Everyone is steamy in the Fire Nation preview images from Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender
It all looks pretty serious, but Daniel Dae Kim pulls it off well
Aux News The Last Airbender
The first teaser for Netflix’s reboot of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender movie (just kidding, it’s a live-action adaptation of the Nickelodeon cartoon that the movie was based on) was just the opening sequence that will appear before every episode, but it still heavily suggested that the show will be going for a much more “grim and gritty” tone than the original cartoon—which was usually at least brightly colored, even if it wasn’t always a wacky, lighthearted romp. Now, Netflix has released new preview images for the show, and… well, they won’t be beating those “grim and gritty” allegations any time soon.
Still, the preview images are all dedicated to main characters from the Fire Nation, and if any one of the show’s factions is going to be grim and gritty, it’s this one. Plus, Daniel Dae Kim looks pretty sick as Fire Lord Ozai. He’s got the beard, he’s got the hair, he’s got the big fire-shaped thing in his hair. There’s a man we would gladly follow in his quest to take over the world.
We’ve also got Paul Sun-Hyung Lee (new Star Wars mainstay Captain Teva) as General Iroh, Ken Leung as Commander Zhao, Elizabeth Yu as Princess Azula, and Dallas Liu as Prince Zuko—the hated villain of the show who will never have a change of heart and fight alongside the Avatar and his friends.
Speaking of the Avatar and his friends, the series will star Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio as Katara, and Ian Ousley as Sokka. The series will premiere on Netflix at some point in 2024. If only because the bar is so low, it will probably be better than the Shyamalan movie.
18 Comments
It looks good! The costumes are grounded but still a little extravagant, and they don’t look like they come from party city.Many of these shows go too hard in one direction.
What’s the going bet that Netflix will cancel this after one season?
Great, let’s see how the bending that’s impossible to perform in real life looks.
The bending is based on actual Chinese martial arts styles, so I don’t think it’s that impossible.As for the magic elemental stuff, there’ll be guys in black onesies tossing stuff around. You’re just supposed to ignore them.
“Based on” is a pretty important distinction here.
How could they possibly portray something on screen that isn’t possible in real life?
Hard to tell from just one still, but it doesn’t look like live-action Azula has that same look of cold, cruel, calculating superiority that she always had in the original show.
She’s a child. They’ll be playing up the innocent outside, pure evil within.
I think they go with the more snobbish, narsistic and egoistic Azura like the last season. Beside I don’t think she’s ever been a calculating superiority since most of her action can be thwarted by the group. As for the cold & cruel they might focus on the story why she became what she is before Zuko exile.
There’s something even more concerning: she isn’t supposed to appear till the 2nd season.Assuming each season of this new show adapts a season of the original show. Which should be the absolute no-brainer way of doing it.Introducing Azula in the 1st season means they’re already taking liberties with the plot, which doesn’t bode well.
Are you hoping for a shot-for-shot remake? What would be the point of that?You gotta separate the things that need to be kept the same from the ones that don’t.
Oh, it’s definitely a lose adaptation of the original. People are going to lose it when they learn about the Wild Thornberrys crossover event in Season 3
Technically, Azula DID appear in the 1st season, but it was just in the scene in The Storm where they showed her smiling with glee when Ozai burned him at the Agni Kai.
If she just appears in flashbacks of Zuko’s childhood before exile, it would work fine.
Wait, they casted the Fire Nation with people from the ethnicities it obviously drew influence from and not just “ehhhh, anyone brown”? Is that allowed?
Kid who plays Zuko isn’t doing it for me, scar seems rather toned down to just look like a birth mark. The rest look goodThat being said the original creators have left the show over creative difference with Netflix so I don’t have high hopes for this.
Paul Sun-Hyung Lee should be in everything. Those Star Wars series need to give him more to do. I love that guy.
These images look AI-generated.
At the end of the day, after we’ve watched this series, we’ll all just say “well it wasn’t better than the animated version, but it wasn’t absolute dreck like the live action movie 🤷♀️”