humanist + humorist

Finished off Book 1 of the live-action Avatar series! Then turned around and reread all of this “what if there was a forgotten Stargate on the Avatar planet?” crossover, which is more than 10 years old and still holds up shockingly well.

The last 2 episodes are a close retelling of the last 3 episodes of the cartoon, arriving at the Northern Water Tribe and fighting off a siege. This arc was also more-or-less retold for the climax of the movie, and the TV series does so much better. The fight scenes are dynamic! The final battle has continuously escalating tension! Sokka and Yue are convincingly into each other, and also, actually charming and adorable together!

In terms of differences from the cartoon, I appreciate that they replaced “Yue likes Sokka but is conflicted because she’s engaged, in a political betrothal she can’t break even though he’s a jerk, so they have the teen version of a tortured emotional affair” with “the other guy is fine, but Yue is allowed to break off engagements if she wants, and since she’s into Sokka, she just…does.”

I also liked that Yue figures out how to revive the Moon Spirit on her own (and then icebends Sokka’s feet to the ground so he won’t follow her!), instead of having Iroh work it out. He’ll get good moments later, let her be the driving force in this one.

Disappointed that we didn’t get Moon Goddess Yue giving Sokka one last goodbye, though! I know it’s a whole new costume and a chunk of CGI, but I think it would’ve been worth it.

Also a bit of a letdown…the first time I watched the original, way back in the day, I vaguely remember thinking Katara’s level-up to “Waterbending Master” was premature. She’s good, but nah, this is clearly railroading to keep the show from needing any adults in the Gaang. The remake makes that disconnect even worse, cutting her training scenes with Master Paku, after it’s already cut almost all of Katara (and Aang!) trying to figure out waterbending by themselves on the journey there.

A couple things that didn’t come up in the remake at all, but now that I’ve rewatched Book 1 of the cartoon, these are losses I really missed:

The original has an episode where Aang meets a renegade Firebender who’s willing to teach him, tries to seize the opportunity, and it goes badly. (Katara gets seriously burned, and has to figure out healing fast.) It’s a great practical answer to “why is it worth spending a whole season getting Aang all the way across the planet to learn Water next, why not save time by learning from whoever’s nearest?”

The remake characters don’t address that question at all. Maybe they’re hoping, with the faster pace of the season, nobody in the audience will have time to stop and wonder about it…? But it’s a good question, and a good chunk of bending-related worldbuilding to work through.

The original also has a stop at the Northern Air Temple. Unlike the abandoned graveyard of the Southern Air Temple, this one has a group of non-Air Nomad refugees who’ve moved in and are remodeling the place. Original Aang had to grapple with the relative importance of “preserving the ancient sites of my people exactly as they were” versus “making sure people here-and-now have good safe places to live.”

In retrospect, I was surprised how the 2004 version went so far in the direction of “present-day refugees need to live” that it came off like “so if they demolish the sacred statues of a civilization that was wiped out by genocide, eh, Aang needs to stop being all uptight about that.” Feels like they would’ve handled that differently if it was written in 2024, and I would’ve liked to see the remake’s take on it.

Overall — a really solid remake! A lot of updates and consolidation that I really liked, even with some changes and losses that I thought were missteps. Glad to hear they already got renewed, and I’m looking forward to this team’s version of Book 2 and Book 3.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024, episodes 1-2)

Started watching the new AtLA. Trying to rewatch the original animated along with it, using this Nerdist guide to which cartoon episodes are getting adapted into which live-action ones.

So far, I really like the choices they’re making! The first live-action episode is a condensed version of episodes 1-3, with some fight scenes combined and some shenanigans trimmed out. Also, some info from later in the show is worked in — I’m not sure we needed to open with an extended flashback from Aang’s era, but I like that, say, Katara and company don’t just have to guess how long Aang was frozen, he mentions a festival for Sozin’s Comet and they can get a precise date from there.

The second one is a remix of animated episode 4, bulked up with scenes of Aang actually connecting with Avatar Kyoshi, and getting some substantial plot-advancing backstory, which worked well (and was probably a lot easier than trying to have him surf/wrestle a giant CGI fish).

Sokka’s first meeting with Suki gets revised from “Sokka mocks the combat skills of her whole gender, gets beaten in a fight, and can’t improve until he gets over feeling embarrassed on behalf of his whole gender” to “Sokka tries to look personally cool/impressive, gets beaten in a fight, and can’t improve until he gets over feeling embarrassed that someone he thinks is hot will see all the gaps in his combat skills.” Which honestly feels like, if they were writing the original cartoon right now in 2024, that’s just how they would’ve done it.

(The ill-fated Last Airbender movie is fresh-ish in the memory, they played it at the 2023 Marathon, a little more than a year ago. This is such a relief in comparison. The acting, the pacing, the worldbuilding, it’s all so beautifully solid.)

Meanwhile, still working through…

Mawaru Penguindrum (episodes 5-13)