Oh My Mind-Grapes...

In the past, I've watched the Super Bowl for one of two reasons: to root on The Steelers, or because I was bored and I wanted to catch the ads!  Last year however, I found that there was something greater than the ads to watch...the movie trailers!  And even though I didn't catch the Super Bowl yesterday, I was blessed enough to still catch wind of one of my most highly anticipated films OF ALL TIME - The Last Airbender!




I was completely enamored with this cartoon, and will argue with anyone that it was one of the dopest cartoons of my generation (and us 80's babies have had some really cool cartoons come out in our lifetime)!  Avatar, The Last Airbender, is the story of Ang, the last remaining member of the monk tribe of Airbenders, who also happens to be the next Avatar, or chosen master of all four elements.  The world Ang lives in, while very similar to earth, is a fantastic one where the world's inhabitants are divided into 4 nations.  Each nation has people within it that can manipulate, command, and control one of the earth's four elements - water, fire, earth, and air.  The fire nation, much like the element itself, seeks to consume the world and control all four kingdoms.  To do so, it declares war on the world.  When Ang learns that he is to be the next Avatar, he runs away from the Southern Air Temples where he lives to free himself of his impending responsibilities, only to get caught in a violent storm.  To keep himself and his flying Bison, Appa, from drowning, Ang cocoons he and Appa inside of a giant air bubble in the freezing arctic waters.

100 years later, Ang is discovered by two children from the Northern Water Tribes - Saka and Katara.  Seeing all of the destruction and anguish that has overtaken the world at the hands of the Fire Nation, Ang soon realizes that he has no other choice but to master the four elements and embrace his destiny as the world's next Avatar.

What made this show so compelling was not just the beautiful animation, nor was it the exotic world Ang lived in or the ridiculously inventive fight/battle sequences.  Instead, it was the development of the story and the characters as they journeyed from children into warriors.  Every aspect of the journey was covered in detail - their relational development, their emotional and spiritual development, and even their physical and tactical development!  A few years ago, my good friend Cedrick and I wrote a feature-length script for a movie.  We spent our entire summer that year, day in and day out, writing this script.  When we had finished, we'd spent 6 months and gone through 7 revisions/rewrites before we were ready to submit it for final approval.  We learned many things that summer about working with other creative people, having creative differences of opinion, and dealing with creative criticism.  But the most important lesson we learned, one that will never leave me as long as I live, is that without solid characters and a solid story, you have nothing!

Avatar, The Last Airbender, is one of those shows with a phenomenal story and solid characters that comes along once every 100 years (pun)!  I truly believe that many filmmakers, aspiring and established, can learn a lot from this show when it comes to story and character development!  The shows creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Brian Konietzko, did an outstanding job with the series, and I only hope and pray that M. Night Shyamalan (The 6th Sense, Signs, Lady in the Water) can capture the shows greatness on the big screen!  And judging from what I saw yesterday, I'm feeling PRETTY GOOD!

Peace,
~ L3