New Avatar (2024 Netflix Live Action)

[deaddmwalking]

So it didn't completely lose me, and it didn't completely rock me, so I figured I'd start a new thread to talk about it. I've only watched the first three episodes. I thought the first episode was a little weak, but I thought the second episode did some things well (enough to justify another version, maybe) but mostly it doesn't seem like it does enough things well to really justify its existence. I guess there are people that don't care for animation, but I'm not sure if I feel like describing this version as 'live-action' makes any sense. In regard to Disney's most recent Lion-King they've referred to it as 'photo-realistic animation' and that seems like a somewhat more accurate description of Avatar. The actors may be real people but it seems like just about every background is digital. Bending effects don't really have a sense of reality.

I know that Legend of Korra felt a little more disconnected than the original Avatar because they were approved for 1 season at a time, so they wanted to conclude the story arc within the season, while the original Avatar was approved for 3 seasons up front. This adaptation was only approved for 1 season originally (but seasons 2-3 have now been approved) but I don't think that matters as much since they're adapting a story that was already laid out. When they change the story beats it invites comparison to the original and it's usually not favorable.

My kids are huge fans of Malcolm in the Middle and they keep saying Aang reminds them of Dewey - I can see it for sure. As far as the acting go, I think it's been generally decent. Overall the characters feel somewhat more flat than their animated counterparts. I feel like based on the 3 episodes I've watched so far that the number of minor characters introduced early makes it harder to get attached to the characters. I would really like to know whether anyone who hadn't watched the animated version feels that way - I might be projecting what I know of the characters onto their portrayals subconsciously making them more 3-dimensional than they are.

Ultimately that's my thought - even those this is supposed to feel 'more real', I don't have a problem accepting the reality of an animated show, so it doesn't actually feel more real to me. I'm going to finish watching it for sure and I'll probably watch the next couple of seasons when they become available - so I guess that's a success from the perspective of the show makers?

[Kaelik]

The desire to so deserately show the genocide of the air temple immediately and completely runs into the François Truffaut problem that you can't make an anti war movie. Look at the terrible genocide that is extremely cool sick action fights just doesn't work! People can't feel how cool the sick action fight is at the same time as feeling bad about the genocide!

The live action also completely fucks up the entire warriors of Kyoshi plot in the FIRST episode because they "didn't want Sokka to be sexist" but literally, he was sexist so they could have him learn a lesson, so they had to make an entire big plot and major character be about how not sexist sokka was sexist, but only in acceptable ways and only for this episode, because he's not sexist!, and the lesson he had to learn was not about sexism, but about his confidence as a non bender because he felt less important. But to do this, they fundamentally had to make the entire dynamic with Suki worse and the whole plotline sucks.

They also really love having people give long backstory exposition that wasn't until many episodes later in the first show immediately, which both deprives them of the payoff later (Aang knew about the air bender genocide from the first episode when he was told it in exposition, so his reaction at the temple doesn't hit for example) which is a very funny problem to have. The live action remake for "adults" just doesn't trust anyone to sit with uncertainty about anything for a couple episodes and insists on telling you everything as soon as possible. It's also a remake! People already know this shit! You could sit on revelations 50 times as long if you wanted because if people can't handle that they can just type it into google!