Avatar: The Last Airbender Trailer

[Wman1996]

Shaunodon said:

Pleasantly surprised for now. At least visually they've knocked it out of the park from what I've seen. Even the slight remixing of the original theme track warmed my soul. Main concerns would be how they plan to compress/reorganise Book 1 into 8 (somewhat longer) episodes, and how they plan to translate the humour and style that relied a lot on animation tricks into a live-action series; but those unique challenges and differences are what give these adaptions potential to re-create something special for fans. So even if I didn't have much optimism to begin with, I won't just outright dismiss the idea if they're willing to actually create it with the right mindset.

I didn't realize the number of episodes and that is a little concerning at the very least. With the intro and credits, each episode of the original show was right around 23 minutes. 20 x 23 = 460 (7 hours, 40 minutes)

If each of the 8 episodes is around 45 minutes (could be a little shorter or a little closer to 50), that's 360 minutes (6 hours). 

Admittedly, Book 1 of Avatar has a decent amount of filler, same with Book 3 (Book 2 was the tightest written). But a lot of the filler expands the lore and character development. Book 1 I'm open-minded to having a shorter runtime than the animated original, but Book 2 and 3 should be as long as or longer.

Sozin's Comet (the 4 episode series finale) could really stand to be 2 hours or longer instead of about 90 minutes. For the remake, it could be one 2 hour event or two hour-long episodes. The Day of Black Sun could also stand to be an hour or longer instead of about 45 minutes.