#LA:AtLA

[coolest-beans]

I remember when the first live action (that doesn't exist) was being made and the ads had everyone hyped. I was so excited! The whole fandom was. All the previews were encouraging, all the movie promotions looked good, I genuinely couldn't wait. By the time it came out I was ecstatic to see it. I'm not even sure I actually watched it the first time I sat down to. I was just so pumped, admiring every piece of the show that I could find in it, that by the end it took me another rewatch to realize how disappointed I was.

Beyond getting the names mispronounced or the terrible bending, the whole story just fell flat. I wouldn't even know where to begin with how, except that I think where it started to mess up was when it tried to make the movie plot heavy rather than character driven, and then fumbled the whole plot too. The plot for season one, which the movie was based on, was meant to be get to the North tribe. The rest is world and character exploration, but the movie just seemed like a fanfic trying to be a bit hand wavy with the finer details so it can get to the interesting stuff, only it never got there.

One of my least favorite scenes (aside from the ten earthbenders moving a single rock after doing a whole dance routine) is when the kids start planning how to defeat the fire nation and the plan is basically "tell everyone to fight". Like, even my first, most generous watch it gave me pause a second, because the show literally explains, multiple times, that actually yes people are fighting even still, but if they aren't they have good reason to keep their heads down, and no, neither option, fighting or not, can work forever and the only way this ends is by stopping the war directly. The war isn't about to be solved by three kids on a bison dropping by and being like, "hey, you ever think about not letting the fire nation attack? Just sayin'." And then flying off.

Anyway. I hope the new live action will be better. Idk why people feel the need to make a live action of a cartoon so badly, but here we are. So far Aang has been a little too serious from what I've seen and honestly that was one of the most off-putting things in the other live action. Also Sokka's sarcasm hits different in live action so I wonder how that'll go. I probably won't watch at first. It takes me years to get around to things, but here's hoping on behalf of those who will, that any part of this live action will be worth it.

#LA:AtLA #AtLA #That Which Does Not Exist