As a massive fan of the original animated Avatar: The Last Airbender or ATLA, I was cautious with the release of the new live action series. Ever since the release of the  M. Night Shyamalan movie from 2010, many fans were worried when Netflix announced the new series a few years back. However, the original creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko were involved in the production until 2020 due to creative differences. This news concerned ATLA fans more but I tried to remain hopeful that it could be good. Then, Netflix dropped the first season on February 22nd and I watched the first episode. 

From here on out, this review will cover some major plot points in both shows, so if you haven’t seen either, I recommend you stop here and watch one of the shows before continuing. 

I will admit, I did not watch the entirety of the new series and I don’t know if I will. I will first start off by saying I don’t think this adaptation is bad at all. I think in some ways the changes and new content can work, but my biggest gripe is how they handled the writing. To fully explore my disappointment, I will also compare the first episode with the first three episodes of the original animated show, as the show follows the basic structure of the plot. 

The live action opens up with interesting new scenes, as we see an earthbender fleeing firebenders to earn the earth king of an oncoming war with the Fire Nation. He is however caught and killed by Firelord Sozin, a character we only get a brief look at in the original series, but not until season 3. Then we’re introduced to Aang in a very different way and structure from the original. We see him with Monk Gyatso and living in the Southern Air Temple in its prime before the firebenders. It’s nice to see them interact in real time before the proceedings of the series and it’s a change I don’t mind. 

However, soon after, Aang learns he is the next Avatar and is uncomfortable with this revelation. That night, he decides to fly off on Appa to “clear his head” and this moment is the first major sign for me that this live action wasn’t going to work for me well. Aang gets caught in the storm and freezes himself for 100 years while the Fire Nation attacks his home during Sozin’s Comet, when firebenders are more powerful. But this is a completely different take from the original and one I don’t like at all. 

In the original series, Aang is scared about his fate as the Avatar, and given he is a 12-year-old boy, it’s understandable. But as the iconic opening line says “When the world needed him most, he vanished.” and he did. Aang consciously made the choice to run away from his responsibility as the Avatar and as a result, was caught in a storm he couldn’t conquer. He didn’t simply leave to go on a midnight flight with Appa to clear his head; he ran away, and it is a fact he struggles with the entire series. He’s ashamed that he fled and couldn’t protect the world or stop the Fire Nation from taking over and destroying his home and fellow airbenders. He carries that burden with him but it is also a driving force in his character to make things right now that he’s returned. 

Back to the Netflix series, Sokka and Katara find him in a similar fashion and for a while things are faithful to the original. The Netflix series, though, makes the bizarre choices to not only have Gran Gran recite the original opener and not simply have it in the beginning, but it also wasn’t Katara, the one who actually says it. There’s a point to her being the one reciting it too. Katara has always had hope that the Avatar would come back to save the world, and the reason he does is directly because she and Sokka found him. Gran Gran also tells Aang that the airbenders are gone, something that doesn’t happen in the original either. Sokka and Katara couldn’t bring themselves to tell him and he finds out himself by visiting his home, believing that they’re still alive and he finds out by finding Monk Gyatso’s skeleton that the Fire Nation killed them all. He wasn’t told this previously. Otherwise, in the Netflix series, the visit to the air temple really only serves as a plot point that happens and not because he wasn’t fully aware of what happened while he was gone. 

Aang does get captured by Zuko in both versions, but one standout change I noticed was during his escape. In the Netflix version, Zuko wasn’t all that intimidated by Aang at first because he realizes he’s just a child and not a 100 year old Avatar with decades of training like he expected. However, during the fight, Zuko takes him down with a fireball and he falls in the water. Katara yells for his name and he activates his Avatar state for the first time and waterbends for the first time in the series. He lodges the ship into a giant iceberg and the gang escapes on Appa. 

That scene is important because it shows off that he is, without a doubt, the Avatar, and much more powerful than Zuko realized and he learns to not underestimate him again in his pursuit to capture him. 

The Netflix series does an… interesting change with it that I don’t like either. In this scene, Aang still almost escapes but instead of activating the Avatar state and waterbending, Katara is the one who takes down the ship, which can be a cool moment except for the fact that Katara can barely waterbend at the beginning of the season. In the original, she can only move a small puddle around, and she does help defeat firebenders with waterbending in her own way, by freezing them without looking. It shows that she can be powerful, but simply doesn’t possess the skills yet. In the Netflix scene, suddenly, she can waterbend an entire tsunami, something she objectively should not have the ability to do yet and it takes away from the reveal of Aang’s own power to the viewer and Zuko. In this season, it’s part of the journey to not only see Aang master waterbending, but Katara as well. By making her powerful out the gate, it makes that journey less impactful. 

In general, this series has a massive issue with explaining everything to you. It doesn’t have the patience to let the story speak for itself and see how these characters evolve over time. By having every character explain who they are and what they want, it makes them significantly less interesting. By having Aang tell you he is scared of his power and just wants to be a kid, rather than show him penguin sledding and working through his fear of losing control in the Avatar state, it makes him a less interesting protagonist and doesn’t let him grow. 

I don’t think this series is a massive flop. I may watch just to see how the visuals look and how they changed some things, but overall, I even found this first episode exhausting to sit through.I felt like I was being spoon fed every character arc and not shown it and I wish they gave the writing the care it deserves because I think it could’ve been a lot better. 

Now, I will go watch the original show a fifth time just because I can.