An oral history of the ATLA finale from @Newsweek: https://t.co/6Z5PMr5Ds3
— Dongbu Feng (@DongbuFeng) July 20, 2018
Everybody's favorite nickelodeon show (and if it isn't, get taste) had it's finale, SOZIN'S COMET, air ten years ago (yesterday) on July 19th, 2008.
Creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko talk to Newsweek and their atrocious website about how it was made.
- The finale was originally planned for three episodes, but the executive producer told them to keep everything intact and he would figure something out.
- The first part, THE PHOENIX KING, they talk about how Zuko is growing into a decent ruler, unlike his ancestors.
- THE OLD MASTERS (part 2) uses the image of The Lion Turtle from the unaired pilot that predates the Avatar's existence.
- Part 3, INTO THE INFERNO, combined CGI and 2D animation for the airship fleet to attack The Earth Kingdom, and also the now-iconic fight between Zuko and Azula, whose music Konietzko says is his favorite piece in the show.
- The light fight in the final part, AVATAR AANG, was tricky to conceptualize, and they had to storyboard with color.
Let's keep the party going with an Original folded into this post - 3 OF THE BEST EPISODES OF AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER.
Over the course of nearly a year, I rewatched the entire series, finishing just in time for the anniversary. It's a good show, and with Korra...well, does anyone talk about Korra still? No, we still talk about TLA.
So let's get started.
#3 - THE BLIND BANDIT
Most of Aang's teachers so far have just been scrolls and Katara, but with Book 2, Earth, he needed to find an Earthbending teacher. Lucky for him (after a hallucination in a swamp) that he came across the greatest one in the world* - Toph Beifong, a little blind girl who fights in Earthbending wrestling matches away from the eyes of her overprotective parents.
The final battle in the episode is amazing
*There's a comic in one of the old Nickelodeon magazines that have her and Bumi, the King of Omashu, fight, and they, a ten year old girl and a 110 year old man, are equally matched. Earthbending is the greatest element in this show and you can't change my mind!
#2 - ZUKO ALONE
While travelling through The Earth Kingdom after seperating from his uncle Iroh, Zuko reflects on how he ended up like this through flashbacks.
We know his father (voiced by Mark Hamill!) burned his face off, just because the boy didn't want to see good soldiers used as pawns in the war. But before that? Zuko was a relatively happy child, despite not being able to please his father or grandfather, Sozin, because he had his mother's love and didn't realize how conniving his younger sister, Azula, was.
When Ozai is callous toward Iroh for losing his son in the siege of Ba Sing Se, Sozin demands that Zuko die in retaliation. Which Ozai probably didn't have a problem with, but Ursa did, and she (allegedly) kills Sozin in secret (later episodes suggest that perhaps she did so with Ozai's help so he could be Fire Lord [Iroh abdicated]) and leaves both of her children to be raised under a maniac, and turning Zuko into the 'I want my throne, my country, and my honor' prince we all know and love.
#1 - THE SOUTHERN RAIDERS
After giving him a very badass threat a few episodes back ("Give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you wouldn’t have to worry about your destiny anymore, because I’ll make sure it ends right then and there.”), Zuko proved he had changed by going on trips with Aang to learn the true spirit of Firebending and Sokka to free his father Hakoda from The Boiling Rock.
Now, he helps Katara...by giving her the tools she needs to end the man who killed her mother Kya.
When the gentlest person hates you, boy you are in trouble. She Bloodbends (Which she hates), stops a rainstorm, and nearly impales the culprit on ice shards!
She's angry, she doesn't hide it, and she doesn't even forgive the man who murdered her mother, but she does forgive Zuko for his betrayal in the catacombs during last season's finale, and the work enviroment in Team Avatar is no longer tense.
When the gentlest person hates you, boy you are in trouble. She Bloodbends (Which she hates), stops a rainstorm, and nearly impales the culprit on ice shards!
She's angry, she doesn't hide it, and she doesn't even forgive the man who murdered her mother, but she does forgive Zuko for his betrayal in the catacombs during last season's finale, and the work enviroment in Team Avatar is no longer tense.
source 1& Me
Would you watch a third Avatar series? What were your favorite episodes?
I erred on the side of caution mods, I hope it's not too much!