Avatar: The Last Airbender (Movie and Animations)

The Last Airbender is a 2010 American fantasy adventure film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It is a live-action film adaptation of the first season of the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender.

The film stars Noah Ringer as Aang, with Dev Patel as Prince Zuko, Nicola Peltz as Katara, and Jackson Rathbone as Sokka. It was produced by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies. Development for a film began in 2007; it was adapted by Shyamalan, who also served as screenwriter and producer. Other producers include Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy, Sam Mercer and Scott Aversano.
The series from which it was adapted was influenced by Asian art, mythology and various martial arts fighting styles and was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. Filming began in mid-March 2009, with locations in Greenland and Pennsylvania.

The Last Airbender was made for $150 million. Premiering in New York City on June 30, 2010, it opened in the United States the following day, grossing an estimated $16 million. The Last Airbender opened in second place at the box office behind The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, and eventually grossed $131 million domestically and $319 million worldwide.
Despite being a box office success, the film and 3D conversion was largely panned by critics and fans alike, and won five Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Picture in 2010.


(KnightlySamurai)
I don't have much to say on this film, but I will say that if you do want to see it, watch it before you see the animated series. While the CGI in this movie isn't horrible, per se, there is hardly any depth to the characters like what is showed in the animation, nor does it strictly follow the same timeline, nor do the same rules in bending even apply (in this movie it is rare for a fire-bender to produce their own fire, whereas they all did that in the animated show, it was lighting that was rare). They kind of just squeezed the entire first season into an hour and 40min.
Now, like I said, it isn't all horrible. There are several parts I liked, like the one with Iroh trying to protect the fish and whatnot, lol, and just other random ones that are mainly for scenery. I can tell they tried - it's just not a movie that works well with real actors. It's made for cartoon.

Okay, now for the animated show, which I think is pretty nice:

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Avatar: The Legend of Aang in Europe) is an emmy award winning American animated television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. The series was created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who served as executive producers along with Aaron Ehasz. Avatar: The Last Airbender is set in an Asian-influenced world wherein some are able to manipulate the classical elements by use of psychokinetic variants of Chinese martial arts known as "bending." The show combined the styles of anime and American cartoons, and relied for imagery upon various East-Asian, Inuit, Indian and South-American societies.

The series follows the adventures of protagonist twelve-year-old Aang and his friends, who must bring peace and unity to the world by ending the Fire Lord's war against the other three nations. The pilot episode first aired on February 21, 2005 and the series concluded with a widely praised two-hour episode on July 19, 2008.
Avatar: The Last Airbender was popular with both audiences and critics, garnering 5.6 million viewers on its best-rated showing and receiving high ratings in the Nicktoons lineup, even outside its 6–11-year-old demographic. The series has been nominated for and won awards from the Annual Annie Awards, the Genesis Awards, the primetime Emmy awards and a Peabody Award among others. The first season's success prompted Nickelodeon to order second and third seasons. An art book was also released in mid-2010. Furthermore, the president of Nickelodeon announced on July 21, 2010 that a sequel would be produced. The Legend of Korra premiered on April 14, 2012.

(Me) This show was pretty good all-around. Nice and likable characters, not too stupid but stupid enough to be hilariously funny at times, quite in-depth, long, and still pretty cool. All nice things for a show that's aimed at 12yr olds.
Now, don't get me wrong, but the number one thing I didn't like about this show was also one of it's main components. What is that, you say? Well it's the mystical eastern religious stuff, like reincarnation and other "spirit-world" related references. I've never liked that kind of stuff, but I do really like animated action - so it's still good in my opinion, and personally, since I like really long shows I wouldn't mind if they had made it a tad longer, lol.

Okay, now we've got the Legend of Korra series just coming out, and that's the sequel to the above show.

The Legend of Korra is an American animated television series that premiered on the Nickelodeon television network on April 14, 2012. It was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko as a sequel to their previous show, Avatar: The Last Airbender.

(Me) Anyway, similar setting, 2 generations later - and it's made for a slightly older crowd. I've watched the first season and it's pretty good.
It's not as good as the older show, but the art and action is better, which I'm a big fan of.
It also looks like it'll be shorter, which is unfortunate. Every TV show that comes out these days seems to end a season or two too short! It's sad.


Anyway, the "eh, okay" rating of the live-action movie comes with the warning to watch it before the TV shows.
As for the TV shows, I would definitely recommend them to animated show lovers and anyone who likes animated/anime action. ^_^ Not perfect shows, but in that genre there isn't always much that is decently exciting out there with in-depth character.

~KnightlySamurai

The Adventures of Tintin

(wikipedia) The Adventures of Tintin (also known as The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn) is a 2011 American performance capture 3D film based on The Adventures of Tintin, a series of comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé (Georges Remi). Directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson, and written by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, the film is based on three of the original comic books: The Crab with the Golden Claws (1941), The Secret of the Unicorn (1943), and Red Rackham's Treasure (1944). It is also the first animated film Spielberg has directed.

Tintin and Captain Haddock set off on an adventure involving gold and an old legend about a ship Haddock's ancestor commanded.

Tintin is a kid detective apparently, he had a ton of newspaper clippings from adventures he did before this event comes into play plastered on the wall, which left me wondering where the comics are online. ;-D

This movie had to be the most AMAZINGLY made CGI-character movie I have ever seen. It almost didn't look like CGI, but real life! I saw a bit of that kind of animation in Happy Feet 2, but it was hard to tell which was better.

Personally, I thought the story lacked in a few areas, but it was a pretty good and enjoyable movie even if it is aimed at a specific age group (the amount of alcohol wouldn't be wise for those under 10, and the action doesn't quite seem late-teen worthy).

The parts I didn't like other than the drinking were the one's where Haddock or the 2 coppers are doing incredibly stupid things - the coppers are horribly lacking in brain capacity (which was hilarious, and also annoying at the same time) - but that may just be because I'm not a big fan of characters getting embarrassed (I seem to "feel for them" in a way, and it's not comfortable, lol).

Negative Elements:
Lot's of drinking. Haddock wasn't really sober unless he was drinking, yet at other times he was kinda crazy when he was drinking....very odd, and PG material definitely.

Otherwise, I enjoyed the movie about as much as anyone would a Hardy Boys book, since the action is similar I think. Did the Hardy boys ever use a bazooka? In Morocco? lol.

Samurai Rating: 4/5 stars or less for family friendliness, but it probably rates a decent 4 overall on the account that although it wasn't as intriguing as it could of been, the animation and quality were very good..
On a 10-scale (I kinda want to maybe switch) it'd probably be a 7/10.

Happy Feet 2

(Wikipedia) Happy Feet Two is a 2011 American-Australian 3D computer-animated family film directed by George Miller, who co-directed the original film Happy Feet. The film is a sequel to Happy Feet and stars Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Hank Azaria, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Pink, Sofía Vergara, Common, Hugo Weaving, Richard Carter, Magda Szubanski and Anthony LaPaglia. Dr. D Studios in Sydney, Australia produced the film, which premiered in North American theaters on November 18, 2011 in Digital 3D and IMAX 3D.

Plot (me)

Erik, son of the penguins Mumble and Gloria, is reluctant to try dancing as most of the penguins in Emperor-Land do. Erik's first attempt at dancing embarrasses and outcasts him from the rest of the penguins. The story unfolds as Eric and a few friends follow Ramon to his part of Antartica, his father trying to get them back, and a glacier impacting and trapping the populace of Emperor-Land.

I wasn't actually expecting to watch this movie (Sherlock 2 was after it in the drive-in theater, and we thought it was the starting film), and I wasn't impressed with the trailer for it what-so-ever - but it surprised me by being almost as good as number one.

Eric's character needed a little more work, though his singing voice is good. The first song he did was pretty funny since the lyrics were sooo not what should go with that singing style (notice I'm not going to tell you what the style is, lol, you'll just have to watch it).

The addition of the Krill characters I thought was nice, too. They added some color to it, as well as the human crew on the Antarctic sea vessel a bit (they were amazingly animated too, by the way. Almost looked real when they were searching for Lovelace in the water later in the story).

My sister and I (Samurai) both rated this a solid 3 out of 5, but for younger kids I'm sure it would make a good 4 out of 5.
Another thing that's funny though, since we were watching this movie at the drive-in on Christmas the temperature was around 38 to 40 degrees! The cold fit with the snowy theme, lol.

Metajets

I'm big on animated TV shows obviously, so here's what I watched most recently.

Metajets (a Canadian show, produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment premiered in Canada in 2008, South Korea in 2009, and the United States in 2010) is pretty awesome in my opinion - yeah, the plot is kinda predictable and there are a few plot holes, especially at the end (maybe there was supposed to be a season 2?), but all in all a good clean good-vs-evil animated TV show, though I have no idea why the world always needs saving and these kids are the only one's available.

One thing I found surprising about it when I first started watching it was the fact that the vehicles and some of the close-up scenery are made in 3D - when the characters themselves are only in 2D. The jets look pretty cool that way but the characters look kinda funny if they give you a cockpit shot, lol.
Another thing is that these semi-military kids seem to be always at the race track, which gives the show more suspense in a different way than the usual shows with just fighting and such.

Johnny (Ace) is my fav character, with Maggie coming up next.
I hear they even have a flight-sim-like game with it too, maybe I should try it, lol.


For family friendliness this show rates pretty high, there's a lot of character development and overcoming one's personal problems
As for a straight out rating I give this at LEAST 4 out of 5 stars, and I'd suggest watching as much if not more than I would Eon Kid.














I posted about this and possibly my new animated TV fix Robotech on my personal page HERE. Click to learn more.


~Samurai

Eon Kid

Eon Kid (USA)

(Wikipedia) Eon Kid is the English title of a South Korean-Spanish CGI animated television series Iron Kid (Korean: 아이언 키드) produced by Daewon Media and Design Storm in South Korea, and BRB Internacional in Spain. While the series is known as Iron Kid in South Korea, Spain and other non-English-speaking countries, it is known as Eon Kid in the English-speaking countries due to the legal concerns.
It premiered in Korea on KBS2 on April 6, 2006, and on TVE in fall 2006. In the United States, it is distributed by Manga Entertainment and premiered on The CW's Saturday morning Kids WB block September 22, 2007.

Iron Kid (South Korea)

In this show the main character (Marty) is unknowingly the last in the line of the House of Eon, or bearers of the Fist of Eon (I'm saying Eon because I like it better than the Korean Iron Fist and I will throughout) which puts him in a tough place when The General's forces are again threatening the world after being defeated 100 years prior by Eon, Marty's ancestor. In the show he not only makes many enemies, but also good friends, some in unlikely places, who help him along the way.

At first I wasn't expecting much from this show as in the first 5 to 10 episodes or so the plot was pretty slow, but it gives some good action afterward to make up for it, so it's still a good watch in my opinion.
I really like the good action scenes and characters, though on some of the characters you're left guessing as to their origin and their story, which is a bummer, but hey, I doubt it was big budget.

That being said the animation quality is awesome! They do a good job with the flame-like aspects of some of the attacks and special abilities, and I really like the concept of the robot characters that are almost so like humans you can barely tell them apart by actions alone - and apparently don't rust very fast, lol.

Gaff is totally my favorite character, though I still don't know why he doesn't show himself till past episode 13, I guess I'll just have to finish the series, lol. ;-D

EDIT: Ok, finished it. Once it picks up it's good to go. I don't like all the mythical stuff though, about the eastern Chi or inner-spirit what-not.


~Samurai
No idea why I didn't also write entries for X-Men: Evolution, Wolverine and the X-Men, The Avengers: World's Greatest Heroes, Astro Boy, or Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Maybe I will get to a few of those eventually.

Samurai Rating: 4/5 (The Eastern mythical "Chi" idea that this show gives and the plot holes, but the rest is good)
NuttyNinja Rating: N/A
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