Avatar: The Last Airbender
Jan. 13th, 2014 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckro"Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world."
This show is clever, witty, delightfully progressive along racial and gender lines, a good mix of drama and humor, and not so scary that I wouldn’t let a younger child watch it. (Though admittedly, my son only cares about the closing credit music right now and ignores everything else.) They have a particularly good conservation of detail, constantly pulling back characters and events from previous episodes to tie the story together.
It took them a while—maybe half the first season—to stabilize the characterization, particularly on things like Sokka’s intelligence. Once they got that, they did a good job of remembering that while the characters were all very talented and capable, they were also all still kids. The adults also often get to still be very capable, particularly the ones who are supposed to be incredible masters—and every time one of the kids goes up against a particularly capable adult, they either win through superior numbers and happenstance (the only times Iroh loses) or because the adult had a reason to go easy on them (Katara against the waterbending master, Sokka against the sword master). Well, okay, that doesn’t apply to Toph fighting other earthbenders, but Toph also invented an advanced discipline of earthbending that even Bumi didn’t know, so she’s just that good.
Nitpicks: Either the world is tiny or Appa moves very fast. (Or more specifically, Appa moves at the speed of plot, which is faster as the show goes on.) The resolution of Aang’s blocked chakra was a bit of a cheat. The white lotus token Sokka’s master gave him looked like it should have been more of a plot hook than it was (it seemed like more than just simply indicating he was part of that society). Katara’s ability to blood-bend was only briefly referenced once after being introduced, and the issues with it were never really resolved. (Similarly, Toph’s space-earth bracelet was never really used.)
Unresolved questions that probably come up in the sequel series: What happened to Zuko’s mother? What did they do with Azula after Katara took her down? What was the Earth King doing during all of season 3? What happened to Sokka’s space sword? Each of the other elements has an advanced technique (lightning, metalbending, blood-bending), so what was the Air one?
Overall: The entire series is collected on DVD, or available to watch for free via Amazon Prime streaming. Highly recommended.
This show is clever, witty, delightfully progressive along racial and gender lines, a good mix of drama and humor, and not so scary that I wouldn’t let a younger child watch it. (Though admittedly, my son only cares about the closing credit music right now and ignores everything else.) They have a particularly good conservation of detail, constantly pulling back characters and events from previous episodes to tie the story together.
It took them a while—maybe half the first season—to stabilize the characterization, particularly on things like Sokka’s intelligence. Once they got that, they did a good job of remembering that while the characters were all very talented and capable, they were also all still kids. The adults also often get to still be very capable, particularly the ones who are supposed to be incredible masters—and every time one of the kids goes up against a particularly capable adult, they either win through superior numbers and happenstance (the only times Iroh loses) or because the adult had a reason to go easy on them (Katara against the waterbending master, Sokka against the sword master). Well, okay, that doesn’t apply to Toph fighting other earthbenders, but Toph also invented an advanced discipline of earthbending that even Bumi didn’t know, so she’s just that good.
Nitpicks: Either the world is tiny or Appa moves very fast. (Or more specifically, Appa moves at the speed of plot, which is faster as the show goes on.) The resolution of Aang’s blocked chakra was a bit of a cheat. The white lotus token Sokka’s master gave him looked like it should have been more of a plot hook than it was (it seemed like more than just simply indicating he was part of that society). Katara’s ability to blood-bend was only briefly referenced once after being introduced, and the issues with it were never really resolved. (Similarly, Toph’s space-earth bracelet was never really used.)
Unresolved questions that probably come up in the sequel series: What happened to Zuko’s mother? What did they do with Azula after Katara took her down? What was the Earth King doing during all of season 3? What happened to Sokka’s space sword? Each of the other elements has an advanced technique (lightning, metalbending, blood-bending), so what was the Air one?
Overall: The entire series is collected on DVD, or available to watch for free via Amazon Prime streaming. Highly recommended.
