@@Im-BAD-at-satire nickalodeon gave bryan and mike a ton of money to make more seasons of korra the nick suddenly switch time slots from season to season
It's so insanely backwards that Nickelodeon tiptoed around the production of Korra - never fully trusting its creators to make it the show it could be, and meanwhile Netflix shoves a poorly-written $150 million live action adaptation down our throats. Why can't we just have nice things?
to be honest it wasnt that bad people perceived it to be sure theres plenty of things done poorly but for the average viewer its still a solid a live action series way better than the 2010 movie Plus even in 2024 theres still a stigma around animations in mainstream appeal so im glad that the live action bought alot of new and broader audience to the franchise. i personally experiece this with my friends and family
I think I recall watching an interview about LOK with it's director at one point, and it's only after listening to what he said about the plot for Korra that I finally understand why I couldn't enjoy TLOK like I did with ATLA Basically, he said that TLOK WAS NOT written with the mindset of keeping ATLA's legacy, just the opposite actually, TLOK was written with the mindset of wanting to challenge it's predecessor, hence why they purposefully flip almost everything we know from ATLA upside down, like for example: 1. Korra started out as a prodigy for all the elements except air, while Aang started out as a prodigy of only one element that Korra couldn't master from the get go, air 2. The world was in a state of peace in Korra's era, while during Aang's time, chaos was spread all over the world 3. Korra's companions were all young adults on a journey to prove themselves, while Aang's companions were kids on a journey to discover themselves 4. And many, many more So after I realized this, I finally know the problem. I was watching TLOK expecting it to give me the same vibe and feeling ATLA did, and since not only didn't give me the vibe I want, it gives almost the exact opposite, it made me disappointed and couldn't enjoy the series. So when I tried watching it as it is, without expecting it to be anything like ATLA, it actually did resolve many of my issues with the show, and while I still believe ATLA is the much better series, at least I do acknowledge TLOK as it's legacy, it's still a pretty good show overall, one that I wouldn't mind recommending to other people
tbh It's a wrong mindset for writing to begin with. Most of the modern entertainment with the mindset of challenging a successful predecessor often ends up really really bad (Neil challenging Joel in TLOU2 for example, and dont get me started on new Star War trilogy). Just because they want to challenge their predecessors, they changed every aspect that made the predecessor successful into something complete opposite, and ultimately turns out into a sh*tshow. Even I love korra as a character I cant see how her plot benefited, rather worsened, by a writers' mindset that want to challenge ALTA from every ways.
Personally, I liked TLOK despite it being different from ATLA, the only gripes I have with TLOK is I feel like it didn't stick the landing in a few but very crucial places and I wish it had. Otherwise I love what TLOK tries to be and the things it does do right.
I still remember after Zaheer killed the Earth Queen the series was yanked off the air and I just assume it was because he freaking suffocate someone on a children's show, no cutaway, no silhouette, just straight-up murder!
The problem was korra didnt have enough time. Each volume needed at least double the number of episodes they got except maybe the finale volume of season 4. Also there wasnt much faith in korra from the money people or the majority of the writing staff so the effort put into the show was lacking for parts of it. It didnt help how antagonist parts of the korra staff and fandom was with classic avatar fandom not to mention how people were already burned out by shamalan
Not having enough time may excuse the antagonists of TOK being so undercooked but it doesn't explain how the main team have so little chemistry and how all of them, except Korra, aren't allowed to do much for the plot. The relevance distribution is so stacked against other characters that I can't even bear to watch the show and say that I enjoyed watching it.
@@happilyevernever4289I still think that’s an issue with the studio execs as opposed to the crew. If you’re expecting to make a short series, you only have so much time to use overall, for every character/storybeat. The fact that they kept getting the, maybe they’ll get another season treatment, really ruins what you can write, because if you decide to do set things, you could get canceled and never get the chance to write the payoff for what’s set up earlier. Korra still turned out relatively good, but had they known they were getting four seasons from the get go, i think a lot of aspects would have been stronger for the series overall.
@@happilyevernever4289 I think less episodes does partially factor into why team avatar's chemistry fell short. Aside from poor writing decisions in the love triangle, we also didn't get any full 'filler' episodes where the gang were just voluntarily hanging out in their downtime together without it being because they're planning against the villain of the season. Even just one episode of the 4 each going through their daily routines and then meeting together at the end would have done so much to show that they're actually close friends. The second main thing is that they're often separated doing their own thing since they're all working adults with jobs so we get less opportunities to see their dynamic in reactions
i think nickelodeon learned from this if I remember correctly they gave them their ow studio and gave them free reign over the next avatar tv shows movies etc. and probably a bigger budget
Exactly. The creators were the creative minds behind the world, while Aaron would transform the ideas into a cohesive plot. Korra as an idea was good, the plot is just messy because Aaron wasn't there to ground it.
I'm always conflicted with this take because while Aaron being head writer was really key to bringing atla to life, it somewhat undermines the fact that so much of the show had a huge team of creators and writers, and it attributes so much of the show's magic to only one man. Don't get me wrong I agree that he's an important part of the show but tlok also had a sizeable cast of people behind it that were actively striving to make it good, even if it wasn't as big or well funded as atla.
i feel like if they just got all the seasons greenlit beforehand and reshuffled the events a little to make it make more sense chronologically the show could've been really good, Nickelodeon nerfed the shit out of it
Yeah while I prefer Book 3 and 4 to Book 2 in terms of scale it was weird going from a Dark Avatar and 10,000 years of darkness to an airbender who could fly and then a metalbender with a mech.
Objectively wrong take. It lasted for at most 1.5 seasons, was lessened and completely ended in season 2 and even made fun of in the subsequent seasons. At best you could say it made seasons 1 and 2 WORSE, but thats about it (and even saying that doesn't make those seasons bad).
I think Korra had some really good fighting, but none of the different elements seemed unique. Everyone kinda just blasted their element, and they would have approximately the same effect on the person they just blasted. My assumption is that the creators just wanted to the fight scenes to look cool (which they did) and didn’t care for the martial arts styles that each element was based off. In world explanation, I suppose would be that as the people where more united, they all kinda fuse their philosophies into one great whole. Sorta like Iroh explaining learning from the other elements to figure out lightning redirection.
Tenzin and Lin’s bending styles were more traditional while Korra’s and her friends’ were more “blast-y”. Now that I think about it we didn’t see much of each nation’s citizens bending styles, we mostly saw benders from a city where the cultures were blended together have very similar bending styles
Legend of Korra is such a beautiful mess that I love in spite of its flaws. No, it's not as good as ATLA, but how could it ever be, especially with Nickelodeon yanking the creators' chains all the time? I can only imagine how it would have turned out if they were given a full series of four 13 episode seasons right from the get go to plan out. I imagine Amon would have been an ongoing villain who got fleshed out further beyond season one rather than the disappointing Unalaq in season 2. I did still very much enjoy Zaheer & and the Red Lotus and Kuvira, so I would hope they still appear in some way. Overall, I actually think LOK has both some higher highs than the best of ATLA and some lower lows than the worst of ATLA. Overall, yes, ATLA is clearly the superior complete product, but man, did LOK have some seriously amazing things going for it too.
Korra had a lot of controversial moments at inopportune times. Like her getting deux ex machina air bending fix at rhe end of season 1, and the kaju fight at the end of season 2. Those moments left people with sour tastes in their mouths as they waited for the next seasons. By the time of season 3 the fan base had already turned on it. Also that first avatar stuff was really cool, would've been a dope stand alone alternate universe special. But it wrecks the established lore and a lot of people, myself included never forgave them for that awful decision.
It wrecked the established lore at every turn from the getgo. They broke the entire bending system by introducing new information that only destroys its former intricate and meticulous design. By showcasing the "evolved" bending styles they killed the entire notion that bending needs proper form in order to function and thus takes diligent practice to move the elements just a little bit - which we later get confirmed at the bending arena when every element can now just be punched into existence. Ironically the perfect set up for the deus ex machina air bending you were talking about. And worst of all is the non-sense they introduced to Air Bending with the BS spirituality crux. Though Spirituality was always an important part of the Air Nomads life style, not once did anyone even implicate that said spirituality is needed to perform it because why would it when the other elements don't?! And the worst part is they couldn't even stick to it! First Korra suffers from her inability to air bend the entire season because of spirituality yet the deus ex machina proved it had nothing to do with it. But then they went ahead and added "Astral Projection" as a sub-skill because of the Spiritual mambo jumbo but it has nothing to do with Air or Bending in the slightest. We didn't need that! And then they gave Zaheer (a guy who has been air bending for a mere week) the Ability to fly - something masters across hundreds of generations couldn't do including the avatar in his avatar state. And Zaheer tells us (face on camera) that that skill requires "letting go of ones earthly tethers" - which is then immediately betrayed by the fact that he's doing all of that because he is hell bent on turning the world anarchist. I wanted to go over other butchered stuff like the spirit world as well but my rant is already too long already. Jesus this series drives me up the fucking wall!
Literally every single one of your "reasons" why people came to drop the show are things the show either address, has an in universe explanation, or is straight up false information haters made up to justify disliking TLoK. Korra unlocking her airbending wasn't a dues ex machina. Between what we know about Chakra's from AtLA and the concept of Airbending mastery being linked to earthly tethers from book 3 of TLoK, both more than explain why Korra unlocked her Airbending when she did. Korra becoming a giant spirit Kaiju makes just about as much sense as Aang doing literally the same thing at the end of Book 1 Water. And Avatar's Wan story only adds more context to how bending works. Nothing about the established lore was wrecked. People still LEARNED how to control the elements the way AtLA taught us. TLoK only confirmed that people GAINED the ability to even control the elements to begin with. If you don't like the mystery behind the Avatar being revealed, that's fine, but objectively, you can't say the show wrecked the lore because you didn't like the additional context. If you and more people in the Avatar fandom took time to use some critical thinking about the issues you had with the show, you'd see that a lot of them aren't even the real issues the show actually had.
@@lincolnbeckett8791 you said chakras and tethers. What do eather of those things have to do with korra punching air into existence? I don't even think Aang through a single punch to Air Bend in the entire shows runtime. Remember at the beginning of the series when Katara the waterbending prodigy didn't just freeze the fire nation soldiers with the movement of her choice but had to adjust her shotty technique by turning her back on them first?
@@limazulu6192 Chakras are the flow of chi, which in both series is shown to be blockable both spiritually and physically. Korra struggled with air as much as Aang struggled with earth, because their spiritual philosophies made it difficult to learn, unless you forgot the entire internal struggle Aang had when learning earthbending to then just suddenly learn it, oh wait, neither of them suddenly learned it, they both trained extensively, picking up small things and the last hurdle was just doing it. The bit about how pro-bending is just “punching elements” is so wrong and an actual insult to MMA and other forms for fighting sport, I can tell you now, if you think punch is the only thing you need to know to be a boxer then you’re gonna get a rude awakening if you step into a ring, and you were the one pointing out that shoddy techniques weren’t enough, goes to show you don’t know what shoddy is. Lastly, Zaheer’s ability to fly being rooted in his letting go of earthly tethers isn’t ruined by his anarchistic ideologies, those ideologies are rooted in the belief of not needing earthly tethers to live, such as kingdoms and empires that are ruled and controlled by power and wealth, those ideologies are to the personal freedoms of the people not for his own selfish gain, he doesn’t force it on them, just gives them the opportunity to take it. If Zaheer’s earthly tethers are ruined by his philosophies then Aang in the first series should have never been able to control the Avatar state, as that require letting go of said tethers Katara being one of them, but we all know how that went.
@@massacremark6782 congrats you missed the point of every critique. Korra's blocked chi is not the issue. Korra sucks so hard at air bending she didn't earn it at all when she finally got it. And she didn't even use a proper technique to perform it. That's why everyone calls it a deus ex machina. The spiritual connection thing is a retcon from Korra that does this moment no favors either. Her connection is trash from the start of the season till the end of the season. She didn't learn a thing properly and yet here she stands in defiance of all rules old and new doing it anyway. Compare that to Aang. Aand had a mental hang up that caused him to be unable to bend and wasn't granted the ability unless he got through it. Only after he learned to stand up to toph and be immovable was he able to bend a single rock. His first rock. And even then he wasn't allowed to use bending for anything else yet because he wasn't good enough. Socca had to be rescued by toph. I never said MMA wasn't a fine sport either. I said bending simply doesn't work like that. These crazy movements people came up with aren't for show. They dictate how the elements behaved. By switching Marshall arts you imply it's all just telekinesis and has nothing to do with movement. Remember how Aang needed a whole new stance to earth bend? It tells you movement matters and cannot be arbitrarily changed. And I don't give two shits what Zaheer believes in. It's the fact he's fighting the world for it that rubs me the wrong way. You can't have "let go" and still fight the whole planet. Either you care enough to do something or you simply have no reason. Make up your mind, you can't have it both ways.
I argue that while Nickelodeon was involved with most of the show's production problems, all of that has nothing to do with the story quality, which is ultimately what I think people look for. Book 1 was acceptable and gave a nice foundation that plenty of people watched, and Book 2 started strong, but suddenly turned from a morally gray conflict between Water Tribes to a black and white conflict about corrupted spirits and a goddamn "Dark Avatar", and that's not even mentioning that viewer numbers HALVED. In my eyes, it was not the production that killed the rest of the show, it was that Book 2's story was subpar at best and the fans adamantly did not like it, resulting in lower ratings/viewers, causing Nickelodeon to wag its finger at them. The drop in viewer numbers when Book 3 came along is STAGGERING compared to what came before. No amount of advertising was going to save a show whose story was not seen as good.
7:35 Yea for whatever reason the Avatar show killed the concept of the Avatar and gave us kaiju/mecha fight with barely any elemental combat really weird and confusing that no one came back?
I like TLOK and have rewatched it a few times because it's pretty good. THAT however is awful lmao. I don't think anyone liked that part. There's a few things to dislike, but plenty to love and enjoy.
Every time I've tried to watch TLOK I cpuld never finish the series. It just felt like stuff happens for the sake of there being a story to tell. The team didn't feel like they were truly connecting, it felt sort of hollow. There were really cool ideas and characters, but it just felt surface level. Korra was also an unlikable protagonist, and it felt like everything revolved around her even when it shouldn't. Idk if I'm making any sense here, but i just couldn't connect with the show. The call backs to ATLA was cool, and the world was cool enough.
So, you're criticizing a protagonist for having character flaws? Korra may have started out that way, but by Seasons 3 & 4 She grows as a person and is not as hot-headed as she was in Seasons 1 & 2, learns to be more mature, patient, self-sacrificing, & overall was more likable.
@@doomarang3208 She doesn't have character flaws. A character flaw is not strictly a list of trivial imperfections, it has to speak to a character's agency in their own story. The first season was meant as a self-contained story, and while people do criticize Korra's behavior within it, the obstacles she faces are not in any meaningful way the consequences of those behaviors. Amon is just exploiting a growing contempt for benders, a contempt that's given very little substance or weight despite its self-evidence, and because of that it reflects on Korra's personal shortcomings in a way that insinuates to us that people are just hating on her (a bender) because she is (since benders are) awesome. Despite plans for Season 1 being a miniseries, Korra does not change and it still all works out in the end. So even if we take it at face value, like so many fans do with the Equalists, that the people who criticize Korra have a point, even from the perspective of the narrative, it's not necessary for Korra to change, just like it's not necessary for Republic City to change for us to move on without taking those issues seriously. In other words it pays lipservice to an idea. Those toothless words are the _only_ indication we get that the story sees any of these problems as problems, so accepting that they _are_ is actually taking them on faith. You know the saying "you don't get a second chance to make a first impression?" Korra had 12 episodes to make a first impression, and by your own admission it takes two season for her to mature. Completely setting aside the question of whether or not this is actually the case given the points I laid out, the fact that the showrunners may have course corrected after criticism is always a possibility. I know that like the whole point of this video is that it's hard to take a straight path when someone keeps putting up roadblocks. But the relationship between Korra's faults and her character development isn't cohesive, so the mere fact that she changes at all, is again less of a story, and more of a triviality. It's just a thing that happens, that doesn't mean it naturally relates to anything else.
It’s so insane that Nickelodeon refused to green light a full set of seasons. ATLA was the biggest show they had since Fairly Odd Parents and SpongeBob, of course a sequel series is gonna do insane numbers, why are you selling them short and not letting them work?
I think the Legend of Korra's greatest strength is how each Book dealt with a different villain that each challenged the world's notions, but just went about it in rather evil ways Some a bit more flatly like Unalaq, without much depth other than "mwahahaha I am become Avatar Satan", but that aside, he did want to see humans and spirits live with each other again just like they used to (even if he just wanted to rule over 'em both) But then you have a man like Zaheer, who is ironically even more spiritual than the aforementioned-- he's philosophical, and in a sense, he feels like he's on an impossible journey to topple the oppressive governments and regimes of the world alongside his group of friends, making him a sort of evil counterpart to Aang and Team Avatar
I like how they "didn't want to repeat themselves" but they didn't think "they're right... but *evil!"* for four seasons was repetitive. Especially given how shallow and self-contradictory it is, having Korra maintain the status quo anyway.
I think the main problem with Korra is it was more about the fights than it was about the people. Avatar was more about the people than the fights. A good fight is always fun to watch but what is remembered by history is always people.
@7:31 I blame book 2 finale (2 episodes); I remember the tumblrs were raging over how terribly it was executed. I think this detracted people from watching book 3. I approximate 1/4 of the viewers from book 2 continued to book 3, and 3/4 straight up quit initially. The main complaints was the ridiculous unvaatu and korra fight and most controversial korra losing her past lives
korra losing her past lives was what ruined it for me. besides having the ability to master all elements, the avatar's past lives were what made the avatar the avatar. same people say "it would've reset anyway bc the evil kite and good kite have to fight every 10,000 years" and I agree that's true but they shouldn't have included that in the season. just change the first avatar's story a bit by removing that 10,000 years part.
They should have made a season 4 of Avatar The Last Airbender. There should have been more time in between Korra and ATLA to better flush out the world and story for Korra's series.
Thank you for explaining the tortured history of Legend of Korra. Although I thought that I had watched the whole series, I had started seeing clips that I did not remember. It turns out that I had missed at least one season. I was an adult by the time ATLA came on and watched it with my children. I would not say that it was perfect, but it is definitely one of the best animated series I have seen. Being an adult and having worked in a couple countries prior to watching ATLA, the segregation of the different bender tribes made me a bit uncomfortable. Legend of Korra dealt a bit with that since the world had become more ethnically mixed in the interim. I enjoyed Legend of Kora, but not as much as the earlier series. I had not really thought much about it, but it is likely that the confusion behind the scenes is part of what caused LOK to feel less consistent and satisfying.
Last airbender was good but the thing that keeps it from being perfect was how god awful the climax vs ozai was. Legend of korra had some absolute banger moments but it falls into the trap many sequals do where they power creep to try and draw excitement in while forgetting that the power level of characters doesn't need to increase, the story needs to evolve instead.
To me, a sequel should not be a retelling of the original material with some minor tweaks and changes. A sequel should challenge the messages and ideas presented by its predecessor. It should be a different approach to a world that we already know. It should build upon it, while also being able to do something that feels unique and fresh, but still consistent with the rest of the world. People make a mistake by going into a sequel expecting to feel the same thing that the original made them feel and have a similar experience. The fact of the matter is you should go in there expecting to be challenged and presented with a new proposition that maybe you hadn’t thought about before.
@@mikado_m That's not even the only issue, by a longshot. As I said in a previous comment DiMartino and Konietzko just assumed adhering to the rules established in Airbender, like traveling to all four nations to train, were repetative, when what they're actually doing is abandoning their best most natural opportunity to expand their world and gradually catch us up on how much it has *changed* since the original ended. To introduce us to new characters, and see how Korra reacts to distinct cultures differently from Aang. If a sequel is naturally in conversation with the original this borders on arguing it should ignore everything it said. I remember how annoying it was when they said Korra mastered all three elements right away, again, because they didn't want to repeat themselves, by forcing her to learn all the bending styles, but also that the one she couldn't nail down was airbending because she's "so different from Aang" - but her stubborness about Airbending is exactly like Aangs ban on firebending. They did repeat themselves; and despite how simple and easy it would've been to just have Korra already be a master of all four elements, thus not wasting the audiences time, because she's already so much older than Aang, they needlessly make her more skilled by birth. The thing is Korra isn't challenging, it's a challenge. I think the idea that Korra is just different because it has different things to say and people are only skeptical about it because they want more of the same is naive and obtuse. Saying "Why don't I reverse course." is only interesting if you know why you're doing it. "I don't want to repeat myself" is not even close to a good enough reason. No on said you had to, and more importantly if you only just don't want to repeat yourself... don't make more Avatar 🤷♂ k, hoss?
The problem I had with korra was 1. All the dating shit (it was done extremely poorly). 2. Technology advancing at a weirdly fast pace (I know bending helps but seriously mechs and giant robots? like yeah bending helps but the human brain is still the same). 3. They sort of took a short cut with the whole air benders popping out after harmonic convergence. They could've done this for the next avatar for korra it was too early, if they had done it in the next avatar than tenzin's 4 kids (2 boys and 2 girls) would've been all grown up with there own kids, and would've been the masters of the 4 temples more ready to take on such a challenge, just like old times when 2 temples were set for boys and 2 for girls. Also the air bender master and gliding uniforms (I liked the color scheme but the colors weren't the same as the old masters like we were shown (didn't they want to preserve air nation history or whatever so why change it) and resembled fire nation like wtf why u wearing colors of the nation that murdered your ancestors asses). 4. Aang's kids were dicks. tenzin was freakin 51 in season 1, jenora was 10 and korra was 17 meaning aang never saw his grand kids and died while thinking the air nations future was uncertain or domed. If tenzin had gotten married at a normal age (love marraige wasn't that common during that time and people typically got married between 20-30) instead of 40 aang could've seen an air bending grandchild and died piece fully, also lets not forget the other two asses for aang's kids like yeah you got daddy issues but like who doesn't. get married and have a life of your own instead of bitching about the past at 60. If those 2 had gotten married than there was a chance 1 of there kids could've been also an air bender and tenzin would've been there kid's air bending master creating an even more interesting dynamic between the 3 rather than oh daddy ignored us maybe if they had given him air bending grand kids things could've changed. 5. ATLAB was set in old times so the whole world building was fun, korra moving towards the future wasn't as fun since we sort of have a real world comparison to it and korra's world building didn't make sense cz of mechs and giant robots. 6. The final battle was meh against (I can't even remember that earth bending chicks name also who had daddy issues which didn't make sense like they were trying to give some sort of message about mental health with korra suffering mentally but this chick got abandoned by her parents but than got better parents and yet was like this, like what does this prove??? no one's worth giving a shit??? or once someone is screwed in the head just leave them the fuck alone???) 7. Korra begging tenzin to be her master in season 1's start and than telling him to fuck off in season 2 and her dad hiding that her uncle was an ass was just terrible writing. 8. The little details that gave characters and world depth like how zuko used to make angry noises while fire bending when he was against aang but stopped making them once he joined aang. 9. Not making zuko use lightning in LOK, like I'm not asking for scar to be healed but him shooting lightning would've been a sign that he is now at piece. Specially considering in ATLAB finally azula was fucked in the head and yet was able to shoot lightning but no they couldn't have us seeing zuko shoot lightning. 10. Resetting the avatar cycle. Korra could not come back from this mistake. There were other things which I can't remember but this show was a mess and a terrible cash grab. I hope if and whenever we get a new avatar series it's set in the past (like 10-20 avatars before aang or someone said the a series about the 2nd avatar) cz the future on will be terrible considering all the shit they did in LOK.
Yea I agree that giant Kaiju Korra, super spirit genora saving rava, and Korra severing all her past lives were some of the biggest and dumbest blunders of this show really kinda shit on everything ATLA built and tore it down for no reason
The characters writing did it mostly for me korra is not likable character the avatar gang is a mess and the topics bold thats ok the love triangle was the worst idc that korra into girls or guys bc was rooting for the side characters tenzin familie was more intresting
TLOK just turned more and more into a soap opera in my eyes, with the whole "will they won't they", "getting with other characters, break up, getting with someone else in the group", "third act breaking up or memory loss" between multiple characters. Along with the fact that it 1) broke its own lore, with waterbender prisoners getting their arms restrained in the 1st series when getting water, cause their bending have them soley rely on their arm movements, while the waterbender antagonist in seasons 3 using water as arms, cause she doesn't have any, and Korra not struggling with her opposite element like all the others did with theirs. 2) That things were given unnessecary evil counterparts, with the white lotus=the red lotus, the good avatar=the dark avatar, grey spirits=undeniably evil spirits (plus the whole christian team with those 2 kite things). 3) Erasing the consequences from ATLA, as more skybisons that happened to be alive/found. 4) Adding stuff like lavebending (which Bolin mastered right away, and also seems like something only the avatar should be able to do, as it's a combination of fire and rocks) and suddenly being able to walk on air. 5) The anti bender leader bending able to take away bending as well now, when it was something Aang had to have gifted to him. 6) Korra unlocking airbending in the most unairbending way at the end of season 1, and then having no problem with it at the beginning of season 2. And 7) Korra constantly getting beaten by normal benders, while in her avatar state (which, if I remember correctly, she's granted and mmasters it between season 1 and 2).
1) The Waterbender prisoners were immobilized. Hama explictly states that their feet were also bound. We see benders of all four elements bending without using their arms in the original show. Also, Korra struggling with air as opposed to fire has to do with her personality and mindset. Aang struggles not with Earthbending as an element, but rather with standing his ground and waiting for an opportunity to strike as opposed to avoiding conflict and evading attacks. Korra struggled with air and the spiritual stuff rather than fire because her hotheaded personality is well-suited to firebending's focus on positive jing, but poorly suited to Airbending's focus on negative jing and high emphasis on spiritual stuff. 2) Theres no Christian stuff with Raava and Vaatu. They're a Yin-Yang thing, like the koi spirits. Theyre also never described as good and evil. Order and Chaos, light and dark, but never good and evil. There are certainly many criticisms to make of how Raava and Vaatu were handled as characters, but the fact that they exist as counterparts, and by extension that a dark avatar could exist, is not an issue. 3) It was confirmed before LoK's first season even aired that Aang discovered a small surviving herd of flying bison. Basically, same way that Dragons survived, a small isolated population went unnoticed. 4) Why *would* lavabending be something only avatars are capable of? Lava is just molten Earth, and waterbenders are able to freeze, melt, and even evaporate and condense water(though the ability to do the latter seems to be significantly more difficult). 5) Amon uses bloodbending to sever bending, not energybending. Essentially, he f*cks with the victim's chi paths, essentially a more permanent version of chi-blocking. 6) Korra was able to airbend(element of freedom) because, ironically, losing access to the other elements *freed* her of her fear of exactly this. This was the last thing preventing her from airbending, as she had been working towards it throughout the season. After this, she progressed quickly since she already knew a lot of the theory and forms and had been actively using airbending movements in pro-bending. Notably, while Korra continued to show that she's a prodigy with how quickly she learned, she still had not mastered it six months later. Aang, who was even more of a prodigy than Korra, was able to get to a similar point with Earthbending in less time once he learned to stand his ground. If you take issue with how Korra progressed as an Airbender but not how Aang progressed even faster as an Earthbender, then you are a hypocrite. 7) They kinda needed to nerf the avatar state to have any stakes for season two onwards. The avatar state was originally written to be a last-second power boost for Aang, hence why he only mastered it in the finale. Because LoK had to do seasonal villains since they weren't sure if it would get more seasons, this wouldn't have worked with Korra.
@@Missingno_Miner I can't take any of this serious, number two reaches so far to grace the show with a nuance that very clearly is not there. It's obviously just good and evil.
@@futurestoryteller I'm discussing the intent for Raava and Vaatu, what the goal for them was, in response to someone misrepresenting what they are. That it was executed poorly does not change the intent.
This actually makes a lot more sense to me now as a casual fan who didn’t get into either series until long after they released. I feel like LoK’s biggest issue is the fact that it felt like there weren’t ever really high stakes because every season had a completely different story and goals. The entirety of AtLA is building up to the finale, and the characters are all specifically written around how they view the singular, omnipresent conflict, which gives them a lot of depth and makes them feel human. In comparison, LoK’s conflicts are all “Korra vs. the villain of the week”, and characters are only written around the current themes that will be relevant for 12 episodes before going away again. Even if the ideas themselves are super compelling, the show doesn’t give itself enough time to expand on them and that’s reflected in both the stakes and the characters. It makes a lot more sense now knowing that the faster pacing wasn’t really a deliberate choice because of Nickelodeon’s execs
I think the fact that the show turned out as well as it did despite the production woes that it had is almost a miracle and a feat worthy of some form of praise in of itself 💀 I definitely disagree with some of the writing choices and direction that the show took (and hearing that Bryke had no plans of furthering the atla universe is very funny to hear after seeing the creation of the avatar studios) but the fact that it still turned out better than most plot-driven animated shows even a decade after it ended is pretty remarkable.
Clearly they viewed 'Character Depth' as 'Filler', there were many moments in the series where the show NEEDED another episode to let something breathe... The biggest thing that needed to be allowed to breathe was towards the end of the episode where Korra loses all but Air Bending. She needed a chance to struggle, try to get it back, fail, try to connect otherwise, let it sink in... before she finally connected with the earlier avatars to get it back... just 'Okay, thirty seconds of sad... and forget that!' was ugh. This sort of thing, and the HORRIBLE romance... were the bane of Korra. u.u I liked the show adequately, but it was nowhere as good as A:tLA... Also Korra as a character was awful, Bolin was great, Mokka was okay, Asami was rough, Lin Beifong was fun, Tenzin was fun, The Airbender Kids were fine, General Bumi was great... Except for Bolin, the 'core team' was a massive Drag on the series.
I absolutely agree! Before I started the show I was already spoiled that Korra would lose her bending and in my mind I was fully prepared for multiple episodes of her having the time to process all of this and also just time for character development and growth? I honestly was so perplexed when she got them back in the same episodes and it was just done in a few minutes and it was like nothing ever happened. Just felt so strange to me, considering how much time to grow they gave each character in Aangs story. It really felt like a missed opportunity for Korra
Thank you so much more making this video. Too many ungrateful people in the Avatar fandom hate on Korra without the context for why it had the issues it did. Like you said, its a miracle the show turned out as great as it did despite all the issues it had to face that the original show didn't and more people need to appreciate TLoK for that.
I don't think I could possibly disagree with this more. The fact that Korra was originally slated to be a standalone miniseries always floors me, because it wastes an astonishing amount of the viewer's time on the absolutely useless, boring and borderline indecipherable sport of "pro-bending." A lot of incredible pieces of art are made specifically under undue pressure and incredible restraints. Sure, maybe these guys don't work too well under pressure. However, even if I were to grant that _obviously_ the quality of the show would suffer under such meddling. The production quality of the show is rarely at issue with fans. They slashed the animation budgets, so why do most people who complain about it to this day think the animation looks incredible, and the writing is awful? Notice how the elevator pitch for Korra was to do Avatar, but avoid repeating themselves, through that avoidance they largely abandoned the themes of the show. Instead of going "Let's see how the water tribe, fire nation, and earth kingdom have changed in the 75 years since our original, and grown in a post war society, the Avatar's journey is an opportunity to explore that." They go "Pfft, travel the world - we already did that! It'll get boring if we do it again!" They were afraid that their worldbuilding would be exposed as shallow, so ironically they pvoted to make it shallower. You can't just say about everything "We did that, why repeat ourselves" because what you also did was tell a quality story. Wouldn't want to do that again! Also, and I said this a lot at the time, if they didn't want to repeat themselves they picked an... interesting project for that.
what i REALLY wanted that i never got that I DID for my own character Ming-mi i wanted more of Eska she was and IS my favorite character in the series and saw sooo much potential in her as a character that would over time melt to bolins charms while still having that edge but turned to loyalty and strength in protection, and thus my Ming was made lol
For whatever reason, this video didn't show up in my feed at all. It's happened before with a few of your videos. I don't know why. 😕 On another note, it was good to learn about this. Thanks, Shayne!
I think if they wanted tlok to work they shouldve made it in an entirely seperate world. Like showing or exploring different points of view is one thing.. erasing the whole premise of the show?.. like the fact every nation was build on parts of asia and the focus on martial art/accurate form when bending and they turned into western random whacking Like i Really dont see how 'multicultural' _asia_ would turn into yk.. europe.. it was already multicultural in the original show.. and none of it was european.. And im pretty sure the bending was based on martial arts with the idea of yk.. controlling the energy of the elements.. which was based on its respective martial arts style for a _reason._ And yea martial arts change.. but this just defeats the point. A sequel should build on and expand the universe.. especially if it isnt even 100 years appart. Not just erase everything the original show did Like.. the previous avatars and cultures have existed for centuries (considering the amount of past adult avatars).. Why would they just get rid of it.. Idk it feels icky. It just gives me some sort of elitism vibes.
Thank you man you summarized it perfectly so much unnecessary things were done in this show and I can somewhat understand not wanting to be a carbon copy of ATLA but that doesn’t mean disregard everything that it built and tear it down to show that you’re better or something
the best wit what they had is a pore excuse. they took the theams of easter style balance and replaced it with christianity. they took the unique and intresting spirits of the original and replaced them with generic "things" and again erased the theam of balance . in explaining the avatar cycle they compleatly ruined it., i honestly can't think of much of anything it did right. koras idea of helping people never evolved from who do i need to hit. the problem is they changed the vary soul of the show, and tried to tell stproes that wer to big for the time they had/
For me the TLOK is just a tiny bit worse than ATLA and that's basically because of the studio constantly throwing curve balls at the creators. The only issues it has for me is fast pasing amd the fact that in the last season the villain doesn't have a right motivation but that's because the episode that was supposed to revolve around that had to be changed to the recap episode. Otherwise I feel like the characters are really well made but you have to be able to really empathize with them cause some of the stuff they feel might be harder to catch (because of the fast pasing) or it might not be shown at all at which point you have to really tune in with the character and understand their feelings which I understand might be harder for some than others. Besides that I think the show is very good for it's target audience (kids) because let's be real kids don't usually try to find deeper meaning in shows but are there for the action and jokes (which are both fenomenal) and it's also great for mature audience who can find more complex problems and hidden meaning in it. (plus the amazing soundtrack also helps a lot with conveying emotions)
I wanted to see the Amon and Equalist story continue. Amon could’ve been responsible for worldwide terrorist attacks in the Fire Nation capitol and also Ba Sing Se. After gaining more support, he’s now not only wanted by United Republic, but also the other 3 nations. Turning the Equalist into like Isis or Al qaeda.
I think a big problem is having barely anything of a transition. I’d rather have seen adult Aang for 3 episodes and the transition to Korra with some flashbacks to things post ATLAB ending so we can see what’s led to this.
I remember trying to watch LOK in college with my roommate. For me, here are reasons it failed: 1) soulless characters who came across as K Mart versions of the originals. Mako is edgy fire guy… and that’s it. Bolin is funny guy… and that’s it. Korra is the totally strong girl boss who has essentially all the surface elements of Toff with none of the soul. Heck, even the Polar Bear dog thing is like “this is Appa… except less than half as cool” Etc etc. 2) Utter disrespect for the memory of original characters. What happened to Sokka and Suki? Don’t care. Who did Toff mary? Doesn’t matter. Zuko is still alive! Can we see a good bit of him? No. 3) It got preachy and it didn’t even make sense. Industrialism and capitalism is bad! Except when it totally works and makes everyone’s lives better in Republic city. Korra doesn’t need a romance, it’s not that type of story! Now accept this shoehorned LGBTQ twist. Equality is good! Except when this villain wants it, then it’s bad. Etc etc. 4) It was oddly depressing to watch. If you’ve ever seen the classic story arc, where things start off kinda good, get bad, then get much better after an uphill battle… that doesn’t really happen. It just starts “meh” and stays there forever. It’s like a flatline. No huge struggle, no huge triumph, it feels more like a villain of the week drama show than an Avatar journey.
Not to pigeonhole you, but you would think given what conservative asides you randomly throw out here you'd be a big fan of "Equality is good, except when the villain wants it" I mean, where do you even get "capitalism" or "industry" bad. What's Asami for then? Seems like it was mostly about how it's good and right to be part of the elite as long as you save people from themselves. If you saw criticism of those qualities maybe that says more about you
@@snintendog No, I have not. Now you explain to me why I should have assumed he had, when the first complete thought he had is "I remember *_trying_* to watch LOK"?
Just binged both series and i just dont personally get the notion that Korra is anything other than amazing. I actually liked Korra as a main character more than Aang but i think maybe that Mako and Bolin is less iconic than Sokka and Katara. The creators did an insanly good job building the world and characters in a natural way after the original series and has amazing scenes throughout the show. Korra has one problem, and that is Meelo. Cant wait to see what the studio cooks up next!
To say that Nickelodeon made decisions which seriously damaged Korra’s run is fair, but I think you are sweeping major issues in the story, character-building, world-building and consistency with the original series under a very large rug by saying fans of that original nitpicked this show. ATLA is fantastic. Korra’s writing was not only a let down for a lot of people - it was an insult.
The pacing of Korra is pretty strange for some reason. Sometime it feels like they are going somewhere with a scene to be a completely new scene in a second. A lot of unnecesary dialog that feels force. I was rewatching the season 3's episode where Lin was doing accupulture. So far so good, then she leaves the place, she sits on a chair in her bedroom for a while, sees Korra entering the room to then leave for accupulture again. I sure it makes sense if I have more air to breath between scenes but it's one scene next to the other. It makes it look rushed and unnecesary
I'm still having trouble believing that the alleged "creators" of Atla were the lone minds of that show. I do believe LoK is theirs since it was as corny and boring as they look.
The Legend of Korra is important to me even though I never finished it. When I was watching it was also when important moments of my childhood also happened.
@@Louis1059No, it is indeed a great show. If you look at it from a non-biased point of view, it's way up there with the best of its genre. 99% of the criticism this show gets is that its "NOT ATLA/ruins atla". Hardly valid critique if you wanna judge it fairly.
I disagree. It could have been much better and might have been comparable to ATLA. There’s a world where it’s just as good or maybe even better. Unfortunately we don’t live in that world
Let me help. "So why did [thing that was great, and probably shouldn't have failed/could have been great] fail?" "There's this thing called: management." "Ah."
I have to disagree with this video in terms of the end of it. To say, "Well, the series would have been amazing if Nick didn't screw it over," is ignoring all the logical pieces of criticism. You call it nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, but that's an ignorant way to view it. There is PLENTY to criticize about the show that isn't the fault of Nick. Overall, I enjoyed Season 1 even if it didn't get much room to breathe. However, to act like the show didn't have plenty of problems in its writing and storytelling is ridiculous. The romance in the show as terrible and had way too much focus, the addition of how the Avatar cycle started was lame and uninspired, the spirit world opening to everyone was ass, and the ending romance made no sense whatsoever. There's more but that's just a small bit.
Only if we had the money to first, remaster ATLA, with windscreen and full hd or even 4k and second do a complete remake of TLOK, with the same characters, but a lot more developed, arks continuing thought seasons, a more darker tone and Asami being bi and Korra being lesbian from the beginning, so no love triangle
I haven't watched your video yet, but in my opinion legend of korra is a solid series, I think people needlessly hated it because it was not as good as the last airbender.
The show runners worried more about who dates who rather than the plot itself. If I were to rewrite this show, Kuvira is the antagonist before Zaheer. After disbanding the attempted Metal Nation/Earth Empire, seeing the last villan be an Air Bender would be much more impactful.
I think that *Legend of Korra* should not live up to for *The Last Airbender* at all... *The Last Airbender* is a perfect show and it is not possible to do the same thing again.. *Legend of Korra* had some minor problems but generally I think it's a good show, different in a good way and a great sequel to *The Last Airbender*
I recently finished ATLA and just started watching LOK and am still on season 1 and I've gotta say, I'm really enjoying it. though I had to mentally prepare myself telling myself that it isn't ATLA and I was right. The Legend of Korra is not Avatar: The last Airbender but also, it's not suppose to be. It's supposed to be different and yet, it isn't. pushing boundaries and integrating sensitive topics to the young and bringing parts of Asian culture into America. they're both two great shows that shouldn't be treated as the same thing. thank you for my TED talk.
nah saying it’s all nickelodeon’s fault is stupid if that was true book 1 would have been great from start to end (since we only have one season let’s make it good kinda thinking) but it wasn’t, it was ass. - The equalists were not believable: they wanted to stop the benders oppression over the non-bender but they never showed non-benders being opressed aside for one scene. - Amon’s bloodbending abilty wasn’t clear at all. How does it work actually? How can bloodbending take your bending away for good? No explanation. - The way Korra got airbending was dumb - The way Amon got defeated was even more dumb (bro just ran away Korra didn’t even defeat him). - Pro bending scenes were kinda a waste of screentime imo - And that love triangle stuff was soo cringe. Now you’re telling me all of this was Nickelodeon’s fault?
finally some one same as me i though that i the only one was see that the writting is not good and you feel bored when you watching. i think actually reason the only the old show was good is because some characters were good in it for me zuko and iroh is the best the fire nation side was perfect
Only one scene? You need to rewatch, Korra at the beginning was oppressing the guy protesting at the park, The Triple Threat Triad gang was threatening a helpless shopkeeper, Tarrlok and his Metalbenders shut down the power supply of the an ENTIRE NEIGHBOURHOOD and then proceeded to arrest all of them just for being non benders, Hiroshi Sato's wife was killed by a firebender and his mansion was robbed. There's a couple more, so it wasn't only one scene and please pay attention next time. The part about bloodbending taking peoples bending away is simple, permanently blocking their chi like how Chi Blocking is temporary but permanent instead.
The love triangle stuff was cringe ngl and the probendinf stuff felt like filler or at least just a means to show that bending has evolved, no longer is bending traditional instead its more modern styles of fighting.
@@mikhaelis1447 the Tarlok scene was the one I was talking about. -Korra was not oppressing the guy at the park, he was just screaming to be oppressed and she answered and that's it. -The triple triad felt more some mafia threatening civilians, not like a bender gang threatening non-benders. - Hiroshi said his wife was killed, (said not showed) and it could have easily been an accident happened only to him, maybe she encountered a bad fire bender who knows, it's not like every non bender in republic city has had some family member taken away by benders, hence there was no real oppression. - and that's it, there isn't a "couple more scenes" where they show non benders being oppressed, so please pay attention next time I don't remember when in the show they explained that Amon permanently blocked the chi so I'll give you that
The problem of Legend of Korra the way I saw it is that, the current team Avatar lacked character development, but the DESCENDENTS of the Avatar before developed so much more than the team Avatar themselves. Korra and Asami's love story was never touched upon until the last part. Korra being a girl boss also became a hindrance and her motto "I'm the Avatar and you gotta deal with it." didn't give her any favors, as well as Asami who barely existed, compared to Katara who was also bossy but was also understanding at times, and Toph who was an asshole to Aang but was just really shy. Jinora who developed to connect well with spirits, her family and other Air Nomads, Ikki and Beifong sisters who was always angry with their siblings but at the end of the day they are still family. The women in ATLA and their lineage developed so much more than the main cast of LOK because they showed that having power is not their entire personality, and didn't have to be serious and stoic all the time unlike Korra, just to add, who even in the Avatar state couldn't defeat Kuvira and Unalaq, I give her the pass for Amon and Zaheer since their introduction really gave off an unsettling feeling for me at least.
ATLA- Great story and Great action 💯 TLOK- Great action and Great villains And if only they let Korra defeat the villains by herself while using the avatar state properly like aang did would've boosted this series up for me
I liked the Avatar wang episode, i didn't like killing all previous avatar incarnations that set so many plots not only for korra but for future avatars, Korra questioning the idea of previous avatars of balance seemed arrogant, the relationship had bad development, the vilains were good, but needed more development, a dark avatar? that is a very good idea, but the way he just became a Kaiju to be defeated, was dumb... there were bood ideas, just bad executed, buut the worst was how the incarnations of the avatar were killed, korra didn't had any relation with the avatar previous members, like Gyatsu were a friend of Avatar Roku and the became Aang's mentor but a friend too...
I'm not really willing to defend it to that degree. I can understand the pacing issues and characters not being as fleshed out as you would like from the successor to The Last Airbender, but what I can't is the blatent retconning of established lore from the former show. Season 2 was the biggest disappointment to the legacy of AtLA and not because it had a self contained store and not a lot of time to tell it. It's because the story they told could essentially be a fairy tale with no ties to anything. And the fact that Korra just magically has feelings for Asami is so forced I can't help but feel they only went for it because the show was no longer airing on cable TV and felt they could get away with it easier. Still not a terrible show and it was certainly held back. Just not by the studio alone.
@@lordtickledck7012 Exactly. People are always too willing to use the corrupt corporation argument. And yeah sometimes that's true and it very valid, but it's not a catch all. At the end of the day there's no excuse for lazy writing. It's a shame because with the original people working on the sequel you'd think it'd be incredible.
I remember watching seasons 3 and 4 exclusively on pirated websites because they didn't keep up with the show's release schedule in the US, which was every weekend or so. The dubbed versions of those seasons exist, but it took them waay too long to produce them. So yeah, they technically "aired" those seaons on the channel, but that was long after their actual release date.
I enjoyed The Legend of Korra the first time I watched it. But I am one of those people who like new stories, so I was hoping that it would be just like The Last Airbender. I was very pleased with how it turned out. I hope that any other Avatar series are treated with respect and the creates are allowed to create.
I truly think the legend of korra could've been amazing if they didn't make amon a one season villain. He was such a interesting and good villain. it could've been good if he returned for season 3 and 4 and that he was secretely a part of the red lotus and teamed up with zaheer to kill the avatar as they kinda has the same beliefs.
The thing is, I think a lot of the series wouldve still been bad even if Nickelodeon didnt interfere. Even the first season, which they intended to be a complete story on its own, has massive glaring issues that make it only a decent show at best. Season two is just a dumpster fire for reasons I shouldnt have to explain. I havent seen season 3 or 4 yet, but I do hear those ones are vastly improved compared to the first two.
Yup. When you've got a season being that short, you also gotta spend your time more wisely. Instead, they wasted time on trivial things like a third-rate love triangle, too much time on the pro-bending, making Bolin a second-rate Sokka etc. At least Sokka got character development by the third episode in ATLA.
Legend of Korra is the reason I watched avatar to begin with. My family didn’t watch tv growing up so I didn’t get to experience it live like most other people my age. I’d always generally heard good things about it but didn’t really know much, then when I was 20ish I saw a post that said “say what you will about Legend of Korra but name another show that ends with a multiracial lesbian couple walking off into the dawn of a new world” and since it’s so incredibly rare to see LGBT representation I had to watch it and I fell in love with the world of Avatar.
I started watching ATLA a year ago and every episode was a treat always making want to watch another but then I finished it and started watching Korra and by god it was awful, no longer did I want to continue I actively had to force myself to keep watching. Show had some interesting ideas but would need at complete rewrite and redo to be good.
Honestly, just like Avatar the last Airbender and Aang it was good and the legend of Korra just like the main character struggle to be its predecessor for a couple years but then later on the show became good and when you’re at your lowest point you’re open to the possibilities.”
I have never seen a show that deserves a from the ground redo in its original medium as much as Korra. Most of Korra's flaws stem from each season being the last until well into production. IF it could do larger, series spanning subplots at least, it would be a much stronger show
Exactly. We don't need live-action Aang. We need Korra done right. Animated Korra with the budget, episodes, and seasons to give it space to be what it needs to be. Not solving everything by the end of the seasons.
Why does anyone actually think this makes sense. If a story is self contained, with a finale, right up until the eleventh hour, then it should be a quality story in its own right. Not beholden to future plans or installments. Before the advent of "cinematic universes" this was literally all stories. That's _how_ you write them. Terminator was not written with Terminator 2 in mind. Alien was not written with Aliens in mind. Batman Begins was not written with The Dark Knight in mind. The Godfather was not written with The Godfather Part II in mind. Jaws was not written with Jaws 3D: The Revenge in mind. The reason I'm not using TV shows is because examples are more abstract, and arguably a touch esoteric. But yeah, they exist. Most shows in the history of television got off the ground with no certain future. Since that was the nature of the medium. They had to focus on what they could deliver right now. It's like people think that because they had obviously mapped out the original series being forced into going piecemeal is some kind of hinderence. Instead of the obvious advantage that it should be, if they actually have the skills to do what they set out to do in the first place, which is tell self contained narratives each season.
@@futurestoryteller The Original Avatar was a first of its kind in the west running animated narrative, using its various seasons to tell one large story. Most of Korra's weaknesses stem from lack of time in the plan to let things develop naturally. The character growth feels both rushed and forced, and several major changes to the world are just skimmed over like they didn't mean anything. I strongly believe them needing to scramble to write an additional season at the eleventh hour not once, not twice, but three times in a row, is to blame for many of these issues that did not exist in their earlier work
@@shadeblackwolf1508 It feels like you're forcing this conversation into a cycle, by accident. The emphasis was not on the nature of television production, the emphasis was on the nature of self contained storytelling. Instead of repeating myself I'll simply point out that at the very least this would do nothing to explain the problems with the first season - and my point is if they weren't prepared for that, they should not have bothered writing it.
I think yes, Airbender set the bar high, but i think assuming people would hate Korra because Airbender was so good discredits the audience. Korra still got a lot of views which is why it made it to 4 seasons against all odds. Many shows and movies get multiple seasons or sequels, because people are willing to give up their time, and or money to give these shows and movies a chance. If Korra was better, it would have been loved more. It's as simple as that. This video just spoke about how the storytelling process was sabotaged and was glued together like some zombie creature. No, it's not just that our expectations were high, and we didn't give it a fair shake. What made Airbender so good was the buildup and then payoff on 3 levels, episode, season, and then series. Korra was just a bunch of ideas and explosions, while trying to have ghost in the shell type of intrigue. Korra was an omelette, Airbender was a 4-course meal. That's it. We're not dumb or classless, the writers were sabotaged, and i appreciate them for walking out on the Netflix live action. DiMartino and Konietzco are the GOATS!
The one notion I just can't get onboard with, the thought that two different entities of media can't be good in their own regard. In my opinion LOK is just as good as LOA, just in a very different way.
I’ve always felt like LOK and LBA are two sides of the same coin, I don’t like choosing one over the other. While LBA was deeper and more impactful, LOK was tighter And kept its momentum going more regularly.
You heard of the phrase... "comparison is the thief of joy". Korra would always have detractors no matter how good it was. The new Black Panther Shuri, the new actor paying Superman. It's a never ending cycle. Korra was excellent imo.
Legend of Korra was genuinely so good up until the last moments of the last episode of the first season. It was just a steady decline for me ever since then. Although I can understand that the studio execs were too involved and even antagonistic to the show, the creators and writers still made some questionable choices. I hate that Korra ended the Avatar cycle. The treatment of the spirits was trash. The spirit blasts and spirit bending were also so cheap and unnecessary. They really watered down the fantastic lore that made us love Avatar in the first place and gave too much attention to specialised bending forms. I was so upset when I saw lightning benders working in a factory setting to generate energy for Republic City. Lightning Bending was such a coveted rare form of Fire Bending that only the members of the Royal Family were known to possess the skill and even among them, it was only mastered by the most prodigious of benders. I also have no idea how Bolin is a lava bender. How is an Earth Bender able to generate the sort of heat and energy to melt rock? The most upsetting detail was how all the random people suddenly got by airbending. Issues of genocide are real world problems that could have been explored in much more impactful and entertaining ways. It would have been amazing to see Aang's family travelling the world finding lost air nomad families that have been living in hiding for generations and the painstaking effort to restart their nation. Korra had moments that made me really love this franchise but ultimately, I am forever disappointed.
I think the major flaws are of Korra are: - they progressed the world too much too fast - they didn't treat spirits the same way they were treated in ATLA and it was a much less interesting take - they should've told smaller stories given they were writing one season at a time
tlok didnt have filler episodes. asami was kinda left out. she had less screen time than julie, even tho she was a romantic interest for mako and later korra
no filler episodes????? Nah we just had FILLER LOVE TRIANGLE ARCS and FILLER PROBENDING ARCS. They cut out Lawfare and the ACTUAL PLOT for FRIKEN FILLLER.
To me, The Legend of Korra fails to even be a "good" show started with her introduction. I was shown by Avatar that a TYPICAL Avatar needs years of training to master the elements and Aang was an exception due to the war. Yet, here was this toddler welding 3/4 of the elements? The love triangle sucked and unlike in Avatar didn't grow overtime. I get that season one was originally a "mini series" but they focused on it so much I ended up hating all involved. Republic City and it being a new nation from previously conquered territory of the Fire Nation IS a really good idea and a GREAT place for the show to be, but I felt like the technological jump was too jarring. ESPECIALLY when you see giant mecs in the later seasons!?! Maybe if we saw a more "19th century" era it would've felt more nature for the world to be evolving When it comes to the spirit world I COMPLETELY understand how Star Wars fans felt about medicholrions. I felt like both the back story, first Avatar, and Korra opening the spirit portal just ruined all the mysticism that was in the original show. On top of that remeber when blood bending only worked on a full moon? Remeber when lightening was only served for the most skilled fire benders? We didn't get to see how the general public got here these skills or how blood bending became commonly known? Going back to Star Wars, what Episode III did well for its ending was setup everyone in their place for Episode IV. That way more "general knowledge" things like the empire growing and/or how Leia joined the Rebellion is then setup for Episode IV. Compared to Korra or Episode VI where there is seemingly an entire film/season missing! You cant do that to an audience
Its annoying how companies don't do _anything_ to advertise their shows, and then act confused as to why the show starts getting less attention.
It's more complicated then that but lack of advertisement can be a huge factor.
@@Im-BAD-at-satire nickalodeon gave bryan and mike a ton of money to make more seasons of korra the nick suddenly switch time slots from season to season
This is not why the show was poorly received
@@ektran4205 I said ' can be' not that ' it was' here
It's so insanely backwards that Nickelodeon tiptoed around the production of Korra - never fully trusting its creators to make it the show it could be, and meanwhile Netflix shoves a poorly-written $150 million live action adaptation down our throats. Why can't we just have nice things?
id rather get a new season of korra or tlab then watch the live action
@@tyty17z You and everyone else. I'm so bored of recycled/remade content.
to be honest it wasnt that bad people perceived it to be sure theres plenty of things done poorly but for the average viewer its still a solid a live action series way better than the 2010 movie
Plus even in 2024 theres still a stigma around animations in mainstream appeal so im glad that the live action bought alot of new and broader audience to the franchise. i personally experiece this with my friends and family
the writing of the new life action really is that bad @@madara992it has tons of rookie film making mistakes
I think I recall watching an interview about LOK with it's director at one point, and it's only after listening to what he said about the plot for Korra that I finally understand why I couldn't enjoy TLOK like I did with ATLA
Basically, he said that TLOK WAS NOT written with the mindset of keeping ATLA's legacy, just the opposite actually, TLOK was written with the mindset of wanting to challenge it's predecessor, hence why they purposefully flip almost everything we know from ATLA upside down, like for example:
1. Korra started out as a prodigy for all the elements except air, while Aang started out as a prodigy of only one element that Korra couldn't master from the get go, air
2. The world was in a state of peace in Korra's era, while during Aang's time, chaos was spread all over the world
3. Korra's companions were all young adults on a journey to prove themselves, while Aang's companions were kids on a journey to discover themselves
4. And many, many more
So after I realized this, I finally know the problem. I was watching TLOK expecting it to give me the same vibe and feeling ATLA did, and since not only didn't give me the vibe I want, it gives almost the exact opposite, it made me disappointed and couldn't enjoy the series. So when I tried watching it as it is, without expecting it to be anything like ATLA, it actually did resolve many of my issues with the show, and while I still believe ATLA is the much better series, at least I do acknowledge TLOK as it's legacy, it's still a pretty good show overall, one that I wouldn't mind recommending to other people
Plus, Korra is different from Aang cause well, all Avatars are
We need more people with this mindset
tbh It's a wrong mindset for writing to begin with. Most of the modern entertainment with the mindset of challenging a successful predecessor often ends up really really bad (Neil challenging Joel in TLOU2 for example, and dont get me started on new Star War trilogy). Just because they want to challenge their predecessors, they changed every aspect that made the predecessor successful into something complete opposite, and ultimately turns out into a sh*tshow. Even I love korra as a character I cant see how her plot benefited, rather worsened, by a writers' mindset that want to challenge ALTA from every ways.
Their retconning of bending in book 2 and introducing a backstory that's even worse than midichlorians us what makes me dislike the show.
Personally, I liked TLOK despite it being different from ATLA, the only gripes I have with TLOK is I feel like it didn't stick the landing in a few but very crucial places and I wish it had. Otherwise I love what TLOK tries to be and the things it does do right.
I still remember after Zaheer killed the Earth Queen the series was yanked off the air and I just assume it was because he freaking suffocate someone on a children's show, no cutaway, no silhouette, just straight-up murder!
At least no children were being put in danger like the live action actors working for Nick at the time
The problem was korra didnt have enough time. Each volume needed at least double the number of episodes they got except maybe the finale volume of season 4. Also there wasnt much faith in korra from the money people or the majority of the writing staff so the effort put into the show was lacking for parts of it. It didnt help how antagonist parts of the korra staff and fandom was with classic avatar fandom not to mention how people were already burned out by shamalan
Not having enough time may excuse the antagonists of TOK being so undercooked but it doesn't explain how the main team have so little chemistry and how all of them, except Korra, aren't allowed to do much for the plot. The relevance distribution is so stacked against other characters that I can't even bear to watch the show and say that I enjoyed watching it.
@@happilyevernever4289I still think that’s an issue with the studio execs as opposed to the crew. If you’re expecting to make a short series, you only have so much time to use overall, for every character/storybeat. The fact that they kept getting the, maybe they’ll get another season treatment, really ruins what you can write, because if you decide to do set things, you could get canceled and never get the chance to write the payoff for what’s set up earlier. Korra still turned out relatively good, but had they known they were getting four seasons from the get go, i think a lot of aspects would have been stronger for the series overall.
@@happilyevernever4289 I think less episodes does partially factor into why team avatar's chemistry fell short. Aside from poor writing decisions in the love triangle, we also didn't get any full 'filler' episodes where the gang were just voluntarily hanging out in their downtime together without it being because they're planning against the villain of the season. Even just one episode of the 4 each going through their daily routines and then meeting together at the end would have done so much to show that they're actually close friends. The second main thing is that they're often separated doing their own thing since they're all working adults with jobs so we get less opportunities to see their dynamic in reactions
i think nickelodeon learned from this if I remember correctly they gave them their ow studio and gave them free reign over the next avatar tv shows movies etc. and probably a bigger budget
@@happilyevernever4289 Yeah no excuse with the team avatar. I still don't understand how they mess this up.
The legend of korra as you put it was almost destined to fail because last airbender was a lighting in the bottle.
I think they didn't have their head writer who took their ideas and grounded them into success like arron ehasz from the last airbender
Exactly. The creators were the creative minds behind the world, while Aaron would transform the ideas into a cohesive plot. Korra as an idea was good, the plot is just messy because Aaron wasn't there to ground it.
I'm always conflicted with this take because while Aaron being head writer was really key to bringing atla to life, it somewhat undermines the fact that so much of the show had a huge team of creators and writers, and it attributes so much of the show's magic to only one man. Don't get me wrong I agree that he's an important part of the show but tlok also had a sizeable cast of people behind it that were actively striving to make it good, even if it wasn't as big or well funded as atla.
i feel like if they just got all the seasons greenlit beforehand and reshuffled the events a little to make it make more sense chronologically the show could've been really good, Nickelodeon nerfed the shit out of it
Yeah while I prefer Book 3 and 4 to Book 2 in terms of scale it was weird going from a Dark Avatar and 10,000 years of darkness to an airbender who could fly and then a metalbender with a mech.
The ridiculous "love" triangle they had completely ruined the whole show.
Amen!
Agreed
Objectively wrong take. It lasted for at most 1.5 seasons, was lessened and completely ended in season 2 and even made fun of in the subsequent seasons. At best you could say it made seasons 1 and 2 WORSE, but thats about it (and even saying that doesn't make those seasons bad).
@@sir_whocampsalot2876 Nope. Social cues and moral are out the goddamn window in this show.
unpopular opinion, but it’s somewhat realistic for young adults to have horrible grasp on relationships
I think Korra had some really good fighting, but none of the different elements seemed unique. Everyone kinda just blasted their element, and they would have approximately the same effect on the person they just blasted. My assumption is that the creators just wanted to the fight scenes to look cool (which they did) and didn’t care for the martial arts styles that each element was based off.
In world explanation, I suppose would be that as the people where more united, they all kinda fuse their philosophies into one great whole. Sorta like Iroh explaining learning from the other elements to figure out lightning redirection.
Tenzin and Lin’s bending styles were more traditional while Korra’s and her friends’ were more “blast-y”. Now that I think about it we didn’t see much of each nation’s citizens bending styles, we mostly saw benders from a city where the cultures were blended together have very similar bending styles
No??? Thats not even remotely true. The fighting choreography is very similar to the originals.
Legend of Korra is such a beautiful mess that I love in spite of its flaws. No, it's not as good as ATLA, but how could it ever be, especially with Nickelodeon yanking the creators' chains all the time?
I can only imagine how it would have turned out if they were given a full series of four 13 episode seasons right from the get go to plan out. I imagine Amon would have been an ongoing villain who got fleshed out further beyond season one rather than the disappointing Unalaq in season 2. I did still very much enjoy Zaheer & and the Red Lotus and Kuvira, so I would hope they still appear in some way.
Overall, I actually think LOK has both some higher highs than the best of ATLA and some lower lows than the worst of ATLA. Overall, yes, ATLA is clearly the superior complete product, but man, did LOK have some seriously amazing things going for it too.
Korra had a lot of controversial moments at inopportune times. Like her getting deux ex machina air bending fix at rhe end of season 1, and the kaju fight at the end of season 2. Those moments left people with sour tastes in their mouths as they waited for the next seasons. By the time of season 3 the fan base had already turned on it.
Also that first avatar stuff was really cool, would've been a dope stand alone alternate universe special. But it wrecks the established lore and a lot of people, myself included never forgave them for that awful decision.
It wrecked the established lore at every turn from the getgo.
They broke the entire bending system by introducing new information that only destroys its former intricate and meticulous design.
By showcasing the "evolved" bending styles they killed the entire notion that bending needs proper form in order to function and thus takes diligent practice to move the elements just a little bit - which we later get confirmed at the bending arena when every element can now just be punched into existence. Ironically the perfect set up for the deus ex machina air bending you were talking about.
And worst of all is the non-sense they introduced to Air Bending with the BS spirituality crux.
Though Spirituality was always an important part of the Air Nomads life style, not once did anyone even implicate that said spirituality is needed to perform it because why would it when the other elements don't?!
And the worst part is they couldn't even stick to it!
First Korra suffers from her inability to air bend the entire season because of spirituality yet the deus ex machina proved it had nothing to do with it. But then they went ahead and added "Astral Projection" as a sub-skill because of the Spiritual mambo jumbo but it has nothing to do with Air or Bending in the slightest. We didn't need that!
And then they gave Zaheer (a guy who has been air bending for a mere week) the Ability to fly - something masters across hundreds of generations couldn't do including the avatar in his avatar state. And Zaheer tells us (face on camera) that that skill requires "letting go of ones earthly tethers" - which is then immediately betrayed by the fact that he's doing all of that because he is hell bent on turning the world anarchist.
I wanted to go over other butchered stuff like the spirit world as well but my rant is already too long already. Jesus this series drives me up the fucking wall!
Literally every single one of your "reasons" why people came to drop the show are things the show either address, has an in universe explanation, or is straight up false information haters made up to justify disliking TLoK.
Korra unlocking her airbending wasn't a dues ex machina. Between what we know about Chakra's from AtLA and the concept of Airbending mastery being linked to earthly tethers from book 3 of TLoK, both more than explain why Korra unlocked her Airbending when she did.
Korra becoming a giant spirit Kaiju makes just about as much sense as Aang doing literally the same thing at the end of Book 1 Water.
And Avatar's Wan story only adds more context to how bending works. Nothing about the established lore was wrecked. People still LEARNED how to control the elements the way AtLA taught us. TLoK only confirmed that people GAINED the ability to even control the elements to begin with.
If you don't like the mystery behind the Avatar being revealed, that's fine, but objectively, you can't say the show wrecked the lore because you didn't like the additional context.
If you and more people in the Avatar fandom took time to use some critical thinking about the issues you had with the show, you'd see that a lot of them aren't even the real issues the show actually had.
@@lincolnbeckett8791 you said chakras and tethers. What do eather of those things have to do with korra punching air into existence?
I don't even think Aang through a single punch to Air Bend in the entire shows runtime.
Remember at the beginning of the series when Katara the waterbending prodigy didn't just freeze the fire nation soldiers with the movement of her choice but had to adjust her shotty technique by turning her back on them first?
@@limazulu6192 Chakras are the flow of chi, which in both series is shown to be blockable both spiritually and physically. Korra struggled with air as much as Aang struggled with earth, because their spiritual philosophies made it difficult to learn, unless you forgot the entire internal struggle Aang had when learning earthbending to then just suddenly learn it, oh wait, neither of them suddenly learned it, they both trained extensively, picking up small things and the last hurdle was just doing it.
The bit about how pro-bending is just “punching elements” is so wrong and an actual insult to MMA and other forms for fighting sport, I can tell you now, if you think punch is the only thing you need to know to be a boxer then you’re gonna get a rude awakening if you step into a ring, and you were the one pointing out that shoddy techniques weren’t enough, goes to show you don’t know what shoddy is.
Lastly, Zaheer’s ability to fly being rooted in his letting go of earthly tethers isn’t ruined by his anarchistic ideologies, those ideologies are rooted in the belief of not needing earthly tethers to live, such as kingdoms and empires that are ruled and controlled by power and wealth, those ideologies are to the personal freedoms of the people not for his own selfish gain, he doesn’t force it on them, just gives them the opportunity to take it. If Zaheer’s earthly tethers are ruined by his philosophies then Aang in the first series should have never been able to control the Avatar state, as that require letting go of said tethers Katara being one of them, but we all know how that went.
@@massacremark6782 congrats you missed the point of every critique.
Korra's blocked chi is not the issue.
Korra sucks so hard at air bending she didn't earn it at all when she finally got it. And she didn't even use a proper technique to perform it.
That's why everyone calls it a deus ex machina.
The spiritual connection thing is a retcon from Korra that does this moment no favors either. Her connection is trash from the start of the season till the end of the season.
She didn't learn a thing properly and yet here she stands in defiance of all rules old and new doing it anyway.
Compare that to Aang. Aand had a mental hang up that caused him to be unable to bend and wasn't granted the ability unless he got through it.
Only after he learned to stand up to toph and be immovable was he able to bend a single rock. His first rock. And even then he wasn't allowed to use bending for anything else yet because he wasn't good enough.
Socca had to be rescued by toph.
I never said MMA wasn't a fine sport either.
I said bending simply doesn't work like that. These crazy movements people came up with aren't for show.
They dictate how the elements behaved.
By switching Marshall arts you imply it's all just telekinesis and has nothing to do with movement.
Remember how Aang needed a whole new stance to earth bend?
It tells you movement matters and cannot be arbitrarily changed.
And I don't give two shits what Zaheer believes in.
It's the fact he's fighting the world for it that rubs me the wrong way.
You can't have "let go" and still fight the whole planet.
Either you care enough to do something or you simply have no reason.
Make up your mind, you can't have it both ways.
Tbh Korra focused on villians more which I loved but that’s about the only thing they had going for it
True
I argue that while Nickelodeon was involved with most of the show's production problems, all of that has nothing to do with the story quality, which is ultimately what I think people look for. Book 1 was acceptable and gave a nice foundation that plenty of people watched, and Book 2 started strong, but suddenly turned from a morally gray conflict between Water Tribes to a black and white conflict about corrupted spirits and a goddamn "Dark Avatar", and that's not even mentioning that viewer numbers HALVED. In my eyes, it was not the production that killed the rest of the show, it was that Book 2's story was subpar at best and the fans adamantly did not like it, resulting in lower ratings/viewers, causing Nickelodeon to wag its finger at them. The drop in viewer numbers when Book 3 came along is STAGGERING compared to what came before. No amount of advertising was going to save a show whose story was not seen as good.
7:35 Yea for whatever reason the Avatar show killed the concept of the Avatar and gave us kaiju/mecha fight with barely any elemental combat really weird and confusing that no one came back?
exactly. and to this day, half the fandom still defends Korra's lost connection to her past lives. it's just such a weird hill to die on.
I like TLOK and have rewatched it a few times because it's pretty good. THAT however is awful lmao. I don't think anyone liked that part.
There's a few things to dislike, but plenty to love and enjoy.
Every time I've tried to watch TLOK I cpuld never finish the series. It just felt like stuff happens for the sake of there being a story to tell. The team didn't feel like they were truly connecting, it felt sort of hollow. There were really cool ideas and characters, but it just felt surface level. Korra was also an unlikable protagonist, and it felt like everything revolved around her even when it shouldn't. Idk if I'm making any sense here, but i just couldn't connect with the show. The call backs to ATLA was cool, and the world was cool enough.
So, you're criticizing a protagonist for having character flaws? Korra may have started out that way, but by Seasons 3 & 4 She grows as a person and is not as hot-headed as she was in Seasons 1 & 2, learns to be more mature, patient, self-sacrificing, & overall was more likable.
@doomarang3208 no...I'm criticizing the writing.
@@doomarang3208 She doesn't have character flaws. A character flaw is not strictly a list of trivial imperfections, it has to speak to a character's agency in their own story. The first season was meant as a self-contained story, and while people do criticize Korra's behavior within it, the obstacles she faces are not in any meaningful way the consequences of those behaviors. Amon is just exploiting a growing contempt for benders, a contempt that's given very little substance or weight despite its self-evidence, and because of that it reflects on Korra's personal shortcomings in a way that insinuates to us that people are just hating on her (a bender) because she is (since benders are) awesome. Despite plans for Season 1 being a miniseries, Korra does not change and it still all works out in the end. So even if we take it at face value, like so many fans do with the Equalists, that the people who criticize Korra have a point, even from the perspective of the narrative, it's not necessary for Korra to change, just like it's not necessary for Republic City to change for us to move on without taking those issues seriously. In other words it pays lipservice to an idea. Those toothless words are the _only_ indication we get that the story sees any of these problems as problems, so accepting that they _are_ is actually taking them on faith.
You know the saying "you don't get a second chance to make a first impression?" Korra had 12 episodes to make a first impression, and by your own admission it takes two season for her to mature. Completely setting aside the question of whether or not this is actually the case given the points I laid out, the fact that the showrunners may have course corrected after criticism is always a possibility. I know that like the whole point of this video is that it's hard to take a straight path when someone keeps putting up roadblocks. But the relationship between Korra's faults and her character development isn't cohesive, so the mere fact that she changes at all, is again less of a story, and more of a triviality. It's just a thing that happens, that doesn't mean it naturally relates to anything else.
It’s so insane that Nickelodeon refused to green light a full set of seasons. ATLA was the biggest show they had since Fairly Odd Parents and SpongeBob, of course a sequel series is gonna do insane numbers, why are you selling them short and not letting them work?
Dan schneider cant molest children on an animated show
As a person at the time viewer I would tell you the reason for the ratings declined: the love triangles, squares and polygons
I think the Legend of Korra's greatest strength is how each Book dealt with a different villain that each challenged the world's notions, but just went about it in rather evil ways
Some a bit more flatly like Unalaq, without much depth other than "mwahahaha I am become Avatar Satan", but that aside, he did want to see humans and spirits live with each other again just like they used to (even if he just wanted to rule over 'em both)
But then you have a man like Zaheer, who is ironically even more spiritual than the aforementioned-- he's philosophical, and in a sense, he feels like he's on an impossible journey to topple the oppressive governments and regimes of the world alongside his group of friends, making him a sort of evil counterpart to Aang and Team Avatar
I like how they "didn't want to repeat themselves" but they didn't think "they're right... but *evil!"* for four seasons was repetitive. Especially given how shallow and self-contradictory it is, having Korra maintain the status quo anyway.
I think the main problem with Korra is it was more about the fights than it was about the people. Avatar was more about the people than the fights. A good fight is always fun to watch but what is remembered by history is always people.
@7:31 I blame book 2 finale (2 episodes); I remember the tumblrs were raging over how terribly it was executed. I think this detracted people from watching book 3. I approximate 1/4 of the viewers from book 2 continued to book 3, and 3/4 straight up quit initially. The main complaints was the ridiculous unvaatu and korra fight and most controversial korra losing her past lives
As Benny once said. "The game was rigged from the start"
korra losing her past lives was what ruined it for me. besides having the ability to master all elements, the avatar's past lives were what made the avatar the avatar. same people say "it would've reset anyway bc the evil kite and good kite have to fight every 10,000 years" and I agree that's true but they shouldn't have included that in the season. just change the first avatar's story a bit by removing that 10,000 years part.
I got a better idea. Don't write any of that garbage
They should have made a season 4 of Avatar The Last Airbender. There should have been more time in between Korra and ATLA to better flush out the world and story for Korra's series.
anyone really enjoyed season 1 of the show only to be dissapointed for the rest of the entire series?
Thank you for explaining the tortured history of Legend of Korra. Although I thought that I had watched the whole series, I had started seeing clips that I did not remember. It turns out that I had missed at least one season.
I was an adult by the time ATLA came on and watched it with my children. I would not say that it was perfect, but it is definitely one of the best animated series I have seen. Being an adult and having worked in a couple countries prior to watching ATLA, the segregation of the different bender tribes made me a bit uncomfortable. Legend of Korra dealt a bit with that since the world had become more ethnically mixed in the interim. I enjoyed Legend of Kora, but not as much as the earlier series. I had not really thought much about it, but it is likely that the confusion behind the scenes is part of what caused LOK to feel less consistent and satisfying.
What countries and did you only work in the city? Most old-world countries are very homogenous.
Last airbender was good but the thing that keeps it from being perfect was how god awful the climax vs ozai was.
Legend of korra had some absolute banger moments but it falls into the trap many sequals do where they power creep to try and draw excitement in while forgetting that the power level of characters doesn't need to increase, the story needs to evolve instead.
Korra was reallly damn good for the most part. They did that show so dirty tho
To me, a sequel should not be a retelling of the original material with some minor tweaks and changes. A sequel should challenge the messages and ideas presented by its predecessor. It should be a different approach to a world that we already know. It should build upon it, while also being able to do something that feels unique and fresh, but still consistent with the rest of the world.
People make a mistake by going into a sequel expecting to feel the same thing that the original made them feel and have a similar experience. The fact of the matter is you should go in there expecting to be challenged and presented with a new proposition that maybe you hadn’t thought about before.
I dont think challenging the ideas and messages of the atla story would be a good idea.. considering its yk.. war bad
@@mikado_m That's not even the only issue, by a longshot. As I said in a previous comment DiMartino and Konietzko just assumed adhering to the rules established in Airbender, like traveling to all four nations to train, were repetative, when what they're actually doing is abandoning their best most natural opportunity to expand their world and gradually catch us up on how much it has *changed* since the original ended. To introduce us to new characters, and see how Korra reacts to distinct cultures differently from Aang. If a sequel is naturally in conversation with the original this borders on arguing it should ignore everything it said.
I remember how annoying it was when they said Korra mastered all three elements right away, again, because they didn't want to repeat themselves, by forcing her to learn all the bending styles, but also that the one she couldn't nail down was airbending because she's "so different from Aang" - but her stubborness about Airbending is exactly like Aangs ban on firebending. They did repeat themselves; and despite how simple and easy it would've been to just have Korra already be a master of all four elements, thus not wasting the audiences time, because she's already so much older than Aang, they needlessly make her more skilled by birth.
The thing is Korra isn't challenging, it's a challenge. I think the idea that Korra is just different because it has different things to say and people are only skeptical about it because they want more of the same is naive and obtuse.
Saying "Why don't I reverse course." is only interesting if you know why you're doing it. "I don't want to repeat myself" is not even close to a good enough reason. No on said you had to, and more importantly if you only just don't want to repeat yourself... don't make more Avatar 🤷♂ k, hoss?
The problem I had with korra was
1. All the dating shit (it was done extremely poorly).
2. Technology advancing at a weirdly fast pace (I know bending helps but seriously mechs and giant robots? like yeah bending helps but the human brain is still the same).
3. They sort of took a short cut with the whole air benders popping out after harmonic convergence. They could've done this for the next avatar for korra it was too early, if they had done it in the next avatar than tenzin's 4 kids (2 boys and 2 girls) would've been all grown up with there own kids, and would've been the masters of the 4 temples more ready to take on such a challenge, just like old times when 2 temples were set for boys and 2 for girls. Also the air bender master and gliding uniforms (I liked the color scheme but the colors weren't the same as the old masters like we were shown (didn't they want to preserve air nation history or whatever so why change it) and resembled fire nation like wtf why u wearing colors of the nation that murdered your ancestors asses).
4. Aang's kids were dicks. tenzin was freakin 51 in season 1, jenora was 10 and korra was 17 meaning aang never saw his grand kids and died while thinking the air nations future was uncertain or domed. If tenzin had gotten married at a normal age (love marraige wasn't that common during that time and people typically got married between 20-30) instead of 40 aang could've seen an air bending grandchild and died piece fully, also lets not forget the other two asses for aang's kids like yeah you got daddy issues but like who doesn't. get married and have a life of your own instead of bitching about the past at 60. If those 2 had gotten married than there was a chance 1 of there kids could've been also an air bender and tenzin would've been there kid's air bending master creating an even more interesting dynamic between the 3 rather than oh daddy ignored us maybe if they had given him air bending grand kids things could've changed.
5. ATLAB was set in old times so the whole world building was fun, korra moving towards the future wasn't as fun since we sort of have a real world comparison to it and korra's world building didn't make sense cz of mechs and giant robots.
6. The final battle was meh against (I can't even remember that earth bending chicks name also who had daddy issues which didn't make sense like they were trying to give some sort of message about mental health with korra suffering mentally but this chick got abandoned by her parents but than got better parents and yet was like this, like what does this prove??? no one's worth giving a shit??? or once someone is screwed in the head just leave them the fuck alone???)
7. Korra begging tenzin to be her master in season 1's start and than telling him to fuck off in season 2 and her dad hiding that her uncle was an ass was just terrible writing.
8. The little details that gave characters and world depth like how zuko used to make angry noises while fire bending when he was against aang but stopped making them once he joined aang.
9. Not making zuko use lightning in LOK, like I'm not asking for scar to be healed but him shooting lightning would've been a sign that he is now at piece. Specially considering in ATLAB finally azula was fucked in the head and yet was able to shoot lightning but no they couldn't have us seeing zuko shoot lightning.
10. Resetting the avatar cycle. Korra could not come back from this mistake.
There were other things which I can't remember but this show was a mess and a terrible cash grab. I hope if and whenever we get a new avatar series it's set in the past (like 10-20 avatars before aang or someone said the a series about the 2nd avatar) cz the future on will be terrible considering all the shit they did in LOK.
Yea I agree that giant Kaiju Korra, super spirit genora saving rava, and Korra severing all her past lives were some of the biggest and dumbest blunders of this show really kinda shit on everything ATLA built and tore it down for no reason
The characters writing did it mostly for me korra is not likable character the avatar gang is a mess and the topics bold thats ok the love triangle was the worst idc that korra into girls or guys bc was rooting for the side characters tenzin familie was more intresting
TLOK just turned more and more into a soap opera in my eyes, with the whole "will they won't they", "getting with other characters, break up, getting with someone else in the group", "third act breaking up or memory loss" between multiple characters.
Along with the fact that it 1) broke its own lore, with waterbender prisoners getting their arms restrained in the 1st series when getting water, cause their bending have them soley rely on their arm movements, while the waterbender antagonist in seasons 3 using water as arms, cause she doesn't have any, and Korra not struggling with her opposite element like all the others did with theirs.
2) That things were given unnessecary evil counterparts, with the white lotus=the red lotus, the good avatar=the dark avatar, grey spirits=undeniably evil spirits (plus the whole christian team with those 2 kite things).
3) Erasing the consequences from ATLA, as more skybisons that happened to be alive/found.
4) Adding stuff like lavebending (which Bolin mastered right away, and also seems like something only the avatar should be able to do, as it's a combination of fire and rocks) and suddenly being able to walk on air.
5) The anti bender leader bending able to take away bending as well now, when it was something Aang had to have gifted to him.
6) Korra unlocking airbending in the most unairbending way at the end of season 1, and then having no problem with it at the beginning of season 2.
And 7) Korra constantly getting beaten by normal benders, while in her avatar state (which, if I remember correctly, she's granted and mmasters it between season 1 and 2).
1) The Waterbender prisoners were immobilized. Hama explictly states that their feet were also bound. We see benders of all four elements bending without using their arms in the original show.
Also, Korra struggling with air as opposed to fire has to do with her personality and mindset. Aang struggles not with Earthbending as an element, but rather with standing his ground and waiting for an opportunity to strike as opposed to avoiding conflict and evading attacks. Korra struggled with air and the spiritual stuff rather than fire because her hotheaded personality is well-suited to firebending's focus on positive jing, but poorly suited to Airbending's focus on negative jing and high emphasis on spiritual stuff.
2) Theres no Christian stuff with Raava and Vaatu. They're a Yin-Yang thing, like the koi spirits. Theyre also never described as good and evil. Order and Chaos, light and dark, but never good and evil. There are certainly many criticisms to make of how Raava and Vaatu were handled as characters, but the fact that they exist as counterparts, and by extension that a dark avatar could exist, is not an issue.
3) It was confirmed before LoK's first season even aired that Aang discovered a small surviving herd of flying bison. Basically, same way that Dragons survived, a small isolated population went unnoticed.
4) Why *would* lavabending be something only avatars are capable of? Lava is just molten Earth, and waterbenders are able to freeze, melt, and even evaporate and condense water(though the ability to do the latter seems to be significantly more difficult).
5) Amon uses bloodbending to sever bending, not energybending. Essentially, he f*cks with the victim's chi paths, essentially a more permanent version of chi-blocking.
6) Korra was able to airbend(element of freedom) because, ironically, losing access to the other elements *freed* her of her fear of exactly this. This was the last thing preventing her from airbending, as she had been working towards it throughout the season. After this, she progressed quickly since she already knew a lot of the theory and forms and had been actively using airbending movements in pro-bending. Notably, while Korra continued to show that she's a prodigy with how quickly she learned, she still had not mastered it six months later. Aang, who was even more of a prodigy than Korra, was able to get to a similar point with Earthbending in less time once he learned to stand his ground. If you take issue with how Korra progressed as an Airbender but not how Aang progressed even faster as an Earthbender, then you are a hypocrite.
7) They kinda needed to nerf the avatar state to have any stakes for season two onwards. The avatar state was originally written to be a last-second power boost for Aang, hence why he only mastered it in the finale. Because LoK had to do seasonal villains since they weren't sure if it would get more seasons, this wouldn't have worked with Korra.
@@Missingno_Miner I can't take any of this serious, number two reaches so far to grace the show with a nuance that very clearly is not there. It's obviously just good and evil.
@@futurestoryteller I'm discussing the intent for Raava and Vaatu, what the goal for them was, in response to someone misrepresenting what they are. That it was executed poorly does not change the intent.
@@Missingno_Miner Who cares? How am I supposed to even know where your got that from?
@@futurestoryteller "How am I supposed to even know where your(sic) got that from?"
You mean... literally the show? This isn't some obscure secret.
This actually makes a lot more sense to me now as a casual fan who didn’t get into either series until long after they released. I feel like LoK’s biggest issue is the fact that it felt like there weren’t ever really high stakes because every season had a completely different story and goals. The entirety of AtLA is building up to the finale, and the characters are all specifically written around how they view the singular, omnipresent conflict, which gives them a lot of depth and makes them feel human. In comparison, LoK’s conflicts are all “Korra vs. the villain of the week”, and characters are only written around the current themes that will be relevant for 12 episodes before going away again. Even if the ideas themselves are super compelling, the show doesn’t give itself enough time to expand on them and that’s reflected in both the stakes and the characters. It makes a lot more sense now knowing that the faster pacing wasn’t really a deliberate choice because of Nickelodeon’s execs
I think the fact that the show turned out as well as it did despite the production woes that it had is almost a miracle and a feat worthy of some form of praise in of itself 💀 I definitely disagree with some of the writing choices and direction that the show took (and hearing that Bryke had no plans of furthering the atla universe is very funny to hear after seeing the creation of the avatar studios) but the fact that it still turned out better than most plot-driven animated shows even a decade after it ended is pretty remarkable.
The ready or not lore guy has good taste in tv shows! These videos are pretty cool
Clearly they viewed 'Character Depth' as 'Filler', there were many moments in the series where the show NEEDED another episode to let something breathe... The biggest thing that needed to be allowed to breathe was towards the end of the episode where Korra loses all but Air Bending. She needed a chance to struggle, try to get it back, fail, try to connect otherwise, let it sink in... before she finally connected with the earlier avatars to get it back... just 'Okay, thirty seconds of sad... and forget that!' was ugh.
This sort of thing, and the HORRIBLE romance... were the bane of Korra. u.u
I liked the show adequately, but it was nowhere as good as A:tLA... Also Korra as a character was awful, Bolin was great, Mokka was okay, Asami was rough, Lin Beifong was fun, Tenzin was fun, The Airbender Kids were fine, General Bumi was great... Except for Bolin, the 'core team' was a massive Drag on the series.
I absolutely agree! Before I started the show I was already spoiled that Korra would lose her bending and in my mind I was fully prepared for multiple episodes of her having the time to process all of this and also just time for character development and growth? I honestly was so perplexed when she got them back in the same episodes and it was just done in a few minutes and it was like nothing ever happened. Just felt so strange to me, considering how much time to grow they gave each character in Aangs story. It really felt like a missed opportunity for Korra
Thank you so much more making this video. Too many ungrateful people in the Avatar fandom hate on Korra without the context for why it had the issues it did. Like you said, its a miracle the show turned out as great as it did despite all the issues it had to face that the original show didn't and more people need to appreciate TLoK for that.
I don't think I could possibly disagree with this more. The fact that Korra was originally slated to be a standalone miniseries always floors me, because it wastes an astonishing amount of the viewer's time on the absolutely useless, boring and borderline indecipherable sport of "pro-bending."
A lot of incredible pieces of art are made specifically under undue pressure and incredible restraints. Sure, maybe these guys don't work too well under pressure. However, even if I were to grant that _obviously_ the quality of the show would suffer under such meddling. The production quality of the show is rarely at issue with fans. They slashed the animation budgets, so why do most people who complain about it to this day think the animation looks incredible, and the writing is awful?
Notice how the elevator pitch for Korra was to do Avatar, but avoid repeating themselves, through that avoidance they largely abandoned the themes of the show. Instead of going "Let's see how the water tribe, fire nation, and earth kingdom have changed in the 75 years since our original, and grown in a post war society, the Avatar's journey is an opportunity to explore that." They go "Pfft, travel the world - we already did that! It'll get boring if we do it again!" They were afraid that their worldbuilding would be exposed as shallow, so ironically they pvoted to make it shallower. You can't just say about everything "We did that, why repeat ourselves" because what you also did was tell a quality story. Wouldn't want to do that again! Also, and I said this a lot at the time, if they didn't want to repeat themselves they picked an... interesting project for that.
I thought the Orginal idea was the ATLA world was going to be a post Atlantis type world. Momo was going to be a survived robot from "Atlantis".
wtf?
Not as much the original idea, as a simple "What if it was this? " while they were trying to actually make the world of the show.
what i REALLY wanted that i never got that I DID for my own character Ming-mi i wanted more of Eska she was and IS my favorite character in the series and saw sooo much potential in her as a character that would over time melt to bolins charms while still having that edge but turned to loyalty and strength in protection, and thus my Ming was made lol
For whatever reason, this video didn't show up in my feed at all. It's happened before with a few of your videos. I don't know why. 😕 On another note, it was good to learn about this. Thanks, Shayne!
I think if they wanted tlok to work they shouldve made it in an entirely seperate world.
Like showing or exploring different points of view is one thing.. erasing the whole premise of the show?.. like the fact every nation was build on parts of asia and the focus on martial art/accurate form when bending and they turned into western random whacking
Like i Really dont see how 'multicultural' _asia_ would turn into yk.. europe.. it was already multicultural in the original show.. and none of it was european..
And im pretty sure the bending was based on martial arts with the idea of yk.. controlling the energy of the elements.. which was based on its respective martial arts style for a _reason._ And yea martial arts change.. but this just defeats the point.
A sequel should build on and expand the universe.. especially if it isnt even 100 years appart. Not just erase everything the original show did
Like.. the previous avatars and cultures have existed for centuries (considering the amount of past adult avatars)..
Why would they just get rid of it..
Idk it feels icky.
It just gives me some sort of elitism vibes.
Thank you man you summarized it perfectly so much unnecessary things were done in this show and I can somewhat understand not wanting to be a carbon copy of ATLA but that doesn’t mean disregard everything that it built and tear it down to show that you’re better or something
the best wit what they had is a pore excuse. they took the theams of easter style balance and replaced it with christianity. they took the unique and intresting spirits of the original and replaced them with generic "things" and again erased the theam of balance . in explaining the avatar cycle they compleatly ruined it., i honestly can't think of much of anything it did right. koras idea of helping people never evolved from who do i need to hit. the problem is they changed the vary soul of the show, and tried to tell stproes that wer to big for the time they had/
For me the TLOK is just a tiny bit worse than ATLA and that's basically because of the studio constantly throwing curve balls at the creators. The only issues it has for me is fast pasing amd the fact that in the last season the villain doesn't have a right motivation but that's because the episode that was supposed to revolve around that had to be changed to the recap episode. Otherwise I feel like the characters are really well made but you have to be able to really empathize with them cause some of the stuff they feel might be harder to catch (because of the fast pasing) or it might not be shown at all at which point you have to really tune in with the character and understand their feelings which I understand might be harder for some than others. Besides that I think the show is very good for it's target audience (kids) because let's be real kids don't usually try to find deeper meaning in shows but are there for the action and jokes (which are both fenomenal) and it's also great for mature audience who can find more complex problems and hidden meaning in it. (plus the amazing soundtrack also helps a lot with conveying emotions)
I wanted to see the Amon and Equalist story continue. Amon could’ve been responsible for worldwide terrorist attacks in the Fire Nation capitol and also Ba Sing Se. After gaining more support, he’s now not only wanted by United Republic, but also the other 3 nations. Turning the Equalist into like Isis or Al qaeda.
I think a big problem is having barely anything of a transition. I’d rather have seen adult Aang for 3 episodes and the transition to Korra with some flashbacks to things post ATLAB ending so we can see what’s led to this.
I remember trying to watch LOK in college with my roommate. For me, here are reasons it failed:
1) soulless characters who came across as K Mart versions of the originals. Mako is edgy fire guy… and that’s it. Bolin is funny guy… and that’s it. Korra is the totally strong girl boss who has essentially all the surface elements of Toff with none of the soul. Heck, even the Polar Bear dog thing is like “this is Appa… except less than half as cool” Etc etc.
2) Utter disrespect for the memory of original characters. What happened to Sokka and Suki? Don’t care. Who did Toff mary? Doesn’t matter. Zuko is still alive! Can we see a good bit of him? No.
3) It got preachy and it didn’t even make sense. Industrialism and capitalism is bad! Except when it totally works and makes everyone’s lives better in Republic city. Korra doesn’t need a romance, it’s not that type of story! Now accept this shoehorned LGBTQ twist. Equality is good! Except when this villain wants it, then it’s bad. Etc etc.
4) It was oddly depressing to watch. If you’ve ever seen the classic story arc, where things start off kinda good, get bad, then get much better after an uphill battle… that doesn’t really happen. It just starts “meh” and stays there forever. It’s like a flatline. No huge struggle, no huge triumph, it feels more like a villain of the week drama show than an Avatar journey.
Not to pigeonhole you, but you would think given what conservative asides you randomly throw out here you'd be a big fan of "Equality is good, except when the villain wants it"
I mean, where do you even get "capitalism" or "industry" bad. What's Asami for then? Seems like it was mostly about how it's good and right to be part of the elite as long as you save people from themselves. If you saw criticism of those qualities maybe that says more about you
@@futurestoryteller did you even watch Season 3 and the Marx revolution?
@@snintendog No, I have not. Now you explain to me why I should have assumed he had, when the first complete thought he had is "I remember *_trying_* to watch LOK"?
Just binged both series and i just dont personally get the notion that Korra is anything other than amazing. I actually liked Korra as a main character more than Aang but i think maybe that Mako and Bolin is less iconic than Sokka and Katara.
The creators did an insanly good job building the world and characters in a natural way after the original series and has amazing scenes throughout the show.
Korra has one problem, and that is Meelo.
Cant wait to see what the studio cooks up next!
the big thing holding korra down for me is the awful book 1 finale and fhe even more abysmal entire of book 2. Book 3 and 4 are good tho.
To say that Nickelodeon made decisions which seriously damaged Korra’s run is fair, but I think you are sweeping major issues in the story, character-building, world-building and consistency with the original series under a very large rug by saying fans of that original nitpicked this show. ATLA is fantastic. Korra’s writing was not only a let down for a lot of people - it was an insult.
Way too many people give the writers a pass.
The pacing of Korra is pretty strange for some reason. Sometime it feels like they are going somewhere with a scene to be a completely new scene in a second. A lot of unnecesary dialog that feels force. I was rewatching the season 3's episode where Lin was doing accupulture. So far so good, then she leaves the place, she sits on a chair in her bedroom for a while, sees Korra entering the room to then leave for accupulture again. I sure it makes sense if I have more air to breath between scenes but it's one scene next to the other. It makes it look rushed and unnecesary
TLOK had potential. Being threatened by the network every season did not help.
True
I'm still having trouble believing that the alleged "creators" of Atla were the lone minds of that show. I do believe LoK is theirs since it was as corny and boring as they look.
It's already a well known fact that they weren't the "lone" minds of that show.
@@futurestoryteller
Yet, it's only their names mentioned in conjunction with the show.
@@wolvmarine313 Aaron Ehasz. If you're not 12 people mentioned him all the time.
The Legend of Korra was a great show. Not as good as the first but still rememberable. I never really noticed any issues with myself though.
Saying that it was great is very generous. It was just okay. A whole lot of factors played into this cluster *uck.
The Legend of Korra is important to me even though I never finished it. When I was watching it was also when important moments of my childhood also happened.
@@Louis1059 to you, maybe. I enjoyed it, it was great.
@@Louis1059No, it is indeed a great show. If you look at it from a non-biased point of view, it's way up there with the best of its genre. 99% of the criticism this show gets is that its "NOT ATLA/ruins atla". Hardly valid critique if you wanna judge it fairly.
@@Louis1059It was a great show. It wasn’t like Atla but it didn’t need to be.
I disagree. It could have been much better and might have been comparable to ATLA. There’s a world where it’s just as good or maybe even better. Unfortunately we don’t live in that world
Let me help.
"So why did [thing that was great, and probably shouldn't have failed/could have been great] fail?"
"There's this thing called: management."
"Ah."
"I'm the avatar! You have to deal with it!"
Yeah, "management".
I have to disagree with this video in terms of the end of it. To say, "Well, the series would have been amazing if Nick didn't screw it over," is ignoring all the logical pieces of criticism. You call it nitpicking for the sake of nitpicking, but that's an ignorant way to view it. There is PLENTY to criticize about the show that isn't the fault of Nick. Overall, I enjoyed Season 1 even if it didn't get much room to breathe. However, to act like the show didn't have plenty of problems in its writing and storytelling is ridiculous. The romance in the show as terrible and had way too much focus, the addition of how the Avatar cycle started was lame and uninspired, the spirit world opening to everyone was ass, and the ending romance made no sense whatsoever. There's more but that's just a small bit.
This series deserves a remake.
Only if we had the money to first, remaster ATLA, with windscreen and full hd or even 4k and second do a complete remake of TLOK, with the same characters, but a lot more developed, arks continuing thought seasons, a more darker tone and Asami being bi and Korra being lesbian from the beginning, so no love triangle
I haven't watched your video yet, but in my opinion legend of korra is a solid series, I think people needlessly hated it because it was not as good as the last airbender.
I thought The Legend of Korra was horrible. When I first heard about it, I had high hopes for it, but it wasn't as interesting as The Last Airbender.
The show runners worried more about who dates who rather than the plot itself. If I were to rewrite this show, Kuvira is the antagonist before Zaheer. After disbanding the attempted Metal Nation/Earth Empire, seeing the last villan be an Air Bender would be much more impactful.
I still love Korra, even though season 2 was the worst. I still really love the characters and setting.
I know it’s for copyright reasons, but the scenes being inverted really throws me off
I think calling it “ The legend “ before the name was a bad idea.
I think that *Legend of Korra* should not live up to for *The Last Airbender* at all... *The Last Airbender* is a perfect show and it is not possible to do the same thing again.. *Legend of Korra* had some minor problems but generally I think it's a good show, different in a good way and a great sequel to *The Last Airbender*
Nah bruh ur wrong
I recently finished ATLA and just started watching LOK and am still on season 1 and I've gotta say, I'm really enjoying it. though I had to mentally prepare myself telling myself that it isn't ATLA and I was right. The Legend of Korra is not Avatar: The last Airbender but also, it's not suppose to be. It's supposed to be different and yet, it isn't. pushing boundaries and integrating sensitive topics to the young and bringing parts of Asian culture into America. they're both two great shows that shouldn't be treated as the same thing. thank you for my TED talk.
nah saying it’s all nickelodeon’s fault is stupid if that was true book 1 would have been great from start to end (since we only have one season let’s make it good kinda thinking) but it wasn’t, it was ass.
- The equalists were not believable: they wanted to stop the benders oppression over the non-bender but they never showed non-benders being opressed aside for one scene.
- Amon’s bloodbending abilty wasn’t clear at all. How does it work actually? How can bloodbending take your bending away for good? No explanation.
- The way Korra got airbending was dumb
- The way Amon got defeated was even more dumb (bro just ran away Korra didn’t even defeat him).
- Pro bending scenes were kinda a waste of screentime imo
- And that love triangle stuff was soo cringe.
Now you’re telling me all of this was Nickelodeon’s fault?
finally some one same as me i though that i the only one was see that the writting is not good and you feel bored when you watching. i think actually reason the only the old show was good is because some characters were good in it for me zuko and iroh is the best the fire nation side was perfect
Book 3 is the best book from the show. Book 4 comes second place.
Only one scene? You need to rewatch, Korra at the beginning was oppressing the guy protesting at the park, The Triple Threat Triad gang was threatening a helpless shopkeeper, Tarrlok and his Metalbenders shut down the power supply of the an ENTIRE NEIGHBOURHOOD and then proceeded to arrest all of them just for being non benders, Hiroshi Sato's wife was killed by a firebender and his mansion was robbed.
There's a couple more, so it wasn't only one scene and please pay attention next time.
The part about bloodbending taking peoples bending away is simple, permanently blocking their chi like how Chi Blocking is temporary but permanent instead.
The love triangle stuff was cringe ngl and the probendinf stuff felt like filler or at least just a means to show that bending has evolved, no longer is bending traditional instead its more modern styles of fighting.
@@mikhaelis1447 the Tarlok scene was the one I was talking about.
-Korra was not oppressing the guy at the park, he was just screaming to be oppressed and she answered and that's it.
-The triple triad felt more some mafia threatening civilians, not like a bender gang threatening non-benders.
- Hiroshi said his wife was killed, (said not showed) and it could have easily been an accident happened only to him, maybe she encountered a bad fire bender who knows, it's not like every non bender in republic city has had some family member taken away by benders, hence there was no real oppression.
- and that's it, there isn't a "couple more scenes" where they show non benders being oppressed, so please pay attention next time
I don't remember when in the show they explained that Amon permanently blocked the chi so I'll give you that
The problem of Legend of Korra the way I saw it is that, the current team Avatar lacked character development, but the DESCENDENTS of the Avatar before developed so much more than the team Avatar themselves. Korra and Asami's love story was never touched upon until the last part.
Korra being a girl boss also became a hindrance and her motto "I'm the Avatar and you gotta deal with it." didn't give her any favors, as well as Asami who barely existed, compared to Katara who was also bossy but was also understanding at times, and Toph who was an asshole to Aang but was just really shy. Jinora who developed to connect well with spirits, her family and other Air Nomads, Ikki and Beifong sisters who was always angry with their siblings but at the end of the day they are still family.
The women in ATLA and their lineage developed so much more than the main cast of LOK because they showed that having power is not their entire personality, and didn't have to be serious and stoic all the time unlike Korra, just to add, who even in the Avatar state couldn't defeat Kuvira and Unalaq, I give her the pass for Amon and Zaheer since their introduction really gave off an unsettling feeling for me at least.
ATLA- Great story and Great action 💯
TLOK- Great action and Great villains
And if only they let Korra defeat the villains by herself while using the avatar state properly like aang did would've boosted this series up for me
I liked the Avatar wang episode, i didn't like killing all previous avatar incarnations that set so many plots not only for korra but for future avatars, Korra questioning the idea of previous avatars of balance seemed arrogant, the relationship had bad development, the vilains were good, but needed more development, a dark avatar? that is a very good idea, but the way he just became a Kaiju to be defeated, was dumb... there were bood ideas, just bad executed, buut the worst was how the incarnations of the avatar were killed, korra didn't had any relation with the avatar previous members, like Gyatsu were a friend of Avatar Roku and the became Aang's mentor but a friend too...
I'm not really willing to defend it to that degree. I can understand the pacing issues and characters not being as fleshed out as you would like from the successor to The Last Airbender, but what I can't is the blatent retconning of established lore from the former show. Season 2 was the biggest disappointment to the legacy of AtLA and not because it had a self contained store and not a lot of time to tell it. It's because the story they told could essentially be a fairy tale with no ties to anything. And the fact that Korra just magically has feelings for Asami is so forced I can't help but feel they only went for it because the show was no longer airing on cable TV and felt they could get away with it easier. Still not a terrible show and it was certainly held back. Just not by the studio alone.
Yeah, even though the nick executives aren't saints, people don't give the writers enough flak for some of the terrible writing decisions.
@@lordtickledck7012 Exactly. People are always too willing to use the corrupt corporation argument. And yeah sometimes that's true and it very valid, but it's not a catch all. At the end of the day there's no excuse for lazy writing. It's a shame because with the original people working on the sequel you'd think it'd be incredible.
As a fan of The World Ends With You (my favorite video game) I know this pain all too well. The IP is basically dead due to little to no advertising
In Israel the episodes were aired however, I thought they were reruns back then.
I remember watching seasons 3 and 4 exclusively on pirated websites because they didn't keep up with the show's release schedule in the US, which was every weekend or so. The dubbed versions of those seasons exist, but it took them waay too long to produce them. So yeah, they technically "aired" those seaons on the channel, but that was long after their actual release date.
I believe the time. If it was released later i think it wouldve been received in a better eye
I enjoyed The Legend of Korra the first time I watched it. But I am one of those people who like new stories, so I was hoping that it would be just like The Last Airbender. I was very pleased with how it turned out. I hope that any other Avatar series are treated with respect and the creates are allowed to create.
I truly think the legend of korra could've been amazing if they didn't make amon a one season villain. He was such a interesting and good villain. it could've been good if he returned for season 3 and 4 and that he was secretely a part of the red lotus and teamed up with zaheer to kill the avatar as they kinda has the same beliefs.
The thing is, I think a lot of the series wouldve still been bad even if Nickelodeon didnt interfere. Even the first season, which they intended to be a complete story on its own, has massive glaring issues that make it only a decent show at best. Season two is just a dumpster fire for reasons I shouldnt have to explain. I havent seen season 3 or 4 yet, but I do hear those ones are vastly improved compared to the first two.
Way too many people ignore this. Season 3 is the best one and season 4 starts off strong but it falls off towards the finale
I adored The Legend of Korra. I thought it had more issues than ATLA, but it's still my second-favorite animated show ever.
There are 4 seasons????😮
I only got through the first few episodes of season three. Kinda lost me at the kaiju battle that was the climax of season 2.
Nah. This is cope. It wasnt the networks fault. The writing showed all its weaknesses in season 1 .
Yup. When you've got a season being that short, you also gotta spend your time more wisely. Instead, they wasted time on trivial things like a third-rate love triangle, too much time on the pro-bending, making Bolin a second-rate Sokka etc.
At least Sokka got character development by the third episode in ATLA.
@@zuriyel5368 They wanted to focus on more mature storytelling. Like sports!
Legend of Korra is the reason I watched avatar to begin with. My family didn’t watch tv growing up so I didn’t get to experience it live like most other people my age. I’d always generally heard good things about it but didn’t really know much, then when I was 20ish I saw a post that said “say what you will about Legend of Korra but name another show that ends with a multiracial lesbian couple walking off into the dawn of a new world” and since it’s so incredibly rare to see LGBT representation I had to watch it and I fell in love with the world of Avatar.
What gets me is how little they actually trust the creators. None of the companies seem to want to when they ACTUALLY make progressivness cool.
Old non benders should go to the places their loved ones were buried and travel to find more family members after
The non benders should make statues of their loved ones and say their regrets or have a emotional break downs
Is there any contact by Korra with the Lion Turtles in that series? Or did they fade away into the Spirit World?
I started watching ATLA a year ago and every episode was a treat always making want to watch another but then I finished it and started watching Korra and by god it was awful, no longer did I want to continue I actively had to force myself to keep watching. Show had some interesting ideas but would need at complete rewrite and redo to be good.
I saw ATLA when I was in elementary school and didn't hear about TLOK till I was in college... It's crazy I missed a show... 🙃
Honestly, just like Avatar the last Airbender and Aang it was good and the legend of Korra just like the main character struggle to be its predecessor for a couple years but then later on the show became good and when you’re at your lowest point you’re open to the possibilities.”
I have never seen a show that deserves a from the ground redo in its original medium as much as Korra. Most of Korra's flaws stem from each season being the last until well into production. IF it could do larger, series spanning subplots at least, it would be a much stronger show
Exactly. We don't need live-action Aang. We need Korra done right. Animated Korra with the budget, episodes, and seasons to give it space to be what it needs to be. Not solving everything by the end of the seasons.
Why does anyone actually think this makes sense. If a story is self contained, with a finale, right up until the eleventh hour, then it should be a quality story in its own right. Not beholden to future plans or installments. Before the advent of "cinematic universes" this was literally all stories. That's _how_ you write them.
Terminator was not written with Terminator 2 in mind.
Alien was not written with Aliens in mind.
Batman Begins was not written with The Dark Knight in mind.
The Godfather was not written with The Godfather Part II in mind.
Jaws was not written with Jaws 3D: The Revenge in mind.
The reason I'm not using TV shows is because examples are more abstract, and arguably a touch esoteric. But yeah, they exist. Most shows in the history of television got off the ground with no certain future. Since that was the nature of the medium. They had to focus on what they could deliver right now.
It's like people think that because they had obviously mapped out the original series being forced into going piecemeal is some kind of hinderence. Instead of the obvious advantage that it should be, if they actually have the skills to do what they set out to do in the first place, which is tell self contained narratives each season.
@@futurestoryteller The Original Avatar was a first of its kind in the west running animated narrative, using its various seasons to tell one large story. Most of Korra's weaknesses stem from lack of time in the plan to let things develop naturally. The character growth feels both rushed and forced, and several major changes to the world are just skimmed over like they didn't mean anything. I strongly believe them needing to scramble to write an additional season at the eleventh hour not once, not twice, but three times in a row, is to blame for many of these issues that did not exist in their earlier work
@@shadeblackwolf1508 It feels like you're forcing this conversation into a cycle, by accident. The emphasis was not on the nature of television production, the emphasis was on the nature of self contained storytelling. Instead of repeating myself I'll simply point out that at the very least this would do nothing to explain the problems with the first season - and my point is if they weren't prepared for that, they should not have bothered writing it.
@@futurestoryteller You're not wrong there, but i think it's clear they weren't ready for it.
I think yes, Airbender set the bar high, but i think assuming people would hate Korra because Airbender was so good discredits the audience.
Korra still got a lot of views which is why it made it to 4 seasons against all odds. Many shows and movies get multiple seasons or sequels, because people are willing to give up their time, and or money to give these shows and movies a chance.
If Korra was better, it would have been loved more. It's as simple as that.
This video just spoke about how the storytelling process was sabotaged and was glued together like some zombie creature. No, it's not just that our expectations were high, and we didn't give it a fair shake. What made Airbender so good was the buildup and then payoff on 3 levels, episode, season, and then series. Korra was just a bunch of ideas and explosions, while trying to have ghost in the shell type of intrigue.
Korra was an omelette, Airbender was a 4-course meal. That's it. We're not dumb or classless, the writers were sabotaged, and i appreciate them for walking out on the Netflix live action.
DiMartino and Konietzco are the GOATS!
The one notion I just can't get onboard with, the thought that two different entities of media can't be good in their own regard. In my opinion LOK is just as good as LOA, just in a very different way.
You have every right to be wrong
I’ve always felt like LOK and LBA are two sides of the same coin, I don’t like choosing one over the other. While LBA was deeper and more impactful, LOK was tighter And kept its momentum going more regularly.
You heard of the phrase... "comparison is the thief of joy". Korra would always have detractors no matter how good it was. The new Black Panther Shuri, the new actor paying Superman. It's a never ending cycle. Korra was excellent imo.
I enjoyed it, it had some interesting contrasts to the original. Do people just want them to recycle stories?
What the legend of Korra didn’t deserve was to have a lame and 💩villain for their 4th and final season.
Legend of Korra was genuinely so good up until the last moments of the last episode of the first season. It was just a steady decline for me ever since then. Although I can understand that the studio execs were too involved and even antagonistic to the show, the creators and writers still made some questionable choices.
I hate that Korra ended the Avatar cycle. The treatment of the spirits was trash. The spirit blasts and spirit bending were also so cheap and unnecessary. They really watered down the fantastic lore that made us love Avatar in the first place and gave too much attention to specialised bending forms. I was so upset when I saw lightning benders working in a factory setting to generate energy for Republic City. Lightning Bending was such a coveted rare form of Fire Bending that only the members of the Royal Family were known to possess the skill and even among them, it was only mastered by the most prodigious of benders. I also have no idea how Bolin is a lava bender. How is an Earth Bender able to generate the sort of heat and energy to melt rock?
The most upsetting detail was how all the random people suddenly got by airbending. Issues of genocide are real world problems that could have been explored in much more impactful and entertaining ways. It would have been amazing to see Aang's family travelling the world finding lost air nomad families that have been living in hiding for generations and the painstaking effort to restart their nation.
Korra had moments that made me really love this franchise but ultimately, I am forever disappointed.
I think the major flaws are of Korra are:
- they progressed the world too much too fast
- they didn't treat spirits the same way they were treated in ATLA and it was a much less interesting take
- they should've told smaller stories given they were writing one season at a time
tlok didnt have filler episodes. asami was kinda left out. she had less screen time than julie, even tho she was a romantic interest for mako and later korra
no filler episodes????? Nah we just had FILLER LOVE TRIANGLE ARCS and FILLER PROBENDING ARCS. They cut out Lawfare and the ACTUAL PLOT for FRIKEN FILLLER.
To me, The Legend of Korra fails to even be a "good" show started with her introduction. I was shown by Avatar that a TYPICAL Avatar needs years of training to master the elements and Aang was an exception due to the war. Yet, here was this toddler welding 3/4 of the elements?
The love triangle sucked and unlike in Avatar didn't grow overtime. I get that season one was originally a "mini series" but they focused on it so much I ended up hating all involved.
Republic City and it being a new nation from previously conquered territory of the Fire Nation IS a really good idea and a GREAT place for the show to be, but I felt like the technological jump was too jarring. ESPECIALLY when you see giant mecs in the later seasons!?! Maybe if we saw a more "19th century" era it would've felt more nature for the world to be evolving
When it comes to the spirit world I COMPLETELY understand how Star Wars fans felt about medicholrions. I felt like both the back story, first Avatar, and Korra opening the spirit portal just ruined all the mysticism that was in the original show.
On top of that remeber when blood bending only worked on a full moon? Remeber when lightening was only served for the most skilled fire benders? We didn't get to see how the general public got here these skills or how blood bending became commonly known?
Going back to Star Wars, what Episode III did well for its ending was setup everyone in their place for Episode IV. That way more "general knowledge" things like the empire growing and/or how Leia joined the Rebellion is then setup for Episode IV. Compared to Korra or Episode VI where there is seemingly an entire film/season missing! You cant do that to an audience
3:40 I hate how they think like that. While yes, there's shows aimed for girls, not all the audience is girls.