At this point of the many live-action adaptations of anime and children’s books that have marked the public’s imagination over the last 30 years, it’s already a victory if one of them does its homework right. Avatar: The Last Airbender understands that your creative freedom involves applying new ideas to the adaptation without them stifling or contradicting the original material. The series produced by Albert Kim to the Netflix Begin your journey by treading carefully.
Just like the animation, the new series presents Aang’s journey (Gordon Cormier), a child from the Air Tribe who, after a century of being frozen, awakens to discover that his people have been annihilated. As Aang is also the reincarnation of the Avatar — the only person capable of manipulating the four elements in a world divided between tribes that respectively control fire, earth and water — this child carries with him the mission of bringing balance to the world of the living and the spiritual from natural elements.
The inevitable confrontation between the young protagonist and Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Kim), which challenges the other tribes to impose hegemony, is the inevitable outcome of this plot. Freely inspired by the folklore of Tibetan monks, however, Aang’s arc implies pacifism. He presents himself as a vegan child who considers the weight of all lives equal and refuses to use his powers to destroy. Since the animated version of Avatar, this has made Aang’s evolution and journey more particular, and this narrative remains exciting in live-action as well. Seeing him forced to mature so early and renounce his principles to save the world is the central conflict of Avatar in both versions.
Even though the live-action series sticks to the original material, some changes make a difference, such as the end of Aang’s deviations — who, as a newly awakened child, likes to play and have fun despite the seriousness that others attribute to his situation. mission. This is the main cost of the format change, even though, at the end of the day, the 20 23-minute episodes of animation in “Book One” are not much more than the eight almost hour-long episodes on Netflix. Even with the small changes to the Aang trio’s travel itinerary, Katara (Saint Vincent) e Sokka (Ian Ousley), the first season maintains its direction and avoids other changes that may displease fans.
Adaptation pays off by adding new interactions; as Ozai’s more in-depth relationship with her sons Zuko (Dallas Liu) and Azula (Elizabeth Liu). Furthermore, the season ends without Aang learning waterbending — which could serve to justify what he was doing in a possible time jump between this and a second season.
The changes from the animated series remind us that the original creators, Michael Dante DiMartino e Bryan Konietzko, left the project at the beginning due to creative differences with Netflix. Recent experience with Percy Jackson and the olympians showed that the presence of the creator of the work behind the scenes is not a guarantee of quality. In case of Avatar — as in all adaptation work, anyway — we can consider that success depends more on understanding the original material than on the pure presence of its creator in the writers’ room as a totem of authority.
What Avatar, Percy Jackson and other recent cases such as One Piece e Yu Yu Hakusho have in common is the little screen time to recreate everything that fans love. We see this in Avatar in the quick resolution given to the rage of the spirit Hei Bai and in the fact that the waterbending scroll is in the Southern Water Tribe, eliminating an entire arc involving the conquest of the artifact. The live-action version focuses on cohesively reorganizing the story to ensure that the essentials of the source material are at least mentioned.
Knowing how to take advantage of the resources at its disposal, the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender achieve grace even in imperfection. When venturing into an adaptation of a franchise full of context and depth, Albert Kim aims for the lowest common denominators; His version begins with a production that is respectful to fans and interesting for a new audience.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Ongoing (2023- )
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Ongoing (2023- )
Created by: Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko
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