The Last Airbender

[Velorath]

By the by, this movie is apparently the latest to be converted into 3D a few months before release.

[sickrubik]

By the by, this movie is apparently the latest to be converted into 3D a few months before release.

From what i've read, they at least planned for 3D during filming, so hopefully it works better than Clash. Though, I think I'll probably just see it in 2D anyway.

[RhyssaFireheart]

So the opening is planned for July 1st now, and yet all the TV adverts I've seen (and there have been more than I expected, actually) still say the movie isn't rated.  That's kind of odd, isn't it?

I'm still planning to go see it though, thank the gods for matinees.

[Trippy]

Trailer on last night on FOX showed it as PG.

Edit: it

[Nebu]

Shyamalama-Ding-dong does nothing for me after 6th sense.   I expect special effects used liberally to mask a crappy job of storytelling.

[kaid]

Who knows since his last movie was about the wind killing off large chunks of the human race maybe his air bender will be a real bad ass.

[Khaldun]

I'm really dreading this, because the TV show is a huge favorite in our household and I'm getting really bad vibes every time I hear a character in the trailers speaking, particularly Aang.

[Surlyboi]

I'm going to a preview on Tuesday, will let you all know how it is.

[Kitsune]

You are a brave man, Surly.  I shall sing songs in memory of the sacrifice you've made for us all.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I'm going to a preview on Tuesday, will let you all know how it is.

Can't wait to hear how the preview goes.

You are a brave man, Surly.  I shall sing songs in memory of the sacrifice you've made for us all.

Eh, I'm going to see the movie regardless, tbh, if only because I want to see the special effects.  I think I'd put up with almost any level of stupid if it had cool special effects.  I mean, I did pay to see League of Extraordinary Gentlemen after all.

[Velorath]

You are a brave man, Surly.  I shall sing songs in memory of the sacrifice you've made for us all.

Honestly, it doesn't look like a bad movie, and I say that as someone who didn't care for any of M. Knight's movies (Sixth Sense included) nor do I watch the cartoon.

[Riggswolfe]

You are a brave man, Surly.  I shall sing songs in memory of the sacrifice you've made for us all.

Honestly, it doesn't look like a bad movie, and I say that as someone who didn't care for any of M. Knight's movies (Sixth Sense included) nor do I watch the cartoon.

Most of his movies are only so-so but I honestly thought the 6th Sense was good. What didn't you like about it?

[UnSub]

"Unbreakable" was better than "The Sixth Sense". There are also few directors who can build dread in a modern setting as well as Shyamalan.

Ultimately a lot of people have wondered what he could do with someone else's script. Guess we'll soon know.

[Typhon]

I think I'd put up with almost any level of stupid if it had cool special effects.

Apparently we were separated at birth.

[Velorath]

You are a brave man, Surly.  I shall sing songs in memory of the sacrifice you've made for us all.

Honestly, it doesn't look like a bad movie, and I say that as someone who didn't care for any of M. Knight's movies (Sixth Sense included) nor do I watch the cartoon.

Most of his movies are only so-so but I honestly thought the 6th Sense was good. What didn't you like about it?

Just wasn't my thing.  It wasn't bad, it just kinda bored me.  I did like the first half of Signs though before it went full retard.

[Teleku]

Yeah, I was pissed about Signs because he did an excellent job of building up creepy creepy dread throughout the first half.  Nothing overt that jumped out and scared you, just subtle shit that really built up the tension. 

Then, as you mentioned, the movie went full retard in a similar way War of the Worlds did.

I loved Unbreakable.

[Samprimary]

I swore over a year ago that if The Last Airbender didn't suck, I would eat a hat.

That's how sure I was that this movie was going to suck.

It's going to suck.

[Kitsune]

Well it's Wednesday now.  Surly's never coming back.  That's our answer.

[WindupAtheist]

Main kid's face has all the character of a bag of turnips.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, I was pissed about Signs because he did an excellent job of building up creepy creepy dread throughout the first half. 

I actually thought that even the first part of Signs wasn't creepy. It just drug on, and you could tell the director was forcing the actors to move slowly at the "creepy" points to try to build tension. It got worse with shit like Lady in the Water and the Village. The Village started creepy but drug on and on. And all of them went full retard. Then he made the Happening, which broke his personal record for going full retard in the least amount of scenes with two.

[Surlyboi]

Audiovisual ass.

[Khaldun]

Just heard a reviewer on NPR saying that the controversy over race in the casting of the film is now irrelevant because the movie is so resolutely terrible in every possible way that it's going to die quickly and be forgotten.

I find it kind of fascinating that companies that own potentially valuable IP decide to sell it off without any creative-control safeguards. So you're Nickleodeon, you've created an appealing animated series with devoted fans that has some serious Harry Potter potential if handled right and what do you do? Hand it over a studio who turns to a director of questionable talents who is plummeting towards professional oblivion and who had never made a film of this kind or shown any interest in this sort of material. It's not quite hiring Uwe Boll but neither does it make any sense.

[sickrubik]

0/8 so far  Rotten Tomatoes.

Let's just be honest: M. Night Shyamalan is an idiot.

The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.

[HaemishM]

Wow. That may be some of the worst early reviews I've ever heard.

[sickrubik]

Amusingly, I want to see it MORE now, knowwhatimean?

[Paelos]

This colossal folly, the fiasco of the summer of 2010 — gives us all a ringside seat at the sight of Mr. “I See Dead People’s” career gurgling down the drain.

The Last Airbender is dreadful, an incomprehensible fantasy-action epic that makes the 2007 film The Golden Compass, a similarly botched adaptation of a beloved property from another medium, look like a four-star classic.

Who would have thought Shyamalan would come up with a movie that makes his Lady in the Water look positively sensible?

The Last Airbender is a joyless, soulless, muddled mess, but the worst part of all doesn't come until the very end. That's when it makes the clear suggestion that two more such movies are in store for us

Man my ass hurts just reading the reviews.

[Trippy]

0/8 so far  Rotten Tomatoes.

Well at least there's no where else to go but up*

* It's up to 9% now

[Soulflame]

It's disappointing this movie is getting panned, but not terribly surprising.  I'll probably end up seeing it with the family regardless.

I'm not sure why Avatar couldn't have been left alone as a property.  It's not really one that lends itself to movie format, unless someone's going to commit to 10 or 13 movies.  Three or four movies per Book, then one more movie for Sozin's Comet.  Trying to cram 20 chapters, each with a length of 22 minutes, into a 2 hour movie (guessing as to the length) is pure madness.

[Kitsune]

No, not even two hours.  100 minutes.

[Cadaverine]

That's a real shame.  The cartoon was really well done, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  I can only hope that whatever idiot gave the green light to let Shamawhatsis direct this gets shitcanned, and Shamalama never is allowed to make another movie ever again.

[Surlyboi]

Now that I've had time to properly let it percolate through my system, I repeat: Audiovisual ass.

That said, yeah. They killed a really good property with amazing potential stone fucking dead. The kids that played Aang and Katara were there before the screening started and had a lot of people politely cheering and clapping for them before the show. If they'd been there at the end, they might have been hanged. That crowd got positively ugly.

[NiX]

Well at least there's no where else to go but up*

* It's up to 9% now

Someone turned that 9 upside down.

[Ratman_tf]

Then, as you mentioned, the movie went full retard in a similar way War of the Worlds did.

  I rather liked WotW.

[Khaldun]

The critical hatred for this film is entertainment in its own right. I think it's not just how bad the film apparently is, but also how much people in the movie biz have come to hate M. Night for his preening egotism. But I'm still pretty astounded (and depressed) at the total wasting of a potentially entertaining (and lucrative) cultural property. The film industry is a really curious thing, more feudal kingdom than capitalist business. Vassals get paid off for past fealty to the king rather than giving investments over to be developed for maximum profit by the most competent and far-sighted people. Then again, maybe that's how most capitalist businesses work too, now that I think on it.

[Ginaz]

The Last Airbender could be The Last M. Night Shyamalan Movie. Yep, it's that bad.

It's bad, as in "Wild Wild West" will no longer be considered the nadir of July 4th weekend releases.

Yeah, not good.  I know part of the negativity is related to people's dislike of M.Knight himself and also how he's steadily gotten worse and worse with each film he makes, but I think we can safely say unless he pulls some kind of miracle out of his ass, we won't be seeing much of him in the future in any kind of major studio picture.