Avatar

[Spark Of Spirit]

Surely you agree with me that the best Avatar episode is "The Boiling Rock", right? 

Korra's okay, but I think the characters kind of hold the story back from its full potential. Season 2 should be better!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Surely you agree with me that the best Avatar episode is "The Boiling Rock", right? 

My favorite part of that episode was Mai fighting to buy time for Zuko and the others to escape at the end. That was one of those rare instances in which the character did something that I didn't expect, but when I stopped to think about it that was something that made sense for her character to do, and its stuff like that which makes the characters feel all the more 3-dimensional to me.

Korra's okay, but I think the characters kind of hold the story back from its full potential. Season 2 should be better!

I agree with this (though by okay, I mean that I found it solid and entertaining), but I would also like to point out that I found season 1 of The Last Airbender to be a bit weaker on the characterization aspect of things as well. I think that a big part of that is because these first seasons have a lot to do in terms of setting up all of the main characters in the first place, as well as the main conflict of the story.

Looking at it in that regard, I think Korra has a better "start" than what The Last Airbender had, but whether Korra really holds any merit as a series or not will depend on if it improves in its upcoming seasons. I hope it does, because I think its still very promising from what I've seen of it so far. I have 2 episodes of this season left, but I am actually already genuinely interested in seeing the next season whenever that comes out.

[The Shadow Gentleman]

Eh, I still think the first season of Korra is the weakest Avatar season. Granted, I probably need to rewatch it, but the romance and Korra herself really get on my nerves.

On a lighter note, glad to see your enjoying the show, EK!

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The romance sub-plot in this show is probably its weakest aspect, its pretty by-the-numbers and can get kind of stupid at times. That said, I still think its a better start than The Last Airbender. The first season of that show really didn't exactly make me a fan of it, what with all of the filler and kind of mediocre characterization. I think the writing in that show received a huge upgrade in its later seasons, which is what really hooked me. As far as Korra as a character goes, I don't really have any problems with her other than the romance stuff. That said, I do think that they haven't done much to make her that interesting. What I mean is that, unlike Aang, I don't really get what her character arc is supposed to be about, yet (assuming she even has one). But, nothing about her as a character really gets on my nerves, either.

I don't know, I think the show is pretty good, but maybe that's just me.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Surely you agree with me that the best Avatar episode is "The Boiling Rock", right? 

My favorite part of that episode was Mai fighting to buy time for Zuko and the others to escape at the end. That was one of those rare instances in which the character did something that I didn't expect, but when I stopped to think about it that was something that made sense for her character to do, and its stuff like that which makes the characters feel all the more 3-dimensional to me.

I liked just about everything about it from Sokka finally having a chance to shine to Zuko at his best as a good guy and how the whole rescue attempt hedges on them. It helped make Mai a more rounded character as well as Ty Lee to an extent and we even met some colorful characters like the prisoners, guards, and the warden. Then there were the escape plans. Honestly, the episode had everything for me.

Also, seeing Azula getting her just desserts is always great to see.

It may not have had Aang, but I really do feel it is the series best. 

[gunswordfist]

Surely you agree with me that the best Avatar episode is "The Boiling Rock", right? 

My favorite part of that episode was Mai fighting to buy time for Zuko and the others to escape at the end. That was one of those rare instances in which the character did something that I didn't expect, but when I stopped to think about it that was something that made sense for her character to do, and its stuff like that which makes the characters feel all the more 3-dimensional to me.

I liked just about everything about it from Sokka finally having a chance to shine to Zuko at his best as a good guy and how the whole rescue attempt hedges on them. It helped make Mai a more rounded character as well as Ty Lee to an extent and we even met some colorful characters like the prisoners, guards, and the warden. Then there were the escape plans. Honestly, the episode had everything for me.

Also, seeing Azula getting her just desserts is always great to see.

It may not have had Aang, but I really do feel it is the series best. 

It might be my favorite too. I love how I came in blind on this episode because I was away from any forums that would have praised it and watched it on DVD after the show is over. It's a lot of fun and I probably watched it more than any other ATLA episode.

Honestly, like I've said before, I don't care for Sokka but if they gave him a role as close to being as big as he got in The Boiling Rock, he would have been my favorite. But he's really just there to crack jokes, throw a boomerang and occasionally form a plan.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, I just finished the season, and overall I still stand by my opinion that its pretty solid, all things considered. That said, I have a real pet-peeve with that ending. So, Korra loses her bending abilities except for Airbending which she just unlocks the power to do after losing her ability to bend the other elements. I was fine with that. As for her other stuff, I figured it was a good way to keep her from mastering her abilities so early on, and maybe she'd have to partake in some difficult tasks to get her other abilities back again, and I'd be OK with that. But after all of this talk about patience and whatnot, Aang's spirit just suddenly gives her all of her powers back and then she even has the power to restore other people's abilities. In that case, this whole season might as well have not taken place, because that pretty much means that there were no consequences or repercussions for anyone except the bad guys. That just gets on my nerves, personally.

Having said that, though, while I'm in the minority I found the rest of the season to be a lot better than what you guys made it out to be. Maybe I'm being too easy on it, but it told an interesting and coherent story without feeling the need to get overly-convoluted or to throw in extremely stupid plot-twist (the actual main plot-twist that we got, while not clever, didn't really bother me either). Its nowhere near as good as The Last Airbender's 2nd and 3rd seasons, of course, but I can't exactly say that I found it to be a bad watch, either. I would really like to see the next season, but I just hope that they flesh out the characters much more this time around. I got a good sense of who each character was and their personalities in this season, but nobody actually got any meaningful development yet. After seeing how well Zuko's character was handled in the previous series, I know that these writers can do good characterization, so I'm still holding out hope for a real improvement in that department in the future.

[gunswordfist]

Well, I just finished the season, and overall I still stand by my opinion that its pretty solid, all things considered. That said, I have a real pet-peeve with that ending. So, Korra loses her bending abilities except for Airbending which she just unlocks the power to do after losing her ability to bend the other elements. I was fine with that. As for her other stuff, I figured it was a good way to keep her from mastering her abilities so early on, and maybe she'd have to partake in some difficult tasks to get her other abilities back again, and I'd be OK with that. But after all of this talk about patience and whatnot, Aang's spirit just suddenly gives her all of her powers back and then she even has the power to restore other people's abilities. In that case, this whole season might as well have not taken place, because that pretty much means that there were no consequences or repercussions for anyone except the bad guys. That just gets on my nerves, personally.

Having said that, though, while I'm in the minority I found the rest of the season to be a lot better than what you guys made it out to be. Maybe I'm being too easy on it, but it told an interesting and coherent story without feeling the need to get overly-convoluted or to throw in extremely stupid plot-twist (the actual main plot-twist that we got, while not clever, didn't really bother me either). Its nowhere near as good as The Last Airbender's 2nd and 3rd seasons, of course, but I can't exactly say that I found it to be a bad watch, either. I would really like to see the next season, but I just hope that they flesh out the characters much more this time around. I got a good sense of who each character was and their personalities in this season, but nobody actually got any meaningful development yet. After seeing how well Zuko's character was handled in the previous series, I know that these writers can do good characterization, so I'm still holding out hope for a real improvement in that department in the future.

I agree with the first paragraph. I hate how everything got magically fixed and it's like Korra learned nothing. The last episode is honestly my least favorite.

What wete your favorite episodes/moments?

[Grave]

Well, I just finished the season, and overall I still stand by my opinion that its pretty solid, all things considered. That said, I have a real pet-peeve with that ending. So, Korra loses her bending abilities except for Airbending which she just unlocks the power to do after losing her ability to bend the other elements. I was fine with that. As for her other stuff, I figured it was a good way to keep her from mastering her abilities so early on, and maybe she'd have to partake in some difficult tasks to get her other abilities back again, and I'd be OK with that. But after all of this talk about patience and whatnot, Aang's spirit just suddenly gives her all of her powers back and then she even has the power to restore other people's abilities. In that case, this whole season might as well have not taken place, because that pretty much means that there were no consequences or repercussions for anyone except the bad guys. That just gets on my nerves, personally.

Having said that, though, while I'm in the minority I found the rest of the season to be a lot better than what you guys made it out to be. Maybe I'm being too easy on it, but it told an interesting and coherent story without feeling the need to get overly-convoluted or to throw in extremely stupid plot-twist (the actual main plot-twist that we got, while not clever, didn't really bother me either). Its nowhere near as good as The Last Airbender's 2nd and 3rd seasons, of course, but I can't exactly say that I found it to be a bad watch, either. I would really like to see the next season, but I just hope that they flesh out the characters much more this time around. I got a good sense of who each character was and their personalities in this season, but nobody actually got any meaningful development yet. After seeing how well Zuko's character was handled in the previous series, I know that these writers can do good characterization, so I'm still holding out hope for a real improvement in that department in the future.

Just about everybody had the same problem with the way Korra ended.

With that said though, I'm probably the only one that preferred The Legend of Korra over The Last Airbender.

[gunswordfist]

I do. Or at least I did because my last rewatching of Korra and me really seeing the show's flaws and the recent discussion that reminded me how great ATLA is is making me think otherwise.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I'm never a fan of the "everything gets set back to status-quo no matter what" kind of ending. It just makes it hard to take everything that happened up to that point seriously at all.

As for the show itself, yeah, it has some flaws, and I never thought it was as good as The Last Airbender on the whole, but I also think that some people are too harsh on it. For what it is, its still probably one of the better animated series that I have seen in recent years. And its like people forget that there are still future seasons of this show being produced, so who's to say that it can't improve from its mistakes in future episodes?

[The Shadow Gentleman]

I do. Or at least I did because my last rewatching of Korra and me really seeing the show's flaws and the recent discussion that reminded me how great ATLA is is making me think otherwise.

This. I was really loving Korra up until the last episode, which really got me to rethink everything.

Well, I just finished the season, and overall I still stand by my opinion that its pretty solid, all things considered. That said, I have a real pet-peeve with that ending. So, Korra loses her bending abilities except for Airbending which she just unlocks the power to do after losing her ability to bend the other elements. I was fine with that. As for her other stuff, I figured it was a good way to keep her from mastering her abilities so early on, and maybe she'd have to partake in some difficult tasks to get her other abilities back again, and I'd be OK with that. But after all of this talk about patience and whatnot, Aang's spirit just suddenly gives her all of her powers back and then she even has the power to restore other people's abilities. In that case, this whole season might as well have not taken place, because that pretty much means that there were no consequences or repercussions for anyone except the bad guys. That just gets on my nerves, personally.

Having said that, though, while I'm in the minority I found the rest of the season to be a lot better than what you guys made it out to be. Maybe I'm being too easy on it, but it told an interesting and coherent story without feeling the need to get overly-convoluted or to throw in extremely stupid plot-twist (the actual main plot-twist that we got, while not clever, didn't really bother me either). Its nowhere near as good as The Last Airbender's 2nd and 3rd seasons, of course, but I can't exactly say that I found it to be a bad watch, either. I would really like to see the next season, but I just hope that they flesh out the characters much more this time around. I got a good sense of who each character was and their personalities in this season, but nobody actually got any meaningful development yet. After seeing how well Zuko's character was handled in the previous series, I know that these writers can do good characterization, so I'm still holding out hope for a real improvement in that department in the future.

I agree with the first paragraph. I hate how everything got magically fixed and it's like Korra learned nothing. The last episode is honestly my least favorite.

Especially since the first season was supposed to be about here growing and becoming more patient, which in turn would help her learn airbending. Then she doesn't change at all and gets her airbending anyway. The fact that the seasons are supposed to be largely self contained stories doesn't help.

And while there's still no news on when the second season two is coming out, some footage has been released, and it looks really awesome.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Actually, maybe the seasons being more self-contained could work in Korra's favor. It'd make it much easier to look past the flaws of the first season, whereas if it was heavily continuity-based, then those said flaws could drag down the quality of future stories unless they were addressed in clever ways.

As for me, I think the best possible thing to do is just look at what made The Last Airbender work so well in terms of the characters (not the story, because recycling that would be the worst thing that Korra could do as a series), and incorporate some of those elements into how the characters are handled in this series. When it comes down to it, ending aside, the characters were the weakest part of Korra. I mean, they were likable and competent for the most part, but nothing made any of them stand-out in the least, IMO. In The Last Airbender, every character just felt so distinct and memorable, and each of them had character arcs that were handled well. Actually, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Korra could actually stand to use some "filler" episodes. But really, its not filler in the sense of not getting anything accomplished, but more-so in progressing the characters rather than the plot. I feel that season 3 of Avatar did that the best, in which it had plenty of episodes that didn't progress the plot, but did actually give a lot more development to the various individual characters in the story. Hell, all of the "filler" episodes with Zuko interacting with different members of the team were some of my favorite episodes in the show, personally. I think that Korra could stand to use more episodes like those.

[The Shadow Gentleman]

Korra did feel like a more plot driven show then a character driven one. I would really love a "Tales of Ba Sing Se"-type episode.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, that was a great episode. This show could also stand to use some more humor. Maybe I'm the only one, but while the humor started out kind of weak and even occasionally annoying in The Last Airbender, I found that it got a much needed improvement in seasons 2 and 3, with a lot more legitimately funny jokes and moments thrown into the mix, which also helped give a bit more variety to the tone of the series. Ironically most of that humor came from characters OTHER than Sokka (I actually never found Sokka that funny, even though he was clearly intended to be the show's comic relief), more-so from the likes of characters like Toph and Zuko, with the former just being entertaining because of how much she clashed with everyone else in terms of personality, and the latter being in how he was a serious character but found himself in many awkward situations in which he didn't know the proper way to act.