The best Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation was in the show all along

polygon.com:

Weeks after its release, the general consensus about Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender seems to be: Well, at least it’s better than the infamous M. Night Shyamalan version! A low bar, but at least it was cleared.

But why is it so hard to adapt Avatar: The Last Airbender? It could be the scope. ATLA is sprawling, taking place over three 20-episode seasons. Condensing even a single season into a movie or an eight-episode drama means losing some pivotal character moments (even if ultimately the run times between seasons might be similar). Plus, there’s a lot that animation brings to a story that can’t ever be replicated in live action.

But the great thing is that the perfect ATLA adaptation already exists — it’s just in the source material itself.

Yes, I’m talking about the Ember Island Players’ adaptation in “The Ember Island Players.” It’s a beloved episode, one that appears towards the end of the final season, in which Aang and his friends catch a stage adaptation of their exploits. Functionally, it serves as a recap episode to refresh audiences before the big finale. But it’s also just a good episode in and of itself — and more importantly, a solid adaptation of the events of ATLA, a feat that no adaptation has managed to pull off.

“The Ember Island Players” isn’t a simple clip show. It’s self-aware, but in a very loving way, because it leans on what the characters perceive about themselves and the world. The characters see themselves onstage, reduced to one main character trait (Sokka = hungry, Katara = emotional, Iroh = also hungry), and react hilariously. Zuko protests that this stage version is too serious, only to hear the actor shout the phrase he just said moments ago.

The episode also takes the scenes we know and are familiar with and puts a twist on them. The whole point is it’s a really bad stage show, which means the big plot beats are all interpreted in hilarious and out-of-pocket ways, and the “special effects” are all done within the realistic