It’s been a long time coming, but Netflix is finally giving fans the first full trailer for its live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and it looks like… a live-action version of the cartoon.
The full live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender trailer, which comes after the drop of a teaser trailer last year, features extensive looks at Aang (Gordon Cormier), Sokka (Ian Ousley), and Katara (Kiawentiio) as they set out on their adventure to stop the Fire Nation and help Aang bring balance to the world. As the trailer shows, the series is not diverging too far from the cartoon, as fans see the trio fighting the Fire Nation and, of course, flying around on a “giant furball.” Visually, it looks like Netflix has spared no expense on the show with fight sequences and special effects that look cinematic, but it is very interesting how closely the look of the live-action series hews to the animated one. That’s not to mention the theme of friendship running through the trailer, a strong theme that ran throughout the animated series as well.
The series also stars Dallas Liu, Ken Leung, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, and Daniel Dae Kim. It’s unfortunately not coming from the original creators, Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. The pair had creative differences and exited the production early on, leading to Albert Kim coming on as showrunner and executive producer. For many fans, this makes the series a bit of a no-go, even if Kim does seem to have the right idea on how to proceed. Those fans, however, will be getting something to bite into as DiMartino and Konietzko are working with Paramount to release three animated Avatar films in the future.
As for this live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series, which is retelling the story pretty closely, it will run for eight episodes, with all episodes dropping on Feb. 22.
