Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender Trailer Breakdown: The Gaang Takes Live-Action Flight
Netflix has earned a lot of goodwill from animation fans thanks to its rather successful live-action adaptation of "One Piece." Now, the streamer is hoping to cash in on that with its next big live-action remake of a hugely popular animated show: "Avatar: The Last Airbender."
Like the original, Netflix's "Last Airbender" is a fantasy epic set in a world where people can control one of the four elements (water, earth, fire, and air), but only the Avatar can wield all of them. The show follows Aang (Gordon Cormier) as the titular Avatar, a 12-year-old who has to learn to master the elements in order to stop the evil Fire Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim) from conquering the world. Thankfully, he isn't alone. Along for the ride are Katara (Kiawentiio) and Sokka (Ian Ousley) — as well as Fire Nation prince Zuko (Dallas Liu), who vowed to capture the Avatar to reclaim his honor.
"The Last Airbender" has already suffered from controversy, with its original showrunners Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko — the creators of the animated "Last Airbender" series — having left the live-action remake due to creative differences and having been replaced by Albert Kim ("Sleepy Hollow"). Now, after what feels like years of small teases and plenty of casting announcements, we have finally gotten our first real look at the live-action re-imagining in the form of a teaser trailer.
Whether you're a fan of the original animated "Last AIrbender" trying to decipher every single frame for clues, or you have no idea what an Appa is (much less why he's a big deal), this breakdown is for you.
Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked
The trailer begins with a sight fans of the original cartoon have not seen before. We see Sozin's comet in the sky and firebenders invading an Air Temple. We also see a group of Air Nomads fight back against their conquerors with their staffs.
For better or worse, it seems "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is going the route of "One Piece" in remixing events and adding in things we never saw happen in its animated predecessor. This is very clearly the Air Nomad Genocide, the event in which the Fire Nation eradicated the entire Air Nation while looking for Aang. It is the event that kickstarted the animated "Last Airbender," yet we only learned about it from Katara and glimpsed its aftermath when Aang visited the Southern Air Temple and found the skeletons of the nomads.
The teaser appears to indicate we'll see the genocide play out in live-action, at least some of it. Given the teaser is accompanied by voice-over delivered by Lim Kay Siu's Monk Gyatso, it is likely this is the attack on the Southern Air Temple. We may even see Gyatso fight off firebenders (there are many theories about how he managed to take down a dozen of them before dying).
There are several problems with showing us this scene, particularly if it's the first thing we see. For one, it sort of ruins the emotional impact of the first time we realize why Aang is the "Last Airbender" if we see them all die off. We don't need to see Gyatso's sacrifice to have Aang coming across his corpse hit like a ton of bricks.
More than that, showing us the attack on the Air Nomads indicates a huge change in tone compared to the cartoon.
Omashu stands tall
Much of the teaser is spent just showing us the various locations we'll visit throughout the story of "Avatar: The Last Airbender." One of the appeals of the original cartoon was its road trip nature, with the main characters visiting dozens of towns, villages, temples, and cities across the four nations.
Granted, the teaser mostly just shows what a good job the series' VFX team did in creating future wallpapers, but still. Seeing the kingdom of Omashu in all its glory, with its many slides and chutes, is still rather fantastic. We also see Crescent Island where Roku's shrine is, as well as the iceberg where a certain kid with arrow tattoos is trapped.
We know the live-action remake used the StageCraft technology for many of its scenes (via The Verge), and that is clear in shots like Katara and Sokka encountering the iceberg, for better or worse. We don't know how well the CG backgrounds will integrate with the practical sets and set pieces, but for now, it's at least encouraging to see that the design of the world feels right for "The Last Airbender."
The warriors
The world of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is one of the most fleshed-out, mythology-rich fantasy settings out there, regardless of medium. Like "Lord of the Rings," it has a profound sense of history, culture, and geography. Each new town we visited in the cartoon felt unique, even those from the same nation.
Case in point, Kyoshi Island. Within the huge Earth Kingdom, we came across this small island early in season 1 of the "Last Airbender" animated series. It is an island devoted to Aang's predecessor, Avatar Kyoshi. The island is protected by an elite group of warriors known as — you guessed it — the Kyoshi Warriors. This is an order of female warriors, all wearing heavily armored green kimonos and face paint designed to look like Avatar Kyoshi's attire.
Not only does the Kyoshi Warriors' costuming and makeup look incredible in the live-action version, but it shows that the series is not just going to revisit the big, epic moments from the original cartoon. It is also going to give us the smaller, town-of-the-week stories that made the original show so endearing and beloved.
Enter the spirit world
Speaking of smaller episodes, immediately after the shot of the Kyoshi Warriors, we get a glimpse at one of the best episodes of the animated "Avatar: The Last Airbender" — "The Forest." Without going into many spoilers, it was an episode where the Gaang tried to calm an angry spirit that had been attacking a town near a forest.
It was an important episode because it is one of the first times where the show explored the role of the Avatar as not just a superhero, but a spiritual leader. Aang was forced into the role of fantasy hero by circumstance, but his job is to be a bridge between worlds, a mediator between humans and spirits. This became a hugely important theme as the story went on, particularly in the excellent animated sequel series, "The Legend of Korra."
"The Last Airbender" is not just inspired by Eastern aesthetics, it is also very influenced by spirituality and mythology. The world Aang lives in is one of many spirits, some good and some bad. It is also a world ravaged by war and the show often explores the effects war and industrialization have on nature — just one of the many ways this franchise is heavily influenced by Studio Ghibli.
Agni Kai
One of the biggest worries coming into the live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender" was how it would handle the bending. This was a hugely important element of the cartoon, and the last time someone tried to do it in live-action (not naming names, but you know who I'm referring to), the result was catastrophic. Thankfully, there are no 10-minute sequences just to lift a measly rock off the ground here. Though we mostly just see firebending in the teaser, it is already enough to make me quite excited for the action in the show.
Fire is notoriously hard to pull off convincingly in CGI form, but the teaser's firebending looks stunning. We see Zuko pull off a firebending kick mid-air, and also we see a pivotal scene from the show play out.
It is the Agni Kai, the firebending duel that kickstarted Zuko's journey. That scene played out in one of the best episodes of the original cartoon, one that was also a key turning point for the series and saw it transition from a fun and layered cartoon into a true epic.
That being said, it isn't all good. Though the casting looks great in general, the makeup on Zuko, particularly his scar, is rather disappointing. He is a kid initially defined by that scar, which severely burnt most of his face and even his ear. Here, it just looks like a black eye that will heal in a couple of days.
The Gaang is here
First things first. Appa looks absolutely incredible and Netflix execs are clowns if they don't cash in on Appa plushies.
The teaser doesn't focus much on the look of the characters and the world. This means we don't get any dialogue other than the voice-over. That being said, the tone the teaser is selling is not giving me a lot of confidence that this will capture the essence of "The Last Airbender."
That's because the original cartoon was, well, a kids' show. Sure, it had rather dark themes and complex moments and stories, but it was still a fun show full of silly gags. Season 1, in particular, was the most childish in tone and humor out of the three. More episodes were never a guarantee for this series, so in addition to grandiose moments of action and lore, there were plenty of fun little adventures, especially in the beginning before the cartoon established itself properly. This meant episodes like the one where Aang tired to disguise himself as an old man with the totally normal and serious name Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis ... the Third.
The teaser seems too preoccupied with selling the fantasy epic with a vast world and cool action that has become the legacy of the cartoon — rather than what it actually was. For every epic fight, for every heartbreaking rendition of "Leaves from the Vine," there was a rather silly moment to balance it. You cannot claim to properly capture what made "Avatar: The Last Airbender" so influential and beloved if you only focus on one aspect. It has to be the totality of it.
If Netflix's "The Last Airbender" is to succeed, it needs to understand that the show can be enjoyed by adults, but is still for and about kids.
Put that thing back where it came from or so help me
Realistic live-action Momo will never stop being horrifying. Just look at that thing! Nightmare fuel...
On that note, "Avatar: The Last Airbender" begins streaming on Netflix on February 22, 2024.