u/Juiced_Rasputin_

EDIT: THIS IS ABOUT THE 2026 MOVIE

THIS IS ABOUT THE 2026 MOVIE

really wanted to like avatar: legend of aang. I’m a big avatar fan, I’m a Korra defender, I read a lot of the early comics detailing post book 3 (of the original series) stuff. Specifically the comics about Ursa but I’ll admit I never read any of the other stuff. But I am an avatar fan. And idk… I’m going to try to keep this concise but I can kind of see why legend of aang wasn’t a theatrical release. 

So, firstly, spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it. Going on- the movie is just… it feels like someone watched the original series at x5 speed then was asked to make a 90 minute animated film. I have a lot of issues with it but I’ll outline 3 to keep it structured.

Aang character regression. Not terrible, but definitely weird. So, aang obviously is the last airbender. A big thing in this movie is that he’s well.. the last one. And the movie does this strange thing where he’s struggling with something that established material (at least what I’ve seen) he’s halfway reconciled with. 

Now, ok so the bad guy in this movie is an airbender from the early period. Aang obviously is going to be elated to find an airbender from this era, but when the evil airbender tells him about this staff that creates airbenders, aang is elated because he can rebuild the air nation and I found that.. weird.. in the film aang is lamenting about being the last airbender during this one early scene. 

 Katara tries to cheer him up by reminding him that he’s the avatar and that essentially he is a part of all nations and that republic city in effect is a reflection of aang himself. Aang sulks and goes *yeah, every nation but mine*.

And it’s like??? Dude. I get feeling sad but you literally already moved on from this. So I’m skipping around but anyway he finds airbender frozen in ice, etc. macguffin in this movie is the staff that creates airbenders. Korra fans, if your ears are ringing yes, zaheer already did this plot but moving on. 

 I don’t think it’s wrong that aang initially trusts this guy, I don’t think it’s wrong he wants more airbenders. I don’t think it’s wrong that he’s consumed with studying airbender culture. What’s wrong is how… juvenile he is about all of it, and sure he’s like 20 (mentally) in this, but the way the film writes his psyche is just something I don’t think 20 year old aang would do. I can still see him making emotionally immature decisions as an adult, that is realistic (like focusing on tenzin) but essentially scoffing at his responsibility to the world because there’s no “air nation” is just.. not aang. Remember this point because it becomes the axis of literally every event in the movie. 

Aang and gang are underutilized. Zuko is a footnote. I thought he would have some perspective on ruling a nation, maybe even offer a counter to the bad airbenders claim of an “air empire” ruling again, but zuko is just… he kind of riffs with toph, but that’s it. No real character development- fuck, katara toph and sokka all barely have anything to say.  There’s this big scene in the middle where they’re on this airship and everyone is trying to save the ship- everyone gets their big “moment” to do a special move but otherwise there’s no real rapport between them. The film wants us to feel as if we’re reliving a journey with them just like in the original series, but the movie never actually slows down enough for us to actually enjoy them together. The 2 times all of them are sitting down to chat, they just bandy generic “ok how do we stop this guy” dialogue, complete with sokka delivering the always great “ok, so you’re saying we do THIS dangerous thing, then THAT dangerous thing, then THIS dangerous thing, and then we win?” Sarcastically, complete with zuko followuing up with “I hate to say it, but I agree with sokka.” Like baby, come the fuck ON bro.  

The bending. It’s not bad. But it’s definitely way more anime vs real martial arts choreography. Again, the scene on the ship where everyone does something to save the ship, literally everyone’s individual big move is telegraphed the same. There doesn’t seem to be the same attention to making the bending forms unique, toph’s bending looks like zuko’s firebending, aang’s everything looks like katara’s big water moves there’s just nothing special about it. People gave Korra shit for the bending choreography there but that show did a *way* better job of showing not only the evolution of bending, but how the forms were still rooted in actual martial arts. Here… it’s just a lot of arm flailing which was disappointing. 

One thing I did like is when evil bender gives his goons the ability to airbend, one of the arrow using women starts like- ok I could be wrong on this, but it seems as if she’s compressing air to create fire, which is bad ass. She might’ve been using some sort of starter fluid or something (I didn’t notice) but it seemed she was again, compressing the air to light her arrows on fire before she shot them so that was cool.

Overall, if you absolutely, absolutely love avatar this movie will be fine. But if you’re someone who expects something substantial from the franchise like me, you’ll be disappointed. I’ve watched worse shit, and there were parts where I smiled genuinely, and I don’t even want to say I regret watching the movie-

But it just pains me because the series deserves so much more. And this movie felt more as if it was trying to remind you what was good about the series, as opposed to educate you on what these characters are doing after checking in with them. I genuinely think they should’ve used some of the comic stories to adapt instead, because the original story they came up with is boring, generic, and a little contrived. Like i said, 80 percent of this movie’s plot is literally done *better* in Korra book 3, no machuffin or whatever required. 

I don’t know how many “Vader was just toying with them” instances I can take in Disney canon.

So the last two episodes of maul shadow lord dropped. (Mods, please don’t delete this as this is more of a review than a discussion!)

The series as a whole… isn’t as bad as I expected. In a strange turn of events, the first 2 episodes are actually the worst. Maul is superficial at best, the series at that point was more focused on him wiping out dozens of essentially worthless fodder, and the show was at its best when focused on Devon and her master (ironically.)

However something kind of happened as it continued. It’s marginal, it’s slow, but there’s actually a decent build up episode to episode. And by the end of the series I was pleasantly surprised as it’s the first animated filoni PRODUCED, not made or directed “Star Wars” that I’ll go to bat tacitly for.

It’s nothing incredible, but it’s not bad either.

With that said, it’s a shame the state Star Wars is in. As this entire sub knows, Vader shows up at the end. And I’m entirely tired of the overdone “character that wouldn’t last two seconds against Vader survives because Vader isn’t taking the threat seriously.”

It’s such a mischaracterization and here’s why.

1. Vader here is seemingly at the apex of his strength as a Sith Lord. He’s used to his suit, he’s adjusted his fighting style, and he’s quick and efficient. The idea of him “toying” with an opponent only really works when he has an emotional investment in them, like with Luke and (begrudgingly brought up on my part) Ahsoka.

Everyone else? They should be mince in like two seconds.

2. Vader hates Jedi. And he wouldn’t “play nice” with a disgraced Sith either.

Think about it- Devon and Daki remind Vader of what he once \*was\*. Maul? Reminds him of what he’s become in full. And maul’s position no doubt reminds Vader that he too, at the end of the day, is disposable. Vader… even canon Vader, wouldn’t be ignorant of that and would even probably fight \*harder\* to dispatch any reminder to his previous self.

The finale fight is \*good\* don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoyed the choreography. And at this point in 2026 I feel silly calling out moments in fights where the big, impossible to beat antagonist \*throws someone\* instead of cutting them in half, but I just wish that Disney lore was better.

Because in a better written narrative, in a place where the sequels had a plan, where the shows (like rebels) could’ve developed things…. This super powerful character shouldn’t have been \*vader\*.

It should’ve either been the grand inquisitor, but we can’t do that because he gets beaten by kanan. So it should’ve been snoke. Or the inquisitor from fallen order. For how badly Disney wars wants to make everything interconnected (like how suddenly the pykes are the only fucking crime syndicate in the galaxy, oh sorry and crimson dawn and I guess vaguely the huts) they rely on Vader because there’s no long standing lore to support anyone else.

I’m not going to dwell in fanfic territory, but imagine how cool it would’ve been if snoke was depicted as one of the strongest up and coming inquisitors in rebels. Maybe even momentarily takes the spot of grand inquisitor after rebels season 1. Now imagine between seasons 2-4 we see the empire slowly phase out inquisitors like they did with clones, and we see snoke imprisoned, maybe he’s the last inquisitor left and he fails to save thrawn from Ezra or something during the final battle. Maybe he gets that head scar or whatever and then it clicks-

Ofc in this timeline the event I’m describing would’ve happened like, in meta terminology like 8 years after the rebels finale aired, but still! The point is it would’ve been more fulfilling to have a character that was developed over a long period of time, expanded over multiple pieces of material, and more importantly \*be interesting enough to revisit\* that Vader wouldn’t have even been a logical option.

Again, I get why he shows up. And it’s not like the old canon didn’t also do this as well. But the old canon also had enough lore and enough meat that an eu character showing up still would’ve carried thematic weight, so idk.

Maul is… fine? The show got off to an incredibly rocky start but these last two episodes did work.

When Maul’s droid died and the “good guy” droid pauses because he’s surprised by maul’s genuine grief? That’s… good character writing. When the heroes split from maul and the main captain guy suspects maul will betray them, only for the next scene maul establishes that he respects Daki enough not to overtly kill him is good stuff. It’s crumbs, but it’s something.

Again, maul isn’t terrible. It’s bordering on pretty good, but there are enough warts and reliance on key jangling that I can’t say it’s a slam dunk that it needed to be. The biggest issue Disney wars has is that it lacks the confidence to commit to actual hardcore lore building and taking its time. We’ll see if filoni wars can improve over Disney, but sadly I think the core issues are, at this point, ingrained in Lucasfilm as a company.