The Last Airbender is a 2010 American fantasy action-adventure film based on the first season of the animated television series, Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005–2008). Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the film stars an ensemble cast featuring Noah Ringer, Dev Patel, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi, and Cliff Curtis. The plot follows Aang, a young Avatar who must master all four elements of air, water, earth, and fire to bring balance to the world while stopping the Fire Nation from conquering the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom.
Development for the film began in January 2007, with casting and pre-production taking place in 2008. Principal photography began in March 2009 and ended in September, with two weeks' shooting in Greenland, and the rest of the film being shot in various locations in Pennsylvania, United States. Post-production began in August and took several months due to the extensive visual effects. The name Avatar was dropped from the title to avoid confusion with James Cameron's 2009 film, Avatar.
The Last Airbender premiered at the Alice Tully Hall in New York City on June 30, 2010, and was theatrically released in the United States the following day by Paramount Pictures. The film was universally panned by critics, audiences, and fans of the animated series alike upon release, who criticized Shyamalan's direction and screenplay, the acting performances, editing, visual effects, action sequences, use of voice-over, whitewashed casting, unfaithfulness to the source material, and use of 3D, though some did praise Lesnie's cinematography and Howard's musical score. It is often considered one of the worst films of all time, and has been publicly disavowed by fans and the creators of the original series. Despite the film making a profit at the box office, grossing $319.7 million worldwide against a $150 million budget, it was still considered a box-office disappointment. The film's scathing critical reception and disappointing box-office results caused the studio to cancel a planned trilogy of films. A live-action television series adaptation of the original animated series produced by Netflix would premiere fourteen years later to an improved reception.
Plot A century has passed since the Fire Nation declared war on the other three nations of air, water, and earth in its attempt to conquer the world. Sokka and his younger sister Katara, who live in the Southern Water Tribe, discover an unusual iceberg. Breaking into the iceberg releases a beam of light and reveals a twelve-year-old boy named Aang and his pet flying bison Appa.
Zuko, the disgraced prince of the Fire Nation, detects the light from Aang's release and arrives at the Southern Water Tribe to demand the villagers hand over the Avatar: the only person capable of manipulating, or "bending", all four elements of air, water, earth, and fire. Aang surrenders himself to save the village, but escapes the Fire Nation ship and flies to Appa, brought by Katara and Sokka. The trio travel to Aang's homeland at the Southern Air Temple, where Aang learns he was in the iceberg for a century and that the Fire Nation wiped out the other Air Nomads, including his guardian Monk Gyatso. In despair, Aang enters the Avatar State and finds himself in the Spirit World where he encounters a Dragon Spirit. Katara's pleas bring Aang out of the Avatar State.
The group arrives at an Earth Kingdom village controlled by the Fire Nation. When they are arrested and imprisoned, they incite a rebellion, battling and defeating the Fire Nation soldiers occupying the village. Aang tells Katara and Sokka that he only knows airbending and has yet to master the other three elements. They make their way to the Northern Water Tribe where Aang can learn from waterbending masters.
During a side trip to the Northern Air Temple, Aang is betrayed by a peasant and captured by Fire Nation archers led by Commander Zhao. However, a masked marauder called the Blue Spirit helps Aang escape. Zhao realizes that Zuko is the Blue Spirit, and has a crossbowman fire a bolt that knocks Zuko out, but Aang uses his skills to escape with the unconscious Zuko. Aang watches over Zuko until morning, then leaves to reunite with Sokka and Katara. Zhao tries again to kill Zuko by blowing up his ship, but Zuko secretly survives and sneaks aboard Zhao's ship.
Upon arriving, Aang and company are welcomed by the citizens of the Northern Water Tribe, and waterbending master Pakku teaches Aang and Katara. The Fire Nation arrives and Zhao begins his attack while Zuko continues his independent search for the Avatar. After defeating Katara in battle, Zuko captures Aang, who reenters the Avatar State to search for the Dragon Spirit for help to defeat the Fire Nation. The Dragon Spirit advises him to "use the ocean and show the power of water".
Returning to his body, Aang battles Zuko until Katara freezes Zuko in ice, then leaves to join the battle. Zuko's uncle Iroh and Zhao make their way to a sacred cave where Zhao captures the Moon Spirit. Despite Iroh's pleas, Zhao kills the Moon Spirit to strip all the waterbenders of their abilities. Enraged by Zhao's sacrilege, Iroh reveals his mastery of firebending, frightening Zhao and his entourage out of the sacred cave. Princess Yue gives her life to revive the Moon Spirit. Zhao finds out Zuko survived and they prepare to fight, but Iroh talks Zuko out of it and Zhao is drowned by waterbenders. Recalling his life before being trapped in the ice, Aang enters the Avatar State and raises the ocean into a gigantic wall to drive the Fire Nation back.
Zuko's father Fire Lord Ozai learns of the defeat and tasks his daughter Princess Azula with preventing the Avatar from mastering earth and fire before the return of Sozin’s Comet in three years.
Cast
Production Development On January 8, 2007, Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies announced that they had signed M. Night Shyamalan to write, direct, and produce a trilogy of live-action films based on Avatar: The Last Airbender. The first of these films was to be a faithful adaptation of the main characters' adventures in Book One: Water." According to an interview with the co-creators in SFX magazine, Shyamalan came across Avatar: The Last Airbender when his daughter wanted to be Katara for Halloween. Intrigued, Shyamalan researched and watched the series with his family. "Watching Avatar has become a family event in my house... so we are looking forward to how the story develops in season three," said Shyamalan. "Once I saw the amazing world that Mike and Bryan created, I knew it would make a great feature film"." He added he was attracted to the spiritual and martial arts influences on the show.
Avatar: The Last Airbender co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko voiced their opinion in an interview regarding Shyamalan writing, directing, and producing the film. The two displayed much enthusiasm over Shyamalan's decision for the adaptation, stating that they admire his work and, in turn, he respects their material. In a 2014 interview, Konietzko and DiMartino said that the project was given the go-ahead without their approval, and when they tried to provide input, it all got pushed to the wayside. Konietzko added even further that "A) We didn't want it to be done at all. Before anyone was attached, we didn't want it. And then B) If it was going to be done, we wanted to do it, but they weren't going to let us. C) When they attached Night, we just thought, 'Well, this is what we've been dealt. We'll just offer help when it's asked of us, and if it's not, we'll stay out of the way'. In the beginning, it was more positive and we offered help, but then we had a big falling out". Producer Frank Marshall stated he hoped for the film to achieve a family-friendly rating: "I'm not even sure we want to get in the PG-13 realm." Furthermore, Shyamalan said, "A lot of the inspiration for the direction we took comes from a friend of mine. A Nathan Blackmer helped shape this Idea into the film it became. I took away a little bit of the slapsticky stuff that was there for the little little kids, the fart jokes and things like that...We grounded Katara's brother...and that really did wonderful things for the whole theme of the movie." Brad Grey said that despite the director's career being inconsistent, he "believed in [Shyamalan's] vision and that he could execute it," adding that "It's a bold step because he had to create a potential new franchise." The studio was willing to spend $250 million on a trilogy of films, one for each season. The Last Airbender'''s budget wound up being $150 million, in addition to over $130 million spent on marketing costs, making it Shyamalan's most expensive film. During production, the name Avatar was removed from the title to avoid confusion with the 2009 film Avatar.
Casting Shyamalan originally offered the roles of Aang to Noah Ringer; Sokka to Jackson Rathbone; Katara to Nicola Peltz; and Zuko to Jesse McCartney. In an interview with People, Shyamalan claimed that he did not want to make The Last Airbender without Nicola Peltz, "I said that only once before in my career, and that was when I met Haley in The Sixth Sense auditions." In February 2009, Dev Patel replaced Jesse McCartney, whose tour dates conflicted with a boot camp scheduled for the cast to train in martial arts. However, McCartney has since claimed that he had been replaced by the producers for political reasons shortly before filming began, and had no say in the matter. Katharine Houghton played "Gran Gran", the grandmother of Katara and Sokka, and Seychelle Gabriel portrayed Princess Yue, a love interest of Sokka's and princess of the Northern Water Tribe. Isaac Jin Solstein played an earthbending boy. Comedian Aasif Mandvi was cast as Commander Zhao, Cliff Curtis as Fire Lord Ozai, and Keong Sim was cast in the role of an Earthbender.
Ringer began practicing Taekwondo – the martial art and national sport of Korea – at the age of 10. He began shaving his head during his martial arts training to help cool off, which gave him the nickname "Avatar" due to his resemblance to Aang from the animated series. When he heard about the film adaptation, he made an audition tape with his instructor and sent it to the filmmakers. Having not acted before, Ringer was required to attend acting school a month before filming commenced. Peltz was familiar with the character before submitting for the part of Katara, having been a fan of the animated series.