Netflix’s interpretation of Avatar: The Last Airbender season 1 fixes arguably the biggest mistake of M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 movie adaptation.
Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender season 1 fixes one of the biggest mistakes made by M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 adaptation. Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender was released only two years after the original show’s third season ended and was both a critical and commercial failure, making it easy to see why The Last Airbender 2 did not happen. One of the reasons why fans of the original show so maligned the movie was the seemingly endless, unnecessary changes it made to the story.
While Netflix’s The Last Airbender makes some changes to the original show also, most still fit the overall tone, characters, and story of Nickelodeon’s animation. This explains why the Netflix adaptation was much better received than Shyamalan’s movie by the time of The Last Airbender season 1’s ending. Fittingly, Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender proved to avoid one of the more egregious mistakes of the 2010 movie in the opening minutes of the show’s premiere.
Netflix’s The Last Airbender Is Faithful To The Original Avatar’s Musical Score
The aspect of Netflix’s The Last Airbender that stands tall above the 2010 movie is its musical score. The M. Night Shyamalan movie featured a well-written musical score by composer James Newton Howard, though it was almost entirely devoid of cues from the original show. Jeremy Zuckerman’s musical composition for the original Last Airbender show is one of its strongest aspects, yet Shyamalan’s adaptation failed to pay homage to the score.
Composer Takeshi Furukawa instantly proves to be faithful to Zuckerman’s prior work, from the inclusion of the iconic Avatar theme to the haunting tones of the Fire Nation.
Almost immediately, Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender avoids this mistake by including the iconic themes from the source material. Composer Takeshi Furukawa instantly proves to be faithful to Zuckerman’s prior work, from the inclusion of the iconic Avatar theme to the haunting tones of the Fire Nation. While M. Night Shyamalan’s movie had myriad problems, the music stood out as one of its most disappointing in a way Netflix’s The Last Airbender composition does not.
Why Netflix Using The Original Last Airbender Music Is So Important
Above most other aspects of filmmaking, musical scores have the power to transport audiences to other worlds, realms, and realities. This has been proven time and again by legendary composers such as John Williams. Hans Zimmer, and Michael Giacchino to name only a few of the people responsible for crafting iconic movie scores. With Avatar: The Last Airbender taking place in such a distinct world, the musical themes of Zuckerman have become synonymous with The Last Airbender‘s Four Nations.
Therefore, Netflix’s adaptation using these musical themes is an effective way to instantly transport audience members back to the world of the original. Using the familiar tracks found in the original show makes use of nostalgia by alerting audiences that Netflix’s iteration of The Last Airbender will be more faithful than those that have come before. In doing so, Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender uses its music as a way to reassure those familiar with Nickelodeon’s animation that the creators are learning from the sins of past adaptations and taking steps to rectify them.
All episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender season 1 are now streaming on Netflix.
