AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER | Netflix Really Screwed This Up | REVIEW 

When Nickelodeon makes a fun adventure, Netflix makes a horror show to see how badly they can break down a child.

I’d argue that ATA & TLK were never truly together in harmony considering that the latter caused massive damage to the world-building of the former especially in Book 2, otherwise that was a solid intro. Also the fact they did both Sokka and Katara dirty by watering down their development, along with what they did to Aang is truly a Netflix moment.

The main reason One Piece worked pretty well (I think they rushed the fish men which took away from some other things, but mostly good), was because the creator was there to keep them in check. So when the creators left Avatar, it was a bad sign which made sense that the shows declines as it goes along.

You don't have to burn yourself for that intro 😔

*Looks at "The Legend of Korra"* "The truth is, the franchise was f-cked from the start."

Removing all the motivation and character development is unforgivable. Thank you for the review. Even Paku (in the cartoon) was super interesting with the little screen time he had by provoking Katara. There had to be a hidden motivation of him wanting to push her to her limits. Part of him was curious on how she will perform under anger, even with him being sexist.

Can we also acknowledge that Aang not learning fire bending and burning Katara due to his impatience should not have been cut? That's such an important episode! It makes aang not want to fire bend again, it shows that aang is still an immature and impatient child at this point in the story AND it shows how Katara discovers healing.

The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra were never in harmony. But anyway, good intro.

The fact that they turned my girl Katara into a vanilla version of her already affirms my desire to not watch this remake. Pretty effects aren't enough for me

On top of all those complaints I'd add the fact they basically fucked up every major revelation that had an impact on characters or the viewer. Yeah, the air benders genocide might have been effective, but as a result there's no mystery for the viewer and no thinking: What the hell happened here? Instead you're waiting for characters to catch up with what you know. Second example would be king Bumi revealing he's Aang's friend right from the start and not to mention the complete fuckup of his character (in the original he didn't complain Aang was gone, instead he did his best to prepare him for what fate was about to throw his way). I'm also kind of suspecting that avatars telling Aang to handle this alone is a way to cut out the whole chakras storyline (where one required to abandon friends to achieve the avatar state).

Bryke screwed up the comics, they screwed up Korra, and they abandoned the Netflix series. Can we all finally admit that Aaron Ehasz is the true creator of ATLA now?

They also destroyed Katara's arc with Pakku. She hardly trained with the scroll and she says shes her own master to an expert fire bender like Zuko and beat him?? That felt very Rey Palpatine vs Kyko Ren to me on episode 7.

Dude, no need to apologize for “rambling”. In fact, I contend that you weren’t rambling; what I heard was in-depth analysis. You may have ranted a little bit, but it was necessary to convey what you did. I hope it was as cathartic for you, as it was informative for us. Excellent piece man.

So most of the problems can be attributed to “story and character”, but there’s a way to expedite even that brief sentiment: The WRITING is bad. This show was the best example of a script that was modified not from a review of the source, but from a review of a synopsis of the source. There is a legion of evidence for this, from the airbender cleanse being depicted first, to Azula’s expedient emotional breakdown, to the offensive misinterpretation of the spirit world, to the confusion regarding the essence of Iroh and king Bumi, to the general intervention of contrivance in various aspects of the narrative. Though the on-screen talent (including hair/makeup, set, costume, and choreography) have an evident respect for the source material, the writing team, and possibly the director, does not, and I think that shines through past all the bright lights and colours.

"Netflix really screwed this up" Motto of this year's razzies

Can we just stop with this trend of taking beloved animated properties and trying to turn them into live action? There's nothing live action brings to the table that animation doesn't, other than just being harder while simultaneously looking cheaper. People say the 80's and 90's were defined by sequels, but at least sequels are something new. The 10's and 20's have so far been defined purely by inferior remakes, showing how creatively bankrupt the entertainment industry has become.

Maybe the live action could’ve worked if the show had more episodes. I don’t get why these live action shows are so short? Just one or two more episodes can go to great lengths to progress character development and storylines

Removing the sexism was such a flop, ESPECIALLY because it wasnt like. A glaring issue. It was a small one that Sokka overcame and by the end of season one, barely existed. There was the sexist abilism in Toph's introduction, but that was gone after that episode, too. But it WAS important! This show didn't understand the story it was adapting.

Watching this show felt a lot like when you're a kid and you have to let someone else play with your toys, but you can't stand it because you keep saying, "That’s not how that goes!"

Avatar: The Last Airbender past the original series has had a terrible Expanded Universe. The Legend of Korra, M. Night’s 2010 film, and now the Netflix reboot series. I guess it was lightning in a bottle for the A:TLA franchise I suppose.

2:13. Very true. If they were to actually make an attempt of making an avatar movie series, it would take them THREE movies just to adapt book one if they did it the right way. It is a big story and it shouldn’t be shrunken down into chunks. A huge issue with Netflix’s version is the fact that the main stories were sped up like they were speedrunning through the story without giving proper pacing. The characters also don’t have allot of chemistry together. Aang, Katara, and Sokka are supposed to be buddies, and all they talk about is the fire nation and never actually have a chance to be friends like in the cartoon. That’s the main problem. In giving less episodes, they’ve allowed less time for the story to be told, and they’ve allowed basically close to zero character to be developed. They dug themselves into a corner, and if they want to recover, they have to put more episodes into the next season to actually allow time for the story to unfold naturally and let the characters progress, OR make the episodes two hours long so that each episode is movie length and there’s no issue with pacing. Then I agree with the other point on how there’s a few miscasts. Right off the bat when they introduced the evil trio from the fire nation I already knew they kicked the bucket. It’s a shame. They got Zuko right, but they fumbled on his girlfriend, and his sister. Aang was an okay casting. I just wish they had picked better, actors? Other than that there’s more than a few things wrong like how Ozai has already been shown on screen in present time when that was supposed to be a surprise that was shown to the viewers in book 3. Sure in the cartoon he had flashbacks, but they didn’t let you see him till the end.

This is SO fecking SPOT ON! Thank you! This just proves that Netflix can't hire good or even decent writers and directors. They got a brilliant neatly wrapped package served on a platinum platter and they took a steamy glittery shite on it.

I think the avatar based anime fans might like this but for me the distracting part was the dialogue which sometimes felt pretty simplistic. I kinda wanted a bit more reality grounded dialogue instead of this partly exposition based dialogue where there seems to be very little nuance in the dialogue.

To be fair even the OG creators couldn't do good writing in Kora. And the head writer went to do the dragon prince which was good season 1 through 3 but fell of a cliff after that. It might have just been lightning in a bottle. Apparently good writing is hard to come by

Would explain why the creators of the cartoon left. They spent two years developing this and all of a sudden leave due to "creative differences"? Well we now see what those creative difference are. "Netflix said that it was committed to honoring our vision for this retelling and to supporting us on creating the series. And we expressed how excited we were for the opportunity to be at the helm. Unfortunately, things did not go as we had hoped.” "But what I can be certain about is that whatever version ends up on-screen, it will not be what Bryan and I had envisioned or intended to make.” - DiMartino Basically the same reason Cavill left The Witcher. Butting heads with untalented hacks. There I said it and I will always say it until they prove otherwise.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Aang doesn't water bend even once. We don't get to meet Jeong Jeong and lastly why are we getting the owl spirit this early cuz we know it's part of the reason that Appa is kidnapped. I will give it credit for the stuff they added with the 41st division.

What killed this show for mw was the overbearing exposition. It's a visual medium, Netflix, stop having everyone explain everything!

Someone commented, 'we wanted Azula, not Amoola' 😂😂

Why make a live action adaptation in the first place? The original animated show is still accessible and is still good to watch even decades later in the future.

Couldn’t agree more with all of these points 💯

The biggest issue with new series is the amount of tell instead of showing dialog. It's the most basic thing you learn when being a creative writer! I think that a lot of the actors struggled so much because the dialog they have to act is so unnatural!! There are some good actors who did way better work in other roles.

Air and you're back with the long hair.

Zuko's agni kai with Ozai tells you all you need to know about this show. In the original show, Zuku challenged a general to a duel because he thought the general's actions were cruel and unnecessary. When his father steps into the ring instead and insists that Zuku fight him because Ozai felt Zuku's public challenge personally disrespected him Zuku knelt on the ground and refused to fight because he could not even imagine raising his hand against his own father. Instead he tried to publicly apologize to his father, ask for his forgiveness, and withdraw from the duel. This enraged Ozai so much that he publicly branded Zuko's face to mark him as a coward then banished him from the empire, with the impossible task of capturing someone who hadn't been seen in a century as the only way to earn his way back. In the live action show they actually have Zuko fighting back against Ozai. Sure, he might not be attacking but he is actively firebending and dueling him. Which is all Ozai asked him to do. The show writers completely missed the point of the scene and the characters in the name of making in more "interesting".

It's Katara that completely ruins it!! She is supposed to have very important relationship chemistry with so many characters - Aang, Toph, Zuko.. And I don't see her pulling off any of that..

Netflix be like: "Character development? WHAT'S THAT!?!

I honestly don't understand how the writing can be THIS bad. I could've written the entire show in under 2 hours and it would've turned out much better. It just can't be possible to be this bad accidentally. It has to be deliberate, i.e. sabotage.

They still didn't Made live action show work..oh well Edit: oh it wasnt a total wreck..maybe season 2 makes things work

You're killin' with the consistency and quality of your reviews, keep it up!!

I hope the Duffer Brothers don’t screw up Death Note. They can’t do worse than the previous adaptation which was that Netflix movie, right?!

M. Night Shyamalan has already done enough damage to the Last Air Bender in 2010. And Netflix doesn't have very good reputation either. So, I'm not going to waste my life on it anymore.

It feels to me that the ratio of good to bad writers was 30/70. Whoever tackled the fire nation was good and funny enough that's what we get the most new matrerial from. The rest clung to the source material but in order to justify it they mixed it up without any knowledge of how it worked. That's how we get confusing story lines next to "classic scenes" that lost their meaning in the context. Nothing that was further developed past the "interesting idea" stage. - "Hey what if..?" - "...Yeah yeah we'll take it. Moving on!"

“Brothers and Sisters we’re being attacked!” Yells as they are right next to him no wonder bro got killed.

0:53 SO TRUE. I wouldn’t have to make this based on the fact that the bending would require both martial arts choreography, and VFX. I wish they had just adapted maybe the Koshi novels or even something after the main series ended because as is, I feel like we’re getting the boy in the iceberg by the Ember Island players adapted instead of avatar, the last Airbender .excellent job bro subbed.

I suffered through the first episode and then gave up. The show runners obviously didn't understand the source material and the acting was terrible.

I did not like they changed Oma and Shu into a lesbian couple. I didn't like the snide comment during Koh the Facestealer scene. I don't like the rewrite on Zuko's burn origins, or Sokka's sexism...both were very important for his and other character growth. I don't like how fast Katara is progressing BEFORE finding her first master. She basically becomes the team tank after meeting Jet. Kyoshi island was cool seeing Her possess Aang and beat everyone down. But, I preferred seeing Suki kiss Sokka's cheek over seeing them kiss. Beyond those complaints, it's been okay. I look forward to seeing Bloodbending, Toph, and the dragondance (if they're even added...) The original is still better in every way, imo.

I don’t think it sucked, I don’t think it was amazing either. As a person who grew up watching the series I didn’t mind it much though the writing was fucking terrible in many places, I really liked how they humanized zuko earlier in the story with the story about the division he saved from being sent to die…then there’s the butchering of bummi…there’s lots of potential in my opinion, most of the kids also weren’t so experienced when they filmed this so i feel season 2 would be much better

One of the biggest problems I had with this series was how they left out the plot about Roku having to tell Aang about the return of Sozin’s Comet and how every day Aang doesn’t defeat the Fire Lord is a day closer to the end of the world. Excuse me? Why would you leave out such an important detail? The Doomsday Clock is ticking and the characters never learn about it? Also when it comes to Kyoshi, Roku and Kuruk, I felt like Aang couldn’t care less about his past lives at the end of it all.

I think they relied too much on Flashbacks, and "Team Avatar" felt more like coworkers than friends. Felt needed more scenes of them together. I didnt mind uncle Iroh but agree on Azula. How in the book of water does Aang not learn waterbending? The big strange line was Zuko saying to Katara you found a master and Katara saying she was a master. Like... what? I dont think its terrible like the movie but a lot of room for improvement.

I like your intro. Anyway, the best part of the show is the crew Zuko and Iroh had episode 6, if you saw the episode, you know why. 7:15 I think the creators of the Netflix version of the show confused the personalities of Roku and Iroh, these characters have each other's personalities. 10:05 great pun, it’s interesting that a lot of people use this pun, regardless if it’s intentional or not. 20:15 yes, it’s true, Aang isn’t Zaheer and Guru Lahima, it’s weird.

This remake is so out of touch. They did not add in the original love relationship between Aang and Katara. It’s the stupid writer and new creator’s fault. I demand we should give the two of them a taste of their own medicine.

This is one of the proof that no matter how good your actors are, how good your cinematics and sets are, all will come down to the quality of writings and obviously the writings on this one was not good. Scriptwriters seems like intentionally makes the conversation boring as much as possible.

Oma and Shu were a pair of WOMENS in love, thanks Netflix , again

Constant remakes shows that creativity is on lifesupport.

Welcome back long time no see

Finally watching reviews now that I’ve finished and rewatched a few episodes and I remember thinking to myself “imagine getting up and putting that on to wear all day” when Ozai was on screen. The costumes really do look weird.

"Long ago, the Avatar cartoons lived in harmony." No we didn't. Korra fans seem to have a "Terminate on sight" order out on anyone who says the first show was better.

Before I watch this review, note I’ve never seen the cartoon but my wife loves it. I’m going to bet they tried to cram too much information in 8 episodes and the writers suck because half of them are activists or partially re-tar-did.

You perfectly encapsulate my anger with this show, the reaction channels are just glazing, theavatarist is the worst, bro was glazing so hard that he was basically saying please invite me to more stuff

Does it destroy any canon, no. Does it rewrite any characters, no. Does it push an agenda, no. Was it a perfect one-to-one translation, no. People are demanding perfection and this doesn't reach that impossible goal. Considering the current state of entertainment this is pretty good. Is that an excuse, maybe. They could've changed the characters. They could've made environmental statements with the fire nation. They could've labeled the water nation as opposed. They could've made Aang a secondary character. They didn't. They translated a wildly loved property that people won't like because it isn't the original. smh

The opening killed me 😂. Well done!

I think the show would have been great with a few (dozen) more revisions to the script and more time to SHOW (not tell) the story. I want to think that the acting is bland because the writing is bland, because the actors do have moments where they show some emotional range. The great parts (there are a few of them) of this version I would dare say are BETTER than the OG, but yeah there are too many bad parts to outweigh them. I've seen most reviews describe this S1 as a mixed bag, so that is pretty much spot on. C'mon writers. Do us proud and give us a worthy S2 and onward.

Honestly, I’m not surprised that this show was bad

They simply jumped too short. What they really should have done is the same thing Peter Jackson did with LOTR: Get an insane amount of money, stick to the source material and complete all books in one production turn. That was stunning and brave when Peter Jackson and the studio behind did it, and it would have been now.

The fundimental problem with doing a live action show like this is the fact that ATLA , despite some meh episodes here and there, is generally a near perfect series with a solid beginning, middle and end. So retelling it just feels unneccesary to begin with.

Comment for the algorithm. Keep up the great work!

Animation wasnt the problem, the problem was story telling... meaning the script sucked. No wonder the creators left. I knew it would be bad if they DID THE SAME THING THEY DID BEFORE... literally, they saw what was happening with the movie and they said no, f this shut im out

Spot on Review! At least we are getting new animated shows and movies from the original creators... one piece worked cause the creator was always there. You can tell why avatar's original creators left midway; the changes took away major character development in an effort to be more modern? You need those flaws to show growth

The animated series was like a delicate masterpiece that needed every piece to complete it. (Almost every piece^^) but when crucial parts are removed and rearranged, they are destroyed.

Im trying to figure out how 1970 godzilla got involved in this. 💀 i legit paused it and walked away I wanted the avatar state, not godzilla

At least it was better than the movie, and it started well.

Analysis is on point 👏👏👏👏

damn it.... no penis hair? i'm out lol and that intro lmao good work dude

Excellent Review 🖖🏽

Soooo agreeing with your points! Do you think they could cast 20 year olds for Aang and the main gang with better results? The age of the characters is not that important anyways, for example Aang could be 20 yo and still have a meltdown over having to be the avatar!

I agree with you 100% on the sexism issue. The classic series showed what sexism is, why it’s a problem, and how it can be overcome. This series pretends sexism doesn’t exist.

I’ll never forgot the Last Airbender review in the fool killer days lol

The show was definitely an improvement over the movie. And i agree with most of what you've said, biggest issue is the exposition dumps all over the place, and watering down of all the characters, other than that, the first 2 episodes and 6-8 are actually not too bad, 3-5 are a mess

Ok the intro killed me! I literally had to stop the video because I was laughing so hard 😂😂😂 Damn I love this channel!

This was so comprehensive. Thank you

This didn't need a remake. It didn't need one in 2010. It needed one less in 2024. The original Avatar series is one of the finest animations ever put out in past twenty years. From it's writing, characters, world-building, and story-telling it knocked it out of the park in all areas. There was no improvements that needed to be made, and no, making it live-action does not equal better. Stuff like this just further proves on much entertainment now is in total creative bankruptcy. Utterly incapable of coming up with fresh new ideas or stories so just keep recycling older stories that were already told well, and doing them worse. One faint praise I guess I can give, is that casting at least looks more accurte to the original world presented in the show than in the M. Night version but that's extremely low praise. Especially considering if the original show had been set in Western European setting over an East Asian one, they'd be carming so much 'diversity' in a setting it makes no sense whatsoever to be in (like with Netflix's Witcher or Amazon's Rangs of Power).

Ur my favorite RU-vid review channel

Watched the first episode- thought the airbenders were silly old beans: we have information about the fire nation attacking- let’s gather all our kind and have a feast - during a comet and not make any plans to save our kind… and let’s pretend we would send Aang away by himself to master all elements and fight the fire Lord by himself…

The show isn't as ugly as we feared, quite as poorly acted as we feared, or even as poorly written as we feared It's greatest sin aside from falling short in other areas, is that it utterly failed to capture the soul of the original. Something Netflix One Piece was able to do to shock of everyone.

Just to add to characters they ruined, Kyoshi yelling at Aang gave "Harry did you put your name in the goblet of fire!" vibes, she's supposed to be cold and tactical. Then Avatar Roku being essentially Iroh, just goofy, when he's supposed to be the one to add context to the war. Also, they did my man Bumi so wrong, he was angry? That's not neutral jing at all. I knew when the show runners left I wouldn't be happy. Super mad about how they ruined Azula and Katara. They claim to have removed sexism, but pretty sexist to do the strong female characters a disservice.

Zukos eye looks like a bruise rather than a burn too, his eyebrow is still there!! Little things like this throughout the show pile up

I feel like there was no stage coach telling them how to emot

Thankyou very much for this episode :) I really needed to hear all this xo

Zuko is too nice in this.

It sucks and it doesn’t suck is probably the most accurate way to describe this show

A.I. TOR RETURNS YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! AVATAR DANGER DANGER OF SUCKITUDE.

I agree

The show had potential, it could have been GREAT! ... but they ruined that by removing the flaws from every character which was one of the best parts of the show, watching each character grow into the role they were destined to follow. Also, cramming so many stories into each episode and combining them together was absolutely the worst part and made me angry. Putting Katara and Soka in the secret tunnel when that was supposed to be sort of the start of the love chemistry between Aang and Katara, Aang goes to the Fire Temple on his own because he wants to ask Roku how to defeat the face stealer instead of Roku summoning him there to tell him about Souzan's Comet, all terrible! I think Uncle Iroh's character was great but the reason it lacked is because just like Soka, they removed the quirky, goofyness that everyone loved.

I don't like the scene where Katara, Aang, and Sokka arrive at Kyoshi Island and when they are attacked by the Kyoshi warriors Katara says "don't hurt him" "he's the avatar". One of the Kyoshi warriors says "impossible". "There has to be a sign that he is the avatar" and then the Kyoshi statue just glows and one of the Kyoshi warriors say "that must be a sign" and then boom the next scene plays. Just bad writing and too much cutting for the budget and time. This scene is not like the cartoon because the Kyoshi warriors know about the history of the avatar and that the next avatar is slated to be an airbender. And that the there is no more airbenders alive. And Aang shows them just a little bit of air bending. 🤦🏾‍♂️Cmon Netflix do better 😂

i loved it. 8 episodes were not long enough. should be atleas 15 episodes. build the characters and storyline.

I thought it was a great adaptation . Why would anyone want a beat by beat version of the animated shows .

Once i heard the creators left i knew it was a wrap lol.

14:05 i think that sentence is the most succinct description of the new adaptation

I was not going to watch this show after the horrific movie BUT I will give it a shot because of this review

Some works of animation simply don't lend themselves to reaching equal levels of quality in live-action. People could benefit from accepting that and stop seeking to translate something that, in certain aspects, just doesn't translate as well. If it didn't have profit potential, I don't think studios would be repeatedly trying to adapt this IP to begin with. I believe that, deep down, even a number of the creatives on staff know this version ultimately can't measure up to the cartoon. The first question to ask when adapting anything is "Why? What could an adaptation add to this source material and/or its legacy?" If your version falls short and adds nothing to justify the effort, then why make it at all except for money?

I thought this show hit a lot of the things I wanted from a live action: A darker tone that truly portrays the gravity of a world at war for 100 years. I see the points about the character development but it wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. Overall the show was pretty good and it seems like a season 2 would be better now that there's confidence a faithful live action is possible.