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Reviews
Avatar: The Last Airbender: Aang (2024)
Great elements but trading off emotion for exposition
Like a lot of people, the original series is extremely important and meaningful to me, so I tried going into this with an open mind but knew I would be biased a little. Especially after hearing concerning details like the original showrunners leaving and the infamous comment about needing to appeal to Game of Thrones fans.
The first episode of this live action Avatar was, as the title of the review implies, good but not perfect.
Right off the bat, we get a series of scenes not from the original show depicting Lord Sozin, Aang during his life before being frozen, and the genocide of the Air Nomads. I was immediately defensive, because we're starting with a non-canon addition. Bold choice.
It served as a good look at the special effects, which are often fantastic, especially when it comes to bending (background visuals were iffy at times). It also gave us some time with Gyatso, which was nice, but ultimately weakens the episode, which I'll touch on at the end of this review.
The worst part of the new addition was establishing how graphic the show is. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with graphic content (The Boys, Game of Thrones, etc.), but it feels so incredibly out of place in Avatar. Part of the initial shows strengths was being lighthearted and wholesome while lending weight to heavy topics at the right time. Immolating people while they're alive doesn't just feel weird, it conflicts with the tone the show should be striving for.
Then we cut to what becomes a live adaptation of the show. Sokka is killing it. Acting is good, jokes are landing, and it's a fun time. Zuko and Iroh are doing fine, acting wise. The rest of the cast is either slightly off (Aang and Katara) or way off (basically everyone else so far). This might improve with time, and Aang and Katara aren't *bad*, they just need some refinement.
My biggest gripe is that they jammed too much into this first episode and it suffered as a result. Exposition replaced genuine dialogue and character development so scenes could be expedited. We miss out on Katara and Sokka trying to get Appa to fly for the first time. The boat escape scene went from exciting in the original to Aang just sprinting past everyone.
This ultimately led to them visiting Aang's home for the last two minutes of the episode. It's not only rushed, but the exposition and added scenes at the start drain any emotional weight from what should have been a devastating moment.
I get that modern shows only get ~8 episodes a season, but Aang discovering what happened at the Air Temple is one of the most important scenes in the entire series, and it was reduced to almost nothing.
I'm trying to stay optimistic and hope they invest further into the things that make this series so special as the episodes go on. Fingers crossed.
House of the Dragon: The Princess and the Queen (2022)
They skipped 10 years, I wish I would have skipped this hour
The biggest issue of this show is breaking the sacred "show, don't tell" rule.
Twice now, over the course of more than 10 years and six episodes, we've been told that the Triad is messing around in the Stepstones. Why give us an exciting five-minute action scene showing the Triad destroying ships? I guess that would be too exciting for this angsty family simulator.
We're continually told that honor is at stake, that there is succession drama, that people are sleeping around, that some folks are talking trash about the princess.
But we aren't shown any of it. Honestly, this episode just continues the trend of endless dialogue that shows no character growth. Furthermore, it continues the trend of making us not care about characters.
I guess the queen is upset with the princess? Why? Because she's pouty and the episode title says so.
I'm now just putting this show on for the same reason I visit Twitter: to watch a dumpster fire so I can make small talk with people later.
House of the Dragon: We Light the Way (2022)
Are people watching a different show than me?
I mean this sincerely, but I don't understand how this show, and this episode in particular, have such a high rating. It's not a bad show, per se. But it's not good.
This episode continues a theme of colourless, lifeless world building, introducing new characters that (like all the others) we aren't given a reason to care about, and adding in shock violence and gore with shaky justification.
Given what happened at the end of the episode (without spoilers), there was maybe once scene of character development that led up to it. It's lazy.
Even the CGI is looking bad in some wider shots (the boat after the "run away with me" talk, the shot of the city when they arrive back and Allicent is looking down at the courtyard).
HotD is trying way too hard to be like GoT but is coming off as an edgy, boring wannabe with weird time skips, no real plot, and literally no one to cheer for. I genuinely don't know what people are enjoying in this show.
Three stars instead of one because the actors are doing well with the poor material they have.