Amph ATLA and The Legend of Korra (ATLA live action remake coming Feb 2024)

Not sure I am looking forward to the Live Action series since the creators left (unless they are back, though haven't seen anything about it).

I am looking forward to the new animated series though!

Also am enjoying the comic books.

 

Am looking forward to it, the ages seems to have stayed the same except for Zuko and Sokka.

 

Well one things for sure at least is sounds like they have a plan.

 

I don't know what it is about this whole CONFIRMED ETHNICITIES thing just feels wrong.

 

The errors of the previous iteration being so impossibly heinous that they felt they needed to do this to establish a modicum of credibility? It was like they finally let Slowpokeking become casting director.

I wouldn't necessarily say so. Certainly as Ozai became entrenched, he had plenty of opportunity to diminish his brother and chose not to. While his comments were particularly cold-hearted, I have to imagine they also reflected some part of genuine sentiment in the Fire Nation about the way the seige at Ba Sing Se ended. I suspect they had a decent relationship until Iroh's grief alienated most people.

 

The Last Airbender is the movie that made the term "whitewashing" become popular on the internet

 

I know what happened.

But the whole thing nonetheless puts a wrong feeling my gut.

 

Well, now that just makes sense.

 

In the film Zuko seemed like the character Shyamalan was most connected with. lt felt like the movie Shyamalan really wanted to make would have focused on the Fire Nation and Zuko. Those scenes had more passion to them while the scenes focused on the heroes felt more like an obligation.

 

M. Night’s style of filmmaking is very personal and internalized. Maybe I’m reading too much into this. I think Zuko’s story of an outcast prince resonated with Shyamalan after making three critically panned films and Lady in the Water was a huge box office loss. M.Night couldn’t recreate his 6th Sense level of success. Zuko became a fictionalized version of M. Night’s own struggle to reclaim his greatness.

When I watched the movie last year after finishing the series - Zuko as a proxy for late 00’s Shyamalan seemed uncomfortably clear. I get the feeling M. Night took on Avatar hoping to restart his career but wasn’t in the creative mindset needed to succeed. It was a tall order Book One could ever successfully be retold as a single two hour movie. No way a filmmaker could do it with their own personal demons thrown into the mix.

 

Avatar could have been a cakewalk for him. All he had to do was not change things stupidly.

Instead, we got ONG and fire benders needing a source of fire rather than just generating it like on the show.
Also, EEro over Iroh. These weren't hard things to research. All he had to do was watch the first season since that was the movie he was making.
And if you are telling me that after 20 episodes, he still thought ONG and EERO were the correct pronunciations, I don't believe you.

Instead, we know what happened: He never watched the show. Maybe don't try to adapt material if you don't at least watch a few episodes first?

 

I've always felt like the Siege of North two-part episode had a sufficiently cinematic quality to just be a film unto themselves. Granted, you wouldn't have had the gradual introduction to Aang, but there was more than enough for it to be a function en medias res sort of deal.

 

Fair point, but wasn't at least Iroh's name pronounced culturally correctly in the cartoon? I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Chinese transcription of Iroh's name on the FN wanted poster would be pronounced "Ai-roh", so the pronunciation in the show was correct, even if the Latin transcription was anglicised.

 

Going to disagree here. It may be that the cartoon got it wrong and that is a valid criticism. But when you literally have his name mentioned in the credits for three full seasons, this isn’t something you just ignore in the movie.

For viewers, that is the pronunciation of the character’s name in the show all the kids watched. It was an adaption of what was, essentially, a kids cartoon, by the same kids network. So all it does is confuse kids and viewers. And it starts the film off on the wrong foot when two characters have their name pronounced differently. And then the other changes like a source for fire don’t help.