Have you ever watched a show when you were younger that you watched out of bored when nothing good is on tv, not knowing it has a special place in your heart later on? That is Avatar: The Last Airbender for me. I grew up watching nickelodeon as a kid and saw the original back in 2005 on that channel. When the live action remake came out, I had to see it.

What is it about?

Long ago, the four elements or the four nations were united as one with peace and harmony until the fire nation attacked. For 100 years, the people were wanting the avatar, the master of four elements, to bring peace, and end the war. And all that responsibility lands on the shoulders of a young boy, who is the last of his kind.

Characters

Aang

Aang is 12 year old boy from the Air Nomads who is destined to be the avatar and bring balance to the world. Prior to his 100 year freeze, he was brought up by monks and is very advanced despite his age. But alike his young age, he is brave, kind, wise, connects well with others, and optimistic. But since he’s a kid with big responsibilities, he has his doubts and moments as well as motivation to do better.

Katara

A young water bender and Sokka’s little sister Katara is caring, mother-like especially towards Aang. She can also be feisty at times, especially when it comes to her brother being a pain in the butt as well as protective and driven. She is also a young woman with alot of trauma herself, seeing the fire raid and her mother being killed right in front of her. Overtime, her confidence and inner fire evolves and so does her water bending abilities. With no master to teach her, she quickly rose the ranks to water bending master.

Sokka

Sokka is a warrior from the southern water tribe and Katara’s older brother. When his father left, he was in charge of being leader of the tribe at 13. He is sarcastic, protective of his sister, sometimes underestimates those around him and gets himself into trouble, but also caring, brave, and funny. And his humor can stem from his moments of cowardice. But overtime, he has become more adventurous and gets a few girls here and there, including a Kyoshi warrior and a part moon spirit part Northern Tribe princess.

Zuko

Sporting a nasty burn scar and bending an element similar to his rage, the fire prince’s one mission is to take down the avatar to bring honor and love back from his father. Aside from being a hothead, he is driven, headstrong, loyal, but also compassionate. He does show that compassion toward the 41st that results in his banishment and scar. Overall, Zuko was a young man conflicted between what his father wants of him and his own character.

Uncle Iroh

a military general and Zuko’s uncle and mentor. He is also a negotiator, a tea connoisseur, a foodie, and a sports fan. He is not just old and wise, but patient, caring especially with his nephew, mild mannered, and kind to everyone whether it’s friend or foe. After the loss of his son, he steps down from being next in line to allow his younger brother to take over and treats his nephew like his son when his younger brother couldn’t do the same. Especially after the loss of his son Lu Ten.

Episode summaries

The first episode starts off in capitol city where the fire lord, Sozin, sets eyes on the avatar and thus orders his men to kill all the air nomads because he believes the avatar lives among them. Meanwhile, the air nomads council discuss about the fire nations upcoming attack, aid from other nations, and preparing Aang for becoming the avatar due to his advanced skills among the monks at a young age. During the comet festival preparations, Aang’s mentor describes the story of the avatar and broke the news that Aang is one.

In which troubles Aang and he doesn’t want to be special regardless. After Aang and his sky bison Appa left, Sozin and the fire nation attacked the air nomads, resulting in a genocide and mass destruction. Meanwhile Aang and Appa were having a hard time getting through the stormy seas and eventually got lost at sea. A century later, a young water bending apprentice, Katara and her older brother Sokka were bickering when they stumbled upon Aang in ice, whom has awoken and in an avatar state, which caught the attention of Zuko, the banished fire prince. Katara insisted on bringing him to camp while Sokka is a little skeptical. Once Aang is officially awake, he notices that he is in the water tribe, introduces himself to Sokka and searches for Appa and Appa comes to Aang. After telling his last memories before going down, Gran Gran tells the story of what happened in the last century in which overwhelmed Aang. Luckily Katara console him telling him about her story, the fire raids, the loss of her mother, her father leaving with other warriors. While trying to water bend, Aang gave her some advice that he learned from the monks about bending and that helped Katara quite a bit. When Zuko arrived, he gave the tribe an order: turn the avatar over or the fire army will burn the place to the ground. Sokka was about to turn him in due to Aang’s cowardice, but Katara changed his mind and he confronted Zuko man to man but was unmatched by Zuko’s fire bending powers. When it looks like Zuko is about to finish Sokka, Aang comes in to save him. Just as the fire nation was about to burn the village down, Aang gave himself up, with Katara and Sokka chasing behind and Appa helping out. After a peaceful conversation with Uncle Iroh, Aang was able to free himself and get off the ship but got knocked off wind by Zuko. After being saved by his new friends, Zuko sends another fireball but Katara uses her water bending for defense. After realizing they can’t go back for everyone’s safety, they went to the old air temple to find it deserted and all of Aang’s friends and even mentor dead, which upsets Aang so much that he gets into avatar mode, sending the siblings running. Once he is out of the avatar mode, Katara runs and comforts Aang. With drive and a new mission, he sets his sights to becoming the next avatar and learn how to be one.

The second episode starts off with Zuko having a tantrum and searching for his notebook while Uncle Iron tries to console him and give him guidance. After the siblings bicker about following Aang and returning home or not, Aang finds Momo, the winged lemur in Katara’s bag and Katara finds a note from Gran Gran and instructions on how to master the skill of water bending. Before leaving for Kyoshi Island, Aang did a memorial for his friend and mentor, who died during the genocide. Upon arrival at Kyoshi Island, they were ambushed by a group of female warriors called Kyoshi Warriors. Luckily the statue of Kyoshi revealed Aang to be the avatar despite the warriors not believing Katara at first. Aang was able convince the council of the island to learn and visit for a limited time despite the island not wanting any invaders. During the visit, Sokka tries to get close with Suki, a Kyoshi warrior, and learn to fight better, Katara and Aang learned more about avatar Kyoshi and her backstory and Aang learned that he can connect with the past avatars inside. Meanwhile, Commander Zhao already knows about Zuko’s plan and is one step ahead. With that knowledge, Aang was able to connect with Kyoshi in whom was able to counsel him with a bit of tough love. Right when Suki and Sokka were about to kiss, the town alarm sounded and the fire army arrived. Luckily the Kyoshi warriors were able to attack with no notice along with Sokka’s newly trained skills. While Aang is in the spirit world with Kyoshi, Katara was able to fend of Zuko and his men. And when Katara is cornered, Kyoshi’s spirit fended Zuko off as well as Zhao’s men. And it was revealed that under Kyoshi’s spirit was Aang. Due to the dangers he puts everyone in, Suki insists they leave and the councilwoman accepted Aang as the avatar. Before departing for the safety of the island, Suki kissed Sokka and gave him her weapon, a fan. With Kyoshi’s advice, the trio head north to save the northern water tribe and the master the art of water bending. When reconnecting, Zuko warned Zhao not to tell anyone about the avatar, and Zhao insists on joining forces with the prince. And sends word to Fire Lord Ozai.

In episode three, a group of rebels plans to assassinate Fire Lord Ozai but Ozai knew about it thanks to Princess Azula being undercover and stopped the rebels. When Azula says that there’s no avatar, her father called her bluff and gave her the letter Zhao has given him, which made Azula jealous. The trio continued on their journey to the Northern Water Tribe when they saw a possible Airbender near Omashu. Meanwhile, Zuko, uncle Iroh, and Zhao are trying to discuss the next moves of the avatar, even when Zuko says he doesn’t like the commander. Once in Omashu, they realized getting in would be hard; luckily they got help from Jet, a local and farming merchant. Once inside, they find out that the individual is not an airbender, but a pilot. Then an explosion happened and with Aang’s air bending and Katara’s water bending, they were able to keep the flames in under control. They found out it was a bomb planted by fire nation spies. The trio and the boy, Teo, seek refuge in Teo’s dad’s shop. When they were about to leave, Aang was saddened in the sight of the wounded civilians of Omashu and wanted to help out. When Aang said he wanted to help, Teo gave him a tip that the bombers have a hideout in the mountains and Aang can use his abilities to get up there. Meanwhile, Zhao told Zuko and Iroh about Aang’s location in Omashu. While Zhao has a strategic way of confirming it, Zuko insists that he and his uncle will go themselves. Katara finds out that Teo’s dad is secretly working for the fire nation spies. But Jet reassures her that the mechanist, Teo’s dad, is a coward. When Jet and Katara followed the spy, they were outnumbered 3-to-2, luckily Jet has backup to take them down. Meanwhile, the mechanist and Sokka were working on this little airship model and the mechanist recognizes Sokka’s gift in engineering. During their stay, Aang finds out that the fire benders weren’t the bombers (which later Zuko and iron would agree), Katara and Jet grew close and he helped her mentally with her bending. When Katara and Aang returned, they told Sokka that the fire benders were not involved in the bombings. Katara tries to convince that the mechanist is the bomber and the traitor but ends up walking out after a fight with her brother. When Katara finds Jet, he told her that he and his crew are about to confront and take care of the mechanist, even if it means blowing up. Katara confronts him and ran to the boys saying that Sokka was right but got stopped by Zuko and Iroh. While the siblings races to the palace and try and stop the mechanist, Aang fights Zuko even fighting through the market Jackie Chan style and no bending. Luckily the siblings were able to save the king, but Zuko uses his fire bending to alarm the villagers and Iroh sacrifices himself so Zuko can flee. While Aang is trying to put out the fire, he’s captured by the earthbending soldiers.

Episode four picks up right where three left off, Aang gets arrested and so does Iroh, in which struck up a conversation about Omashu, the state of the world as well as Zuko and his character. Sokka confronts the mechanist, Sai, about his involvement with the fire nation spies, in which he denied at first and then confirms it to protect his son. To rescue his uncle, Zuko took down a soldier and disguises himself. When Katara and Sokka try to find ways to get into the earth prison, Sai was almost uncooperative but it was Teo that pushed his father when the idea about a secret tunnel was brought up; especially pushing him to stop hiding and start fighting. Later, Iroh was transferred to the pit, a labor camp for prisoners of war, while Aang was going to see the king, Bumi, who sees him as the avatar, and Aang recognizes his old friend. While encountering Jet, he gave Katara a hard talk about how life is like in the real world but she reminded him what to fight for, fight for something out of love, not hate. Eventually they fought with some more advanced water bending skills, trapping him in ice. As much as Bumi wants to enjoy time with Aang, he is insisting on leaving to go to the Northern water tribe. And thus the two benders have a challenge on their hands, especially when it comes to hope. While in the cave, Katara and Sokka stumbled upon some musically talented hippies, who directed them to the tunnels and told them the story of Omashu and the tunnels. Meanwhile, Bumi tries to assure his old friend that the path of the avatar is not always the easiest path through a series of challenges. While trying to find his uncle, Zuko finds out he’s going to the pit. During his journey, an earth solider takes it personally due to Iron’s actions and abuses him. When the solider said Iroh knew nothing but loss, he is reminded of when he lost his son, Lu Ten, who died a hero, and Zuko’s kind words and memories. While in the tunnels, the siblings realized that the tunnels are changing and finds the badgermole, in which spared their life when the siblings apologized to each other and helped them.

In one final challenge, it is an earth bending challenge against the old friends at the same time giving Aang some old man advice but also Aang giving him some advice too. Luckily, Zuko took down the guards, unchained his uncle, where they challenged more guards. When Iroh got wounded, he insists that he and Zuko leaves as soon as possible. At the end of the challenge, Sai was able to tell the king through external sources about fire nation sources to get them ready and for Omashu to rejoin the war and allowed the trio to continue on their journey.

My reviews

As I mentioned before, I used to watch the original as a kid back in 2005, when it was released. At the time, I didn’t really pay much attention to it via plot line but knew of each character.

How they did the characters and the casting is spot on! Asian and islander descent is much needed for ATLA and this is possibly the first show I’ve seen where it is predominately Asian and Islander descent, making it much more authentic. The costuming and hair & makeup is also spot on from Sokka’s stone choker to Katara’s two little hair loops. They could’ve done more for Zuko’s scar since it not only consumed half of his face in the original but also burned his ear off. In this version, they toned it down to where the top left side of his face was scarred.

The creators of this adaptation said it right: it’s not just a remake, but a remix. They took some of the most iconic moments from season one of the original and make it it’s own in season one of this version. For example, in the original when Aang broke free from the ice, Sokka poked his head with the back end of his spear and When Aang woke up, he wanted to go penguin sledding on the spot. In this version, Sokka was very defensive and Aang woke up some time later inside an ice hut. This version is alot more mature than the original. The original was made for a kids network, so they can’t have alot of darkness and on screen gory deaths and seriousness, but some really good humor and a lightness to it. I know people hate the new Sokka because he’s not as funny but his humor is geared more to the general audience instead of just kids.

And even the theming is elevated quite a bit and it resonates with the real world, including what is going on in America right now. This show tackles war, childhood trauma, having to grow up quickly, face challenges head on and not running away. And the theming of trying to reach or exceed the expectations of your elders when you, yourself can have your own path, your own Destiney in life, not of your ancestors or your fathers. I love what Katara said to Jet, “That’s how I know you’ve ended up on the wrong side, not fighting for anything you love. You’re fighting because of hate.” Unfortunately in America, some people are so blinded by hate and pride that they don’t know what they’re fighting for is right. And because of it, we are the Divided States of America.

Honestly, I love this show, it’s easy to get into that world, understand the characters and the plot and enjoy the magnificent SPX and get a good laugh. So I would give it an 8 out of 10, I would agree I’d like to see more craziness from Sokka