The Last Airbender star talks Zuko-Kylo Ren comparisons

Dante Basco, who played Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender, sees similarities between Zuko and Kylo Ren from Star Wars, but some big differences too.

Image: Star Wars: The Force Awakens/Disney — Avatar: The Last Airbender/Nickelodeon

Dante Basco, the actor who voiced Prince Zuko in Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, knows a thing or two about redemption arcs. After all, his character does a major 180-degree turn between seasons 2 and 3 of The Last Airbender, going from one of the Avatar’s greatest foes to one of his Bending masters — and eventually one of his best friends.

Zuko’s redemption arc has been lauded for how it handled the character’s change of heart, something that not every franchise accomplishes successfully. Star Wars fans have all borne witness to Kylo Ren’s redemption in the most recent film trilogy, a storyline that’s received quite a bit of backlash from fans who felt it was rushed or poorly developed.

And Basco, who is a big Star Wars fan himself, has had plenty of people tell him that Zuko reminds them of Kulo Ren, and vice versa. Speaking with Inverse, the actor discussed the similarities…and the differences.

Although Zuko and Kylo do have a lot in common when it comes to their demeanor — they’re surly, morose, angry — there’s no denying that Kylo’s actions have been considerably worse. Basco suggested that the Sith wouldn’t have been able to redeem himself the same way as Zuko did, and that the the only way for Kylo’s story to end was with his death. “We’ve seen the whole thing by now, but I said early in the game: He [Kylo Ren] has to die to get redeemed,” Basco explained. “He killed Han Solo. Zuko didn’t kill Ozai, and Ozai is not Han Solo.”

Basco makes a good point about how deeply over to the Dark Side Kylo went. Zuko, thankfully, never fell that far. And if anything, Fire Lord Ozai, Zuko’s father, arguably deserved Han Solo’s fate more than our favorite scruffy-looking nerf herder did.

Basco also had a suggestion for how The Rise of Skywalker could have improved Kylo’s arc, and it sounds like it takes a leaf out of The Last Airbender’s book. “Just have all the Jedi talk to Kylo Ren!” he said, reminding us of the way Anng would talk to his Avatar ancestors. “Get his grandfather to talk to him from the spirit realm! He’ll tell him what’s up!”

Plenty of fans were hoping for an Anakin cameo, so perhaps Lucasfilm should have consulted Basco. And given how much Kylo looked up to his grandfather, it might have helped him escape Snoke’s and Palpatine’s clutches sooner. Unfortunately, Kylo Ren wasn’t destined to have the redemption arc that Zuko had — though both villains will undoubtedly remain icons.

Speaking of The Last Airbender, several of the creatives behind it and spinoff show The Legend of Korra got together this past weekend for a panel at Comic-Con@Home where they discussed why the series has remained beloved years after it ended. “I feel like Avatar both shaped and broke the mold for an entire generation of creatives,” said author F.C. Yee. “It inspired so much of us, it’s just where our heads go when we think about what we really love and what we would like to be like and, you know, what depths we would like to accomplish as creative professionals.”

"It’s established that it’s a living world, it’s got a past, it’s got a future, it’s got a present and any time you dip in for a particular story for part of that timeline, it’s alive, it’s going to evolve over time. It evolved from all the worldbuilding that the show had."

Mike DiMartino, who created the show with Bryan Konietzko, feels lucky that the show was even made, let alone still enjoyed today. “At the time doing a kind of continuous story in kids animation was not a thing that was happening,” he said. “It was common in Japan, but not in the US and certainly not on Nickelodeon, they were kind of confused by what we were making. But to their credit, they were like alright, you guys seem to know what you’re doing so we’ll let you run with this idea. I think part of the reason why now that the original series is on Netflix, why it’s doing so well is that it kind of fits that format already. Even though there’s standalone episodes, it’s a continuous storyline.”

Meanwhile, for comic creator Faith Erin Hicks, it’s the characters that really made this story sing. “I feel like Toph in particular was such a big deal for me,” she remembered. “I was this huge tomboy as a kid, and now I feel like we’re having this huge surge of women in animation and female characters and animated shows with female leads that’s incredibly important. But earlier in the 90s, in the aughts, it felt like that was incredibly rare to have this strong, tough, tomboy female character in an animated show. And also to have a show with multiple female leads—we had Katara, we had Toph, we had Azula, we had Mei, we had Ty Lee, there were so many women in this show. That was something that really spoke to my heart as someone who worked in animation… and watching the characters grow and transition and change over the course of three seasons, it was so unusual. And that’s why I continued to return to that show and continue to be inspired by it, and wanting to put that heart and that empathy into my own work. It was so different.”

And those characters continue to delight people even today! Dark Horse just announced a new standalone comic about Toph, to be released on February 16, 2021:

And then there’s the live-action series coming to Netflix. Yep, The Last Airbender has a lot of fight in it yet.

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