Since last talking about it I have actually finished watching the entire rest of the Netflix Avatar show and can finally unleash my full thoughts on the attempt to turn all cartoons into live action because old people find cartoons frightening. (I assume that's what this is all about.) Oh, and as an added bit of torture I also watched the real Avatar alongside the Netflix series with a 3:1 ratio of episodes, and managed to make it about halfway through the series before both shows diverged wildly. And though comparison is the thief of joy and all that pithy canned wisdom that people like to slap down as though the simple fact a saying is repeated makes it a hidden commandment- There are some problems about the Avatar show that cannot be properly without comparing it against someone else who was telling the exact same story and pulled it off cleaner! Oh, and I'll just brush aside the whole 'but the original show had 20 episodes' argument real quick- the original series only has an hour more runtime on the Netflix show. They had six hours to work with compared to the original's seven- time was not the problem.
From my tone it's safe to say that I was not a fan of the show, although reading my last blog you might not have seen that was the direction I was going. Sure I had problems with how some of the early episodes decided to handle themselves, what was depicted and how characters were played, but I thought at least one episode turned out to be really good! Unfortunately the later half of the series doesn't just have worse episodes, but worse character writing and at two plot lines the show runners screwed up so badly I'm convinced they never watched the originals and had their teams describe it roughly before figuring "Nah, we can do better!" It's a shame to say, but this doesn't capture the heart of the original series the way that One Piece caught the heart of it's characters. Once again, The Last Airbender has been dealt a bad hand.
Now characterisation is an important aspect of the Avatar show given how the dynamics of Team Avatar are really the heart of the show. The greedy-driven sarcasm-machine that is Sokka, the childish wonderkid Aang, and the responsible mother who was probably everyone's least favourite character as children, Katara. Understanding what the Netflix show did to them comes in understanding the way the show runners thought about their responsibilities as adapters. They believed themselves to be making a kids show into an adults show- they wanted this to be as politically complex and emotional charged as Game of Thrones. That's why they couldn't settle for elementary nonsense like calling two of the key show locations 'Southern Water Tribe' and 'Northern Water Tribe'. They have to call them by their city names of 'Wolf Cove' and 'Agna Qe'la'- because those names certainly aren't much harder to remember or anything...
That is why they feel justified in stealing Aang's innocence and turning him into a pretty dour business first kid who doesn't seem really all that interested in guiding the plot at all. He's just kind of told where to go by people and follows his string of destiny like a passive observer. So passive, in fact, that Aang never even gets the chance to bend Water. In 'Book One: Water'. Sort of- missed a trick there, didn't you team? Sokka is largely toned down, but you can tell the actor- who I suspect might have been a fan of the cartoon- really tried to bring some of Sokka's heart into the performance for later episodes- and when the writing allows he can be a bit fun to watch! And Katara... wow, did they miss the point of Katara completely. A character who is supposed to exemplify hard work and passion surpassing natural talent is bastardised into 'I am so naturally gifted that I will face off effortless against Zuko and declare myself my own master!.' You made an even more obnoxious Katara, Netflix- good job?
But if I'm going to talk about this show I'm going to talk about the one thing they do mostly right- the relationship between Zuko and Iroh. Of course, given the 'moral obligation to make things less silly' we couldn't have the loveable 'retired but along for the ride' old man of the original, but unlike literally every other character rewrite on the show- effort is put in to make new Iroh work. He's more emotionally dependent on his relationship with Zuko and he really stands out as the interim father in desperate need of a son. This is brought to life beautifully in the Netflix original scene of Iroh's son's funeral where in a moment of complete isolating grief undermined by the militarist fascism of the Fire Nation's almost viking-esque customs- Zuko is the only one who relates to his Uncle and sits by him- reminding Iroh that he hasn't yet lost his whole world. I don't even think we got that level of emotional resonance with the original show- and we didn't even every character awkward exposit their exact emotions in a scene! If the following series rebranded as 'The Zuko and Iroh show' I would not be disappointed.
And that is... the only improvement. At the other end of the spectrum we have... Bumi. The original Bumi was a master of deception who existed to portray the very spirit of looking at things outside of the box, seeing the unseen and choosing the path less travelled. In a wider world where the forces of your life are pushing you one way, Bumi's teaches Aang, and the audience, how to go in the other direction. In both of his appearances throughout the original. New Bumi is just a terrible person. Don't get me wrong, I understand how a bare basic writer with simply basic creative deduction might look at Bumi, one of Aang's old world friends, and conclude he would feel abandoned. But... well... it's been a hundred years, you'd have thought he grow out of the teenage angst of blaming a literal child for disappearing as his entire race is genocided somewhere on the road. Ironically enough, the writers might have actually learned something about how they approached their own job if they'd paid attention to original Bumi's lessons- don't be predictable!
And then there's the absolute character assassination this show pulled on Master Pakku. The man was originally the last obstacle that Katara had to overcome to prove she was ready to start learning Water Bending- and he has been returned, as an obstacle to overcome in order to prove that women are capable of fighting. Huh? Yeah, seems Netflix totally missed the original's framing of 'the traditions of women healing and men fighting are our tribes culture' and construed it into 'Men have to do all the fighting because the women are far too weak and can only heal' which is... not at all the same thing. As such Pakku because this caricature of himself so silly that they couldn't even give him the redeeming moment of learning his connection to Gran Gran. Because honestly, that was a genuine human moment and the automaton they placed in Pakku's place holds no human soul.
Finally, I know that some people wave it away as nothing important- but I hate that Katara and Aang's romance has been entirely scrapped. I know Aang and Katara have never been one of the 'great ships of the 2000's!' but I always found the childish personability in it. The innocence of a boyhood crush, albeit with the first girl he probably ever met outside of his immediate family, brings us that much closer to Aang and, on a darker note, highlights even more on the Childhood he missed out on. A childhood ripped from a show dead set on making one of the greatest cartoons of all time dull as dishwater in the adaptation. Were this the original show, no one would be talking about it today. And I think that is the biggest crime any adaptation can commit- failing to meet the worth of the source material.
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