Not going to see Avatar: The Last Airbender movie

[annathepiper]

I may have made this clear already, but just in case I hadn’t: I’m not going to see the new Avatar: The Last Airbender movie.

Part of this is because I take issue with the movie’s overall Fail at changing the races of Aang, Katara, and Sokka, leaving Zuko as the only non-white character. Part of it is also because I don’t trust M. Night Shymalan to take three seasons’ worth of awesome cartoon–or even the first season, if they’re doing a thing of ‘one movie per season’–and distill it down to only two hours and still have something coherent.

But part of it is really just based on what I’ve seen of the trailers being unremittingly dark and grim. If you’ve seen the actual Airbender cartoon at all, you’ll know that young Aang is NOT a dark, grim character. So very much of his portrayal is full of boyish glee that it’s really heartwarming to watch; hell, one of the iconic moments in the opening credits of every episode is how a giggling Aang, riding a rotating ball of air like a top, slams into a statue. The Aang in the cartoon, despite being the most powerful person on the planet and having, as the series progresses, to stand up to some truly terrifying challenges, remains joyous at heart.

And I’m not seeing the slightest sign of this in the trailers. So yeah. Not going there. I really don’t need to spend two hours of unremitting grim in the theaters, not when it’s not going to be a story I don’t even trust to be good to begin with.

In fact, I’m feeling an urge to re-watch the actual cartoon coming on. If any of y’all out there might be thinking of taking children to this film, may I encourage you to do the same? Maybe have parties to watch the cartoon. It’ll be cheaper, and odds are you’ll have better snacks for small persons at home anyway.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Comments

[janne.livejournal.com]

Same here -- I lost interest when I heard about the (nearly) all-white cast. And whatever smidgen of interest was left disappeared at seeing some trailer with a crucifix tattoo on Aang. Buh? Whyyyy? I need to track down some people who still owe me the Avatar DVD's from way back and watch the real thing instead!
Hah. Dark and grim, just what this gloomy time of recession and strife needs :P I'll just count the days till the next Star Trek movie instead!

[annathepiper]

I think the crucifix-looking tattoo is a bad attempt at rendering the actual arrow tattoo he's got in the series, at least if you're talking about the one on his head? I didn't look close enough at it for that to register, the time or two I've seen this trailer in the theaters.

But yeah. Grim Avatar? Aang and Sokka all stoic and Sokka and Katara NOT BROWN? The only non-white people in the cast being the bad guys? I'll pass.

[janne.livejournal.com]

There's one all over his back, at 37 seconds into this trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxbHooiZRGE -- admittedly I've only ever seen the head tattoo in the animated series and not his back so I dont' know if he's got a cross on the back there too, but that whole trailer just looked a bit too white messiah for my tastes. Ahwell!

[annathepiper]

Aang is also tattooed on his back in the series, yes.

But ah yeah I see what you mean. The tattoos on movie!Aang are a lot more intricate and ornate than the cartoon!Aang's tattoos are--and yeah, they look a lot more like a cross.

[firni.livejournal.com]

We probably won't have a choice if C decides he wants to see the movie. One defies him at one's own risk.

Luckily for me, movie night is "man bonding" night so I can stay here and watch war porn instead.

[annathepiper]

Heh, well. Your kid is square in the target audience age range, I will cheerfully grant.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Fully agree on all counts.

Avatar the series is pure art, America's best contribution to animation since the early 90s Batman. It's strange to want to remake it in the first place - it's already there, and it's wonderful. But the way they're doing it, well. I hope it causes people to seek out the series.

[annathepiper]

Well, to be fair, I'd call this less of a remake and more of an adaptation to the big screen--although granted that this is a fine distinction to make, given the current craze in Hollywood of doing movie versions of everything on the planet, as long as it has a whisper of making any profit.

But yeah, if it points any new viewers at the actual series, it will have accomplished something good.

[batyatoon]

I already wasn't going to go see it because of the racefail. The grim darkness of the trailer would have decided me, if that hadn't.*

And if neither of those had done it, I would have decided to never see this movie once I heard that MNS got rid of Sokka's sense of humor.

So hearing that MNS also got rid of Aang's sense of joy is ... depressing but not surprising at this point.

*Not that the movie depicted by the trailer is too grim for my taste at all -- it looks beautiful -- but it's not Avatar: The Last Airbender.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I'd heard about the surgical excision of Sokka's Funny--and overall yeah, that's part of what I'm thinking of when I'm talking about the unremitting grim that seems to be the movie version of this.

Indeed, this does seem to be a lovely movie if the trailer is any sign--but it's definitely not the Avatar of the cartoon, from what I can tell.

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

I did go see Avatar, and I had exactly all of the same expectations as the people other comments here.

They were all met.

Much like the Golden Compass, the movie was very pretty and managed to pull off several moments of the cartoon very well. People intimately familiar with the series are guaranteed to be pissed at how much was trimmed in order to make it fit. But much like GC and Harry Potter, what are you going to do with condensing such a large amount of material into such a short time? It's a guaranteed losing scenario. You can't make it not suck.

[annathepiper]

Mm, I dunno, the last couple of Harry Potter movies have still managed to be fairly coherent films even if they're cutting a LOT of material from the original story. You'll wind up with a product that's different from the source material, to be sure. How much it will or will not suck depends very heavily upon the writers and upon the decisions that the director makes.

But yeah, I'd heard GC was shaky, so I am not terribly sad I missed it. Even if it did have Daniel Craig in it. :)