Conception and production The creators and producers of
Avatar: The Last Airbender,
Michael Dante DiMartino and
Bryan Konietzko, met at a Halloween party in 1995 during their time as students in the
Rhode Island School of Design, and began their professional partnership later that year when Konietzko assisted DiMartino in painting backgrounds and cels for the latter's student film. DiMartino and Konietzko moved to Los Angeles in 1996 and 1998 respectively to pursue careers in the animation industry. In between jobs, DiMartino animated a short titled
Atomic Love that he pitched as a TV series, but was unsuccessful due to the amount of robot-based animated series already in development. During Konietzko's stint as an art director on
Invader Zim, he and DiMartino formulated the idea of pitching a coming-to-age series based on their childhoods, but were too busy with their respective jobs to solidify the concept. When
Invader Zim was abruptly canceled in January 2002, Konietzko declared to DiMartino his resolution to get their idea made at all cost. By this time, Konietzko had established a good relationship with
Nickelodeon head of development
Eric Coleman, who was interested in the prospect of Konietzko creating and pitching his own show. Upon the end of his job on
Invader Zim, Konietzko met with Coleman, introduced him to DiMartino and discussed their intent to create a series that held heart and integrity while meeting the network's commercial requirements. Although their meeting went well, Coleman revealed that the network was not looking for coming-of-age stories based on human characters. He added that the network was following the success of the
Lord of the Rings and
Harry Potter film series and was thus searching for non-violent action and adventure concepts with an emphasis on legends and lore. Lastly, he established that the show would require the point-of-view of either a kid hero or a non-human character, emphasizing that middle-aged human protagonists would be off-brand for Nickelodeon. Konietzko concluded the meeting with the promise of a pitch along those directives within a month. DiMartino and Konietzko indiscriminately laid out their conceptual sketches in their effort to establish a new idea. Among them was a sketch that Konietzko created during his time on
Invader Zim, which featured a robot cyclops monkey with an arrow on his head and holding a staff, a balding middle-aged man in a futuristic outfit, and a bipedal polar bear-dog hybrid. Konietzko's sketch, a "half-baked" sci-fi adventure, was primarily influenced by
Cowboy Bebop. Recalling Coleman's advice against middle-aged main characters, Konietzko redrew the human character as a boy, but retained his baldness and transferred the robot's staff and arrow to him. After adding the new drawing to the collection of sketches, Konietzko began drawing other fanciful animal hybrids, which culminated in a drawing of a good-natured and nomadic "
Huck Finnesque" boy herding a group of flying bison-manatee hybrids. The sketch was influenced by the works of renowned
anime film director
Hayao Miyazaki, of whom Konietzko and DiMartino were fans. DiMartino drew inspiration for what would become the Southern Water Tribe from a documentary on the
Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and he pitched Konietzko the idea of a group of people similarly trapped in the South Pole. Two weeks after their meeting with Coleman, Konietzko was suddenly inspired by DiMartino's idea and formulated a concept of a group of children in the South Pole who were terrorized by "fire people" and rescued by the young nomad from his earlier drawing. Konietzko and DiMartino reconvened that evening and began developing the series' setting over the next two weeks. Although DiMartino and Konietzko were themselves fans of the two successful British fantasy series that Nickelodeon sought to emulate, the pair chose to differentiate their own series by inserting influences from Asian cultures and philosophies, traditional
martial arts,
yoga, anime, and
Hong Kong cinema. The co-creators successfully pitched the concept to Coleman with early sketches of
Aang,
Katara, and
Sokka, three color images depicting the desired action, adventure, and magic aspects, and a description of the series' characters, setting and full story arc. The series was introduced to the public in a teaser reel at
Comic-Con in July 2004, and premiered on February 21, 2005. According to head writer
Aaron Ehasz, Konietzko and DiMartino originally envisioned the series as three seasons long. However, Nickelodeon asked Ehasz about his ideas for a potential fourth season, which he later discussed with both Konietzko and DiMartino. Ehasz believed that a fourth season would be created, but this plan was interrupted when Konietzko and DiMartino decided to focus on assisting
M. Night Shyamalan as executive producers for
The Last Airbender film. Ehasz claims that Shyamalan insisted they create a fourth season, but Konietzko and DiMartino wanted to work on the live-action film and reverted to the original three-season plan. Konietzko and DiMartino have denied Ehasz's statements, asserting that a fourth season was never considered by them or Nickelodeon. Shyamalan has made comments that align with Ehasz's, such as acknowledging uncertainty at the time about whether the series would conclude after three seasons. Supporting the animated series going beyond three seasons, he nevertheless refused to sign on for the live-action adaptation, as he wanted to direct a trilogy.
Pilot A
pilot episode for the series was made in 2003. It was animated by Tin House, Inc., written by DiMartino and Konietzko, and directed by
Dave Filoni.
Mitchel Musso voiced Aang in this pilot but was later replaced by
Zach Tyler Eisen when the show began production. In the episode, Sokka and his sister Kya (renamed Katara by the time the series aired) must travel the world to find masters for Aang, who is the Avatar; however, they must evade a critical foe, Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, who wants to capture Aang. This episode was first publicly released as one of the extras in the
NTSC season 1
DVD box set, which were not available with the previously released individual volumes. As the
PAL box set lacks extras, the episode was not made available on DVD in PAL regions. The episode was released with audio commentary from the creators which, unlike commentary on other episodes in the season, is not possible to disable on the DVD set. On June 14, 2010, the unaired pilot was made available with and without commentary for the first time via the
iTunes Store. In 2020, the pilot was streamed on
Twitch.
Influences in
Beijing, China. The series is notable for its extensive influence from
East Asian culture,
art and
mythology for its universe, especially
Chinese culture. The creators have cited
Chinese art and
history,
Hinduism,
Taoism and
Buddhism, and
yoga as the strongest influences on the series.
Jeremy Zuckerman and
Benjamin Wynn created the series' music and sound design together in the early developmental stages and then went on to divide the tasks, with Zuckerman taking on the musical composition and Wynn the sound design. They experimented with a wide range of instruments, including the
guzheng,
pipa, and
duduk, to match the show's Asian-influenced setting. The art style of the fictitious locations featured in the series are based on real locations in Asia. Sites such as the
Forbidden City and the
Great Wall of China in
Beijing were inspirations for the Earth Kingdom city of Ba Sing Se, and Water Tribe locations were based on
Inuit and
Sireniki cultures. Each fighting style is unique to the "benders" who use them or characters who are aligned to a certain element. For example, practitioners of "waterbending" use movements influenced by
tai chi and focus on alignment, body structure, breath, and visualization.
Hung Gar was the inspiration for practitioners of "earthbending", and was chosen for its firmly rooted stances and powerful strikes as a representation of the solidity of earth.
Northern Shaolin, which uses strong arm and leg movements, was chosen to represent "firebending".
Baguazhang, which uses dynamic circular movements and quick directional changes, was used for "airbending". The Chu Gar
Southern Praying Mantis style can be seen practiced by the earthbender,
Toph, who develops a unique fighting style as a result of her blindness.
Asian cinema also influenced the presentation of these martial-art bending moves. == Themes ==