Adapting a beloved animated show to live-action is a tumultuous feat, but the case ofAvatar: The Last Airbenderhas a particularly painful history. The beloved Nickelodeon series is widely considered one of thegreatest TV shows of all timeand currently sits at #7 on IMDb’s list of the Top 250 TV Shows. In 2010, acclaimed director M. Night Shyamalan released his take on a live-actionThe Last Airbendermovie, and fans still haven’t gotten over it.
Shyamalan’s version is dreadful for audiences to watch in almost every way. Unnecessary changes to the original narrative, a shoddy script, poor cinematography, confusing camera angles, and a complete lack of tension have landed Shyamalan’s film at the top of manyWorst Movies of All Timelists. It’s now Netflix’s turn to bring the incredible story of Aang, Sokka, and Katara to life, and the new live-action series has already learned from Shyamalan’s biggest mistake.
Netflix Has Fixed Shyamalan’s Boring Action Sequences
Avatar: The Last Airbender
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The world ofAvatar: The Last Airbenderis defined by the four elements: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. The four nations of its world are each built around a single element, and each nation’s soldiers are adept at bending that element. While simple in its concept, this magic system allowed the original show’s creators (Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino) endless creativity in constructing thevarious fight sequences. To add an extra layer of flare, the pair worked with Sifu Kisu to provide reference footage and draw inspiration from real Eastern martial arts, imposing a sense of realism to ground its fantastical fight scenes.
Then, Shyamalan’s live-action movie happened. While the film is notorious for its unnecessary changes to the original show, perhaps the worst offender is that it somehow made the most freeing and inspired magical system in TV boring. Gone were the epic one-on-one duels seen in Nickelodeon’s series, where Aang would whirlwind himself across buildings and ships, taking out Fire Nation soldiers, who blasted devastating motes of fire at him.
Instead, it took a team of four earthbenders to lift a single rock and gently move it toward an enemy soldier, all while firebenders couldn’t actually create fire… they had to be near an already existing source. The ‘nerfing’ – as a gamer might call it – of the magical system didn’t just make element bending boring; it effectively made the style of fighting redundant. Why would a team of four earthbenders spend thirty seconds lifting a rock and throwing it at a single firebender while getting shot at when they could just maul them?
Fans had a lot of concerns and worries going into Netflix’s live-action adaptation/reboot ofAvatar: The Last Airbender, wonderingwhether the series would fail, but chief among them was how it would portray bending. Luckily, the creative team (led by Albert Kim) knew fans held this concern and quickly demonstrated that his version would significantly improve upon Shyamalan’s in the first trailer.
The trailers immediately showcased Netflix’s take on element bending, and it was impressive. Gone were the long, slow dance moves of Shyamalan’s movies, and returned were the bending style inspired by traditional Eastern martial arts. Firebenders can now levitate using flames, and a single Earthbender is strong enough to completely terraform his surroundings, all while Aang glides seamlessly across the sky and hurls Firebenders off their ships using his glider.
The Cast of Netflix’s Avatar Are Real Martial Artists
Netflix didn’t just bring back the original look of element bending, they doubled down on fixing the mistakes of Shyamalan’sThe Last Airbender, and employed real martial artists in the core cast. Starting with Aang, Gordon Cormier has practiced Taekwondo for years, and clips of him showing off his athletic ability have spread like wildfire across social media.
Ian Osle,the actor playing Sokka, is also a trained Taekwondo fighter, having reportedly won multiple championships in the discipline. The martial arts credentials of the cast get more impressive as you go along. Dallas Lie (who plays Zuko) is a national champion in kickboxing, with various videos of the young actor performing with weapons scattered online. Finally, there is Fire Lord Ozai himself, Daniel Dae Kim, a multidisciplinary martial artist with a background in arts like Taekwondo and Hapkido.
Netflix’s Live-Action Avatar Should Acknowledge Sokka’s Controversial Character Arc
Netflix’s live-action Avatar adaptation is changing a fundamental part of Sokka’s character, but this could hurt the show.
If you’ve noticed that Taekwondo appears a lot in the above list, it’s because the kicking-heavy discipline perfectly translates to the flashy, cinematic action sequences seen in many martial arts movies. Elite-level Taekwondo fighters can commonly be seen performing 720-degree kicks with ease and pulling off backflip after backflip while breaking multiple wooden boards. This flashy style is perfect for the elemental fight scenes of theATLAworld, as the original showsaw strong firebenderslike Azula and Zuko flipping across the battlefield while hurling fireballs like a Dungeons & Dragons wizard from their spinning kicks. Zuko’s first fight in Netflix’sAvatar: The Last Airbenderallowed Dallas Lie to showcase his kickboxing prowess as he flipped around Sokka, taunting him during their duel.
Despite your thoughts on Netflix’s live-action adaptation ofAvatar: The Last Airbender, it’s hard to argue that they’ve nailed bringing the elemental battles to life. The fluid mix of real Eastern martial arts with CGI has made bending the four elements about as accurate as we can possibly hope for.Avatar: The Last Airbenderis available to stream on Netflix now.
