What’s the Point of Adapting Something You Don’t Actually Like?

Is the Live Action Avatar: The Last Airbender the new Anne with an E?

Jenna Goldsmith
4 min readFeb 2, 2024

Any middle or young millennial will remember watching or at least remember being aware of Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was that Nickelodeon show that was written by white people but playfully blended Western and Eastern cartoon and animation styles. In this Arctic and Asian-inspired world, people can telekinetically manipulate — or “bend” — elements like fire, water, earth, and air.

In our 2020s era of constant reboots, remakes, and reimaginings, this early 2000s cartoon is getting a live-action remake*.

*We don’t speak of the M. Night Shyamalan movie from 2010.

This news had fans everywhere very excited. Especially when the original creators and writers were on the creative team behind the remake.

But everything changed when they left the show.

Recently, news has been trickling out about the remake that has people talking and fans worried.

From removing certain character traits and plot points deemed “iffy” by the writers to blatantly showing the genocide of an entire group of people, the creative decisions being made seem to be bordering on “huh?” and “do they even…

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Jenna Goldsmith
Jenna Goldsmith

Written by Jenna Goldsmith

Writer || INFJ || Wellness junkie and chronic oversharer. jgoldsmithwrites.com/

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