Let me preface this; I am overly critical about this and will probably overanalyze this. I worked the past 4 years on a game that basically tries to recreate it 1:1. I never expected this to be 1:1 and in facthoped that it wouldn’t because Book 1 has some flaws in the original. That being said though I do have a lot of feelings about this.

This review will cover spoilers from the very beginning. So if you haven’t watched it yet I strongly recommend doing that before reading my opinions on it. Also – and that shouldn’t be needed to be said – if you haven’t watched the original animated series do that first.

In the interest of time, I will only cover things that positively or negatively stood out to me.

EPISODE 1 | Aang

Let me start with the fact that I like that they show Aang’s life before he gets discovered.
Sozin sets the tone of the show very early on by literally roasting one of his men on screen, right away this isn’t a show primarily meant for kids. The audience grew and so did the show with a higher age rating. I actually really like that change, it gives everything more weight. Aang flies down the tower showing off his airbender skills, it’s weird that he is that powerful already though. Zaheer was only able to fly because he let go of his earthly tether which Aang definitely doesn’t have or will do. Anyways, Lim Kay Siu is doing an amazing job of making you feel cozy and perfectly portraying Gyatso in this iteration of the story.

I’m not a big fan of the layout of the Southern Airtemple; while I understand they made it look this way to have some proper fights being shown, the flat nature of it takes away from the magic of the original design with the tower. That also means that there is no tower to house all of the statues with past Avatars, which I always thought was such a cool location to have. (That also means no dramatic Momo entrance, which makes me personally a bit sad). The design of the actual temples is very well done and believable though so a trade-off I can understand.

Since Sokka never teases Katara in the live-action as he does in the original they had to come up with a new way to reveal the iceberg and they did it with rapids(?) that pull them toward it, there is no in-universe explanation for these local rapids in the middle of the water suddenly starting to appear. Likewise, Katara is triggering the iceberg with her measly water-bending attempts for some reason. Back in the village Gran Gran straight up tells Aang everything he needs to know, he’s alone, and air nomads are likely all dead; while it makes sense that Gran Gran would tell Aang this information it does take away from the moment when Aang discovers this for himself in the Southern Airtemple. Aang also already has the bison whistle which he bought in the Pirate Bay in the original. There is no pirate episode though so I think it’s fine that they just give it to him.

Seriously disappointed they cut the penguin sledding part though, it’s one of those fun segments that define (the world of) Avatar. It also helps to contrast the grim entrance from Zuko in the original. The fight against Zuko in the live-action rendition was way more epic than in the original, the bending CGI does elevate this scene a lot. The humor from Sokka is for the most part fitting but it does feel forced in some parts for sure, some improv would have been great for the show in general I think. In general, Sokka isn’t as much of a comedic relief anymore and the show focuses more on the leader aspect of him. The music absolutely slaps, great work on that. There is definitely some overuse of CGI like fully CG characters with odd physics, not just in the intro but across the show. Especially weird that they used these for close-ups in some shots; they don’t hold up enough for that kind of shot.

The GAang flies away on Appa while Zuko shoots another fireball towards them and for some reason, Katara can suddenly bend water 100s of feet up while previously only being able to move water forwards and backwards; felt very out of place. Aang discovers Gyatso and can calm down by thinking about him; I think that was a nice touch, better than Katara calming him down I think.

EPISODE 2 | Warriors

On the way to Kyoshi island, Katara finds a water-bending scroll that Gran Gran straight-up gifts to Katara, which makes sense since there is no Pirates episode. They left out the Unagi and Elephant-Koi which is understandable but this moment would have shown that the world is bigger than you might think and that there are dangers all around; it takes a bit away from the „magic“. Kyoshi village itself looks good and very grounded. The layout is somewhat intact but I wish they would have made the main house bigger. The Kyoshi warrior costumes and make-up looks really good, they absolutely nailed that. Likewise the sound design of the fans, especially when Suki is training with Sokka. Speaking of, they don’t waste any time to come closer together; it does feel mostly organic in the timeframe of the show though and they had to develop their relationship quickly if Suki is only in this episode. Some people thought Suki would join the GAang after Kyoshi Island and I would have actually preferred that as a change. It would have given more time for Sokka and Suki to learn about each other and develop a more meaningful relationship.

Having the Kyoshi shrine under the Kyoshi statue is a nice touch and I actually prefer this to the original in which it was just a random house. Aang then talks to Kyoshi in the Spiritworld which was a trip for sure. The Spiritworld is one of those things I really dislike about this show. The original always made it super mysterious, dark, and scary, in this it’s just a forest.
Kyoshi is as intimidating as she should be and the performance was brilliant, likewise, her bending sequences were amazing and showed how strong she was!

Why would Kyoshi know and also show Aang the future though, like how and why? There is a similar sequence in the original with Roku but he never explicitly said it is the future.
Episode 2 is also the one and only time anyone ever gets dirty clothes in this show; another major gripe I have. This is live-action; give it some grime and dirt. The clean costumes are in stark contrast to the rough and detailed environments. Everything feels very „staged“ this way.

EPISODE 3 | Omashu

Oh boy. This is where it starts to slowly get messy… I wouldn’t be surprised if this was around the time the original creators left the project.

The episode starts strong by giving us the first look at Azula; I was a bit worried about Azula’s performance before the release but she absolutely killed it! Proper Azula vibes! We got a better and one of the few looks at Momo; very cute indeed. Thankfully they mitigated the punished Momo look from the first reveal. Also, I don’t know where else I would mention this but I do really like the look of the interior scenes in the Firenation ships, they did translate the visual design of those really well.

Omashu looks SICK, they capture the feeling of it but I have to say that I don’t like that they kept the backside as the mountain. An entire city standing on its own would have been even better I think. First I thought that Katara meets Haru in the beginning here, that would have made some sense to me since they would obviously skip that episode but it’s not even Haru, it’s Jet! A wild change, which in the grand scheme of things makes sense for this show but crazy that they decided to do that. Whatever though, Theo and the machinist are also here effectively already skipping the entire Northern Airtemple; SAD. They also skipped Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis the third and just let Aang with his arrow ride into the city… Having the machinist in Omashu does make a bit of sense as they explain it with him keeping an eye on the mailcart system for example.

So Jet and his crew are getting introduced and they take Katara into the forest. I absolutely adore the costume design for Jet’s crew, they nailed it to get those very cartoony characters into live-action. The tree-top hideout on the other hand is laughable, the original hideout was so special and beautiful. This is literally just a climbing park for kids. Jet continues with some great dialog which gives him a bit more character. It might be because as Jet mentions this is one of many hideouts, still a missed opportunity to make it awesome, even if it’s not their main base of operations.

Can I just mention that it makes no sense for the mailcarts to drive UP? They never show someone bending them up and even if they did, it would need to be continuously being bent up to work like that. In the original, they even showed how the mailcarts go up again with bending. Here it is just a quick way to get Katara and Sokka up the city without explaining or showing how it works.

EPISODE 4 | Into the dark

By far the worst episode of them all. I don’t know what they thought when they wrote this one.

One of the few saving graces of this episode is that they thought about the Jennamite lamps; yay! For Zuko to infiltrate Omashu he needs clothes so he pulls a soldier into a bush and changes into his outfit in less than a second, even the helmet is still moving; hidden talent I guess.

Inside Bumi’s Palace, we see statues of Flopsie which is the only nod to the challenges from the original in this episode. Ok, so Bumi instantly reveals himself to Aang, where do we go from here? I guess we just make Bumi extremely passive-aggressive towards his best friend. Katara and Sokka are on their own mission to go through Omashu’s tunnel system running into a fanservice secret tunnel song and into the cave of two lovers….Sokka and his sister…in the cave of two lovers. This is Aang’s and Katara’s moment in Book 2 but for some reason, they put it here. Katara also deters a frankly very cool-looking badgermole with water.

Cut to Iroh and Leaves from the Vine because why not, Book 3 is too far away, and we need more fanservice in the worst possible way. Leaves from the vine always makes me cry in the original, this is the first time ever it did not. The entire imagery of Iroh sitting on the hill with the tree in front of the grave of his son at sunset hits so hard in the original; additionally with the commemoration for Mako, the original voice actor for Iroh. Here they just put him in a dark room with some people, not even some alone time; absolutely ruining this moment later in the series, it has no place here. The Leaves from the Vine theme comes back later too when he sees his son in Zuko but that moment could have been so much more impactful retroactively if they just cut the initial scene here…

Back to Bumi; no challenges because there is no reason for it in this show since they wrote themselves into a corner with that Bumi change; I guess that saves on the CGI budget. The waterfall scene probably would have looked awful here anyway if the other full CG character scenes were anything to go by. Even Aang points out how out of character Bumi is here. Likewise, the fight doesn’t make any sense at all in this context and they can’t have the moment of Bumi revealing himself here. Additionally, he straight-up tries to kill Aang. Bumi’s entire story is dismissed, twisted, and out of touch. Even the flashback with him doesn’t show just how much of best friends Aang and Bumi were.

We got some nice fighting sequences with Iroh (although I wish they would have kept him at least shirtless here since buff Iroh is gonna hit harder if you know how he looks otherwise).

EPISODE 5 | Spirited away

Man, Momo is just so cute! I wish we got to see more of him!

Alright so Sokka suggests Pippinpaddleopsicopolis the third for the puppet; why would you do that if you don’t include the scene in Omashu? Very odd fanservice choice. If you want to do fanservice right why not straight up do the Bonzu costume in Omashu? Sokka and Katara being pulled into the Spiritworld by no apparent reason at first seemed really weird to me but they did cover some important grounds with them being there so I was actually fine with that.

In a small scene, it gets revealed that the GAang was in fact encountering the pirates (which is mentioned like a rumor) and traveled through the Great Divide and helped with the Canyon Crawlers which is odd because that technically and logically should be after Senlin Village. if you would draw their journey on a map with that knowledge they would need to go through the Great Divide again just to visit Senlin, which makes no sense.

Wan Shi Tong has no right to be here. He needs to protect the knowledge in his library; again random unnecessary fanservice, wrong time, and incorrect within the logic of the world. He does look extremely good though, loved the sound design of him too! He could be a bit bigger though. I would have still preferred if they used another Spirit here. Reveal of Hei Bai and holyyyyy; by far the most insane thing in this show, they went above and beyond with him. Sadly there is no fight and also no reveal of his Panda form at the end so it’s basically just a lost spirit and story arc that never gets resolved in this show. Cut to Sokka and a three-tailed wolf which represents Yue. It doesn’t add up in my head why Yue would be a wolf even with her explanation in later episodes. Does she choose to be a wolf? Is it because she is from the Northern Water Tribe but then again the wolf isn’t the same that is present at the North Pole. Can she be another spirit too? What happens to her wolf spirit after she sacrifices herself because then she is just herself in the Spiritworld, who knows; it never gets explained or shown.

Koh gets a lot more screen time in this show which I loved. We see how Koh prepares his meals and actually eats it too; hell yeah. I do have to say though that scene with Aang and Koh didn’t do it for me. The setup in the original makes you scared of him even beforehand; Aang can’t be emotional and the faceless monkey sets the scene too. This is not present here and took away a good chunk of the scariness. Also sad they didn’t include the actual Spiritworld setting for Koh’s lair with the big upside-down tree and the huge wolf in the background, Koh is behind some trees in a cave here. They missed the opportunity to make it even more epic. Including the fog of lost souls in this – like this – as a forest is pretty lame too in my opinion.

I do like that Azula gets her blue flames through her hate.

EPISODE 6 | Masks

Masks is by far my favorite episode!

Ok, they NAILED Crescent Island and the temple! I spent so much time making this in our game and they really took their time to get this right, huge respect for everyone who worked on this! Likewise, Roku’s throne room is really well made; I do like the addition of his relics; however, I miss the fact Aang can only talk to him when the light shines through the crystal in the right way. There is no cave, and it’s kind of weird they would enter the room from the side since it’s clearly freestanding in the center of the temple in the show but whatever; the original series is just as if not more inconsistent with layouts.

Roku’s performance is just as amazing as the one from Kyoshi, loved him! I can’t say the same for the CG background in the scene with him, very weak. June being weird with Iroh, instead of Iroh being weird with June is also a welcome change, works miles better than the original. Again I don’t know where else to put it but I am a big fan of the design from the firenation armor in general.

The Blue Spirit segment for the most part was awesome, they got the mask perfect, and fighting and escaping was sick. Some weird full-character CG moments here though for sure. The Agni Kai between Ozai and Zuko had way more fighting than I anticipated but I actually liked it like that; I wish they would have kept the normal people watching it though.

My favorite addition/change they made was the fact that the 41st division Zuko saved ended up being his crew, this is masterful writing! Again sad though that Hei Bai’s arc wasn’t resolved. Redeemed by an amazing monolog at the end though.

EPISODE 7 | The North

I was still secretly hoping for the Northern Airtemple but I guess not…

The Northern Water Tribe for the most part looks really good! They cut the empty parts and moved the layout a bit for I do like the design! Especially the temple works really well in live action. I also like that they show how they prepare the front of the wall with some ice in the water.

This is a bit of a nothing episode, the GAang gets situated in the Water Tribe. Katara learns to heal and about the no fighting for women rule, Sokka and Yue get straight to the point and Aang talks with Kuruk about his story with Koh and Kuruk’s life in the Spiritworld, thoroughly enjoyed that part. Aang gets really out of character for a moment with Katara here though which is distracting.

And Katara of course fights against Pakku (I was a bit worried they would cut this part since Pakku initially seemed pretty ok with everything). The fight itself was a bit slow and some weird CG physics oddities (which this show suffers a bit from). They cut the sick move where Katara freezes one of Pakkus’s moves and then punches; I feel like if you do this fight you have to include that combo…

Also another cute Momo moment!

EPISODE 8 | Legends

The finale!

Straight up; probably a few too many ships. Love that they double down on the fact that the women are now allowed to help fighting.

MY HEART STOPPED; IF THEY HAD KILLED OFF MOMO I WOULD HAVE DONE UNSPEAKABLE THINGS.

The Spirit Oasis might be a bit much, from a single island to a full forest is too far from the source in my opinion, but I guess they needed that space to land the airship. I’m actually a fan of it, it never made much sense that they just are there all of a sudden- The fight between Zuko and Katara was awesome, already looked good in the preview too; the moon effects were awesome too. A bit weird that every time there was a light source the colors were back though.

The visual and sound design of Koizilla is awesome, although maybe a bit too dark. I am glad they skipped Zuko carrying Aang into the blizzard, it made no sense in the original of him carrying Aang that far. Koizilla CGI was nice.

Verdict

Overall a very watchable show. Some decisions had me scratching my head. I don’t know why they would include any specific Book 2/3 moments; kind of mad they cut the Northern Airtemple. Introducing Azula early works out great. I need more Momo.

Episode 4 really had me worried about how they gonna pivot but they caught themselves; thankfully. The CGI was for the most part very good, but there are some very weird moments in which it wasn’t needed and it looked weird because of it.

The CGI is for the most part really good, I love the bending effects, although earthbending was definitely the weakest effect. The environments look stunning. The show does have a big problem with full CG characters and their physics though, some parts were really obviously CG and for me, that was really distracting.

My biggest gripe is the lack of interaction in-between the GAang, the show despite cutting many episodes felt extremely rushed. Our heroes rushed from one (fanservice) objective to the next without reflecting or even properly talking to each other.
Aang learns not one bit of water bending and doesn’t even meet Jeong Jeong for some early fire bending. There is little to no actual character growth on screen.

6,7 / 10