User blog comment:LaviBookman/So I watched the Last Airbender today/@comment-4509522-20120607005628/@comment-973828-20120607022732

I understand a lot of fans expected adaptations to be "as is" with the original material, but translating across mediums can be a huge challenge. There are different restrictions on movies, books, TV shows, and video games that are adapted by the original directors. This is why I'm usually reserved when adaptations of a book or TV show (or the dreaded video game adaptation) are announced: most of them turn out poorly because the director failed to both satisfy fans and impress the broader audience at the same time.

The Resident Evil films are a notorious example. They had very little relation to the video game franchise, putting a brand new character in as the protagonist, and then went on with these crazy comic book-like powers that was not characteristic of the games. Apparently the general audience liked it, since they are making a new Resident Evil movie, but I find it hard to believe that these movies could satisfy fans of the game franchise. It's fortunate that Shymalan wasn't that extreme with The Last Airbender, though the movie itself was still bad.

On that note, I have some interest in the planned movie adaptation of Mass Effect, since it will be produced by Legendary Pictures (the studio that brought us Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy) AND BioWare, the development team behind Mass Effect, wants to be involved specifically to ensure that the movie turns out good.