Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today we are continuing,
we are finalizing our conversations about Avatar the Last Airbender. Those who are
watching on video can see that we are a little pinch, that we are
a little punchy after doing four episodes in a row. But we're here.
We're excited. Four days of episodes in a row, eight episodes in four
days. But I have to say, folks, if you go back and
listen to how we were all kind of down on this on the first day,
and we all kind of like had different things we found, and we're
all, I think, kind of like hyping each other up on this a
little bit more. I sat down to watch these two episodes this morning,
and I was genuinely disappointed that I was finishing the show. Oh okay,
I think it's gonna be another like Reeky and I are one and Matthews on
another. Well it could be because you you were saying that sentence, and
I started to like nod because these last two episodes, I was generally disappointed.
Well yeah, you know, I'm saying before I started these two episodes,
okay, yeah, yeah, oh okay, I was more. I
was surprised that I was looking forward to watching them as much as I was.
You know, I was like, because I thought to that point,
episode six was probably the strongest, and it felt like it had been kind
of building momentum and moving more in a direction that I enjoy and yeah,
so I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to,
you know, wrapping this up, not so much, you know,
already bemoaning that it's going to be like two years at least until you see
the rest of the story, if anything, you know. But but I
was like looking forward to like, you know, seven and eight, Okay,
finally the North after I guess six episodes, but like, you know,
yeah, but and uh, how to podcast Rieky is disappointed? Paul,
What did you think of these two episodes? Yeah, that's kind of
where I am. I mean, I don't know if disappointed is exactly the
word for how I felt, but kind of it felt to me more like
the first two episodes in terms of how I felt about them. They were
like some things that annoyed me. I felt like, you know, some
choices that I understand where they're coming from, but that I don't really like.
And then you know, some more of the just like super on the
nose, but also just like great acting from several of the performers, you
know, and some some solid action. And I will say when Guitara fights
Poku and they're doing the water bending, that was the first time I had
ever thought, oh, this is just like a splash splack. She's like,
yeah, okay, now I saw it, and I'm like, ah,
you've ruined it for me. But then they went to the ice and
I was like, okay, okay, now this this feels a little more
serious now, but it is very dancy. And I did go back and
watch the first episode, and I noticed the way they shoot some of the
bending, particularly from Katara early on, especially where they show her, they
show the results of the bending, but not the physical motion of the bender,
and that is an editing thing that feels a little jarring to me.
And I wonder if it's because they didn't feel like, you know, the
motions from the actors were what they wanted, you know, whereas like with
some of the other characters, it feels like like with Zuko and I think
a Zula, like they really show you know, them doing the thing and
the bending along with their motions as opposed to the water bending. Until the
that fight with Paku, it felt to me like it was not like they
weren't showing the bending, they were showing the bent essentially. Yeah, that
makes sense. Yeah, that's something on rewatch I probably want to pay attention
to is specifically Katara, because she's clearly gotten more powerful as a bender across
this season, and I would be curious to just like watch her form,
right that has become you know, like tighter, Like if her form has
become tighter and she's practiced it more and yeah, and that would make sense
in a story sense. Yeah, yeah, I'm curious. Matthew, did
you know that this show was going to be in basically like two episode arcs?
No, I had no idea. Yeah, that has worked out pretty
well for I will say I'm not incredibly surprised by that. Like, I
think that that is a fairly common, especially for a season that is eight
episodes long. You know, if this were nine episodes long, I would
have said, like, we probably should do three at a time or something
like that, because you know, but it's it's very deliberate because, like
looking at the credits, each two episode arc is directed by the same person.
Yeah, I realized that four directors. Yeah no, I definitely didn't
really like, I did not realize it was gonna be anywhere to you that
extent. I think it worked out really well though. Yeah, for sure,
Sometimes sometimes it's good to be lucky exactly. So, Riki, why
would you say you were disappointed? Oh gosh, well, but let's let's
not start with that. I don't know, I want to start Paul mentioned
performances, and throughout the season, I think we've all been very high on
the Jao performance from Ken Leung, and he absolutely nailed it in this episode
in what is What I hope will go down as one of the greatest villain
performances of all time and on this show. And you know, in Star
Wars we talk about villains and sometimes we prefer like complex villains or villains that
we can relate to, and Joo is just like a completely unrelatable, like
unrepentant villain in my opinion, and it works for this character, and it
works for the performance that he gave. Just like the over the top yelling
of like I am the Moonslayer, it was just absolutely pitch perfect. Yeah,
I loved it. I would you maybe I'm gonna tell like a horrible
person here. I don't I mean relatable in the way that like like Magneto
or someone like that is sort of like, Okay, I think I understand
your goals. I just maybe don't love your methods or I recognize that the
writer doesn't want me to love your methods or whatever it is. So I
would not say he's relatable at all. On that, I do think that
I had some under like to me, especially by the end and as part
of the great acting, he feels like he's cracked, like he has somewhat
lost his hold and kind of you know, the kind of delusion to the
grandeur that I'm the slayer, I'm all of this. He is not the
kind of like cool, calm person he was and cool and calm, but
like he's definitely kind of a little bit gone off the deep end by the
end. But to me, part of what I saw was, you know,
Azula's manipulating him. He's being given all these different orders from like you
know, he he's part of a fire Lord system where everybody is basically taught
like do all you can to advance, including stabbing the other guy in the
back and so yeah, again, like I'm not like, oh, poor
Joao, but I am like, yeah, like, in a system that
treats people like this, some people are gonna crack like this. I totally
believe that, and it made him to me a much more interesting villain even
so, because like then it's not just like moahaha, ultimate power. It's
like I completely see where he got to this point. But that point was
you're right, just purely like malevolent you know, destruction that had to be
stopped. But I mean he did have that. At one point he declared
that he was going to be the fire lord. Yeah, yeah, no,
I'll agree with you. And so one of the one of the subtle
things that they did previously was Jao that I think really paid off and I
enjoyed is I think it was maybe like Iro talking to Lieutenant Gee and Zuko
or something like that, but basically like called him out as an incompetent UH
war leader, right, not very good one. Yeah yeah, like all
his skills into question. And from that moment forward, like I examined the
character in that lens and it just all made sense. Like he's a mid
to low level commander in a remote outpost who kind of got lucky with you
know, the avatar landing in his lap, and then tried to insert himself
into a system and just was like not good enough either militarily or politically,
and got played by all the sides and thought he could do this thing and
just failed. And he's he's so interesting to me in that way that he
reached for the moon literally yeah, and and couldn't hold onto it. So
I'm going to draw a potentially very weird comparison and you might laugh me out
of the room, and that's fine. Well, I'm in my own room.
I'm not leaving it. But you know that would be really impressive if
out of the room, that'll be high level bending there exactly exactly, But
to some extent, I'm kind of thinking of this whole system. It's very
similar to what the world of the Sith is like of you know, the
strong rewarded, the weaker punished, and so you're constantly like you're constantly like
encouraged like cut corners, do everything you can to try and get better and
stuff like that. And as you said, the people who try to work
in the system and fail. He kind of reminds me of Darth Maul,
like Mal is much more complicated, but the whole, especially his speech to
the end at Zuko, it kind of reminded me of like Mal talking to
Ahsoka or some of the others, you know where It's like he didn't seem
like he was lying to Zuko to try to fuck with him. He was
trying to be like I have now come to realize, you know, that
I reached for this and I failed, and I was maniplated by Azula and
all of this, and it's like we're all we're all just coged to this
horrible machine and just his whole like I want, especially that line about wanting
to be the fire Lord. You know where does that come from? It's
just that like he's gotten onto the latter and now he thinks he has this
opportunity for greatness and so he's gonna take it as far as it can.
Mm hmm uh. In terms of Star Wars characters, I thought he was
very similar to Orson Kranick. Yeah, actually I see that one really well
too. Krannick had these delusions of grandeur of what he was going to be
able to accomplish with the Death Star project, and then Tarkan just like joinked
the rug right from under him and he got hoisted by his own gaitars and
like this killed by the death star. That that was actually the one thing
I didn't like, the change that they made to how Jao dies in the
end. I mean, I presume he's maybe they'll change that in the future,
but in the animated show, correct me if I'm wrong. But he
was killed by the spirit right, like the either the moon spirit or the
ocean spirit, like yanks him away into the spirit world. Is that I
thought he had just like fell to his presumed doom and it was as a
result of the damage. I have not recently rewatched as you two have them.
Yeah, my memory is he kind of falls to the mercy of the
spirits, right, and Zuko actually like there they were fighting and then the
spirits grab him and Zuko actually reaches out and tries to save it, which
was a nice like Zuko moment, like even in the midst of combats,
like I want to try to save your life, because I think in the
Legend of Kora, there's a brief cameo of Jao wandering in the fog of
lost souls, which gets you got used in this show. I think originally
it was from there and he's just wandering around still muttering to himself like I
am the Moon Slayer. Mm hmmm hmm. Yeah. Here it was interesting.
I mean, it was definitely different. It's a choice and it I
thought it was interesting that I Rose the one who fireballed him, right yeah,
And I feel like he did that not just to save Zuko from potentially
getting killed by Joo, but to save Zuko from killing Joo. Could be
yeah, like yeah, I don't know. I kind of Zuko's back was
to him at that moment, right yeah. It was like he had turned
away from Joao and then jo stood up and was gonna attack him. Yeah,
and like he didn't call out to him or anything. He just you
know, kind of roasted him. I was. I've loved the ideas behind
how it all ended, Like I loved where Joo was coming from, but
I kind of felt they stumbled on the execute in a couple of ways.
And this is one of those examples where I felt like doing it this way.
A we now have Iro straight up killing somebody, which like I think
he would in an absolute killer be killed situation, he would kill. But
I do think he is. He probably as much as Aang is going to
try to avoid that at absolutely all costs. But more to the point,
Zuko here has learned a lesson of compassion. He doesn't kill Jao Zoo.
And for the show to say Zuko let him live and would have died because
of that if Iro hadn't saved him, that doesn't really encourage by the way,
you did the right Like it's it basically saying like, Luko almost got
himself killed by being compassionate, And I don't think the show was trying to
say you shouldn't have been compassionate, so that that part of the execution felt
weird. But also the whole scene where he winds up killing the fish first
of all my memory and I saw the show only a couple of the animated
a couple of days ago. This whole like the earths right, and yeah,
he kind of like kidnaps it and like therefore takes that out of the
water. But big part of that is because in the original they don't take
this mortal form for today, they're always swimming around in there. And I
admit the idea that these two spirits want to experience life as mortal on earth,
and so every day they do that by swimming in a circle in a
pond, with the only other living thing being their other spirit. They spend
all their time with you. Kind of lost me a little bit on that,
but fine, I can let go of that. He says he's gonna
do this. Iro is standing right behind him and says, if you do,
I will blast you, And so Iro just sits there and watches while
he reaches into the pool, picks up the fish, put it in the
bag, and then is about kill it when Iro decides I have to walk
around night. So I'm now in a ninety degree angle with him where actually
now the guards can see if I'm about to do this. And then he
blasts him, and of course it doesn't work because Zoo is delabled to get
to the knife. Like it felt kind of like the mace window wind up.
You know, the emotional content of this could be great, but if
I'm stuck thinking about the physics of the fight, and not in a like
interesting way, but just in a like yeah, like Darth. You know,
I don't know where Darth Vader is in obi Wan kind of a way
that that's not well done. Yeah, I'm with you on that. That
whole thing felt. I mean, if he's gonna kill Joao later, right,
like why not just kill him in the hot air balloon? You know
when he says he's gonna literally murder the moon, you know what I mean?
Like, I guess there were a few of them in the in the
air balloon, it wasn't just the two of them. But I kind of
felt like, wait, you're really gonna take I row up into an air
balloon and then tell him that you're going to kill the moon, like you
think this is going to work out for you, and then like it worked
out fine for a little while for him, But yeah, yeah, I'm
with you. The window I didn't pick up on the the Iro walking around.
What I picked up on was the after Iro declares like, if you
do, I have to stop you. Yeah, but he didn't even say
I have to stop you. It was like I have to punish you if
you do it, basically right. But Joao at that point is like,
well, you're coming with me because you are the one who can identify the
spirits, right, right, because you're you're so knowledgeable about spirits. And
then he doesn't right, like Joo just comes upon the lake and sees the
two and is like, oh, Yin and Yang, I identified the spirits.
Cool right, right, right? Some something is off with with that
whole sequence, I think, Yeah, And when I when this type of
when when this? When I see this kind of stuff, Now, my
instinct nowadays goes to rewrites, like someone rewrote something and they had to like
change the order or something like that. It's like, well, this,
we need to still have a scene with them talking on the balloon, et
cetera. But so, yeah, something was off. I don't I don't.
I don't think it was like all written out that way. This is
just what we ended up with, is my guess. Yeah, yeah,
I can't agree with that, and even having it be the balloons, like
it's straight out of the show. But it's like in season three that Sokka
sees that the technology helped create is now being used and if all kind of
a wastetom was to use it this early, yeah, oh go ahead.
The the balloon thing that happens in the same episode in the Mechanist episode,
we see that there that they have balloons and they're starting to use them,
but they don't no, no, no, they don't actually use them yet,
right, there's apologies. No, Yeah, the mechanism uses a balloon
to defend the air temple that they were up. Yeah, and then it
crashes and then yeah, then the fire nation right, right engineer basically Yeah,
but there was more of a kind of like season long or multi season
long setup of that. Yeah, like, oh, they recover the balloon.
I'm sure, like you know Chekhov's hot air balloon exactly. I do
want to quickly say, speaking of technology, not only do we get to
have the fun of these conversations and Paul laughing at my bad transitions, but
you guys can join us in the conversation too. We had some feedback yesterday.
We have some feedback today. I've seen people start to comment on things.
Would love to know what you think. Do you agree with us,
do you disagree? Do you have a question you want to hear us discuss.
We'll definitely be doing a feedback episode about avatars. Was bringing in some
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Let us know what you think and become a member. Back to our regular
scheduled podcast already in progress. I think your transitions are wonderful and I think
you to call them seacans instead of tangents, because they all go through the
circle, not offs. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Yeah,
So I guess I never really gave my kind of overall feeling of these episodes.
Some of the storylines that I wanted done well, I thought were done
very well. I thought the stuff with you A was very good. I
really believed her and uh uh Zuko Sokka falling for each other, the idea
that she's been dreaming about him for a while, which I think is kind
of implied but stated when she says, because you're the boy of my dreams.
But also like this is a woman who's half the moon, so like
she gets to be a little flighty, And I did really like I want
to ask Griegy about one thing about this, which I'll do at the end
of this her being that three tailed fox that we had seen early on in
the last couple of episodes in the Spirit World, and him making that connect
because of the medallion that she wears that the fox had on one of its
tails. So I liked all that. That was all really good. I
agree with you. I thought Joao was phenomenal, and I again thought Zuko
was amazing. I didn't need the sexism of the water tribe U and Mary
was with me, and I often kind of think, like, you know,
I'm not gonna look to like the one woman I'm watching me at the
moment and be let's say, like Mary be the authoritative voice. But I
remember, like when the whole stuff about Socca came out, uh, for
those who don't know, there were rumors beforehand that that socca sexism was going
to be cut out. A lot of people were upset about this because they
said it's really important for Socca's growth. But then I also saw a lot
of folks, including particularly women, often saying, look, it would actually
be nice for us to see a woman hero who doesn't have to overcome the
sexism and misogyny of those around her, and putting when you don't have it
as part of Socca's story, putting it in here it is truer to the
original, but it also felt kind of like, well, why are you
cutting one but not cutting the other. I will, though, say that
I thought it was well done if you're gonna have it in there, And
I thought the way of not only does like he recognize her talent, but
that all of the younger people are like, well, no, that's dumb.
We just saw you do that really cool thing throwing ice discs. We
want you to learn. Like I loved that, and that that the older
guy, I want to say, Pooka, but I know that's wrong.
That he kind of comes to recognize how much others respect her was also really
important. And I really liked that her betrothed was named Hwang I think was
his name, uh UE's betrothed, the guy she was supposed to marry on
thank you, thank you a terrible names I apologize. I really liked it.
I really liked it. He was just a decent guy. Like he
wasn't a jerk to Sokka, he wasn't super jealous. He really liked u
A and he was sad that she didn't choose him, but then he just
went on with his day. And like when he recognized that she was gonna
be the SOCCA, he was like, yeah, okay, be happy and
Socca, please protect her because she matters to me. And I just after
seeing so much like love triangle, jealousy, nonsense, that that alone,
like mate, I really loved in the episode, and like there was a
lot of problems had in the episode, but that alone kind of made it
like, Okay, I I am, I'm here for this. I like
the way they're going. I liked what they did with Han. Oh no,
now I'm alone. Oh no. And there was a spot where there
was a line about Zuko being alone, and I felt like it was like
a call out to the you know, Zuko alone, Yes, you know,
it definitely was. Yeah. I liked what they did with Han.
He may have shot first, but I guess Socca shot a lot anyway.
I I liked Socca and and U a their whole interaction and Arnook is that
the Arnook is the chief, the old Master. Thank you Arnook talking to
Socca after you know, Princess Moon becomes the Moon again. U means moon
for what it's worth in Chinese, well in Mandarin more specifically. But it
like, Yeah, I found the whole like Northern Water Tribe sexism plotline super
cringe, as did the one authoritative voice in My Household, and it felt
I also feel like the payoff didn't feel as great of Katara becoming a Master
water Bender because I feel like they short changed her arc in this season.
You know, like a lot of what I've complained about with a lot of
other female characters is when they get short changed in terms of like people like,
oh, they're too powerful, blah blah blah, Like I want to
see the training. That's one of the things that I loved about the original.
But it's not just Katara here, it's also Aang. We don't see
Aang training in that way, right, And I will say I did think
that they had clearly listened to us and then gone back in time and shot
the episode because they specifically call out that Aang hasn't been training this whole time,
right, which I like, yeah, yeah, they they drop that
in they lampshade it kind of right. They're like, yeah, we know,
we know that we didn't do this thing the way they did, you
know, and and so it just it. And then the worst instance of
that was this is like for the whole Team episode eight, the beginning of
it, when they execute that excellent attack on a fire Navy ship and like
they're just a well oiled machine, and it's like, you know, and
Han talking to Saka about all this experience they have, like we didn't get
to see that. I didn't feel that from the episodes that we saw,
and I feel like, yeah, I understand it's only eight episodes, but
like it feels like, if you're gonna rush things, rush the Northern Water
Tribe stuff in the North, have that be one episode instead of two episodes,
and like, just give us a little more of the character's training,
of them learning to work together, like as a team without other, without
Aang turning into another avatar or something, you know. Yeah, and it
it just like I love them as a team and I love the training arcs,
and it felt very neglected on both those fronts. And so then when
Katara is like, no, I'm a major badass, It's like, Okay,
I know you're a major badass, but I want to see that journey
because to me, that journey is one of the most powerful things about a
character story. If a character becomes a master and they weren't a master at
the beginning of the story, like show me, and I feel like they
didn't, you know, And I mean, obviously Aang didn't really learn anything,
and like, Okay, I guess there's two more seasons maybe or more.
But he learned the power of friendship. He learned the power of friendship
and something about the past and the future and one hundred years. But yeah,
overall, it's just the writing is what I feel, really has not
been my taste, and somehow many of the performances have managed to come rise
above that, you know. Like I was listening to the words Skiazzo was
saying in the first episode, and I was like, these could have been
delivered like flatly and it would have been like brutal, I think, yeah,
you know, but like somehow he like gets so much out of it,
you know. And and there's a number of performances who've done that,
And for me, like the biggest reason I hope they do more seasons is
like I want to see these actors play those characters. I just hope maybe
there's some notes, maybe not from producers. Maybe I don't even know,
Like I'm not super optimistic about the writing, but like, yeah, so
many of the performances have been really great and really nuanced. And even if
we don't see any more of like ken Lee Jung, like at least we'll
see like more Dallas Lou and like you know others. Yeah. Anyway,
so Riki, you didn't like han oh boy, what happened? Rigy is
solidly on team Grido. Okay, I'm gonna like try to like go point
by point. Okay, first major point. I don't like that they killed
Han. Oh yeah, no, I know, oh yeah. And more
specifically, I don't like that they killed Han and to my knowledge unnamed water
tribe kid who looked up to Katara, Like both of them. I think
there was like this need to show like how serious wars and like there were
casualties even among like people you met and liked. Why why both of them?
Right? Like I think one of them, I can understand makes sense,
Like if you want to be this darker, grittier show showing the consequences
of war, and like here's this person, I think it should have been
the kid, right, Like Katara seeing that kid who looked up to her
and called her master and all that was like a good moment for her.
And then to see that potential snuffed like would have like driven home to her
the consequence of war. Right, So like why also Han? At the
same like they kind of in my recollection that they like walked past one body
and then like walk past the other one. Yeah, and it kind of
like lessened the the impact of all that so I didn't understand that I am
okay with I'm okay with love triangle Matthew, because they are often necessary shortcuts
for getting characters to where they need to be, and I think minus that
love triangle being present, I personally did not buy into this romance, Like,
I didn't feel like it got to where it needed to be for That's
rough Buddy to have an impact in the future. I just like did not
feel that this relationship between these two had time to percolate and develop to the
point where she's going to be like Socca's Lost Love, Right. I agree
that it did feel rushed, but I don't think him being a jerk in
a jealous way would have helped that. I can't imagine how that would have
helped the community that would have been, Like, I feel like if there
had been that, I'd be even more upset that we didn't get more time
with them, because I'd be like, why are you wasting time on this
jealous X instead of just letting us see them develop this love that it's supposed
to be so amazing that he's so upset about it? Later? But was
original Han like animated Han? Was he a jerk? I don't feel like
he was a jerk. Yeah, he was kind of like jealous and possessive
of of Ua and was defensive against SOCCA, But I don't feel like,
I don't know, like the lie between jerk or bully. I guess like
he was set up as a rival and acted in that way, but never,
in my opinion, maliciously. I guess. I guess. I just
I'm just really bored of men being jealous, like and and I mean,
like Loki kind of offended at the idea that if two men are both interested
in the same woman, we have to be rivals, we have to be
jealous of each other, we have to be jerks to each other, and
like, clearly I don't believe that, but I feel like so much media
goes in that direction that I get, Like, I hear what you're saying.
I just think for me, it is just so refreshing to see something
that's not that. I guess for me, that's like a really good reason
to tell new stories, yeah, like with different characters, and not to
just like keep remaking things that have elements that you don't love in them,
you know. Just quick aside, there's a YouTuber slash author named Giran J.
Chow, whose last name is the same as like Admiral Chow, and
she she did some a bunch of videos about like a bunch of the cultural
aspects of the original animated series, and she has a novel called Iron Widow
that does feature a love triangle, except it's a it's a throutle love triangle,
so you know, it's a it's a different, different take on you
know. But yeah, I mean I'm with you in terms of, like,
that's not a story that I enjoy and I don't really want to see
it a whole bunch of times. But like also, I mean I didn't
feel the absence of it here, but I it's just one of the things
about adapting something and changing the story is it's like they're gonna change certain things
and not other things, and it's like, well, why is that what
you're changing? And then why are you leaving this? And then it just
like I don't know, I almost wish like they made it more different in
some ways, you know, And I'm not a fan of the kind of
making it more dark or whatever, because like the big problem I have with
the series as it is, this edition of it is that I feel like
they're trying to be like very thoughtful in terms of like what the ramifications are
of telling this kind of story versus that kind of story, but then they're
also trying to be kind of manipulative and abusive in terms of like you need
to see this violence, like you need to see someone's skull immolated on screen,
while also writing dialogue that feels like it considers the audience to be of
a very low level of intellectual development, you know, like they have to
explain to you what everybody is thinking and everything that's going on all the time,
or like maybe you'll miss something. I had every other episode till now
when you talked about the dialogue, I'd kind of like vague senses of what
you mean, but I hadn't noticed it as much. This episode. There
were a couple of lines, particularly from uh I agree with you from the
Monk of the last episode, but this one, especially from Jao and then
later from Azula, that just felt so like and I watched with subtitles because
like as audio processing stuff and sometimes like there's other noise, and there were
times where like I would listen to them while getting so much emotion from the
actor and then be reading the words and be like did I really just feel
that from those dumb words? Like right, especially like Azula when I forget
what she says when she takes off the mask. But it just was like
oh at the end, yeah, all you had to do is take off
the mask and I would have understood everything of the words you just repeated,
right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just lines that it's like,
we don't need a line here, Yeah, just show us their face,
like the act trust your actors, right, there's like not trusting the
audience, but then there's also not trusting your performers. Like there's spots where
you can have a line in a script and then you can shoot the scene
and after you shoot the scene, you can look at it and go,
I don't need this line, Like their face said everything there was there was
there were one or two that IIRO said too. Oh there was one where
he has a tear and I'm like, I don't need the tear to see
that he's crushed. You know. It's like that that it feels it was
in when Zuko maybe blows up but then doesn't blow up, and then he's
just like talking to him casually on the boat later, I'm like, we
don't even get to see that. Iro now knows that Zuko's not dead.
He's just like, oh, yes, this is what's happening here. It's
like, no, I think it was when Zuko is leading that that you
see the tears killed Joao. You know what, I'm guessing. There were
a lot of tears, and we noticed different ones, but the lot the
line there, it was Zuko says like Lieu ten would have been proud.
Oh yeah, while his father or something like that. That line was so
bad, especially like it was a good moment, and it still gets to
me because the moment was good. Yeah, yeah, did you just say
that, especially like would have He's a specifical tense that implies a possibility like
I don't know if that's proud, if you saw you right now? Acceptable,
Fine, there's no possibility that that is intentionally bad because like it's Zuko,
right, and he's still processing and like still not quite doesn't know how
to show his emotions, like speak his emotions. Are you telling me you
might say that was rough, buddy, Yeah, exactly, that's the same
character. I think someone looked at a draft of the script and went that's
rough, buddy, and they're like, ah, we're leaving it. Yeah,
but that line was rough. So yeah, the line was rough,
and like somehow it didn't totally ruin the moment because like the performances and like,
yeah, it's not just the performances though, it's like actually everything visual,
like not everything like Uay's wig looks ridiculous, but like overall the costumes
and the makeup and the largely the effects and like especially like the settings.
There's things that I feel like are literally too dark in that sort of like
they're trying to do that way and I don't understand why people keep doing that.
But like, overall, I think the visual look, the music,
I feel like most aspects of filmmaking have been executed at a very high level
in this series. And like if they just like like just like like get
Tony Gilroy to like do a polish or something, I don't know, Like,
yeah, you know, it feels to me like just trust your audience
and trust your actors. Yeah, true, because like I said it,
if you told me that you aged the if you took a show that was
originally aimed not entirely at children by any means, but was like, I
know lots of people who were watching this when they were six or seven years
old and absolutely fell in love with it. And if you told me that
something that was originally written in a way that like, you know, kids
that young could really love and fully understand, and now you've made a more
adult version of it, but that is less subtle, Like what are you
doing? You know? Yeah, it's just incongruous those two aspects. Let
me shift to another. Oh go ahead, Well I want to I want
to address like the whole thing of writing, right because I was doing some
research and what I discovered was that the two co creators of Avatar, like
the original series of Brian Cornietsco and Michael Dante di Martino. So those two
were originally on this project, I believes as writers, and they still have
credits teleplay credits for episode one and episode six, but then part way through
they both chose to leave the project like two years in the classic creative difference.
Who knows what that means? Right, Like they're not going to say
because they don't they don't want to like bad mouth this, like it's still
they still love Avatar. I'm sure they wanted to succeed despite leaving the project
or they've signed to NDAs and would love to bad mouth I mean, but
yeah, you're probably right, But I'm also saying they posted about it on
social media and they're actually making more Avatar related stuff with Nickelodeon. That's cool
as part of not but not with Netflix. It's like a yeah, but
this is like, these are the things outside of like the fantasy world.
Like as fans, as people who consume the media, we had to take
into consideration when we're like, oh, the writing is bad, Yeah,
is it bad? Because you know, these two left the project, there
are still like bits and pieces that they wrote, and then other people had
to come in and say, Okay, how do we fill the gaps that
they left behind or like because they had creative differences, like we want to
go in a different direction, but now we have less time to like fully
flesh out and you know, rewrite entire scripts. And that's not I when
when I see stuff like this happen, you know, like Secret Invasion was
a complete mess because of rewrites. It's not we're critical of the final product
that we were watching. But again, like as I always say, like
these are human beings who have a job they're trying to do, and sometimes
the circumstances don't allow you to do your job to the best of your abilities,
like due to time constraints. So I want to make sure like that
we're we're saying, like, hey, this didn't work out the way we
wanted it to necessarily, but I still have hope for the future. No,
and that's very fair. I think it's also and I may have slipped
up on this, and so it definitely please call me out and how it
happens in the future. I think it's very important that there's a difference between
saying the writing or the even better, probably more accurately, the dialogue wasn't
very good versus the writers screwed up, because it could well be the writers
themselves, as you say. It could be that the original script the writers
gave them was a lot better, but the producers, as Paul was implying,
might have changed it down somewhat, you know, Like you know,
we've talked a long time about likee did Natalie Portman just walk onto the set
of Attack of the Clones and decide, you know what, I'm a world
class actor, but I'm not going to do that this time. Probably more
likely it was her directing or the writing or like or the editing that made
it seem like that. I think you're very good, because George Lucas is
like, no, Hayden Christensen did exactly what I wanted him to do.
It's like, all right, well that okay, so that's not the best
George. My point though, is just this is that in a creative project
where so many different people are involved, and I think, Riggi, I've
not been I have not been as cognizant of this as I should be.
And I'm really appreciating you bringing this up, and you can tell me if
I'm missing your point entirely. But I think this is where you're going.
I feel like it's a really good idea for people who are being critical of
it, like criticize the product, don't try and get into unless they specifically
tell you what they did, like was it this specific person? Because even
if we know that it is the writers, like I don't I care insomuch
as if I see those writers on another project, I might not watch it
or it might have hesitations. But I'm not gonna go out and start adding
those writers on Twitter. When I bashed this, you know, not that
I'm gonna bash it, but yeah, I mean the thing is like we
talked earlier about Joo and just like how perfect he was. I think if
you if you read his dialogue like on a piece of paper, like on
the script, some of it is probably like what we would call bad writing,
right, but he, like Ken Leung Knew, understood the assignment.
Yeah, and he took that and he owned it, and he took some
like some hammy lines and just like did a Palpatine right like unlimited power.
You if you read that on a script, you're like, would he really
like shout this? But when Ian McDermott shouts it in the way he did,
you're just like, oh, yeah, this is great. No,
No, I love that you are, But I was That was not my
response with Ian McDermott did it, and I'm guessing it's not Paul's. I
love that moment. I mean, I laughed at that happened. I will
say it could have been worse, I do. I don't think it could
have been delivered better, I will. I'll just leave my opinion at that.
Yeah, it could have been a moha at the end. Yeah,
No, just in terms of delivery it's convincing that that version of that character.
Yeah, anyway, I think to me, it's I think criticizing the
writing compared to criticizing the writers, and it's you know, it's a fine
line, and it's like, well, you know, I mean people,
yeah, really take pride in their work and take identity from it sometimes,
you know, but like obviously, like yeah, don't at people. Don't
harass people about it. And when it comes to anything that ends up on
screen, unless you know, it's like a one person is clearly in charge
and has you know, has final cut. Basically, like you don't know
whether the credited writer came up with a given line. You don't know whether
some staff writer who's uncredited or is in the later credits came up with a
given line. You don't know whether the showrunner, whether a producer suggested it,
whether an actor ad lived it, you know, or whether it was
adr afterwards by like a totally other writer who was like ghost writing or whatever.
You know. Yeah, so so yes, I mean I deeply agree
with like, don't obviously don't harass anybody for their involvement in like making art
anyway outside of art that's like aimed at people pressing them or whatever, but
just you can yes, yes, yes, please. But like but I
think like criticizing the product is like, yeah, however those words ended up
on the printed page or they decided these are the words that the actor is
going to speak, Like, I think better choices could have been made in
that regard, but the same writers might be able to come up with better
ones in the next season possibly, yeah, you know. And for me
this art right of television and movies, like the more I consume, the
more I understand, you know, Like I'm not a film student, but
I understand, like the process is so collaborative between everyone. So it's like,
like I said, like a good performer can elevate bad writing. I
think a bad performer could you know, devalue good writing. So it's like,
you know, like the moment in and Or Stell and Scars Guards monologue,
right, that was good writing plus good performer and and you know,
possibly other elements added to that. It's like a perfect mixture. And so
for for me, my biggest thing is does it does it take me out
of the moment? Right? Like the the Zuko Lieu ten would have been
proud to call you his father just like it was a good moment, but
it took me out of the moment right there. I don't like that that
happened. Whoever is responsible, Like it just didn't work for me, right
right? You just you want to savor the moment and enjoy it. Yeah,
it should have been It should have been a better moment, more impact.
Like I think I started to cry, and then I like, I
can't out of that line. I might have still cried. YEA might so,
so I want to shift hears of it and ask Riky you a specific
question. Although Paul, I was interesting your thoughts on this, and again
this is one of those like I don't want to do the authoritative voice you
know of any community, but you know you've talked before about how you,
as a Japanese American person have have that context you bring. I don't know
much about the stories of the nine tailed Fox and the role they play in
Japanese mythology, but I do know that it's like a specific character. And
obviously a lot of things in this show, both animated and live action,
are inspired by different aspects of different parts of Asian cultures, some very directly,
like you said, with some of the names some kind of more obtusely,
I'm curious for you may not know any more about that particular myth than
I do, but I'm curious if it is something you know about, and
I don't know if maybe there is a related story about a three tailed fox,
or if like seeing them have a three tailed fox felt like a legitimate
way of referencing the myth but of making it their own, or if it
felt like problematic because of taking something that wasn't their own and changing it kind
of appropriate matter, like, did you have any thoughts on this? No,
Okay, that's totally fair. It happens in five seconds on screen,
so I didn't you know, I like, literally know. I'm familiar that
there are foxes in mythology with multiple tales, probably mostly because of Pokemon,
because there's a Pokemon. That's why you're familiar with it. Yeah, I
mean, if you want, like for a follow up episode, I'm happy
to do research on it, because I like research. I don't I don't
have any feelings on it at the moment. Okay, well that's it.
That's really fair. I will I will say I didn't like that like what
happened in the show, because I mean, first off, again, like
you're gonna talk about a line of dialogue, the you're you're the boy in
my dreams was like so cringey. Yeah, and it to me it felt
like we were talking earlier about the relationship and how it didn't get there.
For me, this felt like an attempt at a shortcut that to me is
not the right way to do a shortcut, right, Like, yeah,
I mean maybe for her, but for him, like she was a fox,
like a fox, So it's like, how can you have feelings for
her? Like based on that? Like those kind of feelings there are some
Google searchers that you clearly haven't done and probably shouldn't do that they might don't
do that sort of research. I guess again, Like I guess it makes
a little more sense for her, Yeah, that she has seen him like
physically in the spirit world, but he never saw her, Like he makes
the connection and it's like, oh, like you were the fox. It's
like, but what does that do for you? Right? I can't.
Here's odd because I actually thought it did more for him, because I do
feel that like this was his moment of probably greatest disorientation since this guy woke
up out of the ice after one hundred years and the flying sky iceon like
he is in the spirit world. He has no idea what's going on.
He's completely like he's a very He's one of those like very confident, very
fragile kind of types you know where, And this is I think him at
his most vulnerable, and then here comes this creature that is showing care and
consideration and worry about him, and he mostly has to worry about everybody else.
I'm like that they worry about him too. But I could see him
kind of imprinting some way, not in a like, oh, I want
to kiss that fox, but in a like, oh you were, Like
the feeling of compassion and of protection and of someone's looking after me that I
got from that Fox is embodied in this very pretty girl. Do I think
there's some like is that the healthiest basis for a relationship that I've ever heard
of? Absolutely not. Do I think it's a reason for a sixteen year
old boy who really likes falling in love to fall in love? Yeah,
I can see that. I just have Foxy Lady stuck in my head now.
It's totally fair. I thought the like the medallion or whatever that was
like on her tail when when she was in Fox form in the spirit world,
and then like showing that to me, that felt like really on the
nose, you know, like that felt like one of those like oh,
did you get it? You know where it's like no, it's just it's
the same voice. And then she said recombobulate like that, Yeah, I
feel like that should be enough. I don't think we need a visual thing.
Even still, I still don't get it. Why did the Fox have
that? I don't know. Even the close captions were on the nose because
the word recombobulate was in like quote marks right right right, yeah, yeah,
like yeah, great. I mean I was okay with that part because
it's yeah, that's fine. A weird word, right, a very weirdly
specific word. So that worked for me. The hair pin thing doesn't work
for me because it like, yes, I understood, I understood what they
were doing, and I was like, why right, I'm just saying I've
watched a lot of teen romance and stories like this. This is not scraping
the bottom of the barrel in terms of like why are these people in love
with each other? Now? I think it's a lot more about the specifics
of this we could say, and we're probably gonna do some follow up episodes
and hopefully one or both of you can take part in. But I want
to kind of move to a more overall picture of this, and I want
to start by actually, this was one of the other great pieces of feedback
we got. For some reason, the feedback we kept getting was from people
with phenomenal names. So this person was a stress Spender was their name,
which I like, and stress Bender writes, love the cast, love your
coverage, Thank you. Two questions, Now that you've seen the whole season,
do you want to see the next season? And if you wind up
not liking this overall, do you want to see someone else take a crack
at live action? Or should this idea of live action of Avatar just go
away forever? I don't want to see another version. I hope that this
series gets a second and third season, and I kind of hope they stopped
there, although they could do a fourth season, which was actually planned the
original animated series. I mostly hope that there's another season because I think a
lot of people are involved in the production of it, and a lot of
them are doing really good jobs. And yeah, you know, it's one
of those things where it's just like, you know, it's a lot of
performers who haven't often gotten to be the star, you know, And like
when Scarlett Johanson gets cast in Ghost in the Shell, you know, one
of the arguments that the studios try to make is like, oh, because
there's no you know, commercially viable Asian actresses to play this role. You
know, who's who can carry a blockbuster? And you know, I feel
like, I mean, I don't really know exactly how it did in the
box office in terms of like like shang Chi, but like I think it
was pretty clear like yeah, you know, you if you give someone a
chance to be a star, they can become a star, and then they
can carry your movies in the box office. And I mean, I hope
Dallas Liu gets like some something, you know, it gets to be like
I mean, being Zuko in this is an amazing role and an amazing opportunity,
but like I feel like he could definitely star in and carry you know,
whatever kind of and you know, there's just there's a lot of people
that I think being in a series that doesn't get canceled after one season is
probably going to be a lot more helpful to their careers and kind of towards
like the direction that film and TV go in than being in a series that
had very mixed reviews and then got canceled after one season. Yeah, so
yeah, I think if I would love to see Dallas show up in Star
Wars somewhere, and frankly if he, if he, I'm a little bit
MCU fatigued. But if you tell me he's going to be one of the
young Avengers, I'm a lot more intertan that movie, now, you know.
Or he's going to be some DC care or if he's going to be
in the next sung Chi movie, which God helped give us to us,
even though it sounds like maybe we won't get but yeah, if he showed
up in one of the projects, or just like some other you know,
martial arts, you know action awesome movie that will go in some cool things
like I'm there for it. Wait, he's in the first shun Chi movie?
Oh is he? Okay? Never mind, we've talked about his brother,
So yeah, he should be in the second one too, maybe a
lot more prominent role in nos. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.
Parking cars is super hard it really is? It really is? I mean
in San Francisco, Like she's driving cars around San Francisco like that. Actually,
that cannot be an easy place to be, like a valet parker if
you have to like street park and stuff. Yeah, where it's like a
forty five angle off in or high. Yeah, it's a great city,
but it's a terrible place to drive. Yeah, rinky? What about yourself
next season? And do you want another live action? Okay? Wait,
so the first question was do what question is, now that you've seen the
whole first season, do you want to see the next season? I'm gonna
say no, Okay, that's fair, Yeah I do. Do I want
to see the next season? It's like no. Like at I end this
season like pretty lukewarm, disappointed. It was like an okay show, but
I already know the story and nothing not enough about this version made me want
to continue along these lines because Azula is going to be a more prominent character
going forward, and she is the one and thus far, neither her performance
nor the way that they have written her preemptively into the show makes me excited
about her character and her story going forward. So that's my thoughts on that,
Like if there is a second season where I watch it, of course
because I have to be back here to talk about it. But no,
I'll watch it because it's Avatar. Like I do love the overall story,
so like I've periodically rewatched the animated one, so like, why wouldn't I
watch a slightly different version of the story, right, But it's not.
You know, I've mentioned previously on this coverage how One Piece like really changed
the dynamic of animated to live action for me personally, and I think for
a lot of people, and because of how well it was done that show,
I'm just like, give me, give me the season, give me
the next season. There was actually like my Netflix loaded slowly and my preview
thing said one piece, new episode like this Saturday, and I was like,
are you kidding me? And then like the image loaded and it was
the animated one Piece. It's like, oh so that like that is like
absolutely, I'm man like, give me the next season this one. I'm
like, yeah, Like I hope I agree with Paul. I hope they
the creators get a second season and the performers right, because I think they've
done a good enough job. There are much worse things. They keep getting
new seasons, and it's like, why not. So it's not like it's
not offensively bad, That's not what I'm trying to say. But it's not
something that I am like immediately excited for. But I'm I'm it's not something
I'm excited to watch a second season, but I would be excited for them
to get one. Well for everyone involved, because yeah, and I completely
agree with Paul, like Dallas Liu, a star is born or star is
elevated by this. I hope that's one of the major takeaways, because he
absolutely deserves it. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm kind of similar to
both you are. I. If season two was on tomorrow, I would
definitely watch it, in part because I did enjoy a lot of this,
but also because I'm just a very curious person and if you show me something
that is just someone that basically kind of took us Morgana's board of parts of
Avatar and threw them all together on screen and it didn't really have a coherent
hole to it, I'd be like, Eh, I'm not super excited to
watch the next season. And I've definitely seen some stuff like that here.
I felt like by the end and maybe this is more so for me than
for you guys. I feel like I have a concrete idea of where they
are trying to go, particularly with the Ozai Azula Zuko story. It's not
where they went in the original, It's not necessarily where I would have wanted
them to go, But I'm very curious to see where it winds up.
I'm very curious to see they're now doing this different, no non training version
of aang where it's much where he's about this different kind of things. I'm
curious to see where that goes in a vacuum. Do I want to see
it again? Do I want to see the next season? Yeah? Sure,
all other things being equal, But I think it the same way,
like if you told me my choice is like another season of this versus another
season of like you know, Umbrella Academy or Stranger Things or you know one
of the other Netflix shows that I like a lot more. Yeah, i'd
probably be like, if I have to choose, give me that one.
And as the other question, I think there's only one way I'd ever want
to see yet another live action of these stories. Either it's in like twenty
years, We've all forgotten and technology has changed so much and we're doing a
totally new thing, or it's a fundamentally new story told in this world.
Like if you told me someone doing a live action of like you know shows
uh shows in sews in and Roku, you know, that could be a
cool story to watch. But mostly what I would just want to watch is
someone tells me that they're redoing Legend of Korra and episode one open with Cora
and Azumi walking into the sunset and then they make out on screen for like
three whole minutes at least, like the best kiss you've ever seen. Cora
turns to the camera and says, Okay, now that you know that happens,
let me go back and tell you my story. For those who don't
know what I'm talking about, the Chorra show ends with a very close relationship
between our hero Cora and another woman. The way it was written and shot,
they walked into the sunset, turned to each other and kiss. Because
of the sensibilities of the time that the show was made, they cut out
the kiss. So I'm kind of being humorous about that, but also being
like, the only way I want to watch more another Cora is that they
guarantee me the kiss is happening, and so I think it'd be funny if
they did that in the first thirty thirty minutes, three minutes. I think
it's on YouTube. I think you can watch the well, yeah, you
can watch the one that's edited out. Yeah you can see that. Yeah.
Yeah, the editing floor, the cutting room floor. That follow up
question of like do I want someone else or a different project, like not
telling the story of Avatar the Last Airbender. I agree that there are elements
of this world that I think are ripe for more storytelling, and I think
that the product is becoming big enough that we are starting to see a picture
merge of the Avatar cinematic universe, because everything has to be a cinematic universe.
So yeah, like I don't know, give me the give me the
Cabbage Man story, because he ends up being like an industrialist who founds an
empire, like an industrial empire in the legend of Kora. Give me a
actually you know, like give me the Lieutenant g story, And that's something
we could get on this show. So the interesting thing here at the end
of this season was Joo may still be alive. Like that's unclear, like
much more unclear. Than in the animated show, Lieutenant G may still be
alive, and I think, like he's a character that just ended up disappearing
in season two. So the fact that Iro specifically like mentioned him at the
end when here they're paddling away, I picked up on that, and I
was like, I wonder if he's going to show up somehow in season two,
like in a in a prominent role. Probably not with Iro and and
Zuko because their their story in season two is like one of them together alone,
alone together, But maybe we see G return to the Fire Nation and
like celebrated as a hero and gets involved somehow and pass the information along to
Iro and Zuko somehow or something like. I think they his character, like
for for such a minor character, like they added some really meaty elements that
I hope that they continue with. Yeah, so like, but we talk
a lot about the differences between the animated and the live action, and oftentimes
because the animated show was so good, I think we end up being critical
of the live action. But I do think like there's stuff that they did
here that works, Like G works. The scene of Liu Ten's funeral was
absolutely heartbreaking and worked, and it was probably my favorite favorite thing in this
version. So there's stuff that's that is working for me. Yeah, as
you were saying throwing out different ideas, I was just thinking a movie about
the white Lotus society, where like we sometimes see these things happening in the
background, but like it's much more about all the stuff that was going on
with that I would love. I would like to not see anything more this
time period, like with in the story. Sure, but like once you've
done this one, like oh, this is like the third pass through this
time period, Like you have a long history of Avatars, like give me
Kiyoshi on screen. They wrote two novels, you know, yeah, and
honestly, like those are supposed to be darker. If you want to do
darker stuff, do that, you know, yeah, give me I mean
it's funny. So I was at a wedding earlier today and I was talking
to someone who had a really interesting perspective. We said, look, I
loved Avatar and I have a five year old kid, and I was really
excited to watch the show with them, and he watched like the first thirty
seconds of the first episode, was like, I don't want my kid's gonna
have nightmares. They watched this, you know, and I was like,
yeah, that that sounds understandable. I would have watched it, but I'm
not sure I'm the best example of, like, you know, how parents
should raise you and what they should watch. Yeah, my dad took me
to the Twilight Zone when I was five. Yeah, yeah, I think
that's part of how we became friends because you were your mother would one of
the other ones were like, yeah, it's fine, what you know,
Uh, Pamela is showing the kids like you know, yeah, I mean
we were teenagers, so no, no, I was just watching whatever I
wanted. But yes, fair, but still there was okay, there was
one thing, one missing element that I want to touch on. We we
talked about Master Poku and his sexism. I I think it's okay, Like
his sexism is okay, like it it is unfortunately an integral part of his
character. Right. They tried to play it off as more of like the
traditions of the tribe. I think, which which spreads out spreads it out
more. But then it made a little less sense when the women were like,
no, let us fight because initially like the h not a Koda?
What's her name? Yeah? Gooda the female ester who was teaching Katara healing,
which was a good scene by the way, but that made less sense
to me, right because she also seemed to be like super into the traditions,
and that was nowhere. There wasn't like an indicator that she was like,
Yeah, this sucks, but it's what we have to do. All
of a sudden she's like like we're going to fight too. So but what
was what was missing was that Paku has a past relationship with Grand Grand,
right, yeah, and they just like completely not there. They probably don't
want to deal with that at all. But I don't know, like did
you feel I mean you you recognize it was missing, Like how do you
feel about that? I I definitely recognized he was missing, and I was
I liked it a lot, and I thought that it gave it gave him
more of a direct action to Katara in a way that I felt deepened the
relationship and made some of the stuff around sexism more powerful. But in terms
of like the other like if you told me again, if you said,
hey, would you want five more minutes of Paca and I'm sorry, get
his name wrong, Pacu of pac Whu and his backstory with Grand grand or
five more minutes that deepens Ua and Sokka like I want you in Socca hands
down, like so kind of like was it missing, yes, but on
the list of things that I wanted this episode to have more of, there's
other things that are higher on that list. Yeah, but it it wasn't
like a direct through line, but it was kind of interconnected, right because
it was this I didn't weren't they they were betrothed. Pacu and grand Grant
were betrothed, and then she chose to leave him for the Southern water tribe
guy, right, so the whole like Northern and Southern tribes thing like well,
and also the idea of leaving your betrothed right right, right? Yeah,
I mean I felt the absence, but also I will not so much
that there are other things that I would have liked to see in this episode.
Honestly, I would have liked to see more earlier that. That's kind
of where I really felt like, But you know, it is like what
do you add, what do you subtract? It's I think a lot a
lot of that I think is just going to be kind of preference. It's
like which stories are most important to you? Maybe season two, they begin
still at the Northern Water Tribe and then they have a scene like that.
Although given that it's going to be like, I mean, this was shot
in twenty twenty one. Really, Yes, there's like more than two years
ago. Maybe maybe photography wrapped up late. Like you were talking about the
creators of the original show, they left more than a year before filming started.
There was like twenty twenty I think when they left, and then it
was twenty twenty one that they finally started shooting, and I think they got
it done pretty quickly. It was it was all in I think it was
mostly or all in Vancouver. Yeah, production in filming began November sixteenth,
twenty twenty one, so probably went into twenty twenty two. Then photography wrapped
on June seventeenth, twenty twenty two. Right, so let's two years ago,
but almost two years ago. I mean, that's that's been some time.
So when you see it in the past, you know, particularly the
younger cast members, like they don't look the same. Ang's voice may have
dropped an October two, that's totally what happened. But yeah, but you
would think so, right, I mean, it certainly could have and it
still can there's still talking, you know, I would like to change my
answer. I do not want to see season two mm because I like seeing
that time frame. Like I am even more worried about you know what you've
been talking about, Matthew, the Stranger Things, problem of the kids growing
up. That just seems like too much time. I'll be curious, you
know, the story a little bit. Yeah, I mean maybe they were
trained. Maybe, like because of all this, they've they've spent the last
two years training and we get a nice training montage, you know, training
montage Selvester Simon will sell the rights to the music, you know, get
little I have the Tiger going on. I don't think he has the rights
to that music. No, No, he probably has the right survivor Yeah,
the the original song, the you know getting strong right. Yeah,
but yeah, we'll see I will say. Actually, actually that is one
more reason why I want to see them. I want to see them at
least do season two because season two is far away my favorite and has the
addition of my faith. Well it's close to season three, but I think
season two is my favorite, and it has there's three seasons, and you're
like two and three while they're close, but I think season two, but
I'm saying that both of them are much higher than season one. Sure,
Like, if you ask me my top ten favorite storylines from Avatar, maybe
one or two of them are from season one, most of them are from
season two, and that couple are from season three. And so getting to
see how is this group going to do tough? How is this group going
to do bossing say? Particularly because frankly, I think the bossing say story
is one of the most culturally relevant for today that I can think of,
you know, And and so we'll see. I think the other thing that
all this conversation has really made me think about kind of taking longer lens and
all this is. And I've been thinking about this in terms of both like
going from an made it to live action, from books to either animation or
live action, and also from like smaller niche TV to big budget movie.
I think that I think stories that particularly have a kind of niche audience to
them suffer the larger the audience is supposed to get, you know, just
because like the quirkiness of some projects, you can get one hundred a couple
hundred thousand people or a couple million people to buy that book or to watch
that show on Nickelodeon, you know, or whatever, like and this show
maybe is not the best example. It's still like the audience that Netflix needs,
and the audience that it is probably like numerous orders of magnitude bigger than
what Nickelodeon needed at the time, you know. And so I do wonder
how much that also is a factor of you know, there are a lot
of these things where it feels like someone is saying at some point, look,
yeah, a lot of people like this Asoka character on Rebels, but
we want tons of the people who never watch Rebels to watch Ahsoka. So
we've got to kind of broaden it out, or you know, make it
wider. And I do wonder if that was a part of this. Are
you commenting on basically the studio pication of movie making and television making. Yeah,
I'm saying that I think there are a lot of projects, not all,
but a lot where the wider the audience gets, whether rightly or wrongly,
a lot of times the studio will feel you have to kind of make
it less quirky or less like you got to kind of round the edges some
and make it more palatable for a more general audience. Yeah, I think
it's it's about money. Obviously, It's about how much money they're putting into
a thing, and it's about their perceptions about how broad an audience is going
to be for particular thing, because I think they are deeply wrong on that
over and over and over in terms of And it was ten years ago or
more that we had a similar conversation about who couldn't couldn't be a protagonist like
in a major budget studio film and have that film be successful, you know,
And I think back then, I was like, I think, anyone
who's good, like you tell a good story, you're gonna sell tickets like
it's it. You don't have to be within this you know, narrow band
of identity or whatever. And like I think they thought that for a long
time, that it was one way. And similarly, I think they think
that a certain type of story, that a story needs a certain type of
universality to appeal to the masses, and I just don't think that's true.
I think they're wrong on that. They have the money and that's how they
make their decisions. But you see a lot of the things that become popular,
it's like a lot of the things that like really blow up are things
that don't hwe so closely to what had been kind of the standard of mass
appeal, you know, And I think going for mass appeal maybe gives you
the best shot at a kind of high mid or whatever you know, or
low high kind of return on in terms of your audience. But like I
do think you can there are a lot of things that appeal to a lot
of people, and they don't need to be what the studios think they need
to be. In my opinion, I think they're off meats. But clearly
it is about money and thinking, well, if we're spending this much money,
we need this much audience in order to get a return on our investment.
And I just think that they are confused about what sorts of things are
really going to yield that. Yeah, I think that's true. But I
agree with you that they try and then meddle and make things a particular way
and sand off the edges if you can call them edges, you know,
But what they see as the edges, what they see as the rough edges,
you know, which to me is like the character of the thing have
to Yeah, yeah, like if you told me they were going to make
and Or into another big budget movie, but make it so that like,
you know, the lines of good and bad were like clear a lot more
clear to be like, you're fundamentally missing the point and it doesn't have to
be that, you know. Yeah, but also like they spent a big
budget film budget on and Or. Yeah, that's true. That's true,
And there was just a freak. I mean the fact that they actually are
like, hey, Tony, you could just make your show. It's cool.
Oh, you just can't say that. You just have to say fight
the empire. You can't say the other thing. Yeah, I'll give them
that. I know some of us. That's a line anyway, and that's
okay. Like I fundamentally agree that I dislike studio meddling and that turn,
like it's a broad turn, like basically like having too many people in the
process who aren't like you know, like directly involved, like having people come
in like and say, oh, like we need you to change this and
that. Like that's I believe, like we all agree that that's what's going
wrong with Marvel right now is that they've gotten so full of themselves, like
in the MCU and now like everything has to be in connected and yet like
the creators who are making individual movies or TV shows aren't even the chance to
make their thing, Like they're being told what to make and they're they're kind
of like painting by numbers. So so yeah, like absolutely, Like for
me personally, the movie, everything everywhere, all at once just like completely
changed everything in movies and like what I believe a movie can be and like
what a studio will back and allow to happen is just unbelievable. And that
was like a passion project, right, Like the people involved in that.
No one was like very few people were looking over their shoulders going, oh,
you have to change this and that. They just did it and they
loved what they were doing and they made what they loved and that's what we
need more of. And for whatever reason, let me just say on that
one whatever reason, I was following a lot of like Hollywood press last year
and there were so many stories about like studio executives are totally baffled why everything
everywhere is going, Oh, he's doing so well because it broke all of
the rules that you guys are talking about, Like everyone expected it would not
do well because it didn't have you know, a white lead as the as
the center, and it didn't you know, it had a plot that was
like all over the like you know, imagine you trying to write a synopsis
of that movie that anyway captures what it's about, like you can't. And
you know, all these interviews with executives, most of them anonymous, some
of them not though, who were like, yeah, we're we have to
learn and some of them were like we have to learn and change and there's
and yeah, yeah exactly, and others were like, no, this is
just a fluke. But they were like, yeah, this is not by
our math. This is not a movie that should have mass appeal. Mm
hmm. Yeah, it was a fluke. And what you have to do
is not like try to copy the end result, but understand the process of
the people who made that. So, like, I want to call out
another project. So the actress, the actress who played Princess yu A,
her name is Amber mid Thunder, and I know her from a movie called
Prey, which is in the in the Predator franchise, like it was.
She plays a native basically like a hunter who fights against a predator in like
the eighteen hundreds. I think it was and it was a fantastic movie.
Like you know, the Predator movies kind of like got campy and silly with
Predator versus Alien. But this movie was so well made and the people involved
like all understood the project, understood the assignment, and it was like I
think it it was largely or like all a native cast and crew, and
so like it's a very similar thing to what we're talking about here with Avatar,
right, with Asian and Native people involved. So like, I think
one of the takeaways from this that I don't want to see happen in the
narrative about this show is like, in my opinion, this show, like
I've said, is like pretty medium, and like I'm not thrilled about it,
but I'm glad it exists. But I don't want the narrative to be
like, oh, well, like you you made this with Asian and Native
cast and crew and it's not as good as the original, which had you
know, white people involved. It's like like I don't want that to be
the narrative, right, Like that's not the point of this because there are
projects everything everywhere all at once. Yeah, pray you know, like that
we're made with that care and with those people, those groups of people involved.
So it's like, just like good people do what they're good at,
is kind of where I'm at. Yeah, yeah, I think I think
that's very fair. And it's like that doesn't mean they're all going to be
commercial successes, right yeah, Like find people who who have artistic vision,
that know how to execute their artistic vision. That's let them make those things
on reasonable budgets. Like everything everywhere all once the production budget was like twenty
five million or less, you know, pray it was like sixty five million.
Like that's a lot of money, I mean, but not for a
movie, but not for a movie exactly, not for a movie these days,
right yeah, So you know, just like I'd rather see ten movies
made on twenty five million dollar budgets than one two hundred and fifty million dollar
movie. You know, let ten people tell their stories and like maybe I'll
like two or three of them and not like eight, but like that mine,
right, like instead of trying to make one thing that you think everybody's
gonna like and people are like that, I was all right, you know.
I One of the things that most confuses me about this in some ways
and also tells me that like, Netflix pays a lot of attention to some
of its things and some they're just like, whatever, it looks fun,
let's put it on Pneumona, which is I think as much as I love
Spider Verse, Like, if this win's the OSCAR for Best Animated, I
will not be complaining at all, because it is one of my absolute favorite
movies that I've seen in the last couple of years. And honestly, it
feels the closest to the spirit of Avatar, of the original Avatar, the
Last Airbender, of anything I've ever seen in terms of it is very much
about a child and an adult who are kind of working together to deal with
something. It is childlike. It is incredibly irreverent, it is very silly
at times. It's also probably the most powerful trans allegory and queer allegory that
I've seen on film in the last ten years. It is it made me
sob numerous times. The voice that it is utterly gorgeous. The voice acting
is phenomenal, and the world bending is great, and I just kind of
was like, do more like that, like, you know, and I
think in this case it was something that like it was made totally separate and
then Netflix just bought it. We're like, yeah, let's put it on.
But yeah, I think I wind up. I think here's I think
where I wind up on the show. As a remake of Avatar the Last
Airbender. I'm willing to give it another shot in season two, but so
far I think it has not done a very good job of capturing what is
the essence of Avatar, and in some cases it is like going pretty far
from it once. I if I kind of in my head just shift all
the characters of the name the names of all the characters, and just think
of it as just like its own show that exists in its own thing.
I think it's pretty good. Not the best I've ever seen by any means,
but enough acting and story beats that I'm like, yeah, I'm into
more of this. How I feel after two years of analysis and not having
it come out, who the hell knows, but we'll say, right,
yeah, I do feel like there's enough good stuff to make me want to
see. Okay, how do they do that scene? Yeah? How do
these actors do that scene? How do they write that scene? Like?
How you know? I want to see how it goes down with aang and
OZI because this is a different OZI and you know Aang. It's interesting,
Like, I know we've been not super high on Ang's performance, but I
actually got someone to watch the first two episodes who hadn't really watched the animated
series. I think she watched the first few episodes or whatever, but eight
years ago and doesn't remember them that well. But so I got my mom
to watch them, and she was actually like, oh, that kid's a
pretty good actor. You know. It's like thought that, like it was
good, and definitely thought that, you know, the ones that we thought
were great were great. But like she's enjoying the show, you know,
and she doesn't really have the animated series to compare it to, and I,
to an extent, like I envy that. I mean, on the
other hand, I got to enjoy the animated series, so like she'll watch
that afterwards, you know. But like just to have a perspective of like
I wanted to be like, how does it feel to watch this show without
having this constant Oh this is different from that. You know, bad acting,
but especially bad child acting gives me like that secondhand secondhand embarrassment cringe,
Like it makes me like not just like oh, this is bad. I'm
physically uncomfortable. You know. I never had that from this Ang. I
was like, yeah, I'm not having the depth of feeling that I would
want to have from this character. Maybe that's the acting, Maybe that's the
dialogue because he also had a lot of very on the nose lines. Maybe
it's just that again because we're not seeing him train. Like, to me,
I feel like every season we really focus on on Ang's relationship with a
different character, and season one is very much about his relationship with Katara,
and that is fundamentally built on the training and the fact that she sees herself
as like she sees him herself as more of a water bender than he is,
with good reason. But she's then in that situation of like, I've
studied this for five years and you're the greatest natural talent the world has seen
for a hundred years. There's some great episodes about like her frustration about that
and him also having like some arrogance and realizing like so much of their relationships
expressed through their training, And yeah, I like, I hadn't really thought
of it much until you brought it up, Paul, But I think like
that's probably another reason why we don't see a lot of great acting from Aang
because they gave him some great scenes with Yozu and Yatsu, thank you,
and in those scenes, I think I think Ang was good, you know,
I think Yatsu was, you know, phenomenal, But there's like nothing
about Ang's performance was taking away from it. Ang was like making a powerful
part of that performance. You know, I don't remember how I was kind
of mad at yatso for leaving. That was true because that actor really made
me feel the pain of him, like how much he wanted to be able
to see you know, this is father friend again and how hurt he was
but it didn't happen. That's because of his acting. So so yeah,
maybe Liu Ten's funeral wasn't my favorite scene. I don't like for me if
it's not obvious, like I love feeling those emote like I love crying what
I watched, So those are the scenes that get me. But yeah,
I agree, and I want to clarify, like my criticism Gordon's performance is
Aang like isn't a similar place to My overall feelings about this show is that
it's very mid like a C C plus, Like I don't think they're bad.
I don't think they're great, like I believe the original animated Avatar was.
But this is like fun to watch and I'll watch it because I enjoyed
the product. Yeah, yeah, all right, are you the last words
before we wrap up? I talked to about Paku. I'm trying to like
think through these, especially like these last two episodes. Yeah, I don't
know, like going forward, like I I guess I would ask listeners going
forward, how far do you think they will deviate from the animated show?
Because we I threw out a few suggestions of like things that might be different,
right, Like Joao could be alive, Like that's that's a very different
story, Lieutenant g Like actually being a character would be a different story.
Yeah, And we also have the deviation of the Aang not water bending at
this point in the storyline, right, Like how does that play out and
how does that impact a season two? Does he have to spend time learning
water bending or do we think we just get a shortcut where at the beginning
of the show, they're like, it's been six months and guitar has taught
me water bending, right, right, that would be that would be rough
for me, Like because for me, like the student teacher relationship, particularly
in in things like that and like skills and like martial arts type things,
is like very meaningful to me and has had a big role in my life
on on both sides of it as a student and a teacher. And to
just like not have that at all, it feels to me like like just
being robbed of such an important part of the story and making aang such a
natural talent that he didn't like he slacked off on his airbending, like really
like and I feel like that's another one of those like you're not necessarily giving
a great message. Yeah that like the people who are great at these things,
it's just because they have so much natural talent. Yeah, so if
you're not like a black belt when your first three karate lessons, kid like
give up because you're not natural talents. Like that's right exactly. Yeah,
I agree with that good well. As I mentioned earlier, like it also
short changed Katara as a character, yes, absolutely, yes, And I
think I think one of the things like we talk about is like you learn
by teaching, Like you can become better yourself by teaching to other people,
and that that was completely missing from this season and in a way. I
think it may also short change my favorite character, with the exception of Zuko,
maybe uh Tough, because so much of what makes Toff's interaction with with
Aang so interesting is that her style. She's the person who's gonna wind up
teaching him earth bending, at least doesn't the animated her style is so radically
different than Katara's and it's really rough for Ang to adjust to. And I
feel like if we haven't seen a lot of Katara training here, that there's
there was an episode devoted to Katara teaching Tough how to teach Aang, Right,
she's been doing it, yeah, and then like fighting over that and
that friction. So their relationship, so much of their relationship early on,
especially is about their relationships as both being teachers to Aang and being like,
no, you have to do it this way. Well that's not how earth
Pending works, blah blah blah, and like, yeah, that takes away
from both of those characters in two ways. Right, It's like we lose
three relationships that way, or at least it's unfortunate. But like, I
think they're just going to have to summer vacation it. I think so,
and come back at the beginning of season two and be like, it's been
X months and Katara has been teaching a water pending, don't. I don't
see a way around that, really, Like, there's no way to fit
that in honestly, given the production schedule. Like that's how I would write
it if I picked up in season two and said, Okay, what do
I do with where we are and where are actors are? And Okay,
we're going to have to say that's what happened, especially because it'll be a
good patch, especially because, as we've seen, this show is very happy
to do a bunch of flashbacks. But I don't know if you can shoot
flashbacks to Qatara treating aang if the actor Bang is now two feet taller than
he wasn't before you care angles? You just got Peter Jackson. Yeah,
Peter Jackson. That's the thing. The other thing I was going to bring
up, which, oh god, what the hell was this? The budgets,
the live action stuff. I had one of the thought I wanted to
bring up that was just so related to all of this, and I was
completely out of my head and I hate that this is going out lot and
it's not going out live it's going to be in the YouTube. You can
cut things easily on YouTube. We're talking about guitarry. I just really want
to make sure I don't forget this. But we're talking about Katara, we're
talking about Aang and the teaching is it about who like who do they get
to play tough? No? It was about guitar and Aang. Oh yeah,
no, I totally lost it. I know. I'm sure if the
good five you know what, I'll like make someone up and write it in
his feedback that you know, here's the question, perfect, perfect. I
have two things, all right, so we'll go back to that. When
you asked earlier one, I thought, let me, oh yeah, all
right, So Paul, what about you? Last things you want to wrap
up with? Yeah? So I got two things. One short. One's
short. One was like what I felt like was actually a pretty good sequence
of dialogue between Zuko and Iro, where Ira was like, so do you
have a plan, and then Zuko's like, plan, Yeah, I have
a plan. It's to show that my father wasn't wrong to trust me with
this job. Blah blah blah blah blah, And I was like, so
no plans, so good. It's so good the delivery. I was like
that that's well written and it's perfectly deliberate. I was like, okay,
we I need to give the writers some credit there. I mean, unless
it was improvised, but didn't feel improvised. It felt like, you know,
it just felt like a well executed levity in a spot that was pretty
you know, within a serious part of the show. So like that worked
for me. The other one was I really appreciated that they didn't focus too
much on Sokka's bigotry and that he overcame it pretty quickly, by which I
mean, uh, that he really cared about Momo, you know, instead
of just wanting to eat him all the time. So you know, he
overcame a speciesism there. And I actually found that that like Momo bit.
I was like, oh, you're not going to kill Momo, Like,
yeah, it can't cost that much to to CGI or whatever. So I
figured if MoMA was dead, there once again all gonna have some things to
say. I'm fighting at finding out all the writers and I'm not watching anything
they make ever again. No, but so yeah, I like they they
let Momo be a hero, you know, and then they let Sokka help
save Momo and like, yeah, that you know, and then heal and
they healed them and everything. I was like, okay, all right,
that was nice. That was a nice moment. And that's that's to me.
That's like, uh, that shows how like you can have like just
a little one minute segment that really does a lot, right, Like you
don't. I don't need five scenes like that, but just one scene like
that tells me a lot. Yeah, I think it's true. Two last
things that I had I did remember so two so again, two last things
that I had, one very small, the other little bit bit bigger.
I can't understand why no one thought of this before, but using water bending
to make ice cream I should be one of my favorite Like of course you
would do that. It's so brilliant, Like I love that so much.
But the other one is, as I said, I am really interested in
what they're doing with Ozai, Azula Zuku and this idea that where's the avatar
Where the animated he's basically pretty much written off Zuko until maybe whereas in the
animated he's pretty much written off Zuku ah my god. Whereas in the animated
version he has pretty much written off Zuko in this one, you know,
it does seem like he's playing the two off against each other. So when
Joo gives Zuko the speech that he gives in the animated, almost word for
word, about no, your father isn't interested in you. You're done.
He's just looking for at Azula, at first I was like, wait a
minute, you're betraying the whole thing you've set up, until I realized,
wait a minute, Zao Joao has all of his information from a Zula,
and so actually this makes total it it. Actually I thought, if if
the writers were smart, as I'm giving them credit for, which I think
they were, this is brilliant because it shows any that is Zula is manipulating
Jao all over the place, b that we still have Zuko hearing this and
thus having to deal with believing that even though we the audience know that something
different's happening. So I really liked how they did that, and especially if
that's what they were doing, if they were just like, yeah, let's
have them give that speech, because it was great speech and animated without realizing
what they've been doing the whole time until then, then I'm a lot more
disappointed. But I want to give them more credit than that. I think
it's fair to interpret it the way you do, and I don't. I
don't see any reason to care what they meant. Like, if it works,
that's great, you know, And I can see that. Yeah,
well, in the end, it only matters given how they tell the story
going forward, that matters. Yeah, if it's the same writers even,
you know what I mean, Yeah, exactly. Sometimes showrunners change and although
supposedly all the season two scripts are in case they get greenlit, I'm like,
you know, you don't want any feedback. Oh my god, you're
not going to listen to our podcast? No, But I mean, I
don't really want writers to listen too much to feedback, to be honest,
you know. Yeah, I think there's some value to it, but I
think it can probably kind of hamper in some ways as well. Yeah,
I have definitely seen shows where I got the impression that the writers listen too
much to the critics, not even shows. I think that was part of
what happened with the Star Wars movie, of the incredibly negative feedback that people
got and how that affected things. I think that was more of the studio
than the writers. But yeah, I've also definitely seen things where writers get
really badly attacked and then it feels like they get gun shy or they're you
know, too much in their head. Well again, thank you both so
much. You guys are just recorded, you know, almost nine hours of
podcasts over two days of or four days. I'm so so grateful. It's
actually more like seven hours, but I'm either way, whatever it is,
it's just round up. It's fine. There's the fifth one too from earlier
days. Yeah, exactly exactly. So yeah, no, we're like nine
or ten. I'm so grateful to both of you. Both. These people
create amazing stuff. Links in the show notes. Please check all that kind
of stuff out. Of course, please check out all the other things we're
doing on Ethical Panda. It is now eleven thirty at night, and I
now have to edit us talking for two hours because these two folks just wouldn't
show it up. I didn't help either, but I could imagine anyone better
to have covered this with. Thank you guys all so much. Yep,
yep, motherfucker. I don't know how to follow that up. I do
want to just say, like, I've really enjoyed talking about the show with
the two of you, and it's it's greatly added to my enjoyment of the
show, which was was kind of mid in the first place, but overall
it's been, you know, a strong positive experience. The whole thing combined
awesome. Yeah, I'm very glad we did this. Thank you so much
for creating the space, yeah and having us on. It's too bad the
two of you don't share any other interests that we can talk about. I
like chess, I don't know. Yeah, I haven't played chess in a
long time. Oh yeah, I don't know. I don't know that show.
Actually signing off now, yep. Two to everybody. I am the
one, I am the two.