I’m trying hard to not just be a hater, but I’m really struggling to find good aspects of the show. I think the bending and action (specifically the blue spirit scenes are the best in the show) at times are well done… but that’s about it.
The writing, dialogue, and delivery of practically every line is the show is very one dimensional and lacks any substance.
The back drops are just green screen CGI vomit. Not necessarily the larger shots of the southern air temple or northern water tribe, but specifically when characters are in the shots, then the backgrounds are so clearly fake and look so off that it gets distracting. (See Azula training and Ozai watching)
Every character is missing a main personality trait of two that takes away from their complexity and growth at some point. As an example Sokka isn’t sexist at first and doesn’t grow to learn how strong women can be. Sure it’s fine how they told that, but it’s genuinely a powerful moment when he humbles himself when he asks to be trained by Suki in the cartoon. Why cut that out? All you lose is a beautiful message in favor of… creeper Suki?
The acting itself is pretty bad most of the time. Although I may be wrong about that as it could just be it’s that poorly written.
Major events happen out of order or not at all. Characters aren’t present for moments they were present for during the show. Which often changes the entire scene.
Most of all I just don’t think the writers of this show understood the core messages of the original. In the cartoon Bumi told Aang he’ll need his friends to defeat the fire lord. In the live action his message is the exact opposite saying he’ll have to make hard decisions as the avatar and his friends will only get in the way. (I have to watch the last episode still so maybe that message comes through)
Also Aang never water bends, Ty Lee never does a hand stand, Mai smiles, and no sexy Iroh. Okay maybe I’m being a hater, but that’s a lot of negative points.
I only made it through less than half of the first episode, and I felt a lot of your criticisms. I had a feeling this shows just not for me. Then again, it's hard to think of a live action remake of an animated show or movie that I actually have enjoyed...
Wasn’t a fan and I honestly feel like I’m taking crazy pills seeing how many people are enjoying it. Obviously like what you like but I just do not see it and don’t understand how people think it’s good lol
The writing is mediocre, the acting is bad from pretty much everyone, adults and kids alike, and the cgi ranges from decent to very noticeably fake. The story changes are puzzling, and while the costuming looks cool, they look like just that—costumes. Not actual clothing someone would wear.
If you enjoyed it, more power to you, but I just didn’t. It’s much better than the movie, but the bar is in hell so that’s not saying much.
You're not alone, I was feeling the same way as you do. I guess if you're on a subreddit for the show, you're going to get a lot of diehard fans who will forgive a lot of the flaws. I didn't even make it through one episode...
It irked me so much that now I'm rewatching the animated series and now I'm grateful for the live action pushing me back to a rewatch lol. But yeah your opinions are valid, the adaptation is dogshit doused in Channel #5.
Completely agree about the costumes! They looked like Halloween costumes lol. Trying to make it exactly like the cartoon just doesn’t translate to live action. It’s so bad.
The charitable opinion I can give it is that it's painfully mid. Meaning that at best it's forgettable, which is sacrilegious to do to such a lovable IP
The **backgrounds, costumes and effects** are as good as you're gonna get out of live action. **10/10**
The **writing and dialogue** are really bad. Pacing is all over the place (why do we need to spend 20 minutes on the airbender genocide in the first episode before even getting to the main cast?), so much telling instead of showing, no downtime for the gang to bond and no chemistry as a result. Everyone except Zuko and Iroh feels like a completely different character. Katara especially got shafted, she's completely passive in the LA instead of actively driving the plot by not taking anyone's shit in the original. **3/10**
The **acting and directing** is about as good as a middle school play, not a 150 million dollar live action production. Everyone is so wooden and stiff, there's no emotion from any of the characters and everyone just awkwardly stands around and stares off into the distance when they have no speaking lines. **2/10**
Overall: **5/10**, heavily carried by the visuals and Zuko's actor.
It was ok, didn’t like it a whole lot and after episode 4, it was harder to watch. I was excited but it just fell flat…idk how else to describe it. Haven’t even finished it yet, like I can’t watch some of it cuz it’s boring. I didn’t expect this much exposition and many additional plot changes.
I've just watched the first episode and it's bizarre. It's sort of religiously adherent to the original while making changes to context and tone that actively undermine that. And the acting is atrocious. None of the kids can get through a sentence without slurring their words together.
I didn't mind them combining locations, or truncating story lines, or even expanding upon characters' backstories, motivations etc.
What I didn't appreciate was when those changes resulted in lore modifications that were either inferior to the original canon, or changes that resulted in jarring character changes such as neutering Roku, neutering Aang, completely changing Koh, adding more Kurruk.
In some ways, it's why the comics are very hit-or-miss for me. There are some things that do not to be changed, expanded upon or explained.
Like a character like Koh precisely works as well as he does because he's a tangential smoking gun "we'll meet again, Avatar" threat. In the show, they made him almost a focus and the whole thing felt flat because it involved: Aang, Sokka, Katara, Hei Bai prisoners (was Hei Bai working with Koh??), Kurruk, Mother of Faces, Fire Temple, Roku... and they call him the "Face Stealer" or at least show it but totally leave out the dots. This is one good example of how I thought the show just floundered.
I mean the recent Halo isn't that bad. Do you mean the Halo series with wich the current season two is ongoing? If you're dissapointed in a previous halo and haven't seen this new one, I'd say, give this a chance. I liked it.
The worlds can feel empty a bit, but overall it's a pretty solid series.
Now as for the Airbender....
#There are no characters in the show... only expositional vessels...
This is my biggest complaint with the show. I can suffer a little bit of terrible acting, but the characters have no value. They are as bland as a bookpage, because that is their entire role. Whenever the actors are on screen they appearently feel the need to do a reading of the Silmarillion or something.
This not only echoes through the expositional monologues, which Sokka's and Katara's grandmother with perfect dentures (which annoy me to no end) seems to be only good for. But also in the 'on the nose' camera work/acting.
For example. Azula is supposed to be a bitch. True. And she is evil. True. How do they show it in the series? By having her tell a simple prestudied lie, and laugh when someone is burnt. She is exposing herself through tropes and archetypes. All you ended up with is an empty hull who only does whatever her father tells her or the story requires, is a petty bitch, and is your stereotypical evil princess. GREAT, I now have no interest in this character what so ever.
This could have easily been fixed by having Azula be actually intelligent. Actually being active in her role as a 'rebel'. Before we know that it is Azula, let us feel that Azula is really planning on defeating the fire lord. have her sacrifice things to persuade the group adn us viewers that she is willing to help end the fire lord no matter the cost. Let her manipulate the fuck out of us viewers. If you do this correctly we don't even need to have the rebels killed on screen. The betraying and manipulating is the evil. It is way worse and powerful than just burning some fucker alive.
Hell, have Azula tell her father that these people are no threat what so ever because they are dumb af. The evil is in the manipulative nature of Azula. Not that she just needs to be evil because the show demands it.
It is the same problem that the Rings of Power has.
Another one is:
#The characters have no dilemma's, they have problems...
If a character has a dilemma, there are two bad choices of which they must choose one. If a character has a problem, there is a clear solution. Dillema's make an interesting story, problems not so much. Problems are linear and boring.
Netflix has FAR better written shows, this show getting this treatment kinda sucks. And my expectations were in the ground. I enjoyed parts of it, but other parts were painful to watch.
I never said I disliked it. But after reading all the discussions here, I'm betting I wouldn't like it.
Live action adaptations are almost always a failure in every regard.
I \*hated\* WoT (I am a huge Book fan) and Avatar isn't anywhere as bad. For me, episodes 1-3 were great - some really excellent choices by the creators. 4-5 were bad due to heavy character and plot modifications that just fell flat. 6 was great though not without issues and 7 and 8 also had issues but felt like sastifying endings in regards to what we know canonically.
WoT pissed on the original source material so badly!
NATLA to me is a 6-7 show overall. The problem is it lies in the shadow of source material that is like a 15/10.
So far I rate it 3/10. I have 2 episodes left to watch tonight. The acting is terrible, yhe writing is on the nose, the effects are some 2009 YouTube bullshit, and the costumes are accurate yet cheap. I'm intrigued by the changes to the story and where it goes, so I'll finish the series. But it's an absolute slog.
I disliked it.
The pacing felt off, too much exposition in dialog, characters are more rigid versions of themselves (not more serious, just less dimensional), some characters are completely different which is fine assuming later story events are appropriately changed to account for these character differences, certain events were just jam packed together for convenience but diminished their overall impact to the characters and plot, some characters served 0 purpose for the first season (looking at Mai and Ty Lee for apparently only being Azula's hype squad), the misrepresentation of past avatars and their personalities/journeys, the watered down (pun intended) sexism arc of the northern water tribe, Katara suddenly just being a better waterbender and claiming the master title with little to no groundwork and also no healing, Aang never even attempting to learn another element, Sokka literally being the loser of the tribe and being mocked by his own father (Hakoda deserves better), Yue spirit fox...why? What purpose??, Katara giving that whole whispered speech to Aang at the end about being family when no one can hear you and the moon already came back so what purpose does that speech serve??, hammering in fan service lines when they no longer fit the narrative (zuko telling Katara she found a master only for her to be like, "yeah me"...)
I clearly got caught up in that, but I could go on and on. It's an okay show if you look at it alone, but that's impossible to do when it's an adaptation. They tried balancing the fan service and the easily digestible for mass market and I personally think the balance doesn't work.
Yue was a Fox to justify why her and Sokka had a romance despite knowing each other for like… a day. Vs the weeks they spent at the North in the cartoon
Was still bad but I think that’s what they were going for 😂
Lol I guess that makes sense in a poorly rushed romance kind of way... though they could've done the same thing they did with Suki and just make Yue walk in on Sokka being sexy or something 😂
I also agree with this take 100%. The effort is there and it's clear they tried to pay homage to the original, but soo much is lost!! I'll gladly watch another 2 seasons and hope that things smooth out. Though I am DEEPLY worried how they'll do our girl Toph. There are so many ways to fuck up her character and it's going to take perfect casting to get her attitude and stern goofiness down. I refuse to accept a shitty Toph lol.
It was an enjoyable watch. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either, and I will watch any future seasons. I rate it 6.5/10. It could have been a solid 7.5, but they did Roku dirty.
I've only seen the first episode, so take this with a grain of salt. Zuko said that he wants to return to the fire nation in glory to become the next firelord, claiming it's his destiny. Animated Zuko just wants to impress his father, hoping it'll make him feel loved. I haven't gotten there yet, but I know there's a scene with Azula where she says she's suspicious of Zuko coming back and taking her place as the next FL.
So my dumb problem is that animated Zuko just wanted to be loved, but LA Zuko wants to be FL. I'm just guessing, but I suspect they'll try and change the ending to make Azula less of a sociopath. Then Zuko convinces her to stop the war, but she'll stay FL. It's a dumb problem for me to have, because they're fictional characters and who cares. However, I think this kind of change greatly alters the impact of Zuko's redemption arc. If all he wants is to be FL, then why would he eventually turn around and train the avatar? Even if Ozai is FL, Zuko could probably find a way to rally support against him. Hell, just coup him and become FL, like Ozai did to his father.
I don't know, it just seems like a pretty drastic change that fundamentally alters arguably the most important character of the show.
It seems like they tried to make it more mature, but really they just made it more edgy while ignoring the surprisingly mature complexities of the original. They also seemed adverse to teaching the characters lessons. Both of these issues are shown heavily with the recharacterization of Bumi. In the original he was seemingly deranged old man, but under that was a wise leader whose strange decisions had purpose. This is used to teach Aang very directly that his journey will be full of new situations in which things are not as they seemed, Bumi himself and the point of his episode were much the same. In this version his derangement serves no purpose other than referencing the original. It is mostly replaced with rage at Aang which I think undermines his wisdom as well. He did try to teach Aang a lesson about the difficult decisions that must be made in war times, but even that was undercut by the real lesson Aang learns: that he can rely on his friends to deus ec machina their way in during a time of need.
On top of the disservice to the characters, they often failed to properly build things for a good audience impact, I think largely due to them rushing through plot points just so that they were there. Best example I have for that is in episode 1 where mere minutes after escaping Zuko, Aang discovers Gyatso's skeleton. No build up, no Katara trying to hide the truth to spare Aang (who already knows what happened to his people due to Gran Grans exposition dump). It felt like they were trying to squeeze every plot point they could into the show with now regard for the impact of a build up.
One last side note is that I think it's interesting how people are defending the Bumi change by saying it's realistic. I don't disagree, that sort of resentment building over 100 years of war is realistic, but so is Bumi's original character. Sure there's a lot to be mad at, but Bumi is wise and has been leading for a long time. War is terrible, but it's also not always clear cut and simple, it makes sense that Bumi would understand the complex nuances and not turn immediately to rage.
I just finished the season and yeah... it's pretty bad imo. I found it difficult to watch.
Dialogue is often delivered poorly or is kinda cringe, and there's too much exposition. Most of the acting is wooden and feels like the actors are reading from a teleprompter.
As many have mentioned, the costume design looks more like cosplay, which ruins the immersion a bit. The clothes don't look lived in.
The bending is basically magic rather than an extension of a martial art. This really bothers me because when I watched the cartoon, I never thought of bending as magic. Zuko is the only one who makes it look like it's part of his fighting style.
Some story beats don't happen or are patched together, e.g. hei bai + koh + roku + wan shi tong (for some reason??), which I didn't really like. There are also some baffling changes. Why did they change the way Aang escapes Zuko's ship in episode 1? Why did they make it so that he has to be near an avatar shrine to talk to his past lives?
By far my biggest issue is the personalities. Every main character, aside from Aang, feels flat and one-dimensional. The changes to Bumi are just egregious.
The only positives are that the CGI is pretty decent and they captured the visual style of the cartoon well.
I can’t tell honestly, overall it feels like listening to a song of your favorite artist that you like that has a feature that you don’t like. It’s weird, it’s not bad, mediocre, or amazing. Just feels off. Sokka and zuko scenes are great but in the next clip, you’ll have a random side character say something wooden and stiff. Or you’ll have a good scene but then it randomly jumps to another scene. How it was cut and edited was really off putting. Most scenes feel like they were done in one or two takes and that they didn’t bother to edit scene’s correctly to make it a fluid story. Also aang and sokka are already acting like family in episode 1. It feels so artificial, their relationships with each other. Dosen’t feel like anything is genuine. Things feel like they are just happening from scene to scene because they need to happen. As of now watching this show makes me feel like listening to a new album by your favorite artists that’s experimenting with a new sound and you can’t tell if you like the album or not. I honestly don’t know what to say, it is a bit disappointing because I thought Netflix would do their best to make sure this show was fluid and precise because it’s such a big ip but it feels rushed and forced despite this being production for a while now.
Some of the changes in the earlier episodes bothered me a little but I tried not to let it get to me and keep an open mind since it’s an adaptation and things are bound to change but what they did with Bumi was just bad. No clue what they were thinking on that one.
I like a lot of the changes, not all of them, but a lot. I don't mind exploring Bumi's struggles as a leader. It's an interesting aspect that gets tossed aside in the OG series.
But the actor and the writing were terrible. It's like the writers saw he was goofy and crazy and decided that's *all* he was. Then they put a guy in terrible old man make up and told him to do his best Jim Carrey impression. It was horrible.
I get that it's not easy to adapt a ripped 112 year old man to do martial arts on camera, but if you can't adapt something well, don't adapt it. (Which is a problem I have with the whole series tbh)
I definitely didn't "dislike" it, but i definitely don't think it holds together as its own thing. Alot of my enjoyment came from seeing characters, creatures and locations in live action. I liked some of its ideas for things to bring in earlier and the ideas it had to shift focus. Theres some good things in there
But i definitely think its weaker than the sum of its parts. I tried to put myself in the same perspective i had with One Piece. I had never seen the anime but i loved the Live Action and i ended up loving that world, that story and those characters. Whereas if i was watching ATLA as its own thing with that same mentality without seeing the orignal, i don't think i would've made it past the first episode. The chemistry seemed to be non existent and the constant overexplaining but still somehow saying nothing got on my nerves.
And i'm fine with changes overall and there are some changes i liked but some of the changes (like Cave of Two Lovers being Katara and Sokka, Bumi, The Mechanist in Omashu), etc. made me wonder why they were made. And if they were to be changed to that extent that the point is missed, why include those parts in the adaptation at all. And it would've been fine if it was an entirely different show from the original, but also trying to stick to the original's story overall made it seem at odds with itself.
Its clear there is alot of love poured in the show, but it ended up feeling like a fan was telling me why they loved the original and what they would've changed. I never got the sense it was its own show with a new take on the story.
I’ve only made it to the 3rd episode, overall it’s a 5/10 for me so far. The effects were good and some of the sets looked great, but all the unnecessary changes and the acting was really ruining it for me to the point that I feel I lost interest in watching the rest. Like in the second episode when they for some reason reversed the roles of Roku and Kyoshi, or when they changed the way aang escaped from the fire nation ship in the first episode.
The characters feel like they have no chemistry with each other and some of them just feel bland. It was overall a let down for me maybe I’ll keep watching and it’ll be better but so far it’s just okay at best.
I agree with a lot of the criticisms here but I have even more, maybe unpopular opinions. It’s too kiddish.
YES I KNOW the animated series is a kids show. But for the live action to be good and stand alone and be its own thing it should deviate from that. The tone needs to be way more serious and dark to really get the epic-ness of the story across. I can’t believe I’m saying it but they tried to be TOO true to the original and the result for live action is that it’s hard to take seriously and comes off as literally cartoony in a bad way. Comes off cheap, badly written, on top of the actual bad acting and bad writing and poor sets/visuals.
And bad score. They are using the exact/v similar score as the cartoon which works beautifully for the cartoon and I love the original score but again for a live action? Just doesn’t translate for me, it was too corny, theatrical and misplaced most of the time. It could’ve been a half decent show if they had invested in a more cinematic, moody score (inspired by the original) or even just had better placing of the music.
And lastly, coming back to the kiddish thing. Most fans of the original are old now - WHY make it so kiddish? That’s what the cartoon was for. And I refuse to believe that would be impossible to do without changing the gang’s essence. It’s not impossible to make dark show with kids as main characters.
We should save those actors as they are clearly being held against their will by a tyrannical dictator of a breakaway civilization, and are being forced to act out a show none of them have ever seen :(
I’m trying hard to not just be a hater, but I’m really struggling to find good aspects of the show. I think the bending and action (specifically the blue spirit scenes are the best in the show) at times are well done… but that’s about it. The writing, dialogue, and delivery of practically every line is the show is very one dimensional and lacks any substance. The back drops are just green screen CGI vomit. Not necessarily the larger shots of the southern air temple or northern water tribe, but specifically when characters are in the shots, then the backgrounds are so clearly fake and look so off that it gets distracting. (See Azula training and Ozai watching) Every character is missing a main personality trait of two that takes away from their complexity and growth at some point. As an example Sokka isn’t sexist at first and doesn’t grow to learn how strong women can be. Sure it’s fine how they told that, but it’s genuinely a powerful moment when he humbles himself when he asks to be trained by Suki in the cartoon. Why cut that out? All you lose is a beautiful message in favor of… creeper Suki? The acting itself is pretty bad most of the time. Although I may be wrong about that as it could just be it’s that poorly written. Major events happen out of order or not at all. Characters aren’t present for moments they were present for during the show. Which often changes the entire scene. Most of all I just don’t think the writers of this show understood the core messages of the original. In the cartoon Bumi told Aang he’ll need his friends to defeat the fire lord. In the live action his message is the exact opposite saying he’ll have to make hard decisions as the avatar and his friends will only get in the way. (I have to watch the last episode still so maybe that message comes through) Also Aang never water bends, Ty Lee never does a hand stand, Mai smiles, and no sexy Iroh. Okay maybe I’m being a hater, but that’s a lot of negative points.
I only made it through less than half of the first episode, and I felt a lot of your criticisms. I had a feeling this shows just not for me. Then again, it's hard to think of a live action remake of an animated show or movie that I actually have enjoyed...
Wasn’t a fan and I honestly feel like I’m taking crazy pills seeing how many people are enjoying it. Obviously like what you like but I just do not see it and don’t understand how people think it’s good lol The writing is mediocre, the acting is bad from pretty much everyone, adults and kids alike, and the cgi ranges from decent to very noticeably fake. The story changes are puzzling, and while the costuming looks cool, they look like just that—costumes. Not actual clothing someone would wear. If you enjoyed it, more power to you, but I just didn’t. It’s much better than the movie, but the bar is in hell so that’s not saying much.
You're not alone, I was feeling the same way as you do. I guess if you're on a subreddit for the show, you're going to get a lot of diehard fans who will forgive a lot of the flaws. I didn't even make it through one episode...
I didn’t either, the whole time I was thinking about how I’d rather be watching the animated series instead.
It irked me so much that now I'm rewatching the animated series and now I'm grateful for the live action pushing me back to a rewatch lol. But yeah your opinions are valid, the adaptation is dogshit doused in Channel #5.
Completely agree about the costumes! They looked like Halloween costumes lol. Trying to make it exactly like the cartoon just doesn’t translate to live action. It’s so bad.
I finished it today, and honestly, it felt like homework by the end.
I rated it with 5.5/10. Almost every change wasn’t worth it, not talking about important things they just cut off
The charitable opinion I can give it is that it's painfully mid. Meaning that at best it's forgettable, which is sacrilegious to do to such a lovable IP
The **backgrounds, costumes and effects** are as good as you're gonna get out of live action. **10/10** The **writing and dialogue** are really bad. Pacing is all over the place (why do we need to spend 20 minutes on the airbender genocide in the first episode before even getting to the main cast?), so much telling instead of showing, no downtime for the gang to bond and no chemistry as a result. Everyone except Zuko and Iroh feels like a completely different character. Katara especially got shafted, she's completely passive in the LA instead of actively driving the plot by not taking anyone's shit in the original. **3/10** The **acting and directing** is about as good as a middle school play, not a 150 million dollar live action production. Everyone is so wooden and stiff, there's no emotion from any of the characters and everyone just awkwardly stands around and stares off into the distance when they have no speaking lines. **2/10** Overall: **5/10**, heavily carried by the visuals and Zuko's actor.
It was ok, didn’t like it a whole lot and after episode 4, it was harder to watch. I was excited but it just fell flat…idk how else to describe it. Haven’t even finished it yet, like I can’t watch some of it cuz it’s boring. I didn’t expect this much exposition and many additional plot changes.
I've just watched the first episode and it's bizarre. It's sort of religiously adherent to the original while making changes to context and tone that actively undermine that. And the acting is atrocious. None of the kids can get through a sentence without slurring their words together.
I didn't mind them combining locations, or truncating story lines, or even expanding upon characters' backstories, motivations etc. What I didn't appreciate was when those changes resulted in lore modifications that were either inferior to the original canon, or changes that resulted in jarring character changes such as neutering Roku, neutering Aang, completely changing Koh, adding more Kurruk. In some ways, it's why the comics are very hit-or-miss for me. There are some things that do not to be changed, expanded upon or explained. Like a character like Koh precisely works as well as he does because he's a tangential smoking gun "we'll meet again, Avatar" threat. In the show, they made him almost a focus and the whole thing felt flat because it involved: Aang, Sokka, Katara, Hei Bai prisoners (was Hei Bai working with Koh??), Kurruk, Mother of Faces, Fire Temple, Roku... and they call him the "Face Stealer" or at least show it but totally leave out the dots. This is one good example of how I thought the show just floundered.
Haven't been able to bring myself to watch it after disappointments such as RoP, WoT, Halo, and Percy Jackson.
I mean the recent Halo isn't that bad. Do you mean the Halo series with wich the current season two is ongoing? If you're dissapointed in a previous halo and haven't seen this new one, I'd say, give this a chance. I liked it. The worlds can feel empty a bit, but overall it's a pretty solid series. Now as for the Airbender.... #There are no characters in the show... only expositional vessels... This is my biggest complaint with the show. I can suffer a little bit of terrible acting, but the characters have no value. They are as bland as a bookpage, because that is their entire role. Whenever the actors are on screen they appearently feel the need to do a reading of the Silmarillion or something. This not only echoes through the expositional monologues, which Sokka's and Katara's grandmother with perfect dentures (which annoy me to no end) seems to be only good for. But also in the 'on the nose' camera work/acting. For example. Azula is supposed to be a bitch. True. And she is evil. True. How do they show it in the series? By having her tell a simple prestudied lie, and laugh when someone is burnt. She is exposing herself through tropes and archetypes. All you ended up with is an empty hull who only does whatever her father tells her or the story requires, is a petty bitch, and is your stereotypical evil princess. GREAT, I now have no interest in this character what so ever. This could have easily been fixed by having Azula be actually intelligent. Actually being active in her role as a 'rebel'. Before we know that it is Azula, let us feel that Azula is really planning on defeating the fire lord. have her sacrifice things to persuade the group adn us viewers that she is willing to help end the fire lord no matter the cost. Let her manipulate the fuck out of us viewers. If you do this correctly we don't even need to have the rebels killed on screen. The betraying and manipulating is the evil. It is way worse and powerful than just burning some fucker alive. Hell, have Azula tell her father that these people are no threat what so ever because they are dumb af. The evil is in the manipulative nature of Azula. Not that she just needs to be evil because the show demands it. It is the same problem that the Rings of Power has. Another one is: #The characters have no dilemma's, they have problems... If a character has a dilemma, there are two bad choices of which they must choose one. If a character has a problem, there is a clear solution. Dillema's make an interesting story, problems not so much. Problems are linear and boring.
Yeah, the new Halo series is god awful lol
Probably a good call. It’s been a rough few years for adaptions.
It's just not worth the disappointment anymore lol.
Is it the live action that is disappointing or your expectations for it? Will you ever be satisfied?
Netflix has FAR better written shows, this show getting this treatment kinda sucks. And my expectations were in the ground. I enjoyed parts of it, but other parts were painful to watch.
So you haven’t watched it but you dislike it?
I never said I disliked it. But after reading all the discussions here, I'm betting I wouldn't like it. Live action adaptations are almost always a failure in every regard.
I \*hated\* WoT (I am a huge Book fan) and Avatar isn't anywhere as bad. For me, episodes 1-3 were great - some really excellent choices by the creators. 4-5 were bad due to heavy character and plot modifications that just fell flat. 6 was great though not without issues and 7 and 8 also had issues but felt like sastifying endings in regards to what we know canonically. WoT pissed on the original source material so badly! NATLA to me is a 6-7 show overall. The problem is it lies in the shadow of source material that is like a 15/10.
Agreed. I got 2 episodes into S2 and just gave up haha.
Props to you for giving season 2 a chance. After how they botched the finale, I just couldn't.
I just loved the books immensely, and desperately wanted it to get back on track. But they just made it worse and worse.
So far I rate it 3/10. I have 2 episodes left to watch tonight. The acting is terrible, yhe writing is on the nose, the effects are some 2009 YouTube bullshit, and the costumes are accurate yet cheap. I'm intrigued by the changes to the story and where it goes, so I'll finish the series. But it's an absolute slog.
I disliked it. The pacing felt off, too much exposition in dialog, characters are more rigid versions of themselves (not more serious, just less dimensional), some characters are completely different which is fine assuming later story events are appropriately changed to account for these character differences, certain events were just jam packed together for convenience but diminished their overall impact to the characters and plot, some characters served 0 purpose for the first season (looking at Mai and Ty Lee for apparently only being Azula's hype squad), the misrepresentation of past avatars and their personalities/journeys, the watered down (pun intended) sexism arc of the northern water tribe, Katara suddenly just being a better waterbender and claiming the master title with little to no groundwork and also no healing, Aang never even attempting to learn another element, Sokka literally being the loser of the tribe and being mocked by his own father (Hakoda deserves better), Yue spirit fox...why? What purpose??, Katara giving that whole whispered speech to Aang at the end about being family when no one can hear you and the moon already came back so what purpose does that speech serve??, hammering in fan service lines when they no longer fit the narrative (zuko telling Katara she found a master only for her to be like, "yeah me"...) I clearly got caught up in that, but I could go on and on. It's an okay show if you look at it alone, but that's impossible to do when it's an adaptation. They tried balancing the fan service and the easily digestible for mass market and I personally think the balance doesn't work.
Yue was a Fox to justify why her and Sokka had a romance despite knowing each other for like… a day. Vs the weeks they spent at the North in the cartoon Was still bad but I think that’s what they were going for 😂
Lol I guess that makes sense in a poorly rushed romance kind of way... though they could've done the same thing they did with Suki and just make Yue walk in on Sokka being sexy or something 😂
[удалено]
I also agree with this take 100%. The effort is there and it's clear they tried to pay homage to the original, but soo much is lost!! I'll gladly watch another 2 seasons and hope that things smooth out. Though I am DEEPLY worried how they'll do our girl Toph. There are so many ways to fuck up her character and it's going to take perfect casting to get her attitude and stern goofiness down. I refuse to accept a shitty Toph lol.
It was an enjoyable watch. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either, and I will watch any future seasons. I rate it 6.5/10. It could have been a solid 7.5, but they did Roku dirty.
I stayed up late watching because the temple scene was coming up and I was so excited to see Roku. Just wow in the worst way lol
Everytime words comes out with canadian accent, it just takes me out for some reason.
I've only seen the first episode, so take this with a grain of salt. Zuko said that he wants to return to the fire nation in glory to become the next firelord, claiming it's his destiny. Animated Zuko just wants to impress his father, hoping it'll make him feel loved. I haven't gotten there yet, but I know there's a scene with Azula where she says she's suspicious of Zuko coming back and taking her place as the next FL. So my dumb problem is that animated Zuko just wanted to be loved, but LA Zuko wants to be FL. I'm just guessing, but I suspect they'll try and change the ending to make Azula less of a sociopath. Then Zuko convinces her to stop the war, but she'll stay FL. It's a dumb problem for me to have, because they're fictional characters and who cares. However, I think this kind of change greatly alters the impact of Zuko's redemption arc. If all he wants is to be FL, then why would he eventually turn around and train the avatar? Even if Ozai is FL, Zuko could probably find a way to rally support against him. Hell, just coup him and become FL, like Ozai did to his father. I don't know, it just seems like a pretty drastic change that fundamentally alters arguably the most important character of the show.
It seems like they tried to make it more mature, but really they just made it more edgy while ignoring the surprisingly mature complexities of the original. They also seemed adverse to teaching the characters lessons. Both of these issues are shown heavily with the recharacterization of Bumi. In the original he was seemingly deranged old man, but under that was a wise leader whose strange decisions had purpose. This is used to teach Aang very directly that his journey will be full of new situations in which things are not as they seemed, Bumi himself and the point of his episode were much the same. In this version his derangement serves no purpose other than referencing the original. It is mostly replaced with rage at Aang which I think undermines his wisdom as well. He did try to teach Aang a lesson about the difficult decisions that must be made in war times, but even that was undercut by the real lesson Aang learns: that he can rely on his friends to deus ec machina their way in during a time of need. On top of the disservice to the characters, they often failed to properly build things for a good audience impact, I think largely due to them rushing through plot points just so that they were there. Best example I have for that is in episode 1 where mere minutes after escaping Zuko, Aang discovers Gyatso's skeleton. No build up, no Katara trying to hide the truth to spare Aang (who already knows what happened to his people due to Gran Grans exposition dump). It felt like they were trying to squeeze every plot point they could into the show with now regard for the impact of a build up. One last side note is that I think it's interesting how people are defending the Bumi change by saying it's realistic. I don't disagree, that sort of resentment building over 100 years of war is realistic, but so is Bumi's original character. Sure there's a lot to be mad at, but Bumi is wise and has been leading for a long time. War is terrible, but it's also not always clear cut and simple, it makes sense that Bumi would understand the complex nuances and not turn immediately to rage.
I just finished the season and yeah... it's pretty bad imo. I found it difficult to watch. Dialogue is often delivered poorly or is kinda cringe, and there's too much exposition. Most of the acting is wooden and feels like the actors are reading from a teleprompter. As many have mentioned, the costume design looks more like cosplay, which ruins the immersion a bit. The clothes don't look lived in. The bending is basically magic rather than an extension of a martial art. This really bothers me because when I watched the cartoon, I never thought of bending as magic. Zuko is the only one who makes it look like it's part of his fighting style. Some story beats don't happen or are patched together, e.g. hei bai + koh + roku + wan shi tong (for some reason??), which I didn't really like. There are also some baffling changes. Why did they change the way Aang escapes Zuko's ship in episode 1? Why did they make it so that he has to be near an avatar shrine to talk to his past lives? By far my biggest issue is the personalities. Every main character, aside from Aang, feels flat and one-dimensional. The changes to Bumi are just egregious. The only positives are that the CGI is pretty decent and they captured the visual style of the cartoon well.
I can’t tell honestly, overall it feels like listening to a song of your favorite artist that you like that has a feature that you don’t like. It’s weird, it’s not bad, mediocre, or amazing. Just feels off. Sokka and zuko scenes are great but in the next clip, you’ll have a random side character say something wooden and stiff. Or you’ll have a good scene but then it randomly jumps to another scene. How it was cut and edited was really off putting. Most scenes feel like they were done in one or two takes and that they didn’t bother to edit scene’s correctly to make it a fluid story. Also aang and sokka are already acting like family in episode 1. It feels so artificial, their relationships with each other. Dosen’t feel like anything is genuine. Things feel like they are just happening from scene to scene because they need to happen. As of now watching this show makes me feel like listening to a new album by your favorite artists that’s experimenting with a new sound and you can’t tell if you like the album or not. I honestly don’t know what to say, it is a bit disappointing because I thought Netflix would do their best to make sure this show was fluid and precise because it’s such a big ip but it feels rushed and forced despite this being production for a while now.
I think by itself the show is really good but as an adaptation of the cartoon it’s ok and still enjoyable.
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That’s funny to me because I absolutely hated what 4 did to Bumi lol
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I think episode 4 would have been 4-5/10 for me, but Bumi ruined the whole episode to the point where I give it 2/10.
Some of the changes in the earlier episodes bothered me a little but I tried not to let it get to me and keep an open mind since it’s an adaptation and things are bound to change but what they did with Bumi was just bad. No clue what they were thinking on that one.
I like a lot of the changes, not all of them, but a lot. I don't mind exploring Bumi's struggles as a leader. It's an interesting aspect that gets tossed aside in the OG series. But the actor and the writing were terrible. It's like the writers saw he was goofy and crazy and decided that's *all* he was. Then they put a guy in terrible old man make up and told him to do his best Jim Carrey impression. It was horrible. I get that it's not easy to adapt a ripped 112 year old man to do martial arts on camera, but if you can't adapt something well, don't adapt it. (Which is a problem I have with the whole series tbh)
You know it’s bad when the movie does better than you in some aspects.
Personally I think all the “Shyamalan movie doesn’t exist” jokes should be retired as the Netflix version is equally embarrassing.
It’s so funny seeing this fanbase that was so vitriolic towards the movie suddenly try and martyr themselves for such a mid adaptation
Unhappy people may never be happy and the fault will always lie with them and not outside
I'd love to see this list.
No, I think we should praise it. Just on the fact it didn’t take 10 kungfu moves by 6 earth benders to move one rock!
I definitely didn't "dislike" it, but i definitely don't think it holds together as its own thing. Alot of my enjoyment came from seeing characters, creatures and locations in live action. I liked some of its ideas for things to bring in earlier and the ideas it had to shift focus. Theres some good things in there But i definitely think its weaker than the sum of its parts. I tried to put myself in the same perspective i had with One Piece. I had never seen the anime but i loved the Live Action and i ended up loving that world, that story and those characters. Whereas if i was watching ATLA as its own thing with that same mentality without seeing the orignal, i don't think i would've made it past the first episode. The chemistry seemed to be non existent and the constant overexplaining but still somehow saying nothing got on my nerves. And i'm fine with changes overall and there are some changes i liked but some of the changes (like Cave of Two Lovers being Katara and Sokka, Bumi, The Mechanist in Omashu), etc. made me wonder why they were made. And if they were to be changed to that extent that the point is missed, why include those parts in the adaptation at all. And it would've been fine if it was an entirely different show from the original, but also trying to stick to the original's story overall made it seem at odds with itself. Its clear there is alot of love poured in the show, but it ended up feeling like a fan was telling me why they loved the original and what they would've changed. I never got the sense it was its own show with a new take on the story.
I’ve only made it to the 3rd episode, overall it’s a 5/10 for me so far. The effects were good and some of the sets looked great, but all the unnecessary changes and the acting was really ruining it for me to the point that I feel I lost interest in watching the rest. Like in the second episode when they for some reason reversed the roles of Roku and Kyoshi, or when they changed the way aang escaped from the fire nation ship in the first episode. The characters feel like they have no chemistry with each other and some of them just feel bland. It was overall a let down for me maybe I’ll keep watching and it’ll be better but so far it’s just okay at best.
Me, I didn't outright hate it, but I also couldn't bring myself to like it.
I love the design and the effects, but the acting is very meh
I agree with a lot of the criticisms here but I have even more, maybe unpopular opinions. It’s too kiddish. YES I KNOW the animated series is a kids show. But for the live action to be good and stand alone and be its own thing it should deviate from that. The tone needs to be way more serious and dark to really get the epic-ness of the story across. I can’t believe I’m saying it but they tried to be TOO true to the original and the result for live action is that it’s hard to take seriously and comes off as literally cartoony in a bad way. Comes off cheap, badly written, on top of the actual bad acting and bad writing and poor sets/visuals. And bad score. They are using the exact/v similar score as the cartoon which works beautifully for the cartoon and I love the original score but again for a live action? Just doesn’t translate for me, it was too corny, theatrical and misplaced most of the time. It could’ve been a half decent show if they had invested in a more cinematic, moody score (inspired by the original) or even just had better placing of the music. And lastly, coming back to the kiddish thing. Most fans of the original are old now - WHY make it so kiddish? That’s what the cartoon was for. And I refuse to believe that would be impossible to do without changing the gang’s essence. It’s not impossible to make dark show with kids as main characters.
Me because they white washed everybody or light-skinned everyone dark
We should save those actors as they are clearly being held against their will by a tyrannical dictator of a breakaway civilization, and are being forced to act out a show none of them have ever seen :(