The Last Airbender Movie

Release Date: July 1, 2010 (3D/2D theaters)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Screenwriter: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel, Jessica Jade Andres, Aasif Mandvi, Shaun Toub, Cliff Curtis, Keong Sim

Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Official Website: TheLastAirbendermovie.com

Plot Summary: Air, Water, Earth, Fire. Four nations tied by destiny when the Fire Nation launches a brutal war against the others. A century has passed with no hope in sight to change the path of this destruction. Caught between combat and courage, Aang (Noah Ringer) discovers he is the lone Avatar with the power to manipulate all four elements. Aang teams with Katara (Nicola Peltz), a Waterbender, and her brother, Sokka (Jackson Rathbone), to restore balance to their war-torn world.

Based on the hugely successful Nickelodeon animated TV series, the live-action feature film "The Last Airbender" is the opening chapter in Aang's struggle to survive.

Watch The Last Airbender Movie Online

Watch The Last Airbender Movie Online

Watch The Last Airbender Movie Online

Director:
M. Night Shyamalan

Cast:
Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Dev Patel, Jackson Rathbone, Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi, Cliff Curtis


Synopsis

Air, Water, Earth, Fire. Four nations tied by destiny when the Fire Nation launches a brutal war against the others. A century has passed with no hope in sight to change the path of this destruction. Caught between combat and courage, Aang (Noah Ringer) discovers he is the lone Avatar with the power to manipulate all four elements. Aang teams with Katara (Nicola Peltz), a Waterbender, and her brother, Sokka (Jackson Rathbone), to restore balance to their war—torn world.

Based on the hugely successful Nickelodeon animated TV series, the live—action feature film “The Last Airbender” is the opening chapter in Aang’s struggle to survive.Watch The Last Airbender Online.

The Last Airbender

Watch The Last Airbender Movie Online

The Last Airbender is an upcoming American action-adventure fantasy film scheduled to be released on July 1, 2010. It is a live-action film adaptation based on the first season of the animated television series, Avatar: The Last Airbender. The first of a planned trilogy, it will be produced by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies. The series, influenced by Asian art, mythology and various martial arts fighting styles, was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and was adapted by M. Night Shyamalan, who will also direct and produce the film. Other producers include Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy, Sam Mercer and Scott Aversano. Filming began in mid-March 2009; the movie will be released in both traditional two-dimensional projectors, as well as in 3D.


The film stars Noah Ringer as Aang, a reluctant hero who prefers adventure over his job as the Avatar. Aang and his friends, Katara and Sokka, journey to the North Pole to find a Waterbending master to teach Aang and Katara the secrets of the craft. At the same time, Fire Lord Ozai, the current Fire Lord of the Fire Nation, is waging a seemingly endless war against the Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes, and the already vanquished Air Nomads. The film also stars Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, and Dev Patel.

List of Avatar: The Last Airbender characters

The Avatar: The Last Airbender animated television series and live-action film adaptation, The Last Airbender, features an extensive cast of characters created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. The series deals with a war that was started by the Fire Nation as an attempt to conquer the world, taking advantage of the absence of the Avatar, who alone holds the power to counter Fire Nation aggression. During the Avatar's absence, the balance between the Fire Nation and the three other countries, the Air Nomads, Earth Kingdom, and the Water Tribes, began to deteriorate and plunged the world into a century of war. The first phase of war ended with the elimination of the Air Nomads, near extinction of the Water Tribes, and near-total colonization of the Earth Kingdom, thus setting up the world that the characters of Avatar lived in.

The main protagonist of the series is Aang, the most recent incarnation of the Avatar, who is released from an iceberg after being frozen for a hundred years. With his new friends Katara and Sokka, and later Toph, Aang sets out to master the three unlearned elements and end the war that has ravaged the world during his absence. While primarily focused on Aang, the series also focuses on Zuko, the crown prince of the nation that started a world-domination campaign during the Avatar's absence. Zuko is initially portrayed as an antagonist who tries to capture Aang, but with the help of his uncle, he eventually develops conflicting feelings about the war and later becomes one of the primary protagonists. This change of heart causes the role of the primary antagonist to shift to his sister, Princess Azula, and his father, Fire Lord Ozai.

Character designs were developed through a series of drawings by one of the series' creators, Bryan Konietzko. The main sketch depicted a middle-aged monk with an arrow on his head and later included a flying bison. Konietzko's partner, Michael Dante DiMartino, was at the time interested in documentaries related to the South Pole. They combined these ideas and created the concept of an "air guy" and "water guys" trapped in a snowy wasteland, with "fire guys" invading them. Additionally, the writers based the characters' different bending abilities on distinct styles of martial arts.

Main Characters

• Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen) is the fun-loving, protagonist of the series, who had been frozen in ice with his flying bison, Appa, for many years. He is freed by a young Waterbender named Katara. Who, later becomes his love intrest. He is the current incarnation of the Avatar, the spirit of the planet manifested in human form. Aang is a reluctant hero, trying to return balance to the world.

• Katara (Mae Whitman) is a powerful, 14-year-old Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. Katara and her brother, Sokka, discover and free Aang from a block of ice in which he had been for many years. With her brother Sokka, she accompanies Aang on his quest to defeat the Fire Lord, and eventually becomes his Waterbending teacher. Katara is also one of the only Waterbenders that have the ability to Bloodbend which allows her to control any person by bending the water inside the blood, although she is reluctant to use the ability. In the original unaired pilot episode, Katara's name was Kya; this later is stated to be her mother's name.

• Sokka (Jack DeSena) is a 15-year-old warrior of the Southern Water Tribe. With his sister, Katara, he accompanies Aang on his quest to defeat the Fire Lord. The joker of the group, Sokka describes himself as "meat-loving" and "sarcastic". Unlike his companions, Sokka does not have any bending ability, but the series, though it often makes him the victim of comedy at his expense, frequently grants him opportunities to use his ingenuity and weapons, including his trusty boomerang and a sword he forged from a meteorite. From creator Michael Dante DiMartino it was revealed that Sokka too had some waterbending potential, but never realized he had any.

• Toph Bei Fong (Jessie Flower) is a 12-year-old blind, tough Earthbender that appears in the second season of the show. Not long after meeting Aang and his friends, she leaves her wealthy family and comfortable home to join Aang on his quest, with a plan to teach him Earthbending. Though blind, Toph "sees" by feeling the vibrations in the ground through her feet. She is the only Earthbender to learn to bend metal and is considered one of the most powerful Earthbenders.

• Zuko (Dante Basco) is the 16-year-old exiled prince of the Fire Nation and original antagonist of the series. Due to events in Zuko's past, his father, Fire Lord Ozai, deems him a complete failure, and Zuko feels he must capture the Avatar to regain his honor. Over time, Zuko struggles to deal with his anger, self-pity, and familial relationships; meanwhile, he grows sympathetic to the people his nation has terrorized. he takes on the identity of "the blue spirit" at the end of season 1 and the beginning of season two. origionally "the blue spirit" was going to be "the red spirit". In season three, he defects from the Fire Nation, and joins Aang and the team in order to teach Aang Firebending. At the end of the series, he is crowned ruler of the Fire Nation. He was said to be the original love intrest of Katara.

• Azula (Grey DeLisle) is the manipulative 14-year-old (at the beginning of season two) princess of the Fire Nation. She is Zuko's younger sister and one of the major antagonists of the series. Azula is a Firebending prodigy and is one of the few living Firebenders capable of casting lightning. She has no qualms about bullying and threatening her relatives or friends, reserving any familial loyalty for her father.

• Iroh (Mako in season one and two. Greg Baldwin in season three) is a retired Fire Nation general, known as the Dragon of the West, and Prince Zuko's uncle and mentor. Iroh was the original heir to the Fire Nation throne until his brother usurped the throne after Fire Lord Azulon's death. On the surface, Iroh is a cheerful, kind, and optimistically eccentric, tea loving old man, but he still remains a powerful warrior and a devoted surrogate parent to Zuko. Iroh is a Grand Master of the Order of the White Lotus, a secret society of men from all nations and helps retake Ba Sing Se during the series finale. Unlike most Firebenders, Iroh does not use fury as the source of his strength; instead he uses the original Firebending skills learned from the Dragons. It is said from Michael Dante DiMartino that Iroh taught Zuko how to use Azula's ligthing attack, but never used it at full power, alas the episode with Zuko's learning of this attack was un-aired for unknown reasons. The episode was supposedly named, "Book 3, Chapter 17 'Zuko advances'"(since this episode was reflected on only Zuko's training), but for unknown reasons, this episode was replaced by "The Ember Island Players."

Fighting Styles

The fighting choreography of the show draws from martial arts; the fighting styles and weaponry are based on Chinese martial arts, with each bending art corresponding to a certain real-world style. The creators referred to Ba Gua for Airbending, Hung Gar for Earthbending, Northern Shaolin for Firebending, and Tai Chi for Waterbending. The series employed Sifu Kisu of the Harmonious Fist Chinese Athletic Association as a martial arts consultant.

Each fighting style was chosen to represent the element it projected:

• Tai Chi focuses on alignment, body structure, breath, and visualization. This technique is the foundation of "Waterbending" in the series.

• Hung Gar was chosen for its firmly rooted stances and powerful strikes to present the solid nature of earth. This martial art is the basis of "Earthbending" in the series.

• Northern Shaolin Kung Fu uses strong arm and leg movements. This technique is the foundation of "Firebending" in the series.

• Ba Gua uses dynamic circular movements and quick directional changes.This technique uses centripetal force to generate power, and uses nearly constant circular movement to create angles between the combatants. This martial art is the basis of "Airbending" in the series.

The only exception to this is Toph, who can be seen practicing a Chu Gar Southern Praying Mantis style. Its distinguishing movements and unique footwork give her the ability to overcome her blindness and defeat more muscular Masters of Earthbending. It also makes sense when one considers she is mostly self-taught.

Elements

Avatar draws on the four classical elements common to most ancient philosophies (rather than the five classical Chinese elements) for its bending arts: Water, Earth, Fire and Air. Although each has its own variation, most ancient philosophies incorporate these four elements in some way: examples include the classical Hindu, Buddhist, and Greek elemental traditions.

In the show’s opening, each element is accompanied by two Chinese characters: an ancient Chinese seal script character on the left, and a modern Chinese character on the right:

• Water (Chinese: 水; pinyin: shui) is associated with benevolence and adaptivity (Chinese: 善; pinyin: shan).

• Earth (Chinese: 土; pinyin: tu) is associated with strength and stability (Chinese: 強; pinyin: qiang).

• Fire (Chinese: 火; pinyin: huo) is associated with intensity and passion (Chinese: 烈; pinyin: lie)

• Air (Chinese: 气; pinyin: qi) is associated with peace and harmony (Chinese: 和; pinyin: he).[33]

Avatar

The term "Avatar" comes from the Indian language of Sanskrit. The word Avatāra, (Sanskrit: अवतार), which means "descent"; its roots are ava, "down," and tri, "to pass." In the Hindu scriptures, avatara signifies the descent of Divinity into flesh. One who attains union with Spirit and then returns to earth to help humanity is called an avatar. The Chinese characters that appear at the top of the show's title card mean "the divine medium who has descended upon the mortal world."

When Aang was young, he unknowingly revealed that he was the Avatar when he chose four toys out of thousands, each of which were the childhood toys of the previous Avatars. In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a similar test for reincarnations of a Tulku Lama. In Magic and Mystery in Tibet, Alexandra David-Neel writes that "a number of objects such as rosaries, ritualistic implements, books, tea-cups, etc., are placed together, and the child must pick out those which belonged to the late tulku, thus showing that he recognizes the things which were theirs in their previous life." Each successor is expected to show signs of continuity with the previous Avatar, such as being born within a week of the death.

Cultural Influences

Avatar is notable for borrowing extensively from Asian art and mythology to create its universe. The show's character designs are heavily influenced by anime; the show, however, is not generally considered to be "anime" because of its origination in the United States. Explicitly stated influences include Chinese art and history, Japanese anime, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Yoga. The production staff employs a cultural consultant, Edwin Zane, to review scripts.

Traditional East Asian calligraphy styles are used for nearly all the writing in the show. For each instance of calligraphy, an appropriate style is used, ranging from seal script (more archaic) to clerical script. The show employed calligrapher Siu-Leung Lee as a consultant and translator.

The choreographed martial art bending moves were profoundly affected by Asian cinema. In an interview, Bryan revealed that, "Mike and I were really interested in other epic 'Legends & Lore' properties, like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but we knew that we wanted to take a different approach to that type of genre. Our love for Japanese anime, Hong Kong action and kung fu cinema, yoga, and Eastern philosophies led us to the initial inspiration for Avatar."

Premise

Avatar: The Last Airbender takes place in a world that is home to humans, fantastic animals, and spirits. Human civilization is divided into four nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Air Nomads, and the Fire Nation. Each nation has its own natural element, on which it bases its society. Furthermore, people known as "Benders" have the ability to manipulate the eponymous element of their nation using the physical motions of martial arts. The show’s creators based each Bending style on a style of real-world martial art, leading to visual differences in the techniques used by Waterbenders (tai chi chuan), Earthbenders (Hung Ga kung fu, for the most part), Firebenders (Northern Shaolin kung fu) and Airbenders (baguazhang). Each country is also associated with a season: Autumn for the Air Nomads, winter for the Water Tribe, spring for the Earth Kingdom and summer for the Fire Nation.

At any given time, there is only one person alive in the world of Avatar who is capable of bending all four elements: the show's titular Avatar, the spirit of the planet manifested in human form. When an Avatar dies, he or she is reincarnated into the next nation in the Avatar Cycle, in the order of the seasons. Legend holds the Avatar must master each bending art in seasonal order as well, starting with their native element. For the Avatar, learning to bend their opposite element can be extremely difficult; the example shown in the series is Aang's inability to stand his ground head-on while Earthbending, his Airbender training having placed emphasis on circling, approaching from new angles and adapting on the fly.

The Avatar possesses a unique power called the Avatar State, which endows the Avatar with the knowledge and abilities of all past Avatars and acts as a self-triggering defense mechanism, although it can be made subject to the will of the user through various methods, such as extensive trial and training (such as Avatar Roku), or if he/she opens his/her bodily Chakras. If an Avatar is killed in the Avatar State, the reincarnation cycle will be broken, and the Avatar will cease to exist. Through the ages, countless incarnations of Avatar have served to keep the four nations in harmony, and maintain world order. The Avatar serves as the bridge between the physical world and the Spirit World, allowing him or her to solve problems that normal benders cannot.

Production

Avatar: The Last Airbender was co-created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, California. Animation work was done by the Korean animation studio DR Movie. According to Bryan Konietzko, the program was conceived in the spring of 2001 when he took an old sketch of a balding, middle-aged man and re-imagined the character as a child. Konietzko drew the character herding bison in the sky, and showed the sketch to Mike DiMartino. At the time, DiMartino was studying a documentary about explorers trapped in the South Pole.

Konietzko described their early development of the concept:
“ We thought, "There's an air guy along with these water people trapped in a snowy wasteland... and maybe some fire people are pressing down on them..." ”

The co-creators successfully pitched the idea to Nickelodeon VP and executive producer Eric Coleman just two weeks later.

The show was first revealed to the public in a teaser reel at Comic-Con 2004, and aired February 21, 2005. In the United States, the first two episodes of the series were shown together in a one-hour premiere event. A second twenty-episode season ran from March 17, 2006 through December 1. A third and final season, beginning September 21, 2007, featured twenty-one episodes rather than the usual twenty. The final four episodes were packaged as a two-hour movie.

Season Three (Book Three: Fire)

Ba Sing Se has fallen, and Aang is critically injured. He awakes to find his group on a Fire Nation ship disguised in similar regalia.

Sokka has planned a small-scale invasion of the Fire Nation to simply capture the Fire Lord's palace and defeat Fire Lord Lord Ozai, making use of their previous plan to take advantage of a soon-approaching solar eclipse which will render Firebending impossible for eight minutes. However, instead of the Earth Kingdom army and navy, the invasion will be staged by a ragtag group of benders and warriors who became allies of the Avatar along his journeys in Books 1 and 2. Aang and his group then infiltrate the Fire Nation and travel to the rendezvous point for the invasion force. Also, Aang starts to have nightmares about meeting the firelord.

The invasion proceeds as planned with the group defeating much of the defenses and capturing the area around the palace, but Aang finds that the palace had been evacuated beforehand and the fire nation had foreknowledge of the invasion; the royal family has taken refuge in a nearby bunker under a volcano and prepared an air fleet in a surprise counter-maneuver. Aang never finds Firelord Ozai, but Zuko does, and uses the eclipse as his chance to confront his father and proclaim his decision to join the Avatar. As the group realizes they have failed in their main objective, they abandon the captured Fire Nation capital and make a desperate effort to reach their ships to escape. However, the pursuing air fleet destroys the protagonist party's ships. Now, only Aang's sky bison Appa can provide a means of escape, and Aang retreats with the children and teens aboard Appa while the adults stay behind and are taken captive.

Zuko catches up with Aang at the Western Air Temple and offers to teach Aang firebending, to complete his training as an Avatar and master all four elements. After a brief conflict, he is allowed to join the group. The two travel to unlock the firebending secrets of the original firebenders, the secretive "Sun Warriors". He and Sokka also plan an infiltration of Boiling Rock, a high-security Fire Nation prison surrounded by the boiling water within a volcanic caldera, where high ranking prisoners of war are kept. They find Sokka's father and Suki, the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors and Sokka's former love interest, but Zuko is quickly discovered and Azula comes to question him, accompanied by Mai and Ty Lee. Both girls eventually aid Zuko and Sokka in escaping the prison, betraying Azula in the process. Enraged, Azula demands their imprisonment and begins to slip into paranoia and insanity at the loss of her most trusted confidants and the later misguiding of her own father, the Fire Lord.

After regrouping, Sokka tries to create a new battle plan to defeat the Fire Lord before he can make use of the approaching Sozin's comet to empower himself and his armies (the worst case scenario the avatar had been trying to prevent since Book 1), but peace-loving Aang refuses when they ask him to kill Firelord Ozai. In his confusion, he is drawn to a mysterious island and meditates on other ways to defeat Ozai by calling on the spirits of other past Avatars for advice. Each Avatar advises him to destroy Ozai, and Aang is reluctantly resigned to killing him until he discovers that the island that he and Momo are on is really an ancient, giant, wise "lion-turtle." Aang asks it for advice, and the Lion-Turtle teaches him the ancient art of Spiritbending as a way to avoid killing Ozai.

On the day of Sozin's Comet, Fire Lord Ozai, now the self-proclaimed "Phoenix King" harnesses the comet's power to start a genocidal campaign to finally annihilate the Earth Kingdom. Princess Azula (Ozai's daughter and Zuko's sister) has come up with a plan to use the airship fleet to destroy the hope of the Earth Kingdom, thus ending it. While Aang and Momo are still missing from their own trip to the "mysterious island", Aang's friends set off to face Ozai, Azula (soon to be crowned the new Fire Lord), and the entire Fire Nation army. Zuko and Katara go to face Azula just moments before her coronation, so that he can usurp the throne in her stead; Sokka, Suki and Toph sabotage the air fleet; and the Order of the White Lotus fights to reclaim Ba Sing Se from the Fire Nation. Aang returns just in time to take on Phoenix King Ozai. Finally reclaiming his ability to enter the Avatar State, Aang almost kills Ozai before restraining himself and instead calls upon the lost art of Spiritbending to remove Ozai's bending abilities altogether. The war is over, Zuko is crowned Fire Lord, and alongside Aang, he ends the war and promises to bring harmony to the entire world. As Fire Lord Zuko visits his father in prison and demands to know the location of his mother right before the whole group is together for tea in Iroh's teashop in Ba Sing Se. While Sokka is painting a picture of everyone, Aang goes out, Katara follows him, and the series ends with them kissing.

Season Two (Book Two: Earth)

After leaving the North Pole, Aang finishes mastering Waterbending under the instruction of Katara, who has mastered the element faster than he has. Aang and friends travel to the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu to master Earthbending. Their initial plan is to learn under Bumi, king of the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu, but they discover that he and Omashu have been captured by the Fire Nation and Bumi is waiting for the right time to strike. Searching for a new Earthbending teacher, the group meets Toph, a blind Earthbending prodigy who becomes Aang's second teacher and teaches him, amongst other things, her unique ability to use earthbending to "see" vibrations with her feet.

After discovering a hidden ancient library, the heroes discover information about an upcoming solar eclipse which would deprive the Firebenders of their bending and open to invasion, giving Aang his chance to defeat the Firelord. They struggle to reach the Earth King with this vital information, but are detoured by Appa's kidnapping. Azula, Zuko's sister, and her two friends Mai and Ty Lee chase the group as they struggle to reach Ba Sing Se, the Earth Kingdom capital. By capturing and then impersonating the Kyoshi Warriors, Azula engineers a plan to manipulate a secret group of earthbenders called the Dai Li to instigate a coup d'état that allows the Fire Nation to take complete control over Ba Sing Se and deal a fatal defeat to the Earth Kingdom, and destroys any hope of the Earth Kingdom staging a large-scale invasion of the Fire Nation. In a final confrontation, Azula kills the Avatar using lightning while Aang is in the Avatar state. By a last minute betrayal by Iroh, Katara is able to escape with Aang's body. Thinking the Avatar is killed, the world begins to believe there is no hope left. In reality, the Avatar has been revived by Katara using water she had received from their water bending master which contains special properties that amplify her natural water bending healing powers.

Zuko deals with internal conflict as he and Iroh defect from the Fire Nation after his father orders his capture and imprisonment for his failures, settle in the Earth Kingdom, and disguise themselves as refugees and eventually end up opening a successful tea shop called "The Jasmine Dragon" in Ba Sing Se. After a brief period of reformation, Zuko again rejoins the Fire Nation when he helps Azula defeat Aang. As a reward, his exile is ended and he is allowed to return back to the Fire nation as a re-instated prince.

In the season finale, while captured by bounty hunters sent by the Bei Fong family to return Toph to her home, the "Blind Bandit" uses her earthbending skills to "see" the particles of refined earth that make metal and becomes the world's first "metal bender," a feat previously thought to be impossible.

Season One (Book One: Water)

One hundred years before the start of the series, a 12-year-old airbender named Aang learns he is the new Avatar, the only person in his generation capable of manipulating all four elements to his will and the one tasked with maintaining peace between the Four Nations of the world. Fearful of the heavy responsibilities of being the Avatar, coupled with the coming separation from his beloved mentor Monk Gyatso (to complete his training), Aang flees from home on his animal guide, a flying bison called Appa. Caught by a fierce storm, they crash into the ocean, and Aang's protective Avatar State freezes them in a state of suspended animation inside an iceberg. Right after his disappearance, Fire Lord Sozin, realizing that according to the Avatar cycle the next Avatar will come from the Air Nomads, launches a genocidal campaign against the Air Nomads. This way he can ensure that the next Avatar will not try to foil his plots for world domination as the last one of his kind.

Aang becomes unfrozen by a young water-bending girl named Katara, and her older warrior brother, Sokka after being in the iceberg for one hundred years. The three travel to the north pole so Aang and Katara can learn waterbending. While on their journey, Aang and friends visit the Southern Air Temple, where the new Avatar has a tragic encounter, discovering that the Fire Nation has indeed wiped out every last member of the Air Nomads except for himself, and meets up with the only known remaining "winged lemur" while there, that Aang names "Momo", who joins Aang's group. The trio are constantly being pursued by Prince Zuko, the exiled son of the current Fire Lord Ozai, who can only return to the Fire Nation and reclaim his honor and throne if he captures the Avatar. Zuko travels with his uncle Iroh, a legendary Fire Nation general and older brother of Ozai.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender (also known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang) is an American animated television series that aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon and the Nicktoons Network. The series was created and produced by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who served as executive producers along with Aaron Ehasz. Avatar is set in an Asian-influenced world of Chinese martial arts and elemental manipulation. The show drew on elements from traditional Asian (mainly Chinese, Indian and Japanese) culture and Indian religions (Hinduism and Buddhism), while blending the styles of anime and US domestic cartoons. The show is often mistaken for anime because of the style.

The series follows the adventures of the main protagonist Aang and his friends, who must save the world by defeating the evil Fire Lord and ending the destructive war with the Fire Nation. The pilot episode first aired on February 21, 2005 and the series concluded with a widely-praised two-hour television movie on July 19, 2008. The show is available from the following sources: on DVD, the iTunes Store, the Zune Marketplace, the Xbox Live Marketplace, the PlayStation Store, Netflix Instant Play, and on Nicktoons.

Avatar: The Last Airbender was popular with both audiences and critics, garnering 5.6 million viewers on its best-rated showing and receiving high ratings in the Nicktoons lineup, even outside its 6–11-year-old demographic. Avatar has been nominated for and won awards from the Annual Annie Awards, the Genesis Awards, the primetime Emmy awards and a Peabody Award among others. The first season's success prompted Nickelodeon to order second and third seasons. The first part of a movie trilogy titled The Last Airbender is expected to be released on July 2, 2010.

Merchandise based on the series includes scaled action figures, a trading card game, three video games based on the first, second, and third seasons, stuffed animals distributed by Paramount Parks, and two LEGO sets. An art book was released in mid-2010.