Avatar: The Last Airbender

Last week, once again, we were snowed in. This has been a record-breaking winter for snowfall in the DC area, but luckily I had something to keep me occupied! Specifically, watching Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Now, Monkey Sri covered this show extremely well in a cartoon round-up about a year and a half ago. You can find it here. If you want a great discussion of the show's themes and hilarious commentary, I'll refer you to her post. All I really want to add to the conversation is this:

The Last Airbender is completely badass.

Other than reading Sri's post, it was never really on my radar until recently when I saw the trailer for the live action version coming out in July (and directed by one of my favorite people, M. Night Shyamalan) and thought "that looks awesome." I then mentioned it to a couple of friends who were fans of the cartoon and they recommended I watch it. A quick check of Netflix revealed that the first season (or "book") was available for instant viewing. And from that point on, my fate was sealed. In the sense that I was hooked and spent the next 2 days watching all 20 episodes of the first season.

But seriously, you guys, this show rocks. It's got amazing action and fight scenes, is really funny, and, as noted by Sri, is surprisingly deep for a children's show. It's got something for everyone, most importantly of all, it has a ten-ton, six-legged, giant flying bison with an arrrow on its head.

His name is Appa and I love him. He might possibly be my favorite part of the whole show.

I cannot recommend Avatar: The Last Airbender more and I really hope all of you get a chance to check it out. The live action movie also looks completely amazing, but please note that it simply called The Last Airbender to avoid confusion with the recent James Cameron movie. Here's the trailer (with cutie pie Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionare) and although he's not in the trailer, the movie has Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show! But what's up with them casting an American kid as Ang? I guess they just figured they can shave his head and call it a day. Of course, his mad kung-fu skills might have something to do with it...