25 moments Netflix’s remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender MUST get right

Katara and Sokka meet Aang

Every great story has a beginning, and Avatar: The Last Airbender truly gets going when Katara and Sokka, precocious members of the Southern Water Tribe, stumble on Avatar Aang, long thought lost to time, frozen in an iceberg.

The Last Airbender is great at marrying the mundane to the magnificent. When Katara and Sokka find Aang, the siblings are in the middle of a heated fight, far from their last. The ordinariness of their blow-up contrasts with their monumental find: the Avatar, the one person who can bring peace to a world at war, just sleeping right under their noses, completely unaware of what’s happened for the last century. Netflix will need to pay careful attention (and devote appropriate funds) to this scene; it should be big, magical and get across the importance of this find. The world has hope again.

At the same time, it needs to keep everything around it light. Once freed from the ice, Aang doesn’t seem to register how important he is; he just wants to be a kid and have fun. Netflix will need to find dependable child actors to play Aang, Katara and Sokka who can handle swinging between these two polls.