The Last Airbender (2010)

The story follows the adventures of Aang, a young successor to a long line of Avatars, who must put his childhood ways aside and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations.

Director:

M. Night Shyamalan

Writer:

M. Night Shyamalan

Stars:

Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz

6 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Noah Ringer	...	Aang
Dev Patel	...	Prince Zuko
Nicola Peltz	...	Katara
Jackson Rathbone	...	Sokka
Shaun Toub	...	Uncle Iroh
Aasif Mandvi	...	Commander Zhao
Cliff Curtis	...	Fire Lord Ozai
Seychelle Gabriel	...	Princess Yue
Katharine Houghton	...	Katara's Grandma
Francis Guinan	...	Master Pakku
Damon Gupton	...	Monk Gyatso
Summer Bishil	...	Azula
Randall Duk Kim	...	Old Man in Temple
John D'Alonzo	...	Zhao's Assistant
Keong Sim	...	Earthbending Father

Storyline

The world is divided into four kingdoms, each represented by the element they harness, and peace has lasted throughout the realms of Water, Air, Earth, and Fire under the supervision of the Avatar, a link to the spirit world and the only being capable of mastering the use of all four elements. When young Avatar Aang disappears, the Fire Nation launches an attack to eradicate all members of the Air Nomads to prevent interference in their future plans for world domination. 100 years pass and current Fire Lord Ozai continues to conquer and imprison anyone with elemental "bending" abilities in the Earth and Water Kingdoms, while siblings Katara and Sokka from a Southern Water Tribe find a mysterious boy trapped beneath the ice outside their village. Upon rescuing him, he reveals himself to be Aang, Avatar and last of the Air Nomads. Swearing to protect the Avatar, Katara and Sokka journey with him to the Northern Water Kingdom in his quest to master "Waterbending" and eventually fulfill ...

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Plot Keywords:

fire | avatar | water | kingdom | prince | 

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Taglines:

Four nations, one destiny

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Family | Fantasy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for fantasy action violence

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [fr] Official site [jp]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 July 2010 (USA)

Also Known As:

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Filming Locations:

Beltzville State Park, Pennsylvania, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$150,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£1,653,776 (UK) (13 August 2010)

Gross:

$131,564,731 (USA) (17 September 2010)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, Blinding Edge Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

103 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is the seventh collaboration between composer James Newton Howard and Director M. Night Shyamalan. This would mark the fourth longest relationship between director/film music composer in Hollywood at the current time. John Williams and Steven Spielberg at over 36 years, and Alan Silvestri and Robert Zemeckis and Carter Burwell and Joel Coen at 26 years, and Danny Elfman and Tim Burton at 14 years continuously however going on for 25 years with the exception of Ed Wood rank ahead of those director/composers who are still active.

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Goofs

During the first conversation between Fire Lord Ozai and General Zhao we can see that Ozai's eyes move from left to right while he looks in the direction of Zhao's chest, thus revealing the use of a prompter.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Katara: A hundred years ago all was right with our world. Prosperity and peace filled our days. / The four Nations: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air Nomads lived amongst each other in harmony. / Great respect was afforded to all those who could bend their natural element. / The Avatar was the only person born amongst all the nations who could master all four elements. / He was the only one who could communicate with the Spirit World. With the Spirits' guidance the Avatar kept balance in the ...

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Crazy Credits

As the credits start to roll, Aang, Katara and Zuko bend the elements: water fire and air. No earth bending is demonstrated, but an airy figure of Aang stand on top of stone pillars.

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Connections

Featured in Ebert Presents: At the Movies: Episode #1.25 (2011)

User Reviews

The Last (time I pay to see an M. Night Shyamalan movie) Airbender

After waiting extremely eagerly for this movie, I sat in the theater and was extremely eager for it to END. Ear-oh? Oong? Soak-ah?! Could they have butchered the names anymore than they did? Worse, the entire movie felt like a string of clips put together for an hour and a half and not like a movie at all. All the major parts of the Book of Water were skimmed over, while things like the freeing of the earth nation village (while important) were given screen time that could have been given to major events like the southern air temple.

The actors were dismal, with the exception of Dev Patel as Zuko and to a lesser extent Shaun Toub as Iroh, who wasn't an accurate portrayal of Iroh visually but at least captured the character's wisdom much better than many of the other actors on board for the movie. He however failed to provide many of the aspects of Iroh that made him endearing in the series.

I will give that the northern water kingdom was gorgeous, but that's about all I have to say kindly about this movie.

If you love Avatar: The Last Airbender as the series, I recommend giving this movie a miss. It's heartbreaking how they butchered something that had such fantastic and barely needing change source material.