What I Did On My Thanksgiving Vacation, part 2

[mithriltabby]

Before Thanksgiving vacation, sandpanther recommended that obsessivewoman and I take a look at Avatar: the Last Airbender, and there just happened to be a marathon on Nicktoons over Thanksgiving weekend that had all three seasons. I told the TiVo to grab it, and we had a good time plowing through the episodes.

It’s a show for kids that is very watchable to adults as well; the main characters range from ages 12–16, but there are plenty of interesting adult characters in the supporting cast, and the “adolescents save the world” plotline works without requiring that the adults display an abnormal degree of foolishness or be rendered irrelevant. The writers had a story that lasted for three seasons, and they tell it in a steady progression that doesn’t go wandering.

They also managed to work in a fair amount of Eastern mysticism, and based the movements controlling the elemental powers of the world on real-world martial arts. Adults with background in martial arts or the occult will enjoy this nuance, but it’s seamlessly integrated into the world and I doubt it’d be particularly noticeable to someone who didn’t already know what to look for.

Overall, this is a fine show for families to watch together; the DVD box sets would be great gifts if you have friends whose kids like to watch things over and over again.

Comments

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Avatar was one of those shows where I would see fan art and advertisements and say "meh, looks like yet another (fill in the blank) fighting anime", until Sandpanther sat us down and showed us the first episode. And then both racerxmachina and I were hooked.

The characterization, complexity of plotting and sheer overall quality of writing is fantastic. They managed to blend humor, action and drama in a perfect way so that the show becomes more intense and serious as it goes on, with logical character growth for everyone involved.

Never mind animation, I think this was one of the best shows on television iod for adults as well as children.

minor beefs

[yanfali.livejournal.com]

I agree it's a great show. Great characters, interesting world building, martial arts mayhem, magic, and interesting stories. Not to mention safe for kids. Two problems mar the series for me:

1. The DVD transfers stink. The beautiful animation looks like a pixelated mess on any decent sized TV. It was painful to watch on a netflix loan.
2. The abrupt end of the series is unsatisfying and trite. I think they were running out of money, ideas or both. It's not clear what happened, but it was a serious WTF moment; definitely a McGuffin.

I'm looking forward to what the show creators do next. They obviously have writing talent and great comic timing. If one day they authorize transfers to blu-ray and re-write and re-shoot the ending, then we might actually have something worth calling an epic.