Why is there such a backlash to Legend Of Korra?

[A Platypus Rave is Correct]

Feb 4, 2020 0:03:02 GMT -5 A Platypus Rave is Correct said:

Mainly cause most people see it as a step down from Avatar the last airbender.

I think this mostly comes from it was pretty clear that they didn't have a story fully plotted out and were flying by the seat of their pants on a lot of things mainly since unlike Avatar they didn't know if they'd have the seasons to run with an epic over arching story like Last Airbender.

and they also had the incredibly difficult task of following up TLA which a lot of people have called one of the best animated shows of all time.

[lucas_lee]

I'm gonna pull up my defense of Korra and why I thought it was better than ATLA. I think both shows are stellar but to me Korra upped the game and themes built upon from The Last Airbender. Except for the first half of season 2. I dont view Korra as a sequel but as it's own series and it'll be remembered more fondly as time passes on.

[Sephiroth]

I think it’s a similar effect to Spider Man TAS from the 90’s. At the time it was on, everyone loved it. But with enough years gone by, it definitely has not held up well.

[Long A, Short A]

Jun 3, 2020 4:24:46 GMT -5 Sephiroth said:

I think it’s a similar effect to Spider Man TAS from the 90’s. At the time it was on, everyone loved it. But with enough years gone by, it definitely has not held up well.

I'd compare Korra to Spider-Man Unlimited. Both shows came out too close to a beloved show in the universe.

[HMARK Center]

I like Korra a lot, and books 3 and 4 are some truly great material. Character arcs, world building, and themes in the later seasons hit the right spots for me.

If there are main problems, I think they come down to structural issues and the nature of being a follow-up series. As said before, the original intention to make the first season a standalone one brought it down a bit, given how fans were used to long term character development in the original series. I still enjoyed the mystery in that season, enjoyed getting to see a new setting in Republic City (something to be said for essentially setting the show in a 1920s inspired Hong Kong), but things like the Mako/Korra relationship in that season didn't click for a lot of people for a number of reasons. Honestly, I never went with the hate Mako got, always felt he was just more of a guy who was unaware of his own feelings, but it still meant the relationship didn't connect the way, say, watching Aang and Katara's evolve did, and the Avatar fandom got an all-too-deserved reputation for going overboard on shipping.

Then, there's no getting around it, they spent too much of Book Two undermining one of the strong themes of both series: namely that nature exists in balance and that there isn't a "dark side" to nature so much as there are just forces of destruction and creation...yin and yang. By having a "dark Avatar" it necessitated making an "evil Avatar spirit", and that just doesn't fit the series' themes. Probably the reason Unalaq got made fun of by the other villains in the cool down episode before the final season's finale, really.

But Books 3 and 4? Really, really enjoyed those, thought they stacked up fine with the original series for the most part. I understand people not being keen on airbenders just reappearing in the world seemingly so easily, but the overall storytelling done in those seasons just worked.

But back to the structural issues: you go from a series meant to finish in just a short season, to getting a second season and having to go "oh, now we have to write these characters for the long haul, guess we'll have to make some changes", to appealing to an older and thus non-Nickelodeon-sponsors-preferred demographic, and then ending up on Nick's website when the series likely could've thrived, as mentioned before, in today's streaming environment. Plus, again structurally, the original series just had the type of story people easily gravitate towards: large scale, world-spanning journey to save the world makes for an easy narrative for people to dive into before they get into the more complex worldbuilding of the show, and it's clear the creators had a large, long term story in mind from the word "go". With Korra, again, it was smaller and more intimate in scale, which altered the stakes and the general atmosphere of the show. I don't think it's a coincidence that the show found its voice more as it spread out the physical locations the story took place in.

But yeah, I still happily own the blu ray boxset of the series, and hope it'll get a run on Netflix along with the original so people who didn't gravitate to it at first can give it another go.

[Chiral]

Korra's a really fun show with some high highs and some loooooow lows. Book 3 is probably still my favorite of it. It was probably impossible to live up to ATLA, especially with like 2/10ths of the writing team, but I still have my nitpicks.

My main issues:
-Lack of story focus/goals: ATLA had everyone have a clear goal that they were always working towards that fit the themes of the story, while Korra didn't have that at all, and the 1 story arc per season didn't help
-Writing for ships instead of writing relationships: ATLA wrote relationships, like they wrote characters that become friends, become enemies, fall in love, etc. While Korra's first book jumped right in with a love triangle and like "Which pairing do YOUUUUUU root for?" without writing as much FOR the relationships themselves rather than the various teases, which to be fair a LOT of current entertainment is guilty of nowadays, treating shipping as a team sport of sorts rather than just writing a romance or whatever
-Barrage of concepts: Korra throws a lot of new stuff and then moves on from it quickly (like I just remembered today they introduced a Dark Avatar and I don't remember any followup on that)
-Frustrating lack of info on the Gaang (I realize the show wasn't theirs and there's PLENTY about them but. cmon. ONE Sokka scene?!?!)

[Deleted]

Jun 3, 2020 18:38:36 GMT -5 Chiral said:

-Frustrating lack of info on the Gaang (I realize the show wasn't theirs and there's PLENTY about them but. cmon. ONE Sokka scene?!?!)

I still call bullshit on the idea of Toph being alive being the plan the whole time. "My brother and all my friends are gone... by which I mean my husband is gone. And I guess we're counting Suki even though she's never mentioned."

Also, the stuff with the character's good but her running around in her little girl outfit looks so stupid.

[Deleted]

I think it's pretty good when the majority of the "backlash" for a show is just "It was pretty good but not as good as the original."