At the Movies: The Last Airbender

The Last Airbender movie is an appalling adaptation of the animated TV series.

There was no character development, and the audience was shown what happened without any explanation why and sometimes even how. Just this is what happens next, nothing behind what the characters might have been thinking or feeling, which in the TV series is the main factor behind their decisions.

But besides the complete lack of character development, there was also so much more missing from the movie.

I understand that the creators only had a couple of hours to squeeze the entire book into. But that's just another reason why the movie shouldn't have been made ... or they should've split the book into two movies like Warner Bros have done with the last Harry Potter book. Maybe then there would've actually been some character development as well as other important things that were in the TV series but not in the movie, like the Kyoshi Warriors.

If they do decide to make the second book of The Last Airbender, it's going to be almost impossible for them to introduce the Kyoshi Warriors, which is going to ruin the future Last Airbender movies.

They also really should've included Aang's trip to the Crescent Island to visit Avatar Roku's temple ... oh, wait, that whole trip falls under character development. Never mind that then.

But the characters in The Last Airbender were mere shadows of their TV series counterparts. Zuko just comes across as extremely bipolar. Sokka is just weird and not at all funny (they didn't seem to realize he's the comic relief). And Katara is even more useless than Cat Woman in the sixties Batman movies (Cat Woman at least managed to pose a genuine threat to Batman at times). In the TV series Katara is a powerful Waterbender and almost kills her North Pole Water master when she tries to prove that she's worthy of learning Waterbending from him (yet another important thing the movie completey skipped).

Only Aang seems to keep his character from the TV series, although in the movie he's not as happy go lucky as he is in the TV series. They didn't quite catch his irrepressible trickster (yip yip!) nature. But still, Noah Ringer did an amazing job as Aang.

In total, The Last Airbender was completely lacking as a movie. It's a complete waste of two hours, and hopefully it won't have its two sequels.