#atla original scripts

[starlight-bread-blog]

Still salty over this not making it into the actual show..

From the original script of The Southern Raiders.

Not just because my Zutarian heart is melting, (it is though). But because how appropriate it is. Katara has always been "the mother", because she lost her mother. She always took care of everyone, doing all the emotional labor. Now someone's giving her opportunity to seek justice, listening to her, validate her feelings, support her all the way. And she's finally relaxed.

[ara-line]

So. The ending of Avatar

When I first watched Avatar in 2020, I always found how Aang defeats Ozai really contrived. He doesn't get to decide whether or not he kills Ozai, or even if he has to give Katara up to achieve the Avatar State. Nope. He gets handed an easy out. The show beats us over the head with the parallels between Zuko and Aang. Unlike Aang, however, Zuko doesn't get handed an easy out from having to make the hard decision of leaving the Fire Nation to join Team Avatar, giving up everything he's known to do the right thing. (That's the closest parallel I can think of, so bear with me).

So why does Aang?

Side note: I wonder if it would have been better for Aang to have wondered if he had it in him to give up his crush on Katara rather than wondering if he should kill Ozai. Aang never had any moral dilemma over whether he had to kill Ozai or not before the invasion. Why did that happen after, though?

At the time, I felt like my intelligence was being insulted. Avatar, up to that point, had consistently shown a lack of fear from touching upon hard subjects like abuse, for example. The show trusted its child audience enough to know that they were capable of understanding tough subjects with nuance. So why chicken out here?

My opinion only solidified after I rewatched the show with my sister and got a look at the OG scripts.

Let's start with The Guru.

Basically, Aang has to make the hard choice of letting his crush on Katara go so he can achieve the Avatar State. Aang makes the choice not to do it. After Aang gets shot down by Azula, he can't achieve the Avatar State. Ok. So far so good.

The way this episode frames this, it's hard not to get the impression that they were going to come back to this plot thread. Especially with the lingering shot of Guru Pathik's sad face as Aang leaves him.

So you would think that in the lead up to Sozin's Comet, Aang would be grappling hard with himself on how else he could achieve the Avatar State. He's not willing to let Katara go. There must be another way. She surely will agree to be with him, even after the non-consensual kiss in The Ember Island Players, right? Right?

But eventually, Aang has to come to that realization that he can't expect Katara to return his romantic feelings just because he wants her to. And this would be during the battle with Ozai when he's in that rock.

Or do the creators have something else in mind? Something that surely wouldn't insult their audience's intelligence and let them have their cake and eat it too? I wonder what that solution could be?

So that's the alternative? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Side note: I have been waiting for an excuse to use that gif for a very long time. If there was ever an appropriate occasion.....

And then Katara and Aang get together.

Again,

Given how little build up there was to the lion turtle and the fact that the whole give up Katara to get to the Avatar State even existed, I have to wonder if the creators decided they wanted to have their cake and eat it. If Kataang not being endgame was never considered, why even have the Guru Pathik plot thread to begin with?

But Araline, you say, the point is that Aang decides love is more important than power! As my sister put it, Aang is a simp for Katara and we're supposed to believe that's a good thing.

But I ask you: How does that contribute to the larger narrative? What exactly is the point of Aang doing so? Because I can name a point to Aang giving up Katara for the Avatar State: That he has to make a hard choice to do the right thing, like Zuko, his biggest narrative parallel, did. Zuko had to give up the luxurious lifestyle being a royal offered and the ability to pretend he had a loving relationship with his father in order to help Team Avatar defeat the Fire Nation. He had to make hard choices. Aang did not.

The only reason I can think of for Aang to have gotten this easy way out was for the creators to have their cake and eat it too. Aang gets to have Katara and he defeats Ozai. Great. No chance of Kataang not being canon. In doing so, they ended up insulting their audience's intelligence. Like I said before, Avatar was excellent in approaching tough subject matter in a nuanced way appropriate for their child audience. It was easy for them to approach Katara rejecting Aang in an appropriate way as well.

So that's my two cents here.

[sup-geek]

Kinda ticked to see I apparently hadn't actually reblogged this as when it premiered. 😑

Original Script Analysis, Part 2: The Southern Raiders, The Finale, and What I Think About it All

Link to Part 1

So folks, when it comes to literary analysis, there are two categories that textual interpretations typically fall under: the Doylist explanation, and the Watsonian explanation. 

Watsonian explanations will contextualise an issue solely within the bounds of the story it is told in, so the answer to any question will be, essentially, “in-universe”. Imagine interviewing a character in the story, and asking them, “why did x happen” or, “why did y character decide to do z”. The answer you get will be a Watsonian answer.

Doylist explanations, on the other hand, are explanations that take into account things the characters themselves wouldn’t “have access to”, so to speak. These explanations often touch on writing concepts like theme, character arcs, tropes, setup and payoff etc, sometimes even referring to “real-world” motivations, intentions, or constraints that the creators were working with (or against). If an explanation or an answer to a question doesn’t sound like anything the characters themselves could have come up with, it’s probably a Doylist explanation.

I’m going to give an example from Titanic that I hope isn’t a spoiler to anybody at this point given how much this film has been memed to shit:

Keep reading

[sealer-of-wenkamui]

I’ve started to read the part of Abe no Seimei Monogatari about Douman and it lead me to realize the English translation of Heian-kyo omitted an important name for no real reason?

It’s not just “a sage”, he specifies the sage “Houdou” (法道仙人). Which is important because in Abe no Seimei Monogatari, Douman is a descendant of Ashiya Kiyofuto, who met and studied under Houdou and wrote down his teachings in a book which Douman mastered in secret. (After which he lies and claims he’s a disciple of Houdou)

I’m reading a translation into modern Japanese which also includes a ton of annotations, this is the one about Houdou, which even mentions him being from Tianzhu (=India)’s Vulture Peak. (天竺の霊鷲山)

[quillkiller]

OH THE INTRO IS SOOOOO BAD NAAUURRR 😔😔😔😔😔😔😔

[folkorae]

Husband and i are two episodes from finishing the atla live action and all i am going to say is: the series is been very good and it is a very good adaptation so far.

[homoquartz]

this post is not gonna be well put together but i am having feelings

mean girls is trending right now because the musical movie just came out and i feel insane. idk why i do, it was stupid of me to think that most people Got It, no one ever gets it, it was always about the memes and the aesthetic.

the first mean girls movie was based on a nonfiction book called queen bees and wannabes. it interviewed and discussed the social hierarchy system in teen girl friendships. how they hold each other to these insane standards of heternormative femininity out of sheer terror that they won't meet those standards themselves. the way they leverage their relationships for some small degree of power in a world designed to strip them of it, even if it drags other girls down.

the "you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week and on wednesdays we wear pink" speech was not an original creation for the script. it's a QUOTE from a real teenage girl. those were REAL RULES.

then the musical came, and it was one step removed from the intended messaging of the film. OG mean girls was not perfect (and was extremely racist), but it said what needed said. the musical leaned on the comedy more, but still left a heartfelt undertone, and still critiqued the systems in place. of course no piece of media is going to be perfect, but it was about the conversation.

then this new movie comes out and it is washed over in the veneer of white hollywood feminism so thick you can't see anymore. the problematic aspects of the original movie are taken out to avoid "offending" when the offense was the point. it becomes toothless, it becomes some other thing entirely. they changed karen's line "i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in" to "watch me as i run the world in shoes i cannot walk in." because choice feminism is in vogue, suddenly this character whose entire point is that she doesn't think deeply about WHY she does anything is suddenly hip to the fact that the world is against her.

i think of sokka losing his misogyny arc in the new atla. i think of the Heathers remake casting the bitchy, identical heathers as queer and hollywood-fat outcasts. as if the story, the meaning, the allegory is hidden in the sets and the jokes and the music. it's a whole new thing now, and it's a thing that means nothing in particular.

the plastics should not wear jeans. they should not have curves. their queerness should be suppressed, painful. their sexuality is not a slay, it's the only thing they think they have of value. the santa dance isn't sexy, it's shocking, it's mortifying - they are children.

they're not mean because "we are all mean." they are mean because they are girls in a world that brutalizes them and crushes them into a standardized shape. they are mean because the world is mean to them. they are mean because it gives them some power back. they are mean because it's the only weapon they have.

the landscape of femininity today has shifted to camera-ready makeup at the age of 10, stringent performative hygiene standards, and avoiding being caught on film while having a genuine emotion. the consumerism, the fatphobia, the racism, the classism, the homophobia remain. We could have had a conversation about that.

[iminaworldofpureimagination]

with how garbage the script was in the end i cna't help but wonder if his original was any good or if they were just being nice and just helping him cut down the hours .. so many questions without answers . tho i read that nick wantede to switch it to 3d and that caused some problems.. but maybe dont make a movie just bec your daughter wore a costume... seems rather silly to me. If i had to guess they prob had afallout with either the guys ego/some producers /both.. i can belive they didn't want a movie and just went along with it cause its not like they own avatar it belongs to viacom you cant tell a corp not to make a movie of your show they own.

its also kinda funny in this one it predicts the future of maybe this will happen where we work on a live action again.. also the whole Aaron vs Byrke /zutara/kataang is proven even more dumb in the first vid.. because Mike is a Zuko Fan, and bryan is his best friend.. .tho it was always dumb..

[prying-pandora666]

“The Search” Rewrites, Book 4: Air, Leaks, and A Call for Help from the Fandom

I’ve talked a little about the Book 4: Air restoration project @book4air. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out! Three full episodes are already out and episode 4 is going to cover Zuko’s early days right after his banishment, exploring his relationship with Iroh and the world as Zuko understands it as a lost boy rapidly coming into manhood.

Wait until you hear the VA’s performance with music and everything! It’ll break your heart.

But I want to talk a little bit about what comes after these next few episodes: our adaptation of “The Search”.

If you’ve seen our adaptation of “The Promise”, you’ll know it was quite faithful. This won’t be the case for “The Search”. For the purposes of the overarching story we are telling, this story is getting overhauled. (Please still support the original release if you’d like to see the canon version).

The biggest change that’s been announced is the addition of Toph. The team felt that a story about family, identity, and faces could benefit from including Toph’s perspective as she comes from a unique but toxic family situation, has a strong conflict between the performance expected of her versus who she really is, and is completely blind and so faces don’t even register for her.

Here is the sample scene we released:

But I want to talk a little bit about what we are changing about Zuko and Azula’s roles in the story. While the set up is virtually unchanged, there is one small alteration that makes a big difference.

(Sorry for the poor quality, this is technically unreleased content and I’m being kinda risky leaking it.)

Ursa’s letters are now a diary. This means that rather than get random flashbacks, the narrative framing now becomes Zuko and Azula reading these entries together. As a result, they get to discuss their discoveries about their family, and even share each other’s perspectives.

What that means is that when things like Zuko dangling Azula over the cliff happen, now we actually are forced to address it. The characters have to talk about how they treat each other and the reasons why. They have to confront the toxic family dynamic they’ve been forced and groomed into since childhood. Zuko has to realize his mentally ill little sister isn’t the monster here and in fact he’s the one with all the power now, and Azula has to realize that Zuko can be trusted if she can let go of her fear long enough to talk to him about her vulnerabilities.

We also address issues like this:

Many people criticize this for being OOC, but I think there’s a way this could easily not be. Sokka has been known to be juvenile and reactionary as a first response, the difference is that he always eventually apologizes and learns from his mistakes. Without even needing to be asked.

Threatening a mentally ill person who has just been removed from an asylum—even as a joke—is not okay. It would be questionable even if they’d been friends before this, but considering their prior relationship it really does seem like an boneheaded lack of awareness or compassion for how triggering this could be.

So rather than remove this interaction, we addressed it. And I am really taking a risk posting this here, but here is a brand new script page:

Sokka isn’t just comic relief. Sokka is smart, Sokka is compassionate, Sokka is brave, and Sokka knows when it’s time to apologize and reach out versus when it’s time to fight.

Safe to say, there are several things that stay the same and we tried to keep faithful to the spirit of the story, but there’s a lot we wanted to do for the Gaang and for the Fire Sibs, and I hope you’ll join us on this adventure, whether you’re a diehard fan of the comics and just looking for a fun AU, or you hate the comics and would like a rewrite, or even if you’ve never read them and would just love to return to the world of ATLA.

The only trouble is, we can’t do it alone. The project is very expensive and time consuming to produce. Our team pays for everything out of pocket and some of us don’t even have reliable housing, so it’s been a hard time.

If you can help in any way, even only by spreading the word so YouTube will stop burying us in the algorithm, that would be huge!

If you can afford to help, we have a Patreon where you can get all sorts of early goodies.

Reblogs and comments greatly appreciated! As the head writer and voice of Azula, this project is very near and dear to me. Avatar was my first pro-writing gig when I was just a homeless 19 year old, and it’s here for me again as I struggle to rebuild my life and health that COVID destroyed.

I love this series and the community that has helped me through the hardest times in my life. I can’t wait to make something beautiful with you all!

[valhalla-awaitsfor-us]

Hi! I hope you don't mind I take your reply to my post to talk a little bit about script writing as a scriptwriter.

This is in no way an attack, I just saw an opportunity to explain something as someone who works writing scripts.

At this point I think it's becoming clear that live action only exists because Netflix wants to have its own Game of Thrones, but that they are not going to respect the core of the original series, because their goal is different. Having said this, I want to review why the changes that are being made are incorrect (if the idea is to respect the story and the characters) focusing on the 3 protagonists: Sokka, Katara and Aang.

Let's start with Sokka, whose changes are perhaps the most "controversial."

As I said in my original post, The core of Sokkas character is that he is a boy who grew up trying to be a man since his father left for war. In that attempt, as someone immature and unguided, he had sexist attitudes, only to later mature and become a real man. Great example for young boys.

No, his sexism comments didn't last long, but they changed at a key moment in the plot: When Suki appears. Avatar is a special series because it was one of the first of its time to so explicitly touch on the topic of feminism. Rebelling in every sense of the word is a recurring theme in ATLA. Sexism was literally knocked out of Sokka when he met the Kyoshi warriors. That's why the scene of him wearing the warriors' clothes is so significant and why it's so important that at the end of the season Sokka has learned his lesson, because there is a direct comparison between him and Pakku. Sokka, on his path to becoming a man, was able to deconstruct his misogynistic mentality at his young age and without an adult guidance, while a man of Paku's age, admired and respected, was still rooted in his sexist beliefs.

It was Katara's act of rebelling against Sokka's sexism that freed Aang from the icerberg. Because, again, an act of rebellion, of standing firm in the face of injustice, along with redemption, are the pillars of Avatar. Sokka's journey encompasses all of those topics, and the fact that he is 16 and not 19 is essential to his character arc.

Is not that we want him to be sexist. We want him to be flawed. Because each flaw are unique to each character. It talks about their development and also about the themes of the show.

Also "Toned down" it sounds weird because as a kid I always knew Sokka was an idiot when being sexist. But it wasn't that bad that I was afraid of him or so angry that I hated his character. Because Avatar is a kid shows even if people from all ages can enjoy it. So when they said "toned down" I was really confused. It made me feel that for them, the only way to show him being sexist way to make him do some unredeemable thing.

Katara

So. Im gonna start saying that Im not a fan of Katara. I think her character is written incredibly well, but it just not for me. In fact, i do feel like we needed an scene between Sokka and her where they can clear the air about their mom. The things she said to her brother and to Aang, the only survivor of a genocide, were too hard to not have a talk after that.

NOW, After saying that, Katara is Katara because of her backstory. Seeing her mother die in front of her and being the only waterbender in her tribe lead her to feel the need to take care of everyone, especially her brother, to be overprotective, to be compassionate. To be Katara.

Sokka himself admits that sometimes when he tries to remember his mother he only remembers Katara. While Aang is a boy who must mature faster than normal, Katara is a girl who has already grown faster than normal and her journey not only includes rebelling and protecting others, but also recovering some of that lost childhood.

Katara is the representation of water. Healing and destructive at the same time. Turbulent but benevolent. I feel the live action writers, and even the actors and actresses, do not understand that the feminist message was already perfectly captured in the original material. The creators of Avatar created complex female characters and just because Katara's story is influenced by the concept of motherhood does not mean that she is not a strong character. She is a strong character because her story is influenced by that concept. Not because motherhood in itself makes us women strong, but because motherhood, specifically for her character, puts her at crossroads and forces her to go through an arc of transformation.

Aang

I'm going to be concise and short with Aang. The decision to have so many "distractions" in his mission is because Aang is 12 years old and does not want to face a war. I think it's something so basic that it seems dumb not to understand that a young boy doesn't want the responsibility of saving the world and seeing his friends die again. I think, maybe, just maybe, understanding that is not that hard.

If they wanted to write a story of wars, blood and darkness, they should not have chosen Avatar, whose protagonist is a little boy.

[johnskleats]

Posting on main so no one is confused on this issue:

actually no hold on. I have a degree in dramatic literature, as in script writing, adaptations, and narrative storytelling. What [bryke stans] are saying is just "if you don't like it get out", which is wild.

You know where folklore comes from? Where mythology comes from, which ultimately shapes culture and society? Stories! Does it matter who wrote down the Iliad? Not particularly. Homer is trivia.

The elements that make up what the Iliad is, what the Grimms fairytales are, what Star Wars and Harry Potter and ATLA are existed long, long before they were amalgamated into a “new” thing. Stories belong to everyone. ATLA, like everything else, is an adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation going back thousands of years. There are NO original ideas.

A story or seed or idea of concept hangs around long enough, gets seen by enough people, impacts enough people, congratulations. It's folklore now and it belongs to the public. For reference, yes I believe copyright should run out around 20 years, or at MINIMUM when the author dies. It's the market, bestie. Products, like stories in this society, will never, ever improve if there's not competition, not criticism, no incentive for growth. And when someone else does a take on your story that the public likes more? That's what folks remember and what carries on. And your name, as the “creator” (such a generous term), is just trivia.

You don't like fandom? Get out :^)

[sludgewolf]

We need to talk about the lack of "filler" in series that're been released recently

I just watched a video about ATLA and it's filler or lack there of and, they're right, ATLA doesn't have filler episodes as we define "filler episodes" now. Our understanding of filler is closer to what's used for anime that is, non canon episodes that are made so the anime doesn't catch up with the manga. Applying this to western animation (I say animation bc I graduated in it thus a better understanding and I don't really watch many live action series so I don't have much of a say) we ended up with the impression that it means "episodes that don't move the plot forward"

Which, doesn't make sense with Western animation since most of it isn't a adaptation of something else, or with comic adaptations for ex, they're mostly adaptations of various arcs coming together as a single story. Smt very different from the manga to anime adaptation process

Comparing ATLA who positively doesn't have "filler" and X-men 97 who negatively doesn't have "filler" is a good example of what I'm trying to say.

Not all of ATLA episodes move the "learn the elements and defeat the firelord" plot forward and that's good thank fuck not all episodes are rushing ahead to throwing this 12yo we barely know into a battle with a full grown adult who's perpetrating a war against the rest of the world. Instead we actually get to know the characters, we see them traveling from the South to the North Pole instead of spawning where the plot demands, we see Aang adapt to the world post iceberg nap and learn to be the avatar, we see the effect the 100 year war had in this world. And most of all, the more "filler" episodes contributed to the pacing of the series, when binging the series now I still feel like the Gaang traveled across the whole world and didn't just teleport to the plot.

Opposed to X-men 97, don't get me wrong I'm absolutely loving it but the story is always being racing forward at a breakneck speed. They did try to pace it better inter cutting the main plot with Scott, Jean, Madelyne, Wolverine's whole deal and the "LifeDeath " plot, but if there wasn't the weekly wait for the next episode we would not have any time to breathe and digest what happened in the episodes.

I'm still confused on how Madelyne went from trying to have a normal life outside the x-men to being in Genosha's council. Still on Madelyne, I didn't care that they had to part ways with Nathan, ik he's their baby and all that, but as soon as they named the baby Nathan I knew they were throwing that baby to the future to complete the time loop of him being in the original series. And that's because they never got the chance to try to make us care, the writing team couldn't waste time with that since they only had 8 episodes to tell all these stories, the speed that the plot is being taken makes me believe that when writing this season Disney still hadn't signed on the second season and when they did it was too late to rework the script.

This whole thing is reminding me of Hazbin Hotel's pacing problems, analyzing it as if I didn't watch the pilot, we just met the characters and suddenly had to care that they were going to die in six months, we don't really know Charlie other than 1. she's Lucifer's daughter, 2. daddy issues that aren't rly addressed besides jokes, 3. she's with Vaggie (other character we didn't get to know) and 4. she's the owner of the hotel and wants to rehabilitate the sinners. The worst part of it is, we teleported from the start of the season to 6 months later out of nowhere and suddenly we're at the finale with the big boss battle. Of course HuskDust is a more popular ship than Charlie and Vaggie, we never got the chance to see them being together other than in episodes when the characters are being dragged by the plot while Angel and Husk had an episode where we met them and got the time to see them interact without being pushed by the extermination plot

This is exactly why "filler episodes" are important, we should actually know who these characters are before the big fight at the end so we can actually care about what happens to them. X-men 97 may not suffer that much from it but it's because we already knew most of the characters, but we never got to meet this version of Madelyne, see her going out alone to a world that hates her existence, see her morn having been forced to send her baby off to the future and maybe not being able to see him ever again and finally see never see how did she even end up in Genosha.

Or Storm, sure we got a two parter, but how did she get to fuck knows where to meet Forge in that bar, what did she go through during the time she was traveling alone, it's not as if people wouldn't recognize her as a x-men even if she'd left the team, maybe see more of how the relationship between her and Forge developed, cuz I didn't get why she still wants to be with him even after he basically created the tec that was turned into the weapons used to kill mutants, that's smt one can't just forgive, and yes I'd like to see her as she struggles with not having her powers, smt other than she feeling lonely without the wind (this would work even as just a montage with sad music as she travels to the fuckall haunted desert)

On a rly quick note on Invincible I do think they did a good job with their pacing and character development with the time they had, I'd like to have seen a bit more of Rex's development from complete douche to Lizard Leader homemade lobotomy to where we are now, but on the Grayson family whole thing they did an amazing job at showing how they're dealing with the aftermath of season 1, there was just a little jump from Debbie downing a bottle of wine every day to full bug mom mode but I do think she'd step up to it no doubt.

Maybe just some scenes of her still working through s1 trauma and questioning wtf is wrong w Nolan bc from her perspective he just killed hundreds of ppl on Earth, almost killed Mark, fucked off to space and suddenly there's a purple half bug baby living in her house calling her mom. But I don't think that's strictly necessary since there's always fanfiction to bridge this gap and it's just a minor thing that bothered me

TLDR: Filler in western cartoons isn't really filler, these are just episodes to help develop the world or characters without having to rush with the plot and also episodes that help with the pacing of the story, thus showing the passage of time or great distances being crossed without having the characters spawn at the next plot point. And we do need it specially for shows that are intended for binging, such as most shows now. What determines good filler from bad filler here is good writing

[lupus-venatici]

“ forgive me if i am not who you were searching for , but my captain is not currently taking visitors . as such , any message to him may instead be passed through me . i am adonis , advisor to il capitano . ”

— voice - over : hello .

NAME — ADONIS DELPHI .

BIRTHDAY — 10/01 .

AFFILIATION — FATUI .

VISION — PYRO .

WEAPON — SWORD .

CONSTELLATION — LUPUS VENATICI .

a strange advisor who dutifully serves il capitano of the fatui harbingers, yet answers to no others.

story . | voiceover . (story) | voiceover . (combat) | tag key . | shipping call .

a genshin impact original character , adored by atlas . admin is an adult — all art is commissioned or created by admin . additional info & photo reference below cut . all likes and follows will come from @atlasadored as this is a side blog . apologies for the inconvenience !

RULES & . REGULATIONS .

hello ! my name is atlas . i am an adult artist based in the east coast .

i’ve been a writer for 5+ years , and i use they / them pronouns .

this blog is entirely safe for work — but i do prefer to keep it 16+ due to discussion of dark themes including blood & violence .

in addition , if you would like to ship with my muse — please do reach out ! heavy preference towards capitano , but i’m a sucker for romance so i can enjoy many other things .

asks are open — i reflect my fellow writers’ style ( semi-lit , script , etc . ) as to not place unnecessary strain onto myself or others .

please dni — basic dni criteria , proshippers ( seriously if i catch any of u its on sight ) , against oc x canon / self-shipping .

i reserve the right to turn down any ship i deem unfit . if you come into my dms trying to get me to ship with any minor characters , you will be blocked swiftly && without remorse .

if you use an rp meme in my inbox , PLEASE mention which one ! i reblog a lot of them , and will have a hard time understanding otherwise .

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS .

toyhouse .

REF SHEET .

[synergysilhouette]

Plotting out "Yaksha" (Disney movie)

If you haven't checked out my post on my original Disney era, please check it out here.

Background: Disney revives the idea for a "Jack and the Beanstalk" story, though they've no interest of making it take place in Spain like originally planned, citing the recent "Wish" film still burned in people's recent memory. Fawn Veerasuthorn (Co-director and co-screenwriter of "Wish," head of story for "Raya and the Last Dragon," and a story artist/storyboard artist/visual development artist for other recent Disney films) suggests a Thai setting, since there are many stories that revolve around Yakshas there. Though Disney is nervous about the idea due to RATLD's middling box office performance and polarized reviews on their SEA representation, Fawn points out that the former issue was COVID-related, and the latter issue can be solved by specifically focusing on Thailand. Eventually, they come around to the idea, citing how "The Princess and the Frog" was based a European tale with a fresh twist from another culture. Early on that they would gamble further by not only making the film a musical AND keeping a male lead, something they hadn't done since "Hercules" (AKA 1997). They aren't totally being risky, though; they bring over the Anderson-Lopez team, who was originally going to be used to be used for "Gigantic" (the original title for the adaptation) to write songs for it, as well as bringing in James Newton Howard in after his experience orchestrating the score for Raya. Opting to lean into potential "Avatar: The Last Airebender" parallels, Disney hires Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko as directors (and I'll be using some ATLA and TLOK pics for reference), with Matt Braly and Jared Bush creating the script. It was never established if they were going for a specific time period's influence, but the Sukhothai and Ayutthaya kingdoms were the most spoken about. Scott Watanabe does the concept art, and after a severe internal argument, they take another risk: to make it a 2D film. This is only done due to points being brought up how desires for 2D have increased (and TBATH winning "Best Animated Film" in 2024) as well as it working best in the film's favor being based on Thai art. Needless to say, Studio Ghibli plays a big influence on the art style, and the change to 2D makes production take longer to reacquaint the animation team with it, as well as getting the style they want.

Plot:

(Used this picture for visual aid; courtesy of Scott Watanabe's concept art for "Raya and the Last Dragon")

A poor family made up of a man, his wife, her father, and their two children, is blessed with another child. Unable to support him, the family falls into anguish, but his grandfather has dreams of buying and planting sugarcane seeds outside the kingdom and placing the baby there overnight, and is told that the child will be cared for. He tells the family, and the boy disappears the next day, being raised by the Yaksha in a sky kingdom above. For many years, the boy--named "Cloud"--believes he belongs there, until his adoptive mother informs him of his true heritage and guides him to the stalk from which she descended to retrieve him. As he grows, Cloud descends the beanstalk to learn more about the place he would've called home, but when a jealous giant follows him and accidentally kills the crown prince of the kingdom, the King vows revenge on the Yaksha, wanting to destroy them and conquer their plentiful kingdom in the process. Cloud, as a human, must know act as a bridge between both worlds in order to prevent an all-out war from occuring.

Characters:

"Cloud"--His main color is definitely blue, which references the world above that he lives in close to the sky. His nickname is a pun on his head sometimes being stuck in the clouds, as well as his easygoing and often gentle nature and the fact that he now lives in the kingdom above the clouds. He draws influences from several people (fictional or real, Thai or not) to craft a young man with a passion for peace and keeping the order between giants and humans. While he's spent most of his life in the world above, he will sometimes sneak down the sugarcane to a little village outside the human Kingdom of Khruth where he only goes by his nickname. For many years, he has befriended an elderly man, unaware that this is his grandfather. On Earth, he's known only by his nickname, with only a handful of people who know his real name, something he hardly uses (but still answers to).

Suvana--One of the princesses of Khruth, who catches Cloud napping under the mango tree outside the palace. When she discovers he is the ambassador of the Yaksha, she's surprised, having expected him to be a brutish and reckless warrior, and she is pleased to find that he is respectful, pious, and compassionate. Somewhat of a black sheep in the royal family, she often tries to find time to herself, when she can be more playful and goofy without embarrassing her family or disrupting the royal status quo. However, despite her unique personality, she's also quite clever and mysterious, being underestimated often due to being seen as incompetent.

Note: her name is taken from Suvannamaccha, a mermaid princess from the Thai version of the Ramayana.

Ngein--A mother figure to Cloud and a leader of the Yakshas who reside in the sky, she's weary of the impending war with humans, who, in their hubris, desire to conquer the sky upon hearing of even more majestic lands and priceless gems and minerals there. On top of this, one of the Yaksha's kills the crown prince in a rage, fueling the friction between both parties.

(IDK if I'd use their "Genshin Impact" designs, but it is a nice visual aid.)

Sirichai--The King of Khruth who grew up with stories of giants who housed outstanding treasure and magic in the world above. When one of his sons is killed by a Yaksha, he follows it to the sugar cane and investigates the world above, and comes to the conclusion that while above him, it is still part of his kingdom, and his craving for revenge drives him to want to dominate the giants--or slaughter them for their wealth. Either or.

Songs:

Sent to Heaven--The opening song about the dreams and hopes of commoners, it focuses on Cloud's family leaving him below a sugarcane stalk after dreaming that he will live better if they do so rather than living with them. They ponder the drawbacks of this, however, as they may never see him again.

What Else is There?--After being told that he's the child of humans when he's young, Cloud begs Ngein to show him the sugarcane that peeks above the clouds, and as the years pass, he makes his way down to the human world, learning about the life he missed, with Ngein always satisfied because he always returns and because she watches him from Yaksha statues outside of temples

Underneath--Cloud rests beneath the mango tree, contemplating how large the world beneath the clouds is, and how he isn't ready to go back home. Meanwhile, Suvana talks about who she is underneath her decorum, and is simultaneously embarrassed by how she fails to live up to royal standards and sad that it alienates herself from her siblings.

Worth the Price--Sirichai makes an impassioned speech to his army to climb the sugar cane to the land above and make the giants above subservient to them. Suvana notes that despite her father's ill intentions, he does not recognize what he's doing as wrong, truly believing that his the skies above are part of his kingdom and thus his dominion.

What Else is There? (Reprise)--When Cloud is imprisoned and Suvana must go alone to persuade the giants not to kill the incoming warriors, they ponder if their desire to live and explore was always meant to end poorly, if they were better off living the lives played out for them. But then, they realize they wouldn't have met each other, and they'd always wonder "what if?"

Only Me--Having managed to avoid war and catastrophe, Cloud and Suvana marry, and they reflect on their journeys. Despite their kind hearts, they made hasty decisions that could have hurt so many people, and as they marry, they vow to each other and both kingdoms that the ceremony was not only a marriage of people, but a marriage of worlds. (Note: if I made the lyrics, it'd be "It's NOT only me")

Lemme know what you think and if you have any questions! Obviously I don't know the inns and outs of Thai culture, but lemme know if it sounds like it could work with these ideas. I may make minor changes to this. Perhaps I'll make more posts related to the rest of my fanmade Reinvention era.

[missaccuracy]

If the show follow the original script of atla, (iroh betrays zuko), what will happen? What the reason of his betrayal? And how it will effects zuko

Its a bit funny because if iroh betrayed him that's mean azula is the only one who truly cared for him

(unless i'm missing something)

I'm glad they changed that. I don't know what motive would Iroh have to betray Zuko, but I think it's much better when it's Zuko betraying Iroh instead. Part of why Zuko redeemed himself was because he had Iroh by his side, but if Iroh betrayed him somehow, it would only incline Zuko to believe that Ozai loved him and stay in the Fire Nation. It would be harder to imagine how his redemption would occur after that.

Though I think his relationship with Azula would be the same, I think it's unlikely that he would start to believe she cared for him, he'd still be suspicious of her, as he was in the show.

[burst-of-iridescent]

at the moment, 5.7k people are following the kataang tag, not 2.9k, as you said, why would you lie? in addition, even on Tumblr (which remained almost the last popular zk place among all fan platforms), Zukka is ahead of Zutara in popularity, and a lot of talented and popular creators of fan art and fan fiction are now concentrated in the Zukka and Maiko fandom. It is fundamentally a mistake to focus on the popularity of the ship, because shipping should be for personal pleasure, but this only shows that most people are ATLA fans (namely fans, not casual viewers) they actively love ATLA and did not see zutara in the canon. In addition, can you give evidence of your words that «almost all of the main cast and most of the writers» love zutara? From the cast, only Dante actively confessed his love for zutara, but he also spoke about his love for zukka, Mae Whitman not against Zutara and joked about it, but she also said in podcast that she also loves kataang, the rest of the actors did not speak at all about their preferences in shipping (except Grey DeLisle who prefers zucest).

none of the screenwriters has ever confessed his love for Zutara, on the contrary, Ehasz has said several times that he loves Maiko, he also wrote almost all the most significant maiko and kataang episodes. The only one of the 13 main writers of ATLA who spoke about sympathy for Zutara is John O'Bryan. Zutara never featured in any of the original scripts, and in ATLA's "bible," the only love triangle that was originally planned was Aang-Katara-Toph (who was a boy in the original script). In a recent interview, Ehaz also answered the question of how he feels about zutara vs kataang, that he, as a professional screenwriter, "follows his characters" and their final canonical choice of love interest is the choice of the character himself, not the writers.

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i wrote 2.9k the first time around by mistake. the original post has since been amended to reflect the actual numbers of the kat.aang tag, though frankly the disparity between the two tags is still so large that i don’t even think it matters. anyway, my bad. thanks for letting me know.

many cast members and former writers on the official atla podcast, braving the elements, have talked about shipping zutara — including, but not limited to, dante basco, jack de sena, michaela murphy, joshua hamilton, and john o’bryan. grey delisle, mae whitman & greg baldwin have also spoken about being zutara shippers. i’m not sure why them liking or showing support for other ships somehow means they don’t ship zutara, because people don’t need to ship only a single couple to prove they’re “real” shippers lmao. i like azutara, sukitara, ty luko & even book 1 kat.aang myself; that doesn’t make me any less of a zutara shipper.

i’m also not sure why you expect me to do the work of providing evidence for you when, given the fact that you’re here, i’m certain you have just as much access to google as i do. this information is freely available online. feel free to fact check me.

and let me say this again, in case it was not clear enough: i truly do not care about zutara’s popularity. even if none of the cast and writers shipped it, even if the tag only had 10 people, even if every single wonderfully talented writer & artist & AMV editor & GIF maker in this fandom left, i would still ship it. because it’s a better story, because it is more thematically and narratively cohesive, and because it makes me happy.

and if you disagree with that, that’s fine by me. but somehow trying to “prove” to me that zutara is unpopular and no one likes it is not only a) factually false it’s also b) not going to do a damn thing to change my mind lmao. the opinions of other people have never been a reason for me to ship zutara, and they never will be.