DBWI: Effects of someone other then Roland Emmerich directing Airbender

Plateosaurus

Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of the release of Airbender, Roland Emmerich's adaptation of the iconic Nickelodeon series, and believe me, I do think its pretty good. Sure, its not the most faithful adaptation, but it was still a solid fantasy action/martial arts film, with a hilariously snarky Aang being one of my favourite performances. Plus hey, it paved the way for the even better Earthbenders courtesy of Justin Lin two years later.

However, what would the cinema landscape be like if he never directed? I hear screenwriter M. Night Shyamalan was tapped to direct. He's allegedly a big fan of Avatar franchise, and so he have done a more faithful one?

(OOC Notes for reference:
- There's no [serious] racebending here; Aang's played by a south asian actor of your choice. Katara and Sokka are played by maori actors with the accents to match (as the southern water tribe are based on maori and australian aboriginal cultures), and the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation's played by Asian actors)
 
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YYJ

Plateosaurus said:
Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of the release of Airbender, Roland Emmerich's adaptation of the iconic Nickelodeon series, and believe me, I do think its pretty good. Sure, its not the most faithful adaptation, but it was still a solid fantasy action/martial arts film, with a hilariously snarky Aang being one of my favourite performances. Plus hey, it paved the way for the even better Earthbenders courtesy of Justin Lin two years later.

However, what would the cinema landscape be like if he never directed? I hear screenwriter M. Night Shyamalan was tapped to direct. He's allegedly a big fan of Avatar franchise, and so he have done a more faithful one?

(OOC Notes for reference:
- There's no [serious] racebending here; Aang's played by a black actor of your choice. Katara and Sokka are played by maori actors with the accents to match (as the southern water tribe are based on maori and australian aboriginal cultures), and the Fire Nation's played by Asian actors)
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Auteur critics still maintain that Guillermo del Toro would have been the best choice of director to bring the animated series to the live action big screen, based on his sense of the magical surreal and love of Japanese Kaiju films, and pout that the full artistic vision of DiMartino and Konietzko was not realized. But at least the disaster of the proposed radical rewrite with director Michael Bey, casting Brad Pitt as Ang and Madonna as Azula was averted.
 
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GJohn902

Wasn't Shaymalan's career on the downslope at the time? Those "twist" endings he was fond of putting in his films had become stale and became a meme, while film critics generally believed he had lost his touch.

An ATLA adaptation under his command would have been a disaster, mark my words. Adapting the series "Ember Island Players" style might have been better XD
 
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