Live Action Avatar The Last Airbender

Okay…Netflix’s Avatar the Last Airbender has dropped its first season. Now much of the built-in fan base from the animated series is going into this very skeptical, mostly because the creators can’t stop talking and everything they say pisses us off. I want to preface this with, I am cautiously optimistic BUT there are no changes that they can make that will enhance the series. I know for a fact that they are going to fuck some things up because they are trying to shove 20 episodes into 8. They will skip stuff and depending on what it is that’s fine, but there will be some horrible decisions because it's just not possible to cover that much story in that little time. I am going to try and fight through the entire season so that this review is as accurate and honest as possible. But I have very little hope so please bear with me if this takes a while. I consider the animated series absolutely perfect and therefore the live action can only be worse. But let’s see how much worse.

I will be doing this in several parts so that you guys don't have to read a novel of text analyzing this poor excuse for a show.

Okay I tried to be as positive as possible but what the fuck is this opening? Did anyone need the context of the war starting? Has anyone asked for that ever? No, didn’t fucking think so. Also it's so expositional? Like this isn’t even achieving what the writers thought it would. There is genuinely no reason for it.

At least the bending looks good. I mean it couldn’t possibly be as bad as the live action movie, but the bar for that is in hell.

And then we get to the iconic opening that literally every fan has memorized and they replace it with unnecessary exposition.

AND THEN we go to the southern air temple for some reason? I’m sorry we are trying to do this whole book in 8 episodes and we added context no one asked for and exposition….why? The intro explains how the Avatar cycle works and then at the air temple they explain it AGAIN for some reason, how stupid do you think your audience is?

I like the CGI for Appa, he looks adorable and amazing. But Aang’s whole monologue to Appa was again, expositional and unnecessary. SHOW DON’T TELL. Are writers not being taught this anymore? Who is teaching these people how storytelling works? Because this is not it. Every decision made so far is the wrong one.

Did the fire benders just flame on themselves up to the southern air temple? What the fuck was that? So I guess that’s one storyline gone in favor of laziness and something that makes no sense. Fire benders can fly I guess. Why is this the second fight scene I’ve seen in 20 minutes? Literally could have been done with the first episode as is in the animated series by now…unnecessary. Also seeing the air temple get slaughtered is actually so much less impactful then the audience seeing the devastation when Aang does.

It's so heavy handed and it SCREAMS the audience is stupid. Do you really think that new people are watching this show? Do you genuinely believe that people that didn’t grow up with the animated series are watching this? Because they aren’t. The only people you need to cater to are the ones who grew up with the series. Word of mouth will make or break a series so maybe don’t piss off your built-in audience. They really fucked the series structurally. Everything that should have been a flashback was done up top and that is really just unnecessary.