After the movie, i decided to watch the original animated series of Avatar: The Last Airbender as well. It was definitely worth it. It was pretty much evident from the first five minutes that it’s way better than the movie, and except for three filler episodes, it kept going for the whole three seasons.

This is how story forming and character development is supposed to be done. Do you hear, SGU staff? It’s just right: not too slow, not too fast, not too furious. Just how the taoists teach, and the series get most of its inspiration from such ancient chinese ways. All four elements’ moves are from chinese martial arts, there are chinese writings everywhere and it doesn’t feel out of place either.

Of course it’s a kids’ toon and american, so it’s no big surprise i had a few minutes of good old facepalm. It has such a simple way of looking at war and terror that it makes me feel i could just fight off an army of earthbenders barehanded without any training, just because i’m very desperate. That’s the “kids'” part in “kids’ toon”, so it’s forgiven. But the typical american way of thinking, acting and speaking is so much off in this China-inspired world that i can’t phrase that. There are loads of simply lame dialogues, and somehow the love scenes don’t fit in either. Feels like they’re there, because in every american motion picture it’s “compulsory” to have a kissing scene. Why for 12 years old kids?

Anyway, the Airbender series also has something that the movie utterly lacked: humour. It’s funny. And at least with drawn characters you don’t have to worry about crappy acting—the animators did a great job there.

To be exact, the whole thing is a job done well. It’s entertaining. It’s pretty much exactly what it should be. The biggest problem is it’s too short. This much i watched in three days. Three days well spent.