Avatar: The Last Airbender • Episodes 7-8

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 other guests and things like that on screen now. If you're watching, but also just in the show notes or on our website, you have to Gopana

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do all those things, write us reviews, share this with people. It's such a good way for more people to find out and join the conversation. 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.