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The dynamic between Katara and Aang as they both learn waterbending is one of my favourite aspects from Season 1 of the original, so learning that it mostly gets cut is the kind of thing that leaves me not wanting to see this version.quote:She develops a lot of good instincts and is clearly a prodigy herself, but she also benefits greatly from having a teacher - she goes from a talented but inexperienced waterbender to one of the best in the world under Pakku's tutelage because she put in the effort to develop her natural talents. I think having Katara's bending being almost entirely self-taught not only undermines the feminist underpinnings of her season one character arc, but also devalues the main character's quest - if someone can become a master bender by just fuckin' believing in themselves or whatever, then why does Aang, or any avatar for that matter, need to find teachers from the other disciplines?
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Mar 6, 2024 07:51
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I don't think we've seen enough of live-action Katara's waterbending after her fight with Pakku to say that she definitely doesn't need any more training or that she's like, actually a master now in anything other than the poetic sense. We see her fight the Fire Nation and Zuko in ep 8, but with about the same level of skill that she already showed in the Pakku fight...which, as was mentioned, is about the same as the power level she achieved in the cartoon with the same lack of formal training. I also assume that she and Aang are going to be training with Pakku anyway during the presumed time-skip, though admittedly the show doesn't really suggest that one way or another.
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Mar 6, 2024 10:27
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https://twitter.com/AvatarNetflix/status/1765391893909897350 Here we go again!
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Mar 6, 2024 16:27
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This is good. They know how much time exactly they have to wrap this up. No stringing it along with one season a time renewals. They have time to prepare and most importantly get it all done before all the actors age out of the roles.
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Mar 6, 2024 17:43
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Netflix renewed a show. I'm kind of surprised.
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Mar 6, 2024 17:47
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One Piece got renewed as well a while back I’m glad they announced both seasons at once, gives the crew more time to adequately prepare for what they need to do (as well as account for their child actors hitting puberty in between)
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Mar 6, 2024 17:49
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Watched the whole thing this week with the youngsters and we had a good time. The main 3 kids do a decent-to-very-good job, Zuko and Zhao were actually incredible, and new Iroh grew on me over time. I think most of the story streamlining they did was well-plotted and executed, and while I missed the more playful Aang from the cartoon, this faster paced version had some nice highlights. Overall, I think this show was very unnecessary since the animated version was so well-done, but there were some strong choices made here and about half the effects were really good, and the rest were passable. It is hard to follow-up such a beloved show with another version, but I think this team showed a lot of respect to the source material and created a decent interpretation that was fun to watch, especially with kids. Cons: A lot of expository dialogue, especially at the beginning, some subpar effects at times (mostly compositing/volume stuff), some clunky line reads here and there Pros: Solid characterizations, great art design, a lot of excellent effects esp. with the bending and the finale fight, and a couple of standout actors/characters I do wish that the actor who played Gyatso had played Iroh instead, because he was so excellent and I wanted more of him.
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Mar 6, 2024 18:19
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Gyatso also sounded almost exactly like his original VA I’m curious to see how they handle Toph and what gets cut/merged/added for the remaining seasons (more episodes per season would also be helpful)
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Mar 6, 2024 18:37
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Yeah I don’t want to go back to the days of 24 episode seasons but I feel like 8 is too few for most shows, 12 would be better.
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Mar 6, 2024 18:49
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Larryb posted:One Piece got renewed as well a while back OP was such a wild success that I'm still surprised they only renewed it for a second season. Granted committing to as many season as you'd need to tell 1109 chapters of a story is wishful thinking. I'm glad this crossed the bar to get a complete order. Definitely good enough to warrant it.
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Mar 6, 2024 18:57
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It's no surprise it got renewed. It has better numbers than a lot of other recent shows on Netflix. The surprise was giving the go ahead to finish it out, which is great. Also, Ozai is pure evil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mat6Gr4sgAw
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Mar 6, 2024 19:06
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I’m assuming there will be some kind of timeskip as the kid who plays Aang already sounds like he’s hitting puberty
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Mar 6, 2024 19:21
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I have a feeling it might get a lot of drop off after series 1. Nobody at all I've spoken to that watched it truly LIKED it and most of the reviews feel kinda the same way too. Like "Hey they did okay but it's a bit pointless and not great"
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Mar 6, 2024 19:33
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Yeah, it’s not One Piece good but it’s nowhere near Cowboy Bebop bad either (at the very least the staff seems to have familiarity with the source material). We’ll see how things go I guess I believe the producers said they wanted to have this version take place over multiple years as opposed to just one (so that accounted for the actor issue at least) Since they’re changing the timeline a bit I wonder if they’ll make Toph a little older as well (either way I hope they can get someone who can appropriately imitate the snarky badass nature of the original) Larryb fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Mar 6, 2024 |
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Mar 6, 2024 19:35
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Taear posted:I have a feeling it might get a lot of drop off after series 1. I liked it, and everyone I've talked to about it thought it was very good. But I'm easy to please, I can just shut my brain off and enjoy the ride. I don't get nitpicky about many things anymore. I don't feel as strongly as most about thinking it was pointless or unneccary, but if we were going to get more Avatar stuff, instead of a live action take on a story already told, I would have much rather had a game developer make an open world video game. There is so much that could be done with a game in that universe.
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Mar 6, 2024 20:14
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I don't understand the people who complain that it ends after season 3. What were they expecting after that?
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Mar 6, 2024 20:47
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cant cook creole bream posted:I don't understand the people who complain that it ends after season 3. What were they expecting after that? A Korra adaption that reworks things so there’s a coherent narrative throughout maybe?
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Mar 6, 2024 20:53
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Larryb posted:A Korra adaption that reworks things so there’s a coherent narrative throughout maybe? I'd assume that would be a separate series some years down the line, if anything.
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Mar 6, 2024 20:59
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cant cook creole bream posted:I'd assume that would be a separate series some years down the line, if anything. True, and while we’re on the subject I also wouldn’t mind them adapting the novels into a series or two either (or even just a movie)
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Mar 6, 2024 21:04
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Larryb posted:Since they’re changing the timeline a bit I wonder if they’ll make Toph a little older as well (either way I hope they can get someone who can appropriately imitate the snarky badass nature of the original) Whoever they cast, I can just imagine them watching those "Toph is snarky" or "Toph is blind" compilations on loop for a week or two to get that personality. Really need that "well it SOUNDS like a piece of paper, but I'm guessing what's on it is what you're worried about" and similar lines to get that vibe Aces High fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Mar 6, 2024 |
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Mar 6, 2024 21:29
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Sokka needing to learn Women Can Fight Too was a rough edge I'm fine being sanded down but Katara not being short-tempered (probably because they were afraid of her labeled the dreaded b-word) among other things means she isn't left with a whole lot to do and I'm hoping no big brain at Netflix goes "we can't make fun of somebody being blind, even if it's the blind person herself doing it!"
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Mar 6, 2024 22:49
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Dawgstar posted:Sokka needing to learn Women Can Fight Too was a rough edge I'm fine being sanded down but Katara not being short-tempered (probably because they were afraid of her labeled the dreaded b-word) among other things means she isn't left with a whole lot to do and I'm hoping no big brain at Netflix goes "we can't make fun of somebody being blind, even if it's the blind person herself doing it!" Plus that’s at least half Toph’s act Also I wonder if The Library is getting cut next season (they showed the owl early, cut Zhao getting info from it, and the eclipse plan ultimately turns out to be a waste of time in the long run) I hope they include at least a bit of Tales of Ba Sing Se though
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Mar 6, 2024 23:10
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Dawgstar posted:Sokka needing to learn Women Can Fight Too was a rough edge I'm fine being sanded down but Katara not being short-tempered (probably because they were afraid of her labeled the dreaded b-word) among other things means she isn't left with a whole lot to do and I'm hoping no big brain at Netflix goes "we can't make fun of somebody being blind, even if it's the blind person herself doing it!" Cutting out Sokka being sexist is absolute poo poo. Good people sometimes think bad things and it's important to show them moving on and learning about those things.
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Mar 6, 2024 23:18
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It was over the top in the original and we get a much more interesting interaction between him and Suki as a result. I first watched Avatar in high school and only stuck past the first few episodes at the recommendation of some of my friends, that reaction entirely due to Sokka.
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Mar 6, 2024 23:42
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Larryb posted:Plus that’s at least half Toph’s act If we don't get a version of the Tale of Iroh then, like, why are we even here?
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Mar 6, 2024 23:43
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Mecca-Benghazi posted:It was over the top in the original and we get a much more interesting interaction between him and Suki as a result. I first watched Avatar in high school and only stuck past the first few episodes at the recommendation of some of my friends, that reaction entirely due to Sokka. Yep this is where I'm at. The people acting like it was some character defining trait or something is weird. It's around for a few episodes and at a cartoonishly annoying level and then it's gone. It's not some core part of Sokka's character.
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Mar 6, 2024 23:54
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I was both slightly too old for the show's target demo when it broadcast, and also thought the art was really off putting. Assumed it was some kind of anime for american children because it looked (and I guess still does initally) like those cheap "how to draw anime" books they sold at Barnes and Noble. A lot of that impression comes from only catching the ads for it, which doesn't do justice to the choreography and backdrops they created for the series. In my defense, I was mostly eating FLCL and Full Metal Alchemist which I'd still wager give a better initial impression. Likewise only saw the series years later while in college at the insistence of a pal and eventually realized how much more was there.
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Mar 7, 2024 01:10
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X-O posted:Yep this is where I'm at. The people acting like it was some character defining trait or something is weird. It's around for a few episodes and at a cartoonishly annoying level and then it's gone. It's not some core part of Sokka's character. But it is. It's why he's like he is with Katara at the start as well. It's challenging his masculinity and how he feels like he's valuable to his people - and contrasting with his sister being a bender. Them taking it out isn't a good thing. Stopping watching because a character is being sexist and is shown as being bad for this is kinda mad to me, don't you want your media to expose bad thinking and move against it? Just ignoring it doesn't feel like a step up from that in any way to me.
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Mar 7, 2024 01:47
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The sexism in the original cartoon is treated in a Very Special Epsiode sort of way so I don't think it's crazy to dismiss it as corny. Like it would be one thing if it was more than literally 2 characters (one of which is a minor character who basically exists to cause conflict) and the society itself came off as oppressively sexist but it really comes across as just them.
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Mar 7, 2024 01:52
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if it was such a core part of his personality, why did it disappear so quickly into the show? I think you're confusing Sokka's curmudgeon attitude and how he doesn't suffer fools, which we got LOTS of examples throughout the series. People have way fonder memories of his antics during The Fortuneteller than they do of how dismissive he was of Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors. You could argue that his conduct in that episode was just him trying to "show off" to a pretty girl, but it was handled better this time around, especially since he had trouble stringing sentences together whenever they were alone.
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Mar 7, 2024 01:52
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Aces High posted:if it was such a core part of his personality, why did it disappear so quickly into the show? It doesn't. I'm rewatching the first season and it comes up a few more times, usually in quick jabs from Sokka about Katara is more interested in girly pursuits than in "real" issues.
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Mar 7, 2024 02:11
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mycot posted:The sexism in the original cartoon is treated in a Very Special Epsiode sort of way so I don't think it's crazy to dismiss it as corny. Like it would be one thing if it was more than literally 2 characters (one of which is a minor character who basically exists to cause conflict) and the society itself came off as oppressively sexist but it really comes across as just them. It was also part of a pattern of the first season doing a series of typical cartoon "here's the kiddie moral lesson of the week" episodes as part of it being much more of a kids' show before it found its footing. Even if it got nicely subverted by the time they got to "it's okay to steal when it's from pirates." Moral dilemmas and people's bad habits biting them remained through the whole series of course, but they became more natural as the series matured.
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Mar 7, 2024 03:27
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I think characters having their rough edges sanded off is a legitimate problem with this show, especially for the three main protags. Aang didn't run away. Katara is more docile. Sokka is not sexist. How much more is going to get washed off? When you strip away the characters' flaws and problems and meanness, you also take away the catharsis we feel when those issues get resolved in satisfying ways. The diehard fans have been exhibiting some wild-rear end behavior, but I don't actually blame them for thinking that this show gives us Diet Aang or Katara Zero or whatever. You can say Sokka's sexism only lasted an episode and a half in the cartoon...but in the cartoon's format, that's how they depict almost every single character's major traits and arcs, which often get established and then resolved within thirty minute time spans but are, like, incredibly satisfying beats that build into the cohesive whole of these characters. Toph's issues with her parents, which is like the core trauma the character faces, gets about fifteen minutes of screentime, if that. Aang's frustrations with Air Nomad culture being wiped out, which is something he'll struggle with for the rest of his life, only gets a single episode's focus (and has so far been excised in this adaptation entirely). His concern about killing Ozai -- basically the most important conflict that the original cartoon ever depicts -- doesn't get established until the show is nearly over. The cartoon was filled with this approach, and they actually get more prevalent over the seasons instead of less. And I think the hope with the Netflix show was that it would -- given the opportunity -- do more to expand on these sorts of beats that the cartoon didn't have the bandwidth to fully explore in a cinematic way, instead of making them even less impactful to the whole of these characters. And I don't think that it'll do so with all these conflicts or anything, but if the premise is that it'll just ignore Sokka's sexism because it didn't seem all that important or take up all that much time in the cartoon, well, that does make me worried about how it'll be treating a lot of these other character elements that also just appear in one episode or another. How much of the smaller bits and pieces of these characters do we nonchalantly file off before we've taken out a bigger, more meaningful chunk of them without realizing it?
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Mar 7, 2024 03:28
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The original was good because of its characters and their arcs but the live action one is written for people who believe that the point of having characters in a story is to have people that drive the plot. The original is about Aang needing to defeat the Fire Lord, but it's good because of little bits like him spinning the drat marbles with airbending and making a goofy face. It's just... "show, don't tell" is a thing for a reason. A show cutting out all the parts where we get to see who these characters are - even if that sometimes means, oh, a character has thoughtless sexist attitudes and that's bad - makes it able to accomplish the story it's telling more efficiently, I guess, but that's not a good thing, and it's baffling that so many people seem to think that it is.
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Mar 7, 2024 03:47
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I think the fixation on efficiency is more because of the streaming format. Like the individual episode plots in the cartoon could be very kiddy but it did mean the main characters became very fleshed out because you could see their reaction to 20 different plots a season (e.g. Sokka isn't just The Sexism Guy in the cartoon, he's also loves meat, is skeptical about spirits, is terrible at art, etc).
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Mar 7, 2024 03:55
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Also like, putting Sokka in a dress and facepaint is just fun. It's just fun! And it's funny! Do the fun thing! And on the flip side, they seem to have taken the opposite approach of all that to Zuko, where they're actually expanding on the beats and elements of the character beyond what the cartoon might've had time to establish at this point...and it's great! Maybe not necessarily better than the cartoon, but who do you see complaining about Zuko? No one, really. I think the additional stuff with him at Lu Ten's funeral, or Ozai at his bedside and subsequent revelations about his crew, is the sort of stuff people were hoping that the Netflix show would do for more characters and not less.
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Mar 7, 2024 04:01
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Zuko's actor kills it so the more he gets to do the better.
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Mar 7, 2024 04:04
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Only minor quibble I have about LA Zuko is that they made him actually fight back during the Agni Kai, otherwise he's probably the best all around character in this adaption so far.
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Mar 7, 2024 04:13
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Yeah I agree: koolkal posted:Yeah this is my biggest complaint with the live action series. With the exception of Zuko, who I think is somewhat improved by the live action series vs. season 1 of the cartoon, all the other major characters are just a lot less interesting. Part of it is that there's just a lot less screen time for the main 3 in favor of Zuko, longer action scenes, and exploring more of the side characters in the Fire Nation. Also the show's tone has changed from being comedic to dour which has filtered down to all the characters. Katara went from one of my favorite characters from the original to the one I find the least interesting in the live action.
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Mar 7, 2024 04:18
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I honestly don't remember the first season of Avatar being that great, it was good but it really came together in the second and third season.
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Mar 7, 2024 04:38
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