Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony — then everything changed. A live-action adaptation of Aang's story.

The live-action adaptation fans have been anticipating for so long is coming, as we have gotten the first teaser trailer for Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender, coupled with a release date of February 22, 2024.

Visuals and Effects

The first teaser trailer was shown as part of Netlix's Geeked Week on Thursday. This is without a doubt one of the best looking adaptations so far along with the ONE PIECE adaptation that released on Netflix back on August 31, 2023. The trailer is not very long, but the visuals, OH MY GOODNESS, are stunning. The most impressive scenery shown in this teaser trailer, is the first look at Ba Sing Se. The visuals for this magnificent city are gorgeous. There are scenes of the Fire Nation, the South Pole where Katara and Sokka first discover Aang in the ice, and a smattering of other locations briefly. Even if this is only a first look at these visuals, it looks like they put a serious effort into the visuals and scenery, especially Momo, who looks adorable as can be.

The Characters

We also get a look at our main cast of characters. Which, I must mention that Aang looks lightyears better than in the previous live-action movie The Last Airbender, released back in 2010. Along with Aang, we of course get to see Katara and Sokka, Zukko, Uncle Iroh, Fire Lord Ozai, Suki, and everyone's favorite flying Bison and lemur, Oppa and Momo. One scene that stuck out to me, was the scene that seemd to be Zukko and Fire Lord Ozai facing off, and the fire bending of this scene also looks spectacular.

The adaptation will star Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Dallas Liu as Prince Zukko, Maria Zhang as Suki, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as Uncle Iroh, and Daniel Dae Kim as Fire Lord Ozai. There are, of course, more amazing actors and actresses playing various other characters, so I can not wait to see them in action when the series releases.

Thoughts So Far

Netflix has out done themselves with this live action adaptation from the looks of this teaser trailer. I am pleased to see accuracy, as best as possible of course, to various things like the clothing the characters wear, the bending styles, the locations we will visit, however I do hope that this is not only for the visuals and wardrobes. Hopefully, the series will stay true for the most part to the original animated series in terms of the story itself. There are bound to be a few changes along the way, I do not think anyone expects otherwise. Though, I do think the success to this series will be in keeping true to the original animated series. After all, we all loved the original series, and that is what most of us are expecting to see from this series. The show's first season will consist of eight episodes in total, according to TheTVDB.

If I had to guess, based only on the first teaser so far, it does look like Netflix has kept the story to the original as much as possible, despite the original creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko left the project back in 2020. I think I speak for all fans of the series when I say, we hope that even without the original creators, Netflix understands the fans and how we are waiting to see one of our favorite shows reimagined in live action that is accurate to the original, because the original is what we fell in love with in the first place. If Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender is anything like the live-action adaptation of ONE PIECE, then I think we can rest easy that we will get the reimagining we all have hoped to see. I am sure we can all agree, it couldn't get much worse than M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender from 2010.

Overall, the trailer looked amazing and I am excited to see the first episode when Avatar: The Last Airbender drops on Netflix on February 22, 2024.