This movie was bad. I mean, really bad. But, despite everyone's rush to blame M. Night, I must point out a few other things that make it less his fault, but he's still not blameless.

The primary areas the movie suffers is assumption, pacing, MPAA (the rating game), and length. Before you stare aghast at this, let me explain.

Firstly, assumption:
The movie assumes that the viewer is already familiar with the characters and situation, therefore inelegantly steps around any real development of our protagonists, and primary antagonists. It glazes past the things that make us typically care about the characters, because it assumes we already do. It's painful to watch, seeing each step of the movie jump us 10 miles, instead of moving alongside the characters and growing with them.

Second, Pacing:
This is partly to blame on the aforementioned, but not entirely. The pacing is rushed, to pretty much sum up the entirety of the first book in a 90 minute movie. Important details are overlooked, and the pinnacle of any adventure movie is really lost here. The -journey- is the most important part of the adventure, seeing what it takes to get from point A to point B. At best, the movie comes off as a cluttered montage. A rapid-fire series of events to progress us to Aang accepting his role as the Avatar.

Third, MPAA, or, the rating game:
This is the hardest thing to really quantify aside from how much had to be dumbed down to keep a PG rating. It's a stretch that M. Night hasn't made in a long time. He's never done an adaptation, much less had to keep to a stringent rating, in order to try and include a broad spectrum audience. Zuko's scar is less garish and smaller, the act of actually making the Fire Nation appear as evil as they are is left to the wayside in order to allow an all ages audience. Had he been able to aim for a higher rating, he could've shown the genocide of the Air Bending tribes, and had Zuko looking fittingly disfigured. He could have had Aang become legitimately angry and shown some of the backlash of that, that was in the series in the first book. It could have made more of the movie stand paramount, instead of this rapid-fire execution of porridge.

Lastly, Length:
This one is the part that kills me the most. 90 minute features are becoming fewer and farther between. The movie could have been a bit better had they taken an extra 30 minutes through the movie as a whole, and brought us into tune with the characters. Giving us a more properly established backdrop and setup, instead of having Katara narrate over the gaps of progress to move story along. I would have happily sat through a 2 hour long, well established film, than sacrificing a half hour just to make things a bit quicker. Once again, I am going to blame this on the broad-spectrum audience. Standard first showing is around 6:30-7pm, and the movie is being released right before school starts back up...therefore, a 2 hour movie is pushing it for a lot of the younger viewers, and would cut into box office sales. An hour and a half? More "nominal and normal" for a moviegoing parent who takes their kids along.

Now, the final thing I'm going to toss in here is about the writing. It wasn't poorly written, so much as it was poorly adapted. This is not entirely M. Night's doing, either. Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are billed as Executive producers. These two gentlemen are the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender. When they pitched this to M. Night, he knew nothing of the series. His kids and he got the DVDs and watched them. He fell in love with the story and was eager to commit to doing the trilogy. Downside is, he wanted to honor the source material as much as possible. It was Bryan and Michael who he came to, to find out what to keep, and what to remove. To him, it was all important, it shaped the world and characters. They, the creators, worked hand in hand with him on the adaptation. So, if anyone is responsible for fucking this up, they hold equal, if not more blame for destroying their own creation.


That's my 2.5 cents on the flick. Feel free to add your own!

Regards,
Verias