#it's not perfect | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

seyaryminamoto · 14 days

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Do you have any particular thoughts on Netflix Avatar Season 1? I haven't watched it myself but I would be curious to hear what you have to say.

I do indeed! I didn't watch it right away, but I have watched it indeed. I think there are merits to certain changes they did, I can see the sense in many of them, that doesn't mean EVERYTHING they changed was good, but it does feel like they were engaging with the original content in a far more creative way than a lot of people are willing to acknowledge or try themselves. No, it isn't a perfect remake of ATLA, but being the critic that I have been of the original show, nobody could ever convince me that the original was perfect, just as this new show isn't perfect.

I want to make a big post on the subject one day and try to get to everything it brought up... once I have more time on my hands, I'll try to do that. But, to give you a bit to chew on... I'll try to do one good vs. one bad on my part, of whatever I can remember right now.

GOOD: I actually do not mind the multiple prologues in the first episode, even though I don't think the changes were handled perfectly. I do believe that showing the genocide is not nearly as bad a choice as a lot of people pretend it is (the way it was portrayed is questionable mostly from a tactical point of view but that's just me being a freak about that... studying basic warfare really fucks up your suspension of disbelief when it comes to war scenes). Mainly, I think it IS important to show it due to the amount of people who are still convinced that Aang didn't suffer nearly as much as most other popular characters did -- that soooo many people have made these claims without a care in the world throughout the twenty years since ATLA first aired proves that the genocide was not treated with the severity it should have been by the OG show. I'm not even sorry to say it. It doesn't feel like a trivialization of violence, it feels like actually setting straight the degree of violence a genocide entails. People asking for a less intense version of genocide basically appear to be asking for the actual gravity of such events to be sanitized so they can chew on them more easily... and that's exactly what leads to it being trivialized, minimized and not taken seriously, if you ask me.

BAD: I don't particularly like the way Fire Lords are so... casual with commoners. Both Ozai and Sozin stood on the same level as a rebel/spy right before setting them on fire, no doubt it's meant to be some sort of flex, but... men of their ideologies and pride would not want to be up close and personal with anyone they consider that far beneath them. Odd choice there, imo.

MOSTLY GOOD: Aang does feel way more serious and has much more dramatic gravitas in everything he does. And this is not a bad choice, in essence. I don't particularly love that they tried to lessen it with occasional "Aang's a silly kid!" verbal reminders that don't actually have any proper visual evidence, because most the silly things he's up for are things the two older kids (Sokka and Katara) are perfectly fine with doing too, hence, he doesn't feel childish at all and it comes off out of place for him to talk about being more childish than he actually is. So... they really didn't need dialogue to try to emphasize his childhood if they weren't going to write him being a goofball. It's fine if he isn't one. He always could be a more serious character, it's only a problem when there's no further substance to him than just brooding (which is what I remember from the Shyamalan movie...).

WEIRD: Aang and Katara both had weird scenes of standing around doing nothing but smiling at their hometowns in episode 1. Maybe it was done as a parallel between them, but it felt a bit... overly theatric? If that makes sense? Like... I know we need to see their daily lives and the context in which they've lived... but it doesn't feel entirely logical for that to happen with them just standing in place and smiling fondly at their world. Most people do not do that in their daily lives...?

GOOD: ... Contrary to what a lot of the fandom seems to think, I actually like the suuuuuper slowburn Kataang here because any potential romantic payoff those two might get isn't nearly as in-your-face as it was in canon. The way their friendship is growing feels far more organic. And some of my favorite character moments in the show were actually between them. Which is not something I'd EVER say about the original show. There's a different sense of maturity for the characters here, and I like that.

BAD: I... do not like Sokka's changes. No, it's not about the sexism. It makes sense to me that this aspect of his character would be changed, updated in a sense: you can even still read him as sexist in some regards! It just isn't as simplistic and straightforward as it was before. But that's... not what bugs me the most. The show genuinely surprised me by taking him far more seriously as a character than I anticipated they would, but they absolutely picked weird choices with him in stuff like his family issues (... the Hakoda changes are just straight-up cringe for me, there's no justification for making him some sort of bitchy soccer mom who congratulates his son but then shits on him behind his back??), his insecurities as a warrior and the frequent remarks about how maybe that's not his path in life even though he does just fine at it, and... his romantic relationships. It's wild, because I actually think they did Sukka a thousand times better than it is in canon, and yet in doing so, they absolutely deadlocked themselves into a whole other problem: Sokka bonding that much with Suki and then hitting on a random Fire Nation soldier like two episodes later?? Then having the romance of his lifetime with Yue by the end of the season?? Ngl, it feels like we're watching one of those sitcoms where characters switch love interests in the blink of an eye. Changing this element of his character this way, when Suki's romance in particular was given new qualities and way more substance... may not have been a great call since it makes him come off insanely shallow, ready to get with any girl he comes across, and frankly, he didn't feel like that in the original show to me. He's also not really funny when he's supposed to be? Part of what made Sokka funny originally was his role as a voice of reason while everyone else ignored him. They occasionally tried to mimic that here... but in ways that didn't really work? Also, the Ron-Weasley-In-HP-Movies brand of comedy of "watch this guy scream, it's soooo funny" is... so trite at this point. Please, don't. Personally, this really feels like a whole other character who isn't Sokka. And some people might think that's great... I'm not one of them. Maybe I'm just experiencing the crisis a lot of people are over Katara with Sokka? But where changes with her do seem to go for things I actually wasn't fond of in her character, I don't really feel like they did better with Sokka in the least.

GOOD: ... "Katara learned waterbending too fast", they say: she did in canon too. A month of training under Pakku is not nearly enough time to justify her being deemed a master in canon. Complaining about how she didn't get that training at all here and still got deemed a master gets a "meh" out of me because I frankly do not see it being remotely as different from what canon did as people want to think it is. Katara was fighting Pakku with way too much power in the OG show for a kid who never got formal training to begin with, and somehow nobody minds that. I don't think someone who was on that level of power in the OG show was nearly as inferior to a seasoned master as a bunch of people want to believe. So... outrage about how they sped up her learning process when we in fact see a LOT more internal growth for Katara, and a lot more depth to her bending source here, makes no sense to me.

Along with that: bending has always been connected with a bender's internal energy, which is related to their peace of mind and internal balance. This show did not invent that. Firebenders are the ones who are most explicitly shown to be connected to their feelings that way, sure, but if you needed ATLA or LOK to non-stop feature characters talking about how a person's chakras had to be cleansed and their hearts clear and their every spiritual thread cleaned up in order to reach their best possible shapes as benders? You probably have bigger problems in analyzing this show than just whining over whatever the liveaction did. A straightforward connection for Katara with her emotions and bending isn't a negative choice in the slightest to me, more so with a character who has constantly been characterized as deeply connected to her emotions: it makes sense that her bending works and evolves the way it does in the liveaction to me. Sorry not sorry.

BAD: Zhao. Uh... I've seen people say they like him here? I felt like I was watching a con artist. It's not the actor's fault, clearly he was given this concept to work with and he did the best he could with it, but the idea of removing Zhao from all prior connection to the Royal Family, making him a total unknown who came out of nowhere and rises to prominence through conniving and scheming feels like they decided to merge him with Long Feng, maybe? And it might even backfire if they DO have Long Feng next season (... they should???) and he has a very similar profile to what they did with Zhao. I didn't enjoy his characterization at all, he was just... weird. So, not a change I was big on.

GOOD: Iroh. My god. I hate the fact that I'm saying this. But I will say it was insanely cathartic to watch that EK soldier beating him up. And that's not all: Iroh actually seems to be struggling actively with right and wrong here, showing hesitation over the war, and most importantly... HAVING A PERSONAL DYNAMIC WITH AANG??!!! I never imagined I would be that happy to see that, but I was. The few moments those two had together were damn solid, some of the best in the show (and the best for Iroh, sorry not sorry, I have never ever been an Iroh-Zuko obsessive fan and I genuinely find myself more intrigued by Iroh's potential bonding with other people, never thought about it with Aang but this show 100% blindsided me with it in a good way). It seriously made me mad that the OG basically never gave them that chance besides... that one scene in the catacombs that was very much just Iroh being a fortune cookie? Aang actually being an element that basically waters the seeds of doubt in Iroh's head is a GREAT change. I said it and I'll stand by it.

BAD: Hahn and not because of the usual reasons: their characterization rework of Hahn was fine. More than fine. The actor they cast was also very pretty! All of which makes it EXTREMELY questionable that Yue somehow has this perfectly decent guy and... uh... chooses the reworked Sokka instead? Like, I know that's how the OG story went, but when you turn Hahn from an opportunistic dick to a perfectly admirable warrior and individual, and feature Yue saying he's great but he's "not the boy of her dreams" (you... dreamt about him ONE TIME?? He's never been in the Spirit World besides that, so wuuuut...??), it makes her choice in romantic interests feel extremely questionable and weird. I'm all for Yue being given more to work with, but this seriously feels like she's... a little crazy. Hahn comes off waaaaaaay too decent for her not to be interested in him... ofc, as long as she's someone attracted to men, which, considering she picked ANOTHER GUY, it's to be assumed that she is?? Ergo nothing makes sense to me. Come to think of it, a lesbian Yue rejecting Hahn is probably the only way her rejection of Hahn would make sense... and it would also not cast such a questionable light on reworked Sokka if he and Yue weren't romantic at all, right after he had that big connection with Suki back when the show began?? So, heh, maybe lesbian Yue is the only thing that would've made sense if Hahn gets reworked for the better like this, sorry not sorry....

GOOD: The full-blown, outright display of Ozai's abuse on Azula rather than subtleties and insinuations. Again, much like in Aang's case with the genocide: PEOPLE DENY AZULA WAS A VICTIM OF ABUSE ALL THE TIME. People pretend Ozai actually loved her on some weird level or that she FELT loved, ergo she was fine and Zuko's the one who was abused. This is not new. We've been dealing with people barking that kind of nonsense since almost twenty years ago. And the backlash from that exact crowd when this show made it evident proves that they refuse to accept Azula as a victim of abuse to this day. Ergo, sorry not sorry: I'm glad they handled it as they did here because it makes it undeniable that Ozai is pushing Azula to extremes and she's pressured to deliver and become the weapon he wants her to be.

BAD: ... the Mother of Faces. That may have been the most egregious offensive and bullshit moments in the entire show. I was so mad when she was brought up at all. It was awful. I hated it. It really must be my most hated moment in the whole thing. UGH.

GOOD: Katara apologized to Sokka once. You know. One time. That, I think, marks the single time in any official Avatar content where she has done that. Call me a salty asshole, but I'm genuinely impressed that they did that, so they get a point for it.

BAD: Bumi. I know some people think the rework for Bumi is great... I could not disagree more. His treatment of Aang is really unacceptable, his behavior is very irresponsible but this time in a vindictive way... I was even reasoning with the fact that he knows Aang is the Avatar, which ALSO happens in the OG, without having known it in the past! The difference? It feels too arbitrary and random that he'd know that here, whereas in the OG show, he IS random and arbitrary, yet somewhere amid so many nonsensical ramblings, he shows insight and intelligence that makes you think there's more to him than meets the eye. I may need to rewatch episode 5 of the OG show in order to confirm this, but I also think that most of the implications there regarding his challenges is that they were actually harmless even if it doesn't look that way all along. Here? They're not harmless at all, he's basically vindictively trying to get Aang to either die for his "sins" or get himself killed through him and neither thing sits well with me at all with this character.

GOOD: Gyatso, expanding on his character and making him a much more straightforward equivalent to Iroh for Aang actually is really helpful, it makes him less of a "stock character" victim to the Fire Nation, it gave him more depth and it makes Aang's bond with him feel much more real. I am very sorry to all OG apologists, but I continue to believe Aang's cheerful behavior was written primarily to appeal to the children demographic that Nickelodeon was aiming for as their audience, which meant he could not be particularly human and truly grieve for everything he had lost. This show doesn't hide that pain at all, and it's particularly good that it does that by showing what a constant presence Gyatso was in Aang's life and by letting them have a manner of final farewell in that episode (... even if I didn't particularly like the episode, but still, it wasn't a bad idea to do that).

BAD: ... call me a consistency freak if you will, but I did not spend all these years obsessively trying to make sense out of the wobbly worldbuilding of the Avatarverse to be told that the entrance to the Cave of Two Lovers is within Omashu and that it leads into the arena within Bumi's Palace. Sorry. I can't accept that. I can't. I legit laughed throughout that whole situation because that's not where the cave of two lovers was, the badgermoles would be causing earthquakes non-stop through the city, and the sewers system would not even work because they'd constantly get fucked up by the creatures (as we know, there's a scene in Book 2 of the kids climbing out of the sewers, so either they won't do the pentapox or they'll forget about the badgermoles conveniently by then...). So. No. Sorry but no. Also, why did they kill Oma??? I know they turned both lovers into women, but... precisely because they did that, why exactly was there any need to change which one died?? Either one you kill is a woman now anyway so... what's the difference? WHY the difference?? Odd.

GOOD: ... Zuko keeps a notebook on his research and investigations into the Avatar. There were many changes to his character but that's the one that stood out the most to me. He actually seems a little bit more methodical, if not smarter, but you know? Kinda smarter anyway for at LEAST thinking that keeping a book with the results of his investigations could help?? Feels like he's actually trying rather than just whining about how rude the world is and how hard he has it. Which, in the end, might ALSO come down to him actually having some hope that Ozai didn't hate him irremediably... which, too, is a good change. I've talked about it before, other people have too: a firstborn firebending male prince has no business being discarded because of incompetence unless he's just THAT pathetic, and even in canon, Zuko wasn't as bad as to justify pushing him out and treating him as shittily as Ozai did without an actual, THOROUGH, exploration of Ozai's motives. You can elaborate, but the show never really did it, and if anything, it offered a bunch of conflictive information about why Zuko thought his father liked him. Here, it makes more sense that he thinks Ozai isn't as much of a bitch as he really is: the Agni Kai is a lot more interesting because they merged both Zuko vs. Zhao and Zuko vs. Ozai into one. The fact that Ozai actually burns Zuko and defeats him BECAUSE he was punishing him for not taking advantage of an enemy's weakness? It's a million times more telling about Zuko's character than what we saw in canon, where he was down to fight an old man out of hybris and then shat himself as soon as his father stepped up instead. So... I don't like this Zuko, which tells you they're doing him right anyway x'DDDD but I find there are a few elements about him that make him at LEAST a little more respectable than he was in the OG show. Among them? He's not constantly ranting about honor but actually lashing out at dishonorable choices out of principle, which makes it sound like he has a WAY better grasp on that concept than he does in canon :'D sue me. This is a Zuko rework too, and fortunately, not ONLY geared towards sanitizing him (even though there IS a fair amount of sanitizing too... which annoys me, but what else could we expect in the era of political correction).

BAD: ... Why the fuck did they decide the way to fix Iroh harassing June was to make her horny for him? Please? Of all things??? All they had to do was just... not make any romantic/sexual implications there. At all. Was that so hard to achieve? This is probably the second worst thing for me in the entire show, ngl. I do not understand the need for it at all. Most of all when they CLEARLY changed it due to knowing Iroh absolutely was a bastard in the OG with his behavior towards her. Isn't it easier to just NOT put any implications of attraction in there? I mean, I should be happy June didn't fully harass Iroh but the way they presented it, it felt like he wasn't even comfortable with it either! This... is not the way you take revenge for a character sexually harassing another one. Bad, bad take, I don't know what made them do this but they absolutely did not "fix" this, they overcorrected it and made it gross as fuck to me anyhow, most of all with the context of knowing that Iroh was the one being inappropriate as fuck back in the OG.

ALRIGHT. I know there's bound to be more, and I probably could think of more soon but I think I'm giving you this for now or else I'll end up making my major post here x'D

All in all, I don't think this show is unwatchable, I absolutely understand people who think it was fun, I also understand people who couldn't get used to the changes and outright dropped it. What I can't understand/accept is either pretending this show is the greatest thing ever (much like I don't think the OG ATLA is...), or pretending that it's the worst one either. This show engaged with a lot of elements in different ways than the original did: not all of it was a miss, not all of it was a hit. And I feel like it's a matter of fundamental, human decency and respect not to go completely berserk taking a ten-ton dump on this show, which to this date is the biggest production in Hollywood with a primarily Asian cast and crew of all time, from what I know, by pretending it has destroyed this franchise completely and that any support for it must come from brainwashed idiots or "not true fans". The gate-keepy attitude comes as absolutely no surprise in this fandom, ofc, but it's still disgusting to see. You CAN be critical of this show with dignity. You CAN do it while respecting other people who enjoyed it completely. It's not too much to ask. I may have learned that lesson the hard way with the ATLA comics, but even then, it wasn't my M.O. to jump into every single comics-positive post to tell people why they sucked and how dumb they were for enjoying them.

That's what I've got for the time being :'D hope it's enough for now.

#zuko-always-lies #natla #it's not perfect #neither is the OG #oh I didn't mention it in the final paragraphs but #I find it particularly hilarious when people rage at the new one #for things the OG did too #like I'm sorry here but you can't come to me and praise the OG for the exact stuff you hated the remake for #at least be consistent??#anyway anyway there we are for now

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