Netflix’s reside motion tackle Avatar: The Final Airbender made fairly just a few adjustments from the unique animated collection. For probably the most half, I am actually not an enormous fan of them – I feel lots of them time they only really feel like adjustments for the sake of them, others are clearly as a result of the size of episodes and the season’s construction is totally different. There’s one particularly, about Zuko, that I really fairly like, and assume is healthier than what occurs within the unique present. Most irritating of all, it is the sort of choice that reveals precisely what the present might have been.
Spoilers forward for each the unique and Netflix variations of Avatar: The Final Airbender.
The change I am speaking about comes from episode six of the reside motion present, which adapts particularly Zuko’s backstory, initially revealed in episode 12 of the animated collection. Each episodes discover simply how Zuko acquired his scar, and is actually the primary huge second the place you are meant to really feel sorry for the banished prince.
In each variations, Zuko is a part of a warfare assembly along with his father and the Hearth Nation’s military generals. He is meant to be simply sitting in, probably not contributing, however when one normal suggests they need to ship off the forty first division to die all to profit the warfare efforts (ahem, colonisation efforts) elsewhere, and Zuko decries the thought, questioning how they might presumably sacrifice their very own folks. It is an amazing second, exhibiting you the way Zuko is not actually match for the life he was born into, and up thus far he is by no means actually been proven to be compassionate.
For the animated unique, this backstory is regaled to his ship’s crew by Iroh, his uncle doing so as a result of he needs the crew to know that Zuko is not all unhealthy. The reside motion does the identical, besides the large reveal is that the ship’s crew themselves are the exact same forty first battalion, a change that ties the story previously to the story sooner or later actually properly. I actually do not hate this modification! However to be completely trustworthy, it is the one good one the present makes, and it being such a great change highlights even additional that it simply cannot match the unique.
I feel one of the aggravating, damaging adjustments the Netflix present makes is to do with one of many final episodes within the first season of the animated collection, the place the Gaang visits the Northern Air Temple. There, they discover {that a} group of individuals have made a house out of it, partially destroying the temple, upsetting Aang within the course of – that is his historical past, in any case, and he is the one air bender left. This entire plot line is simply condensed into an episode with the Gaang’s go to to Omashu, two fully separate occasions, as a result of… nicely, I do not know why! It would not add to the Omashu storyline in any manner, and also you lose the journey Aang goes by to study that change is okay, notably in a time of warfare.
Then there’s the truth that Aang would not study a lick of waterbending within the first season of the reside motion present, which can completely come again to chunk the author’s within the ass once they must stability each that and earth bending in season 2. That is on prime of small bits of sensible setup, like Iroh having the ability to redirect lightning, later utilizing this method when combating Zuko’s sister, a tiny second you would not consider half the time however simply fleshes out the story a lot extra, and is totally absent within the reside motion.
Maybe worst of all is the truth that none of those characters actually have flaws anymore. There’s battle, however solely between the great guys and the unhealthy guys, however the animated present understood that its protagonists have been youngsters, and like how actual children do, generally they argued over foolish issues. Aang is simply the right future youngster in Netflix’s model, keen to do his obligation to avoid wasting the world, by no means distracted, all the time dedicated – the exact opposite to how he’s meant to be.
Once I have a look at all these adjustments, I simply surprise how they managed to search out such a great one such because the forty first battalion one. I suppose when you throw sufficient s**t at a wall one thing will stick, proper? It does spotlight the potential of a contemporary adaptation although – even when I feel there’s few issues that may justify being remade – and the way you might construct upon already robust foundations.
Avatar is beloved for lots of causes, nevertheless it would not be almost as fondly remembered if it wasn’t for simply how nicely constructed a present it was. The unique group knew what they wished to do over the course of three seasons, and constructed it up in such a intelligent manner that you just as an viewers member would really feel sensible for placing the items collectively early. To not point out the one nice and financial use of animation, one thing the reside motion present would not even perceive.
I am nonetheless of the opinion that, even when it had been good, we did not and do not want this remake, nevertheless it’s no excuse for the way the present did prove. The best crime the present makes is failing to reside as much as its potential, and forces it to plummet additional than it wanted to. That, and Appa is barely in it, so why even trouble?