The Netflix Adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender

We are past the halfway point for Lent!

Now that I’ve completed season one of the Netflix Avatar, I can finish their live-action take on One Piece, try out Shogun on Hulu, and see what elseI can check out to watch. And it seems like they’re taking Community off of Netflix on April 1st.

Let’s talk about Avatar, and about adapting into live-action. I’ve touched on this sort of thing before, but it’s been a while, so it’s all fair game. That’s how it works, right?

Here be spoilers. But, like, just watch the original series instead, okay? If you haven’t already.

The Netflix Adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender

[John Staub's concept art.]

Given that Avatar: The Last Airbender was one of the greatest animated serieses that ever existed, everyone and their mothers were going to have opinions on the new Netflix adaptation. Many of the reviews boil down to this: it’s fine, but it’s not as good as the original because it prioritizes big moments and fanservice over patient, careful storytelling, and it lacks the nuance and subtlety of the animated show. Of course, this should have been expected: the story has to be condensed because it’s a show that’s only eight episodes long, what’s standard for a Netflix series, rather than the twenty episodes that the animated series got. It would take a very skillful team to not make that narrative feel rushed in comparison, so chances were that it was never going to live up to the first show. There simply wasn’t time to do everything in “Book One: Water”, or cover a lot of the things that made the story great to begin with.

This is why I’m skeptical of the claims or implications that I often see that if the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (or ‘Bryke’ for short when referring to both of them), had remained involved in development, the show would have knocked it out of the park. Leaving aside that the two of them didn’t make and write Avatar: The Last Airbender by themselves–actually, no, let’s go into that. Because while they did come up with the concept that evolved into the show, they didn’t make it alone, they had a team of writers. And some of the decisions fans adore weren’t their ideas to begin with, such as Iroh’s entire character. In the original story bible, Iroh was going to be a villain. And under their direction, we got Legend of Korra and the comic book sequels, which had baffling decisions like giving a new reason why Ozai hates Zuko, featuring Azula but still not developing her past being homicidally insane, making rebellious Toph into the founder of a police force, bringing up massive changes to the world like spirits or an Equalist movement without examining how those develop, and an unnecessary obsession with romance subplots.

That’s not to say A:tLA was perfect, or even that LoK was awful–neither of those two statements are true. Legend of Korra is still really good, and you should watch it, but it also had noticeable flaws that either the first series didn’t have, or were expansions of problems that the first series had.

“But Legend of Korra was constrained by the time and episode count that Nickelodeon gave them!” Fine! Let’s give them that! Then that problem still exists within the Netflix production. So it would remain a problem there.

I’m also still burned by Bryke’s statement when they were still involved with the Netflix series, and it was announced, that read: “We can’t wait to realize Aang’s world as cinematically as we always imagined it to be”. It really sounds as if they were asserting that they wished that Avatar: The Last Airbender was live-action to begin with, but they settled for animation because, well, that’s all they had. The series works better in animation, with its elemental powers, anime references, big set pieces, and noticeable art style. It’s fantastic as an animated series, so the assertion that it wasn’t really what they wanted felt like they were at least unintentionally devaluing the work that was put into what is a stunning piece of art and storytelling.

So, of course the final product isn’t brilliant. It was never going to be, regardless of Bryke’s involvement or lack thereof. To be fair, none of this is the fault of the performers; I do not recall any bad performances in the show. Nor did I find any issue with design or sets (though they originally planned to shoot in Hawaii, COVID kneecapped those plans and they shot in a studio). If there are faults with the show, it is with the writing.

Because, like I said above, it prioritized big moments over the more subtle storytelling of the original show. Fan-favorite characters appear in the first season, long before they’re supposed to, because those are recognizable elements that fans love, even if they don’t make sense. Wan Shi Tong appears in the Spirit World and talks to Aang, even though his entire schtick is running a library, and his library is nowhere in sight in this season. Ty Lee and Mai appear to exclusively be Azula’s moral support, which is silly because that’s not their role or characterization, and Azula’s recruiting of Ty Lee in Book Two is one of the best demonstrations of a villainous character that I’ve ever seen. That role, of Azula’s advisors, already exists with Li and Lo, but because they’re not as popular or recognizable as Ty Lee and Mai, they’ve been replaced.

Fudge, and poor Roku barely has anything to do; they make Kyoshi the first past Avatar that Aang talks to because she’s more popular with the fanbase, despite having less to do with the story.

In order to make everything more serious, they take away Aang’s sense of fun and excitement (also his obvious crush on Katara). They have to do this because the story’s condensed. But that takes away from the really important character moments. In the animated series, when Aang goes berserk or into the Avatar State, it’s a huge deal because it’s so different from what we see in his usual demeanor, even though it totally makes sense for him to get upset–he’s a kid who just found out his entire culture was wiped out.

There are also weird things in trying to make everything fit together Plot-wise. They make it out like Omashu is actually a key city, one of the last holdouts against the Fire Nation. The finale has it painted as Ozai doesn’t really care about the Siege of the North, it’s all a diversion so he can take Omashu. Which is insane because he lost hundreds of men in that siege–it’s a certifiable catastrophe for the Fire Nation, and we’re to expect that he doesn’t care he lost the navy to subdue a nation because he captured a key city? That’s not tactical thinking, that’s idiocy. Which the show could have painted as such! But it’s clearly framed as Ozai being a clever tactician.

Or instead of just having the Moon and Ocean Spirits be incarnated as fish and vulnerable, the show decides to explain that the Siege of the North JUST SO HAPPENS to be taking place on this one night that they incarnate, and Zhao JUST SO HAPPENED to find this out from the Fire Sages in Roku’s temple who JUST SO HAPPENED to have on display a spirit dagger that can hurt them that belonged to a past Avatar that no one really liked anyway (yet still has a prominent shrine in the North Pole).

Also, I have no idea what they’re trying to do with Zhao. I saw one review that acted like this version of Zhao was so much deeper than the show version, but, uh… no. Here, he’s explicitly a loser with no military standing who somehow got a position as an officer, gets hyped up on ego, and takes advantage of running into the guy who actually found the Avatar, Zuko.

And oi, in an attempt to, I don’t know, fix sexism? Or something? They removed the sexism from the original show, missing that those were actually presented as character or societal flaws. It’s really weird and badly done, especially in comparison to the original, where Katara loses her temper and snaps at sexist jerks, or Sokka grows up and learns to stop being a douche in that regard. The show also can’t decide if Katara needs a teacher or not–sometimes she needs encouragement and technique, but in the final duel with Zuko she explicitly taught herself everything she needs to take him on.

I’m reminded of a conversation we had around the Harry Potter movies when they were coming out. People would say, “They can’t put everything from the books into the movies!” And my sister would point out, “Okay, but that argument holds less water when they put things in that weren’t in the books.” The same applies here–not only did they take stuff out, they put stuff in that didn’t need to be there.

This show doesn’t need to exist. The original show is excellent, it still holds up, and it’s on the same platform as the remake right now! The reason that this show does exist is because Hollywood is allergic to creativity, and this notion that a story doesn’t really count unless you can see it in live-action. I want to be clear, I don’t think this show is even bad, I think I might even say it’s good (though not great), if it weren’t for the fact that I know a better version of it exists that you can watch.

And yeah, there are good parts. Iroh is awesome, for instance. The actors are fine with what they’re given. The action scenes are good fun. I'm weirdly fond of the idea that the crew of Zuko's ship are the soldiers who stood up for at the generals' meeting, though I think it's awkwardly revealed. And yeah, there are funny moments, if not as many as the animated series.

[Also, this video of Daniel Dae Kim revealing the show’s renewal to the rest of the cast does amuse me, even if he is being a bit mean.]

But this didn’t need to happen. This didn’t need to exist. And more than that, I’m frustrated that a lot of people are surprised that this show isn’t as good as the original animated series. It would incredibly shocking if it was, actually.

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