Avatar: The Last Airbender - live-action remake series (not the movie)

[Prime32]

So a trailer dropped recently for the live-action series adaptation of Avatar:The Last Airbender, coming out in a bit under a month.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByAn8DF8Ykk

Comments from the crew (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhCvAaW2D7w) mention some changes to the plot of Book 1, including early showcasing of Fire Lord Ozai's strength along with more complex characterisation for Admiral Zhao. Some unseen events will be shown in more detail (including the last stand of Monk Gyatso). It also looks like the Avatar State can no longer activate through emotion alone, at least not until you're a fully-realised Avatar; Aang will only be able to access it under special conditions like receiving assistance from one of his past lives (who will also get more of their backstories shown).

Hopes? Expectations? The original series is widely regarded as a masterpiece, so can they pull it off?

[Zevox]

Well, I'll give them that the trailer looks good. It captures the look and feel of the show about as well as I imagine a live-action version could.

That said, I still can't say I'm very interested. If I want to watch Avatar, I own the original show on Blu-Ray already. I don't see what use I have for a live action remake. Much like when Disney does live action remakes of their old animated movies - though from the trailer, this looks better than those at least.

[Batcathat]

I'm cautiously optimistic, what I've seen so far looks pretty decent. Since I think the Legend of Korra is even better, I hope this one's good and popular enough that they'll adapt that one too.

Also, I really hope they alter the ending a bit.


I'm still a bit annoyed about the Deus Ex Lion Turtle.

[Errorname]

I'm not particularly optimistic. It'll probably be inoffensive, but I'm not seeing anything that really justifies this show existing.

[Rynjin]

I'm of the opinion that live action remakes of existing animated properties are at best pointless and uninteresting and at worst insulting, implying by their very existence that live action is somehow "better" and that justifies its existence. None of them have ever needed to be made. Zero of them are worth watching. This is no exception.

[Ionathus]

I'm of the opinion that live action remakes of existing animated properties are at best pointless and uninteresting and at worst insulting, implying by their very existence that live action is somehow "better" and that justifies its existence. None of them have ever needed to be made. Zero of them are worth watching. This is no exception.

I’m in this camp as well. Musicals, animation, video games…for whatever reason, all of these are seen as “lesser than” film, as if live-action TV or Movies are the pinnacle of storytelling.

I will likely check it out, because our Netflix is currently active anyway and I expect my friends will want to talk about it. I would be pretty drastically surprised if the live-action captures much of the charm of the original though. Animation is just so suited to the fantasy-level martial arts, bending imagery, and tone of the series.

That said, I’m not 100% against it. And adaptations can find a niche if they explore more of the world, which it does sound like they’re doing with the past avatars and Zhao/Ozai characterization. I’m reserving judgment until I see it (and NOT watching any trailers. I’ve been burned before!).

[Dawsnow]

I'm cautiously optimistic, I hope they adapt zuko's story well

[Eldan]

I'm not convinced about the bending scenes? Maybe it's just the trailer, but they several of them look very zoomed in, so you only see half the elemental effects going on around the character, and it's difficult to judge how good they look, and how much they really incorporated the martial arts into it.

[Trixie_One]

I lost interest when they did have the original creators on board for this and then booted them.


Also, I really hope they alter the ending a bit.

Bet you good money that they don't get that far before this gets cancelled.

[Errorname]

I'm not convinced about the bending scenes? Maybe it's just the trailer, but they several of them look very zoomed in, so you only see half the elemental effects going on around the character, and it's difficult to judge how good they look, and how much they really incorporated the martial arts into it.

I do not expect great things. Doing Last Airbender in live action is a martial arts action show where all your lead performers are children and for every fight sequence the majority of strikes include some magical effect. Both of those are pretty reasonable in animation where you're drawing the whole thing from scratch, but in live action it is likely to be immensely challenging to execute on.

[t209]

Just that this attempt at least created new memes based on actors compared to previous…definitely a new one.
Like Abed as Mechanist, Iroh the convenience store owner, and Ozai being screamed “I AM YOUR HEIR” multiple times.
Oh do I need to say that we got three actors who played in both animated and live action now (the Lost Guy, George Takei, and even the Cabbage merchant as well).

[EggKookoo]

I lost interest when they did have the original creators on board for this and then booted them.

Same here. I worry especially because they cited "creative differences" which makes me think Netflix is going to Netflex all over it, to its detriment.

[InvisibleBison]

I lost interest when they did have the original creators on board for this and then booted them.

I'm not concerned about that. If I wanted the original creators' vision for the series, the original series is right there. Remaking a series offers an opportunity to tell a new version of the story, so the original creators not being involved isn't that big of an issue.

[Ionathus]

I'm not concerned about that. If I wanted the original creators' vision for the series, the original series is right there. Remaking a series offers an opportunity to tell a new version of the story, so the original creators not being involved isn't that big of an issue.

It’s not a dealbreaker but is definitely a yellow flag for me.

A creator doesn’t have any authority beyond their original work…but in this case, we already have an example of an adaptation (Shymalan’s) completely missing the tone of the original. The original creators leaving makes me worry those problems cropped up again.

As a result, I’m gonna be particularly sensitive to those shortcomings, and so the fastest way for this adaptation to lose me would be for it to start missing the mark in ways that Shymalan’s did (a lack of charm/whimsy, glacial pacing on fights, or over-narration/over-summarizing).

[MinimanMidget]

I'm not concerned about that. If I wanted the original creators' vision for the series, the original series is right there. Remaking a series offers an opportunity to tell a new version of the story, so the original creators not being involved isn't that big of an issue.

The original creators not being involved is hugely different from the original creators being involved and then booted out for creative differences. I wouldn't see the former as a problem at all, but the latter is a showstopper.

[Rynjin]

I'm not concerned about that. If I wanted the original creators' vision for the series, the original series is right there. Remaking a series offers an opportunity to tell a new version of the story, so the original creators not being involved isn't that big of an issue.

Why would you trust someone to tell a good version of a story when they're too talentless to come up with their own and all they do is adapt someone else's work anyway?

[InvisibleBison]

The original creators not being involved is hugely different from the original creators being involved and then booted out for creative differences. I wouldn't see the former as a problem at all, but the latter is a showstopper.

It's only a showstopper if you don't trust anyone but the original creators to make a decent version of the show, which is in general a silly thing to do given how many good adaptations there are that didn't involve the original creators.



Why would you trust someone to tell a good version of a story when they're too talentless to come up with their own and all they do is adapt someone else's work anyway?

Because there are a lot of good adaptations, many of which didn't involve the original creators. Without some more specific evidence that the people making the show are actually doing something bad, I'm not going to assume that it's going to be bad.

[Rynjin]

Because there are a lot of good adaptations, many of which didn't involve the original creators. Without some more specific evidence that the people making the show are actually doing something bad, I'm not going to assume that it's going to be bad.

And there's many more ****ty ones, what's your point?

I also can't think of a SINGLE good adaptation where the creator was involved at one point and then left due to creative differences. You have any counterexamples for me?

[MinimanMidget]

It's only a showstopper if you don't trust anyone but the original creators to make a decent version of the show, which is in general a silly thing to do given how many good adaptations there are that didn't involve the original creators.

I think you missed my point? It's not about "not the original creators" it's about "the original creators hated them/they hated the original creators". Like, yeah, Peter Jackson did a good job without Tolkien's involvement. He didn't fire Tolkien for disagreeing with his vision, it's not the same thing.

[Dire_Flumph]

And there's many more ****ty ones, what's your point?

I also can't think of a SINGLE good adaptation where the creator was involved at one point and then left due to creative differences. You have any counterexamples for me?

A good adaption is subjective of course, but two well received ones off the top of my head:

The Neverending Story (1983). Michael Ende was onboard with the adaption and was assisting with scripting duties as an advisor then had a falling out with the director over the initial script and tried to have his name scrubbed from the project.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). 1st draft was written by Roald Dahl but his script was so heavily rewritten he departed and disowned the project.

[InvisibleBison]

And there's many more ****ty ones, what's your point?

My point is that I'm not going to make judgements about the show based on things that aren't necessarily connected to whether or not the show is going to be good. I don't know why the original creators left the project. It could be that the people in charge wanted to do a bunch of stupid stuff, and the original creators got kicked out for trying to stop them. It could also be that the original creators got kicked out because they kept insisting on doing things the way the animated show did even when it would be better to do things otherwise.



I think you missed my point? It's not about "not the original creators" it's about "the original creators hated them/they hated the original creators". Like, yeah, Peter Jackson did a good job without Tolkien's involvement. He didn't fire Tolkien for disagreeing with his vision, it's not the same thing.

I don't see how that matters, though. It's not like the original creators of a story are the only ones who can tell that story well.

[Ramza00]

I question the premise of why one wants to make a Live Action Avatar in the First Place

for certain types of shots, work well with certain genres, while other types of shots will have an uncanny nature of mixing satisfied and wonder vs dissatisfied and disappointment.

=====

I mean you can make a world feel wonderful with the natural world in live action. Points to certain type of shots from breaking bad. But this feels like a blah green screen. Not nature, and not people.

[Eldan]

A good adaption is subjective of course, but two well received ones off the top of my head:

The Neverending Story (1983). Michael Ende was onboard with the adaption and was assisting with scripting duties as an advisor then had a falling out with the director over the initial script and tried to have his name scrubbed from the project.

The Neverending Story - the movie - royally screwed up the sequels, though. Because filming Act 2 and 3 of the book where Bastian slowly turns into a tyrant, tries to conquer fantasy land, fails, is cast down and then has to rediscover himself, wouldn't have worked with the tone of the first movie at all.

So, I agree with the writer there. It's a nice fantasy movie, but it doesn't hold a candle to the book, for me and is really quite different from it.

[Dire_Flumph]

The Neverending Story - the movie - royally screwed up the sequels, though. Because filming Act 2 and 3 of the book where Bastian slowly turns into a tyrant, tries to conquer fantasy land, fails, is cast down and then has to rediscover himself, wouldn't have worked with the tone of the first movie at all.

So, I agree with the writer there. It's a nice fantasy movie, but it doesn't hold a candle to the book, for me and is really quite different from it.

I agree with the writers in both cases. Roald Dahl writes the sort of children's books that would send most Hollywood execs into convulsions. But I absolutely devoured them as a kid for how utterly macabre they were. I enjoy the Gene Wilder film as it's own thing, but it's really a different animal. And I dare someone to try to adapt Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator with any degree of faithfulness. The book The Neverending Story is a fuller story with, as you say, a more satisfying narrative arc for Bastian. I also completely understand why Christopher Tolkien hated the Lord of the Rings adaptions (as would, likely, his father).

But whether you like or don't like them, those adaptions were successful in creating their own thing separate from the original material. I can enjoy the film and the book of the Neverending story on their own merits while accepting that as an adaption it isn't really all that faithful.

Circling back to Avatar, that's why I'm not really all that impressed with what we've seen so far. It seems set on mollifying fans by showing them how faithful they're being to the source material in visuals. But a lot of the source material was made with animation in mind and isn't going to directly translate well to live action. I don't really care how faithful or unfaithful they are to the original series. I only care if they have a story that stands on its own. I suspect not, but I hope to be proven wrong. One Piece and Scott Pilgrim both surprised me, this might too.

[Ionathus]

Why would you trust someone to tell a good version of a story when they're too talentless to come up with their own and all they do is adapt someone else's work anyway?

Oh cool, we’re insulting the writing ability of anybody who’s ever worked on an adaptation now, cool cool, real fun.

I mean yeah Hollywood has an unhealthy fixation on established IPs and I am *starved* for some original characters too, but this take is just over-the-top aggressive and mean.

[Errorname]

Oh cool, we’re insulting the writing ability of anybody who’s ever worked on an adaptation now, cool cool, real fun.

Especially since this is likely going to fail because making a good adaptation is a very difficult.

[Infernally Clay]

Especially since this is likely going to fail because making a good adaptation is a very difficult.

I don't think that's true at all - there have been many, many amazing adaptations and some have even surpassed the original - and if anything it will be easier to adapt something that already exists in the visual medium.

Faithful adaptations are not all that difficult to pull off and the only way this Avatar show will fail is if they pull a Cowboy Bebop and throw the existing story into the trash and opt to tell their own. Or if the viewership isn't high enough so it get cancelled after one season, I guess.

[Rynjin]

Oh cool, we’re insulting the writing ability of anybody who’s ever worked on an adaptation now, cool cool, real fun.

I mean yeah Hollywood has an unhealthy fixation on established IPs and I am *starved* for some original characters too, but this take is just over-the-top aggressive and mean.

I'm insulting the writing ability of 99% of the hacks Netflix hires to **** out these lazy live action adaptations every few months.

You've already proven you're kinda dumb when you decide to take a series built around the strengths of animated unreality and try to smush it into a medium that is fundamentally not built to work that way.

[Infernally Clay]

I'm insulting the writing ability of 99% of the hacks Netflix hires to **** out these lazy live action adaptations every few months.

You've already proven you're kinda dumb when you decide to take a series built around the strengths of animated unreality and try to smush it into a medium that is fundamentally not built to work that way.

I don't think any of their live action adaptations have been lazy, it just took them a while to realise that doing their own thing never works. This isn't exactly a new thing, either, nor is it exclusive to Netflix. Fox was notorious for screwing up what should have been easy home runs in the form of adaptations of major X-Men comic book storylines, as an example.

Death Note and Cowboy Bebop tried to change too much from the source material and it didn't work, but One Piece was hugely successful because Oda was involved in the production and they stuck to what he had already written. As long as Avatar does that too it'll be fine. I'm not saying they have to adapt every single episode shot for shot (I assume they'll skip a bunch of worldbuilding for longer action scenes and more inter-personal drama anyway), but as long as the final episode of the first season is called The Siege of the North we're probably good.

[Trixie_One]

but One Piece was hugely successful because Oda was involved in the production and they stuck to what he had already written. As long as Avatar does that too it'll be fine.

Well they've already dispensed with the people who were the Oda equivalent to Avatar on the basis that they had different ideas so yeah...

Incidentally I finally got around to watching the rest of their One Piece yesterday, and I really was decidedly impressed with it. Last episode especially. Flawed in places for sure, but given they were adapting the insanity that is One Piece which is about as unadaptable as you can possibly get, I'm more willing to forgive those issues, even more so given that they absolutely nailed some stuff like Buggy and Sanji's backstory.

[Errorname]

easier[/I] to adapt something that already exists in the visual medium.

I don't think this holds up if you actually look at historical precedent. They're adapting an audiovisual story, which means you have baggage for everything. People get strong senses for how characters in novels are supposed to be from just the descriptions and their imaginations, but it's so much worse when you have a clear precedent for how a character is supposed to look and move and sound.


Faithful adaptations are not all that difficult to pull off and the only way this Avatar show will fail is if they pull a Cowboy Bebop and throw the existing story into the trash and opt to tell their own. Or if the viewership isn't high enough so it get cancelled after one season, I guess.

A faithful adaptation of a TV show into another TV show is very difficult for reasons that should be obvious, you kind of do need to tell your own story in this case because you need to justify why the remake even exists.


I'm insulting the writing ability of 99% of the hacks Netflix hires to **** out these lazy live action adaptations every few months.

You were kind of insulting the entire concept of adaptation. Like, that's a very reasonable interpretation of what you wrote.

It's not like this show is going to fail because it's being written by incompetent bunglers who are going to botch an easy job. They might be incompetent bunglers, I don't know and I don't particularly care, but the job is very difficult.

[Rynjin]

I


You were kind of insulting the entire concept of adaptation. Like, that's a very reasonable interpretation of what you wrote.

It's not like this show is going to fail because it's being written by incompetent bunglers who are going to botch an easy job. They might be incompetent bunglers, I don't know and I don't particularly care, but the job is very difficult.

I have slowly soured more and more on the concept specifically of adapting anime to live action. I always thought it was dumb, now I think it's even dumber.

I'll also admit that with the deluge of absolute irredeemable trash adaptations we've gotten recently I'm kinda soured on the whole idea at all. Even the ones that are kinda okay do something to completely ruin it by the end of a season (eg. Wheel of Time).

I've been told enough times that "adaptations aren't for fans of the original" that I've started to wonder who, exactly they ARE for then? People who like watered down versions of an original work?

[Batcathat]

I've been told enough times that "adaptations aren't for fans of the original" that I've started to wonder who, exactly they ARE for then? People who like watered down versions of an original work?

I think there's no single answer to that question (and some adaptations are definitely aimed at fans of the original, whether or not they are successful) but they can certainly help people discover something they otherwise wouldn't have. For example, I've never seen/read the One Piece anime/manga and it's quite likely that I never will, but I really enjoyed the live action adaptation of it and I think I'm far from the only one.

And yes, a show that's just a watered down version of the original Avatar show would be quite boring, but it's entirely possible (even if I won't take a guess at how probable) to tell a different (whether slightly or very) version of the story that's equally enjoyable.

[EggKookoo]

I've been told enough times that "adaptations aren't for fans of the original" that I've started to wonder who, exactly they ARE for then? People who like watered down versions of an original work?

They're for the people writing the remakes and for the current owners of the IP.

[Errorname]

I've been told enough times that "adaptations aren't for fans of the original" that I've started to wonder who, exactly they ARE for then? People who like watered down versions of an original work?

This is a question anyone making an adaptation should be asking themselves, and I don't think enough of the current crop are coming up with good answers.

[Trixie_One]

I'll also admit that with the deluge of absolute irredeemable trash adaptations we've gotten recently I'm kinda soured on the whole idea at all. Even the ones that are kinda okay do something to completely ruin it by the end of a season (eg. Wheel of Time).

Did you watch One Piece? Best episode that one had was the last of the season.

As for what it is for... well, it was significantly abridged so it's apparently been a good intro without asking people to dive into an excessive number episodes and/or chapters to get into it. There's a novelty factor of seeing stuff done in a different medium. Some of the casting is amazing. Shanks, Zeff, Mihawk, and Buggy especially. While they don't get all the super emotional bits totally right, getting to see Sanji's in live action managed to make it even more horrible which is pretty impressive. They do some nice punching up too for the medium like the inventive ways of showing the bounty posters.

And that's coming from someone who had previously thought that adapting any anime to live action was genuinely impossible to do with out messing it up and was just a dang stupid, pointless idea in general.

[Ramza00]

I've been told enough times that "adaptations aren't for fans of the original" that I've started to wonder who, exactly they ARE for then? People who like watered down versions of an original work?

It is because George RR Martin’s agent, after Book 4 came out the same year, contacted the agent of the writter guy who did Troy in 2005, and thus we got HBO’s Games of Thrones.


I repeat Troy which is a silly movie and does not care about source material.

Same logic with X-Men (2000) where Fox liked the director for the Usual Suspects, and that man hated comic books. But how it was solved was someone finding some issues of 1994 and 1995 X-Men where Rogue and Bobby go on a road trip and Rogue is dressing all sexy and Bobby Drake did not care. (the subtext is Rogue is mad about Gambit and Bobby was doing his 90s plot line where Emma Frost made interior decorator jokes about Bobby has a secret.) Well those 1994 issues convinced the director he could do an X-Men and make it adult, serious, and dark. It also is why Rogue’s introduction point of view character is Bobby Drake.

=====

So much of Hollywood does not care about the source material, it is about having content, and people connections, followed by faking caring about the content in a people pleasing way that allows more people connections. Then money, then can you film the movie as fast as possible, and even if it’s not as fast as possible, do not do overtime or get stuck over budget.

The business is like McDonalds you do not make the best sandwich or the cheapest one, but a consistent product you can do fast and predictable.

[Errorname]

It is because George RR Martin’s agent, after Book 4 came out the same year, contacted the agent of the writter guy who did Troy in 2005, and thus we got HBO’s Games of Thrones.

I think this is wrong? I'm tired and sick so I don't feel like checking, but the story I heard is that D&D wanted to adapt the Red Wedding and approached Martin's people about the idea.


Same logic with X-Men (2000) where Fox liked the director for the Usual Suspects, and that man hated comic books. But how it was solved was someone finding some issues of 1994 and 1995 X-Men where Rogue and Bobby go on a road trip and Rogue is dressing all sexy and Bobby Drake did not care. (the subtext is Rogue is mad about Gambit and Bobby was doing his 90s plot line where Emma Frost made interior decorator jokes about Bobby has a secret.) Well those 1994 issues convinced the director he could do an X-Men and make it adult, serious, and dark. It also is why Rogue’s introduction point of view character is Bobby Drake.

I hate defending the Fox X-Men movies, most of them are bad and a lot of the most important creative leads were bad people even when the movies were passable, but I do think they are interesting adaptations and I think their relationship with the source material is more complex than just hate.

[LaZodiac]

I saw an article that says that they're toning down Saka's sexism which...

Look; yes it is a good idea to look at stuff like sexism and bigotry and be like "we don't want this, it's a bad thing".

But Saka's entire character arc, the entire purpose of his character, is "I am a ****ty person with ****ty beliefs who learns to become better". Toning down his (already perfectly fine for TV) sexism genuinely reduces the impact of his arc!

... but ALSO I've seen people saying this is bad for the "sexism is good actually" reason, so I'm conflicted.

[Rynjin]

I'm with you on that. The entire idea of Sokka is that he's a good person who was taught some very bad things and most importantly is repeatedly proven wrong about them and doesn't get to come into his own as a competent warrior until he gets over those hangups.

It's an important lesson for a character like that...and the intended audience. That underestimating or putting down people because of their gender (or any other prejudicial factor) just makes you look like a fool.

[Keltest]

I'm with you on that. The entire idea of Sokka is that he's a good person who was taught some very bad things and most importantly is repeatedly proven wrong about them and doesn't get to come into his own as a competent warrior until he gets over those hangups.

It's an important lesson for a character like that...and the intended audience. That underestimating or putting down people because of their gender (or any other prejudicial factor) just makes you look like a fool.

Indeed. I would say its also important for Katara's character arc in confronting the people who do believe or enforce those bad things from the position of the victim, and recognizing that it doesn't make them an irredeemably bad person either.

[Ramza00]

one of the thing about Sokka’s sexism (something I am of mixed feelings if one is to write a new story, which one does)

is it … it is totally an obsessional wish done by an older brother with anxiety and he is trying to flee his own feelings of fear of doom, and via throwing himself into a roll … a mask, a wig into a box … he can think in his anxious way get out of the anxiety, but this is bad compart-mental-izationwords should be shorter, that is one word

Sokka was horrible to his sister, a literal bully. I am glad that the Kyoshi Warriors showed Sokka a different way. Likewise Sokka found community via others. Got to meet his dad again, plan the invasion of the fire nation, improvised on the fly, etc.

=====

all these growth moments born out of anxiety, but if you are cutting those growth moments then you had to town down the sexism for that plot point goes nowhere and is just kind of ****y

[Zevox]

I saw an article that says that they're toning down Saka's sexism which...

Look; yes it is a good idea to look at stuff like sexism and bigotry and be like "we don't want this, it's a bad thing".

But Saka's entire character arc, the entire purpose of his character, is "I am a ****ty person with ****ty beliefs who learns to become better". Toning down his (already perfectly fine for TV) sexism genuinely reduces the impact of his arc!

... but ALSO I've seen people saying this is bad for the "sexism is good actually" reason, so I'm conflicted.
I'm not; you're correct in your first reaction, I feel. No small part of Sokka's character arc is overcoming that, especially in Book 1. It's part of the basis of entire episodes, including notably where his relationship with Suki starts. And as you mentioned, it was hardly beyond the pale to begin with, he just kind of had a bog-standard young boy mindset on the matter, it's not like it was something he was doing to an intense degree in all of his scenes or anything. Even toning it down a little will negatively affect his story, almost guaranteed - and as Keltest said, possibly also Katara's, given standing up to that sort of thing was a major part of her arc in Book 1, and started right from the beginning because of Sokka having that kind of attitude.

[Ionathus]

I saw an article that says that they're toning down Saka's sexism which...

Look; yes it is a good idea to look at stuff like sexism and bigotry and be like "we don't want this, it's a bad thing".

But Saka's entire character arc, the entire purpose of his character, is "I am a ****ty person with ****ty beliefs who learns to become better". Toning down his (already perfectly fine for TV) sexism genuinely reduces the impact of his arc!

... but ALSO I've seen people saying this is bad for the "sexism is good actually" reason, so I'm conflicted.

Hot take: Sokka's sexism isn't really integral to the show. It can be excised with very little impact. And I certainly wouldn't call it his "entire character arc."

He's insufferably sexist for three and a half episodes in the first season, then the Kyoshi Warriors straight-up beat the sexism out of him, and he drops that character trait so fast I always forget it exists until I do a rewatch from the beginning. The speed with which he stops being sexist is a running joke amongst my friends.

All of Sokka's other character traits (his feelings of uselessness, his fear of losing loved ones, his obsession with being the Big Strong Warrior Guy with no fears, his wits, his badass normalcy) function perfectly well without the (overt) sexism. I'm all for characters grappling with their flaws and growing past/through them, but Sokka has plenty of other flaws that are more interesting for him to work with.

[Trixie_One]

I think this is wrong? I'm tired and sick so I don't feel like checking, but the story I heard is that D&D wanted to adapt the Red Wedding and approached Martin's people about the idea.

Spot on, you can really tell now how much they were purely there to get to the Red Wedding. There's stuff in season 1 especially written by D&D that are genuine improvements on the book. If the show had been cancelled after season 3, or if they'd not got all possessive and done the sensible thing of stepping away to hand it to someone else for season 4, they'd still be both industry and fandom darlings, likely still be attached to Star Wars, and maybe even have that what if the civil war went the other way show on the air.

[LaZodiac]

I'm not; you're correct in your first reaction, I feel. No small part of Sokka's character arc is overcoming that, especially in Book 1. It's part of the basis of entire episodes, including notably where his relationship with Suki starts. And as you mentioned, it was hardly beyond the pale to begin with, he just kind of had a bog-standard young boy mindset on the matter, it's not like it was something he was doing to an intense degree in all of his scenes or anything. Even toning it down a little will negatively affect his story, almost guaranteed - and as Keltest said, possibly also Katara's, given standing up to that sort of thing was a major part of her arc in Book 1, and started right from the beginning because of Sokka having that kind of attitude.

To be clear, I am conflicted because I think too much about things some times.


Hot take: Sokka's sexism isn't really integral to the show. It can be excised with very little impact. And I certainly wouldn't call it his "entire character arc."

He's insufferably sexist for three and a half episodes in the first season, then the Kyoshi Warriors straight-up beat the sexism out of him, and he drops that character trait so fast I always forget it exists until I do a rewatch from the beginning. The speed with which he stops being sexist is a running joke amongst my friends.

All of Sokka's other character traits (his feelings of uselessness, his fear of losing loved ones, his obsession with being the Big Strong Warrior Guy with no fears, his wits, his badass normalcy) function perfectly well without the (overt) sexism. I'm all for characters grappling with their flaws and growing past/through them, but Sokka has plenty of other flaws that are more interesting for him to work with.

Ehh... all of his character stuff still relates back to that upbringing that made him like that. And as has been said above, his "only a Man can Do This" rhetoric is meant to hint towards what Katara will get once they hit the Southern water tribe, and reflect on how she has to deal with that sexist disrespect despite being an incredibly skilled water-bender.

[Errorname]

It's not indefensible to remove Sokka's early sexism, it's a quickly resolved plotline (but they are clearly keeping the episodes in which it was relevant), but their stated reasoning is quite bad and does not strike me as encouraging about their creative instincts.

[Prime32]

The alarming thing should be any suggestion that the writers don't understand why Sokka acts so macho before meeting the Kyoshi Warriors, just dismissing it as some dumb gag. Because "no one is perfect", "war and parental abandonment make even good people do bad things" and "wisdom gathered from a single pool is stale" are all major themes of the series.

It could also result in "Suki teaches Sokka a valuable lesson" turning into "Suki beats up Sokka for no reason".

[Ionathus]

The alarming thing should be any suggestion that the writers don't understand why Sokka acts so macho before meeting the Kyoshi Warriors, just dismissing it as some dumb gag. Because "no one is perfect", "war and parental abandonment make even good people do bad things" and "wisdom gathered from a single pool is stale" are all major themes of the series.

It could also result in "Suki teaches Sokka a valuable lesson" turning into "Suki beats up Sokka for no reason".

Agreed with all of this. Sokka’s early bluster and sexism make a lot of sense in the context of his character: being left behind to be the only defender of the entire Southern Water Tribe will do weird things to a teenage boy’s sense of responsibility and protective instinct.

I don’t *need* it to be there, and I would be fine if it was present in a less intense way. Sokka’s sexism in the first 4 episodes is SO intense that it’s kind of hard to believe how quickly he changes. I think if they made him less gleeful about it, or turned it into an “all business” kind of thing where he’s not being mean, he just thinks he’s doing what men should do…I think that would make the change of heart more believable

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I definitely remember Saph being taken aback during their Let's Watch by the early Sokka sexism because it stands out that much. I think there's plenty of room in the "overcoming toxic masculinity" arc without that. You could easily write an arc where Sokka is afraid of looking or acting "girly" and then comes to a healthier relationship with himself, without having him go into the full abrasive sexism.

We'll see. They might do that, they might fumble it completely.

[Errorname]

I definitely remember Saph being taken aback during their Let's Watch by the early Sokka sexism because it stands out that much. I think there's plenty of room in the "overcoming toxic masculinity" arc without that. You could easily write an arc where Sokka is afraid of looking or acting "girly" and then comes to a healthier relationship with himself, without having him go into the full abrasive sexism.

I think it's a reasonable choice. That being said, I still find the stated justification kind of concerning.

[Saph]

I definitely remember Saph being taken aback during their Let's Watch by the early Sokka sexism because it stands out that much. I think there's plenty of room in the "overcoming toxic masculinity" arc without that. You could easily write an arc where Sokka is afraid of looking or acting "girly" and then comes to a healthier relationship with himself, without having him go into the full abrasive sexism.

I think what I found most jarring was less Sokka's sexism (which is fairly believable for a teenage boy) but more the way in which the story tended to treat his mistakes so much more harshly than his sisters's. When Sokka did something wrong he usually got beaten up for it; when Katara did something wrong she usually got away with no consequences.

[AvatarVecna]

If ember island players isn't just the netflix gaang watching the movie, we riot.

[DragonEyeSeeker]

I think this is wrong? I'm tired and sick so I don't feel like checking, but the story I heard is that D&D wanted to adapt the Red Wedding and approached Martin's people about the idea.

I saw an interview once where it was said Martin had a meeting with D&D about the latter making a GoT show. Martin was convinced that D&D could pull it off after they were able to discuss who Jon Snow's parents were (specifically R+L=J).

[Ramza00]

I saw an interview once where it was said Martin had a meeting with D&D about the latter making a GoT show. Martin was convinced that D&D could pull it off after they were able to discuss who Jon Snow's parents were (specifically R+L=J).

I dropped it for it was a segue and Errorname said they were not feeling well.


Regardless claims I can actually make quicklywith evidence linksin reverse order


is that HBO picked up the show in January 2007,
that Showtime and HBO were pitched in March 2006,
that Martin and D&D met for a restaurant in winter of 2006 a few weeks before the March 2006 HBO meeting and D&D knew R+L=J, which delighted Martin
Martin in other interviews said he would not sell movie or tv show rights if they do not know the shibboleth (this may be a lie on Martins part for he was broke until the year 2000 when the second book dropped, the second book being a success allowed Martin to retire from his other jobs such as teaching and tv and movie film writing. Jobs he loved but he was frustrated being forced to write to the medium and other peoples wants.)
D. B. Weiss was the second of the two D&Ds to read the books after his friend David Benioff recommend them to him
D. B. Weiss thought one can pitch this as a tv show after reading the Red Wedding in Book 3. His logic is that he could promise things to a tv network with at least a 3 season run , for the books are a road map a template and one is not creating a new thing from scratch but instead delivering a half made thing already. Thus the execs for a tv network can feel they are getting a consistent product already and thus their money feels more like a sure thing.
David Benioff fell in love with the books after the 9th chapter. Bran Chapter 2 where Jamie utters the things I do for love line. This would be the 9th chapter after 1 prologue and 8 normal chapters.
David Benioff started reading the books when there were 4 books, he ordered a boxed set.
For the people who are unfamiliar Book 4 came out in the United Kingdom in Oct 2005, and the US in November 2005.
Thus D&D were not familiar with the books for less than 6 months when they pitched HBO in March 2006, and they met George RR Martin at the restaurant several weeks before (it sounds like a January meeting but I can not prove that for they use vague words like weeks). It is likely the two of them had only been familiar with the books for 60 maybe 90 days when they met Martin for the first time and answered R+L=J.

all of those above things are factual claims which I can provide interview links for. (I am assuming the interview claims are accurate, something I am not sure of since people are unreliable narrators.)


I would go further and state things from memory I can not provide interview links off hand. Those are 1) Martins agent talked to Benioff’s agent , and Benioff’s agent is the inciting incident that got Benioff to read the 4 books and 2) D&D before meeting Martin were excited and nervous fans. They were afraid before the winter meeting and they did some studying via internet forums before the 5 hour meeting. The internet forums is where they learned R+L=J. I have read interviews with 1 and 2 before but I can not procure them at this time.

Yet it does not matter. This goal for after Errorname said they were not feeling alright I realised I could annoy and trigger people and that was not my intent. People put themselves into their passions, when they become fans. And defending other people’s honor becomes also about defending their own honor. (Zuko from Avatar gif goes here, also Sokka.)

I fundamentally believefaith D&D had no ill will with the franchise, and they earnestly spent a decade trying to breathe life into it and it was their baby. They acted with honor.

I also believeopinion D&D did not get some important themes about the franchise, snide comments about themes are for book reports from a season 3 interview, and so on. Also D&D were burned out after spending over 10 years of their life with this project and they got sloppy / inelegant due to the exhaustion. But this second part is opinion less so than faith, and honor is about where opinion and faith intersect. Thus questioning these things will trigger many fans and can activated inverted vibes with individuals but also the group aura of conversation.

=====

So yeah D&D are authentic fans I do not question that. Yet I will repeat the earlier statement (paraphrase not literal) all productions have midwives that are divided and not perfect-elegant. Yet they are perfect-as in completed for they came into this world. (word play here for the word perfect has multiple meanings. Love and Duty and the Divide Choice.)


so as you can see DragonEyeSeeker I dropped that segue for a reason. I hope everyone here can disagree or agree in a fun manner 🤞🙂

[DragonEyeSeeker]

I am a little worried that the Avatar show will not have enough room to breathe. They are reportedly filming 8 episodes. Even if each live action episode is twice as long as each animated show, we will still be losing 4 episodes worth of content. A lot of people assume the live action show will combine 2 animated episodes together but I am not entirely convinced. I feel like they are more likely to take the best animated episodes and adapt & expand on each of those to form a cohesive 8 episode story. Which means we will miss out on so much weird, fun, side stuff that was contained in episodes that will not make the cut. This will likely be even more noticeable in seasons 2 and 3, IMO.




I dropped it for it was a segue and Errorname said they were not feeling well.


Regardless claims I can actually make quicklywith evidence linksin reverse order


is that HBO picked up the show in January 2007,
that Showtime and HBO were pitched in March 2006,
that Martin and D&D met for a restaurant in winter of 2006 a few weeks before the March 2006 HBO meeting and D&D knew R+L=J, which delighted Martin
Martin in other interviews said he would not sell movie or tv show rights if they do not know the shibboleth (this may be a lie on Martins part for he was broke until the year 2000 when the second book dropped, the second book being a success allowed Martin to retire from his other jobs such as teaching and tv and movie film writing. Jobs he loved but he was frustrated being forced to write to the medium and other peoples wants.)
D. B. Weiss was the second of the two D&Ds to read the books after his friend David Benioff recommend them to him
D. B. Weiss thought one can pitch this as a tv show after reading the Red Wedding in Book 3. His logic is that he could promise things to a tv network with at least a 3 season run , for the books are a road map a template and one is not creating a new thing from scratch but instead delivering a half made thing already. Thus the execs for a tv network can feel they are getting a consistent product already and thus their money feels more like a sure thing.
David Benioff fell in love with the books after the 9th chapter. Bran Chapter 2 where Jamie utters the things I do for love line. This would be the 9th chapter after 1 prologue and 8 normal chapters.
David Benioff started reading the books when there were 4 books, he ordered a boxed set.
For the people who are unfamiliar Book 4 came out in the United Kingdom in Oct 2005, and the US in November 2005.
Thus D&D were not familiar with the books for less than 6 months when they pitched HBO in March 2006, and they met George RR Martin at the restaurant several weeks before (it sounds like a January meeting but I can not prove that for they use vague words like weeks). It is likely the two of them had only been familiar with the books for 60 maybe 90 days when they met Martin for the first time and answered R+L=J.

all of those above things are factual claims which I can provide interview links for. (I am assuming the interview claims are accurate, something I am not sure of since people are unreliable narrators.)


I would go further and state things from memory I can not provide interview links off hand. Those are 1) Martins agent talked to Benioff’s agent , and Benioff’s agent is the inciting incident that got Benioff to read the 4 books and 2) D&D before meeting Martin were excited and nervous fans. They were afraid before the winter meeting and they did some studying via internet forums before the 5 hour meeting. The internet forums is where they learned R+L=J. I have read interviews with 1 and 2 before but I can not procure them at this time.

Yet it does not matter. This goal for after Errorname said they were not feeling alright I realised I could annoy and trigger people and that was not my intent. People put themselves into their passions, when they become fans. And defending other people’s honor becomes also about defending their own honor. (Zuko from Avatar gif goes here, also Sokka.)

I fundamentally believefaith D&D had no ill will with the franchise, and they earnestly spent a decade trying to breathe life into it and it was their baby. They acted with honor.

I also believeopinion D&D did not get some important themes about the franchise, snide comments about themes are for book reports from a season 3 interview, and so on. Also D&D were burned out after spending over 10 years of their life with this project and they got sloppy / inelegant due to the exhaustion. But this second part is opinion less so than faith, and honor is about where opinion and faith intersect. Thus questioning these things will trigger many fans and can activated inverted vibes with individuals but also the group aura of conversation.

=====

So yeah D&D are authentic fans I do not question that. Yet I will repeat the earlier statement (paraphrase not literal) all productions have midwives that are divided and not perfect-elegant. Yet they are perfect-as in completed for they came into this world. (word play here for the word perfect has multiple meanings. Love and Duty and the Divide Choice.)


so as you can see DragonEyeSeeker I dropped that segue for a reason. I hope everyone here can disagree or agree in a fun manner 🤞🙂

That is really well researched! :smalleek:

I did not realize they had only started reading the books a few months before they pitched the idea. It explains a lot of the design, production and narrative choices they made early on, and how that affected the overall story later in the show.

[Ionathus]

I am a little worried that the Avatar show will not have enough room to breathe. They are reportedly filming 8 episodes. Even if each live action episode is twice as long as each animated show, we will still be losing 4 episodes worth of content. A lot of people assume the live action show will combine 2 animated episodes together but I am not entirely convinced. I feel like they are more likely to take the best animated episodes and adapt & expand on each of those to form a cohesive 8 episode story. Which means we will miss out on so much weird, fun, side stuff that was contained in episodes that will not make the cut. This will likely be even more noticeable in seasons 2 and 3, IMO.

Listen, I love ATLA like almost no other show. It's an absolute masterpiece.

There is FOR SURE four episodes' worth of fluff in season 1 :smallbiggrin:

[Mordar]

Why would you trust someone to tell a good version of a story when they're too talentless to come up with their own and all they do is adapt someone else's work anyway?

Mostly because they are different skillsets. An expert at making television (or movie, or comic or video games) is far better positioned to adapt a written story into their specific medium. They can't create a new story as well as the author, but that isn't their job. And live-action is sufficiently different than animated to count, just as a comic book is sufficiently different than a novel or short story.

After all, you wouldn't say Rembrandt was a talentless hack because he only adapted things he saw into a painting.


I also can't think of a SINGLE good adaptation where the creator was involved at one point and then left due to creative differences. You have any counterexamples for me?

I think that happened to Stephen King a couple of times, at least insofar as his contributions were not included.


You've already proven you're kinda dumb when you decide to take a series built around the strengths of animated unreality and try to smush it into a medium that is fundamentally not built to work that way.

I think someone doing that is absolutely opening themselves up for failure and criticism, especially a priori, but I have been around long enough to see something like Lord of the Rings or Dune adapted into something that has extremely positive reception.


I've been told enough times that "adaptations aren't for fans of the original" that I've started to wonder who, exactly they ARE for then? People who like watered down versions of an original work?

While I think the answer is "people who aren't fans yet", I agree that too many times this has been taken as "let's change things important to the development of the existing fandom because we believe we know better" instead of "let's consider how to move this into a broader audience while holding to the things that made people willing to spend money on it in the first place". Respect the original fandom, but adapt to a new medium/marketplace/generation. Note to James Gunn: This doesn't mean making Jonathan Kent a suicidal obfuscationist, or Superman emo.

- M

[Ortho]

I am a little worried that the Avatar show will not have enough room to breathe. They are reportedly filming 8 episodes. Even if each live action episode is twice as long as each animated show, we will still be losing 4 episodes worth of content. A lot of people assume the live action show will combine 2 animated episodes together but I am not entirely convinced. I feel like they are more likely to take the best animated episodes and adapt & expand on each of those to form a cohesive 8 episode story. Which means we will miss out on so much weird, fun, side stuff that was contained in episodes that will not make the cut. This will likely be even more noticeable in seasons 2 and 3, IMO.

Well, we can easily cut The Great Divide and The Fortuneteller without anything of value being lost, but that still leaves 2 episodes of content to shrink down....

[Batcathat]

Counting the number of episodes that "fit" only seem relevant if they're basically doing a shot for shot remake, which they hopefully aren't (since that would be just like watching the original, with a slightly different look). Don't get me wrong, it's certainly possible that they'll try to fit too much content into too little time (though at least that's generally better than the opposite, in my experience) but I don't think we'll know that until we actually watch it.

[Ionathus]

I’m pretty sure the Watchmen film is the best example of the adaptation trying to intentionally recreate its source material shot for shot (as much as feasible), right?

Memories of this are foggy but I seem to remember in the lead up to the film, that “faithful” approach was pitched as a big virtue and a reason to go see it. As if adaptation was about trying to perfectly replicate the original, just in a new medium.

But the new medium has its own strengths and weaknesses. I think Watchmen ultimately caught some flak for that creative decision? I wasn’t very plugged into the discourse. Anyway, similar thing here in my book. Adaptations should be allowed to breathe and tell the story from different angles. I couldn’t care less if they preserve every single wacky wayside village the gAang stops at, so long as it’s faithful to the *tone* of Avatar.

[Batcathat]

I’m pretty sure the Watchmen film is the best example of the adaptation trying to intentionally recreate its source material shot for shot (as much as feasible), right?

I don't really remember about the rest of the movie, but at least the ending has some pretty major changes from the comic.

Though I do agree with the larger point, an adaptation that's just exactly the same story as the original seem a bit unnecessary (especially when it's not even from like a book to a movie, but from a tv show to a different kind of tv show).

[EggKookoo]

I’m pretty sure the Watchmen film is the best example of the adaptation trying to intentionally recreate its source material shot for shot (as much as feasible), right?

Memories of this are foggy but I seem to remember in the lead up to the film, that “faithful” approach was pitched as a big virtue and a reason to go see it. As if adaptation was about trying to perfectly replicate the original, just in a new medium.

But the new medium has its own strengths and weaknesses. I think Watchmen ultimately caught some flak for that creative decision? I wasn’t very plugged into the discourse. Anyway, similar thing here in my book. Adaptations should be allowed to breathe and tell the story from different angles. I couldn’t care less if they preserve every single wacky wayside village the gAang stops at, so long as it’s faithful to the *tone* of Avatar.

Watchmen ultimately failed (IMO, I know people liked it) partly because it tried to recreate too many shots from the comic. I think Snyder was hung up too much on that kind of thing. The problem is, the comic was presented the way it was because it had twelve issues to spread the story out. Moore designed the panels -- and yes, Alan Moore very specifically designed each and every panel, giving Gibbons multi-paragraph descriptions for a single panel in some cases -- to unfold the story at a pace that worked at that scale. The thing has to be revisualzied to fit within ~2 hours, and Snyder wasn't interested in that.

Watchmen is a story about the journey. The core plot isn't super remarkable -- evil genius comes up with what is essentiually a "nuke NY" plan and the heroes have to unravel the clues in time. What makes it stand out is how it all unfolds, and how all the pieces work with each other. All the little clues and callbacks. It's hard to fit all that in a short runtime, so you're left with half-resolved threads and a stock superhero story that feels like its hinting at something deeper (which it was).

But rant aside, content has never been the problem. It's easy to whip up more ideas, characters, "scene moments," and all that. What's hard is good storytelling, which requires self-discipline. You need to be able to remove your great idea if it doesn't serve the story, which is a hit to the ego. So many modern movies and shows get plot-bloat and everything feels so rushed that nothing feels significant.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Counting the number of episodes that "fit" only seem relevant if they're basically doing a shot for shot remake, which they hopefully aren't (since that would be just like watching the original, with a slightly different look). Don't get me wrong, it's certainly possible that they'll try to fit too much content into too little time (though at least that's generally better than the opposite, in my experience) but I don't think we'll know that until we actually watch it.
Also, while it's got an ongoing plot, AtLA is a US cartoon with episodic pacing, especially in season 1: there's a plot of the week, the Gaang gets in trouble, and then there's a breakthrough that solves the problem.

It's not too complicated to take the larger plot threads and slim down the "problem of the week" aspect, telling something in a serial format instead.

[t209]

So for meme purposes based on casting.
The Mechanist is a graduate of Community College, Appa is planning to open Tea vendor, and Ozai is being yelled “I AM THE AVATAR” or going to be stuck on an island (or hell).

[Mordar]

I’m pretty sure the Watchmen film is the best example of the adaptation trying to intentionally recreate its source material shot for shot (as much as feasible), right?

Memories of this are foggy but I seem to remember in the lead up to the film, that “faithful” approach was pitched as a big virtue and a reason to go see it. As if adaptation was about trying to perfectly replicate the original, just in a new medium.

Maybe the first two Harry Potter movies? I think those had a lot of commentary about being faithful depictions.

- M

[Trixie_One]

Maybe the first two Harry Potter movies? I think those had a lot of commentary about being faithful depictions.

- M

I'd go with Sin City myself. That's as close as you're likely ever going to get for sticking what is on the page on the screen as literally as possible.

Harry Potter has a lot of character decisions where text is shifted about and/or altered which results in some doing better and some doing a lot worse. I remember many complaints from Ron fans where it was felt he was being put down to make Hermionie look better.

[Mordar]

I'd go with Sin City myself. That's as close as you're likely ever going to get for sticking what is on the page on the screen as literally as possible.

Harry Potter has a lot of character decisions where text is shifted about and/or altered which results in some doing better and some doing a lot worse. I remember many complaints from Ron fans where it was felt he was being put down to make Hermionie look better.

Wasn't that from Prisoner forward, though? Thought the Columbus films were considered pretty straight ahead.

- M

[Prime32]

I've been seeing discussion of "we'll show Gyatso's last stand, he fights Fire Lord Sozin 1-on-1", and whether that would actually add anything or even detract from the experience. Because when Aang (still in denial about the Airbenders being extinct) opened a door and encountered Gyatso's skeleton surrounded by dead Fire Nation soldiers it was shocking... but if you think about it too hard, in order for that exact setpiece to happen the way it did he probably just locked himself in with them and sucked the air out of the room, which is way less interesting than the emotional impact of the discovery scene.

I can point to a case where this worked - the anime adaptation of Fate/stay night's first route depicted Archer's off-screen last stand against Berserker, which became one of the most famous scenes in that adaptation and spawned the GAR meme (a character so awesome that he turns male viewers gay). But that wasn't quite a case of filling in unnecessary blanks. See, Archer is a mysterious figure whose full story is only explained in F/SN's second route (an alternate timeline where he escapes a serious injury at the start of the story), before which the audience only received cryptic hints. And this added scene had him make even more cryptic comments while pulling out cool new powers that shocked even the villains... then killed him without giving any explicit answers, all while re-emphasising the biggest clue to his mystery (one subtle enough that not all anime-only viewers would pick up on it, thereby blowing their minds when someone pointed it out).

[Rynjin]

The whole thing about "we'll show Gyatso's last stand" was what tipped me off that these writers really don't understand Avatar very well.

Gyatso killing those Fire Nation soldiers is an understandable but lamentable lapse of his powerful ideology of peace. It's a subtle indicator of the path that Aang may need to walk, that he may need to let go of his pacifistic ideals to protect those he cares about.

To me, glorifying it by showing it as this "badass" moment completely undermines the overall theme of the series, if only in a small way. It's one of those things where enough small pokes are going to add up to big holes later.

[Ionathus]

Wasn't that from Prisoner forward, though? Thought the Columbus films were considered pretty straight ahead.

- M

The Columbus films were much more faithful (the most faithful in my opinion; I always liked the first two the most as a kid as a result), but even they indulged in Ron-bashing.

Somebody did a breakdown of the Devil's Snare scene in book 1 vs. movie 1. It's pretty stark when you look at the differences: in the book, Ron & Harry are trapped and Hermione has the knowledge and skills to save them, but is panicking and needs Ron, who is keeping his cool, to talk her through it ("Start a fire!" "But there's no wood!" "Are you a witch or not?!").

The movie almost entirely flips this scene on its head. It's Hermione who keeps her cool, and has to talk Ron through not panicking...which he fails to do, so she has to resort to plan B anyway.

Book Ron does a much better job of being the "practical" one to Book Hermione's "intellectual" role. Movie Ron, by comparison, gets all of his practicality and "everyday wizard knowledge" eaten by Movie Hermione, who often serves both roles.

[Prime32]

I keep thinking about how this will be the third take on Avatar, but Avatar itself is suspiciously similar to the earlier The Adventure of Dai, which did some things better and some things worse (e.g. its Sokka equivalent is an amazing character but its Katara is terrible).

And Adventure of Dai didn't have that dilemma about killing the BBEG at the end - instead the protagonist's arc was his fear of becoming detached from humanity by tapping too deeply into his power, which ends up being resolved in a similar way to Gohan vs Perfect Cell ("A monster, you call me? That's right, I'll even become a monster if it means killing you. What's wrong, you've always said the strong deserve to bully the weak. Isn't this what you wanted?").

[Ionathus]

The whole thing about "we'll show Gyatso's last stand" was what tipped me off that these writers really don't understand Avatar very well.

Gyatso killing those Fire Nation soldiers is an understandable but lamentable lapse of his powerful ideology of peace. It's a subtle indicator of the path that Aang may need to walk, that he may need to let go of his pacifistic ideals to protect those he cares about.

To me, glorifying it by showing it as this "badass" moment completely undermines the overall theme of the series, if only in a small way. It's one of those things where enough small pokes are going to add up to big holes later.

Yeah, if they focus on making him look like a badass it will undermine some things for sure. But those facts are present in the original too: it's already canon that Gyatso, a pacifist, killed a bunch of soldiers.

And as far as I can tell, there's no requirement that they fixate on how cool he looks suffocating frontline cannon fodder. They could just as easily put the focus on his reluctance to do it, or his debate over compromising on personal ideals to protect others...or maybe just straight-up hypocrisy. I can think of several ways they could play it that would work. Just because you portray something (even if it's a hero doing it) doesn't automatically mean you're endorsing their actions. It's all about the framing...which we haven't seen yet and thus can't make judgments on.

[Rynjin]

Maybe, but I doubt they'd draw attention to it if it was supposed to be lowkey.

[Ramza00]

The whole thing about "we'll show Gyatso's last stand" was what tipped me off that these writers really don't understand Avatar very well.

Gyatso killing those Fire Nation soldiers is an understandable but lamentable lapse of his powerful ideology of peace. It's a subtle indicator of the path that Aang may need to walk, that he may need to let go of his pacifistic ideals to protect those he cares about.

To me, glorifying it by showing it as this "badass" moment completely undermines the overall theme of the series, if only in a small way. It's one of those things where enough small pokes are going to add up to big holes later.

yeah the only way to actually show Gyatso last scene and not make it mess with the avatar themes

is to not make Gyatso epic as in cool and suave

but instead to play with Surprise and Anticipation, to make Gyatso surprise the firebenders and then the end result is a tragedy

for example the Fellowship scene with the Bridge of Khazad dum with gandalf, hace Gyatso surprise the firebenders where the peaceful man chooses to end his life early / choose his fate via removing the oxygen in the room. Only sadness, only tragedy, but these firebenders will not murder a fellowship of other people.

[LaZodiac]

I've been seeing discussion of "we'll show Gyatso's last stand, he fights Fire Lord Sozin 1-on-1", and whether that would actually add anything or even detract from the experience. Because when Aang (still in denial about the Airbenders being extinct) opened a door and encountered Gyatso's skeleton surrounded by dead Fire Nation soldiers it was shocking... but if you think about it too hard, in order for that exact setpiece to happen the way it did he probably just locked himself in with them and sucked the air out of the room, which is way less interesting than the emotional impact of the discovery scene.

I can point to a case where this worked - the anime adaptation of Fate/stay night's first route depicted Archer's off-screen last stand against Berserker, which became one of the most famous scenes in that adaptation and spawned the GAR meme (a character so awesome that he turns male viewers gay). But that wasn't quite a case of filling in unnecessary blanks. See, Archer is a mysterious figure whose full story is only explained in F/SN's second route (an alternate timeline where he escapes a serious injury at the start of the story), before which the audience only received cryptic hints. And this added scene had him make even more cryptic comments while pulling out cool new powers that shocked even the villains... then killed him without giving any explicit answers, all while re-emphasising the biggest clue to his mystery (one subtle enough that not all anime-only viewers would pick up on it, thereby blowing their minds when someone pointed it out).

Everyone's already covered the stuff on why showing Gyatso's actions (implicitly showing them in a positive light) instead of just letting the impact of this pacifist monk's skeleton surrounded by dead men who never so much as got near him is categorically bad, and instead am just going to say "I agree that showing the details of something once left hidden has potential to be good, I just don't think it works here".

Also, imo, the only way to make Gyatsu killing all those people not come off as cool is if it is treated with all the absolute abject horror of the first time we've seen an Airbender strangle someone to death. There is no other way this functions otherwise- and hey maybe we don't need to see a nice old man break his vow of pacifism by strangling a dozen people and himself to death.

[Lord Raziere]

"we'll show Gyatso's last stand, he fights Fire Lord Sozin 1-on-1"

Detract.

and not just because of showing Gyatso killing. they're Star warsifying it by making the mentor get personally killed by the big bad.

Let the atrocity be impersonal, from a distance, and nothing special compared to all the other Air Nomads killed. otherwise the real decay of focusing on the personal drama to the detriment of the overall world will set in.

[DragonEyeSeeker]

Every quote from the writers that comes out about this show depresses me more and more. I am fearful we are approaching Witcher levels of the writing team not understanding the property.

[Prime32]

The Columbus films were much more faithful (the most faithful in my opinion; I always liked the first two the most as a kid as a result), but even they indulged in Ron-bashing.

Somebody did a breakdown of the Devil's Snare scene in book 1 vs. movie 1. It's pretty stark when you look at the differences: in the book, Ron & Harry are trapped and Hermione has the knowledge and skills to save them, but is panicking and needs Ron, who is keeping his cool, to talk her through it ("Start a fire!" "But there's no wood!" "Are you a witch or not?!").

The movie almost entirely flips this scene on its head. It's Hermione who keeps her cool, and has to talk Ron through not panicking...which he fails to do, so she has to resort to plan B anyway.

Book Ron does a much better job of being the "practical" one to Book Hermione's "intellectual" role. Movie Ron, by comparison, gets all of his practicality and "everyday wizard knowledge" eaten by Movie Hermione, who often serves both roles.

Just wanted to link a series of videos someone made comparing the Book and Movie characterisation

Movie Ron was an ass compared to Book Ron (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/K4NM_9Z11-o)
Book Hermione was a psychopath who exists to explain how Gryffindors become Death Eaters (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IaUO5Ljycn4)

[Ronnoc]

Detract.

and not just because of showing Gyatso killing. they're Star warsifying it by making the mentor get personally killed by the big bad.

Let the atrocity be impersonal, from a distance, and nothing special compared to all the other Air Nomads killed. otherwise the real decay of focusing on the personal drama to the detriment of the overall world will set in.

I think there are two potential benefits to this scene, first Gyatso having to fight the firebenders can be played for horror and tragedy preserving the message and setting up Aang's conflict in the finale. We know Airbenders (Gyatso, Yaangchen) have chosen the needs of the world over their own spiritual needs. Will Aang make the same choice.

Second while the genocide as a whole may be impersonal Sozin and Gyatso almost certainly knew each other and likely were friends at one time. Gyatso was Roku's airbending teacher and friend. I'd be shocked if he hadn't been at Roku's wedding at least.

Allowing a confrontation lets us establish Sozin's actions as a personal betrayal of his friends ahead of "The Avatar and the Firelord" in season three.

[t209]

https://m.tapas.io/episode/182385
I just had to check this comic after that intro was leaked (briefly) but discussed on this video. (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BAoVoXqrnT0)
Aside from changes, part of me wonder if that comic inspired the prologue…maybe if they should go with Last of Us where entire intro had first hand view of beginning crisis (either infected outbreak or the Indonesia scene from HBO).

[TeChameleon]

The more I hear about this project, the more concerned I am.

The showrunners just... don't seem to have a very good grasp of the primary narrative arcs of the various characters, even if they are fans of the show. I'm withholding judgement as best I can right now, but I'm honestly not sure I'll even bother with the Netflix-ization of Avatar. The line about making it so that people who are big fans of Game of Thrones in particular is waving red flags like it's China's entrance at the Olympics.

... and going from the trailer stills, why is everything so grey?

[Errorname]

The showrunners just... don't seem to have a very good grasp of the primary narrative arcs of the various characters, even if they are fans of the show. I'm withholding judgement as best I can right now, but I'm honestly not sure I'll even bother with the Netflix-ization of Avatar. The line about making it so that people who are big fans of Game of Thrones in particular is waving red flags like it's China's entrance at the Olympics.

There's a lot of quotes that have a "Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" quality to them. Very much not encouraging.

[DragonEyeSeeker]

There's a lot of quotes that have a "Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" quality to them. Very much not encouraging.

I am definitely going to watch it because it sounds like a glorious train wreck.

I hope I am wrong though and their vision comes together.

[Errorname]

Alright, I'm calling it, this is way worse looking than the Shyamalan film. It might still end up being better if they can avoid the scripting and direction problems the movie had, but from a purely prop and set design perspective this looks so much worse.

[Ionathus]

I'm usually not a "watch the trailer" kind of person. But the comment below finally tipped my curiosity over the edge.

Initial thoughts: I like it. I like the visual style. The design is a lot more faithful to the cartoon, and I can pick out some very iconic shots in here. The actors look like the characters in the original, which was a complaint I always had about the Shyamalan film -- that they barely cared about evoking the characters and were just sticking random people into cosplay costumes (Aasif Mandvi as Commander Zhao? Really?). In particular, I think Sokka's casting is fantastic. It took him two seconds in the trailer to evoke the original Sokka's personality and win me over.

My main complaint is consistent with a main complaint from the Shyamalan film: bending still doesn't look "right" in live action. It's too slow, because of course it is, because it's actual humans doing the stunts. It would look weird if they were moving too supernaturally fast. But in the cartoon they have to move supernaturally fast for the bending attacks to feel energetic and interesting. It's concerning that I think this even while watching the trailer, because trailers have the luxury of cutting together the most intense and exciting bits.

I still think they could pull it off. Maybe slightly slower/"realistic" fights will work, once I have a chance to acclimate to the pace of this live-action series. But that's gonna be my main concern going in.


Alright, I'm calling it, this is way worse looking than the Shyamalan film. It might still end up being better if they can avoid the scripting and direction problems the movie had, but from a purely prop and set design perspective this looks so much worse.

I'm not sure I see what you mean. What parts look worse to you? I hated the prop and set design of the film and thought a lot of it looked cheap and generic -- the little I saw from this trailer strikes me as having a lot more personality and charm. Plus, you know, the Fire Nation isn't "a high school in Pennsylvania" so points for that.

[Errorname]

I'm not sure I see what you mean. What parts look worse to you? I hated the prop and set design of the film and thought a lot of it looked cheap and generic -- the little I saw from this trailer strikes me as having a lot more personality and charm.

A lot of it feels like cosplay to me, like they wanted to directly translate the show designs into live action rather than taking the spirit and creating looks that actually felt real and natural.


Plus, you know, the Fire Nation isn't "a high school in Pennsylvania" so points for that.

The Fire Nation capitol did not look good, that's true, and it's not the only massive fumble on the production design side the movie made either.

[Prime32]

Final trailer released, the series comes out tomorrow


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEmlE9Ianuo

[Peelee]

Alright, I'm calling it, this is way worse looking than the Shyamalan film. It might still end up being better if they can avoid the scripting and direction problems the movie had, but from a purely prop and set design perspective this looks so much worse.

Legit question: have you seen the M. Night film? Because while i don't understand the point in redoing an animated show in love action, and don't think it will be as good no matter what, i quite literally cannot imagine it being worse than the movie. Like, I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it's really hard for me to believe that he (or others) didn't actively try to sabotage that thing. It's not a normal bad movie. It's advanced bad.


The Fire Nation capitol

Capital. A capitol is the primary legislative building for a government.

[Errorname]

Legit question: have you seen the M. Night film? Because while i don't understand the point in redoing an animated show in love action, and don't think it will be as good no matter what, i quite literally cannot imagine it being worse than the movie. Like, I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it's really hard for me to believe that he (or others) didn't actively try to sabotage that thing. It's not a normal bad movie. It's advanced bad.

The writing, acting and cinematography in the movie are unbelievably bad, but I think the actual costumes and props generally looked nice. That's all I was saying was better in the film.

[Peelee]

The writing, acting and cinematography in the movie are unbelievably bad, but I think the actual costumes and props generally looked nice. That's all I was saying was better in the film.

Ah, i misunderstood. My bad!

[Ionathus]

i quite literally cannot imagine it being worse than the movie. Like, I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it's really hard for me to believe that he (or others) didn't actively try to sabotage that thing. It's not a normal bad movie. It's advanced bad.

Hear, hear!

The Shyamalan film is the worst movie I've ever seen, hands-down. The story and special effects got meme'd the most, but even basic cinematography choices are shockingly bad. I kind of agree with your suspicions: somebody with creative control wanted to kill that movie.

Like: Try to watch the clip below, and somehow ignore the really bad writing choices, line delivery, and special effects. Just pay attention to the basic pacing of the scene, the timing of the dialogue, and all the characters' physical blocking as they move around the set. It's...really bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR2kbOK8i6I

[Peelee]

Hear, hear!

The Shyamalan film is the worst movie I've ever seen, hands-down. The story and special effects got meme'd the most, but even basic cinematography choices are shockingly bad. I kind of agree with your suspicions: somebody with creative control wanted to kill that movie.
I used to work for a movie theater back in the day, projection. This was with 35mm, so when a print came in, whoever was on shift had to build it, and whoever closed had to screen it. More often than not it was the same person. Anyway, getting paid to watch movies sounds better than it is. Don't get me wrong, it was a great way to earn like twelve bucks, but you see a lot of crap. I got paid for watching movies and every so often i still wanted a refund.

I missed TLA when it came out because i hadn't seen the show and didn't care. Years later, watched the show, loved it because, well, obviously, and more years later i decide to check out the film because it's on Netflix and I'm intrigued. I've seen the depths of Hollywood, surely it can't be as bad as everyone made it out to be. Like, sure, terrible, but might be fun.

I cannot say with certainty it is the worst movie I've ever seen. But i can say that if i had to think what was, it would absolutely be on the short list. Holy hell that was a masterpiece of crap.

Like: Try to watch the clip below, and somehow ignore the really bad writing choices, line delivery, and special effects. Just pay attention to the basic pacing of the scene, the timing of the dialogue, and all the characters' physical blocking as they move around the set. It's...really bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR2kbOK8i6I
Is it the Earth Kingdom scene? It's gotta be the Earth Kingdom scene. If it's not, then it should be.

[clicks]

Yep. :smallamused:

[Errorname]

Last Airbender has a real solid claim to worst movie ever made, if you're judging relative to expectations. There's really no excusing just how badly it turned out.

[EggKookoo]

The writing, acting and cinematography in the movie are unbelievably bad, but I think the actual costumes and props generally looked nice. That's all I was saying was better in the film.

The music was quite nice. Flow Like Water is still a favorite.

[Trixie_One]

Is it the Earth Kingdom scene? It's gotta be the Earth Kingdom scene. If it's not, then it should be.

Rufftoon did some great illustrated breakdowns of why the movie was rubbish back in the day with that scene especially coming in for a beating

https://www.deviantart.com/rufftoon/art/Last-Airbender-spoilers-01-170091089
https://www.deviantart.com/rufftoon/art/Storyboard-Lesson-175387734

[Peelee]

Rufftoon did some great illustrated breakdowns of why the movie was rubbish back in the day with that scene especially coming in for a beating

https://www.deviantart.com/rufftoon/art/Last-Airbender-spoilers-01-170091089
https://www.deviantart.com/rufftoon/art/Storyboard-Lesson-175387734

No embellishment here, i actually laughed when i saw the rock appear on screen. Like, the ridiculousness of everything else in that scene (and the entire film) aside, the whole (poorly done) build up just for that one stone....

Anyway, at this point i feel like I'm heading for derailing the thread so I'll stop beating up on the movie. Still gonna check out those links, of course. :smallwink:

[Mordar]

I cannot say with certainty it is the worst movie I've ever seen. But i can say that if i had to think what was, it would absolutely be on the short list. Holy hell that was a masterpiece of crap.


Last Airbender has a real solid claim to worst movie ever made, if you're judging relative to expectations. There's really no excusing just how badly it turned out.

My personal standard is "Is it better than Robot Jox?"

I swear I don't understand how that movie has a 40/82 RT and 2.5 on IMDB.

- M

[Ionathus]

Alright, the show's out...we doin' this, gang? :smallcool:

Wife and I watched the first two episodes last night. We'd actually thought that they were releasing weekly, but all of book 1 is out for binging right now! Weirdly, I kind of miss weekly airings. Feels like it gives me more to discuss and anticipate. Netflix does it for some of its original series, but they released the whole block here...maybe they're worried about dropoff and want to get people several episodes deep to give the show a better chance?


As I predicted from the trailer, I really enjoy Sokka. I think his actor is the strongest of the core characters, and he really "gets" the character he's playing. He's charming in different ways than cartoon Sokka, while still preserving his core personality. Other acting standouts are Suki and Zhao.
Zuko and Iroh are definitely not their cartoon selves, but their dynamic is still fun and it's going in a unique and interesting direction. Aang & Katara are okay enough, but definitely shakier. I'll cut child actors a lot of slack though.
The show doesn't seem to know how violent it wants to be. We go from a "bloodless" bending fight like those common in the cartoon, to somebody being burned alive onscreen execution-style, to a massive battle scene with no gore but an obviously high bodycount, to somebody launching warspears that very glaringly don't impale anybody...I feel like you can get away with a fuzzy relationship with violence in a cartoon, but in live-action some of those scenes hit different. And the "burning alive" thing was just way out of place, the most egregious act of violence by a wide margin. Even if it's done by an irredeemable villain, it's still way too dark. And what's weirder, the rest of the first two episodes don't really ever go that dark again.
I like most of the worldbuilding they added in. Example: putting a bit more emphasis on Kyoshi Island's culture and political stance was a cool touch -- it helped make the world feel alive and less like "just a bunch of towns waiting for The Avatar to come solve their problems." Which wasn't bad to be clear, but it probably made more sense in a 20-minute cartoon than it would've in a 60-minute miniseries.
Too many speeches. None of them feel natural. GranGran's is the worst offender, by a wide margin -- it's the worst 90 seconds of the first two episodes, possibly the season. We'll see.


My overall verdict after two episodes: It's okay. Not amazing, weaker than the cartoon's first few episodes (which were the weakest of the run, though still a high bar to clear). Some parts are very exciting and do a great job of fleshing out the world. Others have me scratching my head. A lot of it is "just okay" in comparison to the source material.

Might share some spoilery thoughts later once others chime in. The creators made a lot of minor storytelling changes that I don't understand. I'm not a "change is always bad" hardliner when it comes to adaptations, but there should be a reason. And a lot of things they seemingly just changed for change's sake, at least so far as I can tell. Choosing how to introduce a character or how to give exposition. Example: Sozin's attack on the Air Nomads is the first major scene we see. And while I understand their probable motivations (heighten the sense of danger and tragedy, drive home the overarching conflict), it just...muddles the entire opening sequence of the show. It necessitates weird clunky exposition that wouldn't be necessary if we'd started the way the cartoon does: with Katara and Sokka finding Aang and slowly uncovering the situation. Starting with the main trio worked really naturally in the cartoon, and I can't find any reason not to do the same here.

[EggKookoo]

We've seen the first episode only. My impression is similar to Ionathus'. Good, not great, not anything close to bad. Looking forward to watching more.

It does feel a little cheap, visually. The outfits look like costumes and the locations look like digitally-extended sets. I don't really mind it but it's a bit distracting. Everyone in the Southern Water Tribe wears the exact same shade of blue, with the same level of wear & tear and weathering? You see that in animation because they tend to work with a set color palette and it can get complicated to individualize characters too much. But if you're going to convert it to live action, leverage the format.

In principle I liked the opening with the Air Nomads. It sets up Aang's arc right away. In practice, yeah, it made them feel like they needed to shoehorn a lot of exposition in. They could have gotten away with less and still showed much of what they did. We don't need to know the world history right off the bat. Just "Fire Nation uses comet to fuel an attack" and such. Fill it in later.

Still, I was expecting much worse, so I was pleasantly surprised. Still not seeing much that justifies its existence (i.e. the animated version so far is still superior). But it's not a bad way to spend an hour.

[Ionathus]

In principle I liked the opening with the Air Nomads. It sets up Aang's arc right away. In practice, yeah, it made them feel like they needed to shoehorn a lot of exposition in. They could have gotten away with less and still showed much of what they did. We don't need to know the world history right off the bat. Just "Fire Nation uses comet to fuel an attack" and such. Fill it in later.

I think it would've worked for me more if it was a much shorter scene, and done in medias res. Give us a few shots of the southern air temple at night, a few shots of the firebenders attacking, a clear visual indication that Sozin's Comet is giving the firebenders an edge (which we never really got; mostly it just looked like "oh these firebending dudes are stronger than these airbenders, guess that's just how the pecking order is"), and maybe a wide shot that shows the grand scale of the attack -- this isn't just an isolated attack, it's a campaign of genocide. Show Sozin yelling "where is the Avatar?!" and cut to Aang in the storm, getting overwhelmed and freezing himself and Appa underwater...

...fade to black, cut to the south pole. That could set up the stakes quickly and clearly without getting too exposition-dense.

I think their approach caused the most problems for Aang, though. Introducing us to Aang at the air temple instead of the south pole, and giving us his Avatar revelation right away as his first big scene, forced Gordon Cormier to do a lot of heavy lifting before he gets any chance to charm the audience as a goofy fun-loving kid.

[EggKookoo]

I think it would've worked for me more if it was a much shorter scene, and done in medias res. Give us a few shots of the southern air temple at night, a few shots of the firebenders attacking, a clear visual indication that Sozin's Comet is giving the firebenders an edge (which we never really got; mostly it just looked like "oh these firebending dudes are stronger than these airbenders, guess that's just how the pecking order is"), and maybe a wide shot that shows the grand scale of the attack -- this isn't just an isolated attack, it's a campaign of genocide. Show Sozin yelling "where is the Avatar?!" and cut to Aang in the storm, getting overwhelmed and freezing himself and Appa underwater...

...fade to black, cut to the south pole. That could set up the stakes quickly and clearly without getting too exposition-dense.

Absolutely.

I had forgotten about the comet increasing the firebenders' power until they mentioned it explicitly. They could have made that more clear, since it keys directly into the larger plotline.


I think their approach caused the most problems for Aang, though. Introducing us to Aang at the air temple instead of the south pole, and giving us his Avatar revelation right away as his first big scene, forced Gordon Cormier to do a lot of heavy lifting before he gets any chance to charm the audience as a goofy fun-loving kid.

True. I found myself liking the kid despite everything. His line delivery is unusual. Maybe the bald head was suggestive, but something about his performance reminded me of the way the animated 60s Charlie Brown spoke.

[Errorname]

Sozin's attack on the Air Nomads is the first major scene we see. And while I understand their probable motivations (heighten the sense of danger and tragedy, drive home the overarching conflict), it just...muddles the entire opening sequence of the show. It necessitates weird clunky exposition that wouldn't be necessary if we'd started the way the cartoon does: with Katara and Sokka finding Aang and slowly uncovering the situation. Starting with the main trio worked really naturally in the cartoon, and I can't find any reason not to do the same here.

Last Airbender's opening three episodes are such a strong start to the show, they really nailed it and manage to introduce a lot of characters and worldbuilding very naturally while keeping a good pace, and while I do get the instinct to try and tell your own version of the story and not just beat-for-beat copy the structure, they should have just copied it.

[InvisibleBison]

I've watched the first six episodes, and I think it's quite good. The start of the show is definitely the weakest section; the whole flashback section feels rather clumsy and they actually repeated a big chunk of exposition in practically subsequent scenes*. But once the story got to the South Pole it picked up quite a bit. I particularly liked Sokka and Suki's interactions, which I think were significantly better than in the animated show (in no small part because it gives a better explanation for why Suki would be interested in helping Sokka). I also thought they did a good job of both splicing together independent episodes from the animated show into unified stories.

EDIT: Ok, there is one thing I don't like about the show: They seem to have mostly forgotten about the names of the nations. They're always saying "firebenders" when they mean "Fire Nation", "waterbenders" when they mean "Water Tribe", etc. It's a small thing, but it irritates me.


*Both the opening credits and Gyatso telling Aang he's the Avatar, which happened almost immediately afterwards, had exposition about what the Avatar was and how it worked. Either one could easily have been cut without losing anything.

[t209]

Watched the Netflix Avatar
I think I was right about it having people being burnt alive by firebending without rating of the kid’s show.

[Ionathus]

Watched the Netflix Avatar
I think I was right about it having people being burnt alive by firebending without rating of the kid’s show.

I was pretty shocked by that scene. Especially given how nonlethal the action has been otherwise so far. (E.g. plenty of offscreen or implied deaths, but minimal blood or fatal onscreen wounds)

[Tyndmyr]

I have slowly soured more and more on the concept specifically of adapting anime to live action. I always thought it was dumb, now I think it's even dumber.

I'll also admit that with the deluge of absolute irredeemable trash adaptations we've gotten recently I'm kinda soured on the whole idea at all. Even the ones that are kinda okay do something to completely ruin it by the end of a season (eg. Wheel of Time).

I've been told enough times that "adaptations aren't for fans of the original" that I've started to wonder who, exactly they ARE for then? People who like watered down versions of an original work?

There are exceptions. The recent One Piece adaptation is a delight. But, yeah, some 99% of live action adaptations of anime do not seem to have a clear purpose, and are notably inferior to the original thing.

The same is mostly true of the Disney live action adaptations. Most of them are competently shot, but offer very little other than a change of style. Is that enough? I don't think a realistic aesthetic is inherently superior to any other. I am not a big fan of the original avatar, but I think I'm on safe grounds when I say the first live action adaptation was absolutely terrible, satisfied basically nobody, and delivered nothing new artistically. On the bright side, it would be hard for this one to do worse. Still, I have difficulty imagining it being as popular as the animated show.


I’m pretty sure the Watchmen film is the best example of the adaptation trying to intentionally recreate its source material shot for shot (as much as feasible), right?

Memories of this are foggy but I seem to remember in the lead up to the film, that “faithful” approach was pitched as a big virtue and a reason to go see it. As if adaptation was about trying to perfectly replicate the original, just in a new medium.

Ehh, the entire grand plan and ending was changed. The shot for shot wasn't really the problem, many of those are actually glorious, and the way the graphic novel was made helped with that. The author literally blocked out apartments to make sure they made spatial sense....even though this isn't very important to the plot. It's one of those things that makes adapting it easier, since it removes potential conflicts.

I actually like the movie, but where the movie is criticized, its because of changes.

An adaptation almost has to make some changes, but it appears to be very challenging to do so and not lose the spirit of the original thing in at least some measure.

[EggKookoo]

I actually like the movie, but where the movie is criticized, its because of changes.

Watchmen, IMO, is pretty strongly a journey-over-destination kind of story. I mean the original comic version. If you summarize it, it can come across as trivial or banal. What makes it special is all the details. Many people understandably focus on the visuals, but there's a lot of subtle storytelling in it. To pick just one moment in particular, the entire point (at least as I understand it) of Jon taking Laurie through all of her memories on Mars was to make her come to an uncomfortable conclusion on her own. The intention, I think, is that it basically wouldn't have worked otherwise. The need to have her put the pieces together herself justifies the extended drama of the sequence.

In the movie, after aping the various visuals from the scene, in the end Jon just comes out and tells her.

It ticked me off in the theater. I was so waiting to see how they'd handle that moment. "You're not my fa- You're not may fa-" Ruined.

(There was more like that throughout the film, but that was the one that really hit me when I first saw it.)

[Tyndmyr]

Yeah, there's a few little moments that, in shortening, lose the subtlety. I recently reread the graphic novel, and there are definitely a few spots that hit a touch different because of that.

I mean, I get it. Tom Bombadil had to be cut from LOTR as well, and some people definitely were salty about that....but time is finite in movies, and you have to cut somewhere.

[EggKookoo]

I give Bombadill's excising a pass because AFAIK even Tolkien mused about cutting him from the book. He feels very peripheral.

Cutting for time makes sense, of course. But some stories lose their integrity if you do that too much. Watchmen would work much better as a streaming miniseries than a ~2 hour movie. Avatar (to try to keep us on topic) is much the same. The M Night movie was terrible on a number of levels, but I'm not sure you could compress the first season into a single movie any more than you could with Watchmen.

[DragonEyeSeeker]

Hear, hear!

The Shyamalan film is the worst movie I've ever seen, hands-down. The story and special effects got meme'd the most, but even basic cinematography choices are shockingly bad. I kind of agree with your suspicions: somebody with creative control wanted to kill that movie.

Like: Try to watch the clip below, and somehow ignore the really bad writing choices, line delivery, and special effects. Just pay attention to the basic pacing of the scene, the timing of the dialogue, and all the characters' physical blocking as they move around the set. It's...really bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR2kbOK8i6I

It is worse than I remember. :smalleek:

[Dargaron]

It is worse than I remember. :smalleek:

That clip mostly makes me wish there was more boomerang co-op moves with Aang and Sokka in the series. Where Sokka throws the boomerang and Aang uses his airbending to make it hit impossible trick shots or something.

[Ionathus]

Alright, I finished season 1 last night. My verdict is roughly the same as before, though probably with some reduced goodwill now that I've given them a chance and seen where they were going with it.

I have several gripes but my main one is that the show seems terrified we're going to miss an explanation or detail, and so it goes out of its way to rehash the same information multiple times. The speeches in particular just wore me down over the course of the last few episodes -- we'd get a nice storytelling moment with some good character scenes, everything would resolve, and then we'd get another damned monologue to explain the point of the scene we just watched.

I don't understand how the (Netflix) show's creators could say "we want this to be a darker, more mature take on the Avatar world" and then somehow the writing treats me with BIGGER kid gloves than the original show did. The original show respects you as an audience member and doesn't try to constantly explain itself. This show is all about explaining things, in really boring, uninspired ways. That's when I lost my goodwill for the show, which can really make it hard to ignore all the little missteps.

Ultimately it's still "fine." It's not a terrible show by any means, and it introduces a few fun wrinkles that I enjoyed. But it's very uninspired compared to the source material. Honestly, watching the original and then this adaptation might be a good exercise for aspiring writers who want a masterclass in how a great scene can be killed by glacial pacing or too much exposition/explanation.

[Batcathat]

I have several gripes but my main one is that the show seems terrified we're going to miss an explanation or detail, and so it goes out of its way to rehash the same information multiple times. The speeches in particular just wore me down over the course of the last few episodes -- we'd get a nice storytelling moment with some good character scenes, everything would resolve, and then we'd get another damned monologue to explain the point of the scene we just watched.

Yeah, I've only watched the first episode but my main reaction was wondering whether anyone involved was even vaguely familiar with "show, don't tell", with Aang talking to Appa about how he felt about being the Avatar being a particularly painful example.

[EggKookoo]

I have several gripes but my main one is that the show seems terrified we're going to miss an explanation or detail, and so it goes out of its way to rehash the same information multiple times.

This is a consequence of the extreme corporatization of modern entertainment. Shows and movies are so expensive that the bigwig execs feel the need to get "involved" to make sure the company's investments are protected. But these guys typically have no taste or imagination for the content itself. They have no patience to get nuance and context, and they assume the audience won't either, so they insist that the script explains everything.

It's compounded by weak writing. Good writers demonstrate, poor writers explain.

[warty goblin]

Watched the first episode of this with the fiancé the other night. I've never seen any Avatar stuff except a couple reviews of the movie, I'm pretty sure she's watched all of the original cartoon.

The opening info dump is fine. Then they repeat the same damn thing again, because special destined chosen one is a mega-complex plot that needs repeated.

The rest is... not great. There's just buckets of exposition everywhere, for stuff that probably does need explained, but it's so very heavy handed and artless. It gave the whole thing a deeply stilted feel, everybody explains things, nobody has any feelings about things. They might explain some feelings, but its like a Star Trek computer explaining these strange human emotions without actually having any emotions. I get they're trying to establish Aang as a character in the before the fire nation attacked bit, but it's just him staring at the camera going "I feel a lot of pressure, I would like to be normal." His performance is, given dialog so wooden George Lucas would pass on it, fine, but there's no sense of character here, just the Script-o-Bot telling us what human emotions are occurring right now.

And while that's probably the clunkiest bit, the rest isn't a lot better.

The action scenes were OK. They definitely operated on superhero fight logic, where nothing has any effect until somebody runs out of HP or says something dramatic and then suddenly what looks like exactly the same attack hits for massive damage. Makes them hard to get particularly involved in, since it's just waiting for Script-o-Bot to deliver the next dollop of exposition or these strange human emotions to us between the CGI fisticuffs.

[Errorname]

The rest is... not great. There's just buckets of exposition everywhere, for stuff that probably does need explained, but it's so very heavy handed and artless. It gave the whole thing a deeply stilted feel, everybody explains things, nobody has any feelings about things. They might explain some feelings, but its like a Star Trek computer explaining these strange human emotions without actually having any emotions. I get they're trying to establish Aang as a character in the before the fire nation attacked bit, but it's just him staring at the camera going "I feel a lot of pressure, I would like to be normal." His performance is, given dialog so wooden George Lucas would pass on it, fine, but there's no sense of character here, just the Script-o-Bot telling us what human emotions are occurring right now.

It's maddening because they had a really strong blueprint to follow. The original series still needs to get through a lot of table setting in the first few episodes and while there's still some clunky stuff it overall feels pretty natural and effective. Having Aang's introduction to his co-leads also double as his introduction to the audience works really well and I have no good justification for wanting to push that later so you can do all the Storm flashbacks early.

[warty goblin]

It's maddening because they had a really strong blueprint to follow. The original series still needs to get through a lot of table setting in the first few episodes and while there's still some clunky stuff it overall feels pretty natural and effective. Having Aang's introduction to his co-leads also double as his introduction to the audience works really well and I have no good justification for wanting to push that later so you can do all the Storm flashbacks early.

I think the prologue part would work if it was longer, so could show Aang as a character and add some stakes to the air nomads being destroyed. But as it is it feels rushed because it's rushed, and unnecessary because it's mostly an exposition device for stuff the audience has just been told a couple minutes ago. Had they spent like 30 minutes (or hell, the whole episode there, and ended with the fire nation attacking) I think it could have worked quite well. We might even have cared about the people they were killing, rather than it being a bunch of randos and an old guy who might as well have had "heroic mentor sacrifice incoming" tattooed on his forehead.

Having no stake in the prior plot structure, I don't think showing the fire nation attacking is a bad move on its own. It actually did work to a degree when the fire nation dudes showed up at the water village, we actually knew that these were very merciless guys who would slaughter everybody. That gave that bit some stakes, I liked that.

[Errorname]

I think the prologue part would work if it was longer, so could show Aang as a character and add some stakes to the air nomads being destroyed. But as it is it feels rushed because it's rushed, and unnecessary because it's mostly an exposition device for stuff the audience has just been told a couple minutes ago. Had they spent like 30 minutes (or hell, the whole episode there, and ended with the fire nation attacking) I think it could have worked quite well. We might even have cared about the people they were killing, rather than it being a bunch of randos and an old guy who might as well have had "heroic mentor sacrifice incoming" tattooed on his forehead.

The problem with extending the prologue is that the longer it goes, the more time it takes for the show to introduce the other three lead characters, it's already probably too long. There's a reason the show starts where it does and fills in the backstory details through flashbacks.

[Ionathus]

Yep. My argument is the prologue should’ve been SHORTER: give us the absolute bare minimum, a mere taste of Sozin’s attack on the Air Nomads, a shot of him yelling “where is the Avatar?!?” and then a shot of Aang falling into the water during the storm.

Going any further gives us what we got from the show: instead of Aang’s first moments being as a goofy kid, it’s him having to act his way through Serious Important Exposition Time. Which is a disservice to ANY character before they’ve gotten a chance at an introduction.