NETFLIX, LISTEN TO ME BEFORE YOU RUIN ATLA PART 1
Hey so I’m pretty new to the Avatar Fandom but I’ve taken the crash course, and I’m SUPER invested in the new Netflix show (Even though the creators just left it) so here’s my ideas for how I’d like this jazz to go down
This was going to be a hella long post, but I decided to just turn it into a series because, hey, why the heck not.
So here’s the first thing I’m really anxious about:
FIRE-BENDING CGI
In most movies, and this is purely my opinion, the depiction of fire powers has always been very...meh.
You just never seem to get a sense of how much force the character is putting into it, and although this example are super old I don't think we’ve come very far,
And honestly, it isn’t the VFX department’s fault, really.
Fire, unlike the other elements doesn’t attack with it’s momentum. When we see someone get hit by a gust of wind or a jet of water, our brains are able to process it as : “Oh, the dude got punched, A’ight”
But with fire the danger isn’t being thrown into the air, it’s being burned to crisp where you stand.
But we can’t put that in our movies because it’d be horrific and disgusting to watch. With no other way to visually show the character being hurt, the filmmakers just make them fly backward. And it all ends up feeling...wrong.
The animated series worked around this because cartoon fire doesn’t work like real fire.
When Zuko punches flames at someone, it acts as a solid pillar of flame while real fire would look more like a flame thrower.
Daunting yes, but it’s not going to look very good in H2H combat, especially when it comes to the Fire Nation’s Martial art’s style. Zuko even produces Fire blades to use in combat, how’re those going to work if we use realistic fire that always goes up?
So here’s what I propose fire bending should look like and I’m going to use 2 main references to explain this( I’m sure there are more, even far better ones, but I feel like these some what accurately convey what I’m trying to say).
Yeah, I know, the movie sucked, you don’t have to tell me. Most of the CGI sucked too ngl. But this is one of the few scenes where actually liked how the fire looked, where it exploded on contact, added a much more DYNAMIC feeling to it.
But a much MUCH better example is pretty much everything Diablo does in Suicide Squad (I tried finding a decent gif but I couldn’t find any so I’ll just link a vid : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flrfBbEJkWg )
So, yeah. Those are my thoughts on what Fire bending should look like in live action.
If you’ve got some more ideas, I’d love to hear about it!!
TL;DR: FIRE-BENDING BE NEEDIN’ SOME MOMENTUM TO FEEL GOOD.
Note: I am also kinda a new to this whole blog thing, does anyone know a reliable source to source Gifs from? Thx!!!