The Making of the Aang Movie with Mike DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, and Lauren Montgomery

Dante Basco (0:02)

The Nickelodeon Original Podcast.

Janet Varney (0:16)

Hello, friends, benders and non-benders alike. Welcome to Braving the Elements, Nickelodeon's podcast about all things Avatarverse. I'm Janet Varney.

Dante Basco (0:24)

And I'm Dante Basco, and we're so excited to welcome everybody to the fifth season of Braving the Elements.

Janet Varney (0:30)

Yes, we're back, everybody. We missed you. But we also recognize that some of you may be joining us for the very first time. Welcome in. You definitely want to go back and check out our last four seasons. We have done deep dives into the Avatarverse, all of Avatar The Last Airbender with lots of bonus episodes, along with all the episodic recaps and deep dives. We've covered books one and two of Korra. We've talked about some of the books. We've talked about comics. So please check all of that out. By the way, for those of you who've been with us before, we have a very special ending segment to the show called Correspondence. You're going to have to stick around to find out what that's all about. But we are going to be covering not just Korra, but the brand new Avatar series, Avatar Seven Havens, which is so exciting.

What are we doing today?

Dante Basco (1:17)

We finally get to talk about the Avatar Aang movie.

Janet Varney (1:20)

Oh my gosh. It's here.

Mike DiMartino (1:22)

It's here, everybody.

Janet Varney (1:23)

Remember how we all wanted to talk about it and watch it like the second it was announced? We have been waiting for literal years to be able to talk about this. The movie is amazing. Can't wait to get into it. It's finally here. Yes.

Dante Basco (1:34)

Let's kick off this Season 5 by first introducing our phenomenal guests. Ladies and gentlemen.

Janet Varney (1:39)

Please welcome Avatar Aang's director and friend of the show. Welcome back, Lauren Montgomery.

Lauren Montgomery (1:45)

Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Janet Varney (1:47)

Then of course, the co-creators of the Avatarverse, producers on the film, Bryan Konietzko and Mike DiMartino. Hello, friends.

Lauren Montgomery (1:54)

Hello.

Bryan Konietzko (1:54)

Thanks for having us.

Dante Basco (1:55)

Welcome back, everybody.

Mike DiMartino (1:56)

Good to be back.

Bryan Konietzko (1:57)

Good to be here.

Janet Varney (1:57)

Oh my gosh. You guys all made a movie with a bunch of people.

Mike DiMartino (2:00)

And we can talk about it. We made it to the end.

Lauren Montgomery (2:02)

We can talk about it.

Janet Varney (2:03)

It's wonderful. Congratulations.

Mike DiMartino (2:05)

Thanks.

Lauren Montgomery (2:06)

Thank you. It's so great.

Janet Varney (2:08)

We saw you a little bit when we had the incredible opportunity to go to the cast and crew screening. Thank you so much for facilitating that invitation. We got to see it on the big screen. It sounded amazing. It looked incredible. We walked together to the after party and we're screaming at the top of our lungs at each other and bouncing up and down. We were like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, that was so incredible. Where do we start?

Lauren Montgomery (2:31)

This is amazing.

Janet Varney (2:32)

We were so excited.

Dante Basco (2:34)

It's so weird now because it's been underwrapped for so long. I'm like, we're actually talking about it now.

Lauren Montgomery (2:39)

It feels almost like, can we? Let's talk about it. Can we?

Janet Varney (2:42)

But we did it.

Mike DiMartino (2:43)

I think we can.

Janet Varney (2:43)

Where do we even start? I mean, again, it's been so long. We've known about it for so long, but there's so little that we knew about it. How did the three of you start having the conversation about you being a part of it?

When did the origin of, okay, we're going to make an Aang movie happen? Throw everything at us.

Bryan Konietzko (3:02)

Yeah. I don't know. Just talking about coming out of that screening, I think for me, because I do not have kids, Aang and his friends, those are my kids.

Janet Varney (3:15)

Yeah.

Bryan Konietzko (3:15)

I think seeing the movie, it was a very long production, it was a very challenging production, it remains a challenging project.

But I think at the heart of it, when I see the film and Lauren and the team's incredible work, it's like seeing my kid grow up. Because it's like, we love the original series, we're very proud of it. But even when we were making it, we were always in our heads. Like Joaquin talks about that, it's like the movie version, the version that you wish if you had the budget and the time and you could make. And seeing the Avatar world is vast and epic as I always imagined it. And seeing the animation at this incredible top tier, world class level. And seeing Momo on model, he's as cute as he was ever meant to be. And so, all of those things, like it's really, it's like those characters, it feels like I'm a parent and I get to see them grow up.