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| Monday, February 23, 2015 02:15 PM |
| On the Viewer - The Legend of Korra: Book Four - Balance |
 by Fëanor |
I looked back and saw I'd never written up the last season of Korra! Seemed like a terrible oversight, so here I am. I'm going to get a little spoilery here, but this show is pretty old now, so I think I'm allowed.
The show creators start the season off with one of those crazy, gutsy moves they do so often and so well: they jump ahead in time three years from the end of the last season! As the episode goes on, we slowly figure out what all our heroes have been up to. Mako is now the rather unwilling bodyguard of the pampered, self-important Prince Wu, who is about to take the reigns of the Earth Kingdom (or at least, so he believes). We also find out why they made a big show of introducing us to Kuvira at the end of last season (a scene which felt weird to me at the time): she has now become a huge power in the Earth Kingdom and is (not to put too fine a point on it) this season's villain. She calls herself the Great Uniter, and is bringing order to the lawless Earth Kingdom. But it's order without freedom and peace without choice. Like many others, Bolin, Varrick and Zhu Li have been taken in by Kuvira's pretty speeches and are helping her take over - which makes Bolin's relationship Opal complicated, as Opal hates Kuvira.
But of course, the big question is, where's Korra? The answer is revealed in the shocking end to the first episode: she's lied to her friends about where she is and what she's been doing, and she's hidden herself away in a backwater town, telling no one there her true identity. She's spending her time fighting - and losing! - earthbending cage matches.
In episode two, a flashback explains how Korra got here, and again I was impressed with the show's creators for not just pushing on from last season's story like it never happened. In fact, Korra is deeply scarred both physically and emotionally by her battle with Zaheer and her near death at his hands. Physical therapy eventually heals her body (mostly), but she finds it much harder to get over the fear and the block in her mind, and she is haunted by the dark specter of herself as she was when she fought Zaheer - a ghost that actually physically attacks her. The imagery is incredibly powerful: Korra fighting her old self, being pulled inescapably into the past to relive the fight with Zaheer over and over.
Luckily for Korra, she runs into Toph Beifong (yay, Toph!), Aang's old earthbending teacher. She's been hiding out in a swamp, communing with the Earth and avoiding everybody, because she's now a super grouchy old lady. She shows Korra some tough love and helps her to finish her physical healing. But even now, Korra is not magically fixed. There is still a final mental component to her injuries that she has not fully dealt with. It's hard to watch Korra in so much pain for so much of this season, being defeated over and over again, but it's all in service of character and story, and it's a powerful commentary on trauma and healing.
One of my favorite characters, Varrick, gets to shine again this season, and his relationship with Zhu Li finally gets to the next level, which is great to see. The rather infamous clip show episode "Remembrances" (which, as I understand it, the creators were forced to do in order to avoid firing anybody after Nickelodeon cut their budget) is saved only by Varrick's ridiculous action movie retelling of previous events.
Korra's team-up with Zaheer is unexpected and interesting, as is Asami's reconciliation with her father. The final epic battle against Kuvira's forces, led by her incredible, gigantic, spirit-vine-powered mecha battle suit, takes three whole episodes to complete and is exciting and impressive in the extreme. When it's all over, again a tremendous change has come over the world: the explosion of spirit energy has led to the creation of a new spirit portal. This season also reminds us over and over again that the villains Korra fights are never just evil for the sake of evil. Zaheer and Hiroshi both end up helping our heroes. Even Kuvira was trying to do what she thought was right, and in the end is penitent.
But maybe the biggest and most important moment in the entire Legend of Korra series happens at the very end of the last episode, when Korra walks off into the sunset not with Mako or with any other man, but with Asami. They don't quite go so far as to have Asami and Korra kiss onscreen, but that they now have a romantic relationship is strongly implied. In other words, this cartoon has a female bisexual hero. That's amazing! I don't think it's completely unprecedented, but nearly. When I watched that final scene, I felt like I was watching a really important part of television history. Progress!
Book Four is probably the best season of Korra, and really pulls together all the characters and stories from previous seasons in a powerful way. There's also plenty of room for more stories in this world - about Korra and Asami's adventures in the Spirit World, or about the next Avatar, or previous Avatars, or what have you - and I hope we get to see some of those stories eventually. |
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| Wednesday, January 7, 2015 03:22 PM |
| On the Viewer - The Legend of Korra: Book Three - Change |
 by Fëanor |
One of the things I like best about the creative team behind the Avatar shows is their willingness to fundamentally change things about the world they've created. At the end of last season, Korra engineered one of these changes by leaving the spirit portals open, and in this season the world has to deal with the consequences of that decision. One of those consequences is that the spirit world has encroached on the real world in physical ways, enveloping large portions of Republic City in vines and jungle. Needless to say, the citizens and leaders of the city are less than pleased.
Even more astonishing, non-benders all over the world are suddenly developing the ability to airbend. Airbenders, once almost utterly destroyed, are returning. We already knew that air was the element most closely linked with the spiritual side of things, so this makes sense. The problem is, it isn't only good people who are suddenly gaining this ability. The mysterious prisoner Zaheer (voiced by Henry Rollins!!!) has also become an airbender, and he uses his new power to free not only himself from prison, but also a handful of other former compatriots with extraordinary abilities. Their target, as should not be surprising at this point, is the Avatar.
There's nothing like a prison break to start things off in a thrilling way, and a series of prison breaks of incredibly powerful and dangerous criminals from incredibly high security prisons is even better! It is really a great team of bad guys we have this time: an airbender mastermind, a lavabender, an armless waterbender, and a crazy firebender who can make the air explode with her mind (Zuko has an amusing exchange about the time he hired a similar guy to kill Aang).
Meanwhile, Korra, unaware of her danger, is kicked out of Republic City for not being able to clear up those spirit vines and decides to use her new-found nomad status to wander the earth gathering up airbenders in the hopes of rebuilding the long lost Air Nation. Naturally she's joined by the rest of Team Avatar: Mako, Bolin, Asami, Tenzin, and so forth. And naturally she starts making new enemies almost right away! A lot of the new airbenders don't want their new abilities and aren't interested in picking up and leaving their whole lives behind to go train. Meanwhile, other people have their own ideas for how to make use of airbenders.
It's great that we get to catch up with Fire Lord Zuko, and to visit with his Uncle Iroh again in the spirit world. And I love that we get to meet Mako and Bolin's huge extended family, especially their little old grandmother, who's a hoot. Speaking of families, there's drama aplenty when Korra visits a metalbending clan to meet a new airbender only to discover that the girl in question is Lin Beifong's niece, the lady in charge of the clan is Lin's sister, and there is a lot of bad blood between them. We finally get to find out how Lin got that scar on her face, and learn a bit more about what happened to Toph. The original Team Avatar from Last Airbender turned out to be a bit uneven as parents!
And of course there's the usual relationship drama. Thankfully the girl Bolin throws himself at this time (Lin's niece, Opal) is a lot less creepy and evil. And although Jinora falls for a little thief and liar named Kai, he ends up being a decent guy in the end.
Book 3 is my favorite season of Korra yet. A really solid, exciting story with the usual clever ideas, wonderful characters, exciting action, hilarious comic relief, and stunning supernatural stuff. I particularly like that our villains this time aren't just pure evil. They love each other, and are passionate about changing the world for what they believe is the better. They want freedom for all people. The only problem is, their way of going about it involves a lot of violence, chaos, destruction, and murder!
The climax of this season is incredibly thrilling, building to such a fever pitch by the end that I was literally gripping my chair and holding my breath with the tension. And at the end, again things have been irrevocably changed. Korra doesn't just spring right back from being attacked and nearly killed. She is traumatized by what's happened and it will take her time to heal and recover. It's hard to look at her in that final shot, the sickness and weariness in her face, the tear rolling down her cheek. I'm probably going to have to start the next season right away so I can see her get better! |
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| Tuesday, January 6, 2015 10:11 AM |
| On the Viewer - The Legend of Korra: Book Two - Spirits |
| by Fëanor |
All the shows I was watching on TV went on winter break, so I took the opportunity to catch up with one I'd left behind: Legend of Korra! The second season delves into Korra's family's recent past, as well as the distant past of the Avatar and of this world.
Korra heads home to visit with her parents and meets her uncle, Unalaq, who has expertise in one of Korra's few remaining weak areas: spirits and the spirit world. There's some bad blood between him and his brother, however, connected to some unpleasant events in the past, which make things a bit complicated. When those events finally come to light, it drives a wedge between Korra and her father, and between Korra and her adopted father, Tenzin, and convinces her to turn to Unalaq for her continuing education.
Unalaq reveals that a once-in-ten-thousand-years event is about to occur: the Harmonic Convergence. Before this happens, Unalaq says, it's essential that Korra open the spirit portals that sit at the North and South Poles. This will bring balance back to the world and stop the invasion of dark spirits that has recently begun. But Unalaq's plan is darker and more far-reaching than he's letting on, and it will lead first to civil war, and then to momentous changes not only in the nature of the Avatar, but also in the structure of the worlds themselves.
Book Two is thrilling and epic, and a lengthy flashback in the middle reveals the identity and origin story of the very first Avatar, which is really cool and interesting. For comic relief this time we have crazy rich guy Varrick, and Bolin's relationship with Unalaq's creepy daughter, Eska. I particularly love Varrick; he's hilarious. I was kind of happy to see Korra and Mako's relationship fall apart, too; I never really liked them together, and their breakup adds some interesting drama. Another fun dramatic relationship is the rocky family dynamic among Tenzin, his waterbender sister Kya, and his goofy, story-telling, ex-soldier, non-bender brother Bumi. They all have very different personalities that don't fit together well, and they all have very different memories of their childhood and of their father who, it comes out, was not always the perfect hero he's been made out to be.
My only real problem with the season is some of the hand-wavy (to borrow a favorite phrase of my friend Peccable) spiritual shenanigans that occur near the end. There's a lot of back-and-forth and up-and-down in terms of who's got the magic powers and what their exact nature is and where the spirits are and what they can do and so on and so forth, and all the sudden Korra is a big glowing giant. There are a lot of rules to all this that the writers seem to be making up as they go along to generate drama, and I always felt a step behind, not quite understanding what was going on or how. It's possible that I just wasn't paying close enough attention, but I don't know.
Still, the big climax is exciting and amazing to look at, and the fundamental change to the world that occurs as a consequence is really interesting, and the writers do so many things right that I'm willing to give them a pass. This is still, unquestionably, a really great show. In fact, I'm nearly done the third book now, and if anything it's the best season of the show yet. Look for the review soon! |
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| Friday, September 28, 2012 02:11 PM |
| (Last updated on Tuesday, January 6, 2015 09:23 AM) | | On the Viewer - The Legend of Korra: Book One - Air |
 by Fëanor |
(Updated to fix an embarrassing mistake; I mixed up Mako and Bolin!)
I suddenly remembered the other day that I'd never actually gotten around to watching the last episode of the first season of Legend of Korra, the sequel to the brilliant animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender (see my posts on that series here). I've now remedied this error, and here I am to tell you about it!
The creators of Avatar took some rather courageous risks when creating this sequel. Not only did they set it years after their first series - killing off most of their original characters, growing and changing the world they'd created in fundamental ways, and focusing this story on a completely new set of characters - they made the main character as opposite from their previous main character as they possibly could. When we met the last Avatar, Aang, he was a young boy with a mastery over only one element: air. He was peaceful, fun-loving, spiritual, a bit shy, and against violence in any form. When we meet Korra, the next reincarnation of the Avatar, she's already a teenager, and she's mastered every element but air. This means she's also lacking a connection to her spiritual side. She's anything but shy - one of the great scenes in the series is a flashback to the moment when the White Lotus society arrives at her door to confirm whether she is truly the Avatar. Though still a little child, she bursts into the room screaming, "I'm the Avatar! Deal with it!" and starts shooting rock, water, and fire all over the place. She's got a temper, and is quick to barge into a situation and start busting things up before getting a complete idea of what's going on.
Korra comes from the Southern Water Tribe, so she's received teaching and encouragement from a now very old Katara, one of the few characters from the first series to survive into this one. (Although really there are plenty of connections to the original series here, and flashbacks to the time between the two series, so diehard fans of that show won't be entirely disappointed.) To learn airbending, Korra ends up traveling to the capital of the modern world, Republic City, to study with Tenzin, Aang and Katara's youngest son, who now has many children of his own, all airbenders. And this is another way in which this show goes in the opposite direction of The Last Airbender. Where Aang spent his time constantly on the move, trying to learn how to bend the other elements and keep out of the way of the Firelord's soldiers, Korra quickly settles down in Republic City and stays there for the entire season.
When we get to Republic City, we learn right away how much the world has changed since Aang's time. Republic City is not a village of wooden houses; it's a real city with tall buildings and cars and steam-powered machinery. This is a world vaguely similar to Earth in the early 20th century. And the city is in the midst of a political and social crisis. Besides being plagued by various bender street gangs (one of which Korra clashes with almost immediately, wrecking a street and getting herself in trouble with the city's police chief, Lin Beifong, the bad-ass, hard-as-nails daughter of Toph, Aang's old earthbending teacher), the city is also under a more insidious attack from a mysterious, masked, anti-bending terrorist known only as Amon. His Equalist movement is gathering many followers and is threatening to rise up in revolt and bring down the government. The members of the city council have different ideas about how to handle this; Tenzin wants a patient, democratic approach, but the slimy politician Tarrlok wants to come down on Amon with an iron fist, without bothering about preserving freedom or avoiding collateral damage.
Meanwhile, Korra is distracted from her Avatar duties by the discovery of a professional bending league and a struggling but talented team known as the Fire Ferrets, which is made up of the handsome, brooding firebender Mako and his brother, the goofy, fun-loving earthbender Bolin (who reminds me strongly of Sokka from the original series). Inevitably, Korra ends up joining the team, and getting tangled up with them in a complex love triangle (which becomes a love rectangle when the beautiful, rich non-bender Asami shows up and literally knocks Mako off his feet). The original series played briefly with the idea of bending as a sport, spending an episode or two dealing with an underground, professional wrestling-style league, but here it's become a popular, serious sport, with a rather complex rule set that you have to pick up as you go along. It's fun stuff.
But Korra's relationship problems and struggles in the stadium begin to seem less important when it's revealed that Amon has somehow gained the power to remove people's bending permanently. How can she and her friends fight such a terrible enemy, when he has dangerous new technology and half the population backing him up?
I was really impressed that Legend of Korra decided to focus on the complex relationship between benders and non-benders, and take on the rather difficult social, moral, and ethical questions that would inevitably arise in a society where only select members of the population had superpowers. These are issues the original series never touched on. Unfortunately, Korra ultimately backs away from these issues, in part by making the leader of the Equalists an unmitigated villain.
[WARNING! SPOILERS!]Really, the series disappointed me in a number of ways. I feel like it would have been a lot more interesting if Amon had been a sympathetic character, and Korra and the other benders had really had to change their thinking in response to his movement. I also think it was interesting to create a romance between a bender and a non-bender, and I kind of wish Mako had stayed with Asami, and Korra had had to deal with that. It seemed like cheating to have Korra's unrequited love for Mako suddenly become requited at the end. I also wish Korra had remained without (most of) her bending for longer. An Avatar without bending is a really interesting concept. How would she and her friends have dealt with that? But instead her power is almost instantly restored via a bit of a deus ex machina (although it is a reasonably believable deus ex machina, aligned with what we learned about the Avatar and his powers at the end of the first series). There's also never really a satisfactory explanation for how Amon is able to remove people's bending. In the first series, the strong implication is that this kind of power is reserved for the Avatar only. How did an (admittedly unusually strong) waterbender get it? There are also some moments of pretty poor writing. The low point of the series as far as this goes is probably a pair of back-to-back episodes: "When Extremes Meet" and "Out of the Past." There are a lot of great ideas in these two episodes, but also a lot of really poor ones. Tarrlok has, up until this point, been a fantastic, utterly hateful character who's brilliantly manipulated everyone around him into giving him exactly what he wanted. It's a little hard to understand why he would suddenly decide the solution to his problems would be to forget all of that, get into a physical confrontation with the Avatar, and then lock her up in his basement. Admittedly, she had been getting a bit harder to control, but he still really seemed to have the advantage over her psychologically and politically. He does at least succeed in completely incapacitating her by locking her into a metal box. However, when Amon shows up and finds her in this position, practically gift-wrapped for him, he inexplicably tells his men to take her out of the box. Meanwhile, he stays upstairs twiddling his thumbs, waiting for them. For God's sake, why? She's in a box! She's right where you want her! And knowing how dangerous she is, why would you send your lackeys to take care of her instead of seeing to it personally? And then, when she does inevitably get past his men and slide away, Amon just... lets her go. For no reason that I can see. He and his men could easily have tracked her and chased her down, seeing as how she was weak and alone and the ground was covered in snow. It's just painfully obvious that all this happened because the writers needed her to get away and they couldn't think of a better way to do it, and that's disappointing.[/WARNING! SPOILERS!]
All that being said, I really did enjoy the show. It has the same cleverness, wisdom, humor, warm humanity, and exciting, well-choreographed action scenes of the original show. Korra is a great character, flawed and interesting, and I love Tenzin and his entire family. His kids are hilarious. Also, Lin Beifong, like her mother before her, RULES ALL THE THINGS. She's so ridiculously awesome. And the conclusion of Tarrlok and Amon's stories is surprisingly dark, brutal, and moving.
I understand there is going to be a second season. I'm curious to know where the show can go from here, as everything seems to have been resolved at the end of this season (some of it rather abruptly). Regardless, I'm looking forward to seeing it! |
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| Monday, March 7, 2011 11:32 AM |
| Recyclotron |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- These are a bit old now, in internet terms, but here are the latest videos from the Game of Thrones blog.
- I was excited when I read this weekend about a guy supposedly discovering fossils of alien life in an asteroid. But I waited to post the story until I got more details and confirmation. I'm glad I did, because apparently it's bullcrap.
- Awesome Hungarian Star Wars posters.
- In case you missed this when I posted it to Twitter, Dune children's activity books that were created as tie-ins with the David Lynch film. It's hard to believe these are real and not a joke, but apparently they are!
- A couple of great recent entries on Black and WTF: Batman riding an elephant and a sign refuting the possession of a dinosaur.
- A couple of great recent entries on Reelizer: Clue and Dark City.
- Ron Moore's magic detective show is shaping up to be a real Battlestar Galactica reunion. James Callis, Tricia Helfer, and Jamie Bamber have all been cast in the show.
- A production company bought the rights to make more Blade Runner movies, and they want Christopher Nolan to direct. I'm really doubtful that we need more Blade Runner movies, as the original is a classic in and of itself and I don't see how you could add to it. But if we have to have more, Nolan would be a great choice. We'll see if he's interested.
- You've got to love Slinkachu's miniature installations.
- New Super Punch art contest! Make a poster for X-Men: First Class.
- The painful truth about Luke's Dad.
- My new desktop wallpaper. Aww yeah. The kid is getting me back into Sesame Street. He's partial to Elmo, but I think Oscar's my favorite. (Via)
- In case you haven't seen the awesome photo of Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull yet: click here.
- Entertaining trailer for Kung Fu Panda 2. Looking forward to this one.
- Here's our first look at Korra, the star of the new animated series set in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's called Avatar: Legend of Korra.
- I know you probably can't even get through reading "steampunk Boba Fett" without yawning at this point, but go ahead and click through anyway. It's pretty cool.
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| Tagged (?): Aliens (Not), Animals (Not), Art (Not), Avatar (Not), Batman (Not), Books (Not), Captain America (Not), Cartoons (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Dinosaurs (Not), Dune (Not), Game of Thrones (Not), Links (Not), Movies (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Song of Ice and Fire (Not), Star Wars (Not), Steampunk (Not), TV (Not), Video (Not), Web comics (Not), X-Men (Not) |
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| Wednesday, June 30, 2010 07:36 PM |
| (Last updated on Thursday, July 1, 2010 11:07 AM) | | On the Viewer - The Last Airbender |
| by Fëanor |
Anybody who's a regular reader of this blog knows I'm a huge fan of the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's technically a kids' cartoon, but it's that rare and excellent kind of children's entertainment that could easily be recategorized as simply entertainment. It's not patronizing or idiotic - instead it's smart, funny, creative, thoughtful, thrilling, subtle, and moving. (You can check out my many Avatar-related posts here; the reviews of the episodes begin part of the way down this page.) In contrast, the film version is the worst kind of kid's entertainment - the kind of movie only an undiscriminating child could possibly enjoy.
In case you don't know anything about the show, and don't feel like clicking back through all my reviews, here's the premise: it's a fantasy action/adventure set in a world divided into four lands, each based on one of the four classical elements: air, water, earth, and fire. Select people in each of these lands have the ability to control - or bend - their land's element. Only one person, known as the Avatar, can bend all four elements at once. The Avatar is reincarnated every generation. He's meant to protect and unite all the people of the four lands. But the latest reincarnation of the Avatar - a young Air Nomad named Aang - disappeared without a trace 100 years ago, and since then the Fire Nation, led by the cruel Fire Lord, has made war on all the other lands and is threatening to take over the world.
One day, a young brother and sister living in the snowy wilderness of the Southern Water Tribe discover Aang trapped in the ice, along with his faithful flying bison, Appa. To everyone's surprise, the Avatar is still a little boy who ran away before he could learn to bend any other element but air. The brother and sister - Sokka and Katara - join with him to help him fight the Fire Nation, and to learn how to bend the other elements. Meanwhile, they're all being followed by the banished son of the Fire Lord, Prince Zuko, who's certain he can regain his honor if he can return home with the Avatar as his prisoner.
The original animated series was split into three seasons, or "Books," each one dealing with the Avatar's attempts to learn one of the other elements. This live-action film, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, is an adaptation of just the first Book: Water. The problem is, a lot happened in that first season, and although Shyamalan left much of it out, he still has to cut a lot of corners in order to fit what's left into just one 103-minute movie. Various rather important sequences are collapsed into short, extremely unsubtle dialog exchanges, or summarized awkwardly in chunks of narration or quick montages. The pacing and editing in general are poor. There's really no time to develop any of the many characters or their relationships. In the series, Aang's furry friends, Appa and Momo, are more than just cute animals - they're really fun characters, and Aang has a particularly deep and powerful bond with Appa, but here we barely get to know Appa at all, and Aang doesn't appear to be interested in him except as a mode of transport. Mysteries that were slowly built up and finally solved in the series are quickly dispensed with, as if the film doesn't even have confidence in its own ability to hide things from the audience. We barely have time to register the masked Blue Spirit as a character before his identity is revealed. In one scene, a character seems to die, but only a few scenes later, the camera swings over and casually reveals him still alive, with no fanfare whatsoever. It's like the film is telling us, "Oh, yeah, that guy's still alive. But you knew that already, right?"
The film is faithful in a general sort of way to the series, but it drops Aang's conversations with his previous reincarnations in favor of visits to a random dragon spirit, ignores the difficulties Aang had with his Avatar State, and changes completely the climactic ending of the battle at the Northern Water Tribe, surprisingly making it less violent than the cartoon. Aang merely scares away the Fire Nation soldiers with the threat of a giant wave, instead of rampaging among the ships in the form of a giant water demon. I rather like the way the film equates Aang learning waterbending with Aang learning to deal with his guilt and anger over the loss of his loved ones, and with the responsibilities of being the Avatar - although the metaphor would have been more interesting if they hadn't had the dragon spirit explain it to Aang in great detail. When Aang bows to everyone at the end, and he looks at the camera with a face full of mixed emotions as the music rises, it's actually reasonably effective.
But in general, the writing completely lacks the subtlety, cleverness, and humor of the original series. It's clumsy and dull, producing cringes and unintentional laughter. It doesn't help that the actors reading this awful dialog are almost universally terrible, with performances that range from overwrought to wooden. Of course, most of those actors are children, and talented child actors are rare. But the casting of this film was highly controversial, with many characters who had dark skin in the cartoon being played by Caucasian actors in the film. Shyamalan's defense was that he had chosen the right actors for the parts - the most talented, with the most natural chemistry with each other. If that's true, I'd hate to see the actors he rejected. Only Shaun Toub as Zuko's Uncle Iroh manages to remain dignified. Aasif Mandvi is over-the-top as Commander Zhao, but he does have one wonderfully brutal scene in which he publicly humiliates Zuko - one of only a handful of effective scenes in the entire film.
The Last Airbender is one of many films lately that was filmed in 2D and then converted to 3D after the fact. Unfortunately, it's very obvious that the 3D was added as an afterthought. Most of the time the effect is barely noticeable. The only reason to see the film in 3D is if you like wearing funny plastic glasses.
The action sequences are probably the best things about the movie, but even they aren't particularly interesting. It's confusing to me that a film made by M. Night Shyamalan could be so shoddily put together. Admittedly, the quality of Shyamalan's work went sharply downhill right after his first two films. But it was always clear to me, even when watching his worst movies, that he had great talent. There were always glimmers of brilliance. That's why I keep going back to the theater to see his next film - I'm waiting for another masterpiece, the one I keep thinking he still has in him. But I'm not so sure he does anymore. Anyway, The Last Airbender is certainly not it.
This movie was really an odd fit for him in the first place. All of his other films have been personal, original works - tense thrillers with twist endings. And yet here's a giant fantasy action epic based on a children's animated series. I'm not sure what possessed him to take on the project, and I'm not sure he should try something like it again.
In the series, there's a particularly brilliant and funny episode where our heroes go to see a play reenacting their own adventures. The play is terribly acted, with bad makeup, costumes, and dialog. It simplifies everything that happened to the people in it, and twists their story to its own ends. The effects are about the only impressive thing about it. This film reminds me a lot of that play. |
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| Monday, June 21, 2010 11:30 AM |
| (Last updated on Monday, June 21, 2010 12:03 PM) | | Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- You can own your own TARDIS! (Note: TARDIS does not work.)
- Star Wars characters wearing modern fashions.
- In honor of Father's Day, io9 picked the best and worst fathers in sci-fi. What, Captain Kirk a bad father?! Oh... wait, yeah. I guess I have to give them Walter Bishop, too, but come on! He's trying so hard now!
- Here's video of a guy playing the music AND sound effects for classic video games live on the violin.
- Here's a website that lists movies by how many people (and animals) died in them. (Via)
- 22 ordinary things that look like the Starship Enterprise. Some of these are cheating in my opinion, but still.
- Photos from the set of The Hobbit. Yay!!
- Another cool trailer for Metroid: Other M.
- John Carpenter's The Thing in seven minutes. This was handy, as I haven't seen that movie in a long time. Maybe it's time to rewatch it, in its entirety... (Via)
- Photos from the official opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
- This time around, I'm totally obsessed with World Cup. It seems like every sport I turn my attention on now I fall in love with. Anyway, I definitely prefer watching World Cup to watching the Phillies at the moment, because gah! I particularly love the dry wit of the commentators, and the way they do not mince words at all, but brutally rip into everybody on the field: the teams, the officials. It's great. Here's a spiffy calendar for following the standings (via). You can also follow the matches in real-time on Fifa.com.
- We could have electronic eyeglasses by the end of this year: "Liquid crystals can change their refractive index when an electrical charge is put through them, so wearers can switch between distance and reading in the time it takes to blink.... Putting in the kind of motion sensors that are used in the iPhone also allows the glasses to sense when someone is reading a book or a newspaper and so change the focal distance of the lenses automatically."
- Pixar/Star Wars mashup art. (Via)
UPDATE:
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Avatar (Not), Cartoons (Not), Doctor Who (Not), Fringe (Not), Gadgets (Not), Harry Potter (Not), Holiday (Not), Links (Not), Lists (Not), Mario (Not), Metroid (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Pixar (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Soccer (Not), Sports (Not), Star Trek (Not), Star Wars (Not), Technology (Not), Tolkien (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), World Cup (Not) |
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| Monday, June 7, 2010 09:58 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Great new Star Wars-flavored Adidas ad above. I want more videos of Snoop Dogg wasting dudes with a lightsaber.
- The Scott Pilgrim movie continues to look awesome. Check out this clip.
- This is supposedly the first poster for Captain America: The First Avenger (via). This poster for Green Lantern is more definitively official.
- Marvel's got a miniseries coming called The Death of Dracula. Here are some preview pages. Supposedly Dracula's death is going to have huge consequences for the Marvel Universe as a whole. I'm vaguely curious, but I'm not familiar with the writer or the artist, and these preview pages aren't all that exciting. Plus, didn't Paul Cornell already kill Dracula in Captain Britain and MI13? Or am I remembering that wrong? (Via)
- Check out a brand new trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Pretty exciting!
- How to turn your van into Appa.
- In a recent interview, Christopher Nolan said there will be no Joker, Mr. Freeze, or Penguin in Batman 3. He also says it will be the end of a story. And he seems set on his (rather disappointing) idea of keeping Batman and Superman separate.
- Some dude remade Zelda II as a 3D FPS you can play in your browser. I always thought this game was the least interesting and most frustratingly difficult of the Zelda games, and Joystiq says this new version is even more difficult than the original, so I think I'll skip it. Still, cool idea.
- FYI, that "sinkhole" in Guatemala is actually a "piping feature," which is apparently something even more dangerous. (Via)
- Oh my.
- A readaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is on the way, this time directed by Let The Right One In director Tomas Alfredson and starring Garry Oldman as George Smiley. Neat!
- Woah, Julie Taymor's doing The Tempest with a cast that includes Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina, Djimon Hounsou, Russel Brand, Alan Cumming, Chris Cooper, David Strathairn, Ben Whishaw, and Felicity Jones. Sign me up!
- Guillermo del Toro may have left The Hobbit to direct The Great and Powerful Oz.
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Avatar (Not), Batman (Not), Books (Not), Captain America (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Green Lantern (Not), Harry Potter (Not), Links (Not), Movies (Not), News (Not), Oz (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Shakespeare (Not), Star Wars (Not), Superman (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Zelda (Not) |
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| Friday, June 4, 2010 09:53 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
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| Tagged (?): 3D (Not), Art (Not), Avatar (Not), Avengers (Not), Books (Not), Captain America (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Iron Man (Not), Links (Not), Lists (Not), Monsters (Not), Movies (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Simpsons (Not), Star Wars (Not), Thor (Not), Transformers (Not), Video (Not), Web comics (Not) |
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| Friday, May 7, 2010 10:26 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- A bootleg video of the trailer for that mystery project J.J. Abrams is working on with Steven Spielberg. Watch quick before the video is taken down! The trailer is apparently screening in front of Iron Man 2, and the movie is called Super 8. Looks like it has to do with some kind of dangerous creature escaping from Area 51. Which frankly bores me. I'm tired of Area 51 as a subject; it's so overused. Still, the trailer's kind of cool. We'll see.
- Is this the face of the new Godzilla???
- At the very end of this interview (the rest of which is interesting, too, btw), director Rian Johnson reveals some details about his next film, Looper.
- The X-Men: First Class screenwriters talk about the movie.
- The first image from the new Futurama series. It doesn't look good for our heroes! But then, it rarely does.
- Buttersafe is a web comic that hasn't been very good lately, but yesterday's entry entertained me.
- Amusing Star Wars-themed birth announcement video. The metaphors don't hold up all that well, but that's okay - it's still funny.
- They really are going to make a Planet of the Apes prequel film. Here's the synopsis: "Rise of the Apes is an origins story set in present-day San Francisco. The film is a reality-based cautionary tale, where man's own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy. WETA will render, for the first time ever in the film series, photo-realistic apes rather than costumed actors." I don't know about the CG apes, but if anybody can do it, WETA can.
- Impressive fan-made Street Fighter short film.
- Dude beat the original Super Mario Bros. using a DDR pad. That's insane.
- Some cool, comic book-related art by Paul Maybury. (Via)
- Check out this great fan-made Monarch henchman hoodie.
- Pretty cool new posters for The Last Airbender.
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Avatar (Not), Cartoons (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Godzilla (Not), Kaiju (Not), Links (Not), Mario (Not), Monsters (Not), Movies (Not), News (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Star Wars (Not), Street Fighter (Not), TV (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Web comics (Not), X-Men (Not) |
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Jim Genzano's books on Goodreads
