Transcript
Speaker: Well, that's another theme month over. Thank goodness for that. If I had to talk about one more callback... Water. Huh? Earth. Wait a minute. Fire. No, no, no. Air.
Speaker: Long ago. Okay, okay, I get it. You want to talk about Avatar again. But the new show isn't out yet. Oh, we're not talking about that. We're talking about the Last Airbender. But we covered all of them in Avatar Month. Unless you mean the Netflix one, in which case... Airbending away!
Speaker: Ow! Actually, I meant the new animated film, not the Netflix one. Then why didn't you lead with that? Because it's hilarious. Welcome to Chatsunami.
Speaker: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. My name's Chatsunami and joining me today is none other than the Avatar himself, Avatar Andrew. Andrew, welcome back.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me. It's nice to conclude Marvel Month and it's really fun and then we'll move on to a topic that I've been very excited about for quite some time. Yeah, because is it right to say that you are indeed, and of course, judging by the skit at the beginning, you are a massive Avatar fan. I am, yeah. I mean, listeners listened to our Avatar Month, what, like two years ago now? Yeah, that's a while. We'll have heard how much of a fan I am of the Avatar The Last Defender franchise. The original series was really, really sort of dear to me. I was an OG watcher. There there was there was a big, kind of around COVID time, there was a huge influx of new fans that came in. I've been fans since I was around 10 years old. The show initially came out. I would watch the episodes as they came out. i remember just had basketball practice while the show was on, so I had to record with a VHS tape in my parents' room we didn't have the recording system for sky I had to use a VHS tape to record my parents TV but my parents TV was connected to the TV in the lounge so whatever was on the TV in the lounge would be on their TV and so if anyone went and changed the channel while it was recording then I'd miss the episode which happened a couple of times was Devastating, but I'm a huge fan. I loved The Last Airbender. I really enjoyed Legend of Korra. I've been reading the various books and comics that have come out since. I've not been a fan of the live action stuff that's been released. It's a hot take. So when they announced they were going to be doing these new movies, I was ecstatic. I was really, really excited. And I've been waiting for ages for it. And so was really, really fun to be able finally watch this. I wish it could have been at cinema, but that's another conversation. Oh yeah, we'll definitely get on to that because what's quite interesting about this whole saga, book, series, whatever you want to call this, as you said, Avatar was such a popular show at the time and personally for me, and again, to kind of reinforce what you said, we've talked about this in length in our Avatar Month episodes and what a month that is, by the way, that was so fun to do because... I never really got into Avatar at the time of its release. I knew of it, I knew about Aang, I saw like Katara, Sokka, all of the characters going to go along with them, but I never really knew much about it until you graciously kicked in my door in university. You said, we have to watch this because of all the shows that I know you were into, this was definitely the one you were like, we have to watch this, you have to experience Avatar. And I'm glad you did, to be quite frank, because it was such a cool show to watch you know it had such a great story had great characters the animation was so great because it was that kind of hybrid of western animation with anime influences it was a great show and then we watched the legend of kora which kind of came out around the same time you and i were in uni but then of course we also had to suffer through a lot of the live action adaptations which again is something we spoke about the m night shamalan film that was very rough
Speaker: I'm not gonna lie. And again, we spoke about it, but... That's rough, buddy. It was really rough, buddy, man. It was really rough. Honestly, it was one of the weirdest things ever. And then, of course, I can't even remember, was it two years ago, four years ago, Netflix announced that they were going to be doing that. live-action adaptation? Yeah, it was quite a long time ago, I remember the original creators were on board with it. They were going to be part of the creation of this live-action show, so there was a lot of confidence around it. And then there seemed to have been some sort of falling out that happened, and which then resulted in them leaving the project, and so confidence in it rapidly fell away, thinking they're not going part of this. They were not a big part of the M.M.S. Shyamalan adaptation. They were there 20 or something, but they didn't have as much influence than that. And so the fact that they walked away meant that a lot of apprehension to it in. Substantially better than the m M.I.T. Shyamalan adaptation, but just didn't quite have the same feel to it. No, absolutely.
Speaker: It was definitely a lot better in terms of how they created the world and everything, but again, it wasn't Avatar. You know, there was a lot of creative liberties, which, as you said, the creative directors and everything. There was definitely a, oh, what's that episode? The Great Divide? Yeah. There was a great divide but between them and I can see why. it feels a lot more brutal in the way that they've adapted it. It's like, oh, we have to spell out everything for you. There's no room for nuance and everything. And the only way you could get more of the original series other than going back and rewatching it time and time again is by, as you said, reading the comics, reading the books and everything. Trust me, I'm working my way through the Kiyoshi books that you got me for Christmas, so I will definitely will be doing an episode with you on that. But it was really interesting to see that the extended media was there, and you know for better or for worse, whether it was for that, whether it was Okora, a bit There was never any real desire for them to create anything outside of that bubble. You know, they had to do like a one-to-one adaptation of the original series, but never, oh, let's do one where Aang and the gang, as it were, go out and they do something, or they go on another adventure. But then they announced that they were going to be making a film, which unfortunately, and correct me if I'm wrong, but was at the start of this year that the film that we're going to be talking about today got leaked online? Yeah. Yeah, it was earlier this year that the leak happened. and There was a big Paramount leak, I think, generally. The big one that kind of came out from that was this movie. It wasn't completely finished yet, from my understanding. I didn't watch it, but from my understanding, it wasn't completely finished yet. It was around the time that there was the announcement that they would not be putting out at the cinemas anymore, because the plan was that it would be coming out at the cinemas in October of this year, October of 2026, and then they announced, no, we're going be putting out at the cinemas. We are, in fact, going to be putting out just on Paramount+. And very shortly afterwards, film got leaked.
Speaker: And the kind of attitude from a lot of people was, screw Paramount. They didn't put it at the cinema, so I'm and they're not going get money for Paramount+. I understood that sentiment. My personal kind of view was that I wanted to make sure that the creators got the views legitimately on the platform. I would prefer that it was at the cinema, but I was going to sign for Paramount+, ideally for a trial period, but find that an option. But I pay for a month, cancel immediately, and just watch that movie just so that they are getting that viewership.
Speaker: because it's very important to me that more stuff is created by Avatar Studios and that hopefully it's going to catch my two because hopefully the number of the amount of interest in it for viewership will then motivate Paramount Plus to say, hey, this has legitimacy to be put out the cinema, but it could also have them be like, oh, we were right when it's the only way you can watch it. So I'm very conflicted about that. I'm largely very against the Paramount Plus release, but I do think that it does need that support because Avatar Studios are doing some very interesting stuff. I do really want to support what they create. It seems like a baffling business decision because F... the Netflix show hadn't come out then I could probably see why they would make that decision because let's face it this show came out in the two thousand it's been ages since we've seen it really I think the last proper show that we actually saw was The Legend of Korra and that was like in the 2010s up to or well yeah so the fact that nothing after that then yeah, sure, I could understand that maybe they would be a bit hesitant not to release it in the cinema. But for better or for worse, the fact is that Avatar is still in the public consciousness for better or for worse. So it seems like a really weird choice. And I mean, see the amount of films that are coming out recently, like Obsession, Backrooms, Amazing Digital Circus, you know, all of these independent films that are coming to the big screen, even for a limited time, but they're still coming out. And all the fans are going to go and see it. The Amazing Digital Circus is a really good example and I had actually brought that up with my wife and sister-in-law recently that the Amazing Digital of Circus has a decent following but I would say a lesser following than The Last Airbender does. Oh 100%. And it got a cinematic release. There are anime films now that have been coming out and doing amazing with their cinematic releases.
Speaker: What is the logic behind saying, no, actually, we're not going to put this out at the cinemas? Is it because you don't have faith in it? Or is it because you want to promote your streaming service and you feel like having films that come out just through the streaming service then and legitimizes it? That's the only reason I could think. Yeah, because I'm just having a look just now and I know that there are limited theatre releases for this. In Los Angeles and New York, they released it in, I think, three cinemas or something like that. Yeah. For a couple of days, want to say. And apparently every one of them have been packed.
Speaker: And people have been loving watching it at a cinema that managed to get in to watch those. The reason that they did that was because if they did not do that, then they wouldn't be considered for awards. They've done a limited cinema release just so they can be considered for awards. And those releases have done very well. What were they thinking? is ridiculous and i think that's the perfect place to jump in and say A, why they should have had that theatre release because my god this film was gorgeous and B, yeah, just whether or not this film holds up. I mean spoilers, I thought it did. But yeah, of course, we will definitely be right back with our thoughts after these messages.
Speaker: Welcome to Chatsunami, a Scottish variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime and general interests. Join me, your host, Satsunami, as well as the rest of our Chatsunami team for our takes on these very important pop culture topics. Sir, it's clearly a trap. I accept your page! That happens three times in the film. Every time that general goes, don't do this one thing, goes, do you know what I'ma do? That's exactly...
Speaker: no It doesn't well. She had the pointy teeth. What was that about? She looked like Bilbo when he wants the ring back. but She turned into it. I just want the lightsaber one more time. Parasite says, no, you will get back into your office and work. No, says the man in Zoom. yeah Trousers are for the working man. You're bursting into your hotel room. Honey, we need to go.
Speaker: Leave the kids. You can milk an odysl. Oh!
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Speaker: Visit swnscotland.com to find out more or search Scottish Wrestling Network on social media. and we are back. So basically, this film is one that I was surprised at, see the time period that they set this in, because when they said they were going to make an Avatar film, I genuinely wasn't sure whether it was just going to be st still with the kid versions of them whether they were going to be teenagers whereas in this it seems as if they're young adults now basically the story is that Aang and the gang they are basically trying to establish Republic City which is the city that Legend of Korra is set in and honestly I don't know about you Andrew but I fanboyed out at that bit I was like oh my god that's so cool and Aang essentially finds out that Ironically enough, despite the name of this film, he is not the last airbender and there is a potential way to bring back the airbenders as a whole. But yeah, what adventures will we get into? Well, we're just going to jump right into it. So, see story-wise, Andrew, what did you think? See, coming back into this after so many years, how did you feel? I liked the story. I thought it was interesting. i don't think it was fantastic. I think there are stronger stories told in both The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. Not all of them. Some of the Korra stories are pretty weak, but likewise with some smaller stories in The Last Airbender. But it was very predictable in terms of what was happening. I have a lot of things that I really, really liked about it. And I have some things that I wasn't as much of a fan of, but I thought that the story was enjoyable. I liked a lot of the writing and I thought that it was an interesting angle to go on. And I'm curious as well within kind of a canon perspective.
Speaker: I assume that they are saying that this film is canon, but it's been like with, and you've mentioned on chat, it's like with an anime side movie where you're like, I feel like the events of this would have been brought up in something like Korra. Because definitely, It definitely feels like, you know those shounen anime films where they take a particular part of the story and then they're like, oh yeah, we're going to make this film and we're going to basically have its own self-contained story, but it never really, nine times out of ten anyway, it never really comes up in the main storyline of the show. And that's what I felt this was. Don't get me wrong, it absolutely looked beautiful.
Speaker: beautiful. The animation, I'm just going to get this out here now, the animation was gorgeous in this and my only regret watching it was why is this not in the big screen? Even on a TV screen this doesn't do it justice. I cannot imagine how beautiful a lot of the scenes must have looked in the big screen. Even the anime style as well because and this is something you and I were talking about with the release of, ironically enough it's not until the same date that we're supposed to be releasing this film, it's called Seven Havens. which is like the follow-up to Cora. Well, not follow-up, but it is related. Watch the trailer. But yeah, they're going to be releasing that show and everything. And in that, the animation feels drastically different compared to Cora and The Last Airbender and everything. So I wasn't sure what type of animation they were going to go with for the film. I thought, are they going to try something quite unique? Are they going to try something a bit more stylistic? But they managed to keep it faithful to the last airbender but also have some incredibly detailed shots. Especially when he's scaling the mountain and everything, when they're going through the eternal storm and whatnot, when they go through the spirit world. It's just incredible. Like what were your thoughts about the animation? I said probably every about five to ten minutes while i was watching the film with my wife and my sister-in-law that this animation is stunning. This is beautiful. And like is a unique art style to the the franchise. There's certainly designs and that the characters themselves obviously are modeled on what the characters from The Last Airbender looked like. But the actual animation is a quite different design. Style, it's more contemporary I'd say, and I think it also comes across as a little more anime Their eyes in particular, and I mentioned this to my friend that was watching with, that they made their eyes a lot more anime-like And a lot of the animation and tone felt quite modern Things like when Sokka was telling the little kids about his adventures and it would cut to very realistic still shots of him being super macho man saving the day and that felt very modern a lot of cartoons now are doing that kind of cut shot to a silly exaggerated art style that the old show did not do it felt very Jojo's Bizarre Adventure-esque I have to say that's funny It felt kind of like Sony Pictures kind of thing, like the Spider-Verse and Mitchell's vs. the Machines, if you ever watched that. Yeah. And a lot of modern Disney cartoons and that kind stuff. Love to do that sort of thing. Feels like a very kind of popular style and joke to do within modern animation. That's kind of small part of it. The animation as a whole, it was so detailed. The coloring was so gorgeous. Can I say it is so refreshing to see a 2D style again. When it was the last time you saw a 2D animated movie, like a new 2D animated movie? That is a good question. The thing is, it's not even the absence of 2D films now. It's more that 2D films have quite a lot of hybrids. Even in anime, they have that hybrid between 2D animation and 3D animation. And don't get me wrong, I can't speak for the technical process in this. Maybe they did have 3D. There is some components of 3D you could notice. They did that same thing with Korra. Whenever there's like a machine or like that, they often they can't do that in 2D animation. So it has to be done 3D, re-generated, like the airships. and that kind of stuff but yeah no it is largely 2d with sort of elements 3d but like the sort of definitely shines because going back to the story is something you were saying there about whether or not it's canon the legitimacy of it and it does that anime thing where it's like oh there's a super secret airbender avatar that you never knew about and things and i thought
Speaker: you know what, that was a fantastic way just to loop it in to be like, well, that's plausible. And it also kind of contains this story into this air bubble, as it were. Not the air bubbles from Legend of Korra, because they are terrible, but the air bubble of this show or film. And yeah, it was just, it was so interesting to see where they took it. And would you say as well, see in terms of story, that it definitely felt more like Aang's story and everyone else was just there for the ride? Yes. I would certainly say that the gang itself just kind of felt like they were there and didn't really have as much of an impact as I would have liked. I've seen the comment online that this would have been better as a miniseries rather than sort of fitting it all in in the movie. If they had had it as a series and kind of fleshed out like what's going on with Toph, what's going on with Zuko, little more more Katara kind thing, it would have felt like they weren't just kind of decoration. It is Aang's movie. It is. The title itself is Aang, Avatar Aang, The Last Airbender. So it's understandable that that is the case. But when you come to expect that within this universe, these are your main characters, and like within the context of The Last Airbender TV series, Aang was the main character, and it was largely about him, but you've got lots of engagement with these other characters. You've found out their stories, their personalities, and that kind of thing. And I don't feel like we've got enough of that. I don't really know what Zuko's like these days. We got the shot of him in the royal palace where he was tired of the whole kind of process, but we didn't really see and get much dialogue from him, to be honest, to kind of understand what's going on with him.
Speaker: Likewise with Toph, we saw her metalbending academy, which if you read comics, there's a comic called Toph's Metalbending Academy, where she founds that academy and kind of learns to be a good teacher. And so you kind of learn a little bit about that from from that. And you can argue that that's kind of where you can kind of understand that kind of background as to where she's at. them there but she's still very young in those comics she's still essentially this similar age to the original series whereas i think they said they were about 25 ish in the movie from what i'd seen so they're substantially older they're at least 10 to 15 years older than they were in the original series so there's a lot will have changed in their personalities and their lives and interests and that kind of stuff Yeah, I feel as if between that and the antagonists as well in this film, and again, i just want to reiterate, overall, I thought this was a great film, but if I had to nitpick, it would definitely that would be that the gang wasn't really fleshed out, but also the villains felt quite, again, very standard shonen anime film-esque. You know, you had Taga, who was this ancient airbender who ended up getting the powers of airbending from... this other avatar, this secret avatar, O.C. Donut Steel, called Sonam. And I thought that aspect was kind of cool. And again, the flashback was incredible for that. and you could see why he went down that dark path. Although one thing I found very funny for that was, see the Earth Kingdom? You know how in the original series they keep going on about, oh, the firebenders were the worst and they caused the 100-year war? Sorry, how many times has the Earth Kingdom caused a global conflict and war? and things like that because i mean we had that backstory for taga we had the one in kora and what was the other one oh yeah there was kyoshi yeah kyoshi's time there was some stuff as well but yeah i think it's one of those things where each nation over thousands of years i mean we're looking like medieval history oh yeah it's an evolving door yeah there's always conflict between the nations and it was interesting just having because the air nomads were always just known as these kind of peaceful nomads and that They were very Jedi-esque, weren't they? Yeah, and so having an aggressor, belligerent airbender was very interesting. And so that was an interesting component for me. I do agree. I think that Dave Bautista in that role did a pretty good job. I think he was pretty by the numbers in some ways, but because other than Zaheer in Korra, which is not dissimilar, their motivations are pretty dissimilar, but you're getting that evil airbender kind of motif there. It was similar in that way. but
Speaker: I preferred Zaheer Tataga, but I did find his story interesting. I didn't like when he went like Ganondorf spirit mode. Yeah. I felt that that felt very generic baddie with laser fights type thing. I wish that they hadn't done that personally, but that's just me. I didn't mind the direction they went. I did not like the denied. Yeah, they felt very much like a diet equaliser group, didn't they? Yes, I immediately thought these are the equalists. Equalists, yeah. But then their argument wasn't bending sucks. They were like, we wish we had bending, and we would mess things up if we had bending, which further points to the that probably shouldn't have bending. But their story seemed... It was very weird because they set them up immediately in the story as being the main aggressors. And then they took a side seat to Taga and then just kind of became his minions.
Speaker: See, as soon as they were going through the the eternal story... storm yeah as soon as they started going through the eternal storm and then he started trying to crush them and everything i thought all right we're going for this like i kind of expected at the beginning but that confirmed i was like oh we're going for the oh i'm a good airbender but then oh no i'm not i'm gonna bit betray in the end blah blah blah and i was like oh great that means the denied are gonna be their henchmen because they were very just team rocket-esque they just popped up and they're like oh yeah as you said oh we want bending and they were pretty formidable. At the start, they were pretty formidable. The Lady Archer, she seemed to be a... and i can't remember if remembering the name wrong, but think it was like a Yushen Archer or something like that, which they introduced in the original series as the only people that caught Aang.
Speaker: When Aang gets captured and the blue spirit frees him from the prison that General Zhao has him in, it was the, again, I think it's Yushen Archers, they're the ones that capture him. They never come up again. These guys formidable archers. How have they not been used again after this? They were so OP, that's why. Yeah. but So anyway, she seems to be one of them, based on her like tattoo thing she has on her face. And I didn't think, I was like, if you were an archer, and which element would make the most sense for you? An air would make most sense. could fire an arrow really hard. I thought she was kind of cheating, though, towards the end, where she was firing arrows, but she lit them on fire. And then it was like, she kind of got a double element there where she's like oh yeah I'm airbending but I'm also firing fire arrows I'm like oh that's just cheating that's terrible but yeah no I totally see where you're coming from there again and this kind of points to I wish they'd done this as a series they had that one denied girl who seemed to be like oh should we be doing this he saved our lives kind of thing
Speaker: And I don't think her story was ever really fleshed out. And yet she takes a title, seeing the credits, she takes like a whole title space in there, when it's like, this character, Raz, you know, this actress, and you're like, okay. She becomes one of the acolytes on Air Temple Island, and so she has little kind redemption there, but again, do love that this was a movie. I love that we got a movie. I wish it had been at the cinema, but I love that we got a movie. But I just wish that it had been fleshed out more. I didn't need it to be a long, because the movie itself was a decent length. but if it been presented as a series, then we could have had some more time to set these characters up.
Speaker: The thing is, there's one particular scene that I really hated in this film. There's bits I went, eh, okay, that doesn't work, or all that could have been fleshed out. There is genuinely one scene where I wish they had just cut it out. Can I guess it? Yeah, go for it. Is it in the spirit world with that hog thing voiced by Taika Waititi? That's the one. Yep, my man, my boy, Taika Waititi. Get out of my film. Yeah, initially I was like, oh cool, it's a spirit guide, and literally he was there, he spat them out, they had this weird Zutara joke, and I was like, alright, okay, and then that was it, they just shot them into the air, and I was like, there was no reason for that scene at all. They did the whole thing where they came to the spirit world and they like de-aged and made them older and that kind of stuff, and they only lingered on it for like a second. As soon as they got fired up from the temple, they were returned back to their proper ages, which probably should have been... That makes sense that it's the case. They want to be at their most powerful when they're facing up against a threat asidable as formidable as that. But I feel like they had a bit more time, again, if it was a series, to linger on that, they could have had bit more... What are the consequences of the fact that Toph is now a baby and Zuko and Katara are now super old? Because that's what I thought they were doing, that, yeah, they were going to get taken out of it, so Aang would have to face Taga in the form that Fled. Yeah, ohha exactly. Yeah, the form, the age he was when he ran away from his avatar responsibilities. I was like, oh, is that what they're going to do? They're going to make sure the gang can't fight back? Which would be a cool thing to and do if the entire series wasn't about that. yeah Exactly. He already did the, I ran away once, I'm not running away again, i'm facing this, and he defeated the Fire Lord. That was the whole thing in the original series, so we didn't need to do that again. And I was kind of annoyed, to be honest, that they kept bringing up the I ran away aspect of this. I understand why they did, because again, it's the whole idea of the movie is that he has regrets the fact that there are no more airbenders, and that he believes that him running away was the reason for that in fact if he hadn't run away there would legitimately be no more islanders because at that age he could not have stopped them from defeating them all and so he would have just died but but that's his own kind of situation do you know what it reminds me of do you remember the hunter hunter film the one where they had the dark name or whatever it was it was like odin or something yeah yeah now you remember
Speaker: So, again, I'm not going to explain the entirety of Hunter Hunter, but there's this power scaling thing for anyone who doesn't know where each character gets this thing called Nen. And Nen's like this kind of of life force and they can transform it into different powers and things. Whether you're good or bad, everyone has Nen. Everyone has the exact same energy to pull from, whether they're a villain, whether they're a hero. And then in this film, they have this weird thing where they're like, oh, but there's this evil men called On or something like that. i can't remember. It's been so long since we watched it. It's men backwards. That was the thing. It was like, it was such a pointless addition. And I feel like they've done a similar thing here where it's like, oh, he's an evil airbender. And you're like... Yeah, yeah. Zaheer's calling in the future.
Speaker: But again, I don't think it's the worst thing ever. But it just, yeah, between that and him turning into essentially yokais, like in Japanese mythology. Yeah. Where it's like he just turned into a big spirit monster. It did look very Japanese, Chinese, kind of like monster inspired. Yeah. We kept saying Ganondorf when we were, or Ganon when we were watching the the film, but I was thinking the way he's designed, he was coming across as a lot more East Asian inspired. When I found the character initially was more kind of South Asian, inspired That seems to be something they're going for more now, with more South Asian representation in the Avatar universe. That Sonam was South Asian inspired, there was lot of South Asian it's inspired music, and then in the new Seven Havens show, the character again South Asian inspired, music is South Asian inspired, so I'm curious if they're shifting away from more East Asian, going into other kind of aspects of Asian cultures. with that. I was actually listening to a bunch of stuff like the panel at San Diego Comic Con about the movie and some other other bits and pieces and one of the creators, Canetsco and DiMartino, they were talking about it, one of them was talking about how they've now created a unique language for the universe that previously they used Chinese characters and now they've decided that they're moving away from that. And you saw this in the movie on the Zonim statue with some text on there, that it wasn't in
Speaker: the Chinese alphabet. It was a kind of Korean-inspired, mind-to-mind-standing language that they've spent a long time apparently creating that would be kind of unique. And it sounds like you can now actually learn the language of the amateur universe.
Speaker: Yeah. I don't know how to feel about that, to be honest. See if they did it. earlier in the series. s Like I get the whole point of the original one was that there was a lot of East Asian influence from China, Japan. He also had the Canuets with the Water Tribe. The Earth Kingdom, I think they were more Chinese inspired.
Speaker: communist of coming to China and South Korea. Yeah, and I kind of see why they want to, you know, make up their own avatar language and things. But yeah, I don't know. Again, I'm not thoroughly against it or thoroughly for it. I'm just kind of in the middle. I understand it. I think it's fine to do. I mean, again, I was used to seeing Chinese lettering and alphabet used in the original series. It did cross my mind on occasion when I was watching the original series that there is so many cultural inspirations within this universe that the kind of choice of Chinese was little strange and the fact that it's its own universe that it would have a language that isn't just our language. I mean I think as well because the Chinese letters and things are an inspiration for what came after and I'm talking centuries ago that inspired what would become the simplified Korean language, the Japanese, you know. Maybe that's why because it is that kind of of iconography of ancient language and everything in ancient time and everything but yeah as you said they're probably wanting to make it maybe it's just a lore building thing but they probably would want to make it its own thing rather than leaning too much into real life inspiration and don't get me wrong there's nothing wrong with that either because they are bringing in but yeah it's just that kind of fine line essentially which i think they balance really
Speaker: relatively well in this. I think the thing that stands out though for me in this film is that it opens the door for potentially more films like this. Would you be up for, and again I'm saying this as if Paramount are going to come to us being like hey guys look at what we've got, but would you be up for see a Avatar Korra film if they were to go that direction like a a Star Wars story type format here where they did that? I would be interested in that, yeah, I would be. I know Korra isn't as popular as Aang is, so I don't know if they will go down that path.
Speaker: And it looks like with Seven Havens that they're gonna explore something to do with the events of Korra after what we've seen. i don't know that for sure, but that's just kind of the vibe I got from the trailer. So I predict that that we won't get that. I think it would be a cool idea maybe as a compendium to the new season if we got a movie that kind of explored Korra in that way. be cool. I really want them to do an adaptation of the Kyoshi books. They have said they are not going to do that, which I think is really, really sad because I think that there's so much... Like, the story itself is so interesting that it feels a disservice to not do that, but I can understand that they want to keep those stories separate unique, that Yi wrote those stories.
Speaker: That's his thing. And so I would love to have seen Kyoshi story, a Yangshen story, I think going backwards rather than forwards generally is more interesting to me. I don't really care as much about the continuation of the Avatar cycle at this point. I'd rather explore some of the avatars that we have.
Speaker: Thousands of avatars that came before, i would like sort see some of that stuff. Because one of the best things in The Legend of Korra was the Avatar 1 episodes. i don't know if that's your opinion that. Season 2 in particular was very weak. The Avatar 1 stuff was the thing that makes it watchable. for me Yeah, because i have to say when I first watched it, when we were watching Korra for the first time, i thought, eh, it's alright, you know, but re-watching it for Avatar months to talk about the legend of Korra, I could see the vision, as silly as that sounds, I could genuinely look at it and go, oh my god, I see finally what they were trying to accomplish here, because it felt as if they were trying to, obviously with Korra they maybe leaned a bit
Speaker: too much into the spiritual world and things without it kind of feeling spiritual, if that makes sense. You know, it was more for, like, whenever they drew on spirituality and things like that, they drew on it so that they could have a big laser battle at the end, or, oh, it's a big beast that's coming through and everything, and it didn't feel as if there was a lot of nuance to that, and that made sense for Korra, don't get me wrong, because she was a lot more brash in nature as the Avatar. But as you said, it would be interesting to go backward rather than forward because what's interesting, as much as I joked about it earlier, about like the Earth Kingdom constantly messing up the world, is that there is this perpetual cycle. And even at the end of Avatar 1's story, is that he wasn't able to bring peace to the world because he fought it his whole life. And then think he dies on the battlefield being like, yeah, I can't do this anymore. And then, of course, he gets reincarnated and the cycle keeps going. on and on And as you said, there are thousands of avatars that you can draw on there to say, oh, we're going to explore this story, that story. And that kind of deep dive into the history of the avatar world. That is really interesting to go forward. forward and again you know it's early days to say whether or not seven havens is going to be good i'm not a big fan of that idea that oh they built up republic city because that's one of the things i love about this film and as much as it sounds like me pointing to the screen saying i know the thing but you had all these amazing callbacks you know like the secret tunnel months fumble singing in the courtyard. You had the My Cabbages guy. You had the Kyoshi Warriors at the end. he had the guy frothing at the mouth with his child, which I thought was quite funny. You had all these callbacks and things which were so well done. And then only for them to say, oh, by the way, Republic City doesn't exist in the future because literally one avatar on, they end up ruining the whole thing. And I know they're probably going to do a twist of she saved them but she's seen as a villain you know that kind of thing i think that's probably where they're gonna go with it yeah i think the stuff we saw in the trailer is a red herring i think we're gonna find out that she's not to blame yeah but i just i don't like the idea of republic city being completely nuked off the map by a big spirit or whatever ironically enough i know it's not an anime but it is like any other anime type show where they have to keep making it more and more futuristic to the extent that they lose their identity And weirdly enough, the one that I keep thinking of is Yu-Gi-Oh! in that regard, where it's like you had all this mysticism about a person who got possessed by a pharaoh and everything, and it was all about ancient Egypt and card games and such. And then you went from that to... Yeah, exactly. Card games and motorcycles. And you're like, oh, okay, this is where we're going. And it felt so detached. And don't get me wrong, I've not watched any new Beyblades past the ones that we watched growing up. But, you know, you see some of them and it's like, oh, look at this future tech and things. And it's like, yeah, it's cool, but it doesn't feel like what Avatar was. And again, I don't think it should always hold on to the past and admire them for trying something different. And I think that's where this film kind of falls in the middle for me. And I don't know how you feel, but it feels to me that this is a very safe film. You know, in the sense that although it adds new stuff to the lore, you know for a fact that when they brought up the MacGuffin novel, Sonam's staff and everything, that they were just gonna, at the very end, bring it back to the status quo. They weren't gonna have him hold the staff and say, I'm gonna return to airbending, because obviously he can't, that would contradict. Korra, they're not going to have anything that's going to be world breaking, but at the same time, they still have the references to the original and everything. So yeah, for me personally, it did fall in this kind of middle ground of it's safe enough. But yeah, what did you think of that? Yeah, I agree that you knew that it was going to return everything to the status quo at the end and that nothing was really going to change. So it did kind of feel like we were just getting a little holiday to visit our favorite characters and kind of see what they've been up to. But I enjoyed the film for what it was. Oh, yeah. I so enjoyed the film for what it was. I recognize going in, it's a kid's movie. You're not going to get a lot of nuance with that. Like, not to disparage that, because I mean, we've talked at length about other children's movies that really have a very elevated story. There's a lot of depth to them, lot of interest there. And I think that this is a very solid film. It was an enjoyable film. I'm curious to see someone who's not familiar with the Avatar universe who watches it, what they would think of it as a film. It did feel pretty accessible in terms of someone who isn't familiar with the original series going in, but I would be curious to sort of know what the kind of general feeling around that was. I had avoided spoilers and reviews and that kind of stuff for a couple of days prior to the film coming out, so I still want to go back and take a look at some of the film critic reviews of this movie. I saw on Rotten Tomatoes. It has an 89% audience audience. score, no sorry, an 89% critic score and I think a 95% audience score. So I'm curious, I've been seeing a lot of positivity, a lot of negativity around it on Twitter, which is you can kind expect. One thing that's been a big talking point, which we've not brought up in this, is the voice acting. Yeah. So going into sort of general kind of context, the actors that they chose for this film are all completely different from the original voice cast in the original series. My understanding was that, I mean, they wanted to age up the characters and some of the voices of those actors don't lend themselves to an older voice. They still sound quite young. Some of the actors aren't acting anymore. And so the choice was made that if they're not going to bring back one or two of them kind of thing, if they're not bringing back any of them, then they're going bring back all of them. And so it was an entirely new cast. The only kind of standout kind of name was Steven Yeun, who was playing Zuko. People who watch the show Invincible will know soon Yeun. Matt, he Mark, the main character in Invincible. And then Dave Bautista is the villain. And then you have the occasional famous voice actor as like a background character. in the film as well. But the majority of the main cast are unfamiliar to me. i don't know if you've been aware of any of them. I know that the voice actors for Toph is blind, which is a cool thing they've done, and they seem to have gone for a lot more of a East Asian representation for the voice actors. I mean, I thought overall the voice acting was serviceable. I'm not saying it's bad or anything. And again, this is coming from a known voice acting perspective here. I thought maybe at the beginning, and again, I think it's because we're so used to, you know, hearing Aang's voice in The Last Airbender. And obviously you're not going to get the exact same voice for that. But that was kind of a bit of a whiplash when he heard his voice at the beginning. You're like, oh, that is a literal child. They've just got into the booth. But for the voice acting, I thought they were fine. You know, i think Stephen Yew, again, he didn't really get a lot of lines on this. Some of the lines that he did get were hilarious, like when they get Taga for the first time and Toph asks him... If he's attractive. Yeah, if he's attractive. And he goes, yes, he's are attractive and he's the only one. And everyone's like, what?
Speaker: He's like, well, it is. Look at the bone structure. But again, there wasn't really much for him to display that. And obviously he's not the main character, so I understand why. But it does feel weird why they didn't ask some of the old cast back. I mean, I'm sure Dante Basco would probably. he'd be jumping at it The fact that a lot of them either aren't doing a lot now or have finished acting. Zack Taylor Eisen, who played Aang originally, no longer acts.
Speaker: Dante Basco does some voice acting, does some acting. Mainly does dancing, I think, and does small theater stuff. And he's the co-host of the Braiding the Elements podcast with Jenna Varning, who voiced Cora. Jack DeSena is doing like some projects. He made but he does a lot of sketch comedy with his like sketch comedy friend, lot of which is very very good, actually. I do recommend them, and he was Callum in Dragon Prince, but again, not doing enough that he wouldn't jump at the chance to voice Sokka again. And then Mae Whitman never really bought into the Avatar stuff. like She obviously did the original series, but she never really engages with anything to do with Avatar. I don't think she was ever a guest on Braving the Elements. i don't All the others have been. I don't think she ever does any Comic-Con kind of type stuff for it She is very distant from that. that we didn't see Zula at all, so Zula's a character who didn't see the film, and so her actress wouldn't be returning anyway and then jesse flowers i think was her stage name i can get what her actual name is now i do follow her on instagram we voice tough she's still also not doing voice acting anymore i believe but she is still very involved with the avatar universe she does travel for cons and stuff like that like i've seen her there and greg baldwin who's iroh no iroh in this movie yeah that's my biggest criticism and no iroh well but we did get bradley d baker coming back to the prizes role yes
Speaker: So he was the only one, Bradley D. Baker was the only one that reprised his role as Apa and Momo, and possibly other animal characters. But yeah, so we got him. I thought when the cabbage merchant arrived, and he had his line, I was like, oh, really they got him back. But then I saw it was actually Ken Jeong, the guy that's in like the hangover and community, and that kind of stuff. He's the cabbage merchant. So I was like, okay, so it wasn't actually him. But yeah, the voice cast, largely unknowns. I thought they did a decent job. I think they were able to kind of replicate the kind of tone and voice of what the original characters would have sounded like grown up.
Speaker: so I didn't have too much issues with that. The line readings I thought were largely fine, they weren't anything special. I think a lot of people online are being really critical of them, and I don't think that they were egregious in any way. I thought that they were fine. of people were talking about how the film itself is mid, which is that very popular word to use. I think it was better than I think was a very good movie. I don't think it perfect. I mean, when you came out from it, you messaged and said 10 out of 10, no notes, and you said it was sick, and based off of the conversation we've had today, I get the opinion you no longer think it's a 10 out of 10 movie. What I would say is I think it's what Avatar needs right now. And that's going to sound like a really weird thing to say. Literally Aang's character arc here, it's like when the world needed Avatar, he just disappeared and now he's back again. But with Avatar, the Netflix adaptations and everything and this kind of misinterpretation of what made Avatar so good and honestly they've just got to stop doing live actions I'm going to be honest I'm just I'm tired of looking at them I'm tired of looking at the Rock's face as well but there's a whole other rant Moana looking at you but I think this is exactly what the series needs right now that it needs something to remind you of oh why did you love Avatar in the first place while having something that opens the doors for potential future films or potential future series because we have seven havens that's going to be coming out on october 9th which will be interesting to see i think i'll probably still check it out regardless of how i feel about it just now but in summary i know i said like 10 out of 10 no notes and everything i feel as if when i came out of well i was sorry when i came out of i watched it on my tv i When I walked upstairs and went to my bed, I genuinely thought that this was a great film. I wouldn't say it did anything above and beyond, you know, any other type of animated film. It wouldn't probably be in my top 10 animated films or anything like that. But I think between the animation, between bringing back characters and everything, slowly reintroducing them. Yeah, it's definitely what the series needs right now. And is it perfect? Nah, definitely not. Is it what the series needs just now though? Definitely, I would say so. Granted, I've got two opinions on this, that on the one hand, I wish in a way that they released this sooner, but on the flip side, if they released it sooner, then we wouldn't have got what we got if that makes sense. You know, we would have got the finished product, we would have got something a bit more subpar, and would that hurt the franchise, you know, as a whole, and its reputation? So, yeah, overall, I'm just glad we got it, to be honest. And I'm really excited to see what the Avatar Studios and everything, I'm really excited to see where they take both the series, both the films and everything. I'm excited to see where they take it. Not the Netflix series, though, that can get in the bin. But, yeah, what are your final thoughts? Yeah, I'm so happy this film came out. It wasn't everything that I hoped it would be, but I was still very happy with it. I'm glad that we are getting more stuff from the Avatar universe. Avatar Studios has been around now for five years, and so it's been so long in waiting for something to come out from them that hasn't been board game or a video game or anything like that. That's what's been only what's been coming out from them. before now, and so the fact that we have this movie, that we're gonna have the series soon, and based off of when they made the announcements back in 2021 or 2022 about the film's schedules, we should hopefully be having more movies coming out. I believe initially the plan was that there would be a Zuko movie would be the first movie to come out and then they changed their mind and it was Aang instead and it was talk about a Kyoshi movie. I don't know if that got changed following the release of the Kyoshi books or what the situation will be for that. But yeah, I'm curious to see what else comes out from this. I'm curious to see the general response for this movie and what the Seven Haven series would be like. So fingers crossed things are going to be sort smooth sailing for this franchise going forward. hoping we'll have some sort of follow-up podcast episode where we talk about our thoughts on Seven Havens. Once, I assume will be multiple seasons, but at least the first season is concluded and we'll go from there. I'm interested to see where the future of the franchise is going. And it is so easy to fall into that, ironically enough, much like Taga, but it's so easy to fall into that spiral of negativity with this franchise. Because when you look back at what people were criticising, like with Cora, they were saying, oh, it's the worst thing ever. And you watched it and you went, yeah. there's problems but it's definitely not the worst thing and then of course you watch the Shyamalan film and you go that's the worst thing but the internet as a whole and again this is a what a wet statement here but it has a way of just making the things that you loved back in the past quite negative so it'll be interesting to see what we both think of it in the future especially with Seven Havens we're definitely gonna have to do an episode at some point but yeah can't wait for that and on that note as I go away to cancel my Paramount Plus subscription. Already done. Free trial here. Did you get free trial? I managed to get a free trial would you believe? Oh lucky. Which is weird because I'm convinced I had a free trial before but maybe not maybe because I have paid for it before. See I think that's the issue I think I had a free trial previously think that's why I couldn't get it this time if I'd signed up with like a new email address something like that then I could probably done that but I paid $12, essentially like £8 for it, and that's kind of what I would pay for a movie ticket, it's fine. But yeah, on that note, as I go to cancel my subscriptions, yeah, Andrew, thank you so much for coming on to this episode, and yeah, talking about Avatar and Aang. Thank you so much for having me, it's a pleasure talking about this, we kind of pulled this together on sort of short notes to react to the film, and I really, really enjoyed being to talk about Avatar again, the listeners enjoyed what had to say, and please do support the film, please watch it and make sure they're aware. I understand it's another streaming service to get parent plus, but if you can get a free trial for it, go for it. If it does cost you little bit, then I would hope that you'd be willing to support it. But that's on you. That's on you. That's on you. No, it's up to you as whether not that's something you want to do. But yeah, please do if you can and support us if you are able to. How they going to do that? That's it. Well, I'm glad you asked, Andrew. So if you want to support us and listen to our past episodes, especially our Avatar Month, you can check us out on our website, chatsunami.com, as well as all good podcast apps. I also want to thank our amazing Pandalorian patrons, Robotic Battle Toaster, Ghost Day, and Cryptic 1991. Thank you so, so much for supporting the show. And if you would like early access to episodes, exclusive episodes, behind-the-scenes content, commentary tracks, all that you say goodness, then indeed you can check us out at our Patreon page patreon.com forward slash chat tsunami this podcast is of course a prime member of the Popat Collective for more information check us out on twitter slash x page at Popat Collective but until next time thank you all so so much for listening stay safe stay awesome and most importantly stay hydrated
