather than seeing the air itself, helped shape the real world effect of bending the element. Before the bending effects could be applied though, the actor's movements had to be matched; Shyamalan therefore wanted each character's bending styles to be unique in order to fit with their unique personalities.
The challenge for fire didn't come with making it look realistic, but rather making the fire behave in an unrealistic way that would be believable to the audience. The film that inspired The Last Airbender's fire style was the sixth Harry Potter film, which was re-engineered in order to reflect two-dimensional simulations.Helman's team referenced images of flames being pushed through the air by giant fans for certain shots needed throughout the film. The team also considered using a meshed image of real and digital fire, but in the end, went with the richer, deeper texture of computer generated flame.
In terms of matte paintings, this was the biggest show that Helman had ever done. The paintings had to be in 3D because the visual style included long duration shots in which the camera always moved. The climax, which was enacted on a 200 by 200 feet (61 × 61 m) set, had to be incorporated with still of the landscapes shot in Greenland, as well as the low-angle lighting that was captured on location there.The camera was animated to get angles needed for different shots in the film by importing these stills into the computer. Multiple cameras were used to capture the different wire-work and animation that was used to create the creatures and many fight scenes within the film. In creating these creatures, the team referenced nature. In order for them to be believable, they looked for examples of the same size and weight as the animated character and then developed hybrids from different animals to make each species unique. This was done by observing actual animals to get a take on how they would act. Shyamalan's take on the personality of each creature also influenced the creation stage of the creatures. For example, the lemur Momo has flying mechanics based on a giant fruit bat. Other elements, such as texturing, hair or scale simulation, and light and shadow complimentary to the live action, were added to make the final animation appear as real as possible during the later stages of character development.
Paramount Pictures made an announcement in late April 2010, revealing that The Last Airbender would be released in 3D. This decision came after an increased amount of films being made or converted to 3D, such as Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans, made a decent profit at the box office. Although Helman stated that Shyamalan's way of shooting without fast edits and the film's visuals could lend itself to the 3D conversion well, James Cameron voiced his disapproval on any film being converted using this process, saying, "You can slap a 3-D label on it and call it 3-D, but there's no possible way that it can be done up to a standard that anybody would consider high enough." Despite this, Shyamalan opted to work with Stereo D LLC, the company who worked on James Cameron's own Avatar.The conversion process for the film cost between $5 million and $10 million, adding to the reported $100 million that already went into the film.
Music
The Last Airbender" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4f/The_Last_Airbender_soundtrack.jpg/150px-The_Last_Airbender_soundtrack.jpg" width="150" height="150">
The Last Airbendersoundtrack cover.
In December 2008, James Newton Howard was announced as the composer for The Last Airbender (soundtrack)">The Last Airbender. The film would mark the seventh collaboration between Howard and M. Night Shyamalan, after the 2008 film The Happening. Most recently, Howard received acclaim for his work with Hans Zimmer on The Dark Knight. On May 13, 2009, producer Frank Marshall announced that Howard was recording music for the teaser trailer that was later released that summer; it was later confirmed by Frank Marshall that all of the film's trailers featured original music by Howard himself. The soundtrack, released by Lakeshore Records on June 29, 2010, required Howard to hire a 119-member ensemble.Running at approximately 66 minutes, it contains eleven tracks ranging from three to seven minutes long, with a twelfth track, called "Airbender Suite" running at nearly eleven minutes. Reviews for the score were modestly positive. Danuek Schweiger of IF Magazine gave the score an A, saying the loud music is the only thing that saves the film, "[the] thematically trumpeting, mystically muscular score will let your imagination run wild in- even if that place with Shyamalan is once again best experienced in your own head.". Filmtracks' Christian Clemmensen, who spoke highly of Howard's previous credits, gave the score five out of five possible stars and praised Howard's new-found ability to "[use] the four sections of the orchestra to individually represent the four natural elements," while also criticizing the "narrative flow", which was attributed to the "non-chronological presentation" of the album.
Marketing
Promotion
The teaser trailer for the film was attached to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, released in theaters on June 24, 2009.The teaser trailer was also shown exclusively on the June 22, 2009 episode of Entertainment Tonight. The trailer shows Aang airbending in a temple which is being attacked by a multitude of Fire Nation ships. A theatrical trailer was to be released around Christmas 2009, but it was pushed back until February 2010 because not enough visual effects shots were completed. This trailer was attached to the Percy Jackson film released on February 12, 2010.A theatrical trailer was later released on March 25, 2010. It was then attached with How to Train Your Dragon. The last theatrical trailer is attached to Iron Man 2 which was released May 7, 2010.
The first TV spot for the film aired during Super Bowl XLIV on February 7, 2010.It showed parts of the film that were not shown in the teaser trailer and had no diagetic dialogue, but merely narration. On February 10, the theatrical trailer was released online. It shows multiple scenes from the film and is an expanded version of the first TV spot. McDonald's sold Happy Meals to promote the film.
On February 9, 2010, Nickelodeon Consumer Products also debuted the upcoming line of toys based on The Last Airbender. It includes various 3 3/4-inch action figures, as well as larger, action-enabled figures, costumes and other props. Among the toys featured in the line were figures based on Aang, Prince Zuko, Sokka, The Last Airbender)">Katara, and a fully ride-able Appa the Sky Bison "We worked very closely with M. Night, the rest of the Paramount team and our in-house design team, along with our partner Spin-Master, to come up with the right assortment, the right size for these action figures and make sure we had representation of all the nations within the 'Airbender' series," said Nickelodeon's Lourdes Arocho. The Last Airbender action figures are expected to be released in three "waves"; wave one on June 1, wave two near the film's July release date, and wave three near the 2010 holiday season. THQ Studio Australia also developed a video game based on the film. Titled The Last Airbender (video game)">The Last Airbender, it was released on June 29, 2010 for the Wii and the Nintendo DS.
Graphic novels
Two original black-and-white graphic novels, entitled The Last Airbender: Prequel: Zuko's Story and The Last Airbender, drawn in the mangastyle, were written by Dave Roman. "We're excited to be working with Nickelodeon to bring these great stories to the manga audience", says Dallas Middaugh, Associate Publisher of Del Rey Manga. "Avatar: The Last Airbender has shown incredible crossover appeal with manga fans. The release of The Last Airbender movie and original tie-in manga gives us the chance to share completely new stories with Avatar fans looking for more about Aang, Zuko, and their favorite characters." The second manga, The Last Airbender, illustrated by Joon Choi, was released on June 22, 2010. Written by Dave Roman and Allison Wilgus, the plot, like the film, is a condensed version of the The Last Airbender (season 1)">first season of the series.
The prequel, Zuko's Story, is co-written by Alison Wilgus and Dave Roman and illustrated by Nina Matsumoto and was released on May 18, 2010. The synopsis for the graphic novel was released in early 2010, "When Prince Zuko dared to question authority, his father, Fire Lord Ozai, banished him from the Fire Nation. Horribly scarred and stripped of everything he held dear, Zuko has wandered the earth for almost three years in search of his only chance at redemption: the Avatar, a mystical being who once kept the four nations in balance. Everyone he encounters believes that this is an impossible task, as the Avatar disappeared a century ago. But Zuko stubbornly continues the search. He must regain his honor, so his quest is all he has left."
Roman and Wilgus, who developed comics based on The Last Airbender">Avatar: The Last Airbender for Nick Magazine, consulted The Last Airbender">Avatar: The Last Airbendercreators Mike Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and head writer for the show Aaron Ehasz while they were developing Zuko's Story.The four wanted to try a comic that would fit into with the continuity of the show. The prequel, though mostly associated with the film, was meant to be a prequel to the series. Roman explained, "In a lot of ways, it's like an expanded origin. With the film and the series, there are differences and there are places where they split off, but the setup for both is exactly the same — so when you're introduced to the characters, that's the part where they're completely identical." The prequel allowed the expansions of different details told in the series; for example, an episode called "The Blue Spirit" in the series was seen in the film. However, since explaining everything that happened in that episode was hard to translate onto film, the prequel allowed for them to "delve" into that specific story. What more, when asked about whether he answered some questions that were left open at the end of the series, Roman stated that, while he had a very good relationship with the show's creators and got their blessing for his project, it wasn't his plot to address.
Release
The Last Airbender was rumored to be released in the summer of 2010 before it received a formal release date of July 1, 2010. In order to avoid confusion with James Cameron's Avatar, the title was changed from Avatar: The Last Airbender to simply The Last Airbender. On June 16, 2010, it was revealed that the film would be released on July 1, 2010, and after questions about the definition of the release being limited or wide, was later confirmed by the studio to be a full nationwide release.The film premiered in New York City on June 30, 2010, and opened the following day in 3,169 theaters, against The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
Box office
The Last Airbender opened in the United States with $16 million, ranking fifth overall for Thursday openings. For its opening three-day, Fourth of July weekend, The Last Airbender accumulated a total of $40.3 million. The following Monday, it grossed another $11.5 million, and the following Tuesday it grossed $17.5 million. 54% of its total gross was from 3D presentations at 1,606 screens.
Opening overseas in 923 sites, the film grossed an estimated $9 million, $8 million of which was from 870 sites in Russia, making it the number one film there. The film grossed $9.4 million from its second weekend in overseas markets.
As of October 17, 2010, The Last Airbender had grossed $131,601,062 in the United States box office. It had also grossed $185,500,000 in other countries
Critical reception
The preponderance of the reviews were negative. Based on 161 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 6% "rotten" approval rating from critics, with an average score of 2.8/10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television, and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 7%. By comparison,Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 20, based on 33 reviews. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade cinemagoers gave the film was "C" on an A+ to F scale.
Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail stated the film had little chance to develop its characters and therefore suffered, with the overall storyline of the film becoming a run-on narrative. According to Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly, "The Last Airbender keeps throwing things at you, but its final effect is, in every way, flat." Roger Ebert gave the film half a star in his review, stating that it "bores and alienates its audiences," and notes the poor use of 3D among the film's faults. The A.V. Club gave the film an F, criticizing the performances of the child actors, overuse of exposition, and shoehorned 3D special effects, calling it the worst summer blockbuster of 2010.The Hollywood Reporter said the lack of correct casting caused the film to lose substantial credibility in regard to its source material but did praise the casting and acting of the main character, Aang. Variety criticizes the casting, the scoring, and the overall effect each play into making the film a bore.
Charlie Jane Anders in the review by io9 criticized "the personality-free hero, the nonsensical plot twists, the CG clutter, the bland romance, the new-age pablum...", concluding that "Shyamalan's true achievement in this film is that he takes a thrilling cult TV series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and he systematically leaches all the personality and soul out of it — in order to create something generic enough to serve as a universal spoof of every epic, ever." Anders summarized the experience of watching the film by stating that, "Actually, my exact words when I walked out of this film were, 'Wow, this makes Dragonball Evolution look like a masterpiece.'" Ain't It Cool News' review questioned why Shyamalan was allowed to write the script, as well why he was even chosen to direct such a high-profile film after a string of previous flops: "Burdened by [a] never-ending onslaught of expository dialogue awkwardly delivered by actors giving career-worst performances across the board, The Last Airbender is so outrageously bad it's a wonder it ever got before cameras."
Scott Bowles of USA Today gave a generally favorable review, claiming that Shyamalan delivered on fight scenes and the film worked as a kid's film. He also added that poor scriptwriting made some of the performances sound wooden.Another favorable review came from Stephanie Zacharek of MovieLine, who praises the way Shyamalan captures the art of action and human motion. David Roark of Relevant Magazine accused other critics of having a bias against Shyamalan and gave the film a positive review, stating that its visuals and heart far outweighed the shoddy script.
In a Vulture interview, Shyamalan argued that his style and art-form of storytelling resulted in the negative reviews of the film and compared it to asking a painter to change to a different style, "I bring as much integrity to the table as humanly possible. It must be a language thing, in terms of a particular accent, a storytelling accent. I can only see it this certain way and I don't know how to think in another language. I think these are exactly the visions that are in my head, so I don't know how to adjust it without being me."
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian noted an unfortunate linguistic problem that reduced British viewers to "a state of nervous collapse". InBritish English the word "bender" is slang for a homosexual male, giving an entirely different meaning to lines such as "I could tell at once that you were a bender, and that you would realise your destiny." Bradshaw commented that the response from the audience to such lines was "deafeningly immature" and would "inevitably be repeated in every cinema in the land showing The Last Airbender. To some it seems as if the director did not take time to watch the episodes and did not make the movie similar to the original televison series as he left out essential fight scences (eg. Fight between Katara and master Paku) and did not get crucial details right and left out one of the most important of all, Sokka's sarcasm. "
