Fuck this show. Yeah, it is technically enjoyable, the production’s competent, the writing’s coherent, and all the IP loyalist signifiers are there. And if you need someone to complain about how some aspect of those things fell short, you can find that anywhere on Reddit or YouTube movie “criticism” channels.

Yes, this show has somehow managed to avoid the curse of incompetent production that some magic user cast on live action adaptations. Unfortunately the result is something way more horrific than any mess of mangled CGI you can laugh at with friends on a lazy afternoon. It is instead the eerily perfect, hollow shell of the original series possessed by the utter death drive of capitalism. Unlike other series, who often don’t even have enough depth in the original for this to happen to them, The live action ATLA was somehow killed on a level far deeper than shitty production value or low sales. One could argue that it was killed the moment the merch factories started churning years ago, but that’s out of the scope of this post.

To watch the live action ATLA is to literally witness the recuperation of actual writing and art. The ever-present, disgustingly rare in American television, criticism of imperialism is faded to only the remnants they were forced to leave in due to the skeleton of the plot, instead portraying those who suffer from the war, yet still want to take action, as jaded bullies and cowards. Jet’s portrayal is somehow made a MORE liberal and inaccurate depiction of revolutionaries than the original show’s. Instead of being a genuine rebel simply going “too far”, a portrayal that would unfortunately be an improvement now, he is a random terrorist who kills innocent people in the in his city he lives in because he dislikes the people who are trying to invade it and don’t yet. live. there??? Because he thinks King Bumi isn’t doing enough??? So he randomly bombs people??? . I think they were trying to make Jet and Bumi mirror the “Bernie-bro radical left” and Joe Biden IRL, basically trying to both sides things, but if that’s the case than it’s even worse because America is the country??? Doing the imperializing??? Not the one BEING imperialized???

That is, unfortunately, the most mild affront of this adaptation, granted mercy only by the utterly shit, “I hate violinists so I’ll make a violinist kill people” tier depiction of the original character they adapted. There are far worse crimes in this adaptation, and I wish they were just failures to adapt the plot or the characters.

The show’s minimum, bare bones criticism of toxic masculinity and misogyny has been completely removed and stripped away, entirely deleting Sokka (now Sokkka)'s character arc from the show. Of course, the damage to the characters doesn’t really matter that much in comparison to the whitewashing and erasure of even the most basic fucking critique of oppressive systems. Unfortunately it doesn’t even stop at the removal of political criticism; The entire philosophical breadth of the show has been flattened and reduced to basic tropes. Aang’s commitment to life and an uncompromising belief in freedom has been obliterated, and not even the shadow of it remains. Aang is no longer a child grappling with immense obligations, but instead a child who simply went on a ten-minute joyride to clear his head and then had his whole world taken away from him. Rather than grappling with the show’s nuanced themes of adulthood, responsibility, freedom, and childishness, they opt instead to have Aang be scolded by every adult he meets about his lack of responsibility, with a complete dearth of pushback (minus a single “power of friendship” moment against Bumi, who is now a cynical old boomer), even from Aang himself, even though he DIDN’T EVEN RUN AWAY IN THIS ADAPTATION!!! WHAT AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO TAKE FROM THIS??? ???

Any themes or interrogations of redemption, grief, and loss are killed along with Uncle Iroh’s empathy. While, ironically, we have an entire scene where Uncle Iroh the smol bean war criminal is BUWWIED by an MEANIE soldiew who’s angwy JUST because his city suffewed a dwaught because of Iroh 🥺. Iroh taunts him and lords over him as being morally superior (despite being a FUCKING WAR CRIMINAL), and it is unfortunately very obvious that we are supposed to sympathize with Iroh in this scene, and view the soldier as unreasonable. Turning a character who is meant to represent someone who realized the horror of war and imperialism only after their own son was lost in combat, to a war criminal who we are meant to forgive even though he isn’t sorry, because he doesn’t do the war crimes anymore I guess???

deeply unserious show. Live action shit sucks anyway

I’m also fairly sure it didn’t even pass the fucking Bechdel test.