Customer Reviews

The Last Airbender

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2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is absolutely terrible. The art is terrible, the story is butchered beyond all belief, and the characters are flat and boring. Now I'm a big fan of the show and I cannot wait for the upcoming live-action film, but this is just a senseless money grab. You could finish this in less than an hour! Granted, it is a book for kids, but it feels like the spirit of the show and everything that made it one of the greatest animations of all time is just skinned alive and butchered into a 100 page fiasco of suck. Oh, and the artwork. Is this the first time the illustrator has drawn something? It shows. Half the time, I couldn't figure out what was a wall or a scenery. It looks unfinished and rushed, much like this book in general. The story loosely (very loosely) follows the events of season 1 of the show and the live-action movie coming up. I hope you have prior knowledge of the story before reading because the book does a poor job of explaining the plot. Just stay away from this thing and use your $9 to buy yourself a ticket to the film in July. You won't regret it, unless the movie sucks too. After reading this garbage, my faith for the movie greatly declined.

This book was absolutely terrible: do not waste your money. While the plot and dialogue of the television show is deep and meaningful, it seems that in an effort to force the entirety of Book One into a short manga, this spirit has been lost. The shallowness of this book makes me worry for the movie. Zuko's story is completely overlooked as well as all character development. Do not buy this book.

After the awesome manga prequel based off Zuko, I was eager to read this. The artwork is okay (Zuko's story was better than this) but the storyline itself is terrible and does not capture the essence of the story. I have to agree with the other negative reviewers here, this is a rather bad book. And the asking price is too much for a book of this quality, if you must have it, then I suppose go ahead, but this is not really a good piece of Avatar merchandise.

it was nice of them to add the kyoshi warriors and tried to put some comedy in.

thought it was too much like the movie adaptation I hated for me to like it,so much that you woulnd't get what's going on if you haven't seeing that one.

I've been a fan of the series since it launched, and when I heard about the film I was real psyched! ... Then the backlash hit. All I have really seen from it were some behind the scenes and the famous slow moving rock, and just like the film, this was getting it's share of hate. Actually, that's why I wanted to check this one out. Because of how bad users were making it out I just had to have a look.

While I haven't seen the film yet, I have heard many complaints such as race, writing, characterization, direction, you name it. Unfortunately, one of the movies biggest problems shows up here. "Why have two films when I can just chop them down to one!?" said Mr. Shyamalan. Because of how fast the movie goes, the story suffers in the same regard. Characters don't really question their actions, things just happen. Seriously, less than 20 pages in, Aang has been captured by Zuko, escaped from the Fire Nation, and now the three are off to the Air temple. Because of how fast this goes, the characters don't have anytime to develop and the reader can't really catch on. Another problem I noticed, the use of flashbacks and unnecessary narration. How do we find out how Aang escaped the Fire Nation the first time? Flashback and narration. How do we find out about Aang visiting the hall of Avatars and Zuko's alternate persona? Flashback and narration. Aang going into the spirit world? Flashback. How Aang escaped from Zuko? FLASHBACK AND NARRATION! Whenever the story has to move on, a character has to narrate what happens and how. Show don't tell... that's just as important in a comic as it is in a film.

Though, if I had to give this thing a complement, it's the artwork. It isn't bad. The design managed to blend the film and animated series together and it's actually pretty good. The artwork is cleaned up and real pleasing to the eye. And speaking of the show, there does exist some humor in here... that's a plus. Also, you remember how the subplots with the Katara's necklace and the Kyoshi Warriors were taken out? They got in here. I don't have a clue what Shyamalan's talking about Suki and the other Kyoshi Warriors stealing to much screen time, they had about as much as Iroh did.

Overall, this book just isn't worth you're money... and it's all because Shyamalan can't seem to write for his life. At least the people behind this, bless their hearts, tried to make this entertaining. Though, reading this will most likely take less effort than watching the film so if you happen upon this in a store or at the library, give it a go. Shouldn't take to long, Shyamalan took care of that.

But if anything, check out the spin off, The Last Airbender: Prequel: Zuko's Story

Written by the same folks behind this... just no M.Night to influence them (...much). As far as story telling goes, this is miles ahead of the film it's based off of and is crafted in such a way that even fans who hated the film will be pleased.