Avatar: The Last Airbender: Season 1 - Review

Master your expectations.

After what felt like a hundred years, Netflix's live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender hit the streamer this February. As someone who grew up with Avatar: The Legend of Aang (the Dutch name for the show), I looked at this next adaptation attempt with both glee and dread. Glee because seeing a new version of a show I loved so much as a kid is exciting. Dread because live-action adaptations such as these don't have a good track record (see exhibit A: the Movie), and Netflix is rather hit-and-miss with its work these days.

As such, I wasn't in a hurry to watch the series. I opted to wait and see what others thought of the show before diving in myself to save me from potential disappointment. It wasn't until a friend of mine started watching the show and liked it that I decided to put it on. I'm glad I did. While far from perfect, I quite enjoyed the series. I'm eagerly awaiting the next two seasons and have a strong urge to talk about it. Hence, all of this.

So, allow me to try my hand at a series review once more and dive into the 1st season of Netflix's Avatar: The Good, the Bad, and the Balanced.

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, The Four Nations lived in harmony. That was until the Fire Nation attacked. The Avatar, master of all four elements, was the only one who could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. 

After a hundred years of war, Water Tribe siblings Katara and Sokka found the new Avatar, a young airbender named Aang. The three set out to the Northern Water Tribe so Aang can take his first step in mastering all four elements and bring balance back to the world.

That is the story, the setup, of the 1st season or 'book' of the original series. A premise that, while having seen a lot of changes and additions in the translation process, is still the same at its heart. The important plot beats and themes that made the series so strong, such as love, duty, honour, and family are still here and clear enough to see and understand. That is good to know, especially since such a clear attempt has been made to take out many edges and depth.

An easy example to point to is the removal of Sokka's character arc addressing sexism. It was a character flaw that Sokka had to learn to overcome that was meant to teach kids the same lesson. It shows how they either didn't understand the purpose behind this decision or that they were more concerned with not ruffling any feathers in today's day and age. 

Our live-action Team Avatar. 

That was a bad change, but there are plenty of good changes and additions to the source material too. First though, we need to dive into the structure of the show. Book 1 was 20 episodes of roughly 20 minutes, whereas the show tells the same story in 8 episodes of roughly 50 minutes in length. The same amount of time, yes, but still a very different story structure to work with. As such, many plot threads were cut, condensed, or moved around to fit this new structure in a, for the most part, successful manner.

Book 1 was full of episodes with little-to-no serialization so all of that could be cut easily, with the important bits from those episodes placed somewhere. The waterbending scroll, for example went from a random find in a pawn shop to a relic of the Southern Water Tribes' lost waterbenders. This led to some strong changes and episodes. I found combining the Mechanic and Jet stories with the gang's visit to Omashu to be quite successful and led to the strongest episode in the season. 

They even incorporated elements of Book 2 and the wider Avatar universe into the season. A decision I'm rather mixed on. For instance, I don't see the point in bringing the 'cave of love' story over to season 1. It was the start of the Aang/Katara romance while here they used it as a way for Sokka and Katara to settle their conflicts. Conflicts the two siblings didn't have here because they sanded off those edges and there are more instances just like this one. 

Better I find are the elements from the expanded Avatar universe that are incorporated into the show. Since Book 1, there has been so much new lore and events introduced that build-out and enrich the world. Take the Avatar cycle, for one. During Book 1, Roku and Kyoshi were the only pre-Aang Avatars with names and faces. Kuruk? Yangchen? They didn't exist. They added them in here in what I felt were mostly natural places, building out the world better than the original series in this regard. It makes the Avatar lineage feel more like this ancient cycle that it should be. 

Beyond those decisions I neither love nor hate, there are the ones that just don't work. Zhao is nothing but a shell of his former self. While he always was a glory-seeking narcissist he was also a smart tactician and strong firebender even if he wasn't as smart or strong as he believed himself to be. Here, they made Azula his secret weapon/manipulator and thus gave all his smarts to her. As a result, Zhao is far from the threat he was meant to be. He's nothing more than a small cog in the Fire Nation army who was in the right place at the right time and now has delusions of grandeur. 

Azula pulling Zhao's strings is thus all original material. While true to the source material in spirit, ended up rather boring. A weak storyline that felt more like setup for season 2 than anything else with how it amounts to nothing more than building up Azula. Something Book 2 did better in just one episode. I can understand that the showrunners wanted to introduce Ozai, and with him Azula, earlier so the 'big bad' wouldn't only show his face in the last few episodes, but the material they wrote for them just isn't very interesting. 

What often doesn't help here is the stiff dialogue. It can be very unnatural and exposition-y. I have to stress that this isn't a continuous problem; there's plenty of good dialogue to be found here too, but you'll definitely notice when this bad dialogue rears its head.

Now that I'm close to the subject already, I might as well tackle my last piece of big criticism of its Sky Bison-sized horns: the pacing. The beginning of the season has a good flow. It knew what to cut, what to keep, and how to work it all into a natural feeling narrative. The further you get into the season though, the more problems pop up. From stuff that runs by in a flash, like the end of the Jet/Katara narrative, to the slog that is episode 7.

An episode that is full of dialogue that tries to play catch up so it can get all the pieces on the board for the grand season finale. An episode that suffers greatly from slow, long conversations and only a teaspoon of action and character development. That friend I mentioned? He watched the series with his father, who nearly fell asleep during this episode. Not a good sign.

Taking a step back, while the dialogue can often be badly written, I have nothing bad to say about the people delivering these lines. The entire casting is excellent. From our main characters like Sokka to some of the guest stars such as the actors for Kyoshi and the Mechanic. They all embody their characters well, and aside from the usual flaws you get with child acting, I can't think of any bad performance. It's really impressive stuff and goes a long way in making you invested in the characters. King Bumi might be another character that the adaptation failed, but it's certainly not due to the energetic performance his actor gives!

Yet, the real standouts to me are Dallas Liu as Zuko (who did his research), and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as Uncle Iroh. They recapture what made these characters so great, and the exceptional chemistry between Dallas Liu and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is just icing on the cake that is their well-executed story. Iroh's new scenes with Aang are very good as well. Some of those good new additions this adaptation made.

Uncle and nephew, our sympathetic antagonists. 

Also, a fun bit of trivia for you: this isn't Daniel Dae Kim, who portrays Fire Lord Ozai's first foray into Avatar. He voiced General Fong in Book 2 and Hiroshi Sato in The Legend of Korra. He's the only actor to have previously worked on Avatar, as far as I can tell.

The costumes, set, and world design are equally well done. They are faithful recreations of those from the show, bright colours and all, without looking comical or out of place. The CGI is really good as well. It's expensive so the show had to cut down on when characters can bend, how much Appa & Momo and other animal hybrids pop up and such, but when it's used, it's good. It has weight to it, and thanks to the good fight choreography and body movement of the actors, it doesn't feel like it's all happening on a different plane, so to speak. Combined with some of the CG vistas, like Omashu and its architecture, it makes for a visually stunning and distinct show.

Lastly, I turn to the soundtrack. We have some recognizable tunes here like the song that plays over the ending credits and 'Leaves from the Vine' that have been re-recorded and remixed and sound really good. Most of Takeshi Furukawa's soundtrack are original pieces made in the vein of the original series. While I don't know if I like it more or less than the sound of the original series, it's nonetheless very good and quite beautiful in places. I recommend giving it a listening to even outside of the show. Netflix has the entire soundtrack uploaded to their YouTube channel. You can say, listen to it while you write a review!

Conclusion 

The first season of Netflix's live-action Avatar adaptation is a win in my book. There's some very good stuff, like the casting, costumes, world-building, while there's also plenty of issues such as the pacing, stiff dialogue, and questionable adaptation choices. Despite its flaws, it captures the essence of the beloved animated series and offers a different take on the story. 

It's a series worth watching for anyone whose eye it has caught. It's not a perfect show, but it's very well made. Fans will doubtlessly be more critical of the show since they can spot the changes, but I think there's more than enough here to keep even them entertained and make the watch worth it if they can master their own expectations.