So a Live action Netflix series of Avatar the Last Airbender is a thing now.

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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https://io9.gizmodo.com/avatar-the-last-airbender-is-being-reborn-as-a-netflix-1829139229

All I have to say is.....why? Why did this need to be a thing, and haven't you guys learned your lesson after the last Live action attempt. And even so what's the point we have the cartoon already and it was already good. And this entire series is heavily dependent on visuals. How do you expect me to believe you are gonna pull off the elemental bending combat, the massive battles, and the great places like the Air Temples, the city of the Northern Water Tribe, and Ba Sing Se?

To me this is just gonna further treat the stereotype that animation as inferior and will be taken seriously as an art form compared to live action.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Also there is talks to make the series "culturally appropriate" so not white wash the cast. If they want to do that they have to do it right because each of the 4 nations are more or less inspired by 4 distinct cultures. So the actors you have to cast better be from these nations:

Fire Nation = Japan

Earth Kingdom = China

Air Nomads = Tibetan or Shaolin Buddhist Monks.

Water Tribe = Eskimo tribes.

And you have to find actors from each origin.
 

Canadamus Prime

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They seem to be doing that a lot lately. We now have Netflix's live action Full Metal Alchemist, that gambling anime whose name I forget, Bleach, and now this. And my reaction is the same as yours, why? In my mind animation is superior to live action so why the hell would they do this?
 

Chimpzy_v1legacy

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Satinavian said:
Samtemdo8 said:
Fire Nation = Japan
I significantly disagree about that one.
Yes and no. The Fire Nation is a mixture of several south/south-east Asian cultures, among which Japan.

It is a militaristic and industrialized island nation similar to Japan post Meiji Restoration (tho the topopgraphy is more reminiscent of Iceland, if you ask me). Its use of propaganda to justify it's imperialism reminds of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Daitoa Kyoeiken) ideological concept Japan used to justify its invasions of China and conquering of the South Pacific from 1930 to 1945.

In pretty much every other respect though, like architecture, clothing and especially military, the Fire Nation draws more on China (particularly Han Dynasty) and other Asian cultures like Korea, southern India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and a bunch more.
 

Satinavian

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Chimpzy said:
In pretty much every other respect though, like architecture, clothing and especially military, the Fire Nation draws more on China (particularly Han Dynasty) and other Asian cultures like Korea, southern India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and a bunch more.
Basically that. Although especially clothing has also a lot of influence from central/northern east Asia which better fits the climate. But even that is not a clear trend with e.g. some characters wearing straight Vietnamese fashion.
But there is hardly anything with a Japanese aesthetic around in the fire nation.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Satinavian said:
Chimpzy said:
In pretty much every other respect though, like architecture, clothing and especially military, the Fire Nation draws more on China (particularly Han Dynasty) and other Asian cultures like Korea, southern India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and a bunch more.
Basically that. Although especially clothing has also a lot of influence from central/northern east Asia which better fits the climate. But even that is not a clear trend with e.g. some characters wearing straight Vietnamese fashion.
But there is hardly anything with a Japanese aesthetic around in the fire nation.
True, there is a disturbing lack of Japanese Samurais and Ninjas in Avatar's world.
 

sageoftruth

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I'm a bit curious.

I'm definitely not expecting it to feel like the show I watched six months ago, when I finally decided to give it a watch.

Still, I'm not all that deterred by the awful adaptation that came from the "The Last Airbender". That movie was a very special case, partly from being a movie version of a lore-rich long-running TV show, and partly because Shayamalan was a terrible choice for directing something like this. There was actually a video covering why he specifically was a bad choice for this kind of movie, given what he's used to doing.

Of course, there's still the fact that these live action adaptations have an awful track record so far, so I'm fully prepared to drop it after the first episode if it doesn't grab me in some way.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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sageoftruth said:
I'm a bit curious.

I'm definitely not expecting it to feel like the show I watched six months ago, when I finally decided to give it a watch.

Still, I'm not all that deterred by the awful adaptation that came from the "The Last Airbender". That movie was a very special case, partly from being a movie version of a lore-rich long-running TV show, and partly because Shayamalan was a terrible choice for directing something like this. There was actually a video covering why he specifically was a bad choice for this kind of movie, given what he's used to doing.

Of course, there's still the fact that these live action adaptations have an awful track record so far, so I'm fully prepared to drop it after the first episode if it doesn't grab me in some way.
So far books/novels to movie/tv adaptions have been a more stable relationship compared to others. Mostly because at this point literature stories are glorifyed scripts for movies.
 

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I saw an article on this recently as well. They sold it as "finally a non whitewashed adaptation...", which is nice probably for the cultures represented, unless they didn't consider the representation flattering, but its really only one aspect of why the movie sucked like crazy.

Animation has a lot of drawbacks but the representation of the bending and creaters was not one. Having to do all that in cg or practical screams "we will blow our budget in two episodes or feature no actual bending" to me.
 

Richard Kain

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Satinavian said:
But there is hardly anything with a Japanese aesthetic around in the fire nation.
I think the usual comparison with Japan has much more to do with their function in the story, as opposed to the aesthetics surrounding their presentation. Aesthetics can often serve as visual short-hand. This is why the Fire Nation got stuck with red and black as their predominant color scheme. (with the occasional orange highlights) Red and black can be easily used to make a particular group of characters seem more militaristic or aggressive. The stylings and particular cultural visual influences are less relevant than the Fire Nation's ideology and function within the story. (that of a militaristic/nationalistic aggressor) And of course, there's the fact that the Fire Nation is a smaller island nation, and invades a much larger land-based nation. (The Earth Nation, an obvious analog for mainland China) It's not a 1x1 comparison, but there are obvious influences drawn from history.
 

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Canadamus Prime said:
They seem to be doing that a lot lately. We now have Netflix's live action Full Metal Alchemist, that gambling anime whose name I forget, Bleach, and now this. And my reaction is the same as yours, why? In my mind animation is superior to live action so why the hell would they do this?
Live action versions of Anime is a thing, Japan has been doing it (with varied amounts of success) forever. Netflix getting into the biz is not surprising given they gave people like Go Nagi the $$ to do Devilman anime the way he wanted to (and I hear this is how they have been treating other things as well). Some will work some won't. Strangely I saw a Warner Bros. Logo (or some other stufddio) on the live action Bleach, so I suspect hey may be also just licensing stuff as well.
 

Roguebubble

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On the one hand why? Just why? The series is a masterpiece, there's no need for this.

On the other, the originals creators are overseeing production and if Netflix writes them a blank cheque then visually it could be impressive. And with Amazon supposedly creating a LOTR TV show, Disney creating Star Wars TV shows, BBC making a Golden Compass TV series and many other fantasy shows in the works it seems big budget fantasy TV is the upcoming trend. (How long till Warner announces a Potterverse TV show?) A good avatar series coupled with a more mature Witcher series could prevent Netflix from being overshadowed.

As for ethnicity, you can include Indians (Aang's guru being a prominent example), Koreans, Mongolians, south east Asians, potentially some Polynesians for the Water Tribe.
 

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sageoftruth said:
I'm a bit curious.

I'm definitely not expecting it to feel like the show I watched six months ago, when I finally decided to give it a watch.

Still, I'm not all that deterred by the awful adaptation that came from the "The Last Airbender". That movie was a very special case, partly from being a movie version of a lore-rich long-running TV show, and partly because Shayamalan was a terrible choice for directing something like this. There was actually a video covering why he specifically was a bad choice for this kind of movie, given what he's used to doing.

Of course, there's still the fact that these live action adaptations have an awful track record so far, so I'm fully prepared to drop it after the first episode if it doesn't grab me in some way.
More or less the same for me, but I am feeling way more cynical than I should. They might as well use that time to do a sequel or AU sequel to Korra that rectons or ignores everything. Given their track record, I would not trusr Mike or Bryan, if that came to pass.
 

Canadamus Prime

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minkus_draconus said:
Canadamus Prime said:
They seem to be doing that a lot lately. We now have Netflix's live action Full Metal Alchemist, that gambling anime whose name I forget, Bleach, and now this. And my reaction is the same as yours, why? In my mind animation is superior to live action so why the hell would they do this?
Live action versions of Anime is a thing, Japan has been doing it (with varied amounts of success) forever. Netflix getting into the biz is not surprising given they gave people like Go Nagi the $$ to do Devilman anime the way he wanted to (and I hear this is how they have been treating other things as well). Some will work some won't. Strangely I saw a Warner Bros. Logo (or some other stufddio) on the live action Bleach, so I suspect hey may be also just licensing stuff as well.
That's all very well and good, but that still doesn't answer the all important question of WHY? Why would they do that when, even with modern CGI, animation is still a much more versatile medium.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Roguebubble said:
On the one hand why? Just why? The series is a masterpiece, there's no need for this.

On the other, the originals creators are overseeing production and if Netflix writes them a blank cheque then visually it could be impressive. And with Amazon supposedly creating a LOTR TV show, Disney creating Star Wars TV shows, BBC making a Golden Compass TV series and many other fantasy shows in the works it seems big budget fantasy TV is the upcoming trend. (How long till Warner announces a Potterverse TV show?) A good avatar series coupled with a more mature Witcher series could prevent Netflix from being overshadowed.

As for ethnicity, you can include Indians (Aang's guru being a prominent example), Koreans, Mongolians, south east Asians, potentially some Polynesians for the Water Tribe.
I am still waiting for Warcraft to make a proper series of movies or TV.
 

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Canadamus Prime said:
minkus_draconus said:
Canadamus Prime said:
They seem to be doing that a lot lately. We now have Netflix's live action Full Metal Alchemist, that gambling anime whose name I forget, Bleach, and now this. And my reaction is the same as yours, why? In my mind animation is superior to live action so why the hell would they do this?
Live action versions of Anime is a thing, Japan has been doing it (with varied amounts of success) forever. Netflix getting into the biz is not surprising given they gave people like Go Nagi the $$ to do Devilman anime the way he wanted to (and I hear this is how they have been treating other things as well). Some will work some won't. Strangely I saw a Warner Bros. Logo (or some other stufddio) on the live action Bleach, so I suspect hey may be also just licensing stuff as well.
That's all very well and good, but that still doesn't answer the all important question of WHY? Why would they do that when, even with modern CGI, animation is still a much more versatile medium.

Plus, it's cheaper and not as much planning compared to animation. Honestly, I am so apatheic right now it's ridiculous. I agree with you.
 

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Roguebubble said:
On the other, the originals creators are overseeing production and if Netflix writes them a blank cheque then visually it could be impressive. And with Amazon supposedly creating a LOTR TV show, Disney creating Star Wars TV shows, BBC making a Golden Compass TV series and many other fantasy shows in the works it seems big budget fantasy TV is the upcoming trend. (How long till Warner announces a Potterverse TV show?) A good avatar series coupled with a more mature Witcher series could prevent Netflix from being overshadowed.
Doubt Netflix is going to be overshadowed anytime soon - they've just got too much content for that. Of course, I (and others) wonder if Netflix is a bubble that's going to burst, since they're constantly running in the red.

Samtemdo8 said:
I am still waiting for Warcraft to make a proper series of movies or TV.
Yeah, good luck with that. Ain't gonna get a movie anytime soon, and the budget required for a TV series would be enormous.