Josh Brolin Talks MEN IN BLACK 3, GANGSTER SQUAD, OLDBOY, LABOR DAY and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone Talk THE TOMB, THE EXPENDABLES 2, Their Careers and “Male Pattern Badness”
IRON MAN 3 News: Jon Favreau to Return as Happy Hogan, Adds “Firepower” with Ashley Hamilton
MEN IN BLACK 3 Review
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES Set Visit Preview and 4 Awesome New Posters!THE LAST AIRBENDER Review
by Matt Goldberg Posted:June 30th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
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I hate everything about M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. I hate that it’s racist. I hate that it takes a great, easy-to-adapt show and completely disrespects the material. I hate the performances. I hate the special effects. I hate the borderline non-existent 3D that serves only to jack up ticket prices. I hate the lack of imagination. I hate the embarrassingly bad script that would be laughed out of a Screenwriting 101 class. I hate the consequences if this movie is a success at the box office. I hate the consequences if it fails at the box office. I hate that this movie exists. And “hate” isn’t a strong enough word.
In the world of The Last Airbender, there are four nations, each one represented by a particular element—water, earth, fire, and air—and there are special individuals in each nation who have a telekinetic power to “bend” a particular element. The world also has one “Avatar”, a singular being who has the power to bend all four elements and bring peace between all the nations. Well, that’s the idea anyway.
The Fire Nation has become power-hungry and taken over most of the world. Katara (Nicola Peltz)—a waterbender—and her brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) come across a boy (Noah Ringer) frozen in an iceberg. They free him, learn his name is Aang, and discover that he’s an airbender. That last part is curious since the Fire Nation wiped out all the airbenders over a hundred years ago. The arrow tattoos on his body indicate that he is the Avatar and must learn all four elements and then will be able to stop the war. However, the banished Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) of the Fire Nation wants to capture the Avatar. Zuko’s believes this is the only way to reclaim his honor and regain his father’s respect. Aang, Katara, and Sokka must evade the Fire Nation, get to the Northern Water Temple so Aang can learn waterbending and begin to accept his destiny.
In the original Nickelodeon series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, this information comes about organically and only takes a couple episodes to set up the entire premise of the series. In the movie, nothing is shown and everything is told. Katara’s narration, characters delivering exposition, and even a young boy telling a character his own backstory, is how Shyamalan sets up this world. I felt a scornful/derisive/dumbstruck when Katara simply says that Sokka and the princess of the Northern Water Tribe “became fast friends.” I’m not sure why Shyamalan hates character development, small personal moments, or anything that would show these characters as people rather than glorified hand puppets.
And as much as Shyamalan abhors basic storytelling, he resents the fans of the show even more. Setting aside his decision to change the races of the characters simply because he could, one is left to wonder if Shyamalan actually watched an episode of the series or just read the Wikipedia page and went to work. The fact that he couldn’t be bothered to get the correct pronunciation of the characters’ names should tell you all you need to know. And if you enjoyed the show’s humor, imagination, and depth, you can go ahead and forget about it. It’s a joyless experience bereft of exhilaration, excitement, and fun.
It’s disturbing that Shyamalan can’t pause for one second to let a character tell a joke or share something personal but not in the form of strained exposition. Perhaps the writer-producer-director wanted to simply create a world and ignore such trifles like compelling characters and competent storytelling, but he still fails miserably at building the world of The Last Airbender. The movie copies the imagery of the show, but has none of its creative spark. It’s particularly damning in the boring use of bending. These mystical powers lack all wonder and mysticism as the characters do what feels like eight minutes of Tai-Chi in order to do one simple and unimpressive move. Everything you loved about Avatar: The Last Airbender is strangled and kicked into a shallow grave in this heartless adaptation.
But let’s leave aside the source material. Taken on its own, Airbender is still an abomination of monumental proportions. The effects are stolid, the young actors—particularly Ringer—have no concept of competent delivery of dialogue (which, to be fair, is so stale that only a master thespian could have provided a character with a spark of life), and the sets and special effects feel hollow when its clear that no care or enthusiasm was put into this production. Shyamalan has ripped off Paramount and both the studio and the filmmaker have ripped off anyone even slightly hopeful for a quality picture.
Speaking of rotten pictures and rip-offs, if you do go see The Last Airbender (and I don’t know what more I can do to stop you), don’t pay to see it in 3D. You’ll simply be throwing even more money away. This is a post-conversion and the 3D is barely noticeable. There were moments when I took of my glasses and it looked like a 2D movie. When the film does engage in 3D, it looks atrocious—particularly in fight scenes involving panning shots. The images become blurry and diverge and give you a headache on top of the one the movie causes on its own.
That kind of rip-off is what makes the movie hurt even more. There is no victory for Airbender. If it succeeds at the box office, then Shyamalan gets to make two more of these wretched piles of infected waste. If it fails, then there won’t be another attempt at an Airbender movie for at least another ten years. Furthermore, the crappiness of this film could turn away audience members who may have considered watching the show, but now don’t trust the source material.
This needs to be the end of M. Night Shyamalan. The Happening was a joke but The Last Airbender is an insult. I wouldn’t let him direct me to the restroom after this movie. If a studio wants to hire him, they would be better off burning their money for warmth. He’s a fool for thinking that whitewashing the movie wasn’t problematic. He’s a fraud for turning in a script that’s not worth the napkin it’s written on. He’s a hack for cobbling together a vapid, cruel taunt of a movie that blows its budget on subpar visual effects and massive sets while refusing to take even a second to provide a character moment. As much as I hate this movie, it hates me and every person who sees it even more. I don’t care that the year is only half over. I’m calling it: The Last Airbender is the worst movie of 2010. It’s too disturbing to consider that there could be something even more hideous out there.
Rating: F (I wish there was a lower grade I could give)
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Actually, they're not wrong in the cartoon. If you check the hanzi used to write the names, the shows' pronunciations pretty much only simplify the dipthongs, instead of going with with an entirely different vowel sound. It's the romanizations that aren't standard that makes the pronunciations seem wrong. In “fixing” the pronunciations, M. Night actually made them worse, because he actually did change the whole vowel sounds.
Exactly.
m nights pronunciations are the correct ones
fans of the series don’t think so.
just… stop… you r wrong… Shyamalan sucks and YOU KNOW IT
You are so dumb i can’t even imagine what you look like. And that doesn’t even make sense! and thats exactly how dumb you sound. OMG YOU DUMB
As I said to Dawning, the names weren't changed to their “authentic Asian roots”, they were changed so that the pronunciation would conform to Western expectations of how names spelled as they are should be pronounced if Asian. To actually go back to the “authentic Asian roots”, the names would be pronounced Ai-Luo, Su-Ke, Ka-Ta-La, etc.
One word: GARBAGE!!!! The Last Airbender is Horrible, don't watch it. I can't believe they let this movie be made. And i can't believe they let mr. suckmalan do this movie, what was he thinking. Bad acting, weak effects, horrible script, etc. Why change an amazing and beautiful story. This guy probably didn't even see the anime. I was extremely disappointed!! I love the anime and really wanted to see the live version, but wow what a serious letdown. If you love the Avatar: The last Airbender Anime DO NOT watch this movie, TRUST ME. And even if you haven't seen the anime, watch it. Even if you don't watch anime, believe me it's 100 times better than this live movie crap!!!
I already bought my 3D tickets on Fandango… wish I had read this first
I hope my expectations have been set low enough after all these bad reviews that I can get some joy out of the movie. I've been anticipating this since it was announced, I am now worried…
Worse than MARMADUKE?
C'mon now
Terrible review, Matt. You get a little too personal, your tone becomes almost distracting, and I've seen this movie…it's certainly not the worst of 2010. Many moments were genuinely beautiful, more than I can say for, say, Marmaduke.
Thanks for the clarification.
Honestly, you are rude. I haven't seen the movie yet, but that doesn’t even matter. I respect your opinion and you may speak accurately for this film. Maybe.
(Ultimately I will see for myself) but in no way should “This (quote) be the end of M. Night Shyamalan.” No matter how bad it was. Have you FORGOTTEN about all the other great works Shyamalan has done, are you f*cking kidding me. The Village, Signs, Unbreakable, THE SIXTH SENSE, Lady in the Water, The Happening (which I actually happened to like).
Your article was entertaining, and it looks like you are the voice of many, maybe I won’t even like the movie. But seriously….that comment was uncalled for. That’s like saying if YOU had a couple of bad article reviews that should be the end of you…..HMMM??
So, watch yourself next time.
im sorry mrs/mr tasha… but those movies you namedd were fucking terrible lol… the sixth sense was good.. the village was decent and signs wasnt bad… but the rest pretty much did alot of shit sucking… just sayin
tasha is a female name FIRST ALL. duh! lol.
But guess what angry beaver, your intitled to your opinion and Im intitled to mine, maybe they sucked for you, but obviously they didnt if your naming and saying ” it wasnt bad” “it was decent and ” it was good” for the majority of the ones I named above? Yeah. Yet you claim in the same phrase that they are quote ” fucking terrible”
dont contradict yourself. How bout it.
No Bumi or Keyoshi Warriors? I have been following Avatar: The Last Airbender since 2005. I was MORE than excited that there was a movie. The actors tripped me up a little, but I was still willing to see it. I “made” my girlfriend watch all three Books and she has fallen for the story just like I did.
This review is MORE than helpful. It's sad because I really wanted the movie to be good.
Yeah sokka was said soak-ah instead of sock-ah
Oh Yea everytime they said Au-ng or Soak-ah it was like a dagger….. Ah so bad!!!
Wow. You need help. Serious, help.
Hie a film critic. His job isn't to 'be nice'. His job is to review the movie and give his honest views. And he's not the only one to say as much.
A director is only as good as his last film. And his last film was panned, too. By critics AND the public. He has NOT had a hit in ages. Having a few good films early on DOES NOT EXCUSE his later films, which as of late have been very poor. THAT is the issue.
Oh boo whoo mr. amateur film director.
Listenn, you say ” critics AND the public” as if every single critic and the entire public think this should be the end of him. I BEG TO DIFFER. If your so upset at the fact that ” he has NOT had a hit in ages.” Dont go see the next one. But no one director can have an AMAZING, FLAWLESS collection of their own film history….Have you?There are goods and there are bads. Maybe M. Knight is momentarily considered bad right now- that doesnt make it permanent. It creates motivation and re-evaluation on his part. Because his concepts, and messages, and themes within the storyline are unique. And that can’t be argued, in my opinion.
(sorry this is so long.
)
…wait you were the one who said they were the film director
- if not ignore that part..
So your ok with the butchering of the names and how MNS totally skiped over all the important stuff in the middle of season one? I was hoping to atlest say that it was visually pleasing but no. this movie was crap….
lol. You really didn't get the underlining message of Signs, it wasn't about the aliens, it was about fate and faith. Just sayinn.
Since this Dick Hole Hates everything I find his review highly questionable. Here is a better one:
The Acting was stilted but not terrible, many of the lines felt forced.
The Script and Editing was where this film takes a nose dive! The film is clunky and hard to watch it moves with a ponderous pace that resembles Appa sleepily stumbling around.
This film is NOT racist and I am tired of all the cry baby idiots claiming it doesn't contain enough asian people in it. Well guess what they are F&^% cartoons they don't have race and frankly Aang was alway a white boy so wuit BI&%$^!
Finally The Special effects were fantastic! Industrial Light and Magic once again asound and improve upon the existing standards. The bending looks both realistuic and fluid and this leads to the Choreograhpy which is some of the grandest in scope and well organized action scenes around.
This reviewer is just pissed that his fanboy dream was not what he wanted it to be. I was also very dissapointed in this film. However this film steps up half way towards making the show shines in live action- Unfortunately the second step falls flat. So Reviewer is part right- Movie is very dissapointing but it is also visualy impressive.
And for the last time- It is NOT racist
I think it’s hilarious and a little sad that you can look at a kung-fu monk named Aang in a world that has clearly been influenced by the Asian culture and emphatically claim that “Aang has always been a white boy”. No, he hasn’t – and it’s racist because TIIC intentionally cast all of the “heroes” as white and the villains as brown and the background actors as Asian instead of casting Asian actors. It’s even stupider when you consider that Zuko is supposed to be travelling incognito through the Earth kingdom for all of season 2 / second movie.
This movie fails as a MOVIE, not just as an adaptation. The dialogue was atrocious – painfully bad, the storyline was nonsensical and rushed, the acting was pretty terrible across the board, the bending was ridiculous, the fight scenes were a cluttered mess, and the movie lacks all of the charm and fun of the TV show. I agree that this is probably the worst film of the year and I don’t want a sequel, I want a reboot.
Did the studio even consider a director who had experience with kung fu films?
what*
So you're saying you didn't enjoy it? What a twist!
His movies went bad before the Happening. The Village and Lady in The Water started the trend… There was a time when I was excited about a new MNS movie comeing out, so I agree he has had some amazing movies in the past, however he has been getting progressively worse as time goes on.
“racist”? MNS says: ” And that Dev [Patel]’s Asian, and Assif [Mandvi]’s Asian, and everybody’s, I mean – it’s incredible to think that there’s a correct Asian here. They don’t own this series. They don’t own all these cultures. The word Avatar is a Sanskrit word. So it’s all cultures that are put together. There’s no correct background here. They should ask: why does Noah Ringer look like a duplicate – a duplicate – of the cartoon guy? Why? He’s a dupe.
Anime is based on ambiguous facial features. It’s meant to be interpretive. It’s meant to be inclusive of all races, and you can see yourself in all these characters. My daughter saw herself as Kitara and now her friend who’s Hispanic sees herself as Kitara, and that’s totally valid. This is a multicultural movie and I’m going to make it even more multicultural in my approach to its casting. There’s African-Americans in the movie … so it’s a source of pride for me. The irony that they would label this with anything but the greatest pride, that the movie poster has Noah and Dev on it and my name on it. I don’t know what else to do.”
Sounds pretty racist to me. By the way, the movie may blow, but your writing is much, much worse.
Oh well, we get what we expected at least.
No, it's racist because the Fire Nation, the bad guys, are basically like the Middle East.
You've completely captured my emotions regarding this movie. Thank You.
I took a really good friend of mine, who has not seen the anime, to see this movie. he wanted to leave 40 mins into the movie… On top of that any serious moment in the film got laughed at by the intire audiance… And by the why you can tell that MNS knew people where going to hate the pernounciation of AANG cause he waited till the airtemple to reveal it… The demographic for this film seemed to be set for 5 year olds and not pre-teen to 25 as it should have been… Matt is right there is no charecter development…. Sokka had no funny lines or puns. Infact this movie reminds me of the episode where the gang watches a play about themselves… it was that bad…. the only thing i liked was MoMo was in the movie but he failed to develop him/her as well.The only thing MoMo does other than fly around is almost catch the moon spirit for food… I think MNS Poped in the series and read a book and everytime he lifted his head to look at the tv he took a note, if he even gave it that much effort. I rank this an EPIC Fail right next to the butchering of DragonBall… Anime lovers stay away from this film if you really want to see it after all the bad reviews I would wait for it to be on DVD I doubt it will take long…
The African American you speak of has no lines and got laughed at everytime they showed him on the screen. Not for his race but for the simple face that the sceen he plays in is rediculious. I do not care about the race factor in this movie because i liked the inclusiveness. So i to don't see the Racist remark to be true unless you parallel the Indian ethnicities to the terrorist of todays society… but i don't think thats where MNS was giong with that.
I just said this in reply to another comment. i don't think thats where MNS was giong with it. but everybodys mind is so clung on the war that you let it seep into a movie. I hate this movie to its core but i did not see it as being racist. Anything but actualy…
Woah, holy harshness. I really want to like this. The effects look awesome to me and I *love* the Nick series. Bummer. I wonder what Frosty thinks of the film.
all the critics gave the same type of review… i like the fact that Matt is more pationate about it because it shows he cared about the series. And MNS started failing with the villiage…. he shows no versitility in his movies. every one of his fils has the same blan depressed expressions when in conversation. like they're suffering from brain damage… Avatar is not like that it was full of light hope… aang was a happy go lucky, i want to ride pinguins and giant coy fish kid. not this sad woh is me version in this movie… MNS Butchered a movie that was sooo easy to get right if you cared enough for the sorce material… he had it in the bag and still failed… I use to love his movies untill The Village… Now i will not pay to see another movie that he so much as co directs.
Well personally, i think there are alot of things that contributed to the “hatred” that some people have for this film. First all, it wasn’t intended for our eyes, just like rated R movies arent suitable for younger audiences.. a kids movie, I think is the same- its not really going to appeal to older audiences. Secondly, this is his first time with this PG shit. But aside from that my overall angle is the fact theres a thin THIN line from being a critic, and coming across as just plain rude. Maybe for SOME of you his movies haven’t been great, but some people liked them and his resume speaks for that. His nominations. etc.
It was comes down to the fact that it SHOULDNT be the end of him,( and THIS is my point-) yes it was bad, but that doesnt mean he should never make a movie again. if you dont approve of it why dont you just stop seeing his movies, trust me he wont loose any sleep over you.
i want M. Night to personally give me my money back so i can show him so real bending.
Ummm no it is the worst by far… Pretty backdrops dose not make up for story line and charecter development fail.
Transformers 2 was way better than marmaduke or Airbender combined… The End
It may not have been intentionally racist, but the fact that the races were flipped amongst the heroes and villains of the show is certainly up for questioning. There's no reason to do that unless, the actors are fantastic. Katara was the first one cast, and she was awful, so it's something that we have to take a little closer look at.
“Fanboy dream”? No. The film could have changed anything that they wanted, but if the movie was GOOD, I would have been fine. Also, being “visually impressive” does not a good movie make. Just look at (how apropos), James Cameron's Avatar.
Actually, while watching “The Last Airbender”, I kept thinking, “You know, I could write a better screenplay over a long weekend!”.
haha go for it then see what happens with that
XD actually he did most of the directing, he wrote the script, honestly I'm usually a defender of a director when the movie isn't great because of dialogue or story but he kind of single handedly ruined the whole movie XD He gets full blame for this whole mess of a film.
I am sorry. I didn’t know.
LMAO I agree, which is sad that transformers 2 was better XD
Thanks for the review man.
This movie Sucked so bad.. Dont SUPPORT THIS MOVIE!!!
Wait till the airplanes put it on.
My Complaints:The Blue Spirit is, in my mind,is similar to a turd,Dev Patel was terrible, the “bending” is cheesey , the acting is terrible, the script was worse than anything I ever heard in my entire life, I can't stand how they pronounced some names, Zhao didn't have sideburns, Ozai was shameful,the 3-D was a waste of money,the slow motion ruined the fight sequences,Momo's name was never mentioned,when they tried to be funny, it turned out to just be plain annoying, the characters were stale.to conclude this review, IT WASN'T RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yipes!!
I had long come to terms with the possibility that this movie might suck. But what hurts is that the profile of a disaster like this might carry over to anyone thinking of checking out the show, which is a wonderful, rich, touching and exhilarating piece of work.
He forgot TY LEE!!!
http://images.absoluteanime.com/avatar_the_last…
He could have at least had her standing there for a second like he had for Azula! Geezz!!! I wouldnt even care if she was standing there by her side. Well… I guess he will have her in there in the second movie.
The second season has so many great new characters, like Toph and 'Ozai's Angels'.
And yes, Ty-Lee is teh hawtness. Although in the show Azula has to go looking for her and Mai. They're not automatically there with her. Although I'm sure with Shyamalan's character short-hand they would have been with Azula from the start of the film.
If this movie makes money they might push on with the second film. The NARNIA movies have been scraping by and they're still making those. I'd hope Shyamalan takes on board some of the criticism from this movie and endevours to make the next two movies better, because the show itself just got exponentially better as it went along.
Thank god. I was one of the unfortunate people who actually went to see it last night. From the moment they mispronounced Avatar. I knew it was going to suck. I had trouble following, AND I WATCHED the show. I dont get why directors find it so hard to make a movie out of a good book or series. All Shyamamln had to do was basically recreate every episode into non-animated form and it would have been fantastic.
He didn't need to recreate everything, but I do believe that with careful crafting and actual, you know, TALENT you could quite easily distill the best aspects of the show into a very satisfying 2 1/2 to 3 hour film.
But it all sounds so rushed, like the thought that the kids in the audience wouldn't sit through a long movie.
Unintended racism is still racism. Passive racism is still racism. Just because you're not going around shouting ethnic slurs doesn't mean you're not being racist in other subtler ways.
This movie is racist. Explicitly so, no, but again, racism doesn't need to be explicit to be called racism. You have the three heroes (two of which are fairly obviously influenced by Inuit culture) being portrayed by white people. And no, before you bring out that tired old yarn again, Aang is not white any more than your typical anime character from Japan is white. The only reason that Aang is “white” is because the animators (for once) didn't use physical stereotypes to signify that he wasn't white. It was just sort of assumed that people would pick it up from context (ie, nearly EVERYTHING else in the show is based on East Asian culture).
Said white heroes are opposed by the Fire Nation, here portrayed uniformly as Indian people, ie, not white. In their travels, they come across a group of imprisoned earthbenders that don't realize that there's earth all around them until Mighty Whitey heroes come in and point out what should be glaringly obvious to people who work with earth their whole lives. (On that note, this is really stupid plot point. In the show, they imprisoned the earthbenders far out at sea on a metal ship, which actually made some damn sense).
Of note is that most of the bit parts are played by people of color. Only the heroes are important enough to be white, apparently.
I could go on. There's far more to talk about regarding Hollywood and the huge amounts of racism therein.
It's funny all the hatred heaped on M. Night about things out of his control, anyone who knows anything about film, apparently no one in this forum, knows that the studios have final say, including the producer, on casting…which is why Rodriguez couldn't get his 'lover' Rose into Red Sonja or Barbarella. The problem does not lie with one director but with hollywood and its apparent perception of US viewers racist tastes. Look at Prince of Persia, how racist was that? It's been this way for a while, so stop blaming one man and try to make real change by letting Hollywood know this general behavior is unacceptable in the modern world.
you must not understand that he wrote, directed, and produced and he admitted that he picked the cast himself lol… everything about this movie rests only in his hands
Ya and the orcs were black in Lord of the Rings but no one said that was racist
After watching the movie…what are people doing thinking about racism? ITS JUST A MOVIE PEOPLE! IT MAKES SENSE FOR PEOPLE LIVING AROUND FIRE AND HEAT TO BE DARKER…LOOK AT INDIA ANF AFRICA! AND PALE PEOPLE LIVING AROUND SNOW AND COLD, PRETTY MUCH MAKES SENSE AT A GLIMPS. I really don’t get how Lord of the Rings was racist either. people are just nitpicking
Um, yes they do, or at the very least it's not a rare topic of discussion. A quick Google search would tell you that much.
This is a thing of beauty.
I think that this sites review section should just be removed. 90% of your guys' reviews are one-sided, close-minded, immature and unprofessional. People can argue that they are just telling it how they viewed it, but how is this helping anyone make their decision in seeing or doing what they just read the review on, in this case a movie. A GOOD review lays out the pro's and con's for the reader/audience to weigh for themselves. You guys always give your personal opinions and nothing else. That's why I try to avoid your reviews on movies as much as possible.
One more thing, comparing adaption's to their original source material is always going to be done, but to base a review on that is stupid. An adaption is its own entity. There is the movie then there is the tv show or book. People go “Oh great, that movie was nothing like the original source material and now it is just ruined!” Wrong. The source material is still there, unscathed and just as good as it always was for you. If you can't escape into a movie and enjoy it for what it is, then you shouldn't watch movies. Like I said already, comparisons are always going to be made, but to expect everythign to be the exact same as the original source and not have the director or producer or actor or any other person involved's mark on it is ignorant. They make it their own. In your imagination you make your own opinions and images based on the source material, I guarantee if you could translate those onto paper people would burn you at the stake because it is not what they imagined for themselves. The movie is its own thing, and if you can't accept that then don't post a review. Fuck, this part of the website pisses me off. This is why I don't read collider's shitty reviews. (Apologies to the 5 reviews that were actually good)
Very Well put i agree with all of that
A review's purpose is to inform others about one's personal feelings on a given piece of media. Nothing more. The only way to avoid any bias is to read multiple reviews and form an opinion based on that. Deriding a review for expressing an opinion is really missing the entire point of reviewing.
You have a valid point in the fact that an adaptation is its own beast, but this adaptation is so disjointed that you're almost required to be familiar with the source to understand it, so the argument doesn't really apply. And on a related note, a movie is never wholly separate from its source. There are going to be people seeing the film that have never seen the original series, and they're going to walk out with the impression that that's what the whole franchise is like.
the producer has final say on finished product… the directer creates the film in his image… he plots out timing and tells the actors how he wants them to portray emotions. and trust me it had the same feel as anyothe MNS movie ive ever seen.. so yes there are more people to blame but MNS get the bulk of that crap…..