The Last Airbender

We've enjoyed watching the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon over the years. It was a three season long story about a young man who was to become the Avatar and how he attempts to bring peace to a world at war. In this imaginary world, there are four nations - the Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes, the Fire Nation and the Air Nomads. Each of the nations has members who can manipulate (or bend) the element (earth, water, fire or air) of their nation's name. Only one person in the world, the Avatar, can bend all four elements. Also, the Avatar brings harmony to the world but the new Avatar (a member of the Air Nomads) was frozen in ice and disappeared for 100 years. The story starts as two young Water Tribe members discover and release the Avatar - who, at 12 years old, isn't a full Avatar yet because he can only bend air. And, due to the war that started when he disappeared, all the other Airbenders have been killed or have died. So, the Avatar, with the help of his friends, must learn to bend the other three elements and bring the war to and end. A more complete explanation of the background of the series can be found here.

While we all watched and enjoyed the series, only our son Evan really understood the whole thing. He knew the order of the stories and the interrelations of all the characters. So, when we went to see the movie version of The Last Airbender, he was disappointed that it didn't faithfully follow the story line of the TV series.

The overall theme was the same and the characters were all the same but some things happened out of order and some scenes from the movie never appeared in the TV series and scenes from the series were missing in the movie. But the rest of us really enjoyed the movie because we weren't expecting as much as Evan. I liked how they showed that the powerful young Avatar, while he was brave and willing to help the people oppressed by the Fire Nation, obviously didn't yet have the knowledge or power he would need to  bring peace to the world. But the movie showed him gaining wisdom and skills and by the end of the movie, you see a real progress on his road to being a full avatar. More information about the movie version can be found here.

The movie only covers the events of the first season of the TV series so there will need to be two more movies to cover the entire saga. I am looking forward to them but Evan is not so sure.