Netflix’s live-action Avatar has its heart in the right place, but its pacing and uneven performances leave a lot to be desired.
Please let’s all remember that these are child actors, and they are no responsible for the poor writing or direction in the show. We can be sure they have worked extremely hard and poured their lives into this show, and the ones we should be disappointed with are the showrunners.
If the acting is bad, we can be mad at the casting director as well. It doesn’t really matter if they’re child actors, that doesn’t make them immune from being called bad actors. They don’t deserve to get dunked on or solely blamed for the show, but let’s not pretend they don’t play a part in its quality. If they were amazing actors, I’d assume you’d have no issue giving them praise? Why is the opposite not true?
The problem is people tend to go way the hell overboard when it comes to criticism and some child actors can’t handle it. Look at what happened with Jake Lloyd as an example. Best to just leave the children out of the criticism and make it about the adults who made the decisions.
People tent to go way the hell overboard on a lot of things. Best to focus on constructive criticism, while keeping in mind the actors are children, rather than to blindly self-censor based on the subject.
If they were amazing actors, I’d assume you’d have no issue giving them praise? Why is the opposite not true?
Because they’re children dude. Praise does not have harmful psychological consequences. There is no downside to giving a child credit for doing something well. There is tremendous harm in attacking a child over something they did objectively correctly, but inevitably not to the impossible standards of armchair critics whose entire presence on the Internet is built on giving exaggerated and heartless criticism.
like the kid that played Anakin in Star Wars. he caught so much shit over it, that he gave up acting all together.
In 2012, Lloyd explained that his decision to retire from acting in 2001 was due to bullying at school and harassment by the press, both in response to his role in The Phantom Menace.
Damn that’s sad. Haven’t seen the phantom menace in a while but I thought he was pretty good.
He also has Paranoid Schizophrenia…
Giving praise when it’s not warranted can be bad.
It should be shown that there is nothing wrong with doing something poorly, and it gives a chance for constructive criticism. I’ve always (kindly mind you) helped the creative kids throughout my life by showing them where they can improve and why. Feel like that gives them more agency and respect than a constant “Of course you did great! You always do great!”.
Feels good to give praise, but kids pick up on the bs.
Of course don’t be cruel, and attack and exaggerate (which I don’t think the person you’re replying to was suggesting), but be honest. Kids are people and grow in their abilities the same way. Only getting praise is not the way to grow.
That’s like saying drinking water can be bad. It’s technically true, but not really relevant to this context.
Let the kids family, friends, directors, whatever people are actually involved in those children’s lives handle the constructive criticism. The scrutiny these children face is monumental already. There’s no reason for some rando online to give unsolicited acting advice to child actors, and we both know that’s not even remotely how the vast majority of armchair movie critics are going to express their opinions.
Complete false equivalency. Do you think positive and negative are the same thing?
Strawman argument.
If a kid plays the piano in a shitty way, it’s okay to say “well, he sucks.”
Edit: Fuck, man. I didn’t say to say it to his face! Let’s just say that it’s okay to think “well, he sucks.” You CANNOT tell me you don’t think this way if the kid says “I’ve been practicing for months” and you see him just smashing the keyboard. Stop being emotional. If the kid asks for my opinion, I’d probably say “good job! Good effort, keep practicing!” But for sure, I’ll be thinking “welp, he sucks.”
actually no. That’s called being an asshole. You can say that he has room to improve, or that he’s still learning, or literally anything but “wow they just suck” like some asshole.
No strawman. One is positive and one is negative. That’s why they are different lol
And no it’s not really okay. You should encourage children.
Maybe I misread the original comment. Where is the false equivalency? I don’t see OP saying “good and bad are the same.”
I of course encourage children. I’m not a psycho. I’m referring to the fact that you can tell when a kid is brilliant, and when a kid simply sucks. But yeah, if you tell the kid “kid, stop, you suck,” then that’s a WTF moment.
Being uncomfortable with criticism does not mean immunity from criticism. This isn’t a middle school play FFS, it’s a licensed series for something that already has a large, established fan base. Millions of dollars went into this. People’s careers depended on this. Using “they’re just kids!” to deflect legitimate criticism toward their acting abilities is not only nonsensical, it’s cowardly.
I’ve only watched the first 2 episodes, and yeah some of the performances come off quite bad, but I think the editing is at least partially to blame. They hold on characters too long and at odd moments completely destroying any sense of natural tempo in conversations.
yeah there was at least one scene where I was like “what the hell, the actors are awkwardly looking at something that isn’t there, you clearly could have cut away from that take!”
Btw we have some discussions for the first few episodes on [email protected] if you want to weigh in there
I think it was fine overall. But this is one of the few shows where I actually prefer the dub of my native language because the voice acting was rather underwhelming. To be fair the German voice cast is the same as the original show so they have more than 20 years of experience and nostalgia might play a role too 😁
Even with each of its eight episodes clocking in at about an hour each, it would have been difficult for Netflix’s Avatar to hit all of the same beats as the lengthier cartoon.
Ah well theres your problem. I was actually rooting for this to be good but surprise surprise, Netflix is still shit.
I mean, to be fair, 8 episodes at 1 hour each is more or less the same runtime that 20 episodes of ~20 min each. The problem is not the amount of episodes, it’s just bad direction.
Same runtime maybe, but not the same pace. Would you have them just switch from one story to another a third of the way through the episode?
Lots of animated shows do that, though they only usually have two stories due to shorter runtimes
That’s more because they have an allotted time slot on their TV network. Like Nickelodeon gave Spongebob 22 minutes per episode but they only wanted to write 10 minute episodes, so they did 2 per episode. That’s not really relevant on a streaming service where they have total control over the episode pacing. They can even do weird stuff like having different episodes in a series run for different durations.
deleted by creator
Run the stories at the same time, plenty of tv shows do that
Not if the stories follow the same characters and are sequential
Better direction would probably help but fitting multiple episodes from the original into a few here seems like its asking for issues. But as you said, bad direction is more the issue. Im sure someone will make a better ATLA live action at some point.
They got my hopes up with One Piece.
That’s a shame.
The One Piece live action blew me away. I had the lowest expectations too, so it was quite a surprise.
Really? I thought it was adequate at best.
Had you seen it before? The live action was my first real introduction and I really enjoyed it.
shocked pikachu
Just finished watching Episode 1. Don’t care what the reviews say. It’s a great show. Decent acting and pretty good SFX. Looking forward to Ep. 2.
Watching the latest trailer it’s very easy to see the poor acting. It’s pretty bad when you catch a 3 second glimpse of a scene and can see in those few seconds just how poorly the acting and dialogue is, ooof.
Me and my family like it. They grew up with the original and didn’t know a live action was in the works until I started it up yesterday.
We also liked Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop but all the neckbeards managed to cancel it fast.
Yeah I liked bebop, and one piece, and this too. The only note I would have on this is regarding iroh. It seems like the actor is playing him 100% sober, so we lose a bit of the iroh charm I think.
I really really like Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. He was amazing in Kims convenience. In my opinion he does a pretty good Iroh. Overall the cast is very good Zuko, Sokka are pretty spot on. I’m not a die hard fan of avatar. But I liked the cartoon and enjoy the show. I don’t get the hate. I mean after watching uncharted…
Oh yeah, he was great as Iroh, that was only the littlest of gripes. And maybe 2 days after I posted that I read that the director told him to not match the voice
Is it at least better than the first one?
Much better. This one does not make me want to go to Lake Laogai and get brainwashed.
There is no Avatar movie in Ba Sing Se
M Night Shamalan get bored or something? Wasn’t his movie a big enough kick in the dick?
There is no movie in ba sing se
Is there any anime-remake that’s not a disapointment?
Maybe it’s an unpopular opinion, but I thought the new One Piece hit all the emotional beats of the anime even if it didn’t get all the details the same. I wasn’t disappointed, although I was prepared to be.
Is Avatar even really anime though? That’s kinda like calling Taco Bell Mexican food.
Is that unpopular? I thought One Piece got near-universally praised, but I didn’t pay attention to the discourse beyond the first week or so it was out so I missed the pivot if there was one.
Like you, I braced for the worst and actually liked it quite a bit. I think the changes they made were fairly well done.
I would say Avatar is a solid American homage to anime, but the average tv viewer would see the art style and assume that it’s anime so most outlets are just framing it that way.
Is Avatar even really anime though?
What, why not? We are talking about master of elements Avatar, not Pandora Avatar, right?
Yes, Avatar is an American creation in the style of Japanese animation in much the same way that Taco Bell is an American fast food chain in the style of Mexican tacos, burritos, etc.
TIL
Avatar is not a facade like Taco Bell, it’s more like a chimichanga. An innovation that matches or exceeds the original design.
Speed Racer and Alita: Battle Angel were good.
Sadly bad live action will devalue rare good live action shows like One Piece, because people will skip it as being another bad show, while it isn’t.
Why did they make it so dark and gritty? That’s my main complaint having seen the first episode.
Did they? I think they made the scenes with the actual, you know, war, more dark and gritty. But there are plenty light hearted scenes with Aang just being a kid?
Btw we have some discussions for the first few episodes on [email protected] if you want to weigh in there
Wow. Check out the reviews on Imdb. This is what thousands of fake reviews look like.
Compare this graph to the most well received movies and shows. Let’s say, The Godfather. This allegedly got way, way better reviews than The Godfather.
This looks like a pretty normal statistical distribution. Just glancing at it. What makes you think it’s thousands of fake votes? I’m genuinely curious what you are seeing.
I did not care for The Godfather.
What? Godfather has around 2million reviews, this show has a few thousand
Wait until you go back to watch the original cartoon and find it’s just a competent kids show for two seasons and one season of rushed nothing.
Maybe the reason these adaptations keep not working is because the source material isn’t actually the magnum opus the people who watched it when they were 10 years old think it is.
Maybe it’s just cursed, but the conversation around this show feels a lot like Star Wars that way.
I was 25 when the show premiered and watched it a few years later based on recommendations from a colleague. Me and my wife loved it, it’s definitely not just a show that only works for 10 year olds.
And neither is the live action netflix one at this moment. Nostalgia colors everything, showing it in a bad light. People saw the colorful cartoon, and can’t bear the fact that lighting is darker in live action for example.
It’s funny you think that. I did watch the animated show when I was much younger and gave it a rewatch recently. I’m in my early 30s and as far as animated TV shows go it’s still one of my favorites
My kid and I have watched the show a dozen times. I couldn’t disagree more.
I’ve rewatched it multiple times over the years, i still think it holds up very well. I will give you the last season feeling a bit rushed, but that usually comes down to funding concerns rather than intentional choice (excluding GoT).
I was 21 when the original first came out and I thought it was excellent then. Definitely not just for kids.
lmao they hated him for telling the truth
Removed by mod
Quite right!!!
It’s slang for drinking a ton over the course of several days. He’s a robot powered by alcohol and so he’s always drinking, that’s the joke.
Plus, he’s a literal bender. He’s made for bending beams, rods, and such.
Plus I’m far too old to be watching childrens’ cartoons. Another reason I’ve never respected it.
Ah cool. Ok
Meanwhile, Tristaniopsis is a synonym for Santorum, and I’ve never been able to credit anyone who goes by that moniker with any amount of respect.
Do you know how derogatory words work? You’re perpetuating the thing you disrespect with your own comment.
I 'ardly even know 'er!
