The Nickelodeon show, Avatar: The Last Airbender, is a well-known classic animated television series. It is a fantasy show about the world divided into four nations that represents the elements of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. Benders are able to have the ability to control the element from the nation they are from but the Avatar is able to bend all four elements and keep the world in balance.
After the animation series ended in 2008, the series continued through a comic book series. But while the series aired in 2007, a live action movie was announced. Paramount and Nickelodeon announced that M. Night Shyamalan will produce a trilogy of movies for the franchise. The first movie released in 2010 but it did receive the love that producers hoped for. The movie franchise discontinued after the failure of the first movie.
Now it is 12 years since the release of the live action movie, and there is another live action in the works. Netflix announced that they will release a series based on the Avatar animation. Will fans be disappointed again?
The original creators of Avatar, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, had joined in for the production of the live action series. Fans celebrated and took this as a good sign but the celebration came to an end quickly when the creators announced that they will be leaving the production team due to “creative differences.” Fans believe that this will significantly affect the quality of the series. This is huge news for the Avatar community, and the anticipation for the show has decreased dramatically.
One of the biggest disappointments for the 2010 movie was the casting. None of the cast was culturally accurate to any of the four nations. However, Netflix revealed the cast for the characters and it is looking quite good. Netflix took into consideration the cultural backgrounds for each character and made sure to cast the roles accordingly. Unfortunately, it has been revealed that a cast member for the character, Sokka, had lied about his Native American background to land his role.
While Netflix has had an outstanding reputation with their tv shows, they may not do well with bringing to life an animation series. Netflix had tried to revive another classic animation, Cowboy Bebop, but the show did not do well with fans at all. The remake of animation series into live action seems to not do well at all. HBO Max’s Titans, the remake of Teen Titans, also did not do well. Many live-action series have a tendency to “flop.” Fans do not want their beloved show to end up on that list. In the era of remakes and revivals of our childhood favorites, there hasn’t been any notable movies or shows that did as good as the original.
Avatar: The Last Airbender does not seem like a promising series. Fans are hoping that Netflix will string together something that is watchable. Maybe the series will surprise us with its own unique spin.