"Avatar: The Last Airbender" Was Lightning in a Bottle
"Avatar: The Last Airbender" Was Lightning in a Bottle
Why the success of the Nickelodeon animated original is unlikely to be repeated again.
Note: This article contains spoilers for Avatar: The Last Airbender. I recommend you watch the show if you haven’t already before reading.
I always considered myself lucky as a late-generation millennial to have experienced what was arguably the last great era for 2D Western animation. If you were an American kid like me born in the mid-1990s, you likely watched television masterpieces such as Batman: The Animated Series and the twilight of Disney’s traditional animated fare like Mulan before the industry transitioned into 3D CGI.
On the small screen, you typically were either a Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon kid. While I did catch some episodes of Samurai Jack and The Powerpuff Girls, I was squarely in the Nicktoons camp with the likes of SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom, and Hey Arnold! being my jam.
But then there was the crowning jewel which blew all of them away with a level of storytelling quality that was above and beyond anything else — Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Taking inspiration from Eastern and Western animation, Avatar: The Last Airbender began as a sleeper hit when it first was broadcast in 2005 on Nickelodeon, only to amass a huge international fanbase that has kept the show alive as a definitive classic nearly 20 years later. Unlike other children’s shows at the time, it told a serialized Japanese anime-like narrative that required viewers to tune in every week lest they miss a vital episode.
If you didn’t ask your parents to record the newest episode on VHS tape (remember those?), chances are you were out of luck and wouldn’t be able to see it until a rerun. This was when internet videos were in their infancy with sites like YouTube just beginning and streaming platforms like Amazon Prime only a twinkle in Jeff Bezos’ eye, so patiently waiting for Avatar to air on television was a weekly ritual for my generation.
And now here we are in 2024 with the inevitable live-action Netflix adaptation of yet another beloved IP. Early previews do not look promising to put it lightly, but I’ve always argued that the success of Avatar could never be repeated because it was a product of a specific creative team made during a certain era. There are currently multiple sequel and spin-off projects in development, but even those leave me skeptical. Here’s why Avatar: The Last Airbender was so special and why some miracles can’t be pulled off twice.
An Epic Animated Saga
Avatar: The Last Airbender can best be described as an animated fantasy series with the scope of a Chinese epic like Journey to the West or Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Set in an Asiatic alternate version of history, the world of Avatar is divided into nations based around the four elements: water, earth, fire, and air. Those within the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads who can control their nation’s respective element are gifted beings known as “benders.” However, there is only one person in the entire world who can control (bend) all four elements — the Avatar.
The Avatar maintains balance between all four nations and is the bridge between the physical world and the spirt world. When the Avatar dies, a new one is born into the next nation. The waterbender Avatar will be followed by an earthbender Avatar, then a firebender Avatar, then an airbender Avatar, and so on. This premise makes up the general lore of the series, with the viewer learning a new piece of information about this universe’s history and mythology as each episode goes on.
Avatar: The Last Airbender begins with the world seemingly having no Avatar at all. The globe is engulfed in a century-long war started by the Fire Nation which seeks to impose its will over the other nations through total conquest. After years of bloody battles with no resolution in sight, teenagers Katara and Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe accidentally release a 12-year-old airbender named Aang from suspended animation in a large block of ice while on a fishing trip. The first two episodes of the series reveal that Aang is indeed the next Avatar. He must accept his daunting responsibility to master the other three elements and bring an end to the Fire Nation’s war.
What immediately sets Avatar apart from other Nickelodeon shows is how high the stakes are and the grand scope of its sweeping narrative. I was seven years old when the series first aired, but even at such a young age I immediately had the sense that I was watching a grand story that would go to faraway places and be a trying quest for our heroes. While the lore is not quite as expansive as Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings, it clearly takes inspiration from those franchises with how it portrays a rich universe and the possibilities for adventure. Avatar manages to follow all the beats of the hero’s journey without feeling cliche, and it basically introduced Joseph Campbell’s concept to an entire generation of children.
But while Avatar is indeed a show that aired on a children’s network, it never talked down to them or insulted their intelligence. The series drew in a considerable audience of adult viewers due to the breadth of its serious themes from war to totalitarianism. Previous Nicktoons like Hey Arnold! and As Told By Ginger did touch upon mature topics, but the large scope of Avatar made it stand out from anything that ever came before or since. And as the title indicates, Aang is the last survivor of his people, which provides fertile ground for some of the show’s most thought-provoking character developments.
How to Write a Character Arc
One of the central aspects of Avatar’s lore is the genocide of the Air Nomads at the hands of the Fire Nation. Following the death of Avatar Roku, Fire Lord Sozin sent his armies to attack the four air temples across the world in order to kill the next Avatar before he could end his plans for global rule. However, Sozin is unsuccessful because Aang ran away from his responsibilities and ended up being frozen in ice for a hundred years as the Fire Nation fruitlessly searched for him.
Generations later, Fire Lord Ozai banishes his son Prince Zuko and mandates that he can only return to the Fire Nation after capturing the next Avatar. This makes Zuko the initial primary antagonist of the series as he attempts to hunt down Aang. We at first are lead to believe that Zuko is little more than an evil firebender, but soon realize that his backstory is a complex one.
As Zuko grapples with trying to regain his honor, Aang feels immense guilt for not being around to protect his people from genocide. We must remember that both characters are children placed in incredibly trying situations, but their respective growth is a central aspect of the series which makes it so compelling to watch. Aang and Zuko are obvious parallels to one another, representing how a tragic childhood need not define someone for the rest of their lives because one is ultimately in control of their own destiny.
This attention to writing deep character arcs extends to the rest of Avatar’s supporting cast. Sokka learns to overcome his biases against women and see them as equals while also honing in his own skills as a warrior and leader. Katara, as the last waterbender of the Southern Tribe, faces a similar situation to Aang, while their budding romance is something that grows naturally over the course of the series. The group is also eventually joined by a blind girl named Toph who becomes Aang’s earthbending teacher. While fiercely independent and standoffish at the beginning, she comes to understand the importance of teamwork and cooperation.
Perhaps the most acclaimed fan-favorite character is Iroh, Zuko’s uncle who acts as a mentor figure throughout his banishment. Once a respected general, Iroh became disgraced after failing to capture the Earth Kingdom capital Ba Sing Se due to grief over the death of his son. Like Zuko, we first believe that Iroh is on the side of evil, but over time we see that he holds wisdom that transcends the brutality of the Fire Nation. He’s a weary old soldier who would rather enjoy his twilight years with a cup of tea instead of fighting for a cause he doesn’t believe in anymore while hoping that he can push his nephew to a better place.
Avatar had a stellar cast of voice actors, but I must single out Mako Iwamatsu’s fantastic performance as Iroh. It was one of his last roles before he passed away in 2006 of esophageal cancer, and the show presented a moving tribute to him in the tear-jerker Season Two episode “The Tales of Ba Sing Se.” While Mako’s death was obviously an unforeseen event, his last turn as Iroh in the season finale is only made all the more impactful given the dark note it ends on.
The writers behind Avatar smartly show that not all firebenders are bad people, while not everyone in the other nations are moral paragons. Characters like Jet and Hama will hurt innocent civilians in order to achieve their goals, while Ba Sing Se is revealed to be a North Korea-like society where uncomfortable realities around the war are suppressed and the secret totalitarian government maintains complete control. These nuances make the world and people of Avatar feel believable when many shows viewed by children hardly feature the same level of depth. I’ve really only scratched the surface of everything one could take out of the series. It’s something that demands multiple rewatches, and I always get something new every time I revisit it.
A Living, Breathing World
Each nation and its people in Avatar are represented by beautiful color palettes and expansive backgrounds that take inspiration from the likes of Hayao Miyazaki and other Japanese anime. This is also reflected by the unique flora and fauna, with the latter being based on interesting combinations of animals. What other show can you think of that combines turtles and ducks into turtleducks?
Furthermore, the four elemental bending styles are directly based on real Chinese martial arts. The graceful movements of the waterbenders are tai chi, the strong stances and punches of earthbenders are Hung Gar, the dazzling strikes of the firebenders come from Northern Shaolin style, and the quick acrobatic movements of the airbenders take inspiration from Baguazhang. Avatar’s showrunners regularly consulted with fighting instructor Sifu Kisu to help guide the many inventive fight sequences throughout the series, and that attention to detail shows.
Avatar even went above and beyond with its inventive musical score. Composed by Jeremy Zuckerman, the music is performed on traditional Chinese instruments which appropriately match the show’s setting. From the grandiose main theme to more pensive cues, what we’re given is a gorgeous and eclectic soundscape that pulls considerable weight in making Avatar’s world feel convincing and lived-in. Fans long demanded an official release for the music, and that wish was finally granted in 2023 when Zuckerman re-recorded his original scores with an actual orchestra starting with the first season.
The historical and cultural allusions seen in the four nations are another inventive aspect, but Avatar’s creators did not wish to make sweeping generalizations. While the Fire Nation embarking on an imperialist conquest of the rest of the world obviously mirrors the Empire of Japan’s actions during World War II, the aesthetics of the country’s buildings and clothing are closer to that of China. Similarly, the vastness of the Earth Kingdom includes not just Chinese influences, but also Korean and even Middle Eastern ones.
The strong Asian elements of Avatar: The Last Airbender often result in the show being classified as an “anime,” but this is technically incorrect as it is an American series. Despite its Japanese influences, Japan was ironically where Avatar saw only limited popularity. This is mistakenly assumed to be due to the Fire Nation’s similarities to Imperial Japan, but the real reason is because Western television animation rarely sees much success in the Land of the Rising Sun. The first two seasons aired in 2007 on the Japanese version of Nickelodeon, a premium satellite channel that went defunct years ago. The third season would not receive a Japanese dub until 2016 for online streaming services, but with most of the cast changed with different (and in my opinion inferior) voice actors.
Live-Action Troubles
Watching all three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender will make it apparent that it was the result of all the right elements coming together, but it particularly works because animation allowed the show’s creators to come up with inventive visual storytelling that really couldn’t be achieved in any other medium. The critically-panned 2010 live-action film adaptation directed by M. Night Shyamalan only reaffirmed that notion.
Released two years after the conclusion of the original series, this adaptation titled as The Last Airbender to avoid confusion with James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar was, quite simply, a total disaster. By now Shyamalan’s trainwreck is the textbook example of what not to do when turning animation into live-action, having long been the subject of countless memes mocking its terrible interpretation of the source material. The Last Airbender attempts to cram the highlights of Season One into a single feature film, but trying to adapt 20 episodes into 100 minutes was always going to be a fool’s errand.
While the original Avatar inhabited a beautiful world full of rich possibilities, Shyamalan’s live-action environments are dull and lifeless. Despite having a production budget of $150 million, the visual effects are laughably terrible and a pale imitation of the visually stunning sequences that were produced in the animated series at a fraction of the cost. They couldn’t even pronounce Aang’s name right. While it’s easy to make fun of the child actors for their wooden performances, the fault really does lie with Shyamalan’s inept direction, and his recent output with hot dumpster fires like Old show that this is a consistent problem with the once-promising filmmaker.
It comes as no surprise that Avatar’s creators have publicly disowned The Last Airbender, with their involvement in the production having been minimal from the start. But this just speaks to the problems of most live-action adaptations and how they are often pointless retellings of stories better served in their original mediums. Some properties like Batman and Star Wars are flexible enough to be successful multimedia franchises, but Avatar: The Last Airbender truly is something that can’t really be done well in anything other than animation.
For example, this sequence from the series finale depicts an Agni Kai (“fire duel”) between Zuko and his sister Azula. At over 20 million views on YouTube as of this writing, it’s one of the most beloved scenes out of the entire show because it combines fluid animation, graceful movements, and fitting music into one magnificent display. The advent of modern CGI technology would of course make a live-action recreation technically possible, but something would inevitably be lost in the process due to the unnatural combination of real people and effects that aren’t actually there.
A Case of Sequelitis
Even if a live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is unlikely to be successful, what about a return to animation and a continuation of the original show? On paper, that’s what The Legend of Korra was supposed to be, but the final result was a mixed bag that fell well short of what made the first series the timeless masterpiece it still is now.
Premiering in 2012, The Legend of Korra is set 70 years after the events of the first Avatar series. Aang has passed away and his successor is a 17-year-old girl from the Southern Water Tribe named Korra who trains with his son Tenzin to master airbending. In contrast to the feudal setting of the previous show, Korra features what is essentially 1920s technology like radio and motorized vehicles, with Republic City being the new primary location.
The large tech jump between shows was somewhat controversial, but fans generally warmed up to it over time. Korra generally features the same attention to detail that was seen in Avatar and it makes sense that the show’s creators wanted to do something different instead of another retread. The animation was upgraded and the larger budget allowed for high quality music performed by a live ensemble right from the outset.
Unfortunately, the new characters are simply not as interesting as the original Team Avatar gang we came to know and love. None of them are bad in any sense (though I always found Korra to be less likable as a protagonist compared to Aang), but there’s a noticeable feeling of the writing being less tight and carefully planned. Avatar: The Last Airbender was the brainchild of Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, but the significant writing contributions of Aaron Ehasz on nearly every episode of the show was the important final ingredient that made Avatar what it was.
Ehasz had no involvement with Korra, and his absence is deeply felt. This does not in any way downplay the important roles DiMartino and Konietzko played, but some shows really do require a certain blend of contributors for everything to work. George Lucas may have planned the original Star Wars trilogy, but he still needed other writers, directors, and editors. It’s pretty obvious to me that the combination of these three writers is why Avatar was able to have such a winning blend of good ideas, while Korra felt less focused.
Korra’s problems also are the result of its rushed production and unexpected extension. It initially was meant to be a 12-episode mini-series, only to be given a second season of 14 more episodes. Following that, two more seasons were greenlit, bringing the total episode count to 52. The showrunners were at one point working on the second, third, and fourth seasons simultaneously with multiple new writers brought in. With that context in mind, it’s practically a miracle that Korra was finished at all, but its flaws are only all the more evident.
The Legend of Korra is ultimately not a bad show and it does expand upon the existing Avatar lore in interesting ways, but reaching the same level of greatness would have been tough under normal circumstances. Getting there on the pressure the showrunners were under was virtualy impossible. A decade after Korra ended, there are now plans for new animated projects under DiMartino and Konietzko’s Avatar Studios, but I continue to remain dubious that these will live up to the hype.
Political Revisionism
Another reason why I believe Avatar: The Last Airbender holds up so well is because of when it came out; namely during a time long before social media and when the Anglosphere wasn’t consumed by political culture wars around virtually every major film and television show. When Avatar aired from 2005 to 2008, the internet of course existed, but online discussion was limited to specialized fan forums. There was no Twitter discourse and certainly no posts like this, which would have probably sounded like a foreign language to someone from nearly 20 years ago.
While not an original observation by any means, I really do believe that the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States in 2016 lowered the overall quality of Western pop culture. It’s no secret that most of Hollywood leans left, but liberal anger toward Trump and the MAGA movement continues to surround much of modern media being produced today. There’s nothing wrong of course with creators using entertainment to express their political views, but there’s a difference between a thought-provoking story and unsubtle propaganda.
Avatar was made long before our current polarized era, but its creators are currently embarking on a bizarre move of weird political revisionism around the show’s themes. After the death of George Floyd in 2020, countless organizations, businesses, and entertainment companies responded with extreme overcorrection, often amounting to groveling apologies for things no one was really much offended over in the first place. Amid the general frustration of people being kept indoors during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Avatar came to Netflix and saw a newfound spark in viewership.
Unlike in 2005, we had social media in 2020. Millions of old and new viewers believed Avatar reflected modern times with issues like racial unrest and COVID-19, but did it really? In a comment to The Washington Post, Michael Dante DiMartino stated:
“The major issues in the stories — genocide, totalitarianism, systemic injustice, abuse — sadly, these have been pervasive issues throughout history and continue to be. The show is a reflection of our world. But now, we happen to be living through a time in which all these problems have been exacerbated.”
Needless to say, I strongly disagree with that framing. While George Floyd shouldn’t have been killed, the number of unarmed black suspects dying at the hands of white police officers is nothing close to a genocide. The swift trial and sentencing of Derek Chauvin has continued to be upheld, with even the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting his push for an appeal. I have always been critical of Black Lives Matter due to its blatant communist origins, and the revelations that its leaders have used its funds to buy mansions has only vindicated such scrutiny.
The creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender are entitled to their personal views, but their recent comments give me pause on whether future Avatar projects will demonstrate the same restraint the original show did. It didn't try to push any kind of political agenda or be a parallel to any specific contemporary issue because that would have immediately dated the series. Avatar was for everyone, but there is enough reason to fear that its upcoming sequels and spin-offs may only just follow contemporary trends and be unsubtle political posturing as a result.
More Live-Action Troubles
As of this publication, yet another live-action adaption of Avatar: The Last Airbender is set for release later this month; a brand new Netflix series that will adapt Season One of the show into eight hour-long episodes. Will things be different this time? Unfortunately, I highly doubt it.
The first sign of trouble arose in 2020 when Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko announced their departure from the live-action series. Citing creative differences, the duo in no uncertain terms stated that Netflix did not share the same vision and that they would be unable to come to a mutually agreed direction. This did not necessarily mean that the show was doomed to fail, but it was not a promising development.
Fan responses were more positive when the first full trailer debuted in November 2022, but I never was on the hype train. I strongly dislike this modern trend we’re constantly seeing of so many television series and films being absurdly dark. And I don’t mean dark content, I mean being literally dark to the point where you can hardly make out what’s on screen. The original animated Avatar knew how to use beautiful colors, while the Netflix adaptation is going for the same boring drab look you’ve seen a hundred times in other series like Game of Thrones.
And speaking of Game of Thrones, the Netflix executives seem to have no idea who Avatar: The Last Airbender is actually for in their odd attempt to appeal to that show’s audience. Because both, uh, are fantasy I guess. The new Avatar series will actually depict the genocide of the Air Nomads, an event that was only talked about in the animated show. While the genocide was likely not previously shown due to concerns over content appropriate for children’s television, the Avatar showrunners knew that it was more effective for the viewer to leave it to their own imagination. Take this haunting scene with Aang’s deceased mentor Monk Gyatso:
In the third episode of the series, Aang visits his home at the Southern Air Temple for the first time in a hundred years expecting to meet other airbenders, only to come to the brutal realization that all of his people have been killed. The shock of this hits him when he sees the skeletal remains of his teacher Gyatso surrounded by other Fire Nation corpses. We have no idea how Gyatso died, but it’s strongly implied that he sucked all the air out of the room, killing himself and everyone else in the process.
While brief, this one scene lets the viewer speculate both on how brutal the Air Nomad genocide must have been and how deadly airbenders could actually be in a fight despite being an outwardly peaceful people. This just begs the question for me — what could the live-action adaptation possibly do better in explicitly showing this? While I’m not against the genocide being depicted, I think its portrayal is unlikely to come close to the images we’ve created in our heads. Sometimes the most effective storytelling is what you don’t actually see.
Other announcements in recent weeks have only added more fuel to speculation that the Netflix writers really don’t understand Avatar. Sokka’s sexist attitudes seen at the beginning of Season One will be toned down, despite those traits being vital for his character growth. Aang is apparently going to be less distracted, even though that was also part of his transition from an immature kid to an Avatar aware of his responsibilities. Could the show still be enjoyable even with these changes? Possibly, but I think it’s become very clear why DiMartino and Konietzko wanted nothing to do with it.
So here we are over 15 years after Avatar: The Last Airbender ended. Since then we’ve had a horrible live-action movie, a very flawed animated sequel series, and soon yet another live-action adaptation that will inevitably just be an inferior retelling of a great story we’ve already experienced. Again I ask — what’s the point of all this?
It’s understandable that film and television primarily exist as an entertainment business to turn in a profit, but the last decade has resulted in audiences utterly tired of endless sequels, remakes, and reboots that serve as little more than cheap cash-ins. Avatar: The Last Airbender is just the next property in line to receive this treatment, and perhaps that was always inevitable given its sheer popularity.
But I do believe that you can have too much of a good thing, and Avatar never needed multiple live-action adaptations or an upcoming slate of *yearly* sequels that run the high risk of turning this franchise into the MCU or Star Wars in their current state of watered-down mediocrity. Success is something that all creators crave and a lasting legacy is only achieved by a very select few. Avatar: The Last Airbender has nothing left to prove.
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There was one scene in the original series that feels relevant to mid-2000s politics to me in retrospect. When Zuko confronts Ozai he laments being taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest country in history and that the war was their way of sharing that greatness with the rest of the world. Iraq War commentary?
Agreed. I saw Airbender in its entirety after it came out on Netflix’s streaming service (2012, I believe), and yes, it was excellent television. Is a masterpiece like this one even possible today? (As a side note, Aaron Ehasz went on to do his own show: The Dragon Prince. I haven’t seen that one, though.)