Something that they may be dropping the romance out of the store and making them I found a family there's no way in season 2 they're going to fit the romance storyline change it just would come to take that whole flight
Here's an idea: instead of Aang mid-flying all over the place to get down, they could have opened the scene with him playing competitive AIRBALL with his friends, showcasing his talented air-bending techniques, and introducing him to his wild & goofy side. He even could have let his friends win the airball game to show his gentle side. Changes like this could have made the show so much better in my opinion. shame
this is actually such a good idea! We never got to see what a proper game of airball looked like. This would've been such a fun treat for old fans and something interesting for the new
When he said “goof off” it sounded wrong, like there was an adult writing from a perspective that didn’t understand a child’s mind or child experience and that pretty much sums up angs dialogue and character in this live action
I wish the actual studio would adjust and re edit the show after the fact, like the Snyder cut was for justice league. People would re watch and appreciate the changes
1 other thing, in the original series, we don't know how long after Aang ran away came the actual attack. In this he leaves just minutes before the fire nation arrives. It just makes it feel even more contrived.
I feel like if the show the genocide of the airbenders, they could have really played on the reveal that it has been a 100 years since then. Capturing the horror of aang finding out at the same time we are. In this type of storytelling, we would be following aangs pov instead of katara. Like just imagine turning on a show, seeing the opening scene and thinking oh its the beggining of a war and they are gonna attack the airbenders ! Then seeing this kid flee and end up in a snowy village (and he thinks he is only a few kilometers away form his hometown), and you think, okay so he has to defeqt sozin now before the war continues ! only to find out it has been a 100 years and his people are dead and the war was never stopped ! I could it could have really played of the “time traveler” kind of horror. Like the choices they made in the beggiging of the series seem to go that way, if only they could have thought about it ten more seconds and thought about subverting audiences expectations.
@@kyraezikeuzor took me two minutes of analyzing the script to figure it out. imagine what we could have had if he took the time to really think about the storytelling...
Instead of just splashing each other, Katara should have urged him to try, or he does accidentally and they’re amazed. It’s so annoying how many chances for new scenes got skipped
@@friendlyfire-ytseriously I saw a little clip of his actor and inaki goro talking and he was more Ang like in that clip than the whole show! He doesn’t come off as the best actor so I don’t think it would be perfect but if they had him acting like that the show would be so much better
I think one of the big turn offs for me, personally, was changing the tone of the show. If you don't want a more upbeat show that gradually becomes more serious anchored around children, then don't pick the Avatar who did all their big character arc stuff as a child. You want dark Avatar? So Kuruk's storyline, make Koh a huge focal point. Do Kiyoshi, focus on all her morally gray aspects. There were avatars that would have fit the tone and and spectacle the show runners were going for. I don't think a remake was necessary and it was never going to please everyone. A spinoff would have been a better choice, pull a Star Trek.
Avatar: Legends and each episode is like an hour and a half, focusing on a short story of a past Avatar, starting with ones we don’t know and ending with Kiyoshi/Roku. Coulda redid Wan, as well, to be more interesting than “evil spirit made spirits evil and it’s just bad timing and bad luck” but nah
I just think that if they're gonna change the tone, they need to commit to it and do a good job of it. If they were going to do a more grounded, grittier take, they should've aged up the characters a bit, making it more believable/fitting for the vibe and increasing the odds of getting better acting. All in all though, my biggest issue with the show is just that I don't feel it has any reason to exist. I wouldn't expect it to be as good as the cartoon. That's a really high bar to meet. But it needs to offer something the cartoon doesn't. The darker tone could be it, but they don't pull it off. And we're left with something that's similar but at least somewhat inferior in every single way, to the point where it just bores me. And the fact that we're going from fantastic voice acting to acting that's rather mediocre makes it that much harder to get invested. And all of this is coming from someone who (mostly) thought the live action Cowboy Bebop was perfectly enjoyable--not a work of art and not anywhere near as good as the original, but still fun. Vicious was pretty terrible though--the thing they tried to do with him fell flat (though honestly, Vicious was a cheesy edge-lord in the original)--and the times they lifted dialog straight from the original tended not to work, so I'll admit it does have it's flaws, but I don't think it's the abomination that everyone else does.
But since it got filmed and made someone believes in it, therefore, it’s subjective but the majority of people prefer mystery, dynamics deeper than surface level, and so on, but some people love exposition conversations or else they would not ever exist in general let alone this frequently
@@nailinthefashion - Put it this way, it's as close to an objective fact as you're going to get in such matters. One big problem is they don't seem to have a clear idea of who their target audience is. Is it a darker, edgier adaptation that non-fan adults might be interested in? It seems so much of the time, but then the dialog sounds like it's pitched at 5-year-olds. It's incongruous in the extreme -- burning people to death rather graphically + nonsense banter and incredibly corny, baby-talk melodrama.
basic advice: less is more, do very little exposition, show don't tell. intermediate advice: sometimes 1 line exposition is better than an entire scene to show, lets the plot flow better. professional level: do the exposition in a way that everybody is at their edge of their seats listening to it. (Back to the Future, Terminator, etc..) It feels like the live action series were written amateurs. I have read lots of fanfiction, and some had much higher quality, but the writing of the show reminds me of an average mildly edgy fanfiction written by a 16 year old. I have liked lots of those, but for ATLA I have expected much much better.
@@cacogenicist They wanted to make a darker adaptation without fully committing to it. What's the point in showing airbenders getting roasted if later in the episode we return to the standard cartoon fight rules of knockouts but no killing or graphic injury?
there's something uncanny about what the child actors are doing while they listen to someone else talk, or their blocking - the business they do while idle in the scene generally - or how the editing lingers while they do
What's so baffling to me is the amount of time while watching that obvious easy changes that would make the show enjoyable popped in my head. Like every 2-5 minutes there's something that makes you wonder if they revised the script even once
I have a very strong feeling that there was a super tight deadline or something. It feels like they were rushed writing it and a lot of the dialogue feels like a super tough first draft. Perhaps it's because I'm not often keen to conclude "these writers are complete idiots" but I'm willing to bet they ran out of the necessary time to perfect it before filming began
I think the suits had too much say. You can feel how they thought “no it has to be bingeable, it can’t be the first ten episodes expanded into a season by themselves, it has to be commercial, it has to dark, they can’t be silly or animated physically to be more like Game of Thrones,” the list goes on. When the spirit, the essence, is seeing a boy smile and play, to see that juxtaposition with war. Gordon didn’t even need as many lines. He could have EATEN the banana cake, goofed off with the Wolf Cove kids, but then realized Zuko is serious, that his time can’t be all leisure. The blueprint is right there and they thought they could streamline it
@@mylittlethoughttree a "rush"? Just to rewrite a few dialogues in a story already built... Let s be real, what was lacking was competence and talent, not time...
@@etienne8110 Adapting the dialogue from one medium to another without having it feel unnatural is one of the hardest tasks you can have. This is why so few adaptations nail it.
It's funny how I saw a headline of the showrunner saying he wanted to appease Game of Thrones fans, and then seeing how atrocious this show's writing is, like how did they intend to appease them?
@@valhatan3907 it's rarely about finding a better writer. It's more so what they're allowed to write and how. One would believe a major point in why the og creators would leave.
One little thing about the firebenders burning people alive is that in the original, there is a really strong connection between bending and martial arts. In order to manipulate the elements, characters need to move, usually in fairly specific ways. New benders like Katara at the beginning follow forms exactly, and even some of the strongest benders like Katara by the end and Bumi have to at least wave their hand a little or wiggle their eyebrows (literally Bumi). Ozai in Sozin's comet is the main exception to this, although Combustion Man and Toph's seismic sense and some other abilities also kind of fit. So in the original, showing someone bending without moving would be a really big deal, and certainly Sozin is strong enough that it would make sense for him to be able to do this, but in the remake it doesn't seem to have any significance and several other firebenders also do this. It just shows a disappointing lack of nuance and care. I've only seen the first five episodes, and I guess I would call the first my favorite since it had flaws but they could totally have improved over the season. But instead they only seem to get worse so picking a worst isn't easy
Yeah, I think the showrunner thought that the martial arts and the bending is separated entity. As if the martial arts is only a mere combat for violence, not an ART to channel the energy. In ATLA, you need to do martial arts to do bending. You need to MOVE.
@@valhatan3907 yeah, but then the very creators, "Bryke", created The Legend of Korra and introduced "psychic bloodbending" and "pro bending" both of which ruined bending imo. Basic boxing moves can now control the elements and are no longer tied to their original martial arts. Bending basically turned into "elemental telekinesis"
I mean they DID have sokka and Katara go through the tunnel of love instead of Aang and Katara. Maybe that's how they wanted to be like game of thrones lol.
I feel like shows fundamentally shouldn’t depict acts of genocide as action scenes. atla had genocide as one of its themes, and the spiritual destruction of both victims and perpetrators. As an adult watching the animated series you’re stunned by the implications of war and justice and death… but it never makes dark themes a spectacle. Idk. Atla already had a lot of dark things that it took seriously. And now we have a “darker” show “for adults” that frankly doesn’t take the same stuff as seriously. It’s embarrassing.
Nah. Scenes like those are awesome if done right. For example, the first avatar movie(blue aliens) had the Navi getting slaughtered, but the scene was done right and makes us feel for the victims in a more personal way. Now, imagine if the genocide scenes were shown in snippets during Aang's visit to the air temple. The dread he feels as he imagines what could've caused the destruction all around him. The devastation he felt when he finally found Gyatso's burnt body. Idk I thought that'd be sweet.
I think darker adaptations should show genocide in its entirety, deaths of women and all. Most people only heard about genocide, and I’ve seen tons of comments about it, but actually witnessing it would create emotions that the original could never do. If the production wants to go dark, go all out. The hell with themes.
That could be a really cool scene. Imagine Aang putting himself in ice, then lower the music and zoom out. Slowly cut to dreamy sequences (with echo and stuff) of the fire nation taking over the world, Ozai being announced the new fire lord, villages burning etc. And between each action dreamy sequence cut to Aang quietly being in his ice ball. You could really convey the sense of time passing like this. Better yet, only reveal this after Aang himself learns what has happened. And then they could show us the huge issue of him being stuck in the ice, rather than just telling us.
because it’s fun! It’s a joy to be back in this world and see a new interpretation of the story. Certainly hope they work on the writing and character development for season 2 because I’m excited to see it continue.
Shareholders like reboots. Modern companies only appeal to shareholders and don’t like to appeal to consumers because the government is ruining capitalism with poor policy decisions.
IP is king. New stories are considered a risk financially speaking. Any piece of media is a risk (this show being the case), but it's recognized that stories centered on familiar settings and characters tend to have an already established base of consumers. An advantage over new material. I love new material and familiar material. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is fantastic filmmaking, but who would've known that movie would be the success story it ended it becoming? When watching the trailers before its release, I thought it was a potential experimental film that would be niche, yet up my alley. Well, it was up everyone's alley, lol.
the answer, like the others have said, comes down to money. this will make more money than a new ip if it flops, bcs people will still watch it to compare it to the original
I truly feel like you are giving them waay to much credit. Episode 1 is not the hardest to write, since all they had to do was to copy what the original show already wrote. But no, they thought they could do better, but they fucked it up of course. In contrast, the One Piece live action respected the authors vision and kept the story telling sequence as much as possible. In a very similar fashion, we meet the Protagonist in One Piece in the first episode after a brief intro with the pirate king(analagous to the avatar intro sequence) and immediately thrown into action. Then, only in episode 2, we learn the backstory of the protagonist. This works, because in the first episode, you get to know the protagonist and learn to care about them. If one piece did the same thing and opened with Luffy and Shanks backstory, it would also suck. It sucks here, because I dont care about Aang. The one scene with him and Gyatso is not enough to make me care about him or learn about his personality. This is exactly why, almost all Anime and Western Cartoons first introduce the character in action and then tell a backstory. It takes a special kind of hubris to just gloss over all of this and think you can do better by making the order chronogical.
I haven't seen one piece but copying the original absolutely does not work here for the reasons of structure. Making episode 1 go all the way to the air temple and end with that as the emotional climax is a good idea, but it completely changes the story beats in the middle, and if you still try copying the original, it won't translate across properly. They have to change aspects for this new medium and it genuinely could've worked...but it doesn't, and in my opinion that's not down to how well or loosely they followed the original plot, it's down to very loose arcs
@@mylittlethoughttreeThe episode is about 57 minues, and the part until south pole takes 21 minutes. The entire massacre of airbenders are unnecessary and they could have just started with the intro sequence and from there you have choices. Either you use the extra 20 minutes to give the characters more screentime with better dialog and end at the southern air temple without the reveal of Gyatso's death. They could have left it in suspense coming to the air temple and us not knowing if there would be people or not. The other choice is to also do the gyatso death reveal in the first episode. Then they could use that 20 minutes for Aang to explore the temple, have small flashback with Gyatso and then reveal his death at the end. I am not so keen on this variant, since it leaves the episode on a low note, but it can also work. Both of these options follow the order of events in anime and are superior. They would definitely work, I have no idea what you mean it would not work due to "structure".
So sad to see how because of Hollywood's constant failures people have lowered their standards and have been forced to settle with mediocrity and will not take valid criticism towards shows from people that just want things to be good
I thought the graphics and cinematography were still quite pretty. I also enjoyed some of the creative elements in the background at times. Like the artifacts Zuko had that glowed when close to the avatar. Several of the pieces are still there it's just not the full puzzle. The dialogue was unintentionally pretty funny at times. When Gran Gran told Aang that his entire civilization was dead in such a deadpan way and restated the intro I literally laughed out loud 🤣 it just felt so emotionless and expositiony. The boy's entire civilization is extinct, and it's like he's being caught up to speed by an NPC on a voiceover loop 😭🤣
The biggest mistake the show makes is a fundamental one at the show's core: They're adapting an episodic fantasy adventure comedy and turning it into a serialized fantasy drama. Why? Because it's an hour long? Because Game of Thrones was a massive hit and it was an hour-long fantasy drama? Because it's live action? The last reason is one I saw the cast discussing -- this is live action, so it needs to have a more serious tone. They said this as if there's some logical connection between format and tone. I don't get it. Why does it being live action mean it can't be light comedy adventure most of the time? No actual reason is given, it's just assumed that live action = more serious. Also, I have to disagree about showing the Air Nomad holocaust being a good structure for the first episode. In the cartoon -- and it's absolutely fair to compare them; this is an adaptation of that material -- we, the audience, learn about the world through Katara and Sokka's eyes. We learn about Aang's history as they do. When learn about the slaughter of the Air Nomads at the same time as Aang. We see the world through the eyes of our core trio of characters, which brings us closer to them and helps us identify emotionally with them. This consistency of POV (third person limited) is a benefit for a character-driven story.
I like every change that you suggested, especially the one where Sozin burst in and Gyatso closing his eyes getting ready to fight, then cut to the next scene. They could feature this scene again in later episodes and turn it into some kind of reveal on how Gyatso eventually evacuated the airbenders AND how he was able to kill a dozen firebender soldiers in one room.
In an ideal environment without taking time, budget or runtime into account, I think they should’ve made the pre nomad genocide era into an entire episode, so that they actually have time to properly SHOW what Aang’s life was like back then. Then it would hit all the harder when the genocide happens and Aang’s life that the audience had just gotten accustomed to suddenly gets turned on its head. Instead, by shoving it all into like 10-20 minutes, they don’t have time to show, and just have to say what happens.
Let us hope for the next seasons the writing team improve their craft. Hope that they fix the structure of the story telling and trust us the audience to actually piece things together ourselves instead of drilling us the story thru exposition and flashback like we're all goldfish
I never saw the Animated, saw the MKnight poopoo movie first, then recently the Netflix. I didnt think the Netflix series was bad based off of the prior. I actually enjoyed it so much i wanted to watch the Animated series....wow, understood mixing of plots for run time but realized 2 things, 8 eps live action = 16 ep animated. Why incorporate season 2 when its not nessecary? Also why does the animated show feel more mature and grown up than the Netflix series. One feels like it was written by seasoned adults for kids the latter feels like its written by kids for adults.
I’m so happy you made this, ignore the people who say the show isn’t flawed and doesn’t need fixing when it clearly is, I would have loved if the show went in this direction instead ❤
2:32 "It seems they cut yip yip from the show" Aang says "yip yip" around the 15 minute mark of the first episode when he flies away on Appa after finding out he's the Avatar.
This is going to be a VERY LONG comment, but I feel like this could have worked a bit better if we got flashbacks sequences cut in between the events of the present. The best comparison I can make to this is how Guardians of the Galaxy 3 explored Rocket’s backstory leading right up to confronting the High Evolutionary in person. If James Gunn went the route of how Netflix’s ATLA handled things, the film would have just started with a 20 minute intro of the whole thing, and the rest of the guardians just have to slowly piece together everything we just saw while Rocket remains in a coma the entire time. It almost feels like this was the format of the pilot they wanted to take in a prior draft of the script, considering how they were teasing Appa while he was still stuck in the ice, despite him already appearing earlier in the episode, literally just floating up to Aang in his first scene without any “big reveal” moment unlike him coming to the village or the arrival of the sky bison to the Southern Air Temple. Plus, it seems logical that it would open with the Earth bender getting scorched by Sozin (sets the tone well enough already), introducing Katara and Sokka as they find Aang (protagonist introduction), cut back to Aang and Gyatso’s introduction, as well as the introduction of the sky bison, (establish the two characters, the culture of the air nomads, and keeps new audience members curious of what happened), and then return to the present with Aang waking up and summoning Appa. Then we get a glimpse at Aang running away right as the fire nation attack to contrast Zuko arriving at the Wolf Cove. Finally, we see our first glimpse on the attack on the southern air temple, likely while Aang is held captive to build suspense on what they’ll do to him it. We could see Gyatso appear, but not what he was doing during the attack. When the trio start heading to the building with the Avatar shrine, Gyatso’s perspective/fate is revealed the same as in the episode, hiding the children, and keeping the door restraint, but perhaps doing so with his airbending. Sozin could still drop that line he told Gyatso about how they could’ve won a different night, before I’m imagining this is where the emotional impact of Gyatso’s death and Aang’s reaction could’ve been stronger: As Sozin approaches, he bursts the door wide open, with a shriek of light blinding the view from the outside. This shot lingers, as a single figure we think to be Sozin approaches, but turns out to be Aang, as he sees the aftermath of a massive battle that was Gyatso’s last stand. Like in the original, it’s still up to the imagination of the audiences to fill in the blank. I’m definitely looking too far into this, especially for a TH-cam comment, but it just seems that sometimes it’s not just a lack of the “show don’t tell” rule that is making the show suffer, but also how they show it when they do.
I absolutely agree on the dialogue not being good. And i find it really weird how the show was advertised as being a GoT quality like show, when one of the reasons GoT and HOTD is so good is because of the amazing dialogue. And Netflix's atla just flops completely on that.
Ah yes, the writers are making the show for people who haven't seen the original.... So disappointing! Cause it has so much to offer in terms of visuals and interesting changes to the story! Why does a show that is aimed at a 'more mature audience' have to spell everything out? The original show didn't talk down to the audience and they were writing for a younger demographic! Edit: Great points! I like the idea of trying to rewrite an episode to make it more impactful
@@cacogenicistwatch the original cuz it should be studied on how to write children in an authentic way. They weren’t using random catchphrases or being too whacky, they were just very raw with their feelings and lacked adult neuroticism like saying “I’m just a quirky little guy who eats banana cakes” lmao they just showed us Gyatso throwing pies with Aang, it’s a completely different experience
wow an actually reasonable and measured take that doesnt condemn the whole thing. How novel. you're right. whats frustrating about the show is how close it is to being good. the acting and the production value is there. its the writers who need a slap upside the head. this reminds me of the star wars prequel trilogy. they had undeniably talented actors (samuel l jackson, natalie portman, hayden christensen, christopher lee) and yet they had them saying the clunkiest lines ever that NO ONE, i mean, NO ONE not even meryl streep could deliver in a convincing way.
I've seen mostly reasonable and measured takes about the show. People mostly agree the effects, soundtrack and CGI are good, and the casting is excellent. It's just the writing needs to be improved on, as you said. These actors are good, they just don't have good material to work with! I've seen Kiawentiio in other things, and she is capable of giving really powerful performances. The script did her character a major disservice! There's potential for this show to be a really strong and memorable adaptation, but it needs to improve on the writing!
@@EliasJWhitenah ive actually heard some people say its worse than the M. night Shyamalan movie which is insane. I dont think the whole thing is worthless and should be canceled immediately i think it at least deserves a chance to use the constructive feedback and apply it to the next season. and then there are other things like the 8 episode format that has become so popular that completely handicaps what should be a more episodic series so that they dont feel the need to squish four different stories into one like they did with omashu and can give the gaang more downtime to bond. it feels sooo full and yet sooo empty. theres so much plot and so little story.
@@Shenanakins I agree with you and said while writing feels unprofessional, it deserves a chance to improve in future seasons. And again, most of the takes talking about how bad the show is that I've seen have been people trying to be fair, but having to recognize the show's glaring flaws. Most people I've seen acknowledge it's better than the movie. but that's a bar that's so low, it's in the dirt. There are those who don't see the point in this series existing at all and think it just shows disregard for animation. And that's a take I can mostly agree with. But it is also important to see a more diverse and accurate cast than the live-action movie. We deserve a live-action that at least sounds professionally written!
APPA ISN'T EVEN A CHARACTER !!! APPA AND MOMO BROUGHT MORE HUMANITY & INCREDIBLE CHARACTER CHOICES TO TEAM AVATAR ! "YOU MUZZLED APPA???" CANNOT HAVE THE SAME INTENSITY THAT STILL HOLDS STRONG TO ANY PRESENT DAY
Yeah, it was better because they actually did shit according to the original mangaka. The creators of the original show walked off for the same kinds of “creative differences” Oda’s presence prevented.
@@nailinthefashionprobably all of the changes. I don’t think there was a single change that I actually enjoyed in the long run or big picture. Then again, I didn’t finish it. I was told that it’s revealed that the men on Zuko’s ship are the ones he saved by standing up in the war council and they acknowledge his sacrifice for them, which seems like it could be good if done right. Or extremely corny. One of the two. I don’t think I can bring myself to finish it. I was too horrified by what they did to Bumi and Hakoda.
@@winry2357 it was a very brief scene where we just see his lieutenant’s bewildered reaction. It was alright, not too much not too little, but it was something I assumed during the original run. Like why wouldn’t his dad punish him by exiling him with the squad he wanted to save? It was the most successful “new addition” imo
I got a bit of inspiration from this video and its comments, and mixing it with my own ideas I thought of: Scene opens up just as it did before, firebenders chasing an earthbender with the scroll. That part stays mostly the same, except a commander shows up and kills the Earthbender(instead of capturing) right after the scroll is tossed. Immediately afterward, the commander tells the soldiers to clean up the mess, mentioning how he must report this to the higher ups. He gazes at the flames still licking at the earthbender’s body, and from there it transitions to looking at the fire behind the fire lord’s throne as messengers enter. Sozin asks if the plans are on their way to the earth kingdom, and the messengers confirm. Sozin simply says “good”, and turns away from them, looking toward the fire. After a moment he says “Prepare our men to march for the air temple”, Or something along those lines. After someone says “Yes, my lord,” and scurries off to do so, one of the messengers looks up from his bow and asks, “excuse me, fire lord, I don’t mean to question, but why the peaceful air nomads? Wouldn’t it be better to target the water tribes instead?” to which Sozin simply replies, “It is not the air nomads who are the threat. It is one who lives among them.” As the tense music crescendos. From there it immediately cuts to Aang playing airball as another comment mentioned, destroying everyone else and displaying his skill. However, it also shows how this skill causes his isolation, as everyone on the opposing team gives him dark looks and turns away to do something else. (Perhaps to drive this point home even more, maybe Aang could have been banned from playing airball in the past because he was too good, and joined this game without being authorized because he just wanted to play/have fun with others his age) In any case, after the game is over (either because Aang won or because he joined when he wasn’t supposed to thus causing the game to be called off), his peers give him glares before going off to do whatever else. Aang reaches out toward them before stopping, looking dejected. Then Gyatso sidles up next to him, saying something along the lines of “You know, while these bones are getting old, perhaps we could play a round sometime?” Or some other line of friendly dialogue related to airball that comforts Aang. Aang hugs him, and from this interaction we see how because he was isolated from his peers, he’s grown attached to someone else instead, namely Gyatso. Aang mentioned he hasn’t seen him for a while, to which Gyatso remarks he’s been preparing for the upcoming comet festival. (perhaps Gyatso and Aang play airball often, and it’s because Gyatso is so busy that he wasn’t able to play with Aang, thus causing Aang to try to have fun with his peers instead?) From here we get a few lines of dialogue of Aang venting to Gyatso and Gyatso giving advice back. Gyatso then hesitates and starts turning the conversation toward talk of responsibility, to which Aang rolls his eyes to and kind of brushes off, showing more of his immature kid side. Like the video suggests, it builds to a point where Gyatso is about to tell him something important, but then a nomad hurries up to Gyatso’s side and says the council requests his presence and it’s urgent. Gyatso tells Aang to go to bed (it’s late evening during this shot. It’s a few nights before the comet, just to give time for the Fire army to actually travel to the air temple and to give time for Aang to get a good distance from the air temple later on before it goes up in flames, which likely Aang would be able to see from the air) But anyways, Appa lands next to Aang just as Gyatso tells him to sleep, and Aang has a big happy reaction and hugs him while Gyatso watches him, looking troubled. But anyways, Aang can’t sleep (perhaps even wakes up from an avatar-related nightmare related to what is to come, which in the future will make him dread his duty as the avatar even more) and goes on a walk through the air temple. He stumbles near where the airbenders are meeting, and hears faint glimpses of “The fire nation is going to WAR! You NEED TO tell him!” And Gyatso saying “Let him enjoy his childhood for just a bit longer.” And more faint muffled sounds of an argument. After a moment, Gyatso opens the door and suddenly stops, noticing Aang. Aang questions Gyatso what that was all about, and he takes a deep breath and asks if Aang will meet him somewhere in a few minutes. From there we go to the Yangchen scene, where Gyatso explains war to Aang and tells him he’s the avatar. I actually like the part where Gyatso beats around the bush initially, because it shows he’s struggling with himself to tell Aang. Gyatso has a clearly nervous disposition during this scene, even if he tries to hide it. At last, he tells him both about him being the avatar and the war, and Aang reacts by vehemently denying it, constantly saying there’s no way, the avatar’s supposed to be some mighty warrior and he couldn’t hurt anyone, he’s too young to be the avatar, there’s no way, etc. etc. (I’m not good at writing dialogue lol) But at the same time, Gyatso shouts “there is no mistake, YOU ARE THE AVATAR!” And then Aang shuts up, because Gyatso NEVER shouts, and then Aang sees Gyatso’s face clearly and sees he’s crying. Quietly, Gyatso looks away, saying Aang will leave as soon as possible for the water northern tribe to train in waterbending. He opens the door next to them, revealing Appa already saddled and ready to go. Gyatso mentions they have no time, and that the other nations have already begun preperations (at the same time, it shows scenes of each nation prepping for war). From there, it cuts to Aang, midair on Appa’s back. From there, Aang tells Appa to turn around. Appa grunts confusedly, and Aang confirms he wants to go south. From there it cuts to the Southern water tribe scene with Katara and Sokka in the morning daylight, and the live action should follow the animated show EXACTLY. Katara accidently breaks the sphere with her waterbending out of rage at Sokka, the white beam, all of it. We get a glimpse of the Fire nation ship looking at the beam and of Zuko’s statuette’s glowing eyes, but that’s all we see of him in the first episode. From there they bring him back to the village, they’re surprised to find an airbender but it’s implied they’re only surprised because barely any airbenders go south and because he was trapped in ice like that. Sokka commands the kids and mentions vigilance against the fire nation, Aang plays with the kids and goes penguin sliding with Katara, yadda yadda yadda. Sokka mentions how the avatar ran away from his duty, making Aang feel guilty. A few hints are sprinkled here and there about the time gap, but Aang doesn’t want to hear any serious stuff, he came here to ESCAPE that, so he always moves away at any serious talk, and he always moves too fast for anyone to really hold a long conversation with him. The scene in the ship happens, Katara discusses the impact of the Fire Nation’s attack and how they killed her mom. From there Zuko comes to the village, demanding to see “the Avatar.” Katara asks Aang if he’s the avatar, but he vehemently denies it. Thus, the Sokka fight happens, and then Aang jumps in during the fight and sweeps firebending soldiers away. From there, Zuko gets up quickly and runs over to Sokka, who’s lying on the ground after the blast, and puts his flaming fist an inch from Sokka’s face. He then gloats “So here’s where you’ve been hiding for 100 years” and from here Aang asks him what he means by that, and then there’s the big reveal of the time gap and the genocide, etc. etc. It is also revealed to Katara and Sokka that Aang really is the Avatar. Aang, still in shock, agrees to go with the fire nation. Afterward, Katara, who’s kind of grown attached to Aang, wants to go after him, but Sokka says he has a duty to the village and besides, he deserves it for running away for so long. Katara angrily slaps him, pointing out that Aang saved his life and ALL their lives, and that it was their duty to save the avatar, who might be able to defeat the fire nation (and avenge her mom). She then hops on Appa’s back, saying that if Sokka won’t do it, she will herself. Sokka scrambles on next to her, and the fire nation ship scene with Aang plays out pretty similarly. He still seems to refuse to believe it. After he is rescued, the crew send up a fireball barrage as normal, but Katara fends off the initial barrage instead of Appa just dodging. Then Appa dodges Zuko’s final shot, and he yells into the air in frustration. Aang, with some half hearted hope that maybe it’s all a lie, travels to the temple, and that scene plays out pretty similarly. (Plz tell me how i can improve this)
if only there was an infamous monologe that is beloved that would explain all the exposition succintly. the show really didnt have enough established material to work with
Apologies for what turned into a ridiculously long comment here, but I nerd out about writerly things like this. I'm so sorry! I know this was such a small part of what you discussed, but I latched onto what you said about the exposition given through Katara in the animated series' opening credits, and it got me thinking. I actually think starting out each episode with an intro like that could have been very cool for the live action, BUT my instinct would be to have it be from Zuko's perspective, not Katara's. Here me out. There are several mentions of stories/books/propaganda/Aang writing his own legend/etc throughout the season. And in episode one Aang steals Zuko's book about the avatars. Aang tells us about how useful Zuko's book has been and how much care Zuko had with his writing, but we never /really/ get to see much of that. So, more telling instead of showing. But I think we can fix that. My instinct is to frame the whole first season around entries from Zuko's book. At the beginning of each episode, we would start with a brief entry Zuko had written that reveals world building to us over the course of the season, bit by bit as we need it. Each episode would begin with a different entry, and each entry would also hint at the central theme of each episode. If you really wanted to dig in and play around with it, the entries could also hint at Zuko's internal struggle with the propaganda he's been fed his whole life versus his more protective instincts. One of the (many) telling-not-showing issues I had with the adaptation was how Aang just knew things about people when he didn't have good reason to. There were a number of observations he made about Zuko in the Blue Spirit episode, for example, that I felt Aang arrived at much too quickly given most of his interactions with Zuko prior to that had been negative. But if the episodes had been framed using Zuko's book and we knew Aang was getting insight into Zuko through reading it, then Aang's observations would have felt more earned. So, using Zuko's book to start each episode gives us: A) a cool framework for each episode as well as the season as a whole, B) world building and exposition, C) an introduction to the theme of each episode D) a slowly-building connection between Aang and Zuko E) given Sozin is Zuko's ancestor, his book gives us a natural way to bring up the history of the war whenever we need to, but to do so in a way that emphasizes Sozin's personal connection to characters we care about. Rather than presenting Sozin as some scary rando who gets briefly introduced and then forgotten about for the rest of the season. F) given that Netflix Zuko's arc is set up as being about strength versus weakness instead of about honour, it makes sense Zuko would feel he needs to do things on his own to prove his strength, which means, if everything Aang has read in the book has been filtered through Zuko's perspective, it helps to further set up Aang's belief in the finale that the avatar has to do things alone G) and having the season framed around the book turns all the talk of stories and Aang being the one to write his own legend into a motif, a theme for the season. Zuko wrote the book of past avatars, now Aang gets to take it from here. Other than that, my only other comment is about you saying Zuko trying to fire bend at Sokka in their duel was a nice touch. I would agree...if Zuko's arc had been properly set up in episode one, but while we do get snippets about Zuko seeking his father's approval, etc, we don't know /why/. I.e. we don't have the core belief driving Zuko (strength) properly defined for us until his backstory is given in episode six. (For comparison, Nickelodeon Zuko lets us know he's driven by honour eleven minutes into the first episode.) Because they didn't define Zuko's arc clearly or soon enough, I personally found Zuko fire bending at Sokka that way very offputting my first time watching. Zuko in a duel, fire bending at someone who had clearly lost their match, who had tried to flee, who had fallen and had their back turned to him was such a dishonourable move. And it was a dishonourable move we were specifically shown in the animated series Zuko would not make. It seems like such a tiny change, but it's actually a direct contradiction to who Nickelodeon Zuko was. It was a blatant way to tell us Netflix Zuko was not the same Zuko we knew, but since they didn't properly tell us who this Zuko was, it meant I found myself floundering for several episodes, trying to figure out who Netflix Zuko was supposed to be and what was driving him. I needed to be told that long before episode six. Now that I know how they've changed Zuko's character arc, I'm okay with him fire bending at Sokka like that, but they still needed to better define the focus of Zuko's arc in episode one. Instead of Lieutenant Jee telling Zuko there was no need to accept Sokka's challenge because they outnumbered the Water Tribe and having Zuko respond with "Where's the glory in that?" Jee should maybe have had his dialogue tweaked to say something Zuko could misconstrue as Jee thinking he's weak. Maybe Jee says, "We outnumber them, there's no need for you to put yourself at risk." That riles Zuko, who turns on Jee and angrily says something like, "Do you think I'm so weak I can't handle one Water Tribe peasant by myself?" Boom. Now we know Zuko is sensitive to being seen as weak and wants to prove himself to be strong. He's also just been angered before his match with Sokka, which gives him reason to push harder and cross lines he'd ordinarily not want to cross. It starts setting up the animosity between him and his crew. And it would tie into my idea with Zuko's book and how Zuko's perspective about needing to do things by himself would help set up Aang's dilemma in the finale. So, yeah. Just as you say, so many things in the season could work quite well if only a little more care had been taken with the dialogue Anyhow. Apologies for the embarrassingly long comment. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. (Also, great video as always! I love these kinds of "rewrite" discussions.)
I don't have a problem with firebenders burning people alive being shown as an idea. But when firebending behaves this way only around minor characters and main characters get hit with the "knockback cartoon physics" kind of fire the stakes start to feel very sanitized
4:22 “Also for Sozin to be explaining this at all to some random bloke” Yea, YOU are the bloke, we all are. He’s explaining to us the viewers so that it can establish what’s going on in the scene
He is indeed, but that's the problem. Dialogue needs to feel natural, not like it exists only to tell the audience things because that just pulls you out of the story
Thanks for this. I didn't hate the series ... but I didn't love it either. The writing just needed to be better and some of the actors didn't have the skill set to elevate the writing/dialogue. But there were things I enjoyed and I don't regret watching it. But my biggest problem is that they chose to retell a story (that was so well done with the original) rather than tell new stories about Aang and the gang. That is so frustrating! There is so much I want to know about Aang's life since The Last Airbender. I mean how fun would it be to see 25 year old Aang (or 40 year old Aang with kids!) doing his Avatar stuff? I would love to see some of those stories either animated or live action; the tidbits we got in The Legend of Korra just wasn't enough. But we got the old stories just not told as well as they were the first time around. Sigh ...🙄
One issue that I had with Aang and Apps is that Appa doesn't respond. He doesn't even grunt or lick Aang when Aang talks. So Aang could be talking to a tree for all we know
Me: Finally, a mature live-action version of one of my favorite shows. I can show this to my mom and make her fall in love with the amazing writing and... Oh nevermind
Dialogue bending is real problem in this show. Elemental bending are slowed for no reason when they should have been fast. Story telling is awful, Some casting choices are soooo bad. Ugh
Just to clarify, I haven’t seen the live action, and am on the fence about watching it. But around the 20 minute mark, talking about not showing the invasion, I think showing the invasion itself adds a bit in that we get an idea of what the fire nation is capable of. That being said, I think showing Ozai, or a general, or whoever, just stepping into a room with Gystso and then having a cut away. And then Aang finding his bones later, would have been better. Leaves more to the imagination and you don’t have to feel obligated to root for a character you’ve only JUST been introduced to. He meant a lot to Aang, and I think his grieving in the present is the more important take away.
Great video, i would have kept the first scene the same as well but changed the dialogue from direct to implied, and then cut to Aang trying to figure out how to make an air scooter and seeing a shadowy figure (avatar roku) with fire nation garms on in the distance with the elder monk explaining to him that he's too distracted in my opinion this would of set up mystery who the shadowy figure is where the audience think its the fire nation preparing to attack but later find out otherwise. The attack scene would be the flying bysons building a wall to try and allow thier friends the airbenders to escape instead creating an opportunity for the fire benders to burn the byson and basically creating an oven so much so that any more air would just increase the suffering to the bysons deeming them helpless. The elder catch on to what the fire nation benders are doing and moves the young airbenders into the temple in hopes of finding the secret exit but is too late as the elders fight a good battle the numbers keep on increasing, the young airbenders manage to escape down the secret exit into the forest where they are greeted to a obliterated forest and battalions of fire nation soldiers. In my opinion, this would have kept me engaged and intrigued me enough to watch the entire episode.
I would say I agree with basically everything you said in this video. However, I actually thought episode 1 was one of the stronger ones personally. But, like I said, I think you are right on a lot of your criticisms. I was happy to accept this was like, an alternate universe. I thought several things they did were interesting and worked well. I was happy enough with 90% of the CGI and combat. what I didn't like was the pacing and that there seemed to be a lot of story and plot elements that made... like, no sense at all, weren't necessary or added nothing beneficial to the story or just weren't explained. And I was often thrown off when they WOULD do a direct 1:1 shot or quote, but now without the original context of why it was said or done in the animated show, like Zuko saying "I see you found a master" when yeah, she found one, and learned absolutely nothing from him this time. The spirit episode is kinda my least favorite episode for a lot of reasons, but the one thing I absolutely can't make sense of is Roko stealing(?) that relic fro Koh with ZERO explanation WHY. Why did he do that? Apparently it doesn't matter if we give it back. And apparently we don't even need to explain we brought it back to trade for the peoples lives. We just mind meld with Koh I guess and had an understanding. And apparently Hei Bai was just satisfied with the acorn being planted, no conversation or really acknowledgment with that spirit, he just KNEW I guess. That whole episode bothered me cause it felt like they just wanted to cram ALL the spirit stuff into one episode for convenience and almost as a 'just in case we don't get a second season, at least we showed Wan Shi Tong for some reason?". They should have just stuck to Hei Bei and given one element of that story the focus it needed and left the rest out, they just tried to do too much and made it make no sense in the process if you allowed yourself to actually think about what was happening.
Allow the child actors to grow into their roles. Make the CGI and costumes look slightly less "clean looking" (just slightly). Make the exposition bits fit more organically. Otherwise, great show, and I actually think the characters and storytelling are pretty good- sometimes even more interesting than the original.
The few scenes that are good make the rest of the clunky dialogue and strange structure so much more unbareable. With just the first episode i kept asking silently "wait why did you cut there? It was just starting to feel good!" The first scene of show was so good it was sad to see how it never peaked after that.
Please, PLEASE make more edits for the other episodes!! I hope someone on the PR team for the live action sees these well-crafted videos giving insight and solutions on how to make the show better for the next seasons!! A lot of the fan reception has been divisive because the show was painfully mediocre in terms of story beats and writing for the characters, that a lot of people are crying out for better quality because the potential is there!
Here’s my little review I don’t think the acting is bad it’s the diolauge and directing. Character development is super bad and kataras is so rushed she’s a master right off the bat. And my biggest gripe is they just completely removed any silly lightheartedness and just made it all serious story.
I'm glad your mature and reasonable when discussing the show, cause i personally think that it was good, and i honestly don't care if people dislike it, however some people go on and make long videos insulting the show, those who made it, and those who like it. Rather than stating their opinion and why they believe that, like you did. I have not watched the full video cause I have not yet finished the series so I may be incorrect about your opinion and such.
Personally i would rearrange scenes. I think Aang is better as a mystery, you can start with the storm and encasing without showing him. Relate tne storm being caused by the comet and interlace the fire nation arriving at tne air temple. Maybe on the spin of the cocoon images of the attack to be related to later. Mix the intro with gran explaination, and flash to the past here. Relate Aangs story from him talking about it flashing back. Put tne massacre scene interlaced with arriving at the air temple. Really saying the air benders vanished rather than died would help. And also Aang doesnt fully commit till long after the air temple. Episode 2 should reflect that.
Best way to enjoy the show, dont go into it comparing it to the OG show frame by frame and just allow the entertainment to entertain you instead of auditing the show like its your 9-5 to do so.
So in other words, they should have incorporated more of the pacing the cartoon had in delivering motivations. It's like they were speed-running the character development in favor of edgy drama, and they needed the audience to know more than they should to achieve that.
they really love making this live action adaptation of the cartoon show they even kick the original creators of the cartoon show because they really love the source material 😄
I hated when aang said i like to play air ball and eat banana cakes... its like they think telling us these things is what hits us in the feels. They try to so hard to reach the emotional side of things it comes out bland. The live action movie did this with no in depth context and it doesnt hit
to me it feels like the project was given to people who just watched the show for this project once and thats it. Not fans or people who truly understood atla
For me, the Netflix Avatar live action adaptation was a snooze fest... I couldn't watch more than two episodes...the acting's (aside from Zuko, Sokka, and some veteran actors) pretty bad and the show's obsessed with telling rather than showing. So much of the characterization relied on characters either talking about themselves or others describing their character traits. I want to see our characters grow, not listen to them being described. For example, if a character is a glutton, I'd rather see it for myself by them pigging out rather than them going on a monologue describing themselves or others doing it for them. Also, there's no chemistry between our main trio (Sokka, Aang, and Katara) and their entire relationship was rushed. It's like the creators just assumed we watched the original animated series and will project our preconceived love for the characters onto their show, so they didn't bother developing their rapport/relationship at all. They go from meeting each other to practically instant family members who act like they've known each other forever. It felt so jarring and unbelievable! I really wanted to like this adaptation too, but sadly, I can't pretend it's a well done series that captured the spirit and essence of the original. If anything, I would say that the showrunners missed by a mile and failed to understand what made the original animated Avatar so beloved. It's like they chose to prioritize surface level aesthetics, lore, and "grittiness"/action over character development. All of the major characters were either watered down or had core personality traits removed. Lol, they wanted to appeal to Game of Thrones fans without realizing that it's the complex and morally grey characters that's the heart and soul of that show. It's ironic that an animated series made for kids featured much deeper characters than this live action counterpart. All of the character flaws were either removed (Sokka's sexism is practically nonexistent, Katara's no longer fierce or headstrong, Aang's no longer goofy nor does he crush on Katara, and Zuko is too whiny and much less villainous) or heavily toned down. The creators are so determined to make the characters instantly likable that they watered down any of their supposed "problematic" traits. But forgot that in doing so (without adding new traits), you end up with much blander characters who are no longer as interesting as they could have been. This makes it even harder to build natural rapport or insert conflict between characters. Katara, esp., has zero personality and all of her scenes are excruciatingly boring to watch. By far, it's the characters and their relationships/growth that made the original ATLA so unforgettable and yet, the showrunners don't seem to understand this. If they did, they wouldn't have skimped on all the relationship building and character work. Everything's rushed to the point where none of the emotional beats feel earned and it's like the characters are just going through the motions because the director says so rather than experiencing it all organically. I really don't understand why the showrunners didn't prioritize their characters above all else and make sure they're all well developed enough for the audience to fall in love with them. After all, people will forgive anything as long as they care about your characters... And despite all the bad writing, I could've at least stayed engaged as long as our cast had amazing chemistry, but alas, it's just not there...I'm bored to death. Overall, the writing and acting just isn't good enough to hold my interest...One Piece Live Action is still the gold standard when it comes to anime/cartoon to live action adaptations -at least they concentrated on character writing and relationships above all else. They also didn't constantly info dump on the audience: Look at the way they peppered exposition bits via natural conversations between Garp, Helmeppo, and Luffy...I was never overwhelmed and was only more intrigued by the world. Why couldn't the Netflix Avatar live action use this approach to make their exposition dumps more palatable?
Exposition in lieu of showing the audience what you're trying to convey is the laziest and least interactive way anyone can write anything. While the movie that doesn't exist did it even worse, the fact that live action versions of Avatar can't show and not tell makes me question what's so difficult to understand about the premise. Aang is the Avatar, the last Airbender, and the best hope for restoring balance to a world riddled with chaos. Why not show how out of balance everything is without the Air Nomads? A temple slowly decaying over 100 years, a sea that once bridged the Water Tribes slowly becoming less traveled by boats and more controlled by coal powered ships, and an Earth Kingdom that loses ground over and over. And with all of that, show how their globe is being consumed with the might of the Fire Nation. Maybe have it burn up the map and find benders and non benders alike visiting shrines to the past Avatars, praying for them to return and put an end to the war and conquest. We don't exactly get a feel for how hopeless things feel without Aang, so show us the status quo while he's missing. And after all that sadness, bring us a laugh or two before Team Avatar goes to the Southern Air Temple. Feel that missing element, and how the Nomads brought everyone together with items of all four nations side by side unassumingly. Have Katara and Sokka be shocked that there was once a time when people traveled for more than battles. They've never known a world at peace. Aang should get a sense of how late he is. Then he can find Gyatso. Then he can almost knock everything off the mountain. And if they keep the statue room, have all the previous Avatars feel that loss and comfort Aang. Let him hear them and as he goes from fury to grief, let him hear Katara and Sokka calling out for him. They're here with him. Give him time to feel the loss of his entire people, and give him Momo again as one more last-of-his-kind to remember his home through. Last, end on Aang being determined to end the war and answer the pleas of the hopeless.
Outstanding video!!! This adaptation was a really good start, and on a basic story board level, it works... but it fell flat on its face when it came to the finer details and execution... which was so sad to watch because it had some amazing high-moments. I'm hopeful they can resolve the script and acting issues for season 2 and 3. We'll see I guess. Take care, my friend!
@aeis0 I would prefer for brown indigenous actors to be casted but I can forgive it a little since there isn't always dark skin indigenous actors auditioning I guess, but he really doesn't have the facial features at all in my opinion. If we're solely talking about appearances without performance, I don't think he really fits. I think he's majority white too I believe, so not even majority or fully indigenous really.
@BratzRockAngels bruh yall so pressed about skin. Like someone skin color being a little to light or too dark is there personality. I'm colored and there's nothing wrong with sokka because his skin tone he captured his character well. Who tf cares about how light or dark it is.
Not to be nostalgic bias, my objective on the dialogue is that its too on-the-nose, telly instead of showy, and info-dump at best. There is no subtlety. Sometimes it feel draged out, like Iroh voice over and the opening sequence. As if they want to cramp every interesting words on one sentence
I'm actually slightly glad the first season ended up a mixed bag, because it's finally stopped the pattern of where things on the internet have to be seen as "awful" or "fantastic." I hate how all-or-nothing the Internet has become. It's a perfectionists' worst nightmare. The pattern of critique has actually had a negative effect on my mental health, especially since I'm an actor and have personal investment in story-telling.
god, I didn't think the dialogue was great, especially the over explaining parts, but I didn't think it was quite as bad as others think. i honestly feel like rewatching it to try to figure out if I'm an idiot 😅
I went and watched the first two episodes of the original. Cartoons are not for me. But it was easy to see the difference in the story telling. The original is far better and I was left wondering why they felt the need to change it. I think part of it is the streaming platform. The thinking is you need to hook people in the first few minutes which is why I think they went with the big action start. I also watched a great review which focused on Sokkas sexism and why it was so essential to the season arc. After seeing that, I can't accept that katara is a problem. How can she be angry if she has nothing to react to?
I think it’s simply them combining different events with no chemistry between the characters, the dialogue is bad but if good storytelling is there no one cares
I think showing the airnomad genozid at the point in time that we do is a problem, because it makes it tonaly inconsistend. we see that and afterwarts we go to the shinanigans at the southpool. If you do show that that needs to be close to the end of the episode. let the first episode end on the bleakest note possible, and make the second episode about hope cautiously awakening again. Having more time before the timejump would have had some aditional advanteges we could introduce bumi, wich would be way better than doing it 5 minutes before we meet him as an old man, we could actually meet Kuzon. And Aang can show, that he is not ready for responsibility instead of telling us in a monolog.
I am really enjoying this series, not sure why so many people are ripping this series a new asshole. Yes, I get it, it's not QUITE as good as the original animated series, but to be hoenst, I don't think they could have made it all that much better then they made it and it's still a good series with a lot of great characters. I think the curse is, they made the original animated series so good, it is far too high of a bar to set for anything that comes after, Korra, TLAB movie, this series, and everything in between just can't compare to that masterpiece of an animated series; it was just a perfect storm of everything done right that is EXTREMELY difficult to replicate. I think people get this idea that if you do something "good" the first time that can be so easily replicated again and it's just not true, there is simply too many pieces that have to come together in just the right way to make something like Avatar The Last Airbender to work as well as it did 18 years ago.
I found myself being annoyed and put off every time Aang speaks in the live action - imo he is incredibly unlikable as a character because of how they butchered his introduction and how intensly frustrating and cringe the dialouge is. The visuals of this show is incredible, I am really sad to see how much they messed up certain story beats and dialouge, and how much they changed certain characters like Katara and Bumi to be almost unrecognizable from their cartoon counterparts. Certain changes like for example Zuko saving a devision that later becomes his crew and this being the reason for their newfound respect for Zuko rather than out of pity was a really good change, I wish there was more of that and less of Banana cakes and angry sad Bumi.
Could’ve made a real antagonistic team. An outside force. Some foreign colonials and explorers. With bending powers that are so different from the locals own bending abilities. Telekinesis
I am just annoyed that for some reason they take older animated series and try to regurgitate the story with their edits. The old show was amazing and holds the test of time. God I hope this remake fade goes away soon. I’m fatigued at this point.
Surprisingly, I enjoyed this episode way more than the Omashu episode. I specifically don’t like what they did to bumi, and mixing arcs like southern temple and jet. I feel like they became a weird smoothy of problems.
I don't get why they wanted to use Aang. If they used a past life of his Aang is already an established character given that they wanted a "GOT" story vibe but given Aangs story is already told and a masterpiece so why butcher a show that is cherished by many. I'd be fine if they used a past life but given they didn't makes me think they just wanted the IP and an already-established character.
The show was really nice, surely better than the horrible horrible movie, but the dialogues were so BORING. Beside that, I don't think they chose the right actresses to play Azula, Mei, and Tai Lee, I didn't feel like they matched the energy I was hoping they would. I guess Zuko as well, but by the end of the first season of the series, I grown to actually like Dallas Liu. Other than that, the cast chosen were PERFECT representation of the animated characters. Absolutely no words. The action scenes were great and all, but the choice of taking out any scenes of Aang learning waterbending from Katara mid-season, and giving up the backstory of Pakku, felt so bad. I was and still am upset about it. The dialog between Aang and Roku was so silly as well. That was a very important scene! Roku should've told Aang about the comet. The few changes they did that I actually didn't mind at all were about the waterbending scroll stolen from the pirates, and the emotional cutscene added of Zuko's past and Iroh's play, as well as the "Leaves from the vine" soundtrack that was really touching. I hope things will improve because I want to watch more regardless of the things I didn't like.
I actually thought this episode was strong as a start to the series. I rated it 6/10 personally, there was a lot they did wrong but there’s also a lot they did right.
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Stop supporting the big streaming services, and only support fan made content instead, simple, no discussion.
@@ncard00 is this in response to world anvil, or did you mean netflix?
Adding❤
Something that they may be dropping the romance out of the store and making them I found a family there's no way in season 2 they're going to fit the romance storyline change it just would come to take that whole flight
Here's an idea: instead of Aang mid-flying all over the place to get down, they could have opened the scene with him playing competitive AIRBALL with his friends, showcasing his talented air-bending techniques, and introducing him to his wild & goofy side. He even could have let his friends win the airball game to show his gentle side. Changes like this could have made the show so much better in my opinion. shame
Literally, show don’t tell! Want us to know he’s a goofball who plays games but is a good friend? Don’t put it in plain dialogue.
But the VFX for that would cost a lot more money, you see.
this is actually such a good idea! We never got to see what a proper game of airball looked like. This would've been such a fun treat for old fans and something interesting for the new
When he said “goof off” it sounded wrong, like there was an adult writing from a perspective that didn’t understand a child’s mind or child experience and that pretty much sums up angs dialogue and character in this live action
No 12 year old kid talks like that.
Please go though every episode in as much excruciating detail as you see fit. The small suggestions you have are very enlightening.
R u legit or is this sarcasm
Seconded, this is a great way to learn how to be a better writer
I love hearing his suggestions. Makes me more frustrated that one guy has better ideas than a whole writing team though lol
I wish the actual studio would adjust and re edit the show after the fact, like the Snyder cut was for justice league. People would re watch and appreciate the changes
1 other thing, in the original series, we don't know how long after Aang ran away came the actual attack. In this he leaves just minutes before the fire nation arrives. It just makes it feel even more contrived.
That’s a very good point
I feel like if the show the genocide of the airbenders, they could have really played on the reveal that it has been a 100 years since then. Capturing the horror of aang finding out at the same time we are.
In this type of storytelling, we would be following aangs pov instead of katara.
Like just imagine turning on a show, seeing the opening scene and thinking oh its the beggining of a war and they are gonna attack the airbenders ! Then seeing this kid flee and end up in a snowy village (and he thinks he is only a few kilometers away form his hometown), and you think, okay so he has to defeqt sozin now before the war continues ! only to find out it has been a 100 years and his people are dead and the war was never stopped !
I could it could have really played of the “time traveler” kind of horror.
Like the choices they made in the beggiging of the series seem to go that way, if only they could have thought about it ten more seconds and thought about subverting audiences expectations.
woah that’s a great idea
@@kyraezikeuzor took me two minutes of analyzing the script to figure it out. imagine what we could have had if he took the time to really think about the storytelling...
Genius idea! Too bad they didn’t do that instead
Witty and clever is not something the director had in his sleeve
i wish you were in the writer’s room for this show :( this is such a simple yet effective change
The other episodes should have included Aang learning water bending with Katara and more of Aang showing his age and goofing off.
Instead of just splashing each other, Katara should have urged him to try, or he does accidentally and they’re amazed. It’s so annoying how many chances for new scenes got skipped
the splashing nearly killed me 😂. and yeah IMO the Live action Aang isnt childish enough- hes too dam serious. wheres the iconic laugh
Imagine. 2 water benders playing in the water. Splashing water on each other. Manually... by hand...
@@friendlyfire-ytseriously I saw a little clip of his actor and inaki goro talking and he was more Ang like in that clip than the whole show!
He doesn’t come off as the best actor so I don’t think it would be perfect but if they had him acting like that the show would be so much better
The splashing scene was CRINGE@@nailinthefashion
I think one of the big turn offs for me, personally, was changing the tone of the show. If you don't want a more upbeat show that gradually becomes more serious anchored around children, then don't pick the Avatar who did all their big character arc stuff as a child. You want dark Avatar? So Kuruk's storyline, make Koh a huge focal point. Do Kiyoshi, focus on all her morally gray aspects. There were avatars that would have fit the tone and and spectacle the show runners were going for. I don't think a remake was necessary and it was never going to please everyone. A spinoff would have been a better choice, pull a Star Trek.
Avatar: Legends and each episode is like an hour and a half, focusing on a short story of a past Avatar, starting with ones we don’t know and ending with Kiyoshi/Roku. Coulda redid Wan, as well, to be more interesting than “evil spirit made spirits evil and it’s just bad timing and bad luck” but nah
I just think that if they're gonna change the tone, they need to commit to it and do a good job of it. If they were going to do a more grounded, grittier take, they should've aged up the characters a bit, making it more believable/fitting for the vibe and increasing the odds of getting better acting.
All in all though, my biggest issue with the show is just that I don't feel it has any reason to exist. I wouldn't expect it to be as good as the cartoon. That's a really high bar to meet. But it needs to offer something the cartoon doesn't. The darker tone could be it, but they don't pull it off. And we're left with something that's similar but at least somewhat inferior in every single way, to the point where it just bores me. And the fact that we're going from fantastic voice acting to acting that's rather mediocre makes it that much harder to get invested.
And all of this is coming from someone who (mostly) thought the live action Cowboy Bebop was perfectly enjoyable--not a work of art and not anywhere near as good as the original, but still fun. Vicious was pretty terrible though--the thing they tried to do with him fell flat (though honestly, Vicious was a cheesy edge-lord in the original)--and the times they lifted dialog straight from the original tended not to work, so I'll admit it does have it's flaws, but I don't think it's the abomination that everyone else does.
The dialog _is_ truly awful. This is an objective fact.
But since it got filmed and made someone believes in it, therefore, it’s subjective but the majority of people prefer mystery, dynamics deeper than surface level, and so on, but some people love exposition conversations or else they would not ever exist in general let alone this frequently
@@nailinthefashion - Put it this way, it's as close to an objective fact as you're going to get in such matters.
One big problem is they don't seem to have a clear idea of who their target audience is. Is it a darker, edgier adaptation that non-fan adults might be interested in? It seems so much of the time, but then the dialog sounds like it's pitched at 5-year-olds. It's incongruous in the extreme -- burning people to death rather graphically + nonsense banter and incredibly corny, baby-talk melodrama.
basic advice: less is more, do very little exposition, show don't tell.
intermediate advice: sometimes 1 line exposition is better than an entire scene to show, lets the plot flow better.
professional level: do the exposition in a way that everybody is at their edge of their seats listening to it. (Back to the Future, Terminator, etc..)
It feels like the live action series were written amateurs. I have read lots of fanfiction, and some had much higher quality, but the writing of the show reminds me of an average mildly edgy fanfiction written by a 16 year old. I have liked lots of those, but for ATLA I have expected much much better.
The dialog in the anime is awful. But because it originally was a cartoon... you don't see that objective fact.
@@cacogenicist They wanted to make a darker adaptation without fully committing to it. What's the point in showing airbenders getting roasted if later in the episode we return to the standard cartoon fight rules of knockouts but no killing or graphic injury?
there's something uncanny about what the child actors are doing while they listen to someone else talk, or their blocking - the business they do while idle in the scene generally - or how the editing lingers while they do
I hate it when directors don’t know how to have people actively listen. When they’re all standing around Omashu, oh my god, I kept laughing out loud
What's so baffling to me is the amount of time while watching that obvious easy changes that would make the show enjoyable popped in my head. Like every 2-5 minutes there's something that makes you wonder if they revised the script even once
I have a very strong feeling that there was a super tight deadline or something. It feels like they were rushed writing it and a lot of the dialogue feels like a super tough first draft. Perhaps it's because I'm not often keen to conclude "these writers are complete idiots" but I'm willing to bet they ran out of the necessary time to perfect it before filming began
I think the suits had too much say. You can feel how they thought “no it has to be bingeable, it can’t be the first ten episodes expanded into a season by themselves, it has to be commercial, it has to dark, they can’t be silly or animated physically to be more like Game of Thrones,” the list goes on. When the spirit, the essence, is seeing a boy smile and play, to see that juxtaposition with war. Gordon didn’t even need as many lines. He could have EATEN the banana cake, goofed off with the Wolf Cove kids, but then realized Zuko is serious, that his time can’t be all leisure. The blueprint is right there and they thought they could streamline it
Bro, they were doing script rewrites daily while filming. That's how we got here.
@@mylittlethoughttree a "rush"?
Just to rewrite a few dialogues in a story already built...
Let s be real, what was lacking was competence and talent, not time...
@@etienne8110 Adapting the dialogue from one medium to another without having it feel unnatural is one of the hardest tasks you can have. This is why so few adaptations nail it.
It's funny how I saw a headline of the showrunner saying he wanted to appease Game of Thrones fans, and then seeing how atrocious this show's writing is, like how did they intend to appease them?
Obviously by following opposing factions during the show🤤
The showrunner isn't even the best at writing. Look at his filmography. Netflix could give high budget on anything but cant hire a better director wtf
@@valhatan3907 it's rarely about finding a better writer. It's more so what they're allowed to write and how. One would believe a major point in why the og creators would leave.
One little thing about the firebenders burning people alive is that in the original, there is a really strong connection between bending and martial arts. In order to manipulate the elements, characters need to move, usually in fairly specific ways. New benders like Katara at the beginning follow forms exactly, and even some of the strongest benders like Katara by the end and Bumi have to at least wave their hand a little or wiggle their eyebrows (literally Bumi). Ozai in Sozin's comet is the main exception to this, although Combustion Man and Toph's seismic sense and some other abilities also kind of fit.
So in the original, showing someone bending without moving would be a really big deal, and certainly Sozin is strong enough that it would make sense for him to be able to do this, but in the remake it doesn't seem to have any significance and several other firebenders also do this. It just shows a disappointing lack of nuance and care.
I've only seen the first five episodes, and I guess I would call the first my favorite since it had flaws but they could totally have improved over the season. But instead they only seem to get worse so picking a worst isn't easy
Some of the bending turned into superpowers/elemental telekinesis instead of super martial arts, not unlike in The Legend of Korra.
Yeah, I think the showrunner thought that the martial arts and the bending is separated entity. As if the martial arts is only a mere combat for violence, not an ART to channel the energy. In ATLA, you need to do martial arts to do bending. You need to MOVE.
@@valhatan3907 yeah, but then the very creators, "Bryke", created The Legend of Korra and introduced "psychic bloodbending" and "pro bending" both of which ruined bending imo. Basic boxing moves can now control the elements and are no longer tied to their original martial arts. Bending basically turned into "elemental telekinesis"
They said they wanted to be game of thrones. They didn’t say which season of GoT.
I mean they DID have sokka and Katara go through the tunnel of love instead of Aang and Katara.
Maybe that's how they wanted to be like game of thrones lol.
@@TiredLex Oh no
@@TiredLex oh no.. dude.. I did not expect THAT kind of GoT
@@TiredLex touché my dude
@@CH4NN3L_o_o basically destroying the whole shows lore because of shitty writing.
I feel like shows fundamentally shouldn’t depict acts of genocide as action scenes.
atla had genocide as one of its themes, and the spiritual destruction of both victims and perpetrators. As an adult watching the animated series you’re stunned by the implications of war and justice and death… but it never makes dark themes a spectacle.
Idk. Atla already had a lot of dark things that it took seriously. And now we have a “darker” show “for adults” that frankly doesn’t take the same stuff as seriously. It’s embarrassing.
I think this is a really well written comment, and I don't think I'd argue with you at all, there actually
Nah. Scenes like those are awesome if done right. For example, the first avatar movie(blue aliens) had the Navi getting slaughtered, but the scene was done right and makes us feel for the victims in a more personal way.
Now, imagine if the genocide scenes were shown in snippets during Aang's visit to the air temple. The dread he feels as he imagines what could've caused the destruction all around him. The devastation he felt when he finally found Gyatso's burnt body.
Idk I thought that'd be sweet.
I think darker adaptations should show genocide in its entirety, deaths of women and all. Most people only heard about genocide, and I’ve seen tons of comments about it, but actually witnessing it would create emotions that the original could never do. If the production wants to go dark, go all out. The hell with themes.
That could be a really cool scene. Imagine Aang putting himself in ice, then lower the music and zoom out. Slowly cut to dreamy sequences (with echo and stuff) of the fire nation taking over the world, Ozai being announced the new fire lord, villages burning etc. And between each action dreamy sequence cut to Aang quietly being in his ice ball. You could really convey the sense of time passing like this.
Better yet, only reveal this after Aang himself learns what has happened. And then they could show us the huge issue of him being stuck in the ice, rather than just telling us.
I don't get why they redo this show in the first place. Is it laziness that they don't look out for new stories?
because it’s fun! It’s a joy to be back in this world and see a new interpretation of the story. Certainly hope they work on the writing and character development for season 2 because I’m excited to see it continue.
Shareholders like reboots. Modern companies only appeal to shareholders and don’t like to appeal to consumers because the government is ruining capitalism with poor policy decisions.
IP is king. New stories are considered a risk financially speaking. Any piece of media is a risk (this show being the case), but it's recognized that stories centered on familiar settings and characters tend to have an already established base of consumers. An advantage over new material. I love new material and familiar material. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is fantastic filmmaking, but who would've known that movie would be the success story it ended it becoming? When watching the trailers before its release, I thought it was a potential experimental film that would be niche, yet up my alley. Well, it was up everyone's alley, lol.
the answer, like the others have said, comes down to money. this will make more money than a new ip if it flops, bcs people will still watch it to compare it to the original
Confirmed viewership. And I think Avatar Studios wanted to use that as a jumping point for their own projects.
I truly feel like you are giving them waay to much credit. Episode 1 is not the hardest to write, since all they had to do was to copy what the original show already wrote. But no, they thought they could do better, but they fucked it up of course.
In contrast, the One Piece live action respected the authors vision and kept the story telling sequence as much as possible. In a very similar fashion, we meet the Protagonist in One Piece in the first episode after a brief intro with the pirate king(analagous to the avatar intro sequence) and immediately thrown into action. Then, only in episode 2, we learn the backstory of the protagonist. This works, because in the first episode, you get to know the protagonist and learn to care about them.
If one piece did the same thing and opened with Luffy and Shanks backstory, it would also suck. It sucks here, because I dont care about Aang. The one scene with him and Gyatso is not enough to make me care about him or learn about his personality. This is exactly why, almost all Anime and Western Cartoons first introduce the character in action and then tell a backstory. It takes a special kind of hubris to just gloss over all of this and think you can do better by making the order chronogical.
I haven't seen one piece but copying the original absolutely does not work here for the reasons of structure. Making episode 1 go all the way to the air temple and end with that as the emotional climax is a good idea, but it completely changes the story beats in the middle, and if you still try copying the original, it won't translate across properly. They have to change aspects for this new medium and it genuinely could've worked...but it doesn't, and in my opinion that's not down to how well or loosely they followed the original plot, it's down to very loose arcs
@@mylittlethoughttreeThe episode is about 57 minues, and the part until south pole takes 21 minutes. The entire massacre of airbenders are unnecessary and they could have just started with the intro sequence and from there you have choices.
Either you use the extra 20 minutes to give the characters more screentime with better dialog and end at the southern air temple without the reveal of Gyatso's death. They could have left it in suspense coming to the air temple and us not knowing if there would be people or not.
The other choice is to also do the gyatso death reveal in the first episode. Then they could use that 20 minutes for Aang to explore the temple, have small flashback with Gyatso and then reveal his death at the end. I am not so keen on this variant, since it leaves the episode on a low note, but it can also work.
Both of these options follow the order of events in anime and are superior. They would definitely work, I have no idea what you mean it would not work due to "structure".
So sad to see how because of Hollywood's constant failures people have lowered their standards and have been forced to settle with mediocrity and will not take valid criticism towards shows from people that just want things to be good
I thought the graphics and cinematography were still quite pretty. I also enjoyed some of the creative elements in the background at times. Like the artifacts Zuko had that glowed when close to the avatar. Several of the pieces are still there it's just not the full puzzle. The dialogue was unintentionally pretty funny at times. When Gran Gran told Aang that his entire civilization was dead in such a deadpan way and restated the intro I literally laughed out loud 🤣 it just felt so emotionless and expositiony. The boy's entire civilization is extinct, and it's like he's being caught up to speed by an NPC on a voiceover loop 😭🤣
Yeah Aang telling the audience via Appa what kinda kid he is was so lazy and unnatural.
The biggest mistake the show makes is a fundamental one at the show's core: They're adapting an episodic fantasy adventure comedy and turning it into a serialized fantasy drama. Why? Because it's an hour long? Because Game of Thrones was a massive hit and it was an hour-long fantasy drama? Because it's live action? The last reason is one I saw the cast discussing -- this is live action, so it needs to have a more serious tone. They said this as if there's some logical connection between format and tone. I don't get it. Why does it being live action mean it can't be light comedy adventure most of the time? No actual reason is given, it's just assumed that live action = more serious.
Also, I have to disagree about showing the Air Nomad holocaust being a good structure for the first episode. In the cartoon -- and it's absolutely fair to compare them; this is an adaptation of that material -- we, the audience, learn about the world through Katara and Sokka's eyes. We learn about Aang's history as they do. When learn about the slaughter of the Air Nomads at the same time as Aang. We see the world through the eyes of our core trio of characters, which brings us closer to them and helps us identify emotionally with them. This consistency of POV (third person limited) is a benefit for a character-driven story.
I like every change that you suggested, especially the one where Sozin burst in and Gyatso closing his eyes getting ready to fight, then cut to the next scene. They could feature this scene again in later episodes and turn it into some kind of reveal on how Gyatso eventually evacuated the airbenders AND how he was able to kill a dozen firebender soldiers in one room.
In an ideal environment without taking time, budget or runtime into account, I think they should’ve made the pre nomad genocide era into an entire episode, so that they actually have time to properly SHOW what Aang’s life was like back then. Then it would hit all the harder when the genocide happens and Aang’s life that the audience had just gotten accustomed to suddenly gets turned on its head. Instead, by shoving it all into like 10-20 minutes, they don’t have time to show, and just have to say what happens.
the first scene should have ended with Sozin saying "this isn't about the airbenders, this is about one who lives among them" then cut to the opening
Let us hope for the next seasons the writing team improve their craft. Hope that they fix the structure of the story telling and trust us the audience to actually piece things together ourselves instead of drilling us the story thru exposition and flashback like we're all goldfish
I never saw the Animated, saw the MKnight poopoo movie first, then recently the Netflix. I didnt think the Netflix series was bad based off of the prior. I actually enjoyed it so much i wanted to watch the Animated series....wow, understood mixing of plots for run time but realized 2 things, 8 eps live action = 16 ep animated. Why incorporate season 2 when its not nessecary? Also why does the animated show feel more mature and grown up than the Netflix series. One feels like it was written by seasoned adults for kids the latter feels like its written by kids for adults.
I’m at least happy it got you into the original ❤🥹
I’m so happy you made this, ignore the people who say the show isn’t flawed and doesn’t need fixing when it clearly is, I would have loved if the show went in this direction instead ❤
2:32 "It seems they cut yip yip from the show"
Aang says "yip yip" around the 15 minute mark of the first episode when he flies away on Appa after finding out he's the Avatar.
This is going to be a VERY LONG comment, but I feel like this could have worked a bit better if we got flashbacks sequences cut in between the events of the present. The best comparison I can make to this is how Guardians of the Galaxy 3 explored Rocket’s backstory leading right up to confronting the High Evolutionary in person. If James Gunn went the route of how Netflix’s ATLA handled things, the film would have just started with a 20 minute intro of the whole thing, and the rest of the guardians just have to slowly piece together everything we just saw while Rocket remains in a coma the entire time.
It almost feels like this was the format of the pilot they wanted to take in a prior draft of the script, considering how they were teasing Appa while he was still stuck in the ice, despite him already appearing earlier in the episode, literally just floating up to Aang in his first scene without any “big reveal” moment unlike him coming to the village or the arrival of the sky bison to the Southern Air Temple. Plus, it seems logical that it would open with the Earth bender getting scorched by Sozin (sets the tone well enough already), introducing Katara and Sokka as they find Aang (protagonist introduction), cut back to Aang and Gyatso’s introduction, as well as the introduction of the sky bison, (establish the two characters, the culture of the air nomads, and keeps new audience members curious of what happened), and then return to the present with Aang waking up and summoning Appa. Then we get a glimpse at Aang running away right as the fire nation attack to contrast Zuko arriving at the Wolf Cove.
Finally, we see our first glimpse on the attack on the southern air temple, likely while Aang is held captive to build suspense on what they’ll do to him it. We could see Gyatso appear, but not what he was doing during the attack. When the trio start heading to the building with the Avatar shrine, Gyatso’s perspective/fate is revealed the same as in the episode, hiding the children, and keeping the door restraint, but perhaps doing so with his airbending. Sozin could still drop that line he told Gyatso about how they could’ve won a different night, before I’m imagining this is where the emotional impact of Gyatso’s death and Aang’s reaction could’ve been stronger:
As Sozin approaches, he bursts the door wide open, with a shriek of light blinding the view from the outside. This shot lingers, as a single figure we think to be Sozin approaches, but turns out to be Aang, as he sees the aftermath of a massive battle that was Gyatso’s last stand. Like in the original, it’s still up to the imagination of the audiences to fill in the blank.
I’m definitely looking too far into this, especially for a TH-cam comment, but it just seems that sometimes it’s not just a lack of the “show don’t tell” rule that is making the show suffer, but also how they show it when they do.
I absolutely agree on the dialogue not being good. And i find it really weird how the show was advertised as being a GoT quality like show, when one of the reasons GoT and HOTD is so good is because of the amazing dialogue. And Netflix's atla just flops completely on that.
Ah yes, the writers are making the show for people who haven't seen the original.... So disappointing! Cause it has so much to offer in terms of visuals and interesting changes to the story! Why does a show that is aimed at a 'more mature audience' have to spell everything out? The original show didn't talk down to the audience and they were writing for a younger demographic!
Edit: Great points! I like the idea of trying to rewrite an episode to make it more impactful
I haven't seen the original, but the dialog made my ears bleed. Truly awful writing.
@@cacogenicistwatch the original cuz it should be studied on how to write children in an authentic way. They weren’t using random catchphrases or being too whacky, they were just very raw with their feelings and lacked adult neuroticism like saying “I’m just a quirky little guy who eats banana cakes” lmao they just showed us Gyatso throwing pies with Aang, it’s a completely different experience
wow an actually reasonable and measured take that doesnt condemn the whole thing. How novel. you're right. whats frustrating about the show is how close it is to being good. the acting and the production value is there. its the writers who need a slap upside the head. this reminds me of the star wars prequel trilogy. they had undeniably talented actors (samuel l jackson, natalie portman, hayden christensen, christopher lee) and yet they had them saying the clunkiest lines ever that NO ONE, i mean, NO ONE not even meryl streep could deliver in a convincing way.
I've seen mostly reasonable and measured takes about the show. People mostly agree the effects, soundtrack and CGI are good, and the casting is excellent. It's just the writing needs to be improved on, as you said. These actors are good, they just don't have good material to work with! I've seen Kiawentiio in other things, and she is capable of giving really powerful performances. The script did her character a major disservice! There's potential for this show to be a really strong and memorable adaptation, but it needs to improve on the writing!
@@EliasJWhitenah ive actually heard some people say its worse than the M. night Shyamalan movie which is insane. I dont think the whole thing is worthless and should be canceled immediately i think it at least deserves a chance to use the constructive feedback and apply it to the next season. and then there are other things like the 8 episode format that has become so popular that completely handicaps what should be a more episodic series so that they dont feel the need to squish four different stories into one like they did with omashu and can give the gaang more downtime to bond. it feels sooo full and yet sooo empty. theres so much plot and so little story.
@@Shenanakins I agree with you and said while writing feels unprofessional, it deserves a chance to improve in future seasons. And again, most of the takes talking about how bad the show is that I've seen have been people trying to be fair, but having to recognize the show's glaring flaws. Most people I've seen acknowledge it's better than the movie. but that's a bar that's so low, it's in the dirt. There are those who don't see the point in this series existing at all and think it just shows disregard for animation. And that's a take I can mostly agree with. But it is also important to see a more diverse and accurate cast than the live-action movie. We deserve a live-action that at least sounds professionally written!
APPA ISN'T EVEN A CHARACTER !!! APPA AND MOMO BROUGHT MORE HUMANITY & INCREDIBLE CHARACTER CHOICES TO TEAM AVATAR ! "YOU MUZZLED APPA???" CANNOT HAVE THE SAME INTENSITY THAT STILL HOLDS STRONG TO ANY PRESENT DAY
CGI animals are expensive. We won't be seeing much of our furry friends unfortunately.
To be honest, I finished ATLA in one sitting but after that feeling like.... "I'm sorry Netflix, but One Piece did a better job."
I’m convinced it only did that better job because Oda had final say.
Yeah, it was better because they actually did shit according to the original mangaka. The creators of the original show walked off for the same kinds of “creative differences” Oda’s presence prevented.
@@mintman325it makes me wonder which changes the creators didn’t like in this iteration, it makes me think they had the same problems as us
@@nailinthefashionprobably all of the changes. I don’t think there was a single change that I actually enjoyed in the long run or big picture. Then again, I didn’t finish it. I was told that it’s revealed that the men on Zuko’s ship are the ones he saved by standing up in the war council and they acknowledge his sacrifice for them, which seems like it could be good if done right. Or extremely corny. One of the two. I don’t think I can bring myself to finish it. I was too horrified by what they did to Bumi and Hakoda.
@@winry2357 it was a very brief scene where we just see his lieutenant’s bewildered reaction. It was alright, not too much not too little, but it was something I assumed during the original run. Like why wouldn’t his dad punish him by exiling him with the squad he wanted to save? It was the most successful “new addition” imo
Netflix Avatar: WHY am i so bad at beeing goooood!?!?!
Zuko reference.
how to fix avatar: fire the director for not directing his actors to act better
youre welcome
Can I just say that the varied intros to the World Anvil ad are an absolute delight. I always appreciate the sneaky little sound edits xD
Nothing says character is spontaneous and fun like the character stating that openly unprompted to a creature that does not talk back, right!? 😂
I got a bit of inspiration from this video and its comments, and mixing it with my own ideas I thought of:
Scene opens up just as it did before, firebenders chasing an earthbender with the scroll. That part stays mostly the same, except a commander shows up and kills the Earthbender(instead of capturing) right after the scroll is tossed. Immediately afterward, the commander tells the soldiers to clean up the mess, mentioning how he must report this to the higher ups. He gazes at the flames still licking at the earthbender’s body, and from there it transitions to looking at the fire behind the fire lord’s throne as messengers enter. Sozin asks if the plans are on their way to the earth kingdom, and the messengers confirm. Sozin simply says “good”, and turns away from them, looking toward the fire. After a moment he says “Prepare our men to march for the air temple”, Or something along those lines. After someone says “Yes, my lord,” and scurries off to do so, one of the messengers looks up from his bow and asks, “excuse me, fire lord, I don’t mean to question, but why the peaceful air nomads? Wouldn’t it be better to target the water tribes instead?” to which Sozin simply replies, “It is not the air nomads who are the threat. It is one who lives among them.” As the tense music crescendos. From there it immediately cuts to Aang playing airball as another comment mentioned, destroying everyone else and displaying his skill. However, it also shows how this skill causes his isolation, as everyone on the opposing team gives him dark looks and turns away to do something else. (Perhaps to drive this point home even more, maybe Aang could have been banned from playing airball in the past because he was too good, and joined this game without being authorized because he just wanted to play/have fun with others his age) In any case, after the game is over (either because Aang won or because he joined when he wasn’t supposed to thus causing the game to be called off), his peers give him glares before going off to do whatever else. Aang reaches out toward them before stopping, looking dejected. Then Gyatso sidles up next to him, saying something along the lines of “You know, while these bones are getting old, perhaps we could play a round sometime?” Or some other line of friendly dialogue related to airball that comforts Aang. Aang hugs him, and from this interaction we see how because he was isolated from his peers, he’s grown attached to someone else instead, namely Gyatso. Aang mentioned he hasn’t seen him for a while, to which Gyatso remarks he’s been preparing for the upcoming comet festival. (perhaps Gyatso and Aang play airball often, and it’s because Gyatso is so busy that he wasn’t able to play with Aang, thus causing Aang to try to have fun with his peers instead?) From here we get a few lines of dialogue of Aang venting to Gyatso and Gyatso giving advice back. Gyatso then hesitates and starts turning the conversation toward talk of responsibility, to which Aang rolls his eyes to and kind of brushes off, showing more of his immature kid side. Like the video suggests, it builds to a point where Gyatso is about to tell him something important, but then a nomad hurries up to Gyatso’s side and says the council requests his presence and it’s urgent. Gyatso tells Aang to go to bed (it’s late evening during this shot. It’s a few nights before the comet, just to give time for the Fire army to actually travel to the air temple and to give time for Aang to get a good distance from the air temple later on before it goes up in flames, which likely Aang would be able to see from the air) But anyways, Appa lands next to Aang just as Gyatso tells him to sleep, and Aang has a big happy reaction and hugs him while Gyatso watches him, looking troubled. But anyways, Aang can’t sleep (perhaps even wakes up from an avatar-related nightmare related to what is to come, which in the future will make him dread his duty as the avatar even more) and goes on a walk through the air temple. He stumbles near where the airbenders are meeting, and hears faint glimpses of “The fire nation is going to WAR! You NEED TO tell him!” And Gyatso saying “Let him enjoy his childhood for just a bit longer.” And more faint muffled sounds of an argument. After a moment, Gyatso opens the door and suddenly stops, noticing Aang. Aang questions Gyatso what that was all about, and he takes a deep breath and asks if Aang will meet him somewhere in a few minutes. From there we go to the Yangchen scene, where Gyatso explains war to Aang and tells him he’s the avatar. I actually like the part where Gyatso beats around the bush initially, because it shows he’s struggling with himself to tell Aang. Gyatso has a clearly nervous disposition during this scene, even if he tries to hide it. At last, he tells him both about him being the avatar and the war, and Aang reacts by vehemently denying it, constantly saying there’s no way, the avatar’s supposed to be some mighty warrior and he couldn’t hurt anyone, he’s too young to be the avatar, there’s no way, etc. etc. (I’m not good at writing dialogue lol) But at the same time, Gyatso shouts “there is no mistake, YOU ARE THE AVATAR!” And then Aang shuts up, because Gyatso NEVER shouts, and then Aang sees Gyatso’s face clearly and sees he’s crying. Quietly, Gyatso looks away, saying Aang will leave as soon as possible for the water northern tribe to train in waterbending. He opens the door next to them, revealing Appa already saddled and ready to go. Gyatso mentions they have no time, and that the other nations have already begun preperations (at the same time, it shows scenes of each nation prepping for war). From there, it cuts to Aang, midair on Appa’s back. From there, Aang tells Appa to turn around. Appa grunts confusedly, and Aang confirms he wants to go south. From there it cuts to the Southern water tribe scene with Katara and Sokka in the morning daylight, and the live action should follow the animated show EXACTLY. Katara accidently breaks the sphere with her waterbending out of rage at Sokka, the white beam, all of it. We get a glimpse of the Fire nation ship looking at the beam and of Zuko’s statuette’s glowing eyes, but that’s all we see of him in the first episode. From there they bring him back to the village, they’re surprised to find an airbender but it’s implied they’re only surprised because barely any airbenders go south and because he was trapped in ice like that. Sokka commands the kids and mentions vigilance against the fire nation, Aang plays with the kids and goes penguin sliding with Katara, yadda yadda yadda. Sokka mentions how the avatar ran away from his duty, making Aang feel guilty. A few hints are sprinkled here and there about the time gap, but Aang doesn’t want to hear any serious stuff, he came here to ESCAPE that, so he always moves away at any serious talk, and he always moves too fast for anyone to really hold a long conversation with him. The scene in the ship happens, Katara discusses the impact of the Fire Nation’s attack and how they killed her mom. From there Zuko comes to the village, demanding to see “the Avatar.” Katara asks Aang if he’s the avatar, but he vehemently denies it. Thus, the Sokka fight happens, and then Aang jumps in during the fight and sweeps firebending soldiers away. From there, Zuko gets up quickly and runs over to Sokka, who’s lying on the ground after the blast, and puts his flaming fist an inch from Sokka’s face. He then gloats “So here’s where you’ve been hiding for 100 years” and from here Aang asks him what he means by that, and then there’s the big reveal of the time gap and the genocide, etc. etc. It is also revealed to Katara and Sokka that Aang really is the Avatar. Aang, still in shock, agrees to go with the fire nation. Afterward, Katara, who’s kind of grown attached to Aang, wants to go after him, but Sokka says he has a duty to the village and besides, he deserves it for running away for so long. Katara angrily slaps him, pointing out that Aang saved his life and ALL their lives, and that it was their duty to save the avatar, who might be able to defeat the fire nation (and avenge her mom). She then hops on Appa’s back, saying that if Sokka won’t do it, she will herself. Sokka scrambles on next to her, and the fire nation ship scene with Aang plays out pretty similarly. He still seems to refuse to believe it. After he is rescued, the crew send up a fireball barrage as normal, but Katara fends off the initial barrage instead of Appa just dodging. Then Appa dodges Zuko’s final shot, and he yells into the air in frustration. Aang, with some half hearted hope that maybe it’s all a lie, travels to the temple, and that scene plays out pretty similarly.
(Plz tell me how i can improve this)
if only there was an infamous monologe that is beloved that would explain all the exposition succintly. the show really didnt have enough established material to work with
Apologies for what turned into a ridiculously long comment here, but I nerd out about writerly things like this. I'm so sorry!
I know this was such a small part of what you discussed, but I latched onto what you said about the exposition given through Katara in the animated series' opening credits, and it got me thinking.
I actually think starting out each episode with an intro like that could have been very cool for the live action, BUT my instinct would be to have it be from Zuko's perspective, not Katara's.
Here me out. There are several mentions of stories/books/propaganda/Aang writing his own legend/etc throughout the season. And in episode one Aang steals Zuko's book about the avatars.
Aang tells us about how useful Zuko's book has been and how much care Zuko had with his writing, but we never /really/ get to see much of that. So, more telling instead of showing. But I think we can fix that.
My instinct is to frame the whole first season around entries from Zuko's book. At the beginning of each episode, we would start with a brief entry Zuko had written that reveals world building to us over the course of the season, bit by bit as we need it. Each episode would begin with a different entry, and each entry would also hint at the central theme of each episode. If you really wanted to dig in and play around with it, the entries could also hint at Zuko's internal struggle with the propaganda he's been fed his whole life versus his more protective instincts.
One of the (many) telling-not-showing issues I had with the adaptation was how Aang just knew things about people when he didn't have good reason to. There were a number of observations he made about Zuko in the Blue Spirit episode, for example, that I felt Aang arrived at much too quickly given most of his interactions with Zuko prior to that had been negative. But if the episodes had been framed using Zuko's book and we knew Aang was getting insight into Zuko through reading it, then Aang's observations would have felt more earned.
So, using Zuko's book to start each episode gives us:
A) a cool framework for each episode as well as the season as a whole,
B) world building and exposition,
C) an introduction to the theme of each episode
D) a slowly-building connection between Aang and Zuko
E) given Sozin is Zuko's ancestor, his book gives us a natural way to bring up the history of the war whenever we need to, but to do so in a way that emphasizes Sozin's personal connection to characters we care about. Rather than presenting Sozin as some scary rando who gets briefly introduced and then forgotten about for the rest of the season.
F) given that Netflix Zuko's arc is set up as being about strength versus weakness instead of about honour, it makes sense Zuko would feel he needs to do things on his own to prove his strength, which means, if everything Aang has read in the book has been filtered through Zuko's perspective, it helps to further set up Aang's belief in the finale that the avatar has to do things alone
G) and having the season framed around the book turns all the talk of stories and Aang being the one to write his own legend into a motif, a theme for the season. Zuko wrote the book of past avatars, now Aang gets to take it from here.
Other than that, my only other comment is about you saying Zuko trying to fire bend at Sokka in their duel was a nice touch. I would agree...if Zuko's arc had been properly set up in episode one, but while we do get snippets about Zuko seeking his father's approval, etc, we don't know /why/. I.e. we don't have the core belief driving Zuko (strength) properly defined for us until his backstory is given in episode six. (For comparison, Nickelodeon Zuko lets us know he's driven by honour eleven minutes into the first episode.)
Because they didn't define Zuko's arc clearly or soon enough, I personally found Zuko fire bending at Sokka that way very offputting my first time watching. Zuko in a duel, fire bending at someone who had clearly lost their match, who had tried to flee, who had fallen and had their back turned to him was such a dishonourable move. And it was a dishonourable move we were specifically shown in the animated series Zuko would not make. It seems like such a tiny change, but it's actually a direct contradiction to who Nickelodeon Zuko was. It was a blatant way to tell us Netflix Zuko was not the same Zuko we knew, but since they didn't properly tell us who this Zuko was, it meant I found myself floundering for several episodes, trying to figure out who Netflix Zuko was supposed to be and what was driving him. I needed to be told that long before episode six. Now that I know how they've changed Zuko's character arc, I'm okay with him fire bending at Sokka like that, but they still needed to better define the focus of Zuko's arc in episode one.
Instead of Lieutenant Jee telling Zuko there was no need to accept Sokka's challenge because they outnumbered the Water Tribe and having Zuko respond with "Where's the glory in that?" Jee should maybe have had his dialogue tweaked to say something Zuko could misconstrue as Jee thinking he's weak. Maybe Jee says, "We outnumber them, there's no need for you to put yourself at risk." That riles Zuko, who turns on Jee and angrily says something like, "Do you think I'm so weak I can't handle one Water Tribe peasant by myself?"
Boom. Now we know Zuko is sensitive to being seen as weak and wants to prove himself to be strong. He's also just been angered before his match with Sokka, which gives him reason to push harder and cross lines he'd ordinarily not want to cross. It starts setting up the animosity between him and his crew. And it would tie into my idea with Zuko's book and how Zuko's perspective about needing to do things by himself would help set up Aang's dilemma in the finale.
So, yeah. Just as you say, so many things in the season could work quite well if only a little more care had been taken with the dialogue
Anyhow. Apologies for the embarrassingly long comment. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
(Also, great video as always! I love these kinds of "rewrite" discussions.)
I think you're onto something interesting there!
I don't have a problem with firebenders burning people alive being shown as an idea. But when firebending behaves this way only around minor characters and main characters get hit with the "knockback cartoon physics" kind of fire the stakes start to feel very sanitized
4:22 “Also for Sozin to be explaining this at all to some random bloke”
Yea, YOU are the bloke, we all are. He’s explaining to us the viewers so that it can establish what’s going on in the scene
He is indeed, but that's the problem. Dialogue needs to feel natural, not like it exists only to tell the audience things because that just pulls you out of the story
Thanks for this. I didn't hate the series ... but I didn't love it either. The writing just needed to be better and some of the actors didn't have the skill set to elevate the writing/dialogue. But there were things I enjoyed and I don't regret watching it. But my biggest problem is that they chose to retell a story (that was so well done with the original) rather than tell new stories about Aang and the gang. That is so frustrating! There is so much I want to know about Aang's life since The Last Airbender. I mean how fun would it be to see 25 year old Aang (or 40 year old Aang with kids!) doing his Avatar stuff? I would love to see some of those stories either animated or live action; the tidbits we got in The Legend of Korra just wasn't enough. But we got the old stories just not told as well as they were the first time around. Sigh ...🙄
_Secret Tunnel_ 🎵🎶
I hear you loud and clear. Nice editing man.
Sokka and Zuko's actors were great. Zhao's actor was awesome! Best in the cast
I’d love to see you do the same for other episodes!
The dialogue sounds like the writers have never communicated with another human aside from their therapists
One issue that I had with Aang and Apps is that Appa doesn't respond. He doesn't even grunt or lick Aang when Aang talks. So Aang could be talking to a tree for all we know
16:55 I think that's just referring to the sky. Being an airbender, things would make more sense to Aang up in the sky than on the ground
The dialogue Is so bad
Me: Finally, a mature live-action version of one of my favorite shows. I can show this to my mom and make her fall in love with the amazing writing and...
Oh nevermind
I already want to watch this brainstormed version more than theirs.
Dialogue bending is real problem in this show. Elemental bending are slowed for no reason when they should have been fast. Story telling is awful, Some casting choices are soooo bad. Ugh
Am I the only one who practiced these martial arts styles and found them lacking in the live action show?
Just to clarify, I haven’t seen the live action, and am on the fence about watching it. But around the 20 minute mark, talking about not showing the invasion, I think showing the invasion itself adds a bit in that we get an idea of what the fire nation is capable of. That being said, I think showing Ozai, or a general, or whoever, just stepping into a room with Gystso and then having a cut away. And then Aang finding his bones later, would have been better. Leaves more to the imagination and you don’t have to feel obligated to root for a character you’ve only JUST been introduced to. He meant a lot to Aang, and I think his grieving in the present is the more important take away.
So basically exactly what you said lol 😂
5:30 You just transported me back about 3 decades with that Crash Bandicoot reference
I was just about to comment asking about that sound effect. Also, 3 decades? Did you have to be such a dry bagel and make us feel so old?
Shhh don't say dry bagel, they'll come for you
@@mylittlethoughttreeWe are all obliged to our own tiny rebellions.
Great video, i would have kept the first scene the same as well but changed the dialogue from direct to implied, and then cut to Aang trying to figure out how to make an air scooter and seeing a shadowy figure (avatar roku) with fire nation garms on in the distance with the elder monk explaining to him that he's too distracted in my opinion this would of set up mystery who the shadowy figure is where the audience think its the fire nation preparing to attack but later find out otherwise. The attack scene would be the flying bysons building a wall to try and allow thier friends the airbenders to escape instead creating an opportunity for the fire benders to burn the byson and basically creating an oven so much so that any more air would just increase the suffering to the bysons deeming them helpless. The elder catch on to what the fire nation benders are doing and moves the young airbenders into the temple in hopes of finding the secret exit but is too late as the elders fight a good battle the numbers keep on increasing, the young airbenders manage to escape down the secret exit into the forest where they are greeted to a obliterated forest and battalions of fire nation soldiers. In my opinion, this would have kept me engaged and intrigued me enough to watch the entire episode.
I would say I agree with basically everything you said in this video. However, I actually thought episode 1 was one of the stronger ones personally. But, like I said, I think you are right on a lot of your criticisms.
I was happy to accept this was like, an alternate universe. I thought several things they did were interesting and worked well. I was happy enough with 90% of the CGI and combat. what I didn't like was the pacing and that there seemed to be a lot of story and plot elements that made... like, no sense at all, weren't necessary or added nothing beneficial to the story or just weren't explained. And I was often thrown off when they WOULD do a direct 1:1 shot or quote, but now without the original context of why it was said or done in the animated show, like Zuko saying "I see you found a master" when yeah, she found one, and learned absolutely nothing from him this time.
The spirit episode is kinda my least favorite episode for a lot of reasons, but the one thing I absolutely can't make sense of is Roko stealing(?) that relic fro Koh with ZERO explanation WHY. Why did he do that? Apparently it doesn't matter if we give it back. And apparently we don't even need to explain we brought it back to trade for the peoples lives. We just mind meld with Koh I guess and had an understanding. And apparently Hei Bai was just satisfied with the acorn being planted, no conversation or really acknowledgment with that spirit, he just KNEW I guess. That whole episode bothered me cause it felt like they just wanted to cram ALL the spirit stuff into one episode for convenience and almost as a 'just in case we don't get a second season, at least we showed Wan Shi Tong for some reason?". They should have just stuck to Hei Bei and given one element of that story the focus it needed and left the rest out, they just tried to do too much and made it make no sense in the process if you allowed yourself to actually think about what was happening.
Allow the child actors to grow into their roles. Make the CGI and costumes look slightly less "clean looking" (just slightly). Make the exposition bits fit more organically. Otherwise, great show, and I actually think the characters and storytelling are pretty good- sometimes even more interesting than the original.
The few scenes that are good make the rest of the clunky dialogue and strange structure so much more unbareable. With just the first episode i kept asking silently "wait why did you cut there? It was just starting to feel good!"
The first scene of show was so good it was sad to see how it never peaked after that.
Please, PLEASE make more edits for the other episodes!! I hope someone on the PR team for the live action sees these well-crafted videos giving insight and solutions on how to make the show better for the next seasons!! A lot of the fan reception has been divisive because the show was painfully mediocre in terms of story beats and writing for the characters, that a lot of people are crying out for better quality because the potential is there!
they should've hired you to bring it to life
Here’s my little review
I don’t think the acting is bad it’s the diolauge and directing. Character development is super bad and kataras is so rushed she’s a master right off the bat. And my biggest gripe is they just completely removed any silly lightheartedness and just made it all serious story.
I'm glad your mature and reasonable when discussing the show, cause i personally think that it was good, and i honestly don't care if people dislike it, however some people go on and make long videos insulting the show, those who made it, and those who like it. Rather than stating their opinion and why they believe that, like you did. I have not watched the full video cause I have not yet finished the series so I may be incorrect about your opinion and such.
Personally i would rearrange scenes. I think Aang is better as a mystery, you can start with the storm and encasing without showing him. Relate tne storm being caused by the comet and interlace the fire nation arriving at tne air temple. Maybe on the spin of the cocoon images of the attack to be related to later. Mix the intro with gran explaination, and flash to the past here. Relate Aangs story from him talking about it flashing back. Put tne massacre scene interlaced with arriving at the air temple. Really saying the air benders vanished rather than died would help. And also Aang doesnt fully commit till long after the air temple. Episode 2 should reflect that.
Best way to enjoy the show, dont go into it comparing it to the OG show frame by frame and just allow the entertainment to entertain you instead of auditing the show like its your 9-5 to do so.
So in other words, they should have incorporated more of the pacing the cartoon had in delivering motivations. It's like they were speed-running the character development in favor of edgy drama, and they needed the audience to know more than they should to achieve that.
they really love making this live action adaptation of the cartoon show they even kick the original creators of the cartoon show because they really love the source material 😄
I hated when aang said i like to play air ball and eat banana cakes... its like they think telling us these things is what hits us in the feels. They try to so hard to reach the emotional side of things it comes out bland. The live action movie did this with no in depth context and it doesnt hit
to me it feels like the project was given to people who just watched the show for this project once and thats it. Not fans or people who truly understood atla
AANG (Aang) likes to PLAY AIRBALL, EAT BA (Airball) NANA CAKES (banana cakes), and *GOON OFF* with his FRIENDS (gooners)
For me, the Netflix Avatar live action adaptation was a snooze fest...
I couldn't watch more than two episodes...the acting's (aside from Zuko, Sokka, and some veteran actors) pretty bad and the show's obsessed with telling rather than showing. So much of the characterization relied on characters either talking about themselves or others describing their character traits. I want to see our characters grow, not listen to them being described. For example, if a character is a glutton, I'd rather see it for myself by them pigging out rather than them going on a monologue describing themselves or others doing it for them.
Also, there's no chemistry between our main trio (Sokka, Aang, and Katara) and their entire relationship was rushed. It's like the creators just assumed we watched the original animated series and will project our preconceived love for the characters onto their show, so they didn't bother developing their rapport/relationship at all. They go from meeting each other to practically instant family members who act like they've known each other forever. It felt so jarring and unbelievable!
I really wanted to like this adaptation too, but sadly, I can't pretend it's a well done series that captured the spirit and essence of the original. If anything, I would say that the showrunners missed by a mile and failed to understand what made the original animated Avatar so beloved.
It's like they chose to prioritize surface level aesthetics, lore, and "grittiness"/action over character development. All of the major characters were either watered down or had core personality traits removed. Lol, they wanted to appeal to Game of Thrones fans without realizing that it's the complex and morally grey characters that's the heart and soul of that show.
It's ironic that an animated series made for kids featured much deeper characters than this live action counterpart. All of the character flaws were either removed (Sokka's sexism is practically nonexistent, Katara's no longer fierce or headstrong, Aang's no longer goofy nor does he crush on Katara, and Zuko is too whiny and much less villainous) or heavily toned down.
The creators are so determined to make the characters instantly likable that they watered down any of their supposed "problematic" traits. But forgot that in doing so (without adding new traits), you end up with much blander characters who are no longer as interesting as they could have been. This makes it even harder to build natural rapport or insert conflict between characters. Katara, esp., has zero personality and all of her scenes are excruciatingly boring to watch.
By far, it's the characters and their relationships/growth that made the original ATLA so unforgettable and yet, the showrunners don't seem to understand this. If they did, they wouldn't have skimped on all the relationship building and character work. Everything's rushed to the point where none of the emotional beats feel earned and it's like the characters are just going through the motions because the director says so rather than experiencing it all organically.
I really don't understand why the showrunners didn't prioritize their characters above all else and make sure they're all well developed enough for the audience to fall in love with them. After all, people will forgive anything as long as they care about your characters...
And despite all the bad writing, I could've at least stayed engaged as long as our cast had amazing chemistry, but alas, it's just not there...I'm bored to death.
Overall, the writing and acting just isn't good enough to hold my interest...One Piece Live Action is still the gold standard when it comes to anime/cartoon to live action adaptations -at least they concentrated on character writing and relationships above all else. They also didn't constantly info dump on the audience: Look at the way they peppered exposition bits via natural conversations between Garp, Helmeppo, and Luffy...I was never overwhelmed and was only more intrigued by the world. Why couldn't the Netflix Avatar live action use this approach to make their exposition dumps more palatable?
Exposition in lieu of showing the audience what you're trying to convey is the laziest and least interactive way anyone can write anything. While the movie that doesn't exist did it even worse, the fact that live action versions of Avatar can't show and not tell makes me question what's so difficult to understand about the premise. Aang is the Avatar, the last Airbender, and the best hope for restoring balance to a world riddled with chaos. Why not show how out of balance everything is without the Air Nomads? A temple slowly decaying over 100 years, a sea that once bridged the Water Tribes slowly becoming less traveled by boats and more controlled by coal powered ships, and an Earth Kingdom that loses ground over and over. And with all of that, show how their globe is being consumed with the might of the Fire Nation. Maybe have it burn up the map and find benders and non benders alike visiting shrines to the past Avatars, praying for them to return and put an end to the war and conquest. We don't exactly get a feel for how hopeless things feel without Aang, so show us the status quo while he's missing. And after all that sadness, bring us a laugh or two before Team Avatar goes to the Southern Air Temple. Feel that missing element, and how the Nomads brought everyone together with items of all four nations side by side unassumingly. Have Katara and Sokka be shocked that there was once a time when people traveled for more than battles. They've never known a world at peace. Aang should get a sense of how late he is. Then he can find Gyatso. Then he can almost knock everything off the mountain. And if they keep the statue room, have all the previous Avatars feel that loss and comfort Aang. Let him hear them and as he goes from fury to grief, let him hear Katara and Sokka calling out for him. They're here with him. Give him time to feel the loss of his entire people, and give him Momo again as one more last-of-his-kind to remember his home through. Last, end on Aang being determined to end the war and answer the pleas of the hopeless.
So excited to watch this! I'm 3 minutes in, and I'm very excited for this premise, and to watch the rest of your channel!
Outstanding video!!! This adaptation was a really good start, and on a basic story board level, it works... but it fell flat on its face when it came to the finer details and execution... which was so sad to watch because it had some amazing high-moments.
I'm hopeful they can resolve the script and acting issues for season 2 and 3. We'll see I guess.
Take care, my friend!
What the HELL are you even doing on youtube ?! Netflix, employ the man
6:13 I’m watching this at 1:00am, and these Aang jump scares are tripping me out
I loved Sokka's character the best, he's just so accurate looking 😁
Good observations!
Accurate looking? Idk about that one lol.
@@BratzRockAngels wdym he ain't brown but his facial features kinda similar
Also the way he portrayed the character was better than most of the others
@@BratzRockAngelsrectangle head with those round, wolf like eyes. He’s a great look, but sssooooooo stiff. I hope they let him Jim Carey next season
@aeis0 I would prefer for brown indigenous actors to be casted but I can forgive it a little since there isn't always dark skin indigenous actors auditioning I guess, but he really doesn't have the facial features at all in my opinion. If we're solely talking about appearances without performance, I don't think he really fits. I think he's majority white too I believe, so not even majority or fully indigenous really.
@BratzRockAngels bruh yall so pressed about skin. Like someone skin color being a little to light or too dark is there personality. I'm colored and there's nothing wrong with sokka because his skin tone he captured his character well. Who tf cares about how light or dark it is.
Not to be nostalgic bias, my objective on the dialogue is that its too on-the-nose, telly instead of showy, and info-dump at best.
There is no subtlety. Sometimes it feel draged out, like Iroh voice over and the opening sequence.
As if they want to cramp every interesting words on one sentence
I'm actually slightly glad the first season ended up a mixed bag, because it's finally stopped the pattern of where things on the internet have to be seen as "awful" or "fantastic." I hate how all-or-nothing the Internet has become. It's a perfectionists' worst nightmare. The pattern of critique has actually had a negative effect on my mental health, especially since I'm an actor and have personal investment in story-telling.
god, I didn't think the dialogue was great, especially the over explaining parts, but I didn't think it was quite as bad as others think. i honestly feel like rewatching it to try to figure out if I'm an idiot 😅
I went and watched the first two episodes of the original. Cartoons are not for me. But it was easy to see the difference in the story telling. The original is far better and I was left wondering why they felt the need to change it. I think part of it is the streaming platform. The thinking is you need to hook people in the first few minutes which is why I think they went with the big action start. I also watched a great review which focused on Sokkas sexism and why it was so essential to the season arc. After seeing that, I can't accept that katara is a problem. How can she be angry if she has nothing to react to?
What's wrong with the original?
I think it’s simply them combining different events with no chemistry between the characters, the dialogue is bad but if good storytelling is there no one cares
I think showing the airnomad genozid at the point in time that we do is a problem, because it makes it tonaly inconsistend.
we see that and afterwarts we go to the shinanigans at the southpool.
If you do show that that needs to be close to the end of the episode. let the first episode end on the bleakest note possible, and make the second episode about hope cautiously awakening again.
Having more time before the timejump would have had some aditional advanteges we could introduce bumi, wich would be way better than doing it 5 minutes before we meet him as an old man, we could actually meet Kuzon. And Aang can show, that he is not ready for responsibility instead of telling us in a monolog.
Sokka had some good one-liners, but overall they didn't capture the cartoony goofiness of the original.
Thanks! Loved it! I enjoyed your alternatives they coulda used and comparisons with the og show. Keep it up!
What I would do to have the editors tweak this episode
This is peak way to explain this mix reviews
I am really enjoying this series, not sure why so many people are ripping this series a new asshole. Yes, I get it, it's not QUITE as good as the original animated series, but to be hoenst, I don't think they could have made it all that much better then they made it and it's still a good series with a lot of great characters. I think the curse is, they made the original animated series so good, it is far too high of a bar to set for anything that comes after, Korra, TLAB movie, this series, and everything in between just can't compare to that masterpiece of an animated series; it was just a perfect storm of everything done right that is EXTREMELY difficult to replicate. I think people get this idea that if you do something "good" the first time that can be so easily replicated again and it's just not true, there is simply too many pieces that have to come together in just the right way to make something like Avatar The Last Airbender to work as well as it did 18 years ago.
Have you tried comparing "The Untamed" with "Mo Dao Zu Shi"?
I found myself being annoyed and put off every time Aang speaks in the live action - imo he is incredibly unlikable as a character because of how they butchered his introduction and how intensly frustrating and cringe the dialouge is. The visuals of this show is incredible, I am really sad to see how much they messed up certain story beats and dialouge, and how much they changed certain characters like Katara and Bumi to be almost unrecognizable from their cartoon counterparts. Certain changes like for example Zuko saving a devision that later becomes his crew and this being the reason for their newfound respect for Zuko rather than out of pity was a really good change, I wish there was more of that and less of Banana cakes and angry sad Bumi.
Could’ve made a real antagonistic team. An outside force. Some foreign colonials and explorers. With bending powers that are so different from the locals own bending abilities. Telekinesis
I am just annoyed that for some reason they take older animated series and try to regurgitate the story with their edits. The old show was amazing and holds the test of time. God I hope this remake fade goes away soon. I’m fatigued at this point.
Surprisingly, I enjoyed this episode way more than the Omashu episode. I specifically don’t like what they did to bumi, and mixing arcs like southern temple and jet. I feel like they became a weird smoothy of problems.
I don't get why they wanted to use Aang. If they used a past life of his Aang is already an established character given that they wanted a "GOT" story vibe but given Aangs story is already told and a masterpiece so why butcher a show that is cherished by many. I'd be fine if they used a past life but given they didn't makes me think they just wanted the IP and an already-established character.
The show was really nice, surely better than the horrible horrible movie,
but the dialogues were so BORING.
Beside that, I don't think they chose the right actresses to play Azula, Mei, and Tai Lee,
I didn't feel like they matched the energy I was hoping they would.
I guess Zuko as well, but by the end of the first season of the series, I grown to actually like Dallas Liu.
Other than that, the cast chosen were PERFECT representation of the animated characters. Absolutely no words.
The action scenes were great and all, but the choice of taking out any scenes of Aang learning waterbending from Katara mid-season,
and giving up the backstory of Pakku, felt so bad. I was and still am upset about it.
The dialog between Aang and Roku was so silly as well. That was a very important scene! Roku should've told Aang about the comet.
The few changes they did that I actually didn't mind at all were about the waterbending scroll stolen from the pirates,
and the emotional cutscene added of Zuko's past and Iroh's play, as well as the "Leaves from the vine" soundtrack that was really touching.
I hope things will improve because I want to watch more regardless of the things I didn't like.
I actually thought this episode was strong as a start to the series. I rated it 6/10 personally, there was a lot they did wrong but there’s also a lot they did right.
Show, don't tell.