#it'll probably get enough views for a season 2 but I doubt I'll watch it

[watchmakermori]

thoughts on the live action avatar

spoiler alert: I thought it was bad. if you liked the show and you don't like reading negativity, just skip out on this one.

the overall quality of the show was about what I anticipated, but some specific aspects were better/worse than I first expected. from the trailers alone, I knew the effects looked bad (I don't know why they get so much praise). I wasn't expecting amazing acting from a bunch of child actors either, though I was pleasantly suprised by sokka's performance.

the biggest and worst disappointment is the writing. it's really bad. the og cartoon does have some ropy dialogue, especially towards the beginning of book 1, so I'm not going to pretend its perfect. but the live action is relentlessly clunky and expository. I don't need aang to tell me, the viewer, how he's just a normal kid and all he wants to do is play with his pals. I don't need yue to tell me that the ocean spirit is full of vengeance and rage when it's literally destroying a city. show me. and trust me to understand the story beats without having them explained.

a lot has been said about katara's actress, and I agree that her performance is weak, but I think she wasn't helped by a) bad dialogue and b) bad direction. The direction as a whole seems so uninspired and most of the actors give middling performances. I would rather these kids overacted than underacted. The Harry Potter kids were not good actors, especially not at the beginning of the movie series, but they still managed to give charismatic performances because they went all in on it.

I really just hate how the scenes are sort of...placed? It's hard to even put my finger on what it is, but it feels like the characters just suddenly appear in scenes as if they spawned there, with no thought as to how they arrived. There's one scene in the final episode where Azula is standing atop a rock outside Omashu and removes her mask to address all of the Fire Nation forces, and I couldn't stop thinking about all of the troops shuttling into place outside of the destroyed city, while Azula taps her foot on the rock and waits awkwardly to address them all. tl;dr scenes often feel staged and inorganic.

speaking of azula, I fucking hate that she was shoehorned into the story this early. she had no good reason to be here, and the portrayal of her character just does not work. I vehmently dislike that we see her struggling to win Ozai's approval, because that is not the point of her character at all. when she is first included in book 2, she is the golden child. she is a firebending prodigy who was 'born lucky', who succeeds in every way that zuko fails. she is a complete perfectionist, but she also has the incredible entitlement of a person who has never failed in her life, which makes her the perfect foil to her disgraced, exiled brother.

azula seeming perfect is integral to her character and her relationship with zuko. it explains why zuko is so desperate for ozai's approval, and why azula completely cracks and breaks down in book 3 when things stop going her way. she is not used to failing, she is not used to being tested, she is not used to anyone telling her no. making ozai belittle her and play her off against zuko completely changes the dynamics of the family, and it makes her a weaker foil to zuko. I potentially hate this more than any other change in the live action, even though it's a minor one overall

out of all the characters, I think the only one they really successfully captured was sokka. they toned down his comic elements, which I think was a sensible choice, but he still has the jokey sarcasm that gives him the spirit of the character. I do have to give credit where it's due for this, because I honestly thought sokka would be one of the hardest ones to get right.

I do think it was a bad move to remove all of his sexism, though. I could accept them making it less overblown, but taking it away entirely gives him less growth as a character.

they did an okay job on zuko and iroh, though I don't think iroh has the right balance of humour and sage wisdom that makes him such a beloved character. zuko is okay, if maybe a bit too emotionally mature at times. I didn't really like that he and aang had a full conversation after the blue spirit kidnapping. in the cartoon, zuko immediately fucking blasts him, and that feels truer to how short-sighted and reckless he is at that stage in the story. but overall, zuko isn't too bad.

katara sucks. she really sucks. she's not bossy, she's not snarky, she's not got a temper. she doesn't have that overly responsible, maternal side to her personality either. her entire character is distilled down to her...wanting to waterbend. and help aang, I guess. we don't get to see her make proper mistakes or rob pirates or scream at sokka for being an ass. she's literally unrecognisable compared to her cartoon counterpart, and live action katara doesn't have any other personality traits that make up for the ones she's lost.

aang is almost as bad, though people seem to be talking about him less. he's so goddamn passive, and it's a complete joke that he doesn't do a single bit of waterbending in the whole series. I get that his arc across the season is about facing up to the responsibility of being the avatar, but I think they could've still had that and also included his motivation to learn waterbending. in the original cartoon, he's still very flighty and avoidant of his problems, but he always takes action to help others when he can.

I think it was a bad choice to not have aang run away from the air temple at the beginning of the story. having him just go flying and accidentally get caught in a storm removes a very core point of motivation and guilt for his character, and it has a big impact on the rest of the story.

I do like yue better in the live action than the cartoon, though. she's a pretty meh character in the original and the voice actor is very wooden. she isn't the best character in the live action either, but more of her personality shines through and she feels less like a plot device. her wig is fucking terrible, though.

the action scenes almost all suck shit. they feel turn based and the dynamic martial arts basis to bending doesn't come through in the same way. the final episode did a better job on the fight choreography, but I still wouldn't call it good.

the cgi landscapes and bad lighting make me all too aware that most of this series was probably shot in a warehouse against a greenscreen

yes it is better than the 2010 movie. no this is not saying very much

It did at least make me want to rewatch the original series again tho so I'm gonna go do that

#avatar #the last airbender #it'll probably get enough views for a season 2 but I doubt I'll watch it #if I do it'll just be out of curiosity to see if they massacre my girl toph as badly as they massacred katara and azula