Review: The Last Airbender (TV series)

[Brian G Turner]

You know how Pixar do great films, with clever plotting, characters, and appeal to both kids and adults?

That's what Nickelodeon achieved with their Avatar: The Last Air Bender.

On the surface, it's just a kid's cartoon series, superficially touching on traditional Far Eastern tales, such as Monkey or The Water Margin. That in itself might have been enough to make it unique and interesting.

But there's a real depth to this series, and a dedication to detail that goes way beyond the norm.

There's also humour, drama, seriously well-developed characters, clever plot developments, and some of the best subversion of tropes I've seen. The people behind the series show a clear devotion that makes Avatar: The Last Air Bender something special.

Yet at it's heart, it's a simple story - I'll let the introduction explain it:

Three seasons of Avatar: The Last Air Bender were made, all part of the same developing story arc, and ends after a satisfying climax.

What's really interesting isn't simply that everything is rooted in Asian analogues, but also that there's a serious diversity of roles. Many could have been lazily assigned to males, but there's clearly been some clever thinking in terms of challenging gender stereotypes.

This is made immediately clear in episode 3 of the first season, when we discover the Avatar is a continuous reincarnation where gender is irrelevant. Additionally, that's the same episode where the subject of "fight like a girl" is wonderfully tackled with the Kyoshi warriors.

This becomes underlined in season 2, when Zuko's sister and two of her deadly girl friends become the lead antagonists - and the powerful earth-bending master turns out to be a 12-year old blind girl. Oh, yeah - did I mention there's also diversity on disability issues?

Intelligent, clever, and inspired, Avatar: The Last Airbender is an animated series well-worth watching, no matter how old you are. It's also a great example of how the intelligent use of diversity can make characters and story much more interesting.

Just stay away from the travesty of the film. It's by M Night Shyamalan - need I say more?

 

[Brian G Turner]

We're watching this again - it's such a great TV series. Although it's a cartoon, it's an intelligent one that's really well scripted and has some superb character development. Would definitely recommend anyone with any interest in good storytelling to watch this.

Still available for free on Amazon Prime Video in the UK, too...

 

[picklematrix]

There aren't many shows of this quality for younger viewers at the moment, at least to my knowledge. I hope when I have kids they get into stuff like this.

Adult cartoons are going strong, funnily enough.

 

[Werthead]

I strongly recommend the sequel series, The Legend of Korra, and the new series by much of the same team, The Dragon Prince, although it's set in a different world.

 

[L.L.Lotte]

I strongly recommend the sequel series, The Legend of Korra, and the new series by much of the same team, The Dragon Prince, although it's set in a different world.

The Dragon Prince is a fantastic epic fantasy story. The script is probably a little too modern for the setting. It is targeted at the current generation of kids after all, so no surprise there, but the quality of the show is really good for a western animation. I thoroughly enjoyed it and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anybody.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Finished our second viewing - this is such great family entertainment. Definitely recommend it for anyone with kids who might want to enjoy something with them. Some superb characters and story arc.

 

[MikeAnderson]

Classic animated series. Deep characters, the story lines were complex, but children could grasp them. Clean animation. Too bad the live action movie was a...

Well, can't describe it in the words that perfectly describe it; I've actually invented new profanities when the topic of M. Night Shamjob's desecration comes up.

 

[Thiswriterinme]

I am a little late to the party, but I love this show, so I had to say something. I think Avatar: The Last Airbender is great for all the reasons listed above, and many more! There are several characters in this show who I would label as having some of my favorite on-screen character arcs of all time. Zuko is the first to come to mind, but he isn't the only one.

I've watched this show 3 times, the most recent time I finally got my partner to watch it with me. He is an anime fan and was skeptical at first, but then really started to like it after the first few episodes.

I think the deep character development throughout this entire series is fantastic. It was clear that a lot of effort was put into each character, their stories, and nothing was 'too small' for the creators. More than that, there are so few kids shows that touch on deeper, spiritual ideas. AtLA goes into detail on how everyone has good and bad in them, regardless of the nation they are born into. It shows this repeatedly throughout the series. Aang, who is meant to save the world, is a pacifist and really struggles with the concept of violence, leading him to search for alternative means to end a 100 year war. Throughout, he is rarely seen using violence unless it is in self-defense.

With the inclusion of the Spirit World, some of the spirits impress upon how humans are always using knowledge to hurt other humans. They show that they don't care who is from what nation, but care how power and knowledge are used. I find these messages to be just as powerful to younger generations as the messages of friendship, diversity, and equality.

I will say that I was less than impressed with The Legend of Korra (I know I am in a minority). Overall, I felt like the characters and character relationships were severely underdeveloped, and a lot of the spiritual values of AtLA were written out. In fact, the most spiritual character in the show ended up being a villain! I had a hard time getting attached to any of the characters or their stories, and it seemed like some of the backstory was thrown in as an afterthought without any regard to the established history from AtLA. A lot of the plot was centered more on high school level drama than what I would have expected for a continuation of AtLA.

As a personal peeve, I have been over-saturated with the trope of lead female characters that are portrayed as strong because they are independent, impulsive, headstrong, and feisty. Korra entered into my life at a time when I was already hoping for lead females that showed other qualities of strength, and she didn't deliver. Perhaps that soured the entire viewing experience for me.

Of course, everyone else I know who watched TLoK loved it, so don't let my review deter anyone from trying it out!

 

[Edoc'sil]

@Thiswriterinme I agree with you wholeheartedly, TLoK was such a let down compared to Aang's story. I think it's because after the first season things started to go downhill and they lost a lot of funding by the time it came to the third season.

Also they really told the story of the world so well in AtLA that there was little room for the new story to go. I loved the political nature of TLoK. But it seemed like that was the only area they could develop. Everything else was, as you said, high school drama.

The big spirit fights seemed like such a cop out as well, like the creators just wanted big gunnam style laser fights.

 

[HareBrain]

I will say that I was less than impressed with The Legend of Korra (I know I am in a minority). Overall, I felt like the characters and character relationships were severely underdeveloped, and a lot of the spiritual values of AtLA were written out.

In case he doesn't see this, @The Big Peat has recently blogged a watch of the first season of TLoK and said much the same.

Peat Long's Blog

My ramblings on Fantasy, Writing, and Anything Else I Like

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[The Big Peat]

There's lots of grumbling/outright hate for the Legend of Korra, and a lot of it says the same things we're all saying here. So much squandered potential. I hear people saying S3 is great but that's a long trek.

 

[Thiswriterinme]

@The Big Peat that blog post was a great read! Thank you for sharing @HareBrain. It did definitely touch on a lot of the thoughts I had when watching the first season -"the line between delightful homage and tired rehash is very thin at times" in regards to Bumi, Aang's son. I was sad to see this happen with more than one character that had a namesake from AtLA.

I ended up watching the show all the way through to the end, just hoping it would get better. I will say the spirit world itself does hold a greater significance in the later seasons, but the overall spirituality isn't tied in so it appears as just another dimension. Glad to know I am not the only one out there whose experience with TLoK wasn't stellar.

 

[The Scribbling Man]

One of my favourite series, and I recently started watching it again for - no joke - maybe like the 20th time??

LOK though. Ugh. That thing broke my heart. Watched it all the way through... There are some nice character moments, cool world building ideas and Varik would always make me laugh. Overall though, I hated Korra as a character. I didn't feel like her arc was good at all, she just seemed to be rewarded for being rebellious and irresponsible. Some of what they did to the lore (and particularly the spirit realm) was just awful, especially visually. One of my favourite things about the original series was the spirit realm, and they made it so tacky. Season 3 is better than most of it, but still not great. The last season may be the worst of the lot.

 

[The Big Peat]

@The Big Peat that blog post was a great read! Thank you for sharing @HareBrain. It did definitely touch on a lot of the thoughts I had when watching the first season -"the line between delightful homage and tired rehash is very thin at times" in regards to Bumi, Aang's son. I was sad to see this happen with more than one character that had a namesake from AtLA.

I ended up watching the show all the way through to the end, just hoping it would get better. I will say the spirit world itself does hold a greater significance in the later seasons, but the overall spirituality isn't tied in so it appears as just another dimension. Glad to know I am not the only one out there whose experience with TLoK wasn't stellar.

I guess it was smart of them to avoid introducing the namesakes until the end? But I'll see how that develops when I get onto S2. I tried the first two episodes and, well, hated them.

 

[Thiswriterinme]

Overall though, I hated Korra as a character. I didn't feel like her arc was good at all, she just seemed to be rewarded for being rebellious and irresponsible.

This is pretty much how I felt every time she broke down and got mopy about something that was essentially her fault before one of the older/wiser characters stepped in to bail her out.

Good luck, @The Big Peat if you decide to continue with the show. I agree with @The Scribbling Man's breakdown of the spirit world. The third season is probably the most interesting. Then again, the villains are also some of the most spiritually inclined characters in the show, and that never sat well with me.

I think another piece that bothered me was that in AtLA, it showed how bending could evolve and be different in a lot of cool ways (blood bending, metal bending, lightening vs fire, even "Combustion Man"), but TLoK didn't exactly introduce anything new like that, just expanded on (and not very well) and/or repeated what was already done.