5 shows we want to see in the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe

Nickelodeon is officially making an Avatar: The Last Airbender cinematic universe. What do we want to see? Avatar Kyoshi show? The Aang Gang all grown up?

Not long ago, we learned that Nickelodeon was creating Avatar Studios, which will plan and create movies, series and short-form content based on Avatar: The Last Airbender. This beloved animated show ran for three seasons in the mid-2000s and found a renewed popularity after it became available on Netflix. Together with its sequel series The Legend of Korra, it provides a strong foundation on which Nickelodeon and Paramount+ can build a shared cinematic universe, which are all the rage these days.

What’s more, original series creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko will be managing everything, which will hopefully help ensure a consistent level of quality. The first project will be an animated movie, with more details to come.

This is good news for fans worried that Netflix may botch its upcoming live-action remake of Avatar, assuming it still goes forward at all. After M. Night Shyamalan’s infamously bad The Last Airbender movie, a return to the series’ animated roots would be welcome.

But what kinds of Last Airbender content do we want to see? That’s what we’re here to figure out.

The Phoenix and the Dragon

Production will soon begin on the first project from Avatar Studios, an animated theatrical title. We don’t know when the movie will be set, but we doubting it will include a new Avatar, since Avatar Studios will want to give fans something familiar to whet their appetites for what’s to come.

With that in mind, we want to see a prequel to The Last Airbender chronicling the adventures of a young Ozai and brother Iroh during their involvement in the Hundred Year War. This would offer fans a lot of new material about characters who are already well known and, in Iroh’s case, well-liked.

For example, viewers could get an up-close look at Iroh’s six hundred-day siege of Ba Sing Se, his journey into the Spirit World in search of his son, and his training with the original firebenders, dragons. On the other side, the writers could get creative with how they explore Ozai’s early days before becoming Fire Lord.

Ever since they were children, Ozai and Iroh have had a strained, competitive relationship. Like his father before him, Iroh was a renowned Fire Nation general. Iroh enjoyed serving as a military commander and fully embraced his role as heir to the Fire Lord. But having lost his desire for power after the death of his son Lu Ten, Iroh did not fight for his right to the throne after Ozai usurped it, going into exile with his nephew Zuko.

This movie would delve the depths of Fire Nation history and fill in some of the gaps between Aang’s disappearance and the final year of the war.