Oh No! We Watch The Last Airbender (2010)

0:00 Water, earth, fire, air. This is what we This is Yip Yip! Hooray! Avatar Podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Yip Yip Hooray, an Avatar podcast.

0:23 We have a very special guest here today.

0:26 Is it me? Well, always.

0:30 And one more who is a special little girl who just started watching Avatar.

0:36 For the first time ever?

0:37 Actually, I think um I'm at episode like 20.

0:43 20? Yeah.

0:45 So she's saying it's not at the beginning.

0:49 Which is good. So, girl across the table from us, hi, what's your name?

0:53 Allison.

0:54 Alison? It's very nice to meet you. We've never met before. That's a lie.

0:59 For nine years ago at the hospital.

1:02 I wasn't there, unfortunately. But she's not our baby.

1:05 So Allie, can you tell us why you started watching Avatar?

1:08 Um, well, my dad told me that um Jordan text um my dad, so he c so he told me to watch it because I didn't know what to watch, so I just started watching it and now I like it.

1:22 What made you start getting into it?

1:24 When what's his name?

1:26 Uh Bald Boy?

1:27 No.

1:29 Sokka.

1:30unknown No.

1:30 Ponytail Zuko.

1:32 Yeah, the ponytail guy.

1:34 Sokka? The funny guy?

1:36 No! The other Zuko?

1:38 No one's funny.

1:40 Scarface.

1:42 The fire guy? Okay, Zuko. Yeah.

1:44 What about the uncle? He um It's just like he wanted to catch the Avatar, so I wanted to finish watching it. So yeah.

1:53 You wanted to see if he caught the Avatar? Are you rooting for Zuko?

1:58 No. I just wondered if he would beat him or something. Are you into bad guys? No!

2:04 Is Zuko your favorite character?

2:06 No.

2:06 I don't know. Do you have a crush on Zuko?

2:10 I have a crush on Zuko. Allie is being introduced to the Avatar blanket that my little brother gave me for Christmas.

2:19 What do you see? What's the guy with the green hat think?

2:22 Hmm, I don't know. Do you so you don't recognize that character? No. Oh, Katie has just made uh notice that my sweet avatar blanket that my brother gave me has a giant hole in the corner.

2:33 Little cheap Caden.

2:35 Hmm, Caden, thanks for the defunct blanket.

2:38 Oh, it looks so nice. Who do you think the funniest character is?

2:44 Sokka.

2:44 What did he do to make you laugh?

2:46 He's like, he's always just like yelling at the avatar and he's always just like, no, no, and Do you like Appa? Yeah, that's funny too.

2:56 Do you think he has too many arms or do you think he has enough arms? He's like a um Yeti and Have you seen any animals in Avatar that you'd like as a pet?

3:08 Maybe Momo.

3:10 Oh, you want Momo.

3:11 I have this gut feeling you were gonna say Momo. Does it remind you of your cats?

3:15 Yeah. He has like big ears when um Saka said, Water, I need water, and then Momo grabbed rats and other stuff. But she's like, no, water. And they're both sick and they're like, oh and then you see what Momo's seeing, and they're like, Yeah.

3:36 And then he doesn't he bring him back like treasure and stuff at one point. Any like standout moments? You're like, oh that was so cool, or that was really sad.

3:46 Yeah.

3:47 Like what?

3:48 Like when um when they like traveled on the little volcano thing and like they brought food like on the canyon, they brought food and like the canyon crawlers came and tried to attack them.

4:04 Do you know that episode uh people think that's the worst episode of Avatar?

4:09 No.

4:10 You're like, you believe in that episode? You're like, yeah, I like that one.

4:14 Yeah. What about the season finale not the season? Yeah, season finale. The last episode you watched.

4:21 Like it's a thing about um like the moon girl and like Sokka likes her, and then she was made by the moon, so she had to uh get the moon to like give the moon life.

4:38 Did you like that or were you what did that do to you?

4:43 Because it like um she like died because of the moon, because she had to give life life to the moon.

4:50 And now whenever Sokka looks to the moon, he can see Princess Yue.

4:55 Which is sweet. It's nice, like, you know, she's always there.

5:00 Because we've addressed that Zuko's your favorite character and the character you have a crush on. Uh when Zuko kidnapped.

5:06 No. No, I don't know.

5:09 I when your bedroom has posters of Prince Zuko all over.

5:13 Yeah, and you gave yourself that scar to look like him. It looks good.

5:17 What are you guys talking about?

5:19 You could probably get Zuko's haircut. We could put it up in like the pony show.

5:22 No, no.

5:23 Do you think he's too angry sometimes?

5:25 Yeah.

5:26 Do you like when uh uncle like calls him out?

5:28 Yeah. He's like, no.

5:31 Can you relate to that? Do you ever get angry like that? No. Do you have an uncle Iroh?

5:37 Who's that?

5:39 That's Zuko's uncle!

5:40 Yeah, I know, but I don't know.

5:42 You don't have an uncle like that? You don't think that's a Jordan? He's kind of like your Uncle Iro. I'm like, Allie, have some tea.

5:50 No.

5:52 Well. So if you could be a bender, what bender would you be?

5:56 Maybe a water or an air.

5:59 Oh, so if is that because your initials spell air?

6:03 Yeah.

6:04 That's pretty cool. My initials spell jaw. Not mine. Katie's initials used to spell camp.

6:11 But it was like anyway.

6:16 So if you were an airbender, would you get the tattoos?

6:19 No.

6:20 You wouldn't?

6:20 No.

6:21 But that's how you that's how people know you're a master airbender.

6:24 But you told me like this girl in your writing class looked like him.

6:30 Yeah, because I walked into class one day and she had shaved her head and taken a blue Sharpie and drew a little arrow on her forehead.

6:38 Oh, I missed that. That you saw her before she was.

6:41 Yeah, she she had lots of hair. More hair than either of you. Well, good for her. Yeah, and I think she'd like waxed it too. Like there was no stubble. It was it was well done.

6:49 She'd probably be an airbender if she had a bigger. Maybe she was an airbender.

6:53 I didn't test it to find out.

6:55 Because you didn't talk to her.

6:57 That's true.

6:58 Okay, so skipping ahead, do you plan on watching the whole series?

7:03 Yeah.

7:04 What are you looking forward to?

7:06 For um all of them to be friends and stuff.

7:10 Who's everyone?

7:11 Everyone on the show.

7:13 Like you think Zuko's gonna be their friend?

7:15 Yeah.

7:15 Do you think Zuko's already their friend?

7:17 Yeah, because like when um what's his name? Um Arabender Aang! Yeah, Aang. When he kidnapped him and like he came back and You think there's something there? Yeah.

7:30 Hmm.

7:30 Cool. Well, I'm excited for you to find out.

7:33 Do you think they're gonna beat the Fire Lord? Yeah. You don't think he's gonna beat them?

7:38 I don't know.

7:39 Something that Katie and I both really like about the TV show is that it doesn't make just boys look like they can be heroes. Do you think it does a good job of making boys and girls look like heroes?

7:50 Yeah, but there's like only one girl there. So it's like she's always just like, she's surrounded by boys and she's always just like she's just getting mad all the time.

8:02 Do you think they um they should have more girl characters?

8:06 Yeah, maybe a couple more.

8:08 So do you do you recognize in shows when there's not enough girls on there?

8:12 Yeah, there's like normally more boys and stuff.

8:15unknown Okay.

8:16 So do you think other people should watch the show? Yeah. How come?

8:21 Because um it's really good and yeah.

8:24 Well, Allie, thanks for coming on our show.

8:27 You're welcome.

8:37 Hello and welcome back, everybody. We've been gone for a couple weeks, but now that we are in the midst of summer, we are back airing new episodes, and we are starting off this next portion of the show with the biggest train wreck of the entire legacy of Avatar the Last Airbender. Uh, we watched the movie!

8:57 We thought it'd be appropriate to watch the movie because it does a really good job of butchering all of season one. And because we just finished season one, why not cap it off with something terrible? I'm your host, Jordan. I'm Katie. And today we are joined by a very special guest, and he is Caden James Wolfe.

9:17 Well, hello, Caden Wolf.

9:19 Uh, what why are you here? What is your relation? Uh, I am uh Jordan's brother. Oh, I am uh that's it.

9:27 Such a surprise. I know, right?

9:29 What a plot twist.

9:30 Just like the movie.

9:32 That movie was a plot twist.

9:33 Okay, and what's the background? Why are you qualified to be here today?

9:37 Well, uh, I've watched all of Avatar, and uh when I was 10, I went with my brother to see this movie.

9:43 Which brother?

9:44 Uh Jordan Wolfe, I think. Oh dang!

9:47 You guys went to the movie theater.

9:49 We went to another town to go to a movie theater because Tillamuk only has one theater, and they rightfully did not play The Last Airbender the day it opened.

9:58 But you guys had how did you know about this movie?

10:01 Uh well, I I'm I'm plugged into films, so uh knowing that I have have a deep, deep love for the Avatar universe, of course I wanted to go. I heard mixed things about the movie, but I wanted to keep an open mind anyway, so Caden and I went on opening day. We didn't go to a midnight showing, but we went like to an early matinee, which was really awkward on like a Friday.

10:26 So we went on opening day, and so we went to Lincoln City, which is a beach town south of us, and it's like an hour or so drive. And I remember we were just kind of like chatting it up. I think I was wearing the shirt I'm wearing right now, which is from the movie. It's a piece of licensed merchandise.

10:42 It's the Water Tribe t-shirt.

10:44 Did you buy it after? Oh, I guess you bought it before.

10:47 Yeah, I bought it before. I bought it during the movie. Some guy came through and he was selling things. I also bought a little Ahsoka plushie. But yeah, so we're sitting there, we have some prime seats, we have some popcorn, and then the movie starts, and it's just an expo dump. Like it's just a ton of exposition.

11:04 What was happening? There was just like text on a black background, and all of a sudden I heard them say Avatar, and I was like, did that just happen?

11:15 Wait, we have to start with the beginning. Okay.

11:17 That was the beginning!

11:19 No, the beginning and beginning where they're doing their little uh, you know, fire.

11:24 They didn't say anything about what elements they were doing.

11:26 Yeah, but I was like, why is this not super smooth, right? It looked like everyone was kind of It was really awkward, really rigid. Like, why couldn't we get this a little uh nicer looking? Okay.

11:36 And it felt like they were doing it against like a red backdrop.

11:40 Yeah, it looked like a cloth backdrop with like blown-up balloons and like the text on the back. You assume the budget was really low.

11:49 It was really high. It was like a $150 million budget. Yeah, it was pretty big. And they tacked on another five, 10 million for 3D conversion because 2010 was a pretty good time for 3D movies, am I right? Wow. So the background of this movie, it was uh directed and written by M. Night Shyamalan, famous for such uh twisty movies such as The Sixth Sense, The Village, and some other hot trash.

12:14 Uh Unbreakable was good, I guess.

12:16 Have you ever seen an M. Night Shyamalan movie?

12:18 No, never.

12:18 Not one? Not signs or the happening?

12:23 No. I haven't, have you? I think I've seen The Sixth Sense. You've seen The Sixth Sense? I I watched it in psychology. Yeah. Wow. I don't know. Did you take anything out of that? I don't, not really. It was about senses, and then we just watched it.

12:36 Did you was it about all six senses?

12:39 They're like, it was weird.

12:41 So M. Night Shamline gets tacked on to do this movie. He writes a seven-hour script covering he he takes pieces of all 20 episodes, he takes it to the executives at Nick Studios, and they were like, No, you can't we're not gonna do a seven-hour movie.

12:59 Wait, you think that like he was into it? He watched the series and approached them. You don't think somebody asked him to make a movie about it?

13:06 I remember he would give interviews and he enthusiastically would say like his children were really into it, and he really wanted to do a movie that his kids would be able to watch and enjoy. And so I I guess he was super into it. So into it that he decided to change the pronunciation of key characters and words to quote unquote, like more adhere to the traditions which they stem from.

13:32 But that's like he sticks with the language, but then doesn't stick with ethnicities for people.

13:36 Yeah, right out the gate, you're like, why are uh Katara and Soka Thank you for honoring because Soka and Sokka are different people. Right, for sure. Like, yeah, why are they white? And then the people in the background aren't. Except for grandma.

13:53 Grandma was white, dude. That's what I mean. Yeah, she was like British.

13:57 Yeah. Everyone in that village was uh not every they were like Inuit.

14:01 Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely like Eskimo people.

14:03 Definitely. Yeah, no, it was uncomfortable. And then, okay, so this came out ten years ago?

14:08 Ten years ago, almost to the day. It is it was the just the 10-year anniversary, guys.

14:13 I mean, so yeah, on top of it being what it was, but I think that also goes to show where we were, you know, 10 years ago, and hopefully, yeah, that that's something that we're like, whoa, that's actually not okay, and let's not do that type of casting.

14:27 No, I do hope I mean this is whatever, but I do hope in like, let's say 20 years, people look back on what Hollywood was and are just like aghast at how we were typecasting people and having white people play characters that they had no right doing, or worse, like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, just being a really racist Japanese caricature.

14:48 Thank you, Mickey Rooney. So So, Michael, Dante DiMartino, and Brian Kenitsko. Katie was not impressed that their names were listed on there. They were executive producers, which is just a ceremonial title. Stan Lee had very little to do with any of the Marvel movies.

15:04 Whatever, they're guilty by association.

15:06 They're guilty because they created it. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Brike. So there was a 2014 interview where Brian Kanitsko was asked about it, and he said, quote, 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.

15:28 C. When they attached Knight, I'm assuming he means M. Knight Shyamalan, 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.

15:44 And so then apparently Brian Kenitsko points has mentioned that they gave a lot of input that just went nowhere and just got pushed to the wayside. And so, yeah, poor Mike and Brian, they had to watch their baby just be slaughtered and transformed into this ugly bastardization.

16:02 So really it was like Nickelodeon's fault, that they were like money hungry.

16:06 Yeah, I would say Nickelodeon's probably at fault. Nickelodeon is at fault for a lot of things.

16:10 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, but I was just curious, like, who did the casting, right? I guess we saw that in the credits. But I was like, did they know someone? I mean, I don't know.

16:20 What well, okay, so fun fact. So Zuko played by the beautiful, talented Dev Patel. He wasn't the original choice for Zuko. The original choice was some blue-eyed blonde-haired kid named Jesse McCartney, who I don't know who he is. Do you know what Jesse McCartney's from? I have no clue. It's a pretty white name.

16:37 I was gonna say he sounds kind of familiar.

16:40 Well, I don't know. I don't know. So he was cast, and so it was just gonna be whites across the board. And you assume if they had cast this kid, like the rest of the Fire Nation wouldn't end up being like white boys, also.

16:55 So this It was interesting, like just kind of like the Indian presence for like Fire Nation.

17:01 But I think it was just an accident. Like it was because Dev Patel got it. And I think M. Night Shyamalan is some Indian descent, I believe. Okay. And so I don't know if he had worked with Dev or what the relationship there was. I don't know. But yeah, I think it was an accident that they were Indian or of Indian descent.

17:17 Because Iroh isn't Indian. He's uh an Iranian actor.

17:22 Who was a highlight for me in this movie. I did enjoy him.

17:25 Yeah, he was the best character, but he also wasn't Iroh.

17:29 Oh, he is definitely not Iroh. He was definitely like they they made all the characters their own characters. This movie is not anywhere near what it should be.

17:36 Well, right. Yeah, yeah. So if we're looking at it as just like a a movie that we watched.

17:42 Right, but then when they they still made decisions in the movie using plot points of the TV show, but then the TV show had had laid the groundwork for a much better, much better interpretation of what they were doing, case in point. Like Aang's reason for leaving, he leaves because they're gonna like rip him away from the family that he knows and make him go train at the Southern Air Temple in the show.

18:07 And in the movie, it's because they bow to him and he doesn't want to bow back. And he's told, quote unquote, he can't have a family.

18:16 Yeah, I don't know what that meant. I was like, kids?

18:19 Priesthood?

18:19 It was like, why is that on his why is that on his mind?

18:21 He's 12, I guess. He just wants to have a wife.

18:25 I don't know. Like, yeah, no, uh, that's who we should get on the show. Interview that guy. Like, let's talk about the decisions that uh What the casting guy?

18:35 No. M. Night Shamalan? That guy. He's pretty famous. I don't think he'll go on our podcast.

18:40 Well, did he uh take a hit after this movie?

18:43 Well, he kind of went away for a little bit, but now he's back and he's doing other movies. Like he just did Now he's back. He did Split, and then he did Glass, which is all part of the unbreakable universe, and now he's doing other things. You can't kill M. Night Shyamalan. He's the master of the plot twist.

19:00 Hmm.

19:01 Plot twist, maybe he would do it. You thought I wouldn't, but I'm here. Let's talk about it.

19:07 Wait, I have I wrote down like a quote from quote-unquote grandma. I don't know if I can read it.

19:13 Oh, hello, dearie. Would you like to have tea and crumpets right now?

19:17 Oh, I think she said something like, It is in the heart that all wars are one.

19:21 That was so okay, that's a nice quote or whatever. But it was about Aang mastering all four elements and how doing that would change people's hearts.

19:31 Like, she also explained like the first like couple episodes of the show. Nobody knew who Aang was until she started explaining it and was like, everyone's at war, and we're like, What how does grandma know all this?

19:43 She's very tuned in.

19:44 Yeah, someone's gonna be.

19:46 That's true. Okay, so let's go back to some of this like casting decision. When they was announced that there was going to be a movie, Dante Bosco, who, as we all know, is the beautiful, wonderful Zuko and Rufio, he wanted to be Zuko. Yeah. Which I feel like he could have done. I feel like easily. Right.

20:04 But then people were weird because they're like, oh, I don't know if Dante could be like a teenager. But Dante like hasn't aged in like 30 years, so we're fine. But also, the kid that got to do Soka, Jackson Rathborn or whatever, I think he's from Twilight. He was like 10 years older than the girl who played guitar, Nicola Peltz.

20:25 Yeah. So how old do you know how old they were when they were?

20:30 I mean, she seems pretty young. I mean, I would assume she was like 15 or 16, maybe. And he had to have been mid-20s.

20:36 Yeah.

20:36 I mean, he looks older than me. I'm 30.

20:39 Wow.

20:40 Also, apparently, uh, a special guy auditioned for Soka didn't get it because he had to drop out with scheduling conflicts. But Zach Efron was uh auditioned for the role, and I think was uh was a favorite to get it.

20:53 Yeah.

20:54 Can you imagine what would have happened if we had charismatic Zach Ephron in that role?

20:59 Yeah, it could have been a little more palpable. But see, I think my issue with this is this is a drama, right? And I'm I'm not into dramas. Uh and you know, our little beloved TV show isn't a drama. You know what I mean?

21:16 It has dramatic points.

21:18 Exactly.

21:18 Yeah. Nobody smiles in the last airbender.

21:21 Oh, the last like five minutes.

21:23 A lot of smiling. A lot of smiling.

21:26 It was almost like slow-mo bending.

21:30 And then when they weren't slow-mo, it was all very rigid. It was like like bending to a to battle somebody is a very slow process, it seems.

21:38 And I feel like uh, I feel like the idea was there, but the execution was not.

21:44 Well, and they completely just changed bending almost. It's like Fire Nation has to have a source of fire to be able to bend. And it's like, what?

21:53 You know, and I think that they were trying because, yeah, at the end it was like, oh, you know, when con when the con. Sozan's comic comic. Yeah, that we'll be able to bend without By using your chi. Right, right. Which I'm like, okay. Like I could see where you're like looking down the road, and that's a nice you know, a nice little twist.

22:14 But yeah, it was kind of interesting.

22:16 And then like the three-year waiting for Sozan's comet. I guess that was decided because this was going to be like a movie and they'd have one every couple years, so it'd explain why by the time we were done, like Jackson Rathborn would be 40.

22:29 Oh, and going back to because you know, Katara needs water to bend, you know, she can't just create it.

22:37 Well, she has her satchel very early on. Oh yeah.

22:39 But it's the same idea. Like you have fire, and you have to, you know, you can't just create it.

22:45 But then it's like you you're robbed of when Sozin's Comet comes. Spoilers for anybody who uh is following along. The Sozan's Comet when it comes, it's pretty cool. So uh I think the chi thing was an interesting plot point. I don't know. Other things, let's talk about Aang's tattoos. What about them?

23:05 I I don't know. I I do miss the blue arrow. Uh I do appreciate that they made it more realistic. I don't know what glyphs they used, if there was like Sanskrit or anything, like any actual language in his tattoos. But the back definitely had like a cross on it.

23:23 Oh yeah.

23:23 Almost Christ-like, getting into some like biblical territory.

23:27 It's like not even connected throughout him. Was it not? No, because it was like it made like the cross, but then it didn't go onto his arms or anything.

23:33 Well say, I don't know where Aang's like arms actually come from. Because like the back, if you look at Aang Aang, not Aang, thank you. Sorry. Aang, like his tattoos, like they're on the back, they go up to his forehead, but then I don't know the his arms, they kind of twist around. So I don't know if they start like in the pit.

23:48unknown Oh.

23:50 Well, so uh Aung. Yeah, that was rough. It was t it was tough at some points to to watch. And I don't know, I think that they probably encouraged him to play.

24:03 Be morose the whole time?

24:04 Yeah, to play him a certain way. And just interesting to think, like, why why was this kid casted?

24:12 Well, he apparently le legend goes, he sent in like an audition tape. I think Paramount had opened audition calls or something. I don't know. To all the real fans. Right. He apparently sent a video of himself doing martial arts with a shaved head with uh an arrow drawn on him. And they liked it.

24:32 Yeah. I mean, I kind of wondered that if like he had some sort of background there. Had he done anything else before this?

24:41 Or is this first thing? No, yeah, first thing. But he's also a black belt and taekwondo.

24:45 Hey, I mean.

24:46 First and last? First and last belt? Or first and last movie? I don't know. Noah, are you alive still? Yeah, yeah, you and Emni, you guys want to chat? There's a lot of questioning going on in this movie. I would say most of the dialogue that happens is a question. Like we're all asking questions of each other.

25:08 Like, how did you do that? Who are you? What are you doing here?

25:11 Yeah, I feel like that was like you're missing so much. Like we were.

25:16 And they make up for it in like narration by randos. Yeah. And then we flew across several different Earth Kingdom villages and we r we liberated them all.

25:26 There was no Boomy! Boomy's the best part of season one, in my opinion. No boomy.

25:31 No boomy, no pirates, no jet. Apparently, I looked at the IMDB page. There was a kid who was cast as Jet, but he also looked like he was 11 years old. Oh well, okay. And I would like to see an 11-year-old use all of Jet's traits. Oh, yeah. With like the twin tiger swords, the uh desire to eliminate Fire Nation people by all means necessary.

25:52 Do you think uh everyone in the movie had to watch the series? No. You don't think so?

25:58 No. Do you think any of them did? I feel like definitely Noah Ong did.

26:05 Yeah, he was probably a fan.

26:07 Oh yeah.

26:07 Well, apparently Dev Patel would watch episodes uh in between takes of Slumdog Millionaire because he got the role before Slog Millionaire came out.

26:18 Oh, that's right.

26:19 Which is pretty good because he skyrocketed after that, and then this came out and probably lost all that star power.

26:25 Yeah, that's true.

26:26 Poor guy. We skip across several important-ish episodes. Uh we skip across, like, we we get all of the information of like four episodes and like that moment after the Earthbenders are liberated.

26:39 But without any heart. It's like I've said this. I don't even feel like like Katara and Soka and Aung had any sort of real relationship at all. Like they it was just so weird. It was almost like it was like he was like their pet. It was like, well, we gotta like look after him and like I don't know.

27:00 They take like all like personality from him, they don't really interact with him like he's a person. Yeah, that's true.

27:05 Yeah.

27:05 Yeah, it's real.

27:06 There's like no connection between any of them. It's like after he's broken out of the ice, they just see him and then they're like, Oh, we gotta go get him from Zuko's shi- Oh, they flew off of Zuko's ship. Okay.

27:18 Yeah, it's it's so bad. Okay, and then Zuko, can we talk about Zuko really quick? He definitely he Zuko comes across as just unhinged. Like he doesn't come across as like determined and passionate and and hurt. He just comes across as a psycho.

27:34 You know, and dad's like, where's my son? Blah blah blah. Like it seems like they have a decent relationship in a way. Uh but then Zuko pulls out that nice like family pick. I was into that. The drawing. Yeah.

27:49 Okay, and then his scar. Zuko's scar is not that bad.

27:52 There's a little singe.

27:54 Yeah, I mean, he's like, maybe his hair can't grow in that spot.

27:57 Yeah, because dad didn't want to hurt him. They have a good relationship in this movie. He's gonna kinda hurt.

28:01 At least he still has his eyebrow.

28:03 Still has his eyebrow, yeah. If they had like shaved his eyebrow, I probably would have like bought it a little more. Yeah, and his eyes, like not swollen at all.

28:11 Yeah. I don't know. Like, what's the deal with the special effects in this movie? Uh, ten years ago. It was definitely better ten years ago.

28:18 I mean, they seemed pretty good for the time, really. Yeah. I mean, I remember like being impressed with the special effects personally. Well, not today. I was less impressed today, but I was decently impressed with uh when I went.

28:33 I still feel like Star Wars had better special effects.

28:36 What the well, they had better practical effects. Are you talking about the prequels?

28:39 Oh, yeah, okay. You're just some of the prequels. Get out of here. I feel like the third episode definitely still had better special effects than this.

28:47 The the whole all the prequel Star Wars, they're all they're like sanitized, everything's like squeaky clean.

28:55 I mean, I think had they done different camera angles, it's like I see they were trying, but I mean it really fell short, and I think part of it was like the choreography. And yeah, it was just it was hard to watch.

29:07 Okay, so also speaking of the choreography, when they're liberating that first Earth Kingdom village, and they're like, oh hey, like, just don't bend, guys. Yeah. And there's like, I don't know, like eight or ten firebenders, and they could easily take away their source of fire very quickly as Earthbenders.

29:26 You take up rock and you just put it on top of the fire. I mean, there was so many plot holes for these people. Like, and then they're taking from the source material, which did a better job. Like, they took all these men from the village and put them on like a giant oil rig in the middle of the sea.

29:42 Like, why couldn't we have done that? Or at least put them in like a metal like prison area at least. They have all this machinery around them. They always bring up machines. The machines. The machines. The machines. Always bring it up. I don't know why they couldn't just put them there or something.

29:58 Put them in a machine. Yeah, put them in a machine. Yeah, I they're just subjugating them just because. I guess. Okay, and then so what what leads into this weird choreography is on, is like I know you guys are strong and proud. Would you react differently if you knew the avatar was back? And then I don't think anyone really reacts.

30:18 They just started fighting. And then he's like, Well, I am the avatar. Well, then like, no, you're you gotta be a airbender. Can you airbend?

30:26 And they're like laughing, like, a good one, Jim. Like this kid can airbend. Uh yeah, and then this is the first time Katara and Soka have learned that he is the Avatar, and they're like, oh no!

30:40 Besides from the grandma. Besides from the grandma. Who hinted at it? Hinted at it. Who's like, I think maybe.

30:45 Okay, the choreography though, sorry. The choreography. So everyone starts fighting, and then we have like a group of people practicing whatever martial art they're trying to do. If it's hungar, I'm not sure, because that's what's supposed to be through bending. You know, there's like eight, uh, there's probably like 15 like earth bending men, like kind of going, but they don't do anything.

31:03 There's no no bending happens.

31:04 Yeah, at least they had some uh some some pizzazz.

31:08 Well, they didn't do anything! This danced at them.

31:10 Yeah, I thought that was better than bad, like attempting to bend. Like slow-mo earth bending. That's all they were doing. It was a lot of slow-mo bending. It just was not good.

31:21 Have you guys tried bending an element? It's hard. Sorry, I wasn't born a bender. Oh, well, non-bender over here.

31:28 Okay. And then after that hot mess, then I I felt in that moment where it's like they open up the I don't know, the closet or whatever it is that has all those scrolls.

31:40 They put it on all of our bending tools in here.

31:42 But I was gonna say that I feel like you really feel just how the Fire Nation like oppresses people and how they I feel like you really feel that in this because yeah, because it's a drama. That's true. I feel like that's the only good point. Like take away their learning and like right, you take away education.

32:01 I mean, that's how you oppress people.

32:02 Well, that's an interesting point.

32:04 Yeah, so there's a 'cause that's where the water burning scroll is, isn't that? Is that little shed that they opened up? So that totally takes away the pirates, takes away how the pirates try to kill Zuko, and apparently on the ship it's just a just a little gas leak that Zhao poked a hole in.

32:23 Okay, let's talk about that though. We get the blue spirit.

32:27 He's got hair.

32:29 He is creepy. Obviously. Okay.

32:33 Okay, wait. So the the soldiers, like when like the blue spirits fighting, uh, they definitely looked like uh what are they called? The the soldiers in Wizard of Oz. Oh like the Wongos, Wingos? Whatever they are. Yeah. I don't know. Wingies? I was getting Winkies? I was getting those vibes. I have no clue.

32:50 Yeah, see, I I have contempt for the Wizard of Oz.

32:53 The Wicked Witch? Yeah, she's got like the like oh Flying Monkeys.

33:00 Flying Monkeys for 200, Pat. I split a bunch of like game shows together.

33:06 Okay, back to me. You know what I think this movie would have benefited from? Some lots of things. But okay. Have you ever seen a Jackie Chan movie? I mean, they're doing really great martial arts. You have a high budget. Why can't we get some great people doing really good martial arts?

33:23 I would argue that most martial arts movies had a pretty low budget.

33:27 I know, that's what I'm talking about. But I'm saying I'm saying for like to employ. Yeah.

33:32 I mean, there was so many bad Well, the problem was they got a lot of white people doing it. That's true. They can't move very fluidly. I'm a white guy. I'm like a two by four. I can't bend or move.

33:42 It was like painful. And Paku or whatever, like him do oh my god.

33:47 Okay, Paku, another white guy. Okay, let's just get into that. It's a white savior narrative, obviously. And it's so unfortunate that you have all these named principal characters outside of Dev Patel and Yue. They're all white. Everyone's white.

34:04 And then And Uncle. He's not.

34:07 Uncle. Well, I've I've okay, the Fire Nation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the most part. They're all white and they're coming to save the day. And then Paku, he doesn't have a name that we know of.

34:18 Until the end where they say, like, they don't even say his name, but they the subtitle said his name. Yep. Hmm.

34:24 And then, yeah, he he is stripped of all personality from the show because you get into a really great moment that we covered in our last episode about feminism and uh fighting against traditions. Like, all of that's removed. Paku is not an interesting character, and he just lets Katara like train with them.

34:43 It's like they were like a couple days into training, and then you just see Katara and Aung there, and they're just sparring now.

34:51 Yep, they're just doing their thing. Also, Aang has trouble with waterbending, I guess.

34:57 I mean like at the start, when like he should be much better than Katara, but Katara is like teaching him at this point. But in in the show, it's he's teaching her at that starting point.

35:10 Yeah, I mean Aang Aung Aang from the last Airbender show is like a prodigy. Like he's really talented at picking up all these different things. And then Aung is tortured by something. There's like that subplot that he hasn't properly grieved his people dying, which I guess makes sense, but they the only time he ever talks about it is with the dragon spirit.

35:30 Oh dragon spirit. I hate the dragon spirit.

35:34 Why can't they just put Roku in?

35:36 I don't know. They would have had to cast somebody. Oh, that's true.

35:39 I loved it. Truth Dragon, keeping it real. Dragon calls out Aong. You need to process.

35:45 I don't know. The dragon spirit and like the spirit world was really weird. There's a really weird emphasis on the spirit world in this. Like Grand Grand talks about the spirit world for way too long. There's a huge emphasis on it. The spirit world is beautiful with beautiful mountains and beautiful valleys, and they're all spirits and they live amongst us.

36:03 And the Fire Nation fears the spirits.

36:06 Yeah, that's the whole plot between the Fire Nation wanting to attack everything is to get rid of the spirit world or something, because they're afraid of spirits for some reason.

36:13 Yeah, their their uh motivation is pretty muddled in this. Yeah.

36:17 That moment when Aung, I guess, goes to the spirit world and Katara's like babysitting him.

36:25 You mean at the Oasis?

36:27 Uh-huh. I might as well do this like the entire movie. But like Katara's confidence is like severely lacking. And it just really bothered me. It's just like she couldn't.

36:36 She's a really awkward teenage girl.

36:38 And I don't know, and like maybe that's how they wanted her to be. But it was just really unfortunate.

36:45 She doesn't have a personality.

36:47 No one does.

36:48 Yeah, they're pretty all devoid of any charisma whatsoever.

36:52 I don't even think Aang is like confident. I mean, like he I don't even believe he can like bend any element. No, not even at the end.

36:58 At the end, when he does the really awkward bow, which is the worst part of that movie.

37:04 Puts his hand out for them.

37:05 Like he's like wanting them to give him something. Where's my apple? Yeah, and then that like he had no confidence doing that. Like he seemed ashamed.

37:13 Like he was like really worried. I have to bow towards them. I don't know what I'm doing.

37:17 I don't I want a family.

37:18 But again, maybe they wanted them to play them like really awkwardly, because then in the other movies that they were gonna grow and be more confident.

37:27 Book two is gonna be awesome. Okay, backtracking again, back to the blue spirit, which is a great combo of episodes, The Storm and the Blue Spirit, uh, where they have so much rich storytelling about Zuko's motivations and what fuels him and Aang and what fuels him and that grief, and he's able to kind of start to process that with Katara's help and her friendship.

37:48 That would have been really nice. Takeaway all of that, the blue spirit shows up, obviously not Dev Patel. It might have been him, I'm not sure, but he was moving very creepily and very gracefully, and also murdering all those Fire Nation soldiers.

38:01 Yeah, he definitely murdered uh quite a few people throughout this.

38:04 Yeah. It was weird. But then I I forgot that they were still at the Northern Air Temple because they went there for some reason and had prepared an ambush.

38:13 Well, ca the there was an old guy at the temple who like showed Aung where all the uh Avatar statues were, and then just ambushed him for like five gold pieces.

38:26 Yeah, that bag was so smelly small. He was hard up, you heard. He was very hard up. He should have just captured Aung himself.

38:32 Yeah, no truth. Probably could have.

38:34 And then he pulls out of that little knife.

38:36 Yeah, like that's not gonna do anything.

38:39 Okay. And so Blue Spirit shows up, he's got the hair, he's creepy, but then we get the moment of like, oh, we don't want to kill you because you'll be be reborn. We get like that moment, and Jazz's like, don't kill him. And then Blue Spirit does what Blue Spirit does and like takes his swords and like puts them on Aung, who does not look like he's enjoying that.

38:58 He's like, oh no, don't stand my head. And then they back out, and then we don't get the fact that they're like these prestigious archers in the world, the Yuyan archers. So they make a good point of that in the Blue Spirit episode of like, these are the greatest archers in the world. None of that. We just have a random archer hanging out with Zhao, and he's like, hey, do that thing with the arrow.

39:20 I can shoot him. Zhao, the main character of the movie. Oh, of course.

39:24 Most lines, most screen time. Always talking about the great library. He talks about that library at least six or seven times. Ozai's like, shut up about this library. I don't care.

39:35 Speaking of Ozai, they show his face and everything. The whole time. The whole time. His throne room, really lame.

39:40 He's kind of like his lips are kind of pursed the whole time. He's like, Good point.

39:46 How's my son?

39:47 I miss that boy. Daughter! Okay, the the throne room, the fire lord's throne room, it looks like a like a college door, like a like a library or something. Like, it does not look like not much going on in there. Not intimidating. It's kind of stale. Okay. After Blue Spirit like takes his swords to Aung, Zhao's like, Who are you?

40:07 What do you want? Like immediately. Like, like, let's start questioning. Let's do a QA. Also, he was like doing QA with Aang, Aung, when he was like chained up. He's like, Hey, I bet you can't bend the other elements. You're an airbender, aren't you? I've only seen you bend air. It's really weird. Okay.

40:24 So then Zhao questions the blue spirit. Blue spirit doesn't give him anything. Then we zoom in on the blue spirit's mask, and then we see, like, in the mouth of the blue spirit mask, you see a deadpan lip. Like you see Zuko's. Zhao knows. Zhao goes. Zhao knows those lips. Zhao's seen those lips a thousand times.

40:47 It's like I'd know that mouth anywhere. Yeah, that's the I don't know how he knows that that's Zuko. It has to be the mouth. So.

40:56 The real question is, will they ever make a better movie?

40:59 Well, they I don't think they'll ever make another movie of Last Airbender, but they are making the live-action series. Which Mike and Brian are gonna be a part of, and that they're actually working on it. And they have deemed that they're going to make uh all the casts uh culturally appropriate for who they are.

41:17 So hopefully everyone will be pr people of color because there is uh devoid of whiteness in the show if anyone's been paying attention. They're all supposed to be of Asian descent descent or of Eskimo Inuit, which is technically from Asia. So yeah.

41:33 When's that supposed to debut?

41:35 Uh haven't heard.

41:36 Yeah. We have wonder if it's going well. Better not be slow mo Brian. Who? Mike! Brian!

41:45 Brian and uh Mike, you're off the hook. You're good. It's just you, Brian. Which uh hey, Mike, Brian, again, uh, if you guys want to come come chat, uh, you're more than welcome to. Okay, so we get that maybe Zhao puts on the he's gonna murder Zuko by having a gas leak?

42:06 A gas leak. Over the fire? Because they didn't introduce the pirates, so they just have a random gas leak that he apparently got onto a ship and like stabbed something. I don't know. Right next to a flame. I don't know.

42:18 And then Uncle goes on the ship, and then Zhao's like, oh hey, you know, I don't even know what he says, like really crummy about his.

42:26 He's like, too bad, yeah, too bad Zuko burned a dead. Oh, you mean like Lutan? Like, oh, because he's like, oh, oh! He's like, oh, your 100-day assault siege on bossing, say, which is not 100 days, it's 600 in the show.

42:41 Yeah, yeah. Jordan's doing this like crazy phase, like, can you believe it?

42:45 Yeah, can you? A 600-day assault is six times more than a one- it's over, it's almost two years. Over two years.

42:53 Okay. Under two years. So he's throwing shade. And then it was like, oh yeah, and your dad and your dad. And your and your son died.

43:01 Uh and now your nephew's dead. And too many death. I know, that's pretty intense. He was just bringing up all the hard stuff for our Iro, and now he's like, hey, join me? You want to Eero. Oh yeah, sorry, Eero. And then he's he brings up how the great library has been studying about the moon spirits, but he doesn't bring up their actual spirit names.

43:20 He just yin and yang. Yin yin and yang, flow and pole or whatever.

43:26 Push and pole. Push and pull. There we go. We don't meet Ko, the face stealer, who is MVP.

43:32 You know, and Iro, uh, he was pretty PC the whole movie. Didn't teach Zuko anything. Didn't even try to stop Jao was like.

43:46 He's like, he's like money, better not do that. Okay, what would you do with that? And then instead of using fire, like just stabs it once.

43:58 Like, no, did we get that?

44:00 Zumen, that dramatic zoom in Pedro's eye, which activates his cheek so that he can bend without any like fire starting to.

44:10 He does nothing with it. He just creates a spectacle and everyone's like, we should get out of here. Everyone's like, puts their hands up. Like they won't, like, they wouldn't be able to bend the fire away if it came toward them. Like, ah, he's a witch! He's a witch.

44:23unknown Yeah.

44:24 Okay, so we get to the northern water tribe. And then we just get all of this telling and not showing. And so that's like the cardinal sin in storytelling is you do too much telling and not enough showing. And so we just get all this narration from Katara, like, oh, and then we made it to the Northern Water Tribe, and my brother and the princess get got along famously.

44:48 And oh look, there's my dear friend Ang, who I don't know much about, but he decided to show them airbending. And now we're going to stay here for several days.

44:58 See, but it's also Princess Yue, whose father's dead?

45:02 Yeah, and she's not Queen. But she's not Queen.

45:04 She's still princess. Right, she's like hanging out, and you assume uh he who must not be named Voldemort? Uh, you know, who may or may not be Paku. Oh, that guy is in charge.

45:15 White guy Paku. Teaching everybody. Teaching teaching the natives how they should do their thing. It's terrible. It's not good. Okay, and then during the Siege of the North.

45:26 Wait, wait. Is Yue. You think she's I think she's Latina.

45:31 Oh yeah? I'm not sure. Also, let's talk about let's talk about Yue. Uh Seychelle Gabriel, I don't know if I'm pronounced pronouncing her name right, is uh Asami in Korra.

45:42 What? What?

45:43 Yeah, she is Asami. That's awesome. So she we get a little bit of less airbender in Korra. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, so I would say UA ends up being like one of the best parts of this series, this movie, and then Eero. I think that's just those two, and then everyone else is kind of well, those two, and then Dev, and then everybody else.

46:06 Yeah. Uh when UA goes down, I mean it was a pretty intense moment, but she just goes and like floats in the water. Yeah. But then I'm like, I don't know. I guess I didn't expect them to drag the body back out. That was really awkward. I wasn't sure. I thought she might kind of just disintegrate or something.

46:24 But then they I I did okay, so I did appreciate her moment with Sokka. It's unearned. It's an unearned moment. But the fact that she like talks about being scared and but she's still gonna like go through with it anyway. I think it was a good character moment. It's significantly different than the animated show when she's like just steely conviction.

46:43 She's like, no, Sokka, I have to do this. And that's a really good point. But there's no there's no stakes in that moment, like there's no jeopardy after the the koi fish is killed.

46:54 Like nothing really happened and we don't get that no, Yuei kind of like passes out, but then the next time we see her, it's like they're standing looking at like one fish. He has like a headache, and then he just says, oh, it again. What happens? Right. I thought at that point, then he's supposed to go and like move the ocean, you know, because the moon's not there.

47:13 The dragon spirit shows them the power of the ocean. Do this now. Stupid. What were you surprised by the fact that Aung did not go uh into like super spirit mode with Koisilla?

47:27 I mean, I guess I'm I wasn't surprised that he wasn't Koisilla.

47:31 Because that's a cool thing that they did and they wouldn't do something cool.

47:34 They used all the budget before that, so they're like, you can just make a giant wave.

47:38 Well, I guess I thought that they would kind of have him out there being like a tornado or something, you know?

47:45 Aung okay, and then when like there's the the water tribe and the fire nation are fighting, and then Aung like just runs through them and like separates them.

47:52 And then he just pushes them apart. Pieces out. Also the little fight scene with Zuko and Aung, and it's like just moving the water uh jiggling the jiggling.

48:03 And Zuko's like, hey, what's going on in here?

48:05 Water pots. Yeah. And he's like, Aung is just like behind Zuko, just like dodging out of the way before you get him to look.

48:12 Just the minute turns, you can clearly see that Aung's leg is like within Zuko's peripheral.

48:18 Hey, he's a black belt.

48:20 He is a black belt.

48:21 See, but this only happened because after he took Aung, he didn't go out of the perimeter and into like the blizzard. He just went into a random house.

48:30unknown Yeah.

48:30 And just sat him there.

48:31 I assumed he was still in like the palace and just like went up to a bedroom upstairs.

48:36 Just goes into Yue's bedroom, just lays him down.

48:39 And so it just shows you like Zuko's character in the show is so fantastic where like he's gonna like put himself at risk no matter what to get Aang, and then this Zuko is doesn't, he's not gonna try very hard.

48:50 And the fact that uh Aang doesn't have to go back to the body, you know, like the spirit finding the bodies it wasn't like an issue. He just kind of woke up and was like, oh hey. But then did that like somersault with himself tied up, like also I think it goes to show that uh Aung and Zuko didn't have any of that like intense dialogue because they've they've met once.

49:13 Yeah.

49:14 Yeah, but like that maturity level, like I just feel like they're not capable of having those real conversations, unlike Uncle and Yue, they're the only ones.

49:22 And they didn't have that good, like sort of meeting with the blue spirit. Yeah. And like him like saving him. There's nothing really cool there. So there's no real stakes after the him getting saved there. So it's like because like after after he wakes up, Katara and the gang all come in and freeze Zuko just right there, and then Aung is just like, I'll just, you know, melt his head and walk away.

49:45 Oh, but then he says, We could be friends, you know.

49:48 Oh yeah. And like leaves.

49:51 Okay, uh the freezing of bodies in the live-action series is so awkward. Like, it's so weird. Yeah, Zuko's just like frozen, he's standing there. Uh it was it was uncomfortable to watch. I was like, did they kill him?

50:06 And also because there's no Koizilla in this, uh Zhao just gets to walk away free, but he doesn't because four w like random waterbenders don't see him at all. He like shoots a fire blast at him, and just one guy just randomly dodges it. He barely dodges it! He just like moves his body a little bit out of the way and it it goes right past him.

50:26 And then they just take some water and murder him. Yeah, I think it's around him.

50:32 Yeah, they're pretty pissed. They're like, um, we had enough of this. And they were like, the moon was gone, now it's back, so they're real like remotivated.

50:39 But do they even know who Zhao is?

50:41 They just killed a random thing.

50:43 Yeah, they wouldn't know, they just killed a random fireman. Yeah, no reason.

50:47 They know he's not water trap. Yeah.

50:50 Uh yeah, and then we don't get we don't get so Eero's obviously the best character in this movie, but we we're robbed of all the wisdom and those awesome scenes that Iroh gets in Siege of the North when he comes to like yell at Zhao, like anything you do to that spirit, I'll unleash upon you tenfold.

51:07 Put it down! Which is the best part of that Siege of the North.

51:11 Yeah, yeah, no. Eero's advice is uh, why don't you go settle down with a girl? Zuko, you know what you need? You need a fine woman. Uh, okay, so can we go back to the future Netflix series ordeal? Do you think they're gonna do the Great Divide?

51:31 I I hope that they make a joke about it. They have to. Yeah, it's I hope that I you know what? I actually I hope they do do the Great Divide, and I hope they make it like an integral part of the series, and that it's like a necessary episode. Like you can't watch like the Great Divide is like one of the top five episodes.

51:49 It better be.

51:50 Like the Canyon crawlers like go crazy. We find out more about the the game redemption and the Zhu tribe and the Who tribe.

51:59 Who?

52:00 Okay, at the Spirit Oasis, Gady was like losing it when Zuko and Katara were like hanging out because it's so awkward. Zuko shows up with a torch.

52:10 So he can bend fire.

52:11 So he can bend fire.

52:12 But before that, we saw Zuko like crawl out of like Oh god, he's like a zombie, like go coming out of the ground.

52:20 Like piecing the ice apart with his fingers, and then he's in a different outfit now.

52:25 Yeah, he decided to change. Yeah.

52:28 Yeah, he wasn't in like that sexy white thing.

52:30 He is probably too wet for him, so he just took it off there.

52:32 And then he was like, oh, here's some black robes with red trim. I'll wear these.

52:36 Maybe it's his waterproof suit. And maybe he was wearing that underneath.

52:40 Oh my god. Yeah, maybe. Okay, so he shows up, but then like the the whole like firebenders bending with a source. There's so many plot holes. Like, Katara could have just like thrown a bunch of water until the fire went out. Well, she didn't do.

52:55 I don't think Katara can really waterbend.

52:57 I don't think Katara's like very smart. She might have something.

53:00 Well, especially after she got thrown against that rock. Gotta congratulate it. She got thrown against a tree. Her parents should be broken.

53:07 Yeah, she's actually paralyzed. Yeah, so then Zuko like slams her, and then Zuko steals Aang. We don't even get to watch him take Aang. And we don't get that sweet line where Zuko's like, you rise with the moon, I rise with the sun. Yeah, there's so many great Zuko lines.

53:23 Hopefully, Dante, after he saw that, was like, I'm so glad I wasn't in this movie.

53:27 I think Zach Efron probably felt the same way. Probably also Jesse McCartney, whatever you're doing right now.

53:33 Wanna come on the podcast?

53:34 Yeah, let's talk about what could have been. So, the no-koisilla, like, obviously, like everything in Siege of the North builds to that beautiful moment of like there's no hope. What are we going to do? And then so Aang finally gets to have this moment where he gets to go full avatar by joining with the spirits, blacks out, murders, like a few hundred Fire Nation troops, and then lays siege to the to the ships.

53:59 And it's an amazing moment. It's also against what we we know about Aung in this movie, where they make a point often to say how the the Avatar is not allowed to like injure people or hurt people. Like that's not his job. And so Aung using his Avatar state powers to create an intimidating wave, I guess, is a pacifist way to not hurt anybody and just convince them to leave.

54:27 Which they're just turning around. Like, once they leave, like the Fire Nation, like there's not they have no protection. Like the Fire Nation probably would come back.

54:36 See, the best part about this as well is while he's in the Avatar state and he's made that giant wave to disperse it, all he has to do is open his fingers. He just his fingers are closed and then he just opens them.

54:47 Yeah, because you're holding it with your head.

54:48 You're holding it, yeah, and then you just let go. Yeah, it's energy work.

54:52 Okay, also the way Paku bends water, like water whips. Okay, I don't want you to watch this movie, but I'm what I'm going to do right now is I'm putting both of my arms above my head, and he does like wacky wavy, inflatable arm flailing too man. To bend, and he's just like hula hooping to bend water because throwing it around.

55:11 He is a rigid white man who has no business.

55:13 Okay, let's get him on the show. I want to know what his connection was, because obviously he knew somebody to like land that role.

55:19 Ooh, ooh, but then Zuko bends the chi within his body and heats it up to have the Campbell soup commercial where he he melts the he melts the ice away from his body like the kid is the snowman does in the classic 1990s Campbell soup commercial, and he comes in as a snowman. That was terrible. The movie is great.

55:40 We also notice that uh Monk Gyatso is probably among the top three characters in this movie.

55:45 Oh yeah. Is that at the end? Was that after he has his little That's at the end and towards the beginning a little bit?

55:50 Yeah, he has the he has the he processes his grief standing, staring at these Fire Nation ships, and that encourages him to make the wave.

55:57 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

55:59 Giatso is definitely the best.

56:01 Oh yeah, when he's there and everyone's meditating, and then Aang like opens his eyes, Gyatso's eyes are still closed, but he like waves his finger like uh and so then Aang closes his eyes and goes back in line.

56:13 But then we find out the way that airbenders get their tattoos in this movie is by meditating well.

56:18 Yeah, and then like if you're a good if you're a good uh airbender nomad, you can meditate for four days straight or something. Yeah. That's how you get your tattoos.

56:28 That has nothing to do with technique or knowing a bunch of things.

56:31 Just you gotta meditate.

56:33 What surprised you most about this, Katie?

56:38 What surprised me the most was uh how they made it their own.

56:46 It's uh Yeah, how they took they took something that seemed pretty easy.

56:50 Yeah, and they really uh yeah changed the names and just did a little um just a little remix.

56:58 Yeah. Everyone loves a remix.

57:00 And yeah, I mean it definitely is not a recommended must-watch.

57:04 Yeah, please don't watch it. None of those people deserve money.

57:08 So I know, I almost feel like we should write a letter.

57:11 What would you say in that letter?

57:13 I can't even say his name. What's his name? M.

57:15 Yeah, let's write it to him. Dear M Knight. We're a little disappointed. He's probably received a lot of hate mail over the course of the last decade. What do his kids like say? Or you know I wonder.

57:26 I wonder if they were like, this is a good movie, or they're like, dad, this is this is a movie.

57:29 Yeah, dad, you missed it.

57:31 Hey, uh, M Knight's kids. If you're uh listening to this right now, which I'm sure you are, uh, you're welcome to come onto the podcast. We can talk about what your dad did.

57:38 Yeah, how where are they? I mean, I think they're like Caden's age.

57:44 Do you think they're going to be in the movie in the next in the series?

57:47 Oh, hopefully. They bring in bring them on.

57:50 But wait, so uh, but they are definitely not planning on doing another one, or do you know? No, they're not.

57:56 It's 10 years ago. There's no way.

57:59 Whatever. What movie just came out? It was like, why are you doing a second one? It's been so many years.

58:03 It's not it's not the Incredibles or Finding Dory. Like, this is this is a disaster. It didn't make that much money. So p if it had made a ton of money, they would have made a sequel, like, unapologetically.

58:13 Which is really unfortunate because I mean it definitely would have made a lot of money had it been good. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I I think it really would have. Yeah, that's just a disappointing.

58:23 Let's talk about a potential sequel. Because when I was in college, I was in an acting class, and I had there's this girl, she was she claimed to be Native American, she uh tricked me into going on a date with her. Except I didn't know it was a date. She was like, Oh, she like distracted me long enough so my bus left to go home, so I was kind of trapped on campus.

58:47 And she's like, Oh, like, let's go have let's go have pizza while while you wait for the bus. And so we did, and then I was like, okay, but I have to be gone in like 45 minutes, my next bus comes. And she's like, wait, but you like Cora and Avatar The Last Airbender, right? And I was like, Yeah. And so we started talking about that, and then she tells me that she's on the short list to play Toph in the second Last Airbender movie.

59:13 And I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, Yeah, I've been flying out for different like screen tests and I auditioned and I'm probably gonna be in it.

59:22 And I was like, what are you talking about? And at that point, you were like, have you seen have you seen the other movie? You don't want to be in that movie.

59:31 Which begs the question: if this is actually true, would the second movie have had Toph be a Native American girl, or would they have like stuck with the source material and made her like Chinese? Again, this girl was crazy.

59:44 That's why we gotta get these people on the show. Pretty sure it'd been whitewashed though.

59:48 The date continued, however, because I missed my bus again. And then she's like, oh, the new episode of Avatar of Korra just came out. You wanna go up to my room and watch it? Not thinking she was probably hinting at something. So we go up to her room, she's like, oh, my roommates are gone for the next like couple hours.

1:00:01 I was like, great, we can watch the episode then. So then like we sat on her bed and she pulled out her laptop, we started watching it. She kept like inching closer, I was like, What are you doing? Get away from me.

1:00:10 And the movie was a show.

1:00:11 And the show was over, and she's like, So what are you going to do now? And I was like, Well, I'm gonna go wait at the bus stop. Have a good night. She's like, Oh, I'll come wait with you. It was weird. Did she wait with you? She did. It was weird.

1:00:22 Did you guys talk Avatar and Cora? Not really. We didn't really talk.

1:00:26 It was really awkward.

1:00:28 It was not good. Alright, so my last question is I want to follow up. Where are they now? All the actors that were in this movie, what happened to their acting careers?

1:00:40 I don't care.

1:00:41 I do.

1:00:42 Caden? Oh, I I pulled up the IMDB. I was looking at it. Not really anything. Noah Ringer, who played Aong, was in one movie after this, and it was Cowboys and Aliens.

1:00:54 Which is regarded as an awful trash dump of a movie.

1:00:57 Um, everybody else hasn't really done anything.

1:01:01 Well, I can tell you why. So Sean Tau, but I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing his name right. The guy who plays Eero, he was uh like Tony Stark's friend Jensen in Iron Man 1, like the guy who gets uh imprisoned with him, who helps him build. He's a great actor! He was a good character. And so this is uh, I think the last Airbender shows, like, what they because they cre they changed all the actors so much to where it was unrecognizable from the source material.

1:01:28 Why didn't they just decide to make a different story or like tell it the story of a different avatar, Avatar?

1:01:35 But you kind of wonder if any of these actors had seen the show and were like, oh, this is a really great show, and I would love to be a part of this, and then we're kind of fooled and like, oh god, like this is what we're making. And I mean, I can't even imagine being at the premiere, you know.

1:01:51 Walk on set, and you're like, wait, you mean everybody's white?

1:01:55 Wait, this isn't how this works out.

1:01:58 Because things have changed so much and they continue to change. I remember when we watched it 10 years ago, I didn't think too much of Katara and Sokka not being people of color. Like, I was like, oh, that's unfortunate, but it wasn't like a deal breaker. Now watching it, I'm like, how? Why? Like it's like it's so bad.

1:02:16 It's so obviously bad.

1:02:18 It was just not a good movie.

1:02:20 So Caden, what do you what are you what changed between 10 years ago at the age of 10 and uh today, age 20?

1:02:27 I definitely think uh my taste in movies has grown ever since I watched this as a 10-year-old. When I turned to my brother in the theater and went, is this a bad movie? Towards the end.

1:02:36 I think this movie is uh what what activated your your taste in film.

1:02:40 Oh, 100%. Like all these notes I have is just about how mispronunciation, really bad acting, Sokka kicked a dude in the nuts.

1:02:49 It's the weirdest thing ever. Why would Soka? I mean, Soka would do that. Soka would do that. Sokka would do something very clever.

1:02:56 Yes.

1:02:56 And Jet was an 11-year-old, I remember.

1:02:59 Uh just different things have changed drastically since this movie has come out, and uh it's a horrible movie, and I do not recommend it.

1:03:07 I think uh it currently has a 5% on Rotten Tomatoes.

1:03:11 Oh my god.

1:03:12 Which is pretty high. I think it was lower at one point.

1:03:15 Someone came in and reviewed it pretty good.

1:03:17 You know, and I I almost thought I was curious if it would have aged a little better. Like I was I wasn't prepared for how disappointed I was. Because I was I was super bummed when we got out of that theater. Like Caden and I walked out of the theater and we were super deflated and we're just kind of like, uh.

1:03:34 And I think we talked to like the dude working the ticket booth, and he was like, Oh, you guys just went and watched Avatar? And we're like, Yeah, yeah, we did. And then he pulled out like a piece of paper and he set it on fire. Do you remember this? No. He was like, Yeah, I can firebend, and he pulled out a lighter and set something on fire.

1:03:52 And we're like, I don't this guy's insane. I don't think he should be doing this. Lincoln City. Katie, any takeaways? Any other takeaways? Because I have made Katie avoid watching this because I didn't want it to taint her her interpretation of the sh of the source material at all. But now that we're in Katie's third run-through with the series, now she's allowed to finally watch it.

1:04:14 Yeah, thanks for that experience. I would like to say to all the actors that are listening, I don't blame you. I mean, I would say even little Aung, poor guy, I feel like did his best and did probably a good job with like how he was coached and directed. I feel like there was some really horrible writing and direction.

1:04:35 And so back to Shyamalan. Shamalan. Yeah.

1:04:39 The writing was atrocious. Like the fact that they had just had to tell you what was happening. And I'm curious how people who haven't watched the source material, like if they're able to even follow what happens.

1:04:50 Right.

1:04:50 Like, at one point, very early on, Katara tells Aung, like, uh, we can do this together, but we don't we don't know what they're doing right now. Like, no, nothing's ever been stated. And then at one point, Soka's like, you know, we've started a rebellion. Like, you start a rebellion? Like, what are you talking about?

1:05:08 Like, you go and like liberate like one one village.

1:05:11 Okay, yeah. So not good, not recommended. Uh, happy to never watch it again. Really glad that we watched it now because now we get to go back and watch season two.

1:05:22 Because the next episode we're gonna watch is the library.

1:05:26 Uh The Great Library. The Great Library. Have you heard about the Great Library? I've not.

1:05:30 I went there and I found some scrolls in the Great Library. And uh where we I know where some of these spirits are. Uh uh, really quick. The movie itself is uh Burning Dumpster Fire, but the soundtrack has received critical praise.

1:05:46 Oh yes. Oh, from me?

1:05:47 From well, also from critics. Yeah. Which I will say you are one.

1:05:52 It is nice, but that's that's it. That's the only good thing.

1:05:56 Quick uh hopes for the next live action series that happens? Do you have any desires after watching what the worst case scenario for live action could be?

1:06:07 Uh, you know, I feel like it can only get better, really. And uh my hope would be no slow-mo uh banding.

1:06:18 Uh don't whitewash it, thank you.

1:06:21 Yeah, uh, I will I will second that. Please don't whitewash it. Also, give Suko a real scar. Oh yeah.

1:06:26 And maybe uh Make him real characters.

1:06:28 Make him real characters. Yeah, give him some motivation. Get some heart. You know. Some heart would be good, and that's uh that's uh an important thing.

1:06:36 Alright. Make us proud.

1:06:38 Alright, guys. Well, um, I'd like us all to know that when a group of people bow at you, don't be scared and uh bow back with uh a quivering lip.

1:06:48 And a hand out.

1:06:49 And one hand out and one hand on your hip. So with that, we're gonna put the last earbender to rest. And uh, please, guys, we're gonna keep on going with the actual good stuff from here on out.

1:07:01 Yep, yep.

1:07:02 Yep, yep.