Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender: A Highly Anticipated Letdown

After thinking back on the movie, I think it was fine. I was really looking forward to this movie because it is Avatar the Last Airbender. And for me, it just did not land. The animation is gorgeous and the fight scenes are beautiful, but that is about it. The Gaang feels very nerfed in the film. Taga pops out of the ice after 5,000 years and is just a master airbender and is able to solo team avatar with ease. Solo TOPH? with EASE???? Cap. Not to mention Zuko, Katara and Sokka all fighting alongside each other. I think not having the original cast come back for voice acting was a real mistake. The character writing and the friendships did not feel as strong as they used to. I understand that they all have their own lives to lead now, but that should have been explored, and how they try to keep in touch with each other past that, or possibly how difficult it is. Not character focused enough. I think Taga had good motivations and I think that his lure to Aang could have made sense if he had not gone through the development that he does in the show. I think Aang should have been siding with Katara and the team over Taga without question, he should have done a lot more to convince them. The team gets spanked by Taga, which I think is lame. I want to see them go off, and they should because it is literally Toph, the greatest earthbender in the world, with Katara a bloodbender, and Zuko the firelords son and now the firelord, and they get whooped. They literally die. I think that the team dying was not a good move, it felt very forced. I think that Sonom was not an interesting enough McGuffin for me. She was interesting and her staff was cool, but it was just this fight that ended with the staff being destroyed, there were no permanent repurcussions afterward. The animation was beautiful and the fight scenes were very cool. I wish there would have been more fights with the team owning and seeing some impressive chemistry and teamwork but it was not there. I think coming from a show with as good of writing as ATLA has, I was dissapointed with the new movie.