Live Action Avatar the Last Airbender

Again the bare minimum of this show has been fulfilled. The monster design looks really good but there is just no depth to the actual body of the show. All of the storylines are so hollow. I think they brought Sokka and Katara to the spirit world in an attempt at cheap character development because they have fucked it up until this point. But again it just comes across as an unearned moment. You wouldn’t need to change a bunch of shit to fill out these characters if you just did what you were supposed to do the first time. This shouldn’t be the first time we see any actual depth to these characters, it's episode 5, that is inexcusable.

It really feels like they are trying to condense all three seasons into one season and it is so rushed and so disjointed and absolutely nothing makes sense. This is a show that was absolutely centered, completely hinged upon these characters' development. It was THE character driven story that also happened to have a plot but the live action has done a just impeccable job of making it plot driven and devoid of any character at all.

Again with the misplaced flashbacks, we are now seeing Zuko before the scar and I am 100% sure that this is not where this moment was supposed to go. I think this show, if nothing else, is an excellent example of structure and why certain scenes are placed where they are. Structure and formula are a very important part of storytelling and we seem to have skipped that writing lesson entirely. I would love to present these screenplays to my writers group so we can study exactly what not to do.

We get another unearned moment with Zuko being the blue spirit which is revealed approximately 5 seconds after the blue spirit is introduced. At this point why even include that? And then Zuko and Aang have this moment that means nothing and our group is still separated. They have spent more time apart than they have together and that has really made the show suffer. Aang has 0 reason to be so loyal to these two and fight so hard for them because they haven’t actually spent any real time together.

The fight choreography is pretty good. The Agni-Kai between Ozai and Zuko was very well presented. The casting for Ozai is rather perfect, Daniel Dae Kim is so fantastic. He’s also super hot but that is just a random side note.

“He’ll recover…but he’ll never heal” Is actually a great line of dialogue. Where exactly has that been? The writing for the original series is so good. The dialogue is wise, it's intentional and it's so much more than just writing quips and sarcasm. This series seems to have forgotten about being intentional, wise, calm, and introspective. It is really disappointing, especially considering that the scripts for these things already exist. Changes were not necessary.

Honestly this series was set up for failure the minute they decided to do it. The original series is in fact perfect, and this adaptation was not necessary. Let’s go ahead and talk about why it was remade in the first place because I think it needs to be said. The attitude in the industry surrounding animation is abhorrent. It is seen as something that is just for children and therefore is seen as less than, it's seen as something that doesn’t hold weight or validity because it's made for children. Now there are two problems with that, 1) just because something is “for” children does not mean that it is less intense or skillful and 2) animation literally requires MORE skill then live action. Why is something being live action the highest achievement something can have? The animated series was so well done, why exactly did it need to be live action, when you can not possibly make it better or even as good. This is where I will scream what is essentially my catch phrase at this point once again, NOT EVERY STORY WORKS IN EVERY MEDIUM.