Just Saya-ing
By Saya Fujii
By Saya Fujii
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” was released before I was even born, but it has made its way into current pop culture in a huge way.
In May 2020, when it was available on Netflix for the first time, the show experienced a giant wave of popularity, which I am happy to say I was a part of. Since then, the largely grown fandom (and I) have been waiting for new content, specifically for another live-action remake due to the universally agreed-upon-awful 2010 adaptation by M. Night Shyamalan.
Live-action anime remakes, particularly from Netflix, who fumbled “Death Note,” “Fullmetal Alchemist” and “Cowboy Bebop,” do not have the greatest track record, so when I learned they were making the new “Avatar: The Last Airbender” live-action show, I did not get my hopes up. However, I know that nothing could possibly be worse than Shyamalan’s film.
The trailer for the new show came out on Nov. 9, and was successful in somewhat raising my rather low expectations. I already knew that this cast was a much better choice than the whitewashed characters in the 2010 version, but they also had an encouraging absence of terrible acting and cheesy lines.
It seems like the live-action will be sticking very close to its source material, and I have mixed feelings about that. Of course, this is great news considering how inaccurate the movie was, but I also hope that it will know what parts to keep the same and what not to. A lot of things don’t translate well from animation to live-action, and that was even apparent in what could become Netflix’s best anime adaptation.
In May 2020, when it was available on Netflix for the first time, the show experienced a giant wave of popularity, which I am happy to say I was a part of. Since then, the largely grown fandom (and I) have been waiting for new content, specifically for another live-action remake due to the universally agreed-upon-awful 2010 adaptation by M. Night Shyamalan.
Live-action anime remakes, particularly from Netflix, who fumbled “Death Note,” “Fullmetal Alchemist” and “Cowboy Bebop,” do not have the greatest track record, so when I learned they were making the new “Avatar: The Last Airbender” live-action show, I did not get my hopes up. However, I know that nothing could possibly be worse than Shyamalan’s film.
The trailer for the new show came out on Nov. 9, and was successful in somewhat raising my rather low expectations. I already knew that this cast was a much better choice than the whitewashed characters in the 2010 version, but they also had an encouraging absence of terrible acting and cheesy lines.
It seems like the live-action will be sticking very close to its source material, and I have mixed feelings about that. Of course, this is great news considering how inaccurate the movie was, but I also hope that it will know what parts to keep the same and what not to. A lot of things don’t translate well from animation to live-action, and that was even apparent in what could become Netflix’s best anime adaptation.