The perfection known as Avatar: The Last Airbender will forever be solidified as one the greatest kids cartoons not only for the lovable characters but also for the legendary story. To this day people still find solace in watching and re-watching the three glorious seasons of television. As it goes, since the show was first developed as a cartoon, fans of the show are interested in seeing their favorite characters brought to life through real people. This is where live-action adaptations get mixed into the perfect that is the original series.
As of February 22nd, Netflix released the newest live-action adaptation of the series. Which most would say is… passable. Fans of the original series immediately started to pick up on the grittier tone of the new series. No longer is it the colorful children’s cartoon. It is a darker version of the story fans know and love. Since the children watching the original series are now grown up, the showrunners of the Netflix series have made it darker for the adult audience.
Since the series is on Netflix, the episodes of the original series will be condensed to fit the eight-episode format that Netflix has.
Some moments in the original story were altered or just never showed up in the Netflix version.
For example, in a couple of episodes on their journey to the Northern Water Tribe, they made a detour after seeing a forest that had just been burned down. The result of that forest going up in flames was an angered forest spirit named Hai Bei terrorizing a nearby village. In the original cartoon, Aang’s friend Sokka was captured by the spirit. Aang travels to the spirit world to save Sokka, calming down the spirit into its true self, a panda, and saving the village simultaneously.
However, in the new live-action adaptation both Katara and Sokka get dragged into the spirit world where they encounter strange spirits. Instead of Avatar Aang going into the spirit world to find them, he asks Roku, the previous Avatar, for wisdom. He traveled to Avatar Roku’s temple which is in Fire Nation territory to ask for wisdom and how to save his friends. He does save them but leaves Hei Bai to terrorize the town since Aang never calmed him down by telling him that the forest will regrow. The plot line is never brought to a satisfactory end and fans are still left wondering about the village and the spirit.
However, the adaption was very tasteful and paid homage to the original, especially in the Cabbage Merchant. The character was played by the same actor in the original cartoon, who is a fan favorite and couldn’t wait to see him reprise his role in live-action.
Now to the sad part: talking about the 2010 adaptation.
This isn’t a rip into how bad of a job M.Night Shyamalan did, because he is not a bad director. He wrote and directed The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Split, Glass, and other great films. Yet, he did such a horrendous job at trying to adapt Aangś story. First, the casting was one of the things that made no sense. The show has heavy inspiration from Asian culture, mainly Chinese, so it makes no sense to hire white actors to play indigenous characters. Sokka and Katara’s characters are inspired by native Inuits who have a darker complexion. There is not a single Asian actor that plays the Asian-inspired characters. Aang has direct inspiration from monks and yet the actor does not fit the look.
The casting was not the only disappointment to come out of the 2010 adaptation. The story, dialogue, bending, and even the names of the characters were simply wrong. In the show, it took about four earthbenders to be able to move one rock, and not even a big one at that. In the original show as well, firebenders can create and bend their own fire at will. However, in the 2010 adaptation, firebenders had to use preexisting fire to be able to bend.
At the end of the movie, there was even set up for further movies adapting the next two seasons of the show. Due to the poor reception of the first, the other two subsequent movies were, understandably, scrapped.
The 2010 movie adaptation was a slap in the face to the original fans of the show. The blueprints for the movie were obvious, and yet it was an upsetting adaptation that fans still shudder at to this day. It is a moment in time that fans of the show would rather forget.
The new Netflix adaptation could still use some work, but fans of the original show can see its potential, a contrast to the dumpster fire that was the 2010 adaptation. Seasons two and three are now in the works for the show, which are arguably better than the first, and it will be interesting to see the direction the showrunners take the later seasons.
