Netflix Avatar: The Last Airbender In Danger Of Ruining Beloved Franchise

The original animated version of Avatar, which originally aired on Nickelodeon, has a large fan base, that has only grown since the show originally ended its three-season run in 2008. While the show has earned a lot of praise for its visual style and animation quality, much of its success is due to its strong writing, something the Netflix Avatar adaptation will have to live up to. It has a fleshed-out world (continued in the sequel series The Legend of Korra), beloved characters, and strong use of mature political themes. 

Fans will also be coming in with a greater degree of criticism because they’ve been burned with the property before. With the initial success of the original show, M. Night Shyamalan infamously directed a live-action adaptation of Avatar which was panned by both critics and audiences for falling short of the beloved original’s quality. If the Netflix Avatar adaptation disappoints audiences as sorely as the film did, it could ruin any chances of the series being adapted. 

If the Netflix Avatar adaptation can avoid the biggest problems of the reviled movie, it can still find a home with some original fans, giving it a built-in audience from the start. Special effects are one of the biggest areas where the show will have to do better than the movie, as the franchise’s core premise is about element bending, making pitch-perfect CGI an absolute necessity. The other major pitfall to be avoided is changing too much about the characters, as the movie made major changes to every character right down to arbitrarily changing how names are pronounced. 

While fans of the original series will be coming in with a lot of expectations and baggage, Netflix’s Avatar will also have to bring a new generation of viewers into the fold for the show to succeed. This means they will need to avoid some of the pitfalls of the original, such as streamlining the show and skipping over filler episodes that even many fans of the original are hesitant to praise. It also needs to find ways to tweak the characters for a modern audience without losing the original core. 

There is some optimism around the new show as the initial release trailer was well-regarded by fans, and the One Piece live-action series was phenomenal, giving them some hope that the new Netflix Avatar will be able to capture some of the magic of the original series. Compared to the earlier film adaptation the characters and world seem to be more consistent with the original. For new fans, it promises an action-packed action-adventure series with a unique fantasy setting.