Now onto the number one reason so many people like this show:
THE CHARACTERS.
So it makes sense that most die-hard fans of the show are complaining about the total revamp of the personalities of the main cast. Right?
I hope so. Because I'm so indignant, I'm afraid I have to enlist the wise and thoughtful Rath of Ben 10 to help me express my indignation.
Take it away, Rath.
... well I guess you could put it that way.
To start off, let's focus on the titular lead, Aang the Avatar and incidentally, the titular Last Airbender. Played by Noah Ringer in the live-action movie, he--
...right. Well, let's cut right to it.
In the show, Aang was a happy, cheerful, and optimistic person who just happened to be humanity's last hope for peace.
In the movie? Not so much. Mopey, mopey, mopey, mopey. He smiled maybe once in the current-time storyline and once in a flashback. He claims to like games and fun, and yet even with every opportunity to goof around and have fun, Shyamalan chose to have him angsting over pretty much everything. Okay, we get that he's the last of his race. Okay, we get that he's responsible for the world and the fact that he disappeared is kind of the reason why all the airbenders are gone. But it's painfully obvious in the original cartoon that his coping mechanism is his cheerful, carefree attitude. Besides, in the episodes The Storm and The Guru, it's made fairly clear that he is not over his loss, and he feels tremendously guilty.
Despite all of that, he maintains a happy outlook on life and manages to make new friends, find new love, and see the best in everyone he encounters. That to me is a true hero and a wonderful protagonist, and considering my constant battle with depression, I need that sort of a protagonist. I don't need constant angst, I get enough of that in my life.
What's really sad is that Noah Ringer, the actor cast to play Aang, is almost an exact clone of Aang in personality. I mean, watch this video and compare it to Ringer's performance in the movie. We can only blame bad writing and directing, because if Ringer's personality was allowed to shine through, we would have had a different Aang.
Indeed, next in our core cast is Katara.
Cheerful, motherly, and a prime example of a female BAMF (if you don't know what this means, you're too young to know) Katara is the last waterbender in her tribe and has had to teach herself her people's martial art for most of her life. When she is told that she can't have something she wants and needs, she will fight claw, tooth, and nail to get it anyway.
She masters waterbending by sheer power of will, kicks Zuko's butt in the Spirit Oasis while the moon is up, and provides an emotional base to her companions, as well as providing motherly support when needed.
In the movie, she's just... there. No, seriously, she's just there. She provides nothing to the story, save for this:
...and some weak-ass Tai-chi. Oh, and narration, for forced exposition so that Shyamalan doesn't have to adhere to the "SHOW, DON'T TELL!!!!11!1one" rule. She doesn't need to struggle to learn waterbending, she doesn't take on the bleeding heart role that she has in the show (see Imprisoned and The Painted Lady) and she doesn't earn the right to train with Pakku at the North Pole. She doesn't even get the SUPAA-GURL-POWAA role that some female characters get in movies (see Annabeth in Percy Jackson and Elizabeth Swann in POTC) for her fight against Zuko in the Spirit Oasis - Zuko beats the crap out of her in minutes, she never gets the upper hand.
Thanks a lot, Shyamalan. The one character that your daughter looked up to - with good reason! - and you suck the personality and depth out of her. Nice going.
Oh, Sokka. One of the worst offenders in this movie.
In the first season of the show, Sokka is the group dork. He's smart and battle-savvy, yet he is totally not girl-savvy, insulting his sister and several formidable warriors (i.e. the Kiyoshi warriors) and he is the only non-bender of the group besides the eventual addition of Suki. He has few profitable and battle-worthy skills, yet he's always willing to learn more and help in the war effort. He considers his honor very important, always striving to rectify his mistakes, find solutions within the law, and make a difference to the winning of the war.
In the movie, Sokka is played by a guy who plays a vampire in Twilight. Jackson Rathbone approaches this role in the same way he approaches the character Jasper Cullen: deadpan when inappropriate, look mildly constipated when there is trouble.
Movie!Sokka has lost all his dorkish charm, his humor, and his boomerang! Not one bit from the show!Sokka's personality comes through in this movie. No Mechanist moments, no big planning moments, no funny moments, no nothing. If, heaven forbid, a second movie is made, I'm willing to bet every penny I have saved for art school that Shyamalan will not include the cactus juice scene.
Sacrilege.
Wimp.
Okay, I'll take it from here.
So the other characters that suffered include... pretty much everyone else. From characters involved throughout the entire show--
-- to characters of just one arc--
-- to throwaway characters who appear for an episode--
-- to even characters who barely get hinted at--
-- this movie butchers them all in one way or another. From basic visual designs to their very personality, these characters are represented as people entirely different from their show incarnations.
Fire Lord Ozai, for instance, is the series's Big Bad Dude. For the first two seasons, all we see of him is a shadowy outline or maybe the lower part of his chin.
This gives him a menacing quality, showing him to be a powerful and commanding figure who pretty much trumps all the other villains of the story - and all of this is heavily implied just by the writers and animators not showing his full face. When they do reveal Ozai's face, it's a huge shock!
He's an older, nastier, merciless version of Zuko!
In the movie, Ozai's face is revealed barely past the half-hour mark. Not effective. Cliff Curtis doesn't even look like Dev Patel. Facepalm. Plus, like Katara's character, Ozai isn't good for much bad guyish stuff. He just sits in a throne, walks around, and talks, forever in his poutyface. =3=
Ugh. What I haven't said, Bebopsamurai has. I can't even...
Onto Zuko.
Zuko is the one for whom angst is appropriate. As in lay it on, that is Zuko's main purpose in the first season. A dishonored prince of the Fire Nation, Zuko has been banished for disobeying his father and showing mercy in the heat of battle. Everything that makes him Zuko is frowned upon, and he constantly lives in the shadow of his sadistic little prodigy of a sister.
I swear, in the movie, Shyamalan made Zuko bipolar. Hands down, out of the four main characters, Dev Patel did the best job of acting. His emotions, while exaggerated way beyond the limits of the show, were closer to genuine than Rathbone's deadpan and Ringer's wangst. But it's still not good enough.
Zuko has a genuine drive to everything that he does in the show. He is guarded, private, and still raw from the events of three years ago. He is not candid, not calm, and barely merciless; focusing entirely on capturing the Avatar and restoring his honor, very little diverts his attention.
Patel's Zuko, while more believable than any other of the core cast, is not quite that. He candidly talks about what happened to him, whereas in the show Zuko refused to, and everyone of his crew pussyfooted around the story behind the scar. His uncle had to reveal that. In the movie, Zuko whips out the story behind his banishment at the drop of a hat, and apparently it's so well-known in the world, random colonist kids know every little detail. Dude. What?
Not only that, but Zuko from the show is ALWAYS ANGRY or ALWAYS SIMMREING. He is true to his element of fire - rarely does it go out. In the first season, he is either smoldering, ready to burst into flame, or he's already flaming. Zuko's temper catches quickly and is completely flammable. He is furious, and his fury never really goes away - not until much later on, that is.
In the movie, Zuko needs some meds. Seriously. It was like he was mentally imbalanced, and anything could set him off. Patel did a good job portraying a psychopath, and for that I applaud. Once. One clap. There.
Iroh... oh Iroh.
Dammit, Shyamalan, Iroh was cool!!
The wise old Sifu to Zuko's hotheadedness, Iroh provided an element of maturity and experience to the supposed "bad guys". He showed that not all Fire Nation characters had No Self Control (see Zhao) and that some of them are a little bit more ascended than those in power. Iroh is quietly in opposition of his brother's quest, preferring to keep the balance of the world and study everything that the planet had to offer. Plus, the tea.
What. Happened. To. The. TEA?!
Shaun Toub probably did the best job acting out of the entire adult cast, but still. Shyamalan's interpretation of Iroh was absolutely atrocious. I mean, for one thing, the dreads.
Okay, okay, that's probably not the worst of it. But honestly, the Iroh of the movie doesn't have the likability that the Iroh of the show had.
And there's this.
'nuff said.
Zhao... GUH.
Aasif Mandvi as Zhao was probably the worst decision for casting out of the entire cast. I mean it. He read every single one of his lines like it was a skit for the Daily Show. Honest. For all of Zhao's menancing qualities and his total lack of mercy and discipline, he was an effective villain.
Movie!Zhao? No. Just... no. I expected him to mention Jon Stewert several times throughout the movie, that's how not-serious Mandvi was. I hope he was doing that on purpose, because I know he's a good actor.
Haru wasn't even in this movie, his role was taken by some random Earth Kingdom kid. It's not even worth going into, because that character had very little screentime. And yet Haru returns in season three. Facepalm.
Azula is probably the sorest spot with me, mostly because Azula is my favorite villain EVER.
She's a total bitch. And yet she's awesome. Cold, deliberate, and cunning, Azula could win many, many wars by herself. She is always calm and in command of everything, and she maintains an iron fist in all of her operations. It's not until the tail-end of the third season that she starts spiraling out of control due to all the factors that made her such an effective villain.
Whereas in the movie, she's nutso from the get-go.
That's it? BULLCRAP. I CALL A COP-OUT.
There are many more instances of crap-outs on the characters, but as these characters are pretty important to the story, less slack is given. Honestly, I really do not feel like going through all the other fails that Shyamalan shoved down our throats in this. So I leave you with this:
Well put, Rath.
Once again, muchas gracias to AvatarSpirit for the screencaps. Rath belongs to Cartoon Network and Man of Action, and his screencaps were from Ben 10: Alien Force.
