Air-out-of-my-ass-bender

[Meclar]

Wow this movie sucks big hairy tea bags. I hate Shamadickalong movies but I can't help but think that people can change and I thought he might redeem himself for all those stupid plot driven movies.  Granted Airbender didn't have a weak ass twist at the end, however the acting and directing fell really short.  The writing is as expected for a movie of its kind and rating (PG) and characters were literally repeating one another.
I thought movies went through test audiences.  Did this piece of shit fail in the 18-35  age group so they just hacked it to shit for a younger demographic?  Oh there's gonna be at least 2 sequels.

[Mo]

Wow really that bad?  I don't understand why Hollywood keeps letting this guy make movies.  I saw The Happening, and that was probably the worst movie I ever did see.

[420]

The reason the movie made it to the theater, in my opinion, is that movies based on best selling novels are treated differently than other movies. People view these movies through rose colored glasses. They think the movie is an accurate representation of the best selling book, therefor the movie is good.

One of the best examples of this quality blindness for a book-turned-movie is Stardust. The book was great, it was original and engaging with a memorable story and some really interesting characters. The movie on the other hand featured a flaming gay ship captain played by Robert De Niro...

It's just sad really because there have been some really good movies based on books in the past but it seems like Hollywood is just churning out whatever crap people are shoveling. I swear that they are taking scripts from any homeless hack and then altering them just slightly so they can slap the title of a well known book on it.

-420

[Mo]

Well this movie got 9$ on Rotten Tomatoes.  That's is BAD.  Seems like Paramount was planning on this being the first movie in a trilogy.  They might change their minds after this though.

[Meclar]

It's the last movie of his I'll pay to see.  There just hasn't been any decent movies playing in in over a month so I got desperate.

[420]

It's the last movie of his I'll pay to see.  There just hasn't been any decent movies playing in in over a month so I got desperate.

What about The A-Team?

I was a huge fan of the show and I thought the movie was very entertaining. Now, I'm not saying it was a "good" movie, because it wasn't, but it had all the classic elements of the TV show and it was a fun way to waste 2 1/2 hours. I decided to check out the TV show on Hulu and I was surprised to see how crappy and low budget it actually was as compared to my memory of watching it as a child.

-420

[Meclar]

I remember watching more episodes of Airwolf than the A-Team.  Never got into it and still it's weird seeing it without Mr. T.

[cuchulann]

Ah, what a shame. My sister and I suspected it would go badly despite how nice the effects looked. It got a lot of bad vibe from the whitewashing of the core characters long before it was due to come out. I recomend the animated series, Avatar the Last Airbender (or the Legend of Aang), though. This first film was trying to compress the first season of 20, 25-minute episodes into what? 2 1/2 hours or however long it is? So yes you are going to loose a lot of development there. If it doesn't do well in the box office then book 2 Earth might never come out and I'll never see how they cast Toph. Did Azula even make an appearance? I didn't the name in the cast list for this one, and she should have at least shown up at the end.

[Meclar]

I didn't know it was a series until 5 minutes before the movie started and my friend mentioned it was based on a comic book.  It looked more like a movie you'd see on the 'Sy-Fy' channel.

Spoiler Alert

Did Azula even make an appearance?

Yup.  That was another problem.  First they had the Prince and his uncle so you think those are the main bad guys and they'll be developed.  Then comes along the general (Aasif Mandvi from the Daily Show) and his only bad attribute is embarrassing and humiliating people in public.  Then without much introduction the king (Don't remember if he was refereed to as the king or not) is seen for 30 seconds, setting up the rivalry between the prince against the general and his troops, which we already knew by this time. 
The evil princess was introduced through a flashback but why the king favors her over her brother is not explained and then she's seen 10 seconds before the movie ends.  If she's that bad ass why wasn't she involved in catching the fartbender?  To top it all off the end battle was a joke.  The water people talked about blowing out the torches so the fire people had limited resources but they never did.  Plus there was that classic 'Hey we know there's a huge war party coming to get us.  Holy shit! A war party right outside our door!' and sure enough there's a shitload of ships anchored in the bay a hundred yards out.  Did they have any scouts looking? 
Oh and then there was this shot of the wall of the water peoples city with guards posted on it ready to attack the incoming siege.  I won't say anything more about it but it made everybody in the theater laugh out loud.

I know I'm knit picking and I could on on and on but it was blooper after blooper and seriously degraded the quality of the message of the movie.

[Elessar Telrunya]

The Firelord favors Azula over Zuko because she's a firebending prodigy, which will probably never be shown since I doubt there will be a second movie.  She's also a psychopath.  I'm in the same boat as Cuch - I didn't think they could shove an entire season into a movie.  One of the strong points of the series was that most of the episodes still advanced the main plot in some way, and even the fluffy episodes would manage to contribute something small.  That was their first mistake, and I gather it went down hill from there.  They would have been a lot more successful if they had made a movie as a sequel to the series.  I do recommend watching the animated series - the movie will probably make a lot more sense then.

Honestly I still haven't seen the movie.  Really I was only holding out because the special effects in the trailers looked nice, but I've heard so many bad things about it that I'll probably just wait until it comes out on DVD.  A review appeared in the Boston Globe a few days ago that absolutely tore the movie to shreds.

[cuchulann]

The evil princess was introduced through a flashback but why the king favors her over her brother is not explained and then she's seen 10 seconds before the movie ends.  If she's that bad ass why wasn't she involved in catching the fartbender? 

Zuko was supposed to be on a fool's errand. After a century had passed everyone believed the Avatar was dead and never comming back. It was not until after they confirmed his return and that he was powerful enough to take out an entire war fleet single handed did Ozai understand that he needed to send out the big guns.

[Meclar]

Are the fire people or the air people going to be able to conjure lightning?  I think it's supposed to be the air people as lightning is a product of positively and negatively charge particles in the air but my friend says no it's actually fire.
I like the concept of the movie but it's poorly executed.  Where can I see the series?

[Elessar Telrunya]

Lightning is a firebending technique, but it's supposed to be so difficult that only a very few can do it.  The sidereel page for Avatar seems to have a lot of links for it, but I'm not promising anything on the quality.  I watched the show while it aired on television (it still does, I believe), so I haven't had to hunt for episodes before.

[cuchulann]

I saw most of the show on Megavideo. though i had to hunt down the last couple episodes

[Meclar]

Yeah the cartoon is way better especially the brother character and the comedic moments.  And  you can't get any better that Mako.