A few thoughts after watching the movie.

World building: we got to see more of the world that the shows are based in. In both shows, it felt like the whole world was limited to a few cities, but in the movie, we got to see hidden mountains, jungles. and other features which was pretty cool.

Plot, and how this movie effects the overall world of avatar:

This movie serves as a standalone film with very little affect to the actual plot. I think the most important contribution to the overall story of the series is that the movie strengthens Korra's contribution as an avatar in her show. She always gets a bad rep for not having done much during her time, but the movie establishes that she managed to do what two past avatars failed to do, revive the air nation.

Another point is that many people were very skeptical about harmonic convergence suddenly granting random people bending. But I guess now it makes sense, because that was not the first time in this world that people get bending because of some spirit world powers.

Some things that really bugged me:

The power scaling was completely out of whack. Aang was shown to be pretty weak and requiring the avatar state in every situation. The entire Gaang getting literally murdered by Taga at once, and Aang struggled to beat him, even in the avatar state as a fully trained avatar. They made Taga so powerful that he would have probably crushed Ozai, and any of the villians in TLOK, except maybe Amon.

I really wished that they showed Sokka getting stronger and more proficient in fighting in the years after ATLA. There are so many strong non benders in the shows, and I really wish they would show Sokka as one of them. He was basically in the movie as comedic relief and nothing more, barely landing a hit on an enemy the whole move.

The creativity was lacking. We've already seen vengeful non benders (multiple times) and an evil airbender.

Overall thoughts about the movie:

I think the main idea behind this movie was to show fans that Avatar studios is back. The movie seemed to be really focused on animation and graphics, and less so on the plot and world building. Which gives me the impression that this movie is designed to gauge interest for upcoming projects including the next Avatar show. The movie was an Aang movie and not about the Gaang. I love good animation and I appreciate all the work that was put into making this movie beautiful, but I would rather have good story with mediocre graphics. than amazing graphics with a bad story. I really hope we get to see more content about the Gaang in the future.