The Last Airbender.

[batosai]

I went and seen this movie Thursday, in 3D. I quite enjoyed it and have never seen a single episode of the cartoon. I had no expectations and nothing to compare it to either. Now if I followed the show, I might have to agree with Koup, they do have to make changes to translate to live-action afterall. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen the cartoon for sure. I was quite mesmerized by how blue that girls eyes were. Batosai likes.


Now, onto the 3D aspect, this was my first 3D experience. I have to say it definatly was not what I was expecting. I remember the old red and blue for 3D lol. It was cool, just not what I was expecting. It seemed layered as opposed to 3D to me, nothing really popped out of the screen as I was expecting. Perhaps it's just me....

[kouper]

Like I said, some of the changes made sense because they had to compress almost 7 hours of television into 2 hours. However make massive changes to characters personalities and when it came to the episodes from the show they did represent in the movie some of the changes they made reduced the situation a bit. There's also killing off a character who's in the show throughout the series.....

Like I said, Death Note did a far better job of representing a whole season with a live action movie (Of course they changed the ending with the second movie... but as far as the first one went it was nearly exact.)

[batosai]

I never seen the cartoon Koup, I have no idea if the characters personalities matched or not, lol. From a point of view from someone who hasn't seen the show or even know anything about it I enjoyed it alot. My friend whom I did go with said he's seen a few episodes of the show and he thinks they were pronouncing ?Ong's? name wrong in the movie. I couldn't say.

[kouper]

They went with a decidedly more asian pronunciation for a few things, In the Cartoon its Aang like boomerANG sokka is pronounced to rhyme with rocka Iroh is eyerow the agneyki was agney kai (not sure why they changed that one since it was already being pronounced correctly according to multiple languages) and Kitara and Sokka's grandma is referred to as gramgram. lol.

Post blacked out for possible spoilers.

Sozen's comet in the cartoon is at the end of summer, not 3 years. That change is understandable because of the time for making the next 2 movies.

Aang ran away from the airbender temple when he was told they would separate him from his monk because ponzu wasn't serious enough about aang's training. a change that seems to have been made purely so they could have a mock starwars episode iv ending.

Aang was captured by general Zho with the use of the best archers on the planet who pinned aangs clothing down, however it was tied in with an episode where aang realised how much his vanishing act hurt the world via the complaints of an old man, and the ruined air temple in the cartoon was actually ruined by refugees who made it their home. Fine, they didn't want to introduce too many characters in a short time.

When Aang is rescued by the blue spirit, and in turn rescues him, he lays Zuko down in the forest and waits till he wakes up before delivering a very short monologue saying "Ya know, the hardest part about being trapped for 100 years is I miss the old friends I used to have. I used to visit the fire nation all the time. Do you think if you'd been around then we could have been friends?" Zuko waits a second and then attacks aang sending him returning to sokka and kitara.

Kiyoshi Island, where the statue of one of Aangs past lives was, Is where a character named Suki is shown, who while only in one episode in the first season, is quite important later on. She's also the one who actually teaches sokka how to fight, till that pioint he was actually quite a screw up and klutz as far as combat goes.

For that matter, Sokka was mostly comedic relief early on. Wanting to be a man but being young enough he made a mess of things fairly often. While i don't mind them making him more capable, the only thing he did remotely funny was the early crack about how whenever Kitara water bends, he gets wet.

Uncle Iroh is a portly, lazy, jovial man who was always trying to convince Zuko his destiny may not be what he thinks. Not to mention the entire White Lotus Paicho storyline which was completely untouched, and it's quite important in both season 2, and incredibly important in season 3.

General Zho, who by the time the first season ended was admiral zho, was angry and had a massive lust for power. He showed no remorse for what he did, especially when it came to the moon spirit.

Aangs advisor the dragon, in the cartoon Aang first gets spiritual advice in the southern air temple, after he goes into the avatar state when seeing ponzu's skeleton. But he gets it in the room with all the statues dedicated to his past lives. He sees one, Roku, who's especially close to him, and at that point the eyes all light up. He later meets Roku and Roku is who gives him most of his advice/teaches him about being an avatar and the avatar state throughout the series, However Roku did ride a dragon.

The avatar was not created to hurt people. Well, a lot of the past avatar's killed people as part of their job of keeping balance. Kiyoshi killed an earthbender who wanted to take over the world. Roku forgave the fire lord for saying he wanted to take over the world, and Roku's death provided the fire nation with the time it needed to do so. The avatar was nothing more then the elements embodied and a bridge between our world and the spirit world. In fact, this serves as a great development tool because Aang the monks taught that all life has value even the smallest spider. And Aang really struggles with his powers and his desire not to hurt people. And it plays an important part in the grand finale.

The water book finale, in the cartoon, when the moon spirit is killed, Aang enters the Avatar state and becomes the embodiment of the ocean spirit taking vengeance for this murder. He summons a tremendous amount of water to him and becomes a sort of massive ocean monster, hurling fire nation soldiers out of the city over the walls, and then going out to the ships and picking them up and throwing them like toys and capsizing others. Princess Yuway's self sacrifice brought the moon back and after a few moments aang left the avatar state and returned to the now safe northern water tribe.

In the cartoon, even with the death of his people Aang was a pretty happy go lucky kid. He wasn't the tortured reluctant messiah he was in the film, but more of a I'd rather go have fun reluctant messiah.

Characters who where flat out removed, from what I've seen so far-Jet and his entire crew-Suki and the Kiyoshi warriors-the man Yuwei was betrothed to- the cabbage merchant (lol) and a few othe rminor characters, although Jet and Suki are fairly big omissions.

Eh, I still enjoyed it. just saying it wasn't quite what I was hoping for, especially since I have seen shows make the animated series to live action movie quite successfully.

[AkuTheGreat]

That's pretty much what I meant by irrational expectations.

[kouper]

That's pretty much what I meant by irrational expectations.

Its irrational to expect them not to change the names of the characters? is it irrational to expect them to actually keep the characters the same?

[AkuTheGreat]

I was actually referring to your list as a whole. Those two are perfectly rational by themselves. Of course, that is only my option. You have your own and I respect it. At least we can both agree that there is room for massive improvement in terms of the future films. If there are any that is.

[kouper]

The problem though is your response basically said that anyone who expected the movie to be related to the show by anything more then the most basic of plot points is irrational.

Although I guess I could have brought up the fact that I expected cinematography that wasn't terrible and repetitive (sorry, using the same 4 camera angles for almost every scene is bad form) Sound design that's at the very least consistent and action sequences that are atleast somewhat fast.... First firebending shot in slow motion hitting an earth benders rock shield, awesome, the next fifty firebending shots at the same speed.... lame.

[AkuTheGreat]

That's actually not what I meant to imply, so I apologize for coming off that way. You have every right to criticize the movie however you want without being labeled as irrational. That being said, I still firmly believe the movie is worth seeing.

[batosai]

As I said, I enjoyed it and also think it's worth seeing. Recommended in 3D.

[AkuTheGreat]

I'll never recommend anything in 3D.

Just don't like it.

[batosai]

Even though it definatly wasn't what I was expecting. The 3D was far better than the old blue and red 3D glasses I had as a kid. When I think of 3D, thats what I want to see. Now it looks layered as opposed to 3D to me, nothing really popped out enough to consider it 3D in my book, but thats what it's called.

[AkuTheGreat]

Yeah, I can't even recall the last time I watched something in 3D. Even so, I don't need my movies to have layers. I'm content with 2D so long as it's available.

[batosai]

I'm content with Blue-ray. The fact I have to wait to watch a flick at home is the only reason I even go to the theaters anymore. I have a way better setup at my home than any theater. I guess you could argue screen size but, 46" with blue-ray, 7.1 surround, the couch, beer, smokes(both kinds), foods......I'd rather stay home.


Go see this movie folks, it's pretty damn good.

[kouper]

I won't recommend this movie in 3D because it was shot in 2D and then converted. Not that impressive compared to some of the other 3d releases this year. that said this is the only 3d I've seen not in an Imax.... that might make the difference.

@Aku, I wasn't offended, no worries, and I'll still recommend this movie to people, but not so much to big fans of the show..... I enjoyed it, but I'd heard from everyone and their dog that it was a bad movie... so my expectations where so low that i had fun. lol.

[kouper]

[kouper]

oh, and that was earthbending by shamalamaman.

[Yarrrmonger7]

I hate anime in general. Giant robots and floaty magic battles don't generally do it for me.

Taling about the show not the movie.
Okay I watched this show before but then somewhere along the line I lost track of it somewhere in book 2-3. I just picked it up again as it's free on nicktoons.com atm and has all the episodes. Watched the ledgend of korra and that was awesome too. I forgot just how funny this show is. I've literally been laughing out loud a fair amount. By the way Guirec not liking giant robots makes you lose all credibilty with me. Oh and floaty magic is pretty cool too just so you know. So do you like transformers since they're giant robots or is it just japanese giant robots? Not actually trolling for once but am curious. Oh and an amzaing anime that I watched recently on crackle (it's missing like episode 4 or something though) is moribito gaurdian of the spirit or something like that starring balsa the badass spear wielding bodyguard. Oh and just so everyone know what a nerd I am. BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!

[AKAtheMilkman]

Sadface. You're making it worse, not better. How am I supposed to find the one actual post that has happened since I came here three weeks ago when you are nerco'ing threads for no ****ing reason?

[Yarrrmonger7]

Idk...