The Netflix live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender finally released for streaming earlier this week. This was a second attempt at a live-action remake of the leg and type animated show after M Night Shyamalan’s panned 2010 film The Last Airbender. The animated series aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon from 2005
The recent live-action remake has received mixed responses from critics and fans alike. While many appreciated the show for its performances and VFX, others seem to have criticized it for its pacing and dialogues. While a second season has not been greenlit by Netflix yet, star Kiawentiio, who played Katara in the show expressed her excitement for its future.
Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender Received Mixed Responses
Netflix’s live-action remakes of popular animated shows have been a hit or miss so far. While some shows like One Piece have gained positive responses, films such as Death Note were widely criticized. Many fans were concerned when the streaming platform announced that a live-action adaptation of the popular Nickelodeon show Avatar: The Last Airbender was in development.
The Netflix adaptation was released earlier this month to mixed reception from the fans. While many praised it for its performances and CGI, many criticisms focused on the break-neck pacing of the show and it’s exposition-heavy dialogues (via IGN). Critics were also quick to note that it was better than the disastrous first attempt by M Night Shyamalan in The Last Airbender.
The first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender focused on ‘Book 1” of the animated series, following Aang, Katara, and Sokka’s training period to defeat the Fire Nation. While the first season of the original had twenty episodes, the task of series showrunner Albert Kim was to condense them into Netflix’s eight-episode format. He said in an interview with Inverse,
“That was probably among the toughest decisions, figuring out what we could drop or needed to drop to make it fit into an eight-episode format. It’s a matter of looking at the overall arc of the first season of the original, seeing where certain themes emerged.”
Subsequent seasons of the show reportedly will explore the other two books from the original animated series.
Will Avatar: The Last Airbender Have A Second Season?
Despite the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender receiving some amount of positive reception, Netflix is yet to renew for it a second season. The streaming platform reportedly waits for a few weeks before taking the decision, and with a general mixed response for the show, Netflix is yet to greenlight more seasons.
The first season of show was in production since 2019 and was filmed in 2021. However, the problem with taking too long for a second season is that the young actors in the show would age and the animated series takes place in the time span of a year. To combat this issue, Albert Kim reportedly told Entertainment Weekly that there might be significant time jumps between the seasons. He said,
“All three seasons of the animated series essentially take place in the course of one calendar year. There was no way we could do that. So we had to design this first season, especially, to accommodate the possibility of some time elapsing between the first and the second season.”
Lead actor Kiawentiio, who played Katara in the show, reportedly hopes for a second and third season for the show. She mentioned that she loved the character growth that happens in subsequent seasons of the animated series and wished that it would be so for the live-action remake as well. She spoke to Elle about her dreams for a second season,
“I definitely hope for season 2 and season 3—I think we all really want that for this show. I am proud of what we’ve done for season one, but I think there’s just so much to look forward to as well. In the animated series, it just gets better and better each season. So there’s a lot of scenes that I’d love to recreate and relationships that I’d love to see.”
While there have been no official updates regarding the future of the series, it is still early and with enough audience interest, Avatar: The Last Airbender might just see itself through till the end.
