The New Avatar Series Is A Lot Of Things.

Netflix's Avatar is a 10 out of 10 for me I watched the first episode and it's already giving me 201 10 Vibes on episode 4 and I'm sucked in 5 out of 10 this show is a the new show is everything I could have hoped and more at worst it makes the 2010 movie feel like a mercy the people are divided but luckily I am objectively correct and I'm here to tell you what to think okay Rapid Fire Let's Go overall it's okay it's better than the film which shall not be named anyone saying it's worse is wrong but that doesn't not mean this is Well written 5 to 6 out of 10 net positive deeply flawed if you're not thinking too hard fun opening episodes terrible Middle episodes one great episode and enjoyable last couple of episodes terrible dialogue and script and Exposition all throughout hilariously bad at times but this is somewhat hidden by the characters being likable and having chemistry the best change Zuko's crew is now the recruits he saved standing up to his father and the worst change they butchered the spirit world when it's good it's focused on the characters not the plot and it mixes the right stories and the the right ways this is why episode 6 is good uh and when it's bad it's mixing the wrong episodes in the wrong ways this is why episode 5 is terrible much like one piece it's very honest about what it is it's not afraid to be Avatar but unlike one piece I think it puts a lot of emphasis in the wrong place at the wrong time it's kind of a lukewarm version of the original where it does most of the same story just not quite as well even if it does it with a lot of heart and love it'll still be fun for a lot of people even if it's a little clumsy and that's okay you know we enjoy a lot of stuff which isn't necessarily high quality I'll do another big breakdown later in more detail but I want to know what do you think let me know down below we're going to go through The Good The Bad and The okay all right let's go okay The Good the bending looks fantastic it does not look like the fire bending has hift and weight and oai feels like the strongest Bender out of all the others his Flames hit harder bigger faster Gordon's air bending is fluid the water bending feels powerful the Earth bending is a little more mixed but the opening scene where you get to see it is really fantastic and you can really see the influence of the martial arts and bending they really put a lot of time and effort into that there were also a lot of little moments where they Blended the VFX with the actors to make them appear more fluid animated and I think those worked for the most part although one of the best fight scenes in the series actually doesn't have much bending in it at all Zuko comes after Ang and omashu and they're Tangled Up In all these cloths and clothes and there's a fun little moment where a woman comes along and bats Zuko for like hitting a child and it feels animated Zuko screams about Ang stealing his diary and comes after him you know which is very season one Zuko he's trying to be mature but he's ultimately a kid that was where they got the Vibes right and this is important there are a lot of moments in this series that work moments the Avatar state does feel powerful they pulled that off they talked about changing how the Avatar State works but that really just means using it less which is good and that an can only talk to his past avatars when he's in one of their shrines which is fine we get to see a lot more avatars mostly kuruk and Kyoshi and I think that actually works though I I wasn't a fan of how they handled Roku koi Zilla at the end is much more Zilla than koi but there's very much that primordial rage that I think they're really tapped into and I I like that the story is mostly loyal they're clearly trying to keep the heart of the original show even if it doesn't always land I'll get to that they basically cut impr prisoned the Great Divide the fortune teller B of the water tribe which are the right episodes to cut if you have to and the only one that you really feel is missing is the deserter where Ang meets Jong Jong uh and he gets his fear of fire bending because he hurts qara sometimes to mix the right stories in the right ways like in episode 6 they mix the blue spirit with the storm and that actually does uh work and episode 6 also happens to be the most loyal to the original series episode 6 honestly it's a great episode they move around some of core beats like qara bringing Ang out of the Avatar State like we see in the southern air Temple is moved towards the end when she sort of brings him out of the killa face reminding as friends and loved ones and that's sort of reshuffling is okay whereas in the southern air Temple um and brings himself out of the Avatar state with the Kat which is the sort of thing I could imagine them doing in the original series that sort of reshuffling is okay iro coming with Zuko and saying everything he needs is right there on that boat that's a beautiful expansion what we already know the scene where Zuko returns to the ship after rescuing Ang and his crew honor him bowing before him as their prince it's one of the best in the series it genuinely moved me and there are moments like this where it really does work you know this feels like not only a natural expansion to the story but it works whether you know the original show or not they do try to incorporate most of the main story and character beats even if they don't land as hard as they did because of a lot of the framing or scripting which I'll get to they include a lot of stuff from the Books and Comics which came out later which I appreciated as a fan even if it didn't necessarily help the series some of the stuff they inventor did work like showing more of Ira's backstory Litin monyo even if I would have shown it at a different time and also I liked the genocide but I would have liked more they didn't feel that much more powerful with the comet the main thing that makes me Ed a little more positive is the characters they have chemistry they're likable on screen they've got the Vibes right in a way especially Ang and Zuko and there's a difference here between the acting and like the script they were given they delivered those lines with all of their heart I think they warded qara down I'll talk about that in a bit but there there's promise with all these characters Xiao is a little bit different he's the slimy little bottom feeder who's both both incompetent and extremely dangerous but he does what he's meant to he's meant to make Zuko look Honest by comparison every character is a little different but xia was the only one that has like really comfortable with being different they also give aoua her own story this was something I said I was generally in favor of you know she's basically just a pops up in season 2 bring you into season one not a bad idea but they're trying to play up how oai doesn't care about either of his kids he manipulates Zulu as much as he does Zuko just in different ways and that's what drive her to Madness this is something the comics Del into a bit more that he doesn't really love her he just loves how useful she is this is a change like in concept less so in execution It suffers from the same scripting lack of subtlety problems we'll get to but I don't think we should see her as tick off as she gets in the series so easily she's not meant to be this easily tiffed but this also might be an example of something where it's like different but not necessarily bad and I feel like we need to wait and see a bit because obviously I'm comparing it against a complete story if I was to say the live action accomplished what it set out to do which is bring an animated classic into a new medium with a new vision building on what was then it did this in I think the production design you know costume set settings they pay homage to the original designs in so many ways but a lot of the time they build on them quite nicely too like the Grove and the northern water tribe becomes this sort of mini Valley I quite liked omashu is similar but not identical toishi fukawa did an incredible job with the music taking the motifs and songs we know but building on them threading in like little bits of leaves from the vine into iros episodes you might say doesn't matter much but that definitely changes the feel and tone and the immersion of the world the biggest plus is it's honest it's not afraid to be cheesy it's clearly made by people who love the original material it's not ashamed to be Avatar its heart is definitely in the right place even to its detriment now you will notice I didn't really praise the writing a lot and that's because the bad they messed up the spirit world so in the show Ang finds a burn down forest in the village being terrorized by Hai confronts Hai sets it right before he learns he needs to go and talk to Roku in the Fire Nation where he learns about the comet in the process dealing with his grief and learning something really important for his dudy as the Avatar it's an amazing couple of episodes in the Netflix show they find the burn down forest and and then the village and then go to find hey but then they bump into onei Tong but then Saker and Katara get kidnapped by K the face stealer and so Ang has to go to the Fire Nation to talk to Roku to find out how to beat K the face stealer to rescue sakur and qara and the the spirit world is just the forest tinted blue they mixed all the wrong plants in the wrong ways here it takes all of the exposition and plot bloat but none of the depth that makes the stuff meaningful and kind of cheapens all of their stories it's just sort of feels like references almost like fan service like hey is basically Rush past he feels kind of like an animal that's just sort of there and even though he looks great he's kind of just sidelined for Co in the original show Ang and ha both kind of have to come to terms with the world they knew no longer being there and find a new way to move past this grief this is what I mean by the show has a lot of the core beats because this moment is technically in the Netflix show but it doesn't hit as hard because it's it's kind of rushed past and Co the face dealer is way more important we have to worry about that now and Ang isn't really thinking about his grief that much it doesn't have that character Dimension Wong is there but only because they're probably not going to do the library episode and they wanted to get him in somehow but he doesn't have the Intrigue and gravitas he's just there to give Ang Exposition Exposition we don't need and Co has turned from this interesting morally gray ancient Spirit of unknowable power and knowledge who helps the Avatar in a critical moment uh to just kind of an evil obstacle especially because they remove the need to keep a straight face and the subplot kind of just hijacks the story then roku's place as Ang's Mentor is kind of given Koshi which I don't actually think is inherently bad it feels like the need to go talk to Roku is really just put in there because it's in the original show and not because it's Naturally Fit for this plotline you know Ang suddenly going over to the Fire Nation and it seemingly being basically no issue whatsoever it just it kind of cheapens it like H rescuing sock and guitar from Co doesn't feel that important for his character development just feels like something he has to now do it sometimes gets lost in these moments of fanfic or fan service that it fgets why the original show did something a certain way like they gave SK verus San but seemingly the sacrifice of that reveal Fang at the southern ear Temple the whole story also exemplifies I the worst parts of thetion because the story constantly sidetracks to try and mish mash all these different episodes it's trying to cut between different plot lines and then try to weave them together but it doesn't always manage to do that very well because it's Ang oh going to save the village by talking to Hay but no it's not it's actually Ang needs to go and um save soccer guara from K the face deal but no it's not because Ang needs to get to the Fire Nation but no it's not a gets captured and needs to escape but in order to get back to save Co um save qar and Saka from Co all these stories end up being stunted and cut short in their own ways I'm really not sure why Co had to be here why he couldn't be at the northern wat tribe in his original role or why even if you didn't want to do the comet because they don't apparently want to do the the com reveal just yet why not have Roku calling to Ang and then he uh reveals that you know the that the Moon is in danger and foreshadows that and frankly Wong doesn't feel like it naturally fits here it's mostly there because they know you know it from the original series there's a lot of just plot plot plot and it can feel a bit bloated at times they end up mixing the episodes jet omashu and the mechanist the Northern Air Temple and this is actually not like conceptually not a bad way to combine the stories but they fraer it in a way that a lot of the characters don't have anything to do with these plots like soccer basically doesn't talk to Jet at all he doesn't really have any interaction barely and so when he and qara Clash over you know that it it doesn't have the depth that it did in the show where all of the characters were all dealing with dealing with jet again they do include these plot beats but not always enough for the context this isn't always the issue but it's a recurring enough issue for you to notice like I was watching the jet Stu when he call Katara naive but I was like you haven't really seen that much it only makes sense in my head because I know what actually happened in the series I think the plot bloat was most noticeable in the Secret Tunnel episode where Sak and qara are heading into the tunnels to F dang and I actually had to stop and pause myself I was like wait why are they in the tunnels again and the answer is because it's in the series and they wanted to do that you can see that earnestness there but it also doesn't help sometimes it would have been better to extend the jet mechanist plotline while Ang is dealing with Boomie even though some of the extra backstory scenes with Zuko iro or Ang do work bringing them in so early doesn't the order in which we learn these things often robs them of their impact the clearest example being Ang isn't revealed as the Avatar with all the hope that brings when qar and soccer learn it because the show already told us that he is the Avatar in the backstory before the story started even though they didn't need to part of the reason backstory is usually found later is because it's only given meaning by the context of a character's actions and motivations later in the story like Ang hiding his real identity that's interesting but we don't get that even though they managed to understand this in episode 6 with Zuko but the biggest issue the series has is a dialogue and script and Exposition it is genuinely quite bad throughout the entire series there's this moment where gr Gran gives an expositional speech much of which we already know and it's really heavy-handed and weirdly it's also the opening credits qara speech but they already did one that's like the offbrand version of qara speech characters end up saying what they feel there's a lot of telling and not showing and that's what I mean by like the characters do the best with the lines they're given like they deliver these lines with heart and you kind of like them but the lines are really bad a lot of the time sometimes this Exposition which is just entirely unnecessary and they just added in like uh part of this is like the the co- story where he's like ah Co hunts and the fog of lost souls and this is the fog of lost souls and it it's like that's a great little piece of tidbit of law but we really didn't need that or how this is a special type of moon that the moon in Ocean that's why they can be killed there and it's got a special knife to kill them with sometimes the exposition is a nice little nod to the lore that I would get cuz I know this stuff but if you're unfamiliar with it it it'll just feel like bloat they spoon feed a lot of stuff the sh originally lifted subti which is partly why while I like aula having more of a role I don't like how they did it hard in the right place execution eh it never lets you wonder about the characters or be intrigued by their motivations figuring them out their inner feelings because they will just straight up tell you what they're thinking don't worry you won't miss a thing and the remixing of the lines in the script sometimes gives individual scenes some really weird timing like you know the moment where iro goes ziao let the spirit go anything you do to it I'll leash on you tfold well he does that in the series okay but he says that and then he lets Xiao like pick up the the thing and threaten it and go I am the moon Slayer and then only a little after does he act why not just have him say that later or they do the scene where Ang takes out the single fire nationship of the north before realizing there's a whole Armada out there and he has this moment of hopelessness and he goes I'm just a boy they do both of those moments but those lines are split up into weird places that mean that they don't quite land as hard as either of them could cuz they're meant to be together again they do include those beats the matter but it's just not quite right and they don't quite land as well of all the characters I actually really liked Ang and Zuko especially delsu but I think they fumbled qara a little she gets watered down she's meant to be full of passion and forth righteousness and feminine rage and traumatic rage but we don't get those little moments like katara's rage shattering the ice that freeze Ang or even in her deal with paku which we do get she's not quite as angry and full of of Fury I think they wanted to avoid doing the emotional angry woman Trope but they ended up kind of neutering her soccer's Arc is better than I expected I know that everyone's really worried about them removing soccer's sexism and all that but they do give him an arc of like trying to find out his skills he's a planner and an inventor and a leader more than necessarily just a warrior that said in the Kyoshi Warriors episode uh you do feel the absence of that sexism Arc because basically just means that him and Suki hit it off because she has a crush on the cute foreign boy which I mean to my mind is is even more sexist there's also and this is one of the weirdest changes that they made a distinct lack of Ang learning any water bending ever he andara basically never train together they never learn water bending together it just doesn't happen qara basically gets the water bending scroll at the start and that's pretty much the only way we see her improving her water bending she doesn't get to train with paru I I don't quite know what they're planning to do with this I'm very skeptical but I think this is maybe a wait and see most of the arcs are there in some way but they're lukewarm versions of what we know and love like Ang running away from being the Avatar is muted by him not running away from the temples and getting stuck in the ice qara does grow to engage with the trauma but she's not as fecy and doesn't learn from paku and Saka while he does learn a lot about himself he's not humbled the okay all right so I was initially a lot more negative on Boomie boomy in the original show is this cooky goofy but still very lovable old man who puts Ang through a bunch of Trials to teach him to think differently in the Netflix show he's an unlovable corrupt politician who has lost all hope in the world and blames Ang for running away and instead of him teaching Ang a Liston Ang teaches him a Liston that you can rely on your friends and you should have hope and you should continue the fight this is a change I had a very negative reaction to at first because this never nice to have a character you like turned into someone this unlikable but I do see what they're trying to do with it and I think this might be a case of just because it's different doesn't mean it's worse and my love for the original series might be interfering with that judgment there because this does speak to a broader tonal change in the series everyone outside of anara and Soaker are way more depressed and miserable uh Kyoshi Island Chief arnook uh the past avatars iro Haku and most clearly Bui they're really playing up that this is a hopeless world ever since the Avatar left it and that Ang is meant to be hope returning to it that he brings hope everywhere he goes I don't think I agree with people who say that like Ang isn't happy or goofy enough they clearly put that into the series I think they're confusing the overall tone of the series which is a bit Grimmer and there is sometimes where that Grimmer tone does pay off there's a scene where iro gets to talk to one of the soldiers or a relative of the soldier who fought at bar sing SE the city which he sieged and he's like hey you butchered people and I think that's actually one of the better scenes on the show it's a really interesting way to build on that scene in the the the series but if they do want to have that angers bringing Joy then I need to see that joy in others more like at the end of the Kyoshi episode she basically just goes hey you made us happy and waves happily goodbye but we don't actually see that Joy there a lot of tell and a l a lot of show the question a lot of people's minds is it worth it was this necessary and I don't know I think trying to adapt an animated series into live action inevitably just shows you why the series is animated in the first place and I also hate the trend of adapting animated Classics into live action as if it's somehow a bitter medium it's disrespectful animation is amazing and has so many great qualities that only become more visible on projects like this if they wanted to do a live action story then do a new one about a different Avatar or even Ang later in life it would have been better and not face the same immeasurable expectations this series did that kind of shoted in the foot but we live in an age of remakes and prequels and regurgitations and you can feel the cracks of that it being fun and honest doesn't mean it's not clumsy bottom line is the show is okay and there's room for improvement it's well known that seasons 2 and three are typically stronger than season 1 season 1 is a lot more fragmented and has some of the weaker episodes so we might see that in the second season some of the additions and changes work others are bizarre I think it's interesting if you love the original show but I think it needs some significant improvements if it's going to stand independent of its source material it definitely feels a little bit weird and clunky if you don't know the source material I wouldn't call it a disappointment obviously when things don't work it is disappointing but overall it's just kind of okay and I'm like oh all right seem a kind of a first draft maybe a second draft would do better but I want to know what you think let me know down in the comments below stay Nery and I'll see you in the future

Channel: Hello Future Me

Views: 773,709

Keywords: explained, theory, lore, analysis, how to, netflix, review, natla, last airbender, avatar, korra, aang, streaming, live action, remake, katara, sokka, zuko, iroh, bumi, pakku, waterbending, firebending, earthbending, airbending, nomad

Id: AD4II4z5soo

Length: 18min 37sec (1117 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2024