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Tagline: Four nations. One destiny.
Adaptation of Nickelodeon's "Avatar: The Last Airbender" which follows the adventures of the successor to a long line of Avatars who must put aside his irresponsible ways and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations. The studios have dropped "Avatar" from the title to avoid confusion with James Cameron's "Avatar.
The Fire Nation is waging a ruthless, oppressive war against the other three nations. The film's hero, the reluctant young Aang (Noah Ringer), is the "Last Airbender" -- the Avatar who, according to prophecy, has the ability to manipulate all of the elements and bring all the nations together. Aided by a protective teenage Waterbender named Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her bull-headed brother Sokka, Aang proceeds on a perilous journey to restore balance to their war-torn world.
Jackson Rathbone plays Katara's brother Sokka, and Dev Patel plays Prince Zuko, prince of the Fire Nation. Mandvi is set to play the role of Commander Zhao, an ambitious and hot-tempered Fire Nation commander. Toub is cast as Uncle Iroh, the retired Fire Nation general and devoted surrogate parent to Dev Patel's character Zuko. Curtis is set to play the ruthless ruler Fire Lord Ozai. Keong Sim has been cast in the role of Earthbending Father.
About The Production
Starting in 2005, Nickelodeon began airing an original animated series called “Avatar: The Last Airbender” from co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. The show struck a chord with a wide range of viewers. Soon, “Avatar” fever had spread to become an international phenomenon (the show now airs in more than 120 countries). It soon came to the attention of one of Hollywood’s best storytellers—M. Night Shyamalan. The double-Oscar-nominated filmmaker comments, “‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ fell into my lap. It hit me like an epiphany.”
Shyamalan’s daughters had fallen in love with the series, particularly the character of the young female waterbender Katara. Intrigued by their unprecedented fan loyalty, Shyamalan decided to watch the television show alongside them, and then he too was hooked.
Clearly, there was cinematic potential in the series. Yet to adapt the 30-some hours of stories into a feature film would not be a task without significant challenge— including the filmmaker’s entry into a genre he had yet to explore in his previous work. “I knew from the moment I put the first words on the page, that to do a movie of this complexity, you have to put work into it. Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who created the ‘Avatar’ series, spent six years constructing the mythology.
“It has been a real eye-opener and interesting learning curve for me to do something of this scale, while still wanting to maintain a level of perfection,” continues Shyamalan. “I was scared to death every day of shooting, as it could be so overwhelming, and there were so many unknowns. This movie is two-and-a-half times bigger than anything I have ever done.”
Since the filmmakers of “The Last Airbender” are devoted fans of the original series, they have one ultimate goal that they hope to achieve. “We want to create a film that will not only live up to the fans’ expectations, but also expand it to a worldwide audience in ways that only a full length live-action motion picture can offer,” says Shyamalan.
“Avatar” creators DiMartino and Konietzko were extremely helpful with the development of the screenplay for Shyamalan, helping to scale down the many stories to feature film size. “I can’t tell you how comforting it was to have them only a phone call or email away when I got in a jam. Their ‘Avatar’ mythology is so well thought out that they had an answer and a back story for all my questions.”
Shyamalan had toyed with the idea of doing a franchise type of movie for many years, but never connected with any material. But “The Last Airbender” seemed to have all of the elements that fascinated the filmmaker since he was young, when he first saw “Star Wars”—epic fantasy, fueled by an inherent spirituality, and featuring martial arts at its core.
Says producer Frank Marshall, who collaborated with Shyamalan previously on “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs,” “Night has such a signature filmmaking style and a unique way of telling a story. He has the ability to touch an audience in a way that is very broad. In this film he is expanding his talent and range, which is an incredibly exciting prospect.”
Adds producer Sam Mercer, “Night had been interested in and offered other franchise pictures before in his career, but until ‘The Last Airbender,’ he did not find one that he could make his own—organically, from the first words he put on the page.”
Shyamalan offers that his own comfort zone lies within the thriller genre and admits, “It’s good to change it up and teach myself something new and do something completely different.”
“The Last Airbender” explores Book One of the “Avatar” series that centers around the element of water. The film follows Aang, the Avatar, as he embarks on a quest to master all four elements in order to save the world.
Mastering the Art of Bending
Once Noah Ringer was cast as Aang, he only had about one month to train—as an actor, that is. He was surprised at how much the discipline of acting and the practice of martial arts had in common. Observes Ringer, “In Taekwondo, you listen to your instructor, and then respond. You do the same thing in acting with your director.”
Ringer trained with the stunt department for a couple of months prior to filming, incorporating his martial arts moves in complicated, choreographed fight sequences. Says Shyamalan, “Noah has a way of adding poetry to his moves, and at the same time, never losing his ‘Aang sensibility.’ On set, we had to pinch ourselves that this is not only his first movie, but also his first time ever acting. I challenged him everyday on the integrity of his acting, and he would come right back at me with ideas and interpretations of his own. He has a competitive instinct that makes him want to be the best he can be at everything he does.”
Nicola Peltz had played ice hockey for many years, and was thinking about playing professionally before she made the decision to pursue acting. Her athletic skills came in handy when training for the role of Katara, which included a regimen of martial arts training that started five months before filming began.
Says the New York native, “I started training on my own in Brooklyn and learned Kung Fu, which is a style of martial arts that is force against force. Then, a couple of months before we started filming, I went to Philadelphia and began training in Tai chi, then putting the choreography of the fight scenes together with Noah and Jackson.” Nicola focused the majority of her training on Tai chi chuan, a martial art with a gentler, slower style and flowing movements. Tai chi uses internal energy to promote mental calmness and clarity, and it is the chosen style of bending utilized by the Water Tribe.
Four Cinematic ‘Nations’ Combine Forces: Martial Arts, Stunts, VFX and SFX In the television series, bending was accomplished through the magic of animation. But for a live-action film, many elements would need to work in harmony in order to cinematically conjure the onscreen control of fire, water, earth and air. These four movie elements were martial arts, stunt work, visual and special effects.
Shyamalan has always been a big fan of martial arts and martial arts films. “I am a huge martial arts freak. I am one of those guys that has a statue of Bruce Lee in my office and has seen ‘Enter the Dragon’ dozens and dozens of times.”
While leads Noah Ringer and Dev Patel both hold black belts in Taekwondo, the style of martial art from Korea, they would need to work on transforming their moves to fit with those called for in the film. The world of “The Last Airbender” uses the Chinese martial art known as Wushu, which incorporates several fighting styles. In the original animated series, four styles of Wushu were used to differentiate the four types of bending: Baguazhang for airbending, Tai chi for waterbending, Hung Ga for earthbending, and Northern Shaolin Kung Fu for firebending. The film utilizes the same styles, and the actors and stunt performers spent months training prior to shooting. The director even had Ringer watch Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” for reference.
There are thousands of different kinds of Wushu, and it is the way the moves are executed that determines the style. A parallel could be drawn to singing. There are many styles (pop, rock, jazz), all considered singing. But it’s the way the song is sung that determines what kind it is.
Designing "The Last Airbender"
The design transformation of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” series into feature film began in November 2007, when executive producers (and series co-creators) DiMartino and Konietzko handed over all of their sketches and designs from the show to production designer Philip Messina. In seeking to blow up this world from the small screen to the big, Messina and his art department began gathering references. Looking at everthing from travel and history magazines, to sociology journals, to tomes dedicated to dead languages, they slowly began to complile a bible of their own concept illustrations. From China to North Africa to India, even Medieval times, Messina ruled nothing out to inspire him during the design process. Later, Messina’s original conceptual art for every set stood as the ultimate reference throughout production.
Messina, who worked with Shyamalan as an art director on “The Sixth Sense,” says, “I had to think of what the communities of each nation were like. From the perished Air Nomads, to the grandeur of the Northern Water Tribe, versus the Earth Villagers who were more organic, to the industrialized Fire Nation. Designing the nations were like four pieces to a puzzle. Every time I changed one of them, it affected the other. I wanted to do them in concert with each other, and make them feel coherent, yet uniquely different.”
A year prior to filming, Messina was ready to build with a full art department and construction department of more than 250 artisans. The production designer collaborated closely with costume designer Judianna Makovsky, hair and makeup designer Ivana Primorac, and cinematographer Andrew Lesnie. Together, they sought to relate all design decisions—from a button, to a wig, to an establishing shot—so that no detail was overlooked.
Four Nations, Many Worlds
Perhaps Messina’s biggest design challenge lay in the fortress of the Northern Water Tribe (NWT). The impressive structure—which needed to appear is if made entirely of ice—is the setting for the last third of the film, which features the siege of the fortress by the soldiers of the Fire Nation (employing more than 400 performers in the battle sequences). Says Messina, “The NWT set was the hardest to design. You essentially have an environment that exists in a polar ice cap. You have to start questioning, ‘How do these people live?’ We took the conceit that they were one with their environment, and that they lived in this extreme climate by choice.”
Messina designed the NWT set with many Islamic, Indian and Turkish influences in mind. Utilizing more than 200 workers, the construction of the massive set took nearly four months to complete, and it slowly rose from the floor of an airplane hangar the size of two football fields laid side-to-side. To reinforce the feeling of being hewn from ice, the set was enrobed in thousands of gallons of blue- and gray-tinted polymer, all topped with Epson salt-based snow.
For the raw and natural sets of the Earth village, a rock quarry provided the perfect environment in which to build the outdoor sets. Designers co-opted the colors in the soil, rocks and surrounding wilderness into their palette. Primitive tent structures were built free-hand from the logs of the nearby forest, and the town took on the feel of a nomadic Bedouin encampment.
When scouting the quarry for the Earth village prison set, Messina was pleasantly surprised to find pre-existing industrial equipment right in the middle of the space. “Instead of fighting it, I thought we could incorporate it into our set. The huge tower and conveyor belt machinery felt like it could belong to the archaic and industrialized look of the Fire Nation.” A constructed pair of steel doors and catwalk later, the design challenge was transformed into an asset.
The design of the far-reaching Fire Nation—drenched in fiery reds and ominous blacks—stands distinct and alone from the looks of the other worlds…and for a very specific reason. Says Messina,“‘Avatar’ co-creators Mike and Bryan reminded me that the Fire Nation began as a tribal people, just like all the others. It was just so easy to label them as bad guys. But as their empire grew through industrialization, they also grew in power.” Messina’s resulting design is reminiscent of early industrialized America, mixed with elements of ancient Japanese culture.
Perhaps the best example of this is the Fire Nation Dining Hall, where Prince Zuko is humiliated in front of his rank-and-file tribesmen. The hall was constructed in the interior of a former power plant. Shuttered more than 25 years ago, the plant offered Messina a network of exposed pipes and walls with peeling paint. The production designer saw visions of Japan in the age of the shoguns and China under Communist rule, and incorporated them into the look of the dining hall.
When the film begins, the Air Nomads have already fallen to the military campaign of the Fire Nation, so Messina knew that the sets of this formerly great nation would be largely in ruin. He looked to ancient temples in, Cambodia for many of the references that inspired the design of the Northern Air Temple. The Temple is the site of a showdown between Aang, the Blue Spirit and a squad of Fire Nation soldiers. The set was built on a soundstage in northern Philadelphia, and while it looks to be entirely made of stone, rubber is incorporated into the structure to provide the stunt men a softer place to break their falls.
On Location: Going Greenland
Despite its pastoral name, most of the continent of Greenland is an icy landscape. With the commencement of principal photography, production traveled to the tiny, already scouted coastal town of Ilulissat, Greenland (the town’s literal name means “iceberg”). There, all scenes of Katara, Sokka and the village of the Southern Water Tribe would be filmed.
Going all the way to Greenland for filming definitely shows the filmmakers’ commitment to authenticity. The site is accessible only by a small plane, and the temperatures during shooting sometimes dipped well below zero. Yet, to capture the stunning views of snow-covered hills against clear blue skies and a sea riddled with icebergs, all of the effort was certainly worth it.
Says producer Sam Mercer, “We felt strongly that the beginning of the movie should feel like a very real beginning to a journey. We came to Greenland because there is nowhere in the world like it; it is a one-of-a-kind landscape with icebergs, water and glaciers, all in the same place.”
Producer Frank Marshall (who had previously shot there) says, “One of the great things about this location for the actors is that they are among the real elements, so their performances are genuine. They are able to respond to being in the record cold temperatures in a natural and normal way. When we needed a location that called for ice, icebergs and no trees, we knew exactly where to go.”
As nothing could be left to chance, all details were gone over repeatedly. Continues Mercer, “After the challenge of transporting our equipment by ship in enormous containers from the U.S., we then had a huge checklist for every department, covering everything, from how you keep people warm while they are working, to how you keep the cameras from freezing.”
So the filmmakers, cast and crew—who were asked to “pack a little patience” in their suitcases—ventured to Ilulissat for the first nine days of filming “The Last Airbender.” All cast, crew and gear were then transported to remote locations just outside of Ilulissat via helicopter. To use the location to its fullest, scenes were filmed in multiple locations, from atop a frozen lake, to teetering on the edge of an ice cap. The main location while shooting in western Greenland was the Southern Water Tribe Village, constructed against the stark backdrop of icebergs floating in Disco Bay. Building began two months prior to principal photography, and production designer Messina remembers, “None of us had ever built anything like this in an extreme environment before. We had paintbrushes freezing over before the first paint stroke was applied.” In all, the crew numbered some 150, and was comprised of workers from the U.S., Greenland and Denmark.
The village featured 11 full-sized igloo structures, which had been molded out of fiberglass in Philadelphia, transported piecemeal and reassembled on location. The set was dressed with animal hides, pottery, handmade drums, fish and netting borrowed from the locals. Antique wooden canoes were provided, courtesy of the local Ilulissat museum. Ironically, in between takes, the snow-covered igloos served as warming rooms for the cast, thanks to the presence of portable heaters inside.
The set was constructed upon government land protected by UNESCO World Heritage, which dictated that certain rules and regulations had to be obeyed. For one, the art department was not allowed to touch the ground with any of their building materials— so, all structures were bolted to the thick icy surface that rested on top of the soil. In addition to the village where Katara and Sokka live, filming also took place in front of the strange frozen orb where the pair discover Aang. That set was built using mostly snow reinforced with Styrofoam.
 Production notes provided by Paramount Pictures. |
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The Last Airbender