On its 12th anniversary, The Last Airbender movie continues to draw the ire of fans on social media. The franchise originated in the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which aired on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. The series is set in a world where some people have the ability to telekinetically "bend" one of the four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. After the Fire Nation launched an imperial campaign to take over all four nations and seemingly exterminated the airbenders, a young boy named Aang is discovered frozen in ice. It turns out that he is the fabled reincarnation of the Avatar, possessing the ability to bend all four elements and bring balance back to the world.
In 2010, director M. Night Shyamalan took on the property, adapting the first season into a live-action film. The project starred Noah Ringer as the Avatar Aang, Nicola Peltz as his waterbender companion Katara, Jackson Rathbone as Katara's brother Sokka, Dev Patel as the villainous Prince Zuko, and Shaun Toub as Zuko's Uncle Iroh. The film drew heavy criticism from fans of the original animated series for a variety of reasons, including the mispronunciation of many characters' names and the whitewashing of several Avatar: The Last Airbender characters.
Yesterday, the Discussing Film Twitter account made a post honoring the 12th anniversary of the release of The Last Airbender. Proving that they're not just willing to let the 2010 film go, fans piled onto this tweet to mock the project in a variety of creative ways. One of the most memorable replies is from original Uncle Iroh voice actor Greg Baldwin, reading "there is no movie in Ba Sing Se," referencing the line "there are no airbenders in Ba Sing Se" from the series. Read his reply along with selected others below:
While the disdain for the movie is fairly universal, one thing the fans have not been able to agree on is whether or not the upcoming Netflix live-action Avatar series will be able to remove the bad taste of the 2010 film. That project, which just completed production, has a largely up-and-coming cast including Gordon Cormier, Dallas Liu, Kiawentiio Tarbell, Ian Ousley, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, and Elizabeth Yu. Lost and Hawaii Five-0 star Daniel Dae Kim will play Fire Lord Ozai. While many are hopeful the showrunners will have learned from the missteps of the previous adaptation, some are trepidatious about the fact that it's not an official production from the new Avatar Studios.
While many are divided on many entries in the expanded Avatar universe, The Last Airbender certainly seems to have united people in hatred. As far as widely despised movies go, the film has achieved a more or less legendary status. This is proven by the fact that the wound still seems fresh despite the fact that most of the people commenting on that Twitter post likely haven't seen the film since its initial theatrical release over a decade ago.
Source: Various (see above)