Western Animation has changed quite a bit in the years after Avatar's release in large part thanks to the Avatar series. The Last Airbender set a new bar for Western Animation with great writing in terms of plot, world building, themes and, most importantly, character while The Legend of Korra changed Western Animation by including political drama, realistic depiction of PTSD and opening the door for LGBT representation all of which have now become the new norm in kid shows.
After Avatar we've had a number of great shows that have continued to push the envelop to try and live up to the standards Aang and Korra set and that led to great shows like Steven Universe, Tangled the series, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, DuckTales (2017), The Owl House and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. And personally I consider all these shows to be just as good as Avatar and in some cases I think they do a few things a bit better than Avatar.
So, how will Avatar change after changing the world?
Both TLA and TLOK have stood the test of time, both shows reaching the number 1 spot on Netflix after only a few weeks of being released proves that but in many ways it has shown it's age, if only slightly. I've mentioned a few of my issues here on this very forum with things like Zuko's Redemption Rejection in Book 2 feeling forced, Aang being given less focus in Book 3, Korrasami seeming rather tame compared to more resent Same-Sex relationships and the series kinda over-relying on Deus Ex Machinas to solve its finales, (seriously almost every season finale has a Deus Ex Machina to get teh writers out of a corner they wrote themselves into).
Sure, Rise and Shadow of Kyoshi showed that the show can still be great but those are novels which are allowed to be more open with things like SS relationships and to be darker. But there are a LOT more people who watch TV shows than read novels or comic books and as such the studio might be a bit more "cautious" about what the show does.
Bryke have proven their willing to go the extra mile given they have openly approved of or directly wrote the Kyoshi novels or the Korra comics so they are willing to take things to the next level but will the series be allowed to go as far as the shows that were inspired by the world of Four Nations?
She-Ra is part of a popular series but She-Ra wasn't as well known as He-Man so Netflix was mostly okay with the series being as gay as it wanted to be while also exploring things like abuse, trauma and also having some, (though not much) political intrigue. But Avatar?
One of the reasons I think the Star Wars Disney Sequel Trilogy ended up as it did was because the studio wanted the films to make a profit so they played it safe and just recycled the Original Trilogy beat for beat which included all the flaws that came with it. By contrast the original Expanded Universe was, overall, a massive hit that (as the name implies) expanded the world and lore of Star Wars and gave us such classics like the Thrawn Trilogy, Knights of the Old Republic and The Clone Wars and a big chunk of this was because George Lucas let writers do as they saw fit and didn't see any issue with people playing with what he created.
Sure, there were stories that were either just okay or out right terrible but 8 times out of 10 the series had a number of great hits because the series was allowed to be whatever writers wanted it to be. Avatar has the chance to be the same so long as the studio lets the writers do as they see fit and only get involved when it's truly needed.
So, how do you think Avatar will stand up in a world it help changed?
How Will Avatar Change When it Returns?
Re: How Will Avatar Change When it Returns?
I think the advantage of taking the CBS approach of "spam lots of series at the wall and see what sticks" is that you can take more risks without worrying about turning people off altogether. But then equally this does also mean that you then can't expect *every* project to be such high-quality envelope pushing content — there's bound to be one or two duds.
Frankly though I think this is going to mostly depend on how good Bryke are nowadays. I mean, look at Joss Whedon — he really did well in terms of introducing strong female characters in his various series at a time when there weren't too many, but nowadays his scripts come across as having been written by a sexist pig. I think my biggest worry is that there's always the potential for one's favourite and most-respected creators to become set in their ways and fail to move with the times. I hope this doesn't happen to Bryke. But I think with the model Nickelodeon are going for, my instinct is that this would be a bigger worry than studio interference. I could be wrong though.
Frankly though I think this is going to mostly depend on how good Bryke are nowadays. I mean, look at Joss Whedon — he really did well in terms of introducing strong female characters in his various series at a time when there weren't too many, but nowadays his scripts come across as having been written by a sexist pig. I think my biggest worry is that there's always the potential for one's favourite and most-respected creators to become set in their ways and fail to move with the times. I hope this doesn't happen to Bryke. But I think with the model Nickelodeon are going for, my instinct is that this would be a bigger worry than studio interference. I could be wrong though.
