Avatar: The Last Airbender has been seeing a renaissance ever since it started streaming on Netflix again. The buzz surrounding it increased tenfold, ironically, when Netflix announced the departure of the original creators from the upcoming live-action adaptation. Riding on the hype, Nickelodeon has recently unveiled the unaired pilot episode of the series on Twitch.
On a free-to-watch 1hr 16mins Twitch stream, the production team go behind the scenes and share about their process. We even travel to the studios in Korea to meet the creative team there. Fans also get to see an Avatar: The Last Airbender chibi parody and the pilot starts around the 43mins mark.
The unaired pilot opens at a slower pace as compared to the original, which feeds into the rest of the episode. Even the action sequences seem to be missing a certain snappiness to it. Visuals wise, the character designs for the main cast is more or less pinned down. But, the fire nation armour clearly has had some work done to it.
The premise of the story still remains though with the iconic soundtrack fully fleshed out. There are some elements which wouldn’t fly with the series too. They are differences mainly involved the characterisation of Katara, or should we say Kya. Here, she is not so much the strong-willed independent mother of the group we have grown to love and more damsel-in-distress who looks up to Aang as her bending master.
Aang himself is more cocky and irresponsible too, saying some things worthy of a smackdown from Toph. However, some traits stay central to the characters such as Sokka’s sarcasm, Zuko’s rage and even Momo’s love for food.
While the Avatar: The Last Airbender pilot is interesting in itself, true fans will also get a kick out of seeing the storyboarding, sound-producing and other behind-the-scenes processes in the stream. We are also unsure of how long the stream will stay uploaded so do watch it while you still can! Meanwhile, we hope that the upcoming live-action adaptation will stay true to its origins at heart and not disappoint.
Fumiko is an avid fan of spreading herself too thin and drowning in too many fandoms. She would love to spend all day reading fanfiction at home and crying.
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