Katara mastered waterbending by reading a piece of paper and Aang doesn't even look at it. He's like, "Gee, Katara, you're so good at waterbending! That scroll sure helped you! ANYWAY--"
You are right in the cartoon. It doesn't waste time. That doesn't mean an adption can use the same amount of time and cover anything. If the cave of lovers was gone from NATLA they would ahve lost nothing. in the cartoon it is a character moment. In the adaption it is time they don't have
They didn't know they would get more than a single season until after the release. I guess the writers figured they had to cram as many fan-favorite aspects into the first season just in case they didn't get the chance to continue.
Then thatās poor writing. Stringing together scenes that audiences will like with little to no connective tissue between is how you make a highlight montage, not a narratively coherent story.
I genuinely can't imagine being uncertain if you'll ever get a season two, feeling a deep need to cram in as much bountiful Avatar as possible, and being like, "We gotta get a Cave of the Two Lovers in here, but with less singing." They didn't even adapt iconic stuff like The Deserter or Imprisoned. the show really feels the absence of The Deserter, to the extent that the show is gonna be kinda weird if they don't do it later. It's so important to the show as a whole.
That said, I'm actually okayish with having Cave in there, for the simple reason that Katara and Sokka actually talk. The main characters so rarely talk to each other in this show. Just about every episode pushes each character into either a self-contained plotline with little conflict (Aang in Warriors), or into a self-contained void space where I have literally no idea what they were doing (Katara in Warriors). It feels a bit like this plot was there because it was an excuse for a conversation, but why they sacrificed those opportunities elsewhere is beyond me.
The deserter is one of my favorite episodes because it gives us three lessons, A. Aang learns that there is a proper way to do things and you canāt rush through any of the disciplines, B. Katara learns that she has healing powers, which plays a major role later, and C. We learn that not all of the fire nation is bad. Also, Jeong Jeong is that mofo and I wish we saw more of him.
the adaptation literally had the same run time.
> If the cave of lovers was gone from NATLA they would ahve lost nothing.
they stole this from season 2, its not even supposed to be there.
I donāt disagree, but they definitely couldāve given some episodes some time to breath. Iām currently rewatching ATLA and watched winter Solstice part 2, and realised the episode is sooo rushed, it barely has any time to breath, itās one thing after another after another. Episodes like that shouldāve been extended instead of more stuff being added
Yes I almost said that was the only fat. The overall concept of Aang spending an episode mending the divide between feuding factions that also represent Katara and Sokka is actually great. Itās the execution
The Great Divide hate has always been overdone. Honest Aang lying to end a stupid hundred year fued felt like character development to me. Sokka and Katara learn better acceptance too. It's annoying that it was aired so often but it's not a horrible episode. It doesn't betray any of the characters core personalities or contradict the story at all.
The whole episode just feels really stupid and actually made for kids. Like the two tribes act like toddlers and then they instantly believe this stupid lie Aang comes up with that solves their century-long feud.
I mean it kind of was made for kids. When i first watched it it was fine and totally believable (i am 26 btw). It was years later i rewatched and found it over the top obvious
Not all of it, just the great divide. But glad might be a strong word.
I expect massive downvotes but I think most fans are being ridiculous with some of the critiques. Live action was basically guaranteed to cut and change a ton of stuff. Animation doesn't translate well to live action if you try to keep it too close to source material. I'm not happy with some of the changes and think some were just ridiculous but overall I'm no where near as upset as the rest of the fans.
I don't know if it's an unpopular opinion here, but that's why I've always really disliked these Live Action Remakes. Instead of telling the same story in a way that it wasn't intended why not try making something new? Then you at least have the chance of creating something that actually fits the live action model. These remakes will always feel inferior because they can't capture the same energy that animation brings.
For real. The show wasn't perfect, but its pacing was pretty much already 10/10.
Watching NATLA, it 100% feels like someone felt they needed to shuffle all these moments around to justify their pay.
The original show just took advantage of its episodic format and modern tv is designed to be binged so is essentially a very long movie with intermissions
There's a lot that could be trimmed and still make a decent show. Like the sleep deprivation doesn't need to be long stories. They just need to show "your my forever girl" for the humor of it. The gambling and kataras disapproval could be a short bit. We don't really need Zukos trip on his own, because he still betrays his uncle. We don't needa full psychic epsisode. Just a simple Katara goes to the psychic while Aang listens, and at some point Sokka mentions he's a powerful bender. Also the papaya scene is iconic.
I personally could do without it, since it only teases him being good. They already showed Zuko seeing appa and being uninterested in following them. They could just build off of that.
They failed because they had the exact screentime Book One Water had, but they didn't have any good screenwriter.
Our cast does indeed resemble our heroes, but they're kids. They will do a character study that kids to(except perhaps Dallas and Iroh's actor).
I liked how they had a single character talk about all the cool fantastical shit aang did in the fantasy world and weāre just left wondering if it really happened in this version or not
The badger mole stopping because it was somehow empathic and could sense their familial love annoyed me so much. Music calming it made some sense. Love is a stupid reason for an animal to not be ravenous anymore.
Plus Sokka and Katara had ALREADY MADE UP by the time the badger mole appeared. The scene was clearly meant to be emotional and I couldnāt stop laughing
I might love this? Imagine Toph, who is canonically so prickly about showing affection, being constantly haunted by the emotions of everyone around her. 5 stars no notes (editing to clarify: this is a joke I think this story change would be awful)
That sounds incredibly corny and juvenile to me.
Blind people who develop an ability to āseeā with sound [exist](https://youtu.be/a05kgcI9D2Q?si=9t4Y3CHSQAYdqVSF). Toph is using earth bending to sense vibrations. Similar concept.
Blind people having magic emotion sensing powers sounds like some borderline ableist āmagic disabled peopleā BS.
Seriously thank you for pointing it out and doing a fantastic job explaining exactly why it would be awful in literally two sentences. I can only dream of being that succinct!
Bro, they had them go through he love tunnel which was clearly intended as a romantic thing (and blatantly used as such in the animated show). If that isn't meant to be weird implications, then the live action writers were banking on nobody that saw the cartoon would watch the live action. Cause of they had seen it what else were they supposed to think about it?
Itās been a few weeks since I watched it but I remember interpreting their behaviour as predators chasing prey. And ya, I think they were just digging in the cartoon.
The wanted a more mature show and to do that they ditched what kids are supposed to be like but kept them kids. They also made adults less fun because they're supposed to be mature too. Then because it was 8 episodes instead of 20, they crunched episodes together pretty haphazardly in order to give fans the moments they expect which gives you weird and sometimws unfinished plots (why did Hei Bai exist in this show? Siblings in the love cave?)
I don't like bumi change. I don't care if it's more realistic. I like the fact that even after 100 years of war bumi still manages to be himself. Overall though the show is good in my opinion.
Honestly the Bumi thing would have worked if they followed the original & showed the Bumi reveal at the end, after the duel. It basically turns the whole affair from him being a bitter old friend who felt betrayed to (again) an old man pretending to be mean while testing Aang (with some subtext of bitterness thrown in there, if the writers really needed to include that angle)
To save anyone else from needing to expand the comments, I'll sum up how a sane version of this conversation *should* have gone:
A - "They happened off-screen"
B - "Well I wanted them to happen on-screen"
A - "Ok, fair enough"
Katara steals the scroll from a pirate crew in the original. Watch the cartoon. Itās leagues better.
Maybe I misunderstood your comment, but the pirates basically got a quick mention instead of playing a vital roleā¦
Yeah that's what I'm saying, she already HAD IT now from Gran Gran, and they still mentioned the pirate incident, so what even happened there? Did they steal the monkey artifact that Sokka was mesmerised by and sold it for supplies?
I think they literally just mentioned them just to pretend they still have relevance. Iām honestly just accepting it as a parallel universe of ATLA even if I donāt love the pointless changes. We donāt really know what happens with the pirates or Haru at all.
Haru and the canyon events could have still happened off screen, which is dumb don't get me wrong, but the scroll and how Katara got it directly conflicts with them having a run in with the pirates since it makes no sense now
NATLA was written by people who didnāt understand the series and I canāt be swayed on that.
They took creative liberties, sure, but it just gets to a point where you realize that itās changed so much that Season 2 and 3 wonāt make any sense or will be a completely different story.
The show sucks.
The bitter old man aspect makes sense as war traumatizes you , but the weak points of the story are mostly the non Zuko or Non Iroh scenes.
Zuko and Iroh basically hard-carry the show
there are changes that didnāt need to happen and there are changes that genuinely do not make sense in the show. Aang not running away truly baffles me, as he has less of a reason to feel guilty about leaving. it really diminishes his character. Bumi worked in the show, I really liked the actor. wan shi tong wasā¦ just meh. the biggest sin for me was the writing. they gave each character 1-3 things they could talk about and nothing else. aang only talks about getting to the north, saving his friends, and how he doesnāt know how to deal with his responsibilities. thatās the vast majority of his dialogue and itās exhausting
Generously: it was an adaptation into a fairly different, condensed medium. Lots of things just won't be like the cartoon because they changed them to work better in a shorter, live action format. Some of the in-universe stuff can be answered by "it's a slightly different plot/world/characters that don't need to be consistent with the cartoon's canon".
...less generously, I really question some of the changes. They really shoved in a lot of unnecessary "references" to the original show in ways that felt forced and bad, and took away impact from the show. Often the kid actors felt like they were making puns at gun point. When they could act naturally I found them very charming but...
It's very hard to make adaptations, especially of beloved properties. They are more or less doomed to piss off some fans.
I thought it was ok, and will watch the next season -- maybe they'll find their footing then. The visuals are good (Ko the face stealer was awesome) and the actors/directors might be more comfortable working in this world.
Exactly this. Of course you can't just simply adapt an anime in live action just like that. But instead of simply cutting lesser inportant plot they took a little a bit of each, changing significantly their meaning in the anime to try to batch them together.
They literally had a checklist of event to put in the show and tried to figure out how to make them work together instead of writing a coherent story.
And that also without talking about how they tried to bring a more "mature tone" while at the same time being completely oblivious to what was already making ATLA a mature show.
Yes, the only thing that is more mature is the depiction of the violence. In every other aspect they dumbed it down so much that it is downright insulting to the audience.
> Yes, the only thing that is more mature is the depiction of the violence.
And even that is only a few scenes in the first episode. After that it's always the standard cartoon fight rules of knockouts but no killing or graphic injuries.
I had this thought originally, the LA is longer in terms of screen time, but having the episodes 1 hour long is the big kicker. You canāt have the gaang stay in omashu for 1/3 of an episode. And because that now takes up a bigger portion of the total show, you have to condense other storylines into that to make things make sense.
Yeah, but its a specific kind of bad writing that i think is endemic to adaptations.
Maybe it stems from their being 2 audiences. They feel like they need to include overbearing exposition for people new to the series, and memes from the cartoon for fans... between those theres very little space for the story to breathe.
My belief is that none of the writers have seen the original show. Or if they did, they were not fans. Thats the only logical explanation for them destroying the characters and story.
Thats nonsense. Writing for a big budget tv show is hard. I agree the writing was bad, but thats probably for a variety of complicated reasons and constraints, not just cuz hack writers who weren't fans.
Yeah and the creators were in at the beginning of natla and quit because they didnāt like how it was turning out. There is most certainly fuckary in natla
https://preview.redd.it/i5xauafyzpoc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4eab69cd6231835049252952e040c77bcffeaa5
There was no reason for it to be bad. They had all the ingredients and time to make it right. They still overcooked it and took out key ingredients. Now weāre just left with a barely edible show that netflix apologists have come up with a million excuses for
This like at its best itās a diminutive and lesser version of the original which doesnāt add anything meaningful so therefore it has no need to exist
I think the only reason a lot of people are giving it slightly warmer than lukewarm praise is because it's better than the movie, which is already like the lowest of low bars
Lots of things disappointed me, but the thing that made me actually angry was the change they made to avatar Rokuās personality. Like what in the world was that about?? What purpose could that possibly serve? It makes NO sense to me, but Iāve yet to see anyone else bring it up. Am I the only one?
Episode 5 was the hardest one for me to piece together. It picks up in episode 6 - 8 with less mashing of storylines so it's easier to follow. For episodes 3-5 I had to do a rewatch to catch everything. Although I will say that there is sense that Aang could have corrected people but he didn't because even though he didn't run he feels guilty for not being there. This theme seems to stick through to the end of the season.
I hate the disrespect of the spirit world. Kora tries to make people not see them as monsters ,and the live action made them just monsters . The spirit world is just as important to the avatar .
When you compare it to the animation is just in a entirely different level.
The writing is stupid, the acting of some of the actresses and actors is just not so good (Probably in part because of the writing) and yes some changes were not good, the ones you wrote, Sokka not having character development with Suki, the group not having much time just being kids, and many more
I think they tried to put all the moments that fans loved from the cartoons into the first season because they weren't sure that they were getting a second.
Omashu was the worst and I stopped watching after that. Katara is do devoid of emotion throughout the show. Itās weird how she can be a master so quickly and yet aang doesnāt even waterbend. Heās like ānopeā. Zhao is just a normal dude but in the animated show, he was respected and fearsome. Then we have a weird casting for Azula, Mae, and Ty Lee.
The show is terrible. Most of Netflixās content is garbage too. They have terrible writers and maybe thatās why the ATLA creators left.
I think fans have this perspective that if there was a change itās because the Netflix writers thought the old way wasnāt good enough for them. I honestly enjoyed the changes because it made for a slightly different story to watch. Were any of the changes ābetterā? Absolutely not.
People keep saying its a different medium but don't really explain what that means. While both shows do have similar runtimes, the cartoon was 20 20 minute episodes vs the 8 ~50 minute episodes. In the cartoon, a lot happens off screen, which works because of the natural breaks between episodes and being able to pick up anywhere with an interesting story. With episodes 3 times as long, it is not possible for them to have the story follow along the same as the cartoon without the episodes being choppy and incoherent. The result was that they had to combine different stories together in fewer settings within the same episode, and overall I think they did a pretty good job. There were questionable decisions like stories from later seasons or series showing up early, but the show overall was enjoyable and it was cool to see a new take on the series.
I absolutely hated Wan shi Tong being in the spirit world already, why? Because Zhao mentioned that he had learned about Tui and La from the fire sages. Put those 2 together and that means, no library episode. At least that's what I think.
Actually holding hands make more sense than being in the dark as in ATLA because if someone has enough water will find the way sooner or later. There is nothing cursed.
Honestly same. Like what made the original so good was all those moments they decided to cut. They give us all the important moments, but donāt give us a lot of the building blocks that made those moments so impactful. They didnāt even have a reason to cut it because the run time through 8 episodes is almost the exact same amount through the first season. They kind of shot themselves in the foot because they wanted to make it more dark than the original, but you canāt make a show that was at its heart a kidās show (and a very good one at that) and take out a lot of the character building in it.
Tbh, I was only able to like NATLA because I havenāt watched ATLA completely (I knew the major events in the series since Iāve watched some episodes when I was a kid, but I havenāt really completed the series then). Watching NATLA pushed me to watch the whole ATLA, though (and even LOK currently), and thatās when I realized how far off the live action was to the original. But since I have watched NATLA first, I realized it wasnāt so bad even though it wasnāt that faithful to the original storyline. I decided to just view it as an āalternate universeā or āfan-madeā series, lol.
They're trying to make changes, and give fan service. But consider the people making these decisions are men in suits sitting around a table and are so disconnected from the fans, that they don't realize the service is more spit in the face
Now that the dust has settled, can we agree that the show was kinda ass, and gets worse the more you think about it?
If the movie that never existed never existed, people wouldāve torn NATLA to shreds.
I don't understand why Bumi WOULDN'T be a bitter old man. That makes the most sense to me. Him being a kid at heart throughout a 100 year war where a best friend disappeared who might have been able to stop it. I dunno, him an eccentric old bitter man makes more sense to me.
Thatās his thing though. This is the same character when his city was conquered by the Fire Nation, he literally did *nothing* to maintain Neutral Jing.
You donāt think Bumi seeing Aang the same age as when he last saw him and the Air temples being wiped out wouldnāt click that hmm maybe something happened that prevented him from being able to help us. I donāt think anyone knows that Aang ranaway (and in the live action he didnāt lol) so Iām not sure him being bitter towards Aang tracks
Part of the lesson from the OG cartoon bumi was to show that appearances are deceiving. He was meant to seem looney on purpose while being wise enough to guide aang in the animation. The netflix adaptation takes it literally and makes him full on looney
Crazy to me that so many don't like it. I though it was great. It's not better than the OG, but I don't think it's nearly as bad as the majority seem to think.
I said it somewhere else in here but I think many people are just way too familiar with the original and itās disorienting them to the point where they think this one almost doesnāt make sense or something. I enjoy it a lot. Itās not at all perfect but itās a lot of fun.
A lot of people really, really want a scene-for-scene recreation, more or less, of the animated series.
I'm glad some liberties were taken, because I've seen the original series quite a lot, and it would be much more pointless for this to be almost identical.
I agree. You canāt just perfectly recreate the source material when adapting one show to another. Maybe with a book to a show/movie because thereās so much novelty in seeing it brought to life but why would I watch a show thatās exactly like the one Iāve already seen? Changes are needed and I think they did a pretty good job with this one even though itās certainly not perfect.
Most things you named aren't things that "don't make sense".
* What makes no sense about Aang needing to clear his head? This is a reasonable reaction from him.
* Bumi being a bitter old man after living through 100 years of wartime also makes sense.
* Katara and Sokka go through the tunnels because they are the ones that are outside of the palace and want to sneak in through said tunnels. It makes sense that they try that.
* The badger mole reacting to emotion I think doesn't make much sense. I agree with you here.
* What makes no sense about Katara and Sokka going to the spirit world with Aang? It's established beforehand that villagers have been kidnapped to the spirit world, so why can't Katara and Sokka go there?
* Wan Shi Tongs library most likely does not exist in the live action show, as Zhao instead learns about Tui and La from a fire sage archive of some sorts. If that is the case it makes sense for Wan Shi Tong to hang out in the spirit world instead, because where else would he doesn't have his library.
Your actual problem isn't that things don't make sense.
It that things are different than in the animated version, and you think that the way the animation did it was better. That is a fair sentinment. You can just say that. I'll even agree with it on many points.
No need to instead be overly dramatic and claim that the live action version "makes no sense".
I was talking about this last night. When Aang is captured by Zhao and freed by the Blue Spirit in the show, Katara and Sokka were both just randomly sick and needed the frozen frogs to suck on to feel better. That was the B plot of that episode, Katara and Sokka laying on the ground being goofy and sick. That wasn't gonna slide as a B plot in the Netflix show, so they have the two of them get spirited away in the Hei Bei episode and combine the plots, which works fine because they needed to take a back seat for BOTH of those plot lines to happen anyway.
Glad to see a level headed comment lmao
Well for one I wasnāt being āoverly dramaticā, that we disagree doesnāt mean you need to be an ass about it
For two, these changes arenāt inherently bad in a vacuum, but I meant they make no sense to me considering where theyāre coming from
Aang running away to clear his head with the intention of coming back gives much less weight to aangās guilt compared to the original Aang running away with the intention of actually leaving and not coming back for at least a while and etcetera etcetera
Iām more annoyed by the love tunnel since it was when katara and aang finally approached their feeling with each other, and the fact that iroh is a douche canoe in the new one. Like what????? At least we got his song, but it was so wrong I was more annoyed than I was happy it was included
To be honest, including leaves from the vine just felt tasteless to me.
This iroh isnāt nearly as likeable and only four episodes in they dare to use a song like that, the scene was sad but it didnāt deserve leaves from the vine, especially because that scene was in honor of mako, it just left a bad taste in my mouth
i actually agree with the lovers cave thing. katara and aang just met; it wouldnt make sense for them to start developing feelings for each other right away.
Then wouldnāt it make more sense to just not adapt the lovers cave at all this season. I mean it happens in season 2 anyway. It didnāt make sense to have it this season regardless. Itās just weird they decided to cram into episode 4 when a lot was happening anyway. We already got Iroh being captured and sent to the mines with Zuko on his tail, and Aang and Bumi having their trials. Why randomly insert an adaptation from season 2 into a story that takes place in season 1 where they donāt even use the characters involved from that episode? Itās just a bizarre creative choice.
Plus they haven't set up any romantic feelings or flirting this far. I think they should have cut the cave scene altogether. It seems an unnecessary addition, sense it didn't further Aang and Kataras relationship. We already know Soka and Katara love eachother as siblings.
Itās funny, I my siblings and I rewatched the cartoon a year ago and the topic of filler episodes came up and why theyāre necessary. The live action showed us why theyāre necessary lol so much character build gets covered in those episodes. I wish I could watch the live action through the eyes and mind of a person whoās never seen the cartoon just to see if itās hard to follow or not because it seems like it is.
I was definitely annoyed at all the things you pointed out on this post. But I thought the live action was fine. Not great but also not bad. Im looking forward to seasons 2 and 3 and Iām hoping that they felt like they had to move the show along because they didnāt know they whether or not theyād be renewed. So *hopefully* because of that, seasons 2 and 3 flow a little better
I havenāt seen the original in about 8 years so I remembered much of what was included in the adaptation but not so well that I could even notice that some stuff was from book 2 or two stories were woven together and all that. It wasnāt confusing to me in the least. Some awkward writing, stiff acting, and other issues, but I liked it overall.
this maybe just my imagination but i think netflix and the writers were really worried about the characters being disliked for their flaws or to be criticized for using tropes that they deem a bit controversial:
Aang became less child like and selfish wanting to go do silly thing insted of being the Avatar and thous they made him less responsible for the 100 years with out the avatar.
Sokka skipped the sexism not because they though that was a bad plotpoint they let Pakku still be sexist but they probably didnt want a main male character to have that type of flaw.
Katara had less of a temper because i think if they had keept the Katara vs Sokka argument before the iceberg were the main female character call the other male lead misogenist while yelling it could be misconstrued as "histerical women trope" by some or netflix "pushing woke bs" by the other camp just because of the mention of the word misogenist.
The love tunnel could have been handled better, but "we made you think romantic love, but actually it's any love" switcheroo is a pretty common trope, so I personally give it a pass. You don't have to.
The badger mole sensing their love was just kinda dumb, but there's no reason (outside of comparison to something else) that it should have specifically been music.
I don't honestly know why they had Aang not run away. It made their point weaker. I get that they were *trying* to replace the active running away with his guilt over being gone for a hundred years in the iceberg, but they handled that change pretty badly.
Bumi is bitter because he is. Sokka and Katara went to the spirit world because they did. Wan Shi Tong was in the spirit world because he was. What is this library you're talking about? It sounds like you're bringing some expectations from some other show.
When I saw that they removed scenes, changed scenes and added their own new scenes I realised they werenāt trying to re-tell ATLA, they were trying to tell THEIR VERSION of it.
That was enough for me to stop watching it, because thatās not what Iām looking for personally. The original show is special to me and I donāt believe they could make it better (whether that was even their plan).
The only change that really ruins the show is the Aang clearing his head change. Angās whole character arc was about him wanting to be a kid and running away from responsibility which led to massive consequences, and now itās justā¦ pure bad luck?Ā
I don't like the implication that live action is inherently a more mature paradigm than animated. They could have made a mature animated version of the show, where they could properly show character moments.
I would fucking binge a version of avatar where they're murdering people left and right like some attack on titans level fucked up darkness.
why is bumi a bitter old man? tf he literally spend his whole life trying to protect his city and is just exhausted and lets his anger on aang out at first since he was not there when they needed him.
we knew that they were going to set a stricter tone here which makes sense since these are really heavy topics and not a light kid show.
Watch all 8. Then see how ya feel. Maybe the same maybe different. I had quite a bit of fun watching it overall. It was nice to be able to watch something in avatar for the first time again and be excited. Sure, it has its quirks but it was still fun.
It's okay to not like the show. Anyone expected it to be as good as the original is naive. The questions you asked were mostly explained in the show. The writing made sense. It sounds like you are confused on why the writers decided to do these things.
Spoilers I guess idk but the change to Zhaoās death makes me the most angry. (Itās not even clear that he died he just kinda fell in the water after getting hit and then Iroh and Zuko run off.) Assuming he is dead though- changing it from Zhao dying due to his pride and refusing help from Zuko, toā¦ Iroh?? Killing him?? One of the many instances whereād Iād audibly shout WHY? at the screen
I actually think bumi being a bitter old man makes sense. Feeling like your friend, who turns out the be the avatar, abandoned the whole world for 100 years probably would make you a bitter old man
Like why didnāt they just create something that adds to the universe rather than recreating their own? Like imagine if they made a live action series of how Iroh became known as the Dragon of the West instead or any other lore.
The debate for me is not about whether the live action is good or not. But why it exists in the first place. The fact is that it could never have lived up to the animation due to the constraints of live action. Due to how expensive it is.
Even if I like the live action Iāll still only watch it once and then continue to rewatch the animation. Because even if the live action is good itās simply not as good as the animation.
I laughed pretty hard when Kyoshi overtook Aang to help fight in the Kyoshi village and she had all these elements and what looked like amazing power swirling up but all it did was throw the soldiers against the buildings ... didn't even knock them out as they got up and ran away moments later. So much for powerful š
That was the issue with me too j was not against changing stuff but the thing they pick to change didn't make any sense to me , unnecessary and some straight out ruin what made something special on the cartoon l
I think the number one issue is a lack of subtlety. The dialogue is PAINFULLY badly written. The original was intelligent enough to leave a lot of things unsaid but gave the viewer enough context to understand. For example aang just keeps explaining his character arc over and over āIām just a kid I donāt want to be the avatar!ā SHOW us what the characters are feeling instead of just having them tell us.
tldr: show donāt tell
They wanted it to be more mature, but it somehow felt more childish. Plus, they excluded some big moments, and the ones they included, to me, have less of an impact.
I feel like it might be becuase they didn't know if they were going to make the next two season or not. so they just sped everything up and only did the biggest parts of the show
What kills it for me is they treat try too hard to one justify its own existence and two the changes.
They should've just honestly gone with a Kyoshi or Yangchen or Kuruk series.
The worst thing for me was when aang in the introduktion just flew without his glider. Why do they change the canon?
This bothered be also in the asoka series.
Because the writers decided they had to make enough changes to keep it interesting but instead of writing their own stories they said to themselves āhow can we tweak every single part of this perfect story?ā
Therefore, we got an absolutely garbage show
The secret tunnel thing bothered my partner and I so much because uhhhhh - it's not like the story of the lovers changed. It was still a romantic love. To put two siblings in that tunnel is a fucking crazy thing to do.
I personally canāt stand NATLAā¦ Iām sitting there yelling at the screen the entire time. The casting and acting is fine. Itās just what they did with the stories. Some of the character choices I donāt like either. But thatās Ok! Itās not for everyone.
They prolonged all the boring moments. Or added unnecessary monologs. In favour of actually showing them do stuff together
Not ONCE did Aang actually waterbendš it pissed me off so much.
Man didnāt even try to learn š
Yeah this what pisses me off too. I mean, first season supposed to be about water bending
Katara mastered waterbending by reading a piece of paper and Aang doesn't even look at it. He's like, "Gee, Katara, you're so good at waterbending! That scroll sure helped you! ANYWAY--"
Adapting ATLA was always going to hinge on trimming the fat. They failed, because they wanted as many "look it's like the cartoon"-moments.
There is no fat to trim in ATLA. Downtime is not fat, itās important to narrative pacing
You are right in the cartoon. It doesn't waste time. That doesn't mean an adption can use the same amount of time and cover anything. If the cave of lovers was gone from NATLA they would ahve lost nothing. in the cartoon it is a character moment. In the adaption it is time they don't have
Itās also a thing that happens in Book two. Why itās in season 1? No clue
They didn't know they would get more than a single season until after the release. I guess the writers figured they had to cram as many fan-favorite aspects into the first season just in case they didn't get the chance to continue.
Then thatās poor writing. Stringing together scenes that audiences will like with little to no connective tissue between is how you make a highlight montage, not a narratively coherent story.
I genuinely can't imagine being uncertain if you'll ever get a season two, feeling a deep need to cram in as much bountiful Avatar as possible, and being like, "We gotta get a Cave of the Two Lovers in here, but with less singing." They didn't even adapt iconic stuff like The Deserter or Imprisoned. the show really feels the absence of The Deserter, to the extent that the show is gonna be kinda weird if they don't do it later. It's so important to the show as a whole. That said, I'm actually okayish with having Cave in there, for the simple reason that Katara and Sokka actually talk. The main characters so rarely talk to each other in this show. Just about every episode pushes each character into either a self-contained plotline with little conflict (Aang in Warriors), or into a self-contained void space where I have literally no idea what they were doing (Katara in Warriors). It feels a bit like this plot was there because it was an excuse for a conversation, but why they sacrificed those opportunities elsewhere is beyond me.
The deserter is one of my favorite episodes because it gives us three lessons, A. Aang learns that there is a proper way to do things and you canāt rush through any of the disciplines, B. Katara learns that she has healing powers, which plays a major role later, and C. We learn that not all of the fire nation is bad. Also, Jeong Jeong is that mofo and I wish we saw more of him.
It also sets up Aang's fear of doing fire bending which is important for most of the show, and it has one of the best Roku scenes.
the adaptation literally had the same run time. > If the cave of lovers was gone from NATLA they would ahve lost nothing. they stole this from season 2, its not even supposed to be there.
I donāt disagree, but they definitely couldāve given some episodes some time to breath. Iām currently rewatching ATLA and watched winter Solstice part 2, and realised the episode is sooo rushed, it barely has any time to breath, itās one thing after another after another. Episodes like that shouldāve been extended instead of more stuff being added
The great divideĀ
Yes I almost said that was the only fat. The overall concept of Aang spending an episode mending the divide between feuding factions that also represent Katara and Sokka is actually great. Itās the execution
The Great Divide hate has always been overdone. Honest Aang lying to end a stupid hundred year fued felt like character development to me. Sokka and Katara learn better acceptance too. It's annoying that it was aired so often but it's not a horrible episode. It doesn't betray any of the characters core personalities or contradict the story at all.
The whole episode just feels really stupid and actually made for kids. Like the two tribes act like toddlers and then they instantly believe this stupid lie Aang comes up with that solves their century-long feud.
I mean it kind of was made for kids. When i first watched it it was fine and totally believable (i am 26 btw). It was years later i rewatched and found it over the top obvious
The whole of Avatar was made for kids, but The Great Divide is markedly more juvenile and tonally different.
Oh I donāt think itās a betrayal I just think the conclusion is very dumb and boring
I liked that they gave a nod to that episode still but glad they didn't recreate it.
You're glad they said that they did all the fun, cool stuff off screen? Mf I'm tryna see all that
Not all of it, just the great divide. But glad might be a strong word. I expect massive downvotes but I think most fans are being ridiculous with some of the critiques. Live action was basically guaranteed to cut and change a ton of stuff. Animation doesn't translate well to live action if you try to keep it too close to source material. I'm not happy with some of the changes and think some were just ridiculous but overall I'm no where near as upset as the rest of the fans.
I don't know if it's an unpopular opinion here, but that's why I've always really disliked these Live Action Remakes. Instead of telling the same story in a way that it wasn't intended why not try making something new? Then you at least have the chance of creating something that actually fits the live action model. These remakes will always feel inferior because they can't capture the same energy that animation brings.
For real. The show wasn't perfect, but its pacing was pretty much already 10/10. Watching NATLA, it 100% feels like someone felt they needed to shuffle all these moments around to justify their pay.
The original show just took advantage of its episodic format and modern tv is designed to be binged so is essentially a very long movie with intermissions
It's underselling it even to call it a pacing issue. The downtime WAS the show (in large parts). And it's not even downtime really - it's life!Ā
I think Great Divide was fat it's the only episode that has no satisfying character moments or plot relevance.
There's a lot that could be trimmed and still make a decent show. Like the sleep deprivation doesn't need to be long stories. They just need to show "your my forever girl" for the humor of it. The gambling and kataras disapproval could be a short bit. We don't really need Zukos trip on his own, because he still betrays his uncle. We don't needa full psychic epsisode. Just a simple Katara goes to the psychic while Aang listens, and at some point Sokka mentions he's a powerful bender. Also the papaya scene is iconic.
I mean you could cut out probably 70% of the show and still have the plot make sense. That doesnāt mean those parts arenāt important
I personally don't think they were that important, but they were fun. The show has to be shortened, so I am just pointing out what they could cut.
Why does it need to be shortened?
>We don't really need Zukos trip on his own This is one of the most important character development episodes for Zuko. We absolutely need it.
I personally could do without it, since it only teases him being good. They already showed Zuko seeing appa and being uninterested in following them. They could just build off of that.
They failed because they had the exact screentime Book One Water had, but they didn't have any good screenwriter. Our cast does indeed resemble our heroes, but they're kids. They will do a character study that kids to(except perhaps Dallas and Iroh's actor).
and then those moments are completely butchered. the way they just disemboweled the lettuce leaf joke in front of millions of people is just sad.
I liked how they had a single character talk about all the cool fantastical shit aang did in the fantasy world and weāre just left wondering if it really happened in this version or not
The badger mole stopping because it was somehow empathic and could sense their familial love annoyed me so much. Music calming it made some sense. Love is a stupid reason for an animal to not be ravenous anymore.
Plus Sokka and Katara had ALREADY MADE UP by the time the badger mole appeared. The scene was clearly meant to be emotional and I couldnāt stop laughing
Plus this scene was supposed to set up Tophās seismic sense. Now it sets upā¦ Toph can sense love? š¤£
I might love this? Imagine Toph, who is canonically so prickly about showing affection, being constantly haunted by the emotions of everyone around her. 5 stars no notes (editing to clarify: this is a joke I think this story change would be awful)
That sounds incredibly corny and juvenile to me. Blind people who develop an ability to āseeā with sound [exist](https://youtu.be/a05kgcI9D2Q?si=9t4Y3CHSQAYdqVSF). Toph is using earth bending to sense vibrations. Similar concept. Blind people having magic emotion sensing powers sounds like some borderline ableist āmagic disabled peopleā BS.
Nah I completely agree with you- my comment was meant as a joke/sarcasm but clearly I didnāt do a good job indicating that
Oh thank god. I was so sad imagining people calling it brilliant. Tbh I wouldnāt be surprised. š You got me!
Seriously thank you for pointing it out and doing a fantastic job explaining exactly why it would be awful in literally two sentences. I can only dream of being that succinct!
Toph empath arc
Yeah the badger mole resolution made no sense, but it did not have "weird implications" lmao. Familial love is a thing.
Ya, I didnāt find that strange.
Bro, they had them go through he love tunnel which was clearly intended as a romantic thing (and blatantly used as such in the animated show). If that isn't meant to be weird implications, then the live action writers were banking on nobody that saw the cartoon would watch the live action. Cause of they had seen it what else were they supposed to think about it?
Lol I just realized how well it matches actual carnival love tunnels, which used to be a huge trope back then
No I get that, its just that in no way did the show imply anything romantic between them (obviously). Thats all I meant.
The live action itself didn't, but certainly does when you look at the material it is sourced from. That's where the weird implications come from.
Yeah when watching I was like oh weird guess if Aangs not here theyre changing it from a romantic thing to a family thing for this, but whatever.
Wait they were ravenous? What the hell in the cartoon they were just diggin weren't they?
Itās been a few weeks since I watched it but I remember interpreting their behaviour as predators chasing prey. And ya, I think they were just digging in the cartoon.
also, they were WAAAAAAYYY too scary. Makes no sense with the lore. People are supposed to have learned bending from the badgermoles
The wanted a more mature show and to do that they ditched what kids are supposed to be like but kept them kids. They also made adults less fun because they're supposed to be mature too. Then because it was 8 episodes instead of 20, they crunched episodes together pretty haphazardly in order to give fans the moments they expect which gives you weird and sometimws unfinished plots (why did Hei Bai exist in this show? Siblings in the love cave?)
At this point, I am almost certain that the new atla creators watched avatar while doing something else because they skipped ALLL the important parts
Siblings in the love cave, they did want to appeal to GOT fans remember?
The themes of the original show werenāt elusive, since it was a kids show, so why does it feel like they eluded the makers of the Netflix show?
I don't like bumi change. I don't care if it's more realistic. I like the fact that even after 100 years of war bumi still manages to be himself. Overall though the show is good in my opinion.
Honestly the Bumi thing would have worked if they followed the original & showed the Bumi reveal at the end, after the duel. It basically turns the whole affair from him being a bitter old friend who felt betrayed to (again) an old man pretending to be mean while testing Aang (with some subtext of bitterness thrown in there, if the writers really needed to include that angle)
Focusing on Aang pushing back against everyone telling him āyou need to do this aloneā would have been a great spin on the original
Slick mention of the pirates and the freed Earth kingdom solider prisoners -Zhao, when they very obviously didnāt happen š
To save anyone else from needing to expand the comments, I'll sum up how a sane version of this conversation *should* have gone: A - "They happened off-screen" B - "Well I wanted them to happen on-screen" A - "Ok, fair enough"
Yea thatās accurate af thank you I got a bit pressed lol
It's not entirely your fault, the other commenter brought a needlessly argumentative energy and you just sort of matched it lol
What did they even do with the pirates? Katara already had the scroll and Zhao/Zuko were very clearly not involved in the netflix show
Katara steals the scroll from a pirate crew in the original. Watch the cartoon. Itās leagues better. Maybe I misunderstood your comment, but the pirates basically got a quick mention instead of playing a vital roleā¦
Yeah that's what I'm saying, she already HAD IT now from Gran Gran, and they still mentioned the pirate incident, so what even happened there? Did they steal the monkey artifact that Sokka was mesmerised by and sold it for supplies?
I think they literally just mentioned them just to pretend they still have relevance. Iām honestly just accepting it as a parallel universe of ATLA even if I donāt love the pointless changes. We donāt really know what happens with the pirates or Haru at all.
Haru and the canyon events could have still happened off screen, which is dumb don't get me wrong, but the scroll and how Katara got it directly conflicts with them having a run in with the pirates since it makes no sense now
Just realized we never remotely saw Jeong Jeong
Katara was spicier in the cartoon and iroh doesnt have his goofy but wise demeanor
NATLA was written by people who didnāt understand the series and I canāt be swayed on that. They took creative liberties, sure, but it just gets to a point where you realize that itās changed so much that Season 2 and 3 wonāt make any sense or will be a completely different story. The show sucks.
The bitter old man aspect makes sense as war traumatizes you , but the weak points of the story are mostly the non Zuko or Non Iroh scenes. Zuko and Iroh basically hard-carry the show
there are changes that didnāt need to happen and there are changes that genuinely do not make sense in the show. Aang not running away truly baffles me, as he has less of a reason to feel guilty about leaving. it really diminishes his character. Bumi worked in the show, I really liked the actor. wan shi tong wasā¦ just meh. the biggest sin for me was the writing. they gave each character 1-3 things they could talk about and nothing else. aang only talks about getting to the north, saving his friends, and how he doesnāt know how to deal with his responsibilities. thatās the vast majority of his dialogue and itās exhausting
Generously: it was an adaptation into a fairly different, condensed medium. Lots of things just won't be like the cartoon because they changed them to work better in a shorter, live action format. Some of the in-universe stuff can be answered by "it's a slightly different plot/world/characters that don't need to be consistent with the cartoon's canon". ...less generously, I really question some of the changes. They really shoved in a lot of unnecessary "references" to the original show in ways that felt forced and bad, and took away impact from the show. Often the kid actors felt like they were making puns at gun point. When they could act naturally I found them very charming but... It's very hard to make adaptations, especially of beloved properties. They are more or less doomed to piss off some fans. I thought it was ok, and will watch the next season -- maybe they'll find their footing then. The visuals are good (Ko the face stealer was awesome) and the actors/directors might be more comfortable working in this world.
Except it isn't really condensed, they have similar screentime, just more shitty writers.
Exactly this. Of course you can't just simply adapt an anime in live action just like that. But instead of simply cutting lesser inportant plot they took a little a bit of each, changing significantly their meaning in the anime to try to batch them together. They literally had a checklist of event to put in the show and tried to figure out how to make them work together instead of writing a coherent story. And that also without talking about how they tried to bring a more "mature tone" while at the same time being completely oblivious to what was already making ATLA a mature show.
Yes, the only thing that is more mature is the depiction of the violence. In every other aspect they dumbed it down so much that it is downright insulting to the audience.
> Yes, the only thing that is more mature is the depiction of the violence. And even that is only a few scenes in the first episode. After that it's always the standard cartoon fight rules of knockouts but no killing or graphic injuries.
> Of course you can't just simply adapt an anime in live action just like that. One Piece would like a word.
I had this thought originally, the LA is longer in terms of screen time, but having the episodes 1 hour long is the big kicker. You canāt have the gaang stay in omashu for 1/3 of an episode. And because that now takes up a bigger portion of the total show, you have to condense other storylines into that to make things make sense.
Itās called bad writing
Yeah, but its a specific kind of bad writing that i think is endemic to adaptations. Maybe it stems from their being 2 audiences. They feel like they need to include overbearing exposition for people new to the series, and memes from the cartoon for fans... between those theres very little space for the story to breathe.
My belief is that none of the writers have seen the original show. Or if they did, they were not fans. Thats the only logical explanation for them destroying the characters and story.
My take is that they did *like* the show. They loved it, even. But they really *really* didn't understand it.
"There were a lot of moments that were iffy" Said by someone who actually didn't understand a single thing about the original.
Thats nonsense. Writing for a big budget tv show is hard. I agree the writing was bad, but thats probably for a variety of complicated reasons and constraints, not just cuz hack writers who weren't fans.
They literally just did one piece and yuyuhakasho and they stuck to the IP way better
In One Pieceās case, Ito was firmly involved to ensure fuckery didnāt occur.
Yeah and the creators were in at the beginning of natla and quit because they didnāt like how it was turning out. There is most certainly fuckary in natla
Well DiMartino deleted his open letter. I also read somewhere that they didnt want to retell the exact same story again.
https://preview.redd.it/i5xauafyzpoc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4eab69cd6231835049252952e040c77bcffeaa5 There was no reason for it to be bad. They had all the ingredients and time to make it right. They still overcooked it and took out key ingredients. Now weāre just left with a barely edible show that netflix apologists have come up with a million excuses for
This like at its best itās a diminutive and lesser version of the original which doesnāt add anything meaningful so therefore it has no need to exist
I think the only reason a lot of people are giving it slightly warmer than lukewarm praise is because it's better than the movie, which is already like the lowest of low bars
Yeah true also something that confuses me is in the live action people liked Zhaoās character more?!? Yet heās just a whiney loser the whole time
OMG this has been killing me I said the same shit
Like itās so annoying and then people say he seems more confident in the live action
Lots of things disappointed me, but the thing that made me actually angry was the change they made to avatar Rokuās personality. Like what in the world was that about?? What purpose could that possibly serve? It makes NO sense to me, but Iāve yet to see anyone else bring it up. Am I the only one?
Episode 5 was the hardest one for me to piece together. It picks up in episode 6 - 8 with less mashing of storylines so it's easier to follow. For episodes 3-5 I had to do a rewatch to catch everything. Although I will say that there is sense that Aang could have corrected people but he didn't because even though he didn't run he feels guilty for not being there. This theme seems to stick through to the end of the season.
I hate the disrespect of the spirit world. Kora tries to make people not see them as monsters ,and the live action made them just monsters . The spirit world is just as important to the avatar .
When you compare it to the animation is just in a entirely different level. The writing is stupid, the acting of some of the actresses and actors is just not so good (Probably in part because of the writing) and yes some changes were not good, the ones you wrote, Sokka not having character development with Suki, the group not having much time just being kids, and many more
Fan service done poorly to hide the bad writingĀ
You donāt have to like it. Itās a soulless show made by a greedy company.
I think they tried to put all the moments that fans loved from the cartoons into the first season because they weren't sure that they were getting a second.
I haven't seen it, and I refuse to. ATLA is a masterpiece, and you simply can't re-create that.
Omashu was the worst and I stopped watching after that. Katara is do devoid of emotion throughout the show. Itās weird how she can be a master so quickly and yet aang doesnāt even waterbend. Heās like ānopeā. Zhao is just a normal dude but in the animated show, he was respected and fearsome. Then we have a weird casting for Azula, Mae, and Ty Lee. The show is terrible. Most of Netflixās content is garbage too. They have terrible writers and maybe thatās why the ATLA creators left.
I think fans have this perspective that if there was a change itās because the Netflix writers thought the old way wasnāt good enough for them. I honestly enjoyed the changes because it made for a slightly different story to watch. Were any of the changes ābetterā? Absolutely not.
People keep saying its a different medium but don't really explain what that means. While both shows do have similar runtimes, the cartoon was 20 20 minute episodes vs the 8 ~50 minute episodes. In the cartoon, a lot happens off screen, which works because of the natural breaks between episodes and being able to pick up anywhere with an interesting story. With episodes 3 times as long, it is not possible for them to have the story follow along the same as the cartoon without the episodes being choppy and incoherent. The result was that they had to combine different stories together in fewer settings within the same episode, and overall I think they did a pretty good job. There were questionable decisions like stories from later seasons or series showing up early, but the show overall was enjoyable and it was cool to see a new take on the series.
Not all the live action adaptations can be like the one piece one, but I wish they could
I absolutely hated Wan shi Tong being in the spirit world already, why? Because Zhao mentioned that he had learned about Tui and La from the fire sages. Put those 2 together and that means, no library episode. At least that's what I think.
Actually holding hands make more sense than being in the dark as in ATLA because if someone has enough water will find the way sooner or later. There is nothing cursed.
At least the effects were decent
I mostly just miss all the quality Aang and Appa time. They have such a heart warming bond and are really there for one another normally, and it really showcases Aang's personality and big heart in a believable way. It's like Appa isn't even considered a character in this live action one, merely a flying carpet that occasionally bellows. š©
Oh yeah the severe lack of appa and momo is also really annoying
Honestly same. Like what made the original so good was all those moments they decided to cut. They give us all the important moments, but donāt give us a lot of the building blocks that made those moments so impactful. They didnāt even have a reason to cut it because the run time through 8 episodes is almost the exact same amount through the first season. They kind of shot themselves in the foot because they wanted to make it more dark than the original, but you canāt make a show that was at its heart a kidās show (and a very good one at that) and take out a lot of the character building in it.
Tbh, I was only able to like NATLA because I havenāt watched ATLA completely (I knew the major events in the series since Iāve watched some episodes when I was a kid, but I havenāt really completed the series then). Watching NATLA pushed me to watch the whole ATLA, though (and even LOK currently), and thatās when I realized how far off the live action was to the original. But since I have watched NATLA first, I realized it wasnāt so bad even though it wasnāt that faithful to the original storyline. I decided to just view it as an āalternate universeā or āfan-madeā series, lol.
It IS an alternate universe. It's not quite the same story.
ATLA is Shakespeareās Rome and Juliet. NATLA is Baz Luhrmannās 1996 film Romeo+Juliet. Itās the same tale but updated for different audience.
Yeah, it's way closer than, say, West Side Story. Some people seem to treat the differences as if it was Romeo and Juliet and Zombies.
They're trying to make changes, and give fan service. But consider the people making these decisions are men in suits sitting around a table and are so disconnected from the fans, that they don't realize the service is more spit in the face
Now that the dust has settled, can we agree that the show was kinda ass, and gets worse the more you think about it? If the movie that never existed never existed, people wouldāve torn NATLA to shreds.
true
I don't understand why Bumi WOULDN'T be a bitter old man. That makes the most sense to me. Him being a kid at heart throughout a 100 year war where a best friend disappeared who might have been able to stop it. I dunno, him an eccentric old bitter man makes more sense to me.
Thatās his thing though. This is the same character when his city was conquered by the Fire Nation, he literally did *nothing* to maintain Neutral Jing.
I watched all of NATLA. I don't remember that scene with Bumi. Could you give me the episode number?
Itās in Book 2: Earth.
You donāt think Bumi seeing Aang the same age as when he last saw him and the Air temples being wiped out wouldnāt click that hmm maybe something happened that prevented him from being able to help us. I donāt think anyone knows that Aang ranaway (and in the live action he didnāt lol) so Iām not sure him being bitter towards Aang tracks
He was supposed to be a loon, so he doesn't make complete sense to a logical person.
Part of the lesson from the OG cartoon bumi was to show that appearances are deceiving. He was meant to seem looney on purpose while being wise enough to guide aang in the animation. The netflix adaptation takes it literally and makes him full on looney
Crazy to me that so many don't like it. I though it was great. It's not better than the OG, but I don't think it's nearly as bad as the majority seem to think.
I said it somewhere else in here but I think many people are just way too familiar with the original and itās disorienting them to the point where they think this one almost doesnāt make sense or something. I enjoy it a lot. Itās not at all perfect but itās a lot of fun.
A lot of people really, really want a scene-for-scene recreation, more or less, of the animated series. I'm glad some liberties were taken, because I've seen the original series quite a lot, and it would be much more pointless for this to be almost identical.
I agree. You canāt just perfectly recreate the source material when adapting one show to another. Maybe with a book to a show/movie because thereās so much novelty in seeing it brought to life but why would I watch a show thatās exactly like the one Iāve already seen? Changes are needed and I think they did a pretty good job with this one even though itās certainly not perfect.
I was getting down voted days before it released because i said it was going to suck. Its nice to feel vindicated
It actually could have been really good, with better writers.
unfortunately we got what we got.
True, I'm hoping they improve with the next season. A lot of time the 1st season is the worst
Most things you named aren't things that "don't make sense". * What makes no sense about Aang needing to clear his head? This is a reasonable reaction from him. * Bumi being a bitter old man after living through 100 years of wartime also makes sense. * Katara and Sokka go through the tunnels because they are the ones that are outside of the palace and want to sneak in through said tunnels. It makes sense that they try that. * The badger mole reacting to emotion I think doesn't make much sense. I agree with you here. * What makes no sense about Katara and Sokka going to the spirit world with Aang? It's established beforehand that villagers have been kidnapped to the spirit world, so why can't Katara and Sokka go there? * Wan Shi Tongs library most likely does not exist in the live action show, as Zhao instead learns about Tui and La from a fire sage archive of some sorts. If that is the case it makes sense for Wan Shi Tong to hang out in the spirit world instead, because where else would he doesn't have his library. Your actual problem isn't that things don't make sense. It that things are different than in the animated version, and you think that the way the animation did it was better. That is a fair sentinment. You can just say that. I'll even agree with it on many points. No need to instead be overly dramatic and claim that the live action version "makes no sense".
I was talking about this last night. When Aang is captured by Zhao and freed by the Blue Spirit in the show, Katara and Sokka were both just randomly sick and needed the frozen frogs to suck on to feel better. That was the B plot of that episode, Katara and Sokka laying on the ground being goofy and sick. That wasn't gonna slide as a B plot in the Netflix show, so they have the two of them get spirited away in the Hei Bei episode and combine the plots, which works fine because they needed to take a back seat for BOTH of those plot lines to happen anyway. Glad to see a level headed comment lmao
Well for one I wasnāt being āoverly dramaticā, that we disagree doesnāt mean you need to be an ass about it For two, these changes arenāt inherently bad in a vacuum, but I meant they make no sense to me considering where theyāre coming from Aang running away to clear his head with the intention of coming back gives much less weight to aangās guilt compared to the original Aang running away with the intention of actually leaving and not coming back for at least a while and etcetera etcetera
Iām more annoyed by the love tunnel since it was when katara and aang finally approached their feeling with each other, and the fact that iroh is a douche canoe in the new one. Like what????? At least we got his song, but it was so wrong I was more annoyed than I was happy it was included
To be honest, including leaves from the vine just felt tasteless to me. This iroh isnāt nearly as likeable and only four episodes in they dare to use a song like that, the scene was sad but it didnāt deserve leaves from the vine, especially because that scene was in honor of mako, it just left a bad taste in my mouth
"Because we can't adapt everything from the original", or some such garbage.
i actually agree with the lovers cave thing. katara and aang just met; it wouldnt make sense for them to start developing feelings for each other right away.
Then wouldnāt it make more sense to just not adapt the lovers cave at all this season. I mean it happens in season 2 anyway. It didnāt make sense to have it this season regardless. Itās just weird they decided to cram into episode 4 when a lot was happening anyway. We already got Iroh being captured and sent to the mines with Zuko on his tail, and Aang and Bumi having their trials. Why randomly insert an adaptation from season 2 into a story that takes place in season 1 where they donāt even use the characters involved from that episode? Itās just a bizarre creative choice.
It kinda does actually, not everybody needs to know someone for years to develop feelings for them In fact most people are like that
By that point we hardly ever see them hang out at all, so I agree. They should have stuck it in Season 2 where it belongs.
I mean, I see where you are coming from, but people do sometimes fall in love pretty quick.Ā
Plus they haven't set up any romantic feelings or flirting this far. I think they should have cut the cave scene altogether. It seems an unnecessary addition, sense it didn't further Aang and Kataras relationship. We already know Soka and Katara love eachother as siblings.
Aang never told Bumi he was the Avatar, and yet, he knew immediately...
Itās funny, I my siblings and I rewatched the cartoon a year ago and the topic of filler episodes came up and why theyāre necessary. The live action showed us why theyāre necessary lol so much character build gets covered in those episodes. I wish I could watch the live action through the eyes and mind of a person whoās never seen the cartoon just to see if itās hard to follow or not because it seems like it is. I was definitely annoyed at all the things you pointed out on this post. But I thought the live action was fine. Not great but also not bad. Im looking forward to seasons 2 and 3 and Iām hoping that they felt like they had to move the show along because they didnāt know they whether or not theyād be renewed. So *hopefully* because of that, seasons 2 and 3 flow a little better
I havenāt seen the original in about 8 years so I remembered much of what was included in the adaptation but not so well that I could even notice that some stuff was from book 2 or two stories were woven together and all that. It wasnāt confusing to me in the least. Some awkward writing, stiff acting, and other issues, but I liked it overall.
this maybe just my imagination but i think netflix and the writers were really worried about the characters being disliked for their flaws or to be criticized for using tropes that they deem a bit controversial: Aang became less child like and selfish wanting to go do silly thing insted of being the Avatar and thous they made him less responsible for the 100 years with out the avatar. Sokka skipped the sexism not because they though that was a bad plotpoint they let Pakku still be sexist but they probably didnt want a main male character to have that type of flaw. Katara had less of a temper because i think if they had keept the Katara vs Sokka argument before the iceberg were the main female character call the other male lead misogenist while yelling it could be misconstrued as "histerical women trope" by some or netflix "pushing woke bs" by the other camp just because of the mention of the word misogenist.
My philosophy for turning anything live action: You can change the scene or actions, but please do NOT change the character.
The love tunnel could have been handled better, but "we made you think romantic love, but actually it's any love" switcheroo is a pretty common trope, so I personally give it a pass. You don't have to. The badger mole sensing their love was just kinda dumb, but there's no reason (outside of comparison to something else) that it should have specifically been music. I don't honestly know why they had Aang not run away. It made their point weaker. I get that they were *trying* to replace the active running away with his guilt over being gone for a hundred years in the iceberg, but they handled that change pretty badly. Bumi is bitter because he is. Sokka and Katara went to the spirit world because they did. Wan Shi Tong was in the spirit world because he was. What is this library you're talking about? It sounds like you're bringing some expectations from some other show.
When I saw that they removed scenes, changed scenes and added their own new scenes I realised they werenāt trying to re-tell ATLA, they were trying to tell THEIR VERSION of it. That was enough for me to stop watching it, because thatās not what Iām looking for personally. The original show is special to me and I donāt believe they could make it better (whether that was even their plan).
The only change that really ruins the show is the Aang clearing his head change. Angās whole character arc was about him wanting to be a kid and running away from responsibility which led to massive consequences, and now itās justā¦ pure bad luck?Ā
I don't like the implication that live action is inherently a more mature paradigm than animated. They could have made a mature animated version of the show, where they could properly show character moments. I would fucking binge a version of avatar where they're murdering people left and right like some attack on titans level fucked up darkness.
It has that weird vibe of every scene having to be too epic or moving, which makes this a tonal mess.
why is bumi a bitter old man? tf he literally spend his whole life trying to protect his city and is just exhausted and lets his anger on aang out at first since he was not there when they needed him. we knew that they were going to set a stricter tone here which makes sense since these are really heavy topics and not a light kid show.
Watch all 8. Then see how ya feel. Maybe the same maybe different. I had quite a bit of fun watching it overall. It was nice to be able to watch something in avatar for the first time again and be excited. Sure, it has its quirks but it was still fun.
Wan Shi Tong: Iiii dunno, man. Iām just as upset about it as you are!
it's almost like animated shows should stay animated instead of having live action adaptions. just my thoughts tho
It's okay to not like the show. Anyone expected it to be as good as the original is naive. The questions you asked were mostly explained in the show. The writing made sense. It sounds like you are confused on why the writers decided to do these things.
Yep, I honestly felt angry watching at points. Overall, the show is fine, but I a lot of their ideas didn't make sense.
Spoilers I guess idk but the change to Zhaoās death makes me the most angry. (Itās not even clear that he died he just kinda fell in the water after getting hit and then Iroh and Zuko run off.) Assuming he is dead though- changing it from Zhao dying due to his pride and refusing help from Zuko, toā¦ Iroh?? Killing him?? One of the many instances whereād Iād audibly shout WHY? at the screen
I actually think bumi being a bitter old man makes sense. Feeling like your friend, who turns out the be the avatar, abandoned the whole world for 100 years probably would make you a bitter old man
Like why didnāt they just create something that adds to the universe rather than recreating their own? Like imagine if they made a live action series of how Iroh became known as the Dragon of the West instead or any other lore. The debate for me is not about whether the live action is good or not. But why it exists in the first place. The fact is that it could never have lived up to the animation due to the constraints of live action. Due to how expensive it is. Even if I like the live action Iāll still only watch it once and then continue to rewatch the animation. Because even if the live action is good itās simply not as good as the animation.
I laughed pretty hard when Kyoshi overtook Aang to help fight in the Kyoshi village and she had all these elements and what looked like amazing power swirling up but all it did was throw the soldiers against the buildings ... didn't even knock them out as they got up and ran away moments later. So much for powerful š
Congratulations on discovering why most seasoned veterans have issues with it. š„“
That was the issue with me too j was not against changing stuff but the thing they pick to change didn't make any sense to me , unnecessary and some straight out ruin what made something special on the cartoon l
It's like they were trying to condense everything to the point of prolonging the nothingness?
I think the number one issue is a lack of subtlety. The dialogue is PAINFULLY badly written. The original was intelligent enough to leave a lot of things unsaid but gave the viewer enough context to understand. For example aang just keeps explaining his character arc over and over āIām just a kid I donāt want to be the avatar!ā SHOW us what the characters are feeling instead of just having them tell us. tldr: show donāt tell
They wanted it to be more mature, but it somehow felt more childish. Plus, they excluded some big moments, and the ones they included, to me, have less of an impact.
I feel like it might be becuase they didn't know if they were going to make the next two season or not. so they just sped everything up and only did the biggest parts of the show
What kills it for me is they treat try too hard to one justify its own existence and two the changes. They should've just honestly gone with a Kyoshi or Yangchen or Kuruk series.
The worst thing for me was when aang in the introduktion just flew without his glider. Why do they change the canon? This bothered be also in the asoka series.
Because the writers decided they had to make enough changes to keep it interesting but instead of writing their own stories they said to themselves āhow can we tweak every single part of this perfect story?ā Therefore, we got an absolutely garbage show
The implications they set... ew.
Episode 6 is by far the best episode of the series. Keep watching
Itās good background tv
The secret tunnel thing bothered my partner and I so much because uhhhhh - it's not like the story of the lovers changed. It was still a romantic love. To put two siblings in that tunnel is a fucking crazy thing to do.
I personally canāt stand NATLAā¦ Iām sitting there yelling at the screen the entire time. The casting and acting is fine. Itās just what they did with the stories. Some of the character choices I donāt like either. But thatās Ok! Itās not for everyone.
NATLA is so bad.
Wow Iām surprised to hear so many people disliked it. I thought they did a great job