This post is about what the reviewers didn't tell you, so I'm going to ignore all the furore about the ethnic representations in the movie and the acting abilities of the cast.
I, or rather "we", Lucas and I, fall into the camp of those patrons who have seen the entire animated series. Be warned.
Book 1. So how come none of these adult reviewers cared to mention that this was "Book 1" ? Did they not understand what that meant? For us it meant that we had a pretty good idea of what we were going to see, and likely where it ended. And as far as the ethnicity goes, well, Lucas didn't notice anything unusual.
Names. This is by far the biggest mark against the movie. Why didn't they pronounce the names correctly??!! Lucas and I cringed every time they said Aang.
I don't know, but I didn't like it, and the prospect of 2 other movies (book 2, 3) with mispronounced names, well I like that less. They did pronounce Katara correctly, but perhaps that didn't lend itself so easily to being mangled.
Bottom line - you'd think since this was a project he (M.N.S) picked to write, direct and produce, he would have done justice to the series by at least pronouncing the names correctly.
Uncle Iroh. About that creative license (which does NOT include mispronouncing names) - I am ok with them pulling a few story threads from later Books, retelling the story and changing it a bit, but why isn't Uncle Iroh fat? He had some of the best lines in the animated series and the goofy, well-intentioned but secretly subversive Uncle Iroh of the series seemed to be much too serious in this portrayal. Where was the joviality? The tea? The food? And in case you were wondering why he should have been fat, it's because, when the time came, you could see the transformation to "battle-ready". How's that for spoilery?
The Special Effects. The bending. In the animated series, there's air-, water-, earth-, fire-bending left, right and center. Lots of action. In the movie, the movements of the actors were highly stylized which is ok when they were practicing, but in a fight, hardly efficient. It sort of started to look ridiculous when they were making all sorts of elaborate hand-gestures when the situation called for action. But I guess it may have not been easy nor cheap to replicate the animated bending action in the movie.
I dunno, but maybe very few adults actually saw the whole television series, so they evaluated the movie on its own. How much worse would the reviews have been if it was evaluated in the context of the cartoon series?
At the end of the day, Lucas enjoyed himself, despite covering his ears and curling up into a ball every time they said Aang. And me? Well, now you know what I do with my spare time.
p.s. According to Wikipedia, M.N.S did in fact look at the series. Go figure.
I, or rather "we", Lucas and I, fall into the camp of those patrons who have seen the entire animated series. Be warned.
Book 1. So how come none of these adult reviewers cared to mention that this was "Book 1" ? Did they not understand what that meant? For us it meant that we had a pretty good idea of what we were going to see, and likely where it ended. And as far as the ethnicity goes, well, Lucas didn't notice anything unusual.
Names. This is by far the biggest mark against the movie. Why didn't they pronounce the names correctly??!! Lucas and I cringed every time they said Aang.
- They pronounced Aang as "ung" vs "ang" as in "bang". Aarrggh!!.
- They pronounced Sokka as "soak-ah" instead of "sock-ah" and
- Uncle Iroh was "eeroh" instead of "eye-roh" .
I don't know, but I didn't like it, and the prospect of 2 other movies (book 2, 3) with mispronounced names, well I like that less. They did pronounce Katara correctly, but perhaps that didn't lend itself so easily to being mangled.
Bottom line - you'd think since this was a project he (M.N.S) picked to write, direct and produce, he would have done justice to the series by at least pronouncing the names correctly.
Uncle Iroh. About that creative license (which does NOT include mispronouncing names) - I am ok with them pulling a few story threads from later Books, retelling the story and changing it a bit, but why isn't Uncle Iroh fat? He had some of the best lines in the animated series and the goofy, well-intentioned but secretly subversive Uncle Iroh of the series seemed to be much too serious in this portrayal. Where was the joviality? The tea? The food? And in case you were wondering why he should have been fat, it's because, when the time came, you could see the transformation to "battle-ready". How's that for spoilery?
The Special Effects. The bending. In the animated series, there's air-, water-, earth-, fire-bending left, right and center. Lots of action. In the movie, the movements of the actors were highly stylized which is ok when they were practicing, but in a fight, hardly efficient. It sort of started to look ridiculous when they were making all sorts of elaborate hand-gestures when the situation called for action. But I guess it may have not been easy nor cheap to replicate the animated bending action in the movie.
At the end of the day, Lucas enjoyed himself, despite covering his ears and curling up into a ball every time they said Aang. And me? Well, now you know what I do with my spare time.
p.s. According to Wikipedia, M.N.S did in fact look at the series. Go figure.
Comments
Wait until they get to "The Ember Island Players" episode (in Book 3). Lucas loves that episode and has watched it a gazillion times but he still cracks up!
As you can tell, I feel strongly about this :)