Creating a story that works for all ages is a magic trick that has proven to be much harder than it looks. There is a reason that fans don’t just like series and franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings, but instead speak of them with almost holy reverence. A piece of entertainment that manages to be captivating to a young mind while simultaneously giving an older one deeper and richer thematic and emotional ideas to chew on, that’s a holy grail well worth chasing.
Avatar- The Last Airbender belongs in the conversation with those stories and series mentioned above. If all you know is the crappy live action movie that M. Night pumped out right before he smashed the career reset button and switched to making low budget, invigorating schlock, then boy oh boy do you have something special to look forward to. Avatar- The Last Airbender creates a world just as vivid and well-defined as Middle Earth, Narnia, or any you might name, and it populates that world with incredibly realized characters and a host of rip-roaring adventures.
Avatar- The Last Airbender: The Complete Series is now on Blu-ray in North America, just in time for the tenth anniversary of the series finale. This boxset brings the entire sprawling saga together into one gorgeous package, as well as a whole host of special features including commentaries, Making Ofs, animatics, and much more bonus material. This show has long been a crown jewel in the recent history of Nickelodeon, and the complete series boxset suggests that all involved are well-aware of just how valuable it is.
Avatar- The Last Airbender opens with the world in a state of near-constant war. The world of Avatar is divided into four nations, each defined by one of the four elements (so you have the Water Tribes of the North and South Pole, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads). Certain individuals in each nation have the ability to ‘bend’ their native element, using varying variations on classical martial arts (waterbending’s movements are derived from Tai Chi, for example). Into every generation is born the Avatar, the lone bender capable of wielding all four elements, and charged with maintaining the balance between nations and bridging the material world with the spirit realm (oh yes, there is a spirit realm).
But a hundred years ago, the Avatar suddenly vanished and the Fire Nation attacked, plunging the globe into seemingly never-ending conflict. Until one day, young waterbender Katara (voiced by Mae Whitman [yes, her]) and her brother Sokka (voiced by Jack DeSena) stumble over a young boy and his pet giant flying bison (look, it’s a whole…it makes sense in context!) frozen in an iceberg. When they release him, they discover A) the boy’s name is Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen), B) he is the last surviving Airbender after his people were wiped out a century ago, and C) this goofy, carefree kid is the new Avatar, making him the only hope for saving the world.
The new friends set out to help Aang master all four elements, though they quickly find themselves in the crosshairs of Prince Zuko (voiced by Dante Basco), a scarred, exiled prince of the Fire Nation desperate to capture the Avatar in order to restore his honor and place in the royal family.
Avatar-The Last Airbender errs on the side of kid-friendly fare throughout its earliest episodes, and even as it progresses into darker, more mature places over the course of its three-seasons, it never totally abandons its way with slapstick pratfalls or, well, cartoonish exaggeration in the animation. But even in these early goings, showrunners Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, and head writer Aaaron Ehasz, show their willingness to go to extremely rough places with their story, bluntly tackling subjects ranging from genocide to abusive familial relationships. As the show continues, the writers grow more confident in their ability to play with their narrative structures, and the animators and directors grow more confident in their skills with action and character.
There’s a sense of boundless invention throughout the show, from the way episodes completely break from expected formats and skip merrily through time and perspectives, to the sheer number of uses that the creative time find for the various types of bending. I promise, whatever weird ‘What If’ you can think of with regards to how the powers can work, they’ve thought of it, and there’s most likely an episode dealing with it. Even taking the supernatural angle out of things, the various duels, skirmishes, and full-on battles are beautiful in their construction. They aren’t ‘good for animation’ or ‘good for a kids’ show’. They are just GOOD. Full stop. And the animated format gives the creative team license to blend numerous genres and tones together, depending on the needs of the episode. “Zuko Alone” for example, is a season two episode that gleefully recreates the mythic sweep of a Sergio Leone western, albeit within the greater context of the show’s world.
Which means that it’s a Sergio Leone western where, when one guy throws a punch, fire comes out of his hand, which is scientifically proven to be the greatest great thing in the history of ever.
The show’s supernatural element adds tons of flavor to the action, but it also brings forth a surprisingly sincere spiritual bent. The series cribs and borrows from a wide variety of philosophies and beliefs, and it would be easy for this to be culturally-plundered background noise, window-dressing for the carefully coordinated cartoon punch-ups. But the show actually engages with this material in a very real way, at times even capturing the feelings of awe and almost primal wonder that you find in a Miyazaki movie. While Avatar- The Last Airbender is consistently amusing (and at times flat-out hilarious) it never once demeans to a level of snark or irony when approaching these subjects, and it makes the whole that much richer.
Re-watching Avatar- The Last Airbender for this review, I was blown away all over again by just what a high-wire act this show really is. While every so often an individual episode will stumble into obnoxious kiddie pandering (each season features one [1] episode that’s a total write-off), the vast, vast majority of the show is as good as any genre show that’s ever aired on American television, up there with the likes of Buffy or Battlestar. And that quality just keeps multiplying with each successive season, as the creative team continues to gain more and more confidence in themselves and their abilities. The Blu-ray accentuates the bright color palette and ravishing visual design of the series, proving that even a decade on, the show remains an intoxicating watch.
The best children’s stories are those that grow up with their audience, and I fully expect that many folks who tuned in to Avatar- The Last Airbender as kids will revisit it now and be blown away both by how much of the show holds up to scrutiny, and at just how far the show was willing to push certain material. And hopefully this boxset will only help create a new generation of younger fans, delivering the needed does of martial arts, monsters, magic, and undiluted mania that every growing mind needs.