I understand that all directors want to leave their "stamp" (his reads "retard") on a movie, but you shouldn't change arbitrary things just for the sake of change. For example, in the show, the character named Sokka is pronounced "Sock-uh" and the character named Aang is pronounced "Ayng." In the movie, for no apparent reason their names are pronounced "Souh-ka" (long "o") and "Aahng," (long "a") respectively. Okay. This wasn't a BOOK. It's not like the pronunciation of the characters' names was kind of up in the air. It was a cartoon, on television, with SOUND. Their names were pronounced the way the actual creators of the show wanted them to be fucking pronounced you overwhelmingly douchy douchebag. There is NO REASON to make this change. It is pointless and irritating to the viewer.
I will say this, the entire first season was condensed in a smart way. THAT was done well. Things that had to happen happened and they didn't always happen the way they did in the cartoon, but things tied together very nicely. I appreciated the way the story was truncated and it made sense. They even made references to things that will happen in future movies and that happened in the original series (one character references "Hama," the blood-bender we meet in book 3 [season 3 for the uninitiated] and whom I assume we'll meet in the third movie). That was all good and well.
But also, he took all the fun out of the show. I mean ALL of it. A:TLA wasn't some intense, serious, deep show. It's a KID'S SHOW for chrissake. It was funny and charming and had parts that literally had me rolling ("MY CABBAGES!" for example). There is almost ZERO of this in the movie. There is like maybe 2 ever-so-tiny scenes that got a brief chuckle out of the audience. But this much austerity is unnecessary in what is, may I remind you once more, A KID'S SHOW.
The final crime was that it took a full thirty minutes before anything happened. I was, literally, bored for thirty fucking minutes. And it's not just because I knew what was going to happen, having seen the series a gajillion times, it's because IT WAS FUCKING BORING.
The real tragedy of this is that A:TLA was a goddamn good series and had a lot of meat -- material, that is -- to be turned into a fantastic film. I'm not some kind of LOTR elitist who cries whenever someone ruins the sanctity of "my" show, but goddamnit this show didn't just have amazing potential, as a cartoon series, it lived up to that potential and THEN SOME. The character development had the depth that I've seen serious adult shows completely lack. The humor was spot-on and always well-timed and often very clever. The storylines were, for the most part, interesting and worthwhile. I mean, there were filler episodes, of course. All shows have them. But the filler episodes were fun to watch and kept you engaged.
In short, M. Night Shyamalamadingdong took something that was already good, made some completely pointless changes, pulled out all the good stuff, and tried to push it as a legitimate adult film even though it's still rated and geared towards a tween-aged crowd. The CGI was okay. The kids' acting was horrible, but they're kids (although I do have to give them props for their, er, what I'll call Tai Chi abilities -- the movements made during bending). The guy that plays Sokka is like Anakin Fucking Junior. MAKE A FACIAL EXPRESSION! TWITCH OR SOMETHING. Bleh.
The final crime was that it took a full thirty minutes before anything happened. I was, literally, bored for thirty fucking minutes. And it's not just because I knew what was going to happen, having seen the series a gajillion times, it's because IT WAS FUCKING BORING.
The real tragedy of this is that A:TLA was a goddamn good series and had a lot of meat -- material, that is -- to be turned into a fantastic film. I'm not some kind of LOTR elitist who cries whenever someone ruins the sanctity of "my" show, but goddamnit this show didn't just have amazing potential, as a cartoon series, it lived up to that potential and THEN SOME. The character development had the depth that I've seen serious adult shows completely lack. The humor was spot-on and always well-timed and often very clever. The storylines were, for the most part, interesting and worthwhile. I mean, there were filler episodes, of course. All shows have them. But the filler episodes were fun to watch and kept you engaged.
In short, M. Night Shyamalamadingdong took something that was already good, made some completely pointless changes, pulled out all the good stuff, and tried to push it as a legitimate adult film even though it's still rated and geared towards a tween-aged crowd. The CGI was okay. The kids' acting was horrible, but they're kids (although I do have to give them props for their, er, what I'll call Tai Chi abilities -- the movements made during bending). The guy that plays Sokka is like Anakin Fucking Junior. MAKE A FACIAL EXPRESSION! TWITCH OR SOMETHING. Bleh.
The movie should have and could have been better had it been in someone else's hands.
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