Rant: The Last Airbender
It's weird - I'm not annoyed because there are lots of little canon errors to nitpick. Or at least, not primarily because of that. TLA is just...meh.
First off, they literally did the first episode and the last episode practically in their entirety and skimmed over most of everything in between - in a really annoying way. I mean, seriously, Katara's voiceover goes something like "And we crossed the entire Earth Kingdom, stirring up trouble along the way, and Aang tried to learn waterbending but for some reason sucked at it" (which, by the way, really annoys me. Because waterbending came really easy to Aang - easier than it did to Katara, making her jealous. But of course, can't have actual conflict in this portion of the movie; we don't have time! Same with the whole Zuko-chasing-them thing - Katara literally did not see Zuko till the bit that was the last episode, and I think Aang only saw him during the Blue-Spirit-Saves-Aang bit. The only indication that he was chasing them was that "Sokka felt like someone was chasing us" - Katara v/o, paraphrased). The whole movie between finding Aang and the Big Battle in the North Pole was just so completely rushed. It was skim-skim-skim, touching down for a few minutes once or twice, but otherwise lots of summarizing and text at the bottom telling you where they were. I didn't think you could be guilty of Telling rather than Showing too much in a movie, but M Night Shyamalan manages it.
And, I think partly because of the skimming but not entirely, most of the characters were just completely lifeless. Katara seriously looked like she was near tears throughout the entire movie - which, despite what the Ember Island players seem to think, is so not how Katara is. Aang and Sokka were just blah. Where's all Sokka and Aang's humor? (Oh, I forgot, they tried to have some fun at Sokka's expense in the beginning - too bad it just wasn't funny). And what happened to fiery Katara? (For that matter, what happened to Sokka getting annoyed at everyone because of timewasting? Oh, wait, there wasn't enough time traveling actually shown for that to happen). I understand if some of the humor of Sokka, in particular, was lost, because I don't think that would entirely work in such a dark, serious film. I think even a good adaptation would have had to leave that out. But the characters are just so completely blah. I mean, Aang has some very slight guilt issues, and Sokka is briefly in pain over Yue (in a very un-Sokka-like "intense" way), but other than that, they're basically cardboard cutouts. Iroh - easily one of my favorite characters in the entire show - somehow lost both his eccentricity and his badass-ness (I thought maybe he'd at least retain the latter) - and his fatherliness towards Zuko could have been more pronounced, in my opinion, since they decided that was one of the few traits they were going to keep. Although, props for the one reference to tea. At least they remembered he likes it. And then Zuko just wasn't the Zuko I remembered at all - and it would have been so easy to play Book One Zuko too! I mean, seriously, how hard can it be to yell and get frustrated a lot (he only yelled once that I remember, and in a very not-convincing way)? And yeah, Zuko did have his moments of humanity in Book One. But that so wasn't the rule. He was still mostly the Bad Guy in Book One. But, here again is the skimming thing biting them in the butts - I'm pretty sure the bits they showed with him were the bits from Book One where he was all human. They just didn't seem to have time for the bits where he was attacking the trio and being angry and everything that seemed to characterize Zuko in Book One. And really, the enemies in general were just personally not very threatening. Zuko spent most of his time moping around, and Commander and/or Admiral Zhao just kind of looked frightened every time he went to do something major. And the Fire Nation in general could've stood to be a lot more threatening, as well. Whatever happened to those freapy tank thingies that just wouldn't go down (until they figured out how they worked and realized waterbending could disable them, anyway)?
Also, did anyone else think that bending in the movie-verse was a supremely impractical way of fighting? A lot of the bending seems to be more dance than martial art, in my opinion. In show-verse, each move did something actively, generally - in movie-verse you seem to have to do a series of moves before anything happens in a lot of cases. In others, the bending is just so. slow. Like that fight in the Earth village, between the firebenders and earthbenders. When the firebender first bended the fire and it was going that slowly I was like, are you joking? And then earthbenders blocked and they were just as slow and what the frick? Anyone with a weapon could totally take down a bender before they could do anything, at that pace. The pace did seem to pick up later on, but then it begs the question - why, when in previous fights it took longer? Also, there were at least two scenes with Aang and Katara practicing some very pretty waterbending...that seemed to be doing literally nothing. Like, I could not see water and/or ice moving. Was I just not looking close enough? And then firebenders - why do they bother at all, and how did they overcome all the other benders? I mean, they can't make fire out of thin air! (Except Iroh, but Iroh is always exceptional). What do they do, carry torches everywhere? That would get really unwieldy. And it's a huge disadvantage to them, since airbenders have their element all around them, and water- and earthbenders usually either have their element around them (especially earthbenders - the only way to easily keep them prisoner is on metal boats) or can easily carry their element (like Katara's waterskin - definitely more easily portable than a torch). It's just...why? Why bother?
I do have one nitpicky canon issue, but just because it kind of threw me off. Why are everyone's names pronounced differently? "Ahhv-atar," "Soe-ka," "Ahhng," "Ee-roh" - why? It's just going to annoy fans and newcomers probably won't care either way.
Another thing - I think they focused more on visuals than on plot or character, which is a shame because - even though I love me some good visuals - I would much rather have an awesome plot and characters I actually give a crap about personally than nice special effects. I mean, just look at Star Wars. And for that matter, you really can have both. Look at the Lord of the Rings movies, for a start. And some of the focusing on visuals thing just was completely pointless. Like Iroh's awesome-looking firebending in that place with the moon and ocean spirits. Okay, yes, the soldier dudes turned and ran because OMG HE CAN CREATE FIRE? (you know my opinion on that already) - but that was so not a satisfying fight scene. Ditto with Aang's Avatar state thing. I just kind of zoned out - because honestly, I don't want to watch a stupid wave for that long - and I missed whether it actually did anything or not. From what I could tell, it mostly - again with this - made the soldiers turn tail and run.
Anyway. I just think that in adapting the show to the movie they sucked most, if not all, of the life out of it.
First off, they literally did the first episode and the last episode practically in their entirety and skimmed over most of everything in between - in a really annoying way. I mean, seriously, Katara's voiceover goes something like "And we crossed the entire Earth Kingdom, stirring up trouble along the way, and Aang tried to learn waterbending but for some reason sucked at it" (which, by the way, really annoys me. Because waterbending came really easy to Aang - easier than it did to Katara, making her jealous. But of course, can't have actual conflict in this portion of the movie; we don't have time! Same with the whole Zuko-chasing-them thing - Katara literally did not see Zuko till the bit that was the last episode, and I think Aang only saw him during the Blue-Spirit-Saves-Aang bit. The only indication that he was chasing them was that "Sokka felt like someone was chasing us" - Katara v/o, paraphrased). The whole movie between finding Aang and the Big Battle in the North Pole was just so completely rushed. It was skim-skim-skim, touching down for a few minutes once or twice, but otherwise lots of summarizing and text at the bottom telling you where they were. I didn't think you could be guilty of Telling rather than Showing too much in a movie, but M Night Shyamalan manages it.
And, I think partly because of the skimming but not entirely, most of the characters were just completely lifeless. Katara seriously looked like she was near tears throughout the entire movie - which, despite what the Ember Island players seem to think, is so not how Katara is. Aang and Sokka were just blah. Where's all Sokka and Aang's humor? (Oh, I forgot, they tried to have some fun at Sokka's expense in the beginning - too bad it just wasn't funny). And what happened to fiery Katara? (For that matter, what happened to Sokka getting annoyed at everyone because of timewasting? Oh, wait, there wasn't enough time traveling actually shown for that to happen). I understand if some of the humor of Sokka, in particular, was lost, because I don't think that would entirely work in such a dark, serious film. I think even a good adaptation would have had to leave that out. But the characters are just so completely blah. I mean, Aang has some very slight guilt issues, and Sokka is briefly in pain over Yue (in a very un-Sokka-like "intense" way), but other than that, they're basically cardboard cutouts. Iroh - easily one of my favorite characters in the entire show - somehow lost both his eccentricity and his badass-ness (I thought maybe he'd at least retain the latter) - and his fatherliness towards Zuko could have been more pronounced, in my opinion, since they decided that was one of the few traits they were going to keep. Although, props for the one reference to tea. At least they remembered he likes it. And then Zuko just wasn't the Zuko I remembered at all - and it would have been so easy to play Book One Zuko too! I mean, seriously, how hard can it be to yell and get frustrated a lot (he only yelled once that I remember, and in a very not-convincing way)? And yeah, Zuko did have his moments of humanity in Book One. But that so wasn't the rule. He was still mostly the Bad Guy in Book One. But, here again is the skimming thing biting them in the butts - I'm pretty sure the bits they showed with him were the bits from Book One where he was all human. They just didn't seem to have time for the bits where he was attacking the trio and being angry and everything that seemed to characterize Zuko in Book One. And really, the enemies in general were just personally not very threatening. Zuko spent most of his time moping around, and Commander and/or Admiral Zhao just kind of looked frightened every time he went to do something major. And the Fire Nation in general could've stood to be a lot more threatening, as well. Whatever happened to those freapy tank thingies that just wouldn't go down (until they figured out how they worked and realized waterbending could disable them, anyway)?
Also, did anyone else think that bending in the movie-verse was a supremely impractical way of fighting? A lot of the bending seems to be more dance than martial art, in my opinion. In show-verse, each move did something actively, generally - in movie-verse you seem to have to do a series of moves before anything happens in a lot of cases. In others, the bending is just so. slow. Like that fight in the Earth village, between the firebenders and earthbenders. When the firebender first bended the fire and it was going that slowly I was like, are you joking? And then earthbenders blocked and they were just as slow and what the frick? Anyone with a weapon could totally take down a bender before they could do anything, at that pace. The pace did seem to pick up later on, but then it begs the question - why, when in previous fights it took longer? Also, there were at least two scenes with Aang and Katara practicing some very pretty waterbending...that seemed to be doing literally nothing. Like, I could not see water and/or ice moving. Was I just not looking close enough? And then firebenders - why do they bother at all, and how did they overcome all the other benders? I mean, they can't make fire out of thin air! (Except Iroh, but Iroh is always exceptional). What do they do, carry torches everywhere? That would get really unwieldy. And it's a huge disadvantage to them, since airbenders have their element all around them, and water- and earthbenders usually either have their element around them (especially earthbenders - the only way to easily keep them prisoner is on metal boats) or can easily carry their element (like Katara's waterskin - definitely more easily portable than a torch). It's just...why? Why bother?
I do have one nitpicky canon issue, but just because it kind of threw me off. Why are everyone's names pronounced differently? "Ahhv-atar," "Soe-ka," "Ahhng," "Ee-roh" - why? It's just going to annoy fans and newcomers probably won't care either way.
Another thing - I think they focused more on visuals than on plot or character, which is a shame because - even though I love me some good visuals - I would much rather have an awesome plot and characters I actually give a crap about personally than nice special effects. I mean, just look at Star Wars. And for that matter, you really can have both. Look at the Lord of the Rings movies, for a start. And some of the focusing on visuals thing just was completely pointless. Like Iroh's awesome-looking firebending in that place with the moon and ocean spirits. Okay, yes, the soldier dudes turned and ran because OMG HE CAN CREATE FIRE? (you know my opinion on that already) - but that was so not a satisfying fight scene. Ditto with Aang's Avatar state thing. I just kind of zoned out - because honestly, I don't want to watch a stupid wave for that long - and I missed whether it actually did anything or not. From what I could tell, it mostly - again with this - made the soldiers turn tail and run.
Anyway. I just think that in adapting the show to the movie they sucked most, if not all, of the life out of it.