Avatar VS Avatar
They are both Avatars. One however is a movie, the other is also a movie a very popular animated series. Today, tonight they are here to contest who is the True Avatar. Once and for all!
They will be judged based on
A) Originality
B) Story
C) Characters
D) Visuals
So without further Ado! lets do this!
Avatar: The Last Airbender (Not The Movie)
The movie was shit.
Avatar the last airbender was originally a kids show set in a magical land with four great nations each tied to an element. The nations were unique for a number of reasons. For starters, every nation held mastery over its respective element, in a weird form of martial arts called bending, in which an individual could effectively manipulate a specific element around him. Waterbenders could manipulate, or bend, water, Firebenders fire etc etc. To maintain balance between both the four nations as well as the realm of the spirits and the mortals there exists a being called the Avatar, master of all FOUR elements who is both a spiritual guide and protector of the balance in all things.
The story follows Aang, a 10-ish year old airbender who is the next Avatar in line and his friends, Soka, Katara and Toph as they travel the world, make even more friends and try to restore balance to the world.
With amazingly robust world building, with each nation borrowing from tribes and civilizations mostly from Asia (such as Shaolin, Japan, Inuit etc) to create unique meshes of culture and fauna the show surprised, pretty much anyone that would lay their eyes on it. As Nickelodeon realized that, rather than the kid to pre-teen audience they expected, they had instead drew the attention of teens and young adults mostly, the show's tone shifted to reflect that, and as a process we have a memorable show with some of the most lovable characters in Western Animation.
But how does it fare?
LETS SEE
Originality
10/10: Unique cultures, fantastic approach to "magic" and inventive animals to fill in the world, Avatar is a lot of things, but unoriginal is not one of them. With the studio investing a lot of time into researching and accurately depicting the things they borrowed from multiple civilizations the entire world feels alive and breathing. Though the concept is a basic heroes journey everything else deviates from the "standard" concept
Story
8/10: Keep in mind this is supposed to be a "kids" show as such, it has a few moments that are clearly catered to the younger audiences, despite it all however, the story manages to still be interesting, with a nice spread of heavy and light moments it manages to keep its audience coming back for more! Why not 10/10? Because, admittedly due to the focus on younger audiences it had to shy away from more of the heavy stuff and very occasionally lean on the teenage angst.
Characters
9/10: With a large number of characters and an altering focus between groups (including the antagonists) the game manages to bring in play plenty of memorable characters. With the focus never shifting too much from only a handful of them at any given time, the final product is characters that are memorable, fleshed out, interesting and three dimensional each one in their own way. With excellent character building you understand even the worst of villains making the unavoidable clash that much more emotionally engaging.
Visuals
9/10: Amazing animations, very detailed and fluid choreography and a wide range of colors used to bring the world to life. However, it keeps it simple. Even the spirit world, where things could get -very- crazy indeed, is relatively tame in terms of visuals. Not to say that they -bad-, but they do have a simplicity about them.
Avatar
In the distant future, in the year 2000 (but not really), humanity has reached for the stars because they depleted the worlds resources like the jackasses they are. The story is about the planet of Pandora, home of some giant blue Native Americans aliens called the Na'vi. Why do we care about this? Because Pandora is the planet where a super originally named mineral called gold unobtainium (I shit you not) is found.
To travel on the planet scientists have created clones of Na'vi, called "avatars" which they transfer their consciousness and use to walk around like Na'vi to do science shit but also find out where more of the unobtainium can be found. Our handicapped protagonist comes in play when his brother dies or some shit, meaning that only he can take over the avatar.
The evil leader of the human expedition called Governor Ratcliff Colonel Miles Quaritch instructs our protagonist John Smith Jake to get close to the Na'vi so they can get that god damn unobtainium. "Epic" things in amazing 3D CGI ensue.
Originality
5/10: It is Disney's Pocahontas with a few things altered. Seriously. It get's 5 points because it is in SPACE
Story
1/10: It is Disney's Pocahontas in space. I am sorry, but if I want to see sci fi wanton destruction, there are far better films. And if I want to see Pocahontas type stories, I will just watch the Disney one which has awesome songs too.
Characters
3/10: The characters are ok, but nobody is memorable, at -all-. Everyone, including the protagonist are the most basic characters one could find in those stories. I would begin to explain why in length, but then I realized: If the creators of this film did not bother delving into their characters in depth, why should we?
Visuals
9/10: Gotta hand it to them, this is where the movie shines, and this is why I believe it got the widespread acclaim it has. No matter how much you nitpick it, the visuals of this film are stunning, and one of the few instances of 3D actually working perfectly, even to this day. The planet is amazing, and interesting, with vistas ranging from bio luminescent glades, to lush jungles, to floating mountains in the sky. If only such care had gone into everything else the movie had, we would truly have a masterpiece on our hands.
And The Winner Is:
Avatar (The real one)
Amazing visuals, memorable characters, great story and one of the most well made worlds, Avatar is truly a wonderful series worthy of your time!
Not overstaying its welcome, the story builds up its pace and wraps it up just right.
The sequel, Legend of Korra expands on the universe -even- further, and thus establishing the franchise as one of the beloved franchises of today.
With awesome bending techniques, loyal fanbase and its array of memorable characters, it swiftly and efficiently knocks the lesser Avatars out of the ring, thus claiming to be the one, the only and the TRUE Avatar!
