Quick miscellany

[kate_nepveu]

Screw flying cars. Where is my in-home custom clothing fabricator?

(Prompted by an unfun trip to get maternity clothes. Chad thought I was going to say "uterine replicator," but I pointed out that even if I wasn't needing maternity clothes now, I'd still have to buy clothes sometime.)

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The first four episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender

Comments

[scifantasy]

Avatar's very good, especially by kid-show standards. It stays undemanding--occasionally it's a little on the Aesop side--but does get at least a little deeper.

[thormation]

I highly recommend Avatar. I would watch it for Uncle and Sokka alone. I like a show with good banter. The wife and I are both eagerly awaiting the new episode, which is now something like 5 weeks late.

There are several things you have to willingly suspend your disbelief on--the largest of which is the physics, and the second largest of which is the low mortality rate. You'll see what I mean on both counts as the show goes on.

And the lessons that are imparted are not always the ones that "ought to" be. The show's creators are pretty good about subverting the message from time to time.

Oh, and the behavior of the main characters makes many hundreds of percents more sense if you mentally add two to their stated ages.

[kate_nepveu]

Sokka does not appeal to me, but Uncle let me trot out Rule Number One from _Thief of Time_, so even if he's a little obvious I like him.

[thormation]

Yes, in the first four episodes, Sokka is a big whiny idiot. But by the end of Season One, he develops more character and complexity.

Actually all the main characters grow and develop. It's lovely to watch it happen.

[cheshyre]

I turned that Cute Overload kitten into my desktop wallpaper :)

[msagara]

Second the recommendation for The Arrival. It was quietly, perfectly, beautiful on so many levels.

[telophase]

Avatar's primary problem is that American TV assumes that animated shows that aren't attempting to be hip, ironic social commentary are for kids, and that kids can't handle seeing the consequences of violent actions. And that it has to be Educational, hence simplistic Messages abound. But it does a good job of testing its boundaries, and the story-arc setup allows for character growth and long-term plotting, which is much better than almost anything else out there.

[radiotelescope]

I didn't like Sokka on first brush -- quite aside from the fact that I want to spell him "Saka". But there's a moment, I think within the first four episodes, where he decides *not* to whine, and instead goes and is responsible and makes a wry joke to the buffalo. So I was okay with him from then on. He knows what being a grownup is, even if he usually lets his sister do it for him.

Not too many episodes after that, I realized I was a drooling fanboy. Just warning you. :)