Netflix’s live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender is missing a crucial part of the animation’s appeal.
Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony.
Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.
Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them.
But when the world needed him most, he vanished.
A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar an Airbender named Aang.
And although his airbending skills are great he has a lot to learn before hes ready to save anyone.
But I believe Aang can save the world.
Its the rare TV intro to receive both itsown memeandGenius entry.
Now we know the answer to that is … sort of.
Thankfully, however, the first episode of NetflixsAvatardoes feature something akin to the cartoons opening explainer.
pic.twitter.com/6j2IpmGMQo
The full text from the intro reads:
Water.
For millennia the four nations have lived in harmony.
When one Avatar dies, their spirit is reborn into a new body in an eternal cycle.
Since the death of the last Avatar, the new incarnation has yet to emerge.
There are some notable differences from the original here.
For starters, Katara is not the narrator but the former Avatar Kyoshi per Netflixs closed captions.
Additionally, the imagery presented here, while visually impressive, is also cold.
A smiling Aang rolling around on his conjured bouncy cloud is sorely missed.
The biggest issue with the newAvatar: The Last Airbenderintro though is that it appears only once.
Netflix is probably correct in assuming that many of its viewers are watching the series as a binge.
But thats no reason to rob them of a little treat to begin each installment.
Rather than becoming bored with that intro, fans became increasingly enchanted with it.
That mindset misunderstands just how great repetition can be!
Bring on the intro every time.
Let is serve as a palate cleanser and reset button after another chapter in Aangs increasingly dark story.
Now if only we got to see that all play out multiple more times while watching the series.
All eight episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender are available to stream on Netflix now.
