So I keep thinking about this, I can't not because it's just so baffling--but I genuinely cannot figure out who the new AtLA movie was actually for.
I watched a vid on youtube from Mo Hates Media about his thoughts on the movie and it got me to thinking, because while his vid doesn't get into a big majority of the more serious issues I had with the film on a story/character level, that's largely because he was talking about his disappointment at what a shallow nostalgia grab it was, and I'm like... it was exactly that, but also? It didn't do anything with the nostalgia it was supposed to be courting!
Like, yes, on a very shallow, surface level, the intent was clearly to play on the nostalgia of fans from the original show. The gaang was there (....sort of), they had a fresh new artstyle, the animation was gorgeous, there was even a cabbage merchant cameo in there!
And yet, there was absolutely nothing stubstantive to the story or the characters that seemed like it was actually crafted with nostalgic fans and their love for the original series in mind.
In fact, you run into problems even with the art itself because--yes, absolutely gorgeous animation, but was it really AtLA? There were pretty colors and a few decent outfits and set design, and some of the new characters were given kickass designs that, in a better movie, could've shot them right to intense popularity (particularly Taga and Sonam), but the gaang were just kind of given generic anime faces which only really suited Zuko with the rest (particularly Katara and Sokka) losing the features that had made them unique. AtLA always had an anime-inspired look, but the characters never used to have designs that looked like something that could've come out of a picrew generator just with different skintones swapped out. What happened to Katara's, Sokka's, and Aang's noses? Where's the volume from Katara's hair? Why do all five of them have the same bodytypes, and why is Zuko the only one who has a different hairstyle? Why does Toph look almost the exact same as she did when she was twelve except taller and with tits?
It's not that they had to be so visually distinct that their designs would clash, but would it really have been too much to ask for evidence of serious thought going into their designs--evidence that somewhere along the line the art director or whoever asked 'okay, what would these characters grow up to look like and why'?
And if you tug on that line even a little, it really starts the whole thing unraveling, because it goes so far beyond just their character designs--except it also doesn't, because it comes across as no thought going into anything else. No thought was given to characterization, where the individual characters were in their lives and how they got there, or anything that'd happened to them since the war ended. In fact, we don't even know how long ago the war ended, because they don't tell us, so it's hard to even put the events of this movie onto the canon timeline. (Not that it'd matter even if you could.)
And that's yet another thing! If we're supposed to believe that this movie is pure nostalgia-bait--and there's no reason to believe it was anything else, there's nothing in the movie that would appeal to new viewers, nothing that invites them into the world or gives a deeper look at any facet of it, nothing that provides a 'primer' on the characters and why we should care about them, I struggle to think of a single character beat or memorable line that would stick with a movie viewer who didn't have a pre-developed emotional attachment to these characters and therefore a reason to fill in the huge blank spots with their own headcanons--then it is a point of extreme confusion for me that there's nothing in the movie that fans of the original series would actually want.
It should've been the easiest nostalgia-grab in history. Give the fans what they want--a story that can fill in some of the gaps left by the canon timejumps. Let us see the gaang as adults in an adventure that centers around them. Let us see how the gaang got to where they are now! Shit, just give us some relationship status updates! Do you realize that the show didn't even let us know how long Katara and Aang have been together or what the status of their relationship was? Are they dating? Engaged? Married? Who knows! Not us! Did Sokka and Suki break up? We don't know, they didn't even bother to give Suki a place in the gaang! Is Zuko still with Mai? Who knows, not I! She didn't even get an offhand mention or ending still! Well, what about the status of Zuko's rule, you might ask. Does he have an heir? Is there pressure for one from his advisors, lest he runs the risk of a power vacuum being created which plunges the world back into war if one of the assassination attempts against his life are successful? Or how about Toph? What has she been doing other than beating up kids at her academy? Why does she still feel the need to crow about being the 'best earthbender in the world'? Hasn't she grown or changed or matured at all in the past (however many cause the movie doesn't tell us) years since the war ended? These are questions the movie doesn't even invite the viewer to ask, much less answer!
We don't even really get a decent snapshot of the gaang as adults because, much like their samey faces and generic anime artstyle, their characterizations are all shallow and one-note. Even Aang, who has the most emotional depth afforded to any of the gaang in this movie, doesn't actually have much about him that is recognizable from the original show--and we don't get to dig at all into why that is, how he grew into the man he became, or even why he is struggling with an emotional crisis that we saw him deal with in an episode of the original show (and somehow handled with more nuance and gravitas in a 22 minute episode of a cartoon aimed at 7-year-olds than in this 90 minute movie ostensibly aimed at grown fans of the original show).
And that's Aang, the central character of the movie! By comparison, the rest of the gaang gets absolutely nothing, and it's particularly galling in light of how well the original show treated the rest of the main characters, even at its worst lows (and it certainly had them). Which all loops back into my original question, because, as returning fans, we were absolutely robbed of everything that we would have right and reason to expect from a long-awaited continuation to such a beloved work!
Which I don't even mean in a fan entitlement sense--I was not expecting (nor would I even have wanted, not from Bryke) Zuko and Katara to have an affair and declare their undying love for each other in this movie. That's what fanfic is for, and believe me, my bookmarks are chalk full. But we got cheated out of a gaang reunion--we got to hear Aang tell Katara to rally the troops, but we don't get to see any of it because it cuts straight to Aang's solo journey to find the boy in the iceberg a man in a mountain. We don't get to know how long it's been since any of the gaang has seen each other, much less gathered as a group. Hell, if you didn't already know Sokka an Katara were siblings, you'd certainly never know it to watch their scenes together (since they don't really have any). You don't get a sense of any of the gaang's relationships, either, not even with Aang--even Katara we only know is 'with' Aang because they kiss a few times, but we get no deeper sense of their relationship, how long they've been together, how well they know each other, or how deep their bond runs. We don't even know if they're sleeping together, because the bed Katara's sleeping in when Aang rushes off in the middle of the night does not look like it was meant to be big enough for two.
And I'm hardly one to complain about not getting a canon relationship I deeply dislike rubbed even more into my face, except it's almost adding insult to the original injury, you know? Because Katara is my favorite character and I get nothing from her, not even why she's with Aang or what her adult life is like. You know, things that, as a fan of the original show, I'd have reason to expect to be at least touched on in a movie long-touted as the adult gaang film we've all been waiting for.
The closest thing we get in the entire movie to something that felt like it was genuinely put in their for AtLA fans was the cabbage merchant cameo. And I love a good cabbage merchant cameo! But not when it's the only thing that feels even remotely like it could've come from the same creative well as the original series.
But if the movie wasn't made for older fans of the original show, then... who? Not new fans of the franchise, surely, or else it would have done something to draw new viewers in and make them want to seek out and watch the original series. It wouldn't have been so forgettable, with a half-assed plot that was itself a rehash of plot beats already covered in AtLA or LoK. But then, it couldn't be for newer fans of the original series, either, because it does nothing to tie into the original work or play on either nostalgia from 2006 or fresh excitement driven by someone who's gotten into an old cartoon and is hungry for more content.
But if it's not for old fans... and it's not for new fans... and it's not to try and hook new fans...
Then again, I've gotta ask.
Who the fuck was this movie for?
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