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lonesparkThe movie The Last Airbender is different from AtLA the series in many ways. I'm a bit sympathetic to the general idea of changes. Feature films have to be different from TV series, live action has to be different from cartoons, etc. But when you are cutting or changing you should have good reasons, and those cuts and changes send messages about what you think the valuable parts of the source material are.
Here are some things that do not seem to be valued by the people who made TLA:
Female characters
Bright colors
Humor
Dialogue that is good
Fat characters
Bending that looks cool or impressive
People of color who do not need some white kids to save them
Dialogue that is not the worst dialogue in any film I can remember seeing
An Avatar State that actually conveys power and danger
Showing anything that could instead be described through an Exposition Dump of horrible dialogue
Grrr argh I don't even.
This movie is really dark. The only part I remember that seemed to have much light or color in it was when the avatar boy is remembering his childhood in the monastary. And for that to stand out as vibrant and peaceful and fun (but still kind of...dim) is awesome, but everything else is so grim and grimy and drained of color...why?
They pronounce the characters' names differently...why? (It's kind of good, though, because you can be like "Sokka wouldn't do that. But "Soak-a" totally would." "Iroh is a awesome fat guy, but his cousin "Eeeroh" looks different.")
There are some pretty cool bending effects. Firebenders (except super-awesome ones?) seem to need to have fire to do stuff, and that makes a certain amount of sense.
Aasif Manvi appears to be having fun trying to destroy the moon, so that's cool, I suppose. Also, TLA Ozai/Zhao FTW.
To be continued. Brought to you by insomnia and dialogue like "We have to show them we believe in our beliefs just as much as they believe in theirs."
Here are some things that do not seem to be valued by the people who made TLA:
Female characters
Bright colors
Humor
Dialogue that is good
Fat characters
Bending that looks cool or impressive
People of color who do not need some white kids to save them
Dialogue that is not the worst dialogue in any film I can remember seeing
An Avatar State that actually conveys power and danger
Showing anything that could instead be described through an Exposition Dump of horrible dialogue
Grrr argh I don't even.
This movie is really dark. The only part I remember that seemed to have much light or color in it was when the avatar boy is remembering his childhood in the monastary. And for that to stand out as vibrant and peaceful and fun (but still kind of...dim) is awesome, but everything else is so grim and grimy and drained of color...why?
They pronounce the characters' names differently...why? (It's kind of good, though, because you can be like "Sokka wouldn't do that. But "Soak-a" totally would." "Iroh is a awesome fat guy, but his cousin "Eeeroh" looks different.")
There are some pretty cool bending effects. Firebenders (except super-awesome ones?) seem to need to have fire to do stuff, and that makes a certain amount of sense.
Aasif Manvi appears to be having fun trying to destroy the moon, so that's cool, I suppose. Also, TLA Ozai/Zhao FTW.
To be continued. Brought to you by insomnia and dialogue like "We have to show them we believe in our beliefs just as much as they believe in theirs."
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 03:12 pm (UTC)Ozai/Zhao was not even something that had crossed my mind. (Then again, I've not even seen the movie and have no intention of ever doing so.) I thank you for the correction of that oversight. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 06:30 pm (UTC)Ozai/Zhao mostly only works in the movieverse, I think. I have read Azula/Zhao stuff elsewise. It is often horriblegood.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 09:16 pm (UTC)I haven't dug up much A:TLA fanfic, for whatever reason. =/
Do you have any recommendations?
no subject
Date: 2012-05-21 04:54 pm (UTC)