The second attempt to adapt Avatar: The Last Airbender to live action is nearly upon us.
Netflix is taking aim at the beloved IP, and early details about the show — from its casting decisions to its set pieces — is sparking hope that maybe, finally, fans of the original are set to get a worthy adaptation of the animated series.
But our hope is tempered by experience. This isn’t the first time the Avatar story has made its way to live-action. The beloved fantasy series already got a live-action adaptation in 2010’s The Last Airbender, an M. Night Shyamalan dumpster fire that nearly turned the fandom off adaptations for good. It was universally panned for its white-washed cast, atrocious grasp of the original story, and god-awful acting, and Avatar fans everywhere breathed a sigh of relief when the intended trilogy was shortened to a single disappointing film.
But that film still looms large over the franchise, more than a decade following its initial release. It is a stain upon Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s history, and fears about how it will impact the Netflix series are weighing down excitement for the upcoming release.
Are Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender and 2010’s The Last Airbender connected?
The very first trailer for Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender was, all on its own, infinitely better than the 2010 take on the story, so absolutely no one wants the two projects to be connected. And, bless Raava, they’re not. While the two projects do cover the same general ground, its more like Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man. They’re two separate attempts to bring the same story to life, but they don’t hinge on one another in any way.
Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender is closer to a re-do than anything. Its the latest attempt to bring the brilliant animated series to a different medium, and hopefully it will learn the many, many lessons Shyamalan’s failure has to teach. Fan concerns about how the series will turn out are already running rampant — we don’t need any supposed connections to the 2010 film to bog it down further.