Pre-finale Korra thoughts

[dolorosa_12]

So, I sat down to write about Korra on my Wordpress blog, and a couple of thousand words tumbled out. Not particularly complimentary words, either. I should say that while I'm frustrated with the writing, I don't hate the series, and have been enjoying watching it. My overwhelming emotion is frustration. Because, having seen ATLA, I know it could've been so much better.

I really didn’t want to be that fan. You know, the one taking creators of a spin-off to task because the spin-off is nothing like its parent text. But the problem is not so much that Korra isn’t ATLA but rather that Korra lacks the ingredients that made ATLA so successful. As I see it, ATLA’s quality rested on the interplay of four elements (see what I did there?). These were:
1. A cast of rounded, complex, human characters whose actions made sense in relation to their characterisation, who changed over the course of the series and who drew us into their world;
2. A completely three-dimensional, endlessly fascinating setting that reflected the diversity of backgrounds and experiences of the people who lived in it;
3. An engaging narrative which kept you watching and kept surprising you; and
4. Themes and real-world analogies that resonated but could be interpreted in multiple ways and on multiple levels.

Korra lacks all of these things.

I would really love to hear the opinions of people here who are Korra or ATLA fans. You can post either here or on the blog itself. Just a warning - I'm going out to yoga class in about an hour and won't be back online after that until tomorrow morning, so don't expect any replies until at least then.

Comments

[elizabethtastic.livejournal.com]

No, you are not the only one who thinks these things about Korra. I've been that fan for the past three weeks now, because it boggles my mind how unlike Avatar this show is. And like you, issue isn't that the show isn't good (or has the potential to be good, I should say), but that it just doesn't have the components of what Avatar did.

I've made many entries about how kind of disappointed I am in this new series because of how rich and detailed Avatar was in comparison to this. There's too much romance (which, quite frankly, I'm beyond tired of), too much pro-bending matches, too little character development (I especially feel like Bolin is under-used a lot), too little world-building, and too little of Korra learning how to airbend, for goodness sake. After all, isn't that the whole reason Korra came to Republic City in the first place, to learn to airbend and continue wioth her Avatar training? We saw so much of it in Avatar and I, for one, thought it was cool and I especially loved that Aang interacted with other Avatars before him. Oh, and while Republic City was fascinating at first, I've become really bored with the place. That's probably why I loved Avatar so much: every season, we were off to a new area of the world and were experiencing the different cultures of the world, and it never got old. There was always something new to surprise us or awe us; Korra is very lacking there.

And as to themes and real-world analogies, I'm hard pressed to find any at all. In one of the entries I made, I compared the Equalist movement to the Communist fervor that took hold during the 1930's in America's big cities and such; this controversial movement that left people very divided and no room to be neutral. But that's about it really, and I don't find anything truly thought-provoking about the show, and it's frustrating, because that's what I really loved about Avatar.

LOL, sorry for the essay, but I've become passionately critical of this show that I had such high hopes for, and if there's one I thing I hate, it's getting my hopes up for something that, in the end, disappoints me.

[cykotyks.livejournal.com]

I was interested in Korra when I first heard about it. A friend of mine on Twitter was subscribed to something that allowed him to retweet a bunch of sketches and whatever. It looked good. But since Tree had no interest at all in any of it, I didn't watch it when it started coming out. Half of my Twitter feed was watching, though, so I gleaned some info from their squeeing. And...the more I heard about it, the less I wanted to watch it. Seeing a critical review like this seals my complete lack of desire to watch any of it at all.

From what I can gather, it seems to me that the writing team just took the sizable ATLA fanbase for granted and let Korra ride on its coattails. I was hoping for an interesting and engaging show in the spirit of ATLA, but it sounds more like somebody's guilty pleasure fanfic.