Failth of July Dept.

Again, I haven't been posting much lately because of the Really Awesome Possibility thing that I can't yet talk about. Soon, I promise.

The big fandom-related news of the weekend was of course the ghastliness of The Last M. Night Movie (we can only hope at this rate). Charges of "racebending fail" have given way to the far more specific charges of "making a terrible movie".

As a sort of antidote to the general horribleness of the movie — it's depressing they can spend this much money on any film and have it be so universally dumped-on — I sat down with the TV series itself. I've watched a whopping total of one episode so far, but what I have seen bodes very well indeed. (I understand now why people were weeping and ripping their hair out when they saw the live-action Aang never so much as crack a smile. If the show is any one thing, it is fun, and the biggest criticism of the movie is that it is simply no fun on any level.)

I'm surprised that I've run into a couple of people who have a problem with the original Airbender on an existential level — that it's a Western show trying too hard to be "Asian", and I have some inkling of what they mean by that. But there's a big difference between just copying something and taking inspiration from it, and from what I've seen the show understands this. It's not an attempt to ride anime's coattails. For that, I suspect the upcoming live-action Akira will serve as a perfect example, which is currently being masterminded by all kinds of people who don't seem to get it.