Myo Thiha 

Opinions Editor 

The new Netflix live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender has received mixed reviews from critics and fans alike. Photo credit: Netflix 

Netflix’s live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender was released recently to an underwhelming reception from both critics and audiences. This adaptation is not the first live-action version of the beloved Nickelodeon series; famed thriller director M. Night Shyamalan attempted to bring the series to film in 2010 with even less success.  

Live-action remakes of animated classics have become a standard in contemporary filmmaking. Disney has been the vanguard of the practice, with remakes of The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and Dumbo already released and many more in development, including Moana and Lilo and Stitch. There has been a mixed general reception to these movies.  

Most remakes feel like trite facsimiles of beloved animated movies only made to profit from shared nostalgia. I don’t wish to diminish the work of the people who create these projects, who I’m sure all worked hard for something they believe in. However, they are limited in what they can make. The remakes often play it safe by mainly creating one-for-one, shot-for-shot adaptations. Even so, they have fallen flat.  

These creators face the impossible situation of trying to make their version without deviating too much from the original and upsetting fans who feel the writers and directors changed something they loved. This limiting Catch-22 raises the question, what’s the point of all these remakes?  

Other than profit motivations, this persistence to make a live-action remake of every animated movie speaks to the notion that many feel animation is a lower form of art. Animation is often associated with entertainment for children, although it allows storytellers to push the limits of creativity in ways live-action versions cannot reproduce. For a series like Avatar: The Last Airbender, where action and movement are crucial to the show’s appeal, it’s impossible to reproduce what the original animation excelled at.  

Computer-generated imagery can try to recreate the show’s elemental effects, but it loses fluidity and expressiveness. Animated characters move without the limitations of reality and according to the animator’s imagination. This dynamism without restrictions fully expresses their resolve, love, anger, and fear, and other characters can react and respond in a dance that is lost when subject to real-world limitations.   

Live-action anime remakes are almost impossible, even more so than with other animation. Anime is the exaggeration of form; it thrives in the abstract and surreal, so it seems counterintuitive to tone down the qualities that make it appealing. The live-action One Piece series that Netflix released in 2023 worked due to the subtlety of the early One Piece source material, but it will likely fail when the remake catches up to the anime. The main character, Luffy, eventually fights giant dragons, androids, and pirates who can create black holes.  

Viewing animation as a lower form of art devalues the animators, some of the most exploited workers in the television and film industries. They are overworked and underpaid. With the rise of AI, which many fear could begin replacing animators and writers, job security is even more of an issue.  

However, animation was hugely successful in 2023. Films like Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and The Boy and The Heron were all box-office hits, and of those, only Mario’s audience was driven by the desire for a kid- and family-friendly film. Animation creates a space that allows storytellers to tell unique stories that can be imaginative, uncanny, and eccentric. Many of them are successful because they can only succeed in that form. To remake them in a live-action version is pointless because it drains away what makes the art form unique.