The Last Airbender 2 with M. Night Shyamalan

Oh no, apparently it may be happening, or at least M. Night is pushing for it.

And there's an article about various stuff about how a lot of the problems (the racebending of the cast) weren't his fault, and the 'horrible budget' (?! It was 150 million!) made him cut a lot he wanted... but to me that still leaves the fact that the visual storytelling and method of doing the bending was lousy, and added all kinds of plot holes, and the direction of characters (like dour Souka and Katara not having much to do) which was on his head, plus the narration of entire relationships.

M. Night Shyamalan reacts to the criticism :

He explained his motives behind his own interpretation of the series that clearly was below the expectation of regular audiences.

He said, "It's really weird because on the show the average age was, like, nine-years-old... My child was nine-years-old. So you could make it one of two ways. You could make it for that same audience, which is what I did -- for nine and 10-year-olds -- or you could do the Transformers version and have Megan Fox. I didn't do that... Those kids, it's for them. It was for them, to talk about mysticism and Eastern philosophies through a 10-year-old's vernacular."

He added that creating a kid's show into a mature, adult-oriented film would be like "a betrayal of the innocence of the piece".

Personally I think he thinks 'for 9-10 year olds' means 'it's ok to be sloppy,' because that doesn't line up with the complaints I heard at all.

I'm pretty shocked they're still doing this, I expect heavy anti-hype.

facepalm

He also has a new movie coming out, Which has had 0 marketing so far.

Originally posted by Kazenji
He also has a new movie coming out, Which has had 0 marketing so far.

That one is another fairly small-budget one, which I can understand. Most of his movies, while bad, do make money, and I think he's getting the 'so bad it's good' crowd. He wants to keep making movies not based on anything? Fine with me, I'll just continue to not watch them.

Another big budget action movie when he trashed the first one (and says one of the big problems with the first one is he only got 150 mil budget!), based on a series where the fans now really don't like him? Nah ah, no way, not a chance.

Originally posted by Q99
That one is another fairly small-budget one, which I can understand. Most of his movies, while bad, do make money, and I think he's getting the 'so bad it's good' crowd. He wants to keep making movies not based on anything? Fine with me, I'll just continue to not watch them.
.

I've usually watched his movies, Devil was his last good one for me even if he may only have done the story for it.

Originally posted by Kazenji
I've usually watched his movies, Devil was his last good one for me even if he may only have done the story for it.

And while he's not hitting Sixth Sense levels any more, he is better at that stuff than he is at action. Or kids movies.

Bad call. The praise for Avatar the animated series is how it can be enjoyed by a variety of age-groups.

Entertainment for a nine year old does not automatically have to be sloppy, poorly edited, and gutted.

Originally posted by Quincy
Bad call. The praise for Avatar the animated series is how it can be enjoyed by a variety of age-groups.

Entertainment for a nine year old does not automatically have to be sloppy, poorly edited, and gutted.

Right. And he seemed to think that the calls for it to not have plot holes and big errors were a call for it to be 'more mature'- overlooking the series already did it much better and more kid-appealing.

They should just reboot a live-action Avatar and keep M. Night away from it.

Originally posted by Robtard
They should just reboot a live-action Avatar and keep M. Night away from it.

Seriously.

Someone who knows what joy is, perhaps. And who can adapt, without simply taking something, cutting parts, and tossing in plotholes for the heck of it.

Originally posted by Robtard
They should just reboot a live-action Avatar and keep M. Night away from it.

👆

So it's unanimous, they need to reboot Avatar: TLAB and M. Night will have absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact, he'll be barred from even watching it.

I'll send the memo out to the studio.

Originally posted by Robtard
So it's unanimous, they need to reboot Avatar: TLAB and M. Night will have absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact, he'll be barred from even watching it.

I'll send the memo out to the studio.

Yep.

If the studio is even *considering* an M. Night sequel, I hope the backlash to the suggestion stops them.

He might want it, and one possibility is these stories are a way to test the waters.

who cares. He already raped it. what's the harm in raping it twice?

also, it can't possibly be worse than the first one.

I've watched the animated series & enjoyed watching the film with my son.

Can anyone enlighten me to why the negative backlash it received?

Yeah it was a condensed story. Yeah M. Night wanted a 3 movie deal & got less funding for one...yeah I think he did well for what he was up against.

Originally posted by Esau Cairn
I've watched the animated series & enjoyed watching the film with my son.

Can anyone enlighten me to why the negative backlash it received?

Yeah it was a condensed story. Yeah M. Night wanted a 3 movie deal & got less funding for one...yeah I think he did well for what he was up against.

YouTube video

Here ya go

Ok I only had time to watch half the YouTube clip.

So far I get whingeing out kids with limited acting abilities....
Maybe it's because they're kids?
Pointing that Ang can't interact with a creature that's going to be cgi-ed later is just a ridiculous point to focus on. Hell, even the last 3 Star Wars movies proved even talented grown actors had trouble interacting with cgi characters...not to mention cgi props.

Secondly the guy even states it's impossible to condense a 500 minute storyline into 100 minutes then goes on to whinge about bad editing & vital elements being left out. He then compares Ang's quick introduction to the village to an animated espisode that had 30 minutes to play out the scene.

Badly done movies for me would be WaterWorld, TDKR, HighLander 2.

Originally posted by Esau Cairn
Ok I only had time to watch half the YouTube clip.

So far I get whingeing out kids with limited acting abilities....
Maybe it's because they're kids?

Partially, but people report that the actor who played Aang came across as way more Aang-like in outtakes and on-set footage than in the stuff used.

Note also how in After Earth, M. Night managed a similar fun-removal with Will and Jaden Smith.

And Sokka had no jokes in the script.

Secondly the guy even states it's impossible to condense a 500 minute storyline into 100 minutes then goes on to whinge about bad editing & vital elements being left out. He then compares Ang's quick introduction to the village to an animated espisode that had 30 minutes to play out the scene.

Yet the way he handled it was poor, rather than making a framework around the key points, he just kinda chopped together a couple episodes- while making inexplicable decisions that had nothing to do with time like putting the Earthbenders on land and such. For a time one, putting the Princess Yue romance in, but having it be informed just by narration, is a really worst-of-both worlds thing, you either need to put her in *sooner* (have her be at the prison, perhaps! Rescue her, get to know her), or drop the romance entirely.

He had no idea how to do action, and left in tons of unnecessary stuff. The problem wasn't that he left out too much, the problem is how he put together what he had was inexplicable and weird, heavy on exposition, often of things that either don't need to be said, or which could be handled better in brief flashbacks that take the same amount of time as the exposition. Or, at the least, have the exposition not between two characters who already know! (Why is Zuko telling Iroh his backstory, and not, say, anyone else telling anyone else? And why have the exposition of it twice?).

Here's a storyboard artist who shows how several scenes, including the iceberg and opening, could've been done better:
Iceberg
How the very way conversations were shot could be improved
The infamous prison fight!

Badly done movies for me would be WaterWorld, TDKR, HighLander 2.

I would recommend all of those over TLA! Like, significantly. Highland 2 is a superior movie in almost all respects.

Highlander 2 only counts if its the Renegade cut.