Honestly, it is probably a bad idea to try to make a live-action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender. And by that I don’t think there’s a movie studio out there that’s quite up to the job. But since Nickelodeon’s going to set up Avatar Studios to start with a new animated movie, well: the problem has largely now solved itself.
Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who were the original creators and executive producers of the shows, will lead the new studio as co-chief creative officers, months after the duo left Netflix’s planned Avatar: The Last Airbender film citing creative differences. In a statement to EW, DiMartino and Konietzko promised to expand the world of the original series in new and exciting ways.
Unless you watch whatever it is Netflix eventually coughs up. In that case, you may end up having a problem after all. An avoidable one, too.
You were the one who turned me onto the Avatar series, maybe a decade ago. I bought the sets based on your enthusiasm, and then let them sit on my shelf for years without watching them. But I finally did. And if anything, you undersold how amazing this show was. It might just be my favorite television series of all time.
I have very mixed feelings on Legend of Korra (great art style, good voice acting…but the stories just don’t recapture that magic, there’s too many references to the original show, and I hate that two-part “origin of the Avatar” episode.) Still, none of that takes away from the original series. And so I really have to thank you for sharing that love.
As to this news, I’m not quite sure what to feel. I don’t need another letdown like Korra. Adapting one of the comics would seem like the safest bet, but I really hope they don’t do that either, for the same reason I didn’t really like the idea of a live-action TV show that just told the same stories again. Centering a new story on Aang and his friends post-comet would probably be the safest bet. But there must be some corner of the world we haven’t visited yet. I’d rather go there.
Yeah…This is what I get for not editing my comments out of my stream-of-consciousness style before hitting “post.” That first “safest bet” was supposed to be “most obvious route.” But my thinking got ahead of my speaking, and now, well, here I am.
“And by that I don’t think there’s a movie studio out there that’s quite up to the job.”
You would have thought that M. Night Shimalyan (sp?) proved that point quite definitively. But apparently some people weren’t paying enough attention.