Korra is great, but Nickelodeon didn't give it the shot it deserved. The seasons were too short, which ruined the pacing. and iirc, the last season didn't even air on television?
This is my biggest complaint, season 1 is a nice mini story where the ending is weird and that's fine because they thought they'd just get one season. Season 2 is way too big, then season 3 and 4 are perfect. I got to rewatch tho, maybe I'll think different.
One of the Tiktokers I follow who talks about movies and shows a lot mentioned that her comments in any Korra-related vid are filled with misogyny. I wonder if that's part of why it wasn't so successful. Adventure Time and Steven Universe seem to have thrived in spite of their ridiculous air schedules.
Even with some missteps, I always found Korra much more compelling that TLA. The fire nation is such a simplistic antagonist for most of TLA, and since it’s such a unique historical period it doesn’t really convey what I think of as the Avatar’s actual intended role in the world, which Korra does each season by placing Korra in all these very difficult situations where she needs to basically act as a mediator for all of society, and then also showing how much that bears down on her psyche over time. Also Zaheer is the best Avatar antagonist easily
the whole giants battling in the ocean outside republic city thing felt very, idk, like Transformers or Avengers or something? which is just not my jam. The backstory stuff was fun but the sprit plot went way too far glad to hear the next two seasons are better! I love the characters (especially Tenzin and Bolin) and am interested to see where it goes
Season 2 has the problem of turning a compelling political conflict between the water tribes into secretly being one mad man’s quest for absolute power. Which I guess s1 and s4 are kinda similar in that sense, but they handle it so much better. Like Kuvira’s arc is such a good representation of how something like that can actually happen in the real world imo
Yeah that's the problem, it became this big black and white evil vs. good situation when the most compelling villains, especially in season 3 and 4, are nuanced and can be understood, they aren't just evil destruction for evil destruction. There could have been some really interesting nuance and a lower stakes ending, but they went full overboard and it all suffered. This guy has a good video breaking it down:
Bumi acts the most like original series Aang tbh, Tenzin and Kya look like their parents but he feels like Aang's kid somehow.
Eh I think he‘s more like Sokka or OG Bumi. He’s very reckless but also apparently a military legend in his own right, and never seems to stress all that much despite being incredibly out of his league throughout basically all of the series lol. I interpret Aang’s silliness more to them trying to emphasize that he’s still very much a kid, and even then he’s still always able to tell when the situation calls for being more serious. I think Tenzin and Kya make more sense as characters in that so much of their identities are defined by them judging themselves in contrast to how great their parents were.
Yeah Unalaq doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the villains in the show. The villains genuinely believe what they’re doing is what’s best for the world (and you might sort of relate to them), but they end up going at it in the most insane ways. With Unalaq, his thing is supposed to be that he takes his spiritual ideology too far....but I feel like they really whiffed on that one. He talks about spirituality, yes, but then he ends up just making a big run at absolute power. I also don’t even understand what he wanted to happen in the end. He tells Korra that the Avatar has done nothing but bring chaos into the world....then, in the next sentence, explains that he’s going to fuse with the embodiment of darkness and chaos? I don’t know. I think they threw way too much into that season and missed the mark. Way convoluted.
Realizing now I don’t want the next Avatar in the cycle for a new series, give me a huge time jump, like 500-1000 years, future avatar world please.
I wonder if they would ever go the Rogue One/Rebels/Mandalorian route and do some side stories about people who aren't THE most important people in the world at a given time. So maybe do a story about someone who exists in the Avatar world at the same time as Avatar Roku or something like that. I feel like this world is huge, but they honestly haven't told all that many stories outside of basically three or four recent Avatars...and Wan.
That's pretty cool. Why do you like it more? I've found that (for whatever reason) I've liked Korra more and more each time I've watched it, but I'm not exactly sure why. I'm on probably my fifth or sixth time through now, and I've read the comics and novels since last time and have a better grasp of a lot of the issues they talk about in TLOK so maybe that has something to do with it.
I’m rewatching TLA now, I think what I liked more was the pacing. Everything was essentially in your face with everyone practically at full force. Adding in the maturity aspect and the better villains (imo) it just catered more to me.
Original creators and executive producers DiMartino and Konietzko have signed on to serve as co-chief creative officers of Avatar Studios, reporting to Ramsey Naito, president of Nickelodeon Animation.
They must have done insane numbers on Netflix when they put it back up, lot of deals off of a very old series all things considered. Love this line at the end Yup, no other live action Avatar projects have ever existed