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Tara Reid On DMX, Deepak Chopra & The Art of Ascension

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Tara Reid burst onto the scene as the flawless blue-eyed babe of the iconic 1999 camp comedy American Pie, a Fast Times at Ridgemont High for twenty-something Gen-Xers and precocious Millennials. Her flawless all-American looks led to films from cult favorite The Big Lebowski, to Urban Legend, Van Wilder, Josie and the Pussycats, Dr. T & the Women, and My Boss’s Daughter. She starred and held her own alongside Ryan Reynolds, Ashton Kutcher, Rosario Dawson, Kate Hudson, Richard Gere, and other movie heavyweights.

And then, something happened. Reid was young, stunning, and famous; and the media began taking more of an interest in her after-hours role as Hollywood’s resident party girl; largely ignoring her talent and her work ethic. Unlike most of us, Reid’s young adult days and nights were captured by paparazzi for the world to see. During our interview, she is quick to point out that, at the very least, mercifully, social media had not yet been invented. Thank God for small favors.

A painful public breakup with then-fiancé Carson Daly and about with botched plastic surgery further spun Reid’s public narrative out of control. She recently told E! News, “They almost make a cartoon character out of you, and they keep going with it,” referring to the rampant tabloid journalism of the 2000s.

The experience sent Reid reeling, and into a self-imposed media exile where she learned to reflect, regroup, and re-emerge focused on her craft, and with a healthy sense of humor as she displays in her willingness to embrace the camp genre with the Sharknado film series. In addition to working in front of the camera, she’s added film producer to her resume, with an upcoming slate of releases under her production banner, Hi Happy Films.

As women in our forties, Tara Reid and I discuss the power of knowing oneself and becoming unflappable in the face of life’s inevitable ebbs and flows. Smart, soulful, and creative, Tara Reid has reclaimed her power and found her most valuable commodity: peace of mind.

 

Allison Kugel: You were just working on a film with DMX before he passed.

Tara Reid: Yeah, a movie called Doggmen. It’s his last film and it was really interesting because he didn’t get to finish the whole film. They had to do what they did with Paul Walker (in his last Fast & Furious role). They make these facial sculptures and they put it on a face, and it looks exactly like [DMX]. It’s crazy.

 

Allison Kugel: Like CGI? 

Tara Reid: No, it’s literally a face they make and put on. The last couple of scenes that he has to film, that will be what they are doing.  It’s incredible and it looks so real. It looks just like him.  So, that is how they are going to film his last scenes, and I’ll be in those scenes with him.

 

Allison Kugel: What is that going to feel like for you, to do that?

Tara Reid: I think everyone was absolutely broken by DMX’s [death].  He wasn’t just a great rapper, but he was a poet. I think he was one of the best rappers of our time, and this movie explains that. The last person that really did that was Tupac. I think it will be a great film.  He’s a great actor, he’s a voice, and that mattered a lot to him. I think he will be really happy about how this movie comes out and looks. It’s DMX, and just to be a part of that history with him is pretty much incredible.

 

Allison Kugel: When he was on set, did he seem healthy? Did he seem happy?

Tara Reid: I never saw him on set. The movie started before I started working. I was due [on set]at the end of the movie. Then, unfortunately, that is when he passed. I actually never got to do the real scenes with him.

 

Allison Kugel: Oh man! 

Tara Reid: I’m in the other scenes with the “not real” version of DMX.  It’s going to be really interesting, and we are shooting that down in Florida.

 

Allison Kugel: Oh, wow. I’ll definitely look forward to seeing how they manage to do that when it comes out.

Tara Reid: I’ll let you come down to the set and you can see how they do it.

 

Allison Kugel: What three events in your life, if you had to narrow it down to three, shaped who you are today?

Tara Reid: Wow, that is a great question! Well, I guess one of them would be my parents making me, otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, so congratulations on that one (laughs)!  I think another one would be feeling the force of getting into Hollywood, which is the hardest thing to do, becoming a working actor.

 

Allison Kugel: What do you mean by “the force?” 

Tara Reid: It’s so hard to make it in Hollywood to begin with. It’s like winning a lottery ticket. To be lucky and fortunate enough to get there was incredible, and then seeing the aftereffects, and everything like that. The third and most painful one was having my parents pass away. That gave me a whole different look on everything.

 

Allison Kugel: Did it make you think about where they went when they passed? When my grandfather passed away when I was 32, the question that kept going through my mind was, “Where is he?” It started me on this journey of looking into life after death. Did you go through anything like that?

Tara Reid: I would talk about that with my sister, about where we go after this. Honestly, the hardest part, you’re going to make me cry now…

 

Allison Kugel: No, no, no…

Tara Reid: It’s okay. The hardest part is not being able to call your parents up and ask, “Hey, how do I make this lasagna?” or “How do I make this or that?” They were such good cooks. There are so many things I wish they wrote down, like their recipes, or even just to call them on the phone. I feel like I see signs a lot. I definitely feel their energy around me, and it’s healing for me.

 

Allison Kugel: What was your biggest takeaway from 2020? 

Tara Reid: COVID was something that, obviously, we never expected, like the Black Plague.

 

Allison Kugel:  Yes, in our lifetime…

Tara Reid: Never. From everyone staying home and not being able to go out or travel, to movies being cancelled, and even people being afraid of other people. A lot of fear was going on. But when I was in my house, I said, “You know what?  I’m going to be proactive. I’m not going to sit here and just wait for COVID to come over, or for my industry to come back.” I started developing and producing projects for myself. We (Tara’s production company, Hi Happy Films) got in touch with a lot of amazing and creative people and got to put a lot of different projects together, from comedy to drama. We’ve got a pretty good slate coming up.

 

Allison Kugel: What do you have coming up?

Tara Reid: We are doing this one movie called Masha’s Mushroom (starring Reid, Vivica A. Fox, Beverly D’Angelo). The director, White Cross, she’s also my partner on that particular film, and she is absolutely brilliant. We got connected with such valuable people from financing to distribution, and I learned aspects of the business that I never knew before. I realized how hard it is to make a film come together and it gave me a completely different appreciation for the film business as a whole.

 

Allison Kugel: You’re also working on a vegan handbag line…

Tara Reid: I can’t say too much about it just yet, but it’s being done with a great handbag maker named Michael Kuluva.  As far as the handbags, I can tell you they are not made of pleather, and it might be made out of vegetables and fruit, believe it or not. I know it sounds crazy. You would be shocked at how it’s made. Then, during this whole process, my boyfriend and I went down to Sedona, Arizona. My father told me, before he died, that he went there with his brother and it is very healing; it’s where the vortex (swirling centers of healing energy, where the earth is said to be “most alive”) is, and it’s very hippie and spiritual.  We were supposed to stay four days and we wound up staying for four weeks.

 

Allison Kugel: And that helped set the vibe for the bag designs…

Tara Reid: You get it. The process is pretty incredible, and it’s not just us that’s doing it. I think Hermès is coming out with a bag made from mushroom “leather.” We are going to debut our line next year during Fashion Week, and there will be a lot of Arizona-inspired spiritual stuff on the bags.

 

Allison Kugel: Speaking of that, do you pray? If so, who or what do you pray to? 

Tara Reid: I do pray, and who I pray to depends on what situation I am in. I pray to Jesus, but I also pray to my parents all the time. They are probably my number one. And I pray to my guardian angels; I pray to St. Jude, St. John, or St. Christopher. They have different meanings depending upon what you are in need of. I also listen to tapes by Deepak Chopra which has helped me tremendously. His tapes help you break down, “Who am I close to? Who am I? What do I want? What do I not want?” And you really have to write it out in a diary form. My life started changing. A lot of us don’t know how to direct that positive energy, and I think that he is someone that really knows how to give that to you.

 

Allison Kugel: I’ve interviewed Deepak Chopra twice, and he was the first person who ever explained to me that there is no such thing as time. I was younger at that time, and I didn’t really get it, so he said, “Well, think about it. If you are in a rush or on a deadline, you feel like you’re running out of time. If you are bored or anxiously awaiting something, time feels like it is taking forever.” Then he said, “Time is really nothing more than the movement of thought.” It makes so much sense to realize that we are trapped in space and time, but you can step out of time and be completely in the moment. It is the most freeing and beautiful feeling there is.

Tara Reid: I agree with you a billion percent. It really is like, “I’m running late for this meeting,” or, “I’m going crazy from this deadline.” Then you’re like, “Wait, I don’t have to get this or do this right now. I can wait half an hour and the world is not going to end.” Time is relevant in a situation like we’re in right now, how we have decided to meet at a certain time. But when it comes to yourself, you can create how you exist in time. When you put out a manifestation and put something great out there, you have to close a lot of doors to open up new ones. That is one of the things that Deepak Chopra teaches. I believe that is what you probably got out of it too.

 

Allison Kugel: What was your favorite film role, and why? 

Tara Reid: This is actually a really good story. Last night I was with my boyfriend watching TV and as we were going through the channels, HBO came up and my boyfriend says, “Oh My God, this is crazy, you’re on TV.” I looked and it was Josie and The Pussycats. That has always been my favorite movie that I’ve ever done. It was so much fun. Rachael Leigh Cook is amazing.  Rosario Dawson was amazing. We were shooting up in Canada, having fun doing a girl’s movie, and the whole movie was the best experience. I played Melody, and she was always happy, a little bit ditsy, but kind of psychic. It was great waking up every day, playing a happy girl.

 

Allison Kugel: Have you forgiven the media for the way that they treated you years back, or do you still struggle with that?

Tara Reid: That is a really good question. I didn’t, and I was upset about it when I was younger, but I realized the only way I was going to grow and get out of that situation was to grow as a woman. So therefore, I do forgive them now. I have moved on, and my press has changed. I’m not angry about it anymore. When you finally let something go, it goes. It’s like taking a balloon and putting it up in the air, and it’s gone. I’m 45 years old and I’m not a child anymore. I’m not the little girl from American Pie. A lot of things have changed in my life, and I wouldn’t take back anything, because again, it put me where I’m at right now. I probably would not be talking to you right this second if everything was different. You’re a positive person I feel like you’ve gone through a lot of what I have, and I really feel like I can relate to you. Would you change anything?

 

Allison Kugel: I would not change anything. I really am at a place of peace in my life right now.  There has been a lot of bumps in the road and twists and turns but I really would not change anything.

Tara Reid: Of course, there are going to be bumps in the road. That’s life. No one ever said it was going to be perfect, but if we didn’t go through these bumps in the road, it would not define us as who we are.

 

Allison Kugel: I find that my compassion and empathy muscles have grown, exponentially.

Tara Reid: I think COVID really helped a lot of people with that. People had no choice, they had to be inside. So, what do you do?  Call your best friends, call people you haven’t talked to in a while, forgive yourself for a lot of things, talk to yourself a lot, and make sense of some of the things that didn’t make sense. I think that is where you and I are. I am completely comfortable in my own skin right now, and I’m happy with where my life is going.

 

Allison Kugel: Have any journalists ever apologized to you, whether it was a gossip columnist or tabloid reporter?

Tara Reid: To be honest, not really (laughs).  If that day ever comes, you are going to be the first person I call and say, “Guess who called me to apologize?” (laughs) But no, not yet.

 

Allison Kugel: Is there a hobby or another profession that you would like to attempt? 

Tara Reid: I think I’m doing that now, expanding beyond being an actress and producing and creating my own films with the roles that I’ve wanted. I also love arts and crafts. I’ve been beading my whole life. And I’m really into rose quartz for love, for example. Every bracelet or piece of jewelry that I make with crystals has a huge meaning behind it.  I’m an artist and I feel like I’m covering a lot of different areas in that, and I’m definitely satisfied with it.

 

Allison Kugel: What do you think you came into this life as Tara Reid, to learn and what do think you came here to teach? 

Tara Reid: I think I came into this life to teach people to feel good. I think I have a gift. It just seems like everywhere I go, among my friends, if there is something happening in their life, they talk to me, and I talk to them and I get them out of situations. What I’m here to learn is almost the opposite of that. I’ve had to learn to be progressive, humble, and to keep myself open to learning information that I can use to help others and help myself.

 

Allison Kugel: Were there times in your life when you were not as humble as you could have been, and you look back on it and think, “Man, I should have been a little more humble, down to earth, appreciative,” and all of that?

Tara Reid: Yes, I think when I first got famous, I didn’t really know what fame was.  It is not something that is so easy to get thrown into, and it’s a bit shocking. The beginning of my fame almost scared me, and then I realized how to eventually deal with it. I learned how people are, and that not everyone’s going to love you. Social media can be terrible, and you cannot protect yourself on it. It was a growing process.

 

Allison Kugel: When you were on that first American Pie set, did all of you have a feeling like, “Wow! This is going to blow up and make us all famous,” or did it just feel like… a job?

Tara Reid: I think I felt like, “Oh, this is just a job.”  Everyone in the cast was so new. The actors were mostly very green. It was the first movie for most of them, so we had a bond that was really close. When it blew up, you know, we still have that bond every time we see each other. The first people that you make it with, that never goes away. The movie I was most excited about, but didn’t do well, was Josie and The Pussycats. You never know what is going to work and what is not.

 

Allison Kugel: If you could travel back in time and alter one historical event, where would you go and what would you attempt to change? 

Tara Reid: I wouldn’t want to change anything, but if I were to go back in time to a historical event that was fun, I would have loved to have been Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” to the president [John F. Kennedy] (laugh). It was such a legendary moment.

 

Allison Kugel: Would you like to become a mom at some point in your life, or are you good as you are?

Tara Reid: Well, I feel like I’m a mom already. I have two dogs that I’m so attached to. I take them everywhere I go. These dogs have probably been to eight different countries! Right now, that is where I’m at. Will I have kids?  Let’s see what is in store for me. It’s not a no, and it’s not a yes. I have gotten my eggs frozen so there is definitely the potential of that. If it is meant to be, it will happen. If not, I’m very comfortable where I’m at.

 

Allison Kugel:  Where do you see yourself in five years if you had to visualize it?

Tara Reid: I definitely see myself being in a place where I’m excited and happy about producing and acting, and maybe married. I have great friends, so just to keep my friends close. I don’t have many friends, just ones that are my favorite and best, and we would do anything for each other.

 

Allison Kugel: That’s all you need.

Tara Reid: I just see myself going on the road that I’m on right now and feeling content. I have a great boyfriend, I have amazing dogs, good friends. Hopefully, we can start traveling a lot again because that is one of my favorite things. I kind of see myself moving along like The Little Engine That Could: I think I can, I think I can.

Follow Tara Reid on Instagram and Twitter @TaraReid

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Dune Part Two: The Lisan Al Gaib comes for you!

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Welcome back to our struggle for control of the known universe already in progress, the continuation of the journey of Paul Atreides from exile to Emperor, Dune Part Two

So when we last left our intrepid if dubious heroes, House Atreides had been betrayed and virtually destroyed, by a combination of House Harkonnens surprise attacks and the added treachery of Emperor Shaddam and his Sardaukar. Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet), the last surviving heir (so far) of House Atreides and his mother Jessica, have taken refuge on the desert planet of Arrakis amongst the indigenous Fremen, and as far as most are aware, the other remnants of House Atreides are dead as well. And here is where we catch up with everyone, as the struggle for Atreides emergence and dominance begins in earnest! 

The Emperor’s daughter Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) is known for her many skills, but her copious note-taking and writings on the large events shaping her world come to the forefront as she takes counsel with her father amidst games of chance on their homeworld. Her life is one of luxury and privilege but alas, Irulan is a trained Bene Gesserit and is well aware that in all likelihood, she will be used as a pawn in the marriage games empires have to go through. Bet she never imagined it could be to a House everyone swore had been utterly destroyed. 

Meanwhile, on Arrakis, Paul is trying to integrate himself into the Fremen way of life, which is admittedly far different from the life he led back on the Atreides homeworld of Caladan. (If nothing else, Caladan has vast oceans.) The Fremen are fiercely independent, gloriously strong fighters, survivors who dare to ride and revere the giant sandworms that inhabit their planet that they call Shai-Hulud, and rightfully distrustful of outsiders. After all, the previous stewardship of Arrakis belonged to House Harkonnen, known for their cruelty and glee at hunting Fremen and torturing their victims, sometimes for weeks at a time. But Paul won his and Jessicas way into the Fremen by fair combat against Jamis, and if nothing else, the Fremen are firm in their beliefs of the old ways. 

Or rather, the elder Fremen are, most particularly the famed Fedaykin fighter and Naib (leader) of Sietch Tabr Stilgar (Javier Bardem) is adamant in his unshakable belief that Paul is the foretold Lisan Al Gaib, the Voice from the Outer World, that will lead the Fremen to peace and paradise. Stilgar’s steadfast belief in Paul’s potential only grows, and he manages with just that to convince a great many of the other Fremen elders. The younger generation of Fremen however, of which Paul’s beloved Chani (Zendaya) is a part, generally scoff at the legends of otherworldly prophets and Arrakis as a fabled green, wet heaven. In the beginning, Paul himself swears he doesn’t want to be the Messiah, only a Fremen fighter amongst the rest of them, hundreds of years of the Missionaria Protectiva, the Bene Gesserit practice of spreading useful religious propaganda as seeds on various planets, is working double-time against him. It doesn’t help that Paul’s mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) is expounding on that myth as much as she possibly can. 

And why would she do that? Survival yes, but also, Jessica is a thoroughly trained Bene Gesserit and knows of plans within plans within plans. Jessica also has many secrets of her own, and one very important one happens to be that she’s pregnant with Paul’s sister. The Bene Gesserit bodily control may be something out of legend, but even Jessica, possibly Reverend Mother Mohiam’s best and most fractious student, will have trouble with the trial the Fremen are insisting she go through to become truly one of them. The Reverend Mother equivalent of Sietch Tabr, known as their Sayyadina, is old and dying, and the Fremen have to have a Reverend Mother. Jessica tells Paul this much and explains that each culture is different in their trial to become a Reverend Mother, so she honestly doesn’t know what to expect. The reality happens to be worse than she could’ve imagined – Jessica must drink the Water of Life, a deadly poison that comes from Shai-Hulud (sort of), and come out the other side of it. And Jessica manages to do it, barely, with almost all of the consequences going to the poor fetus in her womb, the girl that will grow to become Alia Atreides, an insane legend in her own right. But for now, the unnamed fetus is awake and aware and full of the memories of generations of Bene Gesserit women that came before her – before she was even born

Paul participates in razzia raids amongst the Fremen as they work to take out the spice mining operations of the Harkonnens, immerses himself in the vastly different desert culture of his chosen people, and perhaps most importantly, his romance with his beloved Chani only grows stronger. After declaring his desire to join the fierce fighter elites amongst the Fremen known as Fedaykin, Paul is told by Stilgar that he must summon and ride one of the giant sandworms, the embodiment of Shai-Hulud where the Fremen get their terrible tooth Crysknives from. And after much sendup, in a glorious scene of blinding sand and huge monstrous killer worm-riding, Paul is triumphant and riding atop the sacred creature, his Maker hooks set properly to control the great beast, waving at great distance to his fellow Fremen as Chani looks on in bemusement. 

But that’s all external, and inside Paul is beginning to become divided on what he wants to do. As Jessica pushes the Protectiva hard amongst the women and priestesses of the Fremen, she is also pushing her son to become much larger than he ever wanted to be, if nothing else a conqueror can take revenge for the destruction of House Atreides and the death of her beloved Duke Leto. Paul may have earned his place amongst the Fremen and been given new names – Usul, meaning the strength of the base of the pillar, as his private name within the Sietch; and Muad’Dib, from the small mouse survivor of the desert, well versed in desert ways, called ‘Instructor-of-Boys’ in Fremen legend, as his open-use name – but now everyone wants Paul to be something greater, and potentially more destructive, than what he currently is. It only gets worse when Paul begins to suffer prophetic dreams, and visions when he’s awake, prodding him further to his destiny as an epic conqueror of worlds. Nothing can be done for it, Paul convinces himself that he must take the Water of Life himself, to awaken the sleeping prophet inside himself, and allow him to hopefully See a path through the future. 

The problem with that plan, is that Bene Gesserit are almost exclusively all women, and only they are supposed to know how to transmute poisons internally, along with all sorts of other “witchcraft”. But Jessica has been training Paul in forbidden Bene Gesserit ways all his life, and as much as Paul might rail and even quail against it, there is no denying his incoming destiny, crushing any resistance he may have with all the force of a giant sandworm hunting a spice blow. And even when Paul has finally given in and taken the cursed substance almost mockingly called the Water of Life, it falls to another strong and prophetic in her right female in his life, his beloved Chani, to save him from himself. But even Chani can’t stop Paul’s destructive destiny as the conqueror of the known worlds, guilty of slaying millions upon millions of people in his quest for vengeance, thinly disguised as peace. 

Over on the Harkonnen homeworld of Geidi Prime, “Beast” Rabban (Dave Bautista) is disgusted and enraged at the continuing Fremen raids against the Harkonnens on Arrakis, and terrified of what his uncle the notoriously cruel Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard), will do to him in response. The Baron’s nephew Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), heir apparent or na-Baron to House Harkonnen, demonstrates his blood-inborn savagery in a slaughter of the remnants of House Atreides gladiator-style, as his birthday celebration. Pleased with the spectacle, the Baron commands Feyd-Rautha to take control of the fight against this Fremen rebel known as Muad’dib, as Rabban is proving himself more and more useless. And any tool or toy that the Baron finds broken or unusable, is destroyed before being discarded. 

As the legend of Muad’dib grows off Arrakis and circulates among the Imperial worlds, the Emperor grinds his teeth in frustration and the Bene Gesserit, led by Reverend Mother Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) as the Emperor’s Truthsayer, begin pushing forward their plots and machinations. Lady Margot Fenring (Lea Seydoux), a criminally underused character in this respect, demonstrates her willingness to be a pawn in Bene Gesserit machinations, but never forget, strong Bene Gesserit women have been breaking their own rules for generations. Just look at what Jessica did. 

As the raids and rebellion on Arrakis continue, both the Emperor and the Baron become more and more desperate, sending in mercenaries and smugglers in the hopes they might have more luck. And aboard one of those smuggler’s vessels happens to be an old hand at being a smuggler himself, the warrior troubadour with the scarred face given him by “Beast” Rabban himself, Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin). Reunited with his beloved Duke’s only son, Gurney finds himself swept up in the legend of Muad’dib in the making along with everyone else, though at least from Gurney’s point of view, Paul is using the messianic angle to take revenge for House Atreides. 

Finally, in an act of what could be considered the ultimate in arrogance, Emperor Shaddam Corrino himself comes to Arrakis, along with Princess Irulan and many others of his Court, the Baron, and Feyd-Rautha in tow as well, to crush this upstart Muad’dib and his Fremen warriors. Sadly for all that the powerhouse actor Christopher Walken plays him, Emperor Shaddam Corrino is shown as a doddering old man, cowed in the face of Muad’dib’s overwhelming vitality and growing-ever-stronger legend. And there is where we will end the review, for the final confrontation between all key players in the Known Universe is full of spoilers and derivations from the original opus of Frank Herbert’s novel Dune

For those of you who stuck around long enough to get to the end, after all, Dune Part Two is almost three hours long itself, if you are fans of the original novel and the zany Lynchian masterpiece that was the first Dune film, you may be disappointed or even angered at the changes made to the story for the climactic end scenes. Director Villenuve has an eye for making grand epic scenes like Paul’s sandworm ride but can be a bit scattered when it comes to piecing the story together with all the key players needing to be involved in a way that can be understood by any layman. Dune in any form is a rich, vast universe of storytelling, and even an almost three-hour-long sequel simply can’t cover every last bit that’s in the novels. But if nothing else, the film is an overwhelming feast for the eyes and should bring a whole new legion of fans to the many worlds contained within Dune

If you want to dive further into the Dune-iverse, do yourself a favor and read the Dune prequel books written by Herbert Jr. and Kevin J. Anderson. Until then, dive into the sands of Arrakis along with Shai-Hulud and scream vengeance to the skies with Paul Muad’dib Atreides in Dune Part Two, in theaters now! 

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Thatsmye Interviews: Les Weiler on Henchin’: the Series

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The 8 Episode Series Tries To Encompass A Lot Leaving Fans In A Cliffhanger.

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The 2010 “Avatar: The Last Airbender” movie by M. Night Shyamalan faced criticism for its deviations from the beloved animated series. The film struggled with pacing, casting, and a lackluster script, disappointing fans who cherished the source material. In contrast, the 2024 Netflix series has generated positive buzz for its commitment to diverse casting, adherence to the original storyline, and improved character development. The series seems poised to capture the essence of the animated show, offering a fresh and faithful adaptation that resonates with both new and existing fans.

Even though the Netflix series comes closer to the core ideals of the animated series, I feel it lacks heart. Many scenes barely scratch the surface of the relationships between the characters and the push-and-pull relationship between Aang and Zuko. I will admit the CG versions of Momo and Appa are just so gosh darn cute.

The 8 episode series tries to encompass a lot leaving fans in a cliffhanger. It’s worth a watch and I am hanging on for the next season to be announced.

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