• dustyData@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Aang flies like Superman in the first minute of his first appearance in the first episode. I rolled my eyes so hard that my brain reset to zero expectations mode. It’s good enough to be background noise, specially if you don’t watch or ignore the actors faces most of the time (except Sokka, he kills it). But it is nowhere near anything that can be called good.

    • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Haha oh man, I just said this exact thing a little ways up! I’m not the only one who thought of superman! Too funny…

      But for real, why did they do this? It bothered the hell out of me that they made such a weird, massive change like this.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It particularly shows the show-runners null knowledge or at least contempt for the original material. It was a big plot point on The Legend of Korra. Flying that way was a mythical and highly advanced airbending technique, confined only to the most enlightened sages. It was the whole point of Zaheer as an antagonist. But Aang just goes up and down in the air. And I just realized that Aang didn’t waterbend a single time in the whole season, not even in that training scene when Katara practices with the scroll. Which is funny, because reading this thread’s positive praise, rather than improving my opinion of the adaptation, it is actually making me like it slightly less.

    • Microw@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Episode 2 is good. Episode 6 is good. Haven’t seen 7 and 8 yet.

      The other episodes are definitely mid.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I watched 1 and 2 back to back and couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that Aang learns how to cry in between episodes, or they applied fake tears for Gyatso’s funeral or something. Bless their child actor’s hearts, they tried very hard. But I don’t think even Oscar winners could’ve done much with some of the atrocious dialogue that plagues some episodes. But yeah, mid would be a rather apt descriptor.

    • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      there’s plenty of steps between bad and good. let’s call it mediocre, or mid,or meh or, whatever flavor you want. I really don’t think that flight moment was as bad as people are making it out to be. he uses tornadoes to push himself up in various ways in the animated series. this was that, but a bit longer. he didn’t fly around like super man. he hovered on top of a vortex of wind for like 10 seconds at most.

      I agree that the acting isn’t great. good child actors are actually really rare. that said, people are overreacting calling it trash. especially since no one I’ve heard call it that actually gave it a fair shot.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It lasts 40 seconds and he is in Superman pose flying for the most of it. I didn’t call it that out of spite, I actually enjoyed the whole series. But it is mid. Sure, maybe not trash like the Shyamalaladingdong movie, but I don’t want to have to sit through it ever again.

          • dustyData@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            No, he was more flying like this.

            Like with a wingsuit (which ironically do appear in The Legend of Korra) but without the suit. There are videos of the scene on YouTube. I don’t know why they did it, when they could’ve used the glider staff. Specially since in a later scene he is shown being unable to fly without the staff.

            • wildcardology@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Ok I definitely saw that pose but when people talk about the superman pose the one I showed is the superman flying pose or the one with 2 hands extended.

              • dustyData@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                That’s fastidious nitpicking. You understood what I meant. He made several feet across as if he had wings and floated around as weightless in ways that it’s established that airbenders shouldn’t.

    • loveluvieah@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Ok, while I agree that was super cringe and there is definitely some more throughout, it’s pretty short sighted to deem the entire remake bad when the first episodes are generally never the best in the seasons. They had to cram a lot of back story in and only had 8 episodes. I found the first episode to be the weakest out of the entire season. Overall, it’s mid, but not bad and has some really enjoyable moments.

      Also, I assume the flying is due to budget constraints, and it would have been too expensive to cgi a ball of air to fly on.

      To each their own, though. Everyone’s got their opinions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Oh, good call, I will do the math. The 8 live-action episodes last between 48 and 63 minutes each, in total they are 434 minutes of runtime. Roughly about the same as the whole animated season 1, which was 20 episodes that last 24 minutes each, so total 480 minutes. They only had 46 minutes less than the animated show to tell the exact same story.

        • loveluvieah@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Right but it’s easier and cheaper to tell a story through animation vs live action. Just because the live action run time is close to the original animation run time, doesn’t mean it’s practical or feasible to do the same in live action.

          I don’t think animation and live action can pace the same for something like this. Things that feel rushed in animation feel rushed ten fold in live action. I’d think episodes would at least need to be expanded to a solid half hour for pacing when it comes to a live action.

          Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a perfect adaption. But, I think that would require a HUGE budget and would have to be a billionaires passion project for all the cgi and general costs it would need to properly make an ATLA live action that perfectly follows the animation.

          Since that’s never going to happen, I appreciate the live action we have for what it is, and between budget and time constraints, I think they did a good job.

          • dustyData@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Nah, its bad writing. Rushing in film usually means that characters spent way too much time talking doing exposition. Also the fact that time passing is never represented, so it all just feel like one long day that never moves forward in time.

            On my part I don’t want a perfect adaptation. Or a frame to frame adaptation. That would be boring and would never work on live action. I want good writers to do creative adaptations of the world that use the strengths of the medium to produce high quality entertaining new stories. If I want to see Aang story again, I will prefer the original animation instead every single time.

            I appreciate this adaptation for what it is, and it is rather mediocre. Not bad, not good. It just exists.

            • loveluvieah@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I 100% agree the writing was bad, and I blame netflix pushing out the original writers. I’m more impressed that the kid actors did what they did when the script gave them so little to work with. Kataras character was butchered. But on the flip side Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh killed it I thought.

              This could have been great like the One Piece live action, but settled for mid. I think it was at least good just because I did have some very enjoyable moments through out, mostly in the second half, and I also loved a lot of the visuals and animals.