Review: Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender delivers charm and style

Reader, you’ll be able to chill out: They nailed it.

Midway by the third episode of Netflix’s tremendously anticipated live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Final Airbender, we’re handled to a slickly choreographed combat by a city sq. between our title character, Aang (Gordon Cormier), and his self-declared nemesis, Prince Zuko (Dallas Liu). This hand-to-hand fight by a colourful, chaotic avenue scene ends not with a victor however with a unique coup de grâce: a cameo from a fan-favorite produce vendor wailing over his ruined cabbages.

Between the rocky historical past of the franchise and uncertainty in regards to the present manufacturing, followers’ nervousness round this Netflix launch may properly be at an all-time excessive. The earlier try and adapt Nickelodeon’s beloved animated present, which ran for 3 seasons from 2005 to 2008, for a mainstream live-action viewers resulted in infamy. M. Evening Shyamalan’s 2010 film sparked a infamous controversy over his determination to forged his major characters with white actors, a transfer that resulted in years-long protests from followers and contributed to the film being launched to utter ignominy. A gutsy 2012 sequence growth following the exploits of Aang’s successor, Korra, renewed the franchise, although it garnered loads of controversy in its personal proper for that includes a (gasp!) messy feminine protagonist. With so many followers nonetheless burned by the movie, the information of Netflix’s eight-episode live-action adaptation spawned loads of fear. That wasn’t helped when the unique present’s creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, walked away from the mission in 2020, two years after it was first introduced. Between their departure and the delays attributable to the pandemic, followers puzzled whether or not the present would even be launched in any respect.

The wait, it seems, has been price it. Though there are many issues to quibble with in successor showrunner Albert Kim’s model of the sequence, so many issues go proper that this adaptation of Avatar not solely rejuvenates the entire franchise however elevates Netflix’s flagging live-action mission.

I’m unabashedly Avatar-pilled; I believe the Nickelodeon authentic is likely one of the best TV reveals ever made. It pulls off in simply three seasons the form of epic world constructing and character evolution that reveals double its size by no means handle to realize. It does so by balancing its family-friendly ethos with a narrative that offers brazenly with battle, genocide, fascism, trauma, and youngster abuse.

The result’s a present that’s routinely as devastating as it’s pleasant. Our heroes every grapple with deep private loss whereas making an attempt to cease a strong navy power, the Fireplace Nation, from colonizing the remainder of the world. That world is inhabited by fantasy creatures, steampunk cities, and 4 distinct teams characterised by their relationship to the standard 4 components: in addition to the Fireplace Nation (impressed by imperial Japan, China, and different East Asian cultures), there may be the Water Tribe (impressed by Inuit and different subarctic cultures), the Earth Kingdom (impressed by imperial Chinese language tradition), and the Air Nomads (impressed by Buddhist and Hindu cultures in Tibet and elements of Southeast Asia). Amongst these tribes, individuals often known as benders can management the ingredient they’re related to.

Just one human, often known as the Avatar, has the power to grasp all 4 components — a capability handed right down to them by generations in an unbroken chain of earlier avatars. The disappearance of the newest Avatar, Aang, a century in the past has allowed the Fireplace Nation to put waste to the opposite nations, together with utterly wiping out all of the Air Nomads, the tribe into which Aang was born. Aided by Katara and Sokka, two Water Tribe siblings whose mom died within the Fireplace Nation’s ethnic cleaning and whose father is away at battle, he has to make up for misplaced time and defeat the Fireplace Lord as soon as and for all. That is heady stuff, particularly for a child’s cartoon. However the present, which received a Peabody for “including considerate substance to [the] style,” has the writing, creativity, and deep characterization to tug it off.

That’s to not say that Avatar as a franchise and creative product wants no reckoning with. The present’s standing as an artifact of millennial nostalgia has change into difficult over time. The diploma to which its homage to anime and borrowing of Asian tradition veers into cultural appropriation slightly than tribute has been a supply of debate amongst followers and critics. So has the diploma to which, as a present made by white creators incorporating components of colonized cultures, it reifies the very factor it makes an attempt to rebuke.

Nonetheless, not like different reveals of its time, Avatar has largely managed to carry on to its followers. That is partly as a result of it’s by no means fairly reached the mainstream. (The truth is, its lack of a family title complicates issues for us: Will we editorialize with the longstanding shorthand Avatar, which was most well-liked till it was usurped by James Cameron, without end turning it into “Avatar — no, not that one”?)

It’s additionally partly as a result of Avatar stays one of the vital unapologetically antifascist reveals ever made. It’s not even generically pacifist — it regularly depicts acts of violent resistance as crucial. For on a regular basis Aang spends proselytizing about issues like morals, friendship, and the advantages of using an air scooter, Avatar by no means resorts to empty platitudes; its ethical and political classes are normally hard-won.

Difficult? Sure. However that’s additionally why, within the present political local weather, a live-action remake of Avatar can’t afford a single ideological misstep. Its ethical readability in regards to the absolute necessity of resisting genocidal regimes, political isolationism, and governments of conquest issues now greater than ever.

At their core, each the unique and the brand new Avatar are travelogues — tales that evolve their characters and their universe by a literal journey by that universe. It’s a format shared by numerous works, together with fantasies starting from Gulliver’s Travels to Star Trek. This works on a number of ranges, increasing our understanding of the world whereas additionally permitting our characters to develop and alter by every interplay with a brand new tradition.

The animated Avatar’s three seasons comply with three phases of Aang’s journey to grasp all 4 components, after which he can hopefully defeat the Fireplace Nation. The primary season of Netflix’s adaptation faithfully aligns with the primary season of the present (“Ebook One”) — although as a result of it has to truncate a lot of the motion, the primary two episodes function quite a lot of clunky exposition. The brand new present additionally suffers from an inclination to repeat the exposition we’ve already heard, to the extent of displaying flashbacks to moments that occurred earlier in the identical episode. At occasions, the mix of overexposition and overmoralizing turns hokey.

Nonetheless, the writing is stronger and extra gratifying than these decisions indicate. Netflix’s Avatar preserves the unique’s plot, and its adjustments work to tighten the narrative, deepen characterization, and strengthen the affect of heart-clenching moments within the storyline. Crucially, it retains the steadiness of the unique: depth and darkness, levity and light-weight.

The manufacturing design is opulent and wealthy with element, fastidiously incorporating Avatar’s cultural influences, from structure to costuming. The CGI is primarily an unobtrusive enhancement slightly than a distraction (Appa the sky bison being a disappointing exception). The motion is backed by a lush, lovely rating, and the combat scenes are wonderful. The substitute nature of the CGI combat scenes was one of many issues that actually torpedoed Shyamalan’s model; right here, nonetheless, notably throughout all the waterbending fights, the CGI and the live-action choreography combine seamlessly, producing visually spectacular climactic battle sequences.

Courtesy of Netlix

All of this bolsters the impeccable casting selections that went into creating this ensemble, which options cameos from a number of geek faves like Danny Pudi, Arden Cho, George Takei, and Osric Chau however by no means seems like pandering or stunt casting. General, this Avatar manages to keep away from succumbing to “the Netflix look” and as a substitute serves as an exemplar of the way to forged and visually adapt animated characters with out trying ridiculous or feeling faux.

The standouts on this regard are precisely who they need to be: Zuko, the willful, cussed Fireplace Nation prince in exile, and his uncle, Common Iroh (The Mandalorian’s Paul Solar-Hyung Lee). No Avatar adaptation can succeed except the viewers invests on this relationship; fortunately for us, Dallas Liu exudes simply the right combination of brashness and vulnerability and stressed power from the primary second he’s onscreen, whereas Lee unveils Iroh’s layered complexity one cautious diploma at a time. If one or the opposite doesn’t break your coronary heart individually, the 2 of them collectively undoubtedly will.

Kiawentiio, who performs our waterbending heroine Katara, is so significantly better than everybody round her for many of her time onscreen that she inadvertently highlights how little consideration her character will get. Ebook One focuses on creating her a lot much less attention-grabbing older brother, Sokka. Within the arms of actor Ian Ousley, who performs him with exact smarm and hamminess, Sokka is the epitome of the wisecracking sidekick: You both love him or hate him. Given all the fabric this season has to cowl, the time we spend watching him chase cute ladies and debate what profession monitor he needs to be on seems like filler — particularly since, in contrast, Katara is dealing (largely offscreen) with the trauma of getting watched her mom be burned alive. By the tip, nonetheless, Katara will get her second, with Sokka in full help.

Eclipsed by so many shiny and colourful aspect characters and a plot that provides his archnemesis the centerpiece hero’s journey, Aang has by no means been essentially the most compelling a part of his personal story. For many of Ebook One, he’s nonetheless a naive 12-year-old who spends most of his time fleeing Fireplace Nation troopers as a substitute of studying to bend components. Right here, Gordon Cormier does his greatest, however he’s normally saddled with a mouthful of both moralism or exposition. The present additionally suffers from a failure to combine Aang into the trio; we spend much more time listening to Aang and Katara discuss at one another in regards to the significance of friendship than we do watching them really change into buddies.

As a result of so many of those weaknesses are imposed on the sequence by the constraints of the eight-episode Netflix format, it’s price asking whether or not we even want extra Avatar. Can this shortening actually do justice to the unique’s complicated themes?

For me, to this point, the reply is sure. It seems I did want extra from this story. I did have to see Cormier’s face collapsing in grief and love when he reunites briefly with the monk who raised him. I did want the present to retcon a tiny offscreen romance as a way to present us that the conservative earthbending metropolis of Omashu was fairly actually constructed on a lesbian relationship. I did want Zuko’s troopers dramatically saluting him as a result of they’ve lastly realized he’s had their backs all alongside. I undoubtedly wanted to see Katara ice-surf throughout a battle to show her price as a bender.

Is it excellent? Nah. But it surely is perhaps an ideal technique to rekindle your love for Avatar — and remind the world why it deserved to be remembered within the first place.