CaSophie

This will be primarily about the secondary characters although everything about the movie's promotion makes it seem like they're main characters and lore.

1) The stakes are low due to lok

The movie suffers from what I will call Prequel Syndrome™️: The movie is limited because everything has to coincide with Korra. We know that Aang won't bring back the airbenders, we know that the Gaang won't die that young, and that republic city will be fine. This makes several of the movie's most tense moments, where I'm supposed to be thinking "will they survive this?", make me think more about the art than the story because I know this life or death situations won't have consequences.

2)The Denied was perfect for a sokka arc but instead he was a CLOWN

Right at the beginning, during the recap narration of the series, they say that Aang made a team of "benders and non-benders" and say that Sokka taught Aang how to be a leader. Later, when we finally see Sokka in person, he gets upset that a bunch of kids questioned why a non-bender would be in the Gaang. This is how Sokka is introduced: a leader, an important member of the Gaang and a NON-BENDER. And what do we know about The Denied right at the beginning of the movie? They are a group of non-benders who feel oppressed by the benders, a motivation that parallels Sokka's in the episode Sokka's Master (with the difference being that Sokka felt useless, not oppressed). And what did they decide to do with that? Nothing. Sokka was reduced to comic relief and only used the fact that he was a non-bender to make a joke about him piloting with his feet, while the motivation for The Denied seems to have been chosen solely so that Tagah would have Minions to fight, and for no other reason. Even his bicycle is only there to save the day when Katara runs out of water (girl, you have your sweat, are you going to tell me that Zuko was throwing fire everywhere but nobody broke a sweat?) and to be more comic relife.

Which brings me to this girl.

Why does she exist? Besides Aang and Tagah, she's the only one with development, and I just keep wondering why they added her to the movie? What changes in the movie if she's not there? Nothing. The only thing she did was save an NPC. Her arc is basically: belonging to an extremist group, being saved by Aang, and because of that, she continues with her group BUT with a sad face 🥺. Later, during the final battle, Katara says that she has the power to chose better (Which doesn't even make sense, Katara has never seen her before, she doesnt know her and she doesn't say this to any other enemy, she only says it to her because... plot i guess) the girl saves the NPC in front of the gaang and 💥bam💥 she is an acolyte. None of her actions affect the plot, and her redemption doesn't bring anything new to the movie or series. The screen time spent on this girl could very well have been used on Sokka or any of the other main characters who didn't do anything in the movie.

3) Zuko + toph do almost nothing

90% of Zuko and Toph' screentime could be remove from the movie and nothing would change. Probably the worst part to me is in the final battle when a character says that Zuko "sits on a throne of war" and he replies that he fights for everyone (Why the hell is the most personal conflict the writers give these characters literally just two lines in the middle of a battle!!?) They are only in the movie to fix the balloon during the Denied attack and for them to be the firebender and earthbender who Tagah despises, showing the first signs of him being the villain. In both cases, they're there because of their bending, not because of who they are as individuals. if we replaced them with Jeong Jeong and, I don't know, the second-best Earthbender in the world, it would be the same, the only difference is that they won't be like a family. Which

4) "they are my family"

No one in the Gaang has a conversation that isn't superficial, apart from Katara and Aang, which it was the part of the original series that made us love the relationships between this characters, you know when they talked to each other about how they felt. The most the characters did was crack a joke or two and talk about tagah and the plan to find the staff. The only exception was after they all died, which is the bare minimum expected if you get your friends killed, the very least you should do is talk about it before moving on with the plot. Probably the worst is the scene after Aang dies where he yells "Appa! Katara! Katara!Katara!". What about Sokka, and Toph, and Zuko? I know Katara is Aang partner, but come on, he knows tagah hates Earthbenders and Firebenders, and sokka said on the movie they were bffs but aang isnt worry about them???? So yeah, the gang doesn't feel like a family apart from the post-resurrection scene and the paintings of them together at the beginning and end of the movie. I swear, so much of the movie's appeal is due to the art and not the story.

5) Sonam plan and lore (I'm genuinely confused about this, please help)

First, how does the Denied know about the Sonam staff? Aang needed to talk to several past avatars, people who had traveled the world to learn about the nations and bending, until he found someone who knew about Sonam. This means that for centuries, and perhaps millennia, these people who have a duty to learn everything possible about bending have never heard of Avatar Sonam, but some random people heard her legend after 5000 years and somehow knew there was a map to find the staff?? Who told them the legend??? Avatar Xian ex girlfriend?? I feel like I'm nitpicking but this is literally what starts the whole movie, and I feel we should know how an avatar is so lost to the avatars and the general population, but not to the Denied.

Secondly, if she only wanted an avatar to find the staff, why didn't she communicate with the presente avatar like the others past lives? If you were the avatar, a being who after death can communicate with your future reincarnations, what would you do to ensure that your knowledge about the staff is only obtained by the avatar? Would you create a hidden map within a statue that, if broken, would reveal the location to anyone, OR would you die and then communicate the staff's location to a future avatar? If the avatar truly needed a physical map, Sonam could possess they body and create it, just like Roku and Kyoshi did. Now, an important thing to note is that Aang can't communicate with Sonam at the beginning of the movie, and perhaps Sonam made the map because she knew she wouldn't be able to communicate. But how could she have known that before she died? Why isn't she in the Avatar cycle until the end of the movie? She mentioned feeling weak after the fight against Tagah, but was that it? How did that remove her from the Avatar cycle? Was Raava affected in the fight? How then? I've seen other people speculate that she cut herself out of the cycle out of shame for what she did. But Roku is right there in the cicle and he fucked up a lot more. I know they want to keep things mysterious, but again, the movie only happens because Sonam isn't in the Avatar cycle to tell Aang not to release Tagah. I feel like we should know why the movie plot exists in the first place. If there's any part of the movie where they explain this exactly and I didn't understand or notice it, please tell me and I remove all of this paragraph.

By the way, I went to the fandom atla wiki to look for an explanation and found this

This is the only thing on Sonam's page about why she disconnected from the cycle. I guess Unalaq is a time travel now hahaha Whoever wrote this is as confused as I am

Bonus nitpicking: This whole scene with the spirit boar

When this scene leaked, because of the whole comedic tone, I thought it would be a scene from earlier in the movie, and if someone had told me that it takes place between the death of the gang and the final battle I would have call them crazy. I swear, when I was watching the movie I forgot this scene existed, and when I finally got to it I was so confused. The scene is like 5 minutes long and only serves to bring back old designs, make fun of Zutara, and copy a joke from Lilo & Stitch. This type of comedy seems so out of place in this part of the movie, especially because Sokka's only function here is to make jokes, and he does it so before and after this scene and the boar only serves as an elevator when the movie could have had Toph and Aang use the wreckage as an improvised stone elevator (like in Ba Sing Se) (Edit: I explained in the reblogs why they should be able to bend in the spirit world). This scene feels pointless to me.

The way I talk about the movie might make it seem like I hate it with all my heart, but I don't.

I love the idea of exploring more about the culture of the air nomads, I was moved when Gyatso appeared and when they found the other bisons. It's amazing to watch the movie, all the scenes are so beautiful you could set the whole movie as your wallpaper but it's hard to say the movie didn't leave much to be desired when out of the six main characters, three of them could be removed without changing much.

How could we solve many of these problems?

It's clear they wanted to do a lot in a short amount of time, and the most obvious answer to that would be either to increase the film's length (which, nowadays, is more common with animated films) or cut out unnecessary things (the girl from the denied, the boar. I know it doesn't seem like much, but if you replaced their time with any arc for Toph/Sokka/Zuko it would greatly improve the movie). Now, to address the specific problems I pointed out:

1) INCLUDE SUKI. She is one of the few relevant characters in the series (besides Ozai Angels) who doesn't have a certain future in Korra. if she were in any of the life-or-death scenarios in the movie the stakes would reach all the way to the sky. Just imagine if the first person Tagah killed was Suki, everyone would be like "WAIT, IS THAT HOW SHE DIES?? THAT'S WHY SHE'S NOT IN KORRA!?!" When I realized that the cabbage man had more screen time than her, I freaked out

3) If they don't have time to give Zuko and Toph anything to do, reduce their screen time in the movie. Instead of Aang writing a letter to everyone, have him write only to Katara, and when she wakes up she grabs Sokka and suki and one of the mechanist's balloons (Sokka made a flying bicycle and he is the gaang member closest to the mechanist in the series, he must have one) and make the three of them go save Aang and tagah. When Tagah wakes up, have Aang tell him what happened to the Air Nomads, and then when they make the plan to retrieve the staff, have Sokka mention that "Now we just need to go get our busy friends, miss best Earthbender in the world and sir Firelord. You gave Katara such a fright, Aang, that she didn't even have time to go get them!" But Tagah says that they don't have time to go and get people from other nations (showing his discomfort regarding the benders of Earth and Fire). When the balloon is attacked, make Sokka and Suki pilot the balloon well enough until Aang decides that enough is enough and stops flying with the tagah to repair the ship. Make Zuko and Toph appear at the end to save Republic City (because, you know, a city is falling from the sky) in a bombastic way to compensate for their lack of appearances in the film. Go nuts, Have Zuko bring his dragon Druk, maybe Toph could bring her students with her to help save everyone. Make them joke about tagah being attractive at the end of the fight. GO. CRAZY. I just feel like I'd prefer a movie where they both had a few incredible scenes that were worthwhile, rather than them being in the whole movie doing nothing.

2) Again, remove Kallik yeah, that's the girl's name, I had to look it up after watching the movie because I forgot it right away, make Sokka (And in this alternate version, also Suki) confront the Denied, they may redeem them or not, but make the NON-BENDERS heroes interact with the NON-BENDERS antagonists

4) make the water siblings show concern and talk to each other, the same goes for Aang and Sokka, Katara and Suki, make the characters talk about going for tea in Ba Sing Se after the journey, make them wonder to themselves how Zuko and Toph are doing... Show that they care about each other as a family, not just if they die. Just because you don't want someone to die doesn't mean you see them as family.

5) I don't know, if the writers (or any of you reading this) have answers to my questions, please tell me.

I want to end this by saying that if you enjoyed the movie and have no problem with anything I've said here, GREAT👍. These are just my issues with the movie, and we can all have different opinions about it and I don't think that if someone loved the movie they're wrong for doing it so.