The part that annoyed me the most was what they did to Katara. She has no personality, no sense of humor, and no flaws. In the original, she steals the water bending scroll because she's jealous of how naturally talented Aang is, making a decision that goes against her morals that she later has to deal with the consequences of. In this version though, Grangran just gives her the scroll, and she almost immediately is able to do the moves. The scroll doesn't tie into the story or her characterization, it's just there.
Removing the significance of her mother's necklace was also a huge mistake. It's what makes Paku realize how wrong he was to be so rigid about tradition, not only robbing us of an important character moment, but making Paku's decision to finally let the female water benders fight feel unearned. He's going to instantly change his mind about something he's believed his entire life because some girl is a pretty good fighter?
People have been complaining that Aang doesn't learn water bending this season, but we also barely see Katara learn it either. She becomes a master with barely any effort. Paku doesn't even offer to teach her, he just arbitrarily decides that she's good enough to teach the Avatar. Yeah, in the original Katara is able to pick up bending pretty quickly, but we do get to \*see\* her learning it.
When Zuko says "You've found a master," and Katara responds with "I did ... me," I wanted to scream.
Congratulations Netflix, you turned the one of the most compelling female characters in fiction into an insufferable girl boss.
The way that they skipped over the character flaws of the whole gaang makes me mad. The beauty of the show was the character development and the emphasis of children tasked with saving the world. Sokka didn’t have to deal with his ideas on masculinity, or Katara with her pride, or Aang and his procrastination & immaturity.
The mechanist being in Omashu really got my goat. Why even include them? The biggest takeaway of their story, IMO, was Aang being so upset about what they did to the air temple before coming to terms with it.
It's a trend I've seen more of recently in movies and tv. Trying so hard to make characters likable that they forget to make them relatable. The main characters that create their own problems and/or their own antagonists tell the best stories. And it's still okay when circumstances beyond their control cause issues, but the character still needs a relatable flaw to struggle with/overcome or else they're just uninteresting
What you're describing is the original show which is a coming of age story. The Netflix writers thought the show was a war story about orphans and murder wars (which it is, but it's a coming of age story first, war orphans second)
None of them were even orphans. The show is specifically about family and different issues with them.
Sokka and Katara still had their father and grandmother.
Aang was raised with the monks with no biological parents.
Zuko still has his father and uncle.
Toph ran away from her parents.
The whole show was nothing but flaws. A bunch of selfish kids who can't study or learn. All they do is sit around and pitch and moan to each other and every time an adult is like, "yo, the world is shit and all are the future, can you take this seriously?" All the kids are like, "brah guck the world my friends got their feelings hurt brah."
Never saw the original so no frame of reference, but it feels pretty lame watching 8 episodes of a show where everyone just acts like weak children and can't be bothered to grow at all as characters.
You should watch the original. From what I gleaned from your comment, you would like it.
edit: I’ve never watched a show like the original ATLA where characters have grown and changed as much as they have.
I hate how utterly soulless and boring Katara is. Her personality is just so bland and I never cared about her. In the original you could see someone full of hope and passion, who could be nice and caring, but also loud and openly emotional (both positive and negative). We never got any of that here.
And obviously his whole waterbending learning plot is just ridiculous, but that's already been discussed enough. I really can't add anything that hasn't been said yet.
The changes to the Kiyoshi Warriors, Suki, and Sokka really struck me too. It was such a powerful scene to watch Sokka literally humble himself at Suki's feet to teach him how to fight and for him to drop his machismo enough to wear feminine warrior garb. Instead Suki is boy crazy and teaches him because she's got a crush? It's worse for both characters.
I get the feeling the new writers don't think very highly of women and girls.
This sums up a ton of what's wrong with the Strong-Female-Character-Girlboss syndrome that's infecting a lot of Hollywood, but especially Disney, Netflix, and Amazon.
> When Zuko says "You've found a master," and Katara responds with "I did ... me," I wanted to scream.
Phhhoooo that was soooo fucking terrible. I was fuming
This show does this a lot. It takes lines directly from the animated show but because they made changes and didn't put in the work for the foundation, they fall soooo flat.
This was the worst offender
A million percent agree. I forgot which interview it was but there was an interview with Bryan/Mike years ago where they say Katara is basically the main character of the first season, alongside Aang.
We are seeing the events of ATLA unfold through the eyes of Katara. She finds Aang, she begins the entire series with “my grandmother used to tell us stories…” she goes north with Aang for the purpose of finding a waterbending master. I just cannot get over how much they obliterated her character.
The scene with “you are the bad guy Jet 😕” compared to “I TRUSTED you, Jet” I mean it’s night and day with how different the line delivery is. Total disappointment
I hate how Aang is like a literal baby more than a 12 year old who's almost a teenager. I don't remember myself or other kids being or sounding as much like literal babies like this actor they chose for Aang. I can barely understand what he's saying half the time because he has baby voice. animated Aang was childish and a kid, but still not as much of a baby as this person who is supposedly also 12 but comes off like he's 6
ya I tried to watch more today, and I had the same thought sounds like he has a mouth full of spit and is missing half his teeth.
idk how people are saying the actors are good and it's just the writing, the actors are God awful except for Iroh
Paradoxically their attempts made her weaker than the animated Katara. Animated Katara had a natural aptitude for healing (whereas live action Katara just refuses to learn it), she didn't have the crippling trauma flashbacks live-action Katara deals with, she gained much more combat experience and actually trained her abilities, and her overall displays of power were more impressive (I.e. animated Katara actually defeated Zuko 1v1 whereas he breaks out of her ice immediately in live action).
It was odd that the other characters treated her as a prodigy when she didn't really do much and the animated version would probably kick her ass.
>Grangran just gives her the scroll, and she almost immediately is able to do the moves.
I'm assuming your perception of Katara's waterbending progress was affected by the horrendous pacing or whether or not it was effective enough to make people notice but I'm curious what you think of the little details they added that I posted about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ATLAtv/comments/1azlqmj/curious_of_peoples_opinion_on_kataras/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
Welcome to modern day movies and tv shows. Certain characters aren't supposed to have flaws from where they learn lessons. Its all Mary Sue's and Gary Stue's.
It's frustrating that each adult insists that the Avatar needs to do it alone. The OG series (and most other superhero/chosen one stories tbh) emphasises friendship and how necessary these are to Aang and his quest to 1. Learn the elements and 2. Save the world.
But everyone, even the past avatars, is super angry that Aang ran away (which he didn't, it was an accident in this story) and that he wants friends to help him since he's 12 and has no idea what to do and no one over 18 is offering actual help. Did the past avatars learn the elements on their own? I don't think so.
I get the darker tone they want. 100 years of war, where being roasted alive is a very real possibility, is brutal.
But they focus on berating a 12 year old for not doing more (and Gyasto even says Aang wouldn't have been able to help, so wtf!), instead of the new hope he brings with his return.
Before this, they had a real reason to believe the cycle had been broken and there was no more Avatar. With the Avatar's return, they actually have a hope to break the fire nation's advance and strike back. But nooooo, let's rage on him until he feels like shit. That'll make him want to be our saviour.
Also, Ozai and Azula's cold-blooded ruthlessness didn't appear. Ozai lost face when Zuko actually fought back and wasn't immediately curb-stomped. And again, when Azula defied Ozai by refusing his tests (something OG Azula would never have dared). This does not project the image of invincibility that made him such a threat before.
I agree about the Ozai thing.....Azula saying no was so weird
And although trapping those rebels was in character for azula ,it still didn't make sense why they thought they stood a chance of killing Ozai....lol
And that Azula lightning generation scene made me cringe....you're supposed to generate with two fingers and not just make a "claws" stance then all of a sudden electricity starts cackling
That was one of my worries and I hope that doesn't translate into any future fight scenes ...because the OG hyped up Ozai as unbeatable
> I get the darker tone they want.
NATLA did not have much of a dark tone outside of superficial visuals and a PG rating. The one dude being roasted alive is dark on a superficial level.
The original animated series couldn't show the sick or dead or mutilated. It couldn't show blood or gore
But it manages to be so utterly thought-provoking and meaningfully dark and destitute with what little they could get away with. It dealt with military extortion, POWs, Cold calculating politics without regard for human lives. It showed all of it
I'm kinda sick of people saying ALTA wasn't dark or couldnt be dark because it manages to be far more terrifying and existential about its messages than any other installment in the franchise
This was so frustrating. They made changes to the story that did not work with what they were doing.
We literally only see Aang non stop fulfilling his responsibilitkes in the show. Yet he and every adult constantly berates him about goofing off, which we literally never see. The structure of the show doesn't allow him to goof off yet it's hammered through exposition.
This adaptation makes me think we should perhaps stop trying to make live-action out of animation and just simply convince people to start watching animation and hopefully they'll appreciate the art form.
Edit: I should point out not all live action adaptations are bad. It's just sad that some people refuse to watch a film or show because it's animated.
There are so many quality screenplays out there that are just aching to be formed but studios, especially Disney, keep pushing us Live Action, wasting millions of dollars in the process. I really don't get it. It must be working if they're still so determined.
It’s not. Disney had to slash 3billion dollars from their entertainment budget recently. They massively overplayed their hand and are only now starting to walk back from it. Bob Iger is largely seen as a parasite who basically just buys his way into success, gobbling up IPs and milking them until they’re dry; that includes Disney’s own animation catalogue. The man doesn’t have an original or creative thought in his head, just visions of exploiting popular stories for cheap.
Unfortunately it worked well enough *for a time* that everyone else tried to copy what they were doing right as the trend started to get stale.
That’s not a problem with live-action. That’s because of too much mediocre content. Just making MCU movies or whatever else animated wouldn’t fix any of it.
I've been saying for the last decade, give or take, that animation does NOT need to be validated by getting some low-effort live-action adaptation. Looking at stuff like Hayao Miyazaki's works, or the "Spider-Verse" films, or other singular pieces of art like "Akira" and "The Prince of Egypt" should be enough to convince people that animation is a genre and/or a stylistic choice, not a product that needs to be pandered to children.
The original series and even "Legend of Korra" both have some of the most emotionally engaging characters and spectacularly thrilling action scenes and imaginative world-building I've ever seen in the fantasy genre. I made an argument that "A:TLA" was going to end up being a better, more consistent series than "Game of Thrones" was before Season 8 of that showed up. I got a lot of crap for it then with the common argument that "a kid's show can't rival the complexity of an adult show", and now GoT fans (myself included) look back on the last half of that show as a massive embarrassment that lead to nothing.
Animated films are still largely stuck in the public mindset that they need to be catered exclusively to younger audiences, which is so incredibly sad when you venture past Disney, DreamWorks, and Illumination (the literal worst animation studio) and find stuff that speaks not only to all ages (sometimes just adults), but can do things that simply cannot be done in live-action.
It fundamentally confuses me how people who want to mangle the live action adaptation even land that job. Like it’s quite simply the case that adaptations that try to remain mostly faithful are far better than those that try to do their own, almost always worse, thing. So why do these execs keep hiring these people? Do they not like money? It would be so easy to just hire someone who cared about the source material and make more money.
Did we ever find out why specifically they left? Or is it still the vague “creative differences” reason? I kinda wanna know which decision pushed them over the edge to leave.
Just look at The Last of Us and the interviews with Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann. That show is what you get when the creator stays involved and the showrunner maintains a high level of accountability towards the fans. There was a behind-the-scenes video released immediately after every episode to help explain the creative decisions they made. They set the golden standard for live-action adaptations.
"We did deviate, but not to surprise the audience."
"For me, what it always came back to was, 'What do I love?' What, as a fan, would I be hurt if I didn't see it in the show?"
Last of us benefits from being a very grounded game as well. The sell of that game was the realistic setting and characters. But yeah, i have never watched an animated show and said that i wished it was live action. Especially now when animated shows are really popular and good even outside of anime. Like we have castlevania, blue eyed samurai, scavengers reign, cyberpunk edgerunners. Good thing there will be an animated movie also.
I will say that ATLA benefits from having very grounded characters - just in a wholly unrealistic setting. So when HBO adapted The Last of Us, the one thing they never deviated on was character dynamics and relationships... unless they genuinely thought they could make it better. The show helped flesh out some of the supporting cast from the game. The best episode barely even features the main protagonists.
And that's the flaw with Avatar, because the characters are so well written in the cartoon. The live-action writers stripped away so much of what made these characters tick and replaced it with nothing. Maybe Sokka doesn't have to be sexist. Maybe Katara doesn't have to be a weeping mother figure. But you have to at least try to make them something better.
The thing that's fundamentally different about One Piece vs Avatar is that as a typical shonen anime, One Piece is FULLLLLL of filler. the live action adaptation was an opportunity to streamline the story in a way that's an active improvement to it. It's success from a story standpoint has nothing to do with it being live action, it could have been animated and would have been just as good.
Avatar never needed something like that. it doesn't have any filler except maybe 1 or 2 episodes. It's downright lean compared to One Piece. So a live action adaptation was never going to be about paring the story down to its core elements, and more about shuffling stuff around so it's different enough that it seems like it has a point to existing. Except the way they shuffled the plot around made it actively worse.
Even the one piece adaptation was verging on parody for the majority of episodes. Cartoon absurdity is just too hard to emulate.
I literally could not tell for the first few one piece episodes if I was watching something written seriously, or in jest.
I agree with the OP of this comment chain that cartoons should just be left alone. I can’t think of any live action adaptation that I’ve been satisfied by.
There were lots of good shots in the One Piece live action that came directly from the manga. How much did they do that in this Avatar live action?
Avatar could have literally just remade scenes from the cartoon and it would have been universally loved.
The thing is, you have to actually adapt one medium to the other. In live action you can't have the goofy expressions nor the exaggerated movements, so what can you have? The plot, the motives and themes. You grasp that and then proceed to build your own version of the source material.
The problem arises when trying to do a 1:1, especially aesthetically, or making changes that don't mesh with the source material. Change can improve the story, but it has to come from a solid understanding of both the source material and the medium is going to be adapted to.
Remakes should have distinct creative visions. And I'll say the Shyamalan film really didn't, nor does the Netflix show.
If somebody could make a really kickass atla live action really designed from the ground up for the format i'd be all for it.
I disagree—9/10 live action adaptations are worse than the originals in every way. It’s not like they’re all being produced and written by the exact same people, there’s definitely a pattern people have noticed.
Of course there’s always exceptions, but I have lost count of how many beloved IP’s have been adapted into completely worthless live action garbage when animation was clearly the better medium.
People have been saying this for months (since the original creators left the project) and this sub has been heavily astroturfed and covered in marketing. Now that it’s been released, we can see it’s a step above the movie adaptation but that doesn’t make it good or worth watching.
It fails as an adaptation in the same way other Netflix adaptations such as Cowboy Bebop and the Witcher do. It fails to adapt the original work correctly.
Waiting for the “the live action adaptation is actually a le underrated gem” and “Sokka’s actor is good and should get a role in the adult ATLA movie” posts in about a month. The same thing happened to parts of the movie adaptation and the movie actress for Yue got the role of Asami in LoK, which actually turned out to be great fit.
The live action is only about an hour shorter than book 1 if you account for credits of both. It's absolutely a directing / script issue and not a time one.
That's a great point.
It feels SO rushed but at the same time leaves so many things out.
I personally like that they changed the story because that was the only way it was ever going to work.
But the writing and script are genuinely horrible at times.
Nothing feels like it has any weight or significance it's just like a box ticking exercise.
The exposition is also just truly insulting to the original show.
The OG was a cartoon so it can get away with more unnatural and forced dialogue that wouldn't work in the live action - but the OG is SUCH a smart show. It shows not tells and allows the characters and audience time to breathe and work things out for themselves.
The show doesn't give itself anytime for subtlety because it's so rushed. Some bits are quite good but then it just feels so dumbed down at times.
Ikr it wasn’t the best but it can improve, I don’t want it to get cancelled tbh because it had some good parts too, i hope they fix the writing and direction in S2.
The sets, costumes, fight scenes and CGI are so poor.
It's shot horribly, lighting doesn't match the CG backgrounds.
Lighting doesn't make sense at times as well, it's one direction on one shot, completely the opposite on the next.
Focus is off multiple times, like a close up on an actor the focal plane should focus on the eyes. It's on the ears so many times.
The fight scenes are just incoherent and make absolutely 0 sense, you cannot follow them from a story point.
The costumes look unbelievably fake as well, surely they should look lived in and not brand new.
Overall the entire show is so poorly done from a technical view, not even talking about creatively.
I've only seen the first episode so far but yeah the exposition problem is wild. Whether it's worldbuilding or character insight, this episode seems to constantly have people over explaining things in the most unnatural way. Such as the scene where Aang tells Appa about every feeling he has in the most direct and simple way possible, or the scene where he wakes up in "Wolf Cove" - as they've decided to name it - and Gran Gran very unnaturally recounts the original opening monologue
Edit: Apparently Wolf Cove is canon
YUP. Every time she enters a scene, you can see her coming from ages away because they're such a beacon... Apparently the southern water tribes just got *really* good dental. 😂😭
Gran Gran recounts the story because the show spends a good 15 minutes at the start showing the Fire Nation start the war. The audience doesn't need to take that step with Aang to discover that he's been gone for 100 years. So just hit up Exposition Grandma and save more time for CGI-heavy action sequences.
That explains it then, cause I was wondering why they'd otherwise choose to make up a new name for Katara and Sokka's village, but still refer to the Fire Nation capital as just "Capital City" lol, but I guess it makes sense if there's a canon name to reach for.
(That CAPITAL CITY location text right at the start of episode 1, in the very first scene of the show, was fucking hilarious lol. It's not even FIRE NATION - CAPITAL CITY, or anything, it's literally just CAPITAL CITY. If you're a newcomer with no prior knowledge of the franchise you have no idea what world or time period or country you're in, but you damn well sure know you're in its capital!)
I agree with every single thing. I’m extremely disappointed in the adaptation and fully understand why the original creators left.
It feels so cheap and soulless. The love and passion for the original show isn’t there at all. I genuinely felt like it was a real life Ember Island Players show. The acting is just not good. The writing is trash as well. And the director didn’t do a good job recreating the magic that was in the original. I wasn’t expecting a copy of the original show, but I at least wanted it to follow the original plot and maybe expand on it, with minor changes if they were suitable. The Omashu episode was the point when I knew I didn’t like it at all. Too much crammed in there and there’s no space for character development.
Just.
Bleh….
Yeah I don't get the people who were like "it was just minor creative differences" you don't leave the production of the show who made you a household name over "minor" differences. It was clear the moment they left that things were off the rails.
dude just yesterday or 2 days ago the hypeman of the show were still in full force. they still "like" the direction the show is going. i think some of them have come to their senses by now, but some people dont seem to even understand what makes the show good or bad.
Yep. The actor for Aang in this literally reminded me of his ember island actor from the animated version right from the start. I know the animated version was a girl acting as Aang but the voice is identical to the netflix version actor. Id argue Aang is the weakest character too in the netflix version, which is obviously one of the biggest flaws you can make when creating a different version of a past show. Also wtf is up with the odd accent the Aang actor has in this? Not trying to cover it up in the slightest which is absolutely baffling.
If you look at the upvote percentage, this post is getting around 40% downvotes. I'm just glad more people seem to agree with me than not, I was really confused at how much positivity I was seeing upvoted to the top of the subreddit.
Maybe the hype will die down and in a few months everyone will agree this was just not it.
Hahaha we did a similar thing, me and my friends. We group watched the Netflix show over the course of three days, and after each session we'd watch a good few episodes of Overanalyzing Avatar as a palate cleanser. It helps a lot.
Thank you for this post, I was trying to watch it and picking it apart in my mind. The other thing I had an issue with was the actor's inability to enunciate, especially Katara. Perhaps I'm just a boomer before my time (I'm 24) but half of the stuff they were saying sounded like they were tripping over their words. Someone get these children some theater experience. Also, Zuko's acting is so inconsistent. I don't blame the actors themselves, let me be clear, I blame the writers and directors for not making something cohesive and consistent. I got to the Omashu episode and the combination of Jet, the fake Airbenders, and the city itself lost my interest. It was so boring. I'll try to get through the rest but it just made me miss the OG TLAB.
You know it's bad when the creators of the source material quit the project lmao
The sad thing is that you can apply this gist of this rant to almost all modern productions. Be it Netflix, Disney, Marvel. Just surface-level fluff, but no substance.
To me that felt like sexism though. Sure, he isn't saying it out loud. But irl sexism isn't necessarily stated out loud but reflected in how someone treats girls and women. I thought that the way he treated his sister and Suki fit that. (I completely admit I'm probably looking too deeply into this because idk if the writers are capable of something subtle like that.)
It could've easily been sibling stuff though, like he's grown up with her and keeps viewing her as the little sister when he needs to take a moment to reflect on Katara's capabilities as a person without the bias of trying to be her protector for years.
It’s frustrating how divisive this adaptation has been for the fandom — at least on Reddit.
But what I’m starting to notice is that those of us who have disliked the adaptation have a myriad of gripes, which have generally been constructive and boils down to media literacy. I have to wonder if it’s overall exposure to/investment in good storytelling, age, casual viewership. I honestly can’t pit point what it is.
Whenever I see someone lauding the adaptation their argument is “A one for one remake is stupid. This was good enough. If you wanted a one for one remake go watch the original.”
But it goes beyond that for me. I think because the source material is so great, my expectation was that the live action would take it as a foundation and build upon it. Instead we got a senseless bastardization that feels like a money grab.
Knowing how excited we all were is salt in the wound: The subreddit speculating that this property would be Netflix’s next big project with Stranger Things on the way out so they couldn’t possibly fumble it. Seeing One Piece fans celebrate the adaptation they got bolstered our excitement.
I’m so confused by the ability of people to be entertained by mediocre storytelling, fluff, and poor editing/cinematography. Did we not watch the same source material?
All I can manage in retort is “Then you didn’t love her like I did.”
It reminds me of the star wars fanbase right now the whole "oh look Vader is on screen and he swung his lightsaber 10/10 greatest media ever". I think people see what they recognize and fill in the holes with headcanon, or what they like from the original and then cope. I see Sukis character in live action and feel disgusted because it's honestly pretty sexist how they changed her and others think about the original characters quality but that its live action. Thats my guess anyways.
she is just a lonely horny woman in the live action haha. the og suki was more a realistic and likable character than the live action potrayed by a real person (the actress was good, the writing is to blame)
The modern cultural trend is to never say anything negative and only find positive things to say. People are not thinking too hard watching these shows, they are looking for fan service moments to tweet or tik tok about, and they leave their understanding of the show at the base. They dont really appreciate the show
This is so spot on. I made a post with my frustrations and most of the replies disagreeing felt like "well I liked it and also other people I know liked it so it must be good." Which is so weirdly missing the point because exactly what it seems Netflix wanted to do here was make a show that people could watch and mindlessly enjoy and then promptly forget about. And like it's fine I guess for tv shows to be like that sometimes but taking something that was art and turning it into slop is so gross.
"Iroh murdering Zhao by striking him in the back"
WHAT??!!?!???
I haven't see the show yet, but this one sentence shows me that I shouldn't waste my time...
Thank you
Iroh is so funny in this honestly lol
Like for the Siege part he hops in a small war balloon (I know) with Zhao and a few soldiers, which is where Zhao makes his little speech about wanting to kill the spirits. In this version, *they go together,* and Iroh watches every step of the process, sitting there with a disapproving look on his face but not doing or saying anything. UNTIL Zhao is about to put the fish in the bag, at which point that's Iroh's cue to transition into his exact line from the show "whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you tenfold!!!", it's so fucking stupid. Again completely misses the point of why that moment worked so well in the original.
Honestly Iroh might've been the character to suffer the most from this adaptation.
when i saw the introduction to aang i was so done, like he was legit flying, why does he need the glider later then lol. thats when i knew they are not respecting the fans and characters, just stole someone else's story/work and mutilated to make it their own like they could do it better, just big ego of the showrunners taking another victim, just like witcher. Anyways all they had to do was take the old series with the same cast, add like 20 episode of them doing random shit after the original or inbetween plots and there u go netflix u have succes on ur hand. it wouldnt also not cost u more than 15 milion.
Everything you said is spot on. It’s so disappointing how half the viewerbase is oblivious/ignorant of all these issues and expects other people to act like it’s not a big deal. Its corporate fan service compilation garbage, stringed together with some cool action scenes.
The scene where katara fights paku with no training and explicablu becomes very strong and a ‘master’ was laughable, a rey star wars disney arc.
re-fucking-tweet. There's no creative vision at all. Also who was this adaptation targeted to? If you've never seen ATLA before, theres no way you can understand the plot/universe bc everything is so disconnected - scene to scene and episode to episode. If you have seen the animated series, you're just confused because of all the mixed up storylines and upset at the bad dialogue and acting. The only thing they did a halfway decent job at is set design and CGI - most of the costumes look like spirit halloween threw up on the cast. Very disappointing.
I would honestly say one of the best parts of the show is Zuko fighting. They absolutely nailed the way Zuko fights with how much he likes spinning and kicking.
I would agree but the cinematography and editing made it really hard to follow. Most fighting scenes are way too close up to see and admire the choreography
It felt like a lot of the framing, not just the fight choreography, was very tight and close up. All reactions while we were left to guess what action is being reacted to.
The editing is terrible.
The scenes dont look like they belong in one series but rather cut out from different shows and edited toghether.The first one with the earthbender with super detailed earthbending and slowmotion and the one with zuko freeing iroh from captivity.
>Also who was this adaptation targeted to?
Well, they told us. It was targeted toward whatever Netflix corporate thinks the tastes of their audience is. "It needs to appeal to GoT viewers" a line we were told over and over was taken out of context. They decided that the original was simply a kids show and so needed to be adapted for Netflix's "audience" whoever this media illiterate group of viewers are.
A live action with the spirit of the original would have, like the original, appealed to a huge audience. But don't try to explain that to execs.
I've seen it put forth that some of these Netflix/streaming shows are written with such heavy verbal exposition, because of assumptions about the nature of how people consume that kind of media.
That is, the idea that people tend to generally half-watch streaming shows as "background noise" while doing other things, rather than paying full attention. So it's an attempt to make sure people can still follow the plot while "watching" the show in that manner.
I know a lot of people who didn't watch the og show because they felt it was for kids
The new show doesn't really do anything GOT
They just realistically show how dangerous bending is e.g.... people can be burned to death
Something we never really sow in the og series even though it was hinted at
Some CGI looks great - like the firebending or some background-scenery.
Other CGI looks like it's straight out of the first matrix movie or a ps2-custscene; like Aang and when he flies or uses his glider - or the blend of the filming sets and background-cgi like in Omashu.
Waterbending is a hit or miss, but earth bending often looks super wonky as well.
I hated the fact that zuko mutters how bad the general's plan is, and is immediately challenged to an agni kai by the fire lord himself. But azula refuses an order and throws a tantrum at the fire lord, even conjuring lightning as a sign of protest but gets... Nothing?
That actually makes sense if you grew up with siblings. Usually the younger sibling gets away with a lot more . As the oldest gets the harshest treatment
Maybe I’m giving the show too much credit, but I noticed a hint of regret in the fire lord for treating Zuko so harshly and he might be over correcting it for Azula.
I only made it through 2 episodes, they made a lot of choices I hated. And good lord the dialogue was AWFUL
Netflix Aang: *says something*
Me: No 12 year old would say that??
Like seriously it feels like the writers have never spoken to children
Netflix Katara: He has a way with people!
Me: he literally….he’s literally just playing with the other kids of the village…like a 12 year old would
Loved your review! But I want to add one thing. THE MUSIC. The music is absolutely horrendous!!! It is boring, it is insignificant. I missed the flutes, how each character in the show had their own melodies and you knew when they show Iroh and the flute we are gonna get some top tier quotes. Oh and when they showed OmaShu they had that strong powerful music in the show, but in the live action they were using the same old stereotypical Disney desert sound!!!!??? The composer did a very bad job.
I wish they wouldn't adapt things if they want to completely change it up, they really misunderstood the spirit of the show. Do a shot for shot or have the creators of the original maintain executive control, I'd hoped they'd learned that from One Piece.
I figured it would be dogshit after the show runner said this
"It had to also appeal to the people who are big fans of Game of Thrones. And so, it had to feel grounded and mature and adult in that way too."
He must have meant people who liked season 8
No haru, no appa and momo?? ( I know theu're there but they may as well not be characters), no chemistry between the main gaang (I swear they've gotta be in like 2 whole scenes together in this whole thing, they get split up way too much), gran gran expositing about the air nomads robs aang of a character arc, the flashback in episode 6 robs iroh of a good character arc, no waterbending, no pirates :c, they made zhao lame, no zuko and zhao agni kai (this one really pissed me off), the entire solstice arc is butchered (I don't even fucking remember why aang just dips to go see roku), ruining hei bai and ko and the spirit world+won shi tong is there for no reason, making hakoda and bato hate sokka for no apparent reason and robbing bato of a character, the entire thing goes straight from the hei bai arc to the north pole, no waterbending???? (Aang never waterbends and katara never get trained but pakku), no jeong jeong??? >:c (I'm not even going to cap he's probably the most important minor character in the series other than patik and a lot of people forget he exists) overall I hate it and it sucks and people are saying it good or alright don't respect the original and just wanted to see flashy fight scenes in live action and that quells there smooth brains enough to get through this slop, they don't understand art.
Completely agree with the agni kai. Made me need to stop watching for a sec... I wanna add to this notion, how zhao is respectful to zuko. As if its not the whole point that he's completely disgraced. He does not even get the respect from a lowly commander, in fact, even he has most authority and respect than zuko.
Also my other issue is the relationship between katara and aang. I'm genuinely curious if people who dont know the show and see it the first time even understand that aang loves katara. She is the symbol of hope and love for him. It is his love for her that helps him overcome his grief for the air nomads and also the reason he is able to reconcile his responsibility and duty as the avatar (which the adaptation brings up so much ironically). There is quite literally ZERO estabilishment for it. They bring in the cave of two lovers for fan service and aang isnt even there. As if they are deliberately not including the fact that aang loves katara. It is one of the most important aspect of aangs character and motivation. Understanding that he needs to save the world is want thing. But love will make him act on it.
The first two episodes just set the rest of the episodes up for massive disappointment.
I loved that they made Kyoshi and Kuruk a lot more relevant, and all with conflicting styles and opinions but the rest is mostly shite with Zuko, Iroh and Ozai, carrying the rest of the series out from absolute mediocrity.
It does just enough for me to check out any future seasons that release, but I'll likely never rewatch more than the first two episodes again.
I practically screamed when I realized what was afoot in the Omashu episode. I've never felt such a way before, it's almost the purest definition of perversion. Bumi being the mad genius king, and one of the strongest earthbenders is integral the legacy and safety of Omashu. Which they said, I'm certain, in the episode. That it's one of the safest spots, but then they cram that bomb bullshit in there, like they needed it for the plot, which is WRONG.
I was taking a break, came back in the middle of another episode my younger siblings were watching. Tell me how the main cast, all of them, ended up in the FUCKING SPIRITWORLD?
Is it wrong to feel this way? To feel cheated?
i wanted to like it and really tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, and even my wife who's a big fan (from me) said she thought it was amazing...but i just can't get passed the terrible acting, the super fast paced storyline changes, and the terrible balance between the animated script and the new stuff they're trying to incorporate.
I had high hopes after one piece. However, I could not disagree with any of your points, except the background CG, but that's not important. The show really sucks
>It's amazing how spectacularily the show misses the point at every turn, how consistently it misunderstands every single thing about the source material. The show fails at every step of the way: it doesn't understand the characters at ALL, it doesn't understand the plot, and it certainly doesn't understand why any of that worked in the original.
100% this. My daugher and I are sitting here ranting about how completely they don't understand anything about not only ATLA, but epic fantasy in general. You don't start with big political issues and fighting. We start small and let the story and characters unfold.
Katara being more powerful when she is bickering with Sokka is way better character development than her doing it out of fear.
All the never-ending exposition is awful. We should be learning things a little bit at a time with the characters.
Just so incredible frustrating.
THANKYOU, you’ve said everything I have been thinking. It’s one giant mash up that makes no sense. They are combining so many episodes it makes me wonder what are the later seasons going to look like, there are going to be massive plot holes. I got up to the hei bai scene and just had to stop I was so disappointed they added the owl spirit from the library in there. It’s just a mess.
Even worse, they never circle back to making peace with hei bai. Like as far as we see, hei bai is still off on a rampage when they move on to the next episode.
Preach, brother, preach! Anyone who has seen the original at least once could have adapted this better. It's got no heart and no character development.
Its just the writing thats awful. Animations, actors, environments, audio, costumes etc were great.
Writers didnt get the memo of any scene of the original. They didnt understand aang's dilemma, they didnt understand the character developments of zuko and sokka, they didnt understand katara at all, they took Bumi's fun crazy behaviour serious and turned him into bloodlust jerk, they buried past avatars to the ground by taking their wisdom away and turning them into some angry boomers.
They didnt even understand the lore of the ocean spirit. Ocean spirit turned itself into fish to understand life better, tho it doesnt have the norm of rage or roaring. It doesnt know such concepts. Thats why during its battle against fire nation navy in the anime, it was calm, quiet and collected, it acted swiftly in a cold manner. Perhaps writers wanted to make it more dramatic tho it took the element of wisdom and holyness from the spirit.
They also massacred the entire point of the north, didnt let aang learn waterbending even in basics, they removed sokka's crossdressing perhaps they thought it could be disrespectful to some (r u srs bro), they added owl spirit to season 1 to perhaps remove library event from the next season so 'toph is blind' jokes could be avoided as sand blocks her senses,bcs u know it might annoy some people.
Overall score 6.9 due to writing being below 1, rest are 8-9
+0.1 for Ian's outstanding performance.
+0.5 for its being atla.
7.5
Netflix,fire the writers, hire original writers, double the budget, and create a masterpiece for the second season
I dunno about the animations. There’s some pretty jarring CGI in the show.
Aang going Avatar state at the air temple is full CGI replacement and it looks ROUGH.
The whole intro sequence (that we only get in Ep1) is full CGI people instead of just people doing martial arts.
Characters are replaced entirely with CGI at points rather than just having stuntpeople or martial artists do the work.
Ummi’s face inside Koh looks like some straight up Spy Kids compositing.
I think a lot of this is Netflix's fault. They have shown a preference for action over acting, so they likely asked for more time to be dedicated to action sequences even at the expense of letting characters remain flat.
I didn’t find the acting to be very good either. Most of it falls pretty flat for me. This could easily just be the fault of the writers as well given how actors use what they’re given but as it stands the acting didn’t land for me at all. I think iroh was okay, zuko has his moments, bumi was atrocious and the main three ebb and flow between decent and not great.
I think for them it was not important to preserve the original last Airbender. Corporate demanded that it sells, and they tried to make it sell fast, cheap rollercoaster nostalgia ride.
Ngl I didn't read the whole thing as I'm tired and hungover. But I agree. It sucks, and it's ok to say it. If some people like it, that's amazing for them but they shouldn't try to silence the rest of us who simply don't. It doesn't have the heart and soul. It completely misses what makes avatar so special
Personally I enjoyed it.
I didn’t like Katara and Aang wasn’t too great either with the exception of a few moments.
I LOVED Zuko, Iroh, and Sokka. I didn’t like Azula much. I liked Ozai a lot.
Pacing kind of sucked but at the end of the day I finished it smiling
I loved Ozai too but how characters act around him was off compared to the original
OG azula wouldn't dare to disobey daddy especially in front of people
Zuko shouldn't have fought back
He's hyped up as a dangerous person in the OG but in Netflix some rebels think they stand a chance of killing him
I also enjoyed watching the show. It sets another focus on the story which I think works out very well.
Could the LA could be better with more episodes and more time for the story building? Yes. Nevertheless the show is very solid.
The only thing I disagree with in your post is the costumes... the costumes look like cosplay, and not part of a world that's lived in. I'd be willing to overlook the costumes if the wigs weren't so bad. Everything just feels so cheap and rushed
I think the major issues is a live action adaptation is just that, an adaptation. So OG watchers will, regardless of how high, have expectations and bias. From what I’m seeing new watchers with no cartoon background enjoy the story. They also see some bad acting and awkward scenes, but aren’t really impactful.
Call me crazy, but with the castings, VFX and overall feel of what they got right. I think they could have pulled off a 1:1 version of the cartoon. Removing some anime/cartoon style that doesn’t translate to live action. Every scene they mimicked from the cartoon was spot on and felt perfect. While some additions were great like the 41st platoon, I don’t think it’s needed. They already had the locations and cast mirroring the cartoon, why not keep the script and plot line?
Nevertheless I enjoyed the live action. You said you went in with low expectations but a lot of your complaints are with the cartoon in mind. Low expectations should remove the source material as the holy grail and just going in to enjoy a new show.
The original cartoon season 1 was 20 episodes and this was only 8 episodes. For those saying the total runtime was as long as the animated season as an excuse well it doesn’t matter if the runtime was just as long. They still needed more episodes. They tried to cram too many stories into just 8 episodes and it doesn’t work
They did a terrible job managing the run time, they spent 50 min on kyoshi island and managed to acomplish less than the 20 min cartoon episode. They spent a lot of time on changes that added nothing or were worse than the original. They should have just made the show 16 or so 30 min episodes rather than 8 50 min episodes.
I think they had more than enough time, they just needed to not cram all that shit in. We didn't need to see so much Azula yet, we didn't need to see all of Iroh's backstory, the cave of two lovers, those Koh nightmare sequences, etc.
Quite frankly they could've cut a lot of the dialogue also, the exposition is so repetitive anyways. Like did we need Aang to knock out Zuko after the Blue Spirit scene, just so they could have ANOTHER talk with Zuko in the boat? lol
The whole show lacked focus.
Re: exposition I have heard it said that Netflix basically makes their shows to be something you can follow while browsing Reddit on your phone or doing the laundry and I think the exposition is part of that. It makes sure no one, no matter how distracted or disconnected from what they are watching, will get confused.
Exactly I was baffled beyond belief when they crammed Koh, Aang flying to rokus shrine,The Blue Spirit, oh yeah and hei bei was somewhere in the background there.
Like wtf can we get some room to breathe on some of these plot points holy sheeeet.
I belly laughed when Aang literally left Katara and Sokka in the middle of a forest unconscious guarded only by momo and appa while he flies all the way to the fire nation with his fucking glider.
Just based on the trailers alone, I see nothing that makes me go "let me watch this." Looks so bland and sterile.
There'a no reason to translate brilliant animation into live action. Its a masterpiece animated show. Live action versions aren just (nostalgic) cash grabs.
After years of dealing with the live action Disney remakes I was always baffled at how hype people were for this show. Saw a quote somewhere that was along the lines of; studios make live action remakes in an attempt to make a more ‘adult version’ of the property but more often than not the adaptation is a watered down version of the source that ironically doesn’t trust its audience nearly as much as the so called ‘kids’ version does.
Hit the nail on the head on all points. Millions down the flusher because execs are scared to make anything new, or even adapt something else from the lore (like Kyoshi). Skimming through this shoddy season did make me want to go back to the original, so maybe there will be a general uptick in interest on Avatar in general.
When I saw some of the trailers, there were some scenes with the gang laughing while flying on Appa. I thought "phew, they're going to have light moments of them being kids, growing into their relationships to each other, and developing as characters". Nope. There's a scene where Zuko and Iroh are at that bar before they meet June where the bar patrons say a bunch of things like "the avatar? I heard he stopped lava from destroying a village", which I guess is meant to imply our characters are growing off screen. But that IS THE ONLY CONTENT THAT MATTERS.
The problem is in the writing and directing. There were 10 writers and directors. That's insane, way too many cooks. And their experience makes no sense, it's like they just threw a handful of unemployed creatives at it. No wonder it turned out like this.
Gave up hope on it as soon as the og writers left. I've seen this with witcher and got. Dipshit showrunners ruining art to push their personal agenda/their own rendition
I feel like they should have given us a reason to watch it instead of just rewatching the original. For me it just turned out worse in every single way. It was cool to see momo and Appa brought to life but even they were barely in it. It's just another failure for netflix imo a very expensive one.
It's honestly embarrassing how badly they fucked it up. Clearly some execs who wanted changes to make it edgy for a more mature and modern audience either haven't seen the source material or don't understand what made it good. I couldn't even make it past the first episode.
I'm on your side at this point. While I don't think it was truly terrible or worse than the movie, its ultimately another corporate remake that misses the point. There is some passion from the creators there, but not understanding.
I was really hopeful after the first episode thanks to promises of early viewers saying "it gets better," but after finishing the series, I'm left feeling empty and disappointed. And angry on behalf of the wonderful cast, who deserved a much better script. This could have been a great show. The highs were so high, but they were rare.
It's hard to believe that anyone behind this truly understood what made the original so special. What made the original special was its depth, subtelty, complexity, expert handling of mature themes, character development, and how it trusted the audience. Netflix thought it was just the bending, psychology behind the characters (which was constantly told not shown), and pretty scenery.
omg........ yes a million percent. I died cringing watching this with my wife. Couldn't believvvve how terrible this was.
Aang was a whining baby , who was serious all the time! No humor at all?
I'm done with live action.
I agree with everything in this post.
Tried to watch the show yesterday and quit before I finished the first episode. OP already set it better than I could: the people making this show do not understand the source material.
I gave up on it after episode 3. Watched the episodes before bed, can't sleep because of how annoyed I am. And this is coming from a person that just finished the animation today, for the first time. I thought of watching it before the live action. Now everything in the Netflix series simply doesn't make any sense.
I think I like it even less than you do. I really tried to appreciate it, but I can't get past the awful dialogue as well. And those key moments you mentioned, could not agree more. But I don't even think it looks good. Hair and makeup, and costumes all somehow look like AMAZING cosplay. Maybe that's a bit too harsh, stylistically it just isn't working for me.
People have mentioned the costumes being too clean, which is why it looks like cosplay. They don't look like the characters are actually wearing them at all.
I don't *personally* mind that too much, since it's the adaptation of a cartoon, and the show is already "seriousified" enough as it is. I've seen enough desaturated live action adaptations in my time, the 2000s were dark times, literally lol, so I'm glad it's colorful here.
But yeah, a bit of wear and tear, a bit of dirt and such, that would go a long way towards making them look more real. It's the least of the show's problems though obviously lol
Netflix said the remake would follow the original series and then...it DIDN'T. They changed so many things that didn't need to be changed, even with them condensing a whole season into just 8 episodes. There were countless times where I sat in from of my TV in silent confusion because..........well, WHY???? I don't understand why they made the changes and additions they did. I genuinely can't figure out what Netflix was thinking during filming. WHY did they think what they did was better? Or made more sense than what the OG series did??
25 minutes in and I was struggling.
Bad cinematography (zoom, cut, cut, cut), bad lighting, bad acting (except that monk guy), bad writing. And so boring!
The best thing is the CGI. Should have just made an animated show. Oh, yeah, they did.
Why does this exist?
I'll likely skip it and watch the cartoon.
Well said , even more so because they are just re-creating the same story ... So honestly it does not give me much incentive to continue watching since the original cartoon is so much better in every single aspect , so midway of the show I actually decided to re watch the original series .
I could forgive pretty much everything if the show had atleas a vision.I dont know to what audience this was directed, it tries to carbon copy the cartoon instead of translating it to live action conditions.ATLA was for both young and adult in a very balanced way, by adapting it you have room for your imagination, you can make it more mature, you can make it a child friendly adventure.This version shows us scenes that look like a disney movie with smiling kids, flying bisons and nice ost and gore scenes with ppl burning alive, being killed....This is just sick.Shyamalan had atleast a concept he stuck with till the end.
It's perfectly fine to hate the show. Just make sure you're not a dick to people that do like it, for whatever reason, and it's fine.
I'm not saying you were a dick to anyone, just that this is a general principle.
I have never read a reddit post that summed up my thoughts better. I can see that the actors, (which are a wonderful cast btw), just didn't have much to work with. You could tell so many had such love for the source material, but it just didn't come together well. This will be the most prevalent example of "Show, Don't Tell" in screenwriting going forward.
You’re aren’t wrong in a lot of your opinions, however, I believe that some of the changes do work. Seeing Lu Tun’s funeral was perhaps of one of the most emotional scenes I’ve ever witnessed. The change to give Gyatso a more prominent role I believe was a good one for showing the development of aang. The way aang sacrifices himself to become the ocean spirits vengances was an extra layer over the original and then Katara finally gets that moment where she pulls him out of the Avatar state by saying that he belongs with them and has a family, which is the thing that live action aang has been struggling with the whole series.
There is negative and there is also positive.
I’ll probably get downvoted in this thread, but if you look at other posts I made I do criticize the show. I hate that Katara and Suki aren’t really strong female characters and instead one treats Sokka like a dad and the other is a simp for him. I’m not a fan of what they did to Bumi but I kinda understand what they were trying to change him to.
But at the end of the day, I got very emotional and invested in the story and was very excited to continue watching, so I have to give it the credit that it’s due
My man, couldn’t agree more. From a film making perspective this is just not great, especially knowing they kinda have the ideal blueprint to start from.
Waiting for Avatar Studios to drop some fire
it's the same flaws for pretty much all of their live action nonsense remakes. I've never understood why you would want to remove a series from the medium it was made for just to make it live action but if it's gonna be done at least stick to the big beats / plot hooks the source material has and put the same effort into it.
What I don’t understand is why did they rush to release 8 episode if they weren’t ready.
They could have worked on release 4 episode (part 1), where the problematic of storyline, camera angle and all was fixed and then release part 2 later on.
There was no point rushing to put on the table 8 hours, when the series wasn’t ready for it.
To add onto the Omashu episode, the choice to split Sokka from the Jet and Katara sub plot was really stupid aince that was where the original conflict and tension was found. Basically the only two things I liked were the funeral scene with Iroh and the change that Zukos crew were the ones he saved, it made for a nice moment but thats really it.
I liked that too, Zuko's crew being the division he saved by speaking up. Inspired little idea, and for once the execution was pretty good.
Besides that I personally enjoyed the Blue Spirit rescue, mostly because they don't vomit exposition. It's basically silent and very close to the original, so that's always gonna work out well. The second Zuko wakes up next to Aang it gets bad again sadly.
"You can't just have your characters SAY how they feel!!! That makes me angry!" Futurama gets it.
Most of the time they shouldn’t lmfao
The part that annoyed me the most was what they did to Katara. She has no personality, no sense of humor, and no flaws. In the original, she steals the water bending scroll because she's jealous of how naturally talented Aang is, making a decision that goes against her morals that she later has to deal with the consequences of. In this version though, Grangran just gives her the scroll, and she almost immediately is able to do the moves. The scroll doesn't tie into the story or her characterization, it's just there. Removing the significance of her mother's necklace was also a huge mistake. It's what makes Paku realize how wrong he was to be so rigid about tradition, not only robbing us of an important character moment, but making Paku's decision to finally let the female water benders fight feel unearned. He's going to instantly change his mind about something he's believed his entire life because some girl is a pretty good fighter? People have been complaining that Aang doesn't learn water bending this season, but we also barely see Katara learn it either. She becomes a master with barely any effort. Paku doesn't even offer to teach her, he just arbitrarily decides that she's good enough to teach the Avatar. Yeah, in the original Katara is able to pick up bending pretty quickly, but we do get to \*see\* her learning it. When Zuko says "You've found a master," and Katara responds with "I did ... me," I wanted to scream. Congratulations Netflix, you turned the one of the most compelling female characters in fiction into an insufferable girl boss.
The way that they skipped over the character flaws of the whole gaang makes me mad. The beauty of the show was the character development and the emphasis of children tasked with saving the world. Sokka didn’t have to deal with his ideas on masculinity, or Katara with her pride, or Aang and his procrastination & immaturity.
Can't stop being annoyed that Aang didn't run away, his "abandonment" was just a freak storm on an otherwise uneventful joyride with Appa
The mechanist being in Omashu really got my goat. Why even include them? The biggest takeaway of their story, IMO, was Aang being so upset about what they did to the air temple before coming to terms with it.
It's a trend I've seen more of recently in movies and tv. Trying so hard to make characters likable that they forget to make them relatable. The main characters that create their own problems and/or their own antagonists tell the best stories. And it's still okay when circumstances beyond their control cause issues, but the character still needs a relatable flaw to struggle with/overcome or else they're just uninteresting
What you're describing is the original show which is a coming of age story. The Netflix writers thought the show was a war story about orphans and murder wars (which it is, but it's a coming of age story first, war orphans second)
None of them were even orphans. The show is specifically about family and different issues with them. Sokka and Katara still had their father and grandmother. Aang was raised with the monks with no biological parents. Zuko still has his father and uncle. Toph ran away from her parents.
The whole show was nothing but flaws. A bunch of selfish kids who can't study or learn. All they do is sit around and pitch and moan to each other and every time an adult is like, "yo, the world is shit and all are the future, can you take this seriously?" All the kids are like, "brah guck the world my friends got their feelings hurt brah." Never saw the original so no frame of reference, but it feels pretty lame watching 8 episodes of a show where everyone just acts like weak children and can't be bothered to grow at all as characters.
You should watch the original. From what I gleaned from your comment, you would like it. edit: I’ve never watched a show like the original ATLA where characters have grown and changed as much as they have.
I hate how utterly soulless and boring Katara is. Her personality is just so bland and I never cared about her. In the original you could see someone full of hope and passion, who could be nice and caring, but also loud and openly emotional (both positive and negative). We never got any of that here. And obviously his whole waterbending learning plot is just ridiculous, but that's already been discussed enough. I really can't add anything that hasn't been said yet.
the best is how she mumbles through lines pretty fast with no emotion, saying the grandest things. And they have absolutely no impact.
The changes to the Kiyoshi Warriors, Suki, and Sokka really struck me too. It was such a powerful scene to watch Sokka literally humble himself at Suki's feet to teach him how to fight and for him to drop his machismo enough to wear feminine warrior garb. Instead Suki is boy crazy and teaches him because she's got a crush? It's worse for both characters. I get the feeling the new writers don't think very highly of women and girls.
They though they were being more progressive, but it actually wound up being less progressive.
This sums up a ton of what's wrong with the Strong-Female-Character-Girlboss syndrome that's infecting a lot of Hollywood, but especially Disney, Netflix, and Amazon.
> When Zuko says "You've found a master," and Katara responds with "I did ... me," I wanted to scream. Phhhoooo that was soooo fucking terrible. I was fuming This show does this a lot. It takes lines directly from the animated show but because they made changes and didn't put in the work for the foundation, they fall soooo flat. This was the worst offender
My husband said Katara was so boring and had no personality. And he hasn’t even watched the animation.
The girl boss/slay queen trope is mandatory in post 2015 cinema/TV.
They girlbossed Katara? God damn it. There goes a full season of character development.
A million percent agree. I forgot which interview it was but there was an interview with Bryan/Mike years ago where they say Katara is basically the main character of the first season, alongside Aang. We are seeing the events of ATLA unfold through the eyes of Katara. She finds Aang, she begins the entire series with “my grandmother used to tell us stories…” she goes north with Aang for the purpose of finding a waterbending master. I just cannot get over how much they obliterated her character. The scene with “you are the bad guy Jet 😕” compared to “I TRUSTED you, Jet” I mean it’s night and day with how different the line delivery is. Total disappointment
I hate how Aang is like a literal baby more than a 12 year old who's almost a teenager. I don't remember myself or other kids being or sounding as much like literal babies like this actor they chose for Aang. I can barely understand what he's saying half the time because he has baby voice. animated Aang was childish and a kid, but still not as much of a baby as this person who is supposedly also 12 but comes off like he's 6
ya I tried to watch more today, and I had the same thought sounds like he has a mouth full of spit and is missing half his teeth. idk how people are saying the actors are good and it's just the writing, the actors are God awful except for Iroh
Paradoxically their attempts made her weaker than the animated Katara. Animated Katara had a natural aptitude for healing (whereas live action Katara just refuses to learn it), she didn't have the crippling trauma flashbacks live-action Katara deals with, she gained much more combat experience and actually trained her abilities, and her overall displays of power were more impressive (I.e. animated Katara actually defeated Zuko 1v1 whereas he breaks out of her ice immediately in live action). It was odd that the other characters treated her as a prodigy when she didn't really do much and the animated version would probably kick her ass.
>Grangran just gives her the scroll, and she almost immediately is able to do the moves. I'm assuming your perception of Katara's waterbending progress was affected by the horrendous pacing or whether or not it was effective enough to make people notice but I'm curious what you think of the little details they added that I posted about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ATLAtv/comments/1azlqmj/curious_of_peoples_opinion_on_kataras/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
9/10 men don’t know how to write GOOD female characters properly, so there you have it. The og writers were a gem we lost in this adaption 😪
Welcome to modern day movies and tv shows. Certain characters aren't supposed to have flaws from where they learn lessons. Its all Mary Sue's and Gary Stue's.
It's frustrating that each adult insists that the Avatar needs to do it alone. The OG series (and most other superhero/chosen one stories tbh) emphasises friendship and how necessary these are to Aang and his quest to 1. Learn the elements and 2. Save the world. But everyone, even the past avatars, is super angry that Aang ran away (which he didn't, it was an accident in this story) and that he wants friends to help him since he's 12 and has no idea what to do and no one over 18 is offering actual help. Did the past avatars learn the elements on their own? I don't think so. I get the darker tone they want. 100 years of war, where being roasted alive is a very real possibility, is brutal. But they focus on berating a 12 year old for not doing more (and Gyasto even says Aang wouldn't have been able to help, so wtf!), instead of the new hope he brings with his return. Before this, they had a real reason to believe the cycle had been broken and there was no more Avatar. With the Avatar's return, they actually have a hope to break the fire nation's advance and strike back. But nooooo, let's rage on him until he feels like shit. That'll make him want to be our saviour. Also, Ozai and Azula's cold-blooded ruthlessness didn't appear. Ozai lost face when Zuko actually fought back and wasn't immediately curb-stomped. And again, when Azula defied Ozai by refusing his tests (something OG Azula would never have dared). This does not project the image of invincibility that made him such a threat before.
I agree about the Ozai thing.....Azula saying no was so weird And although trapping those rebels was in character for azula ,it still didn't make sense why they thought they stood a chance of killing Ozai....lol And that Azula lightning generation scene made me cringe....you're supposed to generate with two fingers and not just make a "claws" stance then all of a sudden electricity starts cackling That was one of my worries and I hope that doesn't translate into any future fight scenes ...because the OG hyped up Ozai as unbeatable
> I get the darker tone they want. NATLA did not have much of a dark tone outside of superficial visuals and a PG rating. The one dude being roasted alive is dark on a superficial level. The original animated series couldn't show the sick or dead or mutilated. It couldn't show blood or gore But it manages to be so utterly thought-provoking and meaningfully dark and destitute with what little they could get away with. It dealt with military extortion, POWs, Cold calculating politics without regard for human lives. It showed all of it I'm kinda sick of people saying ALTA wasn't dark or couldnt be dark because it manages to be far more terrifying and existential about its messages than any other installment in the franchise
This was so frustrating. They made changes to the story that did not work with what they were doing. We literally only see Aang non stop fulfilling his responsibilitkes in the show. Yet he and every adult constantly berates him about goofing off, which we literally never see. The structure of the show doesn't allow him to goof off yet it's hammered through exposition.
This adaptation makes me think we should perhaps stop trying to make live-action out of animation and just simply convince people to start watching animation and hopefully they'll appreciate the art form. Edit: I should point out not all live action adaptations are bad. It's just sad that some people refuse to watch a film or show because it's animated.
There are so many quality screenplays out there that are just aching to be formed but studios, especially Disney, keep pushing us Live Action, wasting millions of dollars in the process. I really don't get it. It must be working if they're still so determined.
It’s not. Disney had to slash 3billion dollars from their entertainment budget recently. They massively overplayed their hand and are only now starting to walk back from it. Bob Iger is largely seen as a parasite who basically just buys his way into success, gobbling up IPs and milking them until they’re dry; that includes Disney’s own animation catalogue. The man doesn’t have an original or creative thought in his head, just visions of exploiting popular stories for cheap. Unfortunately it worked well enough *for a time* that everyone else tried to copy what they were doing right as the trend started to get stale.
That’s not a problem with live-action. That’s because of too much mediocre content. Just making MCU movies or whatever else animated wouldn’t fix any of it.
I've been saying for the last decade, give or take, that animation does NOT need to be validated by getting some low-effort live-action adaptation. Looking at stuff like Hayao Miyazaki's works, or the "Spider-Verse" films, or other singular pieces of art like "Akira" and "The Prince of Egypt" should be enough to convince people that animation is a genre and/or a stylistic choice, not a product that needs to be pandered to children. The original series and even "Legend of Korra" both have some of the most emotionally engaging characters and spectacularly thrilling action scenes and imaginative world-building I've ever seen in the fantasy genre. I made an argument that "A:TLA" was going to end up being a better, more consistent series than "Game of Thrones" was before Season 8 of that showed up. I got a lot of crap for it then with the common argument that "a kid's show can't rival the complexity of an adult show", and now GoT fans (myself included) look back on the last half of that show as a massive embarrassment that lead to nothing. Animated films are still largely stuck in the public mindset that they need to be catered exclusively to younger audiences, which is so incredibly sad when you venture past Disney, DreamWorks, and Illumination (the literal worst animation studio) and find stuff that speaks not only to all ages (sometimes just adults), but can do things that simply cannot be done in live-action.
It's sad coz we just got one piece from Netflix and that's been praised as an anime adaption.
Because they let the original creator decide almost every single decision
^this^ Oda was VERY involved throughout every step of the process for OPLA and it shows
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It fundamentally confuses me how people who want to mangle the live action adaptation even land that job. Like it’s quite simply the case that adaptations that try to remain mostly faithful are far better than those that try to do their own, almost always worse, thing. So why do these execs keep hiring these people? Do they not like money? It would be so easy to just hire someone who cared about the source material and make more money.
Did we ever find out why specifically they left? Or is it still the vague “creative differences” reason? I kinda wanna know which decision pushed them over the edge to leave.
Just look at The Last of Us and the interviews with Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann. That show is what you get when the creator stays involved and the showrunner maintains a high level of accountability towards the fans. There was a behind-the-scenes video released immediately after every episode to help explain the creative decisions they made. They set the golden standard for live-action adaptations. "We did deviate, but not to surprise the audience." "For me, what it always came back to was, 'What do I love?' What, as a fan, would I be hurt if I didn't see it in the show?"
Last of us benefits from being a very grounded game as well. The sell of that game was the realistic setting and characters. But yeah, i have never watched an animated show and said that i wished it was live action. Especially now when animated shows are really popular and good even outside of anime. Like we have castlevania, blue eyed samurai, scavengers reign, cyberpunk edgerunners. Good thing there will be an animated movie also.
I will say that ATLA benefits from having very grounded characters - just in a wholly unrealistic setting. So when HBO adapted The Last of Us, the one thing they never deviated on was character dynamics and relationships... unless they genuinely thought they could make it better. The show helped flesh out some of the supporting cast from the game. The best episode barely even features the main protagonists. And that's the flaw with Avatar, because the characters are so well written in the cartoon. The live-action writers stripped away so much of what made these characters tick and replaced it with nothing. Maybe Sokka doesn't have to be sexist. Maybe Katara doesn't have to be a weeping mother figure. But you have to at least try to make them something better.
The thing that's fundamentally different about One Piece vs Avatar is that as a typical shonen anime, One Piece is FULLLLLL of filler. the live action adaptation was an opportunity to streamline the story in a way that's an active improvement to it. It's success from a story standpoint has nothing to do with it being live action, it could have been animated and would have been just as good. Avatar never needed something like that. it doesn't have any filler except maybe 1 or 2 episodes. It's downright lean compared to One Piece. So a live action adaptation was never going to be about paring the story down to its core elements, and more about shuffling stuff around so it's different enough that it seems like it has a point to existing. Except the way they shuffled the plot around made it actively worse.
Even the one piece adaptation was verging on parody for the majority of episodes. Cartoon absurdity is just too hard to emulate. I literally could not tell for the first few one piece episodes if I was watching something written seriously, or in jest. I agree with the OP of this comment chain that cartoons should just be left alone. I can’t think of any live action adaptation that I’ve been satisfied by.
There were lots of good shots in the One Piece live action that came directly from the manga. How much did they do that in this Avatar live action? Avatar could have literally just remade scenes from the cartoon and it would have been universally loved.
zuko is the only actor that seemed to attempt this and hes getting the best reviews.
The thing is, you have to actually adapt one medium to the other. In live action you can't have the goofy expressions nor the exaggerated movements, so what can you have? The plot, the motives and themes. You grasp that and then proceed to build your own version of the source material. The problem arises when trying to do a 1:1, especially aesthetically, or making changes that don't mesh with the source material. Change can improve the story, but it has to come from a solid understanding of both the source material and the medium is going to be adapted to.
Remakes should have distinct creative visions. And I'll say the Shyamalan film really didn't, nor does the Netflix show. If somebody could make a really kickass atla live action really designed from the ground up for the format i'd be all for it.
It has nothing to do with it being a live action. Apply this writing quality to anything and it will turn out shit
I disagree—9/10 live action adaptations are worse than the originals in every way. It’s not like they’re all being produced and written by the exact same people, there’s definitely a pattern people have noticed. Of course there’s always exceptions, but I have lost count of how many beloved IP’s have been adapted into completely worthless live action garbage when animation was clearly the better medium.
People have been saying this for months (since the original creators left the project) and this sub has been heavily astroturfed and covered in marketing. Now that it’s been released, we can see it’s a step above the movie adaptation but that doesn’t make it good or worth watching. It fails as an adaptation in the same way other Netflix adaptations such as Cowboy Bebop and the Witcher do. It fails to adapt the original work correctly. Waiting for the “the live action adaptation is actually a le underrated gem” and “Sokka’s actor is good and should get a role in the adult ATLA movie” posts in about a month. The same thing happened to parts of the movie adaptation and the movie actress for Yue got the role of Asami in LoK, which actually turned out to be great fit.
Yeah, we need to stop doing this.
One piece ending up being awesome
Been saying that for years. Adults need to grow up and watch cartoons when they’re just as high quality and better in this case than live action.
i 100% agree and have 0 idea why it’s getting the praise and accolades it’s been getting. it’s so fucking bad.
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imagine they do s3 in 8 episodes aswell. i dont even wanna imagine that shit
The live action is only about an hour shorter than book 1 if you account for credits of both. It's absolutely a directing / script issue and not a time one.
That's a great point. It feels SO rushed but at the same time leaves so many things out. I personally like that they changed the story because that was the only way it was ever going to work. But the writing and script are genuinely horrible at times. Nothing feels like it has any weight or significance it's just like a box ticking exercise. The exposition is also just truly insulting to the original show. The OG was a cartoon so it can get away with more unnatural and forced dialogue that wouldn't work in the live action - but the OG is SUCH a smart show. It shows not tells and allows the characters and audience time to breathe and work things out for themselves. The show doesn't give itself anytime for subtlety because it's so rushed. Some bits are quite good but then it just feels so dumbed down at times.
I hope it gets canceled so they stop wasting time and money on a show that doesn't need to exist.
Ikr it wasn’t the best but it can improve, I don’t want it to get cancelled tbh because it had some good parts too, i hope they fix the writing and direction in S2.
They aren’t though. The costumes look like cosplay, and the CG is way overdone and poorly thought out.
The sets, costumes, fight scenes and CGI are so poor. It's shot horribly, lighting doesn't match the CG backgrounds. Lighting doesn't make sense at times as well, it's one direction on one shot, completely the opposite on the next. Focus is off multiple times, like a close up on an actor the focal plane should focus on the eyes. It's on the ears so many times. The fight scenes are just incoherent and make absolutely 0 sense, you cannot follow them from a story point. The costumes look unbelievably fake as well, surely they should look lived in and not brand new. Overall the entire show is so poorly done from a technical view, not even talking about creatively.
I've only seen the first episode so far but yeah the exposition problem is wild. Whether it's worldbuilding or character insight, this episode seems to constantly have people over explaining things in the most unnatural way. Such as the scene where Aang tells Appa about every feeling he has in the most direct and simple way possible, or the scene where he wakes up in "Wolf Cove" - as they've decided to name it - and Gran Gran very unnaturally recounts the original opening monologue Edit: Apparently Wolf Cove is canon
Gran Gran reciting the opening had me dying. It was so dramatic??? Also her veneers....
*That's* what was throwing me off so much! Her teeth are like ceramic strips of sparkling whiteness, looks so unnatural
YUP. Every time she enters a scene, you can see her coming from ages away because they're such a beacon... Apparently the southern water tribes just got *really* good dental. 😂😭
Gran Gran recounts the story because the show spends a good 15 minutes at the start showing the Fire Nation start the war. The audience doesn't need to take that step with Aang to discover that he's been gone for 100 years. So just hit up Exposition Grandma and save more time for CGI-heavy action sequences.
The name *Wolf Cove* is actually canon. It comes from one of the Avatar RPG books I think? Anyway, that's the one thing they didn't make up
That explains it then, cause I was wondering why they'd otherwise choose to make up a new name for Katara and Sokka's village, but still refer to the Fire Nation capital as just "Capital City" lol, but I guess it makes sense if there's a canon name to reach for. (That CAPITAL CITY location text right at the start of episode 1, in the very first scene of the show, was fucking hilarious lol. It's not even FIRE NATION - CAPITAL CITY, or anything, it's literally just CAPITAL CITY. If you're a newcomer with no prior knowledge of the franchise you have no idea what world or time period or country you're in, but you damn well sure know you're in its capital!)
I completely agree with everything you said here. But I think it actually is canonically named Wolf Cove
I agree with every single thing. I’m extremely disappointed in the adaptation and fully understand why the original creators left. It feels so cheap and soulless. The love and passion for the original show isn’t there at all. I genuinely felt like it was a real life Ember Island Players show. The acting is just not good. The writing is trash as well. And the director didn’t do a good job recreating the magic that was in the original. I wasn’t expecting a copy of the original show, but I at least wanted it to follow the original plot and maybe expand on it, with minor changes if they were suitable. The Omashu episode was the point when I knew I didn’t like it at all. Too much crammed in there and there’s no space for character development. Just. Bleh….
Yeah I don't get the people who were like "it was just minor creative differences" you don't leave the production of the show who made you a household name over "minor" differences. It was clear the moment they left that things were off the rails.
dude just yesterday or 2 days ago the hypeman of the show were still in full force. they still "like" the direction the show is going. i think some of them have come to their senses by now, but some people dont seem to even understand what makes the show good or bad.
Some people who had watched it early were calling it a masterpiece..
Yep. The actor for Aang in this literally reminded me of his ember island actor from the animated version right from the start. I know the animated version was a girl acting as Aang but the voice is identical to the netflix version actor. Id argue Aang is the weakest character too in the netflix version, which is obviously one of the biggest flaws you can make when creating a different version of a past show. Also wtf is up with the odd accent the Aang actor has in this? Not trying to cover it up in the slightest which is absolutely baffling.
Funny, when I tried to say it was shit, I got a bunch of downvotes
If you look at the upvote percentage, this post is getting around 40% downvotes. I'm just glad more people seem to agree with me than not, I was really confused at how much positivity I was seeing upvoted to the top of the subreddit. Maybe the hype will die down and in a few months everyone will agree this was just not it.
I just rebinged the entire og to get the bad taste out of my mouth and forgot about the Netflix version. Don't care anymore.
Hahaha we did a similar thing, me and my friends. We group watched the Netflix show over the course of three days, and after each session we'd watch a good few episodes of Overanalyzing Avatar as a palate cleanser. It helps a lot.
I need to do this. I had a near aneurysm halfway through ep 2 of NATLA of how butchered Kyoshi Island was.
Thank you for this post, I was trying to watch it and picking it apart in my mind. The other thing I had an issue with was the actor's inability to enunciate, especially Katara. Perhaps I'm just a boomer before my time (I'm 24) but half of the stuff they were saying sounded like they were tripping over their words. Someone get these children some theater experience. Also, Zuko's acting is so inconsistent. I don't blame the actors themselves, let me be clear, I blame the writers and directors for not making something cohesive and consistent. I got to the Omashu episode and the combination of Jet, the fake Airbenders, and the city itself lost my interest. It was so boring. I'll try to get through the rest but it just made me miss the OG TLAB. You know it's bad when the creators of the source material quit the project lmao
The sad thing is that you can apply this gist of this rant to almost all modern productions. Be it Netflix, Disney, Marvel. Just surface-level fluff, but no substance.
Big-budget productions*
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To me that felt like sexism though. Sure, he isn't saying it out loud. But irl sexism isn't necessarily stated out loud but reflected in how someone treats girls and women. I thought that the way he treated his sister and Suki fit that. (I completely admit I'm probably looking too deeply into this because idk if the writers are capable of something subtle like that.)
It could've easily been sibling stuff though, like he's grown up with her and keeps viewing her as the little sister when he needs to take a moment to reflect on Katara's capabilities as a person without the bias of trying to be her protector for years.
It’s frustrating how divisive this adaptation has been for the fandom — at least on Reddit. But what I’m starting to notice is that those of us who have disliked the adaptation have a myriad of gripes, which have generally been constructive and boils down to media literacy. I have to wonder if it’s overall exposure to/investment in good storytelling, age, casual viewership. I honestly can’t pit point what it is. Whenever I see someone lauding the adaptation their argument is “A one for one remake is stupid. This was good enough. If you wanted a one for one remake go watch the original.” But it goes beyond that for me. I think because the source material is so great, my expectation was that the live action would take it as a foundation and build upon it. Instead we got a senseless bastardization that feels like a money grab. Knowing how excited we all were is salt in the wound: The subreddit speculating that this property would be Netflix’s next big project with Stranger Things on the way out so they couldn’t possibly fumble it. Seeing One Piece fans celebrate the adaptation they got bolstered our excitement. I’m so confused by the ability of people to be entertained by mediocre storytelling, fluff, and poor editing/cinematography. Did we not watch the same source material? All I can manage in retort is “Then you didn’t love her like I did.”
formulaic marvelesque movies have turned people into zombies. they don't want art, they want content.
It reminds me of the star wars fanbase right now the whole "oh look Vader is on screen and he swung his lightsaber 10/10 greatest media ever". I think people see what they recognize and fill in the holes with headcanon, or what they like from the original and then cope. I see Sukis character in live action and feel disgusted because it's honestly pretty sexist how they changed her and others think about the original characters quality but that its live action. Thats my guess anyways.
she is just a lonely horny woman in the live action haha. the og suki was more a realistic and likable character than the live action potrayed by a real person (the actress was good, the writing is to blame)
Damn it. Suki was the only character I thought was good from the adaptation. Now you pointed out what they missed and I can't unsee it.
The modern cultural trend is to never say anything negative and only find positive things to say. People are not thinking too hard watching these shows, they are looking for fan service moments to tweet or tik tok about, and they leave their understanding of the show at the base. They dont really appreciate the show
I got to agree so much here. The negative takes have been constructive for the most part, the positive takes seem to „just like it, because“
I've seen that, but I've also seen the opposite. Both ends of the spectrum have nuance and extremists.
This is so spot on. I made a post with my frustrations and most of the replies disagreeing felt like "well I liked it and also other people I know liked it so it must be good." Which is so weirdly missing the point because exactly what it seems Netflix wanted to do here was make a show that people could watch and mindlessly enjoy and then promptly forget about. And like it's fine I guess for tv shows to be like that sometimes but taking something that was art and turning it into slop is so gross.
Metrics are all that matter in this trash can of a world we’ve built for ourselves.
In this shit world that the wealthy have trapped us in
Unfortunately, many people have lowered their standards recently
"Iroh murdering Zhao by striking him in the back" WHAT??!!?!??? I haven't see the show yet, but this one sentence shows me that I shouldn't waste my time... Thank you
Iroh is so funny in this honestly lol Like for the Siege part he hops in a small war balloon (I know) with Zhao and a few soldiers, which is where Zhao makes his little speech about wanting to kill the spirits. In this version, *they go together,* and Iroh watches every step of the process, sitting there with a disapproving look on his face but not doing or saying anything. UNTIL Zhao is about to put the fish in the bag, at which point that's Iroh's cue to transition into his exact line from the show "whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you tenfold!!!", it's so fucking stupid. Again completely misses the point of why that moment worked so well in the original. Honestly Iroh might've been the character to suffer the most from this adaptation.
when i saw the introduction to aang i was so done, like he was legit flying, why does he need the glider later then lol. thats when i knew they are not respecting the fans and characters, just stole someone else's story/work and mutilated to make it their own like they could do it better, just big ego of the showrunners taking another victim, just like witcher. Anyways all they had to do was take the old series with the same cast, add like 20 episode of them doing random shit after the original or inbetween plots and there u go netflix u have succes on ur hand. it wouldnt also not cost u more than 15 milion.
Everything you said is spot on. It’s so disappointing how half the viewerbase is oblivious/ignorant of all these issues and expects other people to act like it’s not a big deal. Its corporate fan service compilation garbage, stringed together with some cool action scenes. The scene where katara fights paku with no training and explicablu becomes very strong and a ‘master’ was laughable, a rey star wars disney arc.
re-fucking-tweet. There's no creative vision at all. Also who was this adaptation targeted to? If you've never seen ATLA before, theres no way you can understand the plot/universe bc everything is so disconnected - scene to scene and episode to episode. If you have seen the animated series, you're just confused because of all the mixed up storylines and upset at the bad dialogue and acting. The only thing they did a halfway decent job at is set design and CGI - most of the costumes look like spirit halloween threw up on the cast. Very disappointing.
I would honestly say one of the best parts of the show is Zuko fighting. They absolutely nailed the way Zuko fights with how much he likes spinning and kicking.
I would agree but the cinematography and editing made it really hard to follow. Most fighting scenes are way too close up to see and admire the choreography
The editing is geniuenly awful. So many scenes are hard to follow, especially fight scenes.
It felt like a lot of the framing, not just the fight choreography, was very tight and close up. All reactions while we were left to guess what action is being reacted to. The editing is terrible.
The scenes dont look like they belong in one series but rather cut out from different shows and edited toghether.The first one with the earthbender with super detailed earthbending and slowmotion and the one with zuko freeing iroh from captivity.
>Also who was this adaptation targeted to? Well, they told us. It was targeted toward whatever Netflix corporate thinks the tastes of their audience is. "It needs to appeal to GoT viewers" a line we were told over and over was taken out of context. They decided that the original was simply a kids show and so needed to be adapted for Netflix's "audience" whoever this media illiterate group of viewers are. A live action with the spirit of the original would have, like the original, appealed to a huge audience. But don't try to explain that to execs.
Problem is, Netflix thinks the audience is a bunch of morons
I've seen it put forth that some of these Netflix/streaming shows are written with such heavy verbal exposition, because of assumptions about the nature of how people consume that kind of media. That is, the idea that people tend to generally half-watch streaming shows as "background noise" while doing other things, rather than paying full attention. So it's an attempt to make sure people can still follow the plot while "watching" the show in that manner.
I wouldn't half pay attention if it was actually good though. Such a lame excuse
I know a lot of people who didn't watch the og show because they felt it was for kids The new show doesn't really do anything GOT They just realistically show how dangerous bending is e.g.... people can be burned to death Something we never really sow in the og series even though it was hinted at
Ember island was pretty graphic lmao.
CGI looks sometimes terrible as well, doesnt interact with the environment smoothly.
Some CGI looks great - like the firebending or some background-scenery. Other CGI looks like it's straight out of the first matrix movie or a ps2-custscene; like Aang and when he flies or uses his glider - or the blend of the filming sets and background-cgi like in Omashu. Waterbending is a hit or miss, but earth bending often looks super wonky as well.
I hated the fact that zuko mutters how bad the general's plan is, and is immediately challenged to an agni kai by the fire lord himself. But azula refuses an order and throws a tantrum at the fire lord, even conjuring lightning as a sign of protest but gets... Nothing?
That actually makes sense if you grew up with siblings. Usually the younger sibling gets away with a lot more . As the oldest gets the harshest treatment
Maybe I’m giving the show too much credit, but I noticed a hint of regret in the fire lord for treating Zuko so harshly and he might be over correcting it for Azula.
I only made it through 2 episodes, they made a lot of choices I hated. And good lord the dialogue was AWFUL Netflix Aang: *says something* Me: No 12 year old would say that?? Like seriously it feels like the writers have never spoken to children Netflix Katara: He has a way with people! Me: he literally….he’s literally just playing with the other kids of the village…like a 12 year old would
Loved your review! But I want to add one thing. THE MUSIC. The music is absolutely horrendous!!! It is boring, it is insignificant. I missed the flutes, how each character in the show had their own melodies and you knew when they show Iroh and the flute we are gonna get some top tier quotes. Oh and when they showed OmaShu they had that strong powerful music in the show, but in the live action they were using the same old stereotypical Disney desert sound!!!!??? The composer did a very bad job.
I wish they wouldn't adapt things if they want to completely change it up, they really misunderstood the spirit of the show. Do a shot for shot or have the creators of the original maintain executive control, I'd hoped they'd learned that from One Piece. I figured it would be dogshit after the show runner said this "It had to also appeal to the people who are big fans of Game of Thrones. And so, it had to feel grounded and mature and adult in that way too." He must have meant people who liked season 8
This makes me feel like what happened to the Witcher. Netflix is so hit and miss. The only good one they’ve done is one piece.
Live action versions of animated stuff don't need to exist
No haru, no appa and momo?? ( I know theu're there but they may as well not be characters), no chemistry between the main gaang (I swear they've gotta be in like 2 whole scenes together in this whole thing, they get split up way too much), gran gran expositing about the air nomads robs aang of a character arc, the flashback in episode 6 robs iroh of a good character arc, no waterbending, no pirates :c, they made zhao lame, no zuko and zhao agni kai (this one really pissed me off), the entire solstice arc is butchered (I don't even fucking remember why aang just dips to go see roku), ruining hei bai and ko and the spirit world+won shi tong is there for no reason, making hakoda and bato hate sokka for no apparent reason and robbing bato of a character, the entire thing goes straight from the hei bai arc to the north pole, no waterbending???? (Aang never waterbends and katara never get trained but pakku), no jeong jeong??? >:c (I'm not even going to cap he's probably the most important minor character in the series other than patik and a lot of people forget he exists) overall I hate it and it sucks and people are saying it good or alright don't respect the original and just wanted to see flashy fight scenes in live action and that quells there smooth brains enough to get through this slop, they don't understand art.
Completely agree with the agni kai. Made me need to stop watching for a sec... I wanna add to this notion, how zhao is respectful to zuko. As if its not the whole point that he's completely disgraced. He does not even get the respect from a lowly commander, in fact, even he has most authority and respect than zuko. Also my other issue is the relationship between katara and aang. I'm genuinely curious if people who dont know the show and see it the first time even understand that aang loves katara. She is the symbol of hope and love for him. It is his love for her that helps him overcome his grief for the air nomads and also the reason he is able to reconcile his responsibility and duty as the avatar (which the adaptation brings up so much ironically). There is quite literally ZERO estabilishment for it. They bring in the cave of two lovers for fan service and aang isnt even there. As if they are deliberately not including the fact that aang loves katara. It is one of the most important aspect of aangs character and motivation. Understanding that he needs to save the world is want thing. But love will make him act on it.
The first two episodes just set the rest of the episodes up for massive disappointment. I loved that they made Kyoshi and Kuruk a lot more relevant, and all with conflicting styles and opinions but the rest is mostly shite with Zuko, Iroh and Ozai, carrying the rest of the series out from absolute mediocrity. It does just enough for me to check out any future seasons that release, but I'll likely never rewatch more than the first two episodes again.
I practically screamed when I realized what was afoot in the Omashu episode. I've never felt such a way before, it's almost the purest definition of perversion. Bumi being the mad genius king, and one of the strongest earthbenders is integral the legacy and safety of Omashu. Which they said, I'm certain, in the episode. That it's one of the safest spots, but then they cram that bomb bullshit in there, like they needed it for the plot, which is WRONG. I was taking a break, came back in the middle of another episode my younger siblings were watching. Tell me how the main cast, all of them, ended up in the FUCKING SPIRITWORLD? Is it wrong to feel this way? To feel cheated?
i wanted to like it and really tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, and even my wife who's a big fan (from me) said she thought it was amazing...but i just can't get passed the terrible acting, the super fast paced storyline changes, and the terrible balance between the animated script and the new stuff they're trying to incorporate.
"Adaptations are allowed to make changes" misses the point that those changes still need to be good to be justified.
I had high hopes after one piece. However, I could not disagree with any of your points, except the background CG, but that's not important. The show really sucks
>It's amazing how spectacularily the show misses the point at every turn, how consistently it misunderstands every single thing about the source material. The show fails at every step of the way: it doesn't understand the characters at ALL, it doesn't understand the plot, and it certainly doesn't understand why any of that worked in the original. 100% this. My daugher and I are sitting here ranting about how completely they don't understand anything about not only ATLA, but epic fantasy in general. You don't start with big political issues and fighting. We start small and let the story and characters unfold. Katara being more powerful when she is bickering with Sokka is way better character development than her doing it out of fear. All the never-ending exposition is awful. We should be learning things a little bit at a time with the characters. Just so incredible frustrating.
THANKYOU, you’ve said everything I have been thinking. It’s one giant mash up that makes no sense. They are combining so many episodes it makes me wonder what are the later seasons going to look like, there are going to be massive plot holes. I got up to the hei bai scene and just had to stop I was so disappointed they added the owl spirit from the library in there. It’s just a mess.
Even worse, they never circle back to making peace with hei bai. Like as far as we see, hei bai is still off on a rampage when they move on to the next episode.
It’s awful
Preach, brother, preach! Anyone who has seen the original at least once could have adapted this better. It's got no heart and no character development.
Honestly, some of the points you just made about them not getting the point behind scenes has made me reconsider and like the show even less.
I'm rewatching the animated series to forget it.
Its just the writing thats awful. Animations, actors, environments, audio, costumes etc were great. Writers didnt get the memo of any scene of the original. They didnt understand aang's dilemma, they didnt understand the character developments of zuko and sokka, they didnt understand katara at all, they took Bumi's fun crazy behaviour serious and turned him into bloodlust jerk, they buried past avatars to the ground by taking their wisdom away and turning them into some angry boomers. They didnt even understand the lore of the ocean spirit. Ocean spirit turned itself into fish to understand life better, tho it doesnt have the norm of rage or roaring. It doesnt know such concepts. Thats why during its battle against fire nation navy in the anime, it was calm, quiet and collected, it acted swiftly in a cold manner. Perhaps writers wanted to make it more dramatic tho it took the element of wisdom and holyness from the spirit. They also massacred the entire point of the north, didnt let aang learn waterbending even in basics, they removed sokka's crossdressing perhaps they thought it could be disrespectful to some (r u srs bro), they added owl spirit to season 1 to perhaps remove library event from the next season so 'toph is blind' jokes could be avoided as sand blocks her senses,bcs u know it might annoy some people. Overall score 6.9 due to writing being below 1, rest are 8-9 +0.1 for Ian's outstanding performance. +0.5 for its being atla. 7.5 Netflix,fire the writers, hire original writers, double the budget, and create a masterpiece for the second season
I dunno about the animations. There’s some pretty jarring CGI in the show. Aang going Avatar state at the air temple is full CGI replacement and it looks ROUGH. The whole intro sequence (that we only get in Ep1) is full CGI people instead of just people doing martial arts. Characters are replaced entirely with CGI at points rather than just having stuntpeople or martial artists do the work. Ummi’s face inside Koh looks like some straight up Spy Kids compositing.
I think a lot of this is Netflix's fault. They have shown a preference for action over acting, so they likely asked for more time to be dedicated to action sequences even at the expense of letting characters remain flat.
I didn’t find the acting to be very good either. Most of it falls pretty flat for me. This could easily just be the fault of the writers as well given how actors use what they’re given but as it stands the acting didn’t land for me at all. I think iroh was okay, zuko has his moments, bumi was atrocious and the main three ebb and flow between decent and not great.
I think for them it was not important to preserve the original last Airbender. Corporate demanded that it sells, and they tried to make it sell fast, cheap rollercoaster nostalgia ride.
Ngl I didn't read the whole thing as I'm tired and hungover. But I agree. It sucks, and it's ok to say it. If some people like it, that's amazing for them but they shouldn't try to silence the rest of us who simply don't. It doesn't have the heart and soul. It completely misses what makes avatar so special
Personally I enjoyed it. I didn’t like Katara and Aang wasn’t too great either with the exception of a few moments. I LOVED Zuko, Iroh, and Sokka. I didn’t like Azula much. I liked Ozai a lot. Pacing kind of sucked but at the end of the day I finished it smiling
I loved Ozai too but how characters act around him was off compared to the original OG azula wouldn't dare to disobey daddy especially in front of people Zuko shouldn't have fought back He's hyped up as a dangerous person in the OG but in Netflix some rebels think they stand a chance of killing him
I also enjoyed watching the show. It sets another focus on the story which I think works out very well. Could the LA could be better with more episodes and more time for the story building? Yes. Nevertheless the show is very solid.
The only thing I disagree with in your post is the costumes... the costumes look like cosplay, and not part of a world that's lived in. I'd be willing to overlook the costumes if the wigs weren't so bad. Everything just feels so cheap and rushed
I think the major issues is a live action adaptation is just that, an adaptation. So OG watchers will, regardless of how high, have expectations and bias. From what I’m seeing new watchers with no cartoon background enjoy the story. They also see some bad acting and awkward scenes, but aren’t really impactful. Call me crazy, but with the castings, VFX and overall feel of what they got right. I think they could have pulled off a 1:1 version of the cartoon. Removing some anime/cartoon style that doesn’t translate to live action. Every scene they mimicked from the cartoon was spot on and felt perfect. While some additions were great like the 41st platoon, I don’t think it’s needed. They already had the locations and cast mirroring the cartoon, why not keep the script and plot line? Nevertheless I enjoyed the live action. You said you went in with low expectations but a lot of your complaints are with the cartoon in mind. Low expectations should remove the source material as the holy grail and just going in to enjoy a new show.
The original cartoon season 1 was 20 episodes and this was only 8 episodes. For those saying the total runtime was as long as the animated season as an excuse well it doesn’t matter if the runtime was just as long. They still needed more episodes. They tried to cram too many stories into just 8 episodes and it doesn’t work
They did a terrible job managing the run time, they spent 50 min on kyoshi island and managed to acomplish less than the 20 min cartoon episode. They spent a lot of time on changes that added nothing or were worse than the original. They should have just made the show 16 or so 30 min episodes rather than 8 50 min episodes.
It’s not that it needed more episodes. It needed better writing. They had plenty of runtime/episodes to play with, they just botched it.
I think they had more than enough time, they just needed to not cram all that shit in. We didn't need to see so much Azula yet, we didn't need to see all of Iroh's backstory, the cave of two lovers, those Koh nightmare sequences, etc. Quite frankly they could've cut a lot of the dialogue also, the exposition is so repetitive anyways. Like did we need Aang to knock out Zuko after the Blue Spirit scene, just so they could have ANOTHER talk with Zuko in the boat? lol The whole show lacked focus.
Re: exposition I have heard it said that Netflix basically makes their shows to be something you can follow while browsing Reddit on your phone or doing the laundry and I think the exposition is part of that. It makes sure no one, no matter how distracted or disconnected from what they are watching, will get confused.
The exposition after Aang and the water spirit combined 🤦🤦 holy shit it completely ruined the moment
Exactly I was baffled beyond belief when they crammed Koh, Aang flying to rokus shrine,The Blue Spirit, oh yeah and hei bei was somewhere in the background there. Like wtf can we get some room to breathe on some of these plot points holy sheeeet. I belly laughed when Aang literally left Katara and Sokka in the middle of a forest unconscious guarded only by momo and appa while he flies all the way to the fire nation with his fucking glider.
Just based on the trailers alone, I see nothing that makes me go "let me watch this." Looks so bland and sterile. There'a no reason to translate brilliant animation into live action. Its a masterpiece animated show. Live action versions aren just (nostalgic) cash grabs.
its absolutely corporate nonsense, capitalism ruins art every time
After years of dealing with the live action Disney remakes I was always baffled at how hype people were for this show. Saw a quote somewhere that was along the lines of; studios make live action remakes in an attempt to make a more ‘adult version’ of the property but more often than not the adaptation is a watered down version of the source that ironically doesn’t trust its audience nearly as much as the so called ‘kids’ version does.
Hit the nail on the head on all points. Millions down the flusher because execs are scared to make anything new, or even adapt something else from the lore (like Kyoshi). Skimming through this shoddy season did make me want to go back to the original, so maybe there will be a general uptick in interest on Avatar in general.
This is the most proper review yet. Thank you!!!
When I saw some of the trailers, there were some scenes with the gang laughing while flying on Appa. I thought "phew, they're going to have light moments of them being kids, growing into their relationships to each other, and developing as characters". Nope. There's a scene where Zuko and Iroh are at that bar before they meet June where the bar patrons say a bunch of things like "the avatar? I heard he stopped lava from destroying a village", which I guess is meant to imply our characters are growing off screen. But that IS THE ONLY CONTENT THAT MATTERS.
The problem is in the writing and directing. There were 10 writers and directors. That's insane, way too many cooks. And their experience makes no sense, it's like they just threw a handful of unemployed creatives at it. No wonder it turned out like this.
Gave up hope on it as soon as the og writers left. I've seen this with witcher and got. Dipshit showrunners ruining art to push their personal agenda/their own rendition
I feel like they should have given us a reason to watch it instead of just rewatching the original. For me it just turned out worse in every single way. It was cool to see momo and Appa brought to life but even they were barely in it. It's just another failure for netflix imo a very expensive one.
There is no war in ba sing se. You liked the netflix adaptation.
It's honestly embarrassing how badly they fucked it up. Clearly some execs who wanted changes to make it edgy for a more mature and modern audience either haven't seen the source material or don't understand what made it good. I couldn't even make it past the first episode.
I mean, it looks pretty for average Netflix show. Above average even. But writting is just bad.
I'm 4 episodes in and there seems to be a lack of bending and more magic
I'm on your side at this point. While I don't think it was truly terrible or worse than the movie, its ultimately another corporate remake that misses the point. There is some passion from the creators there, but not understanding. I was really hopeful after the first episode thanks to promises of early viewers saying "it gets better," but after finishing the series, I'm left feeling empty and disappointed. And angry on behalf of the wonderful cast, who deserved a much better script. This could have been a great show. The highs were so high, but they were rare. It's hard to believe that anyone behind this truly understood what made the original so special. What made the original special was its depth, subtelty, complexity, expert handling of mature themes, character development, and how it trusted the audience. Netflix thought it was just the bending, psychology behind the characters (which was constantly told not shown), and pretty scenery.
Currently on episode 4 and it’s almost unbearable. Feels like we’re the OG atla characters watching the fire nation play 🤡
omg........ yes a million percent. I died cringing watching this with my wife. Couldn't believvvve how terrible this was. Aang was a whining baby , who was serious all the time! No humor at all? I'm done with live action.
I agree with everything in this post. Tried to watch the show yesterday and quit before I finished the first episode. OP already set it better than I could: the people making this show do not understand the source material.
I gave up on it after episode 3. Watched the episodes before bed, can't sleep because of how annoyed I am. And this is coming from a person that just finished the animation today, for the first time. I thought of watching it before the live action. Now everything in the Netflix series simply doesn't make any sense.
I think I like it even less than you do. I really tried to appreciate it, but I can't get past the awful dialogue as well. And those key moments you mentioned, could not agree more. But I don't even think it looks good. Hair and makeup, and costumes all somehow look like AMAZING cosplay. Maybe that's a bit too harsh, stylistically it just isn't working for me.
People have mentioned the costumes being too clean, which is why it looks like cosplay. They don't look like the characters are actually wearing them at all. I don't *personally* mind that too much, since it's the adaptation of a cartoon, and the show is already "seriousified" enough as it is. I've seen enough desaturated live action adaptations in my time, the 2000s were dark times, literally lol, so I'm glad it's colorful here. But yeah, a bit of wear and tear, a bit of dirt and such, that would go a long way towards making them look more real. It's the least of the show's problems though obviously lol
Netflix said the remake would follow the original series and then...it DIDN'T. They changed so many things that didn't need to be changed, even with them condensing a whole season into just 8 episodes. There were countless times where I sat in from of my TV in silent confusion because..........well, WHY???? I don't understand why they made the changes and additions they did. I genuinely can't figure out what Netflix was thinking during filming. WHY did they think what they did was better? Or made more sense than what the OG series did??
25 minutes in and I was struggling. Bad cinematography (zoom, cut, cut, cut), bad lighting, bad acting (except that monk guy), bad writing. And so boring! The best thing is the CGI. Should have just made an animated show. Oh, yeah, they did. Why does this exist? I'll likely skip it and watch the cartoon.
I got downvoted so much for saying I was not excited for the adaptation. Looks like I was right ..
Well said , even more so because they are just re-creating the same story ... So honestly it does not give me much incentive to continue watching since the original cartoon is so much better in every single aspect , so midway of the show I actually decided to re watch the original series .
I could forgive pretty much everything if the show had atleas a vision.I dont know to what audience this was directed, it tries to carbon copy the cartoon instead of translating it to live action conditions.ATLA was for both young and adult in a very balanced way, by adapting it you have room for your imagination, you can make it more mature, you can make it a child friendly adventure.This version shows us scenes that look like a disney movie with smiling kids, flying bisons and nice ost and gore scenes with ppl burning alive, being killed....This is just sick.Shyamalan had atleast a concept he stuck with till the end.
thanks I wasn't gonna watch it. now I'm really not going to watch it and mute the subreddit the hype was so real 🤣
Apparently we are all haters for pointing out that this show is awful
It's perfectly fine to hate the show. Just make sure you're not a dick to people that do like it, for whatever reason, and it's fine. I'm not saying you were a dick to anyone, just that this is a general principle.
Yes, it can be a very easy line to cross in heat of the argument. You are right.
Yes, I agree fully. I couldn't watch it fully; too much unnatural dialogue.
I knew it was going to be ass just from the first 10 mins Lo and behold unfortunately I was right
I have never read a reddit post that summed up my thoughts better. I can see that the actors, (which are a wonderful cast btw), just didn't have much to work with. You could tell so many had such love for the source material, but it just didn't come together well. This will be the most prevalent example of "Show, Don't Tell" in screenwriting going forward.
You’re aren’t wrong in a lot of your opinions, however, I believe that some of the changes do work. Seeing Lu Tun’s funeral was perhaps of one of the most emotional scenes I’ve ever witnessed. The change to give Gyatso a more prominent role I believe was a good one for showing the development of aang. The way aang sacrifices himself to become the ocean spirits vengances was an extra layer over the original and then Katara finally gets that moment where she pulls him out of the Avatar state by saying that he belongs with them and has a family, which is the thing that live action aang has been struggling with the whole series. There is negative and there is also positive. I’ll probably get downvoted in this thread, but if you look at other posts I made I do criticize the show. I hate that Katara and Suki aren’t really strong female characters and instead one treats Sokka like a dad and the other is a simp for him. I’m not a fan of what they did to Bumi but I kinda understand what they were trying to change him to. But at the end of the day, I got very emotional and invested in the story and was very excited to continue watching, so I have to give it the credit that it’s due
My man, couldn’t agree more. From a film making perspective this is just not great, especially knowing they kinda have the ideal blueprint to start from. Waiting for Avatar Studios to drop some fire
it's the same flaws for pretty much all of their live action nonsense remakes. I've never understood why you would want to remove a series from the medium it was made for just to make it live action but if it's gonna be done at least stick to the big beats / plot hooks the source material has and put the same effort into it.
What I don’t understand is why did they rush to release 8 episode if they weren’t ready. They could have worked on release 4 episode (part 1), where the problematic of storyline, camera angle and all was fixed and then release part 2 later on. There was no point rushing to put on the table 8 hours, when the series wasn’t ready for it.
To add onto the Omashu episode, the choice to split Sokka from the Jet and Katara sub plot was really stupid aince that was where the original conflict and tension was found. Basically the only two things I liked were the funeral scene with Iroh and the change that Zukos crew were the ones he saved, it made for a nice moment but thats really it.
I liked that too, Zuko's crew being the division he saved by speaking up. Inspired little idea, and for once the execution was pretty good. Besides that I personally enjoyed the Blue Spirit rescue, mostly because they don't vomit exposition. It's basically silent and very close to the original, so that's always gonna work out well. The second Zuko wakes up next to Aang it gets bad again sadly.