Some Avatar the Last Airbender (or ATLA, for short) gatekeepers out there would say I’m not qualified to give this review. Part of me almost agrees with them. We all make mistakes when we were young, but one of my bigger ones was refusing to watch Avatar when it aired on Nickelodeon because I thought it was “kiddie American wannabe anime that was probably made just to sell toys.” And I call myself That Nerd Show’s animation nerd. Like many, the pandemic lockdown era gave me an opportunity to actually sit down and give the series a chance, see what all the fuss has been about. Even as an adult, I was blown away. If I were to rate the original animated Avatar series, it would easily be a 10/10, which I don’t think I’ve ever given any series I’ve reviewed on this site. The next year, I even dressed as Aang for Halloween.

Unfortunately, I also watched the 2010 live action film by M. Night Shyamalan and learned what the outrage was about. It was…an unsuccessful attempt at an adaptation, to put it nicely. It’s because of this that many fans approached the announcement of a live action series by Netflix with a healthy amount of caution. Shymalan’s film proved that if you try to put too much realism in a work based off an animated fantasy, the magic is lost. Learning from these mistakes, is it possible for Netflix to give this now legendary story some justice?

If you’re even more stubborn than me and never watched it, the series takes place in a fictional world in which four nations representing the elements of Earth, Fire, Air, and Water live in harmony. Each nation has people that are able manipulate their element. Everything was fine until the Fire nation attacked… (Ok how do I paraphrase the famous opening monologue without just copy-pasting it? Should I just assume everyone knows this by now?). The four nations are led by the Avatar, a spiritually pre-ordained master of all four elements. When an Avatar dies, the next person in a different nation is born as the Avatar. When the fire nation attacked, it caused Aang (Gordan Cormier) , the 12 year old Air Nation Avatar, to be encased in ice and missing for 100 years until two siblings from the Southern Water Tribe, Katara (Kiawentiio) and Sokka (Ian Ousley), find him. Hot on his trail are Zuko (Dallas Liu), the banished prince of the Fire Nation, and his Uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), the undisputed best character in the series (and quite possibly in all of fiction.)

So the good news is the live action series is a vast improvement over the Shyamalan film. One of the key issues with the movie was there just isn’t enough time to give the story justice if you tell an entire season’s worth of plot in one film. Avatar was absolutely meant to be a series. It’s one of those stories that really shines not just with the important plot points, but the little stories and character developments that happen along the journey. While the new Netflix series definitely allows for more time to have those small, yet very important moments, the new series still falls short of them. I completely understand. Ten episodes of 45 to 60 minutes a piece are extremely expensive to produce. They really had to trim a “lot of the fat”, so to speak, to decide what to leave in that would enhance the story, as well as not upset the already volatile fans.

I’m going to be absolutely fair here. We as ATLA fans need to approach this series with the absolute understanding that not every joke, side plot, or character interaction can be left in. Oh sure they put in some of the biggest fan favorites just to keep us from coming after them with pitchforks, but a lot of these moments felt more like forced fan service rather than a genuine moment belonging in the story. This is mainly caused by the writing and overall tone of the new series shifting to much more dark and serious than the cartoon. And while I respect that decision to an extent, it does make some of the more silly “cartoony” elements they left in seem out of place.

This contrast of tone is especially visible in the costuming. As someone who is very picky about cosplays, especially those based off of animated works, I can definitely say the costume department worked extremely hard to give us completely accurate translations of the cartoon characters outfits to real life. Unfortunately this becomes more of a problem rather than a plus. The costumes are indeed excellent cosplays, but they are simply out of place in the dark serious world they’ve established. In every episode, they look practically prestine, completely lack that “lived in” quality that really sell a good costume in a fantasy live action. I won’t even get into the wigs, except to say if I can tell they are wearing wigs instead of suspending my disbelief, they need some work.

While the transition into live action detracts from the series in many ways, there are a few aspects that impressed me. The casting this time around was phenomenal, with the studio actually making the effort to cast First Nations, South and East Asian actors to play the characters that took inspiration from their culture. Gordon Cormier is simply Aang come to life. Dallas Liu, while getting quite a lot of inspiration from Zuko’s original VA Dante Bosco, still really makes the Fire Nation Prince his own, complete with some excellent spicy temper and sassiness. And while yes, I’m completely biased in this opinion, but Paul Sun-Hyung Lee’s Uncle Iroh was perhaps the best live action interpretation of all.

There were also some story elements that got added to this version that weren’t in the original that really helped fill in some gaps with the lore. My favorite episode of the season was E6, “Masks”, which really expanded Zuko’s backstory as well as his early dynamic with Aang. I’ll admit this was the one that actually got me to tear up a bit. While I don’t feel there are any particularly weak episodes in this season, I do wish they spent a bit less time in Omashu, even though I know they combined many other story lines from the animated series into this location, it made me stangly restless to spend so much time here.

At the time of writing we have now at least confirmation that a Season 2 and 3 have been approved, theoretically allowing us to see the entirety of this series through. I’m actually pretty glad for it. While Season 1 was far less than perfect and certainly not as good as the original, it was certainly a great effort put forth to do justice to the source material. If Netflix actually listens to some of the fan criticisms and makes a few minor adjustments, the remaining seasons have potential to be great. In the meantime at least we have more Avatar content, am I right?