- I know, I am too old to
be getting this worked up over a Netflix remake of a cartoon that came out when I was 11, but this is not just any cartoon. It's not like they're
rebooting "Jimmy Neutron" and I'm off pissed about it. "Avatar" is a nearly perfect series. It's one I enjoyed a lot
when I saw it as a kid, but rediscovering it as an
adult, actually blew my mind. It's a show that moved me
to tears multiple times. It's something that the creators
clearly put so much thought and care into getting every detail right from the world building to the music. Now, for a long time I
thought it would be impossible to translate this world into live action, partly because of how intricate and beautiful the animation is, and partly because the last
time they tried to do it, it was a fucking disaster. I've seen way too many people say in regards to the Netflix adaptation, "Hey, at least it's
better than the movie." Yeah, I would hope it's better than one of the worst films ever made. You don't get points for that. Because of how goofy and
awkward this movie looked, I assumed it just couldn't be done that this world was simply
unadaptable to live action and in a lot of ways
Netflix proved me wrong. This show looks probably as good as a live action "Avatar" could. I mean nothing will ever truly compare to vibrant and fluid 2D animation, but the VFX team that worked on this did a really good job of making something that very easily could
have looked dumb as shit looked pretty realistic. Except for the airbending, I don't know what happened there. Yeah, a lot of the scenes are
directed a little jarringly and it's way too dark sometimes, but with what they were tasked
with bringing to life here, I think they deserve a lot of credit. But it's funny to me that
Netflix nailed the part that I thought couldn't be done well and messed up all of the stuff that should have been a slam dunk. Let's start with the pilot, because I started writing this video 10 minutes into the first episode. The pilot condenses the
first three episodes of the animated series into one premier, which on paper works really well. The end of episode three really
is where the prologue ends. We've established the world, we've introduced the characters and a little bit of their backstories, and they're literally
flying away from their past as they venture forth onto their journey. And while the very beginning of the show doesn't quite reach the heights
that it eventually will, I think this is all paced really well and does a good job of
doling out enough information to explain what's going on, while still having the restraint
to hold onto some things that can be revealed
when the time is right. We open on two of the
three main characters, Sokka and Katara. We learn that they're siblings who live in the Southern Water Tribe. Katara is a waterbender, Sokka is not. He belittles her ability,
they bicker for a bit, it escalates, and then
Katara water bends so hard that a 12-year-old bald kid
falls out of an iceberg. Wait, that's not just any
bald kid that's the avatar. No one's seen him in 100 years. What the hell? No time to stop and
explain everything though, because they have inadvertently alerted a nearby Fire Nation
ship of their presence. This is Prince Zuko and his Uncle Iroh. They've been banished from their home and sent on a now three-year
quest to find the avatar. A quest that may just be about to end. Some chaos ensues, a fight breaks out, but ultimately, with the
help of his new friends, Aang is able to escape Zuko and the three of them fly into the sunset. Now, that brings us to episode three, and there is still a
crucial piece of information that the showrunners have
not yet revealed to Aang, because they're waiting
until the right moment. The gang heads to the air
temple that Aang grew up in. A place where Sokka and Katara know is probably filled with dead airbenders, but they don't have the
heart to break it to him. He's so cheerful and
excited to just show them where he used to play with his friends. How do we tell this kid that
everyone he knew and loved was murdered by the Fire Nation? Instead, they try to cheer him
up and keep him distracted. We see a flashback of Aang's former life. He's talking to his friend
and mentor, Giyatso, someone who we can tell he
clearly cared a lot about. Aang talks about how overwhelmed he is at the thought of being the avatar, and Giyatso assures him that
everything will be all right. We cut back, they keep
exploring for a bit, they find Momo a little pet
to go with their big pet. Things are going great until, oh, shit. - Firebenders, they were here? (somber music) Giyatso. Oh.
- Oh, man. Come on, Aang. Everything will be all right. Let's get outta here. (ominous music) - This is a really important scene for the beginning of a Nickelodeon show that up until this point has
been pretty lighthearted. Seeing your main character,
who's just a kid, find out about the death
of his entire people and then freak out and have to be calmed down by his friends. It's a really powerful
moment that can only happen, because the writers held onto this reveal until the time was right to reveal. So now, let's talk about how
Netflix handled the pilot. Instead of starting the
show on our main characters, we open on an epic chase. This is streaming, baby. We gotta put a fight scene
within the first 10 seconds or people are gonna turn it off and go watch "Love Is Blind". If you don't brutally
murder someone right now, I'm taking my ass to
Freevee, but you know what? I'm fine with this cold open. I understand you're just trying
to grab people's attention and a quick little action sequence that shows how ruthless
the Fire Nation can be is not the worst way to do it, but it should have ended here. You say this line. - This isn't about the airbenders. This is about one who lives among them. - But the avatar is yet to be revealed. - Which is why we have to kill them all. - And then we cut to present day to the three main characters
similar to how the cartoon did. I actually think that would've been a really effective opening, because if you've never seen the show and you just watch the Fire Lord say, "We gotta kill all the airbenders." And then you cut 100 years into the future and you see an airbender that survived, you'd probably be like,
how did that happen? I'm gonna stick around to find out. Instead, we come back
from the title sequence and we're still in the past on the day of aforementioned invasion. I guess we're just gonna do
the whole show chronologically, lest anyone be confused. We meet Aang and Giyatso and see them stand and talk for a while, and then we get to watch some people sit and talk for a while and we
cut back Aang and Giyatso and they do more standing and more talking and then Aang flies away and a whole bunch of murder happens. Oh my God, so much murder. I'm talking several
uninterrupted minutes of murder, because remember, this
is a show for grownups. Cartoons are for babies. We got a bunch of dead bodies in this one. What's crazy to me about
this entire sequence is that while they're so
insistent on showing something that I honestly think
had more emotional impact to just see the aftermath of, they make no attempt to show us any aspects of Aang's personality. I mean, don't get me wrong,
the writers take the time to explain Aang's personality to us. He and Giyatso tell us all about him. - I know who I am. I like to play Airball
and eat banana cakes and goof off with my friends. That's who I am. - I feel bad for this kid, because he seems like a very good actor, but the writers keep giving him lines that make it sound like he's
about to burst into song. - Monks don't even trust
me to feed the baby bison and I'm supposed to save the world? - Why can't I just be a kid? But this isn't even the worst example of tell don't show that
they do in this episode. Remember I told you about how Aang finds out that all the
airbenders are dead. How he stumbled upon the corpse
of his former best friends surrounded by all of the firebenders it took to take him down? Here's how they do it in this show. - Most 'em had just arrived
for the Great Comet Festival. - The Great Comet Festival. The last time that the Great
Comet was seen in the sky was 100 years ago. - Someone just tells him about it. - Everyone in the
village knows this story, but you don't just as you don't know that airbenders haven't been
seen in generations and that the Southern Air
Temple was the first to fall, because you've been trapped
in that ice this whole time. - Gran Gran reads out loud
the entire opening theme for like two straight minutes, while he has to just sit
there and give reaction faces, before running out of the room crying. And he's sad for like 10 seconds and then everything is fine. No time to mope, buddy. You gotta do another walk and talk. This is unfuriatingly bad writing. You took one of Aang's
most impactful moments from the beginning of the show and turned it into
someone else's monologue. It's so weird to me when
shows are clearly in a rush to establish as much information
as possible, I guess, because they think
people will get confused and turn it off if they
don't have their hand held through every interaction,
but it feels counterintuitive. I think what gets people to continue watching something is mystery. You don't need to answer every question I have within seconds of me having it. You can reveal information in small doses and slowly add to it piece by piece. That's what's gonna compel
me to keep watching something not paragraphs of expository dialogue whenever you feel like you've
got some lower blanks to fill. It's also weird to me that they still try to recreate the Air Temple
moment in this episode, even though it's not new
information for Aang. He goes and sees dead Giyatso who was evidently much easier
to kill this time around and still goes bananas and
still has to be calmed down, but it doesn't really make sense, because he already knows about this. - My friends, they're all gone. - [Speaker] What is he doing? - It actually feels like
kind of an overreaction considering he barely gave
a shit about it earlier. Also in the original, Katara is the one to calm Aang down while
he's in this state. She tells him that she
knows what it's like to lose someone you love,
but the world needs him and they're here to help no matter what. It's a great moment for the three of them, because it gives closure to Aang's past, while bridging the gap
into this present journey they're about to go on. In this version, Katara just watches while we see a bunch of flashbacks from earlier in the episode in case you were looking at
your phone during that part. - Aang! - [Speaker] You are my friend. - I really don't understand the obsession with Giyatso in this version. He is an important character, but more so as a memory for Aang like a symbol of what he lost. He's not that relevant to
the present day journey they're about to go on. What matters the most,
is their relationship, their friendship is the foundation that this entire series is built on. So, I think you're doing
a huge disservice to that by taking interactions
away from Katara and Sokka so you can give them to a
guy who died 100 years ago. They do this multiple times in the show. They keep bringing Giyatso back instead of giving that
valuable screen time to the more important characters. They even do this in
the opening title scroll in the pilot episode. In the original, Katara is the
one who does this voiceover, which kind of establishes the show as being from her point of view. And the very iconic lines
she says at the end. - [Katara] But I believe
Aang can save the world. - Actually, tell us something about her. They tell us that she's optimistic and believes in her
friends no matter what. So, they actually managed
to add characterization into a sequence that is
at its core exposition. It's a very efficient use of dialogue. In the remake, they take
this away from Katara so they can again give it to a character who died 100 years ago. And that's not even mentioning the fact that everything that's
said in this version of the title sequence gets repeated multiple times throughout the episode. It's a very inefficient use of dialogue. - [Speaker] The avatar, the
one person with the ability to master all four elements, the avatar, the next master
of all four elements. - Only the avatar, the one person who can master all four elements. - Only the avatar, master
of all four elements, but when the world needed
him most, he vanished. - [Speaker] When the world needed the avatar the most he vanished. - Episode one shouldn't feel as rushed at the end as it does. It's roughly the same runtime as the three episodes it's adapting. So, it's not that they didn't have the time to tell the story, it's that they misused the time they had. They add in all this stuff that probably would've been better, if it was just kept a mystery. They waste so much time
repeating the same information just from different sources and they replace interesting
character development moments with vague mumbo jumbo. - Bending is about energy and balance. By feeling the energy around
you, you can find balance. By finding balance you
can feel the energy. - Aang, what the fuck
are you talking about? Remember, energy is balance, which is energy, which is balance. Whoa, thanks, Aang, I'm water bending now and I am internet bending. Ooh, sorry about that. This portion of the video
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sponsoring today's video. Now, before I continue just getting mad about every single aspect of this show, I do wanna answer a more
general question of like, what should we expect
out of an adaptation? Because it may sound
like I'm trying to say that this should have been a one-to-one recreation
of the original show. When that is not the case. You can and should be
able to change things. Why even bother spending all this money to make something that looks worse, if it's gonna be exactly the same, but those changes need
to enhance the story. They can't be at odds with
the spirit of the show or fundamentally change a character. So, that brings me to episode two. In the months leading up
to the show's release, I kept seeing aggregated quotes about it from cast members from the creators, and every time I did it, it made me a little bit less optimistic about what we were going to get. One of those quotes was how
the creators of the show very nobly, got rid of
the sexism that Sokka had a little bit of at the
beginning of the cartoon, because that was 2005 and
we're a lot smarter now. Obviously, I don't need to tell you that there are tons of movies
and TV shows from 20 years ago that absolutely have not aged well, but I think you're missing the point, if you try to lump this
show in with those. Sokka is an overconfident,
but misguided teenage boy who grew up isolated from
the rest of the world where he has been tasked
with being the sole leader and protector of his entire village. As a result, he begins this
show with a pretty dated sense of what men and women
should be expected to do. He's constantly making
belittling remarks to his sister. He meets the warriors on Kyoshi Island and is relieved to see
that they're just girls. Here's the thing though, the show is not glorifying his behavior. In fact, they're very
much doing the opposite, because you know what happens right after he says these things? He is immediately proven wrong. He underestimates Suki and the
rest of the Kyoshi warriors and they kick his ass. He's so embarrassed by
this that he comes back with his tail between his legs and apologizes and begs
to learn from them. It is meant to be a humiliating and humbling experience for him. One that also props up
the women around him. It's vindicating for Katara who's had to deal with this
bullshit her whole life and it is establishes Suki as a badass. It's not unchecked. It's not something that the
showrunners are celebrating. His misogyny is immediately
met with repercussions. Are we really at a point where we can't even show a character on TV doing something morally disagreeable? Can audiences truly not
understand the difference between a real life human being
expressing a shitty belief and that belief being portrayed
in a piece of fiction? And look, I'm not here to die on the hill that you gotta keep the
misogyny in the show, man. It was so funny. Like there's other ways for the writers to show Sokka having a flaw that Suki can use to get a leg up on him. So, what do they do instead? She walks in on him taking a bath and just fucking stands there staring at him with googly eyes and then in their training scene together, they have to stop every 10 seconds, because of all the sexual tension. - Avoided, we've avoided a lot of things by living the way we do. - Jesus Christ. Do you see the point that
I'm trying to make here? Instead of Suki being this cool and confident intellectual
superior to Sokka who always has the upper hand on him and is always able to shut him down whenever he tries to pull some shit, they decided to just make her
so horny she can't function. I gotta say it's a little ironic that in an attempt to
remove sexism from the show, they actually took a more sexist approach to designing her character. They stripped away everything
that made her who she was, made her absolutely obsess over Sokka, who doesn't do anything to earn it, and then they have the nerve to act morally superior
to the original writers. Also, does anyone in this
village respect privacy? Shaking my head. On the topic of absolutely destroying strong female characters, let's talk about Katara. Her entire arc in this show is just, man, I'm not so good at bending. And then Aang is like, "Yeah, you are." And she's like, "Huh, you're right. I'm actually the best." She has not given any
personality whatsoever. Her entire existence is tied
to her water bending ability, which is not what made her such a great character in the cartoon. Instead of showing how fiery
and passionate Katara can be and how her optimism sometimes backfires, because the world they're
living in is so beaten down and how she can be a great leader and friend to everyone around her. Not just because she's strong,
but because she's empathetic and brings out the best in people. They just made her real good
at fighting, and that's it. - You are a waterbender. That is who you have always
been and always will be. - And she doesn't even need any help, because she's so talented. Always has been in fact. - I wasn't even really trying. - It's just not an interesting choice when compared to how the
original show handled her growth. They had this great episode early on where Katara gets jealous of Aang, because he's the avatar and everything just
comes so easily to him. But what this showed about her character is that she desperately wants
to be good at water bending, will go to great lengths
to be able to do it, and has to work twice as hard as Aang. So, when we get to the end of the season and she does surpass him in skill, we know it's because she
worked really hard to get there and that is more admirable than her just being handed this power. I mean, literally handed. Gran Gran just gives her this scroll that in the original show she went to great lengths to steal. For Katara, her main
motivation in season one is to get to the Northern Water Tribe so she can find someone to
teach her water bending. Something she's always wanted, but has never had access to, because she's always been the
only waterbender in her tribe. And then they finally
get to the North Pole, and I guess she doesn't
actually need that, because instead of asking
Pakku to train them, she begs him to let her fight. First of all, why are
you asking permission? He's not gonna stop you, just go do it. What is he gonna follow you around and tie your hands behind your back, 'cause you're trying to
fight the Fire Nation? Just go fucking do it. But the point they're trying to make is that she's so powerful she doesn't even need
someone to teach her. Okay, well, then why doesn't she just go defeat the Fire Lord herself? She has this line at one
point where she's like, "We need you, Aang. I need you." No, you don't. You don't seem to really need anyone. The fact that everything
comes so easily to her makes it so there's no payoff at the end. It makes this line. - You found a master, haven't you? - You are looking at her. - Kinda dumb actually. All you did was read one scroll
that your grandma gave you and now you are a water bending master. What a journey, huh? This story will be told for generations. They gave her zero depth in this show and it's really frustrating. You may notice while watching this show that Netflix seems to have a fear of giving any of the main
characters an unlikeable traits. God forbid any of these
children ever make a mistake or have a redemption arc. They need to start the
show already perfect. That is such a boring way
to write your characters. It's also a huge disservice to your actors by giving them nothing to work with. One of the foremost characteristics of Aang early on in the show
is that he's still just a kid. He's a 12-year-old boy who has been given this overwhelming responsibility
of saving the world. It's something that understandably scares the shit out of him. So much so that he runs away. That's how he ends up in
the iceberg for 100 years. It's the inciting incident
of the entire show. That guilt follows him and it's a really important
part of his growth, but Netflix seemed to be so concerned with having their main character
make an incorrect decision that they changed the reason for him flying out into
the middle of a storm to him just going for a stroll. - You're right, just needs to go up where things makes more sense. - I gotta go up where
things make more sense. The ground ain't so good for thinking. Don't worry guys, it was just an accident. He wasn't avoiding responsibility, because he is a child who
wasn't ready for it yet. He was just getting some fresh air in the middle of a lightning storm. Okay, great. So, instead of him showing
signs of immaturity, he's actually just an idiot. Another thing about Aang still being a kid is that he's not always
focused on the task at hand. That's something he has to grow into. This is his very first
line in the original show. - Will you go penguin sledding with me? - He's constantly getting distracted and wanting to go on side quests,
because he's a little boy. Of course, it's not like
that the whole show, but it gives him a starting point so by the end you can see
how much he's matured. Netflix Aang don't got a
whimsical bone in his body. He is extremely serious and solely focused on getting
from point A to point B. He's not written like a child. He's already the season
three version of Aang. Netflix, if you want your
characters to be able to grow, they need to have a place to grow from. Yeah, he takes the time to
deliver his little soliloquies about how much he yearns to
goof, but those are just words. We never actually see him do those things. It also makes it so his whole interaction with Bumi makes no sense. Bumi's like, "There's
no time for fun, Aang, you've gotta go save the world." It's like, yeah, he knows that. He's already very good
at not having any fun. This is one of the worst
written arcs in the entire show, because everything they say
contradicts what they're doing. Bumi tells him to quit playing games and go do your job as the avatar. Meanwhile, he's the one
holding him hostage, giving him games to play. Aang wants to leave the entire time. Just let him go and he'll do the things you're asking him to. Aang's immaturity also lends really well to the narrative shift that
happens in the first season, 'cause for a long time he is like, yeah, yeah, I gotta save
the world eventually. But first let's go here and fuck around here for a little bit. And then we get to episode
eight and the former avatar is like, no dude, you actually have to defeat the Fire Lord
by the end of the summer, 'cause this comment is gonna come and if you don't do it before
that he's gonna be invincible. - Mastering the elements takes years of discipline and practice. But if the world is to survive, you must do it by summer's end. - It's this great shift in momentum that adds even more
stakes to the equation. It puts a timer on everything. They kind of do that in this one. They give 'em a vision of the
North Pole being attacked, but that doesn't do anything
to address the overarching goal of having to learn and master
all three of the elements. Something that small note here, he doesn't do any of the entire season. They set that up as one of the main goals in the original first season and we see a bunch of examples of Aang learning water bending and before having it
pay off in the finale. Aang doesn't water bend
once in this version. He's so behind it's
actually stressing me out. - It would've been wise to have focused on your training
during your journey. - I swear to God, if they start season two and Aang is already very
good at water bending, implying that there
was a bunch of progress that happened off screen,
I'm gonna lose my mind and don't try to tell
me that I already have. This is me on a good day. As you watch more of the show, it makes a lot of the
additions more frustrating, because everything has a cost. If you have to cut out
character development moments, so you have the space to show a bunch of airbenders getting set on fire, you might wanna take a step back and reconsider your priorities. It starts to become a little obvious why the creators of the
original show left this project almost four years ago
over creative differences. According to them, they were promised that they would be given the job of guiding the show in the right direction and they were lied to. Dude, I'm so tired of
these dumb ass executives who make $2 million every second getting involved in things
that they have no knowledge in. Why even hire the original
creators of the show, if you're just gonna ignore their input and act like you know their
story better than they do? Why the concern over making
characters unlikeable when that was never a
problem to begin with? Everybody loved Katara and Sokka and Aang even with their imperfections. Imperfections are what
make characters relatable and it's like this was all supposed to be the problem with network TV. streaming was supposed to
be the solution to this. We're not gonna micromanage and enforce a bunch of arbitrary rules. We're just going to trust the showrunners to do the job that we hired them to do. Yet, somehow over the
course of the past decade, we've just kind of reinvented cable. So, good job everyone. I honestly, wouldn't be surprised to learn that most of the issues with
this version of "Avatar" are the result of meddling from people who should have just stayed the hell away, because there is potential here. Underneath all of the baffling decisions are the bones of what could have and could still be a much better series. For starters, I think they did a fantastic job with the casting. I imagine it's way harder to cast for live action than animated, because not only do they have
to have the perfect voice, but they also need to look
the part and be the right age, and in this case, be
able to do martial arts. The fact that they're able
to check so many boxes with these kids is impressive. I just hope that going forward they get better material to work with. The only character they
consistently write well for is Zuko. This guy's got it. He totally nails the
intimidating on the outside, but a little sensitive on the inside. And between him, Iroh,
Zhao, Lieutenant Jee, I think almost all of
the Fire Nation scenes were more cohesive and well written than anything that the rest
of the cast was forced to do. Going back to my point that you can and should be able to make changes in an adaptation if they make sense, I thought a couple of
the additions they made to Zuko's character worked perfectly. One, there's the reveal that the crew Zuko protected from being sacrificed in the meeting that led to his banishment, it's actually the same crew
that he's been commanding for the past three years since then. So, I thought that was a really cool way of tying everything together. It makes so much sense that I was actually surprised when I went back and rewatched season one
of the animated series and realized they didn't
do that originally. I also like the scenes they
added with him and Iroh, like the flashback to Iroh's son's funeral where we see Zuko give him his condolences as well as a gift to remember his son by. They have another moment
like that at the end of this episode where
Zuko is about to set off on his never ending
quest to find the avatar and Iroh's like, "Hey,
mind if I come along?" And Zuko's pretty resistant to the idea, but then Iroh says this. - Everything I need is on this boat. - It's a very sweet moment, especially with the little nod they do to "Leaves from the Vine". A famously sad episode from season two, but I do think it's worth pointing out that this only works for the people who have already seen the
entire animated series. This only has the emotional
weight that it does, if you're going into this
show with 30 hours of context. Keep in mind, this is episode
four of the live action. If this is your first
exposure to these characters, this moment is not going to have nearly the same significance to you. It's nice, but it feels
a little premature. Netflix "Avatar" has an
instant gratification problem where they don't wanna set anything up that can be paid off later. They just want that payoff now. And I get that some of that was probably due to the uncertainty over whether they would even
get a season two and three. So, they were trying to be
as impactful as they can with this first season, but it's only gonna make their
job harder in the future. Like where do you even go
with some of these characters? There was one big change with Zuko that feels emblematic
of the entire philosophy they approach this show with. There's an episode in season one of the cartoon called "The Storm" where we see these juxtaposed flashbacks of Aang and Zuko's pass and we learn about the
moments that sent them on the trajectories they're now on. For Aang, it's running away from home and for Zuko it's getting
banished from home. He speaks outta turn in a war meeting and disrespects everyone in the room by saying they should come
up with a better plan. Ozai does not appreciate
this and he tells Zuko that he's going to have to do an Agni Kai, AKA a fire bending duel. But when Zuko shows up,
he is shocked to find out that it's not the general
he's supposed to fight it's his own dad. Zuko begs not to have to fight him. In fact, he outright refuses. But this only makes Ozai more angry. Zuko has now disrespected him twice, so he burns his face and tells
him he cannot come back home until he finds the avatar. The Netflix version plays
out pretty similarly, but with one major difference. This time, Zuko fights back, because why would we keep one
of the most important moments of the show when we'd be missing out on an awesome fight scene? Look at all the fire. Zuko refusing to fight his dad was the best way to show us who he is. How unlike his father, he's not willing to hurt
the people he loves. Netflix kind of respected that idea. I mean, Zuko does refuse
to fight for a few seconds and he does eventually get
burned by his uncaring father. The problem is you can't justify Zuko getting banished forever, because he lost a fight to the world's most powerful firebender that wouldn't make any sense. So, they had to add in another wrinkle to make sense of their first wrinkle, which is that Zuko
actually could have won. He just chose not to, and that's where this
scene completely loses me. Ozai is supposed to be
the ultimate threat. The world's most feared villain looming over every
second of Aang's journey. And you're telling me some
random 13-year-old kid could beat him in a fight. What are we doing here? I also just think it's
better for Zuko's arc, if he doesn't stand up to his dad yet, because then it will mean way
more when he eventually does. What this decision showed to me is that the creators of knockoff "Avatar" will always choose flash over substance. If we have to fundamentally
change to important characters so we can get one extra
minute of pyrotechnics, you bet we're gonna be doing that, because this is a show for grownups. Tell me again why the
show made for grownups, Netflix's "Game of Thrones",
had to dumb down its writing? Every line of dialogue is so on the nose. - This was my home, and now it's gone. - They always choose the
simplest way to convey a point. - But the one thing I do know is, I'm the avatar, and this
is just the beginning. - Oh, I get it, because he's the avatar and this is the end of episode one. Compare these two lines
that serve the same function and tell me which of these
shows is made for babies. - You will learn respect and suffering will be your teacher. Compassion is a sign of weakness. - Compassion is a sign of weakness. Compassion.
- It was weakness. - The script feels like a first draft filled with a bunch of placeholders that just ended up holding
that place forever. I think the moment that made me realize, oh, they truly don't give a shit about what they're doing here, is when they reused the
same twist three times. So, just like in the original, Zuko objects to the Fire Nation's plan to attack one place as a diversion so they can actually
attack somewhere else. But then in the first episode,
they added in this thing where the Fire Nation
tricks the Earth Kingdom into thinking they're going to attack one place as a diversion so they could actually
attack somewhere else. And then in the finale, it's
revealed that the whole fight that just took place was, get this, a diversion so they could
actually attack somewhere else. How is the rest of the world
not catching on by now? They only have one strategy. - The entire world will
turn their attention to the earth benders. - A masterful rouse Your Highness. The enemy's firepower
focused on that diversion, we can launch pinning attacks here. A masterful rouse Your Highness. Why attack the North at all? - Distraction, the north
was never the true target. - A masterful rouge Your Highness. - Not only is that such lazy writing, but the last one doesn't even make sense. They attacked the Northern Water tribe to distract them from Omashu, but both of those sieges happened over the course of one day. Even if they somehow
knew it was happening, because they got like an email about it, they still couldn't have
gotten there in time to help. And it's not like the Earth Kingdom was distracted from Omashu, because they were busy
helping the waterbenders. They weren't there. These two things have nothing
to do with each other. This wasn't a diversion. You just did two attacks at the same time and one of them worked
and one of them didn't. Also, did they not say in episode four that they knew Omashu
was gonna be attacked? - Fire Nation forces are on the move. They'll be here by dawn. - Why write in that they
knew it was gonna happen, if you're gonna make them
so unprepared for it? - You're under attack? - We will be, but we will be ready. (suspenseful music) - Is anyone in the writing room keeping track of things that they've said? I know some people are
gonna watch this video and accuse me of just being a hater, but like I didn't want
to not like this show. Believe it or not, it's
way more fun for me to like stuff than it
is to not like stuff. I will root for success for
this show and everyone involved. I got genuinely emotional watching the cast react to the news that they got picked up
for two more seasons, and I didn't even like the first one. I'm just happy for them that they get to keep working on this. I think there's a lot of room to grow and I'm happy that they're being given the opportunity to try and do that. I hope that the Netflix
corporate overlords who push for all the changes that people are complaining about can listen to the criticism and realize that they're only making things worse by intervening. I don't think they're going to do that, but I will choose to be blindly optimistic until proven otherwise. At the end of the day, I would rather this show
exist than not at all. It didn't cost me $100 million to make, all I had to do was watch it. "Avatar" is one of my
favorite shows of all time, and even if the best thing
about this adaptation is that it's convinced people to go back and discover the original
series for the first time, I'll take it. And if you are one of
those people, welcome. Sorry, I spoiled the first 20 episodes, but a lot more stuff happens after that. Season two is where everything
goes up another level. They haven't even introduced Toph yet. They replace Admiral Zhao with Azula, and that's a huge upgrade. It gets so fucking good, man. If you haven't seen it
yet, just go watch it. What are you waiting for,
for this video to end? It already did.
