Avatar Aang: I Wanted to Love It

No Spoilers!

I want to begin by stating that I am a massive fan of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender TV series and have watched the full series several times. It is as close to perfect (in many people’s opinion) as a series can be. Suffice to say, I was excited for this new film. Particularly as it was based on a story by the original creators: Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. The film was also the first film produced by Avatar Studios, which is run by the aforementioned series creators. Avatar Studios was founded after Konietzko’s and DiMartino’s exit from Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender TV series due to the classic ‘creative differences’. In an open letter to fans regarding their exit, DiMartino stated the live-action series would not be what “…Bryan and I had envisioned or intended to make.” (DiMartino, 2020)

Incidentally, this is why I have not watched the live-action series due to some weird sense of loyalty to the original creators (and I’m sure they are grateful). So I could watch Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender guilt-free!

And it was…ok…

Now, to be completely fair, the original TV series is an incredibly hard act to follow. Pretty much universally beloved, any spinoffs would have to be exceptional. And there was so much to like about this film. For starters, despite there being four instances of fan service in the first 11 minutes and 3 seconds of the film (oh yes, I counted), the film’s creators actually showed a lot of restraint in this area. With such a wide cast of characters in the original series, there were no shoehorned cameos or throwaway comments. Despite this, the world still felt comfortingly familiar.

As the title suggests, we are now following a 25-year-old Aang who is still grappling with the genocide of his people and culture 113 years previous. The heavy tone is balanced by the re-introduction of ‘The GAang’ now 13 years older. Seeing Katara, Sokka, our boy Zuzu (Zuko), and Toph in their respective careers made me instantly think: yes! We are back to form! In our element dare I say?

The production made the conscious decision to recast the characters’ original voices in order to respect their racial and ethnic backgrounds. I applaud this decision, but I must admit I did miss the original voice actors, particularly Dante Basco’s dulcet tones! But the new cast did embody the characters, particularly Sokka (Román Zaragoza).

Stating the obvious but, of course, the animation was beautiful. Every frame was so engaging in its attention to detail. The fight scenes were particularly well done, so energetic and got my heart rate going, I’m not gonna lie! It’s the one aspect I would say that is better than the original series.

The story itself was somewhat basic with the introduction of a ‘McGuffin’ (a magical staff) early on. The new character of Tagah was somewhat uninspiring (though voiced to perfection by Dave Bautista). Tagah is powerful, idealistic, can fly, and, as mentioned ad nauseam, extremely handsome. My husband described him as an ‘Air-Chad’. He is not exactly fleshed out, so you don’t feel anything for him, whether it be sympathy or hate, which makes him quite a weak character.

To sum up the film’s biggest problem, there simply wasn’t enough screen time. The film’s runtime is 99 minutes, and in that time they try to introduce too many ideas, none of which can be fully explored. The Avatar universe is a masterclass in world-building with rich history and lore; it is hard to pack all of that into a feature film. Scenes felt rushed, and characters such as the antagonists, the Denied, a group of non-bending warriors who wish to overthrow bending supremacy, were glossed over.

What made the original series so great was the character development. Yes, it was a fantasy epic, but at its heart it was character-driven. The highest-rated episodes of the series were the bottle episodes, which didn’t develop the overarching storyline, but you found out more about the characters. The film felt like it was skipping over the character development to get to the (admittedly very good) fight scenes. Zuko’s redemption arc has been lauded as the best in TV history. What made it so great? It was earned; over the series we saw Zuko develop from basic villain into a complex character who you would end up cheering for. Avatar Aang rushes to the payoff without it feeling earned.

It would have been better if the story was developed into a TV series where all of the half-baked ideas could have been explored and characters, both new and old, could have their moment to shine.

As Katara says in the film, The Avatar ‘brings balance to chaos,’ and the film certainly needed more of the franchise’s masterful storytelling to balance out the numerous action scenes.

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