Avatar: The Last Airbender (also known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang ) is an American animated television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon and the Nicktoons Network. The series was created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who served as executive producers along with Aaron Ehasz. Avatar is set in an Asian-influenced world of martial arts and elemental manipulation. The show drew on elements from East Asian, South Asian, and Western culture, making it a mixture of an anime like and US domestic cartoons.
The series follows the adventures of the main protagonist Aang and his friends, who must save the world by defeating the evil Fire Lord and ending the destructive war with the Fire Nation. The pilot episode first aired on February 21, 2005 and the series concluded with a widely-lauded two-hour television movie on July 19, 2008. The show is now legally available from the following sources: on DVD, the iTunes Store, the Zune Marketplace, the Xbox Live Marketplace, the PlayStation Store, and its home on Nickelodeon.
Avatar: The Last Airbender was popular with both audiences and critics, garnering 5.6 million viewers on its best-rated showing and receiving high ratings in the Nicktoons lineup, even outside its 6–11-year-old demographic. Avatar has been nominated for and won awards from the Annual Annie Awards, the Genesis Awards, the primetime Emmy awards and a Peabody Award among others. The first season's success prompted Nickelodeon to order second and third seasons. The first part of a movie trilogy titled The Last Airbender is expected to be released on July 2, 2010.
Merchandise based on the series includes scaled action figures, a trading card game, three video games based on the first, second, and third seasons, stuffed animals distributed by Paramount Parks, and two LEGO sets.
Series synopsis
Main article: List of Avatar: The Last Airbender episodesSetting
One hundred years before the start of the series, a 12-year-old Airbender named Aang learns that he is the new Avatar. Fearful of the heavy responsibilities of being the Avatar, coupled with the coming separation from his beloved mentor Monk Gyatso (to complete his training), Aang flees from home on his flying bison Appa. Caught by a fierce storm, they crash into the ocean, and Aang's protective Avatar State freezes them in a state of suspended animation inside an iceberg.
Season One (Book One: Water)
Main article: Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 1)After being frozen in an iceberg, Aang and Appa are awoken a hundred years later by two siblings of the Southern Water Tribe, Katara and Sokka. Aang learns that the Fire Nation started a war a hundred years ago, just after his disappearance. The Fire Nation launched a genocidal attack on the Air Nomads, starting the war and driving Aang's entire nation to extinction making him "The Last Airbender". He realizes that he must fulfill his destiny of becoming the Avatar and return the balance to the world by defeating the Fire Nation army. Aang sets out to master the other three elements: Water, Earth, and Fire. With Katara and Sokka, Aang decides to head to the North Pole to find a Waterbending master for himself and Katara, the only Waterbender in the South Pole.
Aang travels to a Crescent Island in the Fire Nation after contacting Avatar Roku's dragon animal guide in the spirit world. Following the instruction from Roku's dragon, he travels to the Crescent Island to a Fire-Sage temple wherein he contacts Roku on the winter solstice. Roku tells Aang that he must master all four elements and end the war before the next summer, as Sozin's Comet will pass the world after a hundred years. Fire Lord Ozai will end the war using this comet, an additional power source that will make the fire benders even stronger. The comet was named after Ozai's Grandfather, Sozin, who also used the coming of the comet to start the war, and deal a deadly first strike to the other nations.
For most of their journey to the North Pole, the group is pursued by Zuko, a banished Fire Nation prince and son of Fire Lord Ozai, and by Commander Zhao, an ambitious naval officer who also wants to capture the Avatar to further his own ambitions. Zuko is obsessed with capturing Aang to restore his honor and his place in line for the Fire Nation throne; he was banished for speaking out of turn in a war meeting and refusing to fight his father in an agni kai (literally a 'fire duel'). Zuko was accompanied by his uncle,General Iroh, a wise and kindly general who was supposed to be the successor to the Fire Nation throne before it was usurped by his younger brother Ozai. Zuko and Iroh were the first to discover that the Avatar is still alive, but decides to keep this information secret from Commander Zhao. Their suspicious actions piques the interest of Zhao, who also discovers that the Avatar is still alive. Zhao prevents Zuko and Iroh from pursuing the Avatar while starting a search of his own. The Fire Lord, seeing Zhao's zest in the pursuit, promotes the commander to Admiral status, making him in charge of the operation to capture the Avatar.
When the Avatar reaches the Northern Water Tribe along with Sokka and Katara, he and Katara are trained in the art of waterbending by Master Pakku. When the Fire Nation attacks the North Pole, Aang enters the Avatar state and destroys their fleets of ships after restoring balance to the stolen Moon Goddess. The Season ends with the group having destroyed Zhao's attempts at conquering the North Pole.
Season Two (Book Two: Earth)
Main article: Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 2)After leaving the North Pole and Aang finishes mastering Waterbending under the instruction of Katara, who has mastered the element faster than he. Aang and friends travel to the Earth Kingdom to master Earthbending. Their initial plan was to learn under Bumi, king of the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu, but discover that he and Omashu have been captured by the Fire Nation and Bumi is waiting for the right time to strike. Searching for a new Earthbending teacher, the group meets Toph, a blind Earthbending prodigy who becomes Aang's second teacher. The heroes discover information about an upcoming solar eclipse which would leave the Fire Nation powerless and open to invasion. They struggle to reach the Earth King with this vital information, but are detoured by Appa's kidnapping. Azula, Zuko's sister, and her two friends Mai and Ty Lee chase the group as they struggle to reach Ba Sing Se, the Earth Kingdom capital. Azula engineers a plan that allows the Fire Nation complete control over Ba Sing Se and the rest of the Earth Kingdom, and destroys any hope of a large-scale invasion of the Fire Nation. Azula is believed to have killed the Avatar using lightning while Aang was in the Avatar state, and there is no hope left. In reality she disaligned his seventh chakra, thus blocking the Avatar state.
Zuko deals with internal conflict as he and Iroh secede from the Fire Nation, settle in the Earth Kingdom, and disguise themselves as refugees. After a brief period of reformation, Zuko helps Azula defeat Aang and is allowed to return back to the Fire nation as a re-instated prince.
Season Three (Book Three: Fire)
Main articles: Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 3) and Sozin's Comet: The Final BattleThe group recovers from the fall of Ba Sing Se, and from Aang's injury, travel to the planned invasion site. On the day of the solar eclipse, Aang's group and a smaller band of warriors launch a smaller invasion, which ultimately fails. Zuko confronts his father and defects from the Fire Nation. After a series of events, he manages to gain the trust of the protagonists and becomes Aang's firebending teacher. Aang and Zuko unlock the firebending secrets of the "Sun Warriors", Zuko helps Katara find the man who killed her mother, and Sokka and Zuko travel to a Fire Nation prison to rescue Sokka's father and Suki.
On the day of Sozin's Comet, Fire Lord Ozai harnesses the comet's power to start a genocidal campaign to destroy the rest of the world. Aang and his friends face the self-proclaimed "Phoenix King" Ozai, Azula (now promoted as the new Fire Lord by Ozai), and the Fire Nation army. Aang confronts and defeats Ozai while the Order of the White Lotus takes back Ba Sing Se from the Fire Nation. At the same time, Zuko is incapacitated by Azula (while protecting Katara), whom Katara then defeats. Aang battles with Ozai, and, in the Avatar State, almost kills him before restraining himself and instead calls upon the lost art of Energybending to remove Ozai's bending abilities. Zuko becomes the next Fire Lord, and, alongside Aang, brings harmony to the world.
Production
Avatar: The Last Airbender was co-created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, California. According to Bryan Konietzko, the program was conceived in the spring of 2001 when he took an old sketch of a balding, middle-aged man and re-imagined the character as a child. Konietzko drew the character herding bison in the sky, and showed the sketch to Mike D
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