This movie has to be one of the most embarrassing movies I have seen in a long time. Probably almost as bad as Dragon Wars. I mean they screwed so much stuff in terms of dialogue, story, and choreography, that it makes me wonder how Shayamaladingdong saw his work as a masterpiece.
First off, I would like to rant about the Firebending. In the animated series, "fire is the element of power, which consists of overpowering force and the unflinching will to accomplish any goal" (quote from Iroh). Firebending is the art in which fire is generated from the sun/solar objects and manifested within a bender's body, and is powered by desire and emotion. In order to bend fire, one must learn proper breath technique, control of the power, and have a strong drive/goal. If a bender lacks any one of the prerequisites, he/she will not firebend effectively at all. The blocking of solar objects and the instances of extreme cold are also factors that cause weak firebending.
What was the firebending in the movie reduced to? Getting fire from a FREAKING BLACK CAULDRON AND CONVIENENTLY PLACED TORCHES!<_< Shocked at this alteration in the TLA lore, I searched for an explanation for this. All I could find was some nonsense about the director not wanting firebending being overpowered. Oh, I'm sorry! I had no idea that fire, which is the element of POWER that gives benders OVERPOWERING force to reach any goal, was not supposed to be powerful! If the man did his reseach properly, he would have known that all elements are equal and have their own strengths and weaknesses. And last time I checked, earth, water, and airbenders were able to hold their own against firebenders in the show, so I don't see how they are overpowered.
Now fire is different from all the other elements. Water can be found in many places, such as bodies of water, plants, sweat on the body, ground, and in the form of vapors in the air. Earth is mainly found anywhere outside of water bodies and is also in the form of metal. Air is all over the place. Fire..well... fire does not naturaly exist in nature. It needs to be created through a physical ot chemical reaction in order for it to exist, so it makes sense for firebenders to be able to make their own fire. Then we have to look at what the elements are in general. Air (gas), water (liquid), and earth (solid) are all forms of matter. Fire is not matter. It is energy. If anyone has taken physics classes, then they should know that matter cannot be destroyed, just infinitely broken down. But energy can easily be diminished. In the movie, all the other elemental benders have to do when engaging in combat with a firebender is blow out/smother/extinguish the fire and the firebender is automatically out of the fight. Heck, I can take my Super Soaker and take out the entire Fire Nation single-handedly. Speaking of that, why didn't the characters in the movie simply destroy the fire source so they could ROFLSTOMP the Fire Nation?
Last point about firebending: If you look at the techniques, the power of firebending is both a gift and a curse. Firebenders can shine in many situation they are placed in, but they have to be careful with their power. Fire does not have a master. A firebender can start fire on its path, but he/she cannot direct where it goes. It is fire's nature to consume and consume until everything in its reach is burned to ash. This why firebenders need to be careful with their immense power, as with one wrong move it is very easy to destroy things and hurt those they care about. Of course the movie neglects this aspect of the bending art with the change. Another good example as to why Like seriously, this one change in firebending made it the worst out of all the elements.
Now enough about firebending, lets look at the story. There are a few points that has bugged me. There was a scene in which Aang, Katara and Sokka (all which were pronounced incorrectly as were all of the names) went to a Fire Nation prison holding Earthbenders captive. One thing I noticed was the material that the prison was made of. It was made of EARTH! You know, the matter that EARTHbenders bend!!!!
In the show, captured Earthbenders were placed in metal prisons, as most earthbenders were incapable of bending metal. Now explain to me, how the flip were the e.benders being held captive? All they had to do was tip over the fire pots and crush the firebenders. But no, Aang had to yell "There is earth around you!" to convince the e.benders to get some form of common sense and fight back. They happened to win BTW. This scene also leads to another point of mine which will be addressed soon. There is also another point in which why Avatar Aang ran away from his duties 100 years before th events in the story. In the show, he ran away because he did not want to be taken away from the things he cared about just to go under Avatar training. In the movie however, he ran away because he was unable to have a family....
OK. Lets look at some history. Avatar Roku was the grandfather of Zuko's mother. You see a glaring plot hole in the movie? Well, if the Avatar was unable to have a family, then Roku would have never started a family, meaning that..um....ZUKO WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!! How could they not see such a large gaping hole? Just comes to show the director never really researched or even watched the full series at all.
One last point about the story: In the show, Sozin's Comet was the object that gives firebenders sub-Avatar firebending power. Which is what they used to wipe out the Air Nomads. In the movie, the comet only allows the benders to use fire without an external source. So?......SO? The Avatar can unlock power that is 100x stronger than any other bender, and the FN thought the comet allowing them to use inner fire was somehow going to give the Avatar a run for his money?!
I don't even.....Whatever. Now the choreography/effects: In the show, the bending arts are based off of martial arts. Too bad there were no signs of martial arts in this movie. It looked everyone was doing some rendition of tap dancing. Also, I would like to point out that the elements are supposed to move instantly and in sync with bender's movements. In this movie, it takes ten seconds of ballet to launch a puny attack that is delayed for 5 seconds before it is used against enemies. Firebending was not the only element that was nerfed. Pretty much all the arts were pathetic in this movie. Air can only push people back like two feet, water takes a long time to manipulate and it only gets people wet (lolsexjokes), and earth takes SUPER long to manipulate and it takes five earthbenders to lift one slow moving rock. Here's the link to crappy earthbending. Seriously, by the time those fire and earth attacks would have hit me, I already would have learned all four elements.....TWICE! As a matter of fact, my ordinary self could just pick up a rock and throw it at people and that would be fore effective than all of the bending in this movie. What happened to the demigod-like bending that we all saw in the TV series?
On a short note, the dialogue and acting was horrendus. Nothing more to say about them honestly. Avatar was my favorite American animated series and Mr. Shayamalan utterly ruins it! I even heard he is still going to do the Earth Book adaption. I can't wait to see how horrid it will turn out. I bet shooting lightning will require a firebender to wait until the weather is stormy with lighting in the sky in order to use lightning or some crap like that.
The sad part about all this is that there are movies actually worse than this one! If anyone has seen Dragonball Evolution, you probably feel my touch.
TO THE AVATAR: PLEASE use your energybending to take away Shayamalan's filmbending before the second movie is finished. My heart can't take anymore!
Modifié par Mendelevosa, 12 janvier 2013 - 05:14 .
Retour en haut
