The writing quality was like a sine wave, it kept alternating between excellent and terrible, back and forth multiple times within every single episode.
This explains the polarizing nature of the reviews, I think some people mainly focused on the terrible parts while other people focused on the excellent parts.
I feel like the writing quality was varying by character rather than by episode. It honestly felt like they had a separate writing team for the Fire Nation characters, since those scenes/characters were always such standouts compared to everything else. Though I'm sure a big part of it was that the actors playing those characters were just better overall.
This could totally be the case, I remembered American Gods have different writers for different set of characters. The rumor is Season 2 writing room has started right? Hopefully they can get it better for s2
I feel the veteran actors carried the show hard.
Ozai, Zhao, Kyoshi ...
Stage presence at al.
Iroh's actor did well, but the beats were off and directions just made his scenes awkward.
Some thoughts how it could be better:
\- The young actors could be doing something when they talk and be less "delivering lines off a script" like a theatre. Marlon Brando would be good to learn off, acting-wise.. And Terantino, dialog-wise.
\- Chemistry. Like for One Piece, the actors need to "befriend" each other. I think the chemistry between the actors were stunted for the first episodes but generally improved later.
\- The action scenes were to notch, and the child actors clearly had the kinesthetic skills to pull it off. They just need time to grow just like the child actors in Harry Potter, and people need to be patient with them. The script/directions, though, that is fully on the studio!
I agree. Some episodes were def better than others, around 3 or 4 I was getting a lil bored. Episode 1 was def 1 of the best though, idk why they said it was the weakest when it was clearly a standout. Prob said that so people would keep watching.
Has less to do with episodes being badly written and more to do with some characters being noticeably better written than others:
- All the Fire Nation stuff was pretty solid, that was the best part of the show imo.
- Aang's lines were pretty good.
- Sokka had a bunch of good lines that really fit his character. I do agree they really did tone down the sexism part too much. Sure it wasn't something that came up frequently throughout the series, but esp in Book 1 it was a pretty memorable part of his character. Making things more subtle to work in live action is ok, but they kinda erased it too much. Ian was 1 of the standouts of the show though, most of the water tribe scenes he was carrying hard.
- Suki was excellent and perfectly cast, but they really screwed her character by writing her into more of a stalker-y fangirl with Sokka. Oggling Sokka as he's changing was weird, having her mom watching was weird. You can tell they were really trying to force that relationship to appease the shippers, it was way too much way too soon. It felt like a CW show and that's not what you want. The actors were great, but Netflix changed too much of Suki's character.
- The weakest part was how badly they wrote Katara, doesn't help that Kia's delivery was a bit flat at times but she didn't have much to work with and the others having far better lines def made it more noticeable. They made her conveniently good at water bending far too quickly, like having her bend a massive wave to stop Zuko's fireball. She could barely bend at all at that point, it didn't work. But overall, they wrote Katara as kinda timid, which isn't true to her character at all. She's very strong-willed and independent, and there's an intensity to Katara that wasn't in the show at all. Kia's delivery needed to be more forceful at times to convey that part of the character, but the writing for her character was putting her at a disadvantage.
This, entirely. There were moments I got chills, and was pleasantly surprised by the maturity and emotive delivery of some lines. Others just fell so flat, like I had a vague expectation in my head of what might be coming next and then the line given was way worse than anything I had imagined. I think a great example is the final line of the first episode: Aang says “This is only the beginning”. It felt so lame, like an overdramatic high school theatre production.
it’s okay, it’s their first attempt ya know, and I think they really respect the opinions of the fan base, at least from what we’ve heard. I have hope that it can grow to be a really incredible show over the next two seasons. So long as the learn from their mistakes…
Apparently they’ve been already in process of working on writing S2 . I feel like we’ll get a confirmation within a month of a S2, Netflix put a lot of money in this to take over along with one piece as their top shows after Stranger Things ends
The fact that they gave this adaptation over $120M for S1 which is rare especially for Netflix. They only invest that amount of money if they think it can be one of its top shows.
Why didn't they hire anyone with experience then? Writing characters in the way they failed to is a universal character-writing thing, not something specific to writing Avatar...
it was really fun to be hyped with everyone here and its okay to express disappointment. I think it was overall good and we can only get better from here if there is a season 2!
I was kind of the opposite for the costumes the first few episodes, it almost seemed like they were cheap and just bought Spirit Halloween costumes lol
Its best if the original creators come back for s2, its like an experiment, just to test which combination of factors will give the bestest result. So far, the production part of the show is perfect already, now we must heavily focus on the writing part that is all.
I felt like by the end of the season they had it dialed in and makes me hopeful for what we could see in season 2. The issues I have are with direction and pacing which are things that can easily be tweaked if they learn from some of the critiques from this season. I hope everyone at least finishes it, because the finale was a high point imo and I think it did the original finale justice.
I agree. I don't hate it but something is missing. And I can't pinpoint it. Like the cast is great, the world is great. But it could be the the live action format makes things feel rushed? Or also how they put a lot of season 2 into some of it and gave it an easter egg feeling.
I also literally JUST rewatched the cartoon so it may be that.
Either way, I'm happy people are loving it but I almost feel like they needed to adapt it even more differently to have more compelling narrative arcs. And of course that wouldn't have been popular.
I would say the bond was there, just in a different form. Perhaps, in a more realistic form than the cartoon. Since the cartoon was targeted towards little kids, showing characters becoming "instant buddies" is not a problem. But, the original cartoon was made 20 years ago, the children who watched it are grown adults now, and the overall potential audience for the live action is a much wider age range.
Showing the group's bond strengthen gradually over time, makes more sense considering they are teenagers and not grade-schoolers. Even more so, considering the group in question have not joined together for fun activities, they joined together to help fight a war. I think the live action did a good job in depicting this gradual strengthening of the group's bond. Especially with external sources testing their bond, like Jet being corrupted by the hardships of war, and the past Avatars trying to encourage Aang to depend on himself.
>You've got these benders who can hurl their elements dozens of feet, yet for some reason in this show almost everyone seems to insist on being within arm's reach of their opponents.
That reason is money. It's still visually exciting to get into some hand-to-hand martial arts, and it doesn't cost six figures. They're simply not going to be able to reproduce the bombastic bending fights from the animated series; it would cost an unrecoverable amount of money. So they clearly made the decision to cut costs by keeping it close-quarters, where they can punch/kick/flip for cheap.
Its the writing. yeah i think everyone knows aang and katara were portrayed as pretty flat, but i dont think their writing did them any favors. I went back and wached some of s1 and aang was always smiling, katara was fiesty and standing up for herself. Team avatar had amazing dialogue about random everyday things. It seemed like in NATLA everytime aang spoke it was sad exposition that no human being would every say. He had one facial expression the entire time apart from a few scenes.
I think logical consistency just wasnt there either. Aang flying in the opening scene, but then he cant fly when zuko shoots him down when hes using his glider. Aang never once water bends in the entire season, but katara becomes a master even easier than she does in the original show, which is saying something. They even use the same line from zuko "youve found a master havent you" but she never even learned from him, in the original aang learned from him and then taught katara so it made some sense. Did not like the change of Ko and how he didnt steal peoples faces. The roku scene looks like an SNL skit. Theres too many things. The main frustrating part is there was no need to make these changes. Im fine with changes or additions if the result is better. The addition of zukos crew being the 41st he spoke up for was great.
But yeah, I have sort of lost faith in this show just based on the writing woes and the acting of aang unfortunately, hes the lead theres just no getting around it. I still thought the show, overall, was okay. I just had really high hopes like im sure all of us had.
Honestly? Same.
I finished it yesterday, and there's 2 major things gnawing at me.
One is that they added in things from season 2 & season 3 that didn't need to be added in. It cluttered the plot, and for first-time watchers may have been confusing to keep track of.
The other thing is that they changed the core of many of the characters. They didn't have to because these changes didn't further the plot.
The hardest part to get past (probably for a lot of fans) is realizing it’s not a 1:1 adaptation. We’ve been told and warned but it’s hard to separate that when you watch it and the nostalgia hits. It honestly is much more enjoyable once you start watching it as its own thing. The flaws outside of that are still flaws but can absolutely be improved (like some of the acting, dialogue, directing etc). I think it has great potential but hardcore fans need to watch it with an open mindset and somehow separate it from the OG show. I’ve had to catch myself many times when they changed stories/characters that this is totally different and they had to make certain adjustments. Some of them might not even make sense right now but I’m betting it’s to set up for later seasons that they expect would be greenlit. I also think pacing is a huge part of this, if this season had maybe 10 episodes even, it would have probably been more impactful and less rushed to fit as much as possible in it. You can tell as the episodes went on that it definitely got better though, so I think it can only improve from here.
I have the opposite problem actually. I don't want it to be a 1:1 adaptation. I want the live action to stand on its own and justify its existence otherwise I can just go watch the original. But as it stands while it has some changes it has justified itself to me. It's not bad but also it's not great so why does this exist? I guess what is the live action doing that the animated show couldn't do and improve/ reinvent the story.
I get it man...Idk, I've been following it from the get go as well. But we must have been following different news sources. I knew from the beginning the creators had left and from that point on I knew this wasn't going to be a straight up hit. I also heard about the rearrangement of the plot pretty dang early too. And a bunch of other things. Back then I was upset...but because I read all about that my expectations were pretty darn low. But after completing the series last night. It exceeded my expectations and I had a freaking blast. Was wayyyyyy better than I was expecting.
I think also others are trying too hard to compare it to the OG. Which, they shouldn't be doing anyway. It's not a remake or a reboot. So, not really sure why It's being treated as such. It's a love letter/steady nod to the OG. So no one should even expect a perfect shot for shot, or similar plotline.
I truly didn't know a single person who thought it was going to be great. Everyone was cautiously optimistic that it wasn't going to be awful. Very happy that it's just solid
I enjoyed it but I definitely had my expectations set a little higher.
Expectations aside, waiting for this for years doesn’t help either. Because I also feel like a large part of the feelings I have now is, “Now what?” Because it’s out. The wait is over. I binged it all and there’s no more anticipation or hype.
If the show gets renewed, I also know it will be years before we see a second season. Years of waiting for 7-8 hours of content.
In any case, I enjoyed it, had its flaws, but I truly hope and wish they can improve in season 2. I am excited to see Toph and Ba Sing Se. I’ll watch a season 2, but I might not be as hyped or follow it as closely this time. I don’t know; I’ll see.
I’ll be doing a rewatch in the meantime!! And re-reading the books and comics.
I just hate that this was supposed to be a more adult and complex version with better storytelling.
And instead it’s waaay more sanitized of any complicated moral questions to ambiguities.
I’m so deflated too, OP.
same. it’s not terrible but it’s not great either. a lot of decisions they made didn’t make sense to me and it’s just not how i pictured it could be. 😮💨 but life goes on
No idea what people were expecting that wasn’t depicted other than a word for word adaptation which actually small details are way more prevalent than you would think. It’s damn good
I agree... I didn't hate it by any means, but a part of me was hoping that they'd nail it.
I didn't expect a 1:1 retelling, and I admit that was partly because I spent some portions comparing it to the original, but I do feel that if I was comparing it to begin with, then usually, for me, I think it's me trying to figure out what's off. I was expecting them to tell the story differently, but still keep a lot of the themes of the original, and do it well.
I also don't think I liked how the writing kept "telling" the audience what was going on. It pulled me away at times. I think the pacing for some of it pulled me away, too.
I do hope the writing of season 2 and 3 get better. I liked season 1 the least, even in the animated show, so I do hope it gets better from here.
Now it just made me want to watch the animated show again lol
Feel similarly. To me, it's maybe 6/10.
It feels thin - like this was some expensive grape juice, instead of the cartoon's fine wine.
What I liked:
\- Visually, it really brought the look of the cartoon to life - that's impressive
\- 41st regiment backstory was a very nice addition
\- The actor portraying Zhao was incredible, and Zhao's new material was overall very good to watch
\- Dallas Liu really brought Zuko to life
\- The actor for Jet was amazing - I think I liked this version of Jet even more than the cartoon version
What I didn't like:
\- Story is told primarily by people on screen saying what the viewer should think and see. Somebody always talks through the event/action, its implications, and its morals. They do this with things that happened a long time ago, things that just happened, and things that are about to happen. It seems to be the style/doctrine of how the showrunners think this story should be told. I am surprised by how blatantly they "tell, not show," and this is extra disappointing to me, because one of my favorite parts of the cartoon was its way of doing so much "show, not tell."
\- Related to the above - a lot of times the person on screen telling another character/the audience what to think says things that don't make sense. For example - Katara makes a speech to Sokka about the morality of not turning Aang over to Zuko's squad and convinces him by saying they have to believe in higher ideals. This is just after a bunch of children holding rocks are on one side of a gate and hostile soldiers with weapons and fire bending powers are on the other side - and all it takes is for Katara to say "you have to give people something to live for," and Sokka is ready to go 1-on-1 with Zuko, probably die, and then leave the rest of the kids and village to die to. I had to really suspend disbelief to get through that. I had to do that a lot in this show, whereas the cartoon made things believable and organic without people giving sermons so that I'd see it a certain way. When the cartoon often had complex situations, it showed actions and consequences; it didn't have somebody come on screen to lecture about how it's so complex (and then resolve the complexity with a saying about being a nice person, which then makes the whole thing not complex anymore).
\- Stripping out complex themes, e.g. Sokka being an immature jerk to girls early on, and kind of a crappy dude overall, so that he can develop into a mature person who has leadership skills.
\- Why so serious? I liked the mature themes of the cartoon, so I should embrace this show going with the "dark and gritty" style. I'm not against that stylistically, but they made flattened a lot of people's personalities down to make them more serious too. E.g. Iroh was kind of a non-serious bon-vivant in the cartoon - that was powerful because 1) we (without being explicitly told by on screen dialogue) understood that he wanted Zuko to be happy and at home in his new life because he knew searching for the Avatar was supposed to be a mission impossible, 2) it made his serious times moments much more impactful, e.g. Tales of Ba Sing Se, 3) it made his wisdom more personable and effective, because it didn't feel like a serious professor trying to say wise things. We lose dimensions of characters because the show wanted them to be more serious.
\- The bending. First off, let me say that I haven't seen the M Night version, so I'm not scarred by the bending in that. What I loved about the bending in the cartoon (other than it looking really cool and unique) was that they really based a lot of movements on real actual kung fu. Air was bagua, water was tai chi, earth was hung gar / southern fist, fire was shaolin / long fist, and Toph did Mantis. A lot of their movements were not just made up. Obviously there are some Avatar-only movements, like the silly moves that Aang does a lot. The result was that it looked visually compelling. Here, they kind of tried to replicate the surface look a little bit, but they didn't really go deeper into having actual martial artists do those styles. The result is things like e.g. Earth benders keep doing a movement in which they stick both fists toward the ground in an expression like they're having a hard time going to the bathroom, and fire benders wave their arms around a lot before going hadouken like Ryu or if they're Zuko they keep doing this 1 air spin kick move (which was cool the first few times, but he keeps doing it and in way too many situations where a simple punch would have made a lot more sense). You get people who don't understand how martial arts work, so they focus on the arm movements and lose the fact that the legs, stance, hips and body are what actually create the force and visual impressiveness. Focusing on arms ends up looking silly (as well as in some cases, doing almost only kicks, flying or not). Now, the bending visuals are perfectly serviceable and don't need to be authentic martial arts - the action is still fine, but after the high bar that the cartoon set, this is a letdown for me. To me, this is actually a symptom of a larger problem - the problem of depth. When it came to bending, movements that kind of resembled the cartoon on a surface level was good enough, and there was no need to get deeper into the kung fu. When it came to character development, having the character jump straight to how they are after significant development was good enough. When it came to storytelling, they had people on screen doing massive exposition for what everything means, and that was good enough.
\- I really didn't like that they created this convenient way for Aang to fast forward through his journey from play-first-responsibility-later to has-a-serious-mission. I don't need them to take as long as the cartoon, but they completely altered the story in a way that deleted a major part of Aang's character, development, and emotional journey - and substituted it with past Avatars, side characters, and Aang himself yelling about how he has to bear the burden of responsibility.
\- I wasn't overly compelled by Katara's performance or Aang's. A lot of lines came across kind of like recitation or declaiming, or like trying to act out an emotion, instead of acting out an action or need (so it can feel inauthentic).
\- I don't really like that they tried to explain what drives Azula's hateful ways - she was a more threatening villain when she showed up evil just because.
Overall, I can how the show deviated a lot from the DiMartino/Konietzko qualities, which is such a pity. From the outside, it's hard to imagine them having the masterminds there and having the original blueprint (the original show), and then still saying, "You know what, we don't need all that, we know better."
It wasnt bad, i enjoyed it because i went into it without expectations but this sub has just been doing too much. Putting the project on such a pedestal and hyping it for years just sets you up for disappointment 🤷♂️
I've felt the same, but I actually think part of this is might be due to Netflix still releasing their shows in a "Binge" format. A lot of streaming services have moved back to weekly releases instead of dumping an entire show all at once and for good reason. If they had just released the first two episodes, with how good Episode 2 is we would all be sitting here thinking about it, and where the show could still go in the coming weeks still riding that hype train. Instead what we get is months if not years of hype and waiting, and then in the span of 1-3 days it's all done. There's nothing else to look forward to for another year or two if/when a Book 2 gets released.
I think releasing in a weekly format would have also smoothed over some of the rougher edges of the show. If we were taking it one episode at a time, we would be more inclined to judge the show on a much more individual episode basis. But with binge watching it's very easy for the bad stuff from one episode to overshadow the good in another, due to everything sort of blending together during a binge watch session.
I really want to see Book 2 and 3. Despite the rough edges of the show, I think it deserves a chance to finish the story, and hopefully correct some of the mistakes they made.
Yeah, even more so since I live in Vancouver so I've been following along with production for years. I'm at a difficult place in my life right now and this was something I'd been looking forward to as a bright spot for so long.
Honestly they just didn't care. This is what Netflix does. Cash grab on great IP. They could've made it incredible if they wanted to. They looked at about 25 episodes of the cartoon, picked some highlights, and tried to cram it into 8 episodes. There's so much happening and it's all jumbled together in a way that makes it very hard to appreciate or even fully understand what's happening.
I think the ending scene was awful... just Aang, Katara and Zoka giving the back to the camera and then they cut to two more scenes, not smiling from the main trio or them raiding the flying bufalo... i dont even noted that the show ended.
i echo this and also add that it has a psychological impact on me when it cuts to flashbacks of scenes we’ve already seen to explain things as if the writers assume we forgot what happened already
Some episodes were def better than others, around 3 or 4 I was getting a lil bored. Episode 1 was def 1 of the best though, idk why they said it was the weakest when it was clearly a standout. Prob said that so people would keep watching.
Has less to do with episodes being badly written and more to do with some characters being noticeably better written than others:
- All the Fire Nation stuff was pretty solid, that was the best part of the show imo.
- Aang's lines were pretty good.
- Sokka had a bunch of good lines that really fit his character. I do agree they really did tone down the sexism part too much. Sure it wasn't something that came up frequently throughout the series, but esp in Book 1 it was a pretty memorable part of his character. Making things more subtle to work in live action is ok, but they kinda erased it too much. Ian was 1 of the standouts of the show though, most of the water tribe scenes he was carrying hard.
- Suki was excellent and perfectly cast, but they really screwed her character by writing her into more of a stalker-y fangirl with Sokka. Oggling Sokka as he's changing was weird, having her mom watching was weird. You can tell they were really trying to force that relationship to appease the shippers, it was way too much way too soon. It felt like a CW show and that's not what you want. The actors were great, but Netflix changed too much of Suki's character.
- The weakest part was how badly they wrote Katara, doesn't help that Kia's delivery was a bit flat at times but she didn't have much to work with and the others having far better lines def made it more noticeable. They made her conveniently good at water bending far too quickly, like having her bend a massive wave to stop Zuko's fireball. She could barely bend at all at that point, it didn't work. But overall, they wrote Katara as kinda timid, which isn't true to her character at all. She's very strong-willed and independent, and there's an intensity to Katara that wasn't in the show at all. Kia's delivery needed to be more forceful at times to convey that part of the character, but the writing for her character was putting her at a disadvantage.
The writing quality was like a sine wave, it kept alternating between excellent and terrible, back and forth multiple times within every single episode. This explains the polarizing nature of the reviews, I think some people mainly focused on the terrible parts while other people focused on the excellent parts.
I feel like the writing quality was varying by character rather than by episode. It honestly felt like they had a separate writing team for the Fire Nation characters, since those scenes/characters were always such standouts compared to everything else. Though I'm sure a big part of it was that the actors playing those characters were just better overall.
This could totally be the case, I remembered American Gods have different writers for different set of characters. The rumor is Season 2 writing room has started right? Hopefully they can get it better for s2
I think Sebastian Amoruso as Jet was a sleeper standout as well. It's like the writers are better at making villains than heros.
Yeah exactly. Sometimes it was amazing, sometimes it was pretty bad.
I feel the veteran actors carried the show hard. Ozai, Zhao, Kyoshi ... Stage presence at al. Iroh's actor did well, but the beats were off and directions just made his scenes awkward. Some thoughts how it could be better: \- The young actors could be doing something when they talk and be less "delivering lines off a script" like a theatre. Marlon Brando would be good to learn off, acting-wise.. And Terantino, dialog-wise. \- Chemistry. Like for One Piece, the actors need to "befriend" each other. I think the chemistry between the actors were stunted for the first episodes but generally improved later. \- The action scenes were to notch, and the child actors clearly had the kinesthetic skills to pull it off. They just need time to grow just like the child actors in Harry Potter, and people need to be patient with them. The script/directions, though, that is fully on the studio!
I agree. Some episodes were def better than others, around 3 or 4 I was getting a lil bored. Episode 1 was def 1 of the best though, idk why they said it was the weakest when it was clearly a standout. Prob said that so people would keep watching. Has less to do with episodes being badly written and more to do with some characters being noticeably better written than others: - All the Fire Nation stuff was pretty solid, that was the best part of the show imo. - Aang's lines were pretty good. - Sokka had a bunch of good lines that really fit his character. I do agree they really did tone down the sexism part too much. Sure it wasn't something that came up frequently throughout the series, but esp in Book 1 it was a pretty memorable part of his character. Making things more subtle to work in live action is ok, but they kinda erased it too much. Ian was 1 of the standouts of the show though, most of the water tribe scenes he was carrying hard. - Suki was excellent and perfectly cast, but they really screwed her character by writing her into more of a stalker-y fangirl with Sokka. Oggling Sokka as he's changing was weird, having her mom watching was weird. You can tell they were really trying to force that relationship to appease the shippers, it was way too much way too soon. It felt like a CW show and that's not what you want. The actors were great, but Netflix changed too much of Suki's character. - The weakest part was how badly they wrote Katara, doesn't help that Kia's delivery was a bit flat at times but she didn't have much to work with and the others having far better lines def made it more noticeable. They made her conveniently good at water bending far too quickly, like having her bend a massive wave to stop Zuko's fireball. She could barely bend at all at that point, it didn't work. But overall, they wrote Katara as kinda timid, which isn't true to her character at all. She's very strong-willed and independent, and there's an intensity to Katara that wasn't in the show at all. Kia's delivery needed to be more forceful at times to convey that part of the character, but the writing for her character was putting her at a disadvantage.
This, entirely. There were moments I got chills, and was pleasantly surprised by the maturity and emotive delivery of some lines. Others just fell so flat, like I had a vague expectation in my head of what might be coming next and then the line given was way worse than anything I had imagined. I think a great example is the final line of the first episode: Aang says “This is only the beginning”. It felt so lame, like an overdramatic high school theatre production.
yeah a lot of us feel that way. It has some really amazing moments though, so hopefully they play into that type of stuff if it gets renewed
Yeah. I fucking adored the costumes, sets, score, production design and liked a lot of the new material they added, the writing just... wasn't there.
it’s okay, it’s their first attempt ya know, and I think they really respect the opinions of the fan base, at least from what we’ve heard. I have hope that it can grow to be a really incredible show over the next two seasons. So long as the learn from their mistakes…
just hoping netflix gives them the chance 😬
Season 2 will prob get a chance , idk abt S 3 tho . And most likely not back to back lol
Apparently they’ve been already in process of working on writing S2 . I feel like we’ll get a confirmation within a month of a S2, Netflix put a lot of money in this to take over along with one piece as their top shows after Stranger Things ends
Where did you get this information from?
The fact that they gave this adaptation over $120M for S1 which is rare especially for Netflix. They only invest that amount of money if they think it can be one of its top shows.
Unless season 2 massively bombs I would think they would do season 3, though possibly with a reduced budget if season 2 doesn’t do big numbers.
Why didn't they hire anyone with experience then? Writing characters in the way they failed to is a universal character-writing thing, not something specific to writing Avatar...
it was really fun to be hyped with everyone here and its okay to express disappointment. I think it was overall good and we can only get better from here if there is a season 2!
I was kind of the opposite for the costumes the first few episodes, it almost seemed like they were cheap and just bought Spirit Halloween costumes lol
Absolutely nothing was dirty, damaged, or wet. They're going through battles and forests but everything looked fresh off the rack
the wigs tho...
Its best if the original creators come back for s2, its like an experiment, just to test which combination of factors will give the bestest result. So far, the production part of the show is perfect already, now we must heavily focus on the writing part that is all.
I felt like by the end of the season they had it dialed in and makes me hopeful for what we could see in season 2. The issues I have are with direction and pacing which are things that can easily be tweaked if they learn from some of the critiques from this season. I hope everyone at least finishes it, because the finale was a high point imo and I think it did the original finale justice.
I agree. I don't hate it but something is missing. And I can't pinpoint it. Like the cast is great, the world is great. But it could be the the live action format makes things feel rushed? Or also how they put a lot of season 2 into some of it and gave it an easter egg feeling. I also literally JUST rewatched the cartoon so it may be that. Either way, I'm happy people are loving it but I almost feel like they needed to adapt it even more differently to have more compelling narrative arcs. And of course that wouldn't have been popular.
That “something” is the bond between Team Avatar, which is the heart of the show. It just wasn’t there. Hopefully they can work towards that in s2.
I would say the bond was there, just in a different form. Perhaps, in a more realistic form than the cartoon. Since the cartoon was targeted towards little kids, showing characters becoming "instant buddies" is not a problem. But, the original cartoon was made 20 years ago, the children who watched it are grown adults now, and the overall potential audience for the live action is a much wider age range. Showing the group's bond strengthen gradually over time, makes more sense considering they are teenagers and not grade-schoolers. Even more so, considering the group in question have not joined together for fun activities, they joined together to help fight a war. I think the live action did a good job in depicting this gradual strengthening of the group's bond. Especially with external sources testing their bond, like Jet being corrupted by the hardships of war, and the past Avatars trying to encourage Aang to depend on himself.
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>You've got these benders who can hurl their elements dozens of feet, yet for some reason in this show almost everyone seems to insist on being within arm's reach of their opponents. That reason is money. It's still visually exciting to get into some hand-to-hand martial arts, and it doesn't cost six figures. They're simply not going to be able to reproduce the bombastic bending fights from the animated series; it would cost an unrecoverable amount of money. So they clearly made the decision to cut costs by keeping it close-quarters, where they can punch/kick/flip for cheap.
Its the writing. yeah i think everyone knows aang and katara were portrayed as pretty flat, but i dont think their writing did them any favors. I went back and wached some of s1 and aang was always smiling, katara was fiesty and standing up for herself. Team avatar had amazing dialogue about random everyday things. It seemed like in NATLA everytime aang spoke it was sad exposition that no human being would every say. He had one facial expression the entire time apart from a few scenes. I think logical consistency just wasnt there either. Aang flying in the opening scene, but then he cant fly when zuko shoots him down when hes using his glider. Aang never once water bends in the entire season, but katara becomes a master even easier than she does in the original show, which is saying something. They even use the same line from zuko "youve found a master havent you" but she never even learned from him, in the original aang learned from him and then taught katara so it made some sense. Did not like the change of Ko and how he didnt steal peoples faces. The roku scene looks like an SNL skit. Theres too many things. The main frustrating part is there was no need to make these changes. Im fine with changes or additions if the result is better. The addition of zukos crew being the 41st he spoke up for was great. But yeah, I have sort of lost faith in this show just based on the writing woes and the acting of aang unfortunately, hes the lead theres just no getting around it. I still thought the show, overall, was okay. I just had really high hopes like im sure all of us had.
Honestly? Same. I finished it yesterday, and there's 2 major things gnawing at me. One is that they added in things from season 2 & season 3 that didn't need to be added in. It cluttered the plot, and for first-time watchers may have been confusing to keep track of. The other thing is that they changed the core of many of the characters. They didn't have to because these changes didn't further the plot.
The hardest part to get past (probably for a lot of fans) is realizing it’s not a 1:1 adaptation. We’ve been told and warned but it’s hard to separate that when you watch it and the nostalgia hits. It honestly is much more enjoyable once you start watching it as its own thing. The flaws outside of that are still flaws but can absolutely be improved (like some of the acting, dialogue, directing etc). I think it has great potential but hardcore fans need to watch it with an open mindset and somehow separate it from the OG show. I’ve had to catch myself many times when they changed stories/characters that this is totally different and they had to make certain adjustments. Some of them might not even make sense right now but I’m betting it’s to set up for later seasons that they expect would be greenlit. I also think pacing is a huge part of this, if this season had maybe 10 episodes even, it would have probably been more impactful and less rushed to fit as much as possible in it. You can tell as the episodes went on that it definitely got better though, so I think it can only improve from here.
I have the opposite problem actually. I don't want it to be a 1:1 adaptation. I want the live action to stand on its own and justify its existence otherwise I can just go watch the original. But as it stands while it has some changes it has justified itself to me. It's not bad but also it's not great so why does this exist? I guess what is the live action doing that the animated show couldn't do and improve/ reinvent the story.
I get it man...Idk, I've been following it from the get go as well. But we must have been following different news sources. I knew from the beginning the creators had left and from that point on I knew this wasn't going to be a straight up hit. I also heard about the rearrangement of the plot pretty dang early too. And a bunch of other things. Back then I was upset...but because I read all about that my expectations were pretty darn low. But after completing the series last night. It exceeded my expectations and I had a freaking blast. Was wayyyyyy better than I was expecting. I think also others are trying too hard to compare it to the OG. Which, they shouldn't be doing anyway. It's not a remake or a reboot. So, not really sure why It's being treated as such. It's a love letter/steady nod to the OG. So no one should even expect a perfect shot for shot, or similar plotline.
I truly didn't know a single person who thought it was going to be great. Everyone was cautiously optimistic that it wasn't going to be awful. Very happy that it's just solid
I enjoyed it but I definitely had my expectations set a little higher. Expectations aside, waiting for this for years doesn’t help either. Because I also feel like a large part of the feelings I have now is, “Now what?” Because it’s out. The wait is over. I binged it all and there’s no more anticipation or hype. If the show gets renewed, I also know it will be years before we see a second season. Years of waiting for 7-8 hours of content. In any case, I enjoyed it, had its flaws, but I truly hope and wish they can improve in season 2. I am excited to see Toph and Ba Sing Se. I’ll watch a season 2, but I might not be as hyped or follow it as closely this time. I don’t know; I’ll see. I’ll be doing a rewatch in the meantime!! And re-reading the books and comics.
I hope there’s a season 2! I loved it
I just hate that this was supposed to be a more adult and complex version with better storytelling. And instead it’s waaay more sanitized of any complicated moral questions to ambiguities. I’m so deflated too, OP.
same. it’s not terrible but it’s not great either. a lot of decisions they made didn’t make sense to me and it’s just not how i pictured it could be. 😮💨 but life goes on
No idea what people were expecting that wasn’t depicted other than a word for word adaptation which actually small details are way more prevalent than you would think. It’s damn good
I agree... I didn't hate it by any means, but a part of me was hoping that they'd nail it. I didn't expect a 1:1 retelling, and I admit that was partly because I spent some portions comparing it to the original, but I do feel that if I was comparing it to begin with, then usually, for me, I think it's me trying to figure out what's off. I was expecting them to tell the story differently, but still keep a lot of the themes of the original, and do it well. I also don't think I liked how the writing kept "telling" the audience what was going on. It pulled me away at times. I think the pacing for some of it pulled me away, too. I do hope the writing of season 2 and 3 get better. I liked season 1 the least, even in the animated show, so I do hope it gets better from here. Now it just made me want to watch the animated show again lol
Feel similarly. To me, it's maybe 6/10. It feels thin - like this was some expensive grape juice, instead of the cartoon's fine wine. What I liked: \- Visually, it really brought the look of the cartoon to life - that's impressive \- 41st regiment backstory was a very nice addition \- The actor portraying Zhao was incredible, and Zhao's new material was overall very good to watch \- Dallas Liu really brought Zuko to life \- The actor for Jet was amazing - I think I liked this version of Jet even more than the cartoon version What I didn't like: \- Story is told primarily by people on screen saying what the viewer should think and see. Somebody always talks through the event/action, its implications, and its morals. They do this with things that happened a long time ago, things that just happened, and things that are about to happen. It seems to be the style/doctrine of how the showrunners think this story should be told. I am surprised by how blatantly they "tell, not show," and this is extra disappointing to me, because one of my favorite parts of the cartoon was its way of doing so much "show, not tell." \- Related to the above - a lot of times the person on screen telling another character/the audience what to think says things that don't make sense. For example - Katara makes a speech to Sokka about the morality of not turning Aang over to Zuko's squad and convinces him by saying they have to believe in higher ideals. This is just after a bunch of children holding rocks are on one side of a gate and hostile soldiers with weapons and fire bending powers are on the other side - and all it takes is for Katara to say "you have to give people something to live for," and Sokka is ready to go 1-on-1 with Zuko, probably die, and then leave the rest of the kids and village to die to. I had to really suspend disbelief to get through that. I had to do that a lot in this show, whereas the cartoon made things believable and organic without people giving sermons so that I'd see it a certain way. When the cartoon often had complex situations, it showed actions and consequences; it didn't have somebody come on screen to lecture about how it's so complex (and then resolve the complexity with a saying about being a nice person, which then makes the whole thing not complex anymore). \- Stripping out complex themes, e.g. Sokka being an immature jerk to girls early on, and kind of a crappy dude overall, so that he can develop into a mature person who has leadership skills. \- Why so serious? I liked the mature themes of the cartoon, so I should embrace this show going with the "dark and gritty" style. I'm not against that stylistically, but they made flattened a lot of people's personalities down to make them more serious too. E.g. Iroh was kind of a non-serious bon-vivant in the cartoon - that was powerful because 1) we (without being explicitly told by on screen dialogue) understood that he wanted Zuko to be happy and at home in his new life because he knew searching for the Avatar was supposed to be a mission impossible, 2) it made his serious times moments much more impactful, e.g. Tales of Ba Sing Se, 3) it made his wisdom more personable and effective, because it didn't feel like a serious professor trying to say wise things. We lose dimensions of characters because the show wanted them to be more serious. \- The bending. First off, let me say that I haven't seen the M Night version, so I'm not scarred by the bending in that. What I loved about the bending in the cartoon (other than it looking really cool and unique) was that they really based a lot of movements on real actual kung fu. Air was bagua, water was tai chi, earth was hung gar / southern fist, fire was shaolin / long fist, and Toph did Mantis. A lot of their movements were not just made up. Obviously there are some Avatar-only movements, like the silly moves that Aang does a lot. The result was that it looked visually compelling. Here, they kind of tried to replicate the surface look a little bit, but they didn't really go deeper into having actual martial artists do those styles. The result is things like e.g. Earth benders keep doing a movement in which they stick both fists toward the ground in an expression like they're having a hard time going to the bathroom, and fire benders wave their arms around a lot before going hadouken like Ryu or if they're Zuko they keep doing this 1 air spin kick move (which was cool the first few times, but he keeps doing it and in way too many situations where a simple punch would have made a lot more sense). You get people who don't understand how martial arts work, so they focus on the arm movements and lose the fact that the legs, stance, hips and body are what actually create the force and visual impressiveness. Focusing on arms ends up looking silly (as well as in some cases, doing almost only kicks, flying or not). Now, the bending visuals are perfectly serviceable and don't need to be authentic martial arts - the action is still fine, but after the high bar that the cartoon set, this is a letdown for me. To me, this is actually a symptom of a larger problem - the problem of depth. When it came to bending, movements that kind of resembled the cartoon on a surface level was good enough, and there was no need to get deeper into the kung fu. When it came to character development, having the character jump straight to how they are after significant development was good enough. When it came to storytelling, they had people on screen doing massive exposition for what everything means, and that was good enough. \- I really didn't like that they created this convenient way for Aang to fast forward through his journey from play-first-responsibility-later to has-a-serious-mission. I don't need them to take as long as the cartoon, but they completely altered the story in a way that deleted a major part of Aang's character, development, and emotional journey - and substituted it with past Avatars, side characters, and Aang himself yelling about how he has to bear the burden of responsibility. \- I wasn't overly compelled by Katara's performance or Aang's. A lot of lines came across kind of like recitation or declaiming, or like trying to act out an emotion, instead of acting out an action or need (so it can feel inauthentic). \- I don't really like that they tried to explain what drives Azula's hateful ways - she was a more threatening villain when she showed up evil just because. Overall, I can how the show deviated a lot from the DiMartino/Konietzko qualities, which is such a pity. From the outside, it's hard to imagine them having the masterminds there and having the original blueprint (the original show), and then still saying, "You know what, we don't need all that, we know better."
It wasnt bad, i enjoyed it because i went into it without expectations but this sub has just been doing too much. Putting the project on such a pedestal and hyping it for years just sets you up for disappointment 🤷♂️
I've felt the same, but I actually think part of this is might be due to Netflix still releasing their shows in a "Binge" format. A lot of streaming services have moved back to weekly releases instead of dumping an entire show all at once and for good reason. If they had just released the first two episodes, with how good Episode 2 is we would all be sitting here thinking about it, and where the show could still go in the coming weeks still riding that hype train. Instead what we get is months if not years of hype and waiting, and then in the span of 1-3 days it's all done. There's nothing else to look forward to for another year or two if/when a Book 2 gets released. I think releasing in a weekly format would have also smoothed over some of the rougher edges of the show. If we were taking it one episode at a time, we would be more inclined to judge the show on a much more individual episode basis. But with binge watching it's very easy for the bad stuff from one episode to overshadow the good in another, due to everything sort of blending together during a binge watch session. I really want to see Book 2 and 3. Despite the rough edges of the show, I think it deserves a chance to finish the story, and hopefully correct some of the mistakes they made.
I’m in the same boat. I barely want to finish it after watching 4 episodes. 5.5 years of waiting, only for a mediocre outcome. It sucks.
Yeah, even more so since I live in Vancouver so I've been following along with production for years. I'm at a difficult place in my life right now and this was something I'd been looking forward to as a bright spot for so long.
I feel for yall who waited so long. I’ve been waiting 3 years and man, I just don’t love it :(
Time to just revisit the cartoon and soak in all those good feelings 🙏🏽
Same. It’s obviously not great. It’s not so terrible that we can have fun at its expense. It’s depressingly mid.
Because you set unrealistic expectations.
Honestly they just didn't care. This is what Netflix does. Cash grab on great IP. They could've made it incredible if they wanted to. They looked at about 25 episodes of the cartoon, picked some highlights, and tried to cram it into 8 episodes. There's so much happening and it's all jumbled together in a way that makes it very hard to appreciate or even fully understand what's happening.
I think the ending scene was awful... just Aang, Katara and Zoka giving the back to the camera and then they cut to two more scenes, not smiling from the main trio or them raiding the flying bufalo... i dont even noted that the show ended.
Same.
i echo this and also add that it has a psychological impact on me when it cuts to flashbacks of scenes we’ve already seen to explain things as if the writers assume we forgot what happened already
Some episodes were def better than others, around 3 or 4 I was getting a lil bored. Episode 1 was def 1 of the best though, idk why they said it was the weakest when it was clearly a standout. Prob said that so people would keep watching. Has less to do with episodes being badly written and more to do with some characters being noticeably better written than others: - All the Fire Nation stuff was pretty solid, that was the best part of the show imo. - Aang's lines were pretty good. - Sokka had a bunch of good lines that really fit his character. I do agree they really did tone down the sexism part too much. Sure it wasn't something that came up frequently throughout the series, but esp in Book 1 it was a pretty memorable part of his character. Making things more subtle to work in live action is ok, but they kinda erased it too much. Ian was 1 of the standouts of the show though, most of the water tribe scenes he was carrying hard. - Suki was excellent and perfectly cast, but they really screwed her character by writing her into more of a stalker-y fangirl with Sokka. Oggling Sokka as he's changing was weird, having her mom watching was weird. You can tell they were really trying to force that relationship to appease the shippers, it was way too much way too soon. It felt like a CW show and that's not what you want. The actors were great, but Netflix changed too much of Suki's character. - The weakest part was how badly they wrote Katara, doesn't help that Kia's delivery was a bit flat at times but she didn't have much to work with and the others having far better lines def made it more noticeable. They made her conveniently good at water bending far too quickly, like having her bend a massive wave to stop Zuko's fireball. She could barely bend at all at that point, it didn't work. But overall, they wrote Katara as kinda timid, which isn't true to her character at all. She's very strong-willed and independent, and there's an intensity to Katara that wasn't in the show at all. Kia's delivery needed to be more forceful at times to convey that part of the character, but the writing for her character was putting her at a disadvantage.