I'm not quite ready to write it off entirely, given the trailer did manage to capture the feel of the original pretty damn well, but it's most definitely not an encouraging sign at all.

Sokka's whole thing is probably the least egregious of the three characters getting gutted, as it's not particularly hard to hit "myopic and immature jerk" even without "that girl thinks she can fight? That's adorable!". It doesn't speak that well to the writers' understanding of Sokka as a character, but it's an easy enough adjustment to make, and what little of Sokka was in the trailer was so good that I'm willing to give em the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Katara getting her (s)mothering tendencies toned down is just gutting the character entirely though. She does all that because she was forced to grow up entirely too quickly, and doesn't really know how to interact with her peers other than as "surrogate mom". And that's without mentioning how it's tied into her... issues, shall we say, around her mother's death. It's not impossible that they'll figure out a new core for the character that at least mostly fits within the narrative, but it won't be an easy task, and I don't have a lot of faith that they can manage it.

Similarly, the insistence on giving Aang 'motivation' to go to the north pole and become the avatar so badly misses the point of the first season that I'm honestly not confident the writers have actually watched the show. Literally, Aang's core, central conflict, throughout the whole series, is his internal conflict between his desire to not be the Avatar and his desire to not watch the world burn. And at the beginning of the show, he's desperately running away from it with everything he has. He's not wandering around looking for an adventure because there's nothing better to do; he's doing it so he doesn't have to think about how everyone he knew and loved is dead, their descendants are dying, and the fate of the world rests entirely on his shoulders. He's out and out running away from being the Avatar with everything he has, and the whole first season is spent beating it into his head that he cannot run away and live with the consequences. It's the core of his character arc, and in many ways it continues all the way until moments before he's standing triumphant over Ozai.

The fact that the production team doesn't seem to understand that makes me very concerned about the long-term plot of the adaptation. I'll reserve judgment until I've actually watched it and seen if my concerns become reality, but at this point I'm not particularly hopeful.

 

I'm not really phased by this, myself. Adaptations have, almost universally, been shit for the last couple decades. Remember how hyped people were for the Rings of Power series, based on the looks? Then how terrible the end result ended up being? Yeah. The gender issues thing is...okay, fine, whatever. I'm not wild about it (I believe character flaws enhance a character), but I get that a certain demographic is hyper posed to be offended, that a number of movements have occurred to change how gender traits and roles are perceived (mostly, that they shouldn't exist at all?), and that the original series is a cartoon aired on a children's network almost twenty years old. I don't imagine that the audience of people that Netflix is trying to reach has too much overlap with those who grew up watching it. Enough to rely on for hype production, but not the consumers they are hoping to make money off of.

(Additionally: Back when the movie first came out, my reaction was that it would have worked a lot better as a miniseries, with eight episodes per season. I ran a thought experiment on what I would do, like have the Jim Henson company do Appa and the other animals. One of those was cutting out episodes, plots, and characters I felt didn't contribute to the overall narrative. I even went so far as to cut Momo and Suki. So cutting out the side episodes doesn't bother me so much.)

Funnily enough, the recent Scott Pilgrim show addressed some of the points I made in a way that really works. It looked like it was going to be a pure recreation of the original comic in animated form with the actors from the live action movie providing the voices: a perfect adaptation. Then after episode one, it went in a completely different direction. Instead of the plot of "seven evil exes" seen from the perspective of Scott Pilgrim, we instead follow Ramona Flowers and get to see that both she and the evil exes are actually people. Flawed people, sure, but not the one dimensional villain exes. It's an adaptation of the original series to the times that works.

Plus, to quote the Nostalgia Critic's review of the live action movie: If you are looking for a perfect adaptation, one already exists--the original series.

 

This all just seems to me the normal incidents of adaptation and not particularly a red flag.

 

With how adaptations have gone in the last who knows how long: normal incidents of adaptation are red flags.

 

So something to point out here is that the people who grew up watching Avatar is exactly the audience Netflix is trying to capture with this adaptation; not only is that demo in prime spending territory and the most lucrative target demo at the moment, it's also Netflix' primary audience. The whole reason the show exists is to appeal to the people who grew up with and love Avatar as an IP.

Obviously, there's hopes to grow that audience, but the target for the show is 25-40 year old millennials and older zoomers.

 

Wasn’t able to find a YouTube version but nice peek.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ATLAtv/comments/1akel1t/new_look/

 

She said the thing!

 

Eyyyyyy.

also

"So no plan?" & "I'm working on it, Uncle," just tickles me pink. Extremely Iroh/Zuko coded.

Even if it ends up being terrible on the acting / canonicity fronts, I can tell that they at least have done their homework and understand the OG characters. It'll make the deliberate canon departures a little more palatable.

 

I'm yet again struck by the feeling that Sokka's actor is fucking perfect. I love that man.

Fingers crossed it'll end up being good.

 

So I was reading through interviews, and just as a warning to everybody, they're either delaying or not including Sozin's Comet for the very practical reason of actors aging. They don't know when they'll get to film future seasons (apparently this one was filmed back in 2022) and especially with teenagers being cast it could very easily blow up in their face if they set a time limit on themselves.

Also in looking through those interviews, I'm not super worried about some of these changes that people are freaking out about. Like yes they could fuck it up, but these aren't dealbreakers unless you completely straw man your expectations. Sokka's sexism isn't key to his character and arc. The key is that he needs to go from being a self-absorbed jerk who thinks he's a good leader but lacks actual leadership skills, to somebody who learns to respect others and in doing so become the leader he always wanted to be. Sexism was a way they got to that, but it's not needed to have that arc. He can be a self-absorbed jerk in other ways that he learns to move past and have just as good an arc, and "girls can't fight" is a tired beat I think we can move past as a society.

Sure, some of these they can fuck up. I'm most worried about Aang really. Like, yeah, you need the kid to take his responsibilities a bit more seriously from the get go because it's not a cartoon anymore and instead a more dramatic show, but I hope that means just finding a better balance point instead of having him be very mission focused from the jump. It does look like he'll still have his kid side, so there's that, but more than that I just hope they're smart enough to find a good internal conflict for him if "being a kid vs being the Avatar" isn't it. And there are good replacements in a similar theme (he's a fucking kid who struggles to handle this responsibility), let's just see if they actually manage it.

They got an 8 episode order for the first season, and so far through trailers and casting we've seen scenes of the Pilot, Southern Air Temple, Kyoshi Warriors, Omashu, Winter Solstice, Jet, The Storm, Blue Spirit, Northern Air Temple, and Northern Water Tribe. June's also been cast but she'll probably just get tossed into another episode, which is fine. Looking through Season 1, that pretty much sums up the required viewing. Obviously with only 8 episodes ordered, some of these are going to get merged (which is fine and reasonable. Looks like Omashu and Mechanist are merging?). Jeong Jeong is I think the most notable omission, but he is omittable. On the other hand, we don't know the runtime of these episodes, but it's probably 40 or 50+ each so that's a plus (and probably a similar sum total to the original), so they will have time to actually do the first season story and flesh things out.

Of course the show might suck. I'm not gonna pretend like I have super high hopes tbh, but I'm trying to be optimistic. If it sucks, I'm betting it'll be less because of some neckbearded "they don't respect the original" bullshit and more from either poor acting or mediocre writing. It's pretty obvious that the people involved care about the original series. It (probably) won't be what they take out that sinks them, but what they filled in to replace it (or forget to fill in, as the case may be).

 

Ep 01 - 1h 1 mins
Ep 02 - 48 mins
Ep 03 - 52 mins
Ep 04 - 55 mins
Ep 05 - 50 mins
Ep 06 - 56 mins
Ep 07 - 44 mins
Ep 08 - 55 mins

 

That's a nice changeup from the barely 35 minutes disney shows of late.

 

Final trailer

looks dope

 

Okay well Avatar Kyoshi passed the scareousal test.

 

Koizilla spotted. Koizilla is everything.

 

So many people in the avatar fandom are horribly downbad for Kyoshi. Younger me didn't really get it until they showed her without makeup.



Step on me freckled earth mommy.

 

Watched the first 2 eps last night and now I'm burned out with no sleep.

Enjoyed it. About the same level of adaptation quality as Netflix One Piece (which is a bit disappointing actually because ATLA demands sheer excellence and not just "good").

I kept physically recoiling at some of the changes they were making, as well as some hamfisted exposition, but it wasn't enough to really take me out of it.

Sokka and Aang actors are on point. Katara and Zuko actors need some instruction in method delivery.

 

Watched first episode. I give the first ep a 8.5/10.

Lots to like.

Main complain is first episode is very heavy on exposition. Wish they relied more on Show rather than Tell.

Basically..first episode was good, but not great.

 

The exposition in the first episode is pretty painfully bad. And the acting really suffers for it in said episode.

It gets better, but phew boy I almost turned it off.

 

I'll echo what is above. Sokka is great, iroh started terrible but has grown on my after 2 episodes. Aang is getting there. Suki was different in a good way, katara is missing something.
We have very little momo and appa, for which I am grateful.