It’s a shame most fans of the “Avatar” franchise won’t have the chance to see its first animated feature on the big screen. (M. Night Shyamalan’s risible 2010 live-action film will be acknowledged here and here only.) “Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender” is the first official release from Avatar Studios, the shingle set up half a decade ago — animation takes time! — to expand the cult hit animated show and its sequel series “The Legend of Korra” into a broader franchise. “Avatar Aang” does so with gorgeous visuals and thoughtful worldbuilding that would surely benefit from the theatrical distribution the movie was originally slated to receive. Instead, the movie will be available on the big screen only for a limited, awards-qualifying run in New York and L.A. Everyone else will have to settle for streaming it on Paramount+, though even a scaled-down viewing experience still delivers on both excitement and nostalgia.
“Avatar Aang” takes place more than a decade after the events of the original series, meaning fans who were the title character’s age when “The Last Airbender” introduced him to the Nickelodeon demo as a 12-year-old chosen one in 2005 will find the protagonist has aged with them. (I’m one of those: my cat is named after the antihero Prince Zuko, originally voiced by Dante Basco. I had to stop myself from doing a double take every time someone addresses the character in “Avatar Aang.”) It’s a time of peace: Aang and his friends successfully brought an end to a century of conflict between Zuko’s Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe that left his own Air Nomad culture extinct. Republic City, the future setting of “The Legend of Korra,” is newly established, complete with a Unity Tower to celebrate this new, fragile state of harmony.
