FIRST TIME WATCHING: Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender

evidentially Tophs lie detector is thrown off when she's thirsting after Tagha the whole first half of the film. also dont worry the Air benders do come back thanks to Legend of Korra if you remeber season 3 of that show. As for the denied being so OP i dont mind it since the showed that they are great fighters without bending and when they are bending they are using airbending along side their weapons so they just juicing up their prexisiting martial arts skills.

And that’s not the last of avatar since we have a new series following the Avatar after Korra called Avatar Seven Heavens in October

Genuinely a beautifully animated movie, in a world I love with characters I love, that honoured each of them beautifully - Katara splitting the sea was raw as HELLLLL That being said I did watch the leak and I pirated it again this time because I can’t support Paramount in any capacity as long as Ellison is in charge and on his bs - the already have a bunch of propoganda shows on their platform 🤧 Sucks bc I do want to support the creators and actors, but a line needs to be drawn yk That being said I don’t judge anyone else for wanting to support the creators lol

I agree on the run time, I think it could easily have broken the 2hr30min mark if they really wanted to. I feel like there wasn't enough time with the characters like the show. I think I do remember the writers saying that getting the continutity was a nightmare because they had the events of Avatar Kora so needed to make sure the story didn't mess with that. But even so I think the story could have been a bite better, almost like 15mins intro before introducing the story. then you could slip this movie in make it another 30mins longer and then have a final 15min close out or somethin. and there you go a 2hr 30min movie. All i hope is that they potentially animate the book series that did post season 3 where they look for zuko's mum etc.

Paramount fucked with this movie so much, they delayed production, weren't prepared when the animators showed up to work. Demanded the script be redone, wanted the movie a certain length, took away the theatrical and then had it leaked ontop of everythign else.

why’d they make them so hot!! 😭😭😭 not me simping over zuko

They introduced sokka as the Leader at the beginning and then he didn't do any leading or planning. Bro 🙄

I agree with your overall point, however I actually think the denied being good with air bending made sense given bending is just derived from martial arts and all of the denied were clearly skilled. Its even more prevalent when you look at how select members were air bending it was mainly an amplifier of existing fighting styles for example the bow lady didnt use her bow anymore and shot the arrows with air, the axe guy shattered the ground creating more pressure by using air bending. I would say thats been consistent as our only reference is Zaheer and he was clearly gifted with martial arts before hand as well as being knowledgeable of the culture and the denied were far weaker than he was when he recieved airbending. I also hate what they did with sokka, Its not hard to make him have use outside of snappy one liners and jokes its like they forget hes a genius strategist and creative... or that hes a good leader. I did see some posts about runtime apparently they were restricted hence no suki/kyoshi warriors for example. I think the toph example is a good one, they deffo could have included that and it wouldnt have interfered with the plot because realistically aang would still side with tagah given its his dream to break air nation back and then there would be a more clear rift with the team as a pose to it just being katara and her spidey senses alone. (NOTE: im not sure if tagah actually lied vs him just hiding parts of the truth, dont forget the only distinct moment he lied was when he was talking with aang 1 on 1 toph wasnt there) Katara will never bloodbend, its a point I see fans complain about a lot but like the way they closed off that arc where she learned to bloodbend was clear that it was never going to happen again and that its an "evil" art. Hence why in korra katara made blood bending illegal so I have no issues with her not doing that in this movie as her character never would. Yea Idk about death reversal either, although I understand why they did it with aang they wanted to showcase the reason sonam was "lost" is because she fell to despair and aang could only get there after failing/dying in the most spiritually charged place in the world. So im not too fussed about the death stuff tbh. I dont think the team was weaker tbh, I dont think they struggled vs anyone, you could argue they shouldnt have lost to tagah but then you gotta remember no one has fought an air bender for over a century lol. Even before that they are nomads so ppl still likely have little experience fighting air benders, let alone fighting one as powerful as tagah. Only thing I didnt like was katara running out of water she has ALWAYS reserved it or like not wasted it that was a weird plot point just to allow sokka to have a moment to give her water with those water bombs.

They really should've given Sokka more dimensionality. I wouldn't loved to see him married to Suki and having the Kioshi Warriors help fight the Denied in the final battle. Also, Aang should've been almost insulted when the Denied showed up with air bending powers, and he should've just destroyed all of them in two seconds. Or Team Avatar should've taken them out easily. They really shouldn't have been able to hold a candle to them. It was a big disappointment in that aspect. I still thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but they rushed too much and ignored stuff that would've elevated characters tremendously. I'm particularly salty about Suki not making a comeback and it would've been cool to see Ty Lee take out some air bending denied with her Chi Blocking fighting style. Like "oh, so you have powers now??? And now they're gone." It would've been incredible to see Zuko's mother in a small cameo, maybe he asks her to look after the fire nation while he's away helping Aang. From what I've read, he finds her in the comics, so it should've been easy enough. Especially after those were his final lines on the show, when he goes to see his father in prison: "Where. Is. My mother??" People would've lost their shit, seeing her reunited with Zuko.

Natalie i know this couple months in advance but can you React to Holloweentown movies this years Natmares? Its something I think you would enjoy during the spooky season since it's more light hearted and fun instead of scary. Disney Family Channel had some banger Holloween theme movies.

I just wanna mention is rly rly funny how you completely forgot about everything in Legend of Korra LOL

Completely agree with all your thoughts at the end! Was great to catch up with these characters and this world, and lot of the themes and concepts introduced were interesting, but the pacing really weakened the story. Almost felt like a season's worth of story compacted to 90 minutes.

Happy feature Friday! I agree, there's some issues with this movie, but I still just love being in the world and being back with these characters. Even watching it again, some moments still make me want to cry. I think it was a very good start to Avatar movies and I hope they're able to make more in this time period between the OG show and Korra. I hope they bring Suki back too! Glad I got to watch it again with you :) Stay Golden!

It's a meh movie, not bad but not great either.

For so much lore to drop within the usual 2 hours for an animated film severely under budget. I think they did good on pacing the problem is even though Avatar is practically on the level big animated franchises like Naruto or One Piece they still give it the short end of the stick It makes so much money for these Studios like Paramount they still think it's too much of a gamble to invest in it fully. I wish the Avatar Studio would just stop relying them to help market it and just trust the fans to support even more.

Katara doesn't bloodbend because its not a full moon (They specifically show the moon wasn't full in the final fight) and its morally reprehensible. She literally makes Bloodbending illegal in legend of korra. 100% the movie is way too short. it should be at least 20-30 minutes longer. Toph didn't detect his lies because he never lied. Tagah believes what he is saying. You can't detecting lying from someone who is crazy. Similar to Zaheer in Korra, bending is a martial art. If you give bending to people who are incredible fighters, they will be able to baseline be good at fighting with it. It's just like giving a sword to Jackie Chan. He may not know the art of swordfighting but he can probably still kick your ass. Also, I think it's insane in a movie where Katara literally parts the sea that you think they all feel weaker. They never got beaten by a single person (Minus Tagah, who is straight up probably the best fighter in the franchise), they were bum rushed by dozens of fighters, who are all bending an element that none of them have fought before. IMO a lot of your plot holes are nitpicks or just plain wrong. Although Sokka was terrible, I agree

Waiting for the Ted lasso watch alongs.

Regarding the Avatar leak, it was announced prior to the leak that the movie wouldn't be released to theaters. This was a main driver in why some people watched the leaked movie.

Happy Feature Friday Nat. Looking forward to watching this with you and seeing the old gang. Damn you Paramount, Universal and DreamWorks! Give Nattie a break!! 😩 Post: This was cool and I liked it a lot. Would have been amazing to see on the big screen with the visuals, sound and score. Maybe one day. As soon as I recognised Dave Bautista's voice, I knew things weren't going to go to plan haha. It could have easily been expanded to 2 hours, but if it was originally planned to be a theatrical release, it may have been a budgetary restriction, so they just relied on some call back moments. The Cabbage Guy had to show up 😄 Thanks for your reaction today Nat, and for all your awesome work this week.

Since I work at a hotel and my whole career has mostly been in hotels, I also hope you will try the Grand Budapest.

I sincerely hope you watch THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (2014) soon (easily my favorite film of the 2010s decade). In fact, a dive into Wes Anderson movies in general would be great!