Avatar: The Last Airbender live action series Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show that was co-created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. The show aired on Nickelodeon for three seasons from February 2005 to July 2008 before airing on Netflix. The series is centered around a 12 year old boy named Aang, who comes to find out that he is “the avatar” and the last survivor of his nation, the air nomads. Twelve year old Aang must restore the balance of the world by ending the Fire Nation’s war against the other nations with the help of his friends Katara, Sokka, and later Toph. The new live action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender series premiered on Netflix February 22nd, 2024 with a total of eight episodes. There have been numerous disputes over whether the live action lives up to its expectations, and the answer is no. The show has received many positive reviews, but even the positive reviews have pointed out some of the series major flaws. One of them being the way Katara was written for the live action. Katara’s justifiable rage, deep rooted grief, and vocal frustration are what makes her character complex and compelling. But in the live action series she’s made to be more docile as her justifiable rage is replaced with meekness, her deep rooted grief is replaced with reluctant understanding, and her vocal frustration becomes quiet passivity. Secondly, the show is over-stuffed, they could have introduced the lore and world building gradually like in the original show. But the first eight episodes of this series contained the majority of the episodes from the original show’s first season, as well as various events from the second season, not one but two spin-off books, and information from the follow-up comic book series. For example, in the original episode, Aang and Katara navigate through a vast network of tunnels known as the cave of two lovers. Where Katara and Aang begin their romantic relationship. However, in the live-action episode 4: Into the Dark, the siblings Katara and Sokka were the ones who had to navigate through the tunnels instead. It’s 20 years of world building all piled into just under eight hours because a lot of it was done via exposition dump. Yes, we had a lot of monologues in the original show. But at least we had some stellar visuals or physical representations of the events that they were describing. In the live action series it feels like they were speed running the story and trying to cram as much fan service as possible just in case they weren’t green lit for a season 2. Although, the live action’s most creative exposition was the story of the founding of Omashu, that type of content isn’t seen until season 2 of the original series. The Avatar: The Last Airbender live action series really did a fantastic job of casting some of the characters really well.