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robotech_masterWhen I first heard people talking about how good Avatar: The Last Airbender was, I didn't pay much attention. It was a popular martial-arts superpower kiddie toon, and I knew about other "popular martial-arts superpower kiddie toons" of recent years. "Dragonball Z," meaning no disrespect to its fans, is not exactly the first title one thinks of when one thinks of epic storylines. (Epic planet-destroying martial-arts combats, on the other hand…)
But then I heard that M. Night Shyamalan, whose movies are at least well-crafted if not always to my liking, was planning to make a live-action adaptation of the series. And when I heard him comparing his plans to a "live-action Miyazaki movie," I was intrigued. As a friend had tivoed the first season's worth of episodes and burned copies for me, I didn't have to look very far to catch my first glimpse. The first half-dozen episodes caught my attention; the next half-dozen got better, and then I was completely hooked by episodes 12 and 13, and have just finished watching the whole thing through the last episode that's aired anywhere, "The Firebending Masters." And I have also just done something I almost never do for lengthy TV series—not even for Transformers: Beast Wars: I ordered the full-season box sets of Avatar Seasons 1 and 2, and will snag 3 as soon as it comes out.
It would be fair to say I am utterly stunned by how good the show is, all in all. The first half-dozen or so episodes are a bit weak as the show is finding its stride, but by the end of Season 1, it is firing on all cylinders. Even the occasional "filler" episodes are good.
The premise of the show is that, in a world modelled on Far Eastern mythology, four tribes based on the four elements lived in peace until 100 years before the show's start date—until the Fire Tribe decided to conquer the rest of the world. Some members of each tribe have the ability to "bend" or mystically control the element from which their tribe takes its name. The Avatar, the one person in a generation who can master all four bending styles, was supposed to prevent the war from happening—but on the eve of the war's breakout, he mysteriously disappeared. But as the show begins, that's just about to change.
The show starts out with basic archetypes—the sensible girl, the annoying whiner brother for comic relief, the fun-loving kid, the disfigured angsty teenage villain and his sagacious uncle—because those are what's necessary for viewers to make sense of what is happening until the show can get around to filling in some of the hundred-plus years of backstory. As a result, the show is a little slow to get started, and the real story doesn't kick in until around midseason. But once the story gets in gear, it just keeps getting better and better. Even by the end of the first season, characters have grown and changed dramatically. By the third season, they're all considerably more mature. Even the annoying whiner has gotten a lot less annoying and developed into a fine planner and swordsman.
I was utterly amazed that a children's cartoon, on Nickelodeon no less, could be like this. I never expected it, and I halfway wish someone had sat me down and forced me to watch this show sooner. (Only halfway, because I'm going crazy enough with only 8 episodes left to air sometime in the nebulous future. I don't like to think how crazy it would have made me to wait through the hiatuses and delays to watch the series in real time.) What it has is amazing…but I think I like it more for what it does not have.
It does not have cardboard cutout characters, villains who glory in being self-describedly "evil." What it has are conflicted characters—flawed heroes, sympathetic villains—who talk about good versus evil, without ever claiming the mantle for themselves.
It does not have Hollywood fortune-cookie Chinese mysticism. It has the real deal—adaptations of actual Far Eastern philsophical and mystical concepts of chi, yin and yang, chakras, the spirit world, harmony and balance, and so on.
It does not have fake-looking Hollywood martial arts, where karate chops and kicks are animated by people who've never seen them. It has a kung-fu sifu on the staff, who is not only the show's martial arts advisor but also tutors its creative staff in the martial arts so that they can get them right on-screen. As a result, the "bending" styles—which are based on real-world martial-arts schools such as t'ai-chi or Northern-style Shaolin—are rendered as gorgeously true-to-life as the animators can make them, fluid and easily recognizeable. And magnificently choreographed. There are fight sequences in here that are easily the animated equal of anything in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
It does not have meaningless squiggles that are meant to look oriental but don't actually mean what they're supposed to mean, if anything at all. There is also a translator and calligrapher on the staff, whose job is to make sure that everything looks like and means what it's supposed to. Any time you see pictograms on the screen, they have a specific meaning—sometimes one that is important to the story.
It does not have simplistic juvenile writing or empty moralizing. You know, the kind of writing where, say, in the first episodes of Voltron, the space rangers decide to rename themselves the Voltron Force, and then halfway across the galaxy, the villain who had been saying "get those space rangers" suddenly starts saying "get that Voltron Force"? Not here. The first few episodes may seem a little simplistic, but the show is still laying the groundwork and getting into its stride. When it really gets rolling, the story is seriously impressive. The writers know how to keep a lot of balls in the air, and characters and subplots that appear early on as "one-offs" may reenter the story much later in surprising ways. And also, characters who become important later may appear for a few seconds as background details in much earlier episodes, to be forgotten altogether until they are seen again.
And while the show does often feature moral lessons, they don't seem forced or preachy, but rather a natural consequence of the adventures and misadventures that help the characters learn and grow as people.
Perhaps the most amazing thing is that, though the show has to be kid-friendly, it's one of the first kid-friendly shows I can recall where the kid-friendliness didn't intrude into the storytelling. There are no moments that I can find where the necessity to move deaths off-screen or leave them ambiguous, or otherwise reduce violence levels, detracted from the story. In fact, the story was often more effective that way. I literally can't think of another American kiddie show where I didn't have to make a conscious decision to ignore some fundamental flaw introduced as part of a good-intentioned effort to protect kids from blood and guts.
Although I can't think of any particular times where liquid blood was seen, there have been grievous burns and other injuries depicted—actions have consequences, and characters have to live with the consequences of those actions. And there are a number of deaths in the backstory, some of them quite dramatic. Like the best kid-friendly shows, it doesn't talk down to its audience, giving kids credit for being able to think and having the attention span to follow a long, involved, epic story.
Also, the show is quite frequently hilarious. The writers have a delightful sense of the absurd, and it pops up at just the right moments to keep the mood from getting too oppressive without being too intrusive. The voice cast is talented, too, and well-directed by Andrea Romano, whose other work includes the Warner Brothers Batman and Superman stuff. One of the best of the actors is the sadly deceased Mako, who played Uncle Iroh for the first two seasons. I liked Mako's acting before I ever saw this show, and now I like it even more.
There are so many other ways I could go into why I love the series—talking about the powerful and moving images, plots, and subplots in detail—but they'd almost all be spoilers, and this if any show deserves to be spoiled as little as possible. Suffice it to say that this show is one of the best things on TV today, and I'll be waiting with bated breath for my DVDs to arrive so I can explore all the extras.
(Apparently I'm not the only one to feel this way: Airbender's IMDB rating is a respectable 9.3—with 4,905 votes.)
But then I heard that M. Night Shyamalan, whose movies are at least well-crafted if not always to my liking, was planning to make a live-action adaptation of the series. And when I heard him comparing his plans to a "live-action Miyazaki movie," I was intrigued. As a friend had tivoed the first season's worth of episodes and burned copies for me, I didn't have to look very far to catch my first glimpse. The first half-dozen episodes caught my attention; the next half-dozen got better, and then I was completely hooked by episodes 12 and 13, and have just finished watching the whole thing through the last episode that's aired anywhere, "The Firebending Masters." And I have also just done something I almost never do for lengthy TV series—not even for Transformers: Beast Wars: I ordered the full-season box sets of Avatar Seasons 1 and 2, and will snag 3 as soon as it comes out.
It would be fair to say I am utterly stunned by how good the show is, all in all. The first half-dozen or so episodes are a bit weak as the show is finding its stride, but by the end of Season 1, it is firing on all cylinders. Even the occasional "filler" episodes are good.
The premise of the show is that, in a world modelled on Far Eastern mythology, four tribes based on the four elements lived in peace until 100 years before the show's start date—until the Fire Tribe decided to conquer the rest of the world. Some members of each tribe have the ability to "bend" or mystically control the element from which their tribe takes its name. The Avatar, the one person in a generation who can master all four bending styles, was supposed to prevent the war from happening—but on the eve of the war's breakout, he mysteriously disappeared. But as the show begins, that's just about to change.
The show starts out with basic archetypes—the sensible girl, the annoying whiner brother for comic relief, the fun-loving kid, the disfigured angsty teenage villain and his sagacious uncle—because those are what's necessary for viewers to make sense of what is happening until the show can get around to filling in some of the hundred-plus years of backstory. As a result, the show is a little slow to get started, and the real story doesn't kick in until around midseason. But once the story gets in gear, it just keeps getting better and better. Even by the end of the first season, characters have grown and changed dramatically. By the third season, they're all considerably more mature. Even the annoying whiner has gotten a lot less annoying and developed into a fine planner and swordsman.
I was utterly amazed that a children's cartoon, on Nickelodeon no less, could be like this. I never expected it, and I halfway wish someone had sat me down and forced me to watch this show sooner. (Only halfway, because I'm going crazy enough with only 8 episodes left to air sometime in the nebulous future. I don't like to think how crazy it would have made me to wait through the hiatuses and delays to watch the series in real time.) What it has is amazing…but I think I like it more for what it does not have.
It does not have cardboard cutout characters, villains who glory in being self-describedly "evil." What it has are conflicted characters—flawed heroes, sympathetic villains—who talk about good versus evil, without ever claiming the mantle for themselves.
It does not have Hollywood fortune-cookie Chinese mysticism. It has the real deal—adaptations of actual Far Eastern philsophical and mystical concepts of chi, yin and yang, chakras, the spirit world, harmony and balance, and so on.
It does not have fake-looking Hollywood martial arts, where karate chops and kicks are animated by people who've never seen them. It has a kung-fu sifu on the staff, who is not only the show's martial arts advisor but also tutors its creative staff in the martial arts so that they can get them right on-screen. As a result, the "bending" styles—which are based on real-world martial-arts schools such as t'ai-chi or Northern-style Shaolin—are rendered as gorgeously true-to-life as the animators can make them, fluid and easily recognizeable. And magnificently choreographed. There are fight sequences in here that are easily the animated equal of anything in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
It does not have meaningless squiggles that are meant to look oriental but don't actually mean what they're supposed to mean, if anything at all. There is also a translator and calligrapher on the staff, whose job is to make sure that everything looks like and means what it's supposed to. Any time you see pictograms on the screen, they have a specific meaning—sometimes one that is important to the story.
It does not have simplistic juvenile writing or empty moralizing. You know, the kind of writing where, say, in the first episodes of Voltron, the space rangers decide to rename themselves the Voltron Force, and then halfway across the galaxy, the villain who had been saying "get those space rangers" suddenly starts saying "get that Voltron Force"? Not here. The first few episodes may seem a little simplistic, but the show is still laying the groundwork and getting into its stride. When it really gets rolling, the story is seriously impressive. The writers know how to keep a lot of balls in the air, and characters and subplots that appear early on as "one-offs" may reenter the story much later in surprising ways. And also, characters who become important later may appear for a few seconds as background details in much earlier episodes, to be forgotten altogether until they are seen again.
And while the show does often feature moral lessons, they don't seem forced or preachy, but rather a natural consequence of the adventures and misadventures that help the characters learn and grow as people.
Perhaps the most amazing thing is that, though the show has to be kid-friendly, it's one of the first kid-friendly shows I can recall where the kid-friendliness didn't intrude into the storytelling. There are no moments that I can find where the necessity to move deaths off-screen or leave them ambiguous, or otherwise reduce violence levels, detracted from the story. In fact, the story was often more effective that way. I literally can't think of another American kiddie show where I didn't have to make a conscious decision to ignore some fundamental flaw introduced as part of a good-intentioned effort to protect kids from blood and guts.
Although I can't think of any particular times where liquid blood was seen, there have been grievous burns and other injuries depicted—actions have consequences, and characters have to live with the consequences of those actions. And there are a number of deaths in the backstory, some of them quite dramatic. Like the best kid-friendly shows, it doesn't talk down to its audience, giving kids credit for being able to think and having the attention span to follow a long, involved, epic story.
Also, the show is quite frequently hilarious. The writers have a delightful sense of the absurd, and it pops up at just the right moments to keep the mood from getting too oppressive without being too intrusive. The voice cast is talented, too, and well-directed by Andrea Romano, whose other work includes the Warner Brothers Batman and Superman stuff. One of the best of the actors is the sadly deceased Mako, who played Uncle Iroh for the first two seasons. I liked Mako's acting before I ever saw this show, and now I like it even more.
There are so many other ways I could go into why I love the series—talking about the powerful and moving images, plots, and subplots in detail—but they'd almost all be spoilers, and this if any show deserves to be spoiled as little as possible. Suffice it to say that this show is one of the best things on TV today, and I'll be waiting with bated breath for my DVDs to arrive so I can explore all the extras.
(Apparently I'm not the only one to feel this way: Airbender's IMDB rating is a respectable 9.3—with 4,905 votes.)
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Date: 2008-04-21 03:17 am (UTC)Avatar is utterly amazing, and has raised the bar for excellence, not just for kids shows, but for television in general.
Joe