the legend of korra

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2012-06-23 07:23:50 pm

2012-06-23 07:23:20 pm

red chamber dream

nice! the first season would have benefitted a whole lot from even just 2-3 more eps, so that's great news.

Quote from Quietus:

I recently ploughed through Avatar after you guys waffled on about it, and really enjoyed it. Enough that I'd say it was one of my favourites. My short question is: Is this in the same league, or different enough to watch anyway?

it's not in the same league. nowhere near it, really, but then again tla is one of my very favorite pieces of entertainment ever. that said, it's pretty hard to compare the two. tla was huge in scope, very tolkein-esque, and had a clear endgame that everything in the series was slowly building toward. that's the kind of shit i just fucking love.

korra on the other hand was always meant to be a smaller, one-off little story (as the creators have said). and while that's cool, and it's intended to be rather different, it inherently could probably never top tla for me. nonetheless, korra is still the best cartoon on tv atm, and it's hugely entertaining in its own right. just getting more of the details on the world of avatar makes it worth watching.

nice! the first season would have benefitted a whole lot from even just 2-3 more eps, so that's great news.

[quote="Quietus"]I recently ploughed through Avatar after you guys waffled on about it, and really enjoyed it.  Enough that I'd say it was one of my favourites.  My short question is: Is this in the same league, or different enough to watch anyway?[/quote]
it's not in the same league. nowhere near it, really, but then again tla is one of my very favorite pieces of entertainment ever. that said, it's pretty hard to compare the two. tla was huge in scope, very tolkein-esque, and had a clear endgame that everything in the series was slowly building toward. that's the kind of shit i just fucking love.

korra on the other hand was always meant to be a smaller, one-off little story (as the creators have said). and while that's cool, and it's intended to be rather different, it inherently could probably never top tla for me. nonetheless, korra is still the best cartoon on tv atm, and it's hugely entertaining in its own right. just getting more of the details on the world of avatar makes it worth watching.

arkarian

2012-06-25 11:45:30 pm

red chamber dream

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/06/25

Idkbutlike2

2012-06-26 01:31:59 pm

lol Mako completely blew off Asami.

arkarian

2012-06-26 01:53:09 pm

red chamber dream

i'd take her over korra any day ;(

Idkbutlike2

2012-06-26 02:11:32 pm

Mako: Sorry, I only date walking plot devices.

BioSpark

2012-06-28 01:15:32 am

Quote from arkarian:

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/06/25

you did this once :P

Cpadolf

2012-07-12 06:25:29 am

Almost happy

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/07/11/legend-of-korra-second-season/

Neat.

arkarian

2012-07-12 07:06:56 am

red chamber dream

wow, awesome. i know they've already produced book 2, but hopefully this means they'll be doing something bigger and better for books 3 + 4, since they know they've got time.

Cpadolf

2012-07-12 07:10:55 am

Almost happy

Yeah, it's too bad that it didn't get renewed earlier so they could have worked in Book 2 in a bigger narrative, but it's still great news non the less.

Prime Hunter

2012-07-16 03:30:46 pm

Awesome indeed. 40 more episodes if I read that right? Hopefully that will give time for Korra to evolve its characters some more, since now that I had the chance to catch up on the last 3 episodes I have to agree on that being one of the things that keeps it from being as good as Airbender. The plot moved really fast in book 1, and while that certainly helped keep things at a brisk pace it really made it hard to root for most of the central cast because they weren't as fleshed out as the Airbender crew, at least at first.

Speaking of which, not exactly what I expected in those final episodes, but it was still good nonetheless. I did have a good laugh at the end though when Aang showed up and more or less went "I'm that awesome, plus we still need an avatar" and helped put Korra back on track. Now that they've got 3 more books to work with I won't be surprised if it's like you guys said where she'll have to relearn/remaster some of the older elements again or at least brush up on her skills. Kinda odd that she was originally a waterbender but is in some ways an airbender now, but I have faith that the writers will find a way to make her training seem different enough from Aang's while pushing the overall plot in a different direction, so I'm not really afraid there.

And yeah, now that you mention it the way Korra was standing near the cliff made me wonder that for a second too.

Awesome indeed. 40 more episodes if I read that right? Hopefully that will give time for Korra to evolve its characters some more, since now that I had the chance to catch up on the last 3 episodes I have to agree on that being one of the things that keeps it from being as good as Airbender. The plot moved really fast in book 1, and while that certainly helped keep things at a brisk pace it really made it hard to root for most of the central cast because they weren't as fleshed out as the Airbender crew, at least at first.

Speaking of which, not exactly what I expected in those final episodes, but it was still good nonetheless. I did have a good laugh at the end though when Aang showed up and more or less went "I'm that awesome, plus we still need an avatar" and helped put Korra back on track. Now that they've got 3 more books to work with I won't be surprised if it's like you guys said where she'll have to relearn/remaster some of the older elements again or at least brush up on her skills. Kinda odd that she was originally a waterbender but is in some ways an airbender now, but I have faith that the writers will find a way to make her training seem different enough from Aang's while pushing the overall plot in a different direction, so I'm not really afraid there.

And yeah, now that you mention it the way Korra was standing near the cliff made me wonder that for a second too.

Cpadolf

2012-07-16 03:44:22 pm

Almost happy

Quote from Prime Hunter:

Awesome indeed. 40 more episodes if I read that right?

Yeah, spread over 3 seasons/books (14-13-13 IIRC). Next book is named Spirits.

Quote from Prime Hunter:

Now that they've got 3 more books to work with I won't be surprised if it's like you guys said where she'll have to relearn/remaster some of the older elements again or at least brush up on her skills. Kinda odd that she was originally a waterbender but is in some ways an airbender now, but I have faith that the writers will find a way to make her training seem different enough from Aang's while pushing the overall plot in a different direction, so I'm not really afraid there.

At the start of book 2 she can go in and out of the Avatar State at will, so training doesn't seem like it'll be a concern from the offset.

tomatobob

2012-07-16 04:39:50 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Season 2 is dealing with spirit world stuff I guess which pretty much owns.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2013-07-20 12:38:57 am

2013-07-20 12:28:44 am

Haha, wow, it's been over a year since Book 1 ended? I saw Jul 16 in Tomatobob's post and thought it was referring to just a few days ago!

Anyway, just found a trailer which says that it starts back up in September.

Prime Hunter

2013-07-20 12:38:46 am

And boy was I off. I don't think Korra's going to have a problem with the other elements in Book 2. Nor the avatar state for that matter. The spirit world seems like it's going to be really cool and varied, plus it looks to me that it'll involve some of the other characters beyond just Korra as well. Always a good thing and perhaps it'll help address the lack of development for the secondary characters I mentioned before.

tomatobob

2013-07-20 02:14:13 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Pretty hyped to see more of the world outside the city. Also monster punching.

arkarian

2013-07-20 02:59:21 am

red chamber dream

ok that looks pretty good

the cgi looks a lot better than the last season ... hopefullly it's all as good as that trailer made it look

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2013-09-28 02:08:19 am

2013-09-28 02:05:51 am

red chamber dream

so anyone watch today? thought it was a decent ep, but not much really happened. felt more like a setup episode for the real civil war, which bizarrely didn't take place in either of the eps called "civil wars". lol.

loved korra being a total bad ass going after judge hotaht like that. it's something aang would never have done, so it's nice seeing two completely different avatars.

really happy how much better the cg looks this season versus last. can't say i mind it anymore (although hand animated is always better ofc)

Prime Hunter

2013-09-28 05:02:39 am

Nah, since I watch it with my brother we have to wait a few days after they come on for when our schedules line up and we have time to do so. But based on the first three episodes I can see what you mean about it being closer to Airbender's progression and feel. Lots of little gag moments and comedy thrown in compared to what I remember, plus there's actually some character development going on this time which is certainly a welcome change of pace. I'm curious to see where Tenzin's plot goes actually, since he was probably one of my favorites in season 1.

tomatobob

2013-09-28 06:57:46 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Guess I don't have much to say about the episodes so far, we're kinda back in more familiar Avatar territory so it's just kinda nice to see Water Tribe stuff again. Just sort of waiting to see where it goes. Also the little Air Bison were goddamned adorable.

Quote from arkarian:

really happy how much better the cg looks this season versus last. can't say i mind it anymore (although hand animated is always better ofc)

It is better yeah.

I'm still trying to work out why so many cartoons mix obviously CGI objects into the traditional animation theses days. I guess it's to make sure vehicles never gt off model with all the motion they tend to go through. But the Batmobile occasionally went kinda screwy in Batman the Animated Series and it never looked bad so it's still weird.

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2013-09-28 02:28:47 pm

2013-09-28 02:26:24 pm

red chamber dream

i want to see ba sing se, but unfortunately i don't think we'll get to see it this season ;(

cg is used for the same reason anything else is done in business - it's cheaper and it takes less time

arkarian

2013-09-28 02:29:18 pm

red chamber dream

you generally see it used for large mechanical stuff that has a lot of parts, like asami's plane in this ep when it was taking off was cg

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2013-10-19 02:26:53 pm

2013-10-19 01:55:15 pm

red chamber dream

never noticed in the first season but i really don't like asami's voice actor very much. dunno why, but something just seems a little off about her. it's a shame because she's a total hottie irl

ok that was a really good ep regardless though (i'm a week behind - just watched "the sting") - it's amazing how an ep without korra is better than everything else so far. next up is the two-parter beginnings where korra finally meeta wan, and it looks like she might become more tapped in to the spirit world and hopefully become a better avatar.

Cpadolf

2013-10-19 02:48:09 pm

Almost happy

The Beginnings two-parter was really great. Like top tier A:TLA great. So far most of the current season has seemed a bit off to me but hopefully they can use this momentum and really bring everything up a notch going forward, and hopefully give Korra some proper development because so far I feel like she has done nothing but move backwards in her development in this season (I mostly liked her a lot in season 1 but she has been endlessly frustrating lately). It's also nice that after episode 9 they'll be back with Studio Mir for the rest of the season (the Beginnings two-parter was also animated by Studio Mir), I'm looking forward to seeing characters blinking again.

arkarian

2013-10-19 02:58:43 pm

red chamber dream

yeah i'm finished the first half and it was definitely awesome. felt just like an episode of tla. which makes me confident that the writers can still do stuff like tla but are intentionally choosing not to, at least for now. i'm thinking next week the show is going to become more spiritual and really show korra's development, which is obviously the point of this season.

just hope in season 3 we get to see the gang actually traveling somewhere. in beginnings wan travels a lot and i think that's part of what made tla so great - lots of different locales and people to meet.

arkarian

2013-10-19 03:03:58 pm

red chamber dream

one thing that's kind of tripping me up though is the lion turtle thing ... i thought humans first learned to bend from animals and other parts of nature (like the air nomads and the sky bison)

but maybe this wan stuff takes place long after humans first learned to bend, and now they get thei power from the lion turtles?