This is gonna be the ONE time you're gonna hear me defend m night shyamalan's atla movie. The ONE time. But the costumes for his movie were fucking good. Yes the cast was horrible, yes the script was cringe, yes the bending was goofy. But the costume design was FIRE and i'm tired of pretending it wasn't. There's obviously some tweeks i would have made: mainly Katara and Sokka's hair, but the costumes looked like they belonged in the atla universe. It worked. And they look a lot better than the costumes we see in these current promo shots.
The only exception so far to me, is Dallas Liu's Zuko costume. At least his scar is actually visible to the naked eye lol.
Again like i said in my last post we'll just have to wait and see for an actual trailer to judge how these costumes work in action. But currently i feel like it looks too clean, too fake. I get that they wanted to go for accuracy but Gordon's Aang literally looks like he's wearing polyester cotton blend. They could have at least went with linen bc airbenders can warm themselves by controlling their breathing.
Idk maybe this is my pessimistic nature ruining the party lol. What do you guys think?
I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS MOVIE AAAAAAAAAAAA
All of them look so amazing, I love the new designes!!
I can't wait to see Katara and Aang's relationship as a couple. Also I don't have to worry that they might break up Kataang to make another ship, since they will go on to have 3 kids uwu.
Another thing I noticed but no one talks about. Now we all agree the Atla movie is trash. But one major mishap would’ve been the pursue of Azula. She’s depicted as laughing because in the movie she’s interpreted as eeeviiilll. You know, a maniac, a sadist. But she isn’t. In the show when she’s smiling during Zuko’s Agni Kai with fire lord Ozai it’s because she feels a thrill to what she’s been taught represents a service in justice: punishing weakness and power reigning. Not because of inflicted pain.
Compare this:
To this:
Same for when she tracks down Zuko at the northern air temple, smiling visciously.
But her motivation that this smile originates from isn’t amusement but victory in dominance.
She just assured herself that she’s powerful. People who do that chase power because they run from weakness.
In the Boiling Rock she doesn’t needlessly torture the accused the second she finds out he isnt a traitor because she does in fact not get any arousal from such acts of violence.
Even in the beach episode:
This isn’t a game for her. She’s not a loco, she’s manipulated (and deeply traumatised) and I think it would’ve been a very tragic mistake to write Azula not misunderstood but like an unrealistic idea of what mental disorders make people do. Cruelty for the sake of cruelty, or because that’s the only way we can feel something like so many blockbusters make their villains out to be.
It’s would’ve taken away one of the main points of the show really, that an entire nation can be mislead and convinced of their rightfulness and even benevolence through propaganda, resulting in the Defense of War. This is also thematised in this episode:
And Zuko challenging his father during the black sun *rephrased: “When I grew up I was told the war was a way to share our prosperity with the world. But they hate us.” They believed this of course. Raised on lies you can’t tell apart those incongruencies and propaganda.
It’s a generational cycle…
I mean, we only see her like two times in the movie and she’s built up as being the villain to come so the audience is supposed to fear her so that might’ve been a strategic move making those few seconds as creepy as possible and they were planning on giving her her calculating self later but since they already sucked at introducing the mysterious and untouchable fire lord like it was a new art form:
*show introducing Ozai, the main villain, mysterious, powerful, unreachable and intimidating:
*movie introducing Ozai:
I guess it’s safe to assume this was the trope they were going for with Azula.
More glad than ever they couldn’t develop that.
It’s about fear and control, not unreproducible bugginess…
Me, recommending Avatar The Last Airbender to my therapist: so you have to watch the ANIMATED VERSION. Let me be clear DO NOT WATCH THE LIVE ACTION SHOW OR MOVIE
Them: gotcha 👍
~ a few weeks later ~
My therapist: i didn't like it :( I couldn't even get through the first episode. I'm very sorry 😔😥
Me: *sigh* it's okay maybe it's not your thing
~ next session ~
Me: *referencing something that happened in the first ep* "wait did you get up to this part?"
Them: "... I think I watched the wrong one" *shows me the version they watched*