Too Fond of Books

Originally posted by twbasketcase at Mississippi Personhood Amendment

I contacted the Democratic party website and hope to report on a fruitful response from them. I think what most right wingers and so-called right-to-lifers tend to forget is that the long term consequences of a law such as this one are increased poverty and greater instances of child abuse and neglect. I do not understand how a group of people can claim to "value" life and still work to make it more difficult and dangerous for others 10, 20, 30 years down the line. Although I suspect these measures will not hold up in court, millions upon millions of dollars will be wasted in legal fees, as well as time and energy that could be spent educating young people on the proper use of birth control and/or eliminating poverty in our country. I also wonder when we will see the first pictures of women who attempted abortions by themselves and bled to death. I have a sinking feeling that these pictures will be the things that will finally rally the centrist majority of America into action.

Because we were feeling masochistically curious, Yebisu and I watched the live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender" the other night.

... yeah.

It was pretty much as bad as I'd heard. I mean, there were good parts and a few beautiful images (Aang bending the huge wave to stop the Fire Nation ships was, in fact, just gorgeous; there were some excellent martial arts stunts), but for the most part, the whole thing fell down in the first 10 minutes and didn't find any momentum to pick itself back up again. It was a movie about spirituality that was almost entirely devoid of any soul. And that's a real shame, because the source material (as I've blogged about before) is bursting with soul, wit, and excitement, none of it forced or railroaded into the story. Late in the plot of the TV show, there's an episode where the characters are able to sneak into a play about themselves and their exploits and are appalled at the liberties taken with their personalities and the narrative as a whole. I felt like I was in that episode, watching a pale reflection of their story and just waiting for the characters to start complaining about their portrayals. (Katara: Am I really that annoyingly earnest? Sokka: I'm not really that flat and dumb, right? Right?! Aang: I didn't just announce that I was going to meditate for four days and then start doing it, did I? 'Cause that's just plain stupid.)

The sad thing is that in the right hands, A:tLA could make for an excellent movie or mini-series. There's drama aplenty, a grandiose epic of nations at war, and some truly compelling characters. The trick, I think, lies with selecting the right amount of story and letting it unfold in its own time. The eastern religions that make up the core of this story's meaning sound contrived when they're rushed, as they did in Shyamalan's film. Likewise, character development, something that made the animated show truly interesting, is largely absent from this movie, or it's presented by ham-handed dialogue. (The worst line award goes to poor Princess Yue, "We have to show them that we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in theirs.") Practically every action in the movie felt like a plot contrivance at best, and a joke at worst.

So, how to do this right? Much has been written about the casting choices for this film, and I don't think I have much to add on this subject. The right actors for these parts would certainly have helped, along with a better script that didn't try to tell the entire first half of the story in under two hours. Letting this story breathe, and giving some of the humor a chance to shine through would help as well. After all, this is supposedly a movie for children; there's no need to make every moment a serious one, especially when the themes you're dealing with are so serious. Aang's character development is interesting because we see him grow up over time--when Katara and Sokka meet him, he's just a kid who ran away from responsibility. The shift in his beliefs from child to adult makes for a wonderful coming of age story, and makes his heroism all the more poignant. I'd prefer to see that, rather than be told it. Likewise, Zuko's choices over the course of the narrative are dramatic and difficult. Dressing up as the Blue Spirit, for example, is a gutsy move, and his motives for doing it weren't even touched on in the movie, just hinted at. This should have been a major plot point, but instead, it just felt like a convenient plot device for rescuing Aang from the fire nation. (And, can I just say, Fire Nation soldiers: when you've finally captured the Avatar, who can airbend, putting him in a room full of candles is pretty, but REALLY STUPID. Do you want to set your fortress on fire? Really?) If I'd been writing this script, I'd have started with finding Aang in the ice, but only moved the story as far as the Kyoshi warriors, hinting at sequels and setting the stage for the larger conflict in a later movie. You can have plenty of Zuko and Zhao acting as standard villains, but lay the groundwork for Zuko's eventual conversion. Plus, lots of character development time for everyone involved. This could have been a huge franchise for Nickelodeon films and Paramount. Adaptations are tricky, it's true, but it's a shame that this one was so awful when the source material is so good.