lj for dummies
fairyblue put up an informative entry discussing both the basics and some more advanced features of LJ. I encourage y'all to check it out, because there may well be some info in there that you were not aware of.
(Example: It goes over why comment notifs lag severely once a week. I HAD NOT KNOWN THIS!)
/pimp
Went to see The Last Airbender last night, thankfully utilising one of the free passes on my Scene card (you see, I may have wept tears of blood after the movie if I had actually paid for it).
White-washing allegations aside (fandom has that one covered, along with Zuko's VA (Dante Basco)), the movie lacked something fierce. And when I say 'fierce', I mean akin to every angry "HONOUR!!11!1!" tirade that Zuko ever made in the source material. The characters lacked depth and their shows of compassion left the audience feeling awkward in that way where no one really knew why they did what they did.
Okay, one bit about the white-washing, then I'll let fandom take the reins on that again. The blatant inconsistency with which it was done added insult to injury. I stayed mostly away from the debates prior to the movie's release, but I understand now why there has been so much controversy about it. The fact that only the three main roles were cast as 'white' versus putting this cast against a backdrop of sufficiently ethnic extras? We like to call that: Doing it wrong! If you are going to make the decision to downplay the ethnic importance of the roles, be consistent. The only display of that was for the Fire Nation casting, which maintained a strong Indian front.
The pacing was far beyond lacking, it almost did not exist.
All the characters were watered down to nearly unrecognisable and flat depictions onscreen, if they were not cut out altogether (hey there, lack of Suki/Kiyoshi warriors). Katara was, in an arguable fashion, my favourite character for development in the first season, but all her moments and rages were taken away. My favourite scene in the first season was where she had to fight to learn waterbending -- not even a single intimation of that. Or any other show of her character, aside from the woobie "believe in me who believes in you" bit -- which felt out of place in a movie that did not once make the effort to show that anyone but SOKKA believed he was the Avatar.
Only the Fire Nation seemed to get any development, and even that was flat and nonsensical. The Iroh lacked near every nuance that first endeared him to me, and though I can appreciate the attempt to develop his character, the result fell disappointingly flat.
Similar to the pacing issue was the content issue, in that way where they could not decide what to include and what to cut. It feels like they let a rabid squirrel with scissors chop the entire season up and then assemble it with post-it notes in the form of bad narration to fill in the raging gaps of logic.
Last, the names. Wait, belay that, as the bastardisation of the name pronunciation made me twitch endlessly all movie.
I do tip my head to Dev Patel for trying. Once I gave Katara up for lost, his scenes were the only thing that kept me in the theatre.
You had best appreciate how bad this movie was by the length of my tirade. My 30-words-a-minute-DVORAK-newbie tirade!
BUT, HEY! Last night was not a total waste. Roy and I enjoyed a 02:00 stroll/adventure in the cemetery, complete with reading gravemarkers by moonlight. If that is not awesome, then nothing is.
Though finding a grave from 1966 with dead ground/zero growth? Pretty eerie. There was a lot of discontent at that one grave, to the point it felt poisoned.
OKAY, ACTUAL CONTENT DONE!
(Example: It goes over why comment notifs lag severely once a week. I HAD NOT KNOWN THIS!)
/pimp
Went to see The Last Airbender last night, thankfully utilising one of the free passes on my Scene card (you see, I may have wept tears of blood after the movie if I had actually paid for it).
White-washing allegations aside (fandom has that one covered, along with Zuko's VA (Dante Basco)), the movie lacked something fierce. And when I say 'fierce', I mean akin to every angry "HONOUR!!11!1!" tirade that Zuko ever made in the source material. The characters lacked depth and their shows of compassion left the audience feeling awkward in that way where no one really knew why they did what they did.
Okay, one bit about the white-washing, then I'll let fandom take the reins on that again. The blatant inconsistency with which it was done added insult to injury. I stayed mostly away from the debates prior to the movie's release, but I understand now why there has been so much controversy about it. The fact that only the three main roles were cast as 'white' versus putting this cast against a backdrop of sufficiently ethnic extras? We like to call that: Doing it wrong! If you are going to make the decision to downplay the ethnic importance of the roles, be consistent. The only display of that was for the Fire Nation casting, which maintained a strong Indian front.
The pacing was far beyond lacking, it almost did not exist.
All the characters were watered down to nearly unrecognisable and flat depictions onscreen, if they were not cut out altogether (hey there, lack of Suki/Kiyoshi warriors). Katara was, in an arguable fashion, my favourite character for development in the first season, but all her moments and rages were taken away. My favourite scene in the first season was where she had to fight to learn waterbending -- not even a single intimation of that. Or any other show of her character, aside from the woobie "believe in me who believes in you" bit -- which felt out of place in a movie that did not once make the effort to show that anyone but SOKKA believed he was the Avatar.
Only the Fire Nation seemed to get any development, and even that was flat and nonsensical. The Iroh lacked near every nuance that first endeared him to me, and though I can appreciate the attempt to develop his character, the result fell disappointingly flat.
Similar to the pacing issue was the content issue, in that way where they could not decide what to include and what to cut. It feels like they let a rabid squirrel with scissors chop the entire season up and then assemble it with post-it notes in the form of bad narration to fill in the raging gaps of logic.
Last, the names. Wait, belay that, as the bastardisation of the name pronunciation made me twitch endlessly all movie.
I do tip my head to Dev Patel for trying. Once I gave Katara up for lost, his scenes were the only thing that kept me in the theatre.
You had best appreciate how bad this movie was by the length of my tirade. My 30-words-a-minute-DVORAK-newbie tirade!
BUT, HEY! Last night was not a total waste. Roy and I enjoyed a 02:00 stroll/adventure in the cemetery, complete with reading gravemarkers by moonlight. If that is not awesome, then nothing is.
Though finding a grave from 1966 with dead ground/zero growth? Pretty eerie. There was a lot of discontent at that one grave, to the point it felt poisoned.
OKAY, ACTUAL CONTENT DONE!