The Harry Potter-ification of Avatar

so it's been a month since the liveaction Avatar was released and I'm still salty over it I was really not impressed with this remake and as I've molded over in my mind these last few weeks I've realized that my feeling of disappointment has a very strong sense of deja vu to it there was the smoothing out of certain characters the dulling down of others and the complete misinterpretation of several while many of the effects looked amazing and the attention paid to detail when it came to sets and costuming was very impressive a lot of it felt like a distraction from the lack of depth to the story and many of the characters many links and important small details were overlooked or left out which will likely hinder the story going forward basically the liveaction Avatar has received almost the exact same treatment that the Harry Potter films did back in the day now I know that the Potter world is somewhat controversial these days but anyone who was in the fandom in the early days will remember the debates which raged over the changes made storylines overlooked and characters butchered when the movies were released the characterization in particular is still debated and mocked to this day and I feel that there are a lot of parallels between the characters from both series and the way their rougher edges was smoed away diminishing their characters and their arcs in the process the most obvious parallel is qara and herione but before we get to my fiery girls and their lack of flaws I want to address the less obvious but still very strong parallel between the heroes of our stories Harry and a when the Harry Potter films were released a major complaint about Harry's film counterpart was that he was a little too smoothed out Harry off the books was snarky he was angry he had a hero complex and a very bad habit of acting first and thinking later movie Harry didn't really embody any of these traits and the few times we did get a small glimpse of them they were hopefully diminished movie Harry feels more like a generic chosen one and a lot of his story and growth is glossed over due to the diminishing of these traits Ang suffers similarly with many of his main characteristics and particularly his flaws stripped from him in favor of a more generic hero protagonist who seems to have two main traits he's the Avatar and he doesn't know what he's doing it's a shame because Gordon Cormier literally looks like someone pulled Ang out of the cartoon and into real life and he does the best with the material he's given but Ang is such a dull down character in the live action and so many of his more fun traits are completely absent a in the original series is first and foremost a kid and he brings a delightfully light quality to the show one of the first things qara notes about him is that he's reintroduced fun to the water tribe and as he travels the world he often brings joy and hope to those he meets along the way this lightness and fun and the ability to share these Good Vibes with others not only underlines Ang's genuinely good nature but shows how he uses said nature to help others such as when he throws a dance party to help a class full of repressed viation kids Express themselves we see how positively people react to him and how his bubbly personality endear him to others a in the live action is missing this lightness while we do get the occasional glimpse into it proving that Cormier could definitely portray this side of Ang if the series just let him for the most part live-action Ang is much more serious and less well received by those around him not only do we miss his light-hearted and playful side but we also don't get to see much of the warmth and joy he extends to others and their enthusiastic response to him as the Avatar in fact it's almost the opposite with many in the liveaction series placing blame and resentment at Ang's young feet while there were characters in the animated series who berated Ang for his so-called abandonment of the world for the most part he brought a sense of hope to the show and its characters and most people responded positively to the young Avatar this dulling down of Ang's traits also applies to his flaws and this is directly tied to the way his story is diminished in the live action his Arc neglected and perhaps most bafflingly his status and journey as the Avatar pretty much IGN ignored it's kind of amazing that in a series called avatar The Last Airbender the show Almost Never addresses what this means what the Avatar stands for and what Ang needs to do in order to save the world in the original series Ang is given a clear goal and timeline he must master all four elements to become a fully realized Avatar and take down the fire lord before San's Comet arrives at the end of the summer it's a simple but clear through line which provides a narrative Arc for a but also allows the series to explore his character and particularly his flaws and insecurities we see how Ang's light-hearted and fun-loving nature gets in the way of his mission how easily he gets sidetracked from his duties and how he doesn't always take things as seriously as he should the liveaction series mentions none of this and while it's understandable that the comet timeline was not set in this initial season given that the actors will probably age out before the timeline is up not having the through line of Ang having to master all four elements is baffling and it removes much of Ang's characterization this is particularly noticeable when it comes to his flaws as in the original series this plot point is used to explore Ang's lack of responsibility and lack of discipline while the original series shows that Ang does have a natural talent for bending it is also emphasized many times that A's lack of discipline gets in the way of his training and makes him Reckless with the elements the decision to remove the episode were Ang attempts to learn firebending from Fire Nation Defector Jong Jong is baffling as this episode more than any other in the first season explores this floor of angs and shows him messing up with severe consequences when he ignores the warnings to take fire bending slowly and ends up hurting qara Ang's guilt over his actions hinders his ability to fireb bend and this becomes a big part of his characterization in Following season later when Ang starts to learn water bending and then Earth bending this lack of discipline is brought up again showing it to be a consistent trait of angs and something which he works on and conquers over time giving us a satisfying character Arc but it's not just Ang's lack of responsibility and immaturity that's missing from the character there is an even deeper character aspect that's missing from liveaction Ang and that is his grief over being the last surviving air bender and the agage that stems from said grief while it doesn't come out too often Ang's rage and deep trauma over his soulle Survivor status is palpable and it is a big part of his character giving him a tragic background which fuels a dark side to him the side which activates the Avatar State and which he must learn to conquer we first see this rage in the episode The Northern Air Temple when Ang stumbles upon the remains of the monks and the true impact of what he's lost hits him and again when APPA is kidnapped in season 2 both instances emphasize everything that Ang has lost and the trauma he carries with him and this sets up his journey with Guru patik to unlock his chakras in season 3 removing this rage removes yet another big chunk of Ang's characterization especially the way his lightness en Joy are juxtapose with said rage and how it shows that an makes a conscious choice to remain happy despite the darkness the live action Sans all this down removing much of the Nuance of the character and speaking of sanded down let's take a moment to address my man Saker who's been so painfully smoothed out that it's hard to watch at times as with Ang's actor saker's actor Ian asley looks like he walked straight out of the cartoon and he is luckily given a bit more to work with than Coria was soccer's awkwardness and sarcasm are still at play and oley's mannerisms feel authentically soccer but as with Ang his floors are kind of seriously absent with all his edges feeling dull and similarly to Ang his story arc is diminished and in soccer's case confusingly changed in places there has been a big complaint from the original fandom about the new series proudly removing soccer's sexism with fans pointing out how overcoming said sexism is a major part of soccer's character and while I'm in agreement with this I think that it's more than just that similarly to Ang soccer of the original series can be a very immature character he's often judgmental and quick to think the worst of others he's an incredibly stereotypical teenage boy at times and he often uses humor in inappropriate situations his immaturity is a big hurdle for him to overcome and this co- mingles with his sexism and removing both of them leaves the character feeling R down there's also a weird narrative choice to pit soccer's Warrior side against his desire to invent things and have his father expressed disappointment in his son due to this and a lack of leadership skills if this somehow added to or enriched the character then this change would be fine but instead it changes what was initially a very interesting character trait into a stripped down cliche in the original series Saka was considered to be a decent Warrior who still had a lot to learn learn but who had natural leadership skills and good instincts he also had outof the-box thinking and a very creative and inventive side which the series used to complement and fuel his Warrior side soccer's intelligence and creativity is used to help him strategize come up with inventive methods of stealth and sub auge and push him to be a better leader both sides are allowed to co-exist within soccer and this is recognized by everyone around him including his father hakoda with whom Saka has a very deep bond saker's characterization is enriched because these two sides work together so well the liveaction takes these two sides and pits them against each other in what feels almost like the cliched art vers sport storyline which Peppers teen dramas it takes away the layers of soccer's character and removes a dynamic which strengthens his characterization but socer does at least feel like his cartoon counterpart a lot of the time which which is more than I can say for my main girl qara who is stripped off much of her personality and turned into a perfect but bland heroin so much like my girl herione back in the day katara's characterization in the liveaction series is one of the biggest complaints I've seen in the last few weeks and it's not hard to see why everything that makes Katara Katara is either removed or greatly toned down and none of her rich characterization from the animated series comes through the dulling down of her more prominent traits especially her flaws Echoes the way Hermione Ranger was stripped of her more dominant personality aspects in the Harry Potter movies Hermione of the books was righteous and ruthless she was bossy and a know it all and she threw herself into her causes with all her heart movie hermane is dulled she's no longer a crusader or self-righteous Warrior instead she comes across as an unrealistic perfect and somewhat Bland character her roughness smoothed out her character beats changed and toned down hindering her growth and preventing any exploration within her characterization qara suffers so similarly that you have to wonder if the writers of these separate adaptations are in cahoots fans keep listing the removal of her anger as the biggest issue similarly to the removal of socer sexism but once again I think there's a bigger issue at play it's not just katara's anger that's missing it's her General fire that's just gone animated qara is eager she's adventurous she wants to learn water bending in the worst way possible and she's also insanely good-hearted and willing to put herself in danger to help those in need similarly to herione she has a righteous anger about the wrongs in her world and she doesn't back down from a fight there is also a downside to her eagerness and passion as she often gets herself and the others into precarious positions because of her drive to do what's right and this is displayed as early as season 1 in episodes such as Jet and imprisoned qara in the liveaction has none of this the fire just isn't there the liveaction series doesn't adapt the episode imprisoned which removes a huge character beat for qara and even though jet is included in the series his interactions with qara are very much toned down and jet himself is not really the morally Great Character willing to let dozens of Innocents die for his revenge given these factors jet so-called betrayal doesn't hit in the same way and certainly doesn't earn him the anger that qara Unleashed on him in the original removing yet another important character beat for qara and diminishing her overall characterization and Arc like Ang and soccer and in what's becoming a frustrating trend qara is also stripped of many of her floors and story beats which explore and are centered around these floors are removed no longer is she so desperate to learn water bending that she snaps at Ang out of jealousy over his natural Talent OR steals a water bending scroll from Pirates leading directly to her kidnapped by Zuko no longer does her anger strip away her common sense or push her to identify with characters who don't have the best intentions instead she remains a dulled and somewhat smoother character than her animated counterpart driven neither by fire or rage or righteousness or even the Deep belief in the Avatar which she holds in the original she is almost a blank slate but not without one last insult to her character an insult which was also afforded to hermane Granger back in the day both hermane and qara were originally written to be exceptionally gifted in their respective magical worlds however both girls must still study and train and master their crafts and both are shown to have difficulties along Ong the way even despite their natural and very impressive Talent yet in both adaptations these characters are granted these talents practically without effort Hermione goes from being an exceptionally bright witch who still requires learning to a near Invincible magical being who can perform Advanced spells without effort likewise qara who was seen as a prodigy in the original series but who still needs to be trained to obtain Master Level water bending is granted this title without any formal training in the live action series a waterbending Master simply because someone says so as with Hermione this diminishes qatar's characterization and Arc removing her need to work and earn power and respect now my nerds if you think this diminishing of characterization and cutting short of arcs is limited to our heroes oh boy do I have some very bad news for you let's talk about our antagonists and how once again parallel to the Potter World they are smoothed out and in this case made far too sympathetic while the Harry Potter films had the good sense not to make the main villain Voldemort sympathetic in any way and yes we're going to talk about how liveaction Avatar does indeed make its main villain more sympathetic the Potter films did greatly reduce the nastier traits of two of its secondary antagonists SE snake and Draco Maloy both of whom while not outright villains are horrible and at times downright vile characters are both polished up for the films with many of their nastier edges filed off Snape who in the Potter world is the equivalent of an ex-nazi bullies children threatens his students daily and is generally a horrible human being is softened into a grumpy and snarky Professor who while sarcastic and sometimes mildly mean still protected his student students had much more noble intentions than those of his book counterpart and was played by the delightfully likable late Alan Rickman all of which made him a much more sympathetic character in the movies similarly Draco Maloy a cruel racist and malicious young man in the books who used the torture curse on others and had no problem joining the equivalent of the Nazi party at 17 became a lazy bully who while not exactly a good person was nowhere near the horrible person he was in the books again making him much more sympathetic and likable watching the liveaction Avatar I was struck with the similarities between the way Zuko has been written with the way both Snape and Draco were while Zuko is already a much more sympathetic character than either Snape or Draco even in the Animated Series he still has a violent and rage-filled side he does technically start out the series on the side of the enemy and he causes a lot of Destruction in his search for the Avatar over the course of the first season of the original series Zuko is a true antagonist chasing Our Heroes with ill intentions not caring who or what he hurts in his quest he is seen as a villain by our heroes and the narrative condemns many of his actions the damage he causes also comes back to haunt him down the line as he is confronted with his past actions and beliefs time and again all of this works to set up his eventual Redemption beautifully giving him truly bad actions to atone for and showing how he has to earn the trust of the gang and make amends for all his past mistakes in a slow and arduous process in the original series all Zuko's bad behavior and the damage and destruction caused because of it is balanced with Zuko's more sympathetic side and his personal struggle and growth Zuko's duwel sides his strong characterization and his Redemption is why he is such a fan favorite and demonstrates the strength of the writing of the original series giving us a full and satisfying character Arc the liveaction series completely Smooths out Zuko's rougher edges removing his recklessness arrogance deep desire to regain his honor and all the damage that he causes because of these traits no longer does he burn down Kyoshi Village or violently crash into the southern water tribe he doesn't demand help from the ruthless Bounty Hunter June or solicit the help of pirates no one is kidnapped by him nor does he make any overt threats towards a the most violent he gets is during his climactic fight with qara and even this feels toned down compared to the original liveaction Zuko is softer and far more sympathetic his rages are contained to his own quarters and possessions and he rarely yells at others he seems far too concerned with maintaining order and respect Above All Else and the angry desperation in his search for the avatar from the original is greatly diminished making his pursuit of aqara and Soaker feel underwhelming and nowhere near the frightening threat that it was in the original while Dallas Lou does a great job with the character giving Zuko emotional depth and absolutely nailing all of his exasperated facial expressions the Zuko of the liveaction Avatar is far too soft a character far too early in the piece and removing his flaws and particularly his Extreme Rage and destructive side removes a huge part of Zuko's characterization and makes it so there is little to no setup for his Redemption Arc because well he hasn't really done anything bad enough that he needs Redemption now he is just a good person doing the wrong thing for what he thinks is the right reason and we as the audience have no reason to dislike him or even distrust him it makes one wonder what exactly the writers are planning to do with with the character in the future and how his season 2 Arc will play out especially since Zuko's Arc in the second season of The Original Series focuses so heavily on his conflicting sides and his internal battle between choosing the right but hard path or returning to the familiar but at least Zuko was always supposed to be sympathetic even when he was the main antagonist let's talk about fire lord oai so I knew that the casting of Daniel dayim meant that we were going to see oai from the first season instead of the slow buildup to the season 3 reveal in the original series and might I say this casting is spot on and I am absolutely jumping on the bandwagon of calling Daniel fire daddy however there are some issues we need to talk about oai in the original series is the big bad while Zuko Xiao and aula function as the main antagonist for Our Heroes to fight against oai is essentially the Palpatine of the series The huge villain that our hero must eventually face and defeat from the very first season of the original series we are shown just how incredibly terrifying and evil oai is from burning his 13-year-old son in a horrifically abusive manner to executing his own father in order to steal the throne from his brother to the way he infected his daughter with his own brand of malice used her to do his dirty work and then discarded her like trash nothing about oai is ever shown to be Humane or sympathetic and he is never shown to hold any sort of affection for any members of his family there is no good in him and that makes him an absolutely terrifying villain and he feels like he's earned his big bad status by the time a has to fight him I hate to say it but o I am a liveaction series is suffering in a similar way to Zuko he just feels softer not just in his emotional beats but in his physicality his and Zuko's agnik Kai goes from a terrifying punishment in which oai shows zero Mercy to his young child to an almost equal battle between a father trying to teach his some respect and a physically equal young adult with Zuko actually getting the upper hand in order to force this adaptation own interpretation of oai that his scarring of Zuko is a response to Zuko's own compassion rather than a disproportionate lesson in cruelty instead of a powerful and terrifying line about pain teaching Zuko a lesson oai burns his son with tears in his eyes apparently pushing through his own compassion to teach his son the danger of being too soft it almost feels as if ozai is in Conflict as he burns Zuko and it makes his portrayal far more sympathetic something ozai really did not need as a character because not every villain needs a softer side or even to be more three dimensional sometimes a big bad just needs to be a big bad oai is so effective in the original because he has no good side there is no reasoning with him no softer side to his actions no way to avoid the inevitable showdown between him and a he doesn't need to be made more complex or deep or more nuanced we have Zuko and even aula for that Zuko gets the Redemption AR Zuko gets to be the complex and complic headed antagonist that the audience can secretly root for we don't need oai to fill this role as well I may be getting too worked up over this but I was particularly hyped to see more of oai because I thought we were going to get much more of a pure evil Fire Lord I wanted big schemes more complex manipulation of aula and yes we're going to talk about her very soon and I really thought that the liveaction series was going to seize the opportunity to turn oai into an even more terrifying final villain instead they went with what is increasingly becoming a more cliche brout and made sympathetic a villain who did not need sympathizing this move feels more Disney and less potterworld but it's still an insult to the original character and speaking of insults we finally have to talk about my girl aula and how dirty they have done her character and her characterization not to mention her many Dynamics there is no Potter World counterpart for aula probably because she is such a unique and interesting character even though she's not properly introduced until the beginning of season 2 in the original series she makes an instant impression with her ego willingness to use violence controlled rage and cunning intelligence as the season progresses we start to learn more about her particularly in the episode Zuko alone which shows that she is a firebending Prodigy and shares her father's casual C Y which makes her ozai's favorite her Dynamics with her family and her friends May and Tye help to emphasize how manipulative and controlling she is and her quest to take down the Avatar works out far better and much quicker than Zuko's messy and unplanned search at the climax of the Season she enters baring SE and through a controlled and patient plan takes down the city from the inside within days something her uncle couldn't do in almost 2 years she is an insanely formidable villain and her biggest strengths are her control her ego and her lust for power liveaction aoua contains none of these traits and far from being the sadistic Golden Child favor due to a shared malice sense of grandeur and firebending power she is reduced to the jealous younger sibling pitted against her brother by her father who seems to show genuine admiration for some of Zuko's actions driving azula's jealousy instead of a fantastically ego-driven controlling and extremely powerful young girl we get an emotional and borderline bratty teen whose fire bending is deemed acceptable and whose eagerness to be better than her brother something she felt she naturally was in the original drives her emotionally unstable bending she admires characters like Xiao someone she never would have glanced twice at in the original and it's hard to believe that this version of the character could walk into baring say conquer it in days and then deliver this singer don't flatter yourself you were never even a player aula feels like a cliche the younger sister who is the unfavorite due to her gender and perceived incompetence and as is becoming a frustratingly common theme in this video her overall characterization is diminished with her path forward made more difficult by the changes made are you guys feeling exhausted if you've stayed with me this long bless you I have a lot of feelings about this adaptation the thing with adaptations is they never need to be carbon copies of The Originals I don't think any fan ever wants that but what they do have to do is capture the spirit of the original the characterization and the overall tone they need to provide a concise story in a way that makes enough sense and stays close enough to the original and they need to have the heart of the original the magic that made audiences fall in love with these stories in these worlds in the first place watching the liveaction Avatar was an empty experience to me and as I've repeatedly said in this video it's all too horribly familiar I loved the Harry Potter books back in the day and I was so excited for the movies and when they came out it was all spectacle and no heart the filmmakers seemed so intent on focusing on the special effects and all the physical worldbuilding aspects that of the rich characterization important plot points and character beats were missed to the point that if one hasn't read the books The Experience is much less Rich the liveaction Avatar felt exactly the same it seemed all about the admittedly amazing bending special effects the painstakingly recreated Southern water tribe Village and city of amasu The Gorgeous costumes and CGI oper and Momo it hit the mark with several of the cast members and included fan favorite elements like the Cabbage Merchant and the Secret Tunnel Nomads but it all felt like a distraction from the flat characterization from the odd narrative choices and the weird directions that the stories went in it missed the deep and Rich Dynamics which made the original so compelling forgetting to spend time on building bonds between characters like Ang socer and qara or even May Tye and aula aside from the iro Zuko Dynamic not a single relationship felt organic or deep or even warm characters flatly tell one another that they can't do this without them or talk about having faith in one another but there is no casual banter no fun building their friendship or at the other end no deeper conversations exploring themes or character beats practically every piece of dialogue is either Exposition or the characters telegraphing their emotions to the audience and there was little Intrigue or excitement story and character beats are misrepresented or removed entirely changing the overall story and diminishing practically every character it really is Harry Potter all over again and honestly I don't have much hope for the series going forward honestly stick to the original you won't regret it

Channel: Rachel Macdonald

Views: 30,330

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Id: bKHmikrTm8g

Length: 30min 43sec (1843 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2024