this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

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[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 90 points 9 months ago (3 children)

lol we gave a narrative compulsion to a character who had a drive that was largely centered around not wanting the responsibility and fear of failure.

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 60 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Them remaking star wars: "Yeah so we thought it was kinda silly that Luke initially refuses to join the rebellion, didn't seem very heroic, so we changed that. Same goes for Han solo seemingly leaving his friends behind. Also it was super mean of him to respond 'I know' to Leia's 'I love you' it just didn't make sense"

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 40 points 9 months ago

Pacing and Leading, what's that? A horse shampoo?

[–] D61@hexbear.net 59 points 9 months ago (2 children)

lol we gave a narrative compulsion to a character who had a drive that was largely centered around not wanting the responsibility and fear of failure.

They seem to have forgotten that Aang was barely a teenager when he was told "Hey, kiddo, you're the chosen one!" maybe-later-kiddo "So you've gotta stop being a kid and be an adult immediately."

Then later learns that him doing what makes total sense (and is objectively a correct action) as a kid, not wanting to take on the scary responsibilities of adulthood when they're still literally a child, winds up with everybody/thing he remembers with love and fondness were brutally destroyed.

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 37 points 9 months ago

Okay, sure. But! Have you considered how much of a bummer that would be for the audience?

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[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 37 points 9 months ago

"you were gone for 100 years and war broke out!"

"I see you, I hear you, you're valid"

[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 79 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Aang, waking up from 100 years frozen in an iceberg: "Well that happened!" smuglord

[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 77 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Isn't the story beat "kid fucks around until visiting the old air temple and seeing his dead mentor causes him to freak the fuck out and realize the implications of the war"?

Why do a coming of age story without character development? Why doesn't Korra start out as a child yelling, "I'm the Avatar! I'm gonna do my best and respect other points of view along the way!"

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 61 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Its wild to me. it's almost like going "Moby Dick is a story about a man trying to catch a whale, but for some reason the author wasted a bunch of time on other stuff. In our remake we're only gonna show what matters: That bit where the whale drags him under."

Or really just "we're gonna cut to the bone and show the only thing that matters: The climax".
Did this producer grow up watching vines exclusively?

"Avatar is about fighting fire lord ozai, so we've cut everything that isn't the fight"

[–] simply_surprise@lemmygrad.ml 35 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That bit where the whale drags him under.

Uh, spoilers much?

I was going to get around to reading it, honest.

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 44 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Most of the book can be skipped truthfully. There's about 80 chapters of whale facts and the first of those starts with "I know all there is to know about whales, so let me set the record straight: whales are fish" and then he goes on to list things which whales are larger than.

[–] BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net 35 points 9 months ago (2 children)

He also stops the narrative dead in its tracks to go into an essay about the symbolic power of the color white, in case you, the reader, didn't get it.

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 37 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

It's nice to have a story that isn't full of all the symbolism or metaphors. Just a guy trying to catch a whale

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[–] CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml 28 points 9 months ago

Only cowards use subtext!

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[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 36 points 9 months ago

Because character development is slow and boring and gets in the way of the ~~ spectacle ~~ that Netflix audiences want. Character development is for children. Adults demand non-stop action and ironic quips.

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[–] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 61 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So all protagonists must be 100% correct and good from the start and know everything and be perfect? No character or narrative growth?

Also why must everything "advance the plot"? Why can't Aang just do things because their fun? That is a way of telling a story and "advancing the plot" in itself.

Again, if this is how they are dealing with characters, wtf are they going to do with Zuko?

[–] RNAi@hexbear.net 39 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)
[–] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 30 points 9 months ago (13 children)

I mean you need some of them, if every episode is made up of full throttle battles and major plot twists, it can get exhausting and actually diminish the value of those plot points/twists and battles. At that point, it might as well be a movie.

Though there is also the problem of too much filler, but filler episodes play a key part in pacing, and providing background information and motivations of characters, fleshing them out.

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[–] neo@hexbear.net 58 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Ok. Between this and reading about how they toned down (or removed) Sokka's sexism that he overcomes by being humbled by strong female characters, I am now convinced live action Airbender will be bad.

[–] Blep@hexbear.net 27 points 9 months ago

As is tradition

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[–] Dirt_Owl@hexbear.net 55 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Can we stop letting people who don't understand the source material have control of the source material?

[–] EmmaGoldman@hexbear.net 26 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

They have at least 7 producers announced so far for the first season of 8 episodes. There's an obsession of the Hollywood Gen X nepobabies to always get as many eyes on and hands writing as possible for all content, which invariably makes a good show impossible to create.

Writer's rooms are often so packed they often have a revolving door of people of writers each writing different episodes at the same time, no longer using smaller writing teams because the production timeline is so tight, but because there literally isn't enough room for all these writers to be in one space. These teams are no longer just 3-4 writers out of the group, but often over a dozen people. They don't meet to communicate with the other writers in a large group because how do you have a pitch meeting or a script review with 100 people? You can't, so you only bring them on for maybe 2 episodes and then they leave.

The new live action Star Trek series are notorious for being pretty bad and for having more writers and producers than they have episodes. Why did Star Trek Picard need over 60 producer/writers to make 30 episodes? (many of whom had so little creative control over the final product that they don't even get listed on the wikipedia or IMDb page) Why did Discovery have about 90 people writing 65 episodes?

You need some level of consistency on your show and a handful of writers committed to making the content consistent in its narrative tone and storytelling style. The "many hands" model neither makes the work lighter nor produces quality content, yet it remains a foregone conclusion in Hollywood production under Gen X producers.

TL;DR: Too Many Cooks.

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[–] Egon@hexbear.net 52 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'm not super duper mad or anything, I wasn't gonna watch it either way (Legend of Korra was lib as fuck). I just think Avatar was a very tight solid story, and it's fascinating how much some producers can look at solid character arcs and not understand them, why they're there and how they work

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 43 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

"Why wouldn't this traumatized 10 year old child rush across an unfamiliar world to immediately become a super-weapon in someone else's war literally subjective hours after his entire people and culture were destroyed in a super-naturally empowered genocide?"

[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 26 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We're also making Aang 37 so we can explore more mature themes. We think the audience will really like that better.

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 30 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Also we're removing element bending to make it more realistic. Aang is now a brilliant scientist who has qualms about dropping his wonder weapon on Japan.

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[–] ryepunk@hexbear.net 27 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It reads like they're trying very hard to justify cutting all the "unimportant" episodes where we slowly have the characters better understand each other and the world was better fleshed out. All so that the new show can be 10 episodes a season.

Remaking things has never appealed to me, I don't get it, I have the original good thing on my shelf, i will watch it as I want. Your new thing seems like yoy wanted money but didn't want to risk making something new. Cowardly producers want more money but are so afraid of producing a thing that isn't instantly popular.

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[–] Yurt_Owl@hexbear.net 52 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So whats the reason for freezing himself then lol? Did it as a bit?

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 31 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Prolly had a vision about that too

[–] Chapo_is_Red@hexbear.net 51 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Just make a new property set in the same universe and then they won't be bound by atla's plot or characters at all.

Stop rehashing shit for the love of God.

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[–] qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one 51 points 9 months ago (3 children)

And especially as the series went on, Seasons 2 and 3 are a lot more mature in theme than, say, Season 1 was. So for us, it was about striking that right balance, of making sure you were true to the DNA of the original. But at the same time, we had to make it a serialized Netflix drama, which meant it couldn't just be for kids. It had to also appeal to the people who are big fans of Game of Thrones. And so, it had to feel grounded and mature and adult in that way too. So that's, like I said, the tightrope that we have to walk.

Who was asking for this? I don't remember ever speaking with another fan of ATLA and them saying "I wish it was more like Game of Thrones". Why does it have to appeal to an older audience? Most of its fans are probably in their 20's or older, and we are still big fans of the original show.

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 38 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Also "mature" apparently means "they swear now" to these people lol. What're the odds we'll see some gratuitous sex scene?

[–] jack@hexbear.net 28 points 9 months ago

Aang and Katara eventually get married, so we just have them fuck right off the bat in this one

[–] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 27 points 9 months ago (2 children)

What're the odds we'll see some gratuitous sex scene

Hopefully not the characters are kids and teenagers

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[–] Frogmanfromlake@hexbear.net 33 points 9 months ago

Because Game of Thrones was very popular and made lots of money. That's all these people and the executives they work for understand.

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[–] Frank@hexbear.net 49 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There is literally a whole TvTropes page about this, "Refusing the Call" and "The Call knows where you live".

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 31 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

Yeah some guy wrote a book about a dude with a thousand faces and he refuses to call a bunch of people too :ricky:

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[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 45 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Look making Aang develop as a character and learn when it’s necessary to get serious is too much work. Can’t we just do a magical exposition dump into his head to solve all these pesky things like “motivation” or “growth”

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[–] D61@hexbear.net 41 points 9 months ago (2 children)

By the end of the Netflixization, its just a vaguely Asian coded martial arts magic Punsher retread.

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 44 points 9 months ago (6 children)

But still liberal so the magic punisher will refuse to kill the fascist dictator but instead just metaphorically take away his soul and literally imprison him for life in a dark cell below ground, which is much better.

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[–] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 30 points 9 months ago

Asian-coded MCU slop. I'd bet money on it.

[–] RNAi@hexbear.net 41 points 9 months ago

You can't make this shit up, c'mon, a literal child can point out why this is wrong.

[–] Cromalin@hexbear.net 31 points 9 months ago

i am anti avatar (both blue people and tla) on principle but come the fuck on. don't make your show that you're aiming at an older audience less complex and interesting than the one for 7 year olds

[–] jabrd@hexbear.net 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] zed_proclaimer@hexbear.net 29 points 9 months ago

Making the plot dependent on “it was a dream” is as lazy and cliche at the beginning of the story (to drive the plot) as it is at the end (to explain away all issues and ties up all loose ends)

[–] PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS@hexbear.net 30 points 9 months ago

Give me the people who think like this and I will make Stalin look like Bernie Sanders

[–] DefinitelyNotAPhone@hexbear.net 27 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Look, I just finished repressing the Wheel of Time show doing all this shit. It's very uncool of Hollywood to immediately retread it and put me in a position where I have to face it all again so soon.

Here's hoping Aang at least gets some agency in his own show?

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[–] Egon@hexbear.net 26 points 9 months ago

Gonna see if I can't find a bootleg recording of the Ember Island Players theatrical retelling of the story

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