Avatar: The Last Airbender

The only other Nickelodeon show I think I’ve seen is Invader Zim. Now that I’m not 8 years old anymore, I generally don’t tune into that channel. However, I am a nerd, and according the the current nerd consensus, I am required to watch this show that aired a few years ago. I remember seeing ads in stores and whatnot for it and being generally dismissive of them. Apparently I shouldn’t have done that. It took a crappy movie to bring the discussion of this show’s merits up enough to get me interested.

So the show is about this kid Aang who is the reincarnation of a line of powerful “benders,” or people with the ability to manipulate the traditional elements with martial arts. He’s been frozen in a giant ball of ice for a hundred years while the world is ravaged a by a war that began in his absence, perpetrated by the obviously evil Fire Nation. He’s discovered by a brother and sister from a Water tribe and thus begins their three-season adventure and quest to end the war.

Since Aang is a kid, he hasn’t had time to master the four elements; he was born an Airbender and he’s pretty good at that, which is a good thing because all the other Airbenders are dead at this point, presumably from a sort of Herodic holocaust meant to get rid of him, which he missed by running away and getting himself frozen. He still has to learn the other three though and in a specific order for a reason that isn’t really explained beyond a traditional association with the four seasons. This leads to a lot of traveling and meeting esoteric characters of varying interest in locales firmly compartmented into the four elemental categories. The core cast grows a bit, including the antagonists who are really quite well developed, although those who are given special attention of course eventually join the main group to be good guys.

Each season ends with an epic battle of sorts, in line with the Tolkein method of fantasy, which is a pretty solid method to follow. These battles lead up to the finale where Aang has to face the Fire Lord, and make the decision whether to kill him or let him live, since this is a kid’s show the outcome is pretty easy to predict for the most part. I think it ended well enough though.

It isn’t all business, far from it. Especially in the first season it’s a very goofy show, pretty much what you’d expect for an American kids’ comedy, but usually not embarrassingly so; it borrows a ton from Japanese animation in both drawing style and cultural themes, but leaves out most of the crap. Its been said that a lot of it is very similar to Studio Ghibli’s stuff which is anything but a criticism. As the show progresses it gets less and less goofy and more ominous, while keeping the light-hearted fun from being totally stifled with somewhat filler-y bits. The action scenes are always a treat, and some of the romance is almost entertaining but usually just pretty awkward.

There are a bunch of references to other shows, not all animated, like the creepy violin crescendo from Lost after Aang realizes he’s on a weird island, and one episode is filled with anime references in a string of dream sequences. Incidentally both of these episodes were in the third season which I thought was by far the strongest.

It’s a pretty fun show all told, although I don’t think it really hit me as hard as most people I’ve heard talk about it. Certainly not as much as it affected M. Knight Shamalamadingdong. I don’t plan on ever watching his interpretation; this show should not be brought to the big screen, it’s just too much of a comedic/action epic to treated properly without making it stupid, as proven. So if you’ve written the show off based on that monstrosity, please reconsider and check this out for some good clean fun. It’s on Netflix instant watch, so there’s not a whole lot stopping you.