The Last Airbender, directed by M. Night Shyamalan: Epically bad, or hidden genius?

 Hello!

I'm going to do a quick run-through of my Spring and Summer terms here, before the blog proper. The reason for the quick version s that not a lot happens at universities during global pandemics. I was stuck at home throughout Spring term. During Summer term, I was back at uni, but most things were still online and a lot of people were still at home. I did complete two nerve-racking essays, one 2,000 words and one 3,000 words. I got a first class (72%) in the first essay, and an upper second class (64%) in the second. I've also selected my modules for next year; a module on politics in the 17th century, a module on kingship in the 12th and 13th centuries, a module on revolutions and reform in the Middle East, and a module on Europe in the 20th century. There's also a module on preparing for the dissertation I'll do in my third year. I've got exams at the moment - I've done five, and one is left. My final exam is Tuesday the 8th and the end of term is on the 11th.

This week I'm writing a review of The Last Airbender! It is, one would imagine, fairly well-known, as is its source material, Avatar: The Last Airbender.

"Four nations, one destiny"...one bad adaptation

 The basic premise of both the show and the movie is that there's a world where people can bend the four classical elements (air, water, earth, fire). They're divided into four nations - the Air Nomads, the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. People who can control the elements can only control one at a time; the only person for whom this is an exception is the Avatar, who can control all four, and reincarnates into another nation when they die. Prior to the start of the series/movie, the Fire Nation decided to establish world peace...by taking over the rest of the world - talk about taking a reasonable concept to a horrifying extreme! Their first move was to wipe out the Air Nomads, because the Avatar at the time, a Fire Nation citizen, had just died; the Avatar would have reincarnated into the Air Nomads. Wipe out the Air Nomads, kill the Avatar, nobody to interfere in your plans for world domination. By coincidence, however, the Avatar (Aang) fled shortly before the genocide and got frozen in an iceberg for a hundred years, before being discovered by Water Tribe siblings Sokka and Katara. Also, I guess this is technically spoilers for the reveal that Aang is the last of the airbenders, but it's in the title, so not much of a spoiler.

A promotional poster for the show - Aang's in the middle, Katara is on his right and Sokka is on his left

The film was widely criticised - mostly for being a poor adaptation. The casting also attracted criticism - the heroes were all white in the movie, and the villains were of various Asian ethnicities. In the show, all the characters were Asian-inspired, and Sokka and Katara were both dark-skinned, along with everyone else from the Water Tribes. The movie is...not popular among the show's fanbase - a lot of fans pretend it doesn't exist. Personally, I thought it was OK. The inconsistencies with the show didn't bother me as much as I thought they would; they did do a good job of foreshadowing a few things from later seasons of the show. The plotting was very rushed, as they were trying to condense 21 episodes of plot into ninety minutes. The special effects were probably the best bit, aside from the sequences that were unintentionally amusing. No, I take that back - the special effects were occasionally the unintentionally amusing scenes. Such as this scene late in the movie where General Iroh (one of the antagonists) reveals himself...to be a Time Lord!

For me, the movie's failings don't stop at whitewashing the characters, or disregarding the show's canon, though those are both pretty bad. It's also down to the themes, or lack thereof. The show is marketed for children; despite that, it's got plenty of themes and messages. It doesn't shy away from the effects of war, genocide and abuse; the main characters are, essentially, child soldiers, and Zuko, one of the main characters, has a scar across his face inflicted by his father. Aang is the sole survivor of the Air Nomad Genocide, and the show doesn't avoid the psychological impact that would have - in one episode, he loses his pet bison, Appa, who is the last remaining connection to his culture (and the last of his kind), and undergoes a mental breakdown from the grief. 

The key themes of the show are, in my mind, redemption, mercy, compassion, harmony. Spoiler here: Zuko starts off as a bad guy - he's one of the main antagonists in the first season. His arc is all about realising that his nation is in the wrong, and working to redeem himself and the Fire Nation as a whole. Both Aang and Katara experience a parallel arc, moving from hatred and revenge to love and forgiveness. At the start of the show, they both have a lot of reasons to hate the Fire Nation - it wiped out his people and killed her mother. It's only when they start travelling in the Fire Nation in the third season that they come to see that most Fire Nation citizens are ordinary, decent people - the rest of Aang's friends experience a similar realisation as well. At the end both Aang and Katara choose mercy over revenge; both of them have the chance to kill the man responsible for their loss (Katara and the man who killed her mother, Aang and the warlord trying to take over the world, grandson of the man who annihilated the Air Nomads). Both choose mercy instead. Zuko completes his arc at the same time. Having spent the last three seasons realising that the Fire Nation is on the wrong path, and having previously made the wrong choice by betraying a friend for his country, he makes the opposite choice. He stands against one of his countrymen (his sister) in defence of his friends, and ultimately takes a near-fatal blow to protect those friends.

Sort of like this guy! Both were struck by lightning...

Underpinning the other themes is balance - push and pull, yin and yang. As Zuko moves towards acceptance, so does Aang. Balance is a constant element in the show; the world was thrown out of balance by the Air Nomad Genocide. The Avatar is the symbol of balance - it's why they reincarnate into all four nations, and why they can wield all four elements. It's also their job to keep balance, which is why the Fire Nation wanted to kill Aang - allowing imperialism goes against the Avatar's job and principles. Within this balance, there is also harmony; not as the Fire Nation envisaged it, but with all four nations on an equal footing. Multiple characters express that to Aang - the greatest illusion is that of separation. In Aang's Team Avatar, this is exemplified in the presence of representatives from all nations - Aang is the only Air Nomad, Sokka and Katara are both Water tribe, Toph and Suki (who I haven't mentioned before) are Earth Kingdom, and Zuko is Fire Nation. It's also exemplified in the bending arts; multiple characters make use of forms from other elements in their combat - not just Aang. For example, Iroh (Zuko's uncle) invents a new sub-element of fire-bending based off water-bending - redirecting lightning. Water-bending involves redirecting the flow of your opponent's attack; lightning redirection operates on the same principle. Similarly, during a battle with another water-bender, Katara blocks her opponent's attack, similar to earth-bending, rather than redirecting it. None of us are truly separate - we're all humans. We all come from the same source - whether you believe that source is God, or another deity, or from the stars. Learning to see beyond physical and mental differences - that's a very important skill to have, especially in times of crisis. 

Rotating clockwise, Aang at the bottom, Sokka, Suki, Zuko, Toph and Katara

The movie leaves out these themes; it inverts the show's core element of being fun and also morally informative, and turns it into simply a 'fun romp' style movie. Except it also takes the most fun-loving character (Aang) and turns him into a moody teenager. It ends up making a big difference to the movie; nearly all the fun moments in the show are due to Aang, either through his direct actions, or through encouraging the other characters to embrace fun. The end result is that the movie essentially lacks balance - it tries to be fun, but eliminated the main source of the fun in the show. The movie then ends up being unintentionally funny - like the aforementioned scene of Iroh fire-bending, which just ends up looking like he's regenerating. To a Doctor Who fan, anyway. The movie also lacks balance in a meta-sense as well. I mentioned the white-washing controversy earlier; the main reason for the controversy is the fact that the show was representation of Asian peoples and cultures. The worldbuilding took inspiration from Asian cultures, and almost exclusively Asian, for the simple reason that those cultures are not very represented in Western society. By ignoring that and doing a colour-blind cast, the movie-makers neglected the opportunity to provide representation for those cultures, and in the process failed to grasp one of the most important themes in Avatar: The Last Airbender - harmony and unity.

Overall, I'd give the movie a solid four out of ten, for decent, if occasionally silly, effects. I would not recommend it, except out of curiosity. I would recommend the show, though - it's great! Nine and three-quarters out of ten!

On a final note, what element would you most like to control? I'd probably choose water - it's always been my favourite of the classical elements.