Avatar: The Last Airbender voice actor Greg Baldwin weighs in on Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko's exit from Netflix's live-action adaptation. Avatar ran on Nickelodeon for three seasons from 2005 to 2008 and, to this day, remains one of the most beloved animated shows of all time. M. Night Shyamalan attempted to bring the property to the big screen with The Last Airbender in 2010, but to say it fell short of fans' expectations would be putting it lightly. Because of that, fans were wary when Netflix announced its intention to develop a live-action Avatar series back in 2018. The only bit of positivity came from the fact that Avatar's original creators DiMartino and Konietzko would be involved.
However, fans got some bad news last week when DiMartino and Konietzko announced they had exited the Netflix adaptation. Both issued statements explaining they were brought on to fully execute their vision, but things hadn't been progressing the way they had expected. Konietzko, in particular, described Netflix's handling of the series "created what I felt was a negative and unsupportive environment." As a result, fans were quick to express their disappointment on social media, and now one of Avatar's stars has joined in.
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Baldwin, who joined the show in season 3 as the voice of Uncle Iroh following original actor Mako Iwamatsu's passing, shared his thoughts toward the Netflix Avatar adaptation now that DiMartino and Konietzko aren't involved. After first declaring "Wow. Just...wow!" in response to DiMartino's open letter, Baldwin continued by saying he'll "have to ruminate on this." He explained, "I don't know if I trust Netflix to create a decent adaptation of ATLA without the creative vision and input of its creators," and added that past experiences have made him uncertain about this endeavor. You can see Baldwin's full Twitter thread below.
Best news?
— Greg Baldwin (@GregBaldwinIroh) August 12, 2020
“I also want to be clear that this doesn’t mean the end of my involvement in the Avatar universe.”
I worked at studios for many years. Once the "suits" weigh in on a project and start pissing on it to justify their jobs...
— Greg Baldwin (@GregBaldwinIroh) August 12, 2020
Everything goes to shit.
Baldwin's thoughts seem to echo what fans have been saying, as many are concerned about how Netflix will choose to adapt Avatar. The biggest worry for many is that Netflix will end up whitewashing the series, just as The Last Airbender did. Other fans are nervous that Netflix will end up putting a greater focus on the ships, such as Aang and Katara or even Katara and Zuko. Having been burned by a previous live-action adaptation, Avatar fans certainly have good reason to be concerned.
However, as DiMartino said in his statement, there's still a chance Netflix's Avatar could turn out to be a success. It just won't be what DiMartino and Konietzko envisioned. At this point, it's hard to say exactly how Netflix's adaptation will turn out because so little is known; there have been no casting announcements or any sort of images aside from Appa's design from the original 2018 announcement. The fate of Netflix's Avatar might be up in the air, but plenty of people, including the original stars, are concerned.
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Original source: ScreenRant.
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