Not yet. For now you get Giant Alien Smurfs.When at first I heard that one of my favorite TV shows was going to be turned into a live action movie, I was very much excited despite the fact that M. Night Shyamalan would be behind the whole ordeal. After all, I am a fan of watching cheesy Kung Fu movie, and the fact that they are making one based on the last thing Nickelodeon had going good for them is very exciting. By the way, if you haven't guessed by now, I'm referring to Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you did guess but thought I was referring to iCarly, you my friend are sadly, sadly mistaken.
I was disappointed to learn that Mr. ShamWow was unable to actually call the movie Avatar. I wasn't alone. As it turns out, not only were many fans upset by this fact, but many people who weren't huge fans of the confused it for the movie that prevented it from being called just that, instead being titled The Last Airbender. The film that was released a few weeks ago was able to claim rights on the name Avatar before Mr. Shyamaloo was able to. While the name makes sense, it's still kind of lame.
I'm not going to talk about this though. Instead, I'm here to tell you exactly why you should go see the movie that not only took that name Avatar, but also the exact font in the title that was used in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Despite this fact, this movie is pretty much awesome.
The premise of the story is that distantly in the future, Earth has been reduced to a desert planet and we Earthians have found a new planet called Pandora (a name that could have EASILY been incorporated into the title). This planet is not only teeming with exotic alien life but is also rich with valuable minerals, which makes the fact that the whole thing is covered in toxic gas seem like staying up till midnight to get the first Wii. That being said, it wasn't a huge deal. We want minerals, and we want video games.
Unfortunately for us, the tall blue locals don't want to move their colony so that we can exploit the crap outta the minerals underneath their sacred tree. This is where the main character, a marine named Jake Sully, comes in. This guy is lame. Not lame in the sense that he likes Tokio Hotel, but lame in the sense that he has paralysis in his legs. He is the only person who can take over his brother's "Avatar", which in this case is a body that is much like that of the blue locals that acts as a vessel so that we humans can walk amongst these people. This guy Jake is appointed to learn what he can about these people so that we can start drilling till the cows come home. One thing leads to another and we have explosions, dragons, and mech warriors.
As far as the story goes, its pretty simple and easy to keep track of. From what I saw, there are little holes within the canon, and everything made enough sense. The action was pretty solid stuff. Like I mentioned, there were explosions, mech warriors, and dragons all fighting each other, making this the single most epic Greenpeace movie in the history of mankind. I can only wish that my life was that hardcore.
The place where the movie triumphs is in the animation. While shows and movies similar to Star Trek would resort to make up and masks to make their alien species look real, every creature in Avatar was done using computer animation. The difference between this animation and other animation humans is that these creatures looked incredibly real. The way that the faces and forms of the aliens move was very similar to what you would expect to see in a human, minus the fact that these aliens have tails. Whoever was in charge of the motion capture for this movie is probably filthy rich, and I think they deserve this wealth.
Nintendood gives the movie 8.9 out of 10 for superb animation, incredible action, and a decent storyline. It would have had more if it wasn't for the name and for the fact that the whole thing was a Greenpeace movie.
Now many of you may be wondering what I meant in my last post where I mentioned that things were going to change. In order to explain this, I must explain the concept of an Avatar. If you have heard the term, it typically refers to a representative or emissary of some kind. For example, on the Xbox 360, the Mii wannabes are called Avatars, because they are representatives of the player. That is why this movie was called Avatar, because these alien body vessel thingies were Avatars of the humans. The show Avatar: The Last Airbender is called as such because in that universe, the Avatar is the spiritual manifestation of the planet.
I myself was called to be an Avatar of sorts. If you are familiar with the LDS church, you probably know that they take two years out of their lives to serve Missions, and my time to do just that will be here as of April 21st, 2010. Once that date comes around, I will be busy being a missionary in Hamburg, Germany. That being said, blog posts are going to happen differently. I have arranged for my brother to update posts that I will send home via snail mail letters. It will continue like this for two years until I return.
Who's that Pokemon!? Its:
Good thing I took four years of German in high school.
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