asian malaysian
Avatar Kyoshi
Let me hear you say this ship is bananas! B-A-NA-N-A-S!
Posts: 1,308
|
Post by asian malaysian on Oct 4, 2010 1:04:11 GMT -5
I am so glad that I didnt bother seeing it in a cinema. Matt & Nat are dead to me for any movie review featuring M Night.
|
|
|
Post by stonewolf on Nov 20, 2010 0:37:10 GMT -5
I haven't read all the comments here so excuse me if I've misread what seems to be the general consensus. I know most die hard Avatar fans hated the movie. I think I even saw someone call this a "rape" of the cartoon. I think that's a little crazy. I like the series but I have to admit that I liked the movie too. One of the criticisms I seen most is the use of Katara as a narrator. I guess fans wanted to see the relationships acted out more, but I can understand why M. Night couldn't do that, it would have taken too much time.
Also, fans criticize Noah Ringer but I thought he was pretty good. I think M. Night wanted him to be more brooding than fun loving to get across the big reponsibility he had as Avatar.
I can see that there were problems though. I thought Zhao and Iroh were miscast. I missed the fight between Zhou and Zuko. I remember that being a good one in the series and it could have been really good in live action. I also misssed the moon sprit getting her revenge. I pronunciation of the names I know bothered a lot of fans. There was no reason for M. Night to have done this, but honestly, this wasn't a big deal to me. I would like to have seen more Momo and Appa though.
All in all, I thought the movie was worth watching and I will want to se the sequels if they make them.
|
|
asian malaysian
Avatar Kyoshi
Let me hear you say this ship is bananas! B-A-NA-N-A-S!
Posts: 1,308
|
Post by asian malaysian on Nov 20, 2010 22:52:28 GMT -5
Stonewolf, thanks to Paramounts amazing scheduling, I only watched it several months after it came out and I so I had fully prepared myself to treat it as a stand alone movie. It was just plain horrible. Some of the naration was wincefully unneccesary. How would showing that Aang was having difficulty waterbending take longer than narrating it? Still the main reason there was so much narration is because M Night couldnt pair down the story to what he might have been able to effectively tell. In stead of narrated montage shots of the traveling team avatar fighting circus, he should have spent more time in fleshing out the main characters. Even the villians didnt seem particularly menacing because the menace was narrated instead of shown. Dont tell me it takes too long. Watch the first 5 minutes or so of Star Wars Episode IV. How long did it take to impress the audience for the first time how dangerous Darth Vader was (even if you didnt bother to read the opening crawl)? So many wasteful scenes or story lines could have been dropped entirely. I would have dropped the earth benders or just showed them fleetingly in the background . This is where M Night would argue about being true to the series but really, if I asked you to write a 100 word summary of the first season of Avatar, would you have included them? He should have focused on three main acts: 1)Discovering the Avatar (use this time to establish the chacaters relevant to THIS story. Bryke didnt see the need to feature Lord Ozai but M Night did?Ever notice that even in Star Wars, the Emperor only makes a brief appearance in Episode V but not at all in Episode IV?) 2) Zuko pursuing Aang and trying to capture him before Zhao does. The blue spirit could be included here but really not as crucial to the overall flow of the story. 3) Final battle in the North.
|
|
|
Post by stonewolf on Nov 21, 2010 14:51:38 GMT -5
Asian Malayasion, I agrre with you that the fire nation (ever wonder why it's not called the "fire empire"?) villains were not that scary, however I think it's pretty obvious that it takes less time to tell people what's happening then to act it out. Using your example of the water bending. To act that out you would need to show Aang trying and failing a couple times. That definitely takes more time than just saying it. I think the earth bender scene is in there to show a good fight, which it was.
|
|
asian malaysian
Avatar Kyoshi
Let me hear you say this ship is bananas! B-A-NA-N-A-S!
Posts: 1,308
|
Post by asian malaysian on Nov 21, 2010 19:27:24 GMT -5
Asian Malayasion, I agrre with you that the fire nation (ever wonder why it's not called the "fire empire"?) villains were not that scary, however I think it's pretty obvious that it takes less time to tell people what's happening then to act it out. Using your example of the water bending. To act that out you would need to show Aang trying and failing a couple times. That definitely takes more time than just saying it. I think the earth bender scene is in there to show a good fight, which it was. stonewolf, I didnt mean for the actors to mime out the scene. Aang can talk. Aang could have failed once and expressed frustration at not getting it. Or he could have just expressed frustration at not getting it. It wouldnt have been appreciably longer and it would have been far more effective. There was clearly no benefit or purpose to Katara's narration. Besides, from a story point of view,wouldnt that scene have been a natural point to flesh out the characters, the art of bending and the growing relationship between Aang and Katara? As it stood, what did the scene add to the movie? For me, the earth bender fighting scene lacked any sense of impact because there was no sense of urgency or threat. Here you have a whole bunch of earth benders standing on their element and literally surrounding less than half a dozen ineffective fire bending "guards". You may have a point about the reason for its inclusion. It almost seemed like a desperate ploy to get some earthbending done in case there is no sequel.
|
|
|
Post by stonewolf on Nov 22, 2010 16:27:00 GMT -5
Oh there's no doubt M. Night could have fleshed out the characters more. In fact, I'm glad I saw the movie after watching the cartoon. I think I would have been confused if I didn't. I'm just think there was really no way M. Night would have made every Avatar fan happy because he couldn't put everything in the movie that every fan wanted to see unless he just wanted to remake every episode and make the movie 10 hours long.
|
|
Mari
Sokka
I Love Psychology
Posts: 142
|
Post by Mari on Nov 24, 2010 22:49:13 GMT -5
In my opinion I thought the movie was horrible, very horrible. It's not the fact of the scenes, obviously they had to cut some of them out, but the characters were horrible! None of them acted normal, looked normal, or spoke normal(as in the series).
It may have been better if you didn't see the series, but as we all have(or the mass majority) it doesn't compare to the original cartoon series.
I give it a 2 out of 10
|
|
fallendragon
penguin
I've always come in second place, but soon, that's all gonna change
Posts: 23
|
Post by fallendragon on Nov 30, 2010 1:49:23 GMT -5
I do a good, the bad, and the ugly approach for reviewing (especially movies that are considered not good at all, so here I go.)
Lets start of with the good:
-Dev Patel, As we know, Dev Patel is most arguably the most well-casted member of this entire movie, and he even seemed darker than he was in the show (if that's good or bad I'll let you decide, I believe Zuko should be a somewhat dark char. but thats more about preference).
-The scenery. In the movie, all of the areas you go to look amazing, from Zuko's ship, to the northern Water tribe, you are sucked in by the beauty.
-I'm not going to go into the fact that Avatar has a great world and lore, as that doesn't count for the movie, but the show that is the stuff of LEGEND
-Costume Design, along with the scenery, most of the costumes are very well done, cept for Aang (to this day I will not understand how he stayed warm in those water tribes with only monks robes)
-Role of the firelord: this may seem small, but I considered it a great idea on shymalonadingdongs part (I still hate him tough). In this The Firelord actually is seen and talks, feeling more like a true antagonist like he ever did.
Alright, enough with the good, onto the bad
-The lack of Eastern Asian Leads: As we all know the world of Avatar consisted of Inuit, Buddhist, Chinese, and other various cultures of East Asia. The closest we get here is Dev patel and the fire nation. But you know about this, moving on.
- Speed of progression From the get go, they rush you through, spending 4 after the finding of Aang til Zuko arrives. IT gets worse, twice in the Movie, Katara will sumarize an event, "Aang told us about his people and how he ran away in a storm and got frozen." this might not be exact but you get the idea. Instead of character development we get a summarization.
-No humor: coming from the Zuko side of the story, this would be fine. but on the other side, things are nearly if not as serious, they're nearly different characters in the way that they were portrayed (cept for Zuko, he was always stiff and humorless)
-Acting: some of it is bad, most is mediocre. The worst most-likely would be Zhao, as he just can't act (no offense to the guy who plays him, I love him on the daily show.)
-The final confrontation with Zhao (Zuko vs zhao) SPOILERS FOR MOVIE: Near the end, Zuko meets up with Zhao on the bridge, and they're about to have a huge epic battle, I was really excited, as the firebending so far was my favorite (even with its new limitations). But no, Iroh stops Zuko and instead Zhao is killed by 4 completely random water benders (SO ANTICLIMACTIC)
Moving on to THE UGLY:
Script: Bloody terrible, most fanfic writers would be ashamed to have written this (no offense to those writers).
-Choreography: This is the worst for Aangs airbending, you feeling like he moves his hands in some crazy motion, does and random hop, and a second later, a gust of wind makes a guy fly 10 feet 1 way. Earthbending was pretty bad as well (WHY DID IT TAKE 10 GUYS CHANTING TO LIFT A PEBBLE).
NO JET, he may have been a monster, but he was also a badass, and badasses can't get left out of feature films.
Alright, with all that said, I would rate this, a 7/10 for newcomers and a 6/10 for fans of the show (why the double standard you ask?)
well all those things he skipped doesn't go noticed to newbies, and one of the biggest errors of the movie isn't noticed.
And that's my review.
|
|
asian malaysian
Avatar Kyoshi
Let me hear you say this ship is bananas! B-A-NA-N-A-S!
Posts: 1,308
|
Post by asian malaysian on Nov 30, 2010 20:55:59 GMT -5
^ Why do you feel that revealing the Firelord walking around and talking more like the POTUS than the archenemy in the first film of a planned trilogy was a good idea?
Also, dude, please lay off the lame pronounciations of M Night's name. He's bad enough on his own merit as a director. Making fun of his name is just bad manners.
|
|
fallendragon
penguin
I've always come in second place, but soon, that's all gonna change
Posts: 23
|
Post by fallendragon on Nov 30, 2010 22:18:05 GMT -5
yeah, when you say it like that, I kinda have to agree with you, the guy playing the firelord also didn't do a good job, so that didn't really help.
also, I was feeling a bit of anger towards M. Night, due to the fact I watched the movie to get it fresh in my mind to review it.
But yeah, I really should be respectful and stuff
PS. *Karma*
PPS that's how you do Karma right? I'm still somewhat new on this site
|
|
asian malaysian
Avatar Kyoshi
Let me hear you say this ship is bananas! B-A-NA-N-A-S!
Posts: 1,308
|
Post by asian malaysian on Dec 1, 2010 3:17:34 GMT -5
No worries. Karma right back atcha!
|
|