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Avatar: The Last Airbender Writers Helm New Animated Series From Netflix

Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender is a gem of Western animation, telling the story of not only a world steeped in war, but also the topics of friendship, redemption, character growth, and the consideration of what’s  “good” or “bad”. Striking the right balance between loss, grief, humour, and joyful cheer, it grew to become a beloved classic, and till today, remains one of the benchmarks for great animation.

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Moving away from The Last Airbender and into new territory, the writing team is starting on a new project from Netflix. Titled The Dragon Prince, the animated series takes on the fantasy genre and follows two human princes who are embarking on an epic quest to bring peace to warring lands, while forging an unlikely friendship with the elfin assassin sent to kill them.

Aaron Ehasz, the head writer and co-executive producer of The Last Airbender, will be at the writing helm, alongside co-creator and game developer Justin Richmond (Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception), and executive producer Giancarlo Volpe, who also frequently served as the director of The Last Airbender and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The dynamic duo of Ehasz and Richmond also co-founded Wonderstorm together, a multimedia studio working both on The Dragon Prince and a related game set in the same world.

With such talents driving the project, quality is expected to be top-tier. Given the team’s dedication to attention and experimentation, however, it appears to be in good hands – in a 2017 interview with Polygon, Ehasz expressed the need for to tap into past experiences for Wonderstorm to move forward, stating:

The thing I take away from Futurama and The Last Airbender is that the audience is very, very smart. All the details, nuance, and things you build into a story and characters? There may be people who don’t appreciate it, but there are so many out there who do and are paying attention. We’re spending all this time on this series and game making sure those details feel right, and that there are things to discover, and that things beneath the surface are worth it because there are tons of people out there who want and deserve that. We need to make something good enough for them.

A ballpark release date has yet to be announced, but fans of The Last Airbender should keep an eye out for this one. Apart from featuring similar themes such as unlikely friendships, teamwork, and of course, saving the world, there seems to be plenty of adventurous fun in store, making it a good addition to the fast-growing library of Netflix originals.