11 ways to make a good Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation.

Recently, I got into a show called Avatar: The Last Airbender.
It is a truly great show with a fantastic story, characters and world building and is already one of favourite shows.
So, since I loved the show so much, I wanted to re-watch the live action adaptation of the show The Last Airbender, directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
I first saw this film in theaters and I found it to be a pretty forgettable experience.
I honestly could not remember that much about it, even though a lot of people consider it to be one of the worst adaptations ever made.
So I grabbed by pen and pad of paper, sat down, watched the movie and wrote down everything I found problematic with it.
Do you want to know how many things I wrote down?
163.
That’s right, I found 163 reasons to hate this movie.
163 reasons across five pages, four of which were double sided.
I was astonished by how mind numbingly awful this movie was.
It truly is one of the worst adaptations of all time, right up there with Dragonball: Evolution and The Cat in The Hat adaptation.
So, naturally, I wanted to review this movie to give it the scathing response it deserves.
However, after watching and reading numerous reviews of the movie I learned that everything bad that can be said about this movie has already been said.
The movie came out seven years ago so everything that needed to be said about the movie has been.
I would basically be beating a dead horse at this point.
So I am going to do something different this time.
I am going to list 11 ways to make a good Avatar: The Last Airbender live action adaptation.
I will talk about scenes from the movie and why they are so terrible, comparing them to the show and how to make it better.
So let’s not waste anymore time and get onto reason number one.

 

1. Don’t try to compact an entire season into an 103 minute film.

there are 20 episodes in the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender and these episodes go for around 23 minutes on average.
In total that adds up to the first season being 460 minutes long.
The movie tries to cram 460 minutes of story, lore and character development into an 103 minute film.
It was a disastrous decision to try and compact the first season into one movie because there is so much story to tell in so little time.
Because of this, 90% of the dialogue in The Last Airbender is exposition, giving us absolutely no time to get to know the characters and become attached to them.
We do not care what happens to Aang, Katara and Sokka like we did in the show because we do not know them as people because of the overload of exposition.
This is not the only problem with this however, as compacting season one into a single movie means various important storylines had to be cut down or removed all together.
The worst offender is the romance between Sokka and Yue.
In the show, their romance was sadly tragic.
Over the course of three episodes, we got to see Sokka and Yue grow closer and fall in love, until Yue had to sacrifice herself to become the Moon Spirit and bring balance back to the world.
When this happened in the show, it was a really tragic moment and you felt sorry for both Sokka and Yue.
In the movie however, you get none of this emotion because their entire romance has been cut down to a single line of dialogue, through Katara’s never ending and boring narration.
“My brother and the princess became friends right away.”
This line of dialogue is what establishes Sokka and Yue’s relationship and when we see them again it is weeks later and they have already fallen in love.
We do not get to see their journey to falling in love so when Yue has to sacrifice herself we do not feel anything because we have not been given a reason to care about her and Sokka’s relationship.
This is because there was no time to develop it, due to the fact that the entirety of the first season was condensed into a single movie.
If Avatar: The Last Airbender is going to be correctly adapted, it needs to give the story and characters more time to breathe.
Instead of making three movies, I think you could easily make seven movies to cover the entire series.
However, if this was done, it would create problems of its own.
The story of Avatar: The Last Airbender takes place within a year so if there are seven films then the actors will age very unrealistically.
Also, the show is a very episodic series.
Each episode has its own story to tell and if you were to put these stories into a movie format then it could feel very disjointed.
So how do you fix this?
Well, do not make a live action movie, make a live action TV series.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is just not something that would work in movie format due to its limited time frame in the story and its episodic nature.
If you want to tell the story right it would have to be on a television format.
Only then could it be done justice.

2. Cast the right actors

The casting for The Last Airbender was handled incredibly poorly.
Every single character who played a role in the story was cast wrong.
Most of the actors in the movie are not bad actors though, they are just wrong for the characters they were cast as.
For example, Dev Patel is a good actor but he was not right for the role of Zuko.
However, while I can say a lot of the actors cast in the movie were good actors, the same cannot be said for our three leads.
That being Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz and Jackson Rathbone, who play Aang, Katara and Sokka.
These three were the worst people you could cast to play these characters.
Jackson Rathbone was in Twilight so that is reason enough not to hire him.
I have never seen Nicola Peltz be good in anything and she looks nothing like Katara.
And Noah Ringer as Aang is, in my opinion, one of the worst casting decisions in history.
Now this is not because of Ringer’s poor performance as Aang but why he was cast in the first place.
Ringer filmed himself doing martial arts and sent this in to Shyamalan as his audition tape.
Shyamalan saw this and immediately cast him as Aang, without even considering his acting ability.
Aang is the main character in the series, if the actor playing him gives a poor performance then the entire thing falls apart.
Ringer had no acting credits to his name before being cast as Aang.
My problem is not that Ringer was an unknown before the movie, my problem is his acting ability.
The most important thing when casting Aang was casting someone who could act.
It did not matter if they did not know martial arts, you could have them be taught it after they were cast.
Shyamalan should have been thinking this when he cast Ringer but he clearly was not.
However, this is not all that is wrong with the casting, there is also the whitewashing.
Whitewashing is one of the most controversial topics in the movie industry today.
However, in some cases, I think it can be given some leeway.
For example, The Death Note Netflix adaptation was changed to be set in America so it could relate to an American audience.
It would have been weird to see the entire cast be Japanese, since this adaptation is set in America, so they naturally had to change some of the races of the characters.
(Although, they probably should have made more of an effort to include Japanese actors.)
The Last Airbender movie however, has no such excuse.
The world of Avatar: The Last Airbender is deeply rooted in Asian culture, with each of the four nations representing that.
The Fire Nation was based off Japan, The Earth Kingdom was based off China, The Water Tribe was based off Inuits and the Air Nomads were based off Buddhist monks.
So it makes absolutely no sense to see white actors living in Inuit culture, especially when the rest of their village is entirely Inuit.
How do you get white people from that?
Even worse is the Fire Nation being changed from Japanese to Indian.
This is worse because our heroes are white and this caused many people to pull a racism complaint against the movie.
Now given that Shyamalan himself is Indian, I think it is highly unlikely he is racist towards his own race so this is most likely due to incompetence than anything else.
Still, this does not excuse the fact that casting actors that do not fit the cultures of the world in the movie was an awful decision.
If the show is going to be adapted correctly, the actors will need to represent the cultures seen in the show and need to be appropriately chosen based on their acting ability.

3. Accurately represent the characters

The characters in The Last Airbender are nothing but former shells of their TV counterparts.
The characters seen in Avatar: The Last Airbender were incredible.
Almost each and every one of them was compelling in some way and a joy to watch.
The movie however, completely strips away everything that was compelling about these characters.
Once again, Aang, Katara and Sokka are the main focus of this change.
Aang and Katara are completely devoid of any personality in the movie.
In the show Aang was a naive, playful kid who wanted to have fun but in the movie he is an emotionless robot who we do not care about.
In the show Katara is a strong motherly figure but in the movie she is reduced to a boring narrator, who has absolutely no point being in the movie.
Sokka is the only one with any semblance of a personality but it has completely changed from the show.
In the show, Sokka was not only the comedic relief but the idea guy.
Whenever the group got into a bad situation they could always count on Sokka to think of a way out of it.
However, in the movie, Sokka’s personality is completely changed from the comedic, idea guy to a moody Anakin Skywalker wannabe.
These characters are not compelling like they were in the show, they are completely boring and they are not even the worst offenders.
No, that honor goes to Fire Lord Ozai, the main villain played by Cliff Curtis.
In the show Ozai did not have much of a character but they made up for that by making him threatening.
For the first two seasons we only saw Ozai in shadow and when we finally did see him in season three he was still played up by showing the power he held and his evil ways, through his plan to commit mass genocide.
In the movie however, all of that fear is taken away because Ozai is just seen walking around, spewing boring exposition, like every other character in the movie.
The only thing Ozai had going for him in the show was that he was threatening and if you take that away he is a really weak character.
My problem is not that they showed Ozai’s face so soon, it is that he lacks all the fear that his counterpart had in the show.
What makes it worse is that it would have been so easy to make him scary, while showing his face.
For example, you could have a scene where a high ranking general in the Earth Kingdom army is captured by the Fire Nation and brought before Ozai for interrogation.
Ozai’s generals are also in attendance and they make threats to torture the man if he does not reveal the Earth Kingdom’s plans for the war.
The man refuses but, while the generals are angered by this, Ozai does not seem concerned.
This is later revealed to be because he knows Sozin’s Comet will come within a year so any plans the Earth Kingdom has cannot hope to stop him.
This makes the man being interrogated useless to Ozai so he kills him with his lightening bending, shocking his generals.
This would have shown Ozai to be a threat for three reasons.
One, it shows he is completely merciless when he murders the Earth Kingdom general.
Two, it shows his power through his lightening bending, which we have not seen yet.
Finally, it shows he is to be feared because even his own generals are afraid of him because of how they react to Ozai killing the Earth Kingdom general.
This would have established Ozai as a threat and made him a compelling villain.
But no, in the movie they just have him walking around spewing exposition, great.
The only characters who escape this boring and bland fate in the movie are Zuko and Iroh, played by Shaun Toub.
They are the only characters who seem remotely similar to their counterparts in the show.
Although, the portrayal of Zuko’s scar is particularly insulting.
When making an adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender you need to represent the characters correctly so we can be invested.
The characters were already beloved in the show, there was no reason to change them.
Another important thing about the characters that should not be changed is how you say their names.
In the movie Shyamalan changed the pronunciations of Aang, Sokka, Iroh and even the word Avatar.
He did this because he wanted to be more correct to the Asian culture Avatar: The Last Airbender is rooted in.
This was a bad idea because these are established characters, their names do not need to be changed.
That being said, I could at least understand why Shyamalan did this… or at least I could if he was not being a complete hypocrite by doing so.
You cannot change the characters name to be culturally correct only to be un-culturally correct by whitewashing the cast, how ignorant is Shyamalan?
The names of the characters should stay the same as the show’s creators originally intended.

4. Manage the budget correctly

It cost $150 million to make The Last Airbender and yet, somehow, this was not enough to make the film.
When you watch the movie it makes so much sense that whoever was in charge of the budget failed spectacularly because of how the CGI was incorporated into the movie.
Now, a lot of the CGI was actually pretty good.
It was nothing special but you could still watch it and actually believe it was there, for the most part.
However, it is still clear that for some reason they did not handle the budget correctly when making the movie.
Why?
Because of Appa and Momo.
It is incredibly surprising to see that, despite how prevalent both were in the show, they are mostly absent in the movie, only making a few brief appearances.
Appa is mostly never shown completely.
We only see bits and pieces of him at a time and, when we do see his face, it is nightmare fuel.
Seriously, how they made the adorable Appa’s face look like a Koala and human hybrid monster is beyond me.
Momo is also largely absent, only appearing in at least two scenes in the movie.
It is obvious they did not have the budget to put these two in the movie as much as they should have been.
However, the handling of the budget causes even worse problems, this time with the bending.
There are quite a few times in the movie where it seems like something epic is happening with the bending, only for it to be something small.
This is probably due to them not being able to create what they originally intended because of the way the budget was handled.
It explains so much.
It explains why it takes six guys to move one rock, it explains why the Water Benders act shocked when Aang makes the water rise, something any of them could do in the show and, worst of all, it explains why there are no Bending in shots, when there clearly should be.
There are two scenes in this movie where someone should be bending an element but nothing is happened.
By far the worst one is when the Fire Nation arrives to invade the Northern Water Tribe.
Right before this, Aang and Katara are practicing their Waterbending for almost a solid minute, only nothing is happening.
There is no Waterbending whatsoever, when there clearly should be so it is just a solid minute of them doing nothing.
It is incredibly confusing that despite the $150 million budget they did not have the money to create these things with CGI.
To put it into perspective you need only to look at The Lord of The Rings, with the final movie in the trilogy costing $94 million to make.
So that movie cost $56 million less to make than The Last Airbender yet, despite this, was able to use its budget appropriately and CGI everything it needed to.
The Last Airbender was so much more expensive so what happened?
How did a movie that cost more do so much less?
If another adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is going to be made it needs to make sure the budget is being handled appropriately so characters like Appa and Momo are included more and the bending can be more exciting for the viewer.
Speaking of which…

 5. Portray the bending accurately

The bending of the elements in the show was just fantastic.
Everything about is was so well done because it was based off actual martial arts.
Firebending was based off Northern Shaolin, Waterbending was based off Tai Chi, Earthbending was based off Hung Gar and Airbending was based off Ba Gua.
This made bending feel like an art form and made it much more exciting to watch.
What made it even more impressive was how, if you removed the animation of the bending from the show, you would still be able to tell how the element was being bent based off the character’s movements.
So, how did they translate this to the movie?
Well, they just flailed their limbs around of course!
Instead of the stylized, artful movement we got in the show, in the movie we get nothing more than the characters just flailing around.
No style, no art, no interest from the audience.
Worse still, when you are watching it, you have absolutely no idea how their movements translate to what is being bent.
For example, there is a scene where Aang generates a tornado by jumping around doing back flips and, in the final act of the movie, he does a dance to create a giant wave.
None of these movements even remotely translate to how the elements are being bent.
You should be engaged when watching the bending but instead you are left asking how any of this even works.
Another big problem with the bending in the movie is that it takes forever.
When Aang escapes from Zuko and Iroh, when he is a captive on their ship, he does a much longer than necessary bending move to escape the room.
During this time both Zuko and Iroh could have stopped him or Aang could have just run out of the room and shut the door on them but neither of these things happen.
The bending happens so slow that it opens up so many plot holes, like why the villains do not attack the hero when they have the clear opportunity to do so because they are taking forever to do a complicated bending move?
The portrayal of the bending in the movie is just insulting and should have been handled so much better.
The movie should have simply based the bending off how the show did it.
It was already laid out for them, all they had to do was copy the movements.
But instead they decided to create their own style of it, leading to awkward and overly long bending scenes that just left the audience bored.
Either portray the bending like the show did, with style and actual martial arts or do not bother at all.

6. Make the action exciting.

The action in The Last Airbender is so boring, while in the show the action was quick and engaging.
Every single action sequence, no matter how small had you interested.
Comparing the action from the show to the live action movie is like comparing an ant to a boot.
For the movie, Shyamalan decided to shoot the action with long tracking shots.
There are three tracking shot action sequences in this movie and only one of them is interesting and this is only because Aang is fighting two Fire Nation soldiers, while everyone else is fighting in the background.
The other two are some of the worst action sequences I have ever seen.
Doing tracking shots was the worst way to shoot the action in The Last Airbender.
The action is so slow because of the long take tracking shot and, as we wait for the camera to move so it can focus on another piece of action, nothing is happening.
Nobody is doing anything because they are waiting for the camera to get into place and we can clearly see this.
It makes the action feel so artificial and a chore to sit through.
The worst action scene is the one where Zuko, disguised as The Blue Spirit, frees Aang from his captivity.
There are so many mistakes with this action scene.
For one, we do not see Zuko and Aang working together until the end of the fight so we do not see that they work together well, like we did in the show.
There are also so many technical issues, like when Zuko swings his swords at nothing.
But the worst moment of the entire action scene is when Aang is surrounded by at least 50 Fire Nation soldiers.
Any one of them could attack and kill him at any time but they just stand there.
(I actually wish one of them would kill him, it would mean the movie would be over a lot quicker.)
The action in The Last Airbender is just appalling.
In an adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender the action should be quick and stylized, just like the show.
The action needs to be exciting.
Avatar: The Last Airbending is a martial arts story, the action is incredibly important.
If the action is not done right then the movie will not work.

7. Do not make unnecessary changes

I understand that when adapting something, be it a book or animated show, you have to make changes because not everything will work in live action.
However, that being said, the changes made in The Last Airbender from the original source material is just mind boggling.
The changes made either bring up huge plot holes in the story, diminish the story greatly or flat out ruin future stories and character arcs.
One obvious change that everyone points to is placing the Earthbender prison on earth rather than a metal ship, like in the show.
This change makes absolutely no sense since the Earthbenders should have no trouble escaping the prison, due to it being made out of earth so when Aang gives his big speech about rising up it is not a triumphant moment because all you are thinking is, “way to go captain obvious.”
An even worse change was making Firebenders need to have preexisting fire with them when they bend, rather than generating their own fire.
Shyamalan made this change because he thought it was unfair for the Firebenders to be able to generate their own element, while the other benders had to have their element around them in order to bend it.
But this was the point.
It was supposed to be an unfair fight because then it made sense why the Fire Nation had been able to take over mostly everything.
If they have to bend from preexisting fire then how have they been able to take over most of the world?
All the other Benders would need to do is put out all their fires when they fought and they would win the war.
But the worst change made in the entire movie was not a big plot detail but a single line of dialogue.
When Aang goes to get advice from the Dragon Spirit about how to defeat the Fire Nation the Dragon Spirit says this: “As the Avatar you are not meant to hurt others.”
This line of dialogue may seem insignificant but it flat out destroys Aang’s character arc throughout the entire series.
In the final four parts of the show it was a big dilemma for Aang if he should kill someone but if the Avatar is not supposed to hurt people then that means previous Avatars have ended situations like Aang’s peacefully before so therefore there should be no dilemma.
If the Avatar is just not supposed to hurt others then it completely eliminates that inner conflict so Aang’s entire character arc is destroyed.
The changes made in this movie around beyond ridiculous.
They add nothing to the story and only generate huge plot holes or ruin stories and character arcs.
The things that were changed did not need to be changed, they were fine the way they are.
Something should only be changed if it does not work in live action and all three of the changed things I mentioned would have worked in live action the way they did in the show.

8. Include important storylines and characters

Along with changing things about the story however, the movie also removes incredibly important storylines and characters as well.
If a sequel to this movie had got the green light, Shyamalan would have royally screwed himself because of the incredibly important things he left out of the first movie.
Suki and The Kyoshi Warriors, Roku and the past Avatars and the hints to the White Lotus organisation, all of these very important things are missing in the movie.
So much is missing that it would have badly affected the second movie.
If Suki and The Kyoshi Warriors do not exist in this world then how does Azula take over Ba Sing Se?
Azula captured Suki and The Kyoshi Warriors, took their outfits and disguised herself and her friends as them and used this to infiltrate Ba Sing Se to get close to the Earth King.
From here, she organised a coup with the Dai Li and took over the city.
But since Suki and The Kyoshi Warriors do not exist here, how is Azula supposed to infiltrate Ba Sing Se?
It is missing elements like this that would have ruined the story going forward.
These things were essential to the plot but they were entirely left out.
However, the most egregious thing missing from The Last Airbender is the spirit Koh and the Ocean Spirit using Aang to turn into a giant monster to defeat The Fire Nation attack.
It was a shame that these two things were not in the movie because they establish so much.
First we have Koh the Face Stealer, a spirit who will steal your face if you show any emotion when talking with him.
Koh is an incredibly disturbing character and brought so much fear and tension to the show.
He also showed the power of the spirits and what some were capable of.
Then, we have the Ocean Spirit using Aang’s power to turn into a giant fish monster, after the Moon Spirit is killed.
Once again, this would have helped to show the power the spirits hold in this world and set up their future importance, like when the Lion Turtle gave Aang the ability to remove another’s bending.
(Although the Lion Turtle is technically not a spirit it still is a mystical creature so seeing Koh and what the Ocean Spirit could do really set that up in the show.)
Having this happen would also have served as a great climax for the film and would have awed the audience with what power the spirits and the Avatar held.
Instead this is replaced with Aang just forming a massive wave to scare off The Fire Nation, which is such a let down.
If there is going to be a good Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation then these things need to be included in it.
Removing characters like Suki and The Kyoshi Warriors would only diminish the story going forward and not featuring the scenes with Koh and The Ocean Spirit removes all the intensity that final episode of Season One had.
These things have to be included or the story will not work as well.

9. Deliver good exposition and show don’t tell.

As I have said previously the exposition is a huge problem in The Last Airbender.
First of all, it is everywhere.
We have not time to get to know the characters because nearly every single line of dialogue is exposition.
Like I said in my first point, this is because they compacted an entire season into a single movie.
If you want to have the characters be memorable through their dialogue and actions you need to give them time to breathe, give the audience time to know them and do not have them constantly spew exposition the entire movie.
However, the exposition is not only bad because it goes on the entire movie, it is also bad because of how poorly it is delivered.
For one, it is completely unnecessary in many scenes.
The worst example of this is Katara’s constant narration.
She either tells us what we already know or things as we are seeing them happen.
For example, when they go to The Southern Air Temple, Katara tells us Aang’s backstory when he literally told us the exact same story not ten minutes ago, we do not need to hear it again.
Then when the characters arrive at The Northern Water Tribe, Katara explains everything that is happening, like presenting themselves to the royal court, Aang revealing he is the Avatar and Sokka and Yue falling in love.
The problem is we do not need Katara’s narration in this scene.
We can see the characters being introduced to Princess Yue, we can see Aang showing everyone he is the Avatar and we can see Sokka and Yue have a thing for each other, we do not need Katara explaining things we can already see.
Not to mention that the exposition defies a common rule in storytelling, show don’t tell.
Instead of showing us what is happening in the story they just explain it.
For example, we get an entire scene of Katara and Sokka’s Grandma explaining why she thinks Aang is an Airbender.
Why not just have Aang airbend when Katara and Sokka meet him like he did in the show so we know he is an Airbender?
Even worse is the exposition scenes about Aang and Zuko’s backstories.
In the show their backstories are shown as flashbacks and we see them happening side by side so we can see these two characters are actually very similar.
However, in the movie we just get other characters talking about their backstories.
We only get small flashes of what happened and they lack any emotion.
They do not even appear side by side so we do not see the parallel between the two characters, which was incredibly important.
But there is one other bad thing about the exposition and that is it does not explain everything.
For a movie that is 90% exposition it sure leaves some very big questions.
For example, in the show’s intro everything was explained, we weren’t left with any questions.
However, the movie’s intro goes even longer than that and it does not even explain everything.
After the intro the audience does not know that The Fire Nation has invaded the rest of the world, that the war has being going on for a hundred years or that all the men have left The Southern Water Tribe.
These are incredibly important plot points for the movie and it does not explain them.
It really does show why this movie is so awful when it is 90% exposition and even that exposition is not handled well at all.
When adapting Avatar: The Last Airbender you need to explain everything in the intro so the audience is not left with any questions.
More importantly you need to show not tell.
The reason the movie is so boring is because the characters are constantly trying to explain everything to the audience when just seeing it happen would make us understand it.
We do not need an explanation of Aang and Zuko’s backstories we need to see them, in their entirety, in order to understand who they are as people and to connect with them.
If this is not done properly then the adaptation will fail spectacularly, which this movie did in spades.

10. Include the music from the show

Now this point is not an absolute necessity.
You do not need to have the music from the show to make a good adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
In fact, I would argue the music by James Newton Howard, is one of the only good things about the movie.
However, the music in the movie does not hold a candle to the greatness of the original music from the show.
The music in Avatar: The Last Airbender was perfect.
It could be thrilling, engaging, even tear inducing when played along the right scenes, like when Iroh celebrates his son’s birthday.
The music perfectly fit the scenes and what was happening and even felt relevant to the show with the Asian culture it was set in.
You could not only use the music from the show in the adaptation to great effect but you could also add to the music.
It has been over a decade since the show first aired, you could make the music sound more epic or even get the composers from the show to write new pieces for the adaptation.
It could really help the adaptation to have the original music and also an advancement on it.
But, like I said, you do not need this to make a great adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender but it would certainly go a long way.

11. Hire the right director

I saved this point for last because it is by far the most important.
This is because almost every since problem with The Last Airbender can be traced to M. Night Shyamalan.
He wrote the script, he cast some of the actors, he directed those actors, he shot the action scenes, he decided to remove important storylines and changed the story to the point where it would make no sense going forward.
To put it simply, Shyamalan was one of the worst people who could have chosen to direct an adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Shyamalan only knows how to make one kind of movie, confined thrillers.
This is why his movies The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Split work so well, because Shyamalan is an expert at filming these kinds of movies.
However, whenever he tries to step outside those bounds and include a wider world context, like he did with The Happening, After Earth and of course The Last Airbender, he fails spectacularly.
The signs were already there that he could not make a movie adaptation of the show but he was chosen away.
When choosing someone to write and direct an adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, you need to pick someone who knows how to write and direct a project like that successfully.
Someone who can make action exciting and create developed characters effectively in a story like this.
But the biggest reason Shyamalan should not have been chosen to direct this movie is because, despite what he says, I do not believe he respects Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Why else would he change the characters from such likable people to former shells of what they used to be?
Why else would he remove important plot points and add new ones that ruined the story?
And why else would he not try to extend the story in order to give it more time to breathe and be fleshed out so not every single line of dialogue was boring, worthless exposition?
The most important thing to do when adapting Avatar: The Last Airbender is to choose a director, who not only knows how to direct this type of series, but also respects the original source material enough to know how to adapt it to live action correctly and not butcher it.

 

Conclusion:

The Last Airbender is awful.
It is one of the worst adaptations of all time.
It fails not only as an adaptation but as its own stand alone movie and this really is a shame because it has dragged the legacy of a fantastic show through the mud.
Even though I only first watched Avatar: The Last Airbender a few months ago, I already know this one of the greatest epic tales I have seen.
It deserves to be ranked up there with other fantastic stories like Star Wars and Lord of The Rings but it is not because of this horrible, train wreck of a movie.
If the movie had been good it would have firmly established the show as the master storyteller it is, but now when people look back on it they only see an awful film.
I would like to see another adaptation of the show because I want to see it done justice.
I want to know what Avatar: The Last Airbender would like in live action only, you know, good.
But honestly, I can’t see this happening, considering how much the movie has butchered the show’s legacy.
I can only hope that one day, if someone chooses to adapt Avatar: The Last Airbender, they take the same things about the show to heart as the rest of us do.
Until then we’re stuck with this butchered, mess of a film.
But at least we still have the show because, despite the movie’s awfulness, it cannot take away from what is undeniably a fantastic show that I will continue to watch for years.