Netflix's Avatar Age-Rating Means It Can Do What the Original Never Could

Netflix's interpretation – a more apt description than calling it a pure adaptation – of Nickelodeon's beloved animated classic, Avatar: The Last Airbender, did a few things differently upon its release. In transforming the original's 20-minute episodes into a much longer format (with most episodes of Netflix's version running at around 50 minutes) and cutting the episode count, the creative team, led by Albert Kim, made numerous changes to the original narrative. Outside rearranging the chronology of its story, Netflix also took the series in a much darker direction.