Amazing Last Airbender fan film gives us a glimpse of our possible future

Over a decade on, and Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender remains one of the most beloved epics ever produced, animated or otherwise. It tells the story of nations at war, and the one boy — Aang, the titular last airbender — charged with bringing peace.

Netflix is working on a live-action adaptation of the series, although we haven’t heard anything about it for a while. Into that gap steps RE:ANIME, a group that makes some seriously badass live-action reactions of iconic animated iconic moments. We’ve known for a while that they were working on a version of the climatic Agni Kai scene from the final episodes of the show, where siblings Zuko and Azula fight for the throne of the Fire Kingdom. Check it out:

I got chills watching that. Look, for the other Last Airbender fans in the room, I know they didn’t have everything. They didn’t have Katara (Yasmin Kassim) immobilizing Azula (Nikki Soohoo) in a giant block of ice, or Azula literally breathing fire before breaking down in racking sobs, but they’re not bankrolled by a major studio here. This was remarkable. I loved the fight choreography between Azula and Zuko (Yoshi Sudarso), I loved the performances of everyone involved, I loved the dramatic close-ups on their eyes and mouths, all shots taken from the show…This was wonderful.

For reference, here’s a taste of what the original version of the scene looked like:

It also makes me wonder what things might look like when Netflix releases its show. They could do well to call up the people from RE: ANIME.

Speaking of that, at the end of the video the creators say they’re having trouble keeping afloat during the coronavirus lockdown. If you’re interested, you can donate to their Patreon here.

One more round of applause for RE: ANIME!

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h/t Geek Tyrant