I did not think that what was cut was all bad. Most of it was not needed for the main story of Aang reaching the North Pole. And the replacement story that he is spending his time jump starting a revolution is passable. The only sad loss is Suki, but Sokka having two romances in one movie would have been silly. The weirder loss is of Roku.
But, by cutting out a lot of episodes, they cut a lot of backstory as well. To fix that, various characters provide lots of exposition, and it is always provided poorly. Characters will start talking with almost no prompting. And Katara's narration is terrible, and oddly enough, would have fit better as regular exposition.
You can see Nicola Peltz waiting for her turn to say her lines. Noah Ringer swings between sad and sort of confused for most of the movie, showing happy or angry emotions only at the beginning. Seychelle Gabriel sounds like she does not have a thought in her head. Jackson Rathborne was okay, for what little he appeared. He did not do much beyond acting cranky, and his love scenes were not impressive. Dev Patel was stuck in single-minded Wangst mode, even more than actual Zuko.
The adult actors were better. Shaun Toub was spot on as Iroh, even if some of his more bombastic personality is lost. Aasif Mandvi found a good balance betwen being a jerk without overdoing it. And Ozai was actually a character and not merely a plot device.
Another problem was how little depth the characters had because not enough time was devoted to Character Development. Kind of a Catch-22, they could not have the characters bullshitting around when a story is going on, but it makes most of the characters uninteresting.
My friend called it the Cliff Notes version of the first season. People who have seen the movie will recognize characters and stories if they watched the show later. But a lot of what made the show fun is lost.
But it is not the "excrement wiped on celluloid" film the internet said it was. The characters, while shallow, were at least somewhat accurate, as was the story. Instead it was rather sad. It could have been good, there are parts in there that show the movie had potential. Instead it stands as a testament to why cramming an entire season of a show into a movie does not work. And why the casting director should not work in Hollywood again.
Not Terrible, But Disappointing.
No space for introduction.
I did not think that what was cut was all bad. Most of it was not needed for the main story of Aang reaching the North Pole. And the replacement story that he is spending his time jump starting a revolution is passable. The only sad loss is Suki, but Sokka having two romances in one movie would have been silly. The weirder loss is of Roku.
But, by cutting out a lot of episodes, they cut a lot of backstory as well. To fix that, various characters provide lots of exposition, and it is always provided poorly. Characters will start talking with almost no prompting. And Katara's narration is terrible, and oddly enough, would have fit better as regular exposition.
You can see Nicola Peltz waiting for her turn to say her lines. Noah Ringer swings between sad and sort of confused for most of the movie, showing happy or angry emotions only at the beginning. Seychelle Gabriel sounds like she does not have a thought in her head. Jackson Rathborne was okay, for what little he appeared. He did not do much beyond acting cranky, and his love scenes were not impressive. Dev Patel was stuck in single-minded Wangst mode, even more than actual Zuko.
The adult actors were better. Shaun Toub was spot on as Iroh, even if some of his more bombastic personality is lost. Aasif Mandvi found a good balance betwen being a jerk without overdoing it. And Ozai was actually a character and not merely a plot device.
Another problem was how little depth the characters had because not enough time was devoted to Character Development. Kind of a Catch-22, they could not have the characters bullshitting around when a story is going on, but it makes most of the characters uninteresting.
My friend called it the Cliff Notes version of the first season. People who have seen the movie will recognize characters and stories if they watched the show later. But a lot of what made the show fun is lost.
But it is not the "excrement wiped on celluloid" film the internet said it was. The characters, while shallow, were at least somewhat accurate, as was the story. Instead it was rather sad. It could have been good, there are parts in there that show the movie had potential. Instead it stands as a testament to why cramming an entire season of a show into a movie does not work. And why the casting director should not work in Hollywood again.