Sardonicast - Sardonicast 170: Trap, The Last Airbender (2010)

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Support the Show for $2 a month and receive all future episodes early at https://sardonicast.com and https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast. Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Sardonicast Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8AhJ0bzQgs5fb9m_ZCRqkw/featured Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/YourMovieSucksDOTorg Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 7:07 Trap 40:29 The Last Airbender (2010) 1:22:35 Questions 1:39:04 Outro + recommendation

Three, two, one. The ground is an extension of who you are. I'm Adam from your movie sucks. That was a quote from a classic. One of the best films I've made, M. Knight, Chama Lines, The Last Airbender. This is Sardonic Cass. Hello.

Hi, I'm Axe. I gotta say that was crispy of you That was a crispy intro You know Yeah Do you oh yeah you like I forgot they used the word crispy You said that once already today

As we were setting up Damn Oh did I? I didn't even mean to you Well no you did say that Because when I started speaking You said your mic sounds crispy I was like okay you were saying that

As if it was a good thing Usually when you say a mic is crispy It almost It's almost like like a little too crispy like there's something wrong with it. Really? I don't know. I associate Crispy with like a nice crisp sound, you know?

Yeah, crisp. I think Crisp is different than Crispy. If we're talking about audio specifically. Mm. Crisp, I think, is the ideal and crispy is like too far. See, I didn't even realize it's just in my vocabulary since seeing Trap, obviously. I didn't even realize it whipped out. I was trying to save it for the intro, but I ruined it subconsciously.

That's how powerful the writing of M. Knight is. Well, yeah, he really, he, uh, he really understands the culture. Um, he understands generation alpha. Um, he understands generation Pepsi. I'm drinking a sip of Pepsi right now. And he's the new Spielberg. He is the new, Pepsi. He's also the old Spielberg.

He's the new, he's, yeah, he's something all right. I don't know if he's a Pepsi drinker, though. Why are you drinking soda? Soda. Why you don't? Because I, well, I said it was tired, and I needed some caffeine, and I looked at the caffeine that I had in my house, and there was Pepsi, which seemed like a good idea. There was iron brew, but like...

You don't like... You know, I like it. But, I don't know. Do they make one that's not... That doesn't have, like, any artificial sweeteners? Because I know it's, like, kind of like a half and half. It's got, like, some sugar, like, aspartame. I don't know.

because I personally, I can't, I can't deal with iron brew. Oh, you don't like it. Scots get mad at me for it, but it's not my one. I'm an anti-iron brewer. I'm glad you enjoy it. I'm surprised you can get it. I know. I thought it was more of a niche drink.

Yeah, I used to have to, like, import it, but now they sell it at some of the groceries. Damn, you love it that much. Okay. I mean, it's not, I don't love it that much. I just, it's a good, it's a nice thing. To import it. I feel like, I've only ever imported things like I love, you know? well you got some love for that i am brue some some moderate amount of love so what's your do you uh do you are you

are you Pepsi hater no I'm actually a Pepsi defender oh Pepsi max so specifically I'm just not a I'm fine with the aspartine I'm fine with the aspartine you know I'll go with the Pepsi max are you trying to pronounce it that way on purpose aspirin yeah yeah I'm doing my uh my taxin voice Aspartine. Oh, okay. Aspartine? Yeah. Aspartine?

Yeah. Although, they like corn syrup. Corn syrup. Yes. High fructose corn syrup. If you can make it out of corn, God damn it, it'll be made out of corn. Is the country slogan of the United States of America.

I honestly think it should be. I think that that would be a great country slogan. True. We were actually talking a few days ago about like slogans for countries and provinces, like cities. Like my... Excuse me.

Does the old several? Well, I remember Edmonton had something like, The City of Champions. Because that would never escape my head because there was like an awful disastrous mayoral candidate campaign video like literally Tim and Eric you could put it into the show it feel like no different

it's crazy do you know your countries or city slogan I don't know that it's more like symbols I associate with like towns and places normally with some like historical significance like there's a town near me that's all about like pigs so it has a pig statues because there was like a famous butcher there or something and there's like the most english thing ever we're we're We're in old country, okay. We got old symbols. We got all sorts of crazy, especially names actually going on.

There's probably some weird Latin in there. Yeah, so... The video is called Christine S-E-L-O-Blo-Blos-I-S-E-R-I-S-T-I-N-E. A-C-I-E-L-O is how you spell her name. And it's... I'm just sending it to you. It's only... Oh, I just sent you the title, not the link.

Oops. It's only 30 seconds long, but it's uh... I'd like to hear you react to it actually because it's so short and I feel like this will encourage more people to watch the video I just posted it in the discord

from puppy puncher I never actually saw the channel name but that's a that's a kid channel there's just an ad to skip okay I'm watching it 2013 election

soapbox yeah Edmonton my home city I'm Christina Schello. I come from a background of diversity, an international family, and I grew up here in Eminton, the city of champions. And do you guys remember that same? He shoots, he scores? Yeah, that's how far back our family ties belong to in the city. My dad was one of the first pioneers. Oh my god. Isn't that great? That's good. That's wonderful. That's like from the office or something. Yeah. That's so beautiful.

Definitely awkward. Oh yes, I love cringe-worthy stuff like that. She looks like she's in pain. Oh yeah, like who was forcing you to run for mayor? Yeah. The faces she's pulling. She didn't she didn't win. Darn. Could have been great. She gives a little funny little smirk at the end like, it's good. That was fine. Before she was even suggested to do another take, she was like, no. Oh yeah, kind of like M-Knote.

That's M-Knot style as well, right? Like, just one-take-everything. That's the vibe anyway. Yeah, so I guess we're going to, uh, out of the two films first, we'll talk about trap. Of course. Trap is, uh... The new one.

Trap is a trap. Mm-hmm. They take your money and it tricks you. Cool, and it's scam-type film? Uh, not, I wouldn't call it a scam-type film. I would call it a dis-sam-type film. I would call it a disappointment type film. Isn't that just what, like,

M-Night's brand is at this point? It's not even twists anymore. It's, uh, this. I feel, you know, it's still shocking that I could still ever be disappointed by an M-night film.

To feel any kind of disappointment. Yeah, I'm surprised you said that. I feel like is a very odd experience. Because you'd, I don't know, like, this isn't even his worst film,

but I think my problem is, it started, out kind of interesting. Like, interesting enough. Where it was still like goofy and like obviously didn't make a lot of sense. But there's other movies that exist that can be campy fun that don't have to make a lot of sense. Like I prefer to this film, I prefer law abiding citizen, which was a terrible film. But it was crazy.

Yes. It was crazy and you were actually rooting for someone. Maybe. Yeah. There were like some characters with like an interesting goal. I guess spoiler alert for trap, but this part I'm about to say was already in the trailer. The film is set at a concert, at a like an arena concert, Taylor Swift level type concert. The main character, what's his name again?

The actor? The actor. Yeah. I always forget his name. It's not Josh Hutcherson. I forget it too. It's Josh Hartnett. Thank you.

It was like... As Cooper. Yeah, another one. The main character brings his daughter to this concert that she's obviously been looking forward to for a while. And as they get to the concert, he notices, oh, there's a lot of cops everywhere. What's that about? And it turns out that our main character is a serial killer, whatever they get. called him.

The butcher. Yeah. The killer man. Scary guy. And he just chops people up. And when he's not chopping people up, he's leaving them tied up and just has a phone streaming device so he can look on him. Just like he likes watching them.

He likes watching them say, help, get me out of here. I didn't do anything. And so he just looks at that while he's like in a bed. Yeah Yeah Yeah layers and layers of traps all the he's setting the trap no the police is setting the trap but then the trap is being sprung by them But oh there was actually a trap that was ready before that trap no no no no no no the way you just described it is how they should have made the film Because nobody nobody nobody was an idiot like you could you could make this film work if you went in either of two directions from

What this film is one of them being what I mentioned earlier, which was just make it crazier, right? Just have crazy things happen. The craziest thing that happened in the entire movie is when he like pushed the woman into the deep fryer or pushed the woman down the stairs. It's like, okay, something actually happened. I hope there would be more of that. Yeah.

There are like literally two things that happened in the movie that were like that. And I just mentioned them. And they didn't take up a lot of space. They didn't take up a lot of the runtime. And they didn't take up a lot of consequence or mental or. emotional energy. It was just like, oh, wow. If the whole movie was crazy or enough of the movie was crazy and there were enough interesting things happening, it could have worked. The other way it could have worked is if it were an actual cat and mouse game, right? Like, lean further

towards death note where there are two intelligent characters, and we have the antagonist, we have the police lady, have these two characters outsmarting each other throughout the film. The film pretends to do that. The film pretends as though it's an interesting, like, oh, how are they going to want up this? Or like, I've set a trap and you're going to fall into it. Oh, but they were too smart for this one. No, instead, he just gets lucky every single time. He'll be like, oh, how do I get out of this one? And it's not even like a real trap that was said. It's just like, oh, there's another cop here. And then he'll be like, oh, well, I guess I just happened to be doing this thing when no one noticed. I guess everyone's backs were termed at the exact moment here.

And he doesn't get out of it because he did anything smart ever. He just gets lucky. That's always convenient. So there's no satisfaction in that. There's no satisfaction in how it plays out. The character is not someone who you're ever rooting for. Again, I'm thinking about law-biting citizen where morally questionable for sure. But there's something fun towards the character dynamic.

There's a motivation that the character has, right? It's like a revenge thing. This guy is just a killer. You don't like him. you don't care if he's going to get caught. I never cared if he was going to get caught. And so this film is riding on this fake sense of tension where it's like, oh, oh, you hope he doesn't get caught.

And so many scenes where like the music is implying this, the way that the film is structured and paste is implying this, like, oh, is he going to get caught? That can't be the question if nobody cares if he gets caught. All I was thinking is like, well, he probably deserves to be caught anyway. He's not interesting. He's not charismatic. He's just,

just a guy who's a killer who, I guess, is a little cocky and gets lucky. And that's it. What do we have to go off of? Nothing. And then it just gets dumber and dumber as it goes along. Yeah. It's, uh, I don't know, it's kind of like old where it feels like a one title, or a one sentence or a two sentence, a little summary of, oh, that's kind of a fun idea or a fun starting

off point for a story. Where do we go from there? And then it's just like, oh, I don't know, just rush some nonsense together. Yeah. Push it out. I really don't understand like the motivation as you were saying. I was thinking, man, I wish and you could even, you could even keep the same title. You could fix this quite easily.

Make it a saw film. Yeah. Make the main character Jigsaw, you stuck in there and just have flashbacks to traps. Like, it's like almost there, as you said, it has to be more goofy, it has to be more like, I don't know, house that Jap built or a more serious kind of Dexter sort of situation. Yeah, you either have to care about it or at least feel the intensity of this character that is stuck in this kind of claustrophobic environment and scrambling to try and figure it out. But it never feels that tension, especially because it's just an ongoing M-night problem. And it's so unique to him.

In fact, I've never seen another filmmaker kind of manifest this style of filmmaking where that human interactions are so alien. They're like so stiff and strange. But you can't criticize that because that's how all of his movies. are made. Have you seen those people? Are they though? I know, it's not even true. It's not even true. People really say this? Have you seen those? Have you seen M-night stands? The craziest ways that people defend him. They're like, what? You can't talk about the dialogue and the way that characters indirect because he just writes his characters that way. It's like that wasn't really true for like the sixth sense are unbreakable. That wasn't really true for those films.

And it doesn't feel like an intentional thing like, you know, the lobster or something, where it all feels like thematic and feeding into this intentional presentation. It feels like, oh, you're, oh, that was supposed to be a joke right there. Oh, that was supposed to be something serious. It's like, what? It's so flat. It's so emotionally like all over the place, especially that main character. I feel like this might have been what would have happened with something like split if

it had a lead with less kind of talent than James McAvoy. Yeah. Where are we going with this character? Is he, the way he's talking to his 14 year old daughter, who I know is like young, but But why is he speaking to her like in this condescending, like, he sounds like he's talking to like a four-year-old every time he's interacting with her. It's like this really weird, unbelievable dynamic. And these random bit characters that come in that get like celebrated in the end credits or

like mid-credits. And it's like, what is the tone here? Like, what are you going for at the same time as like, yeah, we're going to give the serial of this sympathetic angle and that's going to be his undoing towards the end. And also, by the way, I'm going to build my daughter as a major feature of the movie. it feels like Em Knight's daughter is more important

to the movie than the actual serial killer is more focus on her. That seemed like the starting point was how do I make a movie where my daughter can promote her music?

Exactly, yeah. That really seemed like he built the entire movie around that just to go back to what you were saying earlier. I do think that there is some level of self-awareness

to his, the way that the characters that are in his films are kind of like goofy, but he's just not hitting the tone correctly. He's just, he's missing the mark in such a way where it's still confusing and it's still, because it's not hitting it successfully, it's like, oh, you're, you are trying to have weird characters, but it's not like, he, he doesn't know how to do it in the same way that, like, I don't know, Wes Anderson would. He doesn't know how to do it in the same way that any number of directors, like Yorgos Lantamos, would. And they all have their own unique way of doing it. But for them, like, it's so much more consistent,

and it's so much more clear what they're going for. And in those films, it doesn't really feel like it's clashing with other tones that the film is presenting. Sure. There's juxtaposition in tones in something like a Yorgos Lantamos film. But in M. Knight's movies, it really feels like it just takes, like, these extreme emotions that are, conflicting that are not done well regardless.

So, like, when you have this exact same problem in something like the happening, right, it's just absolutely jarring. It makes it confusing what type of movie it's trying to be. And that problem exists to varying degrees in every one of Mnites films in the past, I don't know, how many years has it been since he started getting really sketch? I would say since... I kind of started with the village. debatably 2004 so 20 years ago and I'd like to point out that the these weird

defenses that people have for M night his stands on Twitter now these exact same defenses that they make for trap can also be applied literally like exactly to films that you you also don't defend like the last airbender like after Earth like the happening right but they don't do that they don't do that They're very selective. Yeah, it's not restricted to those at all. They'll defend his medium bullshit boring movies and then just be like, yeah, well, those ones were bad,

but not realize that they're bad for a lot of the same reasons that they're using to pretend our illegitimate reasons to criticize something like trap. You can't talk about how clunky the dialogue is. I got called racist. And I didn't even say anything about it. Why? Because it's Twitter. I posted my three edit.

10 on Twitter. And there's a lot of people that exist out there that will only see something like the fact that he is an Indian American director and then assume that because they had a positive experience with something which who knows if they had even seen the film by the time that they were getting mad. There's some people out there that would just, you know, that would attribute only race to criticism and then use that to delegitimize other people's criticisms because they don't understand anything happening outside their own head and that's the way they think is purely through

the lens of race. Did they have an after earth profile picture or something? No. I don't know, man. No, but I was looking through a lot of these types of people because they were fucking quote tweeting the shit out of me. And a lot of these people, they don't defend films like The Last Airbender, even though a lot of the...

It's impossible to. The problems that exist with M. Knight's films are consistent. throughout his filmography, just in varying degrees, right? I guess if, like, Snyder can have mega fans that are freakishly passionate online. I was thinking about that, too. You know? And M. Knight's made, you know, way better films as a collective, probably, holistically, than Snyder, really.

Even with where we are now, which is quite a string of nonsense when you look at, like, a Zimbab. M. Knight stands and Snyder stands are, they have something in common for sure. But I think there's more Snyder stands than M-night, yeah. Way more. Yeah, I don't really associate M-night with like a cultish fan base. They're there. It's more just like, he feels just more like a parody of himself.

Like, I'm so, like, we're so far removed in my mind from like what made him an interesting or cool director back in the day. Like, I struggle. It's been a while since I've seen the sixth sense or unbreakable. So I'm kind of wondering, what was it that drew us in in the first place? And I saw, did you revisited the sixth sense recently or something? You adjusted your rating or something. So I guess you have that context.

Well, my, for a while, I think it was up till glass. Where my ratings for his films, I just thought it was fun to start from 10 and go to one. And they were close enough to that where it was like, okay, this is actually getting worse, where I was able to just be like, ha ha, this is a funny little, you know, the trajectory downward is fun. But now that that's passed and now that he's doing like a lot of mid-thes, disappointing films again and there is no like clear trajectory of everything going on. I've sort of re-examined my ratings for some of them being like, okay, well, the six cents, I don't know if I really give that a 10. Like, I love it. It's like probably a nine. I think I adjusted it to.

Got a rewatch Unbreakable for sure, but I know I love that movie and I know I've seen it a lot of times when I was younger. So I don't think I have like that detached of a memory from it. Did you ever watch his, um, fucking oh my God, there's a banging at this? door movie, knock at the cabin. Oh yeah. Yeah, I think we covered it on the podcast. Isn't that forgettable? That was like the most forgettable movie he's ever made.

Yeah. And was really, I feel like there was a, I think after the string of the happening, the last bender after earth that trilogy, um, there was like a notable scale of shrinkage after that point. He came back with split in 2016, which, you know, still had James McEvoy in the cover, but it was mostly a bottle movie like in a warehouse. from memory. Yeah.

Like, old is mostly on a beach. Knocking the cabin is mostly just in a cabin and trap is mostly in an arena. Yeah. And the visit's just a shitty found footage movie. Yeah. And it seems like that's how, because the question like,

always comes up is like, why, how does he keep making these? Because yeah, they're so cheap, I guess. And they make loads of money because they have these funny, easy to sell concepts that work well for advertising.

Yeah. Well, I mean, after the fucking triple whammy of films in a row, the happening, the last airbender in After Earth, which if anybody remembers, by the time he hit after Earth, they were hiding him from the marketing.

Like, no name on the poster. This is Will Smith and Jaden Smith, okay? Nobody else was involved in this. Like, he directed the movie. God, it's actually a quad, because we missed out Lady in the Water, sorry, like before that, so it's four in a row. Lady in the Water was when a lot of people started thinking it was bad, but it was

It still had like mixed reviews, whereas like the triple whammy of the happening last airbender after Earth, like those were all bombs. And they were all huge bombs. And so he was kind of forced to do micro budget films after that point. And for a lot of people, they really worked. For a lot of people, you can just, you know, have a dumb, terrible found footage movie with a little bit of cringe wrapping in it. And that really works for them.

And so, you know, if you only have to make back a couple million dollars and it's like enough people like it, then that's a success. So part of the reason I was actually like a little excited for this movie, mostly just hoping that it would be as funny as like the last Airbender or after Earth or something, you know, is because it was pretty obvious that this is the first time he's been given this much money since then. Warner Brothers definitely gave him a budget. He shot it on 35 millimeter. There's tons of extras in this movie and even though it is like a bottle movie in a sense It's it's clear that like they actually gave him money this time Which just seems crazy, but he's had enough Successful films in a row like a lot of people saw old

Like it made money. I wonder if knock at the cabin even made money because nobody talks about it. It's like absolutely forgettable I bet you it did I bet you have made money because unfortunately it doesn't say a budget for trap on anywhere I can find I know isn't that annoying because that would be interesting but it's already past like 50 million

or 45 million gross so like if it was a reasonable budget you could make a pretty penny on that so I have no idea that seems like the business model he has to work under because I mean I don't know about you but even though yeah the scale is bigger than some of his recent projects

I feel like he really struggles with the sense of scale. It's supposed to be at like 20,000 person stadium, and to me it never once felt like that. You can almost see the lines of like where the real audience was and it like turns into a siegey crowd or whatever. Yeah, I get that, but it's still, I mean, I was still impressed that there were so many extras in it anyway.

But how low is the bar, though, is my thing? I felt like it was cheated well enough, you know? I felt like if the film was better, that wouldn't be anything to even mention, you know? Yeah, I don't know. It depends on the budget to me because I just looked up, Lady in the Water was $70 million. That is...

Nice. That is not right. And it, yeah, gross, 72. I mean, there was a bunch of CG creatures and stuff in it. Yeah. Man. There's a lot of money for 2006, but... They had faith in him.

I actually can't believe he has a... Yeah. But he has had that faith put in him way too many times. That is what other director could come back from that string? I want it to never stop I want people to just continue giving him money I thought last night like they should give M night a billion dollars like literally a billion dollars and that should be the selling point as in like we gave M Night Shyamalan one billion dollars yeah that would be the craziest movie like billion dollar movie but just not Tim and Eric but he's like actually trying

and that would be the entire marketing just like no trailer just like text we gave M-night Shamaun $1 billion. Somebody hit up Elon Musk. Could you imagine if billionaires use their money for good, like art? Yeah. Or at least for humor. Not buying Twitter. Yeah, yeah.

What if it's the best movie ever made? What if it, it could be M-Night's Megalopolis, which I haven't seen yet. Oh, we still don't know what that's like, yeah. I know. They'd have to release it on the purposefully released it the same day as like the new Avengers or whatever event movie to, like make it a fight. make it the billionaires like fighting yeah that's what it should be like do something fun with this money it's so boring like stop buying yachts and start investing in crazy movies how about

that yeah if I was a billionaire you'd see a lot more art yeah that's that's where the money would go I think we're safe though with with get I don't feel like he's uh dissipating I I was trying to like think about how to phrase what his movies are like to me now what I came up with was um yeah His movies are like fast food that has a weird aftertaste, but you can't stop eating it. You know it's bad for you, but you keep coming back. That's what he's been like to me for like years now. Because I, I mean, I sat through the whole thing. I was fairly entertained.

I thought the pacing was kind of whack once it started changing locations. Yeah. It's such an odd film that it was kind of entertained, and even though I'd never call it good. Yeah, I mean, the pacing was really off for me. I would call it M. It's movies, you know, yeah, kind of like fast food, but like a little overly crispy in some parts. Some bites are crispy, some are soggy. You're just going to have to leave that up to interpretation.

Let's take a bite and find out. Some parts are crispy, some parts are sticky. There's this stickiness, a sticky quality to the burger. Yeah, there are some sticky parts. Yeah. So, geez, we mentioned his daughter being the singer, and this movie is essentially just literally a launching off point because M. Knight loves his children, even though he's blamed them for all of his bad movies in the past. They were always his excuse. But he loves his children, and he has at least two daughters.

He has two daughters. He might have a son? I don't know. But he has two daughters for sure, because one of his daughters directed another. movie this year that he produced. Yeah. There's an ad for it in this. Yeah. Like in the background? Oh yeah. In the background there's an ad for it. It's kind of funny. And then his other daughter is a singer slash actor in this movie and she wrote and performed

like, I don't know, 20 different songs or whatever because it's at a concert and they, you know, there's a big focus on this singer, this character, forget her name, something, Shyamalan. Characters like Raven or something Is Raven Oh yeah, the character name is Lady Raven That's right That's so Raven Yeah, I kept thinking that

Her music Not bad You didn't mind it Judging the music just by itself I think that it was inoffensive And the lyrics were not like Cringeworthy They weren't like

Incredible And there's nothing about the music That's like Oh yeah This will be my next jam for sure But like, if it was on a playlist or something, like, I could listen to it. I wouldn't, like, skip the song for a lot of it. Like, so it sounds pretty good.

She's got a good singing voice. My one issue, I guess, with how the music was used in the film, is that it never really felt too similar to the types of, I guess, production quality or genre even that would attract all of these, like, young screaming girls to the stadium sort of thing. It seemed like a bit more like moody and not as poppy. But who knows? Yeah, I could just see that. Maybe I'm just not crispy enough with the kids.

I'm not a crispy boy. It was a principal thing that was bugging me about that choice to like bake it into the movie because it felt like it just felt so egregious to me. Like yeah, have you know, napo your daughter into the movie or whatever. That's fine. You're going to do that. You're going to do that either. way. But can you like, I don't know, enhance something with it instead of feeling like, oh,

we're blocking scenes and pacing things and editing around like making sure that this song has enough screen time. Yeah, that was the goal. So you can hear enough of it so then you remember to like it on Spotify. You know, I say, yeah, you're not there with like the intensity of the character and it's not enhancing that. And that was really distracting to me. Everything else was secondary. Yeah. And then, you know, building her into the whole final act as well and having a be a character beyond. It just gets so insane, so ridiculous and the dialogue is so badly written and performed. It's like laughable.

And I'm just kind of there by the time you're at that third act in the house. I'm just kind of like, let's just see how stupid this can get how many times the story can just make up these crazy excuses for the next insane thing. I'm like, want it to happen. You know, it's... Yeah. It's pretty poor. Hello, everyone. This is Adam interrupting your regularly scheduled programming from the editing room here. From this point in the podcast, I go through my notes that I took in the film and just go through each plot point beat by beat.

And we do this for about 40 minutes because there's a lot of stupid shit that happens in the movie that I wanted to complain about. And I did this with the intention of editing that audio into a video on the YMS channel, very similar to the Saw X video. that you can see Alex and I did on my channel. And although when we recorded this, it was my intention to keep that section in this podcast episode you're listening to right now. After going through it, it does not work in podcast format the way that we talk about things.

It just makes sense to have clips going along with it to play of the film. So as soon as this film's released on digital and we have footage to work with, there will be an edit of that conversation on the YMS channel, very similar to the Saw X video. We now resume your regularly scheduled programming,

and this is from the end of that whole rant. But trust me, I listened to it. It didn't work in podcast format. It didn't make any sense. So stay tuned for the edit. Thank you. It is one of the most insanely, infuriatingly stupid movies. And people got mad.

That's what makes you question the motivation of it? Like, what is the, what is the, What is this supposed to be saying or like going for? Like what what's the part that's like propping this up outside of the funny concept that's got us to see it? How about we just have anything that justifies this film's existence at all? Like, what is it offering? It's doing a, it reminded me of other films that did better things better than this movie. I would rather be watching death note.

I would be rather watching law biting citizen. I would rather be watching a Yorgos Lanthamos film if I want to have people talk weird. You know, like every single thing that it does, it doesn't go crazy enough. It's not smart enough. It's so fucking repetitive. It overstays its welcome. And it's just a vehicle for M. Knight's Daughter's music, which at that point, you know, just direct a music video for her if you want. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't have much integrity as far as that stuff's concerned. She sucks. Yeah. As an actor. She's a good thing. Oh, real bad. Very bad.

Yeah. But again, going back to the like bottom of the barrel, The expectations are so low, I don't even know like where we're even having this conversation at a certain point, like with M-night. Like, what's a bad performance for an M-night movie at this point? True. All I wanted was for the movie to be just entertaining.

Like, my expectations were already none of this is going to make any sense. That was my expectation. As soon as I saw the concept, I'm like, I don't know how you're going to justify this, M-night. And I'm not expecting you to. But I was hoping it would be just something. fucking silly, campy, entertaining, you know, it has to either be clever or crazy.

It had like implications or sprinkles of it thinking that it was either of those things, but it never fully delivered. Yeah, because the concept is hilarious. It does catch your attention. It's a funny idea, you know, maybe if like Sam Ramey or something, or something wacky like that. That could work. Did it?

Like, it could be awesome. You know, it needs more like comedic chops or just more of, like a style. He's a, he's like a very flat, like kind of characterless filmmaker at this point. Like, you can always tell it's him directing a film, but it's... Yeah, he does have a style, but it's not, it's not in service of anything. It's not a service of anything, and it's hard to figure out the line of what is intentional and what isn't, and it almost feels like he doesn't know either. True.

Yeah, it's very weird. I, I, the only... notable things that happened in the movie. The only memorable things that happened in the movie were all just things that happened that were dumb and frustrating. Which is just one of the most unsatisfying movie experiences you can have. And sure, at least I was able to laugh at like 10 different points. I laughed uncontrollably.

Which is good. Like, that's a good thing. So it's not like completely wasted. It's not like the visit levels of like disappointing and frustrating. This had something. But it's also just I was laughing at it Exactly yeah it's also not like happening levels of like this is an unintentional awesome comedy It's more like it's not a bit of air out of your nose

At like just the stupidity of like we're an hour into this and like they're just the depths were going in terms of like well that was convenient oh There it is again Oh this is so so lazy yeah just a lesser version of other things I call this one law biting shit is in Piece of shit yeah I don't know. It is a piece of shit. And it's not surprising to me either, but the one thing that does really piss me off in ways that his other films haven't is the whole kind of inclusion of his kid and that. That is really egregious in a way that's, that really bugs me in particular in ways that his other films kind of don't. Because even like the after earth kind of humor in that direction of like the weird NEPO stuff going on with Will Smith and his son, at least that's kind of like hilarious, you know, in hindsight. And it's ironically funny. I don't see as much of the ironic humor in here happening style.

It's more like little sprinklings. But as you say, it's not crazy enough. It's not creative enough. There's not like a... It doesn't feel like there's a point to this. Like it's like, okay, in one ear. Absolutely pointless. Not as forgettable as knock at the cabin, I guess.

But damn. Just so... It's so irritating. And I hate the, like, the parts in my movie that are just... The entire feel, the summary of experiences, is just that shot at the end where he looks at the camera, smirking like, I bet you didn't think I get out of this one, guys. Like, that's basically M-night. It's like, that's him to the audience, just being like, hey, I know it didn't make any sense, but I got away with it.

That's how I feel. Look, yeah, I got you to watch another one of my movies. Trick to you again. Yeah, I'll see you next time, idiot. That's what it feels like. Yeah And I'll be there next time Same, I know

We're We're It's the problem It's the Stockholm syndrome This is an abusive relationship Yeah, it's the fast food It's addictive

We can't help it at this point Yeah Fast food is not a bad analogy Uh 3 out of 10 Holy shit What a awful

terrible movie And I Did you You, M night stands Or something else If you can if you can If you want to enjoy this

enjoy it but don't act as if there's no legitimate criticisms to be had and that just oh anybody who doesn't like it is racist Go fuck yourselves Yeah that's the weird thing is because I would Part of me did enjoy it in like a weird freakish slightly ironic slightly just like where are we now What does the 2024 M-night movie look like It's kind of like exactly what you'd imagine

I'd give it a slightly higher score perhaps the two star four out of ten but that's a real low four out of ten yeah that daughter stuff is so so egregious so annoying but I I would consider watching this again maybe in like a group setting to laugh at it could be funny I'll see it again in some situation where you don't need to fully pay attention to it yeah yeah but man it's like what do you even say is I'm not even like

disappointed by his films at this point because it's like yep it's just a one of these we have way more of these than not from him so yeah just give him give him more money just give him there's still there's have him fix the Avengers there's still a chance to make the last airbender two I think we can do it yeah we can go back to that trilogy plan yeah oh man fire oh boy water air ground What would you like to bend if you could choose one of those four? Space time. Oh, okay.

Holy. Well, the M. Knight, Sharmelon, directed a classic that I recommended. And you know what? I'm pretty happy about my recommendation because I like this movie. It's funny. What? It's a funny movie. Why do you like this movie?

It's hilarious. It's like the perfect... I like how much of a disaster it is. It's not boring for me, because it's always so silly. It's not boring, but I, and I kind of felt the same way you did until I watched the original show. And now I have more of like a Lion King 2019 feeling towards this, where it's like, well, it's, yeah, because it's like, I, for the life of me, cannot figure out what the, what the, what that is, I, what that is, I, I, it's like, I, I, for the life of me cannot figure out what the, what the, what the, what, what, what that. hell was going on here how did this happen how because like we were just saying about this string of movies right it's not like it's not like this was greenlit

and attached right after the string of six cents unbreakable maybe after signs that was a big hit maybe if then he was given this movie or something and it was like a big passion project with like his his kids are always talked about and in reference to this movie and his daughters oh he blamed them for every bad movie that was his excuse but it's like what the fuck is impetus of this movie because he's clearly not interested in adapting it in any, there's no passion in this movie. There's the amount of money, the investment, the talent, the skill, I elm did the effects for this. Like, what, why? Like, it's actually inept. It's genuinely one

of the worst Hollywood productions ever, I think. Like, yes. No hyperbole. Like, it's one of the worst adaptations ever released. Yeah. It's shocking. You know, it's, it's great to have that as an M-night joint because as we mentioned earlier, he does have a style. And I feel like for this level of disaster, his style works really well. I would rather have an M-night one out of ten than an Ova Bowl one out of ten. Okay? I would rather have something that's entertaining and fun and shocking. And just the comedic timing of this film is unmatched for like other

bad movies. The unintentional comedic timing. Yeah. Like he's one of the best bad movie directors ever. Like he's up there. He's like he's in my top five. He's like he's like up there close to Neil Breen. It is that yeah, it is kind of like if you gave Neil Breen 150 million dollars. So that's how it feels. It's like oh my God that what you're saying with that that timing to everything and that weird unintentional comedic timing. Yeah, no doubt I need to see M. Knight dance because This dude has zero rhythm. The way he puts his stuff together, it's like, how do you even get this level of performance out of some of these actors? How are you actually creating this, like, weird, awkward feeling?

Why are you given action set pieces when it's not an action director? In fact, he's a particularly bad action director, I would say, for the most part. Oh, yeah, he thought he was doing, like, fucking crouching tiger. Like, he thought he was doing, like, some wire poo movie. Going back to that timing and the pacing of it like the yeah the the the the the wirework the action the all of it is it's like in slow motion and not in a Zach Snyder way it's like yeah it's the most awkward feel yeah I was getting some Snyder vibes and and it has no how do you the I noted down like the the amount of content that is in the show. Oh as far as like just hours that there's 61 episodes right so nearly 24 hours of content to adapt um into under two hours. hours here, which is what one hour 40 it winds up being. So that's one season of the show they roughly condense, which is about eight hours of content. They condense into one hour 40. And what

they translate through that is none of it because that's, it's impossible. I think it's straight up impossible to do this without, if you're not going to commit to a Lord of the ring scale production where the runtime is three plus hours and you're actually committed to the tone and actually doing it properly. Otherwise, I just don't see the point. It's cursed from every angle. What, how did they think this was going to be a success? Genuinely. Like, every single thing that is good about the original show is gutted in one way or another

or is changed to, to ruin it. Like, it makes you question like what M. Knight even, because he wrote this, he adapted allegedly. You know what? I'm sorry. No, I believe it. I'm a conspiracy fucking theorist about this movie now because after seeing so many, well, because the landscape of movies have changed in a way where this has become a lot more clear

where I think that sometimes they just fucking lie. I think I think sometimes they just fucking lie in the marketing. I don't even believe M. Knight like watched and liked the show, like that story he told about like, oh, my my children just love it so much. And I came up to them and said, may I please do a last airbender movie? I don't believe that. I think he was a director for hire. I think this movie was going to be made as it's like an IP that exists that, you know, obviously you just take an existing IP and you think like, oh, okay, this was a successful show, we'll make a movie out of it. I think that it got greenlit. And one of the conversations that they were having in the studio settings was, okay, well, we're probably not going to be able to sell this because it's like 2011, right? I don't think they wanted to do it with non-white leads. I think that that was like one of the ways you get it. Greenlit is just like having having the main cast of good guy actors be white. And then I think another conversation was who is the only huge, you know, big name, like household name, non-white director right now. And I think they got M. Knight so that they could justify the casting decision and be like, no, see, because he's, he's Indian. I think that that's a part of it. Because there's no fucking, if he actually watched the show and had any respect for the show, that's way more embarrassing. I think that it's a fucking lie.

And I think that he probably did have a lot of involvement with the script and that he, you know, wrote a lot of the dialogue. But I think that the outline of like, you know, plot points was just already written by somebody else. I think he's a liar. Yeah, because you can see like the episodes that are referenced within the show. Or any, like, slight concept that they delve into that somewhat interesting or kind of cool is from the show. Like, the rough outline of what happens in the movie is, like, a fast-forwarded version of the first season. So all that stuff is in there. It's just you're never given any development or context or any of it.

Because, like, the whole appeal of the original show is the characters. And, like, that's really what it's about. Like, people love these characters and they love the character arcs and they love the variety of them. and how charming and likable they are. And that's just not translated. It has no focus. Like, the main character sucks. Every character sucks.

No one has given any development. It is impossible to adapt the story with this runtime. And with, I don't know, going back to M. Knight's, like, this conspiracy thing or whatever. I think that might have, I think you're onto something with maybe the decision making as far as choosing him. But this feels like an M. Knight movie as far as, like, the writing and the dialogue. and the way it's adaptive feels like something he might have justified in his M-90 kind of way, a big one being in the last airbender universe, the firebenders are kind of the evil empire kind of equivalent characters.

And the reason they're so kind of intimidating is that unlike the other uses of the elements, is they can draw fire from anywhere. And there's a whole like detail in the show this explained where there's a comet that comes every 100 years. And when the comet is in atmosphere, it specifically strange. strengthens all of the firebenders, which is how they were able to become a global conquering force to begin with. And that's like all tied into the well building and the law and all this really cool stuff. And then in the movie, they're just like, no, the firebenders, they,

they can only use fire if there's like a candle near a source. Convenient little small fires sprinkled throughout the environment. But that ruins them as a force entirely. And like M. Knight's justification was like, oh, I made them too intimidating. It's like, well, yeah, they're the villains of the movie that that's kind of the point. Yeah. That is the point. That is the point, that's what gives it urgency. Like, and undoing, like, details like that just points to me at, like, a level of ineptitude, like, just straight up ineptitude to the drama and the core of what the thing originally was.

And it's like, the creators of the show hate this movie. They, they, they, there's like, interview, there's a podcast interview with them that I've listened to where they talk about, like, yeah, it was a horrible experience. Like, the, the studios pick to M. We didn't want him. Like, why would anyone want him at this point? We're saying it in the previous discussion. The Village Lady in the Water of the Happening, then this movie.

Why would any producer at that point see that and be like, yeah, yeah, that's a good string. We can turn that around and have our Lord of the Rings now. And it's like, but it was part of it like the grim dark kind of trend of the time with the like the dark night was really big and like Man of Steel was coming out and there was this sort of trend around this era of like that thing that might used to have been associated with like children. Let's darken it a little bit and make this more. why a instead of like for kids. I don't know if that played into it at all as well with like the weird darkness and the style and like the realism of the the animal characters and whatnot. Like all the whimsy and fun and cartoonishness is is taken out and it's all like very self-serious now and characters that in the show were comedic and lighthearted and have different tones to them. They're now

this like really serious leader or just this one thing. It's it ironically he's made it like way more childish in the way he's trying to adapt it to seem more. Whereas like the original show is part of why it's so big is that it has these surprisingly complex characters that have a lot of depth to them and that there are great characters like Uncle Ero and yeah, they've really lingered in my mind and they just do it such a disservice. Like they, they butcher it. They don't just butcher it.

There's like gore everywhere like what he does with this. It's a crime scene. The whole movie is a crime. same scene. It's a, but it's so many things just don't make sense. Like just even on a conceptual level, from a, from a base concept level, the way it's adapted just doesn't make sense. Like there's a whole episode in the show where the, the earthbender camp prison sequence,

right? It's maybe the most infamous scene from this film. Yes, that whole prison escape. Yeah, it is a classic because it might have the, one of the worst shots of all time is in that sequence. The one action shot in there is. a is the funniest thing and is kind of legendary, but like, how did, in the original show, right, that that sequence is set out at sea because the firebenders have taken the earth people out

to like a prison that's out at sea because there's no earth there for them to bend. So that's like, then Ang has to be creative and like he like sneaks cold to them and that's how they like break out and it's like this whole cool set piece. Whereas here, it's like, well, they arrive at the prison camp. He does one little speech that basically boils down to, hey, earthbenders you realize that there's earth beneath you right and then they're like oh yeah and then they earth bend out and it's so dumb don't be afraid earthbenders my name is on and I am the avatar the ground is an extension of who you are love it love it so much it's a it is a

great sequence at least they do call him un because then it does kind of separate him from like the quote unquote real version who's it was such a great protagonist it's like it's a really great character he's this little monk boy he's like 11 years old he's got all this responsibility placed on him and he's a really lighthearted fun character that is serious when he needs to be and goofy when he needs to be and it's a really endearing like center of it and they did they miss that completely that this act is awful yes so unlikable and kind of like mopey and where's the fun, where's the charisma, where's the chemistry? That's another M-night thing.

It's like, chemistry between these actors is like non-existent. It's icy. Yeah, well, I mean, so the guy to Noah Ringer, the star, not an actor, like literally not an actor, but he knew martial arts? he was like some random little boy who like did taekwondo yeah and everyone always called him ang because he kind of looks like ang that's why he cast him i guess yeah he throughout the film there's a lot of close-up shots of people's faces a lot of very serious expressions but there's something off where they all they look like just oddly goofy and the overdramatic nature they're all a lot of them are kind of doing like the jaden smith eyes

The main character does a lot, like the little pouty eyebrows and big, uncomfortably close-ups sometimes in ways that it does not feel justified in the scene. Fucking, what's his name? Soca, which I think somebody. Oh, socha. Well, they call him Soca. He's a super Soca. Can you trust this movie?

No, I'm fair. This is this movie. Okay. This is the camera. Yeah, you're right. It's the real version. It's Hong and Soca. His face throughout the entire movie, he was just like chewing up the scenery.

Like, he was just, he was the focus, even if he was in the background of a shot, because his face was just constantly so funny. I wish he was in every movie. There's something, there's something about his expression. He's, yeah, he's awful. I don't know what they try to do with him, because he's another kind of fun character in the, in the original show, he's more than comic relief, which they attempt a couple of times in the movie, like early on the, uh, I can't remember the name of the flying creature or whatever, but his tail slaps down and it's supposed to be like, oh, some physical comedy just like in the show, remember that? But it's like edited to be comedic and it's like, oh, you're clearly editing this to have like a space for the audience to laugh, but it's like dead silence and it's so awkward.

It's awkward when he's not trying to be comedic or like have a punchline to a scene. When he does it, it's like, it's more often confusing than anything at the intent that it's so bad and awkward. You just don't know what it's even trying to do. Yes. Or even the line, uh, you think my son is the one they're calling the blue spirit. Yes. Scene just ends. There's a fucking, the most awkward silence followed by like one of the most

overdramatic, unintentionally comedic line deliveries of just a simple word. It's like, this is a comedic genius film. By a complete accident, yes. Yes, that's why he's like, he's up there with Neil Breen for me. It's like every element. Yeah. is just is working so hard against him. Why did they lean so hard onto all these shots of like the hand movements and this kind of stuff,

but without pairing it with visual effects? There are multiple scenes where they're kind of doing these poses. The Tai Chi, that's the word I was looking for. But and the music's swelling and the camera is moving. They're practicing. What are you showing me? You know? Like he's supposed to be practicing water bending and they're by a stream.

Yeah. But like nothing is happening. Like, and like even when like in flashbacks where he's like, oh, a flashback to the monk village and it's like, oh, we have the power to move one leaf, you know, and it slaps a monk on the head and it's like, and the prison escape is like, look, they have the power to move one rock really slowly. part of what is so cool about the original cartoon is like it's frenetic the action is really cool if you just had one moment in this film where it felt like the tai chi shit that they were doing matched with the visual effects just just one moment where like there was like a cool

bending effect or sequence or scene i think people would have liked it a lot more but there was there was zero like like you do all you needed was one Genuinely, no. You just needed like at least one. There was, there was none. Yeah. It's mostly set pieces and action sequences, like the whole movie. And there's not a single good one.

Every action scene is so stilted and, like, badly thought out and choreographed and so clunky and fucked up. Going back to that oneer in the prison, the, yeah, it's like the worst oneer of all time. Some of the, some of the angles that they managed to fit into this oneer are like crazy. It's like a point towards the beginning. where it was spin round slightly and just have like Socker's chin in the top left, like just really awkwardly protruding and distracting the shot for like 20 seconds and then it would just tilt somewhere else. And then just the timing of it is like so slow and weird.

Man. It's fascinating. They fucked up big with this. It's it's ambitious in the wrong direction. Do you think that's what they're trying to do is be like, this is, like this is Lord of the Rings for Children type of thing. It's like the model is there. They've got the story already.

It's three seasons, a trilogy, you know, condense its season into a movie feasibly. And then you've got your big Nickelodeon trilogy of films. Yeah, some of them along those lines. They've clearly set it up for a sequel. I was hoping they funded all three of them before the first one was released so that they couldn't, they couldn't be cowards. Yeah, they have to commit. Yeah. They could have done the whole marketing strategy of like, oh, well, the first one sucked, but hopefully the next one's better.

That's always fun. Yeah. But this is one of these movies that should have been backgirled, you know? Well, like, at a certain point where it's like, we should eat the loss on this. Like, this would genuinely, the damage we're going to do this brand by releasing this is not worth, you know, the loss of investment. Like, let's just cut this off right now. Like, genuinely, it would have been a better decision because I remember when this came out. I remember trying to watch the show when it was airing, but I never know when it came out originally and it was always shown out of order and whatnot, so I never really committed.

But by the time this film came out in 2010, I must have been like 16. And like seeing the ads for this, I remember very clearly and being like around the time everyone at school was making like jokes around like Bender was quite an insult. I don't know about where you were from. No idea. If that was in people's vocabulary, but in the UK it definitely was. And it was just like, this whole brand was like destroyed by this film, you know. It took like 10 years for me to even like think about revisiting in any form because I had to forget about this. And this is like the fourth time I've seen this fucking film as well.

That's great. What other director could could give a collective trauma to millions of people? Isn't that crazy? I love it. Like he ruined people's lives. What is extra crazy is how much work he's had post this. Yeah. It's like a beloved story.

And that's what's even crazy is that the whole thing exists. It's already there. It's all animated. It's literally storyboarded for you. All the dialogue's done for you. All of it is done. Like, I genuinely don't understand how you could adapt it this badly. It's, it's unprecedented as far as I can adaption is concerned.

It's that insane. Yeah. It's, you know, it's kind of, it's, it's almost like the, my conspiracy theory is, is almost reminiscent of the, like, indoctrination theory where it's like, you know, it's not the official story, but it's more believable than the suggestion that this was made by someone who's a fan of the show. That is less believable, right?

So, you kind of have to search for other answers. know how to make it make sense. Yeah, there is no way to make sense of it. I guess as part of why it's lingered in such a, it's definitely in the conversation of like worst film of all time. Yes. People will bring this one up like for sure with that investment, with the butchering of the source material with just, yeah, it's uniquely bad. Even for M. Knight, it's uniquely bad. I know. It stands out. It's up there. And that's crazy. Like how many times you do, like, yeah, I like have my head in my hands.

like watching this. Yeah, with like ILM being in there and all these resources and like hundreds of people getting together to fulfill this and they must have known, you know? Like the vibe on set, like the energy must have been like they would have known. Come on. How did this happen? How did, who let this happen? Because everyone was humiliated by it. Dev Patel is like public about it. There are videos of him on like red carpets like saying like, oh sorry for this shit film he's like signing the poster and whatnot like everyone knows yes it's it's unanimous it's a shared experience very few films can offer an experience where everybody kind of feels the same way about it yeah it's just like from the very very very base

beginning who thought this was a good idea i know this was before we had like prestigious television and that was more of like a wasn't really an option in 2010 in the same way that it is now it's like oh we have a full Netflix last air bender show now that's like millions of dollars for each episode and it's got CG everywhere and it's like it looks better than this film from 2010 type thing um but what like what could you possibly achieve is the only way you can make a film is you have to sacrifice so much from the what the original thing that made it good then it's no longer the thing so it's like why are you even doing this? What did you think you could achieve with this? It's maddening to even break down.

It's time for you to stop doing this. Well yeah, like all of the story happens off-screen or like through a random narration, you know, like Soko would be like, hey, we just started a revolution. And so what, what, through that montage that was like 30 seconds? Oh yeah. Is that what that was? There were several montages where the implication of how things were shot and edited and the music along with it, you would think that it's an actual montage, but it's just one shot. And then the montage is over it.

It's not a montage if it's one shot of the several things that are implied to be happening, but we see one shot of it. But this happened several times in the film where it's like we get a one shot montage, which I think is incredible. experimental in a way. Yes. Yes, this is experiment. It's an experimental film by an otter. A true artist. But there are still more examples of just the baseline, like, writing, just making no sense with the world they have established.

Like, kind of like the prison sequence where the earthbenders forget that they can use Earth. Ang does the same thing with water towards the end where like there's a big kind of Helms deep siege sequence with this ice water castle and Ang like wins the day by a spirit dragon telling him, oh, use the water of the ocean, idiot. He's like, bent, yeah. He's like, oh yeah, I guess I can bend water, why don't I just make a big wall of water and put out the fire with it. Like they actually have an enormous advantage actually.

the water benders and having like the ice fortress and the fire dudes that can only use a fire if there's a source nearby. So like all the people that can control water telepathically or whatever. Like what is the tension there? Yeah, there's not much of a threat. But then I guess they try to like artificially create one with when they kill the fish. Yeah, which is a whole like quite cool setup in the show where they have this rule where water bending is enhanced by. placement of the moon, just kind of like the ocean is, and firebending is affected by, yeah, like comets and the sun and stuff like this. And depending on these natural events, like powers

can balance or be imbalanced. And in the show, it feels way more like a Helms deep situation where they're like way outmatched and they've got to use the advantage of the eclipse to help them and this kind of stuff. But they just, there's like no interest than even establishing these things, you know, the whole the fish stuff and the spirits and all of that, which is so core to the show and it's a huge part of its identity. It's like used for just like cheap writing tricks. Does it get resolved in the same way in the show where this new character that no one cares about who's in a relationship with dev, sorry, with Soka?

That does happen except it's fleshed out and it has like a, it advances the soccer character. It's like a big change for him. It's like a serious dramatic beat for the characters to go through when he's been like this comedic kind of goofy guy for the whole time. And it's yeah, the characters like learn and change and there's consequence for what's going on. And the spirit stuff is like a recurring well-biting thing through the show. And that's how he beats them. He uses like a water spirit to win over in that sequence instead of just a huge wave of water. I guess you could just do that whenever.

Yeah, there's loads of stuff like that. All the complexity, all of the fun. world building, all of the awesome stuff like that is just totally kneecapped. Because that's again, one of the cooler things about the show is that they establish these concepts and take them to their logical extremes. Like when they go into like bloodbending with the water people and all the stuff that five people, it's like really cool and creative, like what they do with it and all the inspirations like coming together.

It's not the most original thing, but it's a really great like kids show that opens up to some pretty complex ideas and these really. great fun characters. Yeah, there seemed to be, you know, in the little critter, a tiny thing that like knocks over the stroll, scroll,

like earlier. Yeah, a little monkey little thing. There's a part where, Ong, is, it's like crawling around on his arms,

his shoulders. He's like doing this reverse, like, I'm a waiter at a restaurant holding up a plate sort of thing. like swapping his arms back and forth.

And you just look at that shot and it's like, wow, there was absolutely no communication between departments in terms of like, there was there a visual effects supervisor on set? Because it seemed like no. Like it seemed like M. Knight was just like, I got this. And didn't have a proper comprehension of how the computer animated effects would be placed into the scene or like how to give it some actual convincing weight or how to have the actors be acting

as though there's something in the scene. It just feels like everything that's happening in live action feels separate and incidental to the computer animated effects that are placed later. And not just the monkey. Also, like, all of the bending effects. It's like all of the Tai Chi motions

that they're doing seem incidental to the bending effects that are taking place in the universe. Like, they can feel completely, separate, which is a huge problem for this type of movie. It's a huge problem. It's a huge problem. I read that he's storyboarded it. This is what I just don't understand. Like, how we got the winners? How do you even, how do you even shoot a shot like that prison escape oneer and not have meticulously thought about the, it's a visual effect shot. Like, that's what it is. That's the whole

point of it. It's like a big spectacle like money shot, basically. I, I, like, The answer is ego, is confidence. Just yes men around him, yeah. Yeah. It's overconfidence. But why would they give the golden goose like this, why'd they give such creative control? I'd- Because it's M-night. Why are they not more protective?

But that's what I don't understand either, because it's not like M-night was at the peak of of his career at this point. Like at no angle you look at this or try and deconstructed it from does it make sense? None. one flop. He had one flop before this movie. Yeah. But it was the happening. Yeah, but this was probably already in production by the time like the happening was in theaters. Maybe. When was happening? Yeah, maybe it was earlier. 2008. Yeah, and this came out 2010. So they probably, they probably already had like the contracts signed and everything. Yeah, it feels like he, he walked in

to something that really existed and just, I don't know, just first take every, every shot feels like a first take, every single one, like that, that, that, the close up of Ang, it's in the, it's like a flashback scene when he finds out about the, what happened to his monk village, it's like a close up on his face and he's like kind of dribbling and he's like, the actor moves his lip to like catch the dribble and stuff and it's like, that's really distracting for the short, you don't think you could have done that again. You don't have a version of that that doesn't have him doing that? So many shots are like that.

There was a sticky quality. It's like so lazy. Crispy kind of quality. Incredible. Incredible film. There's another line. I mean like every line's good. Yeah.

And every line delivery is good. Katara, do not hit that sphere! The word sphere was ruined for me for this film. Here's a fun little fact. So I've seen this movie many, many times. I was due for a rewatch, which is why I chose it. And, you know, new M. Knight movie coming out. I like to make it a bit of a, you know, like an event.

You know? I was excited for M. Knight to get some money again. That was my excitement for trap. But I have the Blu-ray of the Last Airbender. And I wound up watching it off stream for reasons that I'll explain on my stream on another day, not important. but I noticed on the Blu-ray because this is one of those like big Blu-rays.

They had described video for the visually impaired. So since I've seen this movie so many times already, I was like, okay, we're going to experience it anew. And I watched the film with described video for the visually impaired. And it was also very funny. and the narrator they got the guy with like the one of the worst voices

where it sounded like it was a very British man but it wasn't it wasn't like a nice like soothing British it was like somewhere between it was like really nasally and like not quite David Firth

Cotney Geeseer almost somewhere between David Firth and like Steve Coogan doing an impression of like a BBC reporter talking about like tennis you know or it was just like almost like a sports cast announcer but like a really boring one

was a really like awful nasally boring voice it was perfect oh it was great it was so good and what was fascinating about this is I I wrote down two time stamps in the movie so obviously in this M-night film The character's name is Ong, and in the original show, it's Aang. But there are two moments in the described video narration where he says Aang, where the rest of the film he says Aung. Oh, interesting.

But there are two moments where he let it slip. And so my theory, we're getting another theory here, my theory is that the person doing the voiceover is actually Team Ang. Like, he has to have seen the show before for that to slip, because otherwise there would be one way to pronounce it. So he has to have known about the original show. And my feeling is that he's Team Ang. And at the very end, it was like the perfect ending for this movie. I laughed out loud because the described video, they also read a lot of the credits. And so the big credit right at the end was like written, directed and produced by M.

Knight Shambla. And the way he pronounced it, it was like, okay, you're intentionally mispronouncing M. Knight's name as revenge for Ang. So he said, written. I can't even do the accent written directed and produced by M-night Shyamalan Shiam-a-lan he says and then like you know

reads out some more credits and then there's a second M-night credit where he doubles down and the second time he says it like anybody who has this Blu-ray please watch this like I'm not crazy the second time he says it the way that he says it sounds so spiteful and like yeah I'm mispronancing your name and M-night

Shyamalan film. Like he literally says it like that. It's crazy. Like this did was team Ang and this was his this was his vengeance. He got revenge. He's like how does it feel M. Knight Shyamalan? Man, because that's ironically one of the most consistent things about the movie is that they all they all agreed like let's let's say the main character's name wrong. That's the one thing we're gonna get right is saying it wrong. Make him say, ugh. Ung. What the fuck? Yeah.

And like, you're kind of talking about the conspiracy theories with choosing M. Knight. But do you remember anything about the controversy about this film when it came out? Which controversy? Specifically about the casting over the Fire Nation. Yeah. Which seems like a M. Knight choice where they're mostly played by like kind of Indian actors, which is a change from the original, I'd say, were they're more kind of like Chinese coded? I would say.

Well, the biggest deal, but I guess it's just kind of interesting why you, why do you do that with the villains? Well, I mean, I don't know. I just, I think that this decision was probably made by higher reps before he was even involved to like get it greenlit was like good characters need to be the lightest skinned. And we can have some representation, but so I guess we're just leaving that to the, the bad characters can be the darker skinned characters. I honestly just think that that's how they were going to.

make the movie and then they got M-night to make it seem like less of a racist decision. They're like, you just say you did the whole thing. I guess, yeah. I'm just thinking out like what big Asian-American actors even, you know, in 2010 in Hollywood.

So, yeah. Hmm. Not like they had name actors selling the movie, but, you know, I think that that was a it, I think it fits within that time period in terms of like, okay, we're going to put a lot of money into this.

It's an existing IP. How do we get the movie made? We can't have the darker skin characters be the main cast, right? So I think that I literally think that that it just seems like it fits in 2010. So yeah, whereas the, I did check out the first episode of the 2024 version. So still being adapted to this day. And yeah, it doesn't have that same problem. They actually have, you know, Asian actors and.

It's just way less distracting as a result. Like the characters actually resemble who they are in the show as far as like, not just like a race thing, but like the way they're written, you know, and characterised. They actually, oh,

it's a little bit of that thing that I like. It's still like a Netflix kind of corporo, corpo translation of it. It's like, it's just too much going on. It's too like, just adding detail. I feel like there was like a brevity to some of this stuff.

The original show has a certain. level of brevity. It's like three seasons. Each season is just Ang learning one of the three elements he doesn't know. Then it wraps up and ends. Like, and it knows what not to tell you or indulge in. Like the Netflix show, it starts with like this full 30 minute like prequel set up of the monk like falling and it's like this whole siege and it's like that was kind of cooler in my head actually the way that went down like in the original show, the way it was revealed through like flashbacks and how it was more from like a, the main character and like, flushing them out instead of just this

this scale and like we need to show how much CG and like we gotta show off like how big and Hollywood this is and so man we're kind of missing the forest here like can we just focus on like what made this thing good to begin with like we're really just getting lost down all this bullshit with this you just wanted a sticky movie

sticky and crispy like some Korean fried chicken I mean it's definitely it's definitely sticky probably not in the way he hoped or intended and to be like the way he's managed to shed this and still work like I keep coming back to this is like I'm following this up with after earth as well like three years later it's like this that's how I'm gonna undo this

what a combo is the one two smack like one two three the happening was before it like the three yeah you're right three in a row of some of the best three knockouts best comedies that have ever existed. It is.

We've, like, talked about, like, uh, trilogies that aren't actually trilogies, but, like, kind of work as well. There's a good one, right now. Release that as a box set. That's a powerful trilogy.

4K. Yeah, yeah. Happening last Airbender after Earth. I would go crazy over that. Like, he's always, he's talked about the stickiness, the sticky quality.

I think he added an extra letter accidentally. He made a stinky movie. That was the problem. Yeah, He's kind of a fascinating guy. Like, you sent me that video of that weird interview of him talking about despicable me. Oh, yeah. And it's just like, drooling over Despicable Me's, like, title.

Now, that's a sticky name. Dispickable Me. That's clever, right? Yeah. I hope I do something that clever one day. And so, what? You made the sixth sense, you know? The quote was like, I wish I was that that smart.

Yeah. To make the Despicable Me title. Yeah, he's a character at least I will be there for his nonsense But like same forever I'm not gonna be happy about it Yeah You know yeah

Despite being upset with trap And somehow disappointed I still got to watch another classic M-night I'm glad we made this a double feature Yeah they go together well Because it reminded me about why I love him so much Yeah. Um, no, actually, no, I can't agree with that.

Well, I had fun. What do you, what do you say? One out of ten? Yeah, just the lowest of the low, like I almost refused to rate it. Like, this is one where, like, I checked on letterbox and whatnot where all the people I follow, you can see their ratings. And normally there is some disparity, you know, some exploration of the scale, but on this one, it's like almost unanimous, like everyone.

Just putting it on the lowest of the low. And I'm right there with them. Like this is a half star one out of ten. It's like completely in it from every angle. There's genuinely not one single thing it does well. Not one. Didn't mention the music. Yeah, the music's kind of annoying.

Loads of great themes. Yeah, because there's, how are you supposed to score like this weird montage movie? How you spoke? There are no scenes. Yeah. You know, like their whole chase sequences that are over before they've even begun. So it's like, how can you, how can you score that? How can you like build?

It's an interesting challenge. Yeah. Yeah, fuck this one. Love it. All right, question time. Man, let's do a few questions here before we wrap up the show then from the Sodonercast community. Head over to the suggestion thread over on the subreddit.

Just like the backwards man did for future episodes. What are your thoughts on Joaquin Phoenix dropping out of his film with Todd Haynes? If you aren't aware, Phoenix was going to star in a sexually explicit NC-17 queer film directed by Hayes, The idea for the film was pitched by Phoenix and it was involved in writing the screenplay just days before filming was to start though he decided to drop out the film after getting cold feet

apparently it isn't possible to recast his role and everyone who's supposed to work on the film is out of a job the film is now expected to lose over seven figures due to all the money that's already been put into it and because some people working on the film still need to be paid this has been a bit of a drama Well that sucks, whose pocket is that coming out of?

Yeah, studios and producers probably I guess I wonder what it would be about that that made him drop out because it's not like he's in a lot of like challenging roles yeah

the amount of comfort zone I wonder what it was about this project in particular that gave him the cold feet not gay enough I don't know not this is one of these things

where it's like we don't know anything about like the reasons why he would have to not do it and so we can it's not I don't know how to speculate when like the film didn't even get made so yeah and you got no details it sucks because

I love Todd Haynes and I love Joaquin would have loved to see them work together do a gay thing and uh it sucks for people that are out of a job and it sucks that a lot of money was wasted but uh I have no idea what happened so yeah you just need more context to be able to comment because a lot of people are saying like oh he's been so selfish about this this and we don't really know like what actually went down. It's not the first time, I guess. A big production has fallen apart and money's been lost or written off. And it's a risky business, I guess.

It wouldn't be the first time someone like this has happened. It's just consequential, I guess, that Phoenix is attached. Yeah, it seems the whole thing just can't happen without him after a certain point. Yeah, especially if he was, you know, producing and writing and as such a should, direct involvement. It's kind of being sold on him. Very unfortunate. But that's like the risk of the industry, you know? A lot of projects ride or die on one person.

And if that doesn't work out, then things kind of dead. Metal Gear Gas has this to say. Did you follow the Olympics at all? I'd love to hear your reactions to the breakdancing event that has gone somewhat viral. Love you too. Thanks for the hours of entertainment. I didn't actually see how Canada does in the Olympics. You guys any good over there? Apparently, Vancouver guy won the breakdancing.

Oh, is that who won that? Yeah. Because it was Australia, right, that was like the embarrassing one. I watched those two things, and I did not watch much else of the Olympics. I've seen some popular photos and moments. The guy retrieving the cap and the pool, the unsanitary water conditions in Paris that got a lot of the swimmers sick. Oh, I didn't know about that.

Because there's too much poopy in the water. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? There always seems to be some sort of, like, made you fuck up where it's like, oh, they easily could have anticipated this. The thing that pisses me off the most

about this year's Olympics is that there's this big, like, crazy, unhinged, like, attack. like every fucking grifter is claiming that an Algerian boxer is not a woman and that she's definitely a man

because of some test that's not even an official test where we don't even have the results of that test that was done for another event that like it's like a Russian organization that no one can even like verify

but they were like people People are just insisting, even though we don't even know the results of this test, just that she failed it. People are insisting that that means that because she had like, she has an extra chromosome or like a different chromosome or something, even though she's born a woman that like they're saying she's a man, which seems inconsistent because all these other same people I thought were like completely genital essentialists when it came to what is a man, what is a woman? Like, what the fuck? You all changed your mind today? But yeah, so they're, there, Algeria, where it is illegal to be trans. They think that Algeria sent a male, trans male boxer to beat up a woman at the Olympics. And that literally did not happen.

And that is somehow getting more outrage on social media. from the Protect the Children crowd, then the guy who actually, like, raped a child? Who's at the Olympics? Oh, my God. Like, and they're not really talking about that one? It's, yeah, they're just whipped up into a frenzy, because I guess the media told them to. I just the culture wars. Yeah.

Evasion, we're being, oh, my God, like, what was that? It's a crazy stat of, like, how many. Americans were polled of like what percentage of people they think are trans like in the country 40% like some of them thought it's like it's like what do what do you what world are you actually living in like yeah you've been like whipped up into a frenzy over just lies and hatred spread online well the less the less oh my god common a group is the more the more marginalized a group is the easier it is to misrepresent and create caricatures of them because there's going to be a lot of people that are only fed what they've seen on social media.

And their idea of a trans person is like the person who had to freak out at GameStop. And that's what they like, because they've either never met a trans person or don't know that they've met a trans person. Like you used to be able to do the exact same thing with gay people. But now it's like, okay, everybody kind of at least knows a gay person. Right? So. Mm-hmm.

Furies are next. Yeah. Next on the Chapin' blog. It's been, uh, yeah, well, just the way, something's like shifting lately with the way social media is like affecting reality. I don't know how much you know about like the riots in the UK and all the shit about the Olympics. Like people are, they're doing things based off this bullshit that's spread online.

Yeah. These, these bad faith moneyed interests, you know? It's really kind of a scary situation we're in. I didn't really know what the fucking solution is. Yeah, it's... Yeah, it's... Yeah, we got here from the Olympics, but... Sad and concerning

just how easily duped people are in ways where it's like, okay, wait, like, your perspective is that, like, you found the real scoop that they won't tell you. But if you had that perspective, if you actually, like,

if you valued having that, you'd think that you'd value the truth more? You'd think that you'd value accuracy. Yeah. You'd think that you'd do like one fucking search and the wealth of information and it's all at our fucking fingertips. You'd think that you just do like, that little bit of like, may I could I possibly be wrong about this thing that I read on Twitter? None of you were doing that.

Well, you can find anything now. Simultaneously, you can find anything, any evidence for anything. But there is no evidence for that. There literally is no evidence for it. Like, it's thoroughly debunked. It's thoroughly debunked. From the way they process information, though, they do, though. Evidence to them is fucking libs of TikTok said it.

Exactly, yeah. They get entire world views from disingenuous headlines or just straight up lies spread by like the richest man in the world who owns X. It's crazy. It's actually crazy. So annoying. Yeah. And I guess that's the conversation about the Olympics now.

Everyone's getting like transvestigated. Mm-hmm. Andrew Tate's trans It's not yes Kyle Rittenhouse is trans Oh my God Everyone's trans Yeah

I guess it also seemed like a bigger deal Than last time Because that was like Slap bang in COVID So I think it was in Japan last time And there's unfortunate images Of like all the empty Coliseums or whatever

So yeah It's a bit of a catch-up This one seemed like a bigger deal That clips everywhere memes everywhere, that Turkish guy with the gun, the polevolta who ruined it with his, with his dick, smacking the beam. Hey. There's some good clips, some good moments.

Yeah. I like it as a concept, it's cool. Um, maybe Olympics, uh, the sportsmanship. Yeah, the concept's better than the organization. There's a hilarious stat, um, that came out recently in the UK that it was like one in five Brits thinks that if they were given five years, they could compete in the That's great. 20% of people think that they're top three in the world.

Yeah, it's like, but you basically need to be groomed into the shit to be like the best in the world, you know? You need to start when you're like four. Yeah. And then have enough money to dedicate your life to doing it even though you're not getting good to. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about. Like, how do you have a lifestyle where you can dedicate your life to some like random, you know, like shooting or something? Yeah. generation.

Then you look at like all the sports that UK is good at we're good at like the bogey sports you know like rowing and water polo and shit like that. Making horses dance. Yeah. Straight up. Yeah, it's weird.

Is the Olympics over now? Yeah, yeah. That's how much I pay attention to it. It's like every once in a while I'll see a thing on posted on social media. Yeah, I didn't watch any of it. I just watched like clips. I like looking at the like metal table every couple days.

Just seeing where everyone came. I have no idea how many medals went to anyone. That's how much I care. Yeah. What's over now? Now this, what's the next thing we get angry about? Winter Olympics. That's drama.

Winter Olympics, yeah. Dial smart, as this to say. For both of you, but mainly Adam. We know how much you write for, hate John Fevereaux's Lion King and probably Jungle Book. But what do you think about his other films, both as a writer and director? Swingers, maid, elf, Zithura, Iron Man One and Two, Chef, Cowboys and Aliens. He talks about John Fevereaux, like, as a director very much.

He's, I remember him coming up in that kind of director for hire. Exactly. He doesn't have much of a style. He's like bland. He's very bland. No, he kind of pioneered that Disney style, almost. Kind of, yeah. Like the kind of synthetic like, it's not like the Tim Burton, Alice in Wonderland look, it's something else.

It's almost like more corporate. The look of all these movies, you know, I'm 1 and 2, Cowboys and Aliens, Zathura. They will have that certain kind of sheen to them, you know? Stickiness. A different kind of stickiness, perhaps. Yeah, he's not a very interesting film like it to me. No, not at all. Being a director's good thing.

Chef was fine. Yeah, it was okay. I didn't see Maid or... What was the other one? Swingers. Swingers. I didn't see that one. I didn't see that one.

I don't feel compelled to. I don't like elf. Yeah, I've never really cared about Elf. Everyone loves Elf, but... Yeah, I've never been a Will Ferrell guy myself, so... Same. Yeah. It's just not for me.

I remember Zathura being weird. John is kind of a boring director. And there's no reason to see a movie just because his name is on it. Yeah, for sure. Should we do one more here? Yes. Kind of a funny one we can end on here. From Bilbo Scott 8.

What are your thoughts on James Cameron's usage of AI to remove film grain from his recent 4K discs as well as his response? Basically, he said, people who care about it should touch grass, lull. Yes. So there's, yeah, these articles going around. Yeah, it's weird because he's like defending the decision, but then it's like, puts his hands up. Now, but you're a dumb nerd if you even care about this. Go touch cross. What? Yeah. Like, I saw people even responding to that, like, obviously, I'm on the fucking 4K

Blu-ray so, I read it. You know, there's people responding like, okay, look, my girlfriend who doesn't even know what a U.HD is, watched this with me and said, like, why do their faces look so weird? Why is it? Right? Like, Terminator 2 is infamous. Like, one of the worst 4K transfers ever yeah yeah spent over a while and so like consistently with all of James Cameron's like older films it seems like if there's a 4k release of his films you should probably avoid it like that that's the that's the general and the fact that he was even asked about it in an interview means that there's a fucking problem right how crazy is that though and his whole like brand is the like visual fidelity like pushing that stuff yeah it's very

Yeah, he's like pioneered these like huge budget special effects movies. He's all about like Avatar, you know, like they're spending billions of dollars and they have to like be the literally the biggest movie of the year to like make a profit. Just I don't know. Like I don't know enough about the process of restoring like a 4K as in like going to the original film or negative and. transferring that to like a UHD with like HDR or whatever you want to put on it I would just I would just argue like

if you can get it to look like the original film print that would be the goal for me that's the idea that's what you want as soon as you have this weird automated process whether it's AI or something else if you're if you're if you're making people look like plastic when they shouldn't that's a problem james

and it's not about people touching grass it seems like something you should probably care the most about instead of getting weird and defensive about it's very weird to be dismissive like that seems like something you should care about does he watched any of the 4k yeah have you seen them it's it's so yeah you've like dedicated your life to this like this why are you hand-waving that it's so weird what very weird but um i did see they drop the seed bearer title from the new avatar so that's massively disappointing it was going to

be called the seed bearer it used to be like referred to as like yep the next one's going to be like the seed bearer or so avatar three the seed bearer something like that um so that's very disappointing that that's gone because that's hilarious and then it was going to be called Avatar 3 this time there's fire in it. Well, it's that as well. Oh. That's the subtitle. Okay.

All right, thanks for questions. Yeah. Yeah, son. You got a wreck? Oh yeah, it is my wreck. I do have a wreck. Someone I've wanted to revisit for a while because I think the conversation could be interesting. I feel like I've been forced with some of these recent, uh,

I guess appearances on interviews online and one that's got me thinking about this movie again, that being American Beauty, Kevin Spacey. Sure. Okay. Yeah, it's been a long time for me. It's time. Yeah, I used to really love that movie back in the early 2000s. It's been a long time.

All the stuff with Kevin Spacey's happened since. He's on all these weird interviews going around. It's like a, I don't know. an interesting film to revisit, I feel like. Very excited. Thank you. If you would like to watch American beauty and not get spoiled for it,

1999, directed by Sam Mendez, written by Ellen Ball, starring Kevin Spacey. It's in the IMDB top 250 at number 77. 77, okay. Yeah, watch it before the next episode comes out. These episodes come out every two weeks.

You can listen to them early. Go to sardonicast.com. Sign up for premium. It's only $2 a month. Also, patreon.com slash sardonicast. Same thing. Or go to the YouTube members thing. And you just click join.

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Hit the bell in the regular channel. Okay. and you got your tickets for Romulus I do nice I'm ready all right I'll buy mine I'm actually even good about it was talking shit a few episodes ago I'm feeling a bit better more curious now okay well

maybe you're setting yourself up for disappointment true we'll find out all right thanks for listening everybody thanks everyone have a happy Shrek 5 Or crispy Oh god Stop it

I can't do it Stay crispy out there everybody Fuck shit All right Bye everybody Bye everybody