A rambling rambler overthinking all things geeky and nerdy like Video Games, Anime and Manga, Card Games, Tropes, Superheroes, Cartoons, and all that good stuff.
Mousa the 14: The cynical, sarcastic, and frankly, no nonesense guy who hangs around tvtropes.org all day. Self-proclaimed World's greatest Arteest and Writer.
A single, liberal, heterosexual, overweight, bespectacled, black male from Northern Virginia.
When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.
The other day I was talking with some geeky associates of my at the community college and I was notified that Johnny Storm, The Human Torch, was dead and Spider-man had replaced him in the Fantastic four (Which makes sense since Spidey is the perfect funny guy to replace Johnny and the two are good friends). But we also know this: The Human torch would be back. It was a fact of life, we said it like it was a bad joke, because it was. It was also noted that Nightcrawler of the X-men had died recently and was one of the few mainline X-men who hadn't died in their history, until recently.
It was then we got to talking and we realized: Who hasn't died in superhero comics? We we came up with a fairly small list so we decided we would venture onto the net and contact the message boards we closely associate with and find the answers. On our own we found that Spider-man hasn't died Tim Drake as Robin/Red Robin hadn't died and neither had Dick Grayson as Nightwing/Robin, The Invisible Woman, The Alan Scott Green Lantern, Jay Garrick Flash, and Luke Cage. This was just off the top of our heads with no research, and that's a minuscule list. I mean, when you think about it, it's a really interesting questions because comic books are practically known for killing people and for them to not be dead for very long. I mean when Superman was supposedly killed some time ago by the creature designed to kill him known as Doomsday, that was a big deal. Same when Batman got his back broken by Bane in the 90's, and Batman was killed not too long ago (But it turns out he was somehow sent time traveling. Yeah, comic books are weird.).
Obviously they wouldn't be dead for long. The big thing with the comic book industry is that they're not interested in making stories or characters, they make their money off of making long running legacies, which I sort of brought up in my previous entry, Modern Mythos. Which means even if they kills these characters, they won't be dead for long, they're too beloved for that and they have to stay to make the fans happy. The deaths were originally designed to "shake things up" but now they're just quaint to comic fans now. which means they don't serve as much purpose as they used to because we all know the guys will be coming back.
So it's just interesting to know who hasn't died because a lot of deaths has occurred. I mean it's almost like dying gives you superhero street cred or something. We set up some parameters for our quest though:
A big name or close to big name superhero, which I guess is hard to define, but let me put it to you this way, "Who is more important/well known? Iron Fist or Captain Mar Vell?" If you answered Iron Fist, you're own the right track. If you said Captain Mar Vell, you're a bigger geek than I am.
Someone who has had a minimum of 10 years of continuity behind them.
They had to have been dead or presumed dead for more than one issue. Enough to have had an impact on their universe.
It's a DC or a Marvel hero, obviously.
It's in the main universe. None of this "What-if" or "Elseworlds" nonsense.
Happy Hunting.
-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power
When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.
Once upon a time there were these deities worshiped by ancient civilizations. These people told many stories of the exploits of these deities. However, these stories were all primarily from word of mouth, there was no single comprehensive and linear and consistent story of any of these gods, only what was told and what little was written down. These deities by modern day became primarily abstract concept with vague yet specific jobs and exploits and rulings that can be interpreted and spun around in a myriad of ways by many different writers in the present day.
We called this ancient incomprehensible library of vague references mythology. These deities and heroes such as Gilgamesh or Zeus were mere concept that could be twisted and turned into whatever we wanted within certain pre-established guidelines. The idea was there and we could make up the details ourselves, it was all based on the person telling the story.
I want to you to think long and hard about this. Does this sound familiar to anybody, anybody at all? Anything in the modern day that works on this exact system of vague pre-established concept that many people write about and with each different writing, different interpretations re made and different details are added based on personal preference. Perhaps this is too vague. After all, mythology of old had specific groups, we had the Grecko-Roman Gods, The Norse Mythology, Agyptian gods, and far many more I don't even know the names of. I'll keep this simple, this modern day version I'm referring two has only two self contained groups.
Now I'm going to stop treating you like an idiot and tell you this modern day mytholgoy is superhero comics and the two specific mythologies are Marvel and DC.
Despite the obession with "Continuity", American comic books are a mess. and probably have the least amount of continutiy that make sense. Especially DC. These things have gone on for decades wit hcharacters that age in reverse dog years and basically they're environments where characters and stories are allowed to exist. These comic histories are incomprehensible and with all the crossovers, one shots, and and tie ins, not even counting the alternate universes, I doubt even the most devoted geek can keep track of their favorite superhero and if they can, they need to go outside and start smelling the frikkin' rosies becuase their dedication most likely took up 75% of their existences and I wish I was joking but that's how extensive these things are.
I saw the comic book industry needs to quit it and geeks need to quit it. You know why? Becuase the DC and Marvel comic universes are now nothing but big flipping mythologies, worlds where anything can happen and anyone can do whatever based on the mythology behind them. At this point no continuity matters and I doubt we can ever go back to the days of everything being separate individual characters and stories that may have a a conclusion, the connected universes will never end so let's just go all out, write whatever we want, we already disregard continuity ad consistency anyway, let's just run with this. We just remove the concept of "canon" and have everything be right depending on the writer. It's easier on the fans that way.
Isn't that awesome? We invented a mythology without having it being centuries of lost archives behind us!
Wanna hear more about how this whole continuity and comic books are a mess? Movie Bob has got a few vids that helped inspired this: Continuum, Continanity, and Nerd Gods, mind you the man uses stronger language than I do.
-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power
I went to take an exam to see if I qualified for some classes at the local community college and I saw the oddest thing:
Dark skinned Asian guy, who knows, maybe he was Inuit, not the point, anyhow, he was wearing an interesting amalgam of items I can only call "Convention Casual".
He was wearing a Jack Skellington hat, you know, one of those semi-common winter hats, an Ushanka, methinks? That sort of hat with Jack Skellington print. He wore checkerboard patterned fingerless gloves, those kinds of gloves you wear because incompleteness is hardcore. And He wore black pants that I associate greatly with my eccentric positive metalhead friend who tended to wear black pants with too many pockets. This guy wore similar stuff only surprisingly less pockets and blue highlights on it. The icing on the cake of this odd piece of leg wear was the two chains that were cross along the front of his pants. Yeah, he isn't exactly running anywhere, or striding for that matter.
But here's the kicker, right there tied to the back belt hook on his pants was a big blue fizzy tail! No, I was not looking at his butt, you couldn't miss it. It was a tail!
That tail has been in my mind... Like I get this feeling that certain apparel is starting to become less of an issue, and by less of an issue I mean, coming out f the woodwork and suddenly being okay to wear in casual everyday settings.
I mean, sure it starts with cute animal hats, eventually with ears on said hats or hoots, but when does it stop or keep going on? How does it keep going on? Will hats bring along with it fashionable goggles? fingerless gloves? chains? tails? Jack Skellington? Is the geek and furry apparel slowly crawling out of the convention dealer room and Hot Topic? I mean those two places I mentioned are like the kingdoms of the Rummage Sale Reject style of clothing, but how much of it is... seeping into regular everyday things?
How many of us are forgetting to remove our Digi Charat Bells from our necks? When was the last time you took that SOS Brigade arm band off? How are you looking into those goggles today?
Is this a bad thing? Yes and no. I just find this a little odd perhaps intriguing, maybe even sinister.
Yeah, the French Batman. It's a shame, I mean the French don't particularly like Muslims, I mean they're trying to ban burqas and all that. Which means in real life, The French aren't going to like this choice. Frankly, this shouldn't be a big deal. The type of Batman chosen is not indicative of the entire nation, it's indicative of that character's history and skills and personality, with French having very little to do with it. I mean if that were the case, C. America should be a Native American, you know, just to keep things pure.
You know, I should be more bothered by the fact that Bats is trying to go global but it makes perfect sense to me that he's trying to make his image international, becuase lord knows he can't strike fear into the hearts of every crook world-wide. It takes an army to do that, an Army of Batmen. But this could probably cause in-universe controversy about him exerting too much world power I imagine. I don't know, I love superheroes but don't really pay attention to them so much. I'll explain my view in my upcoming "Mythos" Geek Rant.
When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.
Ever notice the geeky activity (i.e. video games, card games, role playing, anime, cartoons, etc) you're most likely to see a high number of women in is anime and manga? Not an objective fact necessarily (though it might be and I just don't know), just an observation. In fact I may see more girls into anime and manga than I go guys. I've been to quite a few anime conventions and the stereotype of fat sweaty guys in sailor moon cosplay (costume play to those not in the loop) is like 1 to 200. Most of the slack is picked up by hordes and hordes of women. They're the male characters, the female characters, the animal characters, The furries(I've only ever seen male fursuiters so far.) everything! The artist's alley tables is filled largely with women, The anime club I ran in high school was primarily female/potentially primarily female (Even though there were more male regulars in the club, there were more girls in the school in general that were anime fans. It was a small school so I could gauge this easily.), and the anime club at the college I'm attending now is primarily female, and my the demographic of my anime-related videos on youtube is primarily female (Assuming they're telling the truth of their sex.).
Anecdotal evidence: it's right and wrong.
Anyhow, I thought this was fascinating because you always hear about how there are less girls in gaming (at least we used to) and there are all these articles on sexism in game, why the games that try to draw in girls are stupid, etc, etc. My dorm is filled to the brim with Magic: The Gathering geeks but not a single one is a girl. This is the same with the anime clubs I've been in. And When I'm in bookstores I see more ladies (though people in general) perusing the manga rather than the section where the Bone and Tintin compilations are. Tabletop RPGs are a different monster, there are definitely ladies in that area. In fact I think the ladies are drawn more towards JRPGs, not sure why, just a thought.
Anyhow, let's assume my observations have a modicum of truth, why are things the way they are? I can think of a few good reasons:
1) Marketing demographics 2) Most geeky activities have always had a "boy's club" exclusionary feel to them.3) Handsome Men 4) Variety
1) Marketing demographics. What's the difference between American comic books (Yes, Europe, I see The Beano, Tintin, and Asterix and I love those, but I need to go with what I know here.) and Japanese comic books? Well besides the fact when I say American comics you immediately think Superhero comics, you're more likely to find comic books in Japan that appeal to everyone and every interest. American comics used to do this until the comic code fiasco occurred and effectively purging the comic book scene of almost everything but surreal superhero comics. Nowadays you have tons of superhero comics that overshadow your occasional very good independently made comic. But in Japan, while the shounen (term for young boys) demographic is large, it doesn't necessarily overshadow everything else. I mean, I own a manga that teaches you statistics! There isn't exactly a limit to what is made there (due mostly to cheap production values).
This means there is a larger percentage of stuff, manga and their anime counterparts, geared primarily towards the ladies. In video games their attempts towards getting more girls involved have been a little... sexist. Not all of them are bad shovelware, but most of them are pretty bad stereotypical pink shovelware. That is not how you do it, game industry. You make things more gender neutral or gender inclusive in your games, that's how you draw the ladies in. I mean come on, who in the world is kidding themselves, The Spartans in Halo or the protagonist in any and all first person shooter is a dude. Or games like God of War where, what's this? A male protagonist? Why couldn't the god of war be a chick? Chicks too flimsy? What's that I hear? There's sex scenes and naked ladies in your game? What's wrong with doing a complete reversal? I'm not asking for people to just switch the sex around for all the popular game, I'm saying try to get into what a girl may like in a game without always going stereotype or... doing a cop-out like in pokemon where you just choose "Are you a boy protagonist or a girl protagonist" and the game be exactly identical, men and women experience things differently.
Card games I'm not involved in enough to figure out why it's a sausage fest. But superhero comics. Oh superhero comics... Obviously they're big fat teeanged boy power fantasies, look no further than nerdy loser Peter Parker becoming awesome yet nerdy when he becomes Spider-man and gets all the ladies. You get your muscular manly men and women that look like supermodels with more tracts of land. Gee, such respectful depictions of our fair ladies, I wonder why girls aren't interested. True, some are dressed more modestly and well characterized but really they're more likely to be the male power fantasy's object of desire than a female power fantasy.
2) Most geeky activities have always had a "boy's club" exclusionary feel to them. Most geeky activities are fairly 'boys only" clubs. For some reason most of the stuff is advertised towards boys while the girls get dolls, fashion, pink, baby care, etc. Totally equal. So obviously for years, women have not been growing up with geeky things geared towards them due to sexist standards that never end.
Most of this is covered in section 1 but additionally, not only have these things been geared towards boys for years, they're hard to get into for people with casual interest, i.e. girls who mostly haven't been given a reason to be interested in thee things to begin with. Video games aren't hard to get into that's more of covered in section one. Everything else has years of continuity and rules. Superhero comic books have years of annoying continuity I'll explain next essay, tabletop RPGs have editions and edition wars, Magic the Gathering have different editions and rules and card types and card colors and for some insane reason people are able to memorize a bazillion of these, and different entry levels for different interests. Like my sister finds even the most basic and self contained fantasy or sci-fi to be "too complex" and I can see each different one as their own thing, but I think she sees it all as a single conglomerate she has to get attempt to understand all of. I mean Elves, orcs, vulcans, dwarves, wookies; to the casual viewer it's all the same to them and if it's not their cup of tea it makes even less sense.
But manga and anime are just single stories, every thing is right there for you like a book and since they're done by a single person (with their assistants) you have consistency unless the author says so. As as stories they have a beginning and an end, simple as that but with all the complexity you need in a story. No easy exclusion.
3) Handsome Men This was partly a joke, but seriously, our space marines and superheroes are usually rugged male power fantasies, they're not there to look good for the ladies, guys don't know what attract ladies, that's why we suck so much and try so hard. But since it appears some manga writers/artists are women so they know exactly what they're doing and doing it right.
There's just something about the anime and manga art style, specifically of pretty boy that seem to draw girls in. I'd like to see say God of War's Kratos right next to Kyo Kara Maoh's Gwendal in an attractiveness poll and I'm almost willing to bet real money that Gwendal would win by a landslide.
And you know what else is abundant with beautiful men? The Video game equivalent of an Anime: BOOM! Japanese Role Playing Games. Final Fantasy, The Tales series, Even Kingdom Hearts.
So Is this silly? Yes. But does it have merit? Potentially. I suggest a study should be done; handsome men bringing in the ladies into geek oriented things. It's a stupid idea but I'm just spit balling like I always do.
4) Variety So most card games are rooted in fantasy or sci-fi, same with video games because video games can be outlandish (they have things like dating sims, racing games, some first person shooter, etc, of course, it's the principle of the matter.), superhero comics, the books geeks tend to read and the movies they tend to watch.
Anime and Manga are like every other sort of book only with picture which tells you a lot about it's variety, like the aforementioned one that teaches you statistics. Which means whatever you could be interested in is potentially in that format. Cooking, action, adventure, mystery, romance, magical realism, historic fantasy, it's going to be there, trust me. There are some limitations due to Japan being sort of isolated but it's still a lot of stuff.
So in conclusion, yeah, just something to think about, check around your organizations involving geeky activities, and measure out the guy to girl ratio and get back to me, I'm rather curious about this and this is something you can take a look into too. Obviously things have diversified over the years, that's just the way things go, but these things go slowly so my observations might still be sound.
-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination is Your Greatest Power Mousa the 14
When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.
What happened to me? College happened! Yeay higher education! This also means I've postponed my "Namco's Embargo" and "Geek Entitlement and General Jerkassery" topics, mostly due to writer's block on the topics. Now, back to the show:
Geeky men are sexless homos. Kind of. Some of us are not, some of us are. Men are allowed to be geeky and still be fully functional members of society simultaneously, even though these qualities tend to almost contradict each other. But any of us who may be insecure, or might have poor social skills, or that unusually high number of us on the net with Aspergers, ADD, OCD, and ADHD (Not me, I'm not trying to be speshul on the net.), not so much. There's just something about this confidence thing that some people can't get enough of. It makes them look like leaders, look reliable and in charge. That's probably why some of them can get away with being jerks: If you're damn confident and charismatic enough, nobody is going to care what a jerk you really are or they'll at least tolerate it.
And of course they get it out of being sure of themselves, these confident men. A belief that they can feel good about themselves and gosh darned it, everyone else should feel good that this person exists. Color me shocked, turned out vinegar attracts more flies than honey becuase those who are insecure enough to be doormats aren't going to get squat. Turns out the movies lie, what a concept. Excuse me while I make a few false dichotomies for your entertainment value:
Don't hold doors, that's for pansies and losers that let the world walk all over them. Let the people open their own doors.
Nobody's gonna take you seriously if you say yes. Helping people's for pansies and losers that let the world walk all over them. Say no all the time, be a b******, they can help themselves, no I don't care how heavy that couch is.
What's this? You're showing some semblance of feelings? What crap is this? Chuck Norris doesn't cry! The only thing you should feel is joy, lust, and RAEG! Having feelings and talking about them at any time is for pansies and losers that let the world walk all over them. MEN are emotionally deficient, got it?
Now class, what have we learned from this? That's right, to our shock and awe some people think like this. Broad strokes are easier than having to evaluate people individually so if you're into sports or some sort of athlete or at least a charismatic business student, the likelihood of having confidence and charm is so high it's not even a question. You will have it becuase it makes you a MAN. After all, MEN are designed to be hunters and gatherers, to compete, to kill, to go for blood. Be a "MAN" physically and mentally, you are ideal. Tradition and genetics and familiarity build today's standards.
Which mean those who are less then fit either by too much or too little weight have lost a portion of the battle but that's not a deal breaker. The insecurity is still there, becuase let's face it, some of us can be proud and pretty danged confident about our interests or whatever it is the heck we do, but really, those of us in the geeky and nerdy spectrum haven't exactly been praised for our encyclopedic knowledge of the Magic: The Gathering expanded universe. We're not allowed to like what we do without the general public looking upon us with with either ignoring us or general disdain. I mean, we have homebody interests: computers, documenting, organizing, math(a.k.a. Modifying Counter Strike, making wikis about Hunter X Hunter, collecting the entire DC Universe, and Dungeons & Dragons respectively, just to name some examples.)? These aren't MAN'S skills! Go outside and kill yourself ten buffalo and feast upon their testes while you make a sport out of their inflated stomach that involves beating each other up, you pansies!
So nothing to be proud of, skills traditionally unmasculine, extreme doormat tendencies if you're good and an entitlement obsessed overbearing jerkass if you're bad. And of course my entire post was self-deprecation which is also frowned upon becuase it implies insecurities and nobody likes insecurities. Good. Flipping. Grief.
Why can't the world just screw their standards of masculinity? Who cares about these flimsy standards? Yes I know men are providers, have their heads together and in the right place, I'm not talking about disregarding that, I'm talking about disregarding the standards of being a MAN in the social sense, not the familial or interpersonal relationship sense, but just the being yourself sense. Apparently anyone who deviates the norm doesn't deserve companions other than themselves or some other human low on the gender hierarchy than geeks, which is probably the homosexuals, because you can't get any more unmanly than digging dudes, amirite?
But of course this is just whining about a problem that I'm unwilling to change for myself. Most of your confident men friends may tell you changing is easy, just go out there and get our of your comfort zone. If that's their advice, obviously their minds are wired too differently for them to understand the roadblocks or history that built you up to your current mindset, or they don't want to/care to understand, or they are so far ingrained in their confidence mindset of doing anything easily that anything less is too unusual for them to comprehend. Either way, it's helpful unhelpful advice. It's basically helpful for confident people in hiding or in a rut and anybody who is even less than that are boned. You can try, but why put on a mask of being all "MANly" it accomplishes so much, but you may as well live a lie. Not everyone is raised to the proper standards of MANliness and some can act, but it's not who they are. Perhaps some of us are averse to violence, aggression, competition, athletics, or enjoy coding, showtunes, platformers, Dungeons and Dragons, or some combination of the above and more, why should it matter? Why should those all fall into other dark recesses of society with all who have those qualities as part of their make up?
Being the best version of yourself should be all that it takes to be a man. If confidence is difficult, then it is, and it may take a while to get it out there, but if people are going to look down on you for it, then to heck with them. An insecurity or two isn't going to kill anybody, though making an effort to break out of them would be preferred but we're only human, guide-dangit.
Look, I'm going around in circles and it appears I'm having trouble figuring out which parts I'm endorsing and condemning so I'm going to add this last bit of polish and head to sleep. The point is :The Standards are exclusionary, pointless, and demeaning and only breed insecurities, bitterness, and anger and not of the MANly kind either, but something cold and dark that breeds jerkasses and doormats.
-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power
Avatar, The Last Airbender was an insanely popular animated series on Nickelodeon and their last hurrah before they would descend into mediocrity and Spongebob Squarepants again. The characters were interesting, complex, and funny; the plot was involving and mature, especially for a kid's show; it took it's audience seriously without doing too much or doing too little. Avatar was good. Insanely Good. In my cynical tweens I thought Nick was attempting to cash in on the anime boom by trying to release a series with a poor story and poor characters and try to draw people in based on Asian references and anime-type art style alone. I was wrong on more levels than I can even comprehend.
However, it was LONG. Or Long-ish. It had three seasons with 20 episodes in each season (except the last which had 21.). That's approximately 25 minutes an episode multiplied by 20... That's 500 minutes a season, That's 8 hours and 20 minutes per season give or take. aka A whole school/work day and we all know how long those feel.
So when it was announced to be a movie we all know it would be poor. You can't compress 8 hours of subtext, filler, and foreshadowing into 1.5-2.5 hours. Especially when a lot of that filler was dedicated to building the world, the characters, and not actually filler but more foreshadowing or filled with characters who will recur later on and be important to movie the story along (Yeah, the writers cared that much, for a kid's show mind you.). You'd have to cut a butt load out, make the plot more straight foreword, utilize Characterization Marches On (An odd but common of concept involving using the developed versions of a character's personality, or the most well know aspects, in an adaptation rather than starting from how they were in the beginning and letting them develop as such. It's sort of how like caricatures are made.) in order to keep the characters consistent and skip using movie time to develop them properly, but remove some of the foreshadowing and world building, you know, that sort of thing. Could've been a mediocre or average movie series.
But you can't trust anything in the hands of M. Night Shyamalan, can you? I have not seen his movies, I was a kid and didn't care about anything that was released. I hearThe Sixth Sensewas good and the one or two that came after were adequate or great, and everything following was worse than poor. M. Night Shamland is apparently a good director and technician but can't write anything worth crap has been flanderized as the "twist ending" guy. And he has arrogance too. I mean who stars themselves as the misunderstood hero of a movie you're directing? Anyhow, he's possibly so arrogant he finds only what he himself writes is worth directing. And that's when Last Airbender starts coming apart at the roots.
Now, I'm going to sound silly since I myself have not seen the movie. However I have good reason for this. I have heard from friends, trusted acquaintances, internet reviewers, official reviewers, and Roger Ebert that either this movie is poor and/or it does not do it's source material justice. The only guy I know who is contrary to this fact is.... well... My supposedly beloved Game Overthinker a.k.a. MovieBob is trying to desperately to give M. Night a chance. Poor deluded fool. Or perhaps I'm wrong. I don't study film, I'm going to be an engineer with an art and writing background. Perhaps technically it is good and the plot is poor due to compression. It's so hard to judge such things sometimes. Perhaps I'll rent the movie on a future date, but giving it money is the last thing I want to do right now.
So without further do, using the internet and half-baked research, I'm going to enumerate the changes M. Night made to the Last Airbender and why they're a problem...
1) The Bending.
If you watch the series it's difficult to see how in the lord's prayer he screwed that up. Bending is a lot like martial arts in the show, heck, let's not use technicalities here, it is martial arts, based off of real fighting styles. How it differs from martial arts is basically proximity to your opponent. With real martial arts you're going up and actually hitting your opponent. With bending you're making similar movements, to move your respective element. You're not going up to hit a guy, you're making the motions to hit a guy and then the element does the hitting for you. It's supposed to make sort of flowing motions, conforming to how you're moving. Sounds like a simple enough concept to grasp: Hire some real martial artists in those particular styles or styles similar, train your actors, make sure your choreography looks good and make your CGI flow with the moves.
No, instead we get spell casting. And by that I mean you stand around and to some cool movements and then your desired effect will occur after the fact, so basically like casting a spell. Heck, it doesn't even look like fighting in the movie, they're basically doing an interpretative dance and then BOOM, element moves!
Wow, all that dancing to move a single solitary rock? Apparently this is called Flynning. Aang almost had the right idea, though the entire "arm wiggling" thing looked a little silly and but with air bending it's meant to be more flow-y with the whole body. In this final battle scene it seems they finally got bending to look right, but why all the slo-mo?
Now real earthbending looks a lot like this:
You can really see the flow and if you watchothercompilations you'll see just how this works and how M. Night Shy ruined it.
And the firebenders were just poor looking, I mean it makes you wonder how some silly looking and incompetent guys almost took over the world. I mean seriously, how did they when their bending takes so freaking long to perform? In fact, let's talk about the fire nation
2) The Fire Nation and the Firebenders.
In light of my previous "Interpretive dance" statements, I want to note how strange it seems that the fire people were able to conquer the world with such slow moving techniques. I mean when you think about it, fire is one of the least substantial elements, a wall of water, earth, or Air would've taken them down. The fire nation must have had some sort of edge, and i would predict those would be 1) The element of surprise (Who else was preparing for war, eh?), 2) superior battle tactics, 3) numbers, 4) something their element has the others don't. Number three is unlikely because the fire nation is a small mountain/volcano area, dwarfed by the sheer size of the other nations, separated or combined. It was obviously better battle tactics like kidnapping all the water benders, putting earthbenders in places like metal cells or rigs in the middle of the ocean so they have nothing to bend, and killing all the airbenders. I mean, you would need to have better tactics to take on the earth nation, they're flipping huge. The earth kingdom is like Russia, hampered only by the fact that it's cities are far few in between for them to be a singular coherent unit. The firebenders had strategic edge and military might.
But they had something else too. They didn't need a source for their fire, they were the source. At a first glance, M. Night Shanghai's decision for them to have a specific source was reasonable. all the other benders needed a source, naturally, so would the firebenders. Unfortunately this meant they carried around lanterns. Never mind this looked silly, it took away a bit of plausibility for what made the fire benders so fearsome. You could take earthbenders away from their earth by surrounding them in iron or taking them to sea and land-bound waterbenders need to take water with them at all times or they're pretty much screwed. The airbenders were monks, 'nuff said. The firebenders make their fire from their life, their chi, it's literally the heat of their energy is burning form. These guys had some sort of edge. and when Sozin's comet comes in their power is amplified greatly. In the movie it just gave them the same abilities they had in the TV show. Laaaaaaaaame. Compounded by how long it takes to bend anything in this movie, these guys shouldn't have been able to take over diddlysquat. 3) Race. I shouldn't have to talk about this, but I want to talk about this. I realize everybody has talked this topic to death but I have an op non too. And yes, I am fully aware of the purity camp and the anti common courtesy-, er, "Anti-Political correctness" camp. And I say, I am not a centrist who thinks this is all silly and yet, I kind of am. When I first saw the announced cast all I could think was "They better damned good actors for M. Night Shyamalan to change their ethnicities or skin colors as it were." I was wrong. I have read enough reviews, talked to enough people, and seen enough clips to know that these kids cannot act. Or if they can, they were given too much exposition to express genuine emotion. either way, M. Night Sham screwed up with his casting choice. Except apparently, the actors for Iroh and Zuko. Strange the best actors in the movie are the bad guys. Even stranger that they're Indian. Like M. Night.
CONSPIRACY!
Anyway, jokes aside, Why would M. Night distract from the fans by doing something silly like change the characters ethnicities? To what end? All it did was invoke unfortunate implications since the bad guys are all dark skinned and the good guys are all white. I mean, if he really couldn't find enough Inuits or Native Americans to be Sokka, Katara, or the rest of the water tribes, he could've have at least used Indians; he's clearly in no short supply of them and I'd bet Dev Patel could be a far better Sokka, I can totally imagine it. At least Dev can act.
Why are the Fire Nation Indian anyway? Is it the Indian people's penchant for spicy food? Why not Latinos then if we're going to go with completely arbitrary choices based solely on how spicy the food is? I mean, judging by their architecture and clothing/armor style it's pretty clear that the Fire Nation are based off of Japanese people and I doubt it would have hurt them to use their East Asian surplus from the Earth Nation to make up the Fire Nation.
Speaking of Earth Kingdom, that big ol' conglomerate of Korean/Chinese outfits, is big enough and varied enough that frankly, I don't care what M. Night or anyone does with them. The Earth Kingdom is large enough and wide enough that you could use a plethora of actors to represent them; black, Indian, east Asian, Arab, it would all fit depending on the area you're in the Earth Kingdom, and that place is huge.
Aang I can understand, the kid is rather pale. The Air Nomads are equivalent to Tibetans, but I think he could be white or east Asian. But they picked poorly. You know how M. Night chose the actor for Aang? The kid sent in a Tae Kwan Do video of himself. M. Night picked the kid because he could look good bald, he was young, and he could do Tae Kwan Do.
4) Characters.
So how did M. Night Shame screw up the characterization? Well let's start with Prince Zuko. Oh no, apparently his character is fine, but the hair. You see, Zuko's hair was a symbol of his development. One can note how angry and villainous he was when he was bald and had that tiny topknot. As he starts growing out of his "shame" and starting to see the error of his ways, he grows his hair out. Was Dev Patel too afraid to ruin his precious hair? They have make-up techniques for that sort of thing.
Katara, our faithful narrator didn't do anything. I mean, why follow the trend of women that are too good at everything or don't do anything. Why can't she be a competent team Mom like she was intended to be? Instead you give her prominent and important moments to Aang (like the liberation of the Earth Benders) and you even make Aang a better bender than her, even though he's new at this. Have you no Logic? I mean, apparently Sokka did more in combat than Katara did. Sokka!
And now for our Aang. Want to know the real reason for him leaving the monks? Let me give you a hint, it has nothing to do with usual Monk traditions like not having a family. He left because he was a scared little kid who didn't want to be the Avatar and didn't want to be a responsible adult so early. Certainly not a silly thing like "can't have a family". And Also, Aang? Serious? seriously, M. Night? that's the approach you take with the optimistic, happy go-lucky protagonist? Did you "forgot" your Prozac every-time you write Aang's part? I mean, i get it, kid running away form responsibility, weight of the world on his shoulders, his entire people has been eradicated; But did you really have to take away from his core personality? You can make Aang sad and angry, but remember, he's also a pretty fun kid!
Sokka was supposed to be the smart guy. He's funny and incompetent for the first season but there's an allusion to it in the first season: The Southern Air temple where people had colonized the temple and were using technology to emulate flight. The top Engineer there needed some help with some ideas and Sokka was the guy who helped the Engineer progress with his ideas. This was the first seeds of Sokka's "idea man" status. Also, Sokka's silliness was one of the few things great about him. Before Toph came along, he was the main deadpan snarker. He was clumsy, irritable, sarcastic, annoyed by the supernatural, and consistently overcompensated for his "useless" status as a non-bender. Sokka is funny!!! Which reminds me...
Why? just Why, M. Night. What possessed you to turn a light-hearted war story into something darker and edgier? IT'S A KID'S SHOW! it may be an intelligent show that takes it's audience seriously, but it's still a kid's show with loads of laughs, fun, and a whimsical and cheery protagonist. I can understand the need to make Aang's reactions more real or serious, but to take away from his personality? And Sokka? make him serious, will ya? How dare you! He's the heart of the show's comedy!
Perhaps he was looking for an Oscar or something and the only way he thought he could be taken seriously wa if he made the movie serious. I think he just really wanted to make the show's fans really really angry. Darker and Edgier is not a bad concept. Unfortunately people have this horrible tendency of abusing the concept and suing it incorrectly, over-exaggerating how dark and edgy something is and losing sight of the core of what they're doing. That's what happened with this movie.
6) Length.
So about how long is this movie anyway?
103 Minutes. That's an hour and 43 minutes.
...
Where da heck did the other 17 minutes go? Or 47 minutes if M. Night Shade wanted to make this a longer movie (which he should have by the way.)? He had 8+ hours he had to force into feature length film, what was stopping him from using as much time he was allowed to use? I mean, I'm pretty sure an 2 hours and like 5-20 minutes is like the maximum anybody has a movie out in theaters be. I mean Watchmen was 162 minutes, a whopping 2 hours and 42 effing minutes and it was still a decent adaptation of the graphic novel. He should have been maximizing every second, if not for fitting in the filler and Chekhov's guns (stuff brought up earlier in a narrative of no real significance and then crucial much later), to at least make the characters actual characters. Perhaps there's something I'm missing or don't know about. I mean, I'm not going to film school here, I'm a commentator pointing out flaws. If you film buffs can come up a plausible reason for this time issue then by all means please, let me know, because I'm a little confused about why M. Night Shaman wouldn't use more time when movies have gone on longer. It's like he was actively trying to make this as bad as putting a big middle finger on the screen for an hour and a half.
Now, there are like, a bazillion other things wrong with this movie that I cannot even begin enumerate. I wanted to go over the moon spirit thing and how General Zhao was killed, but I'm getting tired of dwelling on this subject. I need to see the movie to know all the other problems, many other websites have brought them up, and honestly, I am too lazy to do any more research. This took far longer than I had planned because I have other geek rant ideas lined up I want to get started on and this way overdue and probably no longer relevant. I'm simply here to note the things about the movie's changes that annoyed me the most.
