There was only one Avatar when The Last Airbender premiered in 2005, but James Cameron had to release Avatar in 2009, and fans were forever cursed to define which Avatar they were talking about till the end of time.
With Way of the Water revealing there’s a tribe of Na’vi that dwelled in the water, new reveals for Avatar: Fire and Ash have revealed even more tribes of Pandora, and fans are starting to make even more ATLA comparisons.
According to Empire, there will be more than one tribe introduced in the third Avatar movie. Besides the fire people who will be the central villains of the film, the movie will also introduce Wind Traders, a nomadic tribe that ride flying creatures and travel around the planet. Cameron explains, “They’re nomadic traders, equivalent to the camel caravans of the Spice Road back in the Middle Ages… And you know, they’re just fun. Like all Na’vi, they live in a symbiosis with their creatures.”
Evil fire people, world-trotting air people, and ocean-dwelling water people… now where have we seen that before?
Already the announcement is being flooded with Last Airbender comparisons, and it really isn’t surprising because the story of Cameron’s Avatar has always been pretty simple. If anything, it’s kind of a testament to how elegant the world-building is in Last Airbender that the people of each element are given specific traits; fire people are the villains, and the air people are free and roam the skies.
And here I thought Jake’s clan was already representing the air because the first movie referred to the Na’vi as Sky People.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is set to come to theatres on Dec. 19.
