The Last Airbender appeared on Netflix – Kommersant FM
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Netflix has released one of the most anticipated projects of this winter – a live-action adaptation of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the new show, like the original Nickelodeon animated series, the action takes place in a fictional world inhabited by peoples of the four elements: water, earth, air and fire. Representatives of the latter seize absolute power as a result of the war. Only an avatar capable of mastering all four elements can resist tyranny. He turns out to be the only surviving airbender – a 12-year-old boy, Aang. Together with two friends, he goes on a journey to learn skills and challenge the army of the Fire Nation.
The original animated series about the adventures of Aang was released on Nickelodeon in the mid-2000s and gained cult status, and it still has 100% positive reviews on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The first attempt to make a live-action adaptation was made by director Night Shyamalan, but his film failed at the box office and was trashed by critics.
They reacted more favorably to the Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender, but without enthusiastic ratings. An article in The New York Times called the show too much of an adventure. But the author of the review in Collider accused the creators of the project of not paying too much attention to the details.
The editor of Kommersant FM, Ilya Sizov, also managed to evaluate the new series, and while watching the show he experienced conflicting emotions: “The actors’ types were generally chosen perfectly. Absolutely adorable boy who plays Aang. The way it looks, the way the special effects are done, is simply beyond praise. The action scenes are simply breathtaking, of which there are quite a lot even in the first episode.
But there is still a problem with this series. The guys who made it made the main screenwriter mistake that you can only imagine: don’t tell, but show.
In this series they tell too much, and in a very pretentious way, literally with quotes from the cartoon. All this is said by the characters who are in the frame, but they say it with some completely wooden faces, which looks especially embarrassing.”
Netflix has recently been regularly filming projects with actors based on animated series, mostly Japanese. The previous attempt was successful: the One Piece show about pirate adventures became a hit on the service in 2023 and won critical acclaim. At the same time, the adaptation of another cult anime, Cowboy Bebop, received a low rating.
Regardless of how successful the Avatar: The Last Airbender series ultimately turns out to be, Netflix’s strategy will remain the same, believes film expert and Moscow News columnist Daniil Rotshtein: “Initially there is a large army of fans of the cartoon, and they will probably watch the series . But since, as always, we do not know what internal goals Netflix sets and what parameters the real performance will be compared to, we must wait for the release of numbers. Then it will be possible to understand what the future prospects for the project are. Now it has not been renewed for a second season.
As for long-term strategy, it is appropriate to look at, for example, the One Piece case. This is a rare case where Netflix’s live-action adaptation turned out to be successful. Most importantly, it turned out to be a good entry point for beginners. We know that shortly after this, Netflix announced a One Piece remake, while the old Japanese anime launched in the nineties will also continue to move forward.
The approach seems to be that they try a variety of formats and are willing to practice their interpenetration.
That is, a new game series can maintain interest in the animated version. Then they will release it and warm it up, on the contrary, maybe something playful and so on. With The Witcher, for example, they worked exactly like this. And, obviously, we are ready to try this further.”
The creators of the original Aang animated series were originally invited to work on the series for Netflix, but left the project due to creative differences with the streaming team. After that, they returned to the Paramount studio, which owns Nickelodeon, and are now creating new animated films about the characters in the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe.
Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.
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