#atla live action reboot

[juniperhillpatient]

“we’re taking out this problematic aspect because showing characters doing things the audience might not like could be uncomfy” “we’re taking out unnecessary side plots & making everything more mission centric” “these characters were pretty flawed in the original incarnation of this work so we decided to make them more palatable & the story more straightforward”

[survivalove]

I could never forget someone criticizing that wretched live action because aang’s actor is gonna obviously get older and that the original show only takes place in under a year. and the root of their criticism was that “kataang is gonna look less weird” 😭

when aang very obviously matures faster (both physically and emotionally) than the average 12 year old boy between seasons 1 and 3. (like you’re gonna tell me season 1 aang on kyoshi island and finale aang look the same to you??)

because, newsflash, aang is NOT a real human boy.

he exists in a fantasy world where people bend the elements.

and expecting a live action to realistically portray a fantasy cartoon child god correctly was your first and biggest mistake.

[elexuscal]

so about the new atla show coming out

while still reserving judgement for when i've actually seen it in its entriety (or at least a first season), based on what i've seen so far

i think the likelihood is that it'll be good (e.g. competently made, well shot, well acted, good effects, hits the same beats of the original show).

I'm more skeptical that it'll be great (e.g. actually ads something fundamentally new an interesting that the original didn't get to do)

that said, i hope it does amazingly well, if only so

my girl Korra gets the top-down re-write she DESERVES

[razzledazzle247]

I always thought it was poetic that Aang was able to stop Ozai without killing him. For one, Aang did not have to give up any of his personal and cultural values to defeat one of the people who tried to destroy them.

But also, isn’t it hilarious that Ozai doesn’t get the glory of a death like that? He’s not going to be remembered as a powerful villain who was claimed by the avatar in an epic final battle that literally leveled a forest and a rocky outcropping. No, he’s going to be remembered as a pathetic man who lost a fight to a twelve year old while trying to commit genocide at the height of his power and was stripped of his power as a result. Then, he was just forgotten. He spent the rest of his days withering away in a cell, helpless to do anything about it.

some of your goofy asses for the past 20 years

[theotherpacman]

OH AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT THE ATLA REBOOT

the sexism thing??? we all know it's fucking stupid and purely performative to take out sokka's feminism arc, but can we talk about the fact that He Is Still Sexist????? he still thinks that what he does (running the village's defenses, which they've never needed) is vastly more important than what she does (wash the clothes, cook, etc). and yk what?? the live action reboot AGREES with him. it doesn't show or even mention katara doing any work around the village. all we see katara doing is practice waterbending - the only interesting thing that original episode 1 sokka seems to think katara ever does.

the live action show depicts sokka "doing all the work", fulfilling his traditionally masculine role of warrior/protector, and COMPLETELY DISMISSES whatever "women's work" katara does, as if she does nothing. seems pretty clear to me that the showrunners would love to absolve themselves of sexism by not talking about sexism, while in actuality being pretty sexist themselves

and don't even get me started on sokka not wearing the dress/makeup of the kyoshi warriors' uniform

[autism-alley]

ik it’s been forever in internet time but i’m gonna die mad abt the way the live action atla show got a good amount of backlash and criticism from the fanbase meanwhile the pjo show was THAT horrendous and the fanbase treats critics like they’re out to kill their mother. as someone in both fandoms am i crazy bc i keep fucking seeing people say yes 💀 like!! these shows, whose original series were both about a 12 year old boy born with godlike powers going on quests with his friends to save the world, released in the 2000s, and had a shitty movie adaptation, now reboots released within weeks of each other, both committed nearly identical crimes of character assassination, exposition dumping, dumbing down their source material, sanitizing “problematic” elements (that the characters originally had to overcome), and wasting actor potential (also at least live action atla had good action scenes CANNOT say the same for the pjo show)—and i’m seeing like mainstream(ish) social media coverage of new atla show critique by people with millions of followers all across different sites, but nothing even close to that for the pjo show?? if that coverage exists for the pjo show somebody fucken send it to me bc like!! the pjo series is Not an unpopular series, i get it’s a book series and not a tv series so i didn’t expect the popularity to be exactly the same, but Damn! i feel like i need an hours long video essay comparing the two audience reactions to these series’ first season releases bc they were WIDLY different

[moss-covered-thoughts]

ATLA? a tradegy. Danny Phantom? Sure to be a sham

[nomadicism]

I've watched some Youtube clips and the new Evanescence song for the new Devil May Cry series coming out. It got me thinking. The 2016 Voltron series REALLY came out at the wrong time.

One of the main problems with it is the tonal whiplash. It's marketed as a children's series, containing childish humour and light hearted episodes. But then near the end, it talks about the horrors of war, shows a character's melted corpse on screen and kills off the only female black character instead of the robot lions. It's a disjointed mess.

Yes, it's possible for the series to be targeted at children and still have mature elements. Shows like Avatar, Gravity Falls and The Owl House prove that in spades. However, it takes a special kind of talent to be able to pull that off, and the showrunners there clearly weren't up for the task thus all of the tonal whiplash.

Plus, it's pretty obvious that the showrunners just wanted to tell an adult story. They weren't able to, because adult non-comedy cartoons like Castlevania, Lackadaisy and now Devil May Cry never came out yet, so it would've been taking a huge gamble that Viacom didn't want to take. They went behind the higher up backs to add in the elements that they wanted, despite the story not being fit for any of them, so it just becomes a muddled mess.

If it came out now, it could've been a straight up adult animated series. It would've been able to tell a mature war story without feeling the need to add in those childish elements. If they needed to market a product, they could've done model kits. Japan does that with the Gundam series, so western content creators could've done the same.

Do I think that it would've been good? Probably not. It was a product of its time and has plenty of writing issues in hindsight. It would've at least wouldn't suffer from the massive tonal whiplash.

Hi there, thank you for the Ask!

Gods, the whiplash.

Do I think it would have been good?

Well, the story would be more coherent, and that alone is probably enough to make it good. But I don’t think it would have been influential good. I don’t think it would have inspired the same level of passion in fans. I’ll ramble here as I circle back to this.

It’s a shame that VLD couldn’t be either the Y7 ATLA-in-Space-with-Robots that fans were thirsting for; or the gritty dystopian Voltron/Robotech mashup that the showrunners had initially planned (which I suspect would have been more like G.I.-Joe-in-Space).

I believe that focusing solely on either direction would have worked better than what we got, but that the latter could not have been done for DreamWorks, and still would not have been as successful as VLD managed to be even if a more coherent story and consistent tone would have provided a better story. As much as I hate how season 6 ended (and the series in general), I will defend VLD in that it had successes, and that it achieved something.

Fuck if I know what that something was. People still talk about it. Fans still fan for it. WEP hasn’t abandoned it. They regularly post about it on their official socials, while they almost never post about Voltron Force. The toyline may have shat the bed, but there is something about the IP that has value. Ultimately, that is the big goal of licensing: to extend the IP, get more eyes on the IP, and eventually Hollywood will want a live-action film version, which is all IP-holders ever give a shit about. On that basis alone, VLD was a success. It’s the same business strategy as other sell-toys-to-children IPs (e.g. Transformers), where sometimes fans have to suffer through shit tier sequels or reboots just to get one really good iteration further down the line. VLD was a total fail on selling toys to a demographic that doesn’t play with toys anymore but whatever.

One of VLD’s successes (though absolutely not one intended) is in how it inspired a lot of fans to be interested in other giant robot series, beyond even the source material for the ‘84 Voltron. The story we got (despite its flaws) inspired enough passion for fans to go looking. Even if not all of those who went looking became diehard fans for mecha anime or sentai shows, I see it as a win that fans tried something new to them.

One of VLD’s failures is related to that tonal whiplash, in that there is a big difference between the tone of a giant robot series and a “war story” (whether drama or comedy). That’s on the showrunners for not understanding the difference (though I’d argue that many in their position would also not understand the difference). Even Robotech (and its source, Macross), isn’t the kind of war story that people (especially in the West) typically think of as a war story.

Since VLD cribbed from Macross quite a few times, the war story of Macross is relevant to VLD’s “war story” fail.

In Macross, the main conflict (the A plot) is not won by giant robot fights, planet crushing space ships, special ops teams, or by sacrificing goddesses to stop the inter-dimensional time traveling of narcissistic mothers. It’s won by culture.

A teen girl singing about love crushes (hah hah) the warrior culture of an invading alien force better than any weapon could. Her singing renders them helpless, confused, disoriented, and curious about those they’ve been commanded to destroy. Thus they become unable to fight properly. Her singing awakens something in them that their culture has forced them to deny. The point being, that if a culture is focused entirely upon the mechanics of war, then it cannot sustain itself. War is not culture.

The Zentraedi were so focused upon war, that their ships, machinery, robots, etc are in complete disrepair. There are only warriors, and a handful of leaders. There is no one able to repair. There is no one with the knowledge of how to fix anything, or to create anything new. The few with such cleverness exist in spite of what they have been created to be. The Zentraedi exist only for the sake of war.*

More than anything else in VLD, the showrunners claiming that it was a war story, really ticked me off. War messaging is something I will die on a hill for, because so many people think of a war story as being about the glory of battle and big damn hero moments. There is a place for that of course, plenty of sagas passed down through time revolve around such things. And yet, even those stories had another point to them beyond thrilling camp fire entertainment. Even a war propaganda story has a point that can be clearly communicated (albeit shameful or disgusting).

The key to a war story is not in the glory of its battles (or even the cleverness of strategy and tactics), but the message, the point. The message can be simplistic: “don’t dishonor the gods” or “war is bad”, but the point is in the “why” (if that makes any sense).

I never got a sense of any kind of coherent message in VLD, especially not the kind that is served by a war story. And because of that, I’m disinclined to think that VLD-for-adults could be successful at any time (2015-2019 or today) when the intention is to shove a giant robot story into a war story.

It’s tough enough to do giant robots. Giant robots that transform to combine into a singular giant robot of ultimate power, is a very specific kind of power fantasy construct that has little to do with war itself, and instead more to do with processing the trauma of war (especially invasion and mass destruction by a foreign adversary). In those stories, alien invasions are symbolic (like really think about post-war Japan and the answer will come to you), so even if the story implies a war, it’s not really a war story.

Anyway, I’m rambling. VLD couldn’t even manage a Pyrrhic victory ending correctly. LOL

* Similarly, the tension between culture and politics drives the plot in Legend of the Galactic Heroes (though it be strategy pr0n for history-and-sci-fi nerds). Totally different kind of plot resolution, and the violence subverts the concept of glorious battles. I always recommend LoGH to anyone wanting “war story in space”.

[incorrectskyrimquotes]

well that awful atla live action reboot has renewed my interest in avatar so I am yet again suggesting an avatar au for eryn. Eryns the avatar, Martin is the previous avatar, odahviing is her animal guide, etc etc etc etc

I think ab it so much actually

[urparty]

atla live action animated twilight percy jackson tv show hunger games prequel mean girls musical wonka musical barbie movie wizards of waverly place reboot moana 2 inside out 2 frozen 3 harry potter hbo max how to train your dragon live action

[yesfreemiracle]

Idk if it has been said yet (it probably has) but I feel like when it comes to ATLA ships almost everyone feels the same way about Katara ending up with Aang we’re happy they did but we would have rather seen Katara with Zuko. Also Aang and Toph could have been a power couple too there could have been some cute moments with them. In the epilogue we could have seen him with Toph. Or Aang could have been with Ty Lee honestly they low-key have the same cute but deadly personality. Idk just my two cents it’s okay if you don’t agree. 🤷‍♀️.

Also was a Hardcore Zutara shipper when I was a kid watching the show and now I feel so validated seeing all this Zutara fan-art everywhere with the live action reboot.😍☺️🥰🌊❤️🔥

[sapphic-agent]

Hey, just wondering, but do you have a Discord? :)

Also, I'm genuinely wondering, but you did hear that they were going to do a live-action MHA on Netflix, right? At least, I think they are. Either way, say that they made a LOT of changes, would you somehow watch it? Honestly, I would welcome ANY change to like...develop the characters a lot more. Heck, maybe Bakugou gets to suffer more consequences, and Enji would be more appropriately sympathetic and not as abusive and be more of a complex character(I get the criticism on Enji, and I do feel like Horikoshi dropped the ball a little bit on Enji and his redemption and whatnot). I mean, a live-action MHA could be interesting if put in the right hands of a fan who really likes the source material and wants to improve some of the themes in the manga/anime. Like with Netflix's ATLA and One Piece, I feel like they'll do something different with the story, but keep the original story in check, which I'm all for now. I mean, really, live-action adaptations have evolved, and I kind of just accept the changes in some cases, as long as the original story stays intact. I feel more open to changes in live-action adaptations, and really, if any purist fans on either one of these IPs want to complain about the changes, then...well, it's just not for you guys. If you really are a fan of something, you enjoy a new take on it and let it still respect the story.

I hope I'm making sense here, but that's my other question. ^^; Which was, again, would you think a live-action MHA would try to improve the original story and fix the choices that Horikoshi made? :O

I do not have Discord unfortunately!

It's hard to say. I'm wary of any official rewrites or reboots of MHA because I don't trust them not to cater to the majority of fans. Not that I can blame them because you know Bakugou fans will throw a hissy fit if he's not being pandered to by the narrative every five minutes.

Part of why One Piece (2023) was so successful was because of Oda's involvement. I absolutely do not trust Horikoshi to be able to navigate a live action MHA the same way. He couldn't even handle the themes of his own manga.

The societal and systemic issues in MHA need to be handled by someone who understands them and knows how to properly address them. The majority of MHA fans simply don't know how to do that. And even if there is a fan who can who ends up working on the show, they won't be able to change a bunch of things without getting hate for it.

I'd probably still give it a fair shot, only because I believe in fair chances. I don't judge anything fully until I watch it for myself. But my hopes aren't high

[animentality]

hot take: even if the atla live action show wasn't a flaming bag of garbage, I would still tell people not to watch it because you need to stop encouraging them to REMAKE AND REBOOT THINGS.

make something fucking new. stop stewing in nostalgia. look to the future. if you can't leave the past, then die there.

[omegansamurai]

I hate that these YouTube videos complain and moan about how the Netflix live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender was a 'failure'...I mean, if that was the case, then why had it been renewed for not one, but TWO seasons, huh?

And like...I doubt the Avatar Studios stuff is gonna be anything groundbreaking. I don't even think Avatar Studios' content will be any good. Really, it's like, why is this even a thing? Just leave the franchise alone, Bryke, and just let people who can write and make your story a lot more enjoyable (Netflix's Avatar).

It just reeks of desperation and Bryke trying to be relevant. Avatar is not the next Star Wars, I'm sorry. It's a Nick cartoon that should've been an epic four-season (maybe five seasons, who knows?) show, but it shrunk to three, to make a failed shitty trilogy movie that the first movie bombed at the box office, thanks to the creators 'SUPER WISE' decision of canceling the fourth season because they want that trilogy movie series, and honestly? That itself was a bad idea. Bryke tries too hard to make their product the next Star Wars(which I think they're fans of, which says a lot), and it painfully shows. They try too hard. REALLY hard.

Like with Legend of Korra, they try to be super edgy with their 'story' and 'characters', but they just miss the mark on what made ATLA great. I mean, they don't even care about how the bending looks anymore in Korra. Really, there's a reason why they put the final season online, and it was just a bad show. Don't deny it, everyone. I'm certain it would've been good...but it was executed poorly and made not only a mockery of the characters in that show but the OG characters of ATLA(especially Katara). Well, maybe Zuko is the only one who's doing alright...but that just reeks of sexism doesn't it? Toph is all alone in the Swamp, and Katara is...not who she is...always sad about Aang's death...like get it together girl, you're mother-effin KATARA. Get with it!

And another thing, what more is there to tell? What is the next series even going to be? The Avatars are cut off after Korra, right? So...what now? And if you put the setting in some lame-ass futuristic steampunk or cyberpunk world and have bending in it, then...well, that's not really Avatar, is it? It's just its own thing at this point. And really, I don't want any new characters...I never wanted Korra's characters either if the writing they have for them was that bad.

I just think this whole Avatar Studios is just...again, desperation. Like why not reboot it or just...tell the same story, but with a different setting?

Sorry, lost track.

What I'm trying to say is, is that people act like the Netflix live-action of Avatar: The Last Airbender supposedly 'failed', which isn't the case. Y'all are just butthurt about how your 'perfect show' got 'tainted' by big corporations, and honestly, that's far from it. The people behind this live-action were very committed, and the actors were very respectful of their roles. The BTS looked like everyone was having a good time. And here you have idiots going on about how the live-action sucks because...what, Aang talks too much? No sexism from Sokka? Katara didn't act all rage-filled or whatever? I can get the criticisms, but still, I enjoyed it. I liked it. I want to see more.

It's just that this stupid fandom likes to put down the live-action because the cartoon is supposed to be this or that and it doesn't have this...when honestly, it's its own thing, but it's still Avatar! Let it be its own thing! You got the cartoon, now look at this NEW Avatar: The Last Airbender by Netflix! Look at the way they portray the characters, look at the direction they're going, look how they world-build, just look at it! It's almost like fanfiction, and really, isn't that what Avatar is? Fanfiction? It may be a cartoon show, but it's still fiction. They're not real people. We can do whatever we want with them. We're just borrowing their characters, story, and world.

This whole thing is an adaptation. So it's not your cartoon...but it's still Avatar.

I know I'm just rambling at this point, but I'm just kind of tired of seeing thumbnails on YouTube of people bringing down the live-action Avatar. I genuinely enjoyed it, and yes, while it may have some things to work on, the people behind the show will listen to their criticisms and work on that. But again, I still liked it.

Just know one thing...Bryke would've made the live-action of Avatar a whole lot worse if they were in control. I really do believe that. And as for Avatar Studios...I give it a year before it goes bankrupt. I know that's a little harsh, but I just know that the animated Avatar movie is going to be disappointing. ^^;

[theotherpacman]

some positives about the atla live action series bc as much as i am a hater it's not good for the soul or the critical thinking skills to only hate things forever

the costumes are phenomenal. I really love all the live action character designs, they look fantastic

a lot of these young characters LOOK really really young, which is important. aang is a kid and they cast a kid and he looks like a kid. azula looks very young - in the cartoon (esp when you're a kid) you don't really think about it but she is a child. it's important that they're kids

the actors are doing a great job and I don't want to hear SHIT against them

suki's mom!!!!! I LOVE suki's mom as the tough-as-nails leader of kyoshi village. a shining example of a GOOD deviation from the original. changes can be good suki's mom is wonderful 10/10 no notes

some of the cgi looks really good!!! the wide shots of omashu look cool as hell and I know some people hate how the bending looks but I think it looks great. it was always gonna be hard to translate to live action but I think the cgi bending looks about as perfect as it could

lesbian oma and shu... so good so important... lesbian oma and shu

the cabbage man. love him

I thought it was cool how kyoshi like possessed him while he was in the avatar state. an interesting take on what the avatar state entails, lots of potential, and kyoshi herself showing up to save her village was a great use of it

jet oh my god jet they did jet really well

LOVE the secret tunnel musicians

azula being a prodigy archer is fantastic. she should

looks like there are actually a lot of things I enjoy about the reboot :)

(update: I don't know what's up with ian ousley's heritage so I'm just removing the thing I said. it's a positivity post anyway)

[lucky-clover-gazette]

if it gets out of development hell, i genuinely hope that the zelda movie bombs so widely and unanimously that it rivals the live action atla and makes people and the industry snap out of the 2020’s “remakes and reboots are lucrative and films are synonymous with content so why bother making anything specific or meaningful” social media hype merch that people buy for a month and then bury barbenheimer marvel netflix originals canceled after one season wolf in art’s clothing actors and writers strike ai bullshit nonsense era we are in