Review: Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender Looks Really Good

If you guys have been around since the start of this blog, you know that I love Avatar: The Last Airbender. Sure, I wasn’t there for the initial hype since the show ended before I was born, but I have it on Blu-ray, watched it for the first time when I was in middle school, and it holds a special place in my list of great stories. Even today as a Christian who’s generally more sensitive to the occult and other worldviews being pushed in media, I still love the show for its storytelling and deeper plot threads that endear it to so many people.

That said, when it was announced that ATLA was getting a movie sequel, I was pretty excited and knew it was something I would want to see. A couple years passed and now, we have our first looks at the movie with the official trailer out now.

Overall, the trailer looks intriguing. Granted, I haven’t read the ATLA comics, so maybe I’m saying this out of ignorance, but the history between the events of The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra seems underexplored, especially as characters grow up. The fuller lore is something that people have to figure out by reading the books, so to have a movie exploring that time period could be really good.

However, that said, I have a few nitpicks and concerns.

First of all, it’s being released on streaming instead of theaters. It airs on Paramount+ on July 25th, which sucks since a movie of this magnitude should absolutely be available in theaters. Just think of how awesome the animation would look on the big screen. But alas…I will wait and hope it becomes available on other streaming platforms, like Fandango.

Second, one of my concerns is that the movie is going to have some of the same flaws that the ATLA Netflix adaptation has, namely retconning characters in the name of “the modern audience.” In the original show, the characters had to grow up fast, and in the time they spent on their mission to defeat Ozai, they all became stronger and better characters. Katara and Aang became more confident, Sokka learned what it was to be a man, Toph learned how to be free and accept help from others. Zuko’s character arc was especially important, carrying much of the show though he was largely a side character, to the point where countless video essays have been made about it. Now that the characters have become adults, however, I do have to wonder if the writers will try to undo some of that as the Netflix adaptation did.

Speaking of writers being stupid, my third concern is identity politics being shoved into the movie. This issue in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender is one that goes back to The Legend of Korra and the later comics. In The Legend of Korra, not only is Korra widely agreed upon to be a completely unlikeable girlboss as she embodies every negative aspect of modern feminism, but she’s later strongly implied within the show to be bisexual, something that’s further confirmed in the comics. That said, while the LGBTQ+ movement is falling out of favor today, I doubt that’s going to severely impact Hollywood continuing to shove it down our throats. Within the trailer itself, Zuko comments on another character’s attractiveness, which I hope is meant to be innocuous and not something they intend to make into a larger LGBTQ+ plot point.

With those concerns out of the way, I still think the movie has potential to be really good. I’ll just have to wait until I either get Paramount+ or it gets to other streaming services to watch and review it.

Until next time,

M.J.