Both Prince Zuko and Aang realize M. Night Shyamalan should have quit while he was ahead.
With Elliott on the way, I’ve had a lot of friends ask me if I wonder what it’s like to be Stephanie right now. Seeing her belly wobble and having my hand occasionally kicked, I can honestly say I would not like to know what it’s like to have “a people” inside of me. Steph recently put it to me this way: Imagine your stomach is a burlap sack filled with kittens.
Adorable? Terrifying? Both.
After getting back from a late lunch this afternoon, I can certainly tell you what it’s like to have a “food baby” inside my tum-tum. Looping around campus, we crossed a speedbump. The abrupt rocking sensation combined with the food baby made me want to yak. In short, I realized the miracle of life is best left to the ladyfolk who endure with patience and kindness.
It’s odd when the shoe is on the other foot. In addition to the trials and tribulations of carrying life, Steph has had to suffer through my rants regarding adaptations of comic books into television shows and movies. She kindly listens as I rant about changes in continuity, missing story beats, and blatant misuse and abuse of engaging characters and series. With that said, I should have picked up on her hesitation about seeing The Last Airbender movie. When we began dating, Steph tried to introduce me to the Nickelodeon cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender (Netflix members can watch the entire series on demand!). Given it’s scope, mythology, and overall sense of awesomeness, I should have clicked with it immediately.
From time to time, Stephanie would remind me about the series and how good it was. With the film adaptation premiering, I pull the Book One (season one) DVDs off the shelf and started watching the series last week. It was as good as Stephanie promised. The series was smart and sophisticated while maintaining the fun and whimsy one would expect of a Nickelodeon program. It made sense why Stephanie loved the show so much. I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t suggesting we go see the midnight screening in town. Well, the 8% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes had something to do with it. The attacks about the movie’s white-washing of the cast (better known as “racebending“) probably had something to do with it as well.
After seeing the movie, though, I realized her problem with the film was the same set of grievances I find with the Harry Potter movies and film adaptations of my favorite comic book characters. You simply cannot capture that same magic again. The visuals in the film were impressive, but the dialog was horribly stilted. The characters didn’t act in the way a fan of the series would expect. The whole thing was dragged down by its somber tone and own sense of self-importance. The pieces were all there, it just wasn’t the same.
In protest of the movie and support of the series, we immediately left the theater and bought seasons two and three on DVD at Target. How funny it was, then, as we reached Book Three: Chapter 17 last night. The episode, titled “The Ember Island Players” provides the audience with a brief pause before the final four episodes and the culmination of the sixty-episode series. (You can watch the full episode on the Nickelodeon website, too.)
In the episode, the cast of characters discover a play is being staged telling the story of the Avatar and his friends. The problem with the play is that it gets everything wrong (except for the Kathy Rigby-esque actress playing Aang). Sure, the basic plot points are there, but the characters don’t do the things they should. The person adapting the story misses the point of our heroes’ adventures by substituting melodrama and winks-and-nods for the substance and heart of its source material. The audience wildly laughs and applauds at the spectacle but the characters sit in their balcony seats only to lament that this really isn’t their story.
I imagine that’s how Stephanie felt sitting in the theater. It’s hard to love something so much and yet hate the position in which you find yourself. When you find a set of characters in a story, tv series, or movie that resonate with you so strongly, it’s hard to see those things misrepresented. They become a part of you and you a part of their story.
