First and foremost, I'm gonna start off with praising the obvious; the animation and artwork is beautiful, the soundtrack is cinematic and you can tell that this was made for a theatrical release. I'm going to also say that while this movie is stellar on a sensory level-- I can understand why Paramount didn't have faith in in doing well in a theatrical release... at least in the sense of a "traditional" theatrical release. The kind where you're paying to be in a dark silent room and be totally immersed while shoving fistfuls of popcorn into your mouth. Movies making their way into theaters now are pretty much lambasted if they do not manage to be a commercial and critical success as well as being worthy of multiple awards. The Legend of Aang very much reminds me of the stand alone anime movies of the early 00s. It certainly belongs with its IP, fans are going to enjoy it, but total outsiders? They're gonna see the poster and be like "Ehhhh I never watched that show... I don't feel like catching up." In a traditional sense this movie isn't really standing alone and I'll say it also isn't really adding anything to the world at large for existing fans. So I can see why the theatrical release was canned. Except if you consider that movies these days are leaning towards being more of a socially-involved-fan-gathering... well in that case Paramount made a stupid choice. Especially for a fandom known for filling up auditoriums just to hear live bands play songs from the series. I'm not really a "live band" girly but you bet your ass I drug my husband out one cold ass night while I was still dealing with a kidney stone just to go watch clips and hear a band play these songs among a bunch of other fans.

I got to show off my Stitch Spring Toph themed sweater to people who really appreciated it and it was a fantastic experience. Lamenting that the movie didn't get a big theatrical release is more about the lost experience of attending the movie than actually /seeing/ the movie in that format. At least for me it is. I actually bought some Paramount stock after Avatar Studios was announced... not a significant amount as I am one of "the poors"... buuut I had faith in the franchise. I sold that stock after seeing that the franchise I invested for looked like it was spinning wheels.. possibly right after the choice to make the moving streaming only was announced. Then came the continued lack of marking, the first official images that weren't grainy JPEG leaks that I saw were ... Target tshirts.

And then the entire movie was leaked in April. In high quality, with no watermark. I'm not someone who follows many new releases but apparently this sort of leak is extremely rare. And what did the fandom get? "Hey I used to be the voice actor for Toph, please don't watch the movie." I'm paraphrasing, and I mean zero disrespect to Michaela Jill Murphy; but with the movie slated for an October release and it being a hot topic amongst streamers eager for clicks who know how to game the social media algorithms readily spoiling it... It was a tall ask and amazingly enough hardly seemed to be echoed by the greater powers involved in the franchise. Studios have taken advantage of situations like this before and Paramount finally decided to. By giving a July release, with like a month notice max? With that utter lack of confidence and buildup or official press, you'd think you were about to watch a disaster of a film.

I'm hyper critical and I'm not going to stop being that way, it's just who I am as a person. I've been emotionally invested in this franchise since 2007ish, I have the element symbol of earth as my first and so far only tattoo; I write fanfiction, I've got autographs and merch and years upon years of headcanons and personal opinions.

In terms of content that met or exceeded my expectations since ATLA-- The Kyoshi Novels are it with the Yangchen novels coming after. Everything else I can nitpick until I am blue in the face and some of it, I arrogantly believe I could have done better. The new voice actors are fine for the most part with the occasional read that makes me think we might have benefited from a second take. It's jarring to have new voices for much of the cast and that's partially thanks to how many of them actively work conventions... we didn't ever stop hearing Dante Basco as Zuko because on a public level he still hasn't left that role.

Anyway: I thought the movie was just fine. I wish it had been the second draft and not the final product. With a runtime under 100 minutes it feels like we're in a constant race from one scene to another and while I think people's first instinct is to say "it needed a longer run time"-- just rearranging/reducing the amount of times we go from one place to another could have fixed a lot of that. There's nothing wrong with the opening and how The Denied are introduced. I fully understand that we can't NOT have the "Earth, Water, Fire, Air" breakdown prologue-- it's too iconic not to have. but we didn't actually need to see Aang go to Republic City. We could have just had Katara there doing her thing, the pitstop and peptalk for Aang to realize he can... use the Avatar state to find out things about a past avatar is just not that necessary. I get that a lot of stuff in the nostalgia bait movie is going to be nostalgia bait, but 15 minutes of setup won't feel as rushed if a character is allowed to stay in one place vs hopping all over the map. The ATLA world has been criticized before for feeling too small and this really is giving water to a nitpick that still had room to be disproven. I can be told six ways to Sunday that a trip from Point-A to Point-B takes x amount of days but that fact isn't going to stick with one scene sliding so quickly into the next and being in a totally different location. The conversation Aang and Katara have about the denied doesn't even make much sense aside from existing just for the audience to learn more about them... he was /just/ fighting these people and now he's like "woah they're anti-benders and are doing some bad stuff?" ... and I'm not sure who in the audience hadn't already picked up on that after the first scene.

The notes I made while watching go into more nitpicks about Avatar Sonam and how it was strange that Aang seemed to both realize Sonam was an Avatar... but also be surprised by the news? It wouldn't be the first time Aang had a "wait... I know them!!!" moment but the execution was clunky and seemed like they were sorta hoping we were too distracted by seeing everyone to notice. To their credit-- it took a second watch for me to notice! The first twenty minutes of this film feel like someone haphazardly tossed a deck of cards onto the table and then tried their best to reorganize them... and they did alright as long as you weren't expecting the cards to all face the same direction.

Anyway the Gaang is gathered and somehow only seem to lag behind Aang by a small bit... dude what was the point in going ahead if they can catch up that fast? I get that they were trying to push that Aang was being impulsive because he's desperate to restore his people's way of life and all... but wouldn't the plan itself of "heeey I know one of you is running an entire country but we gotta go climb a remote mountain ASAP" have been enough?

Much of the only official press we got for this movie was that Dave Bautista would be playing a villain... I'm sure we would have figured that out based on context in the film... but that would have been more fun than going "yep that's the voice I know." Sigh. I did enjoy a lot of the Gaang's scenes together, the banter was really the highlight of the whole movie for me and I could complain that sometimes it felt like they were just there for the sake of being there. There was one scene where Toph is just kinda idly standing and does/says nothing... weird but again, how much can I complain about nostalgia bait in the nostalgia bait movie? I'm not opposed to the idea of an island that's uncharted and the setup is alright for this. But I do find it crazy that Zuko, who comes from a nation that has been a naval powerhouse and dominating force-- didn't at least have a single line about "The currents there are too rough on even our ships" or SOMETHING to indicate that our main characters are well-traveled leaders and not coming out of the Foggy Swamp for the first time in their lives.

I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that the audience has to get Aang's backstory spoon-fed to them maybe 3 times either... there just seems like there might have been better ways to go around everyone getting Tagah up to speed on current events without spending precious minute after minute giving a different version of a recap. By my own non scientific estimate about 10-15% of this movie is recap. Another 5-10% is characters explaining plot points and conflicts. I'm going out on a limb but I'd say at least 5-10% of these things could have been cutdown or combined. And I'm not sure who that is for because this movie clearly isn't made to be something you are super into watching without having seen ATLA. Aang getting airbending training from Tagah was such a nice touch that's soured by the fact that most of us already knew he was going to be the "big bad" here.

Also, can we talk about how weird it is that The Denied also made it out there with no bending and a ship that can't possibly be on par with what Zuko has? It's somehow way larger... and they have several but... I though they were supposed to be sorta rag-tag... They just have more willpower or something? Luck? We don't really get to spend enough time with them to understand where their talents and such lie... we have enough time to get a little interest in Kallik but not really any attachment... that's a bummer but I guess there's not much room for a new arc in a nostalgia film right?

Sokka not knowing how to fly at all seems like something only done for suspense/humor... dude invents stuff dude invented a ton of stuff Zuko knows how to fly... yet Sokka doesn't? Just like with Zuko having zero knowledge of an area where sea travel is impossible... this just rubs me the wrong way. God even by the time Katara starts pressing Aang to turn back, she should have the common sense to realize they're sorta past the point where that is a viable option... like girly pop you got repairs before turning around is an option. Sure bring the conflict and disagreement to a head but maybe find a different set of lines?

"You've never known a world with airbenders" Why wasn't the response from Katara

"I've known a world with Aang" instead of "I know Aang" It would have flowed a little more smoothly as far as I'm concerned... personal opinion but eeehhh just feels like the dialogue could have been workshopped more before the script was finalized. Tagah's inevitable betrayal and shift just come across as a "Oh we're getting pressed for time" moment than a natural conclusion of the conversation he and Katara have too...

... Also I hate the staff... even Avatar Sonam's use of the staff, that's pitched as if it was ever a great thing just seems so against the grain, if Avatar Sonam had really learned anything I think destroying the staff would have been the move... not hiding it so that hopefully someone comes along and makes air nomads happen because we want more air nomads. If air nomads hadn't been thriving right before the Fire nation's genocide I could see the staff being necessary... but nah it looks like nature balanced things so the staff was at best a "just in case" deal...

Tagah just strolling up to The Denied who somehow haven't crashed and died and being like "okay so ya'll want some power?" doesn't really seem like it lines up with a guy who believes he's restoring his people... dude clearly should know the difference between giving people a power and giving power to the people who might actually fit that bill. Buuuut we're pressed for time and he's the bad guy so we're gonna roll with it.

And the explanation for Tagah is "Corrupted energy." ... sigh. This post is already way too long without me going into why I hate this reasoning so I won't. Besides Gaang banter <3 AND This guy, he's great and I love him!

The whole spirit world bit is stupid... but it's a good stupid, a fun stupid and it belongs in this movie and you can try to pry it from my cold, dead hands but I will reincarnate to protect it.

The way Republic City seems to be the frequent target of fuckary really should make people hesitate to live there... The fight scenes are very pretty, this franchise continues to do action very well.

I'll let someone else talk about Katara-who-once-bent-her-own-sweat, running out of water.

As a professional hater... there isn't much negative I can manage for these scenes in spite of EVERY gripe I have with the core plot, how quickly things happen and even how Aang's motivations are shown... this still hit hard. Like lump in my throat hard. That is NOT an easy feat. I can count on one hand how many pieces of media have managed this in my adult years... probablysaysmoreaboutmeasapersonthanthemedia - AHEM

I absolutely believe that if in the opening childhood flashback we'd actually seen Aang saying the: "Air nomads are formed from the mist" thing I would have ugly cried when it came back up with Tagah. When I say I WISH this movie had been the second draft and not the final product- that's what I'm really talking about. All of the building blocks were there, to not only make art that was good- but art that knocked it out of the park. Just minor tweaks, just a script revision. ESPESCIALLY for a movie where Aang learns that... "the air nomads were special because of their values." which I kinda though we learned at the end of ATLA in a way? Ya know... when he choose not to kill because his people did not kill? He went OUT OF HIS WAY and AGAINST THE ADVICE OF EVERYONE he STOOD HIS GROUND he PROVED OZAI WAS WRONG ABOUT HIS PEOPLE BEING WEAK. just ahhhh if we MUST revisit a similar moral the LEAST you can do is make me cry!

I've said time and time again that some of the "smaller less dire world ending stake" stories would be a godsend for this franchise and I'm going to say it again now--- Aang tracking down living sky bison would have been a better plot from the jump. People love animals, especially Appa-- if there is not time to devote to the "big world ending calamity movie", if the runtime is not there- then DO SOMETHING ELSE.

I know that animation takes time I know that writing takes time I know that infinite time cannot be applied to every project. But it feels like this needed more time in the oven-- it doesn't seem like this is something that was cooking for the last 5 years! At least not something that was a key focus. Given the news we got, it looks like they were busy creating a new writing style for the world... (a big rant for another day and a more qualified person) I wish that energy could have at least been put towards giving The Denied a better group, name or even giving the movie a better title! I mean the movie was fine. It's not a bad movie and if you just want something to have fun with it's good.