Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra

[Moonface]

Remember that live action Avatar: The Last Airbender movie? No? Good, Ba Sing Se has educated you well that there is no live action Avatar movie. But, there is going to be a live action TV series coming out on Netflix next year that not only got a teaser trailer released earlier this month, but it actually looks good!



I was skeptical about how this would look not because of the last time this series got a live action adaptation but because I didn't trust Netflix to do a good job with this, but this trailer was way better than I expected. If the whole show turns out good I might just buy a single month of Netflix just to binge it (because screw paying Netflix the amount of money they want nowadays for a subscription and doing it for multiple months).


This thread will also serve as a place to discuss Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra in general too, for anyone who wants to talk about anything else from this universe other than this upcoming Netflix show.

[Dragon Lord]

To be fair, the 2010 movie (holy shit it was that long ago?!) wasn't bad because it was a live action adaptation of the series... it was bad because they gave it to one of the worst directors in the movie industry in M. Night Shyamalamadingdong. The dude gives us maybe one good movie for every five absolute pieces of garbage he pushes out, and The Last Airbender was unfortunately not one of the good ones in that cycle.

It also came out in a period where book to movie attempts were pretty trash all around. The Eragon movie suffered the same fate of just being a huge piece of trash to the point that the author wouldn't let them touch the next book in the series (that one is getting another live action attempt through Disney though).

It was a pretty good movie if you went into it knowing that you were getting a comedy and not an action movie.

I'll wait for reviews and opinion pieces on this attempt on the series before I give it a try. If people seem to think it's good, then maybe I'll give it a watch, but otherwise no point in wasting my time just for another trash-tier adaptation.

[Moonface]

To be fair, the 2010 movie (holy shit it was that long ago?!) wasn't bad because it was a live action adaptation of the series... it was bad because they gave it to one of the worst directors in the movie industry in M. Night Shyamalamadingdong. The dude gives us maybe one good movie for every five absolute pieces of garbage he pushes out, and The Last Airbender was unfortunately not one of the good ones in that cycle.

It also came out in a period where book to movie attempts were pretty trash all around. The Eragon movie suffered the same fate of just being a huge piece of trash to the point that the author wouldn't let them touch the next book in the series (that one is getting another live action attempt through Disney though).

Oh yeah, I know that he is the main reason for that movie being bad and that it wouldn't matter what medium the movie was made in when it was a dumpster fire of ideas while it was still on paper. Netflix just doesn't have a great track record when it comes to live action adaptations of stuff so I was iffy about if this live action attempt was going to be good or just another huge miss (although I doubt it could ever have been as bad as the movie was...)

I've heard little of the Eragon movie except that it seems to be one of if not the biggest insults ever done to the source material of something. I wasn't aware it came out around the same time as the Avatar: TLA movie though.


I assume you've watched the animated series of Avatar then DL given you have interest in the Netflix show (if it turns out good)? Did you watch Korra too or just Avatar?

[ShiraNoMai]

The M. Night Shamalyan movie was fucked from the get-go. Totally misinterpreted the core martial arts concepts that the series was founded on in favor of some weird magic posing. This at least proves honest to keeping that core concept down.
The cast also looks pretty solid, which is another plus. Shamalyan's movie had such a weird cast of characters that the casting director just dolled up to match the character sheets.

[Moonface]

I read yesterday that apparently Shamalyan didn't even watch all of Book 1 of Avatar before starting the movie, so I don't see how he was ever meant to interpret anything correctly when he doesn't even know the source material properly. Although he also chose to have a lot of names pronounced terribly with the reasoning that he was making them more in tune with how they would be said in reality (which makes zero sense...) so I just don't think he cared no matter how much knowledge he had going in.

[Moonface]

Some new images have come out today from the Netflix show.

• Arden Cho is June, a bounty hunter from the Earth Kingdom.
  
• Sebastian Amoruso is Jet, a young warrior from the Earth Kingdom.
  
• Danny Pudi is The Mechanist, an inventor from the Earth Kingdom.
  
• Tamlyn Tomita is Mayor Yukari, a fierce leader of Kyoshi Island.
  
• Casey Camp-Horinek is Gran Gran, esteemed elder of the Southern Water Tribe.
  

I think visually everyone looks pretty on point, and hopefully the script/acting/cinematography is all on point too.

[Moonface]

Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender | Official Trailer
The first official trailer for Netflix's live action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender has dropped!

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Oh man this looks so good! If it wasn't for the price to subscribe to Netflix I'd watch this as each episode drops, but instead I'll be waiting until everything is out so I can watch it all within a single month and save my money.

[ShiraNoMai]

Yeah holy shit that looks amazing. The cast has instantly won me over, too. Cocky/Snark Sokka. Smiling/Kind Katara. Wonderous/Emotional Aang. Serious/Angry Zuko. Like, yessssss I love them. And the bending with actual the martial arts involved, thank god, it looks so good. Now all they need to do is balance the pacing and we have a faithful adaptation, folks.

[Moonface]

Yeah, the cast are nailing the characters so well that I barely notice the fact none of them are obviously the voice actors of the animated show.
However, if this trailer was dubbed with the German cast it would sound exactly like the voice actors from the show because that's exactly who's doing the dub for that language. No idea if any other language dubs are doing the same thing or not.

[ShiraNoMai]

I imagine that'd probably be the case as long as they were all available to recast.

The last thing the series really needs to strike is the levity factor. The fun, whimsical and animated side of the show really highlights the charm it has, and balances the overall package. Nailing that is peak to making the show seem like itself.

[Moonface]

I think the tone will be interesting to see because news did come out that Sokka was being toned down in terms of his early misogyny, and I can't say I trust Netflix to not think Toph and the blind jokes need to get kicked to the curb even though most of the best jokes about her blindness come from her and not others.