Avatar: The Last Airbender TV Show • Page 10

!!!!!

 

hmmmm, my first thoughts are Who is the showrunner(s) and what's the writing team like ??

 

If it’s a lot of the same Korra people then I’m hyped

 

The expansion of the Avatar world is going to be crazy.

I feel like this whole franchise is amazing and has so many devoted fans, but there's honestly not really that much content as it currently stands. Two shows, a small handful of comics/graphic novels and two prequel novels are really the only canon materials that exist.

 

I just finished watching this show for the first time and it was so good. absolutely deserves all the accolades and more, though I have a few nitpicks with how some stories resolved. I'll reserve judgement until I see Korra though

 

Avatar's finale and whole ending arc was amazing, but Aang's unlocking of the Avatar State and the way that he did it still gets a lot of flack. It's a pretty common complaint even from people who love the show and finale that it felt a little cheap. haha.

Hopefully you enjoy Korra. Some of the show feels a little odd at times due to the show's production sort of getting screwed by Nickelodeon, but other than that, the show has a lot of amazing moments.

 

weirdly the Avatar State bit didn't bother me too much! it was a little silly maybe but such a hype moment that I didn't think about it too much lol. learning about the spirit bend (?) technique in flashback mid battle honestly bothered me more hahah

the stuff that's bothering me, and I really do mean it's small nitpicks:

- Toph's arc got very little resolution and in general she didn't seem to have much to do in s3 apart from being the tank in battles. probably a side effect of them juggling arcs for the main trio + Zuko, all of which were great but Toph was my favourite character so it stings a little bit

- the White Lotus summoning all the superpowered dudes was veeeery convenient lmao, especially when only the Swordsmaster had a tile. I feel like this might be a storyline that had to get cut with Mako's passing though. I'm sure everyone involved did the best they could but it's definitely jarring when Iroh spends episodes not talking at all or completely absent

- the Earth King. dude really dipped out of the whole story and never came back in one non dialogue scene? wild

- most importantly of all: what the FUCK happened to Hawky, he flies away and just never comes back? absolutely unacceptable

 

Oh yeah, that's another common critique. The energy bending thing wasn't mentioned at all, even by the previous Avatars who were apparently all unaware of its existence. The only foreshadowing to any of it was ONE quick glimpse of a lion turtle when they were in the underground library.

A lot of people don't like that Aang basically didn't have to even really make a decision on whether or not to kill Ozai, as he was just gifted an easy out. But meh, it's just a nitpick as well.

 

In regards to Korra, it’s interesting to look back on the closing shot of the finale and remember now how revolutionary of a moment that felt like in children’s animation despite them not doing anything beyond holding hands. A real “they walked so shows like She-Ra could run” kind of moment, but strange because it sadly wasn’t even that long ago. I can still remember what a big fan ship that relationship was and thinking “yeah, but I doubt they’d actually do it” and then watching the finale with my wife and sitting up like “whoa waaaaiiiit…are they actually doing this?”

 

I don't remember the lion turtle in the library episode at all! I'll have to look out for that when I rewatch it which will almost certainly happen lol

the framing of the energybending thing was so weird to me, like we see the conversation Aang has with it and it says something completely different to him, then we flashback to it next episode and the dialogue is totally different so we can learn about energybending. that plus the fact I could barely understand the turtle's voice made it a rare miss in terms of this show doing a Big Moment (the blue/orange energy coming out of Ozai and Aang was awesome though)

 

so I'm about halfway through Korra s1 and I'm enjoying it fine, though I definitely see what people are saying about the pacing. feels like a few episodes will pass with pretty low stakes and then some crazy shit happens out of nowhere like the bloodbender reveal

I like how it's linked to ATLA without being too indebted to it (although Toph and her daughter being cops is... not my favourite direction for that arc lmao). the world building and design has been absolutely gorgeous so far

 

Season one is definitely slower paced, yeah. Season two moves at a brisker pace, but also…well, you’ll see. People, uh, people don’t like that one. Three and four though are great. That’s the show at its best.

 

Legend of Korra is fine but the last Airbender is a lot better imo. The supporting characters are so much stronger than in Korra. I also feel like the highs are higher.

 

s3 Korra has the best villains of the whole series

 

Korra seasons didn't have enough time to breathe

 

I honestly love Korra as much as TLA and think they're both fantastic shows, even before taking the external factors for Korra's production into account.

TLA's lesson of the week formula in the first half of season 1 is no less frustrating to sit through on a rewatch then the first half of S2 in Korra. And Korra has some really high highs, some of which eclipse TLA for me.

Great TV all around!

 

yeah I wasn't really blown by ATLA until The Storm and that's pretty much a full season of Korra so I'm definitely willing to give it time to get great. I still like the show as it is, it's just they throw in this wild shit like the secret brother reveal/murder suicide that feels totally out of place with the rest of the show lmao

 

Probably my main complaint with the show as well. Korra is a great protagonist, but her crew was kind of bland. IMO the adults like Lin and Tenzin are much better supporting characters than any of the younger ones.

 

S2 was slow for me, thats my only complaint

 

I really like Tenzin already but being played by JK Simmons is a big help in any context lmao

I'm only a few episodes into s2 but it's been awesome so far, I've liked everything. kind of nervous to see what happens to make everyone dislike this so much. also Aubrey Plaza showing up was wild

 

i just finished off s2 of Korra and... i definitely have some thoughts about it. wouldn't say i hated it at all but it was undoubtedly a mess. feels like they had three different seasons that they just smashed together at the last minute

- the first four episodes were an absolutely awesome, intense, mostly contained depiction of a civil war breaking out over two sides who actually both seemed to have reasonable points to their stances. loved how realistic it felt that Korra was torn between her uncle, father and Tenzin and they all had things to offer. sure seemed like a set up for that war to be y'know a major factor in the whole season...

- and then it just completely disappears (at least from the onscreen action) so we can go back to Republic City and kill aaalll the momentum. Korra spends like six episodes trying to convince the President to do stuff and he says no, Mako, Asami and Bolin get stuck in some of the most worst filler in either show. Varrick was a fun character but this whole section was astonishingly boring and the uncle just becoming a moustache twirling villain sucked

- was actually thrilled when the focus shifted to the spirit world because at least it was more engaging and visually had some of the coolest work they've ever done. that two-parter about the first Avatar was absolutely stunning, maybe some of my favourite content in either show so far. there was some good stuff otherwise (especially Tenzin's mini-arc about giving up his idea of himself and just being himself - this was a thing that absolutely could've got more attention in the whole season instead of... Bolin's movie star bullshit) but the whole thing somehow felt too big and small at the same time, like the stakes were so high it was weirdly hard to care about

bold move to end the season with the portals staying open and Korra being severed from all her past lives though. considering how s1 snaps its fingers and undoes all the damage at the last minute, you can definitely see the difference in s2 with them actually knowing they'd be renewed and letting some plot points carry over. seems like s3 is generally regarded as the best, excited to get going on that

 

Yeah, you definitely aren't alone in your assessment of this season here. haha. Book 2 is definitely quite sloppy compared to the other ones. TLOK tries to do this thing where they make the villain "have a point" but ultimately go too far with their ideology, but... I don't know. Sometimes it just makes everything convoluted, and Unalaq's is the worst.

He starts out lecturing the Southern Water tribe about how they need to return their sense of spirituality, as they've become too commercialized and industrialized and the spirits are "angry" with them. Sounds logical, but ultimately, he was just lying so he didn't really have a point (other than that the two tribes did need to reconnect). It's implied (but never outright explained) that Unalaq was using his spiritual influence to make the existing spirits turn dark, so did everyone else actually even need to become more spiritual in the first place? What does opening the portal actually do for humanity other than letting them travel back and forth from the north and south poles? It's explicitly shown that the spirits have always been pretty dangerous to humans anyway.

They basically want Unalaq's ideology to be "He wanted the spirits to return" but he immediately goes into wanting to become a dark avatar in order to destroy the entire world... just a comically over-the-top, nonsensical plan.

 

lmao yeah the beginning of the season is borderline nonsensical once you get to the end. it's a shame because I would've loved a season where Korra is trying to mediate this civil war, spearheaded by her uncle and father and both of them have reasonable points that they won't back down from. would've been cool to have a season with no real villain outright just a conflict that escalates from a lack of common ground, and you could still segue that into the spirit world stuff pretty easily

but oh well lmao Dark Avatar shit is what we got, that was certainly a choice

 

Haha like you said though, even the side plots are poorly written filler.

Like Mako and Asami's sting operation makes me laugh when I think about it. It was so overly simple. Varrick needed Asami to be gone for a night so he double-crossed her to keep her away long enough to clean out her entire warehouse.

But like, did she not have any security guarding her entire warehouse? How was it that easy? Asami, herself, had to personally be there or else she was at risk of getting an entire factory's worth of machinery stolen? No complex plan to disarm or pay off security, no elaborate plan to subtly sabotage the factory, etc. Just had to have the CEO take one night off lol.

Luckily, the third or fourth seasons don't have any of this boring or convoluted stuff. There's a big bump in quality after Book 2.