Netflix
The first trailer for Netflix’s live action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender was released this week and it racked up over 5 millions views in under 24 hours. It is hard to understate how highly-anticipated this live action series is from Netflix despite diehard Airbender fans having more than a healthy amount of skepticism toward it.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is widely regarded to be one of the best animated TV series ever made. It has one of the highest IMDB ratings of any TV series and consistently ranks in the top 100 series of all time, animated or not. The show even won a Peabody Award for its honest and delicate portrayal of the ‘consequences of warfare,’ something that gets glossed over in 99.99% of most shows.
The Live Action Avatar: The Last Airbender Trailer Is Stunning
First things first, the trailer is stunning. It is evident the team has spent a lot of time, effort, and budget into the building of kingdoms. The four nations and their respective homes and cities are part of what made the animated Avatar: The Last Airbender so special as Aang traveled the globe to complete his mastery of all four elements.
It is unclear specifically which worlds we see in the trailer aside from the Southern Water Tribe’s land because we know that’s where Aang was frozen in time for a hundred years and that’s where Katara and Sokka live and were raised.
We also get a glimpse of Suki who os Sokka’s love interest but more importantly she’s an incredible Kyoshi Warrior to slaps some sense into Sokka about the world and helps him grow up. She lives in the Earth Kingdom on Kyoshi Island and we get multiple shots of the island in the first live action Avatar: The Last Airbender trailer.
So we have two locations nailed down but it’s unclear specifically where the fireballs are being shot in the opening frame. I’d like to know where that’s happening. We also see the arrow on Aang’s head illuminate suggesting he’s entered the spirit world but we don’t know when, where, or why that’s happening. He could be communicating with Avatar Kyoshi at that time. We also see the Fire Lord so presumably that’s at the Fire Temple but Aang likely won’t make it there in Season 1, right?
Also, in Season 1 of the animated show Aang awakens in the Southern Water Tribe Kingdom but travels to his former home, the Southern Air Temple. He also goes to Kyoshi Island, the Earth Kingdom to Omashu where he runs into his old pal Bumi. The trio gets locked in jail in an Earth Kingdom town. Aang travels to the spirit world. They then make it to the Northern Air Temple and the North Pole to find the Northern Water Tribe.
It would be awesome to think that Netflix will tackle even a fraction of that with the live action version of the show but there are only 10 live action episodes of The Last Airbender set to hit Netflix and there were 20 animated episodes in Season 1. There will be some corners cut but which corners are cut remains to be seen…
Show. Me. The. Silly.
Not only was the 2010 live action movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan awful from start to finish it also failed to, at any point in the film, grasp the nuance of The Last Airbender that made it so special.
Aang is a pre-teen. He’s just 12 years old. Actually, 112 because he’d been frozen for 100 years but he’s a silly little kid who likes to fly around and play pranks and have fun.
In the live action film they made everyone, Aang included, out to be these extremely serious figures who had zero time for fun and honestly, if Netflix even looks down that path I’m out. They need to keep the jokes. They need to inject lightheartedness into the show or it will fall levels below the original.
And I bring this up because the trailer, unfortunately, came off as quite serious. It opens up to firebenders throwing fireballs at a village. Then an ominous shot of Sokka finding Aang frozen in ice for the past 100 years. From there we get some fire nation shots of Prince Zuko and co. who all look like they’re ready to burn the world down.
The first shot we see of Aang’s face is him using his airbender staff to clear the air and he has the face of someone locked into battle. Where is the lightheartedness of this dude:
Nickelodeon
Even in the frame where Aang takes off riding Appa he looks stone faced. Katara gives him an nudge of the elbow and he doesn’t even crack a smile. Where? Is? The? Silliness?
The first and only smile we see from Aang is when Momo lands on his shoulder while they’re riding Appa through the Air Temple lands. One smile, that’s all we get.
Netflix
The Last Airbender Is Already The Avatar, Isn’t He?
The description of the YouTube video has this included about Aang’s journey with Katar and Sokka “he embarks on an action-packed quest to take his rightful place as the next AVATAR.”
My dudes, he’s already the Avatar. We know the ‘next’ avatar is Korra. And we know that despite Aang needing to learn waterbending at this point in his journey he, as the avatar, as the capability to go into the avatar state with the proverbial poop hits the fan. At this point I think I’m arguing semantics with someone who probably just wrote a YouTube description on a whim but it’s something that I’ve been thinking about for the past 24 hours.
We’ll certainly have more to go on in the coming months. The live action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender hits Netflix on February 22nd. It will likely be one of their most popular series of the year. Prior to that, we’ll get a slew of trailers and news, and that wave of news will certainly bring new questions about the series which I’ll address as they pop up.
In closing, the trailer does look fantastic. I even showed it to my 5yo son and he got hyped for it. This show has the potential to unite people across generations, a feat that’s rarely achieved in television.