Episode 5- 0:30 Episode 6- 13:00 Episode 7- 24:50 Episode 8- 31:20

What I really didn't like is the fact that Katara became a "master" in the blink of an eye without having to learn anything from Pakku, and without us seeing her actually practice more. It felt so unearned. I also can't get over Aang not learning ANY waterbending in Book 1, water.

Yeah the exposition is the biggest hurdle for me with this show. It constantly felt like we are being talked down to instead of letting us experience the story as it played out. Thats something I never felt while watching the cartoon which was made for a younger audience than this show. But i think this is not a live action avatar problem, but it's more of a widespread Hollywood problem. I've noticed it as well in One Piece's live action with the whole bad marine good marine, bad pirate good pirate talk. It feels like they're not confident in the audience getting it so they hsve to spoonfeed us.

The crew being the legion Zuko saved is head canon for the original show for me now.

in the case of Yue specifically, I think she could still bend because she had part of the moon spirit within her, not because of where she was

30:34 I feel like Ozai is someone who’s more chill with his kids disagreeing with his commands if they show ruthlessness. When Zuko spoke out against him it was out of compassion, when Azula did the same it was out of the opposite desire - she literally says “set me loose on the world to show you what I can do” which I think contributed to Ozai being not as angry 🤷🏻‍♂️

30:44 I honestly was 100% sure Azula would say "No, I'm not chosing, I will beat all four of them." Which wouldn't be exactly disobeying her father and instead show her bloodlust and just how harsh and confident she is. And it probably would've convinced Ozai just as well. I think they should've asked me haha

One thing I didn't like about the Zuko flashback was Iroh's attitude towards the crew. In the original series he was empathetic to the crew and still willing to call out Zuko when he has his outbursts. He sat down with them and calmly explained the situation without expecting anything from them. In the Live action he actively tells them sternly that they should respect Zuko for what he did. I don't think it ruins the moment, but it definitely doesn't feel like Iroh to me, and a lot of the live action has stuff like that imo.

Sokka was literally the boy of her dreams. She visits the spirit world when sleeping.

I have to disagree on the characterization of Roku and the lessening of the bond between Aang and Roku. The whole war started because of Roku's decision to not kill Sozin due to their friendship and believing Sozin would drop the issue. Also the family lineage being such a huge part of Zuko's family. So to basically ignore that and focus on all of the avatar's and "their beliefs" lessening the blame that can be put on Roku for putting the world in the situation that it is currently. To me that is the writers ignoring an important plot line that could have fit nicely into their "wanting to be GoT mentality". It was an unneeded change just so they can have Kyioshi be the one to go into the Avatar state even though she has no connecting to the events of the war AT ALL!

Ozai was happy with the defiant Azula because he got a glimpse of precisely what he was trying to manufacture.

I actually enjoyed how Yue was still able to bend because part of the moon spirit still lives on inside her, I thought that was a nice touch

I think one of the biggest problems with movies and series these days is the writing. It's almost like they lack the basic knowledge on how to write compelling dialogues and characters, even if they're doing an adaptation from an already established story. The actors can only do so much, and special effects get boring very quickly if the story isn't written well.

This is the review I'd want the directors to see for their feedback

Yue being able to waterbend after the moon spirit died is probably because part of the moon spirit was still in her, kinda makes sense.

35:21 this was because Yue had part of the moon spirit in her. So she could still waterbend when everyone else couldn't

My pitch for dispatching Azula builds on the line about him emptying the prisons. Ozai "Pick one" Azula "No" Ozai gets mad imediatly cutting her off. Azula "I choose all of them" she beats them easily impresses Ozai. Then pitches leaving for Omashu. Still defys Ozai but tries to manipulate him while showing off.

The problem I have with this show is, like you mentioned, that it adapts "tell, don't show", the exact opposite of how it's supposed to be. It tells us everything through dialogue, or monologue even. One good example of that is, you know we all loved that 41st division being Zuko's crew and he fought for them to save them. When Iroh tells the story, we already know they are the 41st. But lieutenant says "Wait, we are 41st" to ensure we get it because apparently we're not smart enough to understand it on our own. Edit: and a few minutes later you say exactly that.

Wish this money could've gone to new creative endeavours. I don't want to invalidate all of the passion and hard work that went into this product, but allocating this many resources to remake something that is already close to perfect is just so... stagnant... Edit: such a negative comments in such a positive space, and although positivity usually prevails, this show made me somewhat sad and I can't help but verbalise it. Much love

I don't like that they had Zuko fight back in his Agni Kai. In the original series, he wasn't banished for speaking out in the war room. He was banished for refusing to fight in the agni kai. In the live action, he was banished for "being weak" even though he fought back and had the chance to beat Ozai. It also kind of weakens Ozai's threat if he basically lost a fight against his 13 year old kid.

Princess Yue in the spirit world was also a nod to Won Shi Tong’s foxy assistants at the library. Sokka was the boy of her dreams because she met him in her dream which is when she journeys the Spirit World

I really admire the effective way the One Piece live action built up the world by imparting bits of exposition throughout the series through conversations. This is why I loved all of the Garp, Koby, and Helmeppo scenes: I learned so much about the world through their interactions and only became more intrigued. Everything felt natural and not once did I ever feel like I was being bombarded by huge amounts of info dump unlike the Avatar live action. I wish the Avatar LA emulated the OPLA approach when it came to characters and exposition...

I really didn’t like episode 5 either. My biggest issue was Aang and Gyatso reuniting in the Spirit World. On the surface it was a cute moment but I think it diminishes the weight of that loss. Aang’s grief and guilt is one of his driving forces and it’s one of the reasons why he can’t master the Avatar State which is explored with Guru Pathik. It’s also something that ties Aang, Katara, and even Zuko together. They’ve all experienced great losses and giving Aang even a little bit of closure doesn’t work for me. Especially considering this Aang didn’t really run from his responsibility, he just left to clear his head.

I think my main problem was that nearly all of the most emotional moments and all of the character development were extremely toned down. As said in the video: Aang not running away or Sokkas sexism. It's not about the sexism per se but the lack of development. Sokka respected Suki instantly, his fault was to see her as a kin while not being such a well trained warrior, which was way less drastic. Katara was robbed of all of her temper. She wasn't confronted with any anger or frustration: at Jet, Pakku, her being defeated, her learning slower than Aang... All of this "i'm the master" felt not earned and powerful, as well, but like "strong female protagonist plot armor". What's the message of this? If you are a bad ass girl you don't need someone to train you? It clashed with the overall message of not having to achieve everything in life alone, too. Zuko not tyring to save Zhao, which was such an important moment. Combing the Agni Kai with the final battle wasn't a bad idea, but they could've kept that in, anyway. Azula...well I got that they wanted to show how toxic Ozai was, but she was so open about her insecurities that I already see her downfall being less impactful. Yue was robbed of much of her agency and character with just blowing off her engagement. I did not hate the show, but it felt so weird that while they wanted to make it more adult and dark...they smoothed each character's edges and toned down the most emotional moments. I understand why they would've wanted the siege of the north in, but cutting book 1 in half and using something different for the first great showdown would've been much better.

"You can't just anounce how your character feels! THAT MAKES ME FEEL ANGRY" 20:55

Personally, and apologies for being negative, I dont think we needed a live-action Aang series/movie. Its difficult to adapt and his story has already been told. I'm of the mindset that this should have been an original Avatar series either set between Wan and Yangchen or after Korra. This show missed the mark, in my opinion, but I think if they did a grimdark fantasy or a sci-fi/cyberpunk era for the Avatar, we might have had a different result. All Im saying is: leave Aang and the gang alone. At least for live-action. We did his story, and I know we have an animated movie with him and the others as adults releasing in a few years. A different avatar in live action could help expand the lore and have more breathing room for storytelling.

In the first episode Aang literally looks to the camera to tell us how he feels about being the Avatar, in case his reaction to Gyatso telling him and he being able to sleep werent clues good enough, the exposition was really one of the biggest hurdles there.

The "boy of her dreams" is a reference to Yue during her dreams visiting the Spirit World (as a fox) and literally interacting with Sokka there. So not within 5 minutes, but 10

I like how the original show explicitly mocks the trope of meeting a master and then instantly becoming great at something (in the Sokka learning to sword fight episode) and then this show does it repeatedly. There is also a problem someone pointed out to me that they go out of the way to show the brutality of the fire nation and how awful the war is, then once Aang is around suddenly that goes away. Like in the attack on Kyoshi village everyone is fine, a few buildings get singed. That would be fine and in line with the original if they didn’t go out of their way to emphasize the violence elsewhere.

The fire bending bringing back the color during the time the moon was dead is from the original. It’s another great example of good things in this rendition being things that are closely related to the original, just like episode 6. Outside of just having more episodes being what was really needed, I think they should have just kept Azula until the very end like the original. A decent amount of the limited time they had went to scenes of her development, which reduced the ability to flesh out other areas. The fact that Azula could be cut completely with little to no impact on the story they told is evidence that it wasn’t really needed. They could have had a cool cliffhanger reveal like the original by still doing the conquering of Omashu and leaving us wondering about this new villain that will be undoubtedly causing trouble for the Gaang. This would also make it more interesting for new viewers, instead of gambling on a whole other layer of changes. -Also, just to note, I did actually like the season overall but there were a lot of strange decisions made.

I think what makes atla great and is kind of missing in this (and it's also missing in Korra btw) is subtlety. The original cartoon is a perfect case study of how to communicate things to the audience without saying them.

35:20 Yue's bending is the only thing that makes sense among the many breakings of their own rules. Bending comes from the Moon, and she IS the Moon, so it works. The rule wasn't broken, as she was always the exception to the rule

I loved Zuko so much, I feel he is easily the best part of this season and I think he’s even better than in OG book 1. And his finally scene where he is just deflated is so good and gets me really excited for how his story continues in season 2. Really hoping the directors have time in the next season to help the actors portray more emotion and they employ more visual storytelling and cut some of the hamfisted dialogue.

35:29 so I was ok with yue being the only one who can bend in the blackout because I realized SHE IS THE MOON SPIRIT. She can still bend because the moon spirit could always bend so she was the only one able to when the moon spirit only existed inside of her

the rant for episode 5 to me just applies to basically everything. the things get changed, but there's no reason for the changes besides having the changes. and the changes ultimately made the series worse. because too much just got lost for no reason. so overall, I give the series the rating of "no reason to ever watch it over the animated series"

That shirt is hanging in for dear life 😂

This is the Pokemon BDSP to the movie's DP and the original cartoon is Platinum.

I think this could get a lot better with a season two especially since the originals second season is less episodic and I actually want to see this Zuko and Iroh develop

For the Kuruk gripe. I believe once he disappears, we see that they’re standing in front of his shrine and the doors were open. Not a great justification buuuut it’s something lol

24:00 I don't remember exactly the events but I don't think that was the point of the statue. Aang gave it to him just as a trade for the people he captured. I saw it just as a trade, not a solution to the curse problem. The curse has been stealing faces for thousands of years and he's gonna keep doing it. The water tribe avatar wanted to kill him as revenge for killing his wife. But the curse is too powerful. Maybe Roku said something about the statue that I forgot?

Love all the reflections and opinions on the line action. One thing I noticed though. I don't think it's weird that Yue could still bend at that moment. She had the moon spirit within her, so even though it died she still would have had it's energy to bend.

The whole thing with Coe and that statue of his mother made since to me simply bc it was a trade situation. Aang traded that statue for his friends and the people of that town. I didnt take that as a solution to keep all people from getting eaten by him. Now as for Kuruk, Coe killed his wife simply out of retaliation of the war Kuruk lead against the spirits. And since Kuruk came before Roku, this statue solution didnt exist yet, so he couldnt just trade something to get her back.

i don't have timestamps on mine

One theory I've heard for having Wan Shi Tong in episode 5 is that they did it to spread out the CGI costs for next season. If they spend the money modelling and rigging him this season, they can just reuse the asset in the future, leaving more money to spend on other effects. I don't know if it's true, but it makes sense to me.

Never watched the OG animation but I think they did a really good job on this

Ironically I think the change in Iroh and Zuko's "father/son" conversation was an effort to be more subtle. I read it as them both trying to say something vulnerable while remaining tough Fire Nation soldiers. "Lu Ten woul've been proud to be your son" was Zuko saying "you've been like a father to me" and Iroh giving him last minute advice that he didn't really need was his way of treating him like a son. Maybe it was too subtle, especially in a show with so much on-the-nose dialogue at times it felt like a musical where the songs were replaced with fighting. They should've just had Saka get injured and Suki take him to the oasis for healing. It would've looked less dumb than using Momo, and would've been the perfect excuse for why he wasn't in a position to stop her from sacrificing herself. You're not going to stop in the middle of a war to save a lemur.

I was just wondering this morning when you were going to share your next thoughts. So excited to watch! Thanks for posting

I purposely did not re-watch the original series to go in with a cautiously optimistic open mind and came away from the live action series thinking that it was really okay. My biggest gripe initially after watching the 8-episode series, is that it was too compressed and didn't allow much if any character growth at all. After watching your two reviews, I find that I agree with the vast majority of your commentary especially about the pacing and dialogue. Regardless, I hope they can do better in season two (hopefully with more episodes).

I love the massive differences in the trauma. Kitara: *mom burns alive sacrificing herself to protect her daughter* Sokka: "Sokka? More like sucka!" -his Dad, probably

I agree wholeheartedly that a better depiction of (some of) Sokka's trauma would be the flashback of Hakoda leaving when Sokka was a younger boy, as seen in the animated series. It would've been a great way to highlight the loss of a parental figure through physical absence instead of death and its lasting effects. Perhaps it would feel too redundant (i.e., Katara focusing on their mom being gone and Sokka on their dad being gone)? Still, a parent being physically absent (out of the picture but not deceased) can be just as traumatic for a child. I'm hoping they wanted to shy away from it due to some sort of redundancy and not because they didn't deem it jarring enough. Though, perhaps from a guy's perspective, having your father speak ill of you is more jarring. As women, we can't say, so that is something to note...

We haven’t seen any bad ass moment for iroh, which just adds to the list of disappointments In the cartoon we had him escaping and besting his capturers on his own, and he actually unleashing some furry blows to zhao. Among other moments

Katara vs Master Pakku looked bad because they took the exact fight from the cartoon and just plopped it in as-is, which makes for some awkward camera angles and floatyness that doesn't make as much sense in live action. (to be clear, the camera angles weren't copied from the cartoon but they probably couldn't find perfect ones to fit with the action like they could if they built the scene from scratch) Idk why they decided to do that, especially since they then changed the meaning of the fight plot-wise.

Now that you bring up Aang always bringing up that his people were lost in every episode like it was shoehorned in. Kinda reminds me of some of the critiques some people Ive heard had with Katara in the original series.

I'll admit it's annoying when people say they "had" to condense the story. It barely has a different run time than book one and they added a ton of bs that was entirely unessesary. Each EP is an hour long, enough to fit 3 20 min episodes in so I don't really love that excuse.

It wasn't worth it

First of all, I want to say thank you for putting so much love and care into these reviews. Too often, I feel like when I see reviewer for this show, they are either on one side of the isle or the other, they either give it unnecessary hate or, in my opinion they look at it through rose colored glasses. You give the good the bad and the ugly and I feel like you went into this really wanting to enjoy it. Which is why I feel like you are more open to conversation than others so thank you. Now, that out of the way, I went into this cautiously optimistic. I wanted it to be good, I wanted it to succeed and I'm glad that, at the end of the day it did. Some of my thoughts might be very similar to yours, while others we may widely differ. But that's what I love about conversation. I liked what you said about "They carved out the rough edges" because, I believe that's exactly what happened here. Sometimes it worked, other times..... yeeeeaaaa.... So anyway, let me really start now. I know it's been done to death but to begin, we have to talk about Sokka. Now, I don't believe anyone should be looked down upon. Ever. For any reason, especially gender. BUT I have to build upon my experience here, so, as a Self-Published author, one of the things that I had trouble with for a long time was making sure my characters had depth. I didn't want them to be unlikable. But, what I learned was, often times, the moments they are the most unlikable is when they are unrelatable. I'm sure we've all had times when we were underestimated either for our gender or a disability or, a plethora of any other reasons. And sometimes, unfortunately, we are on the giving end of that as well. There are two ways in which a character can be relatable. Positively, or Negatively. Having Sokka seen negatively and then getting his by Katara or the Kyoshi Warriors or a few others he meets, not only do we get that satisfaction of laughing at him, but it makes us look inward and see "Shoot, have we ever done that?" Not only that, but, in my opinion it would make that line where he's telling Katara to kick Paku's butt, really PUNCH. Right now, it's kinda like, "Yea, that's cool and all, but Sokka doesn't really doubt her ability, he thinks she's immature (something I'm also gonna touch on in a minute.) The moment they get to the North, Sokka is supposed to see his negative beliefs come thrown at him 100fold and more than anything make him think "I done goofed" and it just really clinches his rallying behind Katara. Not to mention, hot take, they didn't even do a very good job writing out the sexism. It was still there just subtle which in a lot of ways in my opinion, made it more jarring. So many times it felt like he would say a line where, he's supposed to take it a bridge too far, but he can't so there's this awkward pause where he just stays on it for a second or two too long. (I need to make it clear, I'm not blaming the acting, I'm blaming the writing. I only blame the acting when I feel like it's an actor who should know better.) And just one more point on this, Aangs awakening and that trembling, makes no sense anymore. Okay, now, my biggest gripe, again it's controversial, but my biggest gripe is, Katara. I know, they were trying to make a strong female character, but in my opinion..... it missed... big time. I don't just blame this on the writing though, I blame this on how, especially in the last few years, I feel like we as a society view "strength" wrong. Strength is not self-made. There may be many moments of self reflection and meditation. But, it comes from others. Uncle Iroh said it best. "While it is always great to believe in oneself, a little help from others can be a great blessing." Also, "It is important to draw wisdom from many different places." But none of this was allowed to happen, it really felt like, one minute she's bad at waterbending, the next minute she's tossing people around. (But only sometimes.) And I'm sorry, but I really.... really really.... disliked the line they gave her after the tiff with Jett. "That Wasn't You Jett, it Was ME..." Whether Katara wanted to admit it or not, he did help her. He gave her that visualization to calm her down, she was so focused on the pain and the fear and the anger, Jett convinced her to bend from a different place in her mind, Even if he didn't follow his own advice. And, circling back to another point, where was the immaturity? Okay yes, she snapped at Sokka while defending Jett, but there were so many other things that they could have fed off of. We needed to see Katara lose her cool, get really mad, scream, yell, something to connect us to her. A lot of people had issue with Secret Tunnel. And I get it now, at the time, for live action, that was probably not a good one to do. My response to that, skip it, move it to season 2 where it's not as much of an issue anymore. Put in the Waterbending Scroll. (I know, that means taking it away from Gran Gran, but honestly, having the scroll stolen from the tribe or even taken out on purpose, makes more sense for what was going on at the time.) Anyway, that episode had so much development for Katara, people say that episode makes her unlikable, but that's the point. Jealousy is ugly. Seeing her get angry, and sneaky and stubborn, and confused. All those emotions. It would have given her actress so much to play with. Seeing her turn against Aang, for no other reason than her inward simple thinking. Instead of thinking, "He's the Avatar, he needs to learn this. This is good." She was only thinking inwardly. "How dare he just come in and be good at this when I've been working my whole life with (what she feels is) little result! At a point where Aang doesn't deserve it. He's not trying to anger her, he's just being a kid trying to impress his teacher and his crush. By taking out beats like that, they stifled Katara, she had to get past that ugliness within herself and that to me, even more than the fight with Paku, convinced me that she was ready to be Aangs Waterbending teacher. Now, I mentioned before, I don't really blame the acting. I also liked what you said about not trusting the audience. Funny thing, earlier in she week, I was watching an episode of "Bottom Teir Character Tomozaki." And, I burst out laughing because it felt so on the nose. To condense it down. A Character was writing a script for a play based off the manuscript of a novel she had written. During one of the last points in which she asked Tomozaki to read it, and tell her if there was anything he would change, he mentioned that it was harder to understand the characters motivations in the scripted version. She admitted she changed their personality to make it more translatable. Not just for times sake but, to hopefully not overwhelm the actors. He challenged her to write the characters the way she had originally done so. I belive that's exactly what happened here. I use the excuse of their young, they don't have a ton of experience, to explain why I don't really blame their acting. But, if the writer is doing that as well, there's a problem. One of Katara's best scenes is when she's just trying to get Aang to practice with her and it ends with them playing in the water, just being kids. Because it doesn't feel forced, it doesn't feel overly stage-directed, like a lot of the more serious scenes. They have to be allowed to experiment somewhere to really experience this. They know the content, trust that. All that to say, I'm glad that they got green-lit for seasons 2&3 hopefully by the time those come around everyone will be more comfortable in their part in this, actors, directors and writers. Then they can say "Okay, let's take the kids gloves off and do this thing right."

If the series felt the need to info dump so much, then maybe they should've slowed down the pacing for it all to feel more natural.

I have many issues with this show, but I agree that the Zuko and Iroh dynamic was one of the things that the live-action nailed. Episode 5 was my least favorite as well and Hai Bei being sidelined in this story was one of the biggest problems along with how they oversimplified Koh into being just an evil spirit for Aang to overcome. This episode just throws everything to do with the spirit world at you at once. Throwing information at the audience is an issue throughout the live-action. Overall, there were some genuinely really good things here, like the 41st division and the Iroh and Zuko relationship, but this adaptation lacked subtlety, both in the dialogue and storytelling. A lot of the symbols and callbacks that were in the original series are just kind of here without any real meaning or depth attached.

If they really wanted to focus on the effects of war, why not use haru's episode to show how the earthbenders have lost spirit and how the fire nation is tearing apart families? (Also more katara development) It's also strange they split the winter solstice episodes (a two-part episode in the original) over two live action episodes. Also for "boy of my dreams" I think they were going for the fact that she was asleep while she was a fox, so she literally met sokka in a dream

I feel like the avatar shrine plot point was more focused to nerf Aang in a sense to prevent previous avatars to take over while in the avatar state. So Aangs own character has to grow rather than lean on previous avatars do all the work.

Overall, my final thoughts are much the same as yours-I didn't go into it expecting it to suck and really wanted it to be good, but agree that it didn't quite get all the way there despite the fact that it was definitely at very least much-much better than the movie. (Some things/changes worked well, others didn't really.) And I'm kinda mad that Appa & Momo weren't in it more, and weren't more like actual full-on characters of their own not just background animals(like the Ostrich-Horses or whatever). Still, I really hope it gets a season 2!! But. .many Mixed feelings!!!!

Thanks for the video, Merphy! Totally agree a lot with what you said.. Way too much exposition.. The spirit realm episode changes were definitely.. odd. Overall, I really enjoyed watching this, seeing the world brought into live action.. I just want them to do better for S2. (REALLY hoping they continue this project!) The aesthetics were stellar, most actors here are awesome.. I just can't get behind most of the mixing of storylines.

I don't mind giving other Avatars a bit more spotlight but the lack of a bond and current trivial characterization of Roku will lessen the impact of the revelation that Roku's one of Zuko's grandfathers a lot if we don't have a strong bond with Roku.

I think you misunderstood about Koh and Yue. Koh didn't release all of his victims. He only released the villagers that the Avatar knew about. Kuruk didn't steal the statue. Roku stole the statue. Which means Koh has been stealing faces for a long time not just because his mother's totem was stolen. Although if people kept stealing his statue and giving it back they could free victims of Koh. Yue had several dreams about Sokka before he saw her in the spirit world. She broke off the engagement at least a year before she met Sokka. We know that she is not the same age she was when she broke off the engagement. They didn't say specifically how many years, but at least a year has passed. Also Yue was part Moon Spirit. If anyone in the world could waterbend still, it should be her. Edit: I didn't feel like this Iroh felt angry or forceful enough when threatening Zhao.

Modge podge is a craft product often used for gluing puzzles together. Hodge podge is the idiomatic phrase you’re looking for.

I believe Zhao’s death was a huge missed opportunity given what we learn happens to him in Legend of Korra. Iroh could still defend Zuko but, rather than kill Zhao, knock him into the water. Then the ocean spirit would enact his/its revenge on Zhao by sucking him into spiritually lit depths to suffer for eternity in the spiritual world.

This show is all over the place

Merphy the streets need a Percy Jackson video

I really don't understand why they rushed things with Sokka and Suki when they kept him and Yue and it all happened in this first season. I feel like at least Katara would have been like "what about Suki??" instead of encouraging him with Yue.

35:00 I am wondering how they plan to get me emotionally invested in the kidnapping of Appa, when his presence was also greatly lessened! Like, I don't care about the relationship between this Appa and this Aang.

I feel like Yue being the fox is added in because they're also mixing in elements of the swamp. (Atla animation spoilers) in the swamp katara sees her mother and sokka sees yue . However In the animation she has already died(is moon lol). so sokka seeing her made sense for seeing those we lost. So since she's not gone it la, but also in the swamp aang sees Toph. Who he will meet in will be a major impact. They basically made yue that for sokka since he had not met her yet.

The thing is the LA and the Cartoon has a very similar total runtime. Especially if u take out "filler" episodes like the great divide and the fortune teller. So them dropping important episodes and characters like jeong jeongdoesn't make sense

Episode 6: I don’t like that they changed where Joao kept Aang to a just a fort and not a city, but it makes sense since he’s alone. But also we won’t get frogs to save Sokka and Katara from an illness, no scenes of those two seeing illusions.

Some of my thoughts. Face stealer: Anyone else find it weird aang rushed off to find a way to deal with Koh before he ate sokka and katara but he had no idea how long it would be until he ate them? Like he could of eaten them immediately. Aang had to travel to another island how long was he gone? I also don’t get why Roku even stole the statue in the first place? I’m not sure if it was explained in like a spin off book or not but it really did just seem like a deus ex machina McMuffin. The Agni Kai: Idk how to feel about the Agni kai being an extended fight. I think I prefer zuko outright not being willing to fight his father and having Ozai then brand him. In the cartoon when ozai did it he did it in front of almost the entire fire nation which really just showed how much of a punishment Ozai wanted this to be for zuko but in the live action they didn’t do that and then when Ozai burns zuko he actually looks upset by it and the also (like you acknowledged too) azula doesn’t look like she agrees with it either unlike the cartoon where she was pumped during it. It seems like they want them to be more redeemable which I think ties like you said, into their problem of not wanting characters to have flaws and I just don’t agree like it. (Also while I do like the 41st division idea they did I also don’t understand the reasoning behind Ozai giving them to zuko. Like did he not want to go along with the other generals plan of using them as a suicide squad anymore?) Katara vs master paku: Katara didn’t learn healing at all. She literally did one thing for 10 seconds and then just abandoned it. Like I get she wants to fight but healing is still something valuable to learn, idk why she immediately dropped it. Especially since she’ll be healing in later season so are they just gonna act like she now knows how to heal after 10 seconds of training? I do like how they handle master paku coming around though. That he didn’t just because of her necklace but rather everyone else came around to her before paku did and then that influenced him too. It still had other problems but I think it was in the right idea. Yumi’s sacrifice: I think sokka’s response to her sacrificing herself was a bit stagnant like he should of tried smashing the ice to escape. He didn’t even struggle he just looked at her and said ‘no, stop. Pls don’t’ And totally agree with the momo moment. I understand momo and appa can’t be in the show much because they’re cgi and expensive but idk I feel like they could of done a bit more with them. Final scene: They did the same thing as the first scene of the series. Ozai said his plan was for the earth kingdom to believe he was gonna attack them so that all attention would be directed to the earth kingdom but like I don’t think that makes sense. The air nomads don’t have a military and it’s not like any earth kingdom soldiers are stationed at the air temple. Seems like his plans just got ruined so he pretended that’s what he wanted. And same thing here they acted like attacking the northern water tribe somehow aided taking omashu, like how? Earth kingdom soldiered weren’t helping or gonna help the water tribe. Omashu would have the exact same man power and even if they new about the fire nation attacking it, it wouldn’t mean they’d just be off guard as if %100 of the fire nation would be there and that they don’t have other soldiers that could still attack omashu.

Yue said she visited the spirit world while she was sleeping. She met Sokka in the spirit world as a fox. He was literally the boy of her dreams.

The Avatar story is essentially a RPG campaign story, the side quests are necessary to show growth, when you're main characters are kids you need time to show that they are actually learning you can't just say yeah i learned a trick from watching earth benders when we didn't see that. When your characters are adults it's easier to say this guy is smart because he's the master of whispers, you hear the title and you're willing to accept this as fact because he couldn't have gotten that job in the first place we don't need to see this person growing

So happy to hear your final thoughts, I had exactly the same problem with finishing the series, in the process of adapting the storylines to this 8 episode structure, they kinda took away all the hooks, surprise twists and escalation out of the story which made the series kind of a drag to get through.

It feels like they were afraid they would only get one season so the included some of the cool stuff from season two prematurely.

I think the biggest change I would have supported for a live action avatar is aging up the actors. It is really hard tor child actors to do justice to these roles.

I’m not saying the spirit world stuff was either good or bad, in fact that part didn’t hit me one way or the other at all. But I do feel you misunderstood what Aang was doing with the face stealer, nowhere did I get the impression that he was ever trying to “solve” the face stealer problem, he was trading to get his friends back, no more, no less. That’s at least how I saw it.

Completely agree with all of these points. It felt like the writing thought that we wouldn’t understand for some reason. The dialogue is hard for me to sit through. My biggest issue with the series is that what I like about Avatar doesn’t feel like it’s in the live action. I’ve seen a Chosen One Heroes Journey a billion times and that is the structure of the story, but that’s not why I’m interested in the story. It seems like this show only cares about that. What makes Avatar great is the exploration of the world, themes in the world, respect for tradition, culture, and understanding what that means on a deeper level, and of course the character exploration through the character’s relationships. We sped through the world for the heroes journey, changed how a lot of the themes are portrayed or just didn’t include them, took a lot of martial arts out of the bending and made it a lot like having super powers instead of treating it as a cultural aspect, and sped up a lot of the development of characters without much building of the relationships. It seems there has been a lot of miscalculations and probably egos behind the issues in this series. In my experience, people in this industry could be relentless in chasing goals that don’t make sense.

I actually like the idea of Yue being able to bend still because she has the moon spirit inside of her. I thought it was a clever change

to my eyes the showrunners seemed to have panicked about not being greenlit for S2 so crammed as much as possible

The Iroh threat fell flat for me, had they done it in a different order, it would have been so much more impactfull

By far the only aspect justifying this adaptation is truly how they developed and added to Zuko and Uncle Iroh's storyline!

Wan Shi Tong looks like something out of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.

A little note on your criticism about Yue being able to water bend. I believe the reason she could is the same reason she was capable of sacrificing herself to restore the moon, as she has a piece of the moon spirits essence within her, making her part spirit.

29:41 - For a series relatively obsessed with both trying to humanize all the characters, rather than allowing any of them to be extreme caricatures of good or evil, and yet also simultaneously trying to make everyone more "likable" and morally correct or such.....it seems like a pretty gross oversight to me that they actually made Sokka MORE morally questionable by having made him already kiss Suki first before Yue. One of my favorite things about Sokka's ships in the original animated series was that he DIDN'T just forget about his previous romantic interests and immediately jump together with the next one in the next town/episode/whatever like that tired old "a girl in every port" cliche or whatever. But in the live-action series ..that is now basically exactly what he did.🙃🙃💔😢😅😅😅👀 *_^sighs^_*

The ultimate rule of good storytelling tell don't show.

I have to say...i really enjoyed it ❤ I think it did its job really well. I know i may be in the minority, but the changes didn't really bother me. I liked how sokka & katara were sidelined, and how it revealed more about their traumas. I understand differing opinions

I love your level of passion, for the original, for the parts you liked in the live action, and even your passion towards what didn't work. Nice review. I think you could argue that Princess Yue was still able to water bend because she had a piece of the moon within her. That's how I'd explain it anyway. I feel most modern producers have lost all faith in audiences. You see it so often in current shows/movies. You can't go more than 25 - 30 minutes before they have to either flash back to what _just_ happened a few moments ago or an exposition dump to ensure the audience has _no way_ of forgetting the actor's motivation. It's tiring. I'm really sick of studios thinking they have to hold our hands every step of the way in current shows. This seems ever more prevalent in new fantasy shows because the producers and writers just don't believe audiences can digest fantastical ideas, etc. It's a real shame because it's turning the live action fantasy genre into a joke. One last thing I really am disappointed in with this adaptation is the unfortunate loss of Uncle Iroh's cutsie, pervy infatuation with June. Instead they flipped it and made her the instigator of the flirtation and it's just not the same. The moment in the OG animated series when Nyla tongue whips everyone and June falls on top of Iroh, and even though Zuko calls him out that he didn't see him get hurt, Iroh play acts so he can enjoy June in his arms a little longer! Hilarious! Loved it!

I think Netflix Aang can draw spirits into his body at shrines. Like Kyoshi, Roku, and the Ocean. He can still communicate with the spirits like Kuruk where ever.

The way I’ve gone into this show is to ask myself if I hadn’t already seen this story via the animation would this still make sense. I found that things like kataras necklace were no longer a problem for me. If that was never in the animated series it would make total sense for June to just be a good tracker (especially because the Avatar has only been back for like a month or 2 at this point.) I have the same feelings about Yue being a wolf, and Wan Shi Tong. Treating this series as its own avatar universe where the characters are the same but might make slightly different choices, encounter each other in slightly different ways and behave slightly different has made me enjoy the live action so much more.

I think that if we get another season, the runtime will be extended (like stranger things) to eliminate the exposition.

I think the 8 episodes run time doesn't really work cause they almost have the same amount of run time the entire first season of avatar had they are just terrible of time management. Everything feels underdeveloped and rushed. Besides Zuko and Iroh

Merphy sounds like someone who has a good understanding of theology!

Just as a point, I thought Yue could still bend because she literally had some of the moon in her. I don't think it was because of the location.

I love your vids u make me laugh a lot and everytime i go to like the vid forgetting i already did

This is my thoughts about this. Like yes not everything translates well to live action so changes are necessary, but a bunch of this stories shouldn’t have been mash together. Literally there’s what like 21 episodes. That’s less than 11 hours. Since every epsiode is like 25 minutes. And the show are like almost an hour long episodes. That’s about 7+ hours you could’ve used to flesh out characters way more and make us care. Sadly this won’t stop, because we will all just keep watching

It was enjoyable enough so not the worst option for a show to binge. It had good sets and effects, bit iffy at times with the lighting and the talking could be lessened. The one part I still don't get is how people other than Katara knew of Jet. Maybe I blanked on a scene but I thought his intro was when it was revealed who the spy/traitor was. Everyone else of the main cast was elsewhere. I wouldn't rewatch but not opposed to more seasons.