Why You Won’t See Sozin’s Comet in Netflix’s ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Yet

A major plot point from the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series will be changed during the events of the live-action adaptation to give the cast of the Netflix series some breathing room. During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Albert Kim, the showrunner behind the live action series, talked about why Sozin’s Comet as a ticking clock had to be removed from the story. The main reason behind the change is the fact that the team behind Avatar: The Last Airbender doesn’t know if or when they’ll return for a second season. And even if the network greenlights more episodes, the main cast will look much older by then, making it impossible for the Comet timeline to work out:

The comet was their ticking clock. We removed that particular ticking clock from our show for now because we couldn’t know exactly how old our actors would be for the subsequent seasons. We definitely thought about that going into season 1 so that we can accommodate for puberty, adolescence, time passing — all of those fun things that happen to real-life human beings that don’t happen to animated characters.

In the world of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sozin’s Comet passes close to Earth once every century, providing firebenders with more power than they could possibly imagine. If they failed to reach the Fire Nation before Sozin’s Comet came close to the planet, the army would be too much for Aang (Gordon Cormier) and his friends to handle. Due to this timeline, the events of the entire animated show took place in roughly a single calendar year. While it remains to be seen if the comet will provide Lord Ozai (Daniel Dae Kim) with a major amount of energy in the Netflix version of the story, the ticking clock element from the cartoon will be removed, giving them space for time jumps in an eventual second season, should the series get renewed.

Lord Ozai’s Children Confront the Avatar

The first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender will follow the same premise as the first season of the animated series, with Katara and Sokka finding Aang frozen in ice a century after the young airbender was trapped in it. Aang becomes the world’s last hope after the Fire Nation decided it wanted to take over the rest of the countries based on the Four Elements, setting the stage for his war against Lord Ozai. While he tries to master the abilitites he doesn’t possess yet, Aang, Katara (Kiawentiio) and Sokka (Ian Ousley) will run into trustworthy allies and unpredictable threats. Aang will also have to overcome a wide variety of challenges before taking on the Fire Lord, including facing off against Ozai’s children Zuko (Dallas Liu) as Prince Zuko and Azula (Elizabeth Yu).

Avatar: The Last Airbender premieres on Netflix in the United States on February 22.