Only the avatar, master of all 4 elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most....he took a ride on Appa with the "intention" of coming back.
Gran gran be like: -The Great Comet Festival.... *anyway, I'll just start talking about some other shit, and completely ignore what I've just said about the comet* -Water, earth, fire, air. Long ago the four nations...
Nobody talks about how if they would’ve just kept Azula out of the first book like they were supposed to they’d have a little bit more screen time to flush a lot of other stuff out rather than it be so rushed
My issue is Azula. She was cold and ruthless and fearless in the original, but the live action makes her insecure, jealous, and immature, and the actress doesn't look the part or portray her well. And don't get me started on Mai and Ty lee 😪
@@TheStraightestWhitestfr :(, I especially like Azula aswell being cold hearted and rude and doesn’t care about anyone but herself. They show a jealous sister. Like do awful
They cut out all the bits that show these characters have flaws. Aang doesn't run away, he doesn't keep Sokkas dad letter from him, he doesn't burn Katara due to his impatiance with fire bending... Katara doesn't get jealous of aang, doesn't endanger the group by stealing the scroll, doesn't need Paku's help to improve waterbending..
@@giovannip8600 that's the way I describe it, it lacks a soul. I didn't feel a thing watching it, I didn't care about the characters, it was very weird haha
I've been disappointed far too often by things that "have some good points" or "have great potential in the next seasons" at this point. This feels like just another cash grab, and I'm not sure they earned the benefit of the doubt
100% agree, do earn a second season this show would need major writing + structure + acting improvement. From what reports are saying, Netflix has already worked on the script and will want to release it extremely quick. They'll use the same groundwork for this season. I don't see how it can better, unfortunately.
If this is a "cash grab", then that's one hell of a failure. That 8 episode season cost them 120m$, lol. Production will undoubtedly cancel soon and go bankrupt.
i swear lmao every time one of these damn adaptations come out, there's always some people who come out and say 'well it's not great but it could have been worse... it'll get better!' like man when everything sucks from the writing to the directing to the acting to the vfx to the setting and costumes, maybe we shouldn't be like 'well it could be worse..' and maybe just accept that it's bad lmao. it's okay, the multibillion dollar company will be fine with a bad rotten tomatoes score lmao, no need to defend them, they already made their money lol
@@highdefinition450isnt it true though? Why was it even a decision to make this live action? Why not spend more resources in building the story of Avatar than continuously ruining the integrity of the animated show?
Bumi and Kyoshi's anger towards Aang for running away is made even weirder by the fact that Aang *didn't* run away like he did in the original. He was planning on coming back. Netflix wanted to make Aang more likeable by removing any character flaws (like they did with Sokka) yet they doubled down on making him less likeable. I totally sympathized with 12-yr-old Aang in the original, but this adaptation made him less human.
Which flaws in the original are you talking about? This Aang has more flaws than the original and not for the better. OG Aang was this fun loving hopeful boy. This dude is just serious and afraid of failure. OG Aang tries to make up for not being around the past 100 years by doing good. This Aang tries to run away from it.
@@nielsvanheteren in which scene LA Aang tried to run from it wtf? OG Aang actually the one who ran away from his responsibilities by going places to have fun (surfing with fishes etc). And actually og Aang was afraid of failure, he couldn't even learn fire bending for a long while because he failed and hurt Katara. Live action does not have any flaws, at least not any he actually SHOWS us. Talking about something or having a weird monologue doesn't mean you have that as a character trait. Og Aang was a flawed but earnest kid and the avatar. LA one is just some kid who everyone yells at, and who is nothing but talk, so Yappatar is more suited. Yappatar: The Last Bold Kid Who Got Yelled at by Every Adullt Because He was Caught in a Storm.
@@nielsvanheteren His original guilt for running away. Running away in that moment is one of the most important aspects of Aang's character. He's the guy who avoids and evades. Refuses to face things head on. Retreats into denial when the genocide of his people is fairly obvious. Spends large quantities of the show doing ridiculous nonsense because he can't face the reality of how important his mission is. The Storm sets that flaw as his origin story, and it has ripples throughout the entirety of the show.
God forbid we make him cowardly and flawed, since people don’t like character flaws nowadays! Because growing and improving is something we do not have patience for.
@@islamdeen2479His character already had flaws that worked with the story, the provlem is that when you make big changes like that it affeacts the whole entire story
Cause it would take away from Katara's story of becoming a waterbender (Aang literally outperforms her in the cartoon). That's the problem with this show. They try to give every character their own story but in the process make everyone in team Avatar feel disconnected from each other. You don't feel like Sokka and Katara are there to help Aang but to help themselves realise their own dreams. They should drop the multi-character focus and just focus on Aang and Zuko like the cartoon did. Develop the side characters through interactions/adventures with them instead of their own perspectives.
@@nielsvanheteren yeah, they dont bicker with each other or do stupid shit. They only do side missions with the most straight face, sokka its the only one who tries atleast
Because boring katara needs every edge she can get because of the writers literally sucking most of her character & personality away from her. In doing that, they also destroy the essence of what this show about, which is about Aang mastering the 4 elements and instead, we get some boring ass insecure chosen one clownery ripped straight from baby's first hero's journey and takes avatar from groundbreaking to generic. Aang did have hang ups about being the avatar, but it was a small part to his actual arc of feeling guilt for running away! Something this show just decided to delete, because I guess it was just too interesting for Netflix as they want avatar to be like a mishmash between game of thrones & Star Wars.
I really think the narrative isnt as mature as it was with GOT. Sometimes the dialogue also feels a bit clunky between the characters and for some reason the main characters dont really seem to kill people when fighting. Fighting scenes are cool but it does seem like the series is still pretty family oriented in some ways.
@@Mijukiexactly. It’s like they prepared for this show by studying GoT season 8 one drunken night and then the next day really hungover watched the ember island players and then wrote this show later that afternoon after taking a bunch of adderall in order to stay awake
One of my main gripes was how they took Aang and Roku's shine away multiple times. The best example is easily EP2 where they gave it to Kyoshi. ATLA isn't Aang's story. It's Roku's. It's Aang fixing Roku's mistakes. That's basically what the opening of Book 3 tells us when Roku outright apologizes to Aang for having put this burden on him. Aang is fighting Roku's war when he doesn't want to. And one of the first big steps Aang takes towards maturity and becoming the Avatar the world that Roku left needs is the Kyoshi Island episode. At first he's just bathing in the validation he receives. He came there for a selfish reason (riding giant koi fish), convinces the Island he's the Avatar, and then lets it go to his head and starts goofing around when they start worshipping him. It's only when the Fire Nation attacks that he matures and draws the Fire Nation away. And even that isn't enough for him. He looks back in sorrow when he sees the village in flames knowing he indirectly caused it, and that's what causes him to risk his own life to coerce the Unagi to douse the fire. The Unagi was almost like a metaphor for that episode. At first it represents Aang's immaturity. He endangers himself by clowning around with it purely to try and impress a few village girls and Katara. But in the finale of the episode, he endangers himself in order to use the Unagi for the greater good. It was a shift in mindset. The Unagi is simply a beast, like a force of nature that will do what it will do. But Aang's approach to it was different in the beginning than it was in the end. At first he risks his life for selfish fun. But by the end, he risks it to save an entire town. It's metaphor, even if unintentional, for basically the entire show. Aang went from a kid doing dangerous things for fun, for himself, to The Avatar who did dangerous things to save the world. All of that nuance is set in a 20 minute episode of a ''kids'' show. Meanwhile this hour long ''mature'' TV series wherein people get lit on fire in surprisingly graphic detail, tosses it out the window and has Kyoshi go ''Lol you really messed up coming here, now lemme show you how a true girlboss fixes things!'' before she just fixes all of Aang's problems, thus keeping him from having to mature and robbing him of the biggest first step of his journey. Thanks, Netflix. I hate it.
Roku was supposed to be Aang's guide in his journey as a Avatar. I was already skeptical when I heard they casted avatar kiyoshi and kuruk as well because it downplays the role of Roku, but I wouldn't have minded as long as they kept Roku as his primary guide. In the animation, Roku helped aang many times in season 1. Now of course they couldn't keep every scene from the live action due to episode restrictions, but thats's PRECISELY why the Roku temple scene had to be kept as it is because it still would have delivered the importance of Roku. The lack of mention of the sozin's comet by Roku was insane to me as it made him look very negligible. Also, Aang goes to meet Roku on his own accord rather than roku calling upon him. Aang meeting kiyoshi before Roku and meeting Kuruk after Roku makes it seem as if Roku was just another cameo avatar we got to see. And to add to that, *every preceding avatar is the guide to the current avatar, but in Roku's case it was very personal because he blamed himself for the state of the world. He saw it as an ultimate mistake of his inability to kill his best friend. He felt responsible for Aang's pain and air nomad's genocide. So helping aang was important to him because through him, he could redeem himself. Which is why he personally sought out aang to help prepare him.* But according to live action, he sees what sparing sozin's life did to air nomads, to the southern water tribe, to the world in general and...does nothing!? Just sits on his ass and waits for aang to come meet him, and on top of that is negligible enough to forget about sozin's comet. Also, why on earth would they give Rokus moment to save aang to Kiyoshi? Everything is awful
@@SanaSardonyx All of this is fax. Roku was by far Aang's most prominent guide. The only interactions he had with Kyoshi and the others was when Kyoshi revealed she did kill Chin the Conqueror, and when he sought out the past Avatars for advice in dealing with Ozai. Beyond that, Roku was with him all the way from the very first book. He taught Aang about the Spirit World, about Sozin's Comet, about friendship, about love and romance, about bending and balance, about the Avatar and its cycles, and so much more. But nah, let's just give that to Kyoshi and make Roku another, as you succinctly put it, cameo Avatar. Can't have a guy be in the spotlight, even a fallible and flawed one. This is Netflix after all.
@aightestWhitest not just that but Roku and Aang's destinies are forever intertwined being Roku is the avatar and his grand child is Ursa the mother of Zuko, honestly do these writers of the live action watched the original series or just hiding easter eggs for us OG fans and say "oh look this was on the animated series, the cabbage man" Not only that I was very disappointed in the Omashu episode, They butchered Bumi, they butchered Avatar being the only bridge between spirit world and real world, they butchered every spirit compiling Koh, Hei Bai, & Won Shi Tong on single episode.
100% another thing is that Roku was Aang's past life, so he was the easiest one to call back too. I think the shiw didn't really acknowledge how Aang at this point sidnt have much control over the Avatar State that he did later on.
Exactly. Honestly, a network like the CW would have done so much better with Avatar. They had 1 hour per episode. They could have just split episodes into 2 of the animated series, shot for shot and eliminated filler episodes like the prison boat and others that weren't too important to the main story and still fleshed out everything within the allotted episode numbers. Instead they did a really bad job overall. Better than Shayamalan, but not by much.
Live action Cowboy Bebop had the same problem. The writers of that show could not understand that the appeal of the original show was watching the Bebop crew in one-off adventures. They couldn’t help but stick the Syndicate plot into every episode
So- I get that the show is trying to give us an insecure “little-sister” kind of Katara to show some growth and self-confidence as her bending ability progresses… but I think the Netflix showrunners missed the point on why Katara is so iconic. In the cartoon… Katara was brave, compassionate, diplomatic, shamelessly vocal about what she believed in, and unbelievably resourceful alongside her bending abilities, rather than because of them. This was a girl who set the ATLA story into motion after vocally putting her brothers small-minded sexism in its place, and had an iceberg not been discovered, I like to believe fed-up Katara would’ve packed her bags and left home (since she’s GranGran’s granddaughter after all) and canoed her way to the NWT with to finally find a waterbending master and help end this war. Instead… all I’m seeing is the gentle, nurturing soul that Katara only chose to be from the trauma of losing her mom, and the 🥺 faces are kind of redundant. She needs a stronger presence in this series.
Canon Katara is literally the heart of the show/gang. Her sense of family is why she takes up to being Aang number one support, especially in Season 1. She was always shown in the original series counseling him, helping him choose the best or most sensible options and even defending him from others who only wanted to use Aang shallowly (General Fong in the animated version for example) Katara is such a positive feminine role model while always doing what she does because it's truly who she is. Live action Katara was NOT hitting 😂
They should focus less on developing all the characters seperately. In the cartoon most of Katara's character development or showing of personality came through dialogue or events with the rest of the group. Same with Sokka, same with Toph. The cartoon was focused on Aang's main goal and the stories they encountered together on their path. This show is more focused on developing all characters seperately from each other (Katara's backstory isn't told in a dialogue between her and Haru or something, but by a flashback from herself). It's like they tried to have a game of thrones like form of storytelling with multiple main characters with their own deep dramas and personalities, but they forgot that GoT succeeded in that mostly because many of the characters were separate from each other. In ATLA however team Avatar is always together. You can't have everyone be on their own personal hero's journey whilst travelling together, it makes no sense. Realistically this Sokka would leave for Ba Sing Se or something and go study to become an engineer (as his most important goal is to find HIS place in the world). Katara would remain north to master waterbending as that is her deepest motivation and Aang would go on on his own like all his past lives told him. They don't feel like a team. Just a group of individuals.
The fact that kattara can master bend after a few words from aang and cutting out her whole arc of being jealous of aangs water bending ability is crazy. She masters bending without the bulk of the training, and without anyone to actually teach her, making her feel like a weirdly infallible character. They essentially mary sue'd her, which is incredibly disappointing considering I'd argue the original Katara is one of the best, most well written female characters of all time.
Katara’s character arc is actually largely about her learning to listen well, be more teachable, and cooperate with others even when they don’t follow her leadership well
her attempts at manipulation are also pretty weak if she's been with her dad for her whole life she oughta be smarter than that even a 9 year old would have seen thru her attempts
@cfv7461, No. They still could have gone for a more innocent looking Azula, to demonstrate how we shouldn't let looks fool us. The problems are in the writing and acting.
The problem with this show is they *fix problems* that *weren’t actually problems* like Sokka’s sexism, which they eliminate, but there’s a whole arc about him being humbled and learning he isn’t that guy. It would be one thing if he didn’t change his perspective in the original show over time, and another if his sexism received a positive response from other characters, but it is constantly challenged throughout the show and is a huge character growth arc, not only for him but for katara. He starts out as an immature boy and grows as a person as he meets incredible, capable women in the show like suki. His sexism is also a huge catalyst to the plot. They literally never would have met aang if he hadn’t made katara upset. It could have been an awesome opportunity to make sokka a role model for how he humbles himself and changes his perspective as he learns his sexist beliefs are wrong- something our hard-headed political atmosphere really needed to see. Missed opportunity there.
One thing I found annoying bout this 'removing sexism' during kyoshi island is that they basically swung the pendulum to the other-side of the spectrum. Having Suki basically be a horny girl, that's never seen a guy before... Like this doesn't make it any better...? Like you said, there was great opportunity to show changes in a character, and this really wasn't it.
@@jbb8261 Sokka was an absolute douchebag to all the women in the first episodes. Early Sokka was not a role model and if you think that, you have some issues.
How does this keep happening? You have an IP that struck gold and is deeply beloved, and you then fundamentally change it against the wishes and advice of both the creators and fans, and see it fail.
@@Milan_nmg First off, it's been met with mostly mixed reviews. Secondly, casual mindless consumers consuming without thinking or judging or criticizing doesn't make it good. If that was the case, Transformers would be at the apex of cinema.
My main problem is that it doesn’t even feel like an actual show. It feels like some highschool play. The acting is just terrible. Also why are the costumes so clean and perfect looking? Just breaks the immersion and make it look like a cosplay. I can’t take any of it serious. There’s no character development it’s all just long expositions and explanations every 5 seconds.
This... I think alot of people are just like unaware of what they are actually seeing. Idk if its the actors or the guidance they got, but it looks like everyone got dressed up on the first day, got given their lines for the first time and a said ok go. They LOOK like people acting, not actors that know how to play and become a character. The baseline execution of the whole show is so inexcusable i can't look past it like alot of people are. It doesn't matter if their is good things about it I can't bare to watch.
I mostly agree with all your criticism. However, I strongly disagree with the statement that Zuko and Iroh were perfectly portrayed. Zuko lacks his rage and quick temper which stems from his insecurities and shame given to him by his father. In the live-action remake, Zuko seems way too calm and respectful to the people surrounding him, especially Iroh, which is a major issue in the relationship between them. In the animated show, Zuko constantly disrespects Iroh for every interference and piece of advice Iroh shares with him. This ultimately leads to Zuko's ultimate regret after he betrays him and later realizes Iroh is the only family member who truly loves and cares for him. Iroh's portrayal also didn't feel right to me. At first, I wasn't sure exactly what was off. Then I realized what I found to be missing. Iroh, in the original animated show, actually seems quite passive as a character. He doesn't seem to do much within the first season besides sharing advice and wisdom with Zuko. However, throughout the first season, it quickly becomes noticeable that Iroh holds much wisdom. More so than first meets the eye. This results in mystery, surrounding the character. Iroh also uses anecdotes and metaphors throughout his dialogues and always, no matter what the situation, remains calm and composed. The Iroh in the remake is far too emotional and expressive at times, destroying the nuance and mystery of the character in its entirety! So, to me, these characters were portrayed very inaccurately and it's even more frustrating considering that if the actors portraying these characters had a better script to work with, they probably could've done a fantastic job.
*The writers team and the directors dropped the ball HARD on this one.* Every department, from set design and art direction, to hair and makeup, to wardrobe, to the stunt coordinators and the overworked VFX teams seem to have put their hearts and souls into this series, and the actors (while a bit wooden and overall uneven) seemed really passionate as well and would only have improved over time.. But all of that means nothing when the writers create a checklist of moments and things they want to adapt and honor and accomplish, but fail to grasp the essence of what made these characters so refreshing and captivating, or what made the story so compelling. *And no; no one wanted a 1:1 adaptation. Consumers need to stop parroting this shallow sentiment as some defense when no one in their right minds would ever expect or want a shot for shot remake.* For every change they made that was good (like Zuko’s crew being the very soldiers he defended, or all the Airbenders traveling to the south for the comet festival and thus being easy pickings), they make two that are unnecessary, superfluous, or downright detrimental to the narrative, themes, and characters. This was just like the Ember Island play. Neat effects, some funny moments, a loosely “accurate” just of the timeline, middling acting, and awful writing. But, y’know, “At least the effects were decent.”
Dude, the ''But the effects were decent'' line was in my head 24/7 since it was the sole defense I had for this dumpster fire. I soooo wanted this to be good. The first trailer seemed to understand it. Guess it really was just 90 seconds of actual understanding. I quit at Ep4. Can't finish it.
A lot of stuff frustrated me, and then some stuff was just stupid. Like, how the heck did June get into the fire nation so quickly and so easily… it makes no sense.
How were Sokka and Katara sliding uphill in Omashu, who was earthbending them? They forgot that those slides come down by gravity and go up by earthbending
@@anushavats7127they said that the engineer (never remember his name) is the one who designed the system in this version, so I took that as it not working by earthbending.
Still can’t get over their choice to have exposition grandma straight up tell Aang in the South Pole about the genocide of his people, have him believe and react to it, just to bring him to the southern air temple to have him react AGAIN. As an audience there were 3 separate reveals of the air nomad genocide for this live action whereas in the original we got some hints and then *BOOM* skeletons. Hit so much harder
Started watching the first episode and left halfway since all it made me want to do is switch to the original. I’ll never understand why they keep trying to adapt an already perfect story.
lack of creativity, trying a formula that already worked, money laundering - thats just the top of my head. Good decision in watching the original, I do the same. Why watch "adaptation" when the original is perfect, eh?
Tbh there is plenty of cool stuff to do. Yes the cartoon is amazing but it's not like you couldn't do anything creative with it as long as the main story remains the same. Aang becoming the Avatar to safe the world. Yet they lost sight of that part and focused on all the side stories way too much. Every character has so much work done on them, that by the end of season 1 I know all the characters personalities and motivations very well, but they don't feel like a team at all. Everyone's just focused at their own goals not working in a team to reach a common (i.e. the main story).
@@kereal2591 people can have their own opinions and watch what they want to watch but avoiding watching something so well renowned just bc its animated is really stupid esp because of how big animation has become recently. like yeah its great that atla reached new audiences but at what cost??? the la is nothing compared to the og
There's a scene on kiyoshi Island where suki looks at sokka and when the camera changes to a more pulled back view you can see sokka wearing white sneakers 💀
The best thing I read about the show is "Worse than we wanted, better then we expected". It was clear from the start that it could not beat the animated show. Nothing will ever beat the animated show.
I will never understand why they didn’t greenling a minimum of 12 if not 16 episodes for the series. I get that a lot of the budget goes into the bending CGI. But this was a brutal mistake
honestly they could still go with 8 episode route but instead of releasing it all instantly, have it per week and easily they could get the ATLA trending for a month or two.
@@nielsvanheteren probably the budget but their budget is 120 million its very big imo. i would get if they have to cut out parts and have it as backstories or just plainly cut out simply because it didnt provide much and with or without it wouldnt change so much of the story telling but i wouldnt forgive a butchered one that ruins the whole lore and especially parts that are super important. The live action was filled with a ton of unnecessary things and things that contradicts to what is from the source material like aang being able to fly, i dont get why he would use a glider if he could fly, also in the spirit world why was katara and sokka being brought in, i thought avatar is the only person who is the bridge between 2 worlds, and things like those that couldve been used to atleast solidify the changes they've made instead of adding fillers that dont make sense at all.
@@nielsvanheteren I see this point parroted a lot but don't think it sticks. Whether or not the run time is the same, or even if it was longer by a full hour or 2. 8 episodes is not enough to pace this story properly. With 20 min episodes you have natural arcs; beginning middle and end that paces each adventure correctly. When one episode tries to mash together 2 or 3 different adventures from different episodes its a complete train wreck characterization wise, pacing wise, emotional impact wise, etc.
What I will never understand is why people always ignore the fact that those episodes are longer when they bring it up. The runtime is already similar. Making it 16 episodes will put the runtime at almost double the original runtime.
1). Season 1 is the "book of Water". Aang doing NO water bending. 2). They have essentially removed ALL the humor/fun. 3) This is supposed to be Avatar The Last Airbender....not Avatar Game of Thrones. I think the look is beautiful and they've largely nailed the character casting, etc.,...and the acting is ok...but the story writing/script doesn't give them much to work with. New rule apparently is "Tell don't Show". Oh...and they've pretty much blown up the character arcs/journeys (i.e., what you said about Sokka).
Completely agreed!! And they made Aang absolutely weak, vulnerable and nerfed!! He never been decisive the whole LA series, couldn't even win a battle. All he was doing depends on the team entirely, past Avatars and keep moaning about his grief and guilt!! Katara became a master waterbender at the end of the series without a single lesson from an actual master was laughable😅
I was really really disappointed in how they handled Azula as a character and the dynamic between herself, Zuko and Ozai. It's like they completely missed the point of certain episodes of the show. Zuko even spells it out "My father said that Azula was born lucky, he said that I was lucky to be born".
This had the potential to be really good. They didn’t have to have a Native American/inuit play Katara. They could’ve went with a Mexican or Polynesian in their 20s. I just miss Katara’s passion. And I don’t care what anyone says, Azula and Mai are not cast right. They look way too chubby. This is no disrespect to the actresses, it just doesn’t fit
The show had made me question how are these shows getting so expensive when the quality is of this level almost every time. Where is the money going and why is it seemingly being wasted??
@@nope19568 That seems very likely because at this point, a lot of big budget movies/tv series produced for these streaming services have been of low quality with a few exceptions in my opinion. With that much money, I think it would be fair to expect a little more than what we keep getting. The money has to be going somewhere. I mean the amount of money things cost/earn is one of the ways we determine if it was a success or not so it’s very much in the public eye and they don’t even seem to be hiding it
Incompetence I would say. Such productions cost a lot of money. For example, if you waste time, the production will get a lot more expensive. If you are efficient and plan things well it will get less expensive. I feel that because budgets are so big nowadays, directors and producers forgot how to work efficiently. They just burn through the money with little to show.
I didn't really like how Iroh came across in the episode where he got captured (episode 4?). Instead of being pleasant and playful, and making a cunning escape, he is visible angry, perhaps hateful, towards the soldier who berates him. We will never know why he is called 'the Dragon from the West' in the live action show...
The biggest problem are some of the castings and the pacing. Also some of the dialog is weird and theres logical issues such as Yue water bending to freeze sokkas feet while the spirit of the Moon was already dead supposedly ridding her of her powers
I thought the same thing about Yue at first, but after I thought about the fact that she has literally a part of the moon inside her. So no, I don't think it was a logical issue, she was just the only waterbender left.
Yue was ironically not even a bender in the original. It's a change that doesn't really matter and can even be explained by saying she had a part of the moon spirit in her, but it just begs the question: Why? Why change it at all?
@@TheStraightestWhitest Considering she literally has a part of the Moon Spirit inside of her, it just makes sense for her to be a waterbender. That was probably also the reason they made her a waterbender. To show that through the part of the Moon Spirit living inside of her she was still able to waterbend even when the Moon was gone.
This show does a few things well, but I have a few major complaints. 1. Water bending looks like a dollar store squirt gun vs a blue whale 2. The writers of this show need to go to prison 3. Aang just doesn't water bend ever and the fire bending episode was important 4. Why the hell is Azula so easily upset? You can make the argument that she should be with Ozai, but with everyone else? Defeats her entire point. That shit is whack. 5. Writers. Go. To. Prison. But again Also I find it very funny that now the Suki episode she just has a crush on the cute foreign boy which.....is way more sexist? But what's sokka's character development and the overcoming of sexism am i right? Vs the North where they go from Katara you cant help to actually here youre in charge of the untrained recruits in twelve seconds
To me the biggest issue about this show. It’s the fact that they removed many of their personalities. I don’t mind the little changing of the story but removing the reason we loved these characters just make the storytelling BLAH
Would argue the seeing the genocide of the airbenders wasn’t a good change… kind of a depressing time waster. We GET the point when we see the ruins of the temple and Monk Gyatso’s skull
To touch on the use of volume I noticed as well: I noticed that (outside of fight scenes in the snow) despite living in a place where it's always snowing, there's never any snow landing on/sticking to the characters costumes. They literally just used a "snowing" filter over all the scenes in the water tribe, and once I noticed, I couldn't unsee it from that point on.
Hard disagree about Iroh. I feel like Iroh acts almost nothing like his animated counter part. It's actually wild how different they are. Most of the other characters are good though. Especially Zuko & Sokka
I so agree with you. Iroh in the animated series had a gravitas and wisdom in his voice and in the way he spoke. This actor didnot replicate that. And while Iroh could be funny it never took away from the wisdom he demonstrated.
Zuko was definetly the least butchered character, best acting with Iroh (best chemistry), best added parts, best episode (6) was dedicated to him, and some of it complements or somehow top the original. Like i love the fact that Zuko has fought in the Agni Kai but didn't want to hurt anyone cuz he was just searching his Father's love. In the OG showing Zuko kneeling and crying was obviously a sign of weakness, so making him fight makes the whole "You're weak" shenanigans even crueler. Also his crew being the 41st division is emotionally powerful 😥
3 episodes in, Iroh is a huge disappointment to me. He looks like he received the script the day of shooting, and is just reading his lines. The villians get best acting nods, including the young acress playing Azula. She really gives off jealous spoiled rich kid vibes. Granted, this is a completely different character than the original series, but in this world, it fits well.
This was great. Sometimes I feel like I’m being gaslit by people who say that Netflix ATLA was great and don’t even acknowledge the flaws. The OG cartoon was by no means perfect but it has earned its reputation as one of the best cartoon shows ever.
I knew this show was going to be bad when they SKIPPED the scene from the cartoon where Aang meets Sokka/Katara to do even more exposition. 8 1 hour long episodes is actually a comparable runtime to 20 25 min episodes. The show didn’t have to make any significant story cuts, especially when Book 1 had a couple episodes you could skip altogether
i disagree that its only bad because they had 8 episodes. the original season 1 had 20 20 minute episodes which is 80 minutes less than the netflix show. and thats even including the filler. really the people that made this show just genuinely don't care and suck at writing there is no other excuse for them.
I agree 100% that this show is DEEPLY flawed. I don't dislike it though. I think it has a ton of potential. If they didn't have so many writers on only 8 episodes the quality of the writing (whether good or bad) would at least be consistent. I feel like some of the things they change is fine and makes sense given the time constraint, but then certain things like in Omashu how the earth bender dumped out the water from his OWN canteen in front of Iroh and then throws his OWN canteen away... is just stupid. It's literally HIS CANTEEN why would he dump out his OWN WATER for the sake of "punishing" Iroh! I think he also throws away his own apple but I don't exactly remember. I think the action in the show is awesome, though. That fight between Aang and Zuko in Omashu feels like a Jackie Chan scene! Sure there was a little more cuts than I would've liked, but it's child actors and they seem pretty inexperienced so I think what we ended up getting was just sweeet. The cgi is so awesome it definitely doesn't disappoint.
I'm sorry, but i can't be the only one who believes they butchered suki's character. She became an awkward mix between weird and outlandish, which i feel totally missed the point of her character. oh and also WHERE WAS SOKKA'S SEXISM ??. I say this for the potential of character growth and development for Sokka.
My little brother said it best. “It feels like they made another movie and just divided the clips into episodes while also taking MORE liberties with the story than the Shyamalan movie” And I rarely agree with my brother but goddamn it he was so right.
roku was completely butchered in this show. roku and his actions were the catalyst of the main story and he should care deeply about aang and his future. in the cartoon, his regret over his past actions were very apparent during his conversations with aang and it’s clear that he has a lot of hope that aang will be able to mend his failures. roku being aang’s primary guide and mentor makes so much sense in the context of the story, but in the live action, he appears for 2 minutes and is played off as a comedy bit. this is something so deeply wrong about the show that i cannot take anybody who says “it has the spirit of the original” seriously.
When it was revealed they were getting rid of the Sokka sexism storyline, that told me everything I needed to know. It told me that these people watched the show but didn't understand a damn thing about it. And I was right.
8 episodes with 1 hour run times comes to 480 minutes. 480 divided by 24 (the length of the animated episodes) = 20 episodes. They have relatively the same amount of time to tell the story. It would have literally had been a 1:1 remake though.
I disagree that 8 episodes wasn't enough. Each episode was an hour long. I think that gives it more run time than season 1 had. Especially with every episode having end credits. So, I would argue that most of the cut things were deliberate choices. Especially Aang being less fun. They mentioned they were doing that deliberately in an interview. So that would be the same no matter how much time they had.
I am sorry but the less episodes argument just isn't valid. Season 1 of both shows had almost the same runtime, yes the live action has a little less, but there are filler episodes which can be cut very easily from the cartoon. My biggest problem is that the show doesn't have a main focus like the cartoon had. They want to make a GoT like drama in which all the main characters have their own little stories and development. By spending so much time developing the individual characters they hardly have any time to put the main characters together. And by giving everyone their own deep motivation and drama they lose focus of the main storyline. Katara misses her mom and wants to become a waterbender. Sokka feels like he failed his death and wants to find his place in the world. Zuko is quite the same as in the cartoon. Iroh suddenly gets a big tragic backstory (he had it in the cartoon but it was only mentioned a few short times). Aang feels like a side character in his own show and the things he struggles with in episode 2, he still struggles with at the end of season 1. He wants to stick his head in the sand which is a normal human reaction to being afraid of failure, but that is not Aang like in the cartoons. In the cartoon he feels guilty he wasn't there to help people the past 100 years and tries to do everything to make up for it, in the show he just makes it worse. They should narrow the focus to just Aang and Zuko (like in the cartoon) and leave all the tragic backstories of the side characters for short dialogues like in the cartoon. You need a common goal to become a team, but at this moment the goals and motivations of everyone in team Avatar are just wildly different that it's a wonder they're still together. TLDR; But shows have the same runtime, they need to narrow the focus to Aang and Zuko, and have team Avatar on a common goal again instead of three seperate side quests.
Iroh IS NOT FLAWLESS. He is implied to be intentionally trying to sabotage Zuko which is NOT what he was in the original. In the original he always tried to give his wisdom and opinions, but never overtly tried to take Zuko off his path. Thats because he knew at the end of the day Zuko had to make his own decisions if he were to mature into a great ruler. He also understood that Zuko had to potentially make his own mistakes to truly learn from them, even with all the sadness it brought him to see that process take place.
You are correct about the pacing of the series. Netflix needed to give thr show 15-20 eps. Goof review i do hope we get a second season and the show runners get more episodes to develop .
Runtime of season 1 of both shows is similar. There was plenty of time to tell a good story. This argument can only be made for that abomination of a movie which tried to slam 440 minutes of runtime into 90. This show has around 400-430 minutes of runtime, almost the same as the cartoon had for it's first season. It's not even that bad, but I hardly feel any connection between the characters. It's like I'm watching 5 characters on their own Hero's journey travelling together by coincidence rather than pursuing a common goal.
@@nielsvanheteren What you feel is exactly the problem of the 8 episodes formula. you don't feel attachment with the characters because their talks are always exposition. Every action they make or every step they take is 100% focused on advancing the plot. That's when happens when you have no fillers. Like for a show to have stakes and for you to connect to the characters, you have to see them under mundane situations. You need to see Sokka setting up a tent, Katara filling a pot with waterbending, their plans. This live-action unfortunately didn't show us most of the journey from the South Pole to the North Pole. I don't think they could've pulled off anything better with the 8 episode formula without risking stuff like the air nomads genocide. I really hope they get 10 or 12 episodes for season 2, even more. Because this show can go from ok to good/great just by having more time to breath. And considering Book1 was the weakest from the cartoon, they would have even better source material to guide them.
You nailed it in the first minute. Not enough time. The thing is, they can change all this. They can add time, add depth, and cut stuff. They can make season 2 and 3 really good. The first season isnt so bad that its irredeemable. They can still make this a great series.
Let's be honest there was no way this show was ever gonna match up to the animated series. I really don't understand why anyone would even bother touching an absolutely beloved IP. It's the definition of insanity. Although when people are creatively bankrupt this would be the end result.
No one has brought the world size up it feels tiny.The Avatar world is supposed to be several contients yet everywhere looks the same canadian forest, Aang flies from the Earth Kingdom to the fire nation crescent island in a couple of hours. Zuko had command of a Fire Nation cruiser which should have at least hundreds of people if not thousands but on screen you only see Lt. Jee and like 10 other guys, or same with Azula conquering Omashu with 40 guys.
Here's the thing, the show writers crafted everything assuming you already know everything about Avatar. So, that's why, for example, Aang wants to go to Kyoshi island to meet her, despite that he shouldnt know that's possible. In the cartoon, Aang only discovers he can talk to Roku because he's doing a different spirit mission and Roku's animal companion tells him he needs to be at a certain place at a certain time. Otherwise, Aang (and especially other people) wouldnt have known such a thing was possible
The weirdest nit pick me and my sister had was the first shot of ty lee. Shes wearing like a lot of layers? So when you first see her shes looks, plus sized!? But then you pause it to be like really minor detail why is Ty Lee our + sized body rep now? Nope her arms are pencils so the first shot of her is framed at her torso and is articicaly kinda quite curvy. Its just a completely artless character introduction. Whys the gymnist being introduced tightly bundled in 4 layers?
I thought the same! Mai and Azula looked great to me but for Ty Lee, a flexible, athletic, active queen, you have her wearing more layers than both her friends combined! Like how is she supposed to move in that fit?! Wardrobe department dropped the ball with some of the fits, unfortunately. Makeup too.
@@BoshyG not really character introductions definin a character and she's barely even in the scene. What I described is the whole scene that, that's not how you do that.
It's live action Azula's costuming that's the worst offender to me in this department, she looks to be wearing a simple metal/leather cuirass that that's already worn over *two sets of robes...* and overneath that initial chestplate are these two halves of armor that grow wider, making a V as they meet at the middle of her waist, that overnearth *_those_* are two metal shoulder straps with metal studs. It's so needlessly how _overdesigned_ it is, and how constricting it looks, it makes me uncomfortable to think that the actor has to wear that.
They all looked chubby which they shouldn’t. They are all active and on the road . The live action Mai looked like she can’t move a muscle or throw a dart
Just sat here and did the math. 7.417 Hours Cartoon 1st Season No Credits 6.75 hours 2 Episodes Removed No Credits - Removed The Fortune Teller and The Great Divide 6.333 Hours Live Action - With Credit Time Already Removed. 6.267 Hours - Season 1 Animation With No Credits and The Fortune Teller, The Waterbending Scrolls, and The Great Divide cut. Could have used Bato to give Katara the Waterbending Scroll found on his journey. I'm posting in other threads just telling you in case you see this.
I was really excited for this show but I stopped after episode 1 because the CGI backgrounds are so bad and the costumes are great but look like they were made yesterday, they are too new and clean, it’s really jarring trying to get into the world when it looks so fake.
I appreciate people like you taking the time to watch shows/movies, so some of us don't want to. I am just done with remakes/reboots. There have been some exceptions(one piece) but I just see it as lazy and don't want to see them anyway
Best critique I've seen yet. Most people either just hatemonger or blindly praise. I especially like your critique of the cold environment not being conveyed through the actors and make up, and the set design. I thoroughly enjoyed this critique and it pointed out things i would have not noticed or thought of. I still don't understand why they decided to spend so much money on a remake of an already near perfect show. The avatar IP is strong enough for an original to be made and make money, and they would have much more creative freedom. This comes off as a blatant Netflix cash grab, and I'm not trying to discredit the passion of the creators but that's how it comes across. Edit: also I genuinely thought that azula was her child self from zukos flashbacks when i saw her in the trailer, it's crazy how zuko looks like 10-15 years older than his older sister. Did anyone else think that azula would be the flashback version from zukos memory?
Thank you for explaining about the location filming vs The Volume. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why the visuals yo-yo'd between beautiful and really cheap/fake looking.
Katara was soooo one-note in this version! She doesn't have the spunk, the anger or the pettiness. They kept her good qualities but removed all her flaws... She doesn't get jealous of aang, she doesnt endanger the group by stealing the scroll, she doesn't even need to train with Paku. 😢
@@allandm My gripe is the opposite. Katara was the "mothering" type because she took over that role when their mother died. She was a nagging, obsessive control freak that fought hard and loved harder. They completely eliminated that part of her character. They show she has a soft side, but they completely fail to show that she is a nurturing person who just wants the best for anyone around her and she does everything in her power to make that happen.
i disagree with iroh/zuko lu ten's funeral scene. that scene is too soon, they haven't developed the character's between iroh and zuko that's why that emotional scene feels flat.
Besides all the terrible writing and weird story changes, I HATE the way this show looks. It looks like it was a stage production or an SNL skit, which makes it hard to take seriously
great point about the cold and face changing and the breaths. So embarrassing for Netflix when they just made a movie in the cold with perfect effects. WTH were they thinking. This is on par with m night shamalan .
No, the creators were not short changed with only 8 episodes vs 20 episodes. Animated series has total run time of 454 minutes (7 hours 34 minutes) and the Live Action has 382 minutes (6 hours 22 minutes). That is close enough they could pulled it off.
I know they wanted to avoid Aang and Katara romance because of the ages of the actors... But _seriously,_ Aang and Katara getting together is kind of a huge and important part of the Avatar canon. Their kids are important characters in The Legend of Korra (if you don't have Aang and Katara romance, these characters cannot exist moving forward). And if they're doing what I think they're doing (possibly hinting at Zuko and Katara romance) then that seriously messes with the show's lore. Though its already clear they don't care about lore at all, given that Kyoshi can apparently see the future now.
but harry potter isnt divided in 3 books of which the point is to have him learn and dominate 3 respective spells that would help him defeat voldemort... he is supposed to be at very least on his path to being a waterbending master by the end of it
Eh, Harry was never meant to be the greatest or even a particularly talented wizard. He's about foiling Voldemort's plots and usually through bravery and resourcefulness. Aang learning the elements IS the plot.
But this will at most get 3 seasons (I hope it never gets to that point), so that would be the equivalent to Harry Potter not casting a spell until the third film.
The 8 to 20 episode comparisson is plain bullshit. If you add up the runtime, the adaptation is a few minutes LONGER. They had plenty of time to tell the stories from the original.
Gotta admit, despite making Sokka more mature, his character is the real MVP of the live action show. I genuinely enjoy their take on his character here since I feel like his animated season 1 was mostly a comedic relief. And besides Sokka, there’s also Zuko and Iroh’s performance.
Even if this adaptation was done better, I don’t know how people get excited over literally any live action adaptation for cartoons. Even if they were written perfectly, it’s still just rehashing an already established story and world. The entire live action remake industry just feels creatively bankrupt to me
I completely disagree with Katara being cast by an older actress. I feel that it would have made a greater impact if they had kept Katara's character of being motherly with this younger actress to get the point across that she was a child having to play the role of a mother due to the fire nation taking her mother away. This is something I feel would have come off better in live action than in animation because it is a little difficult to gage an animated character's age and I feel this would have been a much better way to portray Katara's character.
The volume stage is the worst thing to happen to film production. It made directors and writers lazy AF. They just shoot people standing around saying stuff and then assume VFX can fix it all in post-production.
Dude, the animated book one has an actual runtime of seven and a half hours after accounting for the intro and end credits for every episode. Eight episodes was vastly more than enough time for them to cover all of Book 1. Them terribly misusing the time they had, and them not having enough are two very different things. You open your video with something that you clearly didn't think about for two seconds before writing, recording, editing, or posting it.
D and D: We'll make season 8 in 6 episodes! WB: Are you sure? u can have more money and time to make Season 8. we would perfer it if Game of thrones got 10 seasons D and D: No sorry, we are in a rush, We must hurry! For Star Wars Dan: I have an idea! Let's put all the characters names in a hat and pick one that will kill the Night King :D
it feels like theyre all so disconnected and have no... connection to each other. like they were just plopped here to do their lines and leave after that
Great review! I've been thinking this show over, and honestly the more and more I thought about it, the more I think I would have preferred if they made it a complete reimaging rather than an adaptation. While watching the live-action show, I actually quite enjoyed a lot of the newer ideas they added. I really liked the expanded Iroh/Zuko scenes, any scene with Ozai, and even to some degree I am interested in this new direction with Azula. As an re-imaging, I would not have minded if they chose the things the creators wanted from the orignal series and did their own complete thing with those ideas.
I think most of it's flaws always comes back to... they had 8 episodes to do it. 8 episodes just isn't enough for the type of story that this is. It's also a show that's very character driven, so when you cut out a large amount of time, you lose a lot of those character moments and opprotunities to develop and build relationships which would be integral for the story. 12 episodes would have been perfect but 10 even would have really changed the whole thing around I feel. Most of it's flaws comes from the cut time which forces condensing and things just being taken out entirely. It's hard to really blame the showrunner there because it's out of his control and I think all things considering, he did a good job for what he had to work with. The showrunner even said that he wanted the show to appeal to the GoT fanbase, but if you want it to appeal to that fan base, you need A LOT of time for the characters to breath and allow them to tell the story. I think there were areas where he was successful in that department, like the Zuko and Iroh development, but lacked in the core trio. Even smaller bits, like Yue and Suki were good deviation choices imo. Really, the trio was the big flaw. No waterbending journey. lack of relationship building between team avatar and as for Katara I felt as if she was the most disconjointed. She just seemed.... emotionless. Where the original is the exact opposite of that. She's compassionate, resourceful, outspoken and a natural leader. In this adaption, she's just the insecure little sister and it's really a shame because you could make the argument that Katara is perhaps the most impactful character. She needs a bigger presence. Team Avatar just seemed bland. Aang definitely felt like Aang and Sokka felt like Sokka but it just felt like there was a piece missing. It's like they were too afraid of taking any risks with core three so they just wrote them in like these perfect little characters that have no flaws because they didn't want anyone to dislike them. This is a huge mistake because it lacks depth and has no conflict. So the characters are just on auto pilot the whole time. The fake sets just seemed really meh. It's an amazing piece of production technology with the 360 led set. HotD proved this. However, you have to compliment it with additional pieces to make it look acceptable. you also can't rely off it. The things like breathing in the cold lacks but is honestly an easy fix. Just make the room cold as hell and have the makeup department prepared to make characters look cold. Overall, I think it was good. Not great, but good and it was charming show for Avatar fans. Hopefully, the cast, crew and writers department will turn all the flaws into a positive and learn from this to improve the coming seasons. To me, if your going to have a mediorce season. Have it at the beginning so you can really turn things around and finish strong. BUT They have to recognize this and Netflix really needs to stop putting handcuffs on them, because honestly, telling this story in 8 episodes is just extremely hard to do. I have a lot of respect for them for taking on the challenge and facing adversity despite all of this! Hey, I'll still take this over the Shamalyan movie.
My only complaint is Aang flying into a storm on purpose to get away from his thoughts. Why not just stick to the fact that he ran away? Then Azula is suppose to be a sympathetic character now?
I don't understand why Netflix is so set on these 8 episode seasons. It's just not enough time. Are they scared to comit to more episodes because they are afraid of losing money in case it flops? This is Avatar. One of the most highly regarded cartoons of all time. It will make money. If you know that 8 episodes won't be enough do more episodes. Like at least 10. I really liked the OPLA, but I would definitely have preffered if there were at least 10 episodes.
Long ago all four nations lived in peace, but everything changed when the Exposition attacked
Gran Gran was their best soldier
Only the avatar, master of all 4 elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most....he took a ride on Appa with the "intention" of coming back.
@oo A hundred years passed and we're still looking for Katara's personality
Gran gran be like: -The Great Comet Festival....
*anyway, I'll just start talking about some other shit, and completely ignore what I've just said about the comet*
-Water, earth, fire, air. Long ago the four nations...
But I believe, Aang, can save the fun again.
Nobody talks about how if they would’ve just kept Azula out of the first book like they were supposed to they’d have a little bit more screen time to flush a lot of other stuff out rather than it be so rushed
My issue is Azula. She was cold and ruthless and fearless in the original, but the live action makes her insecure, jealous, and immature, and the actress doesn't look the part or portray her well. And don't get me started on Mai and Ty lee 😪
@@SanaSardonyx 1000% this as well! She was the character in the Netflix series with the changes that I hated the most. She’s so whiney and insecure!
@@SanaSardonyxfr. They mess up her character. In the original she might have been jealous of zuko but didn’t show it all and wasn’t that bait about it
@@sarahthomas8670 Azula in the LA show is so bad. Her and Katara were ruined.
@@TheStraightestWhitestfr :(, I especially like Azula aswell being cold hearted and rude and doesn’t care about anyone but herself. They show a jealous sister. Like do awful
They cut out all the bits that show these characters have flaws. Aang doesn't run away, he doesn't keep Sokkas dad letter from him, he doesn't burn Katara due to his impatiance with fire bending...
Katara doesn't get jealous of aang, doesn't endanger the group by stealing the scroll, doesn't need Paku's help to improve waterbending..
Sokka sexism and ego
Exactly! It is so empty, just content without soul
@@giovannip8600 that's the way I describe it, it lacks a soul. I didn't feel a thing watching it, I didn't care about the characters, it was very weird haha
@@lucydedicco7585 yeah! All very superficial. It's not even the creator's fault, just higher up managers deciding what to do :(
I've been disappointed far too often by things that "have some good points" or "have great potential in the next seasons" at this point. This feels like just another cash grab, and I'm not sure they earned the benefit of the doubt
100% agree, do earn a second season this show would need major writing + structure + acting improvement. From what reports are saying, Netflix has already worked on the script and will want to release it extremely quick. They'll use the same groundwork for this season. I don't see how it can better, unfortunately.
@@bornlazyyesterday6102 The showrunners said at the premiere that they wanted honest feedback about the show.
If this is a "cash grab", then that's one hell of a failure. That 8 episode season cost them 120m$, lol. Production will undoubtedly cancel soon and go bankrupt.
i swear lmao every time one of these damn adaptations come out, there's always some people who come out and say 'well it's not great but it could have been worse... it'll get better!' like man when everything sucks from the writing to the directing to the acting to the vfx to the setting and costumes, maybe we shouldn't be like 'well it could be worse..' and maybe just accept that it's bad lmao. it's okay, the multibillion dollar company will be fine with a bad rotten tomatoes score lmao, no need to defend them, they already made their money lol
@@highdefinition450isnt it true though? Why was it even a decision to make this live action? Why not spend more resources in building the story of Avatar than continuously ruining the integrity of the animated show?
Bumi and Kyoshi's anger towards Aang for running away is made even weirder by the fact that Aang *didn't* run away like he did in the original. He was planning on coming back. Netflix wanted to make Aang more likeable by removing any character flaws (like they did with Sokka) yet they doubled down on making him less likeable. I totally sympathized with 12-yr-old Aang in the original, but this adaptation made him less human.
Which flaws in the original are you talking about? This Aang has more flaws than the original and not for the better. OG Aang was this fun loving hopeful boy. This dude is just serious and afraid of failure. OG Aang tries to make up for not being around the past 100 years by doing good. This Aang tries to run away from it.
@@nielsvanheteren in which scene LA Aang tried to run from it wtf? OG Aang actually the one who ran away from his responsibilities by going places to have fun (surfing with fishes etc).
And actually og Aang was afraid of failure, he couldn't even learn fire bending for a long while because he failed and hurt Katara.
Live action does not have any flaws, at least not any he actually SHOWS us. Talking about something or having a weird monologue doesn't mean you have that as a character trait.
Og Aang was a flawed but earnest kid and the avatar. LA one is just some kid who everyone yells at, and who is nothing but talk, so Yappatar is more suited. Yappatar: The Last Bold Kid Who Got Yelled at by Every Adullt Because He was Caught in a Storm.
@@nielsvanheteren His original guilt for running away. Running away in that moment is one of the most important aspects of Aang's character. He's the guy who avoids and evades. Refuses to face things head on. Retreats into denial when the genocide of his people is fairly obvious. Spends large quantities of the show doing ridiculous nonsense because he can't face the reality of how important his mission is. The Storm sets that flaw as his origin story, and it has ripples throughout the entirety of the show.
God forbid we make him cowardly and flawed, since people don’t like character flaws nowadays! Because growing and improving is something we do not have patience for.
@@islamdeen2479His character already had flaws that worked with the story, the provlem is that when you make big changes like that it affeacts the whole entire story
So confusing why they didn’t let aang water bend. Wasn’t that one of the main parts of season 1. It’s literally called book 1 water
Give the movie *gag* credit, at least it had Aang bend a giant wave on par with The Poseidon Adventure.
Cause it would take away from Katara's story of becoming a waterbender (Aang literally outperforms her in the cartoon). That's the problem with this show. They try to give every character their own story but in the process make everyone in team Avatar feel disconnected from each other. You don't feel like Sokka and Katara are there to help Aang but to help themselves realise their own dreams. They should drop the multi-character focus and just focus on Aang and Zuko like the cartoon did. Develop the side characters through interactions/adventures with them instead of their own perspectives.
@@nielsvanheteren yeah, they dont bicker with each other or do stupid shit. They only do side missions with the most straight face, sokka its the only one who tries atleast
@@nielsvanheteren It taking away from Katara's shine was literally the point and part of her character development.
Because boring katara needs every edge she can get because of the writers literally sucking most of her character & personality away from her. In doing that, they also destroy the essence of what this show about, which is about Aang mastering the 4 elements and instead, we get some boring ass insecure chosen one clownery ripped straight from baby's first hero's journey and takes avatar from groundbreaking to generic. Aang did have hang ups about being the avatar, but it was a small part to his actual arc of feeling guilt for running away! Something this show just decided to delete, because I guess it was just too interesting for Netflix as they want avatar to be like a mishmash between game of thrones & Star Wars.
You know it was going to be a huge problem when they said they wanted it to appeal to Game of Thrones fans
Fish
As a big GoT fan, this show does NOT appeal to me. Maybe to fans of S8 of GoT.
I wasn't appealed.
I really think the narrative isnt as mature as it was with GOT. Sometimes the dialogue also feels a bit clunky between the characters and for some reason the main characters dont really seem to kill people when fighting. Fighting scenes are cool but it does seem like the series is still pretty family oriented in some ways.
@@Mijukiexactly. It’s like they prepared for this show by studying GoT season 8 one drunken night and then the next day really hungover watched the ember island players and then wrote this show later that afternoon after taking a bunch of adderall in order to stay awake
One of my main gripes was how they took Aang and Roku's shine away multiple times. The best example is easily EP2 where they gave it to Kyoshi. ATLA isn't Aang's story. It's Roku's. It's Aang fixing Roku's mistakes. That's basically what the opening of Book 3 tells us when Roku outright apologizes to Aang for having put this burden on him. Aang is fighting Roku's war when he doesn't want to. And one of the first big steps Aang takes towards maturity and becoming the Avatar the world that Roku left needs is the Kyoshi Island episode. At first he's just bathing in the validation he receives. He came there for a selfish reason (riding giant koi fish), convinces the Island he's the Avatar, and then lets it go to his head and starts goofing around when they start worshipping him. It's only when the Fire Nation attacks that he matures and draws the Fire Nation away. And even that isn't enough for him. He looks back in sorrow when he sees the village in flames knowing he indirectly caused it, and that's what causes him to risk his own life to coerce the Unagi to douse the fire. The Unagi was almost like a metaphor for that episode. At first it represents Aang's immaturity. He endangers himself by clowning around with it purely to try and impress a few village girls and Katara. But in the finale of the episode, he endangers himself in order to use the Unagi for the greater good. It was a shift in mindset. The Unagi is simply a beast, like a force of nature that will do what it will do. But Aang's approach to it was different in the beginning than it was in the end. At first he risks his life for selfish fun. But by the end, he risks it to save an entire town. It's metaphor, even if unintentional, for basically the entire show. Aang went from a kid doing dangerous things for fun, for himself, to The Avatar who did dangerous things to save the world.
All of that nuance is set in a 20 minute episode of a ''kids'' show. Meanwhile this hour long ''mature'' TV series wherein people get lit on fire in surprisingly graphic detail, tosses it out the window and has Kyoshi go ''Lol you really messed up coming here, now lemme show you how a true girlboss fixes things!'' before she just fixes all of Aang's problems, thus keeping him from having to mature and robbing him of the biggest first step of his journey.
Thanks, Netflix. I hate it.
Roku was supposed to be Aang's guide in his journey as a Avatar. I was already skeptical when I heard they casted avatar kiyoshi and kuruk as well because it downplays the role of Roku, but I wouldn't have minded as long as they kept Roku as his primary guide. In the animation, Roku helped aang many times in season 1. Now of course they couldn't keep every scene from the live action due to episode restrictions, but thats's PRECISELY why the Roku temple scene had to be kept as it is because it still would have delivered the importance of Roku. The lack of mention of the sozin's comet by Roku was insane to me as it made him look very negligible. Also, Aang goes to meet Roku on his own accord rather than roku calling upon him. Aang meeting kiyoshi before Roku and meeting Kuruk after Roku makes it seem as if Roku was just another cameo avatar we got to see.
And to add to that, *every preceding avatar is the guide to the current avatar, but in Roku's case it was very personal because he blamed himself for the state of the world. He saw it as an ultimate mistake of his inability to kill his best friend. He felt responsible for Aang's pain and air nomad's genocide. So helping aang was important to him because through him, he could redeem himself. Which is why he personally sought out aang to help prepare him.* But according to live action, he sees what sparing sozin's life did to air nomads, to the southern water tribe, to the world in general and...does nothing!? Just sits on his ass and waits for aang to come meet him, and on top of that is negligible enough to forget about sozin's comet. Also, why on earth would they give Rokus moment to save aang to Kiyoshi? Everything is awful
@@SanaSardonyx All of this is fax. Roku was by far Aang's most prominent guide. The only interactions he had with Kyoshi and the others was when Kyoshi revealed she did kill Chin the Conqueror, and when he sought out the past Avatars for advice in dealing with Ozai.
Beyond that, Roku was with him all the way from the very first book. He taught Aang about the Spirit World, about Sozin's Comet, about friendship, about love and romance, about bending and balance, about the Avatar and its cycles, and so much more. But nah, let's just give that to Kyoshi and make Roku another, as you succinctly put it, cameo Avatar. Can't have a guy be in the spotlight, even a fallible and flawed one. This is Netflix after all.
@aightestWhitest not just that but Roku and Aang's destinies are forever intertwined being Roku is the avatar and his grand child is Ursa the mother of Zuko, honestly do these writers of the live action watched the original series or just hiding easter eggs for us OG fans and say "oh look this was on the animated series, the cabbage man" Not only that I was very disappointed in the Omashu episode, They butchered Bumi, they butchered Avatar being the only bridge between spirit world and real world, they butchered every spirit compiling Koh, Hei Bai, & Won Shi Tong on single episode.
Very well put!
100% another thing is that Roku was Aang's past life, so he was the easiest one to call back too. I think the shiw didn't really acknowledge how Aang at this point sidnt have much control over the Avatar State that he did later on.
they tried to serialize the series too hard. The random adventures and the length of the animated series is what made it memorable
I sensed that too. It didn't progress naturally at all
Exactly. Honestly, a network like the CW would have done so much better with Avatar. They had 1 hour per episode. They could have just split episodes into 2 of the animated series, shot for shot and eliminated filler episodes like the prison boat and others that weren't too important to the main story and still fleshed out everything within the allotted episode numbers.
Instead they did a really bad job overall. Better than Shayamalan, but not by much.
@@husky3g something didn't feel right. Almost zero immersion. Too calculated but hope they do better in season 2
Live action Cowboy Bebop had the same problem. The writers of that show could not understand that the appeal of the original show was watching the Bebop crew in one-off adventures. They couldn’t help but stick the Syndicate plot into every episode
So- I get that the show is trying to give us an insecure “little-sister” kind of Katara to show some growth and self-confidence as her bending ability progresses… but I think the Netflix showrunners missed the point on why Katara is so iconic.
In the cartoon… Katara was brave, compassionate, diplomatic, shamelessly vocal about what she believed in, and unbelievably resourceful alongside her bending abilities, rather than because of them. This was a girl who set the ATLA story into motion after vocally putting her brothers small-minded sexism in its place, and had an iceberg not been discovered, I like to believe fed-up Katara would’ve packed her bags and left home (since she’s GranGran’s granddaughter after all) and canoed her way to the NWT with to finally find a waterbending master and help end this war.
Instead… all I’m seeing is the gentle, nurturing soul that Katara only chose to be from the trauma of losing her mom, and the 🥺 faces are kind of redundant. She needs a stronger presence in this series.
Ironically with them trying to defang Sokka’s sexism, they made Katara’s story *more* sexist
Canon Katara is literally the heart of the show/gang. Her sense of family is why she takes up to being Aang number one support, especially in Season 1. She was always shown in the original series counseling him, helping him choose the best or most sensible options and even defending him from others who only wanted to use Aang shallowly (General Fong in the animated version for example)
Katara is such a positive feminine role model while always doing what she does because it's truly who she is.
Live action Katara was NOT hitting 😂
They should focus less on developing all the characters seperately. In the cartoon most of Katara's character development or showing of personality came through dialogue or events with the rest of the group. Same with Sokka, same with Toph. The cartoon was focused on Aang's main goal and the stories they encountered together on their path. This show is more focused on developing all characters seperately from each other (Katara's backstory isn't told in a dialogue between her and Haru or something, but by a flashback from herself). It's like they tried to have a game of thrones like form of storytelling with multiple main characters with their own deep dramas and personalities, but they forgot that GoT succeeded in that mostly because many of the characters were separate from each other. In ATLA however team Avatar is always together. You can't have everyone be on their own personal hero's journey whilst travelling together, it makes no sense. Realistically this Sokka would leave for Ba Sing Se or something and go study to become an engineer (as his most important goal is to find HIS place in the world). Katara would remain north to master waterbending as that is her deepest motivation and Aang would go on on his own like all his past lives told him. They don't feel like a team. Just a group of individuals.
The fact that kattara can master bend after a few words from aang and cutting out her whole arc of being jealous of aangs water bending ability is crazy. She masters bending without the bulk of the training, and without anyone to actually teach her, making her feel like a weirdly infallible character. They essentially mary sue'd her, which is incredibly disappointing considering I'd argue the original Katara is one of the best, most well written female characters of all time.
Katara’s character arc is actually largely about her learning to listen well, be more teachable, and cooperate with others even when they don’t follow her leadership well
Cartoon Azula looks like she's gonna kill you.
LA Azula looks like she's gonna post some mean things about you on the internet
If her posting is as brutal as her volleyball game in the fire nation, oof!
her attempts at manipulation are also pretty weak
if she's been with her dad for her whole life she oughta be smarter than that
even a 9 year old would have seen thru her attempts
@cfv7461, No. They still could have gone for a more innocent looking Azula, to demonstrate how we shouldn't let looks fool us. The problems are in the writing and acting.
Live action azula looks like she's going to McDonald's way too much 😂
@@impackmusiq5236 Underrated comment 😂
The problem with this show is they *fix problems* that *weren’t actually problems* like Sokka’s sexism, which they eliminate, but there’s a whole arc about him being humbled and learning he isn’t that guy. It would be one thing if he didn’t change his perspective in the original show over time, and another if his sexism received a positive response from other characters, but it is constantly challenged throughout the show and is a huge character growth arc, not only for him but for katara. He starts out as an immature boy and grows as a person as he meets incredible, capable women in the show like suki. His sexism is also a huge catalyst to the plot. They literally never would have met aang if he hadn’t made katara upset. It could have been an awesome opportunity to make sokka a role model for how he humbles himself and changes his perspective as he learns his sexist beliefs are wrong- something our hard-headed political atmosphere really needed to see. Missed opportunity there.
One thing I found annoying bout this 'removing sexism' during kyoshi island is that they basically swung the pendulum to the other-side of the spectrum. Having Suki basically be a horny girl, that's never seen a guy before... Like this doesn't make it any better...? Like you said, there was great opportunity to show changes in a character, and this really wasn't it.
Why did you censor sexism once lol
I was never offended by anything Sokka said in the cartoon. I just thought he was based af
@@JM-mg4elyoutube is legally r*tarded and will remove comments if you say anything “mean”
@@jbb8261 Sokka was an absolute douchebag to all the women in the first episodes. Early Sokka was not a role model and if you think that, you have some issues.
There’s a reason why the original creators parted ways with this adaptation citing “creative differences” smh
How does this keep happening? You have an IP that struck gold and is deeply beloved, and you then fundamentally change it against the wishes and advice of both the creators and fans, and see it fail.
@@holysecret2You mean against the Twitter rant boys, most people that don’t watch every negative post/vid like the series
Such as myself. I absolutely loved the show@@Milan_nmg
@@Milan_nmg First off, it's been met with mostly mixed reviews. Secondly, casual mindless consumers consuming without thinking or judging or criticizing doesn't make it good. If that was the case, Transformers would be at the apex of cinema.
Did you even watch the video?
My main problem is that it doesn’t even feel like an actual show. It feels like some highschool play. The acting is just terrible. Also why are the costumes so clean and perfect looking? Just breaks the immersion and make it look like a cosplay. I can’t take any of it serious. There’s no character development it’s all just long expositions and explanations every 5 seconds.
You described the 2010 movie.
@@snowshock8958 what movie?? There is no movie in basin sae
I know what you mean.Sometimes it looks , like Im watching a bollywood movie 🤣🤣
Remember in the animated show the gang went to the Avatar play….that’s exactly what I felt like I was watching 😂😂😂😂 cheap and fake
This... I think alot of people are just like unaware of what they are actually seeing. Idk if its the actors or the guidance they got, but it looks like everyone got dressed up on the first day, got given their lines for the first time and a said ok go. They LOOK like people acting, not actors that know how to play and become a character. The baseline execution of the whole show is so inexcusable i can't look past it like alot of people are. It doesn't matter if their is good things about it I can't bare to watch.
It's pretty cool that netflix made an adaptation of the ember island players.
I mostly agree with all your criticism.
However, I strongly disagree with the statement that Zuko and Iroh were perfectly portrayed.
Zuko lacks his rage and quick temper which stems from his insecurities and shame given to him by his father.
In the live-action remake, Zuko seems way too calm and respectful to the people surrounding him, especially Iroh, which is a major issue in the relationship between them.
In the animated show, Zuko constantly disrespects Iroh for every interference and piece of advice Iroh shares with him.
This ultimately leads to Zuko's ultimate regret after he betrays him and later realizes Iroh is the only family member who truly loves and cares for him.
Iroh's portrayal also didn't feel right to me.
At first, I wasn't sure exactly what was off.
Then I realized what I found to be missing.
Iroh, in the original animated show, actually seems quite passive as a character.
He doesn't seem to do much within the first season besides sharing advice and wisdom with Zuko.
However, throughout the first season, it quickly becomes noticeable that Iroh holds much wisdom.
More so than first meets the eye.
This results in mystery, surrounding the character.
Iroh also uses anecdotes and metaphors throughout his dialogues and always, no matter what the situation, remains calm and composed.
The Iroh in the remake is far too emotional and expressive at times, destroying the nuance and mystery of the character in its entirety!
So, to me, these characters were portrayed very inaccurately and it's even more frustrating considering that if the actors portraying these characters had a better script to work with, they probably could've done a fantastic job.
The writers forgot that book 1 is called Water.
*The writers team and the directors dropped the ball HARD on this one.* Every department, from set design and art direction, to hair and makeup, to wardrobe, to the stunt coordinators and the overworked VFX teams seem to have put their hearts and souls into this series, and the actors (while a bit wooden and overall uneven) seemed really passionate as well and would only have improved over time..
But all of that means nothing when the writers create a checklist of moments and things they want to adapt and honor and accomplish, but fail to grasp the essence of what made these characters so refreshing and captivating, or what made the story so compelling.
*And no; no one wanted a 1:1 adaptation. Consumers need to stop parroting this shallow sentiment as some defense when no one in their right minds would ever expect or want a shot for shot remake.*
For every change they made that was good (like Zuko’s crew being the very soldiers he defended, or all the Airbenders traveling to the south for the comet festival and thus being easy pickings), they make two that are unnecessary, superfluous, or downright detrimental to the narrative, themes, and characters.
This was just like the Ember Island play. Neat effects, some funny moments, a loosely “accurate” just of the timeline, middling acting, and awful writing. But, y’know, “At least the effects were decent.”
Dude, the ''But the effects were decent'' line was in my head 24/7 since it was the sole defense I had for this dumpster fire. I soooo wanted this to be good. The first trailer seemed to understand it. Guess it really was just 90 seconds of actual understanding. I quit at Ep4. Can't finish it.
Don't say hair departament is good when we have Yue
Couldn’t agree more. Well said.
The clothes could look more worn. They look too new
Actually Ember Island Players seem to get the story correct lol aside from changes because of bias towards the fire nation.
A lot of stuff frustrated me, and then some stuff was just stupid. Like, how the heck did June get into the fire nation so quickly and so easily… it makes no sense.
How were Sokka and Katara sliding uphill in Omashu, who was earthbending them? They forgot that those slides come down by gravity and go up by earthbending
@@anushavats7127they said that the engineer (never remember his name) is the one who designed the system in this version, so I took that as it not working by earthbending.
Still can’t get over their choice to have exposition grandma straight up tell Aang in the South Pole about the genocide of his people, have him believe and react to it, just to bring him to the southern air temple to have him react AGAIN. As an audience there were 3 separate reveals of the air nomad genocide for this live action whereas in the original we got some hints and then *BOOM* skeletons. Hit so much harder
And iroh getting a knife to the back for no effect on the story whatsoever
Started watching the first episode and left halfway since all it made me want to do is switch to the original. I’ll never understand why they keep trying to adapt an already perfect story.
lack of creativity, trying a formula that already worked, money laundering - thats just the top of my head. Good decision in watching the original, I do the same. Why watch "adaptation" when the original is perfect, eh?
Tbh there is plenty of cool stuff to do. Yes the cartoon is amazing but it's not like you couldn't do anything creative with it as long as the main story remains the same. Aang becoming the Avatar to safe the world. Yet they lost sight of that part and focused on all the side stories way too much. Every character has so much work done on them, that by the end of season 1 I know all the characters personalities and motivations very well, but they don't feel like a team at all. Everyone's just focused at their own goals not working in a team to reach a common (i.e. the main story).
Because many people dont watch cartoons. I know a lot of friends who don't like cartoons at all watch this live-action avatar and enjoyed it.
@@kereal2591 people can have their own opinions and watch what they want to watch but avoiding watching something so well renowned just bc its animated is really stupid esp because of how big animation has become recently. like yeah its great that atla reached new audiences but at what cost??? the la is nothing compared to the og
@@areeba7045 Eh season 1 of the OG cartoon was on pretty much the same level as this show. It was only season 2 and 3 where it started to get good.
It was the very first thing I have noticed. The enviroment felt fake 90% of the time. Omashu looked like a town made out of plastic lmao
There's a scene on kiyoshi Island where suki looks at sokka and when the camera changes to a more pulled back view you can see sokka wearing white sneakers 💀
Oh my, then I did see that!
The best thing I read about the show is "Worse than we wanted, better then we expected". It was clear from the start that it could not beat the animated show. Nothing will ever beat the animated show.
I will never understand why they didn’t greenling a minimum of 12 if not 16 episodes for the series. I get that a lot of the budget goes into the bending CGI. But this was a brutal mistake
honestly they could still go with 8 episode route but instead of releasing it all instantly, have it per week and easily they could get the ATLA trending for a month or two.
Runtime is similar between both shows first season, so that can't be the problem. Besides plenty of the 'filler' episodes could be combined into one.
@@nielsvanheteren probably the budget but their budget is 120 million its very big imo. i would get if they have to cut out parts and have it as backstories or just plainly cut out simply because it didnt provide much and with or without it wouldnt change so much of the story telling but i wouldnt forgive a butchered one that ruins the whole lore and especially parts that are super important.
The live action was filled with a ton of unnecessary things and things that contradicts to what is from the source material like aang being able to fly, i dont get why he would use a glider if he could fly, also in the spirit world why was katara and sokka being brought in, i thought avatar is the only person who is the bridge between 2 worlds, and things like those that couldve been used to atleast solidify the changes they've made instead of adding fillers that dont make sense at all.
@@nielsvanheteren I see this point parroted a lot but don't think it sticks. Whether or not the run time is the same, or even if it was longer by a full hour or 2. 8 episodes is not enough to pace this story properly. With 20 min episodes you have natural arcs; beginning middle and end that paces each adventure correctly. When one episode tries to mash together 2 or 3 different adventures from different episodes its a complete train wreck characterization wise, pacing wise, emotional impact wise, etc.
What I will never understand is why people always ignore the fact that those episodes are longer when they bring it up. The runtime is already similar. Making it 16 episodes will put the runtime at almost double the original runtime.
1). Season 1 is the "book of Water". Aang doing NO water bending. 2). They have essentially removed ALL the humor/fun. 3) This is supposed to be Avatar The Last Airbender....not Avatar Game of Thrones. I think the look is beautiful and they've largely nailed the character casting, etc.,...and the acting is ok...but the story writing/script doesn't give them much to work with. New rule apparently is "Tell don't Show". Oh...and they've pretty much blown up the character arcs/journeys (i.e., what you said about Sokka).
Completely agreed!! And they made Aang absolutely weak, vulnerable and nerfed!! He never been decisive the whole LA series, couldn't even win a battle. All he was doing depends on the team entirely, past Avatars and keep moaning about his grief and guilt!!
Katara became a master waterbender at the end of the series without a single lesson from an actual master was laughable😅
Azula's face is too round and soft. In the anime she had very sharp features and looked more mature yet still young.
I though the same...one of the things that makes her look more menacing without saying a word.
Same with Zuko tbh.
And Mai
THIS. They casted her horribly. Plus they just made her sociopath with no nuance
Yeah, for sure.
People keep saying filler episodes. There are NO filler episodes in the original series. I WILL argue this.
I was really really disappointed in how they handled Azula as a character and the dynamic between herself, Zuko and Ozai. It's like they completely missed the point of certain episodes of the show. Zuko even spells it out "My father said that Azula was born lucky, he said that I was lucky to be born".
This had the potential to be really good. They didn’t have to have a Native American/inuit play Katara. They could’ve went with a Mexican or Polynesian in their 20s. I just miss Katara’s passion.
And I don’t care what anyone says, Azula and Mai are not cast right. They look way too chubby. This is no disrespect to the actresses, it just doesn’t fit
The show had made me question how are these shows getting so expensive when the quality is of this level almost every time. Where is the money going and why is it seemingly being wasted??
tbh hollywood and general production companies have always felt like they could be solid money laundering opportunities
@@nope19568 That seems very likely because at this point, a lot of big budget movies/tv series produced for these streaming services have been of low quality with a few exceptions in my opinion. With that much money, I think it would be fair to expect a little more than what we keep getting. The money has to be going somewhere. I mean the amount of money things cost/earn is one of the ways we determine if it was a success or not so it’s very much in the public eye and they don’t even seem to be hiding it
They dumped almost 100 mil into Madame Web bro I promise it's money laundering lmao
Incompetence I would say. Such productions cost a lot of money. For example, if you waste time, the production will get a lot more expensive. If you are efficient and plan things well it will get less expensive. I feel that because budgets are so big nowadays, directors and producers forgot how to work efficiently. They just burn through the money with little to show.
I didn't really like how Iroh came across in the episode where he got captured (episode 4?). Instead of being pleasant and playful, and making a cunning escape, he is visible angry, perhaps hateful, towards the soldier who berates him. We will never know why he is called 'the Dragon from the West' in the live action show...
To be honest, It feels like a stage production.
That's exactly the feeling I get. To me it's the Ember Island Players.
The biggest problem are some of the castings and the pacing.
Also some of the dialog is weird and theres logical issues such as Yue water bending to freeze sokkas feet while the spirit of the Moon was already dead supposedly ridding her of her powers
I thought the same thing about Yue at first, but after I thought about the fact that she has literally a part of the moon inside her. So no, I don't think it was a logical issue, she was just the only waterbender left.
Yue has some of the moon spirit within her so maybe that's how she was able to bend even though it was dead?
Yue was ironically not even a bender in the original. It's a change that doesn't really matter and can even be explained by saying she had a part of the moon spirit in her, but it just begs the question: Why? Why change it at all?
@@TheStraightestWhitest
Considering she literally has a part of the Moon Spirit inside of her, it just makes sense for her to be a waterbender. That was probably also the reason they made her a waterbender. To show that through the part of the Moon Spirit living inside of her she was still able to waterbend even when the Moon was gone.
@@crystalclear7512it still made no sense. She was just a moon spirit . They just added it for the so called “girl boss, girl empowerment” moment
This show does a few things well, but I have a few major complaints.
1. Water bending looks like a dollar store squirt gun vs a blue whale
2. The writers of this show need to go to prison
3. Aang just doesn't water bend ever and the fire bending episode was important
4. Why the hell is Azula so easily upset? You can make the argument that she should be with Ozai, but with everyone else? Defeats her entire point. That shit is whack.
5. Writers. Go. To. Prison. But again
Also I find it very funny that now the Suki episode she just has a crush on the cute foreign boy which.....is way more sexist? But what's sokka's character development and the overcoming of sexism am i right? Vs the North where they go from Katara you cant help to actually here youre in charge of the untrained recruits in twelve seconds
To me the biggest issue about this show. It’s the fact that they removed many of their personalities. I don’t mind the little changing of the story but removing the reason we loved these characters just make the storytelling BLAH
Would argue the seeing the genocide of the airbenders wasn’t a good change… kind of a depressing time waster. We GET the point when we see the ruins of the temple and Monk Gyatso’s skull
To touch on the use of volume I noticed as well: I noticed that (outside of fight scenes in the snow) despite living in a place where it's always snowing, there's never any snow landing on/sticking to the characters costumes. They literally just used a "snowing" filter over all the scenes in the water tribe, and once I noticed, I couldn't unsee it from that point on.
Hard disagree about Iroh. I feel like Iroh acts almost nothing like his animated counter part. It's actually wild how different they are. Most of the other characters are good though. Especially Zuko & Sokka
Go watch the video titled "Uncle Iroh is so based" and try to honestly tell me the live action version acts anything like that
I so agree with you. Iroh in the animated series had a gravitas and wisdom in his voice and in the way he spoke. This actor didnot replicate that. And while Iroh could be funny it never took away from the wisdom he demonstrated.
That one scene with the Earth kingdom soldier was so weird. Iroh would 100% apologize and admit it wasnt worth it.
Zuko was definetly the least butchered character, best acting with Iroh (best chemistry), best added parts, best episode (6) was dedicated to him, and some of it complements or somehow top the original. Like i love the fact that Zuko has fought in the Agni Kai but didn't want to hurt anyone cuz he was just searching his Father's love. In the OG showing Zuko kneeling and crying was obviously a sign of weakness, so making him fight makes the whole "You're weak" shenanigans even crueler. Also his crew being the 41st division is emotionally powerful 😥
Dallas is a great actor. The best of Avatar Team.
3 episodes in, Iroh is a huge disappointment to me. He looks like he received the script the day of shooting, and is just reading his lines. The villians get best acting nods, including the young acress playing Azula. She really gives off jealous spoiled rich kid vibes. Granted, this is a completely different character than the original series, but in this world, it fits well.
This was great. Sometimes I feel like I’m being gaslit by people who say that Netflix ATLA was great and don’t even acknowledge the flaws. The OG cartoon was by no means perfect but it has earned its reputation as one of the best cartoon shows ever.
I knew this show was going to be bad when they SKIPPED the scene from the cartoon where Aang meets Sokka/Katara to do even more exposition.
8 1 hour long episodes is actually a comparable runtime to 20 25 min episodes.
The show didn’t have to make any significant story cuts, especially when Book 1 had a couple episodes you could skip altogether
i disagree that its only bad because they had 8 episodes. the original season 1 had 20 20 minute episodes which is 80 minutes less than the netflix show. and thats even including the filler. really the people that made this show just genuinely don't care and suck at writing there is no other excuse for them.
I agree 100% that this show is DEEPLY flawed. I don't dislike it though. I think it has a ton of potential. If they didn't have so many writers on only 8 episodes the quality of the writing (whether good or bad) would at least be consistent. I feel like some of the things they change is fine and makes sense given the time constraint, but then certain things like in Omashu how the earth bender dumped out the water from his OWN canteen in front of Iroh and then throws his OWN canteen away... is just stupid. It's literally HIS CANTEEN why would he dump out his OWN WATER for the sake of "punishing" Iroh! I think he also throws away his own apple but I don't exactly remember. I think the action in the show is awesome, though. That fight between Aang and Zuko in Omashu feels like a Jackie Chan scene! Sure there was a little more cuts than I would've liked, but it's child actors and they seem pretty inexperienced so I think what we ended up getting was just sweeet. The cgi is so awesome it definitely doesn't disappoint.
I'm sorry, but i can't be the only one who believes they butchered suki's character. She became an awkward mix between weird and outlandish, which i feel totally missed the point of her character. oh and also WHERE WAS SOKKA'S SEXISM ??. I say this for the potential of character growth and development for Sokka.
My little brother said it best.
“It feels like they made another movie and just divided the clips into episodes while also taking MORE liberties with the story than the Shyamalan movie”
And I rarely agree with my brother but goddamn it he was so right.
roku was completely butchered in this show. roku and his actions were the catalyst of the main story and he should care deeply about aang and his future. in the cartoon, his regret over his past actions were very apparent during his conversations with aang and it’s clear that he has a lot of hope that aang will be able to mend his failures. roku being aang’s primary guide and mentor makes so much sense in the context of the story, but in the live action, he appears for 2 minutes and is played off as a comedy bit. this is something so deeply wrong about the show that i cannot take anybody who says “it has the spirit of the original” seriously.
I knew Azula would suck I called it. Soon as I saw the actress face I was like “nope” lol her face is too babyish.
When it was revealed they were getting rid of the Sokka sexism storyline, that told me everything I needed to know.
It told me that these people watched the show but didn't understand a damn thing about it. And I was right.
8 episodes with 1 hour run times comes to 480 minutes. 480 divided by 24 (the length of the animated episodes) = 20 episodes. They have relatively the same amount of time to tell the story. It would have literally had been a 1:1 remake though.
I disagree that 8 episodes wasn't enough. Each episode was an hour long. I think that gives it more run time than season 1 had. Especially with every episode having end credits.
So, I would argue that most of the cut things were deliberate choices. Especially Aang being less fun. They mentioned they were doing that deliberately in an interview. So that would be the same no matter how much time they had.
Seriously? How is Aang being less fun a good idea?
@@captainhowlerwilson508
I didn't say it was a good idea. But the show runner thought it was.
AZULA WAS SUCH A MISSCAST IN THE NETFLIX SHOW
I am sorry but the less episodes argument just isn't valid. Season 1 of both shows had almost the same runtime, yes the live action has a little less, but there are filler episodes which can be cut very easily from the cartoon. My biggest problem is that the show doesn't have a main focus like the cartoon had. They want to make a GoT like drama in which all the main characters have their own little stories and development. By spending so much time developing the individual characters they hardly have any time to put the main characters together. And by giving everyone their own deep motivation and drama they lose focus of the main storyline. Katara misses her mom and wants to become a waterbender. Sokka feels like he failed his death and wants to find his place in the world. Zuko is quite the same as in the cartoon. Iroh suddenly gets a big tragic backstory (he had it in the cartoon but it was only mentioned a few short times). Aang feels like a side character in his own show and the things he struggles with in episode 2, he still struggles with at the end of season 1. He wants to stick his head in the sand which is a normal human reaction to being afraid of failure, but that is not Aang like in the cartoons. In the cartoon he feels guilty he wasn't there to help people the past 100 years and tries to do everything to make up for it, in the show he just makes it worse. They should narrow the focus to just Aang and Zuko (like in the cartoon) and leave all the tragic backstories of the side characters for short dialogues like in the cartoon. You need a common goal to become a team, but at this moment the goals and motivations of everyone in team Avatar are just wildly different that it's a wonder they're still together.
TLDR; But shows have the same runtime, they need to narrow the focus to Aang and Zuko, and have team Avatar on a common goal again instead of three seperate side quests.
Iroh IS NOT FLAWLESS. He is implied to be intentionally trying to sabotage Zuko which is NOT what he was in the original. In the original he always tried to give his wisdom and opinions, but never overtly tried to take Zuko off his path. Thats because he knew at the end of the day Zuko had to make his own decisions if he were to mature into a great ruler. He also understood that Zuko had to potentially make his own mistakes to truly learn from them, even with all the sadness it brought him to see that process take place.
You are correct about the pacing of the series. Netflix needed to give thr show 15-20 eps. Goof review i do hope we get a second season and the show runners get more episodes to develop .
Runtime of season 1 of both shows is similar. There was plenty of time to tell a good story. This argument can only be made for that abomination of a movie which tried to slam 440 minutes of runtime into 90. This show has around 400-430 minutes of runtime, almost the same as the cartoon had for it's first season. It's not even that bad, but I hardly feel any connection between the characters. It's like I'm watching 5 characters on their own Hero's journey travelling together by coincidence rather than pursuing a common goal.
@@nielsvanheteren What you feel is exactly the problem of the 8 episodes formula. you don't feel attachment with the characters because their talks are always exposition. Every action they make or every step they take is 100% focused on advancing the plot. That's when happens when you have no fillers. Like for a show to have stakes and for you to connect to the characters, you have to see them under mundane situations. You need to see Sokka setting up a tent, Katara filling a pot with waterbending, their plans. This live-action unfortunately didn't show us most of the journey from the South Pole to the North Pole. I don't think they could've pulled off anything better with the 8 episode formula without risking stuff like the air nomads genocide. I really hope they get 10 or 12 episodes for season 2, even more. Because this show can go from ok to good/great just by having more time to breath. And considering Book1 was the weakest from the cartoon, they would have even better source material to guide them.
You nailed it in the first minute. Not enough time.
The thing is, they can change all this. They can add time, add depth, and cut stuff. They can make season 2 and 3 really good. The first season isnt so bad that its irredeemable. They can still make this a great series.
This Azula will never let Zuko take the glory for killing the avatar
Let's be honest there was no way this show was ever gonna match up to the animated series.
I really don't understand why anyone would even bother touching an absolutely beloved IP.
It's the definition of insanity.
Although when people are creatively bankrupt this would be the end result.
If the creators stuck around, it very well could have matched up.
No one has brought the world size up it feels tiny.The Avatar world is supposed to be several contients yet everywhere looks the same canadian forest, Aang flies from the Earth Kingdom to the fire nation crescent island in a couple of hours. Zuko had command of a Fire Nation cruiser which should have at least hundreds of people if not thousands but on screen you only see Lt. Jee and like 10 other guys, or same with Azula conquering Omashu with 40 guys.
Here's the thing, the show writers crafted everything assuming you already know everything about Avatar. So, that's why, for example, Aang wants to go to Kyoshi island to meet her, despite that he shouldnt know that's possible. In the cartoon, Aang only discovers he can talk to Roku because he's doing a different spirit mission and Roku's animal companion tells him he needs to be at a certain place at a certain time. Otherwise, Aang (and especially other people) wouldnt have known such a thing was possible
The weirdest nit pick me and my sister had was the first shot of ty lee. Shes wearing like a lot of layers? So when you first see her shes looks, plus sized!? But then you pause it to be like really minor detail why is Ty Lee our + sized body rep now? Nope her arms are pencils so the first shot of her is framed at her torso and is articicaly kinda quite curvy. Its just a completely artless character introduction. Whys the gymnist being introduced tightly bundled in 4 layers?
that's not nit picking that's atom clawing.
I thought the same! Mai and Azula looked great to me but for Ty Lee, a flexible, athletic, active queen, you have her wearing more layers than both her friends combined! Like how is she supposed to move in that fit?! Wardrobe department dropped the ball with some of the fits, unfortunately. Makeup too.
@@BoshyG not really character introductions definin a character and she's barely even in the scene. What I described is the whole scene that, that's not how you do that.
It's live action Azula's costuming that's the worst offender to me in this department, she looks to be wearing a simple metal/leather cuirass that that's already worn over *two sets of robes...* and overneath that initial chestplate are these two halves of armor that grow wider, making a V as they meet at the middle of her waist, that overnearth *_those_* are two metal shoulder straps with metal studs. It's so needlessly how _overdesigned_ it is, and how constricting it looks, it makes me uncomfortable to think that the actor has to wear that.
They all looked chubby which they shouldn’t. They are all active and on the road . The live action Mai looked like she can’t move a muscle or throw a dart
Just sat here and did the math.
7.417 Hours Cartoon 1st Season No Credits
6.75 hours 2 Episodes Removed No Credits - Removed The Fortune Teller and The Great Divide
6.333 Hours Live Action - With Credit Time Already Removed.
6.267 Hours - Season 1 Animation With No Credits and The Fortune Teller, The Waterbending Scrolls, and The Great Divide cut. Could have used Bato to give Katara the Waterbending Scroll found on his journey.
I'm posting in other threads just telling you in case you see this.
I was really excited for this show but I stopped after episode 1 because the CGI backgrounds are so bad and the costumes are great but look like they were made yesterday, they are too new and clean, it’s really jarring trying to get into the world when it looks so fake.
When Aang said "maybe we should head back" and turns Appa 180 degrees I was so confused...
when iroh and gao was on the airship, their hair was not moving at all.
The katara actress has sleepy looking eyes. Add that to her muted acting= got sleepy each time she was on screen
On behalf of Lord Glidus,
SECRET TUNNEL, THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN, SECRET SECRET SECRET SECRET TUNNEL!
I appreciate people like you taking the time to watch shows/movies, so some of us don't want to. I am just done with remakes/reboots. There have been some exceptions(one piece) but I just see it as lazy and don't want to see them anyway
Best critique I've seen yet. Most people either just hatemonger or blindly praise. I especially like your critique of the cold environment not being conveyed through the actors and make up, and the set design. I thoroughly enjoyed this critique and it pointed out things i would have not noticed or thought of.
I still don't understand why they decided to spend so much money on a remake of an already near perfect show. The avatar IP is strong enough for an original to be made and make money, and they would have much more creative freedom. This comes off as a blatant Netflix cash grab, and I'm not trying to discredit the passion of the creators but that's how it comes across.
Edit: also I genuinely thought that azula was her child self from zukos flashbacks when i saw her in the trailer, it's crazy how zuko looks like 10-15 years older than his older sister. Did anyone else think that azula would be the flashback version from zukos memory?
Thank you for explaining about the location filming vs The Volume. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why the visuals yo-yo'd between beautiful and really cheap/fake looking.
It's not awful though. It's true they didn't do justice to katara, my favorite character.
Katara was soooo one-note in this version! She doesn't have the spunk, the anger or the pettiness. They kept her good qualities but removed all her flaws... She doesn't get jealous of aang, she doesnt endanger the group by stealing the scroll, she doesn't even need to train with Paku. 😢
@@allandm My gripe is the opposite. Katara was the "mothering" type because she took over that role when their mother died. She was a nagging, obsessive control freak that fought hard and loved harder. They completely eliminated that part of her character. They show she has a soft side, but they completely fail to show that she is a nurturing person who just wants the best for anyone around her and she does everything in her power to make that happen.
i disagree with iroh/zuko lu ten's funeral scene. that scene is too soon, they haven't developed the character's between iroh and zuko that's why that emotional scene feels flat.
Besides all the terrible writing and weird story changes, I HATE the way this show looks. It looks like it was a stage production or an SNL skit, which makes it hard to take seriously
six minutes of end credits per episode is some arm-breaking level back patting
great point about the cold and face changing and the breaths. So embarrassing for Netflix when they just made a movie in the cold with perfect effects. WTH were they thinking. This is on par with m night shamalan .
No, the creators were not short changed with only 8 episodes vs 20 episodes. Animated series has total run time of 454 minutes (7 hours 34 minutes) and the Live Action has 382 minutes (6 hours 22 minutes). That is close enough they could pulled it off.
I know they wanted to avoid Aang and Katara romance because of the ages of the actors... But _seriously,_ Aang and Katara getting together is kind of a huge and important part of the Avatar canon. Their kids are important characters in The Legend of Korra (if you don't have Aang and Katara romance, these characters cannot exist moving forward). And if they're doing what I think they're doing (possibly hinting at Zuko and Katara romance) then that seriously messes with the show's lore.
Though its already clear they don't care about lore at all, given that Kyoshi can apparently see the future now.
I do think it's insane Aang is never shown waterbending in this adaptation, but in the first Harry Potter film, Harry doesn't cast a single spell.
but harry potter isnt divided in 3 books of which the point is to have him learn and dominate 3 respective spells that would help him defeat voldemort... he is supposed to be at very least on his path to being a waterbending master by the end of it
Eh, Harry was never meant to be the greatest or even a particularly talented wizard. He's about foiling Voldemort's plots and usually through bravery and resourcefulness. Aang learning the elements IS the plot.
But this will at most get 3 seasons (I hope it never gets to that point), so that would be the equivalent to Harry Potter not casting a spell until the third film.
“It feels like a soulless cash-grab”
Yes. That’s it.
The 8 to 20 episode comparisson is plain bullshit.
If you add up the runtime, the adaptation is a few minutes LONGER. They had plenty of time to tell the stories from the original.
Gotta admit, despite making Sokka more mature, his character is the real MVP of the live action show. I genuinely enjoy their take on his character here since I feel like his animated season 1 was mostly a comedic relief.
And besides Sokka, there’s also Zuko and Iroh’s performance.
Even if this adaptation was done better, I don’t know how people get excited over literally any live action adaptation for cartoons.
Even if they were written perfectly, it’s still just rehashing an already established story and world. The entire live action remake industry just feels creatively bankrupt to me
I completely disagree with Katara being cast by an older actress. I feel that it would have made a greater impact if they had kept Katara's character of being motherly with this younger actress to get the point across that she was a child having to play the role of a mother due to the fire nation taking her mother away. This is something I feel would have come off better in live action than in animation because it is a little difficult to gage an animated character's age and I feel this would have been a much better way to portray Katara's character.
remake has 20 minutes more then the OG, cause the the episodes are longer.
The volume stage is the worst thing to happen to film production. It made directors and writers lazy AF. They just shoot people standing around saying stuff and then assume VFX can fix it all in post-production.
They shouldnt have added S2 things in if they had 8 epsiodes
Everyone forgets that Azula is canonically 14 and Zuko's younger sister.
Dude, the animated book one has an actual runtime of seven and a half hours after accounting for the intro and end credits for every episode. Eight episodes was vastly more than enough time for them to cover all of Book 1. Them terribly misusing the time they had, and them not having enough are two very different things.
You open your video with something that you clearly didn't think about for two seconds before writing, recording, editing, or posting it.
The only problem is how rushed it is. Ang being so attached to his crew feels needy and forced because of it. Other than that, I love it
D and D: We'll make season 8 in 6 episodes!
WB: Are you sure? u can have more money and time to make Season 8. we would perfer it if Game of thrones got 10 seasons
D and D: No sorry, we are in a rush, We must hurry! For Star Wars
Dan: I have an idea! Let's put all the characters names in a hat and pick one that will kill the Night King :D
And they did not get Star Wars...Instead they are going to butcher 3 body problem.
I hate when characters be squinting their eyes when delivering certain lines. Namely Aang and Katara
it feels like theyre all so disconnected and have no... connection to each other. like they were just plopped here to do their lines and leave after that
Great review!
I've been thinking this show over, and honestly the more and more I thought about it, the more I think I would have preferred if they made it a complete reimaging rather than an adaptation.
While watching the live-action show, I actually quite enjoyed a lot of the newer ideas they added. I really liked the expanded Iroh/Zuko scenes, any scene with Ozai, and even to some degree I am interested in this new direction with Azula. As an re-imaging, I would not have minded if they chose the things the creators wanted from the orignal series and did their own complete thing with those ideas.
I think most of it's flaws always comes back to... they had 8 episodes to do it. 8 episodes just isn't enough for the type of story that this is. It's also a show that's very character driven, so when you cut out a large amount of time, you lose a lot of those character moments and opprotunities to develop and build relationships which would be integral for the story. 12 episodes would have been perfect but 10 even would have really changed the whole thing around I feel. Most of it's flaws comes from the cut time which forces condensing and things just being taken out entirely. It's hard to really blame the showrunner there because it's out of his control and I think all things considering, he did a good job for what he had to work with. The showrunner even said that he wanted the show to appeal to the GoT fanbase, but if you want it to appeal to that fan base, you need A LOT of time for the characters to breath and allow them to tell the story. I think there were areas where he was successful in that department, like the Zuko and Iroh development, but lacked in the core trio. Even smaller bits, like Yue and Suki were good deviation choices imo. Really, the trio was the big flaw. No waterbending journey. lack of relationship building between team avatar and as for Katara I felt as if she was the most disconjointed. She just seemed.... emotionless. Where the original is the exact opposite of that. She's compassionate, resourceful, outspoken and a natural leader. In this adaption, she's just the insecure little sister and it's really a shame because you could make the argument that Katara is perhaps the most impactful character. She needs a bigger presence. Team Avatar just seemed bland. Aang definitely felt like Aang and Sokka felt like Sokka but it just felt like there was a piece missing. It's like they were too afraid of taking any risks with core three so they just wrote them in like these perfect little characters that have no flaws because they didn't want anyone to dislike them. This is a huge mistake because it lacks depth and has no conflict. So the characters are just on auto pilot the whole time.
The fake sets just seemed really meh. It's an amazing piece of production technology with the 360 led set. HotD proved this. However, you have to compliment it with additional pieces to make it look acceptable. you also can't rely off it. The things like breathing in the cold lacks but is honestly an easy fix. Just make the room cold as hell and have the makeup department prepared to make characters look cold. Overall, I think it was good. Not great, but good and it was charming show for Avatar fans. Hopefully, the cast, crew and writers department will turn all the flaws into a positive and learn from this to improve the coming seasons. To me, if your going to have a mediorce season. Have it at the beginning so you can really turn things around and finish strong. BUT They have to recognize this and Netflix really needs to stop putting handcuffs on them, because honestly, telling this story in 8 episodes is just extremely hard to do. I have a lot of respect for them for taking on the challenge and facing adversity despite all of this! Hey, I'll still take this over the Shamalyan movie.
My only complaint is Aang flying into a storm on purpose to get away from his thoughts. Why not just stick to the fact that he ran away? Then Azula is suppose to be a sympathetic character now?
Fine. I'll rewatch the original animated AtLA
Careful, big/little Joel got his Avatar video taken down and lost his appeal. YT coming down hard on anyone critical of this stinker.
I don't understand why Netflix is so set on these 8 episode seasons. It's just not enough time. Are they scared to comit to more episodes because they are afraid of losing money in case it flops? This is Avatar. One of the most highly regarded cartoons of all time. It will make money. If you know that 8 episodes won't be enough do more episodes. Like at least 10. I really liked the OPLA, but I would definitely have preffered if there were at least 10 episodes.
yep is a huge dissapointment
Honestly I think this project would have been better suited with Amazon Prime than netflix or even HBO
I just now realized that this wasn’t the M. Night Shamalan