Hacker Cinema
Avatar: The Last Airbender
2005 · TV series · 24 min episodes · 3 seasons
Created by Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko
AnimationActionAdventureScience FictionFantasy
In a war-torn world of elemental magic, a young boy reawakens to undertake a dangerous mystic quest to fulfill his destiny as the Avatar, and bring peace to the world.
19 positive1 mixed7 neutralfrom 27 commenters
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29 comments on Hacker News
Oh, this is quite a common sight on Twitter/X now. I think I recall the Super Mario Galaxy Movie was leaked on the site before this, and that Avatar the Last Airbender movie ended up there too.
It's because for the most part, there's not really any automated moderation on the site, and the folks running it don't really care too much about copyright or IP laws. Add this to a really generous video upload limit for paid accounts, and people are just sticking whole movies and playthroughs on the platform.
I can't think of another cartoon targeted at that young an audience that I'd even consider sitting down and watching a half-dozen episodes of without a kid around, but I can imagine doing that with Bluey. Like I've for-sure left it running for multiple episodes after the kids left the room, and enjoyed it.
Older-audience stuff like Avatar: The Last Airbender or Justice League Unlimited, oh yeah, for sure, but something specifically aimed at lower-grades elementary school kids? Nope, can't think of another, not even nostalgia shows from my own childhood. I'd maybe do an episode just like "oh wow, remember this?" but not a session watch.
I commented on here before about this. I'm certainly not perfect, but what I've done is basically YouTube is something the kid doesn't watch on their own. They can watch documentaries with me or whatever (occasionally some video game stuff), but almost all YouTube kids is awful. There are a lot of really good kids shows out there across different streaming services with actual plots and character development that make them think without frying their brains. For a kid in the 8-14 year range: Avatar the Last Airbender, Gravity Falls, Owl House, Dragon Prince...etc are prob fine depending on the kid (dragon Prince is a bit darker). As a parent you need to make sure they're not watching content you object to though. I'll also find some episodes of something like Star Trek that is interesting with some moral dilemmas and just talk it out with them. TV is fine in moderation. Make sure you keep reading to them as well.
Nobody Wants This; Bridgerton; Wednesday; Man on the Inside; 3 Body Problem; Emily in Paris; the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender; Love, Death, and Robots; How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast); Is It Cake?; Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney; and some others I’ve definitely had conversations about outside my own household.
Arcane was a pretty big deal and it was released on Netflix and TenCent.
They also have continued series that originated on other networks, including Unsolved Mysteries and Black Mirror.
I know several people who watched Cyberpunk: Edgerunners on Netflix and are excited about the upcoming CDPR and Netflix project set in the Cyberpunk universe.
I’ve had recommended to me and have recommended to others quite a few of their original movies. You might like 6 Undergound if you’re looking for an action movie.
Some are for sure, but a lot of those shows hold up well for all ages. I don't put much faith in marketers to decide which shows are for what demographics. Better to see what lands for yourself. It helps when you're watching and discussing the shows with your kids too.
Some of them, Adventure time being a great example, can appeal to very young kids but they'll find new meaning in those episodes as they get older.
I think shows like Infinity Train, Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra, Steven Universe, and Samurai Jack will be better after a kid is old enough that Cocomelon wouldn't hold any appeal, but even at that age Sarah & Duck, Hilda, MLP, Craig of the Creek, etc could still be good. Just about anything that holds their attention and isn't Cocomelon is a huge win. If you'll enjoy it, all the better.
I'm not sure there's ever been more options for good shows that a parent can watch and genuinely enjoy with their kids. Try Avatar the Last Airbender/Legend of Korra, Hilda, Sarah & Duck, Adventure Time, Miraculous, The Dragon Prince, MLP Friendship is Magic, She-Ra and the Princess of Power, Samurai Jack, Gravity Falls, Ducktales (the new one, but the old one isn't bad either), Cleopatra in Space, Amphibia, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Owl House, Craig of the Creek, Steven Universe, LEGO Elves, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Over the Garden Wall, Infinity Train, and the Disney Fairies movies.
I'd also recommend getting your hands on the cartoons you enjoyed as a kid. Odds are good your kids will like them for the same reasons you did, although you may find that they don't all hold up for you.
Lots of fantasy settings end up supporting some really bad worldviews if you look too far into them. I highly doubt the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender realized they were creating a society of ethnostates enforced by an all powerful pseudo-immortal autocrat supported by a secret society. They just wanted a reason for the main character to go on an interesting journey to save the world.
It became a problem for me when they tried to make a sequel that took the setting more seriously. Maybe one person chosen by lottery at birth shouldn't be allowed to kill heads of state without any oversight? The villains who were opposed to the chosen one's uncontested rule ended up making more sense than the enforcers of the status-quo.
There's a funny video explaining why the Disney direct-to-tv movie Sky High is actually propaganda for fascist eugenics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIdbLUm-ez8 The "some people are just born superior" out is an easy excuse when you're trying to come up with a reason why the main character and their cohort of whacky friends have the ability to save the world while everyone else is helpless, but taken to the logical extreme is blatantly fascist.
> For me, carefully adding context has largely felt like time wasted at card creation time
I actually had several custom tools that heavily automated card creation—I could grab a sentence from a web page, or bulk import highlighted phrases from an ebook. Then I had a UI which allowed me to easily highlight an interesting word, and either cloze it, or add a Wiktionary definition on the back. Then I had an Anki plugin to bulk import the cards. This could all obviously be combined into a single tool, and occasionally someone tries.
For my most heavily automated experiment, I used a tool similar to subs2srs to import sound, bilingual subtitles, and tiny screen captures from 4 episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender. That was a fascinating experience, and I'm still earwormed with the dialogue of those episodes a decade later, after only a couple of months of Anki reviews. (See elsewhere in this thread for a link.)
Unfortunately, I'm not convinced that there's a good startup market for language-learning tools. Language learning is normally aspirational, much like a gym membership. And customers don't have any serious plans on how to reach their stated goals. (Again, like a gym membership.) Duolingo isn't terrible, but I suspect—based on lots of Anki experiments—that it should be possible to build much more effective tools than Duolingo. I'm just not convinced that anyone but serious ESL students would pay for them. Too many genuinely good tools in this space have sunken quietly, despite a user-friendly UI and a good landing page.
I have generally found that the best children's content all holds up amazingly well when viewed from an adult perspective. Think most Pixar films, Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Little Prince, His Dark Materials, Roald Dahl and so much more. Great authors simplify complex adult themes for children, but never forgo them.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is the best TV show ever, despite being targeted at children aged 9 (no, I'm not exaggerating). It has great character arcs, depth, humour, and it landed the ending perfectly. (unlike overhyped D&D chaps).
My only complaint about it is that in the beginning of S1 they had way too many gags at Sokka's expense. Fortunately, they've significantly dialled it down around episode 6 or 7.
Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Nickelodeon animated TV show, ended after a planned 3 seasons, at the height of its popularity.
And looking at how the spinoffs fared (especially the live-action movie...), it indeed seems like a very good decision.
This situation was covered in season 3 of Avatar The Last Airbender, and that is exactly what happened. Such a great show.
I'm not. Kids loved Avatar: the Last Airbender on Netflix, and really really wanted to watch the sequel series (which at the time wasn't yet on Netflix).
It was, however on CBS, so we signed up for a month, watched all the episodes then cancelled the same month. Cost? $7. Definitely worth it.
> It's a deep, rich world with complex characters, all with Herculean responsibilities and human weaknesses.*
Planetes was recommended in the recent HN thread about space junk, and I ended up watching the whole series over the course of 4 days. It's similar to Evangelion, in that the first few episodes are goofy and awkward (except they're in their early 20s instead of teens). But by the end of the show I was blown away.
It's effectively an adult coming-of-age story, set against a sad, beautiful near-future world in which everyone is just trying to live their lives and get by. The space debris stuff is fun and maybe metaphorical, but from a plot perpsective it's almost parenthetical. I'm too young and immature to have words for the journey it took me on, but (much like Evangelion) it was exactly what I needed at the time in my life when I first saw it.
Survive through the "ninja" episode (you'll know which one I mean when you see it), and you will be rewarded.
Edit: apparently the anime and manga diverge significantly because the show was finished first. I intend to read the latter after I've had a chance to cool off from the former!
> Attack on Titan got too weird, too quickly
It picks up and starts to tie together. I almost didn't watch the second season, but a friend convinced me to and I don't regret it at all. Apparently the show and manga track closely together in plot, so you don't need to read if you've already watched, or vice versa (unless you want to read the last 20-ish chapters if you don't want to wait for the last season of the show to come out).
Don't expect profundity like Evangelion, although the plot is clearly inspired by Evangelion in some ways. But do expect high drama, long threads of intrigue, and whopper plot twists. It's one of the most exciting TV shows I've ever seen.
> I was too old for Dragonball
Too old to take it seriously, maybe! But it's still good fun, just like Space Ghost and Looney Tunes. If I ever have kids, I plan to watch it with them (although IIRC there were some racist and sexist moments that would best be elided).
> Western-focused, Japanese-animated options
I also have to recommend Avatar: The Last Airbender! Its target audience and Western origin belies its depth.
(To be clear where I'm coming from: I'm not what you'd call an otaku, haven't watched many things of this kind. I really detest over-the-top stuff. I prefer realism to fantasy but can enoy it if it helps with the plot. I've watched and enjoyed Evangelion (wasn't enjoying it at all in the beginning but when it started getting "psychological" I loved it) and Ghost In The Shell, still haven't but want to watch the others you mentioned. I also watched Stein's Gate and felt exactly the way you did.)
Death Note is awesome, especially the first half. There's a bit of cringy overconfident adolescent personality going on, but I think it's all for the best considering the plot.
Monster is one I'm torn about. The themes it touches on are just perfect for a great dark story, but I feel like it under-delivers by always making it sound like it's gonna get really dark but never making it so. There's quite a bit of "semi-filler" episodes. Thought-provoking but never goes as deep as I'd like.
One movie I'd recommend is Perfect Blue. Realistic psychological suspense/horror with great animation.
Not at all the same genre, but Welcome To The NHK is pretty nice if you want some realistic "light-hearted dark humor" (if there's such a thing), but maybe not if you don't relate to being a hikikomori (or social recluse in general). There's over-the-top characteristics, especially in the first episodes, but it gets better. Watch, say, 10 episodes; if you don't love it by then, it may not be for you.
EDIT: Oh, I also watched Ergo Proxy in an overnight binge so I honestly can't remember much about it. A lot of people like it, I found it really boring and felt too grandiose for what actually happened in the end. There's an interesting story behind it all, but I had to resort to reading fan theories to get it.
EDIT2: For the sake of completeness, the show I actually love the most is Avatar (The Last Airbender. I'm right now watching the sequel and still making up my mind on it). Possibly because I was a kid when I first watched it, but it still really moves me. And yes, I said before I prefer realistic stuff, but this is one of the greatest exceptions. It's also not dark by any means - it's a kid's show after all -, plenty of light-hearted humor and all, but there are many many things I'd say even an adult can get from watching it.
For a counter example of why American-based anime studios aren't popping up, an ostensibly American production, The Simpsons, has had Korean studios in the credits for the major parts of animation from the very first episode, same with Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you watch The Simpsons on DVD, in one of the season one specials Groenig talks about getting the animatics from Korea and having to go back and forth with the Korean studio until they captured the look that was desired. The producers will outsource to get the cheapest production. IIRC American animation in all media was dwindling at this point because studios didn't want to pay Americans to do the animation. The current Japanese studio doing Attack on Titan is outsourcing components to Vietnamese and Chinese studios probably for the same sort of reason.
https://deadline.com/2021/02/avatar-the-last-airbender-franchise-expansion-launch-nickelodeons-avatar-studios-animated-theatrical-film-1234699594/
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” tv series.
Enjoyable storyline with one of the most unique and satisfying endings. Great option to watch with the kids and it teaches life lessons along the way.
The wealth of knowledge is unreal, however, I feel it's unorganized. For example, I wish I could see the most noteworthy examples of a trope, but often times you basically get a list of "In season 2, episode 6 of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang uses the phrase "dang" which is a euphemism"
It all depends on the story. ATLA (Avatar: the last airbender) is a great example for something that needs a contract for multiple seasons from the start: they knew they'll have 3 seasons, and that was one big arc and storyline. Same for Trollhunters; it was unfortunate to only have 1 season for the third installation, Wizards: it was way to fast.
Other series, however... are dead slow. It was delightful to recently watch a 1998 film, `Ronin`: 2 hours, and more story happened, than in 2 seasons of most series.
There is no simple answer to this.
Sometimes this type of long form journalism is nice because it lets you marinate in a different world. Here I can't help but feel like I just want them to get to the point because I don't really want to marinate in the Flat Earth world.
If a super intelligent AI came to me and said, "I'm going to take over the world and destroy humanity, but first I wanted to see if there was anything you needed." One of the things that I would ask it to do in order to buy time would be to annotate all the background details of every movie. For example, in Jurassic Park when Hammond is trying to get Dr. Grant to come to the park, the trailer they are in has a bunch of newspapers on the walls. What do those say? Who are all the extras that are hanging out at the dig site? Like who are the actors and can we give their characters any backstories that are consistent with the world of Jurassic Park.
I can't help but want the same thing from a story about a Flat Earth conference. How many other people went there just to see what was up. Who is there as a joke. Occasionally people send fake articles to journals to see if they can get them published. Does the same thing happen to Flat Earth conferences? People try to see how much of an outlandish presentation they can get away with? And finally, how many people go there, have a good time, pretend to buy into the whole Flat Earth business, but then when they get back and are cornered indicate that they only went because their friend went / to see what it was like / because they make fun of them later / etc.
Finally, this whole business feels very similar to me as the whole Evolution in education stuff. Sure people believe in the wrong thing, but at the end of the day very few people actually understand how the right thing works and even if they get that far they don't see what any of the implications are. Yeah, I would prefer people believe things that are true, but they don't understand it either way and they refuse to think about the implications.
I greatly appreciate the world building in things like Lord of the Rings or Avatar the last airbender. Everything works together in great detail to create a holistic world where actions have consequences that echo through the centuries. It feels like most people are just as happy to watch Michael Bay's Transformers. Maybe they like Avatar as well, but they don't understand why the shyamalan movie "adaptation" is bad. So I have a hard time caring that they agree with me that the cartoon was good as well.
I think people overestimate the bad consequences and underestimate the good consequences of such things.
1. I see amazing potential in AI based content creation. Imagine a world where you can have all the music/movies you want, personalized to your specific taste. I would love to have an AI watch Avatar The Last Airbender and invent a few more seasons for me (find out what happened to Zuko's mom :))
2. It is true that we should be more careful about what content is genuine vs fake, but cryptography has you covered, anyone can easily digitally sign the content they create with their private key and be able to prove the authenticity of their content.
3. One thing to note is that AI cannot be used to distinguish reals from fakes because the fakes are generated (using GANs) precisely so they can't be distinguished from the reals.
By that logic, movies should just use existing props or set designs rather than creating any new artifacts.
Conlanging isn't just gibberish, it's a legitimate artform like anything else.
However, I don't have any issue with using real-world languages to give the desired exotic flair for certain settings. I actually think that was one of the things that was great about, for example, the Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon, because it took the time to use real Chinese calligraphy as part of the worldbuilding (one of the many flaws with the film adaptation was that it tried to deemphasize the explicitly Chinese influences and ended up with pretty uninspired chicken-scratch fake-ideograms for the writing).
Similarly, the video game Riven: The Sequel to Myst had some cutscenes where the fantasy native population were actually speaking Tok Pisin, which is a creole language from Papua New Guinea. This was only fragmentary, though, and much of the Myst games have a quite well constructed language "D'ni."
I don't know why so many people here are suggesting "The Wire", unless they don't understand what the concept of a child is.
For incredible kids TV shows that emphasize empathy for "the bad guys", demonstrate the flaws and weaknesses of the "the good guys", and does so in a way that encourages personal growth, integrity, and compassion over moral nihilism as a response, then you can't do better than
* Steven universe
* Avatar: the last Airbender
Not movies but...
Avatar: The Last Airbender the cartoon tv show is a perfect example of this. For kids and adults alike.
Also Star Trek DS9 did an excellent job of getting into the villains heads, spending time with them and showing their perspectives and motives.
I'm a bit surprised by that comment. I actually find Prime to have pretty good content and typically better movies than Netflix (who's movie library has been shrinking pretty drastically over the years).
If you haven't already watched it, I'd highly recommend Season 1 and 2 of "The Expanse" on Prime. There are a lot of pretty great shows on there as long as you don't rely on DC/Marvel shows for all your entertainment. Other shows that are reasonably acclaimed are:
- The Man in the High Castle
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- The Nightmanager
- Mr. Robot
- Boardwalk Empire
- Downton Abbey
- Sneaky Pete
- Orphan Black
- Dr. Who
- Veep
- The Good Wife
- Transparent
- Hannibal
- Deadwood
- Curb your Enthusiasm
- The Wire
- Six Feet Under
- The Sopranos
There is a story that when the animators of Avatar The Last Airbender were working on the Beach episode, they knew that if they drew the outfits the way they wanted, they would be told to tone it down. So they drew everyone in outfits far too revealing for a children's program. When, as predicted, they were told to draw something more conservative they went ahead and animated the scenes the way they originally envisioned them. The censors, satisfied that they had done their job, accepted the revised scenes.
Not quite. You're thinking of payments as in money or other monetary goods. There are other types of payment and contracts that can be done that are out of the scope of goods. And that is time.
If chosen, one can make a binding contract that trades time for something. For example, I could agree to protect a friend for the rest of this life and of the next we meet for something. Gurus make similar agreements about being a teacher as well. Usually a guru agreement is binding until otherwise broken. And life usually puts us back in contact, even in other lives. Now, our relationship can (and usually does) change, but we will almost always meet them.
The show and movie Avatar the Last Airbender is very similar how the Dalai Lama is actually chosen. In the Dalai Lama's case, they are shown about a hundred objects, 3 of which belong to the last reincarnation. The TV show shows 4 objects that respond unnaturally (the 4 being representatives of wind/water/fire/earth). It is also in the Dalai Lama's case that he is also to choose people who was in his cabinet prior to his reincarnation, as there is only a few years between the death and life. This step is also proof of who he is. The search usually goes on 2 weeks after his death, in which the world is searched for his new incarnation. And in the case of the Dalai Lama, what makes his so important is that he is seen as the Avatar of Chenrezig (the Patron God of Tibet).
The best Western children's TV show in the 2000s that I can think of is Avatar: The Last Airbender. Which isn't just a great TV show for kids, but a great TV show in general.