Nickelodeon, the network behind the original show, today announced that it will air the “Avatar” spinoff series “The Legend of Korra” (a working title) starting next year.
The first series took place in a world in which supernatural
“benders” have the ability to manipulate the elements of air, earth,
fire and water, and focused on Aang, a young airbender who turned out to
be the Avatar, a person capable of controlling all the elements. The
new series takes place 70 years later in the same world and follows the
new Avatar, a teen girl named Korra who has learned to bend earth, water
and fire and seeks to master air under the tutelage of Aang’s son,
Tenzin.
Earlier this summer, director M. Night Shyamalan released a
live-action theatrical version of the first series called “The Last
Airbender” that was poorly received by critics, although it posted
respectable numbers in early box office returns.
Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the creators of “Avatar: The
Last Airbender” and “The Legend of Korra” took the time to talk to
Speakeasy today about the new series.
The Wall Street Journal: How did you come up with the idea for the spinoff?
Bryan Konietzko: When Mike and I first created
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” we always knew it would have an ending to
it, that particular story. But as the show really took off, and found an
audience all over the world, we knew that despite our intentions of
ending that story there would probably be a time when Nickelodeon would
come calling and want some more episodes….When that time came we had
this idea for jumping ahead and telling a story about the next Avatar,
this girl Korra.
If there’s a new Avatar, that means Aang has passed on. If he died around age 70, isn’t that pretty young for an Avatar?
Konietzko: You gotta keep in mind that he was frozen
in a state of suspended animation for 100 years, so he kind of burned
up some of his extra Avatar time.
The new “Avatar” is a woman. What inspired you to change the sex of the protagonist of the series?
Michael DiMartino: It’s not so much
about changing because we had Avatar Kyoshi before Aang. We’d
established that the Avatar can be male or female and we just thought
let’s explore one of those more in depth, because Kyoshi was a popular
character with a lot of fans and it seemed like a great opportunity to
not retread what we’d done with Aang, who was a great hero, we all loved
him, but we really wanted to try something different. And we have so
many great female fans out there, who really responded to Katara in the
first series, we thought we have the fan base who are really going to
enjoy seeing the Avatar be a female.
Konietzko: Mike and I, we love those characters too,
and we’ve encountered countless fans who are male who really like those
characters too. We just don’t subscribe to the conventional wisdom that
you can’t have an action series led by a female character. It’s kinda
nonsense to us.
The one image that you released is Korra looking out on
Republic City, where a lot of the new show take place. Tell me about
that city.
Konietzko: That’s kind of a piece of concept art so
when the show premieres next year it won’t look exactly like that but
that’s the direction we’re headed. The first series was sort of a road
show where every episode they were going to some new location. That was
another new thing we wanted to do is root it in one big complex location
but mainly one place. We were drawing inspiration from Shanghai in the
1920s and 30s and Hong Kong and even Western cities like Manhattan and
even location-wise cities like Vancouver, a city that juts out on a
peninsula or an island and has these big mountains around it.
Will we see characters from the previous series pop up?
DiMartino: I don’t want to give anything away, but rest assured there’s a definite link between the old series and this one.
Republic City is a city plagued by crime. There’s an anti-bender revolt. Does this new series deal with more mature themes?
Konietzko: Mike and I like a balance of tones. We
never set out to make an overtly silly show or an overly serious
dramatic show. We like dealing with all those things. It’s fair to say
we’re dealing with some sophisticated things and the show is growing up a
bit. But that said, we’re not in a calculated way trying to target
another demographic. Even in the first series, it was about a world war
and some pretty serious issues.
If Tenzin is Aang’s son, who is his mother?
DiMartino: [To Konietzko] We can say that, right? [To Speakeasy] It’s Katara. It’s not a huge surprise.
What did you guys think of the live-action version of “The Last Airbender”?
Konietzko: We’re just really focused on this new
show right now, and kind of taking this off in its own direction and not
concerning ourselves with that right now.
So you didn’t follow the casting controversy about the movie version of “The Last Airbender”?
Konietzko: We didn’t head up that film. We’re just
happy to be back generating the original content in this mythology,
which is what we do.
Would you like to bring a cartoon version of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” to the big screen?
Konietzko: We would love to. I think Mike and I
would absolutely love to do feature animation. Either another story, or
it if worked out, one in the “Avatar” world. We would be really excited.
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