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Speaker 0 00:00:00 Water
Speaker 1 00:00:11 Long ago in 2005, to be exact the first episode of the animated show avatar, the last Airbender was released on Nickelodeon. The show is set in a world where some people can control one of the four elements, water, earth, fire, and air. The main character, a twelve-year-old Airbender named Ang is the avatar. The only person capable of controlling all four elements and is tasked with maintaining peace among the four nations each representing one of the elements. The show picks up a hundred years after the fire nation went to war against the rest of the world during this time and has been frozen under water, and is only brought back when two siblings from the Southern water tribe, Katara and Saka, find him the three kids then set off on a journey to help Ang master all four elements and save the world. The show shaped much of our generation's childhoods and has now become a cult classic for kids and adults alike in 2018, Netflix announced that they would be making a live action version of the cartoon and partnership with Nickelodeon.
Speaker 1 00:01:16 Their production was initially set to begin in 2019, it was delayed to 2020, and then delayed yet again, due to the pandemic. This live action series has garnered a lot of excitement as well as skepticism from avatars. Huge following. Well, many are excited to see their favorite fictional characters brought to life. Avatar does not exactly have the best track record when it comes to live action adaptations, a 2010 film remake of the show directed by is considered one of the worst live action adaptations ever made. In fact, Wikipedia even listed as one of the worst movies of all time. The movie has a 5% critics rating on rotten tomatoes and is widely hated due to its bad CGI bending, huge tonal shift from the show and controversial casting choices. The original avatar takes a lot of inspiration from Asiatic and indigenous cultures. For instance, the Southern water tribe in the show reflects a lot of Inuit culture, the film, however, cast, mostly white people in place of characters.
Speaker 1 00:02:17 That seemed quite obviously to be people of color members of the fire nation who were representing the villains were played by brown actors, despite their characters representing as east Asian within the animated show. The enormous flop that was the last Airbender film has made people rightfully doubtful of the quality of the upcoming Netflix series. However, in the past few weeks, Netflix has released some casting decisions that show that they're at least making an attempt to stay true to the original shows. Cultural influences so far the representation of Asian and indigenous actors has made at least some of the audience a bit more optimistic about what's to come. The cast that has been announced as of now consists a mix of up and coming child actors and respected names. For instance, 12 old Filipino Canadian actor Gordon Cormier was cast as a lead role Ang a choice that made fans especially excited when learning about his martial arts background, a skill that will definitely come into play in bending scenes in the show.
Speaker 1 00:03:17 Additionally, just this week, a claimed actor, Daniel Dae, Kim was announced at the show's main villain fire Lord Jose. Hopefully this new cast will capture the amazingly written characters of the animated series and went over the original shows, doubtful, get content hungry fan base. Another large source of skepticism for the show is the withdrawal of involvement from the original show runners, the creators of the avatar universe, Michael Dante DiMartino and Brian Connie ENSCO were initially a core part of the Netflix productions, creative team. However, they announced that they would be dropping the project in August of 2020 due to creative differences and the conflict with the Netflix team. And the new series was first announced. Netflix, very publicly stated that DiMartino and Kony ESCO would get creative control over how their characters and universe would be represented in live action form. However, Coney ex-co stated the project actually had a quote negative and unsupportive environment. This announcement greatly upset fans and soured their opinions of the series as the live action remake of avatar. The last Airbender is in pre-production and grows closer to its eventual release. We can only hope that Netflix will be able to surpass the low bar set by the last avatar live action adaptation and capture the magic. And Tarm that made the original show so special while no official release date has been announced yet. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled. As more announcements are made, this was party prod hunt for WMUR news.
