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I got in to Avatar – The Last Airbender, only because it showed up as one of the recommendations in my Netflix queue. I have consciously avoided this series for a long time, thinking its just for kids. With nothing else to do, I watched first episode from Book 1, two weeks back and my mouth was wide open in surprise. Wow! Kids these days are very lucky for having a series filled with fantasy elements based out of different Asian cultures. Needless to say about the visuals which is an absolute fantastic mash-up of anime and regular cartoons. Folks who have seen other anime classics derived from classic manga will have an appreciation to this series as well. I went ape shit about the series and saw all three books (seasons) back to back. The finale was worth it. Also you gotta understand, this series is targeted for kids (Y7) and it carries only subtle violence, elements of teen romance and some goofy comedy – in most scenarios they succeed with the mix. After finishing the series, I was pretty sure the movie version will easily rock, because ….....
1.IT'S A ROAD MOVIE – lead characters keep traveling from one town to another, one nation to another having lots of fun along the way. I have a huge love for road movies and I think, if you mix it with any genre (sub-genre?!), it will work just perfectly. Be it Lord Of The Rings or Motorcycle Diaries or even Wendy & Lucy – it is fairly easy to keep the characters afloat and interesting.
2.IT'S A MARTIAL ARTS MOVIE– the series relies heavily on action set pieces and choreography derived from Chinese Martial Arts. Each bending technique is blended with actual fighting styles. So the movie can easily be filled with cool action sequences. And we see that in the trailer as well.
3.IT'S HARRY POTTER – the 3 characters in the series (Aang, Katara and Sokka) can be compared to 3 lead characters in Harry Potter. You can also run multiple parallels between the two series. So how is it a good thing? Kids are gonna love it and it's good for box-office.
4.STRONG SUPPORTING CHARACTERS – I could only compare this aspect to LOTR. The secondary characters in the film have almost the same level of importance to the protagonist. A very sarcastic & goofy Sokka, blind girl with trigger-happy earthbending -Toph,witty tea-loving fire bender Iroh and one of the best gray characters ever conceived, Zuko. All these characters have a strong back stories and brilliant emotional arcs to carry the movie for a smooth ride.
5.GOOD VS EVIL – take all major franchises – Star Wars, LOTR, Harry Potter and even Matrix/Transformers (just the first ones!). Good Vs Evil always works. We all know, no matter what, good triumphs in the end. But the journey is always watchable.
Having loved the series too much, I'm worried about the movie now. They have already f**ked up the casting! Shyamalan is returning to direction after Happening. Beyond all this mess, I have a small light of hope, the movie might still work. Because Avatar series as a mythology is mind-blowingly awesome.
But I gotta give it up to the trailer. It looks spectacular with cool martial arts, a strong voice over and visuals seems to have translated well to movie format. Water Kingdom looks awesome in live-action. Aang's tattoos, the Avatar transformation and the bending sequences – everything seems to be carried over from the animation series directly. It's all good! I even spotted Appa (flying bison) for a moment there and Momo (flying lemur) seems to be missing. Will this version work? We gotta wait and see. But I'm excited!
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