Avatar – The Last Airbender: The Complete Book One
Collector’s Edition Box Set (2005/Nickelodeon
DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: C+
Not to be
confused with the big 3-D James Cameron hit, Avatar – The Last Airbender is a hit animated (and Animé) TV series
that has had major success on the Nickelodeon children’s network for many
years. For those unaware of the series
or its storyline, you can read the following coverage of latter DVDs we covered
in the recent past from the series:
Book 3, V.4
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7384/Avatar+%E2%80%93+The+Last+Air
Book 3 Collection
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7548/Avatar+-+The+Last+Air+Bender:+The
Like our
resident Animé scholar, this is a show with some very big fans. As Paramount
issues M. Night Shyamalan’s live action remake of the series, Nickelodeon is
reissuing the series in several fancy box sets and The Complete Book One Collector’s Edition Box Set (2005) is among
the fancy sets of the series they are issuing about a young boy who must grow
with powers of the elements into the title hero.
Not my
favorite show of any kind, the series is at least consistent within the
confines of its own world, but it is one that is highly reliant on fantasy and
is also adding a certain “spiritualness” you would not necessarily find in the
Superhero genre. Still, it works for
many and this is the set to start with.
The 7-DVD set includes a repeat of all six DVDs the company issued long
ago for the show in a foldout DigiCase, plus adds a seventh DVD. You can tell too as the older discs have the
old Nickelodeon logo and new DVD has the new one.
The 1.33
X 1 image is colorful and consistently good throughout, even if it is sometimes
limited in definition and we are talking DVDs that were pressed years ago. No serious aliasing errors though. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is well recorded
throughout the shows and extras, though nothing special is here either
sonically either.
Extras across
the DVDs include several featurettes, including some on some of the original
singles (but not all of them) and three more of them on the original bonus
DVD. There are audio commentaries on
some of the show and the original bonus DVD has one for the pilot show. A new bonus disc only has a featurette on the
duo who created the show, but we also get a “preview
edition” of The Art Of The Animated Series as a 50-page booklet in
conjunction with Dark Horse Comics.
- Nicholas Sheffo
