Netflix put out a brand new trailer for its live action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but the more I see, the more I think you should just watch the original.
Earlier today, Netflix dropped the latest trailer for its adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, where it very much set the stakes for Aang and his friends. It also better set up the adventure they’ll all be going on, and actually gave us a look at some of the cast’s performances as these now iconic characters. It all looks pretty enough, with the CG on the show’s various creatures, like Appa the flying bison, and Momo, the winged lemur, and all of the bending looks serviceable enough, but honestly, you really should just go and watch the original animated show.
A big concern I have about the live action take is the way bending is presented, as something like the wind can’t really be conveyed all that well in a real setting – this trailer kind of highlights those concerns, and shows you why animation was such a perfect medium for a show like Avatar. Thankfully, the original animated show is actually available on Netflix too, so if you’ve never seen it, you should make sure to check it out ahead of (or instead of) the upcoming live action take.
Last month, current showrunner of the live action Avatar show Albert Kim shared that he felt “intimidated” when the original creators left, which is understandable given the boots he had to fill.
Netflix’s official synopsis of its live action Avatar explains that “The four nations of the world once lived in harmony, with the Avatar, master of all four elements, keeping peace between them. But everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked and wiped out the Air Nomads, the first step taken by the firebenders towards conquering the world. Avatar: The Last Airbender follows a young Air Nomad named Aang, as he reawakens to a world ravaged by war. Together with his newfound friends Sokka and Katara, he embarks on an action-packed quest to take his rightful place as the next Avatar.”
We’ll soon be able to find out how successful or unsuccessful the show is at capturing the magic of the original, as it arrives on Netflix next month, February 22.
