Avatar: The Last Airbender

In this episode, the standard Fire Nation uniforms are different than that commonly seen throughout the main series. The creators in the commentary revealed that the change in design for the Fire Nation uniforms was not so much that the design was bad, the spikes were too inconvenient for some bending moves.

In this pilot, Kya (Katara) and Aang do not seem to express quite the same type of relationship they do in the main series, Kya treats Aang more rationally and is considerably less trustful in her abilities than in the series as Katara.

The scene between Momo and Zuko's pet Hawk was CG-based. According to the creators, it was the last time they did anything like that in the show because all the fire had to be animated by hand by Bryan.

In this episode, Aang actually throws himself into danger in order to enter the Avatar state, a tactic he would never so impulsively execute in the series. Here, he utilizes it simply as a quick power up, whereas the concept of the Avatar state was altered to have much more complexity within the series.

A freeze-frame scene with Aang flying on his glider is used in this pilot. This is most likely what inspired the freeze-frame scene of the heroes sliding down the mail chute in The King of Omashu.

The intro for this episode is very different than any other episode. It has a completely different set of benders and clearly displays each of its characters demonstrating their native element sans the use of silhouettes.

Most, if not all, the scenes in the trailer for the series were from this episode, including the sea serpent, Aang and Zuko's scaffold fight scene, Aang saving Zuko from falling, Aang being surrounded by the Fire Nation soldiers, etc.

Mitchel Musso was originally casted as the voice of Aang, but the character was re-casted and the part was given to Zach Tyler Eisen for unknown reasons.

Several scenes of this pilot episode were animated by co-creator Bryan Konietzko himself.

Prince Zuko is seen with a Dragon hawk in his possession. The co-creators revealed that the fowl originally served as his pet, but for some reason did not make it into the series.

Uncle Iroh, who appears throughout the series, is the only main character from season 1 to not make an appearance. Even Momo, who in the series joined Aang and the others later in the third episode, is seen with the gang in this pilot episode.

In this episode Katara's name is Kya. This was her original name, but was changed prior to the making of the first TV episode to Katara.