The Action Isn’t the Best Part of Netflix’s ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’

Netflix’s live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender deserves credit for this: It’s much better than the movie adaptation. Much, much better. M. Night Shyamalan’s derided interpretation of the beloved three-season animated series earned a 5 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and placement on the “List of Films Considered the Worst” Wikipedia page. It produced “action” scenes like this:

Right away, the new Netflix series (all eight episodes of which were released on Thursday) proves it better understands the appeal of the Nickelodeon classic. ATLA takes place in a world in which characters with magic powers can control, or “bend,” one of four elements—water, earth, fire, and air—except for the singular Avatar, who has the ability to master all four. It follows Avatar Aang, his journey with Water Tribe siblings Katara and Sokka, and their attempt to defeat the imperialist Fire Nation.

With a reported $120 million budget—in line with other CGI-heavy shows like Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Mandalorian—the Netflix show looks better than Shyamalan’s movie. And compared to the previous live-action attempt at an ATLA remake, the Netflix version’s action scenes are more propulsive, on a bigger scale. A sequence featuring Kyoshi, a famed Avatar from history (and also the subject of an entertaining, canonical book), is particularly gripping.

However, the new show runs into the same problems that plague so many live-action remakes of originally animated properties: Live action—even expensive, CGI-heavy live action—can never capture the same creativity and freedom as animation. Animation’s lack of physical constraints is one reason for the glory of the Spider-Verse films and Scavengers Reign; it’s also the driving force behind the animated ATLA’s remarkable fight scenes.

Nothing in the Netflix show approaches the sense of motion and power that pops in ATLA’s animated duels. That’s not the Netflix team’s fault; it’s just a matter of the medium. But it’s ironic that for a show that was presumably green-lit to give the streamer a big-budget, action-heavy franchise, the action scenes are relative weak points. The remake’s worst episodes are also its most fight heavy: the pilot and the finale.

The Netflix show shines, conversely, when it gives its plot time to breathe and its characters time to develop. Incidentally, this is the area that sparked the greatest concern among fans in recent weeks, due to some of the creators’ press tour quotes, like showrunner Albert Kim’s assertion that they “decided to make Aang’s narrative drive a little clearer,” or the revelation from the actress who plays Katara, Kiawentiio, that the new show “took out the element of how sexist [Sokka] was.”

Such sentiments suggested that the new adaptation might be disregarding the dynamic character development that ran through the original series. Regarding the latter quote, fans pointed to the Season 1 sequence in which Sokka underestimates, and then learns from, Suki and her Kyoshi Warriors as an example of when his misogyny fueled his growth.

But rest assured, character is still a central focus of the Netflix show. Sokka is one of the highlights of Season 1, and his interactions with Suki are sweet and touching even though they don’t sprout from the seed of sexism. Instead of using that character flaw as the basis of Sokka’s growth, the show instead leans into other elements (no pun intended) of his psyche, like the clash between his sense of duty as a warrior and his passion for engineering and strategy.

Beyond his early sexism, moreover, much of Sokka’s development in the Nickelodeon series centers on his sense of imposter syndrome: He’s a member of Team Avatar and a non-bender surrounded by powerful benders. The Netflix remake addresses this insecurity head-on:

Sokka: You’re not even a bender, and you’re the fiercest fighter I’ve ever met.

Suki: Not being a bender means we have to be even better than benders. We can’t reshape mountains and burn forests, so we have to fight with what we have. What matters is not the power inside. It’s the will and desire. The heart.

Other smaller, more zoomed-in character interactions are further highlights of the season. The relationship between exiled firebender Prince Zuko and his uncle Iroh accounts for the best arc in the entire original series, and it’s off to a worthy, emotional start on Netflix. Actor Dallas James Liu, who plays Zuko, is especially wonderful as the conflicted, vengeful prince.

The season’s sixth episode, “Masks,” neatly encapsulates this aspect of the series’ strength. The episode bookends a big action set piece with quieter character moments that reveal more about Zuko’s backstory and his relationship with Aang. Netflix certainly spent more money on the action. But ithose story developments prove more thrilling, even though it’s centered on conversations instead of a bending display.

Not every character translation works as well. Aang seems flatter than his supporting cast—notably, throughout the entire season, he never tries to learn to waterbend, in direct contrast to the Nickelodeon version, which titled Season 1 “Book One: Water.” (As the titular “last airbender,” Aang already knew how to airbend, so the original show followed a logical pattern: Season 1 to learn waterbending, Season 2 to learn earthbending, and Season 3 to learn firebending, thereby mastering all four elements.)

“It would’ve been wise to have focused on your training during your journey,” a crotchety waterbending master scolds Aang during the penultimate episode of the new series. He’s right—both in terms of Aang’s in-universe sense of duty, and from a meta storytelling perspective.

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The switch to a Netflix-style season structure also produces an interesting dilemma. The remake condenses 20 Nickelodeon episodes into only eight Netflix episodes, as part of television’s broader adoption of shorter seasons. However, because the animated episodes ran half an hour with commercials, while the Netflix episodes range from 47 to 62 minutes without commercials, the total season running time is about the same.

The result is something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, having more minutes per episode allows the characters to spend more time on Kyoshi Island, which grabs the viewer because all of the scenes with Suki are so engaging.

At other points, however, the reduced episode count hampers the show’s world-building efforts. For example, the contents of three separate Season 1 episodes from the animated show that take place in disparate places all converge on Omashu in the Netflix version. This change makes logistical sense given the writers’ constraints, but it makes the ATLA map seem smaller and less developed.

Part of the fun of the original was the breadth of the world, which was full of not only bustling cities but also smaller villages and outlying hamlets, all populated by a variety of characters going about their lives. In Netflix’s telling, though, almost every character seems to be either a bending warrior or directly involved in the plot.

Of course, if viewers want to learn more about the ATLA world and see more of its characters, all they have to do is click over to another tile on the Netflix homepage, where the original animated version already resides. That show combines intense action and stunning animation and phenomenal characters and inventive world-building. It’s the master of all four elements, while the Netflix version, like its depiction of Aang, is still comfortable with only one.