Brief Story Line
Story was set in the world where people could utilize the four elements of air, water, fire and earth (called "bending") for various purposes. Historically, only an Avatar who could bend all four elements and also the person who would maintain the peace. The fire nation had been trying to rule the world by eliminating the next Avatar said to be an airbender. Aang (Gordon Cormier - The Stand mini series), a 12 year old boy from air nation only wanted to be a regular kid but had to resume the responsibility of the Avatar.
Unexpectedly though, Aang was forced to learn on how to become a proper Avatar by himself. Luckily he met with the kind siblings Katara (Kiawentiio - Beans etc) and her older brother Sokka (Ian Ousley) from the water village who were eager to help. Meanwhile Prince Zuko (Dallas Liu - PEN15 TV series etc) from the fire nation was given specific instruction by his father, Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim - Raya and the Last Dragon, Hawaii Five-O TV series etc) to capture the avatar. Zuko was accompanied by his uncle Iroh (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee - Kim's Convenience TV series etc) together with a small crew onboard a ship.
During his journey, Aang had to face so many challenges on his personal quest while trying to escape the pursuit of Zuko. It became more difficult for Aang and his new found friends when the cunning Commander Zhao (Ken Leung - Missing, The Night Shift TV series etc) joined in the chase. So what would happen to Aang, the last airbender who would bring hope to the world? You could find out in the first season of this series.
End of Brief Story Line
The reason I was excited to watch this series was not because I am a fan of the animated series it was based on, but more because of the hype surrounding it. Many viewers were highly anticipating the next live-adaptation series from Netflix and I for one wanted to see how it fared. Being someone who did not grow up watching the series (even though it was available on Nickelodeon channel for years), I had no real fond memories of it. The only thing that I could remember was the live-action movie back in 2010 which was heavily critized due to "white washing" allegations. Although back then the thing that I remembered the most was not really understanding the story and it did not give me the best impression either.
This time though, I was a lot more satisfied. I definitely had better understanding and with it came greater appreciation, especially since the story telling was not done in complicated manner. Being a fan of action adventure series certainly helped me enjoy it more. Even though the main character was just a 12 year old boy, but the rest of them were a bit older and some were adult. I like how Katara behave like a bigger sister to Aang and Sokka was equally fun since he would sometime provided few comical relief (his responses to her sister's witty remarks were sometimes quite hilarious). The second episode was the one that made me enjoyed his appearance the most.
I also like how each episode provided enough background story that kept us interested and did not feel like distraction or taking the focus out of the main plot. The other side characters were quite intriguing as well with few that I could easily see would have bigger part to play in the future. All of the young cast were unfamiliar for me but I had seen few of the adult cast members previously. Personally to me Gordon Cormier looked convincing for the part and I admired their ability to show some good fighting moves, helped by few decent enough visual effects. Not sure why there were comments of them being very poor, cause I felt it was good and even showed the high production value (read somewhere it cost around USD15 million per episode). Only thing I felt could be improved was when they were "on board" Appa the flying bison.
Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were also important characters such as Aang's mentor Gyatso (Lim Kay Siu - Night Watch etc), Zuko's younger sister Princess Azula (Elizabeth Yu - May December etc), Suki the Kyoshi warrior (Maria Zhang), Princess Yue (Amber Midthunder - Prey etc) and some recurring cast like Rui Iskandar as the simple minded Lieutenant Jee, Utkarsh Ambudkar (Free Guy etc) as the Omashu king Bumi and few others. With many characters portrayed by Asian and Native American actors/actresses, this was not going to suffer the wrath from fans on the casting. And to my surprise, there was not only one but two people of Indonesian descent (Dallas Liu and Rui Iskandar) here.
As far as live-action adaptation series go, I personally enjoyed watching it. I like the fightings even if they were not exactly spectacular, the nice story telling, the main characters dynamics with some humor, the adventure and I like that it had such a grand finale. Yes, the final episode was truly satisfying for me with its amazing climax and wonderful ending. It's a standard 8 episodes for Netflix original with duration between 47 minutes to a little over 1 hour. From what I read, the story line was from the first season of the animated series that had 3 seasons altogether. I would love to see this concluded properly, so hopefully it is renewed later. Btw this one was developed by Albert Kim whose prior experience was executive producer for Sleepy Hollow TV series.
Overall this series was entertaining for me. Though it did not got the universal approval from critics and viewers but at least it was not trashed by both. For someone who had not seen the animated series, this was a good enough adaptation that I found to be enjoyable and fun. Aside from some cheesy moments and a bit predictability on the plot, I still felt this to be something that I would love to see its conclusion. So if you are looking for a fun action adventure series, then I think you would enjoy it. But if you expect an exact replication of the animated series, then you had to be ready cause I understand there were additions and omissions. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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