Avatar Seven Havens Review: The Trailer Undersold It, and the Show Beats the Recent Aang Movie

Like a lot of people, I was seriously underwhelmed by the first full trailer for Avatar Seven Havens. The animation looked bad. So imagine my surprise when I started my screeners and instantly fell in love with the show. I kept asking myself why it was so good.

I've seen six of the 13 episodes of book one so far, and I can spot the shots from the trailers in them, so I don't know why the trailer was so bad. I do have a theory. There's something about this show that Paramount+ insists we keep a secret, even though it's revealed in the very first episode, and I think it would have gone a long way toward promoting the show. Hopefully that's not an error they can't recover from. It's so good, and I think word of mouth will help.

The Seven Havens score and that triangle are my early favorites

My first favorite thing is the score. It's another one I'm going to get. It's very New Age and very Blade Runner, and my reaction was simply to wonder what this score was.

Then there's what I can only call a triangle thingy. The trailer does not do it justice. I kept wondering why it was so cool and how they did it, and I wanted to let that thing do its thing again. I can't spoil it, but it's amazing.

And then there are twin sisters who have something to do with the Avatar. That's all I can say. People are going to try to guess, and that makes it even worse, because it's pretty obvious. I don't know the full mystery of the show, but what I'm talking about is revealed right away. I'm not allowed to say what it is, and it's a bit silly, because many people will already have seen the episode and know what I mean, but Paramount wants it kept secret.

The release strategy turned out to be excellent

Before getting further into the show itself, I want to talk about the Avatar franchise overall. We were all very worried about this release. We wondered if they were going to bury it. There was a rumor that they were going to dump all the episodes at once and it would just disappear.

Instead we've ended up with an excellent release strategy. For the first three weeks, you get three episodes at a time, which plays like an actual movie. Then in week four, you get four episodes. So you get a new animated Avatar movie four weeks in a row, and I think that's phenomenal.

I tried to mimic that experience with my screeners. I had six episodes and took them in two groups of three: one group on Friday night and the next group the very next morning, because I wanted to see how the breaks felt. I'm very happy with it. The first three episodes in particular are phenomenal. By the second group the show is getting into its stride, but you couldn't ask for a better debut. When you sit down that first night, make a night of it. Get your favorite dinner and snacks and get comfortable. "I mean, this is appointment viewing."

Does Paramount realize what it has with Avatar?

Another strong thought I had during these screeners was whether Paramount realizes what it has. Even before David Ellison's Skydance acquired Paramount, this franchise has had to fight to exist, despite an extremely strong and potent fan base. The Legend of Korra was sent to digital back when that was a bad thing. It existed only on the Nickelodeon website because they got nervous about airing it on actual television, and it would constantly trend whenever it aired. It's a really popular franchise.

Then it seemed like it might finally get the respect it deserves with a theatrical release for the Aang movie. But Skydance, which had come in at the last minute, pulled the movie from theaters and sent it straight to Paramount+, where thankfully it seems to have done very well, although I don't think we actually saw it on Nielsen.

As I said in my review of that movie, I really enjoyed it. I loved the action scenes, and it was a real treat to be reunited with the original gang and to finally spend time with them as adults and see who they'd become. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I really liked it, and I know a lot of people did. It has fabulous critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes.

Seven Havens is better than the Aang movie and early Legend of Korra

Let me tell you, this show is way better than the recent movie, and I even like it better than at least the earlier episodes of The Legend of Korra. Some might call that recency bias, and I'm sure part of it is. But I just saw the Aang movie, and to prepare for the live action Avatar show on Netflix, I rewatched the original Avatar and enjoyed it so much that I decided to revisit Korra too. So I've seen those fairly recently as well, and I think this is better.

It feels like they're taking everything they've learned and getting better and better as a franchise, which is really cool, because so often these days franchises get worse and worse.

Also, if you can get me to enjoy Spirit World elements, as someone who's never particularly sparked to those storylines, "then you are cooking with gas." I found myself wanting more Spirit World, which surprised me.

Why isn't Skydance pushing this series?

Especially during the first three episodes, I wondered why Skydance isn't really pushing this new Avatar series, which I believe is one of its strongest franchises. If they were willing to sell it, I would think there'd be a bidding war. I would want it so badly.

But maybe the fact that no one wants anything to do with them has kind of saved them. To some degree they've existed in their own little pocket where nobody really interferes. Maybe if another studio bought them and did want to pay attention, it would fall prey to the problems we've seen happen to other franchises. So now I'm actually a little scared.

Either way, creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko still have it. In fact, they're better than ever. These guys are talented. We were a little worried because they'd backed away from the Netflix show, which I've also enjoyed, but this is great stuff.

This is the most progressive Avatar series yet

Many suspect that the franchise's very liberal leanings are the cause of the stumbling blocks it's had to get through, going back to Korra, and now we're worried about that again. So buckle up, because this is their most progressive series yet. I thought they were already at 11, and they turned it up anyway. But it never does it in a preachy way, and it still delivers everything fans want in an Avatar show, which for some fans includes these progressive elements. You will not be disappointed.

Not only do we have another female Avatar, but the lead adult character of the show is gay, with a very attractive boyfriend who is a regular human soldier, while he himself is a bender. He's an extremely skilled airbender and the leader of his unit in the Bender Brigade, and he's wonderfully voiced.

The Bender Brigade is a great idea. Each unit consists of a bender from each element, so they've kind of created their own little Avatars running around, except it's literally four people. I think that's fabulous.

There's also a waterbender in his unit. Knowing this franchise, I would be, let's just say, surprised if it's just a coincidence that his bandanna mimics the transgender flag. But we'll see. I've only seen six of the 13 episodes, and maybe he's just an ally, but I definitely felt it was supposed to be intentional.

The world of Seven Havens focuses on India

The live action Avatar series on Netflix has done a wonderful job of driving home that this franchise draws on communities across all of Asia. It's a nice change of pace that Seven Havens primarily focuses on India and that region, not only in its people but in their customs and community, at least in this haven.

The setup is an apocalyptic world created after Korra did something. I can't wait to find out what it was, but it was a doozy. There are seven fortresses of civilization across the globe existing in this turmoil, and our story starts in one of them. It's a little like the kingdoms for each element in the original series, but now people are divided in a different way.

I'm not sure whether it'll happen during this book, but I'm excited to explore this world. After the first episode there's an intro, the classic Avatar intro with the elements being bent, and it also shows how the world looks now, with a map and the seven havens all lit up in different colors like Thanos's gauntlet. I'd like to go on a world tour, please, and I'm sure the show will deliver.

The action is right up there with the best of Legend of Korra

The action is phenomenal, right up there with the best action in The Legend of Korra. That show was when I think a lot of us started saying to put it in theaters, and we're still waiting.

I never get tired of bending. Seeing how it's used not only in action sequences but in benders' everyday lives never stops being fascinating, at least to me. I also love seeing how a city can harness that power, whether for the Bender Brigade or to run certain aspects of the city, including the Great Wall that protects it. In the first show, benders usually stuck to their own group, so you'd see waterbenders working with other waterbenders. With Korra, you had the arena, where teams mixed elements. Seeing benders work across elements on such a large scale is pretty cool, and it's a new element that makes this show feel really special.

The design of the haven is phenomenal too. Along with its techno score, you get futuristic buildings, particularly the city center, and it makes this third series feel like yet another era in the timeline. Korra was very 1920s. The closest approximation here would be the 80s, although I think they actually said they referenced 1990s anime. It feels very Epcot to me, almost like an idealistic future rather than a specific one, and as someone who loves Epcot, that's yet another reason to love this show.

A dashing airbender is a welcome adult addition

There are a lot of new characters, and they very much populate the city. So far, besides the lead I mentioned above, the other big standout is a very dashing, very famous airbender. That's all I can say about him.

For a franchise that has been consistently light on adult main characters, he's a welcome addition. You had Uncle Iroh, but he was very grandfatherly. Having someone who is still in his prime is really fantastic, and I really like him.

I'm shocked at how much I like the twins' storyline

One of the twins is the Avatar, and the Avatar is now hated after what Korra did, which really raises the stakes. I was a little nervous about the twin storyline. It felt like it might divide one character's story and make it less potent, but instead I think it has the opposite effect. I'm really glad the show unites them early, so you don't spend ages waiting for them to come together, which is a story we've seen so many times. It feels refreshing that they hit the ground running pretty much as a team.

With all the important focus on found family in media these days, I think it's nice to shift the focus to the bond between siblings. With found family, you pick who fits with you best. With blood relatives, you can find yourself tied to someone you'd never spend time with otherwise. Sometimes that's very bad, but sometimes it pushes both people in unexpected, interesting and often helpful directions, and if you're lucky it can be a real blessing. This show is a mix: the sisters are related, but they're also building a found family around them, so they get the best of both worlds.

The twins are complete opposites with kind of a yin and yang situation going on, and I think they have the potential to become extraordinarily powerful. We stayed with Aang and his friends as kids for all of the books, but I do wonder if they might do time jumps here, especially since Korra was older and the Aang movie showed the gang older. It makes you think of this franchise on a longer time frame, and I'd like to see what becomes of these two. There's also something unique about this Avatar that I'm very curious about, plus the mystery of why the twins were separated from each other and from their parents.

In a big change of pace, they're both very girly. We haven't had anyone like that since Asami, who was never totally a main character. They have adorable matching cat monkeys, and they felt to me very much like female characters in old school Saturday morning cartoons, which I thought was a delight. They look ready to jump off the screen and into toy stores as a set. They'd do very well as toys if kids still played with toys, although these days adults are the primary toy buyers, so maybe we'll still get our action figures.

One episode was all it took

It took me just one episode to fall in love with Avatar Seven Havens and to think it was not only a phenomenal show but special, different and pushing the franchise forward. "It's not resting on its laurels." When you see a really great show, particularly in animation, there's something special about it, and if you're an animation fan, this gives you that experience. I'm craving the rest of book one.

The first three episodes are available on Paramount+ now, and it's a very strong start. The embargo lifted when the show dropped, which I think is a shame, but I'm glad it's going to roll out over four weeks at least. Hopefully word of mouth will carry the day and people will find out how special this is. Set up your evening, get your favorite meal and settle in. I plan to do a spoiler review once book one ends.

Which part of Avatar Seven Havens are you most curious about after its first three episodes?