The first review I read about the movie The Last Airbender was in the Star Tribune. It got 3 out of 4 stars, and so I was hopeful the movie would deliver on my expectations. I ended up seeing it over July 4th weekend, and enjoyed it a lot.
So why all the hate? Everywhere I look people are ripping on this movie. Sure, I never saw the original cartoon series (watching it now with Megan actually). Is the movie the exact same as the cartoon? No... but what [insert source material]-Made-Into-Movie is exactly like the [insert source material]?
Sure there are exceptions. Sin City? That movie is so close to the book, the dialog is line by line from the book. But that's more the exception more than the rule. Most anything else is an "adaptation". Harry Potter, Watchmen, GI-Joe, A-Team, every random comic book-made-into-movie.
Yet almost every complaint about this movie is how it's "so not like the cartoon series." I sat there watching the first episode of the cartoon going, "Wow this is just like the movie.". You can do a lot more character development and story lines with 3 seasons of a cartoon show, and no matter how you slice it, it would be damn hard to condense down to even a trilogy of movies. Hell, Harry Potter can't even condense a single book into a single movie. It has to do the last book in 2 parts! Why? Because it's a great way to milk even more money out of the fans.
Needless to say, I'm bummed that the movie is getting such a bad reception. I would have loved to watch two more in a trilogy series of this story line. Sadly, people are just making fun of M. Night and I highly doubt another movie in the series will be made.
1 comment:
The cartoon/movie obviously made an impact on Megan. When we were swimming on Sunday, she was moving her hand through the water saying that she was a "waterbender". Andi thought that was pretty funny. Now I get the context of that.
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