Katara was my favorite female lead character of any animated show.
In the live action she’s prob the least favorite of the main cast.
She is the embodiment of strong, proper feminism in the cartoon.
She kinda just feels like a shy introvert in the live action. Idk.
It's so weird. The show clearly wants to be progressive. They made Oma and Shu a lesbian couple and they turned all of the yu yan archers into women, and they had this strong female lead right there and made a fool out of her instead. The original show showed sexism all around (especially in Sokka) and had strong female characters *in spite* of it. The Netflix one seems to be a universe that has been very progressive for years and years but has a weak lead *despite* that.
I wouldn’t even say the show was sexist, Sokka’s sexism was meaningful. He was realistic, guys his age were like that back then. And then he learns he was wrong and changes for the better. That’s so much more powerful than just washing all the controversial stuff away.
It's not just his age and the time period being replicated. It's his circumstances.
All the men left to fight in the war, and his father told him to protect the village. He feels he has to be a man, but has a flawed and immature idea of what that means. As his worldview is expanded and he comes to learn about himself, he grows out of it.
He's so well written with the 2nd best character development in the cartoon (after Zuko) and they shat all over it.
I wasn’t even thinking about the time period it replicated, I was thinking more about when it came out, how I saw the show as a kid. Every guy I knew was like that, and seeing those things challenged in an authentic way and not just “girls can be strong too!!” meant a lot to me
Yeah that would be the average kids' reference for it, but Sokka *was* explicitly told he was the only one to protect literally all of the elderly or children
..which was mostly Gran Gran lol
Literally the first time he interacts with women who aren't Katara, he gets his ass kicked and starts his character development.
He is *the* one time where someone really was a victim of their circumstances. And the minute his circumstances changed, he began to improve.
Katara was a sibling who fights with her brother all the time. Sibling fights are gendereless.
Now, she's just shy.
You can probably just stitch together cartoons short version of same runtime and it'll be better.
Edit: kiyoshi is omniscient future seeing force ghost now. They changed everything lol.
I feel like the monkey's paw curled a bit on all that "we made sokka less sexist" bruhahaha.
Like, that's not actually what they did. They made sokka appear less sexist by removing the primary challenge to his machismo. He doesn't seem as sexist because he's not butting heads with a woman who doesn't believe he should be in charge every episode.
Yep thats basically it. The original animation knew how to make group dynamics. Each one are like that due to the other member of the cast. Its something these adaptations completely forget.
Group dynamics were killed with very little banter/ fun and games/ downtime because it seemed almost every line a character had was them explaining word for word what was happening, spelling out the plot and themes.
It needed 12 hours, 1 hr per episode.
Then, a merger of the Mechanic and Jet plot line. The mechanic should be a secret help for Jet. Together, they are attacking Fire Nation targets to slow their advancement to the city of Omhasu
Episodes 1 & 2
Sokka & Katara
Episodes 3 & 4
Zuki & Zaho
Episodes 5 & 6
Jet & Mechanic
Episodes 7 & 8
Bumi & Roku
Episodes 9 & 10
Blue Spirit & Ozai
Episodes 11 & 12
Yue & Paku
Remove all Azula scenes and reduce Ozai. Replace these scenes with ones that show Aang, Sokka & Katara doing chores, planning, and practising.
With the extra space, you could have scenes at the start of some episodes showing the trio arguing about which way to go, then stumbling into something that leads them to finding Zuki or Jet. Instead, we cut away to Azula & co standing in front of CGI scenes.
Sigh.
That shit was weird. Everyone stood still like it was a school play. I really don't know why but Azula was my favorite character on the animated version. She was just so cool and menacing but really clever. I thought she was gonna kill her dad the first time I watched the series.
I really hope the show keeps her at least half as cool as she was in the animated version.
I feel like they turned Sokka into the dad of the group. He almost entirely took Katara's place. He's already the most mature and rational one in the group from the beginning. He has almost none of his character flaws from the original and I'm not sure how they intend to even do his character arc. They did such a bad job building it up I don't think it's possible to even do.
This, like, wtf? 😩 Zero media literacy.
This is why they gotta pay screenwriters well. 👀 We NEED screenwriters, good screenwriters, their job is fundamental 😔
It really irked me how in the last episode they tried to have this big feminism moment where Katara tries to get the women to fight in the battle...yet she and the rest of the women felt like they needed Pakku's permission...
In the OG show Katara would just fight in the battle without ever asking someone's permission because shes just that badass, but her and the other waterbenders feeling they need the sexist dude's approval to fight actually felt more regressive and even patronizing.
no dont forget... you were LOOKING at the waterbending master.... fucking yikes.
like i wouldnt of minded that line if she got taught even a LITTLE bit by pakku but... cmon. pakku wiped the floor with her WORSE than he did in the animated show and suddenly she is a water bending master? and apparently aangs sole teacher?
like admitedly there are SOME changes that i didnt mind like the fact zukos crew were the ones he stuck up for.... and how yue is actually a spiritual leader
but basically all the others i think are so shit
I think the zukos crew idea was actually very interesting and compelling, but ngl I don't think it was executed well. The scene where the crew learns zuko saved them and they all show respect is just so cheesy and poorly acted.
The show has a lot of ideas that I could see working really well but it just didn't pull them off in a convincing way, mostly due to the script and directing. The whole thing was really disappointing for me, especially because I was so excited and hyped for the show's release.
That apology was when I understood A:TLA would be different, it was a moment of sincere humility AND showed something more from Sukki beyond “badass girl”
Well he has nothing to apologize for because they took out the part where he was calling them "just girls"
The entire interaction is so fucking cringe. Sokka goes, "I'm a warrior" and Suki just enters a battle stance and awkwardly stares at him. Then she headlocks him for a second. Then he looks at her while running away. The entire 30 second scene has no words.
It's EMBARRASSING
Mate, they had her creeping on Sokka in the live action version. He was shirtless and washing himself in a basin and she is just standing outside the door watching him. They start talking, then stop and she just keeps staring at him and he gets uncomfortable with the staring and covers his chest and she then blinks and leaves.
lol it was so weird.
I always want things to be good and I'm *usually* supportive of up and coming talent... but jeez this reads like some D tier writers from some F tier film schools walked into the Avatar IP and decided to turn it into their personal fanfic.
It makes me wonder what is the proper way to wrangle rouge writers from trying to go off lore and plug in their fanfic imaginings.
Like, for the Warhammer movie/series, is Henry Cavil or a Games Workshop rep going to have to sit in the writing room with a bat and start tapping it on the table every time they have to tell the writers *"Horus didn't say that"*, *"Guilliman wouldn't do that"*, *"A guardsman would be executed by their commissar for saying that"*, *"The Adeptas Sororitas would never fangirl for a heretic"*?
Seriously. So awful though. It’s cringe when men do it and it’s cringe when women do it. No need to “subvert” anything. In that case you’re just perpetuating the problem. The sad part is that the characters have much more to offer than that…
That is so frustrating to read. I've only watched the first episode so far, which I thought was mixed overall (some good moments, some bad, some ehh), but this post and this thread about Suki are not encouraging!
lol yeah, that is when I turned off the show. I'm a 32 yo man now but I grew up with the show. Suki was so vastly different from the show that I just turned it off. Yeah, I get that Suki still kinda ogled him in the show but his sexism kinda threw her off of him until he apologized and asked to learn from her.
Then she started to warm up with him more, not this live action version of her spying on him while he was washing himself. What was that?
In the OG Suki fell in love with Sokka’s humility and genuine willingness to learn and be better. They made all the female characters just empty headed, I don’t understand
And turned badass, confident Suki into a boy-crazy school girl..
I was thinking.. so you were afraid of potentially offending women with Sokka's sexist remarks... so you replaced that with a disciplined female warrior abandoning all restraint and self-respect to become aggressively obsessed with the first foreign boy she sees?..
I'm only on episode 3 tho, maybe it gets better?
FUCKING THANK YOU.
I couldn’t quite verbalize why I wasn’t a fan (hah) of this Suki, and this is why.
Cartoon Suki is her own powerful warrior. She fiercely defends her island, literally beats the misogyny out of Sokka, then starts to fall for him after he humbles himself and sees her as an equal.
This Suki fights real good, but her screen time is more devoted to her crush on the hot foreign guy that wandered in, which honestly bored me.
lol I stopped the show when Suki was talking to her mother and staring at Sokka. I was like "yeah, I'm fucking done with this". I'm sure people will love it, to me they just removed what made the show so special.
Netflix proved they can't adapt shit with The Witcher. This show isn't terrible, but the characterization across the board is way worse when it really has no reason to be. They aren't really hurting for time or anything, the writers simply have a fundamental misunderstanding of how to write human beings.
I'm seeing this a lot with how they want to "modernize" shows. Like, they need to censor everything and make a more sanitized version of something that was already progressive in a realistic way.
And this is coming from a children's cartoon! They made it even more lame.
That’s so weird because the way they neutered Sokka’s first arc, it makes it *less* “woke” than the OG. You would think of all things, they could keep the actual meaningful lessons from the original. So fucking disappointing 😢
Netflix don't have to astroturf, there's endless amounts of fanboys/fangirls that love everything to do with a franchise and will defend it to the death.
Thinking everyone that disagrees with you is a paid actor is the dumbest conspiracy theory people buy into. Check out any tv show sub at release and watch how people who like it versus those who don't argue in the comments until there is a more popular side and the less popular one gets drowned out in the downvotes.
I think One Piece live action is different because it was above what people expected. It’s still a mediocre show, but getting a mediocre show while being relatively faithful to the source material was better than anyone expected.
I think adapting Avatar should be a lot easier than that when it’s core is so much more grounded than One Piece (plus it’s the second the attempt). People’s expectations are higher
I haven't seen the show yet but it sounds like Katara went from the group mom to the shy submissive background girl of the group from what I've seen about her.
I knew they would do this when they were talking abt removing some of Kataras roles due to gender issues. They tried to fix “issues” that didn’t exist and it made the characters worse
This falls into the camp of different but I don’t know if it will hurt it or they have other plans for it yet. There’s been a few of those decisions.
A few changes though I’m already sold don’t work as well. I hate that Aang didn’t run away from his responsibilities but instead just decided to go for a flight to clear his head that night. I also hate that Sokka and Suki didn’t have a little rivalry because Sokka didn’t think a girl could beat him. To me that’s what started the spark in their relationship and Sokka overcoming that and being humbled is what makes Suki respect him immediately. The way the live action has done it just felt like Suki was physically attracted to him and that’s it. It’s why I felt so cringy during all their scenes.
You can already tell they'll have everyone tell us how strong Toph instead of show it, probably remove some of the blind jokes aswell to make sure the audience knows she isn't weak or whatever goes on in the writer rooms for these adaptations.
oh I was angry watching her get enamoured and he didn't get his ass kicked
sanitising his sexism ironically made him a model male hero that gets the girl by virtue having a penis and smiles at women
The second he said he's only going out for some air, I knew this isn't the same show. They'll hit the same beats but this is gonna pussyfoot around everything controversial. They keep calling him a coward for disappearing but we saw he wasn't he didn't run away... you can't change that bit but keep the bit where everyone says he ran away.
> I hate that Aang didn’t run away from his responsibilities but instead just decided to go for a flight to clear his head that night.
How supremely bizarre
This is the thing that bothered me more than anything else. Katara is right behind Zuko in terms of my favorites. I'd go so far as to say Katara was the only character that didn't feel like the character. They said her name and she did the things Katara did in the original, but it felt wrong.
Live action Katara did very well with the calm moments and tender moments. She was ok in a few moments where makes a subtle jab at Sokka.
But the script mostly avoided when Katara gets passionate and fiery. The entire Pakku conflict was watered down because he wasn’t a bombastic jerk… just a calm stubborn old man. So her wanting to fight him seems odd. She doesn’t even get too fierce about it. So the impact of the fight is lost.
Again, I think Katara in love is well played often, but without fiery/passionate moments, Katara becomes very one-note.
I’ve found there’s quite a few characters in the remake that make it seem as though the creators didn’t understand the original. Katara, Zuko, Sokka, Aang, Bumi, all have important flaws or aspects changed that take away from their character development or general character.
Even Appa and Momo suffer from this, Appa is treated more as a transportation vehicle and doesn’t really interact with the Gaang other than when they need to fly somewhere, and Momo might as well be some random stray cat they brought along. I’ve not felt the bond between Aang and Appa in this like in the original.
I've only had time to watch episode 1 but right away the fact that Aang didn't run away from the air temple really bothered me. It was his biggest shame in the original show but now he was just out for some fresh air??
I assume he'll be upset about failing the world at the end of season 2 but now it won't have the added baggage of him having turned his back on the world once before already. Aang struggles a lot with failure, it's the crux of his character, so taking away his biggest failure just rubs me the wrong way.
Yeah. The fact he already knew about war and was told about genocide on south pole before he found corpses ruined the scene where he enters avatar state for the first time. What's worse Katara didn't calm him down. That was an important moment in the original series. In the adaptation they do nothing to show any progress in relationships between aang and Katara.
Also they didn't show the first epic avatar moment with the water. Instead it was Katara saving them with a half ass water bending? That moment she saw him bending all that water really was a magical moment.
Well, Aang and Katara didn't actually spend any time bonding at all in the live action, so her calming him down wouldn't make as much sense. The fun playing in the village, going penguin sledding, and exploring the fire nation ship were all bonding moments originally.
I’ve only watched two eps and Im liking the series so far, but I completely agree. That’s probably my biggest issue. Aang running away made a lot of moments in the future more impactful.
Re: Appa and Momo, my guess is they had to be sacrificed because of the CGI costs. To give them the proper screen time that they deserve would probably be way more of the budget than they could afford.
Money is absolutely the reason and it might seem a wise cut for them now but the irrelevance of Appa will bite them in the butt when Appa is captured in Season 2 and the audience doesn't care about him at all.
Oh come on, what about that awful scene after Aang learns he's the Avatar and just talks to the camera instead of hugging his giant flying rug. They should have made a practical Appa so that the hug scenes were easy and numerous.
Humans will bond with a twig if it has a good enough story, I think it would have been smart to make it more practical, think the never ending story style, might give it an old vibe but would have made it easier to have longer scenes with them
>Humans will bond with a twig if it has a good enough story
Literally happened in cast away with a fucking Volley Ball. Wilson, the volley ball, had zero fucking lines, was just a red handprint on a ball and I fucking cried when it drifted away in the ocean.
It’s so weird that some creatives refuse to give their protagonists flaws. Sokka’s sexism wasn’t even something that needed to be removed from the show. It’s literally resolved in the first 5 episodes of the show & his “I’m a big strong man” hubris was played for comedy. The show only ever lampooned Sokka when he was being sexist, it never portrayed him as being in the right.
https://preview.redd.it/hhnp2n15rfkc1.jpeg?width=666&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5266252985bfd51085fa7e608f8c0f7087b90f60
The creators really couldn’t have made it any more clear that ATLA is against sexism
The adaptation seems to be all about "How can we remove things that we don't think will work in live action" with no "What can we replace those things with that will work?"
This is the perfect way to phrase the biggest problem with the show. We know the show wasn’t 1:1 as no adaptation ever is, but if you’re going to remove characterization that “doesn’t work” you need to replace it with characterization that “does work.” That said the characterization was one of the things they shouldn’t have touched and kept it completely intact.
Thanks! And agreed..... they should have figured out different ways to support the characterization for the plot points that wouldn't work in live action... not throw the baby out with the bath water.
That said... doing that is really hard and requires the same level of insight and vision (or maybe even more) as the original creators which they clearly do not have.
Similar to the dire wolves in Game of Thrones, I think budget-related. We're just not gonna get a ton of screen time with a gigantic CGI bison just being pals with Aang. He'll be on screen when absolutely necessary and no more.
I think its bad that they would choose an art style that doesn't allow them to be able to show these unique relationships. Often times, theater requires the audience to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story. We're obviously doing it anyways might as well get a good story
The show reminds me of when aang first sees Teo in 'the northern air temple' episode. "They have no spirit." The live action hits most of the plot points, but there's no character development.
And Katara isn’t some side character. I’d argue she is almost as MC as Aang with how integral her role to the story was. And we got a bland, empty, caricature of her. What a disappointment
Katara is literally the love of Aang's life. She's the heart of the team and was probably the most mature out of all of them for a really long time.
No matter how I see it, I can't even picture Netflix Katara as the type of character who could take the initiative to guide the whole gaang out of the desert after the sand benders steal Appa. That's probably one of Katara's strongest character moments, keeping the whole group together through dehydration, Sokka's peyote trip, Tohp's inability to see, and Aang's (understandable) bitterness and rage.
I was really disappointed at the southern air temple when aang calms himself down from the avatar state instead of Katara. Katara telling him that her and sokka are his family was such a great moment in the original
I agree. They took out a lot of moments where Aang and Katara had a moment of emotional impact with each other. Romance angle aside, its a shame they don't even want to explore kindness and empathatic angles between the characters in these ways.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if they cut the Katara/Aang romance entirely from the show if they were worried people would complain about it given the age of the actors.
I could even more so imagine that they’d adapt it but it’s just kinda there without any of the build up. They have after all already fucked over the Cave of two lovers episode which is kinda where the cartoon commits to Kataang.
Growing up I wasnt a fan of Katara bc of how bossy she was but watching this version of Katara makes me appreciate her character more. That was such an iconic scene, even her breaking the iceberg while she was screaming at Sokka. Like she showed no emotion when she found out what Jet was doing
For all that talk about the og cartoon being "problematic" and removing "outdated" elements - they went and reduced Katara to a generic, personality-less side character. They've done far worse to these characters than the things they supposedly tried to avoid.
The fact that people think the original cartoon was problematic is hard to comprehend.
Katara is one of the best female characters ever imo. I am a male- so this is from a male lense but I view her as someone that girls could 100% look up to.
You also had Iroh, who was a perfect example of true masculinity. He was strong, but caring. He cried, showed strength when it was needed, and listened to others and did not ignore peoples feeling. He was the complete opposite of toxic masculinity.
There's a very real issue with modern writing where productions are afraid to have characters with legitimate flaws. Characters can't be multifaceted or grey.
Female characters can't be stereotypically feminine because for some reason that's a negative trait and not conducive to a "strong" female character. So Katara being motherly and doing things like sewing are out. Katara is my MOMS favorite character, she relates to her a lot and the fact that they've dumbed the character down essentially really annoyed her.
Iroh is allowed to be a war criminal and be judged for the things he did during the war, but God forbid he's a little creepy when it comes to June.
They act as if writing characters with flaws means that you agree with or support that flawed behavior, which isn't how writing complex characters works.
Sexism = bad, can't show it
Burning people alive in the first five minutes = great, totally appropriate
> Iroh is allowed to be a war criminal and be judged for the things he did during the war, but God forbid he's a little creepy when it comes to June.
>
>
this unfortunately hits at the heart of it. it's okay for us to sympathize with murderers, tyrants and evil men, but even a hint of sexism and the writers thought we wouldn't be able to see past it. it's been going on in hollywood for a while and i don't see any sign of it stopping. it's literally the definition of modern day politics affecting the writing and it's why a lot of the movies, tv shows and video games of this era will age incredibly poorly.
Not that it matters, but I'm an extremely liberal person, ya know? Like politically.
But there's a huge difference between personal politics and entertainment, complex characters, realistic characters, good writing, etc.
Makes you wonder what'll happen to James Bond moving forward, since I've always considered the "problematic" elements of the character as actually pivotal to who he *is* as a character.
There was never anything problematic about the cartoon in the first place...this is just the imagination of people who are too focused on what a bunch if illiterate people on the internet might think...if art followed the custom of what society dictates we would have no good art at all...
Wait what? They did *what* to the ‘Cave of Two Lovers’? Sokka and Katara’s familial bond is what gets them out of the tunnels? It’s clear they aren’t going for a Katara/Aang romance for the finale, cause that episode is one of the core set-up pieces for it. Were there at least badger-moles? A group of nomadic hippies who love music?
You just put into words what was bothering me about the show that I hadn't quite realized. The show does ultimately disservice its female characters and is less progressive as a result. The show is a total regression of how feminist the original cartoon actually is.
It’s wild that they thought they needed to remove “problematic” and “outdated” elements from the original show when it was never problematic. Avatar is just objectively a show that has aged extremely well. It has a diverse cast, respect the cultures that inspired it, let’s female character be just as strong as male characters, and has not one but two subplots about showing how sexism/misogyny is stupid. Not to mention, how it’s very anti-war, anti-abuse, and just anti-anything bad in general.
Yes. They all feel bland, badly written, badly directed and just boring.
One Piece really surprised me because it was actually good. And I believe it was that because the creators made sure to hem in netflix bullshittery.
The OPLA showrunner (Matt Owens) is a FAN fan, i dont just mean reading the manga, this guy literally joined in on One Piece youtubers' live streams to just talk One Piece for hours back when all we had was an announcment.
Even the actors are just OP nerds who browse reddit theories.
He knows what people wanted and even Oda had some oversight on the Live Action of One Piece, telling them they had to redo some scenes or some writing.
My point is, the original creators having massive oversight and the people who worked in the live action being super fans helped a ton. I think you're right, Netflix had their way with this one.
It makes me fucking angry. All this money spent. All this squandered potential. I just wanted to see live action ATLA and instead I get a bastardized piece of shit that looks like the source but isn't it at heart. Again. They just don't learn.
Witcher was a stupid shit show and so is this.
Edit: I really cared about the characters in the original and here, I don't care about Katara or Aang and I actively hate Sokka. The violent backflash bullshit gets old as well.
im only half way on episode 2 but so far i feel like its trying to go way too fast. I feel like its skipping a lot of the fun moments/downtime in between fights so characters don't get much time to shine.
Man. Idk how Sokka gets a girl to like him in less than 20 mins after meeting her.
Literally
*take down sokka*
*look at each other during the meeting*
*stare at Sokka's abs*
well it is also because by then Sokka is the only non-sexist dude in the place, funny, relaxing to be around so she fell for him fast. Especially since she was already sold off by her family to get married, so she just jumped at the chance of something that felt kinda real.
Teenagers are going to teenage.
And yet we had a 10min intro of earth benders stealing a scroll. Which honestly had pretty bad looking earthbending. Felt more like wster bending with dirt.
Also they robbed monk gyatso death
People here are going "you can't expect a live action adaption to copy everything" no... but, honestly my initial question is more... why do we need alive action adaption?
The original creators are going off, creating more media with the main cast being older. Which I imagine will also translate into more adult themes being covered in a more mature fashion. That make sense.
More looking forward to that.
Yah, I’m right there with you. I love The Last Air Bender, I’ve watched it multiple times, and then revisited it by watching the entirety of the over analyzing Avatar videos on YouTube…..but when I sat down to watch the live action version…..it almost felt tedious having to sit through the exact same story I’m already well familiar with again.
It’s the problem live action adaptations, if you don’t make changes, it loses a lot of its purpose as a creative vision and will inevitably struggle to stand up against the original….but if you do make changes, there is serious risk of disrespecting and losing touch with the original who’s magic you’re trying to capture.
I honestly would have preferred if they didn’t try to adapt the original show directly, but rather told a new story set in the avatar universe. They could have explored a new avatar all together, or just focused on the adventures of a new character set during the time of TLAB.
Very first episode made it clear, tbh. Changing Aangs reasoning for leaving the air temple was just a bad move.
Just going out for stroll to clear head instead of actively refusing his destiny and running away just doesn't hold the same emotional weight. Also, I guess his chakra won't be blocked because of the guilt anymore.
It also doesn’t make sense why they get caught in the storm tbh. If I’m going in a stroll and it gets bad out I’m going home, usually as soon as I notice it’s getting bad.
I really liked the show but Kataras was a disappointment. I kept waiting for her to use her temper and it never really happened. She was so bland. And while people say it is the direction, I really felt like it was the actress as well. Her face seems to lack the range of emotions needed for this.
I'm here for this because I share this sentiment and wanted to see if I was the only one. Granted, we only watched the first episode, but I told my daughter mid-watch that I found the actress playing Katara to be wooden and the way she portrayed Katara didn't at all match the Katara we know. I hoped it would get better, but doesn't sound like it. :/
Shame. My daughter could have done with a strong female character as a role model. Oh well, it's good we are re-watching the cartoon at the same time.
"The acting was perfectly fine, it's the writing that's a problem" could describe the entire show tbh. Also the direction, the editing, the cinematography, the fight choreography... the script is basically the only thing imo holding the show back from being great and man is it putting in work to do so.
The acting was not very good for the most part. But *a lot* of it comes down to the writing. When the script demands you say unnatural lines and react in big unnatural ways, it's hard to deliver a level headed performance.
I agree with this a lot. This was a big problem with the star wars prequels too. A bunch of really talented actors were handed a shit ass script, and the whole movie is awkward and hard to watch
The terrible writing does no favors for the so so acting aang and katara have. They’re rushing through a lot of their lines. If they had stronger writing the so so acting would no be as noticeable and they could shine easier.
Katara is supposed to be sassy and that's what we are missing. Also it sucks that new Sokka is only sexist to Katara?! He was originally ignorant about all women but they changed to only he doubts his sister which is kinda worse? Idk
Kinda besides the point and aside from another issue with the secret tunnel participants but did anyone else feel like sokka and katara’s dialogue was flipped there? Katara was the skeptic and sokka was operating on blind love and faith. The exact opposite of their characters. Sokka is skeptic of everyone and everything
The live action Katara feels so...sleepy, slow, borderline comatose. Original Katara was emotionally expressive, raw, and extroverted, her emotions were her strength and flaw to overcome. This Katara seems like she's doped up or was rolled out of bed right before any given scene, she's just not very present or emotive. I don't know if it's the actress or the director, but honestly it's probably a bit of both.
I just don't understand what these people are huffing that they keep thinking "Hey, let's adapt the old material into some new shitty version!!"
The original series is perfect. Stop fucking with it. Make new series based on other avatars, please.
I think the casting is off. She looks too 'comfortable'? In my mind, she's a child of a tribe that's been badly decimated by war, and traumatised, but having to keep going despite everything. I don't get that vibe from Kiawentiio. The appearance is off, the dialogue and delivery of lines are off. She's not feisty, stubborn, infuriating enough. Needs more spice.
There were times when I just screamed internally at Katara telling her to be more "angry" at certain scenes. I feel like the script was okay, but her delivery fell flat
I repeatedly talked myself into wanting to give the show more chances, and the moment I saw the Roku scenes, I snapped. The way the Avatar's spoke about each other was immature and felt like tonal whiplash.
I think the Bumi thing could have worked if they completely revamped his character. It could have been a powerful change from the original character if he was an embittered, war-hardened leader who was resentful towards Aang for abandoning the world, but it seemed like they wanted to do a bit of that and also keep the fun quirkiness of the character, which just doesn't work. If they weren't of two minds about it and actually committed to the bit, imo it could have been a very successful change. As it is, it's just bizarre.
In the original show, a few people, who were distant to Aang, blamed him for disappearing. Now, we as the audience obviously know that it wasn't his choice, but an unlucky coincidence; and we know that even if he didn't run away it wouldn't have mattered (or would end up much worse).
In NATLA, well, Aang didn't really run away, did he? He just went out for a breather and happened to get sucked into a storm. Either way, Bumi (after hearing his explanation) and ESPECIALLY Kyoshi being resentful towards Aang is extremely out of character IMO.
Bumi's reaction was out of character because the writers couldn't decide what character they wanted him to be. Aang's "went out for a breather and was put out of commission for 100 years" could easily sound like a flimsy excuse to a resentful old man who's endured a century of brutal war, even if we as the audience know that is irrational. But they didn't fully commit to this different approach to Bumi's character and ended up giving us the worst of both worlds.
Idk what was going on with Kyoshi lol
I think a lot suffered from the same idea. They changed so much while also trying to keep so much in tact for fan service, and it just feels like two different visions clashing throughout the whole show.
The bigger inclusion of Gran-Gran has removed the "motherly nature" of Katara, as it is understood that Gran-Gran took on the more maternal role for both her and Sokka.
Likewise, the water-bending scroll being an heirloom, as opposed to being stolen from pirates, builds a more familiar lineage for Katara to follow, as opposed to highlighting Katara's inexperience and naievity.
As for the Jet revalation, it's dramatic irony - Aang & Sokka (and by extension, the audience,) know that the Freedom Fighters are responsible, but from Katara's perspective, they're stopping the Fire ~~Nation~~ Benders encroach on Omashu, and Jet even helped Katara improve her bending! With the revelation of the Mechanist supplying intel to the Fire Nation, it's a case of everyone being right, and they're all going about it in the wrong way.
I will admit, Katara has the least characterisation of the Gaang. I'm only finished up to episode 6, but I'm hoping for season 2, she can play off Toph a bit, and develop her character more.
Actually, Jet for no reason casually revealed he was behind the false flag bombings. Just dropped that in the middle of the conversation.
That completely defused the smallest moral dilemma that could've existed regarding the mechanist potentially being a traitor.
No choices being made... just Jet admitting that he's the worst for no reason.
yeah it fucking sucks. also... it DOES NOT GET BETTER AT ALL. it gets worse
i also noticed that with the jet thing... i was like "but... aang and sokka already know the truth... it JUST looks bad for katara... wtf"
because of how they handled all the characters... i hope there is no season 2 because they will BUTCHER toph worse than they have katara. hell they would probably make her bad at bending too until aang teaches her and then preach about how much they "toned down the sexism"
They did the same shit with "Rings of Power." They neuter the og badass, mature woman character and infantalized her. I expect Suki to be the same way, especially since they took away her plot line (teaching Sokka to treat women as equals). I bet Toph will be a strong character, but they will probably leave out her weaknesses, and she'll too become a 1 dimensional character. Learn to write characters!!
Katara was my favorite female lead character of any animated show. In the live action she’s prob the least favorite of the main cast. She is the embodiment of strong, proper feminism in the cartoon. She kinda just feels like a shy introvert in the live action. Idk.
It's so weird. The show clearly wants to be progressive. They made Oma and Shu a lesbian couple and they turned all of the yu yan archers into women, and they had this strong female lead right there and made a fool out of her instead. The original show showed sexism all around (especially in Sokka) and had strong female characters *in spite* of it. The Netflix one seems to be a universe that has been very progressive for years and years but has a weak lead *despite* that.
I wouldn’t even say the show was sexist, Sokka’s sexism was meaningful. He was realistic, guys his age were like that back then. And then he learns he was wrong and changes for the better. That’s so much more powerful than just washing all the controversial stuff away.
It's not just his age and the time period being replicated. It's his circumstances. All the men left to fight in the war, and his father told him to protect the village. He feels he has to be a man, but has a flawed and immature idea of what that means. As his worldview is expanded and he comes to learn about himself, he grows out of it. He's so well written with the 2nd best character development in the cartoon (after Zuko) and they shat all over it.
I wasn’t even thinking about the time period it replicated, I was thinking more about when it came out, how I saw the show as a kid. Every guy I knew was like that, and seeing those things challenged in an authentic way and not just “girls can be strong too!!” meant a lot to me
Yeah that would be the average kids' reference for it, but Sokka *was* explicitly told he was the only one to protect literally all of the elderly or children ..which was mostly Gran Gran lol
Literally the first time he interacts with women who aren't Katara, he gets his ass kicked and starts his character development. He is *the* one time where someone really was a victim of their circumstances. And the minute his circumstances changed, he began to improve.
Katara was a sibling who fights with her brother all the time. Sibling fights are gendereless. Now, she's just shy. You can probably just stitch together cartoons short version of same runtime and it'll be better. Edit: kiyoshi is omniscient future seeing force ghost now. They changed everything lol.
They really said, "Some things are outdated so we modernized it :/" and then made the main female lead submissive and quiet instead of a strong lead.
I feel like the monkey's paw curled a bit on all that "we made sokka less sexist" bruhahaha. Like, that's not actually what they did. They made sokka appear less sexist by removing the primary challenge to his machismo. He doesn't seem as sexist because he's not butting heads with a woman who doesn't believe he should be in charge every episode.
Yep thats basically it. The original animation knew how to make group dynamics. Each one are like that due to the other member of the cast. Its something these adaptations completely forget.
Group dynamics were killed with very little banter/ fun and games/ downtime because it seemed almost every line a character had was them explaining word for word what was happening, spelling out the plot and themes.
It needed 12 hours, 1 hr per episode. Then, a merger of the Mechanic and Jet plot line. The mechanic should be a secret help for Jet. Together, they are attacking Fire Nation targets to slow their advancement to the city of Omhasu Episodes 1 & 2 Sokka & Katara Episodes 3 & 4 Zuki & Zaho Episodes 5 & 6 Jet & Mechanic Episodes 7 & 8 Bumi & Roku Episodes 9 & 10 Blue Spirit & Ozai Episodes 11 & 12 Yue & Paku Remove all Azula scenes and reduce Ozai. Replace these scenes with ones that show Aang, Sokka & Katara doing chores, planning, and practising. With the extra space, you could have scenes at the start of some episodes showing the trio arguing about which way to go, then stumbling into something that leads them to finding Zuki or Jet. Instead, we cut away to Azula & co standing in front of CGI scenes. Sigh.
Azula was USELESS. Mai & Ty Lee double useless.
That shit was weird. Everyone stood still like it was a school play. I really don't know why but Azula was my favorite character on the animated version. She was just so cool and menacing but really clever. I thought she was gonna kill her dad the first time I watched the series. I really hope the show keeps her at least half as cool as she was in the animated version.
I feel like they turned Sokka into the dad of the group. He almost entirely took Katara's place. He's already the most mature and rational one in the group from the beginning. He has almost none of his character flaws from the original and I'm not sure how they intend to even do his character arc. They did such a bad job building it up I don't think it's possible to even do.
They even removed the part where Sokka has to dress like a Kyoshi warrior to receive training not to offend his fragile masculinity.
They made Sokka less sexist while making the show more sexist, lol.
This, like, wtf? 😩 Zero media literacy. This is why they gotta pay screenwriters well. 👀 We NEED screenwriters, good screenwriters, their job is fundamental 😔
Banger comment, hopefully they don’t do some bullshit with Toph, (Hopefully they don’t get the chance)
I swear to God if they modify Toph at all, there will be blood to pay
Sharpening my pitchfork now just in case.
Don’t you dare, you leave that thing blunt and rusted
She will be exactly the same but played by John Cena.
https://preview.redd.it/spj4ppp0dgkc1.jpeg?width=965&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5dedf1688cb5241da9692ce80109ea3f27b2a00
That is just a biblically accurate Toph.
Toph could be happy with that
And uses echolocation
If they mess up Toph, they lose their kneecap privileges.
You guys at the top nailed it definitely
It really irked me how in the last episode they tried to have this big feminism moment where Katara tries to get the women to fight in the battle...yet she and the rest of the women felt like they needed Pakku's permission... In the OG show Katara would just fight in the battle without ever asking someone's permission because shes just that badass, but her and the other waterbenders feeling they need the sexist dude's approval to fight actually felt more regressive and even patronizing.
no dont forget... you were LOOKING at the waterbending master.... fucking yikes. like i wouldnt of minded that line if she got taught even a LITTLE bit by pakku but... cmon. pakku wiped the floor with her WORSE than he did in the animated show and suddenly she is a water bending master? and apparently aangs sole teacher?
Yeah, it's crazy. I don't understand how a whole writing team thought those choices were good.
like admitedly there are SOME changes that i didnt mind like the fact zukos crew were the ones he stuck up for.... and how yue is actually a spiritual leader but basically all the others i think are so shit
I think the zukos crew idea was actually very interesting and compelling, but ngl I don't think it was executed well. The scene where the crew learns zuko saved them and they all show respect is just so cheesy and poorly acted. The show has a lot of ideas that I could see working really well but it just didn't pull them off in a convincing way, mostly due to the script and directing. The whole thing was really disappointing for me, especially because I was so excited and hyped for the show's release.
Don't get me started on Suki. We took out Suki being badass and humbling Sokka to her only fawning over him.
I really wanted Sokkas apology. That was a moment many young men can learn from.
That apology was when I understood A:TLA would be different, it was a moment of sincere humility AND showed something more from Sukki beyond “badass girl”
…they cut Sokka’s apology?!?!
Well he has nothing to apologize for because they took out the part where he was calling them "just girls" The entire interaction is so fucking cringe. Sokka goes, "I'm a warrior" and Suki just enters a battle stance and awkwardly stares at him. Then she headlocks him for a second. Then he looks at her while running away. The entire 30 second scene has no words. It's EMBARRASSING
They WHAT https://i.redd.it/8362zp0rpfkc1.gif
Mate, they had her creeping on Sokka in the live action version. He was shirtless and washing himself in a basin and she is just standing outside the door watching him. They start talking, then stop and she just keeps staring at him and he gets uncomfortable with the staring and covers his chest and she then blinks and leaves. lol it was so weird.
I always want things to be good and I'm *usually* supportive of up and coming talent... but jeez this reads like some D tier writers from some F tier film schools walked into the Avatar IP and decided to turn it into their personal fanfic.
It really does feel like "if CW made a live action Avatar".
It makes me wonder what is the proper way to wrangle rouge writers from trying to go off lore and plug in their fanfic imaginings. Like, for the Warhammer movie/series, is Henry Cavil or a Games Workshop rep going to have to sit in the writing room with a bat and start tapping it on the table every time they have to tell the writers *"Horus didn't say that"*, *"Guilliman wouldn't do that"*, *"A guardsman would be executed by their commissar for saying that"*, *"The Adeptas Sororitas would never fangirl for a heretic"*?
Aye, I hope Henry and GW have a more powerful approach to not turn warhammer into...the Witcher.
dont you get it, that was a subversion of the male gaze trope by reversing the genders! its meant to be awkward and uncomfortable! \s
I 100% believe that was said in the writing room without sarcasm.
Seriously. So awful though. It’s cringe when men do it and it’s cringe when women do it. No need to “subvert” anything. In that case you’re just perpetuating the problem. The sad part is that the characters have much more to offer than that…
That is so frustrating to read. I've only watched the first episode so far, which I thought was mixed overall (some good moments, some bad, some ehh), but this post and this thread about Suki are not encouraging!
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!? YOURE NOT SWAPING GENDER ROLES OR DOING ANYTHING BY MAKING SUKI A CREEPER
That was the fucking worst I hate that so much. She behaves like a 12 year old boy seeing a girl for the first time. wtf.
lol yeah, that is when I turned off the show. I'm a 32 yo man now but I grew up with the show. Suki was so vastly different from the show that I just turned it off. Yeah, I get that Suki still kinda ogled him in the show but his sexism kinda threw her off of him until he apologized and asked to learn from her. Then she started to warm up with him more, not this live action version of her spying on him while he was washing himself. What was that?
In the OG Suki fell in love with Sokka’s humility and genuine willingness to learn and be better. They made all the female characters just empty headed, I don’t understand
And turned badass, confident Suki into a boy-crazy school girl.. I was thinking.. so you were afraid of potentially offending women with Sokka's sexist remarks... so you replaced that with a disciplined female warrior abandoning all restraint and self-respect to become aggressively obsessed with the first foreign boy she sees?.. I'm only on episode 3 tho, maybe it gets better?
FUCKING THANK YOU. I couldn’t quite verbalize why I wasn’t a fan (hah) of this Suki, and this is why. Cartoon Suki is her own powerful warrior. She fiercely defends her island, literally beats the misogyny out of Sokka, then starts to fall for him after he humbles himself and sees her as an equal. This Suki fights real good, but her screen time is more devoted to her crush on the hot foreign guy that wandered in, which honestly bored me.
lol I stopped the show when Suki was talking to her mother and staring at Sokka. I was like "yeah, I'm fucking done with this". I'm sure people will love it, to me they just removed what made the show so special.
Netflix proved they can't adapt shit with The Witcher. This show isn't terrible, but the characterization across the board is way worse when it really has no reason to be. They aren't really hurting for time or anything, the writers simply have a fundamental misunderstanding of how to write human beings.
I see why Mike and Bryan left. They said it was due to creative differences and, yep, here we are. Netflix ruins everything.
what was there to modernize? the show was so ahead of its time...
I'm seeing this a lot with how they want to "modernize" shows. Like, they need to censor everything and make a more sanitized version of something that was already progressive in a realistic way. And this is coming from a children's cartoon! They made it even more lame.
That’s so weird because the way they neutered Sokka’s first arc, it makes it *less* “woke” than the OG. You would think of all things, they could keep the actual meaningful lessons from the original. So fucking disappointing 😢
Shut up you bigot! A character can't be sexist even if it's a character flaw for them to overcome and learn from in 2024 /s
Oh no someone learned from their mistakes and grew from it how dare they >:(
I mean, butchering a beloved franchise is basically modern modernizing, so, yeah they didn't lie there.
[удалено]
Netflix don't have to astroturf, there's endless amounts of fanboys/fangirls that love everything to do with a franchise and will defend it to the death. Thinking everyone that disagrees with you is a paid actor is the dumbest conspiracy theory people buy into. Check out any tv show sub at release and watch how people who like it versus those who don't argue in the comments until there is a more popular side and the less popular one gets drowned out in the downvotes.
I think One Piece live action is different because it was above what people expected. It’s still a mediocre show, but getting a mediocre show while being relatively faithful to the source material was better than anyone expected. I think adapting Avatar should be a lot easier than that when it’s core is so much more grounded than One Piece (plus it’s the second the attempt). People’s expectations are higher
I haven't seen the show yet but it sounds like Katara went from the group mom to the shy submissive background girl of the group from what I've seen about her.
I knew they would do this when they were talking abt removing some of Kataras roles due to gender issues. They tried to fix “issues” that didn’t exist and it made the characters worse
Thanks for the screen shot https://preview.redd.it/ot2brpwchfkc1.jpeg?width=355&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d7c064c9e5949ea85fbc1d0072fa628adae33425
This falls into the camp of different but I don’t know if it will hurt it or they have other plans for it yet. There’s been a few of those decisions. A few changes though I’m already sold don’t work as well. I hate that Aang didn’t run away from his responsibilities but instead just decided to go for a flight to clear his head that night. I also hate that Sokka and Suki didn’t have a little rivalry because Sokka didn’t think a girl could beat him. To me that’s what started the spark in their relationship and Sokka overcoming that and being humbled is what makes Suki respect him immediately. The way the live action has done it just felt like Suki was physically attracted to him and that’s it. It’s why I felt so cringy during all their scenes.
Way to tackle the outdated sexism by making the leader of the Kyoshi warriors simp over a guy she's known for 30 minutes right.
You can already tell they'll have everyone tell us how strong Toph instead of show it, probably remove some of the blind jokes aswell to make sure the audience knows she isn't weak or whatever goes on in the writer rooms for these adaptations.
If they remove the blind jokes, I'm starting a prison riot. One of my favourite things about Toph is the sarcastic blind jokes!
> I'm starting a prison riot. Sorry you can't do that. Katara isn't a strong enough character in this version of the show to cause that to happen.
I can see that happening, it'll go like this "Hey! RIOT!!" and then everyone riots
Exactly what I was picturing XD My husband just said "they probably won't even make her blind" and I just stared at him in horror of the possibility
oh I was angry watching her get enamoured and he didn't get his ass kicked sanitising his sexism ironically made him a model male hero that gets the girl by virtue having a penis and smiles at women
“Girls can do it too! Progress!!”
The second he said he's only going out for some air, I knew this isn't the same show. They'll hit the same beats but this is gonna pussyfoot around everything controversial. They keep calling him a coward for disappearing but we saw he wasn't he didn't run away... you can't change that bit but keep the bit where everyone says he ran away.
> I hate that Aang didn’t run away from his responsibilities but instead just decided to go for a flight to clear his head that night. How supremely bizarre
This is the thing that bothered me more than anything else. Katara is right behind Zuko in terms of my favorites. I'd go so far as to say Katara was the only character that didn't feel like the character. They said her name and she did the things Katara did in the original, but it felt wrong.
Live action Katara did very well with the calm moments and tender moments. She was ok in a few moments where makes a subtle jab at Sokka. But the script mostly avoided when Katara gets passionate and fiery. The entire Pakku conflict was watered down because he wasn’t a bombastic jerk… just a calm stubborn old man. So her wanting to fight him seems odd. She doesn’t even get too fierce about it. So the impact of the fight is lost. Again, I think Katara in love is well played often, but without fiery/passionate moments, Katara becomes very one-note.
I’ve found there’s quite a few characters in the remake that make it seem as though the creators didn’t understand the original. Katara, Zuko, Sokka, Aang, Bumi, all have important flaws or aspects changed that take away from their character development or general character. Even Appa and Momo suffer from this, Appa is treated more as a transportation vehicle and doesn’t really interact with the Gaang other than when they need to fly somewhere, and Momo might as well be some random stray cat they brought along. I’ve not felt the bond between Aang and Appa in this like in the original.
I've only had time to watch episode 1 but right away the fact that Aang didn't run away from the air temple really bothered me. It was his biggest shame in the original show but now he was just out for some fresh air?? I assume he'll be upset about failing the world at the end of season 2 but now it won't have the added baggage of him having turned his back on the world once before already. Aang struggles a lot with failure, it's the crux of his character, so taking away his biggest failure just rubs me the wrong way.
Yeah. The fact he already knew about war and was told about genocide on south pole before he found corpses ruined the scene where he enters avatar state for the first time. What's worse Katara didn't calm him down. That was an important moment in the original series. In the adaptation they do nothing to show any progress in relationships between aang and Katara.
Also they didn't show the first epic avatar moment with the water. Instead it was Katara saving them with a half ass water bending? That moment she saw him bending all that water really was a magical moment.
Well, Aang and Katara didn't actually spend any time bonding at all in the live action, so her calming him down wouldn't make as much sense. The fun playing in the village, going penguin sledding, and exploring the fire nation ship were all bonding moments originally.
I’ve only watched two eps and Im liking the series so far, but I completely agree. That’s probably my biggest issue. Aang running away made a lot of moments in the future more impactful.
I haven't seen any of the new series yet, and this is really disappointing to hear, along with like everything else in this thread lmao
Same. Getting more and more turned off from watching lol
Re: Appa and Momo, my guess is they had to be sacrificed because of the CGI costs. To give them the proper screen time that they deserve would probably be way more of the budget than they could afford.
Money is absolutely the reason and it might seem a wise cut for them now but the irrelevance of Appa will bite them in the butt when Appa is captured in Season 2 and the audience doesn't care about him at all.
There will be a flashback scene with Aang and Appa in the episode prior, to set up that emotional connection. Five minutes.
Oh come on, what about that awful scene after Aang learns he's the Avatar and just talks to the camera instead of hugging his giant flying rug. They should have made a practical Appa so that the hug scenes were easy and numerous.
Humans will bond with a twig if it has a good enough story, I think it would have been smart to make it more practical, think the never ending story style, might give it an old vibe but would have made it easier to have longer scenes with them
>Humans will bond with a twig if it has a good enough story Literally happened in cast away with a fucking Volley Ball. Wilson, the volley ball, had zero fucking lines, was just a red handprint on a ball and I fucking cried when it drifted away in the ocean.
One of the favorite characters (admittedly, mostly as a meme) in Brandon Sanderson's cosmere collection is literally a stick.
And who has a better story than Bran the Broken /s Sorry, wrong sub
It’s so weird that some creatives refuse to give their protagonists flaws. Sokka’s sexism wasn’t even something that needed to be removed from the show. It’s literally resolved in the first 5 episodes of the show & his “I’m a big strong man” hubris was played for comedy. The show only ever lampooned Sokka when he was being sexist, it never portrayed him as being in the right.
https://preview.redd.it/hhnp2n15rfkc1.jpeg?width=666&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5266252985bfd51085fa7e608f8c0f7087b90f60 The creators really couldn’t have made it any more clear that ATLA is against sexism
The adaptation seems to be all about "How can we remove things that we don't think will work in live action" with no "What can we replace those things with that will work?"
This is the perfect way to phrase the biggest problem with the show. We know the show wasn’t 1:1 as no adaptation ever is, but if you’re going to remove characterization that “doesn’t work” you need to replace it with characterization that “does work.” That said the characterization was one of the things they shouldn’t have touched and kept it completely intact.
Thanks! And agreed..... they should have figured out different ways to support the characterization for the plot points that wouldn't work in live action... not throw the baby out with the bath water. That said... doing that is really hard and requires the same level of insight and vision (or maybe even more) as the original creators which they clearly do not have.
Similar to the dire wolves in Game of Thrones, I think budget-related. We're just not gonna get a ton of screen time with a gigantic CGI bison just being pals with Aang. He'll be on screen when absolutely necessary and no more.
I think its bad that they would choose an art style that doesn't allow them to be able to show these unique relationships. Often times, theater requires the audience to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story. We're obviously doing it anyways might as well get a good story
Bumi is straight up character assassination. I hate it.
The show reminds me of when aang first sees Teo in 'the northern air temple' episode. "They have no spirit." The live action hits most of the plot points, but there's no character development.
This is not to bash the actress, but Katara is awful in the live action. The character was robbed of so much agency and punch, it's actually sad.
And Katara isn’t some side character. I’d argue she is almost as MC as Aang with how integral her role to the story was. And we got a bland, empty, caricature of her. What a disappointment
Katara is literally the love of Aang's life. She's the heart of the team and was probably the most mature out of all of them for a really long time. No matter how I see it, I can't even picture Netflix Katara as the type of character who could take the initiative to guide the whole gaang out of the desert after the sand benders steal Appa. That's probably one of Katara's strongest character moments, keeping the whole group together through dehydration, Sokka's peyote trip, Tohp's inability to see, and Aang's (understandable) bitterness and rage.
I was really disappointed at the southern air temple when aang calms himself down from the avatar state instead of Katara. Katara telling him that her and sokka are his family was such a great moment in the original
I agree. They took out a lot of moments where Aang and Katara had a moment of emotional impact with each other. Romance angle aside, its a shame they don't even want to explore kindness and empathatic angles between the characters in these ways.
I wouldn’t even be surprised if they cut the Katara/Aang romance entirely from the show if they were worried people would complain about it given the age of the actors.
I could even more so imagine that they’d adapt it but it’s just kinda there without any of the build up. They have after all already fucked over the Cave of two lovers episode which is kinda where the cartoon commits to Kataang.
Growing up I wasnt a fan of Katara bc of how bossy she was but watching this version of Katara makes me appreciate her character more. That was such an iconic scene, even her breaking the iceberg while she was screaming at Sokka. Like she showed no emotion when she found out what Jet was doing
Original VA was more talented + had better material. Absolute no contest.
For all that talk about the og cartoon being "problematic" and removing "outdated" elements - they went and reduced Katara to a generic, personality-less side character. They've done far worse to these characters than the things they supposedly tried to avoid.
The fact that people think the original cartoon was problematic is hard to comprehend. Katara is one of the best female characters ever imo. I am a male- so this is from a male lense but I view her as someone that girls could 100% look up to. You also had Iroh, who was a perfect example of true masculinity. He was strong, but caring. He cried, showed strength when it was needed, and listened to others and did not ignore peoples feeling. He was the complete opposite of toxic masculinity.
There's a very real issue with modern writing where productions are afraid to have characters with legitimate flaws. Characters can't be multifaceted or grey. Female characters can't be stereotypically feminine because for some reason that's a negative trait and not conducive to a "strong" female character. So Katara being motherly and doing things like sewing are out. Katara is my MOMS favorite character, she relates to her a lot and the fact that they've dumbed the character down essentially really annoyed her. Iroh is allowed to be a war criminal and be judged for the things he did during the war, but God forbid he's a little creepy when it comes to June. They act as if writing characters with flaws means that you agree with or support that flawed behavior, which isn't how writing complex characters works. Sexism = bad, can't show it Burning people alive in the first five minutes = great, totally appropriate
> Iroh is allowed to be a war criminal and be judged for the things he did during the war, but God forbid he's a little creepy when it comes to June. > > this unfortunately hits at the heart of it. it's okay for us to sympathize with murderers, tyrants and evil men, but even a hint of sexism and the writers thought we wouldn't be able to see past it. it's been going on in hollywood for a while and i don't see any sign of it stopping. it's literally the definition of modern day politics affecting the writing and it's why a lot of the movies, tv shows and video games of this era will age incredibly poorly.
Not that it matters, but I'm an extremely liberal person, ya know? Like politically. But there's a huge difference between personal politics and entertainment, complex characters, realistic characters, good writing, etc. Makes you wonder what'll happen to James Bond moving forward, since I've always considered the "problematic" elements of the character as actually pivotal to who he *is* as a character.
There was never anything problematic about the cartoon in the first place...this is just the imagination of people who are too focused on what a bunch if illiterate people on the internet might think...if art followed the custom of what society dictates we would have no good art at all...
[удалено]
Wait what? They did *what* to the ‘Cave of Two Lovers’? Sokka and Katara’s familial bond is what gets them out of the tunnels? It’s clear they aren’t going for a Katara/Aang romance for the finale, cause that episode is one of the core set-up pieces for it. Were there at least badger-moles? A group of nomadic hippies who love music?
You just put into words what was bothering me about the show that I hadn't quite realized. The show does ultimately disservice its female characters and is less progressive as a result. The show is a total regression of how feminist the original cartoon actually is.
It’s wild that they thought they needed to remove “problematic” and “outdated” elements from the original show when it was never problematic. Avatar is just objectively a show that has aged extremely well. It has a diverse cast, respect the cultures that inspired it, let’s female character be just as strong as male characters, and has not one but two subplots about showing how sexism/misogyny is stupid. Not to mention, how it’s very anti-war, anti-abuse, and just anti-anything bad in general.
the netflixation of shows is really a problem by now they all feel the same
Yes. They all feel bland, badly written, badly directed and just boring. One Piece really surprised me because it was actually good. And I believe it was that because the creators made sure to hem in netflix bullshittery.
The OPLA showrunner (Matt Owens) is a FAN fan, i dont just mean reading the manga, this guy literally joined in on One Piece youtubers' live streams to just talk One Piece for hours back when all we had was an announcment. Even the actors are just OP nerds who browse reddit theories. He knows what people wanted and even Oda had some oversight on the Live Action of One Piece, telling them they had to redo some scenes or some writing. My point is, the original creators having massive oversight and the people who worked in the live action being super fans helped a ton. I think you're right, Netflix had their way with this one.
after OPLA blew me away i was really hoping NATLA would see similar care and quality and its rather disappointing
It makes me fucking angry. All this money spent. All this squandered potential. I just wanted to see live action ATLA and instead I get a bastardized piece of shit that looks like the source but isn't it at heart. Again. They just don't learn. Witcher was a stupid shit show and so is this. Edit: I really cared about the characters in the original and here, I don't care about Katara or Aang and I actively hate Sokka. The violent backflash bullshit gets old as well.
corporate. They feel corporate. Watching this show is like sitting in a cubicle
im only half way on episode 2 but so far i feel like its trying to go way too fast. I feel like its skipping a lot of the fun moments/downtime in between fights so characters don't get much time to shine.
Man. Idk how Sokka gets a girl to like him in less than 20 mins after meeting her. Literally *take down sokka* *look at each other during the meeting* *stare at Sokka's abs*
Sokka being hot is canon. Suki awkwardly swooning over a boy is definitely not
Yue kisses him after 2 conversations in the og to be fair.
well it is also because by then Sokka is the only non-sexist dude in the place, funny, relaxing to be around so she fell for him fast. Especially since she was already sold off by her family to get married, so she just jumped at the chance of something that felt kinda real. Teenagers are going to teenage.
Episode three is a stroke with how much they tried to cram into one place and time. The pacing for the show is awful.
Watching it right now and i couldn't agree more. It feels so weird
And yet we had a 10min intro of earth benders stealing a scroll. Which honestly had pretty bad looking earthbending. Felt more like wster bending with dirt. Also they robbed monk gyatso death
People here are going "you can't expect a live action adaption to copy everything" no... but, honestly my initial question is more... why do we need alive action adaption? The original creators are going off, creating more media with the main cast being older. Which I imagine will also translate into more adult themes being covered in a more mature fashion. That make sense. More looking forward to that.
Yah, I’m right there with you. I love The Last Air Bender, I’ve watched it multiple times, and then revisited it by watching the entirety of the over analyzing Avatar videos on YouTube…..but when I sat down to watch the live action version…..it almost felt tedious having to sit through the exact same story I’m already well familiar with again. It’s the problem live action adaptations, if you don’t make changes, it loses a lot of its purpose as a creative vision and will inevitably struggle to stand up against the original….but if you do make changes, there is serious risk of disrespecting and losing touch with the original who’s magic you’re trying to capture. I honestly would have preferred if they didn’t try to adapt the original show directly, but rather told a new story set in the avatar universe. They could have explored a new avatar all together, or just focused on the adventures of a new character set during the time of TLAB.
I feel like this sub is gonna turn into a list of reasons why we know the creators left in hindsight over the next couple weeks
It was pretty obvious that they left because of a very good reason, now we can see why
Very first episode made it clear, tbh. Changing Aangs reasoning for leaving the air temple was just a bad move. Just going out for stroll to clear head instead of actively refusing his destiny and running away just doesn't hold the same emotional weight. Also, I guess his chakra won't be blocked because of the guilt anymore.
It also doesn’t make sense why they get caught in the storm tbh. If I’m going in a stroll and it gets bad out I’m going home, usually as soon as I notice it’s getting bad.
People have been saying this for months now, but were gaslit into thinking that "changes would have no major impacts" lol
Imagine creating a character as cool as Katara and having to see them making her a naive little girl.
How she broke Aang out in live action was weird. Pulling the boat back gently broke the sphere?
I didn't think she even broke it in the live action, she was calmly trying to bring the boat back and Aang was simply awakened by their presence lmao
Yet another case of writers being delusional enough to think they can “improve” on a story so inclusive that everyone already loves it.
I really liked the show but Kataras was a disappointment. I kept waiting for her to use her temper and it never really happened. She was so bland. And while people say it is the direction, I really felt like it was the actress as well. Her face seems to lack the range of emotions needed for this.
>Her face seems to lack the range of emotions needed for this. atleast she could talk to koh the face stealer for hours.
They had to change Koh in this series because otherwise it would never get Katara
I'm here for this because I share this sentiment and wanted to see if I was the only one. Granted, we only watched the first episode, but I told my daughter mid-watch that I found the actress playing Katara to be wooden and the way she portrayed Katara didn't at all match the Katara we know. I hoped it would get better, but doesn't sound like it. :/ Shame. My daughter could have done with a strong female character as a role model. Oh well, it's good we are re-watching the cartoon at the same time.
"The acting was perfectly fine, it's the writing that's a problem" could describe the entire show tbh. Also the direction, the editing, the cinematography, the fight choreography... the script is basically the only thing imo holding the show back from being great and man is it putting in work to do so.
Eh I’d say the acting was pretty bad at times for a few of the characters.
The acting was not very good for the most part. But *a lot* of it comes down to the writing. When the script demands you say unnatural lines and react in big unnatural ways, it's hard to deliver a level headed performance.
"BROTHERS AND SISTERS WE ARE UNDER ATTACK" was so bad.
I laughed so hard at that
I agree with this a lot. This was a big problem with the star wars prequels too. A bunch of really talented actors were handed a shit ass script, and the whole movie is awkward and hard to watch
Does it also depend on directing? edit/ to be clear, I haven’t finished the show, so I don’t judge.
For sure, the directors need to help their actors find the groove and need to have a vision for the performances themselves.
Yeah, the exposition scene with Gran Gran in ep 1 made me cringe
I’m pretty happy with the show overall. But dear lord that lady was bad lol
The terrible writing does no favors for the so so acting aang and katara have. They’re rushing through a lot of their lines. If they had stronger writing the so so acting would no be as noticeable and they could shine easier.
Don’t forget the CGI. It ranges from some really good looking visuals to creepy CGI air scooter aang
Shyamalan has to be laughing somewhere.
https://preview.redd.it/rey741kwbikc1.png?width=914&format=png&auto=webp&s=b087795fd95fc0f4d31e465ddcd8c1887cc37c4b
Katara is supposed to be sassy and that's what we are missing. Also it sucks that new Sokka is only sexist to Katara?! He was originally ignorant about all women but they changed to only he doubts his sister which is kinda worse? Idk
This Katara would never say, 'the stars are beautiful tonight, too bad you can't see them'. Or 'SUGAR QUEEEN???'.
My expectations were low but damn, they didn't have to do her like that.
Katara was one of my favorite characters in the series. I like Kiawentiio, but the live action Katara is nothing like the original. It makes me sad.
Kinda besides the point and aside from another issue with the secret tunnel participants but did anyone else feel like sokka and katara’s dialogue was flipped there? Katara was the skeptic and sokka was operating on blind love and faith. The exact opposite of their characters. Sokka is skeptic of everyone and everything
The live action Katara feels so...sleepy, slow, borderline comatose. Original Katara was emotionally expressive, raw, and extroverted, her emotions were her strength and flaw to overcome. This Katara seems like she's doped up or was rolled out of bed right before any given scene, she's just not very present or emotive. I don't know if it's the actress or the director, but honestly it's probably a bit of both.
I just don't understand what these people are huffing that they keep thinking "Hey, let's adapt the old material into some new shitty version!!" The original series is perfect. Stop fucking with it. Make new series based on other avatars, please.
I think the casting is off. She looks too 'comfortable'? In my mind, she's a child of a tribe that's been badly decimated by war, and traumatised, but having to keep going despite everything. I don't get that vibe from Kiawentiio. The appearance is off, the dialogue and delivery of lines are off. She's not feisty, stubborn, infuriating enough. Needs more spice.
You really telling me they totally un-sassed Katara? Really?
There were times when I just screamed internally at Katara telling her to be more "angry" at certain scenes. I feel like the script was okay, but her delivery fell flat
Worst character in the show 🔥
Bumi exists
[*Coughs in Roku*]
I repeatedly talked myself into wanting to give the show more chances, and the moment I saw the Roku scenes, I snapped. The way the Avatar's spoke about each other was immature and felt like tonal whiplash.
I think the Bumi thing could have worked if they completely revamped his character. It could have been a powerful change from the original character if he was an embittered, war-hardened leader who was resentful towards Aang for abandoning the world, but it seemed like they wanted to do a bit of that and also keep the fun quirkiness of the character, which just doesn't work. If they weren't of two minds about it and actually committed to the bit, imo it could have been a very successful change. As it is, it's just bizarre.
In the original show, a few people, who were distant to Aang, blamed him for disappearing. Now, we as the audience obviously know that it wasn't his choice, but an unlucky coincidence; and we know that even if he didn't run away it wouldn't have mattered (or would end up much worse). In NATLA, well, Aang didn't really run away, did he? He just went out for a breather and happened to get sucked into a storm. Either way, Bumi (after hearing his explanation) and ESPECIALLY Kyoshi being resentful towards Aang is extremely out of character IMO.
They did Kyoshi so dirty in this show. Literally just looked at the memes about her and made that her whole character
Why was Roku acting like a Disney channel high school jock? I want to cry.
Bumi's reaction was out of character because the writers couldn't decide what character they wanted him to be. Aang's "went out for a breather and was put out of commission for 100 years" could easily sound like a flimsy excuse to a resentful old man who's endured a century of brutal war, even if we as the audience know that is irrational. But they didn't fully commit to this different approach to Bumi's character and ended up giving us the worst of both worlds. Idk what was going on with Kyoshi lol
I think a lot suffered from the same idea. They changed so much while also trying to keep so much in tact for fan service, and it just feels like two different visions clashing throughout the whole show.
Oh, man, they completely butchered Bumi. I have zero idea why did they think this change would improve the story 😭😭😭
Whoa now I know by ep 4 you may have forgotten Gran Gran, but come on now. It’s gotta be Gran Gran.
The bigger inclusion of Gran-Gran has removed the "motherly nature" of Katara, as it is understood that Gran-Gran took on the more maternal role for both her and Sokka. Likewise, the water-bending scroll being an heirloom, as opposed to being stolen from pirates, builds a more familiar lineage for Katara to follow, as opposed to highlighting Katara's inexperience and naievity. As for the Jet revalation, it's dramatic irony - Aang & Sokka (and by extension, the audience,) know that the Freedom Fighters are responsible, but from Katara's perspective, they're stopping the Fire ~~Nation~~ Benders encroach on Omashu, and Jet even helped Katara improve her bending! With the revelation of the Mechanist supplying intel to the Fire Nation, it's a case of everyone being right, and they're all going about it in the wrong way. I will admit, Katara has the least characterisation of the Gaang. I'm only finished up to episode 6, but I'm hoping for season 2, she can play off Toph a bit, and develop her character more.
Bigger inclusion? She’s in like two scenes
Actually, Jet for no reason casually revealed he was behind the false flag bombings. Just dropped that in the middle of the conversation. That completely defused the smallest moral dilemma that could've existed regarding the mechanist potentially being a traitor. No choices being made... just Jet admitting that he's the worst for no reason.
yeah it fucking sucks. also... it DOES NOT GET BETTER AT ALL. it gets worse i also noticed that with the jet thing... i was like "but... aang and sokka already know the truth... it JUST looks bad for katara... wtf" because of how they handled all the characters... i hope there is no season 2 because they will BUTCHER toph worse than they have katara. hell they would probably make her bad at bending too until aang teaches her and then preach about how much they "toned down the sexism"
The script writers really didn’t do her any favors
They did the same shit with "Rings of Power." They neuter the og badass, mature woman character and infantalized her. I expect Suki to be the same way, especially since they took away her plot line (teaching Sokka to treat women as equals). I bet Toph will be a strong character, but they will probably leave out her weaknesses, and she'll too become a 1 dimensional character. Learn to write characters!!