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

[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
Book Hermione was a psychopath who exists to explain how Gryffindors become Death Eaters

[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.
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

[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.