I am going to start off by saying this, I am currently rewatching the OG avatar series so the differences and nuances from the animated show compared to this one are all fresh in my mind. Secondly I was first introduced to the world of ATLA by the 2010 movie and fell in love with certain casting choices from the movie, such as the beautiful Seychelle Gabriel as Princess Yue, Dev Patel as Zuko, Summer Bishil as our fiery Princess Azula (for the 5 seconds you see her) and Cliff Curtis and Shaun Toub as Fire Lord Ozai and Uncle Iroh. Not the most accurate castings I know but ones I fell in love with. I also liked the actor for Sokka, Jackson Rathbone and Nicola Peltz and Noah Ringer for Katara and Aang.
So that being said lets get into the review for the 2024 ATLA show.
Starting off with the casting, while it's not the cast I fell in love with 14 years ago on the movie (which I know everyone hates) it is a more accurate casting to the original characters so as much as I would want to I can't fault them there. However what I can fault the cast for or maybe the director is the terrible acting. Now before everyone starts yelling at me and saying the acting is amazing go and watch the OG show again and you will see just how wooden the performances we get in the live action show are.
Aang is the worst with the Katara actress just being super shy and unable to express emotion properly, though this could just be due to how her character is written and the fact that Katara has unfortunately had a lot of her character depth removed in the show. On the other hand the actress who plays her, Kiawentiio is very beautiful and I do look forward to seeing her in future projects and in season 2 after she has had some more time to develop her skills further. My beloved Sokka is no where near as fun, bubbly and full of funny remarks as he is in the animated show, though once again this is also partially due to the script and the fact that those moments are just not included in the show. Ian Ousley is not a bad casting choice but I don't really like the casting choice very much as I just feel that Jackson Rathbone is a better embodiment of Sokka.
Princess Yue is played by the absolutely beautiful Amber Midthunder, who I am a fan of from her performance in the prequel Predator film Prey. While I enjoyed her performance here quite a lot I just couldn't get into it as every time I saw her hair aka that terrible wig they have her wearing it just throws me off completely. Seychelle Gabriel who plays Princess Yue in the movie is just as beautiful and unlike poor Amber is blessed with an actual realistic looking wig and beautiful blue eyes that enhances her characters beauty rather then take away from it. I do wish that Netflix had made Amber's eyes blue in the show as well via the use of contacts or something so she could more closely resemble her animated counter-part.
Zuko is okay to be honest but that's it, just okay. He definitely needs some fixing in the script so that his actor Dallas Liu has more to work with. Dev Patel while having barely anything to actually work with gave us a glimpse of the depth and character he could bring to Zuko given a better script and still gave us a really great performance. Azula on the other hand is terrible, I'm sorry but I just can't for the life of me see the show Azula as Azula at all. In the 5 seconds in the movie where I get to see Summer Bishil as Azula she makes me see her as highly intelligent, beautiful, eager to please her father and very, very powerful and dangerous. The casting choices for Mai and Ty Lee were just terrible, like I honestly don't know what the casting director was thinking there. Plus they shouldn't even have been introduced in season 1 and the introduction they did get was them just standing around watching Azula practice.
The actor for fire lord Ozai, Daniel Dae Kim is honestly not bad at all, I have nothing negative to say there and will actually say that his performance was really enjoyable though I do love Cliff Curtis as an actor. Paul Lee who plays Uncle Iroh is alright as well but I loved Shaun Toub's portrayal and can't help but compare the two and personally I liked Shaun's more (if only he had a good script to work with!).
An honorable mention is to the absolutely stunning Maria Zhang who plays Suki and whose portrayal of the character I absolutely loved! She really gave me the vibes of the OG animated show Suki and just did a wonderful job overall so props to her for her performance!
To round it off, in terms of acting the show is very wooden, without the expressive characters and emotions and interactions we have come to love in the OG show.
Next up we have storyline and while it's far more faithful to the OG show then the movie was I still am not happy with it, it feels very rushed with random things taken from other seasons of the OG show and mashed together. So while it is more accurate to the animated show I still hate what they did to it, for example they got rid of my boy Avatar Roku and replaced him with Kyoshi as Aang's go to avatar guide, which there was absolutely no need to do. This also completely destroys the importance of Avatar Roku and his connection to Fire Lord Sozin, Prince Zuko and the start of the 100 years war. The character development is also really bad with Aang, Sokka, Katara, Zuko and Azula no longer being the characters we love so much from the OG show. Sokka is no longer our misogynistic, sarcastic guy who develops into a well rounded and loved character. Also King Bumi is just a bitter, resentful old guy filled with rage now, gone is his wisdom and fun loving personality. So story wise while it's not bad, especially if you haven't watched the original cartoon, it is not to my liking and I am definitely disappointed with it. The parts I did enjoy was the little scenes taken directly from the OG show such as Master Pakku seeing his reflection in the ice piece Katara throws at him during their duel, The cabbage guy yelling "My Cabbages" etc.
To round it off what I'm trying to say is while the storyline is alright, they have ruined the depth and personality that made many of the characters who they are and that had profound impacts on them throughout their journey and helped shape their development throughout the story. The fact the OG show creators left citing Netflix not following their vision for it just drives the point home.
In terms of visual and sound effects the show shines. Seriously this is by far the best part of the show, which is kind of sad since I was hoping to be praising the acting, casting and story more than VFX and SFX. The sound effects and theme song are all actually really good, no real complaints there. The visuals are also really great to see and look awesome. There is a reason you see most instagram clips and stuff praising the VFX/SFX.
With all that praise heaped on the VFX and SFX there is one thing I have to comment on and that is the god awful costumes, wigs and world itself. What I mean by this is very simple, in the 2010 movie what M. Night Shyamalan was able to do very successfully was make a world that looked and felt real, the characters wore outfits and clothing that felt lived in and worn and the wigs used all looked and felt natural and real. In the show none of this is done unfortunately, the wigs look fake and just plopped onto the actors head, the clothing all looks and feels fake for lack of a better word, like it's not been lived in or used in real life at all and the world itself screams of tons of CGI without the authenticity that M. Night Shyamalans world brought to us in terms of it's looks and feel.
The final thing to talk about is the bending styles and I'm sorry to say but it is absolutely terrible. I don't know what they were thinking when they decided to go ahead with these but they are all literal copy and pastes of one another and it sucks that they all look the same. The OG avatar has each bending style based of a different martial art with the 4 being Tai-Chi, Hung Ga, Baguazhang and Northern Shaolin which results in really cool looking and unique bending styles for each element. Unfortunately the live action show completely throws this out the window.
Overall I will give the show a 6/10 as it's got brilliant VFX and SFX thanks to 2024 technology as well as quite an accurate cast and some cool scenes taken straight from the OG animated show. There are also a few really well done acting performances that I enjoyed. However it loses 4 stars for the overall wooden acting, lack of personality and character development as well as the terrible bending forms and mishmash of a storyline. Still if you are someone whose never seen anything Avatar The Last Airbender before then definitely give the show a watch (Or the movie since the storyline won't effect you then having not seen anything ATLA related before) if you want something live action otherwise go watch the OG animated show.
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