Avatar the Last Airbender (2024) Season 1
Feb. 24th, 2024 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrJust finished the first season of the live action Avatar the Last Airbender show. I went in with low expectations, prepared for things to be changed, and with that mindset quite liked it! Not a perfect adaptation, nor a super faithful one, but made by people who liked and mostly understood the original and did a pretty good job at crafting their own take on it.
I'm a big fan of the original show but haven't watched it in a few years, Cam has watched it more recently, and we both agreed that while there were some parts that didn't work very well and some changes we didn't like, it captured most of the important things pretty well, and some of the changes were good, even an improvement. But I got into ATLA as an adult, and am pretty open minded about adaptations taking liberties. This is an ok-but-not-brilliant and not always faithful remake of a beloved children's classic, so I suspect a lot of people are going to be disappointed.
It's hard to say how it would work for people who haven't watched the original tv show, but I think it would be pretty entertaining, if you are interested in an action heavy fantasy-drama about a bunch of teenagers trying to save the world, in an Asian inspired fantasy setting with an all-Asian/Indigenous cast and occasional gestures towards "sexism is bad and women are awesome".
The overall tone is darker than the original children's cartoon, with fewer jokes and more overt on-screen death, but still moderately light and sometimes cheesy. There's no swearing or sexual references, and no significant gore except for one burned dead body early on. It's more shallow and less understated, less interested in philosophical questions but not totally uninterested.
The action scenes were fun. The actors were all fine to good, and the visuals/special effects were mostly pretty good but occasionally distractingly cheesy or CGI sludgey.
Like the original, there's zero onscreen queerness, and only really one disabled character, whose writing is just ok.
Content warnings for both versions: genocide, death, war, child abuse, trauma
Under the cut, I'm going to go into some of the specific things the show changed that I would have liked to know going in. I'll avoid spoiling any new plot since it can be fun to see how things play out for yourself. But if you haven't seen the original this will be very confusing and spoilery!
I personally cared most about the characters and their arcs than the plot or worldbuilding, but everything was changed a bit here and there.
The characters and their arcs are broadly the same, but some major characters got tweaked or flattened and other minor characters got fleshed out more.
It feels less like a story aimed at children about and from the perspective of kids, and more like an ensemble story where some of the most important characters happen to be teenagers, but the audience is expected to empathise with some adult characters too. Which is more to my tastes, but ymmv.
Jokey characters like Aang, Sokka, and Iroh make less jokes and are less silly. Aang still feels like a child, and is sweet and earnest and like games, but he's more serious and sad. His arc about teaching Katara and Sokka to be more childlike is entirely gone, which I think is a pity. You can tell a grown up show about a child who likes being silly!
Sokka feels like broadly the same character to me, but instead of dismissing Katara and Sokka due to overt sexism he has a general Must Be The Best Warrior complex with sexist undertones he has to get over. This worked for me but I know some people dislike it.
The worst change for me is Iroh: he still has similar broad motivations, and does still make jokes, but he's been flattened into a pretty straightforward and subdued character who is sensible but not super on the ball, instead of someone who pretends to be a buffoon but is actually incredibly smart. Him playing at being a dumbass who jokes all the time during the first season is a significant part of his character, and removing it makes him both less fun to watch and less interesting as a character. And again, you could absolutely have kept this character trait in an overall more serious canon.
Zuko and Azula are a little softened, and more overtly framed as both victims of Ozai, who is more deliberately manipulative than I remember him being in the original. Personally, I like these changes, I think it sets up Zuko's overall arc and makes Azula less one note. I did sometimes feel like the narrative took Zuko's side just a little too much for this point in the story, but if it means we might get a more sympathetic end for Azula I will happily pay that price.
Katara is also softened, which I don't like as much. She is still determined and brave and refuses to be dismissed, but she's less sharp and fiery about it. On the other hand, it does mean there's no "lol Katara is overreacting" moments, when she's angry the narrative is 100% on her side.
Some secondary characters get changed and fleshed out in ways which worked for me, but I won't spoil it! The only one I remember being super annoyed by was Bumi, who's just kinda mean :( On the whole these writers aren't always good with characters with hidden layers.
The plot is the same in broad strokes, but it feels like the writers went through every plot thread in every episode and marked them as "Vital", "optional", "underdeveloped", and "unwanted". They then wove the "Vital" parts together with extended versions of the underdeveloped parts and whatever "optional" scenes worked best as glue. A lot of scenes happen in totally different contexts to the original cartoon, but the new plot is put together in such a way that the key emotional beats still work. This was cleverly done and I 100% agree with it as a an approach to adaptation, even if my opinion on which parts are vital etc would have been different.
We see more of the pre-genocide Air nomads and life in the Fire Nation, which I enjoyed. I'm not sure the Air Nomad parts were necessary but they were like fun fanfic, and the Fire Nation parts make them feel more like a real people with varied experiences and opinions.
The show seems aware that some of the older female characters are hot, especially when they kick ass, but isn't notably male gazey, and noone's design has been Sexified. And two things which bugged me about the original are fixed: Iroh is never sleazy, and we actually see a sympathetic middle aged woman kick ass one time. On the other hand, there is ZERO crossdressing, boo.
We never see Katara or Aang in their underwear, and while they have an intense friendship there's zero hints of overt romance between them yet. I don't think those things were bad in the original but it would feel much weirder with actual real life young actors. I'm ambivalent about Aang/Katara as a shipper, but it is necessary plotwise unless you are willing to totally torpedo any chance of continuing on to Korra. However a more understated romance in ATLA with a "and then they got married later" would work fine, and Aang's actor is probably going to look more obviously post-pubescent by the time any hypothetical Seasons 2 or 3 get made.
I'm also ambivalent about Zuko/Katara, I didn't see any signs the show especially ships it, but they do have some fun moments of rivalry.
Sokka's romances are similar to the original but they're all 20 somethings passing badly as teens so that was just cute.
The platonic relationships I care about hit the main emotional beats I wanted, even if the vibe was sometimes a bit different. Specifically, Aang&Katara&Sokka, Zuko&Iroh, and Aang&Zuko, which are all very important to the overall show.
I think the cast all did ok jobs as actors, and it's great that they're all of Asian/Indigenous descent. Also I really like that there's more South Asian characters and cultural elements than in the original.
But it does feel like there was colourism involved in some of the casting. I don't feel able to untangle the claims that Sokka's actor lied about his ethnicity, and if he did whether the show could have known. But they did definitely choose to cast someone much paler than canon Sokka. Having a mixture of ethnic backgrounds obviously doesn't disqualify someone from being Asian, but there sure are a lot of actors who are a mixture of Asian and White, and afaict noone who's a mixture of, say, Asian and Black.
I get the feeling a lot of other people liked the show a lot less than me and Cam. But personally, while I think it definitely could have been better in theory, this is about as good an adaptation as we were ever likely to get in practice, and I would like to see what these creators do with the rest of the story.
I'm a big fan of the original show but haven't watched it in a few years, Cam has watched it more recently, and we both agreed that while there were some parts that didn't work very well and some changes we didn't like, it captured most of the important things pretty well, and some of the changes were good, even an improvement. But I got into ATLA as an adult, and am pretty open minded about adaptations taking liberties. This is an ok-but-not-brilliant and not always faithful remake of a beloved children's classic, so I suspect a lot of people are going to be disappointed.
It's hard to say how it would work for people who haven't watched the original tv show, but I think it would be pretty entertaining, if you are interested in an action heavy fantasy-drama about a bunch of teenagers trying to save the world, in an Asian inspired fantasy setting with an all-Asian/Indigenous cast and occasional gestures towards "sexism is bad and women are awesome".
The overall tone is darker than the original children's cartoon, with fewer jokes and more overt on-screen death, but still moderately light and sometimes cheesy. There's no swearing or sexual references, and no significant gore except for one burned dead body early on. It's more shallow and less understated, less interested in philosophical questions but not totally uninterested.
The action scenes were fun. The actors were all fine to good, and the visuals/special effects were mostly pretty good but occasionally distractingly cheesy or CGI sludgey.
Like the original, there's zero onscreen queerness, and only really one disabled character, whose writing is just ok.
Content warnings for both versions: genocide, death, war, child abuse, trauma
Under the cut, I'm going to go into some of the specific things the show changed that I would have liked to know going in. I'll avoid spoiling any new plot since it can be fun to see how things play out for yourself. But if you haven't seen the original this will be very confusing and spoilery!
I personally cared most about the characters and their arcs than the plot or worldbuilding, but everything was changed a bit here and there.
The characters and their arcs are broadly the same, but some major characters got tweaked or flattened and other minor characters got fleshed out more.
It feels less like a story aimed at children about and from the perspective of kids, and more like an ensemble story where some of the most important characters happen to be teenagers, but the audience is expected to empathise with some adult characters too. Which is more to my tastes, but ymmv.
Jokey characters like Aang, Sokka, and Iroh make less jokes and are less silly. Aang still feels like a child, and is sweet and earnest and like games, but he's more serious and sad. His arc about teaching Katara and Sokka to be more childlike is entirely gone, which I think is a pity. You can tell a grown up show about a child who likes being silly!
Sokka feels like broadly the same character to me, but instead of dismissing Katara and Sokka due to overt sexism he has a general Must Be The Best Warrior complex with sexist undertones he has to get over. This worked for me but I know some people dislike it.
The worst change for me is Iroh: he still has similar broad motivations, and does still make jokes, but he's been flattened into a pretty straightforward and subdued character who is sensible but not super on the ball, instead of someone who pretends to be a buffoon but is actually incredibly smart. Him playing at being a dumbass who jokes all the time during the first season is a significant part of his character, and removing it makes him both less fun to watch and less interesting as a character. And again, you could absolutely have kept this character trait in an overall more serious canon.
Zuko and Azula are a little softened, and more overtly framed as both victims of Ozai, who is more deliberately manipulative than I remember him being in the original. Personally, I like these changes, I think it sets up Zuko's overall arc and makes Azula less one note. I did sometimes feel like the narrative took Zuko's side just a little too much for this point in the story, but if it means we might get a more sympathetic end for Azula I will happily pay that price.
Katara is also softened, which I don't like as much. She is still determined and brave and refuses to be dismissed, but she's less sharp and fiery about it. On the other hand, it does mean there's no "lol Katara is overreacting" moments, when she's angry the narrative is 100% on her side.
Some secondary characters get changed and fleshed out in ways which worked for me, but I won't spoil it! The only one I remember being super annoyed by was Bumi, who's just kinda mean :( On the whole these writers aren't always good with characters with hidden layers.
The plot is the same in broad strokes, but it feels like the writers went through every plot thread in every episode and marked them as "Vital", "optional", "underdeveloped", and "unwanted". They then wove the "Vital" parts together with extended versions of the underdeveloped parts and whatever "optional" scenes worked best as glue. A lot of scenes happen in totally different contexts to the original cartoon, but the new plot is put together in such a way that the key emotional beats still work. This was cleverly done and I 100% agree with it as a an approach to adaptation, even if my opinion on which parts are vital etc would have been different.
We see more of the pre-genocide Air nomads and life in the Fire Nation, which I enjoyed. I'm not sure the Air Nomad parts were necessary but they were like fun fanfic, and the Fire Nation parts make them feel more like a real people with varied experiences and opinions.
The show seems aware that some of the older female characters are hot, especially when they kick ass, but isn't notably male gazey, and noone's design has been Sexified. And two things which bugged me about the original are fixed: Iroh is never sleazy, and we actually see a sympathetic middle aged woman kick ass one time. On the other hand, there is ZERO crossdressing, boo.
We never see Katara or Aang in their underwear, and while they have an intense friendship there's zero hints of overt romance between them yet. I don't think those things were bad in the original but it would feel much weirder with actual real life young actors. I'm ambivalent about Aang/Katara as a shipper, but it is necessary plotwise unless you are willing to totally torpedo any chance of continuing on to Korra. However a more understated romance in ATLA with a "and then they got married later" would work fine, and Aang's actor is probably going to look more obviously post-pubescent by the time any hypothetical Seasons 2 or 3 get made.
I'm also ambivalent about Zuko/Katara, I didn't see any signs the show especially ships it, but they do have some fun moments of rivalry.
Sokka's romances are similar to the original but they're all 20 somethings passing badly as teens so that was just cute.
The platonic relationships I care about hit the main emotional beats I wanted, even if the vibe was sometimes a bit different. Specifically, Aang&Katara&Sokka, Zuko&Iroh, and Aang&Zuko, which are all very important to the overall show.
I think the cast all did ok jobs as actors, and it's great that they're all of Asian/Indigenous descent. Also I really like that there's more South Asian characters and cultural elements than in the original.
But it does feel like there was colourism involved in some of the casting. I don't feel able to untangle the claims that Sokka's actor lied about his ethnicity, and if he did whether the show could have known. But they did definitely choose to cast someone much paler than canon Sokka. Having a mixture of ethnic backgrounds obviously doesn't disqualify someone from being Asian, but there sure are a lot of actors who are a mixture of Asian and White, and afaict noone who's a mixture of, say, Asian and Black.
I get the feeling a lot of other people liked the show a lot less than me and Cam. But personally, while I think it definitely could have been better in theory, this is about as good an adaptation as we were ever likely to get in practice, and I would like to see what these creators do with the rest of the story.
