Holiday Weekend Whatnot
It occurs to me that I have said nothing of my past Independence Day Weekend. It was better than last year, seeing as my child was healthy this year rather than sick with strep.
Most of the holiday itself was spent in Seward, where Adrian and I hung out with my dear friends UO, Zanne and Nick, and later on, my cousins. Unfortunately, it was raining for most of the day (hence my dad pitching a hissyfit about me driving 40 miles in a downpour, which is funny because, once I was out of town, it wasn't doing much more than spitting), so walking around the Square and getting lunch at Food Alley was a wet business. Then we spent the afternoon at UO's folks' place watching movies (Cars, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, and a little of Kiki's Delivery Service) until we got around to a nice dinner of bratwurst, sauerkraut and french fries. After dinner, I headed down the road to my uncle's farm to see the family. Naturally, there was much lighting off of fireworks and the standard consumption of lots of food, and also cigarettes and alcohol (mostly in the form of beer and Jell-O shots) in which I did not partake at all. Of course, Dad again freaked out over my son smelling like cigarette smoke, for which he immediately blamed my friends, even though there were no lit cigarettes in that house that I ever saw while we were there and we almost literally had to walk through a cloud of smoke produced by my relatives when we got to the farm. He is such a prat, to put it nicely.
Prior to that, on Friday, Andy and I went to go see the new Last Airbender movie (and, being the dorks we are, went dressed as Fire Nation colonials--it gave me an excuse to reuse the shirt from my Naga the White Serpent costume, and was much fun to do so). I won't say that I actually disliked the movie... but it really did not have the feel of the series at all. And the best part was when a knot of us fans hung around outside the theatre hashing out everything that went wrong.
For starters, it was missing a lot of the charm and humor of the series, which I kind of expected, considering who the director is. When looking at the body of work of M. Night Shyamalan, "funny" and "lighthearted" are not words that are going to come up. So, the lack of comedy wasn't a big surprise, although it DID garner a few laughs (but probably not ones the director intended).
Obviously, a lot got left out, which is to be expected when trying to cram an entire 20-episode season into a film under 2 hours. I'm not terribly surprised that Jet, the Inventor, and the Fortune-teller got left out, since they aren't particularly key to the series. I also didn't expect anything from Toph, Mai or Ty Lee, since the first film only covers the first season, and they don't show up until the second. I was surprised that Suki and the Kyoshi warriors were nowhere to be seen, since they DO play an important role in the overall series, even if they don't get a lot to do in the first season. After all, Avatar Kyoshi got a mention, so if they were going to bother mentioning her, why not include her warriors? Although, that part was also incorrect, since it was said that Kyoshi was "two lifetimes" before Aang in the film. In the series, it refers to Kyoshi in an event roughly 270 years before Aang's birth, which (unless Avatars tend to be super-extraordinarily long-lived) I estimate to actually be six lifetimes before Aang. Admittedly, the math works out a bit oddly, since it indicates an average lifespan of roughly 50 years for an Avatar, which seems a little short to me. I was surprised to see references to Hama, who appears for a single episode in Season 3 and for Haru (apparently ten years younger than he should be) to show up, when far more important characters were missing entirely. Ozai also had a much bigger role than I had anticipated, since we never get to really see his face prior to the third season when he becomes the primary antagonist. Zuko is supposed to be the main villain for the first season, and he does do an adequate job for the film.
Furthermore, they neutered a lot of the good parts, such as the Siege of the North. Everything was all set up for Aang to become the giant water monster-thing and decimate the Fire Nation navy... but it never happened. So many of the "action" parts were SO CLOSE to being cool... and fell so far short. It was saddening.
And then there were the mistakes of sheer stupidity, mostly courtesy of mispronunciation. Except for Sokka, everyone said "Ah-vatar" rather than "Avatar" (although Katara slipped up once at the end). "Sokka" became "Soh-ka." Iroh was "Eeroh". And, most irritating of all, Aang became Ong for the whole film. Not to mention the fact that the firebenders inexplicably required an active fire source before they could do any bending (with one exception with Iroh, and everyone marveled that he was able to manifest the fire on his own)--seriously WTF there.
The things they got right? The very beginning opening. Aang's rescue by the Blue Spirit (unless you count the fact that they broke the mask). And Princess Yue's appearance, until after she does her "giving back to the moon spirit" bit.
In many ways, it felt like the director's research of the series amounted to little more than watching the Ember Island Players episode and skimming Wikipedia. Although it's set up to be a trilogy from what I could see, I doubt we'll end up seeing all three seasons made into film just due to financial concerns.
Most of the holiday itself was spent in Seward, where Adrian and I hung out with my dear friends UO, Zanne and Nick, and later on, my cousins. Unfortunately, it was raining for most of the day (hence my dad pitching a hissyfit about me driving 40 miles in a downpour, which is funny because, once I was out of town, it wasn't doing much more than spitting), so walking around the Square and getting lunch at Food Alley was a wet business. Then we spent the afternoon at UO's folks' place watching movies (Cars, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, and a little of Kiki's Delivery Service) until we got around to a nice dinner of bratwurst, sauerkraut and french fries. After dinner, I headed down the road to my uncle's farm to see the family. Naturally, there was much lighting off of fireworks and the standard consumption of lots of food, and also cigarettes and alcohol (mostly in the form of beer and Jell-O shots) in which I did not partake at all. Of course, Dad again freaked out over my son smelling like cigarette smoke, for which he immediately blamed my friends, even though there were no lit cigarettes in that house that I ever saw while we were there and we almost literally had to walk through a cloud of smoke produced by my relatives when we got to the farm. He is such a prat, to put it nicely.
Prior to that, on Friday, Andy and I went to go see the new Last Airbender movie (and, being the dorks we are, went dressed as Fire Nation colonials--it gave me an excuse to reuse the shirt from my Naga the White Serpent costume, and was much fun to do so). I won't say that I actually disliked the movie... but it really did not have the feel of the series at all. And the best part was when a knot of us fans hung around outside the theatre hashing out everything that went wrong.
For starters, it was missing a lot of the charm and humor of the series, which I kind of expected, considering who the director is. When looking at the body of work of M. Night Shyamalan, "funny" and "lighthearted" are not words that are going to come up. So, the lack of comedy wasn't a big surprise, although it DID garner a few laughs (but probably not ones the director intended).
Obviously, a lot got left out, which is to be expected when trying to cram an entire 20-episode season into a film under 2 hours. I'm not terribly surprised that Jet, the Inventor, and the Fortune-teller got left out, since they aren't particularly key to the series. I also didn't expect anything from Toph, Mai or Ty Lee, since the first film only covers the first season, and they don't show up until the second. I was surprised that Suki and the Kyoshi warriors were nowhere to be seen, since they DO play an important role in the overall series, even if they don't get a lot to do in the first season. After all, Avatar Kyoshi got a mention, so if they were going to bother mentioning her, why not include her warriors? Although, that part was also incorrect, since it was said that Kyoshi was "two lifetimes" before Aang in the film. In the series, it refers to Kyoshi in an event roughly 270 years before Aang's birth, which (unless Avatars tend to be super-extraordinarily long-lived) I estimate to actually be six lifetimes before Aang. Admittedly, the math works out a bit oddly, since it indicates an average lifespan of roughly 50 years for an Avatar, which seems a little short to me. I was surprised to see references to Hama, who appears for a single episode in Season 3 and for Haru (apparently ten years younger than he should be) to show up, when far more important characters were missing entirely. Ozai also had a much bigger role than I had anticipated, since we never get to really see his face prior to the third season when he becomes the primary antagonist. Zuko is supposed to be the main villain for the first season, and he does do an adequate job for the film.
Furthermore, they neutered a lot of the good parts, such as the Siege of the North. Everything was all set up for Aang to become the giant water monster-thing and decimate the Fire Nation navy... but it never happened. So many of the "action" parts were SO CLOSE to being cool... and fell so far short. It was saddening.
And then there were the mistakes of sheer stupidity, mostly courtesy of mispronunciation. Except for Sokka, everyone said "Ah-vatar" rather than "Avatar" (although Katara slipped up once at the end). "Sokka" became "Soh-ka." Iroh was "Eeroh". And, most irritating of all, Aang became Ong for the whole film. Not to mention the fact that the firebenders inexplicably required an active fire source before they could do any bending (with one exception with Iroh, and everyone marveled that he was able to manifest the fire on his own)--seriously WTF there.
The things they got right? The very beginning opening. Aang's rescue by the Blue Spirit (unless you count the fact that they broke the mask). And Princess Yue's appearance, until after she does her "giving back to the moon spirit" bit.
In many ways, it felt like the director's research of the series amounted to little more than watching the Ember Island Players episode and skimming Wikipedia. Although it's set up to be a trilogy from what I could see, I doubt we'll end up seeing all three seasons made into film just due to financial concerns.