Mind-Bender

Hello, Lisa again.

As you may guess Ben is more confused. He said that the nurse who called me the other day was paranoid (actually, not a terrible quality in a nurse) and he is still receiving chemo. Not sure how much of his blehness is due to missing the possibility of another life and how much is drugs, but we are really really wanting this round to end soon.

This random, but -

I just watched The Last Airbender movie. As a fan of the cartoon series (to an almost embarrassing degree - depending on who I tell) I avoided the movie for some time after hearing that it was a flop. However, tonight it showed up on the Netflix streaming list and, after double-checking that my expectations were low, low, low (Me to Ben: "I feel like making snarky comments tonight!") we decided to watch.

Surprisingly, I both kept my mouth mostly shut and ended up disappointed. Because in some ways, it was so close to wonderful. All the big money was there and well invested. Gorgeous scenes in Greenland. Fantastic CGI. Large cast in perfect costumes. Even some great fight scenes, which were probably the best parts of the movie. And I say that having loved the fight scenes in the cartoon. To the extent of appearance, the casting was good too.

The less expensive but core elements of character, plot pacing, and information presented were the train wreck. To think a good script could have solved most of the movie's problems! The character-depth was steam-rolled, due in a large part to flat dialogue but partly to directing and acting as well. One character wasn't nearly angry enough, a couple others completely lost their senses of humor, and at least one major character was unrecognizable as the same person. Only one minor character outdid the cartoon representation. The scenes added to the movie and plot changes were mainly unnecessary and I think the movie would probably still be disorientating to someone unfamiliar with the original story. At one point, Ben said "This is like watching a trailer!"

It really is bedtime. In conclusion, "Avatar: the last airbender" is an epic, funny cartoon. It makes me happy and it makes me think. "The Last Airbender" movie is pretty, but you won't care at the end.