Pretty much any Avatar: The Last Airbender fan knows the struggle of trying to explain the show to your non-Aang-loving friends and having to make the very clear distinction: “No, this is not the film about blue aliens.”
Now, one of Avatar: The Last Airbender’s creators, Giancarlo Volpe, is coming for James Cameron after the title of Cameron’s second Avatar film only adds to the confusion.
Avatar: The Last Airbender follows Aang and his friends as he aims to master all the elements, the first of which is water. Therefore, the first series is titled Book One: Water. Sound familiar? Of course, Cameron’s upcoming Avatar sequel is called Avatar: The Way of Water.
Volpe is a little miffed by the whole thing, considering that he and the creators of Avatar The Last Airbender were obliged to change the name from just Avatar as Cameron already held the rights to the title. Now, Cameron has only made the confusion worse with the title of his second film.
The animator took to Twitter to joke, “If part 3 is called ‘The Firebending Masters’ we riot.”
It isn’t just the names that are similar, there are extremely similar themes running throughout both stories. Both look at the impact of colonization, and both create a world in which the earth has a voice of sorts, one that can be tapped into by our protagonists. If there is any point where the character of Jake in Avatar: The Way of Water commands the sea causing it to turn into a giant fish so he can destroy the mechanized bad guys, then all those conspiracies about Cameron stealing ideas straight from the Avatar: The Last Airbender team might have some credence.
We will have to go to the cinemas to find out, with Avatar: The Way of Water arriving in theaters on Dec. 17.