"The Last Airbender" with JesuOtaku, ToddInTheShadows, and Rollo T

(We start off treated to scenes of MAGFest showing off convention goers, the old school arcade games on display and a concert stage where a band's playing Bubble Man's theme from Mega Man 2, a quick speed thru of the booths and the That Guy With The Glasses panel. On the panel is Nostalgia Chick, Phelous, Todd in the Shadows, Spoony, Linkara, Nash, JesuOtaku, Obscurus Lupa, Marzgurl, and Y Ruler of Time. Cut to Y, JO, Rollo T and Todd in a hotel room being bored)

Todd: (Over his head is "Obscured music reviewer") This place is so boring.

JO: ("Anime analyst") I know. It's like there's nothing going on here.

(Rollo ("Podcast host with a silly blue hat") just throws his cowboy hat in the corner)

Y: ("Reads things backwards") Well you know guys, it just happens for occasions like this, (holding a dvd of Avatar: The Last Airbender Book 1) I have the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. We could burn like ten hours watching this. It's a great...(he goes to open the dvd case, but instead of five disks, his eyes and mouth widen in horror and he drops it on the floor, revealing the dvd for the movie instead)

JO: Oh, Last Airbender. Well wasn't that supposed to be Shyamalan's worst movie or something?

Todd: Hey, if it is a tenth as entertaining as the Happening, I say we watch it. It'll be worth it.

Y: No! (he picks up the disk) You don't understand. This is a putrid $150 million, 90 minute mistake!

Rollo: Come on man. I've seen like four movies in my entire life. How bad could this one be?

Y: All right. We'll watch the movie. But when you're all lying in your beds awake at night by images coming out of the darkness and an emptiness in your souls, know that it is this movie that haunts you. And it is your faith in humanity that you have lost.

Todd: Okay.

Y: Okay.

(We then come to the opening of the movie which emulates the opening of the show)

JO (vo): So our movie begins by dashing hopes that this film's ridiculous budget was spent on convincing effects. (A waterbender throws a water ball at the screen) Hope that magic water's doing it for you because it doesn't get any better.

Y (vo): Now this first scene is actually an homage (the animated version of the opening is shown on the lower left corner) to the opening of the animated series, but unlike the cartoon which used this time to exposit some general information about the series, the movie does this scene completely silent, and then follows it up with an enormous wall of exposition. However in retrospect this was one of the scenes that Shyamalan fucked up the least, so I guess we can consider it one of his better decisions.

(The chapter for this movie, Book One: Water, is shown)

Todd (vo): Book One. Nice, Shyamalan. Nice. How about you wait until your movie doesn't cost your studio $20 million dollars before you start getting ready for a sequel you presumptuous ass?

Rollo (vo): So we're introduced to our main charact...waitaminute.

Rollo: Are those kids supposed to be eskimos? Dude, they're whiter than me.

Y: (seething with hate) I know.

Rollo (vo): (imitating a nature host) And here we see the rare white eskimos as they begin their daily hunt.

Y (vo): So it's about here that the fans of the series all found their collective optimism shattered once we realized the actors playing Sokka and Katara...

Katara: Sokka. (pronounced Soe-kka)

Y (vo): Couldn't act worth a shit. Especially Katara. I don't know what it is about her actress, but it always looks like she's on the verge of crying. It's like Shyamalan's directly behind the camera threatening to kill her puppy if she doesn't get her line exactly right.

JO (vo): So the two of them discover something shiny beneath the surface of the ice and Sokka, who has spent his entire life in the South Pole, decides to break the ice underneath to get to it. (Sokka cracks the ice with his Boomerang) What a dumbass.

Todd (vo): This shattering of the ice reveals an enormous glowing dome of ice. And this one you'd figure our heroes would leave or get help but no. Instead Katara feels the only logical approach to the situation is to smash this ice, too. (Katara cracks the ice open with the Boomerang and gets blasted back by a jet of air) Wow. Bra-vo, Katara. I can see we've found the reasonable, levelheaded character in the movie.

Rollo (vo): We find out that inside the ice is a young boy and his...monster furry hippo thing. (Sokka's poking at Appa, an air bison, with his spear) And despite thinking it's a Fire Nation trap our two idiots, (Appa smacks Sokka with his tail) I mean leads, decide to bring the mysterious ice boy back to their village.

(The door is knocked on)

Rollo: I'll get the door! (He then pushes Y onto the bed as he goes to answer the door. Outside is "Self-proclaimed music guru" PawDugan) Hey Paw.

Paw: Hey, what are you guys doing here?

Rollo: Hey, watching a movie, buddy.

Paw: Sweet. Can I join in?

Rollo: Absolutely, it's the Last Airbender, a classic. (Paw's smile drops) You remember Paw, like last year. The strawberries. How's that doing by the way? (he goes to pinch Paw's...strawberries)

Paw: Get off! (he then walks off angrily)

Rollo: What a cockshmear.

Y (vo): Back at the Water Tribe village, (Aang stands up, revealing the cross shaped tattoo on his back) we're greeted with the sight of some rather awkwardly placed Christian imagery as Katara speaks to Aang for the first time.

Katara: How'd you get all the way out here?

Aang: I ran away from home. We got in a storm. We were forced under the water in the ocean.

Katara: Oh. I see.

Todd (vo): Wow. This is way too casual of a conversation to be had with a dude you found stuck in a ball of ice. I'd call this dialogue wooden and awkward, but it's so blatantly exposition I'm not sure I'd even call it dialogue anymore than the opening scroll text.

(Fire Nation soldiers arrive)

Rollo (vo): So the Fire Nation shows up and they're led by Prince Zuko, and...(noticing the scar on Zuko's face)

Rollo: Dude, dude, what's up with his eye.

Y: (Picture of animated Zuko on the lower left) He's supposed to have a horrible burn scar.

JO: Really?

JO (vo): Because it looks like he just fell in a patch of poison ivy.

Todd (vo): So the Fire Nation takes Aang and this prompts Sokka and Katara to try to rescue him because...

Katara: This boy is our responsibility.

Todd: How? You just met him. You fished him out of the ice five minutes ago and you haven't even learned his name yet.

Rollo (vo): So the Fire Nation soldiers take Aang back to their ship and we're introduced to General Iroh. (pronouncing it as Ee-roh)

Iroh: My name is Iroh.

Y: No. No! No, no. It's Eye-roh not Ee-roh, it's Sock-a not Soe-kka, and it's Avatar, not Ah-vatar, or Avator or whatever the fuck you're pronouncing it as! (Rollo and JO are quite scared of Y, huddling next to each other) I will not tolerate you butchering the names of my favorite characters, Shyamalan. I will rip off your head, use your skull to go bowling and take a shit down your neck!

Todd: (being a smartass) So which one's Goku again?

Y: Daaahhhh!

Rollo (vo): Pronounciation issues aside, we see Aang being administered a test in this scene where he has several objects put next to him. (A candle is lit in front of Aang and the flame leans towards him) And they react to...his...aura?

(A rock is put on the table and it stands up on end)

JO (vo): If this is the case, shouldn't rocks always be shifting in his presence? I mean this is subconcious, right? (Water is spilled on the table and it forms into a perfect circle) Aang's not just an idiot and showing off his powers, so this just implies the elements react to his presence all the time?

(The group look at Y for answers)

Y: I don't fucking know. This wasn't in the show. Show wasn't this stupid.

(Aang jumps onto the table and over Zuko and Iroh, using airbending to blast himself out of the room and shut the door)

JO (vo): So this confirms Aang is the Avatar but for some reason Zuko and Iroh, despite appearing to be normal human beings without any signs of severe brain damage, decide not to stop Aang (Aang flies in on his glider to Sokka and Katara on Appa) as he makes his escape quite easily and reunites with Katara and Sokka, who then decide to visit the air temple that Aang is from.

Rollo (vo): When they arrive at the temples, Aang finally introduces himself.

Aang: The monks named me Aang. (Pronounced Ong, making Y scream in the background)

Rollo (vo): And they get a flashback from his past and (noticing the monk with Aang) hey look! An honest to goodness black character! (Clip from Dragonball Evolution) What, was Ernie Hudson too busy to play the one black character in this movie, too?

"Ernie Hudson": Oh no way, dog. I'm holding out for the As Told By Ginger movie, mm-hmm.

JO (vo): After that we get to see Aang arrive to see the remains of his fellow monks and only now does Katara think to tell him of the complete genocide of his people. (Aang steps on one of the bones on the ground) He takes it pretty well.

Aang: Noooooo! (Crawling by Linkin Park is played as Aang opens his eyes, having gone into the Avatar State)

JO (vo): (as Katara) Look Aang, we don't have time for you to flip out and go on a vision quest every ten minutes, so let's catch you up. You have an overdue library book, you racked up massive interest on your credit card and Leslie Nielsen is dead.

Rollo (vo): (as Aang) Leslie Nielsen...is dead?

(And Aang screaming is shown again)

(We now switch over to Admiral Zhao)

Todd: Oh hey look. It's Aasif Mandvi. That, that's what the shot is there for, right? Say "Hey everybody look, it's Aasif Mandvi." Cause that's not jarring all right? Look everyone, it's Aasif Mandvi."

(And everyone waves)

Y (vo): (As John Stewart on the Daily Show) And now we go to Prince Zuko's ship where senior Fire Nation correspondant and irredeemable douchenozzle Aasif Mandvi is on the scene.

Rollo (vo): (As Aasif Mandvi) John, I'm here on the ship of the banished Prince Zuko entirely so I can belittle and humiliate him in front of everybody because I'm a complete prick. Look at him, John. Doesn't he look like a sissy bitch with way too much hair gel? Ha ha ha, I love being evil. (back to normal) In the next scene...wait, we're in the next scene already? We've barely had time to draw upon how much of an ass Aasif Mandvi is. Okay fine. In the next scene we see our heroes are now on the way to the North Pole so Aang can learn waterbending from the other masters there. But unfortunately they're caught by Fire Nation soldiers.

(Katara bends some water out of her pouches intending to fight them with it, but instead freezes Sokka)

Sokka: Katara!

Rollo: Due to typical female incompetence. (JO doesn't look back as she elbows him in the gut, backhands him, then smacks his head on her knee)

JO (vo): The Fire Nation soldiers lead our heroes into the prison where they're keeping the nation's earthbenders captive...in a rock quarry.

JO: How stupid is the Fire Nation? You surrounded earthbenders...with rocks. That's like locking Popeye in a cage of spinach!

Y (vo): I don't know who the bigger idiot is. The Fire Nation for sticking them there, or the earthbenders for not taking advantage of it. Even Aang spots the obvious flaw in this and he questions why the hell they don't fight back. Of course this leads to perhaps the worst scene in the entire movie.

(Aang then airbends in the camp)

Soldier: Why's he doing that? Kill him!

(The soldiers rush towards Aang, but they're blown back. Now we get the earthbending scene where it takes six benders to lift one small rock)

Rollo: All right, look. I've seen enough of the series to understand the point of bending is that it responds to your movements.

Rollo (vo): And that's why they use martial arts. It's to symbolize the ebb and flow of combat. But here? Well in one moment we see a man raise a shield of earth in a single movement, but watch six earthbenders dance around in an exaggerated way just so they can float a tiny rock. These movements have nothing to do with what actually happens, and by doing so you've just made bending look comical.

JO: More than that, this demonstrates that Shyamalan has no idea how to shoot an action scene.

JO (vo): First of all the entire scene is done in one shot. You never do this. It's one continuous crane pan that shows off the entire arena and all the choreography, and all the holes in it. When you shoot an action scene in a single take, you're gonna show all the people dancing in the background waiting for their turn to hit Aang and prove how sloppy your work is.

Y: And on top of all of that, this is the final nail in the coffin that shows this work fails as an adaptation.

(The cartoon is shown again, this from the episode "Imprisoned")

Y (vo): In the series, this prison was essentially an iron oil rig removing the earthbending plothole. (back to the movie) It worked as the plot of a tv episode but here it just makes no sense. These events have no later consequence in the movie and they're never brought up again. In fact, this is the last we see of the earthbenders at all. You can cut out this entire scene and the movie wouldn't suffer for it. This is just Shyamalan trying to compress 20 episodes of tv show into a 90 minute movie, so the director comes off as an ADD five-year old who can't keep his attention on any one scene for more than a few minutes before moving on to another one.

Todd: And...it's stupid. (the group shrugs)

(The door's knocked on again)

Todd: I'm not getting it.

JO: Well me neither.

Rollo: (having cut a wicked fart) I am so sorry, guys.

JO: I'm gonna get the door!

Todd: (trying to cover himself) Oh god!

(JO goes to open the door and it's Luke Mochrie)

JO: Oh hey Luke!

Luke: Hey JO, what's going on?

JO: *sigh* We're watching the Last Airbender.

Luke: ("Canadian DID patient") Last Airbender? (he then ponders it before we go inside his head)

Phillip: Luke, you do not wanna do this. This is Last Airbender we're talking about. M. Night Shyamalan is insane. You've gotta get out while you still can. Go. Just go.

(Luke thinks about it again to see what Ringo has to say)

Ringo: Get the fuck out of there. I know I'm supposed to be "Oh yeah, it's a cute little adapta--" No! No no no no no. This is shit. This is pure bull honkey. You've gotta get--just go. I agree with Phillip totally. I know it's weird. Get the fuck--get out!

Luke: Uh yeah. I, you know what, I think I, uh, I left my faucet on. In...In Canada. So I need to go.

(JO just shrugs and goes back inside)