So, Nickelodeon has released the first two episodes of The Legend of Korra (the sequel to the phenomenal Avatar: The Last Airbender) at www.korranation.com
Have any of you watched it yet? What do you guys think?
Dude, thanks for the heads up. I’ll be watching them soon.
Koran Nation? Oh…korra nation. Heh.
Wait, they have not aired on TV yet? When does the regular airing begin?
The television premiere is April 14.
First two episodes didn’t have much to recommend them. Think I’ll wait on the rest of the series and see if others report it gets better.
[spoilers, baby]
Just from the first episode, I’d say Meh. Now, obviously this series is just in its infancy, so it might get better. However, that first episode was crap and they should have known it was crap. It’s not all bad all the way through, but managed to completely avoid any possibility of sustaining interest beyond the current scene.
First off, Korra manages to be incredibly obnoxious within the first two minutes. “Ha ha ha, I’m already using all the elements at age four!” And while semi-realistic, the arrogant little weasel was running around blowing up her parent’s home, a reckless trait she evidently never loses in the next decade and change. She comes in yelling, “I’m the Avatar! You gotta deal with it!” and starts using basic bending attacks at the visiting priest dudes." :rolleyes:
Hell, her parenst seem lijke more interesting characters.
She then goes on to display an annoying mix of obedient puppy-dogness and midnless rebelliousness. Again, it might not be totally unreasonable in a teenager, but it’s not attractive or very interesting. While she doesn’t have to be giving orders, she also the Avatar; they can’t stop her. She makes decisions based on her personal whim (or just acts proud and bitchy), and then looks all hangdog and gives in when her more experienced elders glower at her.
Third, she’s annoyingly powerful, such that it’s going to be hard for anyone else the series to really stand up to her. They’re going to have to whip out some extreme threats to do it, and that could get very old very fast. Yes, it’s not unrealistic that her training was very good. But she’s already being called a master of three bending techniques when the series begins, and is evidently an extremely capable physical combatant* as well. She stomps multiple experienced goons in seconds.
*Capable far beyond what her physique would suggest. For a girl that slender, she seems able to pull off some rather potent martial arts without any relevant physical attributes. Note the difference between the skillful style of Mai or Ty Lee, who used cunning and technique because they weren’t muscled up. Korra seems like she could just waltz around and beat people up without bending, espite having no build.
I did like Temjin, who seems quite capable of standing up to her. His kids were annoying as hell, but his wife seemed like an extremely interesting character (and awfully similar to Sokka in her ability to attract face-fulls of snow).
-Whats-her-face-Toph’s-daughter is likely to piss me off endlessly. Unless they go somewhere with this, fast, I’m really going to get tired of the generic hardass. They’re not that interesting. That said, I loved the fact that she did the “I’m watching you” fingers, and then had a WTF apoplexy moment when Korra (having no clue what it meant) did them right back to her.
The villain was barely introduced and has no personality that I care about. I suppose he’s supposed to be some evil genius with a secret identity, but I just don’t give a rat’s ass. He looks like a ripped-off Naruto one-shot villain. The only thing I can make out as far as a theme is the painful difference between benders and non. Given that benders are close to demigods in the series, and that only a handful of rare mundane warriors can match even a basic bender, it’s a nontrivial issue. We’ll see where it goes, but making the head of the anti-bender group a (literal) cartoon villain might make a serious exploration difficult.
I sinceerely hope to God that they introduce another characters to do interesting things. Korra is not strong enough to carry this on her own. No, the dog doesn’t count. It’s also a rather lame magic beast because it’s only a big dog. Hell, there are real dogs just as big. Calling it a Polar Bear dog doesn’t help. However, ther dog is really cute and I would love to have one if I lived in an icy wasteland.
I would like to point out the huge differences between this and the original Avatar: The Last Airender. ATLA introduced other characters first, set up the world a bit, and then brought in the Avatar. We saw the world through their eyes, and saw why the world needed an Avatar. In this case, it seems like the problem is incompetent government more than an “Out of Balance” society. In any case, in ATLA we also saw Zuko and at least had a basic understanding of his motivations, his goals, and the link between them. We knew roughly what he was going to do and why, as well as gaining a quick but good understanding of Iroh. We further saw that he was capable and dangerous, and that Aang needed help just to survive.
I don’t also don’t get something about the Avatar: is this Aang’s spirit reincarnated or not? Because I find it really, really creepy to see Katara acting all mommish to Korra. “Hahaha Korra… no I don’t mind you being willful. You gave me a jolly good rogering back in the day. Now your son is going to teach you airbending.” I think the series really needs to touch on this, because this should not be a straightforward or easy relationship.
On the scenery side, I loved Republic city. Very cool, and harkens back both to Chicago-style and Chinese-style mob flicks set in the 1920’s and 30’s.
Korra’s about as bright as a box of hammers. “Yay! I was told to dodge, weave, and manuever. I will hurl myself thoughtlessly into the spinning doors!” Yes, she’s supposed to be reckless. There’s a huge difference between reckless and moron. And then she just blows up the training match. Also, being reckless and emoitonal is not a personality.
Tenzin r0xx3rZ teh b0zz3rZ.
Tenzin’s son is the freakiest-looking mutant I could imagine. His existence disgusts me. I am afflicted with waking nightmares, for I cannot remove the sheer terror of his nightmarish visage. I will never have a good night’s rest again, and even Freddy Krueger himself could not torture me further. I pray that death ends my horror, but fear that even the sweet escape of the Reaper may not purge my brain of the infestation.
Mako = Sasuke. Oh god, let him not turn out to be a Sasuke. Gah! He even does the “Emo Slouch as I walk away dismissively” Bolin = Naruto. Neither is nearly as interesting as the original.
Umm…okaaaay.
Gaze! Gaze into the depths of madness and be lost! Your soul shall be scoured and all hope abandoned! Ia! Ia fhtagn R’lyeh!
I trimmed the rest of that absurdly harsh review, let me address some things having watched the two episodes.
1.Korra is NOT AANG, she is almost the complete opposite. There is nothing wrong with that.
2.There are some very clunky bits of exposition, I assume for the younger audience.
3.There is a lot of promise here, I assume we will be shocked at the reveal of Amon…assuming it is not a surviving member of the first show my bet is on Tenzin or Toph’s daughter(she sure hates the damage benders do…hm)
I LOL’d at the awkward pro bender dude who doesn’t want to assume anything you know but you are wearing water tribe clothes and all, not that there is anything wrong with that or anything and…