Avatar:
The Last Airbender - The Complete Series (2005 - 2008
animated/Nickelodeon DVD Box set)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: D Episodes: B+
Avatar
The Last Airbender is a highly creative and fascinating animated
series that is presented here for the first time as one complete set
(; hopefully soon we will get the Blu-ray edition). Having survived
a horrible live action remake version from a few years ago by M Night
Shyamalan that had to drop the Avatar name, the original series here
has a fun anime vibe while still featuring traditional animation.
Presented over three books (known as Water, Earth, and Fire and
before only available separately) and sixteen discs, this ultimate
collection allows newcomers or hardcore fans to go back from the
beginning and enjoy the saga to its stunning conclusion.
If
you don't know the gist of the story, Avatar
The Last Airbender
takes place in a world home to humans and hybrid animals, adjacent to
a parallel Spirit World. Human civilization is divided into four
nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and
the Air Nomads. Each nation has a distinct society, wherein people
known as benders have the ability to manipulate and control the
element of their nation using martial arts. Only one man had control
of all the elements and at the shows beginning, he is encased in ice
and absent from modern day society. He is known as Aang.
Cleverly
(as discussed in our previous coverage of the franchise), each
bending style is based on an existing Chinese martial art such as the
Waterbenders (tai chi), Earthbenders (Hung Ga kung fu), Firebenders
(Northern Shaolin kung fu) and Airbenders (Baguazhang). In addition
to these four types of bending, there are several minor subcategories
of bending within them, including but not limited to: Metalbending,
Sandbending (Earth); Lightning generation and redirection (Fire) and
Bloodbending, Healing, Plantbending (Water).
Following
the narrative structure of the hero's journey, we follow Aang (The
Last Airbender) as he befriends some natives and soon learns the
power that he beholds. The show is also interestingly directed for
the most part by Dave Filoni, a Pittsburgh native who is also
responsible for the awesome Star Wars animated series of The
Clone Wars and the recent series - Rebels.
Presented
in standard definition with an anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of
1.78:1 and a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track, Avatar looks
fine on DVD but could benefit to a Blu-ray upgrade.
No
extras, sadly, which maybe the studio is saving for the eventual
Blu-ray release.
-
James Harland Lockhart V
www.facebook.com/jhl5films
