You Make the "The Last Airbender"Movie

[Crazedwraith]

So I tried to watch M Knight Shyamalan's The Last Airbender on Netflix last night and lasted about 20 minutes. From the lifeless acting to skipping over things like 'Katara and Sokka bonding with Aang before Zuko takes him away'

Then I was wondering if it really was possible to do a faithful adaption of a Book of ATLA wth all the issues of shrinking 6ish hours to about three, child actors never being great, and just making bending look good in live-action.

So here's the thread: You replace MKS as the Director of the 'The Last Airbender' movie. How would you do it? Would you stick close the original plot? Only use the characters. How do approach the bending? It is in fact possible to make a movie from it?

[Mr Bean]

So here's the thread: You replace MKS as the Director of the 'The Last Airbender' movie. How would you do it? Would you stick close the original plot? Only use the characters. How do approach the bending? It is in fact possible to make a movie from it?

Well here's an idea, no race bending, no stupid renaming people and shorten the first book into a proper movie.

You've got 20 episodes to adapt

"The Boy in the Iceberg"
"The Avatar Returns"
"The Southern Air Temple"
"The Warriors of Kyoshi"
The King of Omashu"
"Imprisoned"
"The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part 1)"
"Avatar Roku (Winter Solstice, Part 2)"
"The Waterbending Scroll"
"Jet"
"The Great Divide"
"The Storm"
"The Blue Spirit"
"The Fortuneteller"
"Bato of the Water Tribe"
"The Deserter"
"The Northern Air Temple"
"The Waterbending Master"
"The Siege of the North, Part 1"
"The Siege of the North, Part 2"

Now lets cut out the filler or things you can't afford to fit in
"The Boy in the Iceberg"
"The Avatar Returns"
"The Southern Air Temple"
"The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part 1)"
"Avatar Roku (Winter Solstice, Part 2)"
"The Blue Spirit"
"The Waterbending Master"
"The Siege of the North, Part 1"
"The Siege of the North, Part 2"

From 20 episodes to 9, that's still a three hour plus movie and we need to cut another hour but I suspect you can find the time in the remaining episodes to produce a two hour, thirty minute movie.

I suspect most of the time will be saved in the Boy in the Iceberg, the avatar returns and the southern Temple. I'd change it so until Aang gets to the southern temple he's still not decided on his journey. So it gives us a nice forty five minutes book start with those three episodes and another forty five minutes for the finish. Which gives us an hour to fit in....

"The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part 1)"
"Avatar Roku (Winter Solstice, Part 2)"
"The Blue Spirit"

Which if your looking, forty five minutes for three first episodes, forty five minutes for the end three episodes, and an hour for the middle three episodes.

And the bending? Hire me everyone who works for Jet Li, it's bloody martial arts by all means lets make it look amazing not lazy.

[Zaune]

Would I get flamed mercilessly if I called "bending" something else, on the grounds that "bender" was a common homo- and/or transphobic slur when I was a kid and I can't hear it used as a noun without being weirded out?

[Zor]

Would I get flamed mercilessly if I called "bending" something else, on the grounds that "bender" was a common homo- and/or transphobic slur when I was a kid and I can't hear it used as a noun without being weirded out?

Yes. Also you know who else is a bender?

So saying that bender is a bad term because of a bunch of stupids being stupid is stupid.

Zor

[Crazedwraith]

Would I get flamed mercilessly if I called "bending" something else, on the grounds that "bender" was a common homo- and/or transphobic slur when I was a kid and I can't hear it used as a noun without being weirded out?

Weird thing is I'm from the UK as well, and I've never had that reaction. Don't know if I'm just from the wrong area/time but I don't recall it being that prevalent.

Does it get better for you if it's prefixed with the element? You could use like Airbender and firebender without just calling them benders.

--

The racebending thing is an obvious big issue. But once you've got in the realm of kid actors just finding decent actors is going to be bad enough. Let alone making them look appropriately inuit/tibetian/whateverelse we think these animesque characters from fiction lands are supposed to be.

[Mr Bean]

The racebending thing is an obvious big issue. But once you've got in the realm of kid actors just finding decent actors is going to be bad enough. Let alone making them look appropriately inuit/tibetian/whateverelse we think these animesque characters from fiction lands are supposed to be.

It's a fact of life there are 500 actors for every part ever cast. If your finding shitty child actor it's because your not looking hard enough. I don't care if the talent search takes an entire year and costs ten million you've got several continents to scour.

[Purple]

The racebending thing is an obvious big issue. But once you've got in the realm of kid actors just finding decent actors is going to be bad enough. Let alone making them look appropriately inuit/tibetian/whateverelse we think these animesque characters from fiction lands are supposed to be.

It's a fact of life there are 500 actors for every part ever cast. If your finding shitty child actor it's because your not looking hard enough. I don't care if the talent search takes an entire year and costs ten million you've got several continents to scour.

Good luck selling that idea to any financial backer ever.

[Mr Bean]

The racebending thing is an obvious big issue. But once you've got in the realm of kid actors just finding decent actors is going to be bad enough. Let alone making them look appropriately inuit/tibetian/whateverelse we think these animesque characters from fiction lands are supposed to be.

It's a fact of life there are 500 actors for every part ever cast. If your finding shitty child actor it's because your not looking hard enough. I don't care if the talent search takes an entire year and costs ten million you've got several continents to scour.

Good luck selling that idea to any financial backer ever.

So find your actors first then get backing for the movie.

[libertyjim]

So I tried to watch M Knight Shyamalan's The Last Airbender on Netflix last night and lasted about 20 minutes.
So here's the thread: You replace MKS as the Director of the 'The Last Airbender' movie. How would you do it? Would you stick close the original plot? Only use the characters. How do approach the bending? It is in fact possible to make a movie from it?

Yeah I managed thirty minutes. Honestly it would take very little effort on my part to make a better movie that Shyamalan did because I'd either get the funding I'd need to make the bending look good and have impact, get good actors and yes I do believe I could write a better screen play (basing it very heavily on the original series script to the point of plagiarism) but if I couldn't get that funding then I wouldn't make the film and that would still be better than the abomination that is that film. To clarify I'm sure that plenty of people could do it better than me but you're asking how would one make a film better than Shyamalan which is not a tall ask. I swear he has two (maybe three but I haven't seen The Visit) good films to his name.

[Purple]

So find your actors first then get backing for the movie.

Because, as you so charmingly put it the effort would take an entire year and cost ten million. Unless your last name happens to be Trump that's a bit of a big investment to make from your own money.

[Mr Bean]

So find your actors first then get backing for the movie.

Because, as you so charmingly put it the effort would take an entire year and cost ten million. Unless your last name happens to be Trump that's a bit of a big investment to make from your own money.

Do what any other direct with the project he want done does. Just do other movies and piggyback off their budgets to find your Aang. Put your casting call for Sokka in project 1, Katara in 2 and Aang in the third project. Spielberg is famous for doing this with his fellows, putting casting calls for movies he wants to makes in movies he's making for bit parts only to reuse them later on.

[Vendetta]

Would I get flamed mercilessly if I called "bending" something else, on the grounds that "bender" was a common homo- and/or transphobic slur when I was a kid and I can't hear it used as a noun without being weirded out?

That is the reason they changed the subtitle of the first series here...


Anyway, I think Bean has reasonably summed up which stories you actually need in book 1.

Then you just need to not make all the absolutely fuckhanded directorial and editing decisions that Shyamalan did. Seriously, apart from being a really bad adaptation of Avatar as a property, it's almost a masterclass in demonstrating how not to make a film. Absolutely basic techniques like shot reverse shot are done abjectly wrong (core principle of shot reverse shot as a method of filming conversations is that the characters' heads should be about the same size unless one is being given unusual emphasis in which case they lean closer or zoom in, but in TLA the head sizes are all over the place for no reason, sometimes in EXTREME CLOSE UP), and there are hanging actions all over the place (a hanging action is an action before the cut at the end of a scene that implies that another action should have followed it, eg. early in TLA at the end of a conversation with Katara, Aang goes and picks up his glider then the scene cuts, but he then never does anything with the glider in the next scene). Saying nothing of using the single long take pan for action scenes (which just demonstrates how everyone is standing around waiting for their turn because you can see them doing it).

Hell, there's not even any logical flow to it, Katara doesn't even ask Aang his name until the scene at the southern air temple, when they've already left their homes and everything they know and been travelling together with him for days!



(Arguments about racebending aside, still cast Jason Isaacs as Zhao. Helpfully this will also let everyone know that he is a proper villain.)

[Guardsman Bass]

One change I can think of right off the bat is to drop Shymalan's over-reliance on voiceovers and exposition. Instead, start the movie with Aang flying Appa in a storm, before crashing into the ocean and using the Avatar State to protect himself. Then show a brief bit where Katara does something like her spiel at the beginning of the show's episodes, sans mention of Aang - after which we cut to her and Sokka out on the ice. Once you've set that up, the audience will learn the rest with the movie's progression, and stay fixed as long as the movie itself is entertaining.