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Avatar: The Last Airbender live-action show on Netflix (now sans its creators).


Werthead
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Don't think so. They had light brown skin and blue eyes

I hope this series turns out to be good - the cast looks promising, especially Aang (Gordon Cormier). But I'm more interested in the new animated project from Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino, though it'll be ages before it arrives, I expect. Fingers crossed that they'll announce the era/central character soon. 

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19 hours ago, Werthead said:

There have been significant, and not implausible, rumours that the original creators' departure may have been less-motivated by concerns over creative control and more over the absolutely massive payday Paramount was lining up to lure them back to the animated shows. Given they couldn't just say, "yeah, we're out" without breaking contract, they would have had to have made a major fuss to be able to leave Live-Avatar without getting sued by Netflix. That might just be a bit too cynical, though. Still, given Netflix's reputation for leaving creators to get on with it without a huge amount of oversight even if it tanks their show, it does sound weird that "the suits" were supposedly interfering with this project to the point the creators had to leave.

Does that pass the sniff test? Wouldn't Netflix be wise to such tactics? 

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7 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Does that pass the sniff test? Wouldn't Netflix be wise to such tactics? 

To some extent, it determines if there were existing bones of contention.

The thing is that you can't force people - writers or actors or whatever - to work for you if they want out, no matter the contract, and punishing them by suing them can be counter-productive, so it tends not to happen unless they've done something really bad (like deliberately set out to defraud you from Day 1 of the project). In this case if the creators were somewhat unhappy with some of the notes they were getting from the studio, or interference or whatever, and then Paramount made them the offer, it might have been more of a case of things going south already and them being given a lifeline out of the situation instead of toughing it out, which might have been the case otherwise. That appears to be the case with Weis/Benioff as well on their jumping ship (twice!) to other projects before delivering on the project they were hired for. It also depends if they've had to return any payments made that were voided by the contract being dissolved, which tends to help.

What does whiff is that they were the showrunners of the project, for a company that's infamously hands-off during development. Complaining about people not listening to them or ignoring them doesn't make sense. Anyone doing that, they can fire. The studio interfering is a bigger problem, but that's not really something I've seen anyone complain about Netflix before (for good or ill).

Edited by Werthead
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I too am more interested in the up coming animated series, than I am with a live action Avatar the Last Airbender. We already had that story told to us and it was amazing and usually every time something that was originally animated, it turned into live action it comes out worse, IMO. For example I personally have hated every one of the live action Disney remakes, of each and every one of their classic films.

Edited by sifth
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1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

It's possible, of course, that they also don't have enough life show experience, and so Netflix was interfering more. 

Also, would Paramount really throw more money at them for an animated movie than Netflix did for the live action show?

That's another possibility, they were genuinely fucking up to a degree that required intervention. As a lot of other people have pointed out, though the creators were obviously important to A:TLA, the most important writer was Aaron Ehasz and Dave Filoni also did a lot of important work in establishing tone and design in Season 1 (before he was poached by Lucasfilm). Korra, though solid, was patchier than the original series whilst Ehasz's later series The Dragon Prince was (broadly) a stronger show, and of course we've seen what Filoni has done elsewhere.

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On 8/14/2021 at 9:28 AM, Werthead said:

That's another possibility, they were genuinely fucking up to a degree that required intervention. As a lot of other people have pointed out, though the creators were obviously important to A:TLA, the most important writer was Aaron Ehasz and Dave Filoni also did a lot of important work in establishing tone and design in Season 1 (before he was poached by Lucasfilm). Korra, though solid, was patchier than the original series whilst Ehasz's later series The Dragon Prince was (broadly) a stronger show, and of course we've seen what Filoni has done elsewhere.

Not quite what I meant. I think Korra's patchiness is way more related to Nick just never being sure it would be a hit, and giving it incremental one season orders.

 

I don't think the issue is with writing, especially when it's a rewrite of an existing show anyway. I'm thinking more that there are live series related things that Bryke wouldn't have been familiar with, and I'm wondering if that caused Netflix to interfere.

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2 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

Not quite what I meant. I think Korra's patchiness is way more related to Nick just never being sure it would be a hit, and giving it incremental one season orders.

 

I don't think the issue is with writing, especially when it's a rewrite of an existing show anyway. I'm thinking more that there are live series related things that Bryke wouldn't have been familiar with, and I'm wondering if that caused Netflix to interfere.

The whole of Korra's two seasons (each containing two books) were already greenlit before the first episode even aired.

https://www.vulture.com/2013/09/legend-of-korra-creators-on-the-series-plans.html

Quote

[...]Nickelodeon came to us at the end of 2009 with a twelve episode “mini-season” already green-lit for a new series. They let us do pretty much whatever we wanted with it, as long as it was in the Avatar universe and featured bending. Their one request was that each of the Books have its own contained arc, which was fine with Mike and me. I think it was important to the network because initially they didn’t know how many of these mini-seasons they would want to pick up! They wanted to test the waters. But they grew confident as we progressed and we were eventually lucky enough to get them to pick it up through Book Four before we even premiered Book One.

s for Mike and me, after spending six years telling one long story for Aang, we welcomed the new format. [...]

 

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In my opinion, The Legend of Korra is definitely the better show. It deals with a broader set of topics, more adult stuff, and it is much more serious overall. And part of that reason is that it doesn't tell one story but four.

The Last Airbender is a more traditional quest-based fantasy story. It is also a great story, but Korra takes the setting and the characters to a completely different level.

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I just could never relate to the characters on Korra, the way I could with the ones in The Last Airbender; Mako and Bolin I just found annoying after a while. All of the love triangles Korra had really brought the show down, IMO. I could honestly careless, who's sleeping with who, I just wanted fun Avatar adventures. Season 2, covered one of my least favorite tropes and that's when the main villain is an evil clone of the hero. The idea of an evil Avatar just felt very lazy and it almost felt like the writers themselves thoughts so as well, because I remember them sort of mocking it, in seasons 3 and 4. Korra also had a clip show, which I'm not a huge fan of and one I was told was done for budgetary reasons, along with Korra's season 4 haircut, which made her less expensive to draw.

No character on Korra interested me, the way Zuko, Iroh or Toph did in the original show and I never felt any of Korra's villains to be as awesome as Azula.

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22 hours ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

The whole of Korra's two seasons (each containing two books) were already greenlit before the first episode even aired.

https://www.vulture.com/2013/09/legend-of-korra-creators-on-the-series-plans.html

 

Interesting. I've heard the opposite, before. Where were they on storyboarding season 2 when they learned season 3 and 4 were green lit? That would be an interesting question for someone to ask.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

In my opinion, The Legend of Korra is definitely the better show. It deals with a broader set of topics, more adult stuff, and it is much more serious overall. And part of that reason is that it doesn't tell one story but four.

The Last Airbender is a more traditional quest-based fantasy story. It is also a great story, but Korra takes the setting and the characters to a completely different level.

I like both. They're different enough that they're difficult to fully compare, and I've met people who feel one is better than the other, but to me, they're both excellent shows that speak to some core competencies in the writing team. They picked thematic through lines that make these the same world, but explored them differently enough, in tone and story and design, to make for two distinct yet linked shows of high quality. That doesn't happen very often, in TV. Most cinematic universe descend into chaos of the second story totally reinterpreting or downplaying the first, or giving power and value to the first story to an extent that doesn't feel earned.

There's very little of that here. The first story manages to remain legendary and epic, it's heroes age in ways that make sense to me, and the next batch of protagonists, while not delved into with the same depth, except for Korra and Tenzin, are fairly engaging and are fine as supporting characters.

Whatever comes next, I hope it has the dynamism and innovation in Korra, but also manages to give everyone in Team Avatar sufficient screen time so they develop the distinct personalities and arcs that the OG Team Avatar had.

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1 minute ago, sifth said:

I just could never relate to the characters on Korra, the way I could with the ones in The Last Airbender; Mako and Bolin I just found annoying after a while. All of the love triangles Korra had really brought the show down, IMO. I could honestly careless, who's sleeping with who, I just wanted fun Avatar adventures. Season 2, covered one of my least favorite tropes and that's when the main villain is an evil clone of the hero. The idea of an evil Avatar just felt very lazy and it almost felt like the writers themselves thoughts so as well, because I remember them sort of mocking it, in seasons 3 and 4. Korra also had a clip show, which I'm not a huge fan of and one I was told was done for budgetary reasons, along with Korra's season 4 haircut, which made her less expensive to draw.

No character on Korra interested me, the way Zuko, Iroh or Toph did in the original show and I never felt any of Korra's villains to be as awesome as Azula.

While I think Mako, and Asami, get very little growth, and Bolin gets some but not enough, I definitely feel Korra herself drew me in at least as much as Zuko did, and in some ways more. She's a fascinating character with an excellent arc, and that they did this for a teenaged woman character makes her stand out all the more.

Tenzin is no Iroh, and for that I'm actually glad. He isn't all knowing and wise. He's still getting there. And that made him a perfect mentor for Korra. I feel their personalities matched just right for this to be an engaging mentor mentee relationship.

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26 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

While I think Mako, and Asami, get very little growth, and Bolin gets some but not enough, I definitely feel Korra herself drew me in at least as much as Zuko did, and in some ways more. She's a fascinating character with an excellent arc, and that they did this for a teenaged woman character makes her stand out all the more.

Tenzin is no Iroh, and for that I'm actually glad. He isn't all knowing and wise. He's still getting there. And that made him a perfect mentor for Korra. I feel their personalities matched just right for this to be an engaging mentor mentee relationship.

Tenzin was probably the character I liked the most on Korra, but part of that is because J.K. Simmons is one of my favorite actors; he's no Mako, but he's still up there for me. Seeing Tenzin get his ass kicked in season 3, was probably the saddest moment in Korra. I think Lin Beifong was probably the character I enjoyed the most on Korra. She just felt so dam relatable to me, living in someone else shadow, the way she and her sister were.

As for Korra, she was alright, but not great, IMO. I felt like the writing for her was very inconsistent at times; I remember her having a case of amnesia in season 2 and them doing nothing with it, aside from making the rest of the cast look like total jerks, for not telling her that she and Mako broke up. I honestly think the best Korra scene in the entire show, is when she helps the guy on the bridge at the start of season 3 and think the show needed more of these moments. Much like how I felt that Man of Steel needed more scenes of Clark saving people; I felt the same with Korra as well. Also cutting Korra off from her past lives, was the shows biggest mistake, IMO. I wanted Korra to learn lessons from the other Avatars, the way Aang did and maybe have her learn new lessons from different Avatars, or maybe have Korra learn a different lesson from Roku, than Aang.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy her in a lot of ways as well, The Korra Alone episode in particular was very good. Her final fights in season 1 and 3 were really good and showed the writers of this show had some really balls.  I liked how they actually punished Korra, when she went off on her own and wasn't a team player and actually had her lose fights. I just wish all of this was done, without all of the pointless love triangles. I would about been happy if Korra had no love interest, other than Asami and even that was done in a very halfassed way I felt, but I blame that one on the network being cowards. 

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2 hours ago, sifth said:

No character on Korra interested me, the way Zuko, Iroh or Toph did in the original show and I never felt any of Korra's villains to be as awesome as Azula.

I thought Zaheer would give Azula a run for her money.

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6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

In my opinion, The Legend of Korra is definitely the better show. It deals with a broader set of topics, more adult stuff, and it is much more serious overall. And part of that reason is that it doesn't tell one story but four.

The Last Airbender is a more traditional quest-based fantasy story. It is also a great story, but Korra takes the setting and the characters to a completely different level.

It's much more the thematically ambitious and interesting show, but it also falls short of its ambition. Avatar was in some respects a much more traditional show but it met and exceeded the potential of the premise. Korra had some very clunky pacing and storytelling, and Season 2 of the show is easily the worst season of the franchise, and Season 4 is only marginally better (Seasons 1 and 3 are decent, though).

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

It's much more the thematically ambitious and interesting show, but it also falls short of its ambition. Avatar was in some respects a much more traditional show but it met and exceeded the potential of the premise. Korra had some very clunky pacing and storytelling, and Season 2 of the show is easily the worst season of the franchise, and Season 4 is only marginally better (Seasons 1 and 3 are decent, though).

I came here to write exactly the same thing :) What strikes me is that I have vivid memories of many scenes of ATLA, while I forgot pretty much everything about Korra except for the brilliance of Zaheer. There was a lot of missed potential on Korra unfortunately.

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51 minutes ago, Veltigar said:

I came here to write exactly the same thing :) What strikes me is that I have vivid memories of many scenes of ATLA, while I forgot pretty much everything about Korra except for the brilliance of Zaheer. There was a lot of missed potential on Korra unfortunately.

Like I said before, Korra saving the guy on the bridge, was probably the most memorable thing the character did for me, which is rather sad. The show really did need more moments of Korra helping people and less with the cast pro bending, which just felt like filler, IMO

I rewatched The Last Airbender with my friends on Zoom last year, during lock down and it was a magical experience.

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6 hours ago, sifth said:

As for Korra, she was alright, but not great, IMO. I felt like the writing for her was very inconsistent at times; I remember her having a case of amnesia in season 2 and them doing nothing with it, aside from making the rest of the cast look like total jerks, for not telling her that she and Mako broke up.

Not exactly sure what else you think it could be mined for. If she forgets too much, her being able to fight Unalaq wouldn't add up. 

6 hours ago, sifth said:

I honestly think the best Korra scene in the entire show, is when she helps the guy on the bridge at the start of season 3 and think the show needed more of these moments.

We do, but they keep getting different. In season 1, such a scene is used to show how brash and thoughtless Korra is with her power. You feel her thrill at using it, but then reality comes crashing down.

In Season 2, it's in her helping her parents, again showing her continuing brashness, but she learns and apologizes a lot faster.

I'm 3, she's already thinking more before acting, not just using her power but her experience and authority to diffuse situations. And of course, her deciding to sacrifice herself for the Air nation is the peak of this.

In season 4, Korra trying to help various people and failing shows how far she's fallen, and how much of a struggle it is for her to get back up.

I think you want a lot of scenes with the same emotional beats, but the show instead varies things up while the overall structure is "Korra helps the little guy".

6 hours ago, sifth said:

 Also cutting Korra off from her past lives, was the shows biggest mistake, IMO.

Uhh...no. It was an immensely gutsy call, and it totally boosted seasons 3 and 4 massively. The stakes felt more real, and Korra's struggles way more relatable, now that she had no way to contact her past lives for wisdom. 

Her guilt at the lost connections also makes for excellent character growth. You can tell there's a perceptible try to think before acting, from this point, because Korra now knows an immense magnitude of loss, and the wright of it pushes her to have more care with herself and her powers. 

6 hours ago, sifth said:

I wanted Korra to learn lessons from the other Avatars, the way Aang did and maybe have her learn new lessons from different Avatars, or maybe have Korra learn a different lesson from Roku, than Aang.

Yeah, but that's just more of the same. It would have been formulaic Avatar plot to keep having that. Instead the writers chose to chop off their access to many many "learn lesson x from past Avatar y" plot arcs to do something that was a truly wrenching moment of TV. Losing those connections had real weight. The music and animation were phenomenal, and they didn't cheapen the horror of the moment by building the connections back, so on a rewatch, you know full well what the cost of her defeat is.

Its one of the best decisions in the show, and coming in it's weakest season, to boot.

6 hours ago, sifth said:

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy her in a lot of ways as well, The Korra Alone episode in particular was very good. Her final fights in season 1 and 3 were really good and showed the writers of this show had some really balls.  I liked how they actually punished Korra, when she went off on her own and wasn't a team player and actually had her lose fights. I just wish all of this was done, without all of the pointless love triangles. I would about been happy if Korra had no love interest, other than Asami and even that was done in a very halfassed way I felt, but I blame that one on the network being cowards. 

I could use less love triangling, too, but a lot of that, I feel, is because Mako is such an undynamic character. Because he's not funny or allowed any kind of real pathos or growth, it's really hard to believe Korra and Asami would both continue to find him attractive, and that makes all the emotional drama feel valueless and boring. A more dynamic third there would have actually made the same plot much more bearable, and also interesting.

I'd have gone for replacing Mako with General Iroh, to be honest. A link to the old gang wouldn't have been totally remiss. 

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