Avatar TLA & LoK: Your thoughts + favourite bending.

[Mister K]

When I was just a young Mister K junior I sometimes caught glimps of The Last Airbender. At the time, I dismissed it, thinking it looked dumb. But about 2 months ago, after many times hearing how good it is, how well made characters of the show are and other positive things I decided to marathon it.

Oh boy, did it live up to the hype! The story, characters, animation... Everything is superb. There wasn't a single major character that I did not like. I mean, yeah I though that Azula is a crazy *****, but I LIKED her crazy bitchiness.

I wan't to talk about one certain character in details though and I am talking about Kitara. I have seen dozens of great female characters in games, cartoons, anime, manga and graphic novels. Yet for the first time I have seen a character that has perfect balance of badassitude and actual femmininity. She is calm, motherly, she is a voice of reason in the group, yet also strong, brave and quite an ass kicker.

Back to the general impressions: yes, sometimes the show gets a wee bit too preachy, yes there are episodes that are not so great (Beach episode? Really?!) but it is still one of the most enjoyable shows I've seen at least recently.

I hope to watch Legend of Korra soon. I've heard that it's slightly worse than The Last Airbender, but meh, slightly worse than TLA in my opinion also means a lot better than majority of other series.

As for favourite bending. Look, I am a fire guy. It is my favourite force of nature. In games, whenever I play mage and have to pick between elemental skills, I usually pick fire. HOWEVER, in Avatar universe my favourite bending is Earthbending. It is direct, brutal, effective (both from entertainment and actual combat poits of view) and oh so devastating!

So, escapists, what about you? What do you think of this series? What is your favourite bending?

 

[Casual Shinji]

Avatar: The Last Airbender was good, but the fact that it was clearly targeted toward a teenage audience generally got in the way of my enjoyment. And with most of the humouristic facial expressions it felt like it tried to go for that anime comedy, which just comes across as weird to me in a western show.

But yeah, I can understand why people like it.

I did genuinely love the way it handled the bending action scenes. They were very creative, when the animators could've easily opted to have the characters just fire off their appointed elements like it's a Harry Potter movie. But instead we see them use their powers in a variety of ways.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah The Last Airbender was good the last time I had watched it (it has been YEARS). It does has great character (Iroh and Toph!) and it was great how they keep it kid like while keeping the violence to a mininum. Geez imagine a more darker tone side stories that actualy feature the war itself (bending would be so violence)?!

While I would say Korra was decent for the most part but it is best seeing it as its own show/ right than being a sequel to TLA. Sure it has some fanservice but not the ones we wanted and it was made clear they didn't wanted to connect Aang with Korra as much as possible. Still like TLA it does has great characters in it too (you will loved Varrick).

 

[Xeros]

I haven't gotten around to LoK yet, but as far as TLA, which I adored, water bending is by far my favorite. They're so many applications for it, and with it doubling to ice bending, tripling to blood bending, and quadrupling into ...heal ...bending?, it's nigh unstoppable in the right hands.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

TLA is one of my favorite series, and one I wish I'd had as a kid. It's still one of the best kids' shows of the current century, and best of all, it will stand the test of time for decades.

Korra was ultimately a disappointment. Despite occasionally reaching brilliance, it was usually limited to single episodes. The show really suffered from having only 14 episodes a season while trying to cover more complex themes and issues with more characters. This led to the show usually feeling rushed, or forced to move along when there could have been really interesting things to do by just dealing with the things at hand at the moment. In terms of production quality the show was stellar through and through, but when there's only staleness underneath all the prettiness, it make the viewer zone out and just focus on the superficial aspects. To quote an old review of the Vision of Escaflowne film: worth looking at, not necessarily worth paying attention to.

Favorite bending? Airbenders are hippies, waterbenders are pussies, firebenders are assholes, earthbenders are dicks. Pussies think they can deal with the world their way. They sometimes get mad because they get fucked by dicks. Sometimes dicks fuck too much. But then there's assholes. And all assholes want to do is to shit all over everything. But dicks also fuck assholes, chuck. And if we didn't have dicks, you know what we'd get? We'd get all our pussies and our dicks covered in shit!

(+20 internet points if you guess which movie I just quoted there.)

 

[Casual Shinji]

Favorite bending? Airbenders are hippies, waterbenders are pussies, firebenders are assholes, earthbenders are dicks. Pussies think they can deal with the world their way. They sometimes get mad because they get fucked by dicks. Sometimes dicks fuck too much. But then there's assholes. And all assholes want to do is to shit all over everything. But dicks also fuck assholes, chuck. And if we didn't have dicks, you know what we'd get? We'd get all our pussies and our dicks covered in shit!

(+20 internet points if you guess which movie I just quoted there.)

'You had me at 'dicks fuck assholes'.'

 

[The Madman]

Don't watch Korra, it's quite literally burning the canon to the ground in favor of a creator's pet character (and I'm not exagerrating in the burning canon). At best, watch only the first season which is the best the show ever achieved.

How so? I don't remember anything particularly egregious in Korra in terms of canon. At least nothing more nonsensical than random giant turtles, convenient last second saves by means of a perfectly placed rock, and cop out last second workarounds that make season long moral dilemma irrelevant.

Besides, Korra season 3 was fantastic. Can't say I particularly liked season 4 while 2 was definitely the weakest, but season 3 was Avatar at its best. Cool bending, awesome action, great fantastical visuals, music, characters, it was great.

 

[Asclepion]

I adore TLA, season 2 especially.

Korra was a disappointment. Korra's retcons to the Avatar basically throws away the nuanced morality of the original series in favor of some dualistic "spirit of light vs spirit of chaos" shit. I much preferred the origin story from 'Escape From the Spirit World.'

 

[Redryhno]

Don't watch Korra, it's quite literally burning the canon to the ground in favor of a creator's pet character (and I'm not exagerrating in the burning canon). At best, watch only the first season which is the best the show ever achieved.

How so? I don't remember anything particularly egregious in Korra in terms of canon. At least nothing more nonsensical than random giant turtles, convenient last second saves by means of a perfectly placed rock, and cop out last second workarounds that make season long moral dilemma irrelevant.

Besides, Korra season 3 was fantastic. Can't say I particularly liked season 4 while 2 was definitely the weakest, but season 3 was Avatar at its best. Cool bending, awesome action, great fantastical visuals, music, characters, it was great.

You just described things even the shittiest of shounen have with that last sentence...Avatar was never lacking in the animation and SFX departments, Mir has started to be one of the better known studios for that reason, they're really damn good at what they do. Korra, some of the stuff they did for Boondocks, the season 3 League animation they did, they're all really damn good.

The thing that Korra is lacking in is a proper backdrop for the writing. They wanted to tell a "darker" story, but outside of parts of the first season where pro-bending wasn't mentioned and some of the Season 3 stuff, it was TLA with all the charm and grand adventure cut out of it to be replaced with cookie-cutter razor-edginess for the most part.

Not to mention, TLA covered mental breakage, troubles, and illness alot better than PTSD Korra(which I swear they brought out to parade around every season at about the same time when it comes to the episode number). You had Ty-Lee and her sisters, Azula and her batshit inferiority insanity, Zuko and his massive parent issues in general, Iroh and his grief over losing his son, Aang even has his share of issues that come from waking up that continue through the series.

But, as you said, there were still giant turtles(which, to be fair, are a part of the philosophies that are center stage for alot of TLA, even if it did come out of nowhere in the show), the rock saves, the moral dilemma thing. But those are honestly things that can be overlooked that can't so much in Korra because it's just a lighter show overall in terms of palette if nothing else. It's an adventure show over anything else, Korra's a pet character piece for the most part that once again mistakes mature with edginess and darkness.

 

[Kotaro]

I'll keep this post relatively short, because I don't want to start gushing.
I watched Avatar and Korra just a few weeks ago, and I loved them. Personally, I like Korra a bit more than Avatar, but they're both fantastic shows.

As for the bending, they all have their uses, though I feel like airbending is the most versatile. Waterbending requires a supply of water to be really effective, earthbending uses common materials but needs a lot of it to accomplish particularly impressive feats, and firebending is really only good for offense. With airbending, you always have what you need, and you can use it for pretty much anything, if you're creative enough.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Earthbending's my favorite. specifically Toph's earthbending, specificallier in the Blind Bandit episode. Although I like all of the bending in the show. All of it is used very creatively, although, admittedly sometimes too creatively.

TLA is one of my favorite shows though, it's just so well made, and I think has one of the best character arcs in any show I've seen.

Korra isn't bad, but it's not as good as TLA. The music and animation are very good, although unfortunately the more modern styles of bending end up making things exactly like Casual Shinji said, shooting out elemental bullets at each other. You get some good in there, but it's not as consistent as the original series.

While there was a lot I didn't like about the finale, after seeing the final three seasons of Korra I have more appreciation for the first season. It's just a lot tighter and more deliberate than the later seasons, I imagine largely because the same two writers and same two directors were working together for every single episode. Season 2 was a complete, unorganized mess. It was completely unfocused, and they completely rehashed a character arc and plot twist from season 1. I hated the finale as well.

Season 3 and 4 are improvements on season 2, but season 3 still has the problem of being really unfocused. It also hurts that they sideline one of the best characters for the entire season.

I'd say my opinion on seasons goes:

1 > 4 > 3 >>>>>> 2

And while we're doing lists, my favorite TLA seasons:

3 > 2 > 1

And my favorite TLA finales:

2 > 1 > 3

That will be all.

 

[Lord Garnaat]

I would recommend you watch The Legend of Korra, if only for completions sake. My opinion of it is that the once you get past the mostly bad second season, the rest of them (meaning the first, third, and fourth seasons) are all quite good individually. Actually, I would say that season one of LoK is better than the first season of The Last Airbender. But as a whole? The original series trumps it by being consistently better story with better characters, with an overarching plotline that tied things together very well over an entire series, gather than needing to improvise new crisis every season. It's ultimately tighter and more satisfying when you reach the end than Korra is.

That being said, while I think that The Last Airbender is better overall, there are a lot of great parts in Korra that deserve attention. The world and animation are, of course, gorgeous, not to mention the incredible music and excellent fight scenes. There are a lot of great side characters as well: there are a pair of creepy and also hilarious twins, as well as a crazy billionaire inventor that are a lot of fun, as well as more serious ones like Lin Beifong and Tenzin. I also think that, aside from Azula, the villains of LoK are better realized: Amon, Zaheer, and Kuvira are fantastic antagonists. All of these are enough to at least merit an attempted watch.

Of course, there's a lot of less stellar stuff to slog through. Season two is, without exaggeration, a huge mess: characters are all over the place, our heroes are quite annoying, the bad guy's motivation is constantly changed or forgotten, and the ending is just drawn-out and silly. This is to say nothing of an utterly unnecessary middle finger to the whole franchise given towards the end that is swiftly forgotten about and never mentioned again.

There are a few truly insufferable characters, like Su-stupid-idiot-useless-hippy-Yin Beifong, whose sheer arrogance, apathy, and dishonorable attitude go unpunished and unchallenged by everyone because she's apparently right to completely abandon millions of starving, suffering people and then whine when someone else does her job. And while Kuvira was my favorite villain for the first few episodes of the fourth season, they end up botching her to quickly make her less sympathetic in a haphazard way. Oh, and the romance plots for the main characters are almost vomit-inducingly bad at times: it's a far cry from the very good relationship with Aang and Katara, and quickly devolve into love triangle nonsense or petty snapping at each other. Blurg.

Despite my moaning, though, I would still recommend giving it a serious try: it has a lot of great stuff that's somewhat muted by a handful of annoying bits. Overall, it's worth your time, I'd say, particularly as a fan of the original.

Oh, and firebending all the way.

 

[FPLOON]

I can always enjoy a good Avatar: The Last Airbender marathon now and then, but I could never do that with The Legend of Korra... Then again, I'm better off watching individual episodes of The Legend of Korra than with Avatar: The Last Airbender, so there's that...

Other than that, for me, it's a tie between water and air... If was in the timeline of The Last Airbender, then I would lean more towards water especially during the second/third book... However, if it was during the timeline of The Legend of Korra, then air because [REDACTED] happens... Yep...

Favorite bending? Airbenders are hippies, waterbenders are pussies, firebenders are assholes, earthbenders are dicks. Pussies think they can deal with the world their way. They sometimes get mad because they get fucked by dicks. Sometimes dicks fuck too much. But then there's assholes. And all assholes want to do is to shit all over everything. But dicks also fuck assholes, chuck. And if we didn't have dicks, you know what we'd get? We'd get all our pussies and our dicks covered in shit!

(+20 internet points if you guess which movie I just quoted there.)

I got it... and it makes perfect sense, too!

 

[The Madman]

You just described things even the shittiest of shounen have with that last sentence...

I don't know what a shounen is, but I'm assuming it's some sort of anime thing. In any case you'll not get any argument from me that Korra was perfect, it had flaws aplenty and I do think that in the end Airbender is the superior of the two. But to see people talking about it like it's shit is just silly. Korra might not have been perfect, but it certainly had its high points and for what its worth some of those high points were good enough to rival even Airbenders I would say.

I also think a lot of people glorify the original Airbender series overmuch. That show was often pretty damned weak and had a lot of the 'last minute solution' problems throughout its plot the same as what plagued Korra. Little surprise given both series were done by the same writers. Even dismissing the end of the series with a random turtle coming out of nowhere to offer the definition of a deus ex machina solution to Aangs troubles and the oh-so-convenient rock that just so happens to hit him in the exact right spot at the exact right time to magically save the day, Airbender was plagued by filler and in the first season with childish moralizing.

In any case they're both fun shows so I just don't understand all the hostility towards Korra on these forums. And for what it's worth Water Tribe bitches, I'd be water bending all day long if I had a choice.

 

[Redryhno]

You just described things even the shittiest of shounen have with that last sentence...

I don't know what a shounen is, but I'm assuming it's some sort of anime thing. In any case you'll not get any argument from me that Korra was perfect, it had flaws aplenty and I do think that in the end Airbender is the superior of the two. But to see people talking about it like it's shit is just silly. Korra might not have been perfect, but it certainly had its high points and for what its worth some of those high points were good enough to rival even Airbenders I would say.

I also think a lot of people glorify the original Airbender series overmuch. That show was often pretty damned weak and had a lot of the 'last minute solution' problems throughout its plot the same as what plagued Korra. Little surprise given both series were done by the same writers. Even dismissing the end of the series with a random turtle coming out of nowhere to offer the definition of a deus ex machina solution to Aangs troubles and the oh-so-convenient rock that just so happens to hit him in the exact right spot at the exact right time to magically save the day, Airbender was plagued by filler and in the first season with childish moralizing.

In any case they're both fun shows so I just don't understand all the hostility towards Korra on these forums. And for what it's worth Water Tribe bitches, I'd be water bending all day long if I had a choice.

Shounen, DBZ, Bleach, Naruto-type anime.The worst most often have great animation, amazing music, and colorful designs, but lack alot in the story and character department to the point of there really not being so much a reason to watch them as buy their soundtracks.

And for the Korra hate, I think largely because the honeymoon phase is finally over and the people that were distracted by "OOOH SHINY" are looking back and realizing it wasn't as good as they thought and are just joining the rest of us that have been saying it's got too many problems since halfway through the first season to be a serious contender against TLA(which is far from a perfect series, but had a good mix of things that Korra severely lacked for most of its run).

TLA had that "you can do anything" vibe to it, it wasn't ever trying to be much more than a fun romp that had unsettling and adult undertones if looked at from different ages(largely a kid's show that didn't have the parents gouging their eyes out and ripping their ears off to get away from).

Korra mostly continued to build up the idea of "YOU DON'T JUST MAGICALLY GET BETTER"(her Air training and Pro-bending arc in the first season, Amon's bend-take-away-bad-touch, the Kuvira final thing), and then getting a "MAGICALLY GET BETTER" asspull. And they just ignored the things that made the world actually mature and scary in favor of "KORRA GETS MINDFUCKED AGAIN ON EPISODE 8 THIS SEASON"(like the anti-Bender faction in the first season that just sorta disappeared, despite them building them up as being numerically superior to Benders, the last two seasons supposedly having armies of people that just disappear simply because Kuvira gets slapped across the face, etc.)

It's easier to let Looney Tunes get away with dropping anvils on heads and them being perfectly fine than it is for something like Rick and Morty to do the same thing(ignoring the universe hopping Rick does all the damn time, of course).

 

[The Madman]

Shounen, DBZ, Bleach, Naruto-type anime.The worst most often have great animation, amazing music, and colorful designs, but lack alot in the story and character department to the point of there really not being so much a reason to watch them as buy their soundtracks.

Admittedly I don't know much about anime, but I remember some of those and they had shit animation as I recall. Aren't shows like that where the whole trope of 'still picture with flashing lines behind it to simulate speed' came from? Maybe the new ones are better but I remember when they were on TV and I watched them there was nothing to compare to the smooth animation of even the older Disney or WB stuff, nevermind something like Korra.

It's easier to let Looney Tunes get away with dropping anvils on heads and them being perfectly fine than it is for something like Rick and Morty to do the same thing(ignoring the universe hopping Rick does all the damn time, of course).

Fair enough, but I still quite enjoyed Korra. Some things were poorly done, no doubt about it, but for what its worth as I stated above it had some very good moments as well which I feel make up for it. The whole plot of the first season is basically irrelevant overall, season 2 was at best mediocre and at worst boring, and I found season 4's ending to be ridiculous. Still a lot of those criticism could also be thrown at Avatar, where the water tribe despite being a fully intact and armed nation are never brought up again after season 1 even when everyone is scrambling to find allies for an invasion against the fire nation (Gee, why not ask the guys that are proven allies and have an army of their own? Too complicated? Yeah, I guess recruiting those random children from that one dumb 'Jet' episode alongside the wheelchair kid was a much better idea.) or perhaps the random deus ex machina of the moon that is also a fish having randomly saved one girls life, who just happens to be in the room, which just happens to give her the ability to... turn into the moon? Yeah. Uh huh. How about that whole 'melding with a spirit to reap havok' trick, never going to bring that up again eh? Pity.

But again I'm just nitpicking. And no I don't think it's fair that Airbender should get away with silliness like that when Korra isn't just because Airbender had a younger cast of characters. Saying 'but its for children' is a weak excuse when there's been so much excellent childrens entertainment out there.

Both series had their highlights. I loved the last few episodes of season 3's Korra for example. Great visuals and action, extremely tight script and pacing, compelling villains, it was fun! And despite the whining about Korra always getting hurt, I thought season 4's 'Korra Alone' episode was genuinely great... mind you I disliked how a lot of that plot was resolved, but the episode itself still stands out. Even season 1 I liked, I enjoyed the change of visual style towards a more noire look and the more technology driven setting. It made for some neat moments even if again I wasn't very fond of the ending...

Actually now that I think about it the endings are often kinda poor. With the exception of Korra's season 3 and Zuko vs Azula I can't think of any throughout the franchise that really thrilled me. Perhaps the writers just aren't very good at wrapping things up? At least in my opinion. A problem far more prominent in Korra where they constantly felt rushed for time, money, and length whereas Airbender had a lot more episodes and a consistent environment to work from. Hm.

In any case I continue to disagree with the belittling of Korra or that it's a bad show.

 

[Redryhno]

In any case I continue to disagree with the belittling of Korra or that it's a bad show.

Bad? Nah, but it's got alot of problems because it went for a setting more reality-based as opposed to TLA mysticism(also they wasted SO much damn time on the pro bending in the first season). That's what a majority of complaints stem from. They changed the setting, but kept the supernatural elements and added in people not believing things exist when there's documentation and real life examples of them existing. That and the writer's response to people saying Korra's ending was poorly written didn't exactly help matters by basically saying they weren't thinking "correctly".

I understand really liking a character and wanting them to succeed in everything eventually, but Korra just got way too many saves from writing as opposed to characters within the show. Hell, even Drizzt has had his fair share of bullshit he got through with help from others and not just because the narrative dictated it. And he's largely just been a cashcow for Salvatore since the mid-90's.

 

[The Madman]

Bad? Nah, but it's got alot of problems because it went for a setting more reality-based as opposed to TLA mysticism(also they wasted SO much damn time on the pro bending in the first season). That's what a majority of complaints stem from. They changed the setting, but kept the supernatural elements and added in people not believing things exist when there's documentation and real life examples of them existing. That and the writer's response to people saying Korra's ending was poorly written didn't exactly help matters by basically saying they weren't thinking "correctly".

I understand really liking a character and wanting them to succeed in everything eventually, but Korra just got way too many saves from writing as opposed to characters within the show. Hell, even Drizzt has had his fair share of bullshit he got through with help from others and not just because the narrative dictated it. And he's largely just been a cashcow for Salvatore since the mid-90's.

I don't know anything about whatever the shows creators might have said and I agree about the pro-bending (Fun in small amounts, not as a main focus), but again I've got to ask how is that any different from The Last Airbender? How many times was Aang in an unwinnable situation only to get out of it at the last moment thanks to some random chance of fate? Heck the point I made about turtles and rocks is an example of exactly that. At least we actually saw Korra having to deal with the repercussions of failing, whereas with few exceptions Aang was always up and back to his cheerful self in the very next episode, even counting that one time he nearly died and flew away in a self-pity induced rage, followed by... a footloose episode where he brings happiness to children by organizing a dance party? Yep.

Again I agree with the assertion that Korra had a lot of problems, I just disagree with people who criticize Korra for those problems without acknowledging Airbender did the exact same thing. Maybe it's just because I never watched Airbender when I was younger and in fact only saw it for the first time after Korra was already out, but it really does stand out to me.

But now I'm just arguing pointless semantics. Point is I quite liked Korra obviously. It was a fun creative show with some great moments, much like Last Airbender, and for what it's worth I'd recommend both eagerly to anyone looking for cartoony fun. Maybe that's why I'm being argumentative; I don't want anyone who hasn't seen it to read all this criticism of Korra and think its shit without having at least giving somewhat of a contrasting positive point of view.