That stuff actually gets pretty endearing later on. Because you actually care about the characters.
The broad physical humor also starts being pretty quickly replaced by sharp dialogue. Especially in the middle of the second season, when a certain new character gets added to the lineup and is given all the best lines. The physical comedy is still there, but is often in the background while other stuff is going on, such as a scene where Sokka looks for something in Appa’s mouth.
The pilot two-parter has drastically more of that stuff, really. You don’t need to wait longer than that to see the Disney tone get dropped. Gary and anyone else having trouble getting started, stick it out until the third episode, where they visit Aangs ruined home.
I’d say the learn how to replace the Disney notes with Miyazaki notes. It’s a subtle shift, but it makes all the difference.
It starts out meh, gets okay, turns good around episode twelve, and then those final episodes of season one… Man. That was great.
And it only gets better. Season 2 was great from the minute a certain character was introduced all the way to the end, and then season 3 just blows it all away with the final few episodes.
Hmmm, I thought the “cabbage guy” was introduced in season 1.
The Boulder takes issue with this statement.
Sorry to keep us going off topic, but I’m now about 2/3 through season two, and yeah, the Avatar TV show is excellent. As a small example of its greatness, I can’t believe they’re still coming up with even more impressive animal hybrids at this point. The creature design is just amazing.
Katara: [reading from a pamphlet] “The king is having a party at the palace tonight for his pet bear.”
Aang: “You mean platypus bear?”
Katara: “No… it just says bear.”
Sokka: “Certainly you mean his pet skunk bear?”
Toph: “Or his armadillo bear.”
Aang: “Gopher bear?”
Katara: “Just… bear.”
[silence]
Toph: “This place is weird.”
Turtle ducks are just so cool :)
The Sabertooth MooseLion was badass.
Earth Kingdom BadgerMoles are pretty much the same as Gargants from Codex Alera, as well.
In the Avatar art book there are more hybrids that they didn’t include.
It became a runaway train of ideas with the artists.
This was part of the comparison, of course. M. Night is no more culturally Indian than many Western animation productions labeled “anime” are Japanese.
Someone posted that pic a page or two back of the high school cosplay kids, comparing them to the high-school-play quality of the movie. It wasn’t really fair, because even they included a Kyoshi warrior. This is how bad the movie was.
Just FYI:
I caught this movie at a cast + crew screening (none of the main cast showed up) at the Paramount studio in LA. Didn’t know anything about the series, went with a friend who was one of the Kiyoshi warriors. She learned all her parts, except one, got cut a few days earlier :(
Pretty awkward viewing. I’m not sure if the crew was bitter or what, but there was a lot of snickering and laughing going, especially during some of the fight scenes. The talk leaving the studios was how low of a rating it was running at the time on Rotten Tomatoes (<5%!) and how they were bummed there wouldn’t be a sequel.
The plus of seeing the movie is it motivated me to go watch all three seasons via netflix on demand. Great series. Sucky movie.
THAT’S THE TWIST!
It’s gonna make more people watch the TV series. Well-played, Shyamalan!
Didn’t the movie make 100+ mil? That sounds suspiciously like sequel talk in Hollywood land…
Not when it cost $150m to make and they spent $130m marketing it.
Maybe it’ll be the highest grossing bomb in history! Does Box Office Mojo even have a subheading for that?