Review of The Last Airbender (2010) by Sami Z — 10 Nov 2014

M. Night has definitely proven that mysterious plots are more his forte (or were). When he explains things in this movie he goes way overboard. I'm a fan of the series, and this was completely awful. Is it REALLY that hard to find a decent script writer in Hollywood? It would have been better as a comedic movie, cause then that would at least explain the laughable dialogue and would have also remained closer to it's roots. I squirmed in my seat at the awfully awkward lines. I felt shame for being there to see the film unfold as a flop.

That's an interesting theory. I think the problem with directors like M. Night, Spielberg, Lucas and others is this: When they first go into the business they worked their tails off, they also had lots of supervision from others to axe any crap they might include in their movies. Watch the terrible deleted scenes with director commentary in "Unbreakable". The movie was pretty good but had the deleted scenes been in there it would have been as horrendous as many of his later works. Yet hearing him talk about these scenes they were utter genius to him. They were long pointless dialogues. He just couldn't understand why people didn't want those scenes.

The problem with producers is that after they've worked their tails off, made it big, and then enjoyed a measured period of success, the industry becomes more allowing. More or less, they are like a dog on a leash. The dog is really well behaved, does what it's asked, and causes no problems while tethered. As soon as you let it off the leash it craps in your front yard and tears up the neighbor's flower beds because it simply has too much freedom. Especially someone like George Lucas who is practically surrounded by "yes" men. These guys are talented, visionary, and have done much to progress the film industry. What they really need, and what we as fans really need, is someone to tell them "no".

I don't think any one man can be pure genius alone. It takes a whole crew and someone to recognize rubbish when they see it. A child could have told M. Night not to do any of the foolish things he did with his poorly wrought The Last Airbender.