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July 25, 2005
cool show
Saw this while flipping through channels last Saturday and it seemed really interesting. Apparently Nickelodeon is airing an animated series called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Ok, the title is a bit hokey, but I really got hooked once I found out that they actually divided their characters into elemental areas (Air, Fire, Earth, Water) and then gave them each distinctive fighting styles based on those elements. They based them in actual styles such as Bagua, Hung Gar, and Tai Chi. Apparently, the animators even took martial arts lessons in specific disciplines to get a better insight into how to animate them.
Here is a brief synopsis of the show, taken from its Wikipedia entry:
In a lost age, the world is divided into four nations: Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. Within each nation, there is a remarkable order of men and women called the "Benders" who can learn to harness their inborn talent and manipulate their native element. Bending is a powerful form combining martial art and elemental magic.
In each generation, only one Bender is capable of controlling all four elements. That Bender is the Avatar. The Avatar is the spirit of the world manifested in human form. When the Avatar dies, it reincarnates into the next nation in the cycle (air, water, earth and fire). Starting with the mastery of his or her native element, the Avatar learns to bend all four elements in the order of the cycle. Throughout the ages, the countless incarnations of the Avatar have served to keep the four nations in harmony.
About one hundred years prior to the story, during the Air period of the Avatar cycle, the Firebenders attacked. Just as the world needed the Avatar the most, he mysteriously vanished. A hundred years later, the Fire Nation is near final victory in its ruthless war of world domination. The Air Nomads were destroyed, the Air Temples ravished, and all Airbender monks eradicated. The Water Tribes were raided and driven to the brink of extinction. The Earth Kingdom remains and fights a hopeless war against the Fire Nation. Many believe that the Avatar was never reborn into the Air Nomads and that the cycle is broken.
In the desolated South Pole, a lone Water tribe struggles to survive. It is here that the village's last remaining Waterbender Katara and her warrior brother Sokka rescue a strange 12-year-old boy named Aang who has been suspended in hibernation in an iceberg. The tribe soon discovers that Aang is not only an Airbender--the extinct race no one has seen in a century--but also the long lost Avatar. Now Katara and Sokka must safeguard the child Avatar in his journey to master all four elements and save the world from the Fire Nation.
While the basic storyline of the main character (Aang) going on a journey of self-discovery is a pretty standard construct, they've tossed in some interesting aspects. For example, the "sidekick" characters (Katara and Sokka) aren't cardboard cutouts but take their turns in the spotlight very frequently. They don't just have a single episode devoted to them and spend the rest in the background. Also, the main foil is an arrogant enemy who while, striving to chase after and catch the main character, is already giving off hints that he may become an ally down the road. But its not going to come easy, because he really HATES the main character *and* he's got father issues to boot. The characters actually have some depth to them, which is unusual in an American cartoon.
Also, I didn't notice a single reused frame in the 2 episodes I watched, which was something that annoyed me to no end when I was younger. It always seemed so cheap and lazy when you would notice every fight scene utilizing the same stock footage. Robotech was guilty of that, as was almost every series that I remember from my childhood. Then again, the "cartoons" from that age were supposedly little more than advertising vehicles (G.I. Joe and Transformers) which is part of the reason why Japanese animation was so refreshing when it first aired.
They just started airing this in February of this year, which means it hasn't run its course yet. As a matter of fact, I just caught the announcement that it has been renewed for a second seasion. I'm actually disappointed that it hasn't finished airing yet, so I can watch it in its entirety. (yet another modern-day quirk that has been aided by the likes of the VCR and the Internet). Maybe I will break in my PVR machine with a regular schedule of recording this show.
Check it out on Nickelodeon (they're currently airing reruns for the summer several times a week)!
Nickelodeon's official Avatar site (needs Macromedia Flash. LOTS of it)
Wikipedia page for Avatar: The Last Airbender
Posted by spoof747 at July 25, 2005 02:49 AM