Sfdebris.net

This was apparently announced back in February but, yeah, Nickelodeon made a studio for the express purpose of making content exclusively for Avatar including, but not unlimited to, short films, new TV series (from main story-lines to spin-offs) and this studio's first major project is a theatical animated film. Gotta admit, I'm kinda exited for this. Avatar is one or my favorite series and while I have poked fun at it once or twice I still love it and WANT more from this world.

However, I will admit that things can go south if the first few stories released don't live up to the high standard set by what came before. I love the Legend of Korra and it can be argued to have had a more notable impact on pop-culture (the recently increase in LGBT representation, realistic portrayal of PTSD and a great focus on politics can all be traced back to Korra) it IS a flawed show. I love Korra, Asami, Tenzin, Jinora and Lin but more then half the characters, IMHO, REALLY should have been cut to give focus on other things.

IMO, The Legend of Korra was at it's best when it did it's own thing instead of trying to recapture the magic from the first series. Korra isn't Aang, Asami isn't Katara, Tenzin isn't Sokka and Lin isn't Toph... So, why is Mako and Bolin such obvious attempts to copy and paste Zuko and Sokka? Mako was even described as Zuko without the Angst but while he shares Zuko's broodingness he lacks everything else that made Zuko such a great character. Bolin has Sokka's bad luck and humor(<---?) but lacks Sokka's ingenuity and leadership skills.

Korrasami is NOT Kataang or an attempt to make what the writers thought Zutara was, it was a relationship that grew naturally as the series progressed and one that added to the characters. To contrast with Kataang, after Aang and Katara got together many supports for the ship fell out of love with it as it felt like it regressed Katara's character while Korrasami has remained popular 6 years after it was made canon.

And to go back to Star Wars (which I haven't been doing much recently) one of the problems with the Disney Sequel Trilogy was how it was just the Original Trilogy only with one or two minor changes to try and pass itself off as an original story. The Force Awakens is just A New Hope, The Last Jedi is just the Empire Strikes Back and Rise of Skywalker... Well, ROS actually does have a mostly original plot but it devolves into just being a retread of Return of the Jedi in the end so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

And what's sad is, it could have been amazing if it had only followed through with the original ideas it did have. As I've said before the She-Ra reboot, aka She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, hits most if not all of the same ideas of TDST and that show is AMAZING!!!

If Avatar is going to have a future and make a series that spans several TV Shows, comics, games, novels and even possibly films then it needs to not be mired in the past. You can have call backs, nostalgia, fan serves and scenes that are meant as a shot for shot recreation of a moment that the series is remembered for but you NEED to simply go where the narrative takes you. Also, for the love of the Spirits, DON'T go in with the mindset of "Outsmarting" the viewers.

You can have twists and turns but what's going to draw people back to watch and re-watch something is how much they end up loving the characters. Everyone knows who Luke's father is, everyone knows what Rosebud means & Romeo and Juliet tells you how the play is going to end right at the start. Knowing does not ruin the story, what ruins the story is if you upend the whole narrative just to surprise the audience.

If I'm playing chess with someone and then, towards the end of the game I suddenly take out a Katana and cut the board in half while singing Oo-De-Lally from Disney's Robin Hood, it's surprising but everyone came here to watch two people play chess, not watch one of them go crazy.

A great example of Avatar moving forward is with the Kyoshi novels. Before the novel even starts it makes it clear who the Avatar really is and thus you know how it's all going to end. And yet Kyoshi is loved by fans and critics even with everyone knowing how it all ends because the characters were so well written that we went along for the ride and return just to go through it all over again.

As always, I'm taking a wait and see approach with this series. I'm exited but I'm ready for the worst, just in case. Thoughts?

With this franchise, I gotta admit, I just sort of stopped caring after Korra's second season, I feel bad about it because I've heard great things from season 3 and 4 but I just couldn't get past the bad writing and lorebreaking in Season 2 in particular. I haven't seen season 3 and 4 so I cannot honestly say Legend of Korra is a bad show and am not trying to hate on it, I also stopped caring after reading the bizarre comic the search. I don't have much confidence and probably won't watch it regardless, I just hate Korra Season 2 that much that I just can't accept it as canon. It's not that the spirit portals were open, it's the whole Raava and Vaatu bs and Lionturtles being the givers of bending that I can't get past. Hope the new stuff is good and takes the franchise in a good direction, I just won't be on that train when it comes.

Well, they're unlikely to screw it up any worse than the live action movie, and the comics have been pretty consistently good.

Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:10 am Well, they're unlikely to screw it up any worse than the live action movie, and the comics have been pretty consistently good.

Don't Jinx it.

Beelzquill wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 5:15 am With this franchise, I gotta admit, I just sort of stopped caring after Korra's second season, I feel bad about it because I've heard great things from season 3 and 4 but I just couldn't get past the bad writing and lorebreaking in Season 2 in particular. I haven't seen season 3 and 4 so I cannot honestly say Legend of Korra is a bad show and am not trying to hate on it, I also stopped caring after reading the bizarre comic the search. I don't have much confidence and probably won't watch it regardless, I just hate Korra Season 2 that much that I just can't accept it as canon. It's not that the spirit portals were open, it's the whole Raava and Vaatu bs and Lionturtles being the givers of bending that I can't get past. Hope the new stuff is good and takes the franchise in a good direction, I just won't be on that train when it comes.

Yeah, season 2 was borderline unwatchable.

Season 3 was OK but needed more room to breathe. Season 4 was good but needed more buildup in 3.

The comics have been...hit or miss. "The Promise" was pretty decent, "The Search" was just OK IMO, the other TLA-era ones have been readable enough so far. The Korra-era ones have been decent, though they don't know what to do with Raiko and I'm not a fan of the LGBT worldbuilding (it's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge missed opportunity, the way LGBT people are treated is a neat aspect of culture to play with, and each state should have its own way of approaching such issues (e.g. Southern Water Tribe should be "whatever, as long as you can pull your weight", while pretty much every Fire Nation noble probably has a "favored servant" who sleeps in their bed and some of those are of the same gender. With the Air Nomads you can even take inspiration from real-world Tibet and get deep into polyandry stuff and how that would affect societal views of gay men vs. lesbians!), so writing it off as "everybody but Earth Kingdom and 100-year-war era Fire Nation gay-friendly, Earth Kingdom and Sozin big meanie homophobes" is pretty disappointing).

Worffan101 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 06, 2021 8:53 pm

Beelzquill wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 5:15 am With this franchise, I gotta admit, I just sort of stopped caring after Korra's second season, I feel bad about it because I've heard great things from season 3 and 4 but I just couldn't get past the bad writing and lorebreaking in Season 2 in particular. I haven't seen season 3 and 4 so I cannot honestly say Legend of Korra is a bad show and am not trying to hate on it, I also stopped caring after reading the bizarre comic the search. I don't have much confidence and probably won't watch it regardless, I just hate Korra Season 2 that much that I just can't accept it as canon. It's not that the spirit portals were open, it's the whole Raava and Vaatu bs and Lionturtles being the givers of bending that I can't get past. Hope the new stuff is good and takes the franchise in a good direction, I just won't be on that train when it comes.

Yeah, season 2 was borderline unwatchable.

Season 3 was OK but needed more room to breathe. Season 4 was good but needed more buildup in 3.

The comics have been...hit or miss. "The Promise" was pretty decent, "The Search" was just OK IMO, the other TLA-era ones have been readable enough so far. The Korra-era ones have been decent, though they don't know what to do with Raiko and I'm not a fan of the LGBT worldbuilding (it's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge missed opportunity, the way LGBT people are treated is a neat aspect of culture to play with, and each state should have its own way of approaching such issues (e.g. Southern Water Tribe should be "whatever, as long as you can pull your weight", while pretty much every Fire Nation noble probably has a "favored servant" who sleeps in their bed and some of those are of the same gender. With the Air Nomads you can even take inspiration from real-world Tibet and get deep into polyandry stuff and how that would affect societal views of gay men vs. lesbians!), so writing it off as "everybody but Earth Kingdom and 100-year-war era Fire Nation gay-friendly, Earth Kingdom and Sozin big meanie homophobes" is pretty disappointing).

If you haven't read the Kyoshi novels, read the Kyoshi novels. IMHO they're better than all the comics. And they do tackle LGBT issues with *slightly* more nuance, though admittedly not to the level you fancy.

As for Korra — yeah, I think Korra was very hit or miss. I personally despise season 2 with a passion, and despise Beginnings's ruining of the lore even though I must admit it was a lovely tight story with a great art style. But really, there's none of that in S3 or S4. IMHO S4's ending is... just too silly, but then again, I can't really begrudge the writers it too much.


But yeah, I only "discovered" Avatar during lockdown (despite having watched Chuck's content for ages I almost never watch his in-depth reviews of things I haven't seen), and since then I've consumed all available content. My general opinions are: ATLA is pretty much as near perfection as you can get by TV standards.

Korra is probably an above average TV series overall, but nowhere near ATLA's level. It has some great episodes, characters, and moments, but is overall nowhere near perfection. Season-wise, Season 1, the love triangle was eye-rolling and the pro-bending went on too long. Villain was incredibly horrifying and well-done from that perspective but I'm not sure he had the best backstory; seemed simultaneously overly convoluted and not really sufficient to explain his actions. Season 2 started out with the worst of Korra-the-character while actually having a pretty intriguing premise, then quickly moved into the worst of Korra-the-show while actually having a pretty decent Korra character. So basically season 2 is by far the worst, with the sole exception of Varrick. Season 3 had a much better premise and an interesting villain; some have criticised his philosophy for being a bit shallow but I'm not sure to what extent that's fair. Especially since IIRC we don't know his final plan; I won't go into too much detail to avoid spoilers. Season 4 I think had the best journey for Korra the character, with an OK villain and a ridiculous finale. As for the characters, Korra and Tenzin are probably up there with the ATLA main cast in terms of their depth of character. Lin and Asami are decent, as are some of the side characters that come in the later seasons. Bolin and Mako are just both terrible characters though, which is a real shame. I don't think they were ever adequately developed. And Meelo, god I can't stand him. He's the annoying character of the show in pretty much every episode he's in (in the others this usually falls to Bolin; though on balance maybe it should be Bolin because at least Meelo has the excuse of being a child...).



Comics, yeah, I agree that they are hit or miss but I'd probably disagree on specifics, if I could remember much about the individual comics at this stage. I do recall that the first Korra comic is pretty atrocious and the second is pretty good; as for the ATLA ones in my head none of them are particularly bad, they just hover around the same quality level that's certainly below the show's but not terrible by any means. Kyoshi novels on the other hand are near ATLA level of great.


As for the live action film... lol. I mean, genuinely, I expected to really really hate it. And it is a really really bad film, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't bring myself to hate it because, well, frankly, it is almost a perfect case study of how not to make a film. It's absolutely surreal. You couldn't make a more efficiently packed bad film if you tried. It's so short, and every minute of it you're learning something new about things not to do when making a film. It's frankly astounding. Coupled with the fact that book 1 of ATLA is still there in all its animated glory for you to watch, so this isn't exactly "ruining" anything (it's not even canon), while I can't recommend the film for entertainment value I can highly recommend it for educational value.

Muzer wrote: ↑Tue Apr 06, 2021 10:48 pm

Worffan101 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 06, 2021 8:53 pm

Beelzquill wrote: ↑Fri Apr 02, 2021 5:15 am With this franchise, I gotta admit, I just sort of stopped caring after Korra's second season, I feel bad about it because I've heard great things from season 3 and 4 but I just couldn't get past the bad writing and lorebreaking in Season 2 in particular. I haven't seen season 3 and 4 so I cannot honestly say Legend of Korra is a bad show and am not trying to hate on it, I also stopped caring after reading the bizarre comic the search. I don't have much confidence and probably won't watch it regardless, I just hate Korra Season 2 that much that I just can't accept it as canon. It's not that the spirit portals were open, it's the whole Raava and Vaatu bs and Lionturtles being the givers of bending that I can't get past. Hope the new stuff is good and takes the franchise in a good direction, I just won't be on that train when it comes.

Yeah, season 2 was borderline unwatchable.

Season 3 was OK but needed more room to breathe. Season 4 was good but needed more buildup in 3.

The comics have been...hit or miss. "The Promise" was pretty decent, "The Search" was just OK IMO, the other TLA-era ones have been readable enough so far. The Korra-era ones have been decent, though they don't know what to do with Raiko and I'm not a fan of the LGBT worldbuilding (it's a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge missed opportunity, the way LGBT people are treated is a neat aspect of culture to play with, and each state should have its own way of approaching such issues (e.g. Southern Water Tribe should be "whatever, as long as you can pull your weight", while pretty much every Fire Nation noble probably has a "favored servant" who sleeps in their bed and some of those are of the same gender. With the Air Nomads you can even take inspiration from real-world Tibet and get deep into polyandry stuff and how that would affect societal views of gay men vs. lesbians!), so writing it off as "everybody but Earth Kingdom and 100-year-war era Fire Nation gay-friendly, Earth Kingdom and Sozin big meanie homophobes" is pretty disappointing).

If you haven't read the Kyoshi novels, read the Kyoshi novels. IMHO they're better than all the comics. And they do tackle LGBT issues with *slightly* more nuance, though admittedly not to the level you fancy.

As for Korra — yeah, I think Korra was very hit or miss. I personally despise season 2 with a passion, and despise Beginnings's ruining of the lore even though I must admit it was a lovely tight story with a great art style. But really, there's none of that in S3 or S4. IMHO S4's ending is... just too silly, but then again, I can't really begrudge the writers it too much.


But yeah, I only "discovered" Avatar during lockdown (despite having watched Chuck's content for ages I almost never watch his in-depth reviews of things I haven't seen), and since then I've consumed all available content. My general opinions are: ATLA is pretty much as near perfection as you can get by TV standards.

Korra is probably an above average TV series overall, but nowhere near ATLA's level. It has some great episodes, characters, and moments, but is overall nowhere near perfection. Season-wise, Season 1, the love triangle was eye-rolling and the pro-bending went on too long. Villain was incredibly horrifying and well-done from that perspective but I'm not sure he had the best backstory; seemed simultaneously overly convoluted and not really sufficient to explain his actions. Season 2 started out with the worst of Korra-the-character while actually having a pretty intriguing premise, then quickly moved into the worst of Korra-the-show while actually having a pretty decent Korra character. So basically season 2 is by far the worst, with the sole exception of Varrick. Season 3 had a much better premise and an interesting villain; some have criticised his philosophy for being a bit shallow but I'm not sure to what extent that's fair. Especially since IIRC we don't know his final plan; I won't go into too much detail to avoid spoilers. Season 4 I think had the best journey for Korra the character, with an OK villain and a ridiculous finale. As for the characters, Korra and Tenzin are probably up there with the ATLA main cast in terms of their depth of character. Lin and Asami are decent, as are some of the side characters that come in the later seasons. Bolin and Mako are just both terrible characters though, which is a real shame. I don't think they were ever adequately developed. And Meelo, god I can't stand him. He's the annoying character of the show in pretty much every episode he's in (in the others this usually falls to Bolin; though on balance maybe it should be Bolin because at least Meelo has the excuse of being a child...).



Comics, yeah, I agree that they are hit or miss but I'd probably disagree on specifics, if I could remember much about the individual comics at this stage. I do recall that the first Korra comic is pretty atrocious and the second is pretty good; as for the ATLA ones in my head none of them are particularly bad, they just hover around the same quality level that's certainly below the show's but not terrible by any means. Kyoshi novels on the other hand are near ATLA level of great.


As for the live action film... lol. I mean, genuinely, I expected to really really hate it. And it is a really really bad film, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't bring myself to hate it because, well, frankly, it is almost a perfect case study of how not to make a film. It's absolutely surreal. You couldn't make a more efficiently packed bad film if you tried. It's so short, and every minute of it you're learning something new about things not to do when making a film. It's frankly astounding. Coupled with the fact that book 1 of ATLA is still there in all its animated glory for you to watch, so this isn't exactly "ruining" anything (it's not even canon), while I can't recommend the film for entertainment value I can highly recommend it for educational value.

For me, The Legend of Korra is kinda like the Prequel Trilogy. It has its flaws but it also has its strengths. I agree that the Love Triangle of Season 1 and 2 is really poorly done, to much time is dedicated to support characters who, IMO, just aren't as interesting as most of the leads and the show as a whole is a jumble mess of a narrative. Also, why do Mako and Bolin stay in the show past Season 2? Hell, why are they in the show Past A Leaf on the Wind? They add virtually nothing to the plot or the other characters and take time away from the more interesting characters.

However, I think the relationship between Korra and Asami is great, I think Korra Tenzin, Lin and Jinora are as interesting as the Original Team Avatar and I did like how the story was structured in Seasons 2 through 4. Korra, as a character, is at her worst in the first half of season 2 but she improves greatly in the second half. Asami, as Chuck has gone over, is great and a solid example of how to make a character interesting, complex and memorable while giving them very limited screen time.

While many didn't like it I was overall okay with the depiction of Aang as being a less then perfect parent especially since we hearing how he acted from the perspective of his kids who all seem to remember things a bit differently from one another so this could be a case of just remembering things wrong. Varrick and Zhu Li are amazing and steal every since they're in (though I was never a fan of their ship), and I was actually okay with the idea of Toph becoming a cop. Time changes and we change with them, so I would be okay with Toph becoming a cop if it was a favor for her friends and she just found she was really good at it.

Also, as I've stated before, the Legend of Korra has had a MUCH more notable impact on pop-culture then Avatar did. Avatar is a great show and pushed other series to up their game but in terms of ideas reused that were started in Avatar I think the only one that everyone really tries to copy is Zuko. Catra, Sasha and most recently Namaari from Raya and the Last Dragon are all characters that are clearly inspired by Zuko but aside from that, I can't think of many ideas that other series have tried to copy from Avatar.

We've had characters like Aang, Sokka, Katara and even Toph. We've had kid shows that was set during a war and we've had stories that asked the question, "are the villains as evil as they seem?". These are, in fact, things you can find in many kids show before and after Avatar's release. It did them very well but, IMO, Avatar didn't really change Western Animation. It's a great and classic show but, again IMO, not really that much of a game changer.

TLOK, on the other hand, not only changed the world of Avatar moving forward but arguably all of Western Animation. Korra was the first character in a kids show to take a realistic portrayal of PTSD and NOT have it be resolved in one episode and instead be something that truly changed the character that is STILL with her to this day.

TLOK is also the first show to give Politics on major Ongoing role in the story. While the Bender vs. None-Benders was sadly resolved to easily in the show the fact that politics are present Throughout Korra's run (including the comics I might add) is rather impressive when you realize that most shows before Korra (including Avatar) usually had Politics play a minor role in one or two episodes before being tossed aside altogether. Even The Clone Wars eventually discarded the politics in by the second half of Season 3 but Korra kept in on and we are now starting to see more shows deal with Politics on a fairly regular basis.

And, of course, Korra was the first show to have an same-sex couple and not just any couple in the show but the MAIN character and her most trust worthy companion, which is something that has been making more and more headway in Western Animation lately. Steven Universe, Adventure Time, She-Ra and The Owl House have all stated that Korra was a major factor in helping them make their shows as gay as possible so while Korrasami may seem tame by comparison the fact is other kid shows likely wouldn't have been able to have gone as far as they did if not for a simple scene of two girls holding hands while staring lovingly into each other's eyes.

After Korra Avatar started to change up it's game and started putting more emphases on politics, LGBT representation AND show more realistic takes on Trauma. So, while the show is unquestionably flawed it clearly did something right given that there are more shows are using ideas from Korra rather then Aang, including the series itself. Rise and Shadow of Kyoshi can be seen as TLOK 2.0 as it kept all the ideas that everyone liked but cut the parts no one liked (no love triangle, no less engaging characters to steal attention away from the more interesting ones and an overall solid narrative).

Much like the Prequel Trilogy I doubt TLOK will ever be fully vindicated by history BUT it likely will be seen a more positive light and be rightfully credited for changing Western Animation for the better.

I agree with most of that. The "Aang being a less than perfect parent" thing I'm OK with in principle, but I think in practice the way it was described by the characters they went way too far with it... Aang accidentally showing favouritism to Tenzin? Perfectly natural and I would have been onboard with this. Aang going off on holidays with Tenzin and only Tenzin and leaving his other kids at home, on multiple occasions, to the extent that Tenzin can't name one holiday that they actually all went on together? Now that to me is out of character for Aang. It's much easier to accept him accidentally slipping up than repeatedly doing something so obviously cruel.

Must admit Lin and Jinora didn't quite make it up there for me. Lin spent waaaay too long acting like a child in season 3. I went from very sympathetic to her to exasperated with her to straight up annoyed with her over the course of a few episodes. Had that whole subplot been less drawn out I might have rated Lin higher, but she just got on my nerves in the end. Jinora... that's a tricky one. Half good character, half annoying plot convenience — but then this is going back to the "season 2 ruins everything" point, since without season 2 we wouldn't have that annoying plot convenience aspect. I do like Jinora, but I can't really shake the feeling that there's ultimately not all too much depth to her character.

The whole LGBT relationship thing, I honestly wish they'd been able to do more with that. As it is when I was binge-watching I completely missed the hints of the Korra/Asami relationship since a lot of them were pretty subtle or could have just pointed to a particularly strong friendship, which was, after all, already established (ISTR way back in season 1 or 2 Korra was able to open up and relax with Asami in a way she couldn't with others); and so the finale took me more by surprise. So on first watch it seemed to me like they'd decided rather than having their ending provide closure to the series they'd instead use their ending to give a "fuck you" to Nickelodeon. But on a rewatch it does work better for me. I like the principle of the idea — having the last scene be the very beginnings of a new relationship — better than the execution, I think. Though thinking about it well I suppose it does fit well thematically as well, that of the end of the show being about new beginnings, like between Republic City and the spirit world — I think the theme would have worked better if they could have done the same for the relationship between benders and non-benders, as that was still too annoyingly neatly resolved. But I suppose with the reduced episode count there's only so much you can fit into a season before it starts to get bloated. I just think "battle a giant mecha-Kuvira" is not really inkeeping with the rest of the theme

Muzer wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 8:28 pm The whole LGBT relationship thing, I honestly wish they'd been able to do more with that. As it is when I was binge-watching I completely missed the hints of the Korra/Asami relationship since a lot of them were pretty subtle or could have just pointed to a particularly strong friendship, which was, after all, already established (ISTR way back in season 1 or 2 Korra was able to open up and relax with Asami in a way she couldn't with others); and so the finale took me more by surprise. So on first watch it seemed to me like they'd decided rather than having their ending provide closure to the series they'd instead use their ending to give a "fuck you" to Nickelodeon. But on a rewatch it does work better for me. I like the principle of the idea — having the last scene be the very beginnings of a new relationship — better than the execution, I think.

Fair point but what most people seem to forget is that, well, this was just not something that was done... ever. While there were LGBT characters in "Kid" shows they were usually one off guest stars who never appeared after they showed up or where minor background characters who were barely in frame for more then a second. If you wanted to see LGBT characters in animation who had more then 2 seconds of screen time or were just one off guest stars you HAD to go to show like the Simpsons or South Park, shows meant for an older audience.

Korra and Asami just holding hands and staring into each others eyes and music that was clearly meant to make this moment as romantic as possible was just never done in kids show. Today it seems tame by comparison but at the time it was HUGE. They couldn't be more overt because more overt same-sex romances with the Main Character in a Family Show was something most thought would never happen.

Now we can have more overtly LGBT rep. but we only have that because of Korrasami just holding hands.

We only got this


youtu.be/AAdLcw16JCU


youtu.be/sHJBF3fPCOI


youtu.be/Tfv8CaPINWw

Because of this.


youtu.be/3AJ0mb-2bdw

To quote Five by Five Takes "This was the Avatar's love. And it looked like mine, too."

Korra walked so that Steven Universe could run. Korra was more flawed, but bolder and more willing to take risks. That's the takeaway I'm getting from this discourse.

Also, with all due respect, if you didn't see Korrasami in the build-up or still think it seems surprising, you're wearing hetero goggles.