Podcast: The Demented Encyclopedia #14 - The One With The Last Airbender.

Another Saturday leaving us... which means it's time for another episode of The Demented Encyclopedia!

This week, Travis and I discuss both the show and the movie versions of Avatar: The Last Airbender. This episode is a little different from usual. Neither of us had a "Recommend A...," and we're gonna have an extra long Film vs. Film next week, so we decided not to do one this week. As such, we decided to do another little segment at the beginning of the show entitled "Controversy Corner," wherein we discuss one of the many controversies surrounding not only this movie, but in Hollywood in general: Whitewashing casts.

From there, we go into what we like and dislike about both the series and the movie (hint: one is mostly "like" talk and one is mostly "dislike" talk. Dare you to guess which is which!). And then we finish up the episode with the only reason anybody listens to the show, The Mono-Dialogue of the Week.

As a bit of insider information, there is actually about 40 minutes of show that's been cut (which is actually a bit ironic considering what we were talking about). We actually decided to do 2 placeholder segments this week, but we decided to not include the second one in the final edit of the show, because the majority of it was a bit repetitious and not all that interesting. For those interested, this is pretty much what it was: We brought back the "If I wrote/directed" segment from our very first episode, focusing on the Last Airbender movie. If you remember the epic post I did a while back reviewing season 1 of the show, I basically went down the list, summarizing the episode, while Travis and I discussed if M. Night made the right choice in cutting or keeping the episode (or part of the episode), if he handled it well if he did keep it, and if we would keep it or cut it if we were in charge of the movie. For the most part, this roughly 40-minute conversation just reiterated what we spent the rest of the episode discussing, with only a few bits of new information here and there.

If you're interested, here are those bits (basically): Travis would have kept the "Imprisoned" segment in his movie but kept it more like the show (unlike M. Night), while I would have cut it completely; Travis and I have differing opinions on the character Jet (he likes him, I don't), but we still wouldn't have included him in our versions, so M. Night made a good choice there; Travis and I both would have included June the Assassin in our versions; and we both would have included both Pakku and his fight with Katara at the Northern Water Tribe in our versions of the movie. Overall, the basic summary of the segment was this: M. Night made decent cuts (and a couple questionable ones that he didn't), but he just handled what he kept too poorly.

And that's about it! I had to do one heck of an editing job to make it seem like that second segment never existed (with I believe only one instance near the beginning that implies otherwise, with one subject/verb agreement problem, as I cut out a couple words and even the 's' at the end of a plural word to make it singular... and then one instance near the end where I couldn't edit as clearly, so there's a very brief garble around the point it makes the jump). So I hope you enjoy the episode. It's one of our shortest now, actually. And make sure to keep an eye out for next week when we have our first returning guest host!

Thanks goes out to Kevin MacLeod's Imcompetech Website for the music. As always, you can use the player above to listen to the podcast, or you can search iTunes, where we are also available for download. The earlier episodes are being removed from the player for space, but you can still always download them on iTunes. Also, please become a Fan on Facebook... then you can give us your input for the podcast and will probably end up on the show during the D-Bag segment, as well as vote for which film in Film vs. Film won for the week. But as for now... enjoy!

THE LAST AIRBENDER.

Perhaps I'm grasping at straws here, or perhaps I'm in serious denial, but... it wasn't a complete rape of one of my favorite shows. The Last Airbender follows Book 1 (season 1) of the show. In this world, there are people who can control the four elements--air, water, earth, and fire--known as benders. There is only one who can control all four elements, and this person is the link between the human world and the spirit world. This person is known as the Avatar. 100 years ago, the Avatar disappeared and the Fire Nation began a war on the rest of the world, slowly taking it over. But a young Waterbender named Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her warrior brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) discover the Avatar, an Airbender named Aang (Noah Ringer), frozen in the outskirts of their Water Tribe village. Eventually, they discover that they must travel to the Northern Water Tribe so that Aang may master Waterbending before moving on to Earth and then Fire, as he must defeat the Fire Nation and restore balance. However, along the way, he is pursued by the banished Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) and his Uncle Iroh (Shaun Toub), as well as Commander Zhao (Aasif Mandvi). Zuko must capture the Avatar if he is to regain his honor, but Zhao will not have any of this, and vows to find the Avatar first.

On paper, they pretty much got the basic plot of the first season down. There are only a couple changes here and there (strangely almost entirely dealing with the Fire Nation, such as how they control fire, Sozin's Comet, and even Avatar Roku). But what they missed in this adaptation was the show's heart. The characters aren't very endearing, nor do you care a whole lot about them. For instance, Uncle Iroh stays pretty true to his cartoon counterpart... except for his whimsicality. In fact, the entire movie was missing the whimsy of the show. And I think that was one of its biggest flaws. There was hardly any comedy. Everything was taken seriously to an absurd amount. Aang wasn't particularly carefree, nor did he hardly smile. Sokka was used to comedic effect maybe twice in the whole movie, and only mostly thanks to Katara--who herself was turned into a bit of a worrisome girl. They could have even given some good stuff to Appa or Momo, but Momo is mostly in the background with nothing to do except offer fan service (you only hear his name once in the whole movie, and it's like a 'blink and you miss it' kinda thing... except for ears). Appa has one attempt at comedy with Sokka near the very beginning, but even then it was so painfully contrived that it wasn't funny whatsoever.

I think part of this has to do with a mixture of things. First, there's the dark and brooding music that plays throughout the movie. Like the aforementioned Appa/Sokka moment, the serious music takes away from the moment, leaving you unsure whether or not you should be laughing. The other issue is that, besides Zuko and Iroh, there are no simple character moments. Everything is BAM plot point BAM plot point BAM plot point. Granted, I'm aware they had to shorten an entire season into one movie, but they put in some pretty unnecessary things. The rescuing of the Earth Kingdom villages? While fun, I suppose, it wasn't necessary, and took up a decent chunk of time that could have been used for character-building. At the very least, they could have tossed in Suki, who was supposed to be in the movie, but was apparently cut. M. Night really chose some strange episodes to keep in that really took away from what could have otherwise been useful time for other things.

I also wanted to briefly bring up the controversy that has been dubbed "RaceBending." This is based on the issue that M. Night nearly white-washed the entire cast. After a while, I just didn't care anymore. I figure that if the actors could pull off the roles, it'd be OK. Whatever. I was just tired of hearing about it. But here's the problem... they didn't pull off the roles. Granted, I'm not exactly sure how much of that is the actors' faults and how much of it is the script and M. Night's faults. There was some pretty rough dialogue, mostly consisting of moments of pure exposition, which happened incredibly often. There were times when I could actually see M. Night going "OK, what's a creative way I could toss in some exposition without it seeming like exposition? Oh, I've got it! I'll just have Zuko ask this random boy about the Prince... that way I can get out Zuko's backstory in a creative way." Except it was already done in a creative way... on the show... in an amazing episode called "The Storm"... which gave all the necessary backstory to both Aang and Zuko without having to spread it out strangely throughout the rest of the movie.

But the movie wasn't all bad. As I said at the beginning, it didn't completely rape one of my favorite shows. There were some stunning visual effects (like, totally Oscar-worthy here... which isn't surprising considering that the main guy involved has won many times before, if I'm not mistaken). And the action scenes are really good. They actually captured the bending stuff really well. But even some of the non-bending action is good, too, like the Blue Spirit scene, which was probably one of the better moments of the movie. Between the visuals of the bending and the action scenes, there were some pretty stunning shots. And there were even a few more gorgeous shots during non-bending/action scenes. Some of the set pieces (like the Northern Water Tribe) are amazing. Also, Dev Patel and Shaun Toub were pretty good as Zuko and Iroh, respectively... at least for what they were given. And it was no shock to hear that they were M. Night's favorite characters, considering they were given the best treatment in this movie.

Overall, I tried to be as fair as possible in this review, looking at aspects of it as an adaptation and as a movie for people who are not familiar with the source material. As an adaptation, it failed pretty bad. It kept moderately faithful plot-wise, but missed the heart and soul of the source, becoming too serious and lackluster... almost feeling as if it lost its purpose... like it was just going through the motions. As a film for those unfamiliar with the source, it's... well... lackluster, like it has no purpose and was just going through the motions. Sure the visuals and the action are pretty good, but you still need compelling characters for an epic adventure like this... and Zuko is only gonna take you so far. So in other words, as a non-adaptation, it was moderately entertaining, though horribly forgettable. In other words, the very definition of "painfully average." So if I were to mix my "average" score with the adaptation's, well, not-so-good score... you'll get my final score:


Feed Me, Seymour!

(P.S. And we're talking probably the lower-end of that score... though is it sad that I still want the other 2 made? Maybe if M. Night just produces or something and another writer/director come on? They just have so much potential... and that last 30 seconds or so with Azula was fantastic!)

(P.P.S. I think one of the biggest slaps in the face, though, is the fact that almost nobody's name is pronounced correctly. Avatar, Aang, Sokka, Iroh... it's ridiculous. For somebody who claims to be a major fan of the show, M. Night should have known better...)

(P.P.P.S. For more of an in-depth analysis of the show and this movie, stay tuned for the next episode of The Demented Encyclopedia, due this weekend!)

The Last Airbender Teaser Trailer!

I know I just posted for a review, but then I saw this, and it's worth reposting for...

Just the other day, I mentioned movies I can't f**king wait for. Near the top of the list was The Last Airbender, and I mentioned how there hadn't even been a trailer for it yet. I spoke too soon. The first teaser trailer has just been released... and I still so can't wait. Though I wish it would have shown clips of other characters besides Aang...