AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER (2024): Season One

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER brings the energy and adventure of the animated Nickelodeon series to life for a new generation in a new live action series. When Aang, a young but gifted mage called an airbender from the Air Nation, wakes up from having been trapped in ice for a century, he finds the world has changed for the worse. The Fire Nation makes a play for dominance, well aware that only one thing could thwart its imperial plot, the return of the Avatar, the person who can manipulate all four major elements: earth, air, wind, and fire. The Fire Nation threatens to undo the balance of the world, having practiced genocide in order to prevent the revelation and arrival of the newest Avatar.

Now, with new friends, Katara and Sokka, from the Water Nation, Aang must travel the world on his air bison, Oppa. By connecting with past Avatars through sacred shrines, he must seek to understand who he is, what he must do and where his destiny is leading him. However, can he do so with the Four Nations divided against each other and the Fire Lord seeking him with all the resources at his command?

Technically speaking, the series is very well done. Netflix has clearly spared no expense in bringing the animated series to life in eight stellar episodes. The story is compelling and true to the original animated series. The special effects are impressive. The action adventure is very exciting. Characters are true to the original series, with some even being arguably better than their animated originals. For example, Sokka is a much more brave and honorable character now and Katara is less of a feminist, which is a major improvement. However, much like the original, Prince Zuko and Uncle Iroh clearly remain the most dynamic characters, with few others reaching their level of quality. An example of this is the standout Episode 6, titled “Masks,” where the depth and quality of these two companions is on full display. This new live action series is an exhilarating ride with solid performances, excellent production values, and an engaging story filled with action adventure.

However, as in the animated series, the live action programs promote a false mystical Eastern paganism with environmentalist overtones and some moral elements. Much like the animated original, it’s the story of the Avatar, a supernatural being who keeps the Confucian balance among the Four Nations and is eternally reincarnated, Hindu style, whenever that Confucian balance is threatened. Many characters demonstrate the moral, biblical, redemptive virtues of friendship, courage, justice, and self-sacrificial love, among others. The protagonist, Aang, and his friends, Katara and Sokka, manifest these again and again. Ultimately, they do so, however, in spite of, not in consistency with, the story’s cosmology and theology.

Also, Season One promotes an environmentalist viewpoint, such when Aang says, “It’s the Avatar’s job to protect the natural world, and that’s just as important as protecting people and fighting firebenders.” Although we as God’s creatures are to take care of the natural world, this quote makes it sound like nature is of equal value with people, when in reality God made humans as the pinnacle of creation. As image bearers of the Creator, they are to maintain dominance over the natural world, but a dominance where they turn the wilderness into a garden where human beings can live productively and joyously.

Though aimed at children, AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER is certainly not for kids. Aang meditates in order to connect to the spirit world and pulls his friends into it as well, where they are confronted with a horrific spirit called “Koh, the face stealer.” This demonic being is truly disturbing. Later, Season One also reveals that Koh’s mother is “an ancient spirit that crafted faces for all living beings,” and “it’s because of her that identity came into the world.” So, according to the false theology of the series, the diversity of humanity is the result of a pagan female spirit who gave birth to a demon who haunts the spirit world? This is of course an extremely unbiblical notion.

The overall philosophical problems of the series have to do with its embrace of Eastern mysticism and one of its corollaries, balance theory. From a biblical worldview, the greatest power in the cosmos is the Holy Spirit, not an impersonal Karmic Force of mystic energy. The same pagan assumptions that underlie the Eastern mysticism of STAR WARS is on full display in AVATAR. Mystical energy, reincarnation, pagan meditation in which “the chosen one” communes with his former selves and separates his soul from his body (along with those of his friends), it all adds up to pantheistic monism. Thankfully, no one can be consistent with such a worldview, which is why both STAR WARS and this series pit truly good and truly evil characters against each other with good triumphing over evil even while embracing the mystical idea of balance theory.

This series, following in the footsteps of its source material, is steeped in Buddhism and Hinduism, but what might not be as readily apparent is the assumption that the Good is to be found in a sacred “balance.” This pagan assumption is stated clearly by the Chinese Confucian philosopher Zisi, the only grandson of Confucius, in THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN and by Greek philosopher Aristotle in NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. It holds that virtue is “the mean between the extremes” and that ultimately even good and evil must be held “in balance.” This is sometimes expressed in the Chinese image of Yin-Yang and the Greek philosophical dictum that “there is no ultimate difference between good and bad” (Heraclitus quoted by Aristotle) and “all is one” (Parmenides quoted by Aristotle). The problem with balance theory is that it doesn’t allow any of the virtues to come into their fullness, since courage, justice, love, etc., must be a mean between extremes. The theory doesn’t seem to realize that the extremes of a thing are not the thing itself. Love distorted is not love. Balance is not a biblical concept, though it is a basic philosophical assumption of the pagan Chinese and Greeks, as well as the creators of AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER.

As mentioned above, AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER is a quality live action remake with strong production values. However, Season One is abhorrent and unacceptable, and MOVIEGUIDE® doesn’t expect the program’s future seasons to get any better, theologically speaking.