Team Avatar is back!
 |
| Paramount+ |
SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Avatar 'Aang: The Last Airbender'.
The film ages up Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph and Zuko. Aang is well-established as the Avatar, but he is haunted by the fact that he is still the last airbender in the world.
After a battle with a group of anti-benders calling themselves The Denied, Aang learns of the existence of a “lost Avatar,” an airbender named Sonam, who possessed a staff of immeasurable power. In his search for the staff, Aang discovers an ancient airbender named Tagah (voiced by Dave Bautista) frozen on top of a mountain.
Upon awakening Tagah, he tells the group that Sonam granted him and others the ability to become airbenders with her staff thousands of years ago. Figuring The Denied plan to use the staff to upset the fragile peace that now exists in the world, Team Avatar and Tagah set out to stop them. But along the way, they learn that Tagah witnessed the massacre of the other airbenders at the hands of the Earth Kingdom. He tried to overthrow Sonam and to use the staff to get revenge, leading to his imprisonment and Sonam exiling herself.
Aang and his friends must now battle Tagah and The Denied to once again save the world.
Variety spoke with
Avatar creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko and the film’s director, Lauren Montgomery, about the launch of the movie, bringing
Avatar back to the screen, and what ideas and characters didn’t make it into the final cut.
Check out the full Q&A below.
Interview conducted by Joe Otterson for Variety.
Why was this movie and story the point at which you wanted to re-enter the world of Avatar?
Michael Dante DiMartino: Obviously, Bryan and I came back to Nickelodeon to start Avatar Studios and start developing new projects to expand Avatar in TV and film. But film was the first priority for the studio, so we set to work thinking about what that would look like. There wasn’t too much debate that we would focus on the original characters since they were the most iconic and most beloved characters we had so far. Then we quickly sort of settled on — for this to feel bigger and different, and an extension of the story we had already told, that aging them up, meeting them at a later point in their life, seemed like a good way to drop into the world again.
Bryan Konietzko: I might be an outlier, but — I still wanted to work in the Avatar world, but I wasn’t hungry to go back to the original characters because that was the story that Mike and I set out to tell, and we were lucky enough to be able to complete it. And I wanted those characters to kind of have some peace and privacy and go on with their lives, and explore other parts of the Avatar world. But yeah, the studio and Mike said, if we’re going to do a big feature film, it does make sense to focus on the main characters. But it wasn’t until Mike pitched to me the idea of them at this age that the door sort of opened for me creatively.
We had originally thought of it being when Aang and Katara were about to start their family, and for a lot of good reasons, we moved away from that later in development. But I still found this moment in Aang’s life to be really interesting. It’s like, you look like an adult, you have adult responsibilities, but you haven’t quite shed your adolescence. He’s also the age that I was when Mike and I created
Avatar. I was 25 going on 26, and so I had a lot of youthful enthusiasm, but I had a lot to learn about the world…We had this cool poster that Joaquim Dos Santos had drawn during
Korra of the original Team Avatar all around that age, and I think all of us and a lot of fans just kind of wondered, like, “Wow, what would that be like?”
Lauren Montgomery: These are the characters that you fell in love with…How are you going to tell another really satisfying story about [Aang]? And I think like the beauty of what we found is the only really personal story left to tell about Aang, and just the fact that it was always in the title, was being the last Airbender. We’ve seen his arc of becoming the Avatar, but now we handle that other side. There was something really beautiful and emotional still to tell in that story. I was excited just because I very much love a tortured, emotional story. Even though I dislike drama in my life, I love it in my content.
Like the shows, there are some crazy big action sequences in this. What was different about making them for a movie versus a series?
Montgomery: The craziest thing was we were making it, and I’m looking at this movie, and I’m like, “There’s not enough action!” There’s just so much action, but there’s so many things, so many ideas, like for Tagah. We had so many awesome conversations about his fighting style, and we didn’t even get to get all of it in there. There were so many things we discussed, and I wish we could have fit it, but ultimately, there was a lot of story to be told.
It was really exciting to be able to work with Alfred Hsing. Bryan and Mike had met him at Netflix. He’s an amazing choreographer, and we worked together just discussing concepts of how the characters would have evolved in their fighting styles and discovering Tagah’s style and what that means as an airbender, but as an airbender that uses his air bending in different ways. There was a lot in this movie as far as using bending to fight like other martial artist opponents and also using bending to fight natural disasters. So we tackled everything, and yet I still feel like there’s so much we didn’t get to do.
Konietzko: We had the benefit of doing [previsualization] this time, which we kind of dabbled in Korra with just one compositor, but Lauren and the team were able to — like you said, these set pieces, they involved such a much more cinematic and kind of active camera. One that could flow through a three-dimensional space, but with two-dimensional, hand-drawn characters, and that process always takes a lot of pre-planning.
DiMartino: When we were doing the series, our ambition in our brains was always thinking cinematically, but we were limited by time and money and the old aspect ratio of television back in the day. But when we made the finale of Avatar, we did screen it as — and we have screened it since then — the four parts as one movie, and it does hold up. You know, it feels like a big experience, a movie experience, even though the visuals aren’t quite at the level that this movie is at.
This also has a pretty different art style than both Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. Why did you go that route?
Konietzko: We always want each Avatar project to have its own distinct visual identity. At the same time, we want them all to feel like they hang with each other. That way they’re different windows into the same world. And a common factor or characteristic of that is that each one is a love letter to Japanese anime…
I learned a lot in in making the first series, but we also had some incredible talent that rose to the surface between Avatar and Korra. And one of those folks was Ki Hyun Ryu. He did some amazing stuff on Avatar, and then he ended up being a supervisor, alongside Lauren, on Korra, and so even on Korra, we started basing the character design largely inspired by Ryu’s style.
DiMartino: There is an incredible amount of handcrafted attention to this movie, even though obviously computers are used for all the camera moves, and everyone’s drawing on tablets or whatever, but these look like oil paintings come to life. Every frame, somebody drew that multiple times. They roughed it out, and someone had to clean it up, and someone had to paint every frame. And then there’s the whole compositing aspect to it too, which is another process. Every frame is being gone over very carefully to make sure it all works and feels cohesive.
Montgomery: There’s a lot of technology used, but those are just the tools. Human artists crafted everything, and human artists used that technology to direct those shots. Nothing was just like plug it in and boop boop, it happens. There’s none of that
This project and what I’ve seen of Seven Havens have distinctly Indian influences. From Avatar Sonam being voiced by Freida Pinto to even the music. There’s one singer in particular —
Konietzko: Varijashree Venugopal! Jeremy [Zuckerman], our composer, he was connected with her by a friend. We’re working with Jeremy and Varijashree together on another one of our projects. And I’m just like, “You two are a match made in the spirit world.”
With
Seven Havens, it was very deliberate. The concept and even the word “avatar” all comes from Indian culture and tradition and Sanskrit. So we had done a bit in
Avatar, the original series. We’re obviously inspired by and draw from a lot of real world cultures for our fantasy world. But that said, I kind of felt like with the first two series, we had underserved that inspiration, and so it was very deliberate with
Seven Havens to to code Pavi as a South Asian-inspired character.
Montgomery: We definitely wanted to lean into those ancient cultures’ mysticism, more fantasy, more spirituality, and I think a lot of that is apparent in a lot of the Indian cultures. Then we were just trying to really add to that ethereal quality of [Avatar Sonam], and Varijashree’s voice just gives you that. It’s so haunting.
Talk to me about the challenges of trying to make a story that follows Last Airbender but also stays consistent with the story you established later in the timeline with Legend of Korra. How challenging is that?
Konietzko: Oh, it’s a nightmare [laughs]. It’s really hard.
DiMartino: I do like that part of the job where it’s just like figuring out the puzzle pieces. It gets more complex, obviously, with every year and every project we’re adding to this stuff. But yeah, part of what I do now is — whether it’s publishing or games or whatever — it’s like, does this feel like it actually fits in the overall universe? It’s not completely contradicting something else in another project. There are little tweaks we make, but if someone in a comic said this line, and it doesn’t match with this, we might be like, “That’s not the end of the world.” Because there’s so many different writers at this point who contribute ideas and stuff. So it’s hard to police every line of dialog or every line in a novel or something.
Obviously, we couldn’t end the movie where the airbenders are back. That obviously would not work. So there’s those kind guardrails on it where it’s like, okay, we know that’s not the end of the movie. So what is a satisfying end to this where Aang still feels like he achieved something and is in a better place?
And Tagah is obviously very central to the film. Talk to me about establishing him as this very dark airbender, and also what it was like getting to work with Dave Bautista as the voice of the character.
DiMartino: That character, like with a lot of things in the movie, went through a big evolution. There was a point where he wasn’t in the movie, and then there was a version of Tagah that came into the movie, but he was named something else. But then once we settled that Aang finds another airbender, that’s the crux of this film, this brotherhood, this bond they form, and their different points of view. Since he’s from this time long ago, they would have these interpersonal conflicts. But also there’s the idea that they kind of mirror of each other. They’ve both gone through this genocide of their people, just at different times in the history of universe. Then we see how they both deal with that conflict in different ways and how that brings them closer and pulls them apart.
Montgomery: I didn’t follow wrestling. I didn’t know Dave. I just knew him from his movie roles. But either way, Drax and his wrestling persona are big personas, and I think I was expecting him to be a very big persona guy, and he’s actually like the gentlest, kindest human I have met. He doesn’t speak very loudly, he’s very respectful, and he really feels like the good version of Tagah that we see. He’s like this monk who is saving a bird in the middle of the ocean. So it was really incredible that it kind of wound up that way, because like Mike said, there was a different character originally that was just a very different personality. And when we found this character of Tagah, who just brought so much more to the story, it’s kind of amazing how beautifully Dave was able to make that character feel like he has so much more of a history and a depth.
Can you tell me any ideas you had that didn’t make it into the movie?
DiMartino: I know fans are going to be upset. Suki’s not in the movie. She’s in one shot at the end. We did try versions where Suki was in the movie. You just have to make these decisions where it’s like, we only have 85 minutes to tell the story. We were already having a hard time giving our beloved main characters their spotlight and enough screen time… The Kyoshi Warriors are out there! They were off saving somebody else while the events of this movie were going on. Doesn’t mean they’re not around. They have their own comic book series now, so they are busy ladies.
Montgomery: There was a scene that I really loved that didn’t quite make it into the final film, and it was this parade that was the celebration of Republic City… It was so beautiful, and you saw a lot of fun Easter eggs of people. I think King Kuei was there, Suki was there with the Kyoshi Warriors, and it was this magnificent celebration of everyone celebrating their cultures…and then the final person in this parade is Aang on Appa, and it becomes a perspective shift where you realize what is so joyous for everyone is very isolating for Aang, and he never feels more alone than in this moment, where everyone else can celebrate with their culture, and his is absent.
Finally, the movie is getting a limited awards qualifying run in theaters instead of a full theatrical release. But the tickets for the awards screenings sold out in a day, I think.
DiMartino: I think it sold out in like 10 minutes or something.
Konietzko: Yeah, it was pretty quick.
DiMartino: I think that just shows that people really want to see this movie.
Konietzko: I’m still trying to get tickets to a Paramount screening! I got locked out of that. I’m texting my executive like, “Hey, can I maybe get a couple tickets?” [laughs]
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is streaming now on Paramount+, with
Avatar: Seven Havens premiering on the streaming service on Friday, October 9. Yip yip!
How The Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender Movie Sets Up The Legend Of Korra
This article contains spoilers for "Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender."
"Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender" lives up to its title. The much-beloved animated series was truthfully an ensemble; scarred Fire Nation Prince Zuko's (Dante Basco) journey to redemption was as much a backbone as Aang's (Zach Tyler Eisen) heroic journey. But this movie? Aang (Eric Nam) is absolutely the main character; sorry, Zuko (Steven Yeun) or Toph (Dionne Quan) fans, maybe next time.
Set about a decade after the original "Last Airbender" series, Aang still hasn't quite settled into a world where he's, well, the last Airbender. As if to catch up new viewers, the movie opens with a flashback to Aang's childhood in the Southern Air Temple. This, in turn, gives way to a nightmare about the Fire Nation's genocide of the Air Nomads, a calamity Aang escaped by running away from his duties as the Avatar and getting himself cryogenically frozen.
The narrative thrust of the movie is Aang discovering another, much more ancient Airbender named Tagah (Dave Bautista) who long ago was frozen like him. Tagah leads Team Avatar to discover a magical staff that he claims can create new Airbenders, but his intentions may be more sinister than he claims.
"Avatar" fans have seen an evil Airbender before, though. In the "Last Airbender" sequel series "The Legend of Korra" Book 3, the main villain was Zaheer (Henry Rollins), an airbending anarchist who revered the Air Nomads' teachings on earthly detachment.
Set 70 years after "The Last Airbender," this sequel starred Avatar Korra (Janet Varney), who had to live in the world that Aang had built and fill the big shoes he left. While this movie is set early in that 70-year gap, it still starts to build a bridge between the series.
Avatar Aang features the early days of Republic City and the Air Acolytes
 |
| Nickelodeon |
"Long ago, the Four Nations lived in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked," declares Katara (Mae Whitman) in the opening narration of every "Last Airbender" episode. What "Legend of Korra" and "Avatar" sequel comics hammer in is that the Four Nations living in "harmony" were also living separately. After 100 years of war, the old, segregated world couldn't be rebuilt. So, Aang and Zuko transformed the Fire Nation's colonies in the Earth Kingdom into a new, culturally integrated United Republic of Nations.
"Avatar Aang" takes place primarily in the new nation's capital, Republic City. Aang's angst is amplified because the city he's built is home to every culture ... except his. By the end of the film, he's remedied that. While he can't bring back airbending, he can continue to pass on the Air Nomad culture. He has a new Air Temple built on an island in the Republic City harbor, and recruits new "Air Acolytes" to carry on the Air Nomad ways.
This will all be familiar to "Legend of Korra" fans. Republic City and Air Temple Island are major locations in "Korra." During that show, the island temple is the home of Tenzin (J.K. Simmons), Aang and Katara's son, his family, and the Air Acolytes.
Moreover, the film ends with Aang, Team Avatar, and the Air Acolytes discovering a herd of sky bison at a hidden air temple. In "Last Airbender," Aang's pet Appa was assumed to be the last sky bison, but "Korra" showed many more bison still alive; they were an endangered species, not extinct. This ending finally answers that hanging question of where all the new sky bison came from.
Avatar Aang's staff MacGuffin hints at the eventual rebirth of Airbending
 |
| Nickelodeon |
The staff Tagah seeks in "Avatar Aang" was created by Sonam (Frieda Pinto), the Avatar of his era (5,000 years ago). The Airbenders were the least numerous of the bending tribes, but Sonam relied on them in her mission of maintaining balance. So, she communed with the Spirit World, learned how to make nonbenders into benders, and elevated many nonbender Air Nomads (including Tagah).
Tagah is traumatized by seeing his brothers-in-arms slaughtered by an earthbending army and further incensed when he learns about the Fire Nation's genocide of the Air Nomads. He wants to use the staff to create more Airbenders and build an "Air Empire." When he attacks Republic City, Aang defeats him and takes Sonam's Staff — but echoing the advice of Avatar Xian's spirit (He Huy Quan), he decides the staff is too much power for one individual to have and so destroys it.
Aang sacrificing his chance to bring back airbending leads to him embracing the Air Acolytes as the next best thing. But "Avatar" fans know the birth of airbending is nigh, even if Aang won't live to see it.
During "Legend of Korra" Book 1, Tenzin and his three children are the only airbenders left. But at the end of Book 2, "Korra" reconnects the physical and Spirit worlds permanently. As a result of that and an earlier alignment of the planets ("Harmonic Convergence"), people across the world suddenly become Airbenders, like the universe itself correcting an imbalance and the last scar of Fire Lord Sozin's war.
Sonam's staff in "Avatar Aang" reinforces what "Legend of Korra" showed: that spiritual power can awaken bending, and it would be the key to restoring airbending. In "Avatar Aang," Tagah briefly does just that.
The Denied in Avatar Aang foreshadow the Equalists
 |
| Nickelodeon |
Besides Tagah, the antagonists of "Avatar Aang" are a group called the Denied. True to their name, they're nonbenders who believe the innate power imbalance between benders and nonbenders has led to an unequal society. "If we want anything to change, we need what the benders have — power," the Denied's leader declares. In the third act, Tagah uses Sonam's staff to make the Denied into Airbenders, though the power fades when Aang destroys the staff.
The Denied's rhetoric and grievances foreshadow the villains in "The Legend of Korra" Book 1: The Equalists, named for the inequality created by bending. While the Denied want to gain the power of bending themselves, the Equalists wanted to destroy bending altogether. The Equalists suggest the Denied's defeat didn't quell the social tensions that produced them — and neither, really, did Korra.
The political themes in "Legend of Korra" don't hold up to time or scrutiny. The show settles for making the Equalists pure villains, barely bothering to dig into any legitimate inequality in Republic City or explore the unique social stratification bending creates. (In the "Avatar" world, a select minority essentially have superpowers, but bending can't be redistributed like social power in the real world.)
The Equalists collapse not because Korra proves their point wrong or offers another solution, but because their leader Amon (Steve Blum) is revealed to be a bender himself. Come Book 2, the Equalists are no more and apparently the social inequality has been addressed ... because Republic City's new president is a nonbender.
"Avatar Aang" likewise glosses over any inequality. The Denied vaguely allude to past trauma, with their leader asking her followers how many people died because Aang was missing for 100 years, but the movie doesn't pause to dig into that.
###
Stream Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra on Paramount+ and Netflix! Try Paramount+ at ParamountPlus.com
#Avatar #AvatarTheLastAirbender #ATLA
