Avatar: The Last Airbender (both)

[Samwise]

(edit: might as well have a thread since while there's not much to say about the Netflix remake I can't resist talking about the original)

The new live action Avatar show definitely qualifies as useless TV.  

In a world where the cartoon didn't exist I'd probably say "wow, that was pretty cool."  But over here in the real world it's kinda meh.  I'll give them credit for making a lot of stuff look pretty cool, especially the fight choreo.  But it feels very rushed, and as a result (and also maybe the direction/acting) lacks a lot of the emotional weight it should have.

Needless to say it's better than the M Night movie, but that's damning it with faint praise.

If you haven't seen the cartoon because it's too popular or whatever, btw, get over yourself and watch it.  

[Velorath]

I only just the other day watched the first episode of the cartoon. Don't know when I'll get to more of it. Seemed fine, but didn't suck me in.

[Threash]

The cartoon is a masterpiece, the live action show is ok. They did not skimp on the production value, so everything looks pretty damn amazing. It feels a bit soulless though, just a fancy retelling of a better story.

[Samwise]

The cartoon hits you with the fun cute stuff (martial arts magic!  wacky creatures!) very early, and does a slow burn on the heavier stuff (genocide!  moral dilemmas!  corruption!  redemption!) almost like they were trying to sneak it past the network censors.

The live action version hits you with the genocide right off the bat, like, look this is a grownup show we ain't fucking around, and I think that ironically lessens the impact.

[Threash]

One thing the show did better was show how brutal fire actually is in war. I don't think there was one episode when at least one person was not horrifically burned, usually to death. The cartoon (for obvious reasons) simply couldn't do that, getting hit by fire was more like being punched... it just tossed people around. Having the fire lord just casually set people on fire when he is done shit talking them works wonders to make him scarier.

[Khaldun]

Well, there is Zuko's face in the cartoon, but otherwise, yeah, fire is treated more often like kinetic energy.

[Samwise]

The brutality of fire is reflected more indirectly in the way that Aang reacts to it, to the point where he's basically phobic about learning to firebend because of how destructive it is.

Which really gets right to the heart of my favorite thing about the show, which is that the whole main "quest" of the three season arc is accomplished mostly through well-written character growth.  Aang's whole thing is that he has to master the elements, and the challenge isn't that he has to go and collect widgets and whack foozles, it's that he has to look within himself and change his whole way of thinking.  Like, he can't earthbend because he's too conflict-avoidant, and Toph fixes that by sticking him in a situation where he has to meet something head-on.