I’d already seen the original animated series so watching this live-action version might be of dubious value. Still, there’s only going to be more and more of these things so I thought I should watch at least one of them to judge how good they are. The fact is that they threw serious money at it so it looks very good indeed. The sets, the costumes, the bending effects and the scale of the action are all more than satisfactory. The downside is that this is still a kids’ show, with lines of dialogue that is often cringey. The adult actors do alright but the child actors just can’t emote well enough to sell those lines. The show looks so cool that I’m tempted to stay for the next season but I think I’m going to pass.

In a fantasy world where the gifted are able to manipulate, or bend, the elements of fire, air, water, and earth, a single person who is able to bend all four is born every generation. This Avatar keeps the peace between the nations and bridges the physical and spiritual worlds. A hundred years ago, the aggressive leader of the Fire Nation takes advantage of the death of the previous Avatar to launch an invasion of the other nations. The new Avatar Aang of the Air Nomads is still a child and happens to away from the temple where he lives when the attack wipes out the airbenders. Aang is frozen in ice at sea for a hundred years by which time the Fire Nation has all but conquered the entire world. He is discovered and woken up by two young members of the Southern Water Tribe Sokka and Katara who appraises him of the state of the world. After fending off a Fire Nation attack on their village, the three set out to save the world by first having Aang learn how to bend the other elements. Meanwhile Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation is exiled by his father the reigning Fire Lord Ozai. He is obsessed with capturing Aang in order to win back his father’s favor.

The overarching plot seems more or less faithful to the original series except that it’s much more abbreviated. This cuts out some of the side stories and more unfortunately means that the characters speed run through their development. Katara seemingly becomes a waterbending master in a matter of days. Zuko’s redemption arc starts so quickly that he barely spends any time being a villain. The new show therefore ends up feeling simpler than before and this is worsened by the inability of the child actors to inject believable emotions into the lines that they have to deliver. They do look the part but it’s impossible to see them as the characters instead of actors suffering from imposter syndrome. The adult actors acquit themselves far better even with weak dialogue yet they’re not the main characters. The fast pace also makes a mockery of the elaborate worldbuilding. The scale of the it feels so small when Appa can just zip here and there as they please. There’s no sense of time passing and this being a real journey.

The one thing I do like almost without reservation is how incredible the visuals are. Right from the beginning, the show demonstrates that bending is powerful and looks impressive, probably to distance itself from the awful adaptation by M Night Shyamalan. The actors may not be trained martial artists but they do make the right motions to convincingly sell that bending is tightly integrated with fighting and non-benders have no real hope of contending with benders. The sets, costumes and scale of the battles are all impressive as well. I can hardly believe how realistic the wholly computer generated creatures like Appa looks. The effects aren’t quite feature film quality but they are amazing for a television show! An issue is that the city of Omashu looked exactly like what it is, a film set. I think it’s a combination of color grading, flat lighting and the sets being just too neat. Omashu didn’t look like a real city at all and I kept thinking how fake and clean the cobblestoned streets are. It’s especially disconcerting given that the ice-covered water tribe locations and Fire Nation areas look just fine.

The high production values and the fact that they managed to pull off a spectacular finale with the battle at the Northern Water Tribe was almost enough to make me change my mind about watching the upcoming seasons. But ultimately this is not only a children’s show but also a simplified version of one that I’d already seen before. The quality of shows now is so high that there’s far more of them than I can watch so I’d have to pass but this might be worthwhile to those new to the series or truly dedicated fans.