Long ago, the four nations of the world, each tied to its
own Element, lived in peace. All of that
changed when the Fire Nation launched a massive campaign to conquer the other
nations, leaving destruction and devastation in their wake. The only hope of stopping them lay within the
Avatar: the one who could master all four elements of Water, Earth, Fire and
Air. But when the world needed him most,
he vanished. Now, he has been found and
awakened. Saddled with a responsibility
he never asked for, a young boy named Aang, must set out to complete his
training and embrace his destiny as not only the Avatar, but as the Last of the
Airbenders.
Well we’ve been here before haven’t we Dear Readers?
For many, Avatar: The Last Airbender is
considered one of the greatest animated series of all time.
So when M. Night Shyamalan almost single
handidly tarnished it’s perfect reputation with that horendeous 2010 Film Adaptation,
the fanbase virtually rioted.
Because of
that, it’s easy to be both cautious and a bit optimistic about Netflix’s TV
Adaptation.
After all, the trailers
looked promising. The costumes, visuals and even correct name pronunciations
were there.
And yet I hardly heard
anything good when it dropped last weekend on Netflix.
No one was saying it’s as bad as the Shamylan
disaster but it’s not getting the warm welcome I’m sure the project was hoping
for.
Well as a fan of Avatar myself (and
of it’s follow up series The Legend of Korra), I decided to check out the
Premiere to throw my hat into the ring…and oh man, for everything it does get
right, it’s also doing a lot wrong…and its cringy…very cringy.
The Netflix shows problems appear almost right out of the
gate.
The presentation itself looks
pretty good from the Bending visual effects to the pitch perfect casting of
Gordon Cormier as Aang.
No the problem
is in execution.
The first fifteen
minutes show viewers something not viewed until a couple of episodes into the
original series: the genocide of the Air Nomads at the hands of the Fire
Nation.
It just felt off starting here
rather than with Katara and Sokka in the present day.
There’s no sense of mystery surrounding this
tragic event like there was before. It should have been moved to when Aang
actually visits the remains of the Southern Air Temple and even then, instead
of a full sequence could have been shown in quick glimpses as Aang takes it all
in.
This could be attributed to trying
to truncate 20 some odd episodes into 8 45-60 minute episodes but still this
isnt how you start Avatar: The Last Airbenders second attempt at Live Action.
I wish I could say my gripes were just with the first 20
minutes but no, it arguably gets worse.
The writing in the series premeire is incredibly weak.
I legit groaned and cursed when the famous
intro monologue from the Animated Series was chucked into a random scene and
delivered with the efficiency of a drama student trying to recite it and not
screw up, it’s so unnatural it hurts.
And while Cormier captures the spirt of Aang perfectly, Sokka and
especially Katara are a more mixed bag.
Like in the Shyamalan movie, Sokka is a lot more serious than his
animated counterpart and Katara, God I just, her actress is being poorly
directed cause she hardly emotes or shows any kind of reaction to things going
on around her.
The big reveal that Aang
is the Avatar only produces a look of what MST3K can best describe as “Dull
Surprise” from the girl who’s supposed to be part of the core relationship of
the series.
It feels like Cormier might
have to do a lot of the heavy lifting on his own and he nails a lot of Aangs
scenes, especially at the Southern Air Temple.
At least Zuko and Iroh’s actors seem more suited to the task than Katara
and Sokka right now.
Ugh, I didn’t want to believe the posts I’d been seeing
from my friends who are die hard fans on this one but I have to side with them
with most of their complaints.
And this
is just from watching the first episode.
Stylish presentation and good looking visual effects cant mask that this
new Live Action Avatar is not off to a good start. The writing throws out way
too much exposition (some more than twice) and dialogue is more like a Wiki is
being read than actually acted (seriously I want to slap the director for
forcing that poor lady to recite the Animated Intro).
Aang is more than up to the task but it
doesn’t change the fact that Episode 1 was painful to sit through.
And honestly, saying it’s better than the
2010 movie doesn’t feel like much of a win when they promised not to make the
same mistakes again…and just end up making all new ones (and I just quoted The
Lost World: Jurassic Park, that’s not good).
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