Aavatar: The Last Airbender wrapped up its third and final season about a decade ago, but it’s still beloved by many a fantasy fan, and lives on the form of followup series The Legend of Korra and Netflix’s The Dragon Prince, which is made by Airbender head writer Aaron Ehasz and has a similar theme and tone. All that and original series creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino are making a live-action version of the series for Netflix. Netflix is basically The Last Airbender streaming service.
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And then there’s M. Knight Shyamalan’s movie adaptation, which is…I feel like “reviled” is the right word.
Usually I’d rather not bring up that film, but it plays into a recent Twitter thread from Ehasz where he reveals that — in his mind, anyway — the team was originally planning to make a fourth season of the Nickelodeon original. “I always believed there would be a 4th season,” he wrote. “Truthfully, there was a moment in time when we all thought we would do a 4th season of #AvatartheLastAirbender. Then along came M. Night…”
To be clear, Ehasz isn’t saying that Shyamalan torpedoed plans for a fourth season — in fact, he points out that the filmmaker wanted it to happen — but rather that Konietzko and DiMartino wanted to focus on the movie.
They originally planned on 3. We discussed a 4th and seemed like we were going to do it. Then M Night came and they reverted to original plan. That’s what happened!
— aaron ehasz (@aaronehasz) April 2, 2019
And then came the movie, which bombed badly, and Konietzko and DiMartino decided that three seasons was okay after all and moved on to other things. It’s no one’s fault, really, although it’s interesting to think of what could have been.
According to Ehasz, season 4 would have involved the rehabilitation of Azula, a nigh-psychopathic firebending prodigy and sister to the much milder-mannered (but still very brooding and difficult) Prince Zuko.
I always intended for #Azula to have a redemption arc in the story of #AvatartheLastAirbender. (thread)
— aaron ehasz (@aaronehasz) April 1, 2019
Longer and far more complicated than Zuko's. She had not bottomed in the end of season 3, she had further to go. At the deepest moment in her own abyss she would have found: Zuko.
— aaron ehasz (@aaronehasz) April 1, 2019
Despite it all, her brother Zuko would be there for her. Believing in her, sticking by her, doing his best to understand and help her hold her pain that she can no longer hold alone. Zuko -- patient, forgiving, and unconditionally loving – all strengths he gained from Uncle Iroh.
— aaron ehasz (@aaronehasz) April 1, 2019
Azula did return in subsequent Avatar graphic novels, where she gives redemption a crack but it doesn’t quite work out. But who knows if that’s what Ehasz originally had in mind?
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