As a zoologist, I also wanna point out how stupid a pack of animals would be to attack a giant predator's nest who is much larger then them, and even continue the assault after multiple of their pack are killed - and then just leave the baby birds behind without eating them. No animal is that stupid.
Fun fact: the movie was once a simple camping story. Father gets hurt and son goes for help. The son faces his fears against a BEAR. This is probably why they used the name URSA when they ruined the entire premise and turned it into this science fiction nonsense.
+breadordecide That's cool that they tried to do polyglot accents and change it according to status. That makes sense, with how lower class might be less educated and use less-refined versions of the accent vs. more upper-class people. Do you see a lower class person in this movie, though, to show the difference? I understand that people didn't understand what accents were being used while watching the movie, and it probably didn't help that Jaden apparently couldn't hold on to the accent for very long in the film (from what I've been told.)
5:02. You'd think that, but I'd like to point you to a line from The Last Airbender: "My brother and the princess became friends right away." You do not "tell" that much in books, a medium that lends itself much more to telling. Think about it. Imagine if you were reading The last Airbender, the novel, and it was written from the first person perspective of Katara. at one point she writes the following: "As we stood before the council I caught a glimpse of Sokka starring at Yue. After the council was disbanded, my brother and the princess became friends right away, while me and Aang went with master Pakku to begin our training." Compared to: "As we stood before the council I caught a glimpse of Sokka starring at Yue. After the council was disbanded, my brother turned to me and said "Hey, I'm going to go talk with the princess." before rushing after her. I saw her smile as he introduced himself, and they began chatting as they walked together. I turned around and me and Aang went with master Pakku to begin our training." By the description of the actions that Sokka and Yue have done, I established that they were becoming friends very quickly. I will admit, I'm not the best writer in the world, but even i understand that the best way to establish character and relationships is by telling the audience what they do, not who they are. And Shyamalan is getting paid to do this crap.
Yeah, that really pissed me off...the movie COULD have been amazing, if he'd scrapped all that stupid narration and cut out, like, half of the scenes. All he had to do was highlight the key points of the first season: Finding Aang, discovering the air nomad genocide, and then defending the water temple. None of that earth bender shit, no blue spirit, they could probably have cut the love story between Sokka and Yue, as well. You have a powerful scene of the gang flying away on Appa (who was also mishandled int he film) after leaving the air temple, there's a sense of quiet despair and melancholy...aaaaand then Katara's voice chimes in and destroys any pathos the movie had built up. Fuck this movie. And fuck Shyamalan.
Amelia Bee Well, you see, if they miss out the "earth bender shit" then quite a lot of important details get missed out for any sequels they had planned. That said, they missed out tonnes of them anyway. Like REALLY IMPORTANT ONES. Like THAT CHARACTER BECOMES ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS SO YOU HAVE ALREADY BROKEN FILM THREE YOU MORON! level of bad.
Amelia Bee As the Nostalgia Critic pointed out, the movie's worst sin was scrapping any all attempts to make us empathize with the characters in favor of exposition up the wazoo.
At the time, I don't think Shyamalan had had a twist in any of his films since The Village. Since then Split had one, but that twist didn't affect the movie's own plot.
"The toast landed... jellyside down!" -- Yeah, Devil was a real step up alright. It should also be noted that they don't simply track humans by smelling their fear. They smell their fear AND NOTHING ELSE.
As a person who has seen several documentaries on Scientology, the obvious themes present within this movie pretty much make this more of an advertisement for Scientology promo to me than anything else. Especially considering the fact that one of the core principles in Scientology is that fear and all other emotions are caused by a ''reactive mind'' that one can ultimately get rid of or suppress. Anyone else notice this ?.
Funny how a big flaw in After Earth is how there are absolutely no signs of civilization, and a big flaw in Battlefield Earth is that there's too much and its completely unaffected by the 1000 years that passed
When Jayden's character says he wants to work with his mom...I like to imagine that is was actually Jayden telling Will that. That makes me smile thinking that
My guess is Katai is doing a lot of internalizing here. He feels guilt for not being able to help his sister, and he interprets his father being emotionally distant as him blaming Kitai and thinking he was cowardly. His father doesn't have to do something to give him that idea. People internalize ideas that are completely in their head all the time. The problem is you needed better writing to develop this idea. We should have spent more time with Katai before the big mission.
Not really people who give into that have never been in a situation requiring clear and present thoughts. Putting fear and apprehension out of your mind are important in a crisis
Even in Battlefield Earth, the characters stumbled upon the remains of the human civilization built long before the movie's setting. And that never happens at all in THIS movie?!
Without humanity maintaining the structures, a lot of it would collapse within 1000 years. There would still be some structures still standing (hell, some will be up for a very long time), but most need constant human tinkering. Mind you, a lot of this comes from the show Life After People, but it's a good show. lifeafterpeople.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_collapses
Lol, yeah would also have been a great cut! That's the fun thing about these RU-vid reviews. These guys can take clips from anywhere, cut them together with voice-over and create something really funny in a way that no other medium does...
3:56 can Shyamalan say Marty Stu? "Everything on this planet is designed to kill humans." Clearly Shyamalamadingdong hasn't been to Australia. Also is Jaden starting to turn more and more into Hayden Christensen?
Reflecting another commenter, Jayden's acting was pretty alright in The Karate Kid remake. He has a lot more to learn as an actor, but under the right direction, he's not that bad. That film also had some very good acting from Jackie Chan, particularly when Jackie's character is emotionally upset in the 'student teaches the master' scene.
i haven't laughed this hard in a long while. You're a genius sir! the accent comment and how the ursula hunts are howlarious details. This is the future, right? So surely they have the technology to create a HazMat suit that already exists today - has existed for atleast a decade if not more...
This is a story all about how, My ship got torn and turned upside down, So if you got a minute just sit right there, And I'll tell you how we made the worst film of the year...
I just realized something... if these guys have remote probes for observation, why don't they have remote probes that can pick up things or operate simple machines? I guess what seems to be a light military ship wouldn't really need a probe like that for much other than basic repairs, and I could understand that Cypher and Katai probably wouldn't be able to jerry-rig one to fly out 100 km and continue to maintain contact with the ship. Still, it seems like something that would be a useful emergency tool.
This movie was destined to be a failure: Will Smith is a great actor, and while I not agree on your views of Jaden being a decent actor (I consider him a very mediocre actor) I agree that he can hone his craft with time. But that's not an excuse on this movie sucking: Will is SO vain and desperate on trying to push his son to become a star who forgot how make a quality film. But the movie just sank when Will hired Shamblezan as a director to suck any energy or potential left. I can say this movie might be worst than The Last Airbender: There, I said it, and I'm not taking it back. I grew to hate this movie at the rate it became one of the worst movies I've ever seen. While the Last Airbender was made out of laziness and not understanding the source material, After Earth was the product of pride of Will Smith and his whole family. Many people will disagree with me, but everyone we can agree this movie sucked bear balls.
YMS said it pretty accurately. Jayden runs around acting all cool and emotionless while Will's greatest part of acting are very emotional roles. They basically play a role designed for the other.
I don't know... Jaden at least can emote, a thing that a lot of mediocre actors can't even get right. I know I sound too indulgent but with Shyamalan at the helm I can't bring myself to put the blame completely on Jaden.
I can agree that this movie sucked. Worst than the Last Airbender? Yeah, I can't go there. I think butchering source material that completely takes it to another level compared to this movie. But they are both god awful experiences. This movie was just doomed. The vanity project side of it was setting it up to fail. But then Will Smith who is an actor locked in with charisma decided to team up with a director that sucks all charisma out of his actors and makes them give the flattest performances possible. Yeah...no shock this failed .
I saw the trailer for this movie, and decided not to even bother with it. I'm glad to see that my decision was justified. You do good work, Sean. I've been a close follower of you since Eragon; which is still one of my favourite reviews. As RU-vid reviews go, you're probably my favourite next to Doug Walker (a.k.a. Nostalgia Critic). Keep it up. A sequel? Oh please say it's The Sea of Monsters! Please! I have never thrown my 3D glasses at a screen before, but that film brought me damn close.
I never knew about the first draft. That actually sounds like the basis for a good story! So...why the whole scifi thing? And it just occurred to me: Earth is still perfectly viable. Life is flourishing. The atmosphere is less breathable, but they clearly have means to overcome that! So WHY are they bothering with fighting hostile aliens who clearly have superior technology when they can just go back home? I think giant birds and monkeys are a little less threatening than genetically engineered monsters, guys!
You know there should have been a twist at the end. That the other distress beacon was broken too. Or alternatively the Ursa hit him so hard him beating the Ursa and getting off of earth was just a delusion caused by his brain injury. Yeah think I'ma go with that.
I remember my reaction to this movies first trailer. " oh this doesn't look to bad" then directed by Shamilon appeared on screen, " oooooohhhh this is going to suck!" yeah after what he did to the last airbender I have no fate in the man. I mean my mom (who has never seen the original show) hated the movie, and she thinks twilight is as good as Harry Potter!!
12:58 lol... now I see why he didn’t get “promoted to the rank of ranger (sir)”... What kind of ranger wouldn’t know the functions of their gear and the meaning/purpose of something as significant as the entire color of the suit changing? He’s said to be an excellent student in the classroom... I would imagine he would know about every weapon, gadget, and gear. Imagine someone looking to get into the marines saying they didn’t know the purpose of their gear. So this just confirms Katai is slow, and the only reason he’s made it as far as he has is nepotism
So in short: Ursa’s are pretty much the poor man’s version of the Grimm from RWBY but instead of being attracted to negative emotions, they are attracted by fear. I believe I gave a decent summary for the Ursa’s in this movie
I've figured out the accents!!! They are from Cartmanese, like in South Park Cartman. It dawned on me when the kid was yelling about "What did you want me to do" blah blah. All I could think was "sweet," said how Cartman says it. Respect may authoritah!
I'm not one to give M. Night a pass (ESPECIALLY for the travesty he called the Last Airbender), but for this movie I'm willing to overlook his "contributions". In fact, when I saw this, I had no idea M. Night was even involved until after when I looked it up on IMDB. I see this trainwreck as the Smiths fault. First they tried to get the daughter a singing career (Whip my hair back and forth should be considered a war crime) and then they tried to make the son into an action star. UTTER FAIL. And Will Smith is such a charismatic actor, but you wouldn't believe it by watching this movie. They tried to make Jayden look good and only succeeded in making him look like a whiny little piss-ant and Will look like talking cardboard.
+MetallicaRules Sir... I'm gonna need you to do a little research. Shyamalan's first draft was said to be good, only to get fucked up with rewrites. Sure, it didn't help that he hyped it up, but still.
And he was the one who rewrote it, was he not? So even then, it's still his fault. And also, the first draft of his script referenced all 20 episodes and would have been several hours long, doesn't seem like much of an adaptation if you try to do that. I would just watch the show if that was the case. If you're going to do an adaptation, you need to know right from the beginning what parts to include, what parts to scrap, and what to change in order to fit the change from show to film. Shyamalan did not prepare properly for this role, and thus, he screwed up. I once wrote a 15 page research paper for school, but the assignment required it be 8-10 pages, so, because I did not plan appropriately, I had to cut several parts out in order to meet the criteria. And guess what, my essay suffered, and the grade showed it, and I have no one to blame but myself for that ordeal because of my own actions. Sure there were some stuff that was out of his control, but for the large part, it was him that caused the movie to fail.
It would actually be pretty cool if Kati met other humans on Earth. Let's be honest here. 7 billion people on this planet. I highly doubt a quarter of that was actually able to leave Earth. There had to have been humans left behind. Since we're animals ourselves wouldn't it make sense that those left behind evolved to survive such harsh environments over the millennium? It would give credit to "everything has evolved to kill humans." You definitely got it right Smeg. This was a huge wasted opportunity.
+Robert Moore Even after a millennia, there had to have been SOME ruins. We've been here for a while and covered a lot of the landmass -- though Katai doesn't cover much of the planet, he should've run into something during his trip....
Ricky Williams What Cypher Raige should've said was: for a thousand years all lifeforms on this planet have evolved without fear of humans. They are all feral beasts..
Wow, I never thought the inflamed amygdala would give off a distinctive odor... thanks for that scientific insight that seemed to come right out of bright of day, M. Night Shamaylan!
I just learnt that Shyamalan will be working on The Last Airbender 2 after his movie Split. Please, can we make a petition or something to erase him from existence??
+Elsa Maria because Shitmalan us a self-indulgent arrogant dude who can produce and write his own movie? Because he's filthy rich because he made so many shitty movies? :s
He has said that he would start working on the script, but let's be real here, no studio would ever greenlight it, not after the critical failure of the first one and with how public perception of the movie has only gotten worse and worse as time has gone on. Not to mention that the entire thing would have to be recast since it's been 7 years and most likely none of the original cast would even want to come back after the first train wreck of a film.
Yeah, but he definitely pulled an emotional trigger on the people playing the game. Albeit sadistic, it's good if someone's able to toy with your emotions through small events in the somewhat near beginning. It brings you right back into the feel of The Walking Dead.
Shintaro Kisaragi See, that's where I disagree. Building pathos through your characters or in a way that makes sense to the overall story = good. Doing so in a cheap manner with no context or buildup, like randomly throwing in a dead/dying animal = bad. Basically, the only way this guy knows HOW to tug at our heartstrings is to simply add a cute widdle animal out of nowhere and then have it die. It's cheap, it's lazy, and it's just plain disgusting.
Amelia Bee I didn't think it was bad or cheap (mostly because the whole game series pulls this shit constantly) It was just another choice to be made and poor Clem had to defend herself like always. At least you have the option to humanely let the dog die.
I would have though that the functionality of the suit would have been day 1 lesson 1 of his advanced ranger training. Especially a trainee who thought he was 'ready'.
Snicker... Nova Prime? Really? They settled on that, not knowing that Nova Prime was the rather Xenophobic Prime who became NEMESIS Prime... certainly not a guy you wanna annoy by taking his planet. :) (sorry, Transformers reference)
Proto Star Jhiaxus. Comes from "Gee, Axe Us", given as an in-joke name to the villain of the G2 comic when the creators learned that their comic will be cancelled in 12 issues, no matter what. :)
Yeah, Jaden Smith is a pretty decent actor (I liked him in Kung Fu Kid, aka. the Karate Kid remake with no karate in it), but he's INSANE. (Just check out his Twitter account.)
I prefer M. Night Shamalamadingdong. Everything bad about the story in this movie can be summed up in this little fact: Will Smith is a Scientologist. (This also explains Jaden Smith's moronic tweets.)
This movie kind of reminded of the Star Trek episode where Quark and Odo (who could not shapeshift at this time) crashed on a random planet. Most of the equipment got destroyed in the crash and the emergency transmitter got damaged, so they have to carry it to a mountain to work. The entire episode is just carried by two characters in ridiculous makeup bickering and it is an entertaining episode.
