Poll: Korra is over, time for general retrospect and hindsight

[FPLOON]

-Nick snppped the budget of this post-

It was like Nick was the Bill Lumbergh of the entire situation or something like that... (Then again, I can't imagine myself reducing Korra into a "red stapler" metaphor...)

OT: Eh... I enjoyed it for what it was... Sure, there are some episodes I would watch more than others (especially the ones that features [more] Amon, Bolin, Eska, Tenzin, Varrik, anyone voiced by Steve Blum, Wan, and sometimes Wu), but given how both Nick and the creators had their share of "meddling" throughout, it was like it was destined to happen or something... <color=white>Dammit, Roku! Why didn't you tell us this would happen the same way you mentioned that comet all them years ago?

Other than that, Book 1's entirely will be re-watched the same way I do with Airbender Book 3, Book 2 would always be an on-and-off situation depending on who's in what episode, and Books 3 and 4 shall forever be viewed as "The Life and Times of Korra and Asami" with guest starts Bolin, Tenzin, Varrik, Steve Blum as the returning VA, and Prince Wu as one-half of the S.S. MakWu crew...

 

[madwarper]

Comparing Korra to TLA, TLA's four Books just feel more complete, since it had an over arching plot of getting Aang ready, fighting and eventually beating the Fire Nation. Korra's four separate Books, that aren't connected by any one plot point, felt lacking.

Also, the love-triangle between Korra/Mako/Asami felt dumb. I'm not sure what demographic that drama was aimed towards, but I know I'm not part of it. When this was brought up definitely seemed to the the lowest points in the series. The Aang/Katara relationship was sappy and had its ups and downs, but wasn't as off putting to me.

Also, while Toph did play a part in the last Book of Korra... That just wasn't the wise cracking Toph I loved from TLA.

Spoiler

As for the Books, Book 1 was a good introduction, Book 2 dropped the ball, Book 3 was a decent recovery and Book 4 ended on a high note.

I would definitely love to see the show creators continue the Avatar universe, especially if they can cut their ties to Nickelodeon and have complete creative control over their own project.

 

[njrk97]

The bending is so boring in this show. In ATLA, all the characters used their environment in creative ways to do outstanding moves. Also all the bending styles actually were styles that were unique and based off of real martial art forms. However, in LoK pretty much everybody uses bending simply as a long range kick or punch in the same generic way. Here's a quick comparison with what I could find on youtube.

Spoiler: Legend of Korra

It's all just fire/water/rock ball, dodge/block, repeat. It's all so samey and generic and nobody plays to the specific strengths of the element they use. And this is supposedly the best fight scenes!

Spoiler: Avatar: The Last Airbender

On the other hand, here is one fight from ATLA, and not even one of the best. Look at the variety of their moves. Water whip, big ol' waterball, funnel of water to close the distance between them, using ice to root the feet to the ground, super thin ice disks, big platform of ice to get the high ground, and a hundred icicles to immobilize Katara.

There is more creativity in that one fight from ATLA that there was in the entirety of book 1 from LoK.

I wasnt going to reply but this was irking me, I don't think comparing a real fight and pro bending is a good way to compare stuff, its like apples and oranges to me. In probending there resources are limited and i assume some rules are in place (No freezing someone or earthbending the entire platform and so. Granted i'm not disagreeing with you fully but i believe the fight scenes like the rest of the series is inconsistent some are great some are bad and the fights improve in the later season.

However it does appear that the bending is much more 'disconnected' then before. Most benders do not use the elements as the environment if that makes sense? ill try with earthbending as a example, in legend of korra earthbending relies alot on just breaking a piece of ground off at hurling it at a target but in last airbender earth bending was a lot more about moving the earth around still being connected to the environment.

Spoiler

See how toph attacks here. In the legend of korra it would of most likely just been that a section of ground was broken up and thrown at the guy but here she drives raised earth across the ground before then striking it up.

Shoot even the opening bending is different

Spoiler

LOK is much more flashy than the LAB and too a extent it makes sense in universe too. As technology is becoming more prominent the ancient ways of martial arts are being lost to the benders. There bending is more projectiles because the benders themsleves are disconnected from the world and attack with the element instead of attacking with the environment. Granted though metal bending in the later seasons is awesome and so are some of the other sub bending types.

TLR i agree that the bending is simpler but i think you used a bad example and it sorta makes sense in universe that the bending is more flashy and less about using the environment because people are loosing touch with it thanks to the tech in the world. Granted the bending could be worse

Spoiler: Shivers

 

[KazeAizen]

The bending is so boring in this show. In ATLA, all the characters used their environment in creative ways to do outstanding moves. Also all the bending styles actually were styles that were unique and based off of real martial art forms. However, in LoK pretty much everybody uses bending simply as a long range kick or punch in the same generic way. Here's a quick comparison with what I could find on youtube.

Spoiler: Legend of Korra

It's all just fire/water/rock ball, dodge/block, repeat. It's all so samey and generic and nobody plays to the specific strengths of the element they use. And this is supposedly the best fight scenes!

Spoiler: Avatar: The Last Airbender

On the other hand, here is one fight from ATLA, and not even one of the best. Look at the variety of their moves. Water whip, big ol' waterball, funnel of water to close the distance between them, using ice to root the feet to the ground, super thin ice disks, big platform of ice to get the high ground, and a hundred icicles to immobilize Katara.

There is more creativity in that one fight from ATLA that there was in the entirety of book 1 from LoK.

Yeah, no. Just no. You said you couldn't watch past book 2 meaning you don't get comment on how the fighting in both series compares. If you had you wouldn't be saying what you are saying about the bending. Heck the pro bending style of bending actually was a style. The creators drew from modern MMA fighting and boxing. Closed guards and quick moves to win. Some of the fights in Korra were honestly more creative than a lot of the fights in ATLA.

 

[gandhi the peacemake]

Yeah, no. Just no. You said you couldn't watch past book 2 meaning you don't get comment on how the fighting in both series compares. If you had you wouldn't be saying what you are saying about the bending. Heck the pro bending style of bending actually was a style. The creators drew from modern MMA fighting and boxing. Closed guards and quick moves to win. Some of the fights in Korra were honestly more creative than a lot of the fights in ATLA.

As someone who did see all four books of LoK, I can safely say the choreography as a whole doesn't compare well to TLA. Still extremely good in its own right, and the trailers for each season were top-tier, but TLA set a precedent for what benders can do that LOK never really matched.

 

[Orga777]

Season 1 and Season 2 were so annoyingly bad that I JUST couldn't go past it to get into what everyone said was the good stuff in Season 3 and 4. Just couldn't do it, and still don't feel like I can. Guess this is why you don't binge watch a show like this... :/ It just could not live up to either the hype, or even come close to its predecessor.

 

[EMWISE94]

Overall Legend of Korra was okay I guess, not exactly something I'd recommend but its an okay watch... for the most part.

Book 1 set the scene and it was mostly great, besides the dumb romance plots that honestly felt like they were shoe horned in because ATLA had a romance in it so this this has to as well! But yeah, Amon was actually a pretty great villain that to me was more convincing than Ozai (in terms of motives that is).

Book 2... I wish book 2 never existed, cause it appears whoever wrote that book was beaten with the stupid stick several times, thus leading them to cram in more cringe worthy romance. Unalaq was a kinda terrible villain in the sense that his motives seemed pretty shallow at best, it'd been cool if he ushered in an age where two opposing Avatar like beings existed but NOPE, just gonna expand and destroy republic city because its the cesspool of the world or something. Also this the book in which Jinora became jesus... yeah... fuck book 2.

By Book 3 it appears people learnt from their mistakes and fired whoever wrote Book 2 out of the office artillery canon and into the sun. This Book was miles better, though it suffered heavily from its own plot.. well not really but I feel like it literally erected a huge sky scraper of a plot thread then just said "Bored now!" and left it abandoned to decay. I assumed Book 4 was going to focus on the Red Lotus running amok trying to assassinate leaders willy nilly but NOPE, nothing happened like that. Zaheer and crew were an interesting bunch and it was nice to see the season end with our main hero in a wheelchair, because that's about as edgy as the show ever gets. Speaking of edgy, its quite obvious that the death of sparky sparky boom chick was fully animated and whatnot but some Nick higher ups had to come in and go "whoa, whoa, whoa! This is a kids show! we can't have heads exploding in full view! cut that shit!" and we ended up with the most flaccid kill ever..

Book 4 was great, sure there was a bunch of terrible CG everywhere, sure the main villain's defeat was pretty weak (like seriously I expected her to go the route of Azuala and like keep fighting despite being underpowered and then eventually get dragged off to jail kicking and screaming or something.. or even get dragged off to Spirit World Hell cause abused spirit power, kind like Admiral Zhao) but hey, pretty great season, it had giant robots and lasers and that one sacrificial death which was pretty well done... even though Asami didn't seem to be taking as hard as I thought she would. As for the ending... meh, kudos to hyper lesbian-ness of the ending but I expected... more.. honestly, it had Book 3's problem, it just left plot threads incomplete and peaced out. What of Kuvira's army? you expect me to believe they just stopped? pretty sure there were some fanatics among the ranks that wanted to keep the fight going.

But in conclusion, Legend of Korra is pretty weak compared to ATLA and thats what happens when you're the following act to a show that oozed awesome-sauce, you can never ooze sauce as cool as it did.

 

[KazeAizen]

Yeah, no. Just no. You said you couldn't watch past book 2 meaning you don't get comment on how the fighting in both series compares. If you had you wouldn't be saying what you are saying about the bending. Heck the pro bending style of bending actually was a style. The creators drew from modern MMA fighting and boxing. Closed guards and quick moves to win. Some of the fights in Korra were honestly more creative than a lot of the fights in ATLA.

As someone who did see all four books of LoK, I can safely say the choreography as a whole doesn't compare well to TLA. Still extremely good in its own right, and the trailers for each season were top-tier, but TLA set a precedent for what benders can do that LOK never really matched.

I'd have to disagree with you on that myself. The Legend of Korra I think had better animation overall and that helped but as the series went on they got way more inventive with the fights than Avatar did. Even if it was in short bursts. Like Korra's brief fight with Tarlok in season 1. Also Korra and her father fighting Zaheer while Korra was hand cuffed was one of the coolest scenes out of both series.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Yeah, no. Just no. You said you couldn't watch past book 2 meaning you don't get comment on how the fighting in both series compares. If you had you wouldn't be saying what you are saying about the bending. Heck the pro bending style of bending actually was a style. The creators drew from modern MMA fighting and boxing. Closed guards and quick moves to win. Some of the fights in Korra were honestly more creative than a lot of the fights in ATLA.

Notice how both examples are from the first season of their respective series? If it takes the entirety of LoK to even compete with the first season of ATLA then that's not exactly a point in LoK's favour. I shouldn't have to wait for more than 2 seasons for a show to start being good. Especially not when ATLA started off good and moved to being completely awesome within the first season. I guess if they did use MMA fighting and boxing as the basis for the style then it does have a style, it's just a sucky style. Boxing is the most boring fighting I have ever seen, and to abandon the elegant and refined styles that the original series had was just a terrible idea.

I wasnt going to reply but this was irking me, I don't think comparing a real fight and pro bending is a good way to compare stuff, its like apples and oranges to me. In probending there resources are limited and i assume some rules are in place (No freezing someone or earthbending the entire platform and so. Granted i'm not disagreeing with you fully but i believe the fight scenes like the rest of the series is inconsistent some are great some are bad and the fights improve in the later season.

Maybe it's not completely fair to compare the pro bending to the real fights, but that begs the question of why they needed to include the pro bending at all when it is so boring in comparison. In ATLA there was that underground earthbending arena and that was so much more interesting compared to pro bending where they have such heavy restrictions that it makes bending completely dull. And I never could figure out the rules to pro bending either, it seemed to be completely random when a team scored a point and how many points they needed to win. I would have much preferred more gladiatorial style bending arenas. And, honestly, I don't remember any other fights from the first 2 seasons that were a whole lot better than any of the pro bending matches, maybe a bit but they all suffered from the same problems that you mentioned. Not using the elements as the environment pretty much goes against the whole concept of bending, which is to manipulate the elements that make up the environment.

 

[kickyourass]

Pretty solid series overall, not nearly as good as the first (though I openly proclaim Avatar: The Last Airbender as my favorite TV show ever, so take this as you will), but I think it was a good successor to the franchise nonetheless.

While I did think the first season was a bit rocky, and several bits of the second were, just bad in a way I find bizarrely difficult to describe, the last two seasons took what they had and more than made up for their past mistakes. I have my complaints with the series (And they are many if anyone has some time to kill listening to some random schmuck on the internet) but they do not take away my enjoyment of the series as a whole, and I got the feeling that a good deal of the issues were symptoms of stuff happening above the creators' heads that they couldn't do much about so I don't feel right blaming them.

 

[KazeAizen]

Yeah, no. Just no. You said you couldn't watch past book 2 meaning you don't get comment on how the fighting in both series compares. If you had you wouldn't be saying what you are saying about the bending. Heck the pro bending style of bending actually was a style. The creators drew from modern MMA fighting and boxing. Closed guards and quick moves to win. Some of the fights in Korra were honestly more creative than a lot of the fights in ATLA.

Notice how both examples are from the first season of their respective series? If it takes the entirety of LoK to even compete with the first season of ATLA then that's not exactly a point in LoK's favour. I shouldn't have to wait for more than 2 seasons for a show to start being good. Especially not when ATLA started off good and moved to being completely awesome within the first season. I guess if they did use MMA fighting and boxing as the basis for the style then it does have a style, it's just a sucky style. Boxing is the most boring fighting I have ever seen, and to abandon the elegant and refined styles that the original series had was just a terrible idea.

You make it sound like The Legend of Korra started off just plain bad from the get go. Sorry a series that initially had only half the number of episodes 1 season of Avatar had, and a budget tighter than a latex skin suit wasn't as awesome as season 1 of Avatar. Frankly I'd say them using boxing and MMA style fighting was a good choice. Why? Because it was different. I was actually kind of sad that they moved back towards the more "traditional" style in the later seasons at least in regards to the two main characters that used it. It set them apart from everyone else that used bending up to that point.

They fixed all their mistakes by the end of the show for the most part. That much has been acknowledged.

 

[gandhi the peacemake]

I'd have to disagree with you on that myself. The Legend of Korra I think had better animation overall and that helped but as the series went on they got way more inventive with the fights than Avatar did.

Fair's fair.

I for one found the "dancing" in TLA more thematically fitting than the "fighting" of LoK. The former allowed for more dynamism, and for visual metaphor (and Toph). The latter was more direct and at the same time more limiting. But different strokes for different folks and all that.

EDIT:

You make it sound like The Legend of Korra started off just plain bad from the get go.

I know this is in reply to someone else, but I wouldn't exactly call foul if someone did think this. Heck, I thought it was pretty underwhelming from the get-go myself, once the initial "OMG MORE AVATAR YISSSSS" wore off.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Well, no. The Korra example you used covers what amounts to the pro-bending fights and a few short fights they have with Equalists or gangsters, which are most certainly not all the fights in season one. If you want to compare the fights between the two series you should probably not omit one of the best fights from the first season of Legend of Korra, Korra fighting Tarrlok.

Okay, fine.

Spoiler: Tarloc vs. Korra

This fight does compare more favorably to Katara's fight, but I still would have to say that Katara's is far superior in the variety of moves they use, and the apparent skill and strategy used. In Tarloc vs. Korra there is practically no strategy, Tarloc throws some water, Korra dodges, Korra throws some fire, Tarloc blocks, Tarloc throws some icicles and Korra blocks. Then Korra uses a little bit of strategy and slowly moves a wall at Tarloc to force his movement and then the fight is over.

In Katara vs. Paku however, Katara tries a direct attack and gets hammered, then Paku restricts her movement with a circle of water which Katara deflects, then Katara tries to run up directly again which Paku redirects with a ramp, he then turns his ramp to a tidal wave and throws it at Katara which she manages to deflect by rooting her feet to the ground with ice, then there is some back and forth bending where one uses the other's offense against them, and then Katara suddenly pulls the ice pillars down onto Paku which he blows up, then she throws a roll of ice at him which he dodges by raising a platform of ice, surfs toward her, deflects her water and makes a slide with it, then icicles her to end the fight. There is much more of an attempt to control the opponents movement and to use their own attacks against them and to actually use some strategy rather than constant direct attacks.

After watching both back to back I have a hard time believing that either Korra or Tarloc would stand a chance against Katara or Paku.

Anyway, what I really would have liked to find was a compilation of fight scenes from across both series, because I feel overall most of the fights in Korra were quite dull involving simple kicks and punches. However, I could only find that compilation of episode 1-6 for Korra and none for Avatar.

 

[JediMB]

Book 1 and 2 had their high points, but suffered from the love triangle (and Mako didn't even become particularly likable until Book 3), a rather anticlimactic ending for the first book, and some annoying repetition in Book 2. They also simply weren't as good as The Last Airbender[footnote]This isn't nostalgia speaking or anything. I pretty much marathon'd all of TLA and the first book of Korra when the latter approached its finale. I had never watched the shows before, beyond parts of a single episode.[/footnote], which I suppose can in large part be attributed to the series' format with 12-14 episodes per book/season. There just wasn't enough time for the fantastic character moments that made TLA so lovable.

Now, at the end of Book 2 I felt like it was unfair to Korra to have her cut off from her predecessors, but in hindsight I'll have to say that this was actually for the best. Book 3 was when TLoK became comparable to TLA, and the expanded cast of characters grew and enriched the show: Mako finally stopped seemingly existing only as a love interest for Korra and Asami, and actually became a character I could stand. Meanwhile, the stories became consistently satisfying... despite the occasional frustration[footnote]While it was nice to see some more exhilarating action sequences starting with Book 3, it was frustrating how Zaheer could instantly reach the level of airbending master because of his theoretical studies prior to becoming a bender.[/footnote].

Plus, Korra and Asami started having these fantastic friendship moments with Book 3. Driving, sparring, talki-- Oh, I'm sorry, I can feel my inner Korrasami-shipper taking over now, so maybe it's time to stop. Point is, character interactions and action sequences took a huge step up starting with Book 3, as well as pacing and plotline resolutions. As poor as certain aspects of Book 2 felt, it really set up an interesting status quo for the second half of the show.

Now that it's over, I really want to vote for "absolutely amazing" because of how the second half of the show played out, but stilling my emotions and looking over the show critically demands that I lower it a notch. The Last Airbender was absolutely amazing, but while Korra did something absolutely amazing I have to keep in mind that it had some significant weak parts earlier on. It was great.

 

[Drathnoxis]

You make it sound like The Legend of Korra started off just plain bad from the get go. Sorry a series that initially had only half the number of episodes 1 season of Avatar had, and a budget tighter than a latex skin suit wasn't as awesome as season 1 of Avatar. Frankly I'd say them using boxing and MMA style fighting was a good choice. Why? Because it was different. I was actually kind of sad that they moved back towards the more "traditional" style in the later seasons at least in regards to the two main characters that used it. It set them apart from everyone else that used bending up to that point.

They fixed all their mistakes by the end of the show for the most part. That much has been acknowledged.

Korra did start off bad. I mean, as I said in my first post it had potential, but they had wasted all of that by the time book 1 wrapped up. The early episodes don't seem bad at first, but once the finale is reached it's apparent that over half the season was completely pointless. They spent so much time screwing around with love triangles and pro bending, that they had to cram almost all of the development of the main plot into the last 2 episodes. And if being completely irrelevant to the main plot while also shoehorning in an agonizing romance and boring pro bending matches doesn't make something bad, I don't know what would.

Also 12 episodes is plenty to make a show with. You know what else was 12 episodes long? Madoka Magica, and that show is completely awesome and brilliant. No, Legend of Korra was just very poorly written from start to finish, and being written by the show creators I don't think it's possible to blame that on the budget.

 

[KazeAizen]

You make it sound like The Legend of Korra started off just plain bad from the get go. Sorry a series that initially had only half the number of episodes 1 season of Avatar had, and a budget tighter than a latex skin suit wasn't as awesome as season 1 of Avatar. Frankly I'd say them using boxing and MMA style fighting was a good choice. Why? Because it was different. I was actually kind of sad that they moved back towards the more "traditional" style in the later seasons at least in regards to the two main characters that used it. It set them apart from everyone else that used bending up to that point.

They fixed all their mistakes by the end of the show for the most part. That much has been acknowledged.

Korra did start off bad. I mean, as I said in my first post it had potential, but they had wasted all of that by the time book 1 wrapped up. The early episodes don't seem bad at first, but once the finale is reached it's apparent that over half the season was completely pointless. They spent so much time screwing around with love triangles and pro bending, that they had to cram almost all of the development of the main plot into the last 2 episodes. And if being completely irrelevant to the main plot while also shoehorning in an agonizing romance and boring pro bending matches doesn't make something bad, I don't know what would.

Also 12 episodes is plenty to make a show with. You know what else was 12 episodes long? Madoka Magica, and that show is completely awesome and brilliant. No, Legend of Korra was just very poorly written from start to finish, and being written by the show creators I don't think it's possible to blame that on the budget.

*Anger rising. Anger subsiding. Anger rising again. Takes deep breath.* Not freaking worth it to add more anger to my holiday than I already have.

 

[gandhi the peacemake]

Spoiler: avatar clip

I'd just like to say that whoever thought it a good idea to crop a 4:3 show to 16:9 AND letterbox it further to 21:9 is a terrible, terrible person. Losing nearly half your video for the sake of an aspect ratio is ridiculous.

 

[KazeAizen]

Korra was terrible in hindsight, pretty much the only reason it wasn't badly recieved was how much good Avatar was, I'll focus my complaints.

1) The show had terrible, terrible gimicky villains (having each rare super bending powers). Amon was okay but somehow every season seems to get worse, her uncle had no clear motivation other than "balance" and even then it was never apperant why human world and spirit world needed to coexist (especially since only spirits can regulary go to the human world without risking fate worse than death). The evil quatro had a semblance of personality but is never expanded upon, not even a backstory with it's leaded being a villain sue of the n-th degree. Kuvira seemed like a normal powerful regular bender and reminded me Azula, but no, she's a nazi and is completely evil (this caused me to drop the rest of the season).

2) The show had WAY to many characters, what I call Bleach syndorme, Avatar started with 3 characters plus Iroh and Zuko. But korra has the 3 characters plus Asami, plus Tenzen, his family and Toph's daughter as main cast and that without villains, with the casr raising each season. The best example is the start of book 4 that jumped all other the place with it's billion characters until realizing where's Korra, speaking of which...

3) Korra sucks, infinately sucks. I love her design and she can be awesome at times, but her character sucks so much, she's too hot headed, never listens to advice, goes back and forth in her developement, but really, she's uninteresting, there's nothing interesting in her backstory or reason to like her, her grand developement is getting recovered from having the shit kicked out of her, she just sucks.

But wait, they had lesbians in the finale so that makes it the bestest show ever.

I sense a lot of salt here. Sorry you didn't like the show.