10 Times Film-Makers Ruined Their Own Damn Movies
3. M. Night Shyamalan Misinterprets The Last Airbender
Even equipped with brilliant, critically acclaimed source material and the biggest production budget he’d ever seen, M. Night Shyamalan somehow managed to utterly f*ck up The Last Airbender.
That might sound dramatic, so let’s put into perspective just how bad The Last Airbender truly is. Not only is it Shyamalan’s most derided film to date – yes, even more hated than The Happening and After Earth – it also swept the board at the 2011 Golden Raspberry Awards even when up against fellow sh*t-fest The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
There’s so much wrong with The Last Airbender that it’s hard to pinpoint its biggest failings but whitewashing much of its main cast, Shyamalan’s soulless direction, those godawful 3D effects and barely consulting with the original animation’s co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko certainly didn’t help.
It’s such an unfaithful adaptation, in fact, that DiMartino and Konietzko have officially said they both like to pretend the movie doesn’t exist with Konietzko condemning it a gross misinterpretation and misrepresentation of their work.
It was originally planned as the first in a trilogy of films and although any further instalments haven’t officially been ruled out there doesn’t seem to be anything concrete in the pipeline in the foreseeable future. Fingers crossed they’ve been abandoned, for everybody’s sake.