To be honest, I probably won’t be writing a review of the new Avatar adaptation. It’s not any good, but it won’t go down in history as one of the worst abominations of all time the way Shyamalan’s film did.
Suffice it to say that it has no reason to exist, and society really needs to get it through its thick skull that animation is at least as worthwhile a medium as live action, and an anime with deep characters and important themes doesn’t need a live-action adaptation, EVER!
Many people have already made it known how worthless this adaptation is and why it and adaptations like it should not be made in the first place. The YouTube channels Big Joel and Mother’s Basement have both made really insightful video essays on this thing.
Assuming the show’s producers haven’t used copyright abuse to silence him, you can find Big Joel’s essay here:
And although I disagree with a few of the things the Anime Pope likes about the new adaptation, Geoff Thew sums up most of what I think about the redundancy of this and all other live action remakes:
If you’re curious as to the nature of the aforementioned disagreement, the following is a good example of where I think Geoff is a tad bit too charitable:
Spoilers for The Storm (Episode 12 of the anime)
As for what I disagree with Geoff on, I maintain (as I said in my review of the Abomination) that both adaptations’ choice to make the cannon fodder Zuko’s friends detracts from what the relevant moment says about him as a person.
Ignoring my logistical gripes about how the thirteen-year-old prince of a totalitarian fascist empire would even know anyone who’d be at risk of being used as cannon fodder, making the new recruits his friends makes Zuko’s decision to speak out against the general’s plan trivially easy.
Most people would speak out against their friends being sacrificed. What’s meaningful in this scene in the anime, beyond its plot relevance, is that Zuko objects to the injustice. This shows his potential to be a radically different fire lord than either his father or his sister.
If he’s just defending his friends, then all that says about him is that he’s normal. It says nothing about his moral character, which was what comprised the great significance of his actions in the anime.
Big Joel’s original video on the subject was also great, but due to the usual false copyright claim bull💩, it’s only available to watch on Nebula. If, like me, you have a Nebula subscription, I recommend that one as well.
Also, since I don’t know if anyone else will point this out, I hate the font used for the main title of the new adaptation. I mean, it’s not as bad as the serif monstrosity that was the Shyamalan wordmark, but this faux-brush sans-serif logo just looks wrong for the tone of the story’s world.
And just so you can’t miss how out of place this geometric font looks, they made the bold decision to put the anime’s stylish, calligraphic logo right above it.
Too Long; Didn’t Read
I wouldn’t bother watching this new adaptation—or most any live-action adaptations of fantasy fiction, for that matter. The idea that a live-action adaptation of any great anime, novel, or graphic novel is in any way necessary or justified was put in your brain by Capitalist brainwashing. Wake up.
Have a nice day, and watch the anime instead.