The reason for the two stars is for the beautiful CGI and the costume design and world building. But let me delve deep into the crux of the review. NETFLIX had one job! One job!! Tell a beautiful story with deep reference to the origin. Truth is if fails at that miserably, it fails to understand why people loved the original story. Did i expect a perfect remake no, my goals and expectations were set on the expansion of the story. In the first episode i thought i would see more of the culture of the Airbenders, and how aang grow up and what his fears were and his relationship with his mentor and father figure. Netflix had a blank slate but choose to play around and not really delve deep into the story telling, i expected more world building but no! With such an amazing cast, its as if they didn't know what to do with them. Sometimes things feel so forced and just happen for the sake of the script. Some things made so much sense in the cartoon version and somewhat expected them to maintain them or twerk them a little bit. But alas! Its been a pain to watch and most notably the butchering of the female characters especially the growth and refinement of katara. And don't get me started on saka! They removed his sexism, whats wrong with you Netflix, the original writers didn't applaud sakas sexism in fact one of my favorite episodes was when he got to learn that being a true warrior had nothing to do with your gender and he learnt that from a beautiful kioshi warrior! Like that was the point.
I don't know why Netflix felt the need to rash this show but it feels rashed. Like we would have followed it even when season 1 ends prematurely. Story for me is everything but this has been a way better attempt to the former. For that i applaud you Netflix, as the forbes magazine put it, this felt too shallow for the nostalgia fans. But good trial, good trial!