It's downright laughable just how bland the new avatar movie is.
I'm gonna be completely honest, I had low expectations to begin with.
Becuase Bryke, ignorant and misogynistic as they are, haven't exactly done much to curry favour with the large majority of their fanbase over the years.
With original writers like Aaron Ehaz and Elizabeth Welch Ehaz among many others, for example, who were integral to the show's writing being as good as it was back in the day, no longer in the picture, it's expected that the movie wasn't going to be great. So many of the key moments were orchestrated by Elizabeth in particular, that I'm not surprised a lot of the content released after the og run doesn't hold up all that well.
At the end of the day, Bryke bought the initial concept, but the writers are what the made show what it was, and it was obvious when they tried to insert their own choices into the show's narrative - most clearly evident in the way they handled the finale and their characters romantic arcs.
There's a very good reason that every piece of atla media released since the original show doesn't hold up as well, and it is greatly in part due to Bryke's meddling in bringing about their 'creative vision'.
Now I'm gonna give credit where credit is due - the movie is breathtaking to look at. All the props and kudos to the animators who worked on it, becuase you can see the care that went into it all. I sincerely, sincerely hope Paramount and Nickelodeon don't screw you guys over.
The bending, the characters, the environments, every single frame was made with love and appreciation for the original show's style, all while bringing a fresh look to the animation that I personally thought looked absolutely fantastic.
But by god, is the story atrocious.
It's uninspired at best, and downright boring at worst - and that's disappointing in itself, becuase that's one of the things that atla has never been: boring.
The plot was predictable and stale, and somehow managed to copy itself with the shallow conflict between benders and non-benders, and ended in a massive pacific rime style fight a la tlok season 2, which is just. No. Please god no.
(Note this is not a rib against pacific rim. That shit slaps. But against avatar, they are two very different things lol.)
I don't think anyone had more than one line that wasn't about Aang in someway - and for that to come from a show where the characters individuals arcs, separate from Aang, are often held up as some of the best parts of the story - it's a disappointment is what it is.
Sokka, reduced to comedic sidekick and clown? The Suki erasure? Toph, reduced to the muscle and one liners about how she's the greatest earthbender in the world? Zuko, with arguably the most growth of all of them, reduced to a side character with barely any lines? Katara, who honest to god didn't have a single thing to do in this film apart from constantly worry and comfort Aang, or be the only one of the gang to be doing anything outside of being with him?
And don't even get me started on Aang.
He had no growth. In terms of character progression, there was literally nothing there. I felt like I was watching the desert arc and season three finale again - where Aang is intent on taking his path while everyone around him warns against it, until it blows up in his face. Again.
It's not good writing. Twenty five years later, you're telling me we're still watching the same issues with Aang's character again? Saying that Katara, the last Southern waterbender, would never understand what it would be like to be the last of her people? It felt like a slap in the face, just as it was in the show during the finale.
I honestly am gonna do a whole separate post just on how dirty the gaang, and Katara in particular, was done in this movie, becuase that was one of my biggest gripes with the thing as a whole - and if I do that now, this post is gonna get way too long, so. On we go.
The pacing was awful too. It felt like nothing amd everything was happening, too fast and too slow all at once. The plot twist was predictable, the final fight was pretty to look at but a mess story-wise, and the ending was just that. The end.
Also, can we acknowledge just how batshit insane it is that the Taga somehow killed the whole gaang?
Characters who, canonically speaking, are some of the most powerful warriors in the world at the time, and in their prime, were just. Fucking murdered in a cutaway scene like it was nothing? And then brought back to life just as easily? Like. I'm sorry, what?? I don't give a shit about whatever lion turtle ex machina bullshit they were trying to sell. I wasn't buying it.
And don't even get me started on shipping. Good god.
Look, I'm a Zutara shipper. Let's just get that out of the way. I'm not a big kataang fan, don't like how it was executed or anything that came with it in the media that released after the original show - and that's not to rake on Kataang shippers. If you enjoy it, good for you, and I really do say that genuinely, from the bottom of my heart. If you ship Kataang, this movie is right up your alley in terms of content. Happy for you guys who are probably thoroughly enjoying themselves, becuase you guys are eating well lol.
But if I'm speaking from a critical standpoint, it was pretty heavy-handed. You could feel the way Bryke were trying to discredit zutara by having Katara practically throwing herself at Aang every other scene, and her whole character motivation being reassuring him, or fighting for him, or just. Being his girlfriend and not much else. And that's not even to mention the scene in the spirit world or the downright covid-like distance Zuko and Katara have between them at any given moment. There is just so much to unpack there - but there are people on here who can and have articulated it much better than I can, and give you incredibly thoughtful and analytical reasoning as to why it's just downright awful that the two never interact, even without the shipping angle.
Everything about this movie, in terms of its story, was bland. Vanilla. Safe. They tried to create conflict between the gaang with Taga - but they didn't need it, if you ask me. Sure they could've had their mcguffin fetch quest with the staff - it's not avatar without the whole team travelling around on Aapa's back without something to do - but instead of Taga being the source of conflict between the gaang, have it be Aang.
When it comes to the restoration of the Air Nomads, why not have his determination at bringing them back, no matter what, be the driving force of conflict between them?
When it comes to this, the way I see it, to some of the characters in the gaang (Zuko and Katara in particular, which I'll expand on below), Aang has to be avatar first before he is a friend.
A chance to bring the Air Nomads back is a way to restore balance to the world, and they did not throw away their childhoods to war and politics so that they could watch it collapse in on itself.
To Aang, it's about bringing back his people. It's about bringing back that feeling of safety, about finally shedding that guilt he has about the death of everything he'd ever known - and now that there's even a chance of that happening, what can stop him? He's the Avatar. He's an Air Nomad. The lines blur. He needs to bring back balance, and he needs to bring back his people. In essence, they are the same thing - and he should do whatever it takes to do that, right?
And then it becomes a question of, how far are his friends willing to let him go before it gets to be too much? Before he starts to push away what he has now, before he starts getting reckless in his pursuit of a world so far out of reach?
Here's Zuko, coming along, with the sins of his nation's predecessors still on his back, helping to bring back a piece of the world long gone, a massive step in the right direction to making a world that isn't out of balance anymore; and if it doubles as a why to help one of his best friends - why the hell not?
Here's Katara, the one character who, undoubtedly and unashamedly, can understand Aang's inherent want for his people, going on this journey to help restore balance to the world, so at least one of them has a chance at getting a piece of their culture back - then again, why the hell not?
It would've been so interesting to see how they would've handled that. On the one hand you've got Aang, the Avatar, who has a way to bring back Air Nomads to the world and restore a balance that has been sorely missing. On the other, you've got Aang, the friend, who has a chance to rectify what is arguably the biggest mistake of his life. He's literally one of the most powerful people in the world - what is there to stop him from bringing his people back? How far is really willing to go? How far are his friends willing to go before it goes from them helping their best friend, to the Avatar abusing his power in a bid for restoration?
I don't know. It just feels like there could've been so many better ways to go about the story, instead of what they've come up with here - atla has such a rich world, and tlok created incredibly interesting challenges for the movie becuase of the cannon it established and how it contextualised the gaang seventy years later. I'll stress again, there's a good reason why nothing holds up as well (excluding certain bits and pieces) in terms of narrative cohesion and overall storytelling.
At its core, the movie was disappointing.
And I'm still not surprised.
And if that isn't a a crying shame, then I honestly don't know what is.
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