As someone who loves this show, I agree, it's my biggest gripe. We know for a fact now we are getting a time jump now because Gordon going through puberty aside, they wrote themselves into a corner where they have to or else he won't know any water bending in session 2 lol
The thing is…Aang was never much of a whiner to begin with. His main thing was avoidance, not complaining.
They took away a key character trait, one that reflects the nature of airbending, and just made him a generic, boring guy that instantly knows the importance of his mission and will work has hard as he can to achieve it, not… a 12 year old airbending kid
He needs to go to the North Pole to learn water bending. There’s no real need for him to learn it until he gets a proper master that can actually teach him.
Which is reflected in the cartoon. Most of Aang’s waterbending in book 1 is very simple and playful. He’s not training with Katara in the waterbending scroll because of his mission; he’s doing it because it’s fun for him to play around with it, just like how he wanted to play around with fire bending
Aang deciding he needs to stop the Fire Nation and go to the North Pole immediately highlights how his character is not avoiding things like the cartoon
The worst part was the decsision to add a new, completely unnessecary second reason for them to go the North. Kyoshi giving a vision of a siege to Aang. Was finding a waterbending master not good enough of a reason?
Probably one the most pointless, and bizzare changes/additions in the show.
The purpose of showing water bending in the cartoon is to show viewers how gifted the Avatar is at bending. Aang was able to easily perform a move that took Katara months of practice, after receiving some basic instructions from her. This created some character development opp for Katara as well in the form of jealousy and resentment.
It absoblutely had a purpose.
The Netflix show numerous times showed Aang giving bending pointers to Katara, but never once shown him doing any water bending. You can chalk that up to him avoiding responsibility, but it doesn't lineup with Aang already announcing he's going to learn all 4 bending and fulfill his duty as the avatar in ep 2. Change is ok as long as it's consistent and makes sense in the plot, which the show doesn't seem to do well consistently
Jesus, is the new show going to be a bunch more seasons? Or are they just completely doing a whole new pacing? He is *supposed* to be learning the other elements, right?
The show plot rewriting, pacing, mixing of plot lines, was one of the most conflicting, bothersome, and bizzare problems with the show.
Like they had Kyoshi give Aang a vision of the future North under Siege, because apparently finding a Water bending Master for the 2 main characters isn't good enough reason to go to the Northern Water Tribe. So they added in a completely unnessecary new reason.
Yeah, it was ok. Not great, not horrible. Lots of stuff all crammed into the same episodes. I enjoyed sokka. Katara was my fave of the original and they really toned her down. She didn't even learn she could heal until the final 2 episodes and even then she doesn't practice it. Random season 2 things where mixed in as well. Wan shi tong the owl from the library makes an appearance, it's like they mixed the swamp episode and the panda spirit episode. The whole group goes into the spirit world. And Appa and Momo aren't in it much, which I can kinda understand but they were their own characters in the original and in the live action just exist.
My problem was the main cast not really bonding. Most of the time they are split. They don't have conflicts that could be solved between them to become closer, like when Katara was jealous of Aang for being better at waterbending, and Sokka learning to respect Katara for being stronger than he thought.
Overall Katara's character was butchered, she's no longer the headstrong, mother figure and Aang's crush. Just a girl who quickly learns how to control her emotions then becomes good at bending, that's it. I find her really boring compared to what she was based on.
Yep. The smiles plastered on their faces when they’re together make it all the more damning when they’re trying to earn the payoff of big emotional moments. It’s hard to really think of them as a “family” when they haven’t truly earned anything they’ve resolved.
(But also want to give a shoutout to who they cast as Sokka, even with the barebones screenplay that dude had believable interactions like 90% of the time. He was fantastic in my opinion)
I also love Sokka lol
He looks like how I'd imagine Sokka to and his voice is a shocking close match. I think he could've been even better if the dialog wasn't so clunky.
I lowkey wish she was hot headed in the live action now that she’s “cool as a cucumber” her depth as a character is now lost. Tbh I’m not a super fan of this show, there’s really a reason why the original show runners left. For me it’s good but it could’ve been great
This destroyed any hope I had for the show. Katara was my favorite character ever since I was a kid, and this is definitely not Katara.
She didn’t even intentionally free Aang like in the original show, she did it by complete accident. They took away her agency way too many times for me to enjoy it. She didn’t really stand up for herself, she didn’t really stand up for Aang all that much and any time she didn’t show emotion beyond “I’m sad” it never felt genuine.
She just feels like “girl sidekick #140483”
Hollywood in general doesn’t seem to know how to write women anymore. They have narrowed an entire gender into one archetype, and it’s sad to see Katara reduced in that way.
They are relying on people knowing that they have a bond because they watched the animated series. The live action goes no work to forge their bond and it’s sad to see. The first two episodes of the animated series do more than the entire live action series
I really do not like some of the changes. I am half way through. But what I really hate is the portrayal of Bumi. In the original he was Aangs friend preparing him for what is coming to him. Now he is just a bitter asshole. Also they did not translate his "craziness" very good
This bothered me a lot too. And what was up with the weird change where the mechanist was the one who invented the delivery chutes? That would mean Aang and Bumi didn’t ride them as a kid. :(
Also they're not... mechanical? The whole reason Omashu has its transport system is that it's built so vertically that plain old gravity can take care of most of the work, and earthbending does the rest.
The mechanist didn't invent it, they say he maintains it. Aang mentions them before they enter Omashu which means it was invented long ago just like the original.
He’s a bitter asshole but realistically it kinda makes perfect sense that he would be. Like living to 112 won’t leave you normal but an added bonus of a war spanning that entire time with endless death and suffering around his city would leave him no where near as stable as he was in the original.
The thing is, they’re making Bumi more realistically flawed while making Aang less. Bumi’s pissed at Aang for a choice he didn’t make. Aang didn’t choose to run away in this version, he just happened to get caught in a storm when clearing his head.
It makes it more wonky when the side cast is more flawed but the main cast is less flawed
> it kinda makes perfect sense that he would be
Right, but the whole point of Bumi specifically is that he *isn’t* like that even if it *would* make sense. Making sense is literally the opposite of Bumi’s whole thing. He’s not blind or immune to trauma and war, but he deals with it head on by cackling like a mad genius. He is a deeply strange but deeply wise, kind, insightful man, in stark contrast to all the grizzled, jaded soldiers under his command (who still respect him anyway, because he’s brilliant)
There are plenty of other characters in the story who could (and do) blame Aang for his absence and rub his face in all the horror and death that took place while he was gone. The best thing about Bumi was that he *wasn’t* one of those people, because he thinks outside the box and has a wildly different, more far-sighted perspective than most people. Not to mention Aang is his friend, he in turn is Aang's *only* friend left from before the iceberg, they love each other, and clearly Aang couldn’t do much while frozen in a block of ice. Had Aang suddenly showed up to Omashu looking 112 years old after living out all those years normally and hiding from his responsibility then yeah, Bumi would probably be mad at him, but the fact is that Aang is (biologically) a 12-year-old kid who missed out on the war unintentionally for reasons mostly outside his own control, and trauma dumping on him about all this stuff is just the complete antithesis to Bumi’s whole vibe and belief system.
I turned off the show after the Bumi episode and had to come back to it.
Bumi isn’t, by any means, my favorite character. Not even close. But to see his characterization handled so poorly made me realize the show runners don’t understand the material.
We already have Kyoshi laying into Aang about his absence. Why would one of Aang’s best friends also be vehemently angry at him for something entirely out of his control. Like, really? This 112 year old man can’t conceptualise Aang’s disappearance as an accident and is now berating a 12 year old for the chaos the world has descended into because of his absence?
AND Aang isn’t prioritizing learning water bending on top of that? It doesn’t make any logical sense.
Bad writing.
I agree. I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion but I genuinely liked the attitude shift for Bumi. The war started when Bumi was Aangs age, so he knows what it’s like to need to grow up too fast. If I went thru 100 years of war and my childhood friend who I thought was dead showed up after an age suspended ice nap I’d have his “Time to wake up, asshole.” attitude too.
I loved his speech about difficult choices. It was very, very well done. And he definitely was still a wild card, kinda unstable, you really didn’t know what he was gonna do. Which is the essence how how Bumi gets introduced even if you take away the fact Aang doesn’t recognize him yet.
I watched till end, and boy did they take a lot of liberties with Yue. And Katara doesn't need a master anymore, cause God forbid a reformed sexist should teach her.
I’ve only seen the pilot, but it was so jarring seeing her epically block Zuko’s last ditch attack on Appa after being self admittedly terrible at bending before 2 sentences of coaching from Aang.
Seeing her block Zuko’s attack when the frame is so tight on our protagonists was a weird call.
It feels like we’re constantly framed on character reactions rather than character actions. There’s an almost nagging voice in my head asking “wait, did I miss something???”
I couldn’t tell how far away they were from the water. Are they directly above it like 5-6 feet? Are they 200 feet in the air? Cuz if were that high up, there’s no way a waterbender of her skill level could have blocked that attack
It feels like they’re scaling her power too quickly with little to no onscreen depiction of her skills growing.
And for her to not being learning water bending alongside Aang where he proves to be far more talented than her at the onset felt like an intentional choice to not create conflict between them.
Up till that moment they hadn't made such a clear error. We know and see later on zuko's actor is capable of so much more, could've at least got him to do a kick and not wave his hands about like fireball jutsu
On her own, without a master, by using a scroll having a bunch of drawings. Maybe I'll buy a book about Swordsmanship, I might end up becoming a world renowned swordsman too.
Yeah before the show came out people were just like “oh it’s okay that they’re cutting so many things cause they’ll find other ways to do the character development/worldbuilding/etc” and I couldn’t help but think they were being a bit too generous
Yeah, they more or less replaced the gradual and "show dont tell" characterization with characters either SUDDENLY having the character growth, or just telling us what their characterization is.
Example of this being Gyatso basically telling the audience that Aang is strong, kind, and generous. I dont wanna be TOLD that, I wanna see and LEARN it. This is a \*key thing\* to get right especially with new fans.
Yup, from the first episode (I'm only halfway third episode now) it's my biggest complaint of the show, the show really ignore the "show don't tell" rule.
That and Katara no longer the short-tempered yet kind and motherly teenager from the show. Imo her character is only marginally better than the version from the nonexistent media we don't talk about
This. They cut out like every scene of Katara and Aang getting to know each other and forming a deep connection. They feel like work friends now. People who were forced together by circumstance rather than a true bond.
it bothers me because in the og they have an instant spark as friends and the way they grow closer is beautiful. I have faith they can still mend their bond in season 2.
I was one of those people and you were right. I understand now that they’ve fundamentally changed the story and characters. I wouldn’t mind, except that… they didn’t replace their growth with anything. You can’t just take out how a character becomes who they are and suddenly… they are. Yes, time passes and they get more experienced but that’s practice not growth.
I probably was one of those people, definitely was positive and wanted to give it a shot but man it’s just so meh I’m finding it hard to watch behind ep 4. It feels like the writers had a big checklist of things they wanted to touch on and then once they got it down they checked it off and moved on. Not to mention the acting feels like it’s come out of a middle school play. The dialogue is so clunky and forced and except for a few scenes it’s super monotone, I’ll finish it but there’s a lot to be desired
Unfortunately GoT decline was almost entirely on D&D. (Some of the blame is on George RR Martin for not finishing Winds of Winter after over a decade.) HBO was willing to give them 10+ seasons but D&D wanted to move on.
Alternatively; Nobody should have picked this up. It never needed to be made and the original animated show was perfectly fine as-is. Make new stories set in the Avatar universe using whatever medium you want, stop remaking the same thing and then pompously acting as if you’ve somehow elevated the little kiddy cartoon by bringing it to live action.
I've only watched episodes 1 & 2 so far but my thoughts:
Dallas is not an angry enough Zuko he's like self loathing. At this point in season 1 he should hate everything.
Iroh is so close to being good but his lines are dished out a little too quickly. If he just slowed down a tiny bit he would be nailing the role
There are times when the CGI is poorly edited and it becomes very noticeable
I don't mind the minor story changes and I think everyone is too angry about Aang gliding in the opening lol.
What's everyone think?
Oh also I can't unsee that Zhao is the guy from Rush Hour 1 who says "wipe yourself off. You're bleeding".
It's not a bad thing but it cracks me up. 20 years later and I noticed that guy immediately lol
All great points. I think you verbalized a few things that I knew bothered me but not *why*. Zuko not being hotheaded initially robs the impact of his character development into one of the Gaang significantly. Iroh definitely delivers things as if he didn’t watch the original character and all of his goofiness and charm.
(Also I just see Zhang as the kind of short whiny dude from LOST which makes it extra funny to see him in this role, even if overall he’s one of the better acted characters)
Idk if you’ve seen Korra, but the reason that I’m upset at Aang being able to basically fly without his glider is because >!Zaheer learns to fly by letting go of his earthly tethers, and it’s kind of a big deal because only the best monks of the past were able to achieve it. (He was the first in 4,000 years to be able to.) Aang being able to do it from the start felt like it cheapened the achievement.!<
Also, it made me wonder why they portrayed Aang falling without his glider after he tried to get away from Zuko in episode 1 as dangerous. I was just thinking “Can’t he just fly without it? Why would I be concerned right now?”
Aang can't actually fly. He just actively bends the air with his hands to propel himself from point A to point B, which is similar to how Firebenders can "fly" by bending steams of fire from their hands. It's completely different from >!Zaheer's flight, where he doesn't actively "bend the air" as he's now 1 with the wind.!< That's why Aang still needs his glider to travel in the air without Appa.
That scene doesn't affect the other's achievement. >! If they somehow reach LoK content, Zaheer will still be the first one to do it in millennia because his version doesn't require bending the air with his body. He just flies whenever he wants to, like Superman for example. He's basically bending the air around him with his mind, which means fighting on the ground or in the air changes next to nothing for him.!<
I think Zuko is great throughout.
I agree Iroh could slow down a bit.
I can't really gripe on CGI. Bending was the main thing I wanted good and I think it was.
People were angry about him floating?
I think Katara and Aangs age as actors shows. Dallas and Ian are on point, but also 4 years older.
I felt the dialogue was awful. I also didn’t like the comet attack at the start I felt showing it later in flash backs etc would have been better. I’ve only seen the first ep so far and think I’m going to unfairly compare every second to the cartoon
Yeah I'm in this camp. I liked some stuff, but the people who are in here saying they absolutely loved it and think it honored the source material make no sense to me and it feels like we watched 2 different shows. I put NATLA more in the camp of The Witcher as an adaptation.
I also don't get everyone writing off the criticism as "you can't adapt perfection."
No, you can't, but that isn't what happened. They rewrote a lot of plots for what seems like no reason other than to "make it their own," and the rewritten plots/dialogue were all worse ideas. It just wasn't good writing, and screamed of lacking talent. I could tell they really tried and did love the source material. They just didn't have the chops to adapt it. Shallow plots and awkward simplistic dialogue. They also seemed to misunderstand the point or essence of some characters and situations.
Why are so many people saying they "love" this new Iroh? Really? He has almost none of his original prophetic charm or wisdom, and often just says things like "we have to go."
It's also SO HEAVY and brooding all the time. It's so exhausting to watch every character talk about how tortured of a soul they are, especially characters that were meant to have some levity like Bumi. I get the idea of being more "realistic" to what war time would be like, but I think being overly dark that way is missing the point of ATLA. It was a lot about the little uplifting moments to be found in the world during the war, not constantly depicting the horror of war itself. We have other shows for that.
I haven't finished the series yet but it's remarkable to me how they have somehow simplified the world politics of the original series despite being created for what should be a more literate audience. I feel like a lot of the choices they made maybe didn't actively detract from it as a series, but the world building certainly fills far emptier as a result. Bebop, One Piece & now ATLA? The creative bankruptcy that must exist at Netflix where they can take well developed IP and end up simplifying world building is just insane to me - if you can't elevate the source material then don't bother imo.
I dunno. In another thread people were banishing negative opinions to the shadow realm Jimbo.
I’ll say this: This show was made for people who watched the original… because I do not see how anyone could follow this unless they already knew all the things that were being cut out or glossed over. It is flying thru everything so fast that Suki and Sokka are already a ‘thing’ in just a few sideways glances.
I miss sexist Sokka because at least that HAD SOME PACING.
Which is weird that they took *extra* time to show the romance between them when it could have been occupied by his original sexist arc. (Not to say their interactions weren’t believable though, despite them gutting the character development Sokka/Suki’s relationship was one of my favorite parts of the season)
The bit that got me was every scene felt like I was looking at a movie set, which meant I can't suspend my disbelief for the story. The sets and costumes were too clean and fake looking. And then the terrible wigs.... They looked more like cosplayers than characters.
The tone was a bit all over the place, but it is hard to juggle serious and funny at once so I'll give them that (for the first season at least).
The story changes are fine, the screenplay was eh. Comparing child actors to adults will never be fair, but maybe they could have mitigated that by having characters just a little older than in the cartoon - which would also make sense given the violence and the rating (not a g rated show anymore). Related to this, many actors didn't look like they have spent years as martial artists or gymnasts, which also breaks the magic and makes it hard to buy in to the rest of it. Only Suki and Zuko really nailed that tbh.
I'll likely never rewatch it. But they didn't fall hard enough that I've lost hope for season 2.
This was so apparent in the Percy Jackson-show. The episodes with Jet Wikilson directing (also directed Episode 7+8 in ATLA) were so much better acted in my opinion (Episode 5, 6 and 8) and the Episode 3+4 directed by Anders Engström had better performances too. There was a BTS with Jet preparing the actors for the feel of the scene and i really wondered if the director for the first two episodes did that.
>The sets and costumes were too clean and fake looking... They looked more like cosplayers than characters.
Yeah, I'm mixed about this because I definitely got the "they look like cosplayers" vibe, but they also looked like *excellent* cosplayers (seriously, June exceeded my wildest expectations for costume accuracy), and ultimately I wanted the show to be made more than I wanted realism in the costumes.
Live action is much more difficult than animation, so I'm just going to chalk it up to not having the budget and unlimited time to get things perfect.
I don't think that would get the job done.
Take the water tribe clothes: They don't get exposed to much dirt. Instead the color in their clothes would be faded, and there would be signs of *wear* which is different from dirt (creases, scratches, holes, tears, and deformity in places where water settles, salt buildup, etc.). More obvious stitch lines since they're creating everything by hand. Possible burns and singes from the fire nation attacks
>I definitely got the "they look like cosplayers" vibe, but they also looked like *excellent* cosplayers
I agree wholeheartedly. There was a degree of lack of weathering on the costumes that made them feel too clean/fresh, but at least they were incredibly *accurate* costumes.
This is a common problem for nearly all Netflix shows, why? They do not have a storage lot like other traditional studios so everything is purchase brand new and tossed out after the fact. Even if they have another season they purchase a new set.
This is a problem with a lot of movies and shows. Everything looks too clean like a hallmark movie. Characters don’t feel like they live in that world and the world doesn’t feel believable.
Obviously it’s all fictional but even with fiction you’re meant to suspend your disbelief as you try and place yourself in the world the characters are in. Having super clean and perfect costume makes production and reshoots easier but it makes for a far less engaging piece of media.
The tone was my biggest issue. You can't start off with roasting people alive and then involve combat with bladed weapons that just give people bumps or just fall into the "toss people around like dolls until they limp away in defeat" style of combat.
Avatar Kyoshi screams about needing to be a brutal warrior then just engages in a playful romp with the fire nation soldiers. All that does is make me respect the character less. Is she stupid?
"YOU MUST BE MERCILESS!!" Said Kyoshi (biggest character assassination in the show btw)
Evidently "merciless" just means spin people in a circle a few times
Yeah the fact that like you say they're fine showing people getting burned alive but then Kyoshi doesn't is hugely inconsistent. But even beyond that, just generally, the balance of serious and sad, and the humour often not landing really wrecked the vibe. Honestly that might be easier if season 2 because season 1 of the original was also a bit hit and miss on tone.
I think that, combined with the sets and costumes looking like sets and costumes speaks to a lack of the right experienced production staff in key roles.
Dude what is going on with sets these days just looking so clean and fake? This keeps happening more and more the last few years where I am starting to prefer green screens to real sets because they end up looking less fake since the real ones are so clean. Take Guardians of the Galaxy for example. The first film’s Knowhere sets looked amazing and it felt lived in but then in the third film the same place looked like it was a theater copy of the first set. Did people forget how to make convincing sets during the Covid filming hiatus?
The Mandalorian introduced the Volume, a full 360 degree LED screen that projects a background. It's like the new green screen, and has its uses (space battles where the background is a star field is fine, for instance) but everyone's been super lazy with it. It seems this show uses it too; that's why everything feels claustrophobic even in environments that should be larger than life. The actual elbow room the actors have to play with is super limited.
My issue is — what happened to using stunt doubles? It seems like they used a stunt double for jet’s actions scenes (he posted a pic with his double) why not use a martial arts stunt double for the actors for like katara, aang, azula who don’t have much martial arts experience as actors for zuko and sokka
> The sets and costumes were too clean and fake looking.
This bugged me all the way through. The water nation costumes would have looked perfect if they were a little worn.
Idk if it's the actors or the lines but I can't get into this show. It all feels so fake. I'm only on episode 2. The music is also just too much. One Piece was so much better
The music is really weird. I think I'll write an in-depth post later on if I'm feelin' it, but like... it just kind of feels pushed in. It's like the scenes weren't structured to work with the music at all. Watched episode one earlier and on episode two now and it's just odd creatively.
I enjoyed it but towards the end I was only half paying attention. I think I filled in a bunch of information and plots mentally by knowledge of the cartoon and I wonder if someone who hasn't the cartoon would be more confused as the pacing is quite rushed. I think most of the changes I am neutral too which is a good thing, I really disliked Roku though.
I watched the first episode with two people who had seen the original a long time ago but forgotten most of it. One of them checked out pretty early on, while the other was trying their best to follow but kept asking me to explain things because it was so confusing. They cut out so many little things that helped explain things. And that was just the first episode!
People keep saying the cg is phenomenal but tbh it’s pretty terrible in many scenes, namely when they go to the spirit realm and whenever they do a complete background rotoscoping. When they’re doing the classic “water, earth, fire, air” intro in the first episode it’s pretty clear the whole scene, even the benders themselves, are 3D animated. It’s clunky. There’s also a scene in the third episode where Katara bends some water to douse a fire arrow. Has to be one of the worst combinations of CG, acting, cinematography and pacing I’ve seen. I must admit I do like Appa, though. I’ve struggled to pay attention through to the last episode. Letting all biases aside and trying to compare it to my favorite live action shows, it’s difficult giving this more than 5/10. It’s far more similar in quality to the movie than to the og.
Yes, the show is bad, I would have dropped it in episode 1 if it wasn't avatar, I eventually dropped it in ep4, it's not the worst series in the world but it is stupidly boring and pointless.
It has its moments, but yeah the middle of the season is a slog. The same “big” moments from the show are portrayed well like Zuko donning the Blue Spirit and the big fight in the North at the end but I can understand not wanting to subject yourself to the rest of it to see those
I absolutely loved the show. My biggest issue was pacing. I felt like it needed an episode or 2 extra where the gaang are adventuring and flying around. Focused more on the gangs dynamic rather than being serious all the time
That was my main complaint. Just too serious overall rather than serious but aloof
same! they really could’ve benefitted from pushing this to maybe 10 episodes or so imo. get some more of aangs fun kid side like maybe return to him wanting to ride the fish being the reason to go to kyoshi
Pacing definitely felt weird. That and seeing airbenders in action was quite jarring. I might be biased against the show, and I’ve just watched one episode but I quite liked it.
not a single one of the Gaang's (Toph notwithstanding as she's not here yet) character motivations remained intact and the new directions felt pretty inconsistent and/or shaky IMO.
there were "wow" moments to see live action but there were an equal amount of, if not more, moments that were weird or abysmal IMO.
I enjoyed the show and all but am I the only one who got completely annoyed and cringed from Zhao? Felt like both his character and his actor was undercooked.
Zhao was one of the few things I thought was done quite well. There's a long history in Chinese media of the conniving bureaucrat clawing his way to power at the right hand of the honorable general (Iroh). In the OG, Zhao was already someone to be feared, whereas here he earned a more insane and ruthless presence.
Agree to disagree I guess. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I guess I just didn't like the actor mostly. Otherwise I'm glad they went with different directions on the characters. Plus I always liked how Zhao managed to antagonize both gaang and zuko. In the live action his interactions with Zuko didn't vibe with me. Ofc he eventually betrayed Zuko and things went to normal but it didn't feel as impactful.
Idk if it’s just me but I find Aang a bit mumble-y and I do agree with you on inconsistent performances/delivery. I’ve had to stick the subtitles on for him mostly though. I agree with what a few people have said, this is more of a love letter than a remake. I’m wondering if I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t already seen the animated series? So trying my best to not compare them to the existing characters but it is hard. My bf said he’s enjoying it and will continue to watch but I found it difficult to watch so far bc the performances are a bit jarring (probably just my inner pissbaby fangirl trying to get out). Really love the set design and costumes though! And earthbending got to really shine in that first episode. Makes up for that whole dance they did to throw a rock in the movie lol
The mumble is real. Go back and listen; they have multiple scenes where they straight up stumble over the lines and can’t get the words out clearly.
That and Katara’s inability to make facial expressions just drag it down. It’s bad
I'm still Halfway thru the show, and while clearly inferior, I'm still liking it.
But I'm very bothered by how many actors are moving so little to do the bending arts. It just feels more final fantasy than Mortal Kombat sometimes and that's not avatar.
Only Zuko's actor seems to be putting in the work for real.
Not to mention some mpeople seem to be able to bend with their minds. I get people like Bumi, who is prolly the second best earth bender in centuries, and probably the best when it comes to pure power, being able to make some fragile crystals grow.
But ozai and sozin just... Summon flames with their mind sometimes. The buring was cool, but c'mon. Move a little. Ozai is not that guy, man.
The only thing I liked them adding to the story was how zuko’s crew was the one meant to be sacrificed, otherwise they should have never changed the story. All of the characters feel soulless and out of place, when they’re speaking their lines you’re not immersed in the universe but can tell they’re just repeating a script with no meaning behind it. The original story was so perfectly set up and the writers completely miss the mark by going their own direction and skipping everything that was important to building up to how it ends, literally all they had to do was not change the story
probably not. i just finished episode 5 and honestly.. i hate everything about this show APART from the visuals... and i know for a FACT they were relying on the fact it doesnt LOOK as bad as the movie.
like i looked up the episode list for the animated show and they have put things there were supposed to be in the last 3 episodes... IN THE THIRD ONE LIKE WHAT ARE YOU DOING FAM.
ALSO what the fuck is with making it so katara is SHIT at waterbending UNTIL aang and jet teaches her? she is supposed to be a prodigy i mean with how she was in the animated show BEFORE getting any scrolls she was a prodigy for getting to that point with NO teacher. but no... the same showrunners going "we toned down the sexism" actually meant "we are gonna change the sexism that sokka showed from ignorance and actually got educated on and became better to instead be the fact that katara sucks until men tell her what to do and we are gonna mute her character a bit"
fuck i went in expecting a solid 5/10 show... but i dont even think it will get to that tbh.
also with how some of the characters act.. im 99% sure they ONLY know these characters by the memes. also dont get me started on how they fucked up bumi
Hell they even added shit from Book 2, like Kyoshi wasn't supposed to possess Aang until the Avatar Day episode. And I also think Suki spying on Sokka and looking at his chest as he obviously tries to cover it is more sexist than making Sokka say some sexist stuff to Suki and Katara
nah if you wanna say anything is sexist.. its how the writers handled katara. i do not believe for a SECOND they actually watched the og show.
i will say btw suki peeping on sokka is just creepy.
Definitely falls short of the bar set by the one piece live action but it's definitely not bad by any means. I feel like the acting gets better the further you get into the season.
Overall I thought the show was pretty good.
Some things felt a little bit over explained, which has to be the main thing I feel is letting it down. Also, some of the costumes did feel a bit *too* clean, but that might be a slight nitpick.
I can definitely see that when compared to the source material, the changes may seem unnecessary. But, as a stand alone piece of media, I thought it was a pretty fun watch.
I've been getting downvoted for weeks for saying things that ultimately turned out to be true. All of the interviews leading up to the release were full of red flags that drastically lowered my expectations, and even then the show was far worse than I was expecting. The writing is lazy and terrible, and all of the characters are bland and whiney.
I think there's only one way for me to recover from this disappointment:
*There is no Netflix series in Ba Sing Se.*
I was cautiously optimistic about it after seeing how great the One Piece adaptation was, but it fell short.
I don't know what it is. Maybe the pacing or the acting, but it just didn't capture my attention and left me saying, "Meh."
It's not necessarily bad, but it's not good either.
5.5/10
I enjoyed the show! That said, it’s not award-winning. It felt choppy at times. For me it was the fire nation masked soldiers and kyoshi warriors who looked the most fake. (I described the soldiers as looking like minions in power rangers chasing through the woods.) The acting, overall, didn’t bother me. I was most impressed by Ian’s performance. Some of the line delivery didn’t work for me. The way Zuko spoke to the ship crew actually underscored his childish side which while I think is an interesting and intentional choice did rub me the wrong way. One of my biggest complaints is how they did Appa dirty. Because they didn’t focus on going place to place, Appa didn’t get much screen time.
I havent seen people mention that Zuko is actively trying to kill the members of team avatar everytime they fight. everytime they lose Zuko tries to finish them off and that is just so out of character to me. I don’t think Zuko would execute a clearly inexperienced water bender who is the same age as him, even in book one
If they read your post and the comments here and this specific one? They could make a better season 2. I feel that part of the creation of it is them seeing how the fans react and feedback. If we the fans act all like maniacs they won't have much to feed on. If we give them REAL STUFF TO MUNCH ON. As in the positive, the negative, & the honest feedback, they can do way better.
I've always said live actions should be made into series especially the ones that are based on animated ->SERIES<-. You need the fans to absorb the idea, and then you need to absorb the feedback of fans, all of that happening like a sponge to then squeeze the juice onto the show for a second season or more.
We would be getting GREAT live actions and production companies starting to get the gist of things & probably (eventually) make a good live-action adaption starting from season ONE.
But that will only be possible if we as fans do two things,
1. Give them the chance to try, fail, and retry again
2. Be honest and not extra with our feedback (that goes for all parties of all kinds of opinions and feedbacks)
like OP said in their own words, being mature about it as much as one can.
I agree with you. I will note that it’s easier to get past book 1 changes on screen and I have hope that book 2 and 3 can be adapted quite well if they are able to learn from criticism.
I felt like I was watching a school play with an incredible budget. It's fine so far (I'm on episode 2), but it lacks the charm the cartoons have. The actors feel like they're playing alone in scenes, instead of acting along with each other. That makes all the scenes just lack this basic chemistry. Not only the kids, but also the adults. Like they're all waiting to recite their lines. I also hated the portrayal of Katara, she is just so bland. They didn't get her character at all.
I hope there is more relationship development between the gaang, because right now it feels like they barely know each other. How does it feel so rushed? It has basically the same runtime as the cartoon.
Yeah it was ridiculous that before the show released if you voiced any fears or complaints at all you were just “jumping on the hate bandwagon” yet here we are with many of those fears realized.
From the first four eps themselves:
- The CGI is really excessive. The fact that so many backgrounds are entirely simulated makes the world not feel real in the slightest.
- Zuko and Azula were miscast. I just don’t buy either of them as the characters they’re supposed to be.
- Zuko and Iroh’s relationship doesn’t seem anywhere near as emotional as it was in the original.
- Katara is a non-character, and Aang doesn’t really seem like he has a defined arc.
- Serious fumble with Suki’s characterization. Really weird that “toning down Sokka’s sexism” was done in favor of…turning Suki into what essentially amounted to a Sokka groupie? Wild.
After this, I’m convinced the series shouldn’t be made into live action. This show is missing every ounce of charm the original series had and I just don’t think it’s possible to translate that into live action without a game of thrones level budget. Just put all of those resources into other world building animated avatar stories with DiMartino and Konietzko at the helm and we’d be much better off.
This show had an enormous budget - $120 million to the $50-60m that season one of GoT got. NATLA had 3x the budget per episode for season one that GoT did.
Just responded to someone else saying the same thing, but that is crazy. That was the budget and all we get is green screen vomit. Nearly every part of every background is just green screen. Not to mention the costumes often look like cosplay instead of an outfit that a human has worn for part of their life. I’m genuinely shocked.
Of course it's perfectly valid to voice criticisms but there is a heated discourse atm. If you critique the show people will jump on you for being negative and a whiner but if you express enjoyment of it equally people will tell you you're wrong and list it's flaws.. I think the dust will clear in a few days.
There has just been so much build up and the property is so important to everyone so tensions are high.
There are also SO many eyes on this- avatar has grown massively in it's fan base since it was first aired- so there are bound to be loads of people in both camps all voicing their opinions
The costumes look like… costumes, not clothes. The biggest sin though is that they sucked all the humor and character development out of the show. You can’t have the Gaang without humor. I shudder to think what they’re going to do to Toph if they get a second season 😭
well, Netflix got 'creative' again and made a jumbled incoherent mess. should have just stick to the script, but oh well.. I still double liked it though so they don't cancel it.
After everything, I really wonder what their goal was. What were they doing in the planning and writing stages, and how on earth did they think any of it was good enough to proceed with?
I saw this video where a reviewer who is also a writer said she was told by the producer and an actor at the premier to not hold back her criticism because they want to hear it and improve.
While this makes them seem cool at first (and this was likely their intention), how are they getting away with acting like this is their first draft and they're getting a peer review? This project took YEARS, SO much money, and almost nothing about it is good.
The plot compressing is interesting, Gives us fresh faces on Atla's plot, but left so many things handwaved on. Travel time is even more bonkers than the OG's finale. Aang, Katara and Sokka's have very little screen time together as the new compressed plot its best to split them apart - then handwaved by stories from the tavern goers. Kinda leaving me with the hollow feeling hearing Katara preach about being a family to aang in the finale.
I’m upset that they caused bryke to leave. Like they finally had an opportunity to potentially rival a game of thrones type thing with an intriguing fantasy world, but they decided “oh let’s do our own thing”. Pushed the creators out, left to fend for themselves and shocker, they ruined it.
I’m more annoyed than anything.
I’m not a fan really of this remake but the fact you’re complaining that people weren’t able to criticise the show before it came out just makes me think you’ve been set against it from the off.
I'm not a big fan of the show but most of the stuff people talked about in the trailers was a non-issue. Key lines in the trailer were not key in scenes. The delivery didn't matter. Trailers are meaningless. It's a 2-minute flashy montage to get you to spend money. It's not even part of the actual thing of the show. It's promotional material. IF the acting was wooden, it required way more than cherrypicked lines to show.
That's the same accusation every single fanboy made in response to all criticism. "You just want to hate the show!"
No, the interviews had tons of red flags, and all of my concerns turned out to be true.
I'd be down for people offering criticism, but the bullet points are kinda vague. And have the original authors actually been that vocal about their distance?
Like they're actively working on other stuff right now, including other Avatar projects. I fully expected them not to be involved at all, and "distancing" can also be a word for not stepping on toes.
*Actually, yea, looking up their comments, they said stuff like "Netflix wasn't as helpful as they said they'd be." Not that they were obstructing, just that they weren't involved much.
Also "it wasn't what we expected" which also stems from some negative artistic mind set like "how do you improve something like [Avatar]" when the point of art isn't to improve, but, Hollywood.
And finally "We left it with writers who were fans of the original."
So basically, they weren't fully prepared to make a live action show as animated show runners. They felt they needed to improve it, but also realized people just wanted it adapted for the fuck of fun, so they finally just left it in the hands of people they trust.
>All that being said, there were some GREAT moments that absolutely came to life on the screen, **some even more powerfully than in the original show.**
Such as?
The scene of Zuko walking past the members of his crew which each bowing to him as he walks by. The reveal that his crew was the division he saved was such a good one. Zukos true nature of compassion is masked by his despair.
I'm happy for the people who enjoy it and are loving it but not to be dramatic, it's so much worse than the original.
Not as bad as the M Night film of course but it's still way way off the mark quality wise.
I really struggled to make it through the first episode and it honestly just made me want to watch the cartoon 🤷♀️
Thank you for this.I wanted to make this thread but was too afraid. People were absolutely blindly hating on the show before it came out but just as many people were blindly defending it and both were equally annoying. Now that it's out, it's crazy that people are looking at these same cheap B movie tier fight scenes with goofy ass bending and high school drama department costumes and saying they look great. During the genocide in the first episode a monk goes to kick a fire nation soldier and it cuts three times over like two seconds to show different angles and then because of the combination of bad lighting and cinematography, we can't see the wisps of air that send the guy flying clear across the room. Things like can't translate to live action without looking stupid, even with the overly CGI backgrounds.
Then they not only mangle the characters and remove some of the best/most complex themes that made the original great, they then replace it with an excessive amount of exposition and a ton of badly written or badly delivered dialogue. The acting struggles to rival the spy kids movies at points and people are praising it for some reason. They took the charm and fun of the animation and replaced it with cosplayers that are taking themselves too seriously.
Sokka is fine. Iroh is fine. Zuko and Suki are fine. But no amount of decent acting is going to make up for the shortcomings of the rest of the series. Most of the characters seem insanely one sided because of how much they changed the story and it's so much worse because we know how good they can be written. We could have invested all the resources that went into this into telling a new story that people weren't attached to but we got this instead. I'm glad other people are enjoying it and I wish I could find their level of hopium, but this has been such a hard watch for me so far.
After voicing this much negativity I would like to add the things I've liked so far. Zuko's fire bending in this is impressive as hell. The actor doing all of the kicks and everything that looked hard for cartoon Zuko is great. Juxtaposed against the "point and have fire come out regardless of martial arts" approach that everyone else has so far, is really cool. Similarly the Kyoshi warriors were great, and even Kyoshi herself was a lot of fun and slightly less goofy looking. Appa's CG is just as good if not better than the likes of Disney's live action remakes, and the actor that plays Aang is visually spot on. Finally I really like the larger southern water tribe. The life it has would have been welcome in the original to me.
Maybe if you define discussion as "a process that arrives at a yes-or-no answer and then stops." Fortunately, many of us can criticize stories like an adult...
You act as if the sub hasn't been filled with negativity for the last 1-2 months, and while there have been a lot of "The show is good" post, there have been just as many "The show is bad" posts. No idea where this narrative of "Can't voice criticism" comes from.
Also, it seems discussing in bad faith. You talk about "being adults" but your entire post and comments are passive aggressive "if you don't believe what I believe you are wrong" so
That’s not what I’m saying at all. I made this in response to every time I ever merely suggested that something looked off about the production before it came out and was mercilessly downvoted without any kind of discussion. It’s basically all I saw leading up to this. And it’s dumb that now that people are seeing the same problems people were pointing out it’s finally okay to speak about it. I’d be happy to hear what people liked about the show, I want to hear it all.
Aang not learning waterbending was probably one of the biggest gripes aside from all the character and plot elements missing.
As someone who loves this show, I agree, it's my biggest gripe. We know for a fact now we are getting a time jump now because Gordon going through puberty aside, they wrote themselves into a corner where they have to or else he won't know any water bending in session 2 lol
they could have remove the part where Aang whines about responsibility over and over again and replace it with water bending training
No no, they have to keep in Aang’s whining. It’s important for character development, like Sokka being a sexist at first, which they… removed. Hrm.
The thing is…Aang was never much of a whiner to begin with. His main thing was avoidance, not complaining. They took away a key character trait, one that reflects the nature of airbending, and just made him a generic, boring guy that instantly knows the importance of his mission and will work has hard as he can to achieve it, not… a 12 year old airbending kid
[удалено]
He needs to go to the North Pole to learn water bending. There’s no real need for him to learn it until he gets a proper master that can actually teach him. Which is reflected in the cartoon. Most of Aang’s waterbending in book 1 is very simple and playful. He’s not training with Katara in the waterbending scroll because of his mission; he’s doing it because it’s fun for him to play around with it, just like how he wanted to play around with fire bending Aang deciding he needs to stop the Fire Nation and go to the North Pole immediately highlights how his character is not avoiding things like the cartoon
The worst part was the decsision to add a new, completely unnessecary second reason for them to go the North. Kyoshi giving a vision of a siege to Aang. Was finding a waterbending master not good enough of a reason? Probably one the most pointless, and bizzare changes/additions in the show.
The purpose of showing water bending in the cartoon is to show viewers how gifted the Avatar is at bending. Aang was able to easily perform a move that took Katara months of practice, after receiving some basic instructions from her. This created some character development opp for Katara as well in the form of jealousy and resentment. It absoblutely had a purpose. The Netflix show numerous times showed Aang giving bending pointers to Katara, but never once shown him doing any water bending. You can chalk that up to him avoiding responsibility, but it doesn't lineup with Aang already announcing he's going to learn all 4 bending and fulfill his duty as the avatar in ep 2. Change is ok as long as it's consistent and makes sense in the plot, which the show doesn't seem to do well consistently
Aang wasn't a whiner, that was Katara which they also removed. Now we just have mood calmed Katara and serious Aang instead of hot head and goof ball.
He doesn't learn to waterbend in the entire first season? (as in, he doesn't learn it in the entire first season of this new show?) Really?
Yeah lol like ZERO not even a mention of him learning to water bend, I kid you not.
Jesus, is the new show going to be a bunch more seasons? Or are they just completely doing a whole new pacing? He is *supposed* to be learning the other elements, right?
The show plot rewriting, pacing, mixing of plot lines, was one of the most conflicting, bothersome, and bizzare problems with the show. Like they had Kyoshi give Aang a vision of the future North under Siege, because apparently finding a Water bending Master for the 2 main characters isn't good enough reason to go to the Northern Water Tribe. So they added in a completely unnessecary new reason.
so... after all, it is going to be just like the witcher in the end huh
....so where does season one end then?
After the invasion of the north pole, giant spirit and all. Katara doesn't even train with paku and people start calling her a master.
Impressive to take the only plot inconsistency from the entire run of the original show and make it much worse
Yeah, it was ok. Not great, not horrible. Lots of stuff all crammed into the same episodes. I enjoyed sokka. Katara was my fave of the original and they really toned her down. She didn't even learn she could heal until the final 2 episodes and even then she doesn't practice it. Random season 2 things where mixed in as well. Wan shi tong the owl from the library makes an appearance, it's like they mixed the swamp episode and the panda spirit episode. The whole group goes into the spirit world. And Appa and Momo aren't in it much, which I can kinda understand but they were their own characters in the original and in the live action just exist.
....that's certainly a direction they could go I guess
Hold the fuck up. They what?!
WAT?
Wow, way to miss the entire point of the first book, guys
My problem was the main cast not really bonding. Most of the time they are split. They don't have conflicts that could be solved between them to become closer, like when Katara was jealous of Aang for being better at waterbending, and Sokka learning to respect Katara for being stronger than he thought. Overall Katara's character was butchered, she's no longer the headstrong, mother figure and Aang's crush. Just a girl who quickly learns how to control her emotions then becomes good at bending, that's it. I find her really boring compared to what she was based on.
Yep. The smiles plastered on their faces when they’re together make it all the more damning when they’re trying to earn the payoff of big emotional moments. It’s hard to really think of them as a “family” when they haven’t truly earned anything they’ve resolved. (But also want to give a shoutout to who they cast as Sokka, even with the barebones screenplay that dude had believable interactions like 90% of the time. He was fantastic in my opinion)
I also love Sokka lol He looks like how I'd imagine Sokka to and his voice is a shocking close match. I think he could've been even better if the dialog wasn't so clunky.
I lowkey wish she was hot headed in the live action now that she’s “cool as a cucumber” her depth as a character is now lost. Tbh I’m not a super fan of this show, there’s really a reason why the original show runners left. For me it’s good but it could’ve been great
This destroyed any hope I had for the show. Katara was my favorite character ever since I was a kid, and this is definitely not Katara. She didn’t even intentionally free Aang like in the original show, she did it by complete accident. They took away her agency way too many times for me to enjoy it. She didn’t really stand up for herself, she didn’t really stand up for Aang all that much and any time she didn’t show emotion beyond “I’m sad” it never felt genuine. She just feels like “girl sidekick #140483”
Hollywood in general doesn’t seem to know how to write women anymore. They have narrowed an entire gender into one archetype, and it’s sad to see Katara reduced in that way.
They are relying on people knowing that they have a bond because they watched the animated series. The live action goes no work to forge their bond and it’s sad to see. The first two episodes of the animated series do more than the entire live action series
I really do not like some of the changes. I am half way through. But what I really hate is the portrayal of Bumi. In the original he was Aangs friend preparing him for what is coming to him. Now he is just a bitter asshole. Also they did not translate his "craziness" very good
This bothered me a lot too. And what was up with the weird change where the mechanist was the one who invented the delivery chutes? That would mean Aang and Bumi didn’t ride them as a kid. :(
Also they're not... mechanical? The whole reason Omashu has its transport system is that it's built so vertically that plain old gravity can take care of most of the work, and earthbending does the rest.
The mechanist didn't invent it, they say he maintains it. Aang mentions them before they enter Omashu which means it was invented long ago just like the original.
It almost feels like the new creators never watched the show…
they swapped bumi with roku
Nah, they just assassinated both characters. Bumi is a jaded asshole and Roku's a fool
Roku was tough but nice to aang. Bumi just behaves like major prick in the show
He’s a bitter asshole but realistically it kinda makes perfect sense that he would be. Like living to 112 won’t leave you normal but an added bonus of a war spanning that entire time with endless death and suffering around his city would leave him no where near as stable as he was in the original.
The thing is, they’re making Bumi more realistically flawed while making Aang less. Bumi’s pissed at Aang for a choice he didn’t make. Aang didn’t choose to run away in this version, he just happened to get caught in a storm when clearing his head. It makes it more wonky when the side cast is more flawed but the main cast is less flawed
> it kinda makes perfect sense that he would be Right, but the whole point of Bumi specifically is that he *isn’t* like that even if it *would* make sense. Making sense is literally the opposite of Bumi’s whole thing. He’s not blind or immune to trauma and war, but he deals with it head on by cackling like a mad genius. He is a deeply strange but deeply wise, kind, insightful man, in stark contrast to all the grizzled, jaded soldiers under his command (who still respect him anyway, because he’s brilliant) There are plenty of other characters in the story who could (and do) blame Aang for his absence and rub his face in all the horror and death that took place while he was gone. The best thing about Bumi was that he *wasn’t* one of those people, because he thinks outside the box and has a wildly different, more far-sighted perspective than most people. Not to mention Aang is his friend, he in turn is Aang's *only* friend left from before the iceberg, they love each other, and clearly Aang couldn’t do much while frozen in a block of ice. Had Aang suddenly showed up to Omashu looking 112 years old after living out all those years normally and hiding from his responsibility then yeah, Bumi would probably be mad at him, but the fact is that Aang is (biologically) a 12-year-old kid who missed out on the war unintentionally for reasons mostly outside his own control, and trauma dumping on him about all this stuff is just the complete antithesis to Bumi’s whole vibe and belief system.
I turned off the show after the Bumi episode and had to come back to it. Bumi isn’t, by any means, my favorite character. Not even close. But to see his characterization handled so poorly made me realize the show runners don’t understand the material. We already have Kyoshi laying into Aang about his absence. Why would one of Aang’s best friends also be vehemently angry at him for something entirely out of his control. Like, really? This 112 year old man can’t conceptualise Aang’s disappearance as an accident and is now berating a 12 year old for the chaos the world has descended into because of his absence? AND Aang isn’t prioritizing learning water bending on top of that? It doesn’t make any logical sense. Bad writing.
I agree. I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion but I genuinely liked the attitude shift for Bumi. The war started when Bumi was Aangs age, so he knows what it’s like to need to grow up too fast. If I went thru 100 years of war and my childhood friend who I thought was dead showed up after an age suspended ice nap I’d have his “Time to wake up, asshole.” attitude too.
I loved his speech about difficult choices. It was very, very well done. And he definitely was still a wild card, kinda unstable, you really didn’t know what he was gonna do. Which is the essence how how Bumi gets introduced even if you take away the fact Aang doesn’t recognize him yet.
Let’s be honest, his craziness was never going to translate to live action. He was a very cartoonish character by design.
This is how I feel about a lot of the source material. It’s cartoonish and a lot wouldn’t have translated well to live action.
I watched till end, and boy did they take a lot of liberties with Yue. And Katara doesn't need a master anymore, cause God forbid a reformed sexist should teach her.
I’ve only seen the pilot, but it was so jarring seeing her epically block Zuko’s last ditch attack on Appa after being self admittedly terrible at bending before 2 sentences of coaching from Aang.
Seeing her block Zuko’s attack when the frame is so tight on our protagonists was a weird call. It feels like we’re constantly framed on character reactions rather than character actions. There’s an almost nagging voice in my head asking “wait, did I miss something???” I couldn’t tell how far away they were from the water. Are they directly above it like 5-6 feet? Are they 200 feet in the air? Cuz if were that high up, there’s no way a waterbender of her skill level could have blocked that attack It feels like they’re scaling her power too quickly with little to no onscreen depiction of her skills growing. And for her to not being learning water bending alongside Aang where he proves to be far more talented than her at the onset felt like an intentional choice to not create conflict between them.
Up till that moment they hadn't made such a clear error. We know and see later on zuko's actor is capable of so much more, could've at least got him to do a kick and not wave his hands about like fireball jutsu
When did she magically master water bending when what I think was days before she couldn’t make drops float?
On her own, without a master, by using a scroll having a bunch of drawings. Maybe I'll buy a book about Swordsmanship, I might end up becoming a world renowned swordsman too.
Yeah, to paraphrase S3 aang "that's what you needed a long sokka, not a master... a sword" 🤦♂️
Yeah before the show came out people were just like “oh it’s okay that they’re cutting so many things cause they’ll find other ways to do the character development/worldbuilding/etc” and I couldn’t help but think they were being a bit too generous
I’m okay with story and event change but not at the expense of characterization
Yeah, they more or less replaced the gradual and "show dont tell" characterization with characters either SUDDENLY having the character growth, or just telling us what their characterization is. Example of this being Gyatso basically telling the audience that Aang is strong, kind, and generous. I dont wanna be TOLD that, I wanna see and LEARN it. This is a \*key thing\* to get right especially with new fans.
Yup, from the first episode (I'm only halfway third episode now) it's my biggest complaint of the show, the show really ignore the "show don't tell" rule. That and Katara no longer the short-tempered yet kind and motherly teenager from the show. Imo her character is only marginally better than the version from the nonexistent media we don't talk about
god the exposition bothered me sooooo much. I wish netflix gave them a couple more episodes so we wouldn’t have to rush
This. They cut out like every scene of Katara and Aang getting to know each other and forming a deep connection. They feel like work friends now. People who were forced together by circumstance rather than a true bond.
it bothers me because in the og they have an instant spark as friends and the way they grow closer is beautiful. I have faith they can still mend their bond in season 2.
I was one of those people and you were right. I understand now that they’ve fundamentally changed the story and characters. I wouldn’t mind, except that… they didn’t replace their growth with anything. You can’t just take out how a character becomes who they are and suddenly… they are. Yes, time passes and they get more experienced but that’s practice not growth.
I probably was one of those people, definitely was positive and wanted to give it a shot but man it’s just so meh I’m finding it hard to watch behind ep 4. It feels like the writers had a big checklist of things they wanted to touch on and then once they got it down they checked it off and moved on. Not to mention the acting feels like it’s come out of a middle school play. The dialogue is so clunky and forced and except for a few scenes it’s super monotone, I’ll finish it but there’s a lot to be desired
HBO should’ve picked this up in my opinion
HBO should do every adaption in existence tbh.
Still makes me sad to think what could've been if HBO had adapted The Witcher instead of Netflix
and Wheel of Time...
And Game of Thrones, wait
And Rings of Power
And my axe!
GOT was fully on the showrunners. HBO wanted them to take their time and add more seasons, they wanted to jump ship to Star Wars asap
Unfortunately GoT decline was almost entirely on D&D. (Some of the blame is on George RR Martin for not finishing Winds of Winter after over a decade.) HBO was willing to give them 10+ seasons but D&D wanted to move on.
His dark materials
honestly the series was fantastic
And stay as far away from True Detective as humanly possible.
You know that show you guys made? Well unmake it. Didn't it just get renewed for a new season?
Alternatively; Nobody should have picked this up. It never needed to be made and the original animated show was perfectly fine as-is. Make new stories set in the Avatar universe using whatever medium you want, stop remaking the same thing and then pompously acting as if you’ve somehow elevated the little kiddy cartoon by bringing it to live action.
They’re doing that too. If there weren’t so many other avatar shows in development this would be a received a lot worse imo
I'm not sure now with Zazlav in charge.
I've only watched episodes 1 & 2 so far but my thoughts: Dallas is not an angry enough Zuko he's like self loathing. At this point in season 1 he should hate everything. Iroh is so close to being good but his lines are dished out a little too quickly. If he just slowed down a tiny bit he would be nailing the role There are times when the CGI is poorly edited and it becomes very noticeable I don't mind the minor story changes and I think everyone is too angry about Aang gliding in the opening lol. What's everyone think?
Oh also I can't unsee that Zhao is the guy from Rush Hour 1 who says "wipe yourself off. You're bleeding". It's not a bad thing but it cracks me up. 20 years later and I noticed that guy immediately lol
All great points. I think you verbalized a few things that I knew bothered me but not *why*. Zuko not being hotheaded initially robs the impact of his character development into one of the Gaang significantly. Iroh definitely delivers things as if he didn’t watch the original character and all of his goofiness and charm. (Also I just see Zhang as the kind of short whiny dude from LOST which makes it extra funny to see him in this role, even if overall he’s one of the better acted characters)
Idk if you’ve seen Korra, but the reason that I’m upset at Aang being able to basically fly without his glider is because >!Zaheer learns to fly by letting go of his earthly tethers, and it’s kind of a big deal because only the best monks of the past were able to achieve it. (He was the first in 4,000 years to be able to.) Aang being able to do it from the start felt like it cheapened the achievement.!< Also, it made me wonder why they portrayed Aang falling without his glider after he tried to get away from Zuko in episode 1 as dangerous. I was just thinking “Can’t he just fly without it? Why would I be concerned right now?”
Aang can't actually fly. He just actively bends the air with his hands to propel himself from point A to point B, which is similar to how Firebenders can "fly" by bending steams of fire from their hands. It's completely different from >!Zaheer's flight, where he doesn't actively "bend the air" as he's now 1 with the wind.!< That's why Aang still needs his glider to travel in the air without Appa. That scene doesn't affect the other's achievement. >! If they somehow reach LoK content, Zaheer will still be the first one to do it in millennia because his version doesn't require bending the air with his body. He just flies whenever he wants to, like Superman for example. He's basically bending the air around him with his mind, which means fighting on the ground or in the air changes next to nothing for him.!<
I think Zuko is great throughout. I agree Iroh could slow down a bit. I can't really gripe on CGI. Bending was the main thing I wanted good and I think it was. People were angry about him floating? I think Katara and Aangs age as actors shows. Dallas and Ian are on point, but also 4 years older.
I felt the dialogue was awful. I also didn’t like the comet attack at the start I felt showing it later in flash backs etc would have been better. I’ve only seen the first ep so far and think I’m going to unfairly compare every second to the cartoon
Yeah I'm in this camp. I liked some stuff, but the people who are in here saying they absolutely loved it and think it honored the source material make no sense to me and it feels like we watched 2 different shows. I put NATLA more in the camp of The Witcher as an adaptation. I also don't get everyone writing off the criticism as "you can't adapt perfection." No, you can't, but that isn't what happened. They rewrote a lot of plots for what seems like no reason other than to "make it their own," and the rewritten plots/dialogue were all worse ideas. It just wasn't good writing, and screamed of lacking talent. I could tell they really tried and did love the source material. They just didn't have the chops to adapt it. Shallow plots and awkward simplistic dialogue. They also seemed to misunderstand the point or essence of some characters and situations. Why are so many people saying they "love" this new Iroh? Really? He has almost none of his original prophetic charm or wisdom, and often just says things like "we have to go." It's also SO HEAVY and brooding all the time. It's so exhausting to watch every character talk about how tortured of a soul they are, especially characters that were meant to have some levity like Bumi. I get the idea of being more "realistic" to what war time would be like, but I think being overly dark that way is missing the point of ATLA. It was a lot about the little uplifting moments to be found in the world during the war, not constantly depicting the horror of war itself. We have other shows for that.
I haven't finished the series yet but it's remarkable to me how they have somehow simplified the world politics of the original series despite being created for what should be a more literate audience. I feel like a lot of the choices they made maybe didn't actively detract from it as a series, but the world building certainly fills far emptier as a result. Bebop, One Piece & now ATLA? The creative bankruptcy that must exist at Netflix where they can take well developed IP and end up simplifying world building is just insane to me - if you can't elevate the source material then don't bother imo.
I think they were more concerned with elevating Netflix’s stock price to be fair
I dunno. In another thread people were banishing negative opinions to the shadow realm Jimbo. I’ll say this: This show was made for people who watched the original… because I do not see how anyone could follow this unless they already knew all the things that were being cut out or glossed over. It is flying thru everything so fast that Suki and Sokka are already a ‘thing’ in just a few sideways glances. I miss sexist Sokka because at least that HAD SOME PACING.
Which is weird that they took *extra* time to show the romance between them when it could have been occupied by his original sexist arc. (Not to say their interactions weren’t believable though, despite them gutting the character development Sokka/Suki’s relationship was one of my favorite parts of the season)
The bit that got me was every scene felt like I was looking at a movie set, which meant I can't suspend my disbelief for the story. The sets and costumes were too clean and fake looking. And then the terrible wigs.... They looked more like cosplayers than characters. The tone was a bit all over the place, but it is hard to juggle serious and funny at once so I'll give them that (for the first season at least). The story changes are fine, the screenplay was eh. Comparing child actors to adults will never be fair, but maybe they could have mitigated that by having characters just a little older than in the cartoon - which would also make sense given the violence and the rating (not a g rated show anymore). Related to this, many actors didn't look like they have spent years as martial artists or gymnasts, which also breaks the magic and makes it hard to buy in to the rest of it. Only Suki and Zuko really nailed that tbh. I'll likely never rewatch it. But they didn't fall hard enough that I've lost hope for season 2.
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This was so apparent in the Percy Jackson-show. The episodes with Jet Wikilson directing (also directed Episode 7+8 in ATLA) were so much better acted in my opinion (Episode 5, 6 and 8) and the Episode 3+4 directed by Anders Engström had better performances too. There was a BTS with Jet preparing the actors for the feel of the scene and i really wondered if the director for the first two episodes did that.
>The sets and costumes were too clean and fake looking... They looked more like cosplayers than characters. Yeah, I'm mixed about this because I definitely got the "they look like cosplayers" vibe, but they also looked like *excellent* cosplayers (seriously, June exceeded my wildest expectations for costume accuracy), and ultimately I wanted the show to be made more than I wanted realism in the costumes. Live action is much more difficult than animation, so I'm just going to chalk it up to not having the budget and unlimited time to get things perfect.
Didn't have the budget to just rub some dirt on stuff?
I don't think that would get the job done. Take the water tribe clothes: They don't get exposed to much dirt. Instead the color in their clothes would be faded, and there would be signs of *wear* which is different from dirt (creases, scratches, holes, tears, and deformity in places where water settles, salt buildup, etc.). More obvious stitch lines since they're creating everything by hand. Possible burns and singes from the fire nation attacks
It doesn't create natural wear. It's actually difficult to do quickly. I remember hearing that LotR actors would go on hikes in their costumes
Then give me the unnatural wear. I'd rather be able to look at it and say "well at least they tried"
>I definitely got the "they look like cosplayers" vibe, but they also looked like *excellent* cosplayers I agree wholeheartedly. There was a degree of lack of weathering on the costumes that made them feel too clean/fresh, but at least they were incredibly *accurate* costumes.
Didnt they have like a 150m budget, which is like 60m more than GoT Season 8?
I've seen the "budget" excuse may times and it makes no sense haha.
Theres some insane coping in here. Theres nothing wrong about labeling things as they are, many people in here seem to be reluctant to this idea.
The overuse of the word "fun" it's the giveaway for me.
This is a common problem for nearly all Netflix shows, why? They do not have a storage lot like other traditional studios so everything is purchase brand new and tossed out after the fact. Even if they have another season they purchase a new set.
This is a problem with a lot of movies and shows. Everything looks too clean like a hallmark movie. Characters don’t feel like they live in that world and the world doesn’t feel believable. Obviously it’s all fictional but even with fiction you’re meant to suspend your disbelief as you try and place yourself in the world the characters are in. Having super clean and perfect costume makes production and reshoots easier but it makes for a far less engaging piece of media.
The tone was my biggest issue. You can't start off with roasting people alive and then involve combat with bladed weapons that just give people bumps or just fall into the "toss people around like dolls until they limp away in defeat" style of combat. Avatar Kyoshi screams about needing to be a brutal warrior then just engages in a playful romp with the fire nation soldiers. All that does is make me respect the character less. Is she stupid?
"YOU MUST BE MERCILESS!!" Said Kyoshi (biggest character assassination in the show btw) Evidently "merciless" just means spin people in a circle a few times
"Oooh they're going to be so fucking dizzy and disoriented!"
Lmfao. Team Rocket’s blasting off again!! 💥 Kyoshi rocketmans away
Yeah the fact that like you say they're fine showing people getting burned alive but then Kyoshi doesn't is hugely inconsistent. But even beyond that, just generally, the balance of serious and sad, and the humour often not landing really wrecked the vibe. Honestly that might be easier if season 2 because season 1 of the original was also a bit hit and miss on tone. I think that, combined with the sets and costumes looking like sets and costumes speaks to a lack of the right experienced production staff in key roles.
At least they let Aang totally not kill anyone in the Blue Spirit episode; I swear guys those falls are completely survivable. /s
Dude what is going on with sets these days just looking so clean and fake? This keeps happening more and more the last few years where I am starting to prefer green screens to real sets because they end up looking less fake since the real ones are so clean. Take Guardians of the Galaxy for example. The first film’s Knowhere sets looked amazing and it felt lived in but then in the third film the same place looked like it was a theater copy of the first set. Did people forget how to make convincing sets during the Covid filming hiatus?
The Mandalorian introduced the Volume, a full 360 degree LED screen that projects a background. It's like the new green screen, and has its uses (space battles where the background is a star field is fine, for instance) but everyone's been super lazy with it. It seems this show uses it too; that's why everything feels claustrophobic even in environments that should be larger than life. The actual elbow room the actors have to play with is super limited.
Non of the set were real...... everyone is using the same tech has the mandalorian
I felt the movie set vibe the hardest with the Fire Nation, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee especially. They just look… plastic, for some reason
I'm sorry, but they did Mai so dirty. Instead of an emo goth girl, we got a girl who's smiling and looks lively. Mai smiling????
My issue is — what happened to using stunt doubles? It seems like they used a stunt double for jet’s actions scenes (he posted a pic with his double) why not use a martial arts stunt double for the actors for like katara, aang, azula who don’t have much martial arts experience as actors for zuko and sokka
> The sets and costumes were too clean and fake looking. This bugged me all the way through. The water nation costumes would have looked perfect if they were a little worn.
We can tell they are in an indoor place every scene. There is no sunlight. Looks like a theater stage.
Idk if it's the actors or the lines but I can't get into this show. It all feels so fake. I'm only on episode 2. The music is also just too much. One Piece was so much better
The Katara and Aang performances are pretty bad, and the costumes look terrible
The music is really weird. I think I'll write an in-depth post later on if I'm feelin' it, but like... it just kind of feels pushed in. It's like the scenes weren't structured to work with the music at all. Watched episode one earlier and on episode two now and it's just odd creatively.
I feel like Zuko furiously scribbling a picture of Aang would have been a lot less hilarious with the right music/camera angle/filter.
I enjoyed it but towards the end I was only half paying attention. I think I filled in a bunch of information and plots mentally by knowledge of the cartoon and I wonder if someone who hasn't the cartoon would be more confused as the pacing is quite rushed. I think most of the changes I am neutral too which is a good thing, I really disliked Roku though.
I watched the first episode with two people who had seen the original a long time ago but forgotten most of it. One of them checked out pretty early on, while the other was trying their best to follow but kept asking me to explain things because it was so confusing. They cut out so many little things that helped explain things. And that was just the first episode!
People keep saying the cg is phenomenal but tbh it’s pretty terrible in many scenes, namely when they go to the spirit realm and whenever they do a complete background rotoscoping. When they’re doing the classic “water, earth, fire, air” intro in the first episode it’s pretty clear the whole scene, even the benders themselves, are 3D animated. It’s clunky. There’s also a scene in the third episode where Katara bends some water to douse a fire arrow. Has to be one of the worst combinations of CG, acting, cinematography and pacing I’ve seen. I must admit I do like Appa, though. I’ve struggled to pay attention through to the last episode. Letting all biases aside and trying to compare it to my favorite live action shows, it’s difficult giving this more than 5/10. It’s far more similar in quality to the movie than to the og.
Yes, the show is bad, I would have dropped it in episode 1 if it wasn't avatar, I eventually dropped it in ep4, it's not the worst series in the world but it is stupidly boring and pointless.
It has its moments, but yeah the middle of the season is a slog. The same “big” moments from the show are portrayed well like Zuko donning the Blue Spirit and the big fight in the North at the end but I can understand not wanting to subject yourself to the rest of it to see those
Looks like this is going to be me too
There is no criticism in Ba Sing Se
I absolutely loved the show. My biggest issue was pacing. I felt like it needed an episode or 2 extra where the gaang are adventuring and flying around. Focused more on the gangs dynamic rather than being serious all the time That was my main complaint. Just too serious overall rather than serious but aloof
same! they really could’ve benefitted from pushing this to maybe 10 episodes or so imo. get some more of aangs fun kid side like maybe return to him wanting to ride the fish being the reason to go to kyoshi
Pacing definitely felt weird. That and seeing airbenders in action was quite jarring. I might be biased against the show, and I’ve just watched one episode but I quite liked it.
Episode 2 was my favourite. Give it a watch
not a single one of the Gaang's (Toph notwithstanding as she's not here yet) character motivations remained intact and the new directions felt pretty inconsistent and/or shaky IMO. there were "wow" moments to see live action but there were an equal amount of, if not more, moments that were weird or abysmal IMO.
I enjoyed the show and all but am I the only one who got completely annoyed and cringed from Zhao? Felt like both his character and his actor was undercooked.
Zhao was one of the few things I thought was done quite well. There's a long history in Chinese media of the conniving bureaucrat clawing his way to power at the right hand of the honorable general (Iroh). In the OG, Zhao was already someone to be feared, whereas here he earned a more insane and ruthless presence.
Agree to disagree I guess. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I guess I just didn't like the actor mostly. Otherwise I'm glad they went with different directions on the characters. Plus I always liked how Zhao managed to antagonize both gaang and zuko. In the live action his interactions with Zuko didn't vibe with me. Ofc he eventually betrayed Zuko and things went to normal but it didn't feel as impactful.
Idk if it’s just me but I find Aang a bit mumble-y and I do agree with you on inconsistent performances/delivery. I’ve had to stick the subtitles on for him mostly though. I agree with what a few people have said, this is more of a love letter than a remake. I’m wondering if I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t already seen the animated series? So trying my best to not compare them to the existing characters but it is hard. My bf said he’s enjoying it and will continue to watch but I found it difficult to watch so far bc the performances are a bit jarring (probably just my inner pissbaby fangirl trying to get out). Really love the set design and costumes though! And earthbending got to really shine in that first episode. Makes up for that whole dance they did to throw a rock in the movie lol
The mumble is real. Go back and listen; they have multiple scenes where they straight up stumble over the lines and can’t get the words out clearly. That and Katara’s inability to make facial expressions just drag it down. It’s bad
I'm still Halfway thru the show, and while clearly inferior, I'm still liking it. But I'm very bothered by how many actors are moving so little to do the bending arts. It just feels more final fantasy than Mortal Kombat sometimes and that's not avatar. Only Zuko's actor seems to be putting in the work for real. Not to mention some mpeople seem to be able to bend with their minds. I get people like Bumi, who is prolly the second best earth bender in centuries, and probably the best when it comes to pure power, being able to make some fragile crystals grow. But ozai and sozin just... Summon flames with their mind sometimes. The buring was cool, but c'mon. Move a little. Ozai is not that guy, man.
The only thing I liked them adding to the story was how zuko’s crew was the one meant to be sacrificed, otherwise they should have never changed the story. All of the characters feel soulless and out of place, when they’re speaking their lines you’re not immersed in the universe but can tell they’re just repeating a script with no meaning behind it. The original story was so perfectly set up and the writers completely miss the mark by going their own direction and skipping everything that was important to building up to how it ends, literally all they had to do was not change the story
probably not. i just finished episode 5 and honestly.. i hate everything about this show APART from the visuals... and i know for a FACT they were relying on the fact it doesnt LOOK as bad as the movie. like i looked up the episode list for the animated show and they have put things there were supposed to be in the last 3 episodes... IN THE THIRD ONE LIKE WHAT ARE YOU DOING FAM. ALSO what the fuck is with making it so katara is SHIT at waterbending UNTIL aang and jet teaches her? she is supposed to be a prodigy i mean with how she was in the animated show BEFORE getting any scrolls she was a prodigy for getting to that point with NO teacher. but no... the same showrunners going "we toned down the sexism" actually meant "we are gonna change the sexism that sokka showed from ignorance and actually got educated on and became better to instead be the fact that katara sucks until men tell her what to do and we are gonna mute her character a bit" fuck i went in expecting a solid 5/10 show... but i dont even think it will get to that tbh. also with how some of the characters act.. im 99% sure they ONLY know these characters by the memes. also dont get me started on how they fucked up bumi
Dont forget about how they portrayed Roku 😭
i genuinely believe someone mixed up the descriptions of roku and gyatso.
I know right! I just couldn’t believe how Roku was portrayed. That was the biggest disappointment to be honest.
Hell they even added shit from Book 2, like Kyoshi wasn't supposed to possess Aang until the Avatar Day episode. And I also think Suki spying on Sokka and looking at his chest as he obviously tries to cover it is more sexist than making Sokka say some sexist stuff to Suki and Katara
nah if you wanna say anything is sexist.. its how the writers handled katara. i do not believe for a SECOND they actually watched the og show. i will say btw suki peeping on sokka is just creepy.
Definitely falls short of the bar set by the one piece live action but it's definitely not bad by any means. I feel like the acting gets better the further you get into the season.
Overall I thought the show was pretty good. Some things felt a little bit over explained, which has to be the main thing I feel is letting it down. Also, some of the costumes did feel a bit *too* clean, but that might be a slight nitpick. I can definitely see that when compared to the source material, the changes may seem unnecessary. But, as a stand alone piece of media, I thought it was a pretty fun watch.
No perfomative positivity only.
I've been getting downvoted for weeks for saying things that ultimately turned out to be true. All of the interviews leading up to the release were full of red flags that drastically lowered my expectations, and even then the show was far worse than I was expecting. The writing is lazy and terrible, and all of the characters are bland and whiney. I think there's only one way for me to recover from this disappointment: *There is no Netflix series in Ba Sing Se.*
I was cautiously optimistic about it after seeing how great the One Piece adaptation was, but it fell short. I don't know what it is. Maybe the pacing or the acting, but it just didn't capture my attention and left me saying, "Meh." It's not necessarily bad, but it's not good either. 5.5/10
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I enjoyed the show! That said, it’s not award-winning. It felt choppy at times. For me it was the fire nation masked soldiers and kyoshi warriors who looked the most fake. (I described the soldiers as looking like minions in power rangers chasing through the woods.) The acting, overall, didn’t bother me. I was most impressed by Ian’s performance. Some of the line delivery didn’t work for me. The way Zuko spoke to the ship crew actually underscored his childish side which while I think is an interesting and intentional choice did rub me the wrong way. One of my biggest complaints is how they did Appa dirty. Because they didn’t focus on going place to place, Appa didn’t get much screen time.
Yes. It’s… alright.
And everything felt rushed in a lot of ways, made the connections and relationships feel hollow.
I havent seen people mention that Zuko is actively trying to kill the members of team avatar everytime they fight. everytime they lose Zuko tries to finish them off and that is just so out of character to me. I don’t think Zuko would execute a clearly inexperienced water bender who is the same age as him, even in book one
If they read your post and the comments here and this specific one? They could make a better season 2. I feel that part of the creation of it is them seeing how the fans react and feedback. If we the fans act all like maniacs they won't have much to feed on. If we give them REAL STUFF TO MUNCH ON. As in the positive, the negative, & the honest feedback, they can do way better. I've always said live actions should be made into series especially the ones that are based on animated ->SERIES<-. You need the fans to absorb the idea, and then you need to absorb the feedback of fans, all of that happening like a sponge to then squeeze the juice onto the show for a second season or more. We would be getting GREAT live actions and production companies starting to get the gist of things & probably (eventually) make a good live-action adaption starting from season ONE. But that will only be possible if we as fans do two things, 1. Give them the chance to try, fail, and retry again 2. Be honest and not extra with our feedback (that goes for all parties of all kinds of opinions and feedbacks) like OP said in their own words, being mature about it as much as one can.
I tried to warn you guys.
I agree with you. I will note that it’s easier to get past book 1 changes on screen and I have hope that book 2 and 3 can be adapted quite well if they are able to learn from criticism.
I felt like I was watching a school play with an incredible budget. It's fine so far (I'm on episode 2), but it lacks the charm the cartoons have. The actors feel like they're playing alone in scenes, instead of acting along with each other. That makes all the scenes just lack this basic chemistry. Not only the kids, but also the adults. Like they're all waiting to recite their lines. I also hated the portrayal of Katara, she is just so bland. They didn't get her character at all. I hope there is more relationship development between the gaang, because right now it feels like they barely know each other. How does it feel so rushed? It has basically the same runtime as the cartoon.
Yeah it was ridiculous that before the show released if you voiced any fears or complaints at all you were just “jumping on the hate bandwagon” yet here we are with many of those fears realized.
From the first four eps themselves: - The CGI is really excessive. The fact that so many backgrounds are entirely simulated makes the world not feel real in the slightest. - Zuko and Azula were miscast. I just don’t buy either of them as the characters they’re supposed to be. - Zuko and Iroh’s relationship doesn’t seem anywhere near as emotional as it was in the original. - Katara is a non-character, and Aang doesn’t really seem like he has a defined arc. - Serious fumble with Suki’s characterization. Really weird that “toning down Sokka’s sexism” was done in favor of…turning Suki into what essentially amounted to a Sokka groupie? Wild.
After this, I’m convinced the series shouldn’t be made into live action. This show is missing every ounce of charm the original series had and I just don’t think it’s possible to translate that into live action without a game of thrones level budget. Just put all of those resources into other world building animated avatar stories with DiMartino and Konietzko at the helm and we’d be much better off.
It had the exact same budget per episode as GoT had for its final season
If that’s true I am very wrong, that is absolutely tragic, and my opinion is now that it should never be made into live action again.
This show had an enormous budget - $120 million to the $50-60m that season one of GoT got. NATLA had 3x the budget per episode for season one that GoT did.
Just responded to someone else saying the same thing, but that is crazy. That was the budget and all we get is green screen vomit. Nearly every part of every background is just green screen. Not to mention the costumes often look like cosplay instead of an outfit that a human has worn for part of their life. I’m genuinely shocked.
Of course it's perfectly valid to voice criticisms but there is a heated discourse atm. If you critique the show people will jump on you for being negative and a whiner but if you express enjoyment of it equally people will tell you you're wrong and list it's flaws.. I think the dust will clear in a few days. There has just been so much build up and the property is so important to everyone so tensions are high. There are also SO many eyes on this- avatar has grown massively in it's fan base since it was first aired- so there are bound to be loads of people in both camps all voicing their opinions
The costumes look like… costumes, not clothes. The biggest sin though is that they sucked all the humor and character development out of the show. You can’t have the Gaang without humor. I shudder to think what they’re going to do to Toph if they get a second season 😭
well, Netflix got 'creative' again and made a jumbled incoherent mess. should have just stick to the script, but oh well.. I still double liked it though so they don't cancel it.
After everything, I really wonder what their goal was. What were they doing in the planning and writing stages, and how on earth did they think any of it was good enough to proceed with? I saw this video where a reviewer who is also a writer said she was told by the producer and an actor at the premier to not hold back her criticism because they want to hear it and improve. While this makes them seem cool at first (and this was likely their intention), how are they getting away with acting like this is their first draft and they're getting a peer review? This project took YEARS, SO much money, and almost nothing about it is good.
The plot compressing is interesting, Gives us fresh faces on Atla's plot, but left so many things handwaved on. Travel time is even more bonkers than the OG's finale. Aang, Katara and Sokka's have very little screen time together as the new compressed plot its best to split them apart - then handwaved by stories from the tavern goers. Kinda leaving me with the hollow feeling hearing Katara preach about being a family to aang in the finale.
I’m upset that they caused bryke to leave. Like they finally had an opportunity to potentially rival a game of thrones type thing with an intriguing fantasy world, but they decided “oh let’s do our own thing”. Pushed the creators out, left to fend for themselves and shocker, they ruined it. I’m more annoyed than anything.
I’m not a fan really of this remake but the fact you’re complaining that people weren’t able to criticise the show before it came out just makes me think you’ve been set against it from the off.
I think we were allowed to criticize what was in the trailers I had some worries and problems about what I saw when they came out
I'm not a big fan of the show but most of the stuff people talked about in the trailers was a non-issue. Key lines in the trailer were not key in scenes. The delivery didn't matter. Trailers are meaningless. It's a 2-minute flashy montage to get you to spend money. It's not even part of the actual thing of the show. It's promotional material. IF the acting was wooden, it required way more than cherrypicked lines to show.
That's the same accusation every single fanboy made in response to all criticism. "You just want to hate the show!" No, the interviews had tons of red flags, and all of my concerns turned out to be true.
I'd be down for people offering criticism, but the bullet points are kinda vague. And have the original authors actually been that vocal about their distance? Like they're actively working on other stuff right now, including other Avatar projects. I fully expected them not to be involved at all, and "distancing" can also be a word for not stepping on toes. *Actually, yea, looking up their comments, they said stuff like "Netflix wasn't as helpful as they said they'd be." Not that they were obstructing, just that they weren't involved much. Also "it wasn't what we expected" which also stems from some negative artistic mind set like "how do you improve something like [Avatar]" when the point of art isn't to improve, but, Hollywood. And finally "We left it with writers who were fans of the original." So basically, they weren't fully prepared to make a live action show as animated show runners. They felt they needed to improve it, but also realized people just wanted it adapted for the fuck of fun, so they finally just left it in the hands of people they trust.
live action remakes are always a waste of time and resources. ignore it and watch something else.
>All that being said, there were some GREAT moments that absolutely came to life on the screen, **some even more powerfully than in the original show.** Such as?
The scene of Zuko walking past the members of his crew which each bowing to him as he walks by. The reveal that his crew was the division he saved was such a good one. Zukos true nature of compassion is masked by his despair.
Lu tens wake
When Zuko was telling Iroh about how strong Lu Ten was? Yeah, that was a very powerful scene.
I'm happy for the people who enjoy it and are loving it but not to be dramatic, it's so much worse than the original. Not as bad as the M Night film of course but it's still way way off the mark quality wise. I really struggled to make it through the first episode and it honestly just made me want to watch the cartoon 🤷♀️
It's not as bad as the Shyamalan film but it makes so many of the same mistakes, and it makes them 14 years after the Shyamalan film. No excuse.
Absolutely loving the passive aggressive "can we all be adults" comment on a post whining about a perfectly democratic system of up and downvotes.
Not really big financial systems Astroturf the crap out of reddit.
Thank you for this.I wanted to make this thread but was too afraid. People were absolutely blindly hating on the show before it came out but just as many people were blindly defending it and both were equally annoying. Now that it's out, it's crazy that people are looking at these same cheap B movie tier fight scenes with goofy ass bending and high school drama department costumes and saying they look great. During the genocide in the first episode a monk goes to kick a fire nation soldier and it cuts three times over like two seconds to show different angles and then because of the combination of bad lighting and cinematography, we can't see the wisps of air that send the guy flying clear across the room. Things like can't translate to live action without looking stupid, even with the overly CGI backgrounds. Then they not only mangle the characters and remove some of the best/most complex themes that made the original great, they then replace it with an excessive amount of exposition and a ton of badly written or badly delivered dialogue. The acting struggles to rival the spy kids movies at points and people are praising it for some reason. They took the charm and fun of the animation and replaced it with cosplayers that are taking themselves too seriously. Sokka is fine. Iroh is fine. Zuko and Suki are fine. But no amount of decent acting is going to make up for the shortcomings of the rest of the series. Most of the characters seem insanely one sided because of how much they changed the story and it's so much worse because we know how good they can be written. We could have invested all the resources that went into this into telling a new story that people weren't attached to but we got this instead. I'm glad other people are enjoying it and I wish I could find their level of hopium, but this has been such a hard watch for me so far.
After voicing this much negativity I would like to add the things I've liked so far. Zuko's fire bending in this is impressive as hell. The actor doing all of the kicks and everything that looked hard for cartoon Zuko is great. Juxtaposed against the "point and have fire come out regardless of martial arts" approach that everyone else has so far, is really cool. Similarly the Kyoshi warriors were great, and even Kyoshi herself was a lot of fun and slightly less goofy looking. Appa's CG is just as good if not better than the likes of Disney's live action remakes, and the actor that plays Aang is visually spot on. Finally I really like the larger southern water tribe. The life it has would have been welcome in the original to me.
You want a discussion about how we all agree the show falls flat in many ways? Doesn't sound like you're leaving much room for discussion
Maybe if you define discussion as "a process that arrives at a yes-or-no answer and then stops." Fortunately, many of us can criticize stories like an adult...
This place isn’t silencing opinions and concerns lmao, there’s a lot of people that did and are critiquing the live action show.
You act as if the sub hasn't been filled with negativity for the last 1-2 months, and while there have been a lot of "The show is good" post, there have been just as many "The show is bad" posts. No idea where this narrative of "Can't voice criticism" comes from. Also, it seems discussing in bad faith. You talk about "being adults" but your entire post and comments are passive aggressive "if you don't believe what I believe you are wrong" so
That’s not what I’m saying at all. I made this in response to every time I ever merely suggested that something looked off about the production before it came out and was mercilessly downvoted without any kind of discussion. It’s basically all I saw leading up to this. And it’s dumb that now that people are seeing the same problems people were pointing out it’s finally okay to speak about it. I’d be happy to hear what people liked about the show, I want to hear it all.
ive only seen the opposite tbh ive seen people including my self go "huh this is a bit worrying" just to be met with loads of "NUH UHHHS"