Summary

• Netflix's live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender will change the timeline, removing the urgent one-year timeframe of the original show.
• Sozin's Comet will still exist in the live-action universe, but it may be shown in a flashback and won't be an immediate threat in the first season.
• Changing the timeline was necessary because the actors will age, making it difficult to fit three seasons of television into a single year of the show.

The Netflix live-action show Aang's Avatar state, his motivation, and other key elements of the overarching story. One of the most impactful changes has to do with how long Aang's journey around the four nations will actually take.

In the animated show, Aang discovers that he only has a year to master all four elements and devise a plan to defeat the Fire Lord. The urgency is due to the impending arrival of Sozin's Comet, which will increase the power of all firebenders. Fire Lord Ozai intended to use the arrival of the Comet to launch an offensive on the world to end the war and place all four nations under the control of the Fire Nation. Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender will change the original show's timeline to eliminate that urgency to some degree.

Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender Won’t Take Place Within Just A Year

The live-action show will not have the same sense of urgency as the animated show.

Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender showrunner Albert Kim has revealed that the new adaptation will not have the ticking clock of Sozin's Comet hanging over its narrative. Kim bluntly stated that the story would not take place over the course of one year, as it did in the animated show. That will remove a lot of the urgency that existed throughout the show, which could have an impact on which of Team Avatar's side adventures are included in the live-action show. The story will likely span several years, which does seem more realistic given all that Aang needs to accomplish.

What Removing The Last Airbender’s Sozin Comet Timeline Means For Netflix’s Avatar

The comet is still coming, but not within a single year.

Sozin's Comet itself was revealed in the first Avatar: The Last Airbender trailer, so it will certainly still exist in the live-action universe. As it did in the animated show, it appears as a burning red streak in the sky and accompanies elevated levels of firebending. The only factor that seems to have changed, in fact, is the one-year time frame. It's even possible that the scene that appears in the trailer featuring the Comet is, in fact, a flashback to one of its past appearances.

If it is a flashback, it may not have any bearing at all on the first season of the live-action show. However, the fact that it exists in the universe indicates that it will eventually play a role in the narrative, and likely serve the same purpose as it did in the animated show. It seems likely that it will at least be shown or teased in the first season, setting up its importance for later seasons without the ever-looming threat of its approach in place.

Netflix Changing Avatar: The Last Airbender’s Timeline Was Inevitable

The actors will age, making it difficult to fit three seasons of television into a single year of the show.

The primary reason that Albert Kim gave for Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender is simple. While animated characters certainly don't need to age, the actual human actors playing the teenage characters will. For that reason, it's essentially impossible to try to pretend that only one calendar year has ed in the show with teen actors who could look drastically different over the course of 3–4 years of filming. That also assumes that each season of the show covers an entire book of the story, which is not guaranteed.

For example, Aang is supposed to be 12 years old in the show, and the actor portraying him, Gordon Cormier, is currently 14 years old. By the time the show finishes shooting, Cormier could be 17 or 18 years old. No amount of makeup will be able to effectively mask a potentially significant height difference or voice change, making it extremely difficult to act as though only a year has ed. Ultimately, it is in the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender's best interest to spread the action out over a longer timeline to accomodate its young cast.