Attempting a live-action adaptation of a beloved piece of animated content is difficult to do in a way that will please the fanbase. Disney has been learning this through their releases of live-action remakes of their classic animated movies, and it seems that Avatar: The Last Airbender will be learning that lesson as well in the interim period before the live-action series makes its way onto Netflix in 2024. The original animated show had a bit of a renaissance during the pandemic, which has led to production of a live-action remake series. Some fans were excited about the possibility, while others were much more skeptical.
Since the initial announcement, more news has dropped, such as casting and (more recently) the first official images of the main characters in costume. This, along with some other news that came out along the way, has led to a growing dread among fans of the original series that this new live-action adaptation isn't going to live up to the hype. It's understandable that fans are wary, especially after the disaster that was the first attempt at a live-action ATLA movie, but there are a number of factors that are making fans believe that this new adaptation might be doomed from the start.
Controversy Over Sokka's Actor
One thing that was really important to fans when it came to the live-action series was accurate casting. The actors needed to fully embody the characters, and it was really important for a lot of people that the heritage of the actors matched that of the characters as much as possible - i.e. casting Asian and Indigenous actors. The previous live-action movie did a poor job of this, so the casting of the new movie was a chance for redemption, and for the most part, they did a good job of staying true to the characters' ethnicities (or, at least, what their analogs would be in the real world).
However, there has been some pushback toward Ian Ousley, the actor who will be playing Sokka. He has been accused of lying about his Cherokee heritage in order to get the role. Fans who doubted his ancestry dug into some legal documents and discovered that Ousley is not actually listed as a member of the tribe. Three government-approved Cherokee tribes - the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, and the Cherokee Nation - have all confirmed that Ousley is not a member of their tribes.
Ousley himself has not commented on the controversy, but his friend Christabelle Marbun commented on an Instagram post refuting the claims. She said, "He isn’t white, he’s my friend and he’s native and Asian. Don’t believe what you see on the internet". Since the actor hasn't spoken on it yet, there has yet to be an official confirmation on the subject. However, even if it turns out to be false, there are still a lot of fans who are disappointed that Sokka was not cast to be Inuit, as that is clearly the culture that the fictional Water Tribe is pulling from. The actress playing Katara, while Indigenous, is also not Inuit, which has drawn a bit of criticism from fans. This is one reason why there are some who are wary about the accuracy of this adaptation.
Creative Differences With Original Creators
The other element casting a shadow over the production is that the original creators behind Avatar: The Last Airbender, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, were supposed to be heavily involved with the new Netflix adaptation, but left the project due to "creative differences". The involvement of the creators was a big selling point for a lot of fans, as it was assumed that if they had their hands in the project, it would turn out as well as the original. However, it seems that Netflix's vision did not line up with DiMartino and Konietzko's, as DiMartino said in a blog post about the whole affair: "whatever version ends up on-screen, it will not be what Bryan and I had envisioned or intended to make".
This was a huge red flag for a lot of fans, as they had been burned once before with the ill-fated first attempt at a live-action adaptation of ATLA, and were hoping the same mistakes wouldn't be made again. The creators weren't clear about what exactly it was that drove them away from working with Netflix, but it seems like it must have been pretty significant to get them to leave the project entirely. This is the main reason why fans are worried about how this series will turn out, and only time will tell whether DiMartino and Konietzko were right to take their names off of the whole affair.