In 2005 Avatar: The Last Airbender aired and it was beloved by all who watched it. Avatar is set in a world where many people can control one of the four elements, those being water, earth, fire, and air. One hundred years ago, from where the story begins, the Fire Nation started a war and wiped out all the air-benders…well, all but one, a boy named Aang, who is revealed to be the Avatar, a being who is reincarnated in a cycle going through the four nations, master of all four elements, who is tasked with ending the war, stopping the Fire Nation, and bringing peace back to the world.
It was, and still is, considered a masterpiece in storytelling. Due to its massive popularity, everyone wanted to see more from the Avatar franchise. In 2010 there was an attempt to make that wish come true. A terrible, boring, and borderline insulting attempt. A live-action movie covering the first season of the series was released to – across the board – disappointed viewers. They sapped all the life and energy from the show, turned it into a movie, and expected people to be happy. The movie was so bad that many fans of the franchise will deny its existence when asked about it.
Back in 2018, another live-action remake of the beloved show was announced to very mixed opinions. Some were concerned that their favorite show’s name would once again be tarnished by another horrible adaptation. Others were excited that a live-action The Last Airbender had another chance. When the remake was released in January of 2024 there were a lot of mixed feelings on it. I believe it falls perfectly between the two.
One of the main things the remake did great was the action scenes. In the movie remake, the fight scenes were incredibly slow and boring. This takes much more from the original, which had amazing fight scenes The settings of the show are stunning. Another good part of the show is the casting; all the actors look a lot like their animated counterparts. This is a huge step up from the previous live-action movie which barely made any effort to cast similar-looking people. They also added nods to some of the original show’s running gags. That’s worth something.
While there are some good qualities to the series, it also has many flaws. For starters, the characters don’t feel the same as in the original series. They may look the same but they in no way act the same. For instance, Aang was a competent and smart character in the original series. In this, he is far more immature, and everything is just handed to him. Instead of thinking up a good plan to put out the fires in Kyoshi village and get rid of the fire benders as he does in the animated show, he just gets possessed by Avatar Kyoshi, one of his previous reincarnations, and everything gets done for him. This majorly takes away from his character. How can we see our main character as strong if he doesn’t do anything himself? They also mashed a bunch of different episodes together, making the story feel very scattered and unfocused. With the series only having 8 episodes, I had expected them to combine some episodes, but not how they did it. Everyone expected them to cut out the filler and get through the story quicker since they had less time to show everything. But no, they tried to not only leave in every little bit of the original first season, but they tried to merge plotlines from the second season as well. It makes everything feel very messy and takes away from the stronger aspects of the show.
Overall, it wasn’t a terrible adaptation, but I hope the second and third seasons, which have already been greenlit, have a major jump in quality. I’d give it a 5/10, it could’ve been worse, but it could’ve been a lot better.
