After the critically despised live-action film adaptation of Nickelodeon’s much loved animated series “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” one never thought in a million years we’d ever see another attempt to remake the series. Despite overwhelming odds, Netflix has announced plans to reimagine the animated show into a live action series. Unlike with the film adaptation, Netflix’s version will have heavy involvement from the original creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. The two are “signed on to executive produce and run the series,” according to Polygon.
The original series
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” ran from 2005 to 2008 for three seasons. The series told the story of a young boy named Aang who was tasked with keeping balance in the world as the Avatar. In the world of “Avatar” select people could control or bend one of four elements, air, water, earth or fire.
Only the Avatar could bend all four elements and gain access to a mystical realm known as the Spirit World. After spending the last hundred years frozen in a block of ice underwater after running away from his duties as the Avatar, Aang now the last of the airbenders, only has one year to master the other three elements and finally put an end to the Hundred Year War started by the Fire Nation.
Each season was referred to like a book, and each book saw Aang working to master a new element. The show was mostly a light-hearted and fun adventure series, but could also be very emotional and impactful when it wanted to be.
The live action movie
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the live-action film adaptation attempted to condense the whole first season of twenty episodes into a one hundred and three-minute movie.
Much of the magic of “Avatar” was the constant traveling and seeing new locations and characters. In the series’ course we got to see every Nation and how each was different from one another. There were also many different memorable recurring heroes and antagonist met along the way, that all had to be cut for the film.
Combined with a pretty extreme whitewashing of the main cast, combined with bad effects, the movie was quite bad.
None of the characters were even able to pronounce the main character Aang’s name, despite all of the cast having access to the TV series which very clearly revealed how to pronounce the character’s name. To make matters worse, neither of the show’s creators Michael DiMartino or Bryan Konietzko were consulted during the film’s production either. Despite teasing the main villain of Book Two: Earth at the end of the film, no sequel films were ever developed.
Regardless of the return of Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, fans are reasonably hesitant about another attempt at a live action adaptation. Many feel the series was perfect as an animated series and see nothing to be gained from remaking the series.
Despite the live action film never getting sequels, the animated series did in the form of “The Legend of Korra.” “The Legend of Korra” takes place seventy years after the events of the first series and follows the new Avatar a waterbender named Korra.
The series took a different approach compared to that of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” with older protagonists, less world traveling and darker and more mature storylines. “Korra” was generally well received and ended after four seasons. Both “Korra” and “Avatar” have had their stories continued in follow up comic book series. At this point, it’s hard to say if Netflix’s new series will be able to live up to either of the two prior shows, but whether fans are excited or not, “The new series, in partnership with Nickelodeon, will start production in 2019,” according to Variety.
