Since I was 14 years old Avatar the Last Airbender has been a favorite. Unbeknownst to my friends and classmates I would look forward to rushing home during high school not to watch One Tree Hill or Gilmore Girls but this Nickelodeon cartoon. And while I could not make it to the premier of Shamalan’s ultimately devastating movie, you can bet I was there opening weekend.
Now, as a writer and teacher, I often look back to the world of Avatar for examples of world-building, characterizations, and relationship/character arcs.
But with the resurgence of new Avatar content comes another live-action adaptation. It’s been a while since I reviewed a series, so I think I’ll change things up a bit with a short episode-by-episode reaction and then summarize my thoughts.
Episode 1: Aang 6/10
The opening scene was intriguing but went on longer than needed. My husband and I were also confused at how long the comet was around for, as it appears in the opening scene and also the day of the genocide which logically has to be at least days/weeks later. The fire bending and Aang’s air bending both felt super overpowered; during the comet the first made sense, but throughout the episode Aang flew without his glider several times and also performed something like telekinesis once or twice. Aang mostly feels like himself and Gyatso is lovely. The change of Aang’s backstory to be upfront I’m not sure how to feel about but with the changes they made I didn’t really get the emotional exposition dump to Appa. It also just didn’t feel like a great way to convey these things even if they did carry weight.
Sokka was hilarious and after having been the most skeptical about him in the trailer, he immediately became my favorite. Katara feels a little wooden which could just be her age or the writing, but she is the hardest for me to believe right now. Zuko’s good though his little light-up dolls felt weird and unnecessary when the sky beam is literally right in front of their ship, but I love Aang stealing the journal. Overall not perfect, (scene inconsistencies seem happen pretty often like Aang’s glider showing up out of nowhere when we hadn’t seen it in ages and Katara heading to one place only to be somewhere else in the next scene) but pretty solid and I appreciated at least half of the new contributions they added.
Episode 2: Warriors 8/10
I love the expanded time with the Kyoshi warriors and Suki (who is PERFECT). What they did with the relationship between her and Sokka had its ups and downs leaving me somewhat confused with how they were trying to approach it, now she just has a crush I guess? The emphasis they are placing on Kyoshi feels weird to me though. She’s the opening narrator and the Avatar featured in that sequence, why? Why is she the first Aang meets and why have this vision that seems so unnecessary? They already have a very plausible reason/motivation to head to the North Pole which is reiterated at the end of the episode. Intrigued by Zhao’s new background and story, I think this addition will help build the rivalry well. By the end, I feel like the main three characters are still kind of strangers and have spent very little time developing any bond, but it’s only episode 2 and hey, at least Sokka and Suki kissed!
Episode 3: Omashu 7/10
The little details that they are already including (like Omashu being built on a living mountain) were interesting! I liked immediately that we could see the blending of storylines. Before Jet revealed himself I was going back and forth between it being him, Haru, a Fire Nation spy (especially when the bomb went off), or the deserter from Jong Jong’s group. I ended up being justified that, though it was Jet, he was behind the bombing. There was good character growth individually for Sokka and Katara, but Aang seemed to be a bit sidelined in this episode. Aang and Katara still feel the most estranged and wooden in their interactions within the group and there has been no effort made for the main 3 characters to actually bond. Some of this might be able to be blamed on the child acting but most of it is a story problem. The mechanist was good, but they don’t reveal how his invention falls into fire nation hands so how is that supposed to work? I can’t believe the Bumi plot wasn’t in the “Omashu” episode but I still really enjoyed how they wove all these elements together.
Episode 4: Into the Dark 3/10
Interesting beginning with Aang and Iroh. I genuinely enjoyed the Zuko and Iroh subplot, The rest of the episode, though had me questioning the showrunners. First, the choice to spend a whole extra episode in Omashu feels like such a waste of the limited time the characters have. Bumi’s character while perhaps a realistic portrayal of someone who felt abandoned is NOT Bumi. He’s vengeful and full of spite and simmering hatred and anger toward a person that logically, he should have believed died along with the other air nomads. He would have had no idea of Aangs being the avatar and, while possibly working it out when Aang arrived, you would thing the primary emotions would be shock and maybe even joy. The “tasks” that were supposed to teach Aang lessons have been reduced to passive-aggressive jabs and then a full-blown “fight to the death.” I hated it, along with Sokka and Katara’s side plot in the caves. Who, WHO decided that this season 2 side plot that revolved primarily around Aang & Katara’s possible emerging feelings for each other should be included as a brother/sister quest in season 1? Can anyone, anyone explain to me why is Sokka preaching on the power of love and having faith in the dark to follow these crystals while Katara lectures him on how they don’t have any meaning and to be logical? The characters completely switch personalities for this plot and I’m having none of it. At least I think the episode was aptly named as, even with blackout curtains and all the lights off I could barely see anything happening in the caves. (Why is media so obsessed with make poorly lit dark scenes where you can’t see anything?) I haven’t mentioned Azula up until now, but so far she’s been. . .fine, a little too rational and justified for someone who is literally a psychopath. I love Mae’s performance and think she’s pretty perfect casting, while Ty Lee is set dressing right now. Again we have an episode where Aang spends literally no time with his “friends” and I am doubting we’ll have any kind of meaningful relationship building at his point.
Episode 5: Spirited Away 2/10
I love Sokka’s interaction with the little girl. He really is showing up as the “adult” of their group and he is standing out by far as my favorite character. But then Sokka and Katara end up in the spirit world with Aang and they lost me. Everything in this plot was so unneccessary. There were already clearly defined motives and goals established in the original show for them to use and yet they keep inventing new and poorly thought-out replacements. It’s honestly a bit like watching some of the later Harry Potter movies that had to dance around to make the plot make sense because they unknowingly left something important out of a previous film. Unfortunately, this show does not have that excuse. Even when liking some of the moments and homages (like Sokka’s talk with the Kitsune and the Owl Spirit’s appearance) it didn’t make up for this not making sense. Instead of any meaningful exploration of the spirit world we got Koh being the creepy villain rather than a morally ambiguous spirit, and a depressing flashback rewriting Sokka’s relationship with his father, Hakoda. Like King Bumi, this feels like an unnecessary rewrite (destruction) of the characters. The fabricated past between Ruko and Koh had me so confused and tired. Honestly, the sharp turns to try and force certain characters or plots back in when their side story was cut out is ridiculous. Zuko’s plot in this episode is barely memorable only introducing June and the shirshu. (I also think this is the only allusion we get to extra time having passed between episodes when they reference all the plots they left out of the adaptation.) In the Gaang’s timeline, it feels like it’s been 2 weeks tops. We are over halfway and I fear this mess of a story is only going to get worse.
Episode 6: Masks 9/10
Just to recap, going into this episode Aang has a serious ticking clock of rescuing Sokka and Katara from Koh in the spirit world, we are going to be meeting Roku and, from the title and episode description, we will also be meeting Zuko’s blue spirit which means Aang being captured by Zhao. Oh! and June is somehow involved. Even with how they’ve been weaving things together this feels like a lot from the outset, and I wasn’t hopeful after the last two episodes. However, this episode was a surprisingly coherent story! Zhao’s reveal of his betrayal was supper effective and while Ruko, like Kyoshi, felt a little off to me that was minor, (as was his contribution to the overall plot). Side note: the narration in this episode came out of nowhere and was kind of a distracting device since they hadn’t used it before. June was great and the almost shot-for-shot remake of the Blue Spirit Escape was pretty fun, though again, so poorly lit sometimes it was impossible to see. The longer conversation between Aang and Zuko after was the best character interaction and relationship-building of the series so far, even if it did get a little too on the nose near the end.
Little Zuko being nervous for his first war council was fantastic as was Iroh’s interaction with him. The Agni Kai was good and for the first time Azula really felt like Azula as she watched Zuko being burned in fascination. Ozai is also a little to tamed down for my liking but the reveal of the 41st being Zuko’s crew was, I think, the best addition they have made to the series overall.
Episode 7: The North 6/10
Loved the snow in Appa’s fur. Arnook looked perfect, but Pakku and Yue, not so much. (I couldn’t get over Pakku’s obvious bald cap). Then we see Azula training against an earth-bending prisoner. This was a super interesting concept but why, why doesn’t she have her blue fire? And the little changes keep piling up. Hahn’s personality, Yue being a water-bender, oh, and a spirit fox? The expectation of the Northern Water Tribe has of Aang makes no sense and no one trains him. Pakku even chides Aang when they find out that he hasn’t mastered all the disciplines and won’t be much help in the battle by saying “you should have trained more on your journey.” How? And with whom? In this alt-universe they’ve created where Katara and Aang have had very little time training and Pakku knows they’ve had no teacher, there should be no expectation for Aang to know any water bending at all. This would have been fixed if they stuck to the original motivation of the characters (the Gaang going to the North to learn water bending and the Fire Nation attacking the North BECAUSE the Avatar was there. Zhao’s ego trip over the spirits was never the reason for the invasion.) This same thing carries over to the water tribe culture which as a whole has gender inequality. But then they rewrote the subplot about Yue’s betrothal as if she had total agency to break it off when this custom and the restrictions on women bending are undeniably connected. Women in the North don’t have the agency either to be benders or to choose who they marry (hence why Katara’s grandmother ran away to get out of the engagement in the original series). Taking away one but not the other is illogical. So while I very much enjoyed the untoxic relationship between Hahn and Sokka, I don’t think it should have come at the expense of the in-universe logic/culture. If they wanted both sides they should have had Hahn be the one to call off the betrothal because he knew Yue didn’t want it. Things I liked this episode were the conversation between Sokka and Katara, such a nice moment and the fight with Pakku. However, why is it that Firebenders can incinerate people, but nobody gets wet when hit with waterbending? It’s something I’ve noticed once or twice in the other episodes but is particularly obvious here in battles involving multiple waterbenders. Every one is always bone dry. By the end of the episode neither Aang or Katara has had one moment of real water-bending training and they’ve only been there for maybe a day so. . .
Episode 8: Legends 5/10
The idea of the women fighting is great, except none of them know how to do ANY bending other than healing. The moment between Sokka and Hahn was great, again, I really enjoy the respect they have for each other!
Then we find out that it’s not that they happen to be attacking on a full moon but have specifically chosen something called an Ice Moon? One, shouldn’t this give the water benders like Sozin’s comet level of power? And how does that fire sage know this super-sensitive information? It makes so little sense. But all of that was forgotten when they (nearly) killed Momo and healed him 30 seconds later? There was no point in that except lazy emotional manipulation. They also repeat same thing with Aang later.
Aang’s words to Katara before the Zuko fight were cool but how/when did Katara learn any of new moves? She fought Pakku yesterday and he never took her as a student. Regardless it was an awesome fight, one of the best of the series, and in both this scene and the one between Zhao and Iroh in the Spirit Oasis the dialog is fantastic (being mostly ripped directly from the original series.)
Zhao’s whole delusion about being the next Firelord and the Avatar not mattering was reaching too far for the character and universe. The battle after the moon spirit is killed is probably the best large battle of the whole series. It’s also the best-lit dark scene we’ve had the whole series which means they know how to do it!
I had such high hopes (and probably would have rated this much higher) until they started talking about Aang being lost for good and Spirit Godzilla emerged. Yes, full-on Godzilla. I was mentally facepalming every time it was on screen. Taking away Zhao’s death at the hand of the ocean spirit was anticlimactic and yet for some reason the Ocean Spirit Godzilla paused for that entire sequence. Even after we get back to it, the action is slow to pick up again.
The emotional manipulation surrounding Aang’s fate though, (when we know it can’t be true) was the same as Momo. Like killing off a Marvel character who you know has a movie coming up. The only thing that made me concerned was the possibility that the showrunners hated the source material enough to actually kill Aang and end the show there. In other words, all the emotion I felt took me out of the immersion rather than making me more invested.
But then the battle is over, the aftermath is portrayed well, and Pakku just happens to have the vial of oasis water on him when Katara turns down his invitation to stay. I guess he was carrying around for the entire battle for some reason?
Aang’s abrupt change of emotion at the end is a little whiplashing but welcome, since his tears were struggling to convince me. I don’t remember Sokka ever being that concerned with food in this series so the joke feels out of nowhere (or rather out of the original series). And the intention to go back to Omashu has me so confused why we then spent two full episodes there this season and allowed some of the season 2 elements to take up screen time.
As for Azula being the one to conquer Omashu, I don’t know how I feel about that one way or another. I’m emotionally exhausted as it is and will leave that for next season I guess.
In Summary:
Everything in this show is a little more or a little less than the original. Katara is a little less emotionally sensitive and a little more fixated on being a powerful fighter. Sokka is a little more mature and a little less sexist, Zukko is a little more in touch with his emotions and the truth behind his motivation. Azula is much more rational and less intimidating, Bumi is a little more unhinged and less wise. Koh is a lot more and less important simultaneously as he provides no useful information and is simply an episodic villain. Some bending feels a little overpowered and bending is just slightly less tied to movement. Everything is faster and makes a lot less sense.
After watching the whole show, it feels a lot like a Disney-style “fix it” to try and cover what the show creators must have seen as flaws in the original and to make it more “relevant”. However, it’s not a complete loss and not every change is bad. There were some genuinely good moments and if they had allowed themselves a few more episodes and more moments for the characters to build connection instead of just telling us that they’re friends or telling us they see each other as family, then maybe it could have at least overshadowed the butchered plot we had to sit through in many of the episodes. As it is, I don’t think I could give the whole season more than a 6 out 10, but I have hope that they can remedy some of these mistakes and improve in the later seasons just as the original series did.
