Before I gather the list of reasons why I am so disappointed (okay, pissed) at M.Night right now, let me just clarify that NOT everything about this film was terrible. There were some really beautiful elements of authenticity in the film that at least made me sit through the whole thing.
First off, the filming locations. M.Night definitely wanted us to see the South Pole with all of its icy glaciers and mountains of snow, and he gave us a lot of great scenery to look at admirably as the characters moved from place to place.
Second, the costumes/set designs. M.Night definitely did his homework and wanted to have each Nation be represented in its own traditional garb and interiors. I admire the fact that he kept the Chinese writing all over the posters/maps/documents that were seen in the film, and that the characters wore their outfits gracefully (although I must say... Aang's cloak looks like it was stolen from an Ewok from Star Wars).
Thirdly, believe it or not, is the bending effects. In the short amount of time M.Night gave us to look at them between scenes, they actually looked cool! I think it's something we take for granted nowadays - where any high school kid with After Effects can make a pretty decent fireball on his hand - but visual effects in a film that requires a lot of intricate detail and movement with more than one person isn't an easy task to do. It's daunting. I give a big 'thanks' to the FX people in the movie, because they definitely did their job well.
So... that is basically everything I could say that kept me going throughout this whole experience. Now comes the laundry list of things that M.Night completely bombed:
1) The writing. It was horrendous, like M.Night had been sitting in front of his TV watching all of "Avatar: Book 1" episodes and jotting down his favorite scenes, and saying to himself "I'm gonna put these in my movie, and make them INTENSE!" Sure. Forget character development. That's not as important as... say... random creative exposition. Good god; there came a point were I was almost sure Momo was going to start talking, explaining to everyone why he's the Last Lemur.
2) The name pronunciations. It's "Aang" not "Ah-ng". I cringed every time somebody said the latter, and that goes with "Soh-ka" and "Ee-roh" as well. Although I must say... it started to get amusing in the theatre, where people started saying "Aang!" and "Sokka!" out loud for correction. I can understand that M.Night would want creative freedom with these characters, but why would he go as far as to change the NAMES, considering there's a huge fanbase out here who's accustomed to saying the names a certain way?
3) The casting. I'm not going to pick on ethnicity, because that honestly didn't bother me as much as the actors themselves. Half of the time I wasn't sure if it was their individual ability to deliver lines, or if it was based off of what M.Night wanted (INTENSITY). First off, Aasif Mandi as Admiral Zhao. What the hell happened!? Here's a character who I thought would be a menacing bully for Zuko, and he just comes across as a wimpy villain who just seems to be best friends with the Fire Lord. That voice, too, was excruciatingly hard to take seriously. Second, Sokka -- oh wait, Soh-ka -- and his deadpan staring contest with his line-delivery. Jackson Rathbone wasn't my first pick for Sokka to begin with (even in the interviews, it didn't seem like he completely understood what he was getting into) and so I ultimately just watched him attempt slapstick humor and actually care for Princess Yue in this film. Painful. Thirdly, Katara. She was... okay... not amazing, but at least she attempted more natural emotion than her sibling counterpart whenever she said something. Nicola definitely showed that she cared about her performance, and her 'bending' movements were graceful and well-practiced. I just feel like there was more missing from her as a character that she just wasn't given to work with. It surprised me to hear M.Night specifically wanted her for this role, but I guess he just wanted her to narrate and be Ah-ng's cheerleader.
4) Fire Lord Ozai. This guy gets his own number, because the fact that we actually see his face is awful. AWFUL. There's a reason that Mike/Bryan kept Fire Lord Ozai's face hidden throughout the first two seasons of their show, and that was to build apprehension and FEAR of the guy. The Fire Lord IS the enemy, and we as the fans (seeing ourselves through Aang's eyes) have never had to face him, and yet we know that day is bound to come. That whole feeling of intensity was just lost for me, and it sucks because I actually respect Cliff Curtis's acting. M.Night gave him very little to work with.
5) Suki. I'll brush over the fact that King Bumi, Jet, and Jeong Jeong were all written out of this film... but I SPECIFICALLY remember seeing images of Suki and the Kyoshi in the film's offical website. She never shows up. Not a single Kyoshi Warrior shows up to wrestle Sokka. Thanks, M.Night. I had a this nice Suki wallpaper on my desktop for months, for nothing.
6) Appa and Momo. I mean, I knew that Appa was a great mode of transportation, but I wasn't expecting that to be his ONLY purpose. And Momo... what did he do? I can't even remember...
7) Aang/Zuko conflict. Maybe the film just sped by too fast, but I just couldn't see the too of them feeling conflicted at all. It was too one-sided: Zuko needs to capture Aang, Aang needs to get away from him. One thing I loved about season 1 is that you see how much Zuko STRIVES to capture Aang while not being exactly genuine about it... and somehow... Aang notices that and tries to change Zuko around. In the movie, all you get is a quick "we could be friends, you know," and Aang scampers off in his merry way.
This is as much as I can come up with, and I'm not going to gripe about all the differences that M.Night made from the series, in terms of story. Basically, it was his choice what he wanted to keep, what he wanted to blend together, and what he wanted to take out completely. Still, I can't help but say that I was really disgruntled by what I saw as a whole in this film, because it really DID have so much potential. With better writing, and more 'bending' moments, I think this film could've been as good as a Harry Potter film. I saw the "Airbender" trailers and was excited about all these familiar scenes they'd be putting in, with awesome backdrops and bending effects added in... and in the end, it's the writing that made it flat.
I went to this movie with a packed audience at midnight, and ten minutes into the film, the cheering faded. =(
Yeah... I think I'll stick to my "Avatar" series and pretend this film never happened.
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