Haha as a German I am lucky and can just switch to the German synchro. The voice acting is directly 300% better… Still that leaves the bad visual acting… As a bonus I get the old voices though. Somehow they where able to get the original voice actors for katara, sokka, suko, azula, Ty lee, Zhao, jet (I think), and suki
I know… it worked for Mean Girls and The Color Purple…
Avatar: the Last Airbender Musical
I thought this was about the good avatar
I enjoyed Netflix’ Avatar so much that I finally started the anime. The acting from basically all the children actors is atrocious but I just love the realism and animation of the worldbuilding that an anime just can’t give me. Any plot points with minor characters are great and with the exception of Azula, the fire nation actors are great.
I really hated the Netflix show, but I’m very happy it’s getting some people to watch or rewatch the original. Enjoy!
Are we talking about the real avatar stuff or the giant smurfs one?
Pixar’s new animated movie about online profile pics that are sentient.
…what the hell is that new movie I’ve never heard of? XD
This adaption, while not perfect due to nothing coming close to the show in terms of perfection, is not bad at all. It’s shorter than the show so of course they had to make things flow quicker and things were cut out. But for a 7 episode take on season 1 I was impressed.
Im only 4 episodes in so I can’t give a full review but I think the problem is there were some choices that were made that ruined the heart of what was good about the show. Uncle iroh and saka are not funny at all. I just saw the 4th episode which has the caves of omashu and the singing hippies were hilarious but got mostly removed. It’s like they think laughing would cheapen then shows seriousness or something. There is no love connection between aang and katara. And they added a bunch of storyline from season 2 for some reason.
Obviously there is no love connection between Aang and Katara, that simply does not work between a 12 and a 15 year old.
12 and 15 year olds can have crushes. Why do we have to act like children don’t experience love between friends? It’s part of growing up and part of the human experience.
They could have included crushes, yes. But I still think that in current societal climate Netflix would have wanted to avoid that
Yeah it’s not the best thing since sliced bread, but it was a decent TV show (in a vacuum.) Which was about the best we could hope for when they said they want to appeal to Avatar fans AND Game of Thrones fans.
I just don’t get it. Who wants a live action avatar. The show holds up just fine.
maybe they regard it as a separate revenue stream, so they can doubledip into what their demographics and marketing departments tell them are two completely independent audiences, cartoons vs live action. There’s gotta be some reason because there’s nobody who wants this, nobody who thinks it’s a good idea, and nobody who is not filled with trepidation and a vague nausea at its release, who is also a fan of the original show.
I also don’t believe it can be true that there is a subset of people who are too manly/serious and “absolutely will not watch cartoons” that overlaps with “would watch this obvious adaptation of a children’s show”.
But yeah, they don’t think that way I guess. Anyway I’m just glad it’s not another butcher job. Gonna give it a while before I watch it, I want them to understand this is nobody’s priority. (An Earthbender Avatar, however… that’s day 1 binge territory)
People with brain rot that think that animation is a lower art form, so they would’ve never even gave the original show a second glance.
Only 1 episode in, but I already love it for how cool the bending looks so far. The second Sozin incinerated a guy while holding him, I was sold.
No way this is true. I hate that episode it’s such a boring recap episode I always skip it. One of the like 3 episodes I skip In the entire show.
So you’re all people then? Counterpoint, I enjoy it. It’s not my favorite, but certain meta moments are fun. Skipping the… hmm, tunnel? episode, Toph loving her actor, bad cosplay, and Sokka getting in on the ham are all somewhat fun. There’s some bplot drama I don’t care much for, but assuming everyone must have taste like yours is peak “everyone thinks like me and if they say they don’t they’re faking.”
People have tastes that don’t match yours. Neither of you are wrong for your tastes. (Barring absolutely harmful ones anyway).
I really enjoyed the live action. Imo, it cut a lot of the filler from the animated show. I dislike wasting my time watching an episode that adds nothing to the plot.
I really think they should have just continued the story, rather than try to reboot it. I really hope they continue it though.
The animated universe will still be continued with movies coming out in the next few years. I think there is more info at !avatar@lemmy.world about that somewhere.
I also hope the live action gets a second season at least.
Is it bad? It’s bad isn’t it. I bet it’s bad.
All I needed to see was a clip of Aang saying, out loud, in the first episode, “but I’m just a kid who likes playing games and eating food and hanging out with my friends! I can’t fight the fire nation!” Like. The Netflix show has about the same runtime as the first season of the anime. There is no reason why they couldn’t have just shown us Aang being a kid and hanging out with his friends instead of telling us, unless they only wanted to save that runtime for flashy CGI fight scenes.
That and instead of Katara opening the series with her famous “water, earth, fire, air” monologue, the show has their grandma recite it word for word directly to Aang’s face
They really thought that scene with the grandma was going to be loved by fans. As a fan I physically cringed during that scene…
but i mean who needs character development to be applied to the correct character so it makes sense, as long as it happens
but i’m just here to bitch, hain’t watchin it.
It’s acceptable if you don’t have strong emotional ties to the original source material. Which I do.
Which is to say it’s not good, but it’s better than the movie that never happened.
I’d rather watch the movie, honestly… At least it’s worth a good laugh.
What they did here felt like the ember city players version of the original, but with key world changes like “let’s make all the airbenders fly like superman”.
It’s good
I didn’t want it to be bad. But it’s bad.
Mind giving a synopsis of why it’s bad? I’ve not seen many people talking about it besides being mad that they changed things (and they said they would)
I watched only the first episode and haven’t watched the original in years. But the acting is really really bad. Totally stilted performance. And there are many instances of people exposition dumping their feelings instead of just showing them. And then these parts are underlined with cheesy flashbacks of bad exposition dumps in case someone didn’t pay attention.
From what I’ve heard they removed important character traits from each protagonist. They took away Aang’s playfulness, Katara’s maturity and sense of responsibility, and Sokka’s growth arc.
Or for a quicker summary: they combined the Jet episode with the machinist and the secret tunnel.
They also seem to have removed all meaningful interaction between aang and katara in favor of exposition.
Wow, these studio guys are absolute geniuses!!!1!
Hangs head
What kind of interactions are are going to be interesting between characters whose important traits have been removed?
None, of course, but it’s through those interactions we learned about their personalities in the original. There’s neither in this.
So Jet invents a blimp that he takes Katara in a wheelchair on, but they get lost, sing a song about giant glowing moles that brainwashed him using hippies, and it’s ambiguous whether the pain of almost but not quite kissing Katara killed him?
Little Joel has a video that slaps about exactly that.
[Here’s the video] (https://youtu.be/wntYp-FEHPY)
Netflix is attacking bad reviews on more than just IMDB, it seems…
https://youtu.be/4i8quw7cDFE?feature=shared
They took his videos down, and now he’s only hosting them on his Patreon. Shame… I wanted to see them.
It’s not so much that they changed things, if anything it’s extremely faithful, it’s mostly just… really shoddy.
Characters are devoid of any personality or life, the dialogue is some of the worst expository garbage I’ve ever had to endure, and they just keep missing the point of critical moments and character beats.
Like just to give an easy example, upon being told that he’s the Avatar, Aang in this version does NOT run away. He just… goes on a little trip on Appa to lighten up, and it just so happens that this is exactly when the fire nation attacks, and he accidentally gets caught in a storm and gets trapped. Running away was key to his character, it’s a crucial, character defining moment. It leads into his genuine feelings of guilt for abandoning the world, and his whole arc in the show is about slowly accepting the responsibility that terrified him back then.
And that just keeps happening, super important scenes like that get butchered for no reason, completely erasing the meaning behind them. It feels like they went about the show in a very utilitarian way, believing that as long as they could get the characters from point A to point B, it didn’t matter what they changed. The original is so good at that, so good at symbolism, so consistent in its characterization that you’re often able to predict how a given character will react because you know them so well.
I think that’s what pissed me off the most, and combined with the goddawful dialogue (seriously I can’t stress enough how bad the dialogue is), and a lot of gratuitous fanservice (lots of characters and scenes appear much earlier just to show them off lol), and you end up with a show that’s extremely hard to sit through if you have any affection for the original.
(TL;DR): Even without the context of the original cartoon, this adaptation has a “college project with a high budget” vibe, like they were in a rush to get it to their professor’s desk on time. All of the acting, writing, choreography, and cinematography is mediocre at best and cringe-worthy at worst. The VFX are better this time around at least, but they rarely utilize it where it was needed most and ultimately doesn’t outweigh it’s shortcomings.
The CGI is way better than the 2010 movie, but all the hurdles that come with live action still plague the Netflix show. They cut a lot of really good scenes because they’d be too hard to animate, (like Aang’s escape from Zuko and subsequent first use of his avatar abilities) which creates a lot of pacing issues, and what they didn’t cut is plagued by awkward writing and even worse delivery.
Everyone has something missing from their original character that was a key characteristic in the cartoon. Aang is always super serious now, which shows in his fight scenes too and overall removes the whimsical nature of the show… All of the characters in general are now super serious, so the show is pretty devoid of any lightheartedness… Zuko is a lot less measured and he comes across as silly, which is ironic because he’s the one character who’s supposed to be very serious… Sokka doesn’t start out sexist, which removes an entire growth arc from his character and takes away a key dynamic between him and Katara… Iroh doesn’t have his iconic wise/disciplined enigma vibe… I could go on.
Meh. I’m enjoying it. It’s extremely similar to the show, and they’re really try to adopt a lot of the same jokes, scenes, and concepts from the cartoons.
I mean it’s a kids show, a kid will absolutely love this. If you go into it expecting Avatar for adults you’re going to be a bit let down.
You say it’s a kids show but i felt like the fight/war scenes were much more violent and graphic in the live action version. Like there’s a bunch of times where you just watch people burn to death. I enjoyed the adaptation but one of my complaints wild definitely be that they didn’t stick with one tone.
Because now every show-runner wants their show to be the next Game of Thrones. But they don’t understand what made GoT work.
Yeah, I’ll give you that one. It’s definitely a bit more graphic.
I think this is why I take issue with these attempts at remaking the show. Even if it was a completely perfect recreation of the original, then why make it? I’d much rather see a different angle, something new. We already have so much substance in the original that trying to adapt it doesn’t make sense to me.
I always ask myself what a reboot is adding. And there’s just not a lot to add to Aang’s story that wasn’t already very well said in the original series.
I think aiming for something that’s just in the same universe could work really well, though. Maybe a focus on the other nations? Or follow one of the minor character paths that briefly cross with Aang? But trying to bring characters that we all know deeply and have a very specific expectation of just has such a low chance of hitting right that it baffles me they’ve tried twice now.
I would assume that if you are a big fan of the original, then a 1:1 live action remake is just not for you. It sounds like it would be more for the people who could not get into the original because of the animation.
Those people aren’t worth appealing to.
I don’t think so, either. The types of people that are against “cartoons” (their word, not mine) are all old people that grew up with the idea that anything animated is for young children. What a sad state of mind to be in…
I watched Avatar originally as an adult, and I loved it.
Yup. I know a couple of people who can’t get into it, or it depends on the exact animation style. My partner’s mom can’t take animation seriously even when we recommend good shows. She just can’t get past the media. And another friend only likes certain animation styles (not messy ones like Rick and Morty, or too anime, or 3D like Arcane).
It’s probably just meant to be for people that wouldn’t watch the animated series under any circumstance.
I’ve never watched One Piece the anime (yet) and I keep putting it off because of how fucking long it is. I don’t know how faithful the Netflix adaptation is, but I enjoyed it a lot; so much that I might finally start watching the anime.
I don’t expect those of us who like the animated Avatar to enjoy the live-action adaptation as much, but there are surely people who will, and they’re probably the ones this is for.
follow one of the minor character paths
Cabbage seller spinoff!
6 part docu-series about Omashu cabbage man and how Team Avatar has ruined his business
It’s not bad, it’s certainly enjoyable.
My take: the original is the real story. The Netflix is a summary. They skip a lot, but it’s only 8 episodes. The things they skip, I just remember “still happened”. The things they merged/combined are just part of the summary.
You are able to like the Netflix, as long as you know it’s not a replacement. Just enjoy the retelling, and seeing Uncle iroh as a real person!
Oh man, I disagree completely.
Everything from the weird addition of Aang being able to fly without a glider to the really placid acting was very hard to watch. The CGI was insanely bad throughout, although the 2-3 second shots of the cities were oddly really well done.
Still, none of the small glimpses of success made up for the overall failure of it for me. The acting was poor, and the cast was widely bizaar (why did Katara not look like Katara, at all?) the facial hair in many cases looked silly… Like, why does Iroh look like a mall Santa? And why was Aang wearing lipstick?
I just don’t get it… I don’t know why they did half the things they did.
It’s only 8 episodes currently, or there’s only going to be 8 episodes? Surely not 8 for the whole thing?
8 episodes an hour each, and it ends on the avatar moment in the northern water tribe.
It’s a Netflix joint, so there’s a solid chance the show dies between seasons regardless of what fans want
It’s only eight episodes, but they’re an hour each, so it has exactly the same runtime. Also, the cartoon has the Great Divide, so not adapting that should have given them another 24 whole minutes to work with
The first episode was an hour, but eps 2 and 3 were less, around 40-50 mins. (I haven’t watched 4-8 yet.) So there was some loss of runtime, and I understand the need to change some things to make up that time. However, (and granted I’m only three eps in) I doesn’t feel like the changes that were made were made strictly for runtime reasons.
Gran-Gran giving Katara the scroll instead of her stealing it, yeah, I see that being a time saver. The overall change in Katara’s personality? Not so much.
Just started it this weekend. Being a hardcore fan of the anime version I was apprehensive going in. But, the show is really good in its own way.
As someone else pointed out - a beloved TV series with most of the audience holding fond memories of it and it being perfect (ahem ahem Season 1 of the anime) does not help. I like that the new show tries to explore the story a bit more and at least tries to extend on the canon a bit. One can only milk the cow so much a number of times.
Ember Island Players is my favorite episode. It’s such a good capstone.
That play was pretty solid though, I’d watch it live.
HONORRRRRRrrrr
Problem with Avatar adaptations is that even a really good one will be bad in context of a series that has 100% rating (99% audience score!) on Rotten Tomatoes.
You simply cannot improve on perfection.I think the main problem is that they keep inviting the original creators, they sign on, the studio heads explain to the creators how the studio has figured out how to tweak things, creators say “your ideas are horrible and if you execute on them as you’ve described, everyone is going to hate it”. The studio’s refuse to budge, creators depart citing creative differences, studio gets their way. Is a steaming pile of shit. Rinse and repeat.
I heard the reason they left this time was because the showrunners wanted to basically recreate the series, and the original creators were like, “but… we did already made that series. Let’s make something new”.
Could be false though, because I don’t understand how they’d get so attached to the project knowing that it was supposed to be a live action remake from the start…
So basically, show runners wanted to make Scott pilgrim vs the world while the OGs wanted to make Scott pilgrim takes off
Haha yeah exactly! Maybe that’s why they got attached originally. Perhaps they thought they could redo parts they were unhappy with or show new perspectives and storylines.
“but… we already made that series. Let’s make something new”.
And I think that was actually the best call possible when adapting an animated show to live action. You know, do something crazy, kill Aang in the first episode. Write an alternate universe where Sokka becomes a cartoon level dictator. Show the story entirely from the point of view of Suki and the Kyoshi warriors joining the war against the Fire Nation, or a prequel from the point of view of the Order of the White Lotus searching for, setting up plots or trying to find the Avatar during the interim 100 years of Aang’s absence. Almost anything else would’ve made for an extraordinary new creative addition to the universe, and would’ve been a more palatable translation from animated to live action. But all Netflix executives are creatively bankrupt.
This is the lifecycle of live action.
I think another issue is that when telling the Avatar story, all the main characters are necessarily children, and the themes of the show require some really hefty acting chops to deliver lines convincingly.
I can’t fathom why they didn’t tell a new story in the Avatar universe, or at least remake TLoK where the main cast are a bit older.
I didn’t watch the show when it came out and when I tried last year I didn’t like it. That made me wonder if it’s just not my cup of tea or if there’s a lot of nostalgia behind the good reviews. While I absolutely agree that animation is just a medium and there’s great animation for adults, I didn’t like ATLA’s style. I haven’t watched the movie but I’ll give the new show a try.
That and most come at it with the standpoint of animation is for kids rather than recognizing animation as simply a medium.
If they just took the original series and drew an extra frame between each frame I wouldn’t be surprised if it made more than any of the live action works.
You simply cannot improve on perfection.
You can weave in more relevant lessons about stuff, also about more current topics. Nothing about the old one is really out of date though so it’d just be additions here and there. You can even roll in plenty of Korra stuff, it’s not that the series doesn’t have anything to say it’s just all over the place.
What any adaption certainly needs to do is start out with a list of lessons, not plot points. Change the plot all you want as is necessary for whatever medium, as long as the lesson aspect is intact people wouldn’t mind, also keep the “reveal the world to the protagonists” vibe. E.g. Sokka doesn’t need to learn his sexism lesson from Suki, it doesn’t even need to be Sokka who learns that lesson, but that lesson needs to be taught. It doesn’t even need to be about Avatar Aang, there’s plenty of others. Earth is next, isn’t it.
Precisely. OG show holds up so well, remaking it is waste of time and money.
But there’s gotta be a way to milk it for more money without the risk of a new and original idea!
Maybe…they could listen to the original creator?
If he has ‘creative differences’ maybe listen to him next time?
The only adaptation I will accept is one where Dwayne Johnson is playing Toph.
All others are inferior.
What If he played the ember island version of her?
This and only this is acceptable, but they should still be voiced by the original voice actors.
Unacceptable, he has to play The Boulder.
I hate how Hollywood thinks live action is the highest form of visual media. Like you want remake avatar? Up the budget for animators, pay the shit out of your voice actors, and pay some writers to add some darker themes. Better than any of rhe live action attempts would be.
The problem is you have the literal actors shilling their bullshit to the masses.
deleted by creator
Alex Meyers has a good video on this, he has this exact same opinion. I think maybe you would like it.
I’ve only seen 1 episode so far, but IMO the format shift is worth it for the visual effects. Like, Sozin just straight up incinerating that guy would not have worked so well in the anime. And the actors seem quite good (the leads at least). My only real complaint is with the writing. And I mean, it’s not as if the original didn’t also have some pretty badly written lines in the first episodes. Adding in an actual 100 years earlier segment at the start is a big improvement, and it also gives us a taste of the kickass action scenes that are to come. At least for the intro to the show, live action seems significantly better than animated was.
I’d watch that
Japan makes shit lots of live action adaptations of anime. they just don’t usually make it to the west.
And the manga fans don’t watch them.
Besides, a lot of those movies aren’t actually meant to be watched. They’re made by Yakuza owned company that have to do some production to “prove” they aren’t just laundering money.
The original is pretty dark for a childrens show. Even as an adult episodes like the one about blood bending made me shiver a bit.
Yeah but they weren’t allowed to show or too directly imply death. That’s why Jet’s “death” scene was bizarrely vague. Getting rid of that restriction on the original writers would probably be interesting.
That’s basically what happened with Legend of Korra. It wasn’t TV-MA, but it was definitely a far darker show overall.
And when Korea got into the more obvious deaths they actually pulled it from broadcast and went streaming only.
The Earth Queen’s murder was the one that crossed the line for the Nick execs. There was no way they were showing that on TV.
Nah. Avatar isn’t dark at all for a kid’s show.
Nobody dies. Nobody gets cut. Bending really just amounts to “pushing” in most fights.
Naruto on the other hand is quite dark for a kid’s show.
