Hole in the 4th Wall

Well, as a new season of The Legend of Korra, the sequel to the hit animated show Avatar: The Last Airbender, started. I felt that it would be appropriate to start off this blog with my thoughts on the live action adaptation of the original series that most fans REFUSE to acknowledge its existence.

I will NOT get into the plot of this movie because if you wanted a summary of it, you can read the summary of the original series on Wikipedia, or better yet, you can watch the first season of Avatar to get the full story. Instead, I will be discussing why I feel this movie fails as an adaptation and as stand alone movie.

Before I begin, I must stress these are my own opinions. If you disagree, that is your choice.
Where the movie fails for me are two things: the action and the sequencing of the movie.Let’s start with the sequencing. There is a lot of things from the approximately 20 episode season that they cut out, they can also dedicate some time or even an episode or two to backstory. Now, to be fair that is reasonable, you cannot have every detail from the original in an adaptation, otherwise what would be the point. But, the what gets cut out and what gets left in has to make sense. And because of what they left in, a lot has to be explained. There is too much exposition in this film, leading things that should’ve happen earlier to happen way to late. For example, the brother and sister, Sokka and Katara, ask Aang, the protagonist, for his name twenty minutes into the film, instead of when they first met him. Another example is when Aang enters a temple room filled with statues with his past lives, but instead of letting the scene speak for itself, and let Aang realize the weight of his duties as Avatar and what he truly is, the actor just explains and explains and explains. I do not think I ever heard a character say or emote somehow how they feel or what they are thinking. It was all just backstory. So when something bad happens, am I supposed to feel bad for characters I could not connect with?

The other problem I had was the action sequences. We are in an age where with anything is can be cgi’d, why does it take six people to move a middle size rock when one person in the cartoon can move mountains? What happened to all the creativity? One small movement can bend an element in the cartoon but in this movie it took like a whole scroll of martial arts techniques to movie a drop of water or an ember. Because of this the action sequences suffered and were drawn out. If the movie were true to the opening of the movie, then this wouldn’t be a problem.

The were many other problems such as pacing and characterization, but I do not think I am qualified enough to discuss that yet (and this review would go on forever).

So Peter’s bottem line: DO NOT WATCH- if you want to enjoy the Avatar franchise, watch the original cartoon. Because there is nothing this movie can do to affect the enjoyment of the original, it was a rare anomaly of perfect music, comedy and action. So enjoy your cartoon and enjoy hating this movie.