Avatar Anxieties
Avatar the Last Airbender started airing on Nickelodeon my senior year of high school though I wouldn’t be introduced until seeing it’s second season episode “Zuko Alone.” It’s an episode that entirely follows a character that is not the titular Avatar, something kid’s shows are not often apt to do (When Poochie is not on screen all the other characters should be asking “Where’s Poochie?”). Not only that, the episode features adult themes reminiscent of Yojimbo or a Sergio Leone western: Morals are grey and war makes us all fascists.
I was instantly hooked. The larger world implied by the background art and subtle storytelling led me to rent the DVDs of the first season to catch up. Despite the first season telling much more traditional kid’s television stories it still excelled at creating a world -and characters- I wanted to learn more about. I would watch religiously until its final episode aired in 2008¹.
As a fan of the show I sought out additional media, comic books, video games and even fan fiction to fill the void the show left in my entertainment catalog. My favorite, of course, being the stories told on FanFiction.net. Not only because they tended to explore less popular characters but because most understood the young-adult tones of the show.
I hope that qualifies my fandom of Avatar.
I am not excited for Netflix’s LA adaptation coming in February².
The cartoon was so bright and colorful so to see the LA version be so dark for the sake of CG is a bummer. The reason (partly, among many reasons) the M. Night Shyamalan movie was received so badly was because of how it looked. Actors clearly fake fighting on green screens while CG crap floats around them. This looks like more of the same.
Also….
This shot from the teaser released last year, reveals so much about my anxieties with LA adaptations. I am not a incredibly smart film person who can tell you exactly why this shot is bad but as a fan of the cartoon; It just sucks.
And again I want to ask myself why do I hate LA adaptations of cartoons but I am looking forward to the Dune LA movies? After thinking about this I want to say it is because the perfect visual representation of the the story of AtLA already exists. It is jumping from one visual medium to another. Dune has had visual depictions before but I would never dream to suggest that they are anywhere close to reading the books. But if someone wrote Dune again but say, maybe, in a different style I would have the same questions: Who is this for?
Who are LA adaptations of cartoons for? Any fan of the cartoon will most likely be disappointed by any LA version blunting the cartoon by bringing it into the real world. (I think of Cowboy Bebop LA adaptation and the poor response, specifically to the LA Edward. Edward is a character that the moment you bring them into “real life” they become the most annoyingly cringe character ever.) And would anyone who has never seen the cartoon rather look at this?
But honestly and most cynically: They are for investors who recognize that there is more capital to be squeezed from an IP.
It’s not for me and it’s not in the service of art and story. Good on all the folks working hard on the project, I wish only the best fan response. I really do hope I’m proven wrong and it’s rad. But I’m not holding my breath.
——————————————————————
¹ I even went so far as to download torrents of leaked episodes before they aired. The only time I have ever done this for any piece of media. I don’t say this as any moralization against torrenting, I just want to highlight my specific obsession with AtLA.
²I am very excited for ethnic and indigenous cast matching the characters from the cartoon. That is very cool.
