Netflix’s Avatar the Last Airbender
has quite a bit of flaws and here I’m going to highlight the 10 worst
ones. I wasn’t able to get into most of them in depth for my season
review so let’s get our hands dirty. Number 10 - The love tunnel plot. The love
tunnel in general isn’t really necessary within Avatar The Last Airbender and is mostly a filler
story. So I assumed it would most likely be cut, but to my absolute surprise, it somehow makes its
way into season 1. So there’s two main flaws here and the first one is that these middle episodes
were already crammed and rushed to the point that, they really didn’t need another story arc to
be included. They could have simply made it to where Katara and Sokka go to confront Bumi
for arresting the Avatar at his palace. And like the animated show, Bumi takes them hostage
to get at Aang. Instead of just coincidentally bumbling into the final moment of Aang’s fight
with Bumi in which he has to make a critical choice. Which essentially acts as a copout to
this conflict. It creates a cheap moment because conflict being overcome in clever and creative
ways is what makes great resolutions, while here, that’s definitely not the case. Then there’s
the whole aspect of the love tunnel primarily being about building the relationship between
Aang and Katara. And by not including that, it makes this subplot lack depth and
meaning and only really supplies us with past worldbuilding that isn’t relevant to the
story. So this creates a conundrum in which, why are we spending so much time here? Because
the dialogue between Sokka and Katara could happen whenever. Then there’s also the dumb aspect
in which Katara somehow puts together that the badgermoles see emotions? Like how would
she come to that conclusion? I don’t know, this whole subplot isn’t insultingly bad, but
it just comes across as being very unnecessary. Number 9 - The June subplot. Speaking of
unnecessary plotlines, June does not belong in the live action adaptation at all. Which isn’t to
say that I don’t like her subplot and if anything, I thought she was great in the animated
show. But if you clearly can’t adapt her in a satisfying way and instead use her as a
quick plot device to capture Aang then don’t include her. June randomly showing up on
this fire nation island is so abrupt and random and if you stop to think about
it, it doesn’t make any sense. Firstly, Aang was only there for like 5 to 10 minutes and
he was flying there very fast. So June catching up that quick is ridiculous and this is also assuming
that her pet can even swim. Given that it’s on an island. Which I’d find this big boy swimming to
be unlikely, let alone getting to that island as if she was on a jet ski. Then there’s also the
fact that she randomly finds a shred of clothing from Aang in the forest that’s conveniently
just on a branch. In the animated show, Zuko is able to steal Katara’s necklace through
an encounter and uses her scent to indirectly find Aang. In this adaptation, I guess Zuko just gave
her a couple coordinates of where Aang has been and she has to hope they left something behind
for her to track. So there’s an abundance of dogshit logic permeating in the background here,
but she rockets into the story so fast that you can’t process any of these logical issues. I
feel like a significantly better change would be to have Zuko confront Aang at the temple.
Just like the animated version. The only way to make this make sense is to have Aang spend
a longer duration of time there, and the fire sages alert any nearby ships. This would naturally
alert both Zuko and Commander Zao. And just before Zuko captures and overwhelms Aang, Zao steals
Aang out from under Zuko. This feels like the most natural set of events to take the story and
makes it less convoluted. Also, Zao technically teleports onto Zuko’s ship in the beginning of
the episode, but they can simply change that. Number 8 - Fire Lord Ozai’s characterization.
Before anyone immediately disagrees with this point, I actually like how the creators wanted
to give Ozai more characterization. Because throughout the first couple of seasons of the
animated show, they intentionally make Ozai this mysterious figure and barely feature him.
This does work because just like hiding a monster in a horror movie, it makes the audience’s
mind run wild with imagining how evil and crazy this villain could be. Then he shows up in
season 3 and we truly see how psychotic this man is. So introducing Ozai as a real character
earlier on is kind of a good thing, however, the direction they take him makes him feel way
less terrifying than his animated counterpart. Here he’s a lot more fostering and caring for his
children. He actively wants them to succeed and is only punishing them when they egregiously step
out of line. Along with even giving them second chances. Unlike the animated show where even the
slightest notion of weakness or disrespect get’s them instantly banished. It feels like the
creators want Ozai to be a more sympathetic villain that can be understood, but I’d argue that
kind of robs the nature of the original villain. Ozai is the embodiment of fire. He’s untamed,
destructive, and wants to conquer everything. Not every villain has to be this figure that we
understand and even relate too, and sometimes it’s even scarier if you have a villain that just
wants to see the world burn. Ozai being this insane and powerful figure devoid of emotion and
hospitalityakes him an even more daunting figure for Aang to overcome. While in the live action
series, I don’t feel anywhere near as intimidated by the man. Especially since Zuko was able to go
toe to toe with him. So I would put this change lower if they absolutely butchered him, but at
least he’s still OK in the live action show. Number 7 - The King Bumi Subplot. I briefly
touched on the ending of this arc in the love tunnel section, but really every single step of
this subplot is inferior to the original. From there being virtually no intrigue because Bumi’s
identity is instantly revealed, he basically just chastizes Aang the entire time without teaching
him anything, which makes the value of this plot significantly lower in comparison to the original
where Aang had to come up with clever solutions to Bumi’s tests while here he doesn’t, and Sokka
and Katara aren’t held prisoner so there’s no stakes to drive Aang. The fight between Aang and
Bumi is at least pretty solid, no pun intended, although any fight in comparison to the animated
series is always going to feel worse. Because of how creative and ambitious the action can be in
that version. Then one of the biggest aspects about this subplot is that Bumi’s character is
inherently very different. In the live action version he comes across as being sour and having
this deep seated anger towards Aang for being gone for 100 years. Which you do need this kind of
pressure to be forced onto Aang for his character, but by making Bumi be the character to do it,
it in turn changes his more upbeat nature. Superficially they make Bumi quirky like the
animated show where’s he’s cracking jokes, is snorting, and is constantly giggling,
but deep down the aura of his character is different because of how the writers are using
him to attack Aang’s character. Instead, I think the animated show is more effective at making
Aang feel bad about disappearing by having random citizens in the world be mad at Aang.
Because they represent the overall opinion of the common folk who Aang failed. While
Bumi knows Aang personally and should be more understanding because of how old and wise
he is. So yeah, I’m not putting this very low because like the love tunnel plot, it isn’t
abhorrently bad and provides some enjoyment. Number 6 - The Avatar Roku subplot. Between all of
the subplots, this is the most neutered and rushed arc. Because in the animated show, this point
acts as like a midpoint climax and has some insane payoff. While the live action series feels like
they’re trying to do an any% speedrun of this plot point. An example of the most rushed aspect is
the fact that Aang literally just walks in, gets discovered by some evil fire sages, runs away,
and then is immediately found by a good fire sage. Like how did this guy even know Aang was here? He
was just found 10 seconds ago and it seems as if this was a planned encounter. Then there’s the
whole fact that they dismantled two main points of conflict in which the door to get in requires
firebending, and you can only access the statue during a brief window of time. Which the second
one adds immense stakes because there’s a time limit and the first one requires Aang to overcome
the conflict in a clever way. So since those two points are deleted out of the live action show,
it makes Aang accomplishing this goal completely frictionless. He just walks in and immediately is
able to achieve what he wants. Then there’s also the fact of overcoming the people guarding the way
out, which Aang uses Avatar Roku to help overcome this massive obstacle. Along with Katara and Sokka
needing to be saved. While again, that’s just gone and Aang immediately is kidnapped by June. So
to me, this is subplot was absolutely gutted. Number 5 - Aang’s abandonment being an accident.
This singular character beat is by far the most important internal struggle for Aang in the
animated series. He tears himself apart throughout the first season because of this and is the main
reason why he’s such an intriguing character. In Netflix’s adaptation, It’s literally just an
accident and Aang didn’t actually run away from his responsibilities. It makes this point in
the story lack any form of rippling impact for Aang as a character. Like sure, he was still
absent for 100 years and the world suffered, but Aang doesn’t feel as responsible
internally because him crashing was out of his control. Along with it also being a
massive coincidence that him crashing into the ocean happens to be at the exact time the fire
nation attacks the air temples. I’m not really sure why the creators changed this aspect
about Aang to not be a character motivated decision that he then has to deal with on a
personal level. It has much greater depth in the animated show and it seems like a massive
oversight for his character by changing this. Number 4 - Removing Sokka’s negative traits.
Sokka in the live action show is pretty different in comparison to his original counterpart. There
he’s a much more flawed character in the beginning who is childish, insecure, is wholly unskilled
when it comes to fighting, is incompetent, and is even sexist. In the live action version, he’s
already very mature and doesn’t resemble a kid, is relatively skilled at least in comparison to
his original self, they never show him as being incompetent, his sexist aspect was erased because
Netflix was probably scared of being cancelled, and the only negative characteristic he has
is that he has an insecurity in that his father thinks he’s a failure. There’s still
technically a progression here for Sokka, but since he’s starting out much further down that
line of progression, it makes his character arc feel stunted because it doesn’t feel like he’s
growing. What makes characters in general so riveting is the fact that they are met with
great challenges that forces them to change internally and overcome their flaws. Zuko is a
perfect example of this in which his goal and overall path of destiny is designed to change his
core character. Sokka in the first season of the animated show identifies that his sexist beliefs
are entirely wrong and his relationship with Yue and overall experience hardens him and makes him
more mature. While the live action show starts him without these flaws. Making him a less interesting
character because he’s barely changing. Number 3 - Azula. Azula in comparison to her
animated character feels like two separate characters. The main reason why I love Azula as a
villain in the animated show is that she has this subtle wicked reserved energy that occasionally
outbursts, she’s very intelligent, is an extremely skilled fighter, is utterly terrifying and
uses fear to control people, and in general, she resembles an adult. Her presence is infectious
and there’s this great depth to her character because she also lies constantly which in turn
makes all of her dialogue scenes mindgames. Despite Ozai being the main villain of Avatar
The Last Airbender, Azula is the antagonist that carries the show and makes so much of the conflict
engaging. So when we have the Azula in the live action version that doesn’t really resemble this,
it feels pretty disappointing. There she’s much closer to a child that wants her father to respect
her and she hasn’t achieved this legendary status yet. Like she’s gracefully introduced into the
animated version and it’s as if she’s a character that is brought in to rectify the faults of
others. She’s the one that gets shit done. While this Azula feels like she’s the prequel
version of the animated Azula. However, they still force her into that role and to me, I don’t think
she’ll have as much of a menacing screen presence. Number 2 - Aang not learning waterbending. This
is just a completely head scratching change that entirely misses the point of the first season
of Avatar The Last Airbender. And that point is, Aang having to learn all 4 elements. It’s also
not like the creators just forgot about this aspect because there were two opportunities
in which Aang could have learned waterbending, but the writers just have a character nope out
of it for whatever reason. I guess the time was stretched so thin that they couldn’t give us the
crucial skill development. Which this is like the whole other half of Aang’s character development.
One half is the emotional and personality side, while the other is him slowly becoming
a fully realized avatar. It’s just wild because these should be required scenes
to show the audience. But now I’m really scared that most of the training is going to
happen off-screen in between seasons 1 and 2. Number 1 - Combining so many subplots into
episodes 3-6. This was the primary reason as to why I disliked the adaptation so much
and I went in depth about this in my overall review. But to reiterate, having so many subplots
creates such a rushed pace that it simultaneously feels like they aren’t able to execute any of
the storylines properly, along with everything feeling disjointed. It feels like the creators
were too scared to cut out certain stories from Book 1 and opted to tell as many of the
fan favorites as possible. When in reality, by trying to do so much in a small time frame,
it in turn means you can’t do anything great. That and another major side effect of doing this
is that the trio of Aang, Sokka, and Katara are normally split up. In most of these stories in the
animated series, these characters bonded through overcoming these conflicts and it developed each
of their dynamics and relationships. While here, that’s rarely the case. So not only are these
plotlines being fumbled they’re also negatively affecting the characters. One main example being
Sokka and Katara being MIA for the entirety of episode 6. When originally, they were with
Aang when he went to go meet Avatar Roku. If the creators had more episodes then sure doing
all of these stories would be more realistic, but given that they had only 8 episodes, on
top of doing quite a bit of new material, it makes this a baffling change. I’m kind of
worried for season 2 because there’s a lot more integral stories in that season and given how they
treated season 1, I’m not optimistic for season 2. Thank you for watching and by the way, the
day before this upload I made the top 10 best changes for Avatar the Last Airbender so
check that out if you enjoyed this video. And, shout out to my top patron logan
farmer for being an amazing chad.
