Avatar: The Last Airbender stars Dante Basco and Zach Tyler Eisen have reunited in a TikTok video, thirteen years after the end of the Nickelodeon series. The animated hit show revolved around 12-year-old Aang (voiced by Eisen) a monk from the Air Nomads and the Avatar, a figure able to bend all four elements who is tasked with maintaining balance in the world. At the start of the series, Aang wakes up in an iceberg having been frozen for 100 years. The world is nothing like he remembers: the Fire Nation has waged war against the other nations, wiping away all the Air Nomads looking to the Avatar. With the help of his new friends Katara, Sokka, and Toph, Aang must complete his training as the Avatar, master all four elements to defeat the Fire Lord, and restore balance to the world.
Among the many foes, Team Avatar encounters during their travels, Price Zuko (voiced by Basco) is definitely the one that stands out the most. Son to the Fire Lord, he was banished by his father and has to capture the Avatar in order to restore his honor. Accompanied by his wise old Uncle Iroh, Zuko ultimately gives up on this mission and find fulfillment by helping the Avatar defeat his father and become Fire Lord of a new and peaceful world.
In a recent TikTok posted by Basco, the actors voicing Aang and Zuko reunited on the streets of New York to give fans a little treat of what the show used to be. In the short video, Basco starts off by saying, "Yo so I’m walking around New York and guess who I finally found?" As Aang's Zach Tyler Eisen enters the frame he says, "Flamey-o, hotman. Yip yip," before Basco continued, "I regained my honor. Whassup!!"
Even though the show ended its run in July 2008, almost exactly 13 years ago, Basco's own voice still very much sounds like that of his character. Eisen, on the other hand, was only 16 when the show wrapped. Now 27, the actor's voice sounds completely different from his former character but has given fans an idea of what one of their favorite characters must have sounded like as a young adult. While Eisen has since stopped working as a voice actor, Basco continued his career by voicing Jai Kell in Star Wars Rebels, Spinkick in Carmen Sandiego, and Zuko's grandson General Iroh in The Legend of Korra, which is the sequel to the original show.
As for the future of the series, in 2018, Netflix announced their plans to make a live-action remake of ATLA. The project initially featured the show's original creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, as showrunners. But in 2020, the duo decided to leave the project and start their own Avatar Studios back at Nickelodeon, claiming that Netflix didn't follow through on their promise to support their vision for the show. However, Netflix is still moving forward with the show, leaving Avatar: The Last Airbender fans worried that without DiMartino and Konietzko, the streamer's remake might end up being a disappointment just like M. Night Shyamalan's 2010 film, The Last Airbender.
Source: Dante Basco