Spoilers Avatar: The Last Airbender - Netflix Live Action Version

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

I may have accidentally binged the whole thing…. Oops

Really enjoyed most of it.
There were a few parts in between where you could feel the writer‘s needs to include a few iconic key scenes that didn’t have a dedicated episode anymore.
And I am not 100% sure some of the stitched together subplots from different stories worked in all instances.
Particularly Aangs visit to the fire monastery felt extremely rushed in a blink and you miss it kind of way.

Azula’s early inclusion worked on the other hand.
She and her motivation for her more prominent actions in Book 2 onwards make more sense now.

Can‘t wait for Book 2 actually.
Toph cannot appear soon enough.

And I really hope the show is successful enough for Korra to get the same treatment!

 

[Tuskin38]

It’s mentioned that Kyoshi grew up an orphan, I believe that comes from the side materials, it wasn’t mentioned in the original show. So that’s neat.

 

[Christopher]

It’s mentioned that Kyoshi grew up an orphan, I believe that comes from the side materials, it wasn’t mentioned in the original show. So that’s neat.

Yeah, it's from the F.C. Yee prose novels. A bit of a simplification, but essentially accurate.

 

[FreezeC77]

I've watched three episodes and I am very impressed by Sokka's portrayal. Taking a character from an animated show who is like partly Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and still having him be funny and similar, but still work in a live-action dramatic medium isn't easy.

 

[Christopher]

I've watched three episodes and I am very impressed by Sokka's portrayal. Taking a character from an animated show who is like partly Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and still having him be funny and similar, but still work in a live-action dramatic medium isn't easy.

Yeah, he's perfect as Sokka. Also, I'm liking Dallas Liu and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee more and more as Zuko and Iroh. Daniel Dae Kim is terrific as Ozai, and though Elizabeth Yu isn't quite as perfect an Azula as I'd hoped, she's doing pretty well.

Cormier continues to be amazing as Aang. I think maybe his best moments are when he's being persuasive, trying to win people over. I can really believe this is someone with the ability to inspire people to believe in him and follow his guidance.

Spoiler: Episodes 3-4

They're really mixing and matching episodes. Episode 3 was a bit of "The King of Omashu" combined with "Jet" and "The Northern Air Temple," and episode 4 is the rest of "King" combined with "The Cave of Two Lovers" and Iroh and Zuko's subplot from "Winter Solstice, Part 1." But it works fairly well.

The martial arts choreography in Aang and Zuko's fight was fantastic. Naturally Aang would do Jackie Chan-style prop fighting instead of direct attacks. And I love the bit of the merchantwoman coming to Aang's defense and slapping Zuko around for attacking a kid. You don't often see that kind of bystander involvement in martial arts fight scenes -- very clever.

They're paying off the fanservice moments well, like the debut of Katara's waterskin. And I like the way they kept us in suspense and interrupted the Cabbage Merchant every time he was about to say the word, then finally gave him a big climactic moment. And of course, we got the cave hippies and "Secret Tunnel" in episode 4.

Did I hear right that the lovers Oma and Shu were both female in this version? Anyway, it was interesting to change the Cave of Two Lovers sequence so that it was about Katara and Sokka's sibling connection, but it bugs me that that's the second time they've taken away a bonding moment between Aang and Katara.

Speaking of bonding moments, I think my favorite scene was the new one they added, the flashback to Lu Ten's funeral where Zuko comforted Iroh. It was lovely to see why Iroh feels such loyalty to Zuko, and it's a great way to establish that he has a kinder side. When the soundtrack started playing "Leaves from the Vine," I got teary-eyed.

An interesting change to the Bumi story too. Since Aang catches on to Bumi's identity right away, we get a version where Bumi's tests are less about assessing Aang's readiness to fight and more about expressing Bumi's bitterness that Aang abandoned the world. That adds a new dimension to it.

Another interesting change is having Azula be Zhao's sponsor, so that his actions become an extension of her role as the main villain. It helps unify things more.

 

[Tuskin38]

Of all the things the adapted from the cartoon

Spoiler

They brought in Secret Tunnel/The Cave of Two Lovers

But I love

Spoiler

That when Zuko is fighting without fire bending, he's still using fire bending movements because that's how he was taught to fight.

 

[JD]

Only watched the first episode so far, and it was fantastic.
I really liked how they expanded it, with all of the stuff before the Fire Nation attack. It really makes you feel even more for Aang getting to see more of what he lost. And it was just cool getting to see the Southern Air Temple before the attack.
The whole cast is fantastic so far, they've done a great job of capturing the essence of the animated character.
The action and bending are absolutely fantastic.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I’m not even two full episodes in but it’s pretty decent so far. At least for me I find the kid playing Aang is a little too green sometimes with the more serious moments but that’s not a dealbreaker. Not too sure about Zuko either. I probably like Sokka the most so far. I found it a bit jarring at first transitioning to live action but that soon goes away.

 

[thribs]

Just finished it. It was alright but it felt rather rushed, which is odd since the whole animated series is very short. In contrast the One Piece show felt better and that animated version is considerably longer.

It was also a little odd that we had a whole season and we didn’t see Aang do any water training. I would have liked to see him do some water bending in the final episode.

 

[fireproof78]

Watched it with the wife.

Thought it was great. Characters were solid, acting excellent, choreography was pretty impressive to me.

 

[Tuskin38]

Oh man

Spoiler

Leaves From The Vine was the background music during Lu Ten’s funeral

 

[Christopher]

The show just keeps getting better...

Spoiler: Episodes 5-6

Let's see, this 2-parter basically amagamates "Winter Solstice," "The Storm," "The Blue Spirit," and parts of "Bato of the Water Tribe."

Interesting change to bring Katara and Sokka into the Spirit World. It lets them delve into their past regrets, and sets up Aang's mission to save them from "The Blue Spirit" in a less random way than finding frozen toads to lick.

It's particularly intriguing to see them bringing in concepts from the larger franchise. The Fog of Lost Souls is from The Legend of Korra, and Gyatso appearing as a spirit owes something to Iroh's role in TLoK. And the Mother of Faces comes from the graphic novel The Search -- appropriately, the story that revealed the fate of Zuko's mother and the origin of the Blue Spirit mask.

The new additions continue to be worthwhile too. Aang thanking Zuko for the way his notebook has helped him was a wonderful scene. It's also a fascinating change that Ozai is less contemptuous of Zuko here, that he genuinely wants his son to succeed and is pushing him ruthlessly in the belief that it will make him stronger. In this version, he actually did as Zuko wished and spared the 41st Division, but he made that gift seem like a punishment so he wouldn't appear weak. This is a more nuanced version of Ozai, and that's interesting.

It's also kind of interesting that they've reinterpreted Zhao as a weak, petty bureaucrat trying to move up in the world. It's the biggest departure where characterizations are concerned, but I guess that since Ozai and Azula have prominent roles, Zhao doesn't have to be as menacing.

As for Azula, I don't feel the actress is making the character as intense and psychotic as she should be. We didn't see her sadistic grin when Zuko was burned, just a sort of cool interest.

I do feel that Hei Bai's story got lost in the shuffle; we never got to see Hei Bai heal and revert to original form. Although the VFX of the various creatures are really impressive, particularly Nyla and Koh, which are both quite creepy.

I liked the villagers' dialogue establishing that "The Waterbending Scroll" (or some version of its events) and "The Great Divide" happened between episodes 4 and 5. Assuming the final 2 episodes adapt the climactic three-part arc, that means that aside from the aforementioned episodes, they've skipped "Imprisoned," "The Fortuneteller," and "The Deserter."

 

[Christopher]

Meanwhile, it's sad the way some people need to make excuses to hate something pre-emptively. I just saw someone complaining on Twitter (actually two people, the original poster and the one whose repost I saw) about Aang "flying" in his debut scene and how that breaks cannnnnnon, but he's obviously just gliding slowly downward, which was always something he could do. How ignorant does someone have to be not to know the difference between flight and gliding? I almost made the mistake of responding on Twitter, but it didn't deserve the attention, so I'm getting it out of my system here instead.

 

[Christopher]

All done now. Very impressive -- my one regret is that it wasn't 2-4 episodes longer. It would've been nice to spend more time with the Gaang and take more time for character development and side adventures.

Spoiler: Episodes 7-8

The last two are pretty faithful to the concluding 3-parter of season 1, but with a few changes. Aang meets Avatar Kuruk much earlier than in the animated canon, and Kuruk's backstory draws on the F.C. Yee Kyoshi novels. Pakku's sexism toward Katara is still there, but without the backstory with Gran-Gran to justify his bitterness. Interesting change, too, that Katara is basically her own master now rather than needing to learn from Pakku, though I think maybe that's a bit hard to buy.

Another big addition is Zhao's gloating speech to Zuko about how all that's happened between them was really about Azula -- that Ozai was using Zuko to motivate Azula, and that Azula was the one guiding Zhao all along. Plus we get a big payoff with Azula being the one to conquer Omashu.

I really, really hope they renew this show and get it back into production before the young actors get too much older. There's going to have to be a sizeable time jump before season 2.

 

[thribs]

You seem to remember a lot from the animated version. Did you rewatch it before this?

 

[Christopher]

You seem to remember a lot from the animated version. Did you rewatch it before this?

I rewatched it and reread the books and comics about a year ago, and I'd seen it several times before, but I also consulted the Avatar Wiki to remind myself of the episode titles and events. I'm pretty reflexive about looking things up online to make sure I get the details right, because my memory's never been that good.

 

[thribs]

I never read the books. That might be fun.

 

[Christopher]

I never read the books. That might be fun.

The comics and YA novels are considered canonical, at least for now. They're both good, though I find the F.C. Yee novels a little darker and more cynical than the shows.

 

[FreezeC77]

Having finished it and not having watched/rewatched the animated show in a long time there were still some changes that stood out and I'm not sure the reasoning

Spoiler

Aang picks up waterbending in the first season and actually excels faster than Katara. He also learns a it of firebending and it scares him so he stops.

Now there reasonably could make a point of no time to learn firebending in how the first season of the animation was condensed/retold here. But it really makes no sense Aang who feels so guilty about "failing" as the Avatar would just do NOTHING while Katara on the most basic of levels learns waterbending from her scroll.

It would have made way more sense for Aang to also start at that point to practice waterbending. Now if the producers felt like the original diminished Katara too much from her early struggles to learn they could have simply ditched that aspect. But Aang not trying to learn at all seems really out of place.

In terms of Katara's massive skill power-up/mastery it seems way too rushed. In terms of how the live show is presented it feels like she gets there in a couple of weeks.

It would have IMO made more sense to have her start s2 after a time-jump with the actress having visibly aged as then being at a much higher level of ability.

As to the conclusion I kinda felt like it had more emotional impact in the animated show. I think Yue's screen time isn't massively different, but having watched it play out over three 25m episodes originally kinda made her feel like more of a connection than just one Netflix episode.

 

[thribs]

Katara being better than water bending at the end is probably their way to express girl power which Hollywood likes doing