Disappointment, and a plea to fix it.

[shichahn]

So, Dan and I went to see The Last Airbender this afternoon. I had rather low expectations - the trailers made it look beautiful, but also seemed to point out a problem that would be very, very obvious to fans of the actual show, in that it completely lacked any of the humor or happiness or love that marked the original show. But of course, knowing what trailers are like, I figured it was comprised of action bits and that the happy silliness would be present in the actual film.

Well, let me tell you now, if you've seen the trailer, you're done. Stop there. All of the cool action and effects parts are already in the trailer. There is, in fact, no humor in the movie, but for a poor attempt at a laugh when Sokka flails around under Appa's tail in an early scene, fearing the flying bison is trying to eat him. Sokka, by the way, is no longer meat and sarcasm guy, but obnoxious white boy who is sort of like a piece of cardboard with a srs bsns face drawn on. Katara spends pretty much the whole movie looking pathetic and sobby. Aang is... okay, except that he doesn't seem to have very much fun, ever. And there's something terribly, terribly wrong with that.

The whole movie plays like a series of random scenes from the show, strung together loosely with some poor narration by Failtara. I can't imagine it made any sense to anyone who hadn't seen the show. Also, what I don't think was made very clear to anyone was that this is part one of several. Was that ever mentioned in the trailers? Because I wasn't even sure, myself, until part of the way through when I decided that even at the ridiculous pace and general choppiness of the film, there was no way for them to make it all the way through the story.

Dan wasn't even aware that it was an adaptation (despite my having mentioned my misgivings about the movie several times before we went to see it). And so that, coupled with the fact that that movie was awful and I don't want to remember the story that way, brings me to my request:

Is there anyone who would be willing and able to burn the original Avatar series to dvd and mail it out here? Please? Pretty please? I would be happy to repay anyone who can do this for me by mailing something out in return - coconut chips? Dried mango? Some other sort of easily mailed snackable item? You name it. But I would really love to watch the show again, as well as spread it around to those here who would appreciate it.

Comments

[flameraven.livejournal.com]

What format do you need it in? Like, can you just watch things on your computer or do you want DVDs that will play in a standard DVD player? I have TV versions of the series on DVDs, but they're all .avi. But if you have an XBox 360, you might be able to put those episodes on your computer and stream them to your TV anyhow.

[shichahn.livejournal.com]

.avi is perfect! I'd prefer that over the actual playable dvds. My address is over at this post (http://shichahn.livejournal.com/123272.html), and shipping to Saipan is the same price as any other state, woohoo. And I think dvds you can mail as "media mail" which is cheaper than priority but takes the same amount of time - though really, getting anything here sooner than two weeks would be something of a miracle so it hardly matters, haha.

Anyway, thank you so much~ Would you care to pick some sort of strange tropical snack food? We have candied jackfruit. ;D

[flameraven.livejournal.com]

No problem. My roommates both have the DVD sets so I don't actually need my copies anymore.

You could send me just about any random thing- candy or snacks, that would be fine. Give me an e-mail address and I'll send you an address for my snail-mail.

[shichahn.livejournal.com]

Haha, alright, I will find you something suitably tropical and delicious. And my email address is the same as my LJ name here, at gmail.com. ♥

[platoapproved.livejournal.com]

If no one else can, I'll burn you the CDs and send them, just email me your address.

OH GOD all the reviews of the movie say it's awful...

[platoapproved.livejournal.com]

Oh, also, if it works in your area, which it might not idek, all of Avatar seems to be available on the online Netflix instant viewing thing. If it works in your area but you don't have my account, my family's got one, just email and I'll give you the username and password.

[shichahn.livejournal.com]

Our internet is so bad here, you have no idea. Otherwise I would totally take you up on that. But it looks like Beth is able to help out, so hooray :D Thank you though!

[zolac-no-miko.livejournal.com]

...We're going to go see it tomorrow anyway, but we'll see a matinee so we feel slightly less bad about wasting our money. I'm getting all worked up to hate Shyamalan already. DDDDD:

As far as the actually quality, good Avatar... I was going to offer to send it along with your Doctor Who installment, but it looks like flameraven beat me to it. I'll try to send your Doctor Who as soon as possible... meant to send it on Monday, but Becca and Ducky arrived that day, and I don't even fucking know what happened to the rest of the week, it's Friday already tomorrow and like I said we're going to a movie, and then it's the weekend and then it's a holiday... so Tuesday hopefully? T_T FMbusyL.

[shichahn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we went to a matinee too. $5.50 here! I love non-chain theaters. But ugh, I think what I've been able to gather was that he wanted to make it epic, but, dude, epic does not have to mean colorless and unfun. Being like "oh yes, we removed the stupid slapstick jokes and grounded Sokka's character to make him more realistic!" actually means "we took all the humor out of what is a very funny show and made it as dreary and boring as possible!" I want to write Shyamalan an angry letter. :(

My goodness you are busy indeed, haha. Well, hey, it's okay. I still haven't gotten around to mailing my dad's Father's Day present either, so I totally get it.

[bestservedgold.livejournal.com]

I have approx 14 angry letters stored up for him, BUT if you want to feel better you can giggle with me over some of my stunt trainees srsly calling him "Midnight Shmulan". I love 11 year olds. Well, actually, I kinda also wanted to strangle them... but they were pretty hillarious.