r/TheLastAirbender • u/Boring_Ant_1677 • 1d ago

Website Paul Sun-Hyung Lee: "I grew up a nerd, so I understand fandom"

https://www.lpm.org/music/2024-04-05/paul-sun-hyung-lee-i-grew-up-a-nerd-and-slip-into-these-worlds-with-ease

from 2024

321 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

201

u/ToneAccomplished9763 1d ago

The netflix series is so weird, as like I think all the casting choices they made so far have been pretty great. But the writing choices are.... rough to say the least, though I don't hate it as much as others seem to do.

107

u/iwannasendapackage 1d ago

Casting was 0% of my problems with the series. Writing was just about 100%, either explicitly or it lay behind other problems.

29

u/iLikePears 1d ago

imo Roku was both a casting and writing problem. Seriously? Vince Masuka from dexter? That was certainly a choice

69

u/Darthbane22 1d ago

Some of the writing choices were great though. Like Zuko’s crew being the unit that he refused to sacrifice.

31

u/blossombritt 23h ago

yeah that was by far my favorite thing from the live action, right behind the blue spirit jail break

4

u/MetalMario64 "YEEAH Boomerang! ...AWWW Boomerang..." 22h ago

I wouldn’t say it’s bad, but I feel like I actually prefer it not being his crew specifically. That way it’s showing he cares about all Fire Nation soldiers, not just ones he has a personal connection with.

22

u/gyroda 21h ago

In the show they're not his crew until he acts to save them, then he gets exiled with them.

6

u/MetalMario64 "YEEAH Boomerang! ...AWWW Boomerang..." 21h ago

Oh, gosh, you’re right. I’ve only seen it the once and must have forgotten.

1

u/Fresh_Schedule_9611 11h ago

I had that headcanon for the animated show already so when I watched the live action one I was so happy

19

u/Madhighlander1 23h ago

There are a lot of writing decisions I question in the Netflix series, but I do like everything new they did with Iroh.

At least, out of the half I've seen so far. They might really mess it up in the second half, who knows. But I really liked the flashback to Lu Ten's funeral, his conflict with the Earth Kingdom soldier, his distraction while Zuko escaped from Omashu...

2

u/Ok-Television2109 8h ago

I've only watched some clips from NATLA on YouTube but they've done quite well with Iroh. I liked the scene which shows him joining Zuko's hunt for the Avatar and saying he's got everything he needs on their boat.

5

u/machingunwhhore 20h ago

They actually did good with visuals which is the biggest hurdle. But they did awful with the writing. It was all tell and no show. Abysmal

3

u/hamoboy 18h ago

I would blame a lot of it on the 8 episode structure that Netlix forces on shows. If Season 1 had gotten 10 or 12 episodes, I think a lot of bad writing decisions could have been avoided, or at least mitigated.

2

u/IndependentMacaroon Noodly Bro 10h ago edited 5h ago

It's unsurprising letting a bunch of Hollywood writer egos loose on an established story rarely has a good result. To be fair say Japanese live-action adaptations don't turn out that amazing either mostly

3

u/skyknight01 23h ago

I will never forgive what they did to my man Bumi. I had to ragequit the show after that, I was so mad.

14

u/TheGoddamnAnswer 1d ago

That’s my Uncle

3

u/Desperate_Drama3392 14h ago

I didn't watched the netflix series, but I agree with this men :3

2

u/Fresh_Schedule_9611 11h ago

I'm still mad at the writers for doing the show so dirty bc ik the cast could do so much better

2

u/TrunkWine 7h ago

Iroh and Zuko were the best part of the show.

Their acting was solid and the writing gave them some nice character moments.

I felt it did a disservice to others, though. Katara and Sokka had little personality allowed to them, and Aang struggled to make the dialogue work. There was so much telling it came off as annoying.

-16

u/Tumblrrito 1d ago

"I didn’t want to be a bad copy of the animated character"

Unfortunately, that's what he gave us. He never really felt natural or comfortable in the role. His delivery felt forced, but honestly his script wasn't great either. I hope next season he loosens up and immerses himself into the character more. It felt like he put pressure on himself or something.

5

u/microslasher 22h ago

The entire cast gave us a bad copy except maybe Dallas. He was good. This whole show should have been canned. It's one maybe 2 steps above the movie. I only believe people liked it because we're so used to Netflix slop that anything that is above the bar , despite the bar being low for adaptations in hollywood, is a decent watch when its really just cw style crap with a good budget for effects.