I get that this series is polarizing with some fans loving it and others hating it. I personally still think the show, as a whole, is on par with The Last Airbender with some of it's own ideas surprising it IMHO. And with the release of Netflix's adaptation of TLA opinions of TLOK have soften a bit more. It hasn't won over everyone but most would agree that it has more interesting ideas and left a greater impression on them then either live-action adaptation ever will.
However, a lot of fan rewrites for this series bug me and I just wanted to go over why I feel the way I do about them. No hatred here I just don't care for some of these choices and, well, this is the opinionated guides might as well talk about opinions and debate them with other opinions.
Just the Last Airbender Again
This one often sticks out to me, as many rewrites are 9 times out of 10 just a lazy retread of TLA. Just as one example how these rewrites rework Korra, she's now more hyperactive, more playful and wants to spend more time goofing around rather then training. She doesn't really want to be the Avatar, she just wants to be a normal teenager and has ran away from home at least one. But, oh no, doing so caused a great tragedy in her life and she lost her family if not the entire Southern Water Tribe so she's now (gasp) the last of her kind. And she no longer has most of her elements but has the learn how the use the other elements and soon because Sozin's Comet, I mean, Harmonic Convergence is starting at the end of summer, I mean uh, spring. Also, the Fire Nation is still bad, Asami is basically Zuko, Bolin is still Sokka and Mako is now basically Katara only more brooding. Oh, and Tenzin is a 1 to 1 copy of Uncle Iroh which includes making him more overweight.
Sometimes these aren't to bad like having it where Air happened more or less the same and Korra has to regain her powers after losing them and I get trying to tie Vaatu and harmonic convergence into the mix. But even most of these eventually just turn it into a lazy retread of the first series with many changing Korra into Aang, giving her some sort of Zuko-esk character and Unalaq is basically just Ozai but with Unalaq's lack of charm.
I've often criticized the Disney Star Wars Sequel Trilogy for just being a lazy retread and that's why I don't like these rewrites of Korra, it's the same thing. Nothing is original or trying to use Korra's more original ideas. These fans just like TLA and want to turn Korra into a lazy rehash of TLA and then shot how much better their version is.
But worse then that is what has me tilt my head when I see there takes on this series which makes me ask-
Did Anyone Watch Airbender of Korra When Writing This?
One thing I seen in a lot of reviews and rewrites of Korra is that the series watered down the spirits and made them less mysterious and more mundane and most of them where just jokes or very simply to figure out. So, just to recap these are most of the Spirits we meet in TLA.
Habai, we meet him when he's destroying a village because his forest was destroyed even though this village was, as far as we know, involved in the destruction of the forest which means Habai is just hurting people for the crime of being in hitting range.
That money spirit back in Siege of the North who just goes "Ohm!", tells Aang to fuck off, says how great it is he left and then gets yelled at by Habai.
Wan Shi Tong, acts more like a grumpy old man that hates sharing anything and then when the Gaang learns of something that will help to defeat the fire nation has a tantrum and yells at them for abusing the knowledge they've learned from his library. Decides to take his library away from the mortal world and kill the Gaang because "You already know to much".
And that's most of the spirits we meet in the original series, mostly assholes who are really no different then what we got in Korra. The spirits that are depicted as "mysterious" and more "mystical" boil down to just 2, Koh the Face Stealer and The Painted Lady. That's it but most of the other spirits aren't anything special and would fit right in with Korra's take on the Spirits.
I think what's happening here is that the Spirits in TLA are so similar in design to the ones we see in Hayao Miyazaki's films and just ended up turning the Spirits of Avatar into the Spirits from Miyazaki's Spirits.
This is most prevalent in Korra fan fics and rewrites with many trying to "Restore" the Spirits to what they really are before only they've clearly were watching a very different show to the one that actually exists.
Same thing with the take on Technology and the complaint that it advanced to far ahead. I've already pointed out that TLA made even more egregious time jumps in advancement of tech in this series. Most best example being the Airships. It took 80 years to go from hot air balloons to Zeppelins and the ones we had in the real world weren't any where NEAR as advance as what we get in TLA AND we needed helium to get the latter up in the air while Avatar's ones seem to use STEAM!
This is a problem in a lot of Korra rewrites because the people working on them tend to regress tech back even further then what it actually was.
These are just two examples it's taking restraint not to go into all of them. So, I'll just skip to my last issue and wrap this up.
Attempting to "Fix" Asami
And failing, miserably.
This is, again, something I see a lot of in even some of the best written rewrites and I've gotten sick of it. The basic idea here is "Asami is boring, let's make her darker or a villain to start with and that will make her interesting!"
The most common defense for this is usually "This would be a more unexpected twist that NO ONE Would see coming."
All of these seem to have forgotten that A) EVERYONE WAS EXCEPTING ASAMI TO BE A VILLAIN!!! It was literally the most common fan theory during the first season, everyone was just waiting for it to happen. It became a running gag that before the start of each season fans were predicting that Asami would turn evil and be a villain because no one is that good, no ones heart is that kind (more on this point in a second).
And it never happened because it didn't fit with the character Asami had become when Bryke were writing her. So, saying that it would be an unexpected twist is just silly because it would only be unexpected because it's not in character for Asami to act this way.
And B) Asami IS POPULAR! She was at first hated by fans because she was getting in the way of the then OTP Makorra but as soon as Asami showed she was a good person she went from being one of the most hated characters to one of the most popular which lasted throughout the series despite her not getting as much focus as other characters. She was the second character of the series to get her own character page on Wikipedia and TV Tropes. There are a ton of videos and essays talking about her character well before her relationship with Korra ever came into play.
And the reason Asami is so popular is the same reason most of these rewrites of the character suck, she's a genuinely good person. She's not putting on an act, she's not hiding some dark secret or harbors the same hatred that her father does. She gets screwed over in this series time and again but she never stops being a good person.
Korra didn't fall in love with her because of her looks, Mako didn't remain friends with her because she had money, and Bolin didn't become her friend just cause they were all drawn to her because she was willing to give them everything and asked for nothing in return. She gave Mako and Bolin's family a MANSION to stay in for God Sake and for no other reason the because they needed a place to stay and she did this for 3 years and is STILL letting them live there. How do I become her friend?!?!
This is why I don't like the idea of reworking her to be more of a villain or at least be more dark and even mean. She doesn't need to be another Zuko, she's Asami and that's all she needs to be.
Honestly the issue with turning Asami bad in someway is same problem I have when writers do this with Superman. It's like people can't comprehend the idea that someone with such power can be a good person and think that's boring so they rework the character to be more like what the think they should be and never stop to ask why this character is popular in the first place. Or even worse, they do ask that question and come to the wrong conclusion.
With Superman it's the idea that someone with Godlike Powers would become a tyrant because that's how the world works so let's make him a tyrant or someone whom the idea of saving people is completely alien and weird to. With Asami it's people thing that anyone with that much money and that beautiful HAS to be hiding a dark side. There's no way anyone can be that selfless when given that much money so let's change her to be more selfish and mean or has views that line up with the villains so she works with them for a bit.
And in doing so they miss what made these characters work to begin with and just assume that people like them for shallow reasons and apply shallow mindsets to try and "Fix" them which only results in making them less interesting.
And those are my issues with rewrites on The Legend of Korra. I know that here many of you aren't fans of the show but at the same time I do want to know what you would change about this series if given the chance to rewrite it and how different it would be from these other rewrites.
Thoughts?
