Movie of the weekend: The Last Airbender

[thistlechaser]

Okay, so I'm trying to watch this movie. My expectations were so low going in that I figured I might actually like it; I was expecting a handful of white kids sitting around telling racist jokes while drooling on themselves, so it had to be better than that, right?

Not by much.

It's the little things that are really killing me. In the scene down in the arctic village, they live in igloos, right? The entrance way of the igloos are covered in flimsy, see through lace-like material. WTF. They're all dressed in fur and yet they let the cold air freely into their homes?

And this: 26 minutes into the movie and they just arrived at some earthbending village. A bunch of huts. Of course the huts are built on flat dirt ground. One of the people in the background was sweeping right outside of his hut. Sweeping. The dirt ground. Because it was dirty? Seriously, look! And 33 minutes in someone else is sweeping the dirt! Must clean dirt, must clean dirt. Seriously, do people actually sweep dirt? Is this something I've missed learning somewhere along the way?

This just so very doesn't work as a live action movie. What looks cool animated looks silly live action.

The one and only good part is Iroh. He looks and sounds nothing like the cartoon version, but I liked him.

I really had thought that people were overreacting about the races, but it really is bad enough to be disturbing. Characters who should be brown are shockingly white. The bad guys are all dark skinned.

Wow, I actually made it through the whole thing. Two hours wasted. I didn't see one positive review of this movie, and they were all right. Ugh, what a waste.

Comments

[ani-mama.livejournal.com]

I did not see the movie because of the whole "race bending" thing, but sounds like the movie was bad enough without it too. The people who worked on the cartoon series must be pissed as heck.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Based on the race thing alone, I'd be unable to recommend the movie.

Based on all parts of the movie other than the race thing, I'd be unable to recommend it.

It's just a total 'lose', no matter how you look at it.

It wouldn't surprise me if the cartoon folks were highly annoyed by this. It's just so bad. If only they had done it animated, I bet it would have been tons better.

[trickofthedark.livejournal.com]

Seriously, do people actually sweep dirt?

Yes, they do. The swept yard:
http://gardenhistorygirl.blogspot.com/2008/04/bellwood-plantation-and-southern-swept.html

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Huh! That's interesting, thanks for the info!

[peppygrowlithe.livejournal.com]

It really was just a shoddy movie. Before this movie, I would say that you could fault Shamalamadingdong for having goofy plot twists or absurd ideas, but his direction and dialogue are usually sound enough. But this movie was, in a word, unprofessional. I was immensely disappointed the entire way through, and given how easy I am to amuse, this is a pretty rare phenomenon.

The worst part (and therefore my favorite) was when Admiral Zhao is telling Ozai about the Blue Spirit. It goes something like this:

Ozai: So... you believe my son is truly the Blue Spirit? The strange creature that rescued the Avatar from our captivity?
Zhao: ...
Ozai: ...
Zhao: YES.
*screen cuts away to something else*


Text doesn't do it justice. It's HILARIOUS.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yes! And not only that, he states outright that he has no proof for the claim, and Ozai just accepts it!

Arg. What an awful movie.

[peppygrowlithe.livejournal.com]

Also, what's up with the pronunciations? SOH-kah? Ahng? "AH-VA-TAR"?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

That too! Arg! WHY?

[teaandfailure.livejournal.com]

I seriously didn't think it was going to bother me as much as it did. I mean, I'm pretty used to all the annoying whitewashing and blondifying and for some reason UNBLONDIFYING when a character is legitimately supposed to be blonde (Lucy in Narnia, Annabeth in Lightning Thief), so I figured it wouldn't be as big a deal as everyone was making it out to be.

I WAS WRONG OH GOD, I WAS SO DISTRACTED BY WHITE KATARA I COULDN'T EVEN LOOK AT ANYTHING ELSE.

It was horrendously bad, and yet, I still hated it less than The Lightning Thief, perhaps because at least with Avatar, I WAS WARNED THAT IT WAS TERRIBLE.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

They were just so distractingly white! It made the whole thing feel just so much more wrong than it already was. And as a bonus, if they had been darker, the fire nation wouldn't have stood out for being dark skinned as badly as they did.

Agreed though, I disliked The Lightning Thief even more than this. There were ... well, not even okay moments in Avatar, but I just hated every moment of Thief more.

Next week: Hopefully a good movie! It's a rerun, but the last time I saw it was maybe 20 or more years ago. Cool Runnings. I enjoyed it when I saw it, so I'll be interested to see if I still do.

Wow. I googled it to see exactly how long ago it was out. 1993. HOW THE HECK IS THAT NEARLY 20 YEARS AGO! I thought it came out in the 70s, maybe 80s...