Avatar: The Last Airbender fans have been chasing a high for two decades. The original ATLA cartoon was, frankly, better than drugs: a perfectly-made, three-season TV show with a satisfying narrative arc, complex characters, and stirring philosophical lesson, all wrapped up in a funny, exciting, and entertaining package. After tasting such fine, high quality product, it’s only natural to want more.
And so, Hollywood gave us more, and more, and more. Each hit was less potent, more disappointing, than the last. First fans blamed Nickelodeon execs, then M. Night Shyamalan, and finally, Netflix, for failing to recreate the magic. But in the cold, harsh light of this new original animated film—from revered OG creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, featuring all the beloved OG characters—it’s time we fans face facts: We will never have that high again.
Needless to say, the new Avatar movie, Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender—which began streaming on Paramount+ today, after premiering at San Diego Comic Con, and leaking online in April—does not live up to the original series. Not even close, really.
It’s not a bad movie. It’s fun. Visually beautiful. Playful and funny, with many (perhaps too many) winking references to cabbages, foaming mouths, and other fan-favorite moments. It’s better, certainly, than the grim, bland, live-action Netflix adaptation that just released a second season. But it’s lacking several key ingredients that made the original series so addicting: momentum, character, and heart.
The Avatar Aang movie was directed by Lauren Montgomery, and written by Tim Hedrick and Christopher Yost, from a story by ATLA co-creators Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, as well as Hedrick, and Kenneth Lin. The story follows a now-adult Aang (voiced by Eric Nam), who discovers a new-new Airbender frozen in ice named Tagah (voiced by Dave Bautista).
Tagah reveals there is a way to bring back all the Air Nomads, if Aang can just track down a magic staff that once belonged to a forgotten Avatar. So, Aang gathers Team Avatar: Katara (voiced by Jessica Matten), Sokka (Román Zaragoza), Toph (Dionne Quan), and Fire Lord Zuko (Steven Yeun). They hop on Appa, and fly off to their next epic adventure. But can they find the staff before the group of violent non-benders seeking world domination get there first?
The problem with this self-contained story is that, while it’s a fun romp reminiscent of the Gaang’s old adventures, anyone who has watched The Legend of Korra series—which followed the next Avatar after Aang’s death—knows that, obviously, Tagah and Aang don’t bring back the Air Nomads with the magic staff. Right away, the narrative lacks the momentum that had viewers clicking “next episode” on the original series.
Perhaps a weak story could have been forgiven if Avatar Aang had used plot to further Aang’s character development. Yet the driving emotional force of the movie—Aang’s guilt over running away and vanishing (when the world needed him most)—is well-worn territory. It’s hard to feel invested in the same character arc, for the same character, that was, frankly, done much better in Season 1 of the show back in 2006. It doesn’t help that Aang’s angst over this particular problem—being the last airbender—highlights an obvious plot hole: Why don’t Aang and Katara—both in their mid-twenties in the film—discuss starting a family? Korra viewers know their first child will be born in a few years’ time. How could it not even come up?
But perhaps the greatest let-down of the Avatar Aang movie is the way it failed to deliver any stirring relationship arcs. There’s a reason the ATLA ship wars were so fierce—it’s because the show was a masterclass in relationship-based storytelling. Yes, there was the pure love between Aang and Katara, and the simmering tension between Katara and Zuko. There was also the epic enemies-to-friends saga of Aang and Zuko. The complicated sibling dynamic between Sokka, the protective older brother, and Katara, his fierce younger sister. The slow, reluctant cracking open of Toph to the Gaang—a self-proclaimed loner who learns to value community. At it’s heart, Avatar was a show about found family. And that’s nowhere to be found in the Avatar Aang movie.
Even though the Gaang, is, technically, together throughout the movie, Aang’s friends do little more than provide flavor for his Tagah saga. Toph makes blind jokes, Sokka makes goofy jokes, Katara passively disapproves of Tagah’s methods, and Zuko’s barely speaks beyond a few necessary expository lines of dialogue (a real shame, consider they got Oscar-winner Steven Yeun to voice him). The main “relationship” of the movie is Aang and Tagah, which is hard to care about when you see the Tagah Bad Guy turn coming from a mile away.
It’s just not the same. It will never be the same. It’s clear Konietzko and DiMartino will keep selling us product. (Next up, a new Paramount+ animated series, Avatar: Seven Haven, which does not look promising.) But maybe it’s time we stop buying.