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I didn't end up finishing book 2. This... looks really cool. Though I imagine a visuals-only trailer for book 2 would have also looked cool in the same way.
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The end of Book 2 absolutely tossed out most of the rules that the show seemed to be based on, which appears to have made a lot of the changes in Book 3 possible.
I've read that the creators wanted to make Book 3 more like TLA, which I think is a very, very good thing.
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All three needs to do in order to be great is to stop introducing interesting complex villains who then then force to twirl moustaches when the time comes.
Amon could have been a great villain with a legitimate beef.
The conflict with the uncle could have been a great reversal of the usual trope: the bad guys are usually about industry and steel, while the good guys are all a bunch of spiritual, back-to-the-earth environmentalists; season two almost reversed this. Could have been wonderful. But nope, the uncle was just evil.
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But let's not be too hard on Legend of Korra. It's still been eminently worth watching, all the way through. Just not the tour de force that its ancestor was.
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It looks cool at least, and like it will be fun to watch. I felt like book 2 was not as good as 1, so hopefully this will be better.
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So we have a team of super criminals, and a crazy evil ruler. Not sure if I like this season or not.
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REPORTER: avatar korra. it has been two weeks since you literally saved the universe from plunging into ten thousand years of darkness ruled by evil most foul and the likely extermination of our species. When are you going to get rid of these VINES. you are polling worse than literally hitler.
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Well,it was a whole lot of vines. So she basically destroyed the world, there are detours and everything. It's also great how she tried once, in one place to fix it, and it made it worse, so yeah, just give up and travel the world. Also why are the vines and spirits only apparently an issue in Republic City?
And why was the spirit so cranky? They could actually go home to spirit world anytime, she just made it easier for spirits and humans to travel between worlds, and between the polls, no one is trapped in either world.
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You can't just save the world, dude. only an idiot would totally save the entire world without a plan to handle large vines in one city. what was she even thinking. idiot avatar.
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And also approval polling is really important to an Avatar, they might not reelect her, people get to vote for that, right? I mean a bug chunk of the world wanted the previous one dead, surprised he wasn't voted out.
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i especially like how the president has truly thought about this and goes "ugh all these weird spiritual things are happening that nobody can figure out what to do about! to my city! welp better get pissy at and throw out the literal Avatar"
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I really thought the basement dwelling slacker was going to be a new hero, because isn't that the target audience?
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4. The Earth Kingdom always has terrible leaders, and clearly that's something Aang never fixed.
5. Korra has matured but she's still a teenager, and teenagers care about popularity.
6. Spirits are cranky.
There's really nothing overly wild or off about these first three episodes. I'm optimistic about its direction.
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the going from literal savior of the entire world who obviously defeated the megalithic giant avatar of evil in front of the general populace of a city, to having almost universal disapproval by said populace and being asked to leave in two weeks. because she didn't instantaneously know how to handle vines left over from the battle.
that is the only concern i have had thus far so nbd, but as far as individual concerns go this one was literal laugh out loud worthy
obviously the authorial intent was to really force a departure from republic city being the series and the characters' home, but they could have come up with a better idea than the preposterous idea that pretty much everyone has gone from celebrating her as the savior of the city (twice) and the world to getting kicked out
BETTER WRITING TIME: korra discovers that it is her presence which is provoking the vine growth, due to some resonance with the opened spirit portal. To protect the city from future danger of provoked vine overrun, she departs — promising the nervous president she will return if she finds a way to help Republic City. Some wistful commentary as she looks back on the cityscape about her effective exile. Boom, fulfills the authorial needs to get the gang on the road. problem solved.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: BETTER WRITING TIME: korra discovers that it is her presence which is provoking the vine growth, due to some resonance with the opened spirit portal.
Why even keep the vine growth plot point? It was never reused beyond the first episode. During their sojourn across the Earth Kingdom and through Ba Sing Se, they didn't come across other vine growths or spiritual populations.
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the problems in republic city are there to foster the sense of loss of republic city as the home or base of the series and the characters.
korra's writers obviously wanted to move the series out of being rooted (lol) in the city and be more of a travel adventure like it was in the original series.
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*************Spoilers, and my spelling of character names suck.***********
Just finished watching the first three episodes. I feel fine with it so far. Is it living up to the hype I felt with the trailers? No. But it's doing much better than Book 2 did for me.
For me, what book 2 did well was the exploration of Tenzin's family, showing a bit of what it was like growing up with Aang and Katara as parents. But the back stories for the main trio were pretty clearly absent.
We're finally getting a look at Mako and Bolin's history, and I hope we'll see more about Korra's history. So that makes me pretty happy.
I also like the Earth Queen's story so far. I feel rewarded for having read the comics. I get why the Earth Queen is so jaded. Does she have to be unambiguously evil? No, that part is kinda dumb. But being upset with the Fire Nation and Republic City makes sense.
I've enjoyed Zuko's introduction. I also don't mind the villain set-up so far.
My complaint with this book so far is how little the events of Book 2 seemed to matter to this book's story. For all of its faults, Book 2 had some major game changing events happen. Sure, vines have taken over Republic City and some people are becoming air benders as a result of the harmonic convergence. But, well, I thought that the changes to the world would be more pronounced. I thought the world would have far more spirits in it. I thought the world would look kind of like it did in the episodes about the first Avatar in Book 2. So far, it seems like it's isolated only to Republic City. And by that, it's like... five spirits that were hanging out with Jenora and the blue bunny thing that was with Bumi.
Anyway, I guess the point of it is that I'm not overwhelmed or underwhelmed. I'm just sufficiently whelmed to keep watching.
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Three episodes in, and we've got mystery villains - who are only characterized by being "powerful" - and a contemptible queen who I just want to see die. And since the pattern of the first two seasons was to make initially great villains boring, my expectations are trending downwards.
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the most critical difference I see in Book 3 from BOTH book 1 and book 2 is that, and follow me on this one: there are characters again, as opposed to interchanging setpieces.
What I mean is that in terms of the pacing and integration of dialogue from the major players, they seem to actually be sensibly integrated into a story that is being told, as opposed to feeling 'thrown in' to do their bit and then get out of the way.
Or, to put it simpler, when a character is part of a dialogue, they feel like a character, rather than a rushed setpiece.
Contrast that to seasons one and two with characters like, say, Bolin. Bolin jump in frame! Bolin say funny requisite Bolin line. Bolin time quota exhausted. Bolin literally excuse himself from frame.
Whereas here in book 3, it was strikingly different to me to have a scene like with how Bolin's having dinner with the family and he's asked what's going on, and basically gets some time to go 'ha ha, well, let me tell you!' He abruptly stopped being a setpiece! Dialogue started being more cohesive.
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It seems like they've finally realized that Republic City is the worst idea ever, and have as a result made the first three really exciting episodes of Avatar since book 3: Fire. I'm actually looking forward to a season of Korra, instead of grudgingly watching it with friends. Probably because in addition to really dealing with consequences of major actions (I'm still furious that book 2 of Korra completely ignored anything thematically important from book 1), it was actually funny in a way that didn't make me want to slam my head into a wall at the stupidity of the characters.
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Republic City didn't have to be the worst idea; it was a novel new enterprise, thematically. And a great setting.
But a great setting is only potential upon which you can rest your plot. And if your writing and pacing sucks, nothing can help that.
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In fairness, Nickelodeon forced some of that on them. Nick never wanted to even do Korra, they didn't want a girl to be the Avatar. And they didn't want a 3 season overarching plot, so they demanded smaller seasons with contained plots so people wouldn't feel left out if they came in later.
The creators have subtly said they didn't really want to do it that way, but what choice did they have?
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yeah but even outside of the whole element of what nick forced on them in terms of pacing, some of their writing was just straightforwardly subpar in ways i don't think they can pawn off on the network. but hopefully this season shows that they had it in them all along (surprising nobody who watched TLA)
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I rewatched all of Avatar and Korra 1 and 2 with some friends who hadn't seen it before. I was a bit surprised to find that I liked Korra season 1 a *lot* - the end of the Korra01 and all of Korra02 left such a bad taste in my mouth that I forgot that Amon was a really cool villain, the show explored really cool themes, and apart from a the romantic-subplots being lame, everything was pretty great until literally the last 45 seconds of Season 1, when they magically fixed everything sad in the lamest way possible.
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(I actually think Republic city was very interesting in Season 1. I think they set out to do exactly what they meant to: keep the spiritual integrity of Avatar, while changing a lot of the variables, and having it grow up slightly and tackle more nuanced themes.)
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I'm liking Bolin more but I feel like they missed a great moment to have had Bolin literally remember the names of every single one of his extended family members; humour works great when its contrasted with something.
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I kind of wonder if those four criminals are going to turn out to be good some how. Of course explaining why they would be good, but never say what they were really up to would be tough.
Just too much secrecy, tho they seem to like overt mystery i the villains. Also sort of odd that the one who manifests airbending had apparently spent years studying air nomad history and culture.
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My room mate suggested that Zaheer could have been a child of Aang's somehow.
I really don't see how that makes any sense, since I don't know why they'd put him in a prison an airbender could so easily escape from.
I don't mind that he happens to be a student of airbending, but him being a pretty awesome airbending master does stretch believability. I mean, sure, the White Lotus seems to be totally useless against anyone with half an idea how to bend, but he's TOO good for someone who just learned how to airbend.
Bending has been shown to not just happen when you already know martial arts, there are very specific movements and what not to make things happen. They play around with that here and there of course, but that he can manipulate it so well suggests there's either more to the story, or is just a mistake that's hard to swallow.
What will be interesting is when Zaheer meets up with Tenzin. It'll be the first air on air battle we've ever seen.
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Was anyone else entertained by Zaheer shaving his head, to look more like Henry Rollins now.
They give him choice dialogue meant to accentuate his speech patterns and the fact that he is not a typical voice actor, and now his hair is closer to Rollins' length and color. I really don't want him to be a true baddy, the evil ones never get more than one season.
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quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: Was anyone else entertained by Zaheer shaving his head, to look more like Henry Rollins now.
They give him choice dialogue meant to accentuate his speech patterns and the fact that he is not a typical voice actor, and now his hair is closer to Rollins' length and color. I really don't want him to be a true baddy, the evil ones never get more than one season.
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The first series doesn't kill off antagonists, except Combustion man. Zhao was taken to the spirit world, so basically dead? Azula was locked up, Ozai is depowered and locked up, Long Feng is basically just demoted back to regular Dai Li agent.
But in Korra, they kill off Amon, Tarrlok, and Unalaq.
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I apologize for not differentiating between the two series. I meant to say that no big bad from books one and two of Korra have survived, and I like hearing (and if he just gets some tattoos now that he has a head of grey stubble, seeing) Henry Rollins in more things.
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I'd get used to it. TV shows are moving to digital formats. People are increasingly not wanting to watch their shows around a network schedule. It will probably be better to stop looking at how many viewers watch a show when it aired vs how many people watched part or the entire show a week/2 weeks/month after a season is released online.
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I totally agree that ratings are not really as strong an indicator of popularity as they used to be. And companies need to realize that, and find other ways to make money off the series besides just add revenue. T-Shirts? Action figures? Posters? Leasing the streaming rights to Netflix?
But It does seem to be less talked about than the previous books, and seemingly fewer sites streaming it illegally. That second one may seem like a good thing to nickelodeon, but it also seems like it points to less interest in it.
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To be fair, the previous season was pretty awful. If I hadn't *just* introduced some new friends to Avatar: TLA, I would not have been watching Korra right now.
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