Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender shows audiences an adventure that Aang and friends went on some time after the events of the TV series. For those who watched the show, the spiritual elements and violence here will be similar to what they saw before. Positive messages about mercy, peace and forgiveness abound.
Water. Earth. Fire. Air.
Hey, if you’re watching this movie, you shouldn’t need a recap. But just to cover our bases, let’s do this one last time.
For most of recorded history, four nations of benders—people who can telekinetically “bend” one of the aforementioned four elements to their will—have lived in tense harmony, maintained primarily through the peacekeeping efforts of the Avatar. The Avatar is the only person able to master all four elements, and he or she stands as a bridge between the material world and the spirit world. When one Avatar dies, their spirit is born into the next Avatar. So it has been for generations.
But when Aang, an Airbender, discovered he was the next Avatar, he got scared and ran away—and ended up frozen in a ball of ice for a hundred years. In his absence, the Fire Nation rose up and waged war on the other three nations. They utterly wiped out the Airbenders and were set on conquering the world by the time Korra and Sokka of the Water Tribes found Aang and helped free him.
Fast forward through a TV series’ worth of plot, and Aang put an end to the Fire Nation’s antics. His enemy-turned-friend, Zuko, became the Fire Nation’s leader. The Hundred Year War was ended. And Aang founded Republic City, a place where benders and non-benders from all nations could live together in peace.
It’s been a long time since then, and Aang now spends most of his days collecting Airbender relics from around the world to preserve the Air Nomads’ culture. It’s a sort of penance for Aang: He still struggles with guilt for running away, convinced that Airbenders like him would still be around had he stayed and fought.
But on this trip, Aang doesn’t have much time to dwell on his past—not when a quartet of bandits tries to take his head off.
These bandits are part of a group who call themselves the “Denied,” non-benders who are tired of all the pain and suffering they’ve suffered at the hands of benders. They make off with one of Aang’s Airbender trinkets connected to a long-forgotten airbending Avatar named Sonam.
It isn’t long before Aang discovers what they’re after: Sonam’s staff, a powerful artifact which disappeared along with the ancient Avatar herself. Harnessing the power of the spirit world, the staff gives its wielder untold power—and it can be used to give a non-bender airbending abilities.
For the first time, Aang has hope. Hope that, with this staff, airbending culture won’t die with him. But if he’s going to set off on this adventure, he’ll need some help.
Perhaps some old war buddies will suffice.
A mentor tells Aang that he must understand when to show restraint, even if he has the power to win. This concept is a running theme throughout the movie: Aang must learn to show mercy, even when he has the ability to easily annihilate his enemies. He even saves the lives of the people who were attacking him.
Aang finds Tagah, an ancient Airbender, frozen in ice just as Aang was. Aang frees Tagah, and Tagah tells Aang that he doesn’t understand why Aang would ally with benders from other nations. (In his day, Earthbenders slaughtered his people just as the Fire Nation did to the Airbenders.) But Aang explains that when every bender stuck to his own people, the whole world was nearly torn apart. Though the Fire Nation committed atrocities, Aang believes “returning the favor” would only prolong hostilities. That’s why he advocates for peace instead.
Part of the movie deals with Aang learning to forgive himself for abandoning the Air Nomads. Aang tells someone that protecting one’s own people is only proper so long as they do not betray everything that people stood for. The movie also has a soft message that gaining too much power will corrupt every man.
A woman siding with terrorists sees the error of her ways and switches sides.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Avatar franchise (not James Cameron’s blue-alien one), plenty of the lore borrows from Eastern mythologies such as Buddhism and Taoism. The Airbenders are modeled after Tibetan monks, for instance. While this movie doesn’t dive into spiritual explanations as heavily as the TV show did, references to concepts like chi pop up. For a bigger understanding of the series’ spiritual views, you can read our blog: “The Theology of Avatar: The Last Airbender.”
As the Avatar, Aang can unlock power from the spirit Raava, who dwells inside every Avatar. When he does, his eyes and tattoos glow blue. He’s also able to meditate and speak with previous incarnations of the Avatar to receive information and advice. At one point, someone glances into the afterlife.
Aang and Tagah both hold to an Airbender belief that, at death, they will “return to the eternal wind.” Tagah tells Aang to “feel the energy that tethers us” in order to grow stronger in his airbending.
We are told that a man’s energy was so corrupted that he was consumed by spirit world power and turned into something “more than human.”
Katara performs a couple of biblical-esque feats. In one scene, she splits an ocean in half with her waterbending. In another scene, she brings recently deceased people back to life with her healing powers. (Waterbenders can use their bending to heal others by directing the body’s water to damaged portions and areas where their chi has been blocked.)
People travel to the spirit world through a portal created by the ocean spirit, and they speak with a zany spiritual beast. A staff grants its wielder the “power of the spirit world,” transforming them into a powerful creature.
We are told Waterbenders gather strength from the moon. In a recap, the movie explains Aang’s Avatar Spirit preserved him for 100 years. Someone says a man has a strong chi, and someone else comments on the “spiritual power” of ancient creatures. There’s a reference to destiny, and someone else claims the universe brought two people together.
One of Aang’s earthbending friends, Toph, is blind, but she can sense general shapes by detecting vibrations in the ground. Through this, she deduces that Tagah is very muscular, and she thinks he must be very attractive. (She cozies up to him a couple of times throughout the movie.)
When she asks her friends for confirmation, Zuko says that Tagah is a very attractive man. And when his friends look at him with surprise, Zuko comments, “What? He is. It’s all in the bone structure.”
Aang and Katara kiss a couple of times. Some men are shirtless.
We see mostly PG-rated violence, which includes characters getting punched, kicked and tossed around. People are struck by elemental forces wielded by benders, and others narrowly avoid getting hurt by blades, bombs or arrows. Most characters endure with nothing more than bruises and scratches.
That said, the threat of death is real: a flashback shows people getting crushed under giant rocks; in another, the camera pans over a field of dead bodies; we witness the genocide of Aang’s people, with men, women and children turning to ash and dissipating in the wind. Some people do die, but they are resurrected.
We see islands which formed on the skeletons of giant, dead creatures. A city burns, and a mountain explodes.
None, but Sokka shouts, “What the hogmonkey?”
Nothing really, though Aang holds what looks like wine at one point.
A previous incarnation of the Avatar has a few complaints about exposed feet.
Nickelodeon’s most popular franchise is back—though you’ll not see it in theaters.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender recently released on Paramount+. (Well, it “released” first on social media a few months back, when someone leaked the full film online.) It brings fans of the original animated series back into that element-bending world with some of the best-looking animation a viewer could ask for.
Of course, the reason I mention fans is because this movie is a sequel to the original series. (You can read our full review of Avatar: The Last Airbender right here.) Yes, the movie comes with a recap that’ll get newcomers up to speed, but a number of characters and plot elements that come into play will nevertheless be foreign to anyone jumping into the story for the first time.
If that includes you, you should know that The Last Airbender takes plenty of inspiration from Eastern mythology. As the bridge to the spirit world, the Avatar naturally has a lot of interaction with spirits. In fact, there’s enough here that we were able to write a blog all about the show’s theology—”The Theology of Avatar: The Last Airbender“—so if you’d like to know more, go ahead and check that out.
Besides that spirituality, the movie contains some violence—some of which results in characters dying. Because it’s rated PG, there’s no blood here—though we do see some people crushed under giant boulders in a flashback, and we witness the aftermath of the Airbender genocide. Also, a couple of characters, including a man, discuss the physical attractiveness of a male stranger.
None of this will be that surprising to someone who watched the TV series, of course. But it’ll still be nice to know so you won’t lose your cabbages over it.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
