These Netflix Avatar actors are not bad, like at all. The script is.

People keep saying the acting is bad, and then having people excuse it by saying "theyre kid actors, give em some time". They are professionally trained, bro guarantee this is not most of these actors first gigs. When you watched a nick or disney show when you are a kid, even some older people who are looking back...did you ever notice an exceptionally bad performance?

Cause ive never heard of a complaint about drake, josh, keenan or kel, or victoria or ariana's acting. Those scripts are made in mind for it to be wacky, zany, and while ridiculous still in the realm of how teenagers or kids would behave. This script is dick on the ground. It hinders not only the performance of a kid, but an adult as well. I could put on the most dramatic, award winning performance ever but if im saying "poopity scoopity" thats what youre going to hear on the screen.

Here's an example

Aang: "Omashu was carved out of a living mountain....its one of the wonders of the earth kingdom. Of the world actually...and they have an incredible delivery system that winds through the whole city. And the people there, theyre artists, scientists, builders. Plus...the food there? is amazing!"

Now...please tell me wtf is the actor who plays Aang supposed to do with this 🙏. All he can do is emote the way hes intended to for this line reading, denzel himself could not have made lines like this interesting. First of all, why does Aang give af about any of this? Is this version of aang a culture or architect nerd? Cause this is one of the only times he talks about a location like this and the script here reads like a wikipedia summary of the city. No 12 year old should care about the cultural landscape of a city, not even aang. You ask a a kid what they like about their city or any city they are not going to give you that ^ response.

Why isnt aang talking about oh i dunno...his friend bumi he used to play with 100 yrs ago who we are going to be introduced to soon? How he used to play with him and use the delivery system as a slide, and itd piss off the delivery people or something. If the food is amazing, why didnt he name a specific food? "First thing we're gonna do is get some [food from his time]" Characters ask him what is that, Sokka says something like whatever it is, if its food im down...SOMETHING. No instead we get this dialogue that feels like youre playing a video game and you just stepped into Omashu, and the bottom loading screen text is giving you neat Snapple facts about the city and game.

[Omashu is carved out of a living mountain; it is one of the wonders of the earth kingdom]

[Press Y and B at the same time when running to activate your air scooter for faster travel]

[Omashu is home to a complex delivery system that winds through the city]

Episodes 1-5 is riddled with a ton of useless and phoned in dialogue like this, much of which is dedicated to telling us for the 30th time aang needs to save the world, or people reacting to him being the avatar the exact same way. I enjoy Zuko and his squad, and just pretty much any of the fire nation characters (except Iroh who they made very boring and way more passive to everything going on around him). I enjoy Ozai and i think its because Ozai was more of a final boss than a character, so expanding on him can only be an upgrade. Jee, Zhao, again not much to their original characters so they could only improve on them and the twist of Zuko being the reason their squadron is still alive was a nice touch.

When it comes to the kids tho, i personally think its a combo of the script and how some kids are trained or coached to act in movies where they are taught mannerisms and tones that make more sense for how an adult would react to a situation as opposed to a kid.

Either way episode 6 is when the writing starts giving characters more personality, and the journey and episodes have an actual cohesive theme and motif, instead of being pressed to speedrun the journey. This is how the whole series should have been. Using the fog of lost souls for exposition and flashbacks instead of just telling me how theyre feeling, and never being subtle or giving me a chance to wonder or ponder. Through out the viewing, use the fog of lost souls, Iroh's dialogue about using masks, tie in the themes of being lost, the past, memories, etc. The themes of the first episodes are "cover as much ground as possible" and with that you get no inspiration to make the plot interesting and apparently it even hurts the dialogue.

Summary, this script is bad, it weighs the show's quality down. Episode 6 and up is how the adventure should be streamlined. Not every episode needs to be covered if you do it this way, and you can focus on whatever you wanted to do in your adaptation more. But man besides a couple of scenes, 1-5 feels like it was written by the type of fans who dont like that aang didnt kill ozai, or people who took the Kyoshi memes serious and genuinely feel aang needs to not be a b*tch or somethin.