The earliest known sketch of Momo, Aang and Appa, with Momo being a Robot and Appa resembling Naga from Korra.
What Could Have Been examples for Avatar: The Last Airbender.
open/close all folders
TV Shows
Avatar: The Last Airbender
- In the earliest concepts, Aang, Appa, and Momo were originally designed as part of a Science Fiction universe. Aang was intended to be the sole survivor of a technologically-advanced precursor society that had existed a thousand years ago.
- Zuko was not a part of the creators' original conception, he was only created after the writers realized that they needed a younger antagonist who could actively peruse Aang from episode to episode, as the Fire Lord would spend much of the series from the safety of his throne.
- Katara's name was originally meant to be Kya and is even referred to as such in the unaired pilot. However, the name had to be changed in order to avoid copyright issues with Kya: Dark Lineage; the name would end up being reused for her mother, and eventually Katara's daughter in the Sequel Series, The Legend of Korra.
- Zuko was intended to have a bigger scar that takes up much of the left-half of his face,
extending down to his mouth. The creators ultimately decided against it after they realized that it would be tricky for the animators to draw when his mouth is moving and decided to make his scar smaller in order to prevent constant retakes from the animation department. Additionally, his ponytail was intended to be thinner, as opposed to the top-knot that flowed downward he has in the show. - Aang was originally meant to be the caretaker of a herd of flying bison, this idea was later scrapped and changed to a family of bison, however even this idea was changed to simply Appa to reduce the amount of characters in the main cast.
- Several story details from the show outline present in an early series bible are absent from the series, with the most notable including:
- Each season was meant to be named after the seasons they took place in (Winter, Spring, Summer) to highlight the approaching comet, as opposed to the relevant element (Water, Earth, Fire) that Aang would be learning.
- Toph was originally conceived as a teenage boy and a love interest for Katara alongside Aang, setting up a love triangle. She became a young girl when head writer Aaron Ehasz joked that it would be funny to see a small little girl take out all those big, burly Earthbenders, and the idea stuck despite series co-creator Bryan Konietzko disliking the idea (Toph would ironically become his favorite character). Some of the designs made for this version of Toph would be reused elsewhere in the show (the Earthbender in the show's opening sequence, who turns out to be Roku's Earthbending teacher; The Boulder, who she fights in her debut episode; and her actor in "The Ember Island Players"). Aspects of her original male visual design and characterization would also incorporated into Bolin in The Legend of Korra.
- Azula was also originally conceived as a guy; her name would have simply been "Azul".
- Iroh was planned to be a gruff, strict teacher to Zuko. He was also a Treacherous Advisor who joined Zuko's quest to ensure its failure, even teaching him firebending incorrectly on Ozai's orders.
- Momo being the reincarnation of Aang's mentor, Monk Gyatso.
- Book One would have not have had any spirits involved in its finale. Aang, with the aid of Katara and Pakku, would have created a water tornado that repels the remaining Fire Nation forces instead. Pakku also would have been gravely injured during the battle, formally declaring Katara as a waterbending master and Aang's new teacher on his deathbed.
- Book Two would have had begun with Zuko capturing Appa, as opposed to the sandbenders doing so towards the middle of the season, and giving him to Ozai as a gift. Team Avatar would spend the remainder of the series relying on Katara's waterbending to travel places on a raft. Appa would not have been rescued until the end of Book Three, in which Sokka finds him and uses him to take down the Fire Lord's air fleet.
- The Day of Black Sun invasion was the Earth King's idea, with this original version of the character being fully aware of the war and actively working to fight back against the Fire Nation. Aang would have been sworn to secrecy on the matter, and spend much of the second season trying to convey this information to the others via riddles, allowing them to join in the fight without breaking his promise. The invasion would have also served as the finale of Book 2, as opposed to the mid-season finale of Book 3.
- Rather than losing his villain status in Book 2 and living as a fugitive in the Earth Kingdom, Zuko would have spent the entire season competing with Azula to capture the Aang. He would instead become a fugitive in the Fire Nation early in Book 3, after calling Ozai out for his treatment of his impoverished citizens, at which point the Gaang encounters him and Katara convinces the others to let him join.
- The planned ending would have seen all the characters going their separate ways at the end, returning to their home nations to help them rebuild in the aftermath of the war while Aang travels the globe in search of any hidden airbenders.
- Aang and Katara were not supposed to end up together, in line with early outlines giving the show no romantic resolution. Upon entering production, Bryke decided to have Katara/Aang happen as they came to adore Aang and realized that Kataang was their "soft spot".
- The creators originally wanted The Boulder to be voiced by the Rock, but he was unavailable, so Mick Foley was brought instead.
- Mitchell Musso voiced Aang in the original, unaired pilot before being replaced by Zack Tyler Eisen.
- In the season 2 premiere, Azula was originally going to vaporize her captain for letting it slip that Zuko and Iroh were prisoners, but realized they couldn't do that on a kid's show. Elements of this would be incorporated in the opening scene of the Netflix series episode "Aang", albeit with Sozin vaporizing an Earth Nation soldier instead of Azula vaporizing her captain.
- In the Avatar Extras for part one of the Season 1 finale, it's mentioned that there was an idea kicked around for a special about Iroh's failed attack on Ba Sing Se, but it never took off.
- The identity of Aang's parents was going to be revealed, but this was later dropped.
- There was going to be an episode that involved Aang and Sokka getting handcuffed together.
- Originally, the episode "The Warriors of Kyoshi" would have more of a Bittersweet Ending, ending with the gang retreating from the burning village to get Zuko to chase them and prevent him from destroying it completely. The ending was revised to have Aang use the Unagi to put out the fires before escaping.
- Originally, in Book Three, Azula was going to revealed as being in an arranged marriage, and Appa, in the season finale, would have been confirmed as female.
- The creators wanted to explain the origin of the Avatar, but never had the time to in the series. They would eventually do so in Book 2 of Korra.
- Suki was originally going to be a one-off character. She proved popular enough with both the fans and staff that she was brought back as a reoccurring character.
- Katara and Zuko becoming a couple. Several writers have stated in the years after the show's completion that the pairing was discussed as a possibility in the writer's room. Joshua Hamilton alludes to these debates in the Avatar Extras, with some notes mentioning that the idea of Zuko as a love interest was toyed with, and John O'Bryan also confirmed in an episode of the Braving the Elements podcast that he and others liked the pairing and fought for it. M. Night Shyamalan also collaborated this in a roundtable discussion about the live-action film, stating that Bryke where in the middle of producing Book Three at the time, and revealed that they hadn't decided on how the show's conclusion would play out, including "who Katara was going to end up with." However, Bryke themselves regularly insist that they never gave Katara ending up with anyone but Aang any serious thought.
- The writers originally intended to have Pong living with another character named Ping for comical reasons, but they decided otherwise as it was "not funny enough to put in the episode". In the DVD commentary for "City of Walls and Secrets", the creators revealed that they had initially intended for Pong to have a much larger comical role that would stretch to the end of the season, but that he got edited out in subsequent revisions and by the end of Book 2 they had completely forgotten about him.
- Originally, Zuko was planned to make his Heel–Face Turn at the end of the second season. However, head writer Aaron Ehasz decided that it didn't make sense for his character to switch sides that at point of his character arc, and so it was changed to a Redemption Rejection instead.
- The final season was originally planned to consist of twenty episodes, just like the previous two. However, when writing the script for the three-part season finale, it ended up being too long; arguing that trimming it down would ruin the pacing, the crew successfully convinced Nickelodeon to grant them an extra episode. The original Part 3 of "Sozin's Comet" would be split into two episodes, with additional scenes written in order to help fit the new runtime.
- Zuko was planned to reunite with his mother Ursa in a sequence that was fully storyboarded, but it was scrapped due to the creators deciding they'd rather have a longer story to build up to such a moment. Said story was pitched as a television movie, but would be rejected; it would serve as the second story arc of the comics a few years later, but not before being the subject of a quick The Unreveal gag in the first episode of Korra.
- Aaron Ehasz has stated that Bryan and Mike once asked him to plan out a possible fourth season. One of the plotlines considered was for Azula to have a redemption arc, with her brother being by her side in much the same way Iroh was for him; another plotline would have been Aang exploring his guilt and trauma over Energybending Ozai, requiring another Zuko field-trip to find himself, and potentially running into a reincarnated Monk Gyatso. Ehasz claims that a fourth season was scrapped because Mike and Bryan wanted to put full focus on the live-action film, but the creators deny ever wanting to do more than three seasons.
- The concept art for the characters looked relatively different such as Jet sporting red hair, Azula donning a similar armor as Fa Mulan, Mai lacking her Odango Hair with hairpins in its place, Yue's original designs being inspired by Padmé Amidala and so on.
The Legend of Korra
- The series was originally called Avatar: Legend of Korra and then The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra, when Nickelodeon was worried about potential confusion with James Cameron's Avatar film series. The show's final name eventually became The Legend of Korra in the show's home region of North America, while the "Avatar" supertitle was retained for overseas markets.
- The show was initially planned as a 12-episode mini-series. Nickelodeon quickly ordered another 14 episodes after liking early progress on Korra, which became Book 2. This was later followed by them ordering another 26 episodes (Book 3 and 4) in the weeks leading up to the series' premiere.
- Jinora's concept art design had her resembling more like a younger version of Ty Lee from the original series, which resulted in a popular Fanon theory that her mother Pema is Ty Lee's daughter.
- The creators planned to have Zhu Li and Bolin develop a romantic relationship, before settling on them having different love interests; the former ending up with her boss Varrick, and the latter ending up with Suyin's niece Opal.
- Hasook was originally going to have a larger role in the show with a family and kids, but Bryan Konietzko had the idea cut out for time saving purposes.
- Originally, Hasook was to be captured by Amon's henchmen, and Korra, Mako, and Bolin were going to go after him. However, he was later replaced in the scene by Bolin.
- Asami Sato was originally intended to be an Equalist spy, but Mike and Bryan realized during scripting that they've come to like the character and that there would be little excuse to continue using her after the planned reveal, so she became a Red Herring who is unaware of her father's dealings instead.
- After they abandoned the former idea, they tossed around the idea of ending the season with Asami joining the United Forces and begin a relationship with General Iroh.
- At one point, Asami was going to be among the characters who would gain Airbending abilities after Harmonic Convergence.
- There were plans to revisit the "foamy mouth guy" gag from the previous series, with the twist that the crazy fan was rooting for Amon instead of the heroes. It got dropped because they felt that the joke clashed too much with Amon's general creepiness.
- Initially, there was going to be a flashback detailing the Red Lotus' kidnapping of young Korra, but was dropped for time.
- Ming-Hua was originally conceived as a Bloodbender, but the creators decided that this would be too repetitive of Season 1's villains.
- The Fire Nation Royal family was going to play a bigger role in Book 4 with the introduction of Fire Lord Izumi's daughter, but the creators couldn't find a way to add them in an Earth Kingdom-focused story. Said daughter was also planned to serve as a love interest to Mako, but this was also scrapped in favor of keeping him single and focusing on his friendship with the Krew and Wu instead.
- Rob Paulsen had recorded dialogue for adult Aang, but ended up being replaced by D.B. Sweeney.
Netflix live-action adaptation
- Production was set to begin in February 2020 in Hawaii, but the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic stopped it in its tracks since they had planned to film extensively on location, with Mike and Bryan leaving the project because of Creative Differences a few months later.
- Early concept art for King Bumi indicate that the lop-eared rabbit was supposed to appear, but was removed later on.
- Yue's hairstyle was going to be more natural-looking as seen in costume tests involving her actress Amber Midthunder than what it ultimately looked like, when fans compared it to be a cosplay piece.
Films
The Last Airbender
- The first draft of the movie attempted to adapt all twenty episodes of the series' first season, adding up to a whopping seven hours. This was naturally cut down to a more realistic two hours, but the film's theatrical release would be shortened by another half-hour because they wanted to convert it into 3-D as quickly as possible.
- The movie was originally planned to be called Avatar: The Last Airbender, but was shorted to The Last Airbender to avoid confusion with James Cameron's Avatar, which release the previous year.
- Before things turned stillborn, Shyamalan planned to counter the “Racebending” complaints in the sequel by casting an Asian actress as Toph.
- Jesse Mc Cartney was the original actor cast as Zuko. However, he dropped out under amicable terms when asked to by the people at Paramount when they realized that all four of the main characters would be played by white actors. Avan Jogia apparently auditioned for the movie, presumably as either Zuko or Sokka.
- Early promotional images showed Fire Lord Ozai with the long hair and goatee he had in the cartoon, but in the final movie, Ozai has short hair and is clean-shaven.
- Sokka's actor mentioned wanting to get a tan for the role. That didn't happen.
- The tie-in comic implies that had the films continued, Azula would have been revealed to have a healthy and deep respect for Zuko underneath the bitter sibling rivalry.
- Had the film series continued, Jeong Jeong was planned to appear in the third movie. Hama would have also made an appearance, hence her being briefly mentioned by Katara and Sokka's grandmother as foreshadowing.
- Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors were going to appear in the film with actress Jessica Jade Andres playing her but their scenes were cut during postproduction as a result of the Executive Meddling for the film's running time being less than two hours, though it didn't stop her from being featured in promotional materials such as the McDonald's tie-in. They were going to fill the role that Jet and the Freedom Fighters played.
Comic Books
The Promise
- Gurihiru originally designed Zuko's hair to look like a mullet.
- Gene Yang considered having Jet return alongside the other Freedom Fighters, but the series creators overruled this, stating that the character had indeed died in his final appearance.
The Search
- Zuko was planned to reunite with his mother Ursa in the final episode of The Last Airbender, in an epilogue sequence that was fully storyboarded. It was scrapped in favor of pitching a television movie that would tell the entire story, but Nickelodeon rejected it. It would be the subject of a quick The Unreveal gag in the first episode of Korra before it was decided to tackle the storyline as part of the comics.
