Ron Does Stuff

I’ll be honest, my overall opinion of this live action adaptation so far is nice but ultimately unnecessary, because while there have been some interesting tweaks, it overall still doesn’t bring anything groundbreaking to the table that would justify its existence beside the animated series.

And I wouldn’t consider myself a purist at all! I understand that things have to change when it comes to an adaptation and that there are a lot of constraints when translating animation to live action. It’s just that there’s not enough new things in this adaptation to fully excite me. Sure, there are tingles every once in a while, but nothing electrifying.

But I guess those tingles are still enough for me to push through, because here I am watching episode four!

After the last episode’s cliffhanger, I actually am looking forward to how they handle King Bumi, because he does make an appearance near the end of episode three. How will they translate the eccentricities and how will this move the story forward?

The immediate strength of this episode is that we have Aang and Iroh in sort of the same room, and the actor playing Iroh is given the space to do well, which you can’t really say for the Iroh from the movie.

And you know what? Bumi is great. He’s got that right mix of being off-kilter and yet still in full grasp of his faculties. He’s close enough to the animated version for me to really like, which I can’t really say for Teo and Sai. I feel like that’s the one failing of this adaptation, and it’s a failing shared by a lot of adaptations of material originally aimed for kids — they think making it dark and broody immediately makes it better. That’s not always the case!

It also looks like they’ve merged the lover’s tunnel episode with the King Bumi episode and you know what I appreciate that they include even the songs, even if these aren’t the lyrics? I think? It’s been a while since I’ve watched the animated series!

While I don’t know about sending siblings down a lover’s tunnel, I do appreciate that they made the lovers in this story lesbians! Or at least that’s what I heard and read from the subtitles!

One change I do like is Iroh coming face to face with the consequences of his actions during the Siege of Ba Sing Se. It was a scene that genuinely moved me, especially when the Earth Kingdom soldier accuses Iroh of knowing nothing about loss and then we get a flashback to Lu Ten’s funeral. And you know what maybe this scene does justify this adaptation after all? It really made Iroh’s loss more visceral for me and really showed why he looks after Zuko so much.

Also another thing I am liking from this adaptation compared to the movie is how much better the bending looks? The scene where Zuko frees Iroh from the Earth Kingdom guards was a little too short for me but even for those scenes I really like the way the bending looked! I hope that with the two other seasons greenlit they get a slightly bigger budget, at least for the bending. So we can get longer and more epic fights!

Now did I necessarily agree with the whole badgermole being guided by feelings? No. But the added Zuko and Iroh scenes really worked so well for me that if they keep on adding layers like that throughout the show then I may just find this adaptation worth it.