One of my favorite TV shows has been turned into one of my least favorite movies and director M Night Shyamalan is to blame. I decided to make a laundry list of all that was wrong with that movie to help me vent a little and to adequately express my distaste with this whole sordid affair.
1.) The casting
That casting was some of the worst I have ever seen. The actors were not particularly good, for one thing. They delivered their lines about as flatly as they possibly could have. It looked like they were just doing as they were told instead of actually acting. I guess that's sometimes how it goes when you have a cast of mostly child actors, but that wasn't even the worst of it. The worst was the racial picks of each person. They tried to de-asian the whole series. The fire nation was made up of Indians and there was not one asian with a leading role, or maybe even a speaking role. It made for a real disconnect since they kept all the names the same. I didn't know Ziao was an Indian name... There were some Asians around as extras, but if someone was going to have lines, even a very few lines, they were white or Indian (depending on if they were a good guy or a bad guy). Sokka and Kitara's grandmother looked like the only white person in the south pole. In a sea of fire bending Indians, Iroh was the only white person. They made some really questionable racial choices that was not only untrue to the spirit of the cartoon, but also offensive and unpleasant to watch.
2.) Appa is not cute
I mean, seriously- Appa is not cute?!?! That has the be the cutest most cuddly creature in the whole mythical world. How did they manage the get something that looked like Appa without all the cuteness? I didn't even think it was possible, but in this movie, Appa looks dirty and even his face looks icky somehow. Even Momo looks gross. Appa at least provides transportation as a plot device. Momo's only purpose for being in that show is to add cuteness and adorability and humor. Why did they even bother including that character if it was only to make it look like a creepy flying rat?
3.) Pronunciation
I can understand if a movie adapted from a book pronounces things differently than you thought. When it's written you really don't know how things are supposed to be pronounced and you make your best guess, but when you're adapting things from some audio-visual source, the key part of that is the audio. You know how everything sounds. You can hear it. You hear it far more often than you see it written in fact. So, one would think the pronunciation wouldn't really be up for debate. Well tell that to Ih-row, Ong, and several others. Frankly, Ong is a more correctly Asian way of pronouncing the Avatar's name than the way they pronounced it in the series, but it's not like he was going to authentic asian-ness. The way it was, it just sounded pretentious and sloppy.
4.) Fight scenes
One of the things the cartoon did right, far better than your average cartoon, is the fight scenes. Original animation is a lot more costly than recycled animation. That's why so many cartoons have the same old power-up sequences (I'm looking at you DBZ) or transformation montages (Sailor Moon, you know what you are) and why the characters don't change clothing that often. It really tones down the excitement in a lot of cartoon having the same old fight animation. I mean, fights are supposed to get you more excited, not feel more familiar and boring. One of the things I loved about the Avatar cartoon is that they didn't do that. The fight sequences were all very original. Air bending wasn't all just gusts of wind; there were also spheres of air, whirlwinds, walking on walls, great agility, and a lot more. Water bending had ice, water octopus tentacles, frozen disks, spikes, etc. All of the bending was creative. It wasn't just the same stuff over and over. There were ideas I would never have thought of and all of them were creative, interacted with the surrounding terrain, and were generally very fun to watch. Sigh. Which brings us to the movie. Water bending was mostly just throwing water around or lifting the sea. It seemed like some overzealous yet inept choreographer tried to make his own original fight scene at one point. There's a moment where Aang is fighting a bunch of fire benders on their training ground. He's in the middle of a circular platform surrounded by hanging wooden planks and he uses his airbending to spin the planks and keep out the fire benders. First off, what is this training apparatus for? How exactly do the fire benders train with a circle of hanging planks? It seemed like that prop's only purpose was the try for an interesting fight scene and conveniently give an airbender a way to bat approaching fire benders away. The second major flaw in this plan is the *wooden* planks. Wooden. Fire benders. Wooden. Let's put two and two together. Then after apparently realizing the wooden plank thing is stupid, Aang goes to hop away agilely on the tops of these wooden poles over a pit. He manages to jump on each one with nimble grace (being an airbender and all), and the fire benders all stumble near the edge and can't follow him. Was this the part of their training grounds that they never used? Like houses that have a front room that no one ever sits in? Like the less popular Denny's in a town? Sure we went to all the rouble of digging this pit and putting in those planks, but it was more for the ambiance. They don't actually _use_ it. One has to wonder about the fire nation army that cannot successfully navigate their own training grounds.
5.) The voice-overs
I've heard people say that voice overs are a lazy plot device that never express things the actors can't express on their own, but I've never minded them. I think voice overs can be humorous and can help set up a scene. They have their place. Their place was not in this movie. Kitara kept narrating various things that could have been explained so easily and more interestingly with about one line of regular dialogue. Kitara's deadpan delivery felt like just stating the facts and getting on with the plot. It took all of the fun out of watching the movie and made it even more plodding than it already was. "We were making progress through the fire kingdom, but Sokka felt like we were being followed." Then camera pans behind them to show Sokka staring at a giant bonfire in the distance. He felt like you might be being followed, did he? What made him think that? Or how about, "At the North Pole, Sokka met the princess, who he really got along with." Why couldn't we have just seen them meet and watch him stammer for a few seconds? It would have gotten the point across without just telling us. It's terrible storytelling to tell you all the things you should just notice. I think I groaned at every voice over. They were all awful.
6.) The graphics
The reviews for this movie said that the graphics were good, but now I think they must have just been stretching to find something good to say about it. In a sea of bad, at least the special effects were ok. Honestly, that's about the most positive I could possibly be about it myself. In truth, they were sloppy and uninteresting. At one point when everyone was climbing Appa, I could see them stepping on the rungs of the ladder they were actually climbing. Appa and Momo were animated because they are major characters, but good luck finding one other animal in the whole series. That was one of the fun extra details of the cartoon. There were all these interesting hybrid animals, like tiger seals, moose lions, etc. For the cartoon, they put in the time to design characters that had no plot relevance whatsoever, just because they made the world a cuter, more interesting place. Very few shows are creative with the flora and fauna because it's usually not worth the time and effort, but it was refreshing to see in the cartoon and I enjoyed it. That was something that I thought even an incompetent director couldn't really mess up. Turns out he could. I guess he wanted to spend more of his special effects budget on... ugly Appa?
7.) The ambiance
When you watch the cartoon (and most children's programming really) the whole thing is awash in bright colors. Kids like bright colors, but it turns out M Night Shyamalan does not. This movie was so dark and drab. What type of mood was he trying to create? Everything felt grim and dirty and unhappy. Which brings us to the next point:
8.) The total absence of comic relief
Does everything have to be dark and serious all the time? Yes, apparently it does. Especially in season one of the cartoon, I was laughing all the time. Yes, their situation is serious, but the main characters are all kids. They still laugh and play and joke around. Sokka's ridiculous and Momo always gets a laugh. In the movie, Sokka was not funny. He's just about protecting his sister. Aang is not the playful kid of the series. He's a big pouty sad sack who doesn't want to be the Avatar because the monks said he could never have a family. Boo hoo. The drudgery just got tedious after a while. It was one of the least fun movies I have ever seen, but I guess that's what M Night Shyamalan does- suck the fun out of everything.
Honestly there were more things wrong with this movie as well, but I'm done writing about it. As much as I love the series, when/if the next movie comes out and it still has a 9% on rotten tomatoes, I'm just going to rewatch the series and content myself with that instead of spending money on a horrible movie that keeps my eyes pried to my watch instead of the screen.
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