Warning: This review contains spoilers for “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”
Two of your favorite WSN staffers offer their thoughts on one of the most anticipated shows of the year. While we both had different takes on Netflix’s live-action interpretation of “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” we could agree on one thing: That was rough, buddy.
Avatar: The last live-action adaptation please for the love of god
— Carmo Moniz, Managing Editor
When I first watched the original “Avatar: The Last Airbender” animated series, I remember some of the most impactful moments being those when the viewer discovered something at the same time as the characters. The original sequence of events brings us through Aang’s grief when he discovers the Fire Nation killed his people, Sokka and Katara’s excitement and relief when they learn the Avatar is alive and Aang’s disbelief at learning that during his absence, the world has been at war.
However, the new series hits the viewer with exposition right off the bat. We immediately know Aang (Gordon Cormier) is the Avatar, what happened to the Air Nomads and the power of Sozin’s Comet. Aang is even told about the war before his disappearance. Since the new show’s audience was expected to include many longtime fans who already know the plot of the original series, it makes some sense that the showrunners would opt to include some of this information earlier on. But this approach robs viewers — especially those who are discovering the story for the first time — of the opportunity to empathize with the characters at some of their darkest and most life-altering moments.
The new series also portrays Aang as more mature and open to his responsibilities as the Avatar than the animated show. In the live-action version, Aang never tries to run away from home to escape his role, he only plans to leave for a short while. Aang doesn’t travel to Kyoshi Island to ride the elephant koi, he goes there to look for ways to train and end the war. While there are moments where Aang’s internal conflict about his role as the Avatar is revealed, they take a tell, not show approach. We can often hear what Aang is thinking inside his head, something that seldom happened in the original, and we know that he feels pressure to end the war and guilt for his absence. But it was much more powerful to see this conflict, which is a crucial part of Aang’s character and a driving force of the original story, through his actions.
There are plenty of flaws in the series to pick at, but there were also strong moments and decisions that, while straying away from the source material, added to the story. I especially enjoyed Dallas Liu’s performance as Zuko; the actor did a great job of getting across the young prince’s insecurities and humanity behind his more obvious qualities of anger and impatience.
Despite Aang being more mature in the Netflix adaptation than he is in the original, Cormier embodies the character’s adventurous spirit and easygoing personality perfectly. Suki’s (Maria Zhang) character — deepened in the new series by her relationship with her mother and a desire to see more of the world — struck a good balance between playfulness and powerful strength. Katara’s (Kiawentiio Tarbell) fight against Paku during Team Avatar’s stay with the Northern Water Tribe was particularly satisfying to watch, since it perfectly replicated many shots from the original animated sequence. I also thought Sokka (Ian Ousley) was pretty funny.
As a shot-by-shot remake, the live-action successor of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” falls flat, especially for longtime fans looking to recapture the character and magic of the original. But if you can get past the significant deviations from the animated show’s plot and world, you might find more depth and nuance in some of your favorite characters, along with a storyline that — despite being unfaithful to its source material — continues to be engaging.
Yet another soulless remake
— Yezen Saadah, Deputy Managing Editor
As someone who has rewatched the original cartoon over a billion times at this point, I think this new adaptation is not good. In fact, it’s quite bad.
A lot of the arguments made in Carmo’s review get this point across very well, from the show’s intensely poor characterization, to its clunky world building. However, what I was most taken aback by was the Netflix adaptation’s sterile visual presentation.
I can admit that the new series’ creators demonstrate a love — or, at the very least, an interest — in the source material’s East and South Asian-inspired art direction. Still, the remake’s lackluster cinematography and wonky visual effects ultimately showcase a sheer lack of ingenuity, which comes across as not only straining, but self-destructive too.
The beautiful landscapes and environments, as well as the creatively expressive character designs, of the original are pushed aside for this live-action retelling, with set pieces and backgrounds that are as artificial as the corporate greed fueling this aesthetically soulless product. This is particularly noticeable in the show’s first episode, “Aang,” during which our protagonist obnoxiously and goofily flies around an all too pristine Southern Air Temple.
But when I thought this inauthentic presentation couldn’t get worse, it did. Enter the third episode: “Omashu.” In the original animated show, the city of Omashu is presented as an intensely innovative and impenetrable stronghold of the Earth Kingdom, bustling with character and distinction. However, this live-action adaptation, striving for a sense of modernism, implements the Hollywood-adored LED Volume — a room of linked LED panels used to display a digital background behind actors, often used in place of a green screen. While this tool can lead to beautiful results, such as in Matt Reeves’ 2022 film, “The Batman,” it is used in Netflix’s “Avatar” as a cheap cop-out. It presents the once mesmerizing and heavily textured environments of the original cartoon with the amount of effort Apple would put into designing its macOS wallpapers. It is as artless as it is worthless.
While “Omashu” is the worst offender, nearly every major location in the show feels entirely artificial and inauthentic. To add insult to injury, this feeling of fruitlessness is only exacerbated by the show’s near-spotless costume design. While the costumes are technically faithful to the source material in terms of their iconography — especially where the main trio is concerned — they are way too pristine for a show that is trying to pass as a grounded and realistic serialized drama. More often than not, I felt as if I was watching children cosplay as their favorite “Avatar” characters, rather than experiencing the characters for who they are meant to be. At its best, the costume design reminded me of Saturday Night Live sketches — which, dare I say, isn’t a good thing.
For the most part, the action and visual effects are fine. The firebending is the best visual effect in the show bar none. Viewers can feel the energy and power behind the fire in the live-action show more so than any other form of the elemental martial art of bending. This is especially beneficial in key moments of tension or excitement; however, it’s not as if the show has anything special to provide on that front anyway.
Still, I was honestly very disappointed by the airbending. It was the most boring of the four elements to watch, despite being the source of several creative visual gags in the original series. Ironically enough, the waterbending has no sense of flow, and the earthbending has no real heft behind it, which is rather unfortunate since those two forms of fighting made for some of the cartoon’s best action sequences.
There’s a lot to not love about Netflix’s “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” be it the unnecessarily small changes to character motivations, the absurdly hollow visual presentation or just the fact that they cram five episodes’ worth of content into one nearly hourlong episode. But hey, at least it’s got heart, right? In any case, if you made it this far in this multifaceted review, let me just give you one piece of advice: Don’t watch this, and go binge the original cartoon instead.
Contact Carmo Moniz and Yezen Saadah at [email protected].
