this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2024
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The Netflix show has a runtime of 430 minutes. The original is 477 minutes. So it's actually less.
This here is what bugs me so much about the adaptation, I've seen so many people defend the show "because they had to cover a lot of ground in such a short amount of time" the runtimes are so incredibly close it's absurd how much Netflix botched it in favour of nothing.
Supposedly they argue it's because they wanted to make Book 1 more exciting and "good like the other Books" which is a disservice to how good Book 1 was back then to make us excited about what comes next.
Obviously the episodic format of the original wouldn't have translated well into live action and there were some moments that were expected to be cut, like riding the elephant koi or the fortune-teller episode, but the insane mish-mashing of episodes, especially during the Omashu stuff, was ridiculous. For example, between two scenes of Aang and Bumi walking through a hallway, we get Zuko chasing after Iroh's captors, and the entire secret tunnel section, including the entire backstory of the city, and then it finally cuts back to Aang and Bumi arriving at their destination. All that comes at the cost of giving the audience a rushed and extremely watered-down cliff notes version of the original stories.
What was the backstory of the city
Oma and Shu were two lovers from feuding villages that were forbidden from seeing each other, but after learning Earthbending from the giant badgermoles, they went on to build an elaborate tunnel system in order to continue meeting in secret. Shu is killed during a conflict between the villages and Oma then uses earthbending to unify both sides, thus Omashu is founded.
The two lovers are originally male and female, but the adaptation 'netflixes' the couple into being two females instead. This of course has caused a stir between all sorts of opinionated folk. Personally, I found the change to be a half-assed attempt at inclusivity, it felt like someone just CTRL+F'd all the male descriptors and replaced them with female ones. It's as if the series doesn't already have plenty of representation they could have pulled from. Hell, they had Kyoshi on screen, they could have easily given her a line about "protecting your loved ones" and shown Rangi.
Still. It certainly feels like more than a ~10% difference in quality.
Agreed. Not only do they spend less time, they also waste more time.