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

[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.

[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/...s-01-170091089
https://www.deviantart.com/rufftoon/...sson-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/...s-01-170091089
https://www.deviantart.com/rufftoon/...sson-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.

[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?

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?

Spoiler: Non-spoiler first thoughts from ep. 1 & 2:

Show

• 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.


*

Spoiler: Redundant exposition

Show

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

Spoiler: EP 1 Spoiler

Show

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

Spoiler: EP 1 Spoiler

Show

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.

[Dargaron]

It is worse than I remember.

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.