DVD Reviews

Avatar Book 1, Volume 5

Chapter 17: The Northern Air Temple – After hearing rumours about surviving Airbenders, the kids journey to the Northern Air temple to see for themselves.

Chapter 18: The Waterbending Master – The kids reach the Northern Water Tribe, and Aang and Katara look for a Waterbending Master. Meanwhile, Zhao plans an attack and Zuko continues his quest for the Avatar.

Chapter 19: The Siege of the North, Part 1 – The Northern Water Tribe braces itself for an attack by Admiral Zhao’s Fire Navy fleet. In the heat of battle, Aang struggles to defend the city.

Chapter 20: The Siege of the North, Part 2 – Zhao’s invasion breaks through the outer wall of the Northern Water Tribe’s defenses, and he reveals a sinister plan to destroy the city.

The DVD is as good or better technically then the original television broadcast. The colours are bright and well reproduced. The  beautiful animation flows so well and without a hitch throughout the 1.33:1 format.  The 2.0 stereo track isn’t quite as good as the video but still very nicely done.  The dialogue is always perfect and the music and effects are also well mixed.  There’s French and Spanish stereo tracks as well. In the extras department we get probably the best extras yet on an Avatar DVD.  The DVD opens with an ad for the 5 DVDs of Book 1 for Avatar, the Sponge Bob DVD collection, the Nick Pick DVDs, and the Avatar video game. The other extras consist of commentaries for episodes 17-20!! Now the commentaries aren't anything spectacular but you don't normally get commentaries for animated television shows. Each commentary has different people on them.  Episode 17 stars Benjamin Wynn sound designer, Dee Baker voice actor for Apa and ! Momo. Episodes 18-20 star Mike Dimartino co-creator, Bryan Konietzko co-creator, and Aaron Ehasz head writer. Oddly enough, they talk about different things in each episode so you don't quite feel like you're hearing the same stuff over and over.  It's quite nice to hear the people involved talk about the show they've made/been involved with.

If you didn’t know already, I’m a big fan of this series. It seems each episode does a great job of teaching some kind of life lesson. In the episodes on this release the group learns some lessons regarding gender roles in society, the benefits and disadvantages of progress and of course, love. Fans of the series should definitely consider getting all the DVDs for their collection.  Season 2 review coming soon!

 Review By Robert Harding