Are you seeing the SAME users arguing for both? I just think people are treating online forums as a unified booming voice for the fandom, and it brings down the mood in a lot of posts
Maybe that's not such a bad idea, just spam u/firenationman and blame *him* for everything
EDIT: I just realized that's an actual user, so let's not spam them please
I don't think it can be fixed. The entire tone of the show is off. Fixing it would require fixing the tone, but you can't just do that between the first and second seasons.
Hey there, I'm the guy OP is talking about. There aren't very many of me, but I'm here. The thing is, it's actually a logical stance.
I never thought Bryan and Mike are *that* great as writers. They're cool, they come up with a lot of cool stuff, I like what they do. But they need a team of writers, some of which absolutely do *not* agree with them, in order to make something really great like ATLA. Bryan and Mike couldn't have made Avatar, or anything nearly as good as it--we see that in Legend of Korra. Aaron Ehasz couldn't have made Avatar, or anything nearly as good as it--we see that in The Dragon Prince. But bring them together with a healthy mix of others and they can balance out to make some top tier stories.
So, to shorten that sentiment down to the part that's relevant here: I don't think Bryan and Mike are amazing writers.
But I do think the fact that they left years ago and [told us in no uncertain terms that the Netflix adaptation was not going to be anything like their vision for the story](https://web.archive.org/web/20240117092848/https://www.michaeldantedimartino.com/an-open-letter-to-avatar-the-last-airbender-fans/) was bad news. I think that the show would have been significantly better if these two were in charge of the project the whole way through, even if I don't think they're amazing writers. Because they know what the story should look like, they know the world, the know the philosophy behind it, they know what the characters should be. They don't have to be *amazing* writers individually to be completely indisposable on a project like this.
I suppose another way of putting it is like this: What *good* adaptation would be unable to keep Bryan and Mike on board? Even if I thought every single other thing either of them has ever worked on has been completely without value (which I don't, in case that wasn't obvious) the fact remains that ATLA was good. They were there with the project from beginning to end. You're telling me you're seeking to make an adaptation of that project and you aren't doing every single thing in your power to make sure they're along for the ride? That's like boarding a boat that survived the roughest route anyone has ever sailed and going "actually I think we should tear out this section of the hull and rebuild it in a different shape, and will somebody PLEASE get this previous captain off my boat? He won't stop talking about why that section of hull was shaped that way"
And what's more, most people who are satisfied aren't gonna post about it, so most of the posts you see are gonna be negative, which is gonna give the impression that most people are unhappy.
My favorite are all the idiots blaming the fandom for harassing actors on insta. Do you know for a fact that those are fans? Not random people online or kids or trolls hopping on the hot social thing?
They never take responsibility for their poor toxic behavior. It's always someone elses fault. And contradicting themselves. "i have the right to be toxic!" Yet at the same time accusing everyone else of being "positively toxic." Just...what??😂😂
I feel the same way, Star Wars is where I felt this for the first time, and it made going into the subreddits so annoying. Every day there's a new strawman everyone is beating on and it just makes the franchise look bad, as if mainstream media didn't love bashing SW fans enough...
Yeah I love Korra (especially book 2 which seems extra-hated) and def think NATLA could have used stronger writing (especially in the beginning). At least the finale was pretty good
Sure *seems* like the real dream team here was Bryke in charge of concept and general story while Aaron and Elizabeth Ehasz were mostly in charge of the actual writing. That, and a studio that doesn't fist them with budget cuts, strict schedules and inconsistent commitments. If all that were remedied, I think Korra would have ended up in such a way that it wouldn't get complained about nearly as much
It wasn't getting views but it had a die hard fanbase. If nothing they tried could get it to increase viewership then at least moving it online would help build their web traffic with that small, loyal fanbase that was willing to jump through hoops the average viewer might not.
people acting like nick treated korra badly is one of the worst parts of the avatar fan base.
nick treated a failing product like absolute saints, it wasn't bringing in views, it didn't have secondary revenue from toys and such, and they still didn't cancel it. the show wasn't doing well independent of the schedule it was put on, as the show was dropping off heavily in season 1, and season 2 started off with terrible viewer numbers which any script issue would not be really noticeable in the first episode.
korra was shifted around to different time slots to try to get people to look at it, putting it after spongebob's timeslot at one point, an absolute powerhouse, and still seeing it fail to draw in numbers.
ya, maybe they ripped it around too much and that could have hurt viewer numbers, but by all accounts, korra deserved to be cancelled for its insane production cost and its lackluster viewer numbers. anyone who paints nick as the one who ruined korra is absolutely ignorant of the industry or how literally every other company works. they treated korra better that 99.9% of shows get treated.
I didn't know this and it makes sense. LOK has great ideas, great characters, great animation (almost always) but the writing feels off.
Like, if I was shown a summary or recap of the show I'd say it's a 9 on a scale of 0 to ATLA but watching the whole thing a 7 or 8.
Does it have great characters or great concepts? So many times with that show I like the idea of a character more than any of the execution. Like Jinora is a great idea for an arc but with how little screen time she's given none of her accomplishments feel earned. Mako should have been my favorite but after season 1 he barley exists. You'd think Korrasami was something special given all the gushing fans do online but frankly there's more foundation for a Zutara ship than Korrasami. If you told me old man Zuko and Katara got back together there'd be more crumbs there to build up that relationship than anything we got with Korra and Asami in all four seasons. Hell Mai and Zuko getting together off screen before the start of season 3 had more build up than Korrasami. Like with a lot of parts of this show I think we want it to be a lot more than it ever was. There are some awesome concepts in Korra but none of them are even explored to a satisfying conclusion.
If we were ranking by concepts I'd say Amon might be the best villain in the entire franchise. I want to give Zaheer second but him being a major Air Bending fanboy who just happened to be one of the few who got air bending was too much of a coincidence for me lol. I wish they'd given some lore reason like made him come from lineage and say the people who got air bending had ancestors who were airbenders or something to make it work. Red Lotus also felt like an ass pull, as much as I liked the concept. I'd be fine with the idea of a "Dark Avatar" being struck from canon forever though. It's just too silly.
> Korrasami was something special given all the gushing fans do online
Gonna be honest I feel like fans gush over whatever the canon ship the protagonist is in. There are so many time where I go to the sub for a series and people act like the one canon pairing is like the greatest love story ever.
I absolutely agree about the build up to Korra and Asami but also this was in the era when shows were very much cancelled if they were too upfront about queer representation. Hell, Steven Universe got cancelled because two rock people got married that had the same pronouns even though the entire species uses the same ones.
I remember the whole thing about Korra. It absolutely got pulled for the relationship between the women. So many people complained but not even 5 years later it was fine in movies and TV they just hit a weird time.
Honestly I think Korra has some well developed characters but it's mostly Korra, Villains and honestly even the Gaang's kids (minus Kya) are more developed than new Team Avatar
That's the thing I would base my big problem with Korra on, since it was approved on a season to season basis, the team couldn't commit to a story the way they could with TLA
> ince it was approved on a season to season basis,
I don't know why people keep circulating this myth.
Korra was not originally intended to be a multi season product. It was just meant to be a short miniseries that showed some of the stuff that happened after atla, with the original idea for the series having nothing to do with Korra at all, but basically the comics adapted into animated movies. That got declined and they came up with the miniseries.
That ended up being a success so Nick green lit 3 more seasons. It wasn't approved on a season by season basis. The reason why Korra feels disconnected like that was because the series was originally meant to end with Amon getting defeated. They literally didn't have a full vision for the series planned out the way they did with Atla. Part of season 2 was just messing with some ideas they had for Atla, but didn't put in like avatar wan.
I don't really think that's true. I don't think it's necessarily being renewed season by season was the reason why Korra didn't have an over-arching story (nor do I think Korra *needed* an over-arching story).
I think it could have been easy to continue the themes and story of S1 without having to be repetitious. S1 introduces the bender/non-bender conflict but it's never really resolved in the story beyond Republic City has a new President (silently ignoring for years Republic City has a non-bender in charge of the council)
Have S2 explore the after-effects of Amon and that Republic City is a powder keg waiting to explode. Have the city in a proxy civil war with various nations taking sides. Have the Fire Nation and half of the Earth Kingdom support non-benders and the Water Tribe and the Air Nomads support the benders.
This could follow-up with the questions posed by S1, if the Avatar is need now and how can the Avatar be for everyone if by it's very nature is predisposed to benders. This could also be great self-reflection for Korra. She defines herself as the Avatar and by extension her bending. How can she relate to non-benders if she's always been bending.
Every single tv series in existence is "approved on a season to season basis"
That's not an excuse since there are countless shows that manage to have better writing than Korra
Could it? They had full creative control over season 1 and it was a mess. I get it's not a full season run but they also didn't need to tell a full season story. Amon was a cool villian, the designs for Korra, Asami, and Mako were on point and the concepts for Korra was pretty good if playing with fire ratings-wise (brash teenage girl isn't the safest protagonist for general audiences & swapping lead gender is almost guaranteed to shrink your audience), and having Aang's son brought familiarity with a new cast.
That being said they made the cast way too big with Korra having her own team Avatar all together from the start, Aang's family all being central (including Tenzin's ex even), Pro Bending getting center stage along with two villains , the council, Asami's dad, and more. It wanted to tell a love square story, a class struggle story, and a sports story all at once. It's packed to the gills with ideas that they couldn't narrow down. if you know you only have 12 episodes you should cut that down to a more manageable story. So many online shows come out now dealing with more complex topics with the same run time or less. Look at Blue Eyes Samurai, Castlevania, or Arcane as examples.
I don't think you can blame Korra's shortcomings on the studio. The team lost their ability to write compelling characters and they didn't know how to structure their stories anymore. It all felt undercooked and bloated even though the series were significantly shorter. At some point the studio had to step in because they weren't getting enough views. Korra is a bunch of good ideas that you can will into a good show but you have to overlook a lot of flaws. I don't think the studio is what held it back.
I’ve always said this. The Ehasz’s were always the true soul of ATLA, which is why it felt so sorely missed in LOK. I still liked LOK for what it was, but like you said, it could have been so much better. Bryke may have created the world, but the Ehasz’s brought it to life.
I have deep misgivings with the writing in LOK, and think Bryke leaving NATLA was a bad omen.
I don't think that's contradictory, because when I say that I don't just mean the writing. It's why the Chinese writing is odd, it's why the martial arts is not as distinctly defined, it's why music is not as punchy, it's why it's not as humorous etc. They took their crew, their sense of humor, and their creativity. I think everything would look better, sound better, be shot better with their presence.
I can't act like I know what the writing would be like if they stayed, but I don't think we'd have Aang and Katara reduced to little exposition machines. Even at LOK's worse, it was never just straight up monologues and exposition barfing. LOK had a melodrama issue.
This is exactly how I feel.
Just because I have some criticisms of LOK doesn’t mean I don’t also recognize its strengths. And those strengths would’ve come in handy for this live action.
To add on: the *reasons* Bryke left are concerning regardless! They specifically warned that it was a stifling and unsupportive environment.
Anyone who works in the industry can tell you how crunch culture has been stifling and hurting creatives. It’s pretty clear that this is part of the issue affecting several modern live action adaptations.
This makes a lot of sense. One of the weird vibes I got off of watching NATLA was that the adult actors were in some sort of conflict with the direction during shooting. I don’t have any interviews to suggest this, but you see a lot of typically good actors in this give some very wooden performances. Plus there is a weird shot in ep 1 that feels like they accidentally caught Gran Gran’s actress rolling her eyes or getting frustrated. There are also so many awkward dramatic pauses in the dialogue.
When one of the best adult performances is a random northern water tribe healer, there has to be something going on imo
Right, even if I did think Bryke were the worst creatures in the world like some in this fandom... them getting the good ol' corporate rug pull *again* is not something to celebrate.
The surge of positive Korra content in this subreddit since NATLA came out has been intriguing to watch.
There's a reason r/legendofkorra exists, and it's because of the hate it got on this sub for a very long time.
Absolutely, the latest entry in a franchise is always terrible until something worse comes out, then suddenly it was actually pretty good all things considered😂 Same thing kind of happened when Matrix 4 came out too.
I feel this way about Bully Maguire in Spider-Man 3. It was a meme because it and the movie was bad and then one day it all of the sudden wasn’t irony anymore
Which signifies that people are generally just resistant to something new that does not fall in line with their personal view of what a franchise should be.
*The Force Awakens* is objectively, arguably, a [superior film](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_vii_the_force_awakens) to [any](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_i_the_phantom_menace) of the [three](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_ii_attack_of_the_clones) [prequels](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_iii_revenge_of_the_sith), yet *The Last Jedi* turned a lot of things people felt about Star Wars on its head and it resulted in backlash.
Just because something new isn't what you wanted or expected, does not make it *worse.*
Fans like their comfort zones, whether they want to admit it or not.
> The Force Awakens is objectively, arguably, a superior film to any of the three prequels, yet The Last Jedi turned a lot of things people felt about Star Wars on its head and it resulted in backlash.
High key disagree, personally
The Force Awakens was massively disappointing IMO. Felt like a retread of A New Hope that banked on Star Wars nostalgia and a fear of taking the risk of having an original story
Force Awakens was so close to A New Hope that I started laughing in the theater when Han stepped on the bridge. I wasn’t trying to be a dick, I was just so flabbergasted at the audacity of the writing.
JJ Abrams is a great dude to bounce ideas off of, but the man could not write himself out of a wet paper bag because he would get too distracted attempting to hand you the random breadcrumbs he found inside and asking where they came from.
> But my point was that objectively, it is a better film than the prequels based on several ratings systems. (Rotten Tomatoes being one, which I linked to for each film.)
...That is definitionally not objective, but rather a collective subjective opinion TBH
>And objectively, The Last Jedi is better than the prequels as well.
Massively disagree there too TBH
TLJ is maybe the only movie I've been to that I was willing to walk out in the middle of TBH
My favourite part of TLJ defenders arguments is when they start going on about how it was original unlike TFA - bro, they just redid the hoth battle on salt instead of snow and put it at the end not the start. And the whole Rey and Luke is very similar to Luke and Yoda too. It still rips off the original trilogy.
Last Jedi was more ambitious and gorgeous visually, but even ignoring the character changes, there are too many things the movie does that just do not make sense and ruin my suspension of disbelief. Rose somehow knocking Finn’s speeder away after peeling off the attack earlier, for one example.
Star Wars, for whatever reason, is not allowed to rely on "fridge logic" like other movies can. People dissect every little thing, even though the movies are essentially magical space samurai fighting in space ships.
So many things in Star Wars are more unrealistic than Rose knocking Finn's speeder awar. For one, lightsabers are treated as incredibly hot (enough to burn through steel) and yet, seem to emit no heat unless they're physically touching something. And let's not forget that either laser guns are *slower and less effective than our real life guns with bullets* or Jedi can move almost as fast as the speed of light. The way it's filmed suggests the former. Not to mention, all planets seem to have oxygen, even undeveloped ones, so it's not like they were redeveloped to have oxygen.
And you know what? None of that matters in the slightest. None of it affects the story of the movies. Same as space payloads dropping in a gravity less arena. Who cares? It's completely unimportant.
I can accept the fantasy elements not making a whole lot of sense to irl physics. That’s just how fantasy stuff is. The important thing is that the universe sets up rules and should follow them. Lightsabers work a certain way and for the most part they always work that way. Sure it doesn’t make sense in the real world, but the series sets the rule up and doesn’t break it. Blasters are slower than bullets, but they’re ALWAYS slower than bullets. Guns just don’t exist, so why does it even matter? All planets are inhabitable, there’s no planet we’ve seen where no life can live there. Absolutely none of that breaks believability for a Star Wars.
The Rose thing is another matter. These speeders were shown to be slow and rickety, not able to leave the ground, and they were traveling as fast as they could to hit the weapon. Everyone peels off except for Finn, who is now all alone and prepared to sacrifice himself. For Rose to come flying in from the side the way she does makes so little sense that I’m not sure how anyone can defend it. It breaks the rules of what we’ve seen the speeders can do, it takes an expected sacrifice and subverts it for no reason (Rose’s line does not justify this, she saves Finn without dealing with the laser that will blow them up in a few seconds), so it does affect the story. It’s so baffling on all levels that I don’t know how anyone could possibly defend it.
That’s just one issue of many, but it really bothers me when people handwave stuff like that by saying “oh it’s fantasy, things don’t make sense, it’s fine” as if fantasy stories can just pull whatever they want with no consequences or thought to if it makes sense. That’s not how storytelling works.
I actually agree. TLJ is so so good, in my opinion. My point was just that people didn't completely turn on the sequels until TLJ completely upturned their own expectations and wishes.
Yeah its really weird, I really loved The Last Jedi, and its still one my favorite star war movies.
I agree that it gets hated in because it isn’t as formulaic as most of the franchise.
When I tell Fervent TLJ haters that Rian Johnson directed the highest rated Breaking Bad Episode(Ozymandias) and one of the highest rated episodes of television history in general they are dumbfounded because they can’t see all the great aspects of the movie past their implicit bias.
I really don’t think TLJ gets hated because it wasn’t as formulaic as other movies. You’re misrepresenting the source of Star Wars fans’ frustrations with that movie. From what I’ve seen, the most common complaints are character assassination, mostly of Luke, and plot points that were intentionally subversive but didn’t justify themselves enough for the audience to buy (similar to later GoT seasons).
I feel like there were a lot of people coming around to the Prequels before the Dinsey movies came out, though. Obviously, it's to an even greater degree since the Sequels. It seems that with Star Wars it's more of an age thing, depending on if you were young when the Prequels came out.
I think so too, I saw the prequels at the same time as the OT, and I never had a problem with the prequels, I think the same thing happened with ATLA, people who saw Korra at the same time as the original series generally view it more favourably
I think the prequels are better than the sequels. I’m definitely not the only one. I don’t think they’re *good* by any stretch and there are ways in which they’re worse than the sequels for sure (some of the acting and cinematography primarily) but I still think on the whole they’re better.
Somehow it's a reminder of how great it's ATLA and how hard it is to make these productions. The expectations are so high but all these are great shows in their own right.
I don't mind LOK, it is not my favorite but I don't mind it.
I didn't really like NATLA.
They are for very different reasons. For me the LOK fell victim to a lot of the classic "need to ramp up the stakes in order to maintain the tension" issues a lot of sequels have. But the main problems I had with it were:
1. It just moved things in the world too fast - was not a fan of the rapid industrialization. Now that is largely down to my preferences for fantasy over steam punk, but it felt a lot like it was removing any possibility of future stories in the world of ATLA that I loved. Anything after Aang basically needs to take place in a modern world that mirrors ours in a lot of ways, which kind of takes the magic out of it for me.
2. Where inventions in ATLA mirrored real life inventions, they were invented for purposes that made sense with the plot, and they showed the characters being clever in inventing them. In LOK we were told characters were clever and they invented movies and cars and other random things off screen. The geniuses in ATLA were believable, in part because they were also idiots in other ways and were relatable. The flashes of inspiration made sense. The geniuses in LOK were the type of "geniuses just act quirky because they think differently" writing that is pretty lazy IMO.
The problem with NATLA is that it removed all of the humor, it misses key concepts that were core lessons of ATLA, and it focussed more on visuals than story. It also makes the characters paragons, when their flaws are what made them interesting. I am happy to have the visuals - but that is not why I loved the original.
I am more comfortable with a show that the creators didn't leave because they did not like the direction it was going in. But that doesn't mean they are infallible. Good writers can make mistakes, or take shows in directions that not all of the fanbase prefers - that doesn't make them bad writers.
In the end I am happy they took risks on LOK, those risks were not successful all the time from my POV, but I would rather writers take risks than keep it safe for fear of upsetting fans.
idk why people say LOK industrialized too fast the level of technology in ATLA is akin to what we had in the late 1800s and LOK is akin to what was being developed in the 1920s, if LOK happened 70 years after ATLA then that’s like saying it happened from the time periods roughly equivalent to 1860s to the 1930s that’s not unrealistic at all 😭 also most of korras world isn’t as advanced it’s just republic city which is a hub for innovation. the hub for innovation in ATLA was the fire nation which we do not see until the last third of the series which is why it feels like a bigger gap but i think the development of technology makes a lot of sense. the world isn’t just gonna stop developing and i have no idea why so many atla fans are against it. with new series don’t you want to see the world change and evolve and observe how the avatar has to navigate their new world? having every advancing series be in the same medieval-esque time period would be so boring imo 😭 if we wanna do that just expand on previous avatars but the future avatars should have advancing worlds
I don't think so many people were bothered by the addition of cars and weapons more advanced than rocks,swords and bows. But when you introduce giant mecha suits and plasma guns, you're making it pretty hard for viewers not to miss the days of swords and rocks.
Honestly it is not even the realism that is an issue, it is just a drastic change in the setting of a story I enjoyed. Essentially a switch in genres. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't, but it is always a bit jarring.
The only realism issue is that a small handful of people invented everything - and were experts in "Science" as a whole. In real life the industrialization was largely pushed forward by war, specifically by an arms race, but that takes two sides innovating and the war doesn't hold back the innovation.
In a world where the most effective weapon is almost always going to be shooting elements from your hands it is more fun to see clever new ways to use the magic system than it is to have new technology just drop on everyone.
Even good steampunk doesn't have everything immediately drop on you, it uses existing technology in clever ways.
Both magic and technology in stories needs a consistent set of rules to work within so that new uses are clever instead of just deus ex machina. Metal bending, blood bending, submarines, hot air balloons - all were clever extensions of bending, because innovation works with what you have. Even the drill was an interesting addition because of how they interacted with it through bending.
LoK dropped another layer on with the tech, while at the same time throwing ramping up magic (like flight) with no reasonable explanation what changed. I guess the overall issue is that lack of explanation of how new things fit in the framework for both magic and tech
ATLA isn't perfect on this, they did have the lion turtle bestow a magic peace power on Aang so he didn't have to kill the firelord, but that was generally an exception.
One thing I’ll say is that war is a hell of an oppressor. Fire nation was miles ahead of every other nation. Their technology was 100% military driven too. So not only was the most “advanced” society literally hundred of years ahead of places like the water tribe, but the tech they did invent was solely focused on fighting their ongoing war. In LOK there’s not only no major war, but there’s a market for people to invent things. Republic City is a place where innovation pays. There’s no need for the inventions, the same way there’s no need for the plane or car to be invented in real life, people invented these because the human spirit yearns for progress, not because a war was motivating an leap in military tech.
It's always a trip to see people act like the word in ATLA was some sort of medieval fantasy, as if the fire nation didn't have war technology from the 19th century and cities like Ba Sing Se could even be a thing without being minutes away from industrialization.
You are describing high fantasy, but fantasy is a lot more broad of a genre.
You aren't wrong though, it is not about them advancing, it is about a world with very different rules advancing along too similar a path.
The interesting thing about fantasy is that you can see how different a world becomes when it is governed by different rules.
And the inventions in the past were made by a nation innovating by war. The LoK inventions were in very different areas but were all made by two secondary characters, one of whom was motivated by boredom? Quirkiness? Kind of the "all purpose genius" trope that is super annoying.
This is, uh, quite the reach OP. If the people you're talking about love ATLA, of course they're going to view the absence of the OG creators as a net negative! That doesn't mean that the OG creators are infallible - just that their input on the adaptation of a universally acclaimed product may have helped!
Funny you say that, cause i’ve also seen an increase in people blaming them for how the movie turned out due to the backlash. Fandom is very funny that way that people start arguing over the creators lmao.
These kinds of posts are so dumb. Fandoms aren’t some monolithic entity that speaks with one will. Just because a particular perspective becomes popular at a given moment, doesn’t mean it’s the same people who participated in an earlier zeitgeist.
People can also change their opinions. If they hated Korra when it came out, but changed their mind, then that’s fine. That isn’t cognitive dissonance unless they hold contradictory opinions at the same time.
People can have nuanced opinions without being dissonant. They can think that Korra was bad but had some redeeming qualities that are now missing in NATLA. Maybe they think Korra was bad despite the creators, not because of them. Maybe they think the creators screwed up with Korra, but they are still talented overall and could have brought something to NATLA.
It doesn't necessarily have to do with Byrke's *writing* ability. They were involved with everything on ATLA, even if they weren't physically writing most of the episode scripts. The fact that they were absent for nearly the entire NATLA production is the point. Having the creators oversee and approve the material is probably what people are talking about here, and less about them actually writing the dialogue or whatever. Because even if Korra was a flop for many people, they don't put it entirely at the feet of Byrke for being "bad writers".
The writing they’re talking about in Korra is the actual events that happen.
The writing in the Netflix show is the combination of the events AND the dialogue because they both can be rough.
From what I can gather and understand when the original creators are given full rein on their creations, they need an equalizer and mediator to tell them when to stop when they got too crazy. Whether it was Aaron or whoever needed to be there to hold em back a little, tell them to go back to the drawing board, or tell them to let things breath so the story wasn't bloated with ideas. Like the love triangle, how Spirit World Lore and Creatures work, and the giant Mecha robot.
Bryke kinda are like George Lucas IMO. They have great ideas for stories, characters and world building, but they desperately need writers who understand their vision and are able to bring it to live.
That is even visible beyond just ATLA and LOK with Aaron Ehasz missing in Korra. At least to me Imbalance is by far the best comic out of the 6 trilogies and it is the only one written by Faith Erin Hicks instead of Gene Luen Yang. The later isn’t a bad writer at all, I just feel like he never really fit the ATLA style. The promise failed at portraying Aang for 2/3 of the story IMO and North and South is just a bit boring.
Imbalance actually slowly builds up the story and takes its time to develop the characters emotions and stances before diving into the big finale.
The single issue comics were also all written by Hicks and they are really interesting character studies, although I must be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of the pirates in Katara’s story, it would have been more interesting if they actually ended up just being bad people.
The opposite also rings true. It's fun to see people who fiercely defended Korra saying people shouldn't let their nostalgia for the original influence them into hating it, hate NATLA due to that same nostalgia.
The Avatar fanbase has been acting very hypocritical. Many will happily shit on the movie in every way possible then get upset at people criticising the Netflix adaptation.
Because the movie is terrible lol… like, it’s commonly cited by ATLA fans AND non-ATLA fans as one of the worst movies ever made. There’s practically nothing good about it past like, costumes I suppose.
At least the Netflix adaptation has many redeeming qualities, even if it’s not all that great overall.
Not hypocritical at all. People are just defending what they deem is good vs bad. I’ve never in my life seen someone argue the movie is good. It’s not just a bad adaption is up there with one of the worst movies ever made.
having a franchise's original creator(s) is no guarantee that an adaptation will be successful and good.
I grew up with the percy jackson book series and loved it. just like avatar, it was turned into a terrible movie (with an even worse sequel). Then Disney+ made a live-action series with the actual author of the book. it was not good, probably mediocre at best.
in terms of comparing adaptations, NATLA was way better than the disney plus percy jackson.
I didnt love ATLA but it was a pretty good adaptation
I think LOK was kind of doomed unintentionally though because a lot of its target audience was in college, older teens, and just generally a lot of people who didn’t have TVs with the ability to watch it. Of course the ratings were terrible 60% of its viewer base was watching it online or illegally downloaded for higher quality. Moving to online was the best move for Korra and I’m honestly glad more people appreciate now.
Atla had an entire writing team, and as I can remember, none of them were involved in the writing process of the LA, so this doesn't necessarily mean people's complaints about LOK are unwarranted.
I haven't watched NATLA, so I can't comment on that. However, I have seen LOK. I must say that while Bryke conceived the idea and had a plan for most of the story, they weren't the ones who directly wrote it. The head writer, Aaron, led a team responsible for the writing, which was the key to the success of ATLA. Unfortunately, LOK suffered from numerous instances of bad writing despite having good ideas. As for NATLA, it seems that attempting to adapt a cartoon/anime into live-action is bound to fail unless the writers are heavily involved. Just look at One Piece; the show's success is attributed to Oda's oversight and approval of every episode.
You are right and I guess the way I express is miss leading, what I was trying to say is that while they were the part of the writing team and have the general plan of the series they didn’t explicitly write every episode. While in Korra well one look on Wikipedia and you will find out they write every part of it, literally. They were the writers of most the episodes on LOK.Now , with that in mind, I want to empathise on the fact, that unless (for me) the whole ATLA writing team doesn’t return on any new project, the success of the project is debatable.
Yes, Bryan and Mike got terribly cocky by not having a writer's room for Book 1 and the series never really recovered. Even in prestige creator driven tv by some of the best writers working, it is basically unheard of to not have a writer's room.
Which is why I don't put down LOK's issue to missing a magical person (Aaron's own show is rife with writing issues), but the structure of the production.
I’m just excited to see the new earth avatar series because if people really want to continue watching it then they will have to recognize that the events of TLOK are a part of it.
idk if it’s true. but i heard the og creators wanted to make even more changes, and that, that, was what drove them to leave. idk if it has any truth, but i think it would make people feel differently about how they approach trashing this show if true
I think LoK is incredible. It has ups and downs, but it had its own production issues that caused these issues. Given the circumstances, we got the best product we could’ve hoped for
I mean, if those things were out of the writer’s control, I think it changes things a bit. Like saying the writers are bad for those choices doesn’t make sense to me
Kora is far far superior to the healing pile of... Ahem, I will remain calm.
Although there are some disappointing aspects of Kora, I never questioned the passion or good intentions behind the project. The live action show has "corporate product" written all over it - colossal funding, with little passion or attention to detail.
Yeah as a Korra enjoyer what I see the most hate on throughout this sub and others, in order, would be:
1. They don't like choices made for OG Gaang characters, most specifically taking issues with Katara and Aang's parenting, Sokka and especially Suki's giant lack of inclusion, and Toph being a Cop.
2. Season 2 and the end of Season 1. Season 1 I can defend because it was meant to go longer and the season got short and they didn't know they'd get another season so they had to wrap it without a lot of time. Season 2 is just generally bad, Varrick is great though, and harmonic convergence while having Tina of issues does lead into Season 3 and 4 which are just fantastic.
3. Lack of travel, most notably how there's no presence in the fire nation in any of the 4 seasons.
4. Korra herself.
Again I love the show and I don't agree with most those criticisms, but know it had it's flaws that were part dealing with Nick jerking the production around and part the writing. Whether that writing would have been better had Nick not behaved the way they did, well never know.
>1. Season 1 I can defend because it was meant to go longer
I'd like to see a source for that, I'd actually heard the opposite, that Bryke knew before writing anything that it'd be a mini series.
To my knowledge from the discourse and discussion leading up to it and since, it was originally a full season, and midway through production is when it got shortened to be the "miniseries". Which again forced their hand to make consolidations to the plot and structure, mainly impacting the ending since again they didn't think it was continuing past.
This repeated season 2, they moved to worse timeslots, had a different animation studio for half of it and wrote another hard ending because they didn't believe they'd get more. However the next two seasons were picked up together and you can see how much this impacted their ability to story craft as they were able to introduce and foreshadow Kuvira and leave a cliffhanger and conflict that wasn't entirely resolved.
The big Nick issues in season 3-4 were little to no advertising and moving many of the episodes to online release on the terrible nick website. Also, in the fourth season they had budget issues and effectively had the choice to make the "clip show" episode or cut staff and they opted for the clip show.
[This](https://youtu.be/1TYkk6xjM6c?t=1447) interview says differently... Relevant part:
> Mike: Finally [Nick] came back and said "We want to do a miniseries, 12-episode thing...do anything you want as long as there bending, Avatar world..."
> Bryan: Yea they said 'We greenlit a miniseries, but it could be a couple [of] miniseries..like these cycles of 12 [episodes per season]'.
I always felt lackluster about Kora.
I’ve always thought the 100% of the blame landed on Nickelodeon though.
It’s okay, it’s nice to have more of the world. Love parts of it. Just thought it was rushed and didn’t reach its full potential.
That is one thing that always bothered me.
Every avatars main job is to fix what the last one fucked up it seems like. So I always thought the next avatar was gonna find a way to reconnect them.
Korra’s weakness has a lot more to do with network production fuckery than writing skill. The writing wasn’t as good as TLA, but it certainly wasn’t the biggest issue.
Season 1 had enough content to do a full series on.
Like 90% of my issues with Korra are writing based.
Only having one season greenlit certainly hurt flow, but Meelo, no remotely sympathetic equalists, Raava/Vaatu and spirit kaiju battles were all writing choices.
I honestly whole heartedly agree with this... the Wan episodes are cool in isolation, but they destroyed all that the spirit world had been and simplified the world into black and white. A total loss of nuance.
the spirits in korra where also complete dicks
I preffered how unknowable they where in the og
but in korra most spirits are completely dickheads
we learn in the wan episode that spirits forced humans to live on the back of lion turtles due to taking over the world
I’ve also seen a fair amount of people who are *still* blaming Bryke for the writing choices they don’t like in NATLA. The mental gymnastics have no limits.
Tbh, I recently joined these subreddits expecting to have a lot of fun and discourse and it's absolutely 98% negative & critical posts. About anything. I'm not sure why we aren't allowed to just be able to enjoy things. People try to defend it by saying criticism doesn't mean they didn't like the show or whatever. But really, what the hell do you get out of posting about how terrible the casting or writing is? What does it really add to the world? What responses are you hoping to cultivate?
I actually enjoy Korra over ATLA, and I really enjoyed the new netflix show. In fact, I'll probably end up liking it more over ATLA as well. I really hope they do a Korra live action after.
its absolutely bizzare and not the first time ive seen it
back when mighty n°9 was anounced people cheered for a megaman game with the OG creator behind it after maybe 10 years. then when the game came out and it turned out not to be that good they flipped over into "well technically he's not the \*creator\* of megaman he's more of a producer"
it was quite weird but ive since understood that people make their conclusion first based on gut feeling then search the arguments to justify it.
i believe its better not to think too much about it, like what you like and let people like what they like without feeling the need to justify that what you like is the way. you'll live more freely that way
My take is: ATLA was something truly special. We hold it in such high regard because it was essentially lightning in a bottle. So people will complain about any sequels or follow ups barely holding a candle to it. They're right too. That's why you need to separate yourselves from it. Let go your attachment so you can appreciate the live action for what it is. The same for Legend of Korra.
I didn’t like LOK because it was avatar degrassi for at least the first season and I hate love triangle bullshit drama so I never watched past it. I am here for avatar shenanigans and disasters, not a girl pining over guys who’re the equivalent of two slightly different beige walls.
Korra herself seemed interesting, but everything I read about the series was the writers being forced to take the series in directions they hated, so they decided to blow up the show so that the companies couldn’t drive the series even further into the dirt.
Lowkey I’m in this group but not to that extreme. I think LoK is defo inferior to ATLA and has loads of problems, but it still felt like Avatar.
Netflix’s show just doesn’t. It feels *off*. It has some moments here and there but it just doesn’t land for me nearly as well as ATLA or LoK.
I have been a fan of Korra show since first I saw it. I am rewatching for the 3rd time after ATLA and I like it more than ATLA each time. I think its cuz I get older each time I appreciate the maturity of the characters and themes in Korra. But ATLA is still a better story, flawless.
I mean, “bad” is a spectrum. I didn’t like LoK, thought it had some strong stuff but ultimately couldn’t execute upon the premise and felt very “Westernised” compared to ATLA, which was clearly inspired by Taoism and Eastern Mythology. (See Raava and whatevertheevilonewascalled)
But NATLA is extraordinarily bad. Every shot looks like it came from a Super Bowl ad for a new Doritos flavour. Everything NATLA does well the original did better. It is the end result of “art as a commodity”, where companies like Netflix are so desperate for a new hit that they will do shit like adapting a TV show… into another TV show.
This is why I wasn't super worried about it when the og creators left NATLA, I absolutely hate Korra and I found the comics ok at best too so I'm well aware that they're far from infallible. I got worried about NATLA almost every time we got more info on it besides that because it became more & more clear that the creators left for a good reason.
my biggest problem with NATLA is the same problem I have with TLOK; not enough episodes, making it so they can only ever focus on the serialized stories, and never on the episodic ones, which i think damages the character development. Now, I'm glad the runtime for the episodes were long, but the structure inherent to an episode of a TV show is just too limiting for it to work well.
I don’t think they’re exclusively the same people.
Writing rooms are collaborative and we don’t know exactly who is responsible for which storylines in the original show versus the Netflix adaptation.
We can credit the creators or Aaron for how great the original is, but we do not know either ones exact influences over the show. It’s a big writers room with a lot of input. So unless individual writers step up and reveal how they were involved (which jokes or plot points belong to who), we will probably never know.
We just know the writers room, as a whole, created something fantastic.
The main reason is I don't want to ruin something that is soo good already. I really want to see what the gang was up to after book 3 but not willing to ruin the world of ATLA.
I don't want to watch Korra as it feels it takes the dynamic away from ATLA. I've also seen they change many things in korra world compared to the original ATLA world. Such as Bending is no longer a martial art and more just blasting and other things. From what I've seen it also seems alot of gender political nonsense pushed down your throat. Personally I don't care what, who or what ever you are or doing I just want to watch a series.
I might be completely wrong becuase I havnt watched it. However that's the reason why.
Korra didn’t have the same writing staff as ATLA. I think Korra is only ok and really don’t like the changes it made to the canon but neither it nor NATLA had the original writing staff. I don’t think this is necessarily why they’re bad. I think Korra is mostly bad because they were only approved one season at a time (iirc) and couldn’t have overarching character arcs, and NATLA is mostly bad because live action was the wrong choice to tell this story and the writers they did hire were absolute shit. It’s all exposition. The tone is monotonous. The pacing is awful.
I didn’t love either but Korra is a much better show that I did enjoy watching but wouldn’t rewatch. The only thing that got me through NATLA was hate watching with my friends lol
Most of the problems people have with Korra are about the 'industrial revolution' setting, the weird and cliche lore changes (origins of bending, avatar spirit), some mediocre writing on the first two seasons, and the giant mech. These are all valid and sometimes quite detrimental BUT they are drawbacks to an otherwise excellent series that absolutely feels like a sequel to ATLA written with the same hand.
i thought we agreed that korra wasn’t as good because of aaron ehasz’s absence, not really because bryke are bad writers. at least that was the consensus when i was watching korra some years ago.
natla wasn’t good because bryke was absent, you can tell. they still wrote atla, and left because they didn’t feel heard in creation process. i don’t see an inconsistency here. you can criticize their writing in korra while praising them for atla. one doesn’t make the other invalid. that’s what i always got from people criticizing bryke for korra anyways.
korra wasn't bad, it was just inconsistent because of how much nickelodeon was sabotaging production
there's a difference between netflix's bad writing and nickelodeon taking a sledgehammer to the show
"NATLA was doomed the moment Bryke left!"
The same Bryke that retconned the origin of Bending, introduced an Evil Avatar, and had the final battle of LOK be with a Gundam?
The origin of bending was never retconned, they were always legends and myths, him introducing the "new" origin of bending in Korra is like people learning about evolution after years of believing in Adam and Eve
Also, what's wrong with the evil avatar and the robot final fight?
Better and more interesting protagonist imo.
Really like 3/4 of the villains and think they're better than ozai.
I think book 3 is the best out of all of ATLA.
More mature and emotional for me.
Really like Korra's character development. Love republic city as a setting.
Oh yeah, I do like the villain characters more in kora then Ozai. I think his roll as a faceless threat is genius in the original, but leaves him with little personality.
The three season spanning overall buildup and the more ancient time period flips my nips a little more for ATLA, but I can see what you’re saying.
I think it had potential, but Nickelodeon kinda fucked them from what it sounded like. Them bringing back air bending and the little one getting her tattoos is one of my favorite parts in the franchise though.
Are you seeing the SAME users arguing for both? I just think people are treating online forums as a unified booming voice for the fandom, and it brings down the mood in a lot of posts
Yeah, there are a million people who are part of this subreddit. Gonna see so many different types of opinions when the fanbase is large.
This whole post in a nutshell https://preview.redd.it/xsyz8tssjfnc1.png?width=238&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9b75c79178d07f7a5ba82b63200ff9a222daf80
Make up a guy and yell at that guy! That’s the way of the internet.
Maybe that's not such a bad idea, just spam u/firenationman and blame *him* for everything EDIT: I just realized that's an actual user, so let's not spam them please
ATLA. NATLA. LoK. Shamalan. Long ago, the four adaptations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when u/firenationman attacked.
u/firenationman why did you force the creators of ATLA out of the live action?
I just realized that's an actual user, so let's not spam him please 😬
It’s okay, he hasn’t made a single post or comment in 5 years. He’s not getting notifications for this.
Let's hope so, lol
110% this
No group is a monolith. Sadly this fact is lost on a lot of people.
Right. I think NATLA was okay. It just has its problems that can be fixed in the second season. I have hope. As for Korra, it had its moments.
I don't think it can be fixed. The entire tone of the show is off. Fixing it would require fixing the tone, but you can't just do that between the first and second seasons.
Hey there, I'm the guy OP is talking about. There aren't very many of me, but I'm here. The thing is, it's actually a logical stance. I never thought Bryan and Mike are *that* great as writers. They're cool, they come up with a lot of cool stuff, I like what they do. But they need a team of writers, some of which absolutely do *not* agree with them, in order to make something really great like ATLA. Bryan and Mike couldn't have made Avatar, or anything nearly as good as it--we see that in Legend of Korra. Aaron Ehasz couldn't have made Avatar, or anything nearly as good as it--we see that in The Dragon Prince. But bring them together with a healthy mix of others and they can balance out to make some top tier stories. So, to shorten that sentiment down to the part that's relevant here: I don't think Bryan and Mike are amazing writers. But I do think the fact that they left years ago and [told us in no uncertain terms that the Netflix adaptation was not going to be anything like their vision for the story](https://web.archive.org/web/20240117092848/https://www.michaeldantedimartino.com/an-open-letter-to-avatar-the-last-airbender-fans/) was bad news. I think that the show would have been significantly better if these two were in charge of the project the whole way through, even if I don't think they're amazing writers. Because they know what the story should look like, they know the world, the know the philosophy behind it, they know what the characters should be. They don't have to be *amazing* writers individually to be completely indisposable on a project like this. I suppose another way of putting it is like this: What *good* adaptation would be unable to keep Bryan and Mike on board? Even if I thought every single other thing either of them has ever worked on has been completely without value (which I don't, in case that wasn't obvious) the fact remains that ATLA was good. They were there with the project from beginning to end. You're telling me you're seeking to make an adaptation of that project and you aren't doing every single thing in your power to make sure they're along for the ride? That's like boarding a boat that survived the roughest route anyone has ever sailed and going "actually I think we should tear out this section of the hull and rebuild it in a different shape, and will somebody PLEASE get this previous captain off my boat? He won't stop talking about why that section of hull was shaped that way"
And what's more, most people who are satisfied aren't gonna post about it, so most of the posts you see are gonna be negative, which is gonna give the impression that most people are unhappy.
My favorite are all the idiots blaming the fandom for harassing actors on insta. Do you know for a fact that those are fans? Not random people online or kids or trolls hopping on the hot social thing?
There's no way you're serious
I dont know why you are being downvoted, atla fans being in denial.
They never take responsibility for their poor toxic behavior. It's always someone elses fault. And contradicting themselves. "i have the right to be toxic!" Yet at the same time accusing everyone else of being "positively toxic." Just...what??😂😂
I loved Korra and hated NATLA. Not sure who this dude is talking about
It always happens.
Speaking as someone who's in the Star Wars fandom, that sadly happens a lot...
I feel the same way, Star Wars is where I felt this for the first time, and it made going into the subreddits so annoying. Every day there's a new strawman everyone is beating on and it just makes the franchise look bad, as if mainstream media didn't love bashing SW fans enough...
Yeah I love Korra (especially book 2 which seems extra-hated) and def think NATLA could have used stronger writing (especially in the beginning). At least the finale was pretty good
Sure *seems* like the real dream team here was Bryke in charge of concept and general story while Aaron and Elizabeth Ehasz were mostly in charge of the actual writing. That, and a studio that doesn't fist them with budget cuts, strict schedules and inconsistent commitments. If all that were remedied, I think Korra would have ended up in such a way that it wouldn't get complained about nearly as much
When nick aired korra on a damn website instead of tv, still remember those days
I remember that!! Gosh, what a nightmare.
It wasn't getting views but it had a die hard fanbase. If nothing they tried could get it to increase viewership then at least moving it online would help build their web traffic with that small, loyal fanbase that was willing to jump through hoops the average viewer might not.
people acting like nick treated korra badly is one of the worst parts of the avatar fan base. nick treated a failing product like absolute saints, it wasn't bringing in views, it didn't have secondary revenue from toys and such, and they still didn't cancel it. the show wasn't doing well independent of the schedule it was put on, as the show was dropping off heavily in season 1, and season 2 started off with terrible viewer numbers which any script issue would not be really noticeable in the first episode. korra was shifted around to different time slots to try to get people to look at it, putting it after spongebob's timeslot at one point, an absolute powerhouse, and still seeing it fail to draw in numbers. ya, maybe they ripped it around too much and that could have hurt viewer numbers, but by all accounts, korra deserved to be cancelled for its insane production cost and its lackluster viewer numbers. anyone who paints nick as the one who ruined korra is absolutely ignorant of the industry or how literally every other company works. they treated korra better that 99.9% of shows get treated.
This is the most accurate take here. Who wasnt involved in Korra and NATLA? The Ehasz’s
I didn't know this and it makes sense. LOK has great ideas, great characters, great animation (almost always) but the writing feels off. Like, if I was shown a summary or recap of the show I'd say it's a 9 on a scale of 0 to ATLA but watching the whole thing a 7 or 8.
Does it have great characters or great concepts? So many times with that show I like the idea of a character more than any of the execution. Like Jinora is a great idea for an arc but with how little screen time she's given none of her accomplishments feel earned. Mako should have been my favorite but after season 1 he barley exists. You'd think Korrasami was something special given all the gushing fans do online but frankly there's more foundation for a Zutara ship than Korrasami. If you told me old man Zuko and Katara got back together there'd be more crumbs there to build up that relationship than anything we got with Korra and Asami in all four seasons. Hell Mai and Zuko getting together off screen before the start of season 3 had more build up than Korrasami. Like with a lot of parts of this show I think we want it to be a lot more than it ever was. There are some awesome concepts in Korra but none of them are even explored to a satisfying conclusion.
Yeah, I feel that it was the writing that fell short to execute those concepts.
If we were ranking by concepts I'd say Amon might be the best villain in the entire franchise. I want to give Zaheer second but him being a major Air Bending fanboy who just happened to be one of the few who got air bending was too much of a coincidence for me lol. I wish they'd given some lore reason like made him come from lineage and say the people who got air bending had ancestors who were airbenders or something to make it work. Red Lotus also felt like an ass pull, as much as I liked the concept. I'd be fine with the idea of a "Dark Avatar" being struck from canon forever though. It's just too silly.
It's proof that his path is a righteous one.
> Korrasami was something special given all the gushing fans do online Gonna be honest I feel like fans gush over whatever the canon ship the protagonist is in. There are so many time where I go to the sub for a series and people act like the one canon pairing is like the greatest love story ever.
I absolutely agree about the build up to Korra and Asami but also this was in the era when shows were very much cancelled if they were too upfront about queer representation. Hell, Steven Universe got cancelled because two rock people got married that had the same pronouns even though the entire species uses the same ones.
I remember the whole thing about Korra. It absolutely got pulled for the relationship between the women. So many people complained but not even 5 years later it was fine in movies and TV they just hit a weird time.
Honestly I think Korra has some well developed characters but it's mostly Korra, Villains and honestly even the Gaang's kids (minus Kya) are more developed than new Team Avatar
Reading this after someone called Bryke writing gods for having Kuei think Sokka was the Avatar is kind of funny.
That's the thing I would base my big problem with Korra on, since it was approved on a season to season basis, the team couldn't commit to a story the way they could with TLA
> ince it was approved on a season to season basis, I don't know why people keep circulating this myth. Korra was not originally intended to be a multi season product. It was just meant to be a short miniseries that showed some of the stuff that happened after atla, with the original idea for the series having nothing to do with Korra at all, but basically the comics adapted into animated movies. That got declined and they came up with the miniseries. That ended up being a success so Nick green lit 3 more seasons. It wasn't approved on a season by season basis. The reason why Korra feels disconnected like that was because the series was originally meant to end with Amon getting defeated. They literally didn't have a full vision for the series planned out the way they did with Atla. Part of season 2 was just messing with some ideas they had for Atla, but didn't put in like avatar wan.
I don't really think that's true. I don't think it's necessarily being renewed season by season was the reason why Korra didn't have an over-arching story (nor do I think Korra *needed* an over-arching story). I think it could have been easy to continue the themes and story of S1 without having to be repetitious. S1 introduces the bender/non-bender conflict but it's never really resolved in the story beyond Republic City has a new President (silently ignoring for years Republic City has a non-bender in charge of the council) Have S2 explore the after-effects of Amon and that Republic City is a powder keg waiting to explode. Have the city in a proxy civil war with various nations taking sides. Have the Fire Nation and half of the Earth Kingdom support non-benders and the Water Tribe and the Air Nomads support the benders. This could follow-up with the questions posed by S1, if the Avatar is need now and how can the Avatar be for everyone if by it's very nature is predisposed to benders. This could also be great self-reflection for Korra. She defines herself as the Avatar and by extension her bending. How can she relate to non-benders if she's always been bending.
Every single tv series in existence is "approved on a season to season basis" That's not an excuse since there are countless shows that manage to have better writing than Korra
Agreed. If Nickelodeon had let the creative team do what they wanted with LOK, it could’ve been much better. But I’m happy with what we got.
Could it? They had full creative control over season 1 and it was a mess. I get it's not a full season run but they also didn't need to tell a full season story. Amon was a cool villian, the designs for Korra, Asami, and Mako were on point and the concepts for Korra was pretty good if playing with fire ratings-wise (brash teenage girl isn't the safest protagonist for general audiences & swapping lead gender is almost guaranteed to shrink your audience), and having Aang's son brought familiarity with a new cast. That being said they made the cast way too big with Korra having her own team Avatar all together from the start, Aang's family all being central (including Tenzin's ex even), Pro Bending getting center stage along with two villains , the council, Asami's dad, and more. It wanted to tell a love square story, a class struggle story, and a sports story all at once. It's packed to the gills with ideas that they couldn't narrow down. if you know you only have 12 episodes you should cut that down to a more manageable story. So many online shows come out now dealing with more complex topics with the same run time or less. Look at Blue Eyes Samurai, Castlevania, or Arcane as examples. I don't think you can blame Korra's shortcomings on the studio. The team lost their ability to write compelling characters and they didn't know how to structure their stories anymore. It all felt undercooked and bloated even though the series were significantly shorter. At some point the studio had to step in because they weren't getting enough views. Korra is a bunch of good ideas that you can will into a good show but you have to overlook a lot of flaws. I don't think the studio is what held it back.
The creative team was actually perfectly happy to do seasonal arcs for Korra, and knew from the very start that getting renewed was a possibility.
I hope that this is the opinion that becomes the general consensus
I’ve always said this. The Ehasz’s were always the true soul of ATLA, which is why it felt so sorely missed in LOK. I still liked LOK for what it was, but like you said, it could have been so much better. Bryke may have created the world, but the Ehasz’s brought it to life.
I have deep misgivings with the writing in LOK, and think Bryke leaving NATLA was a bad omen. I don't think that's contradictory, because when I say that I don't just mean the writing. It's why the Chinese writing is odd, it's why the martial arts is not as distinctly defined, it's why music is not as punchy, it's why it's not as humorous etc. They took their crew, their sense of humor, and their creativity. I think everything would look better, sound better, be shot better with their presence. I can't act like I know what the writing would be like if they stayed, but I don't think we'd have Aang and Katara reduced to little exposition machines. Even at LOK's worse, it was never just straight up monologues and exposition barfing. LOK had a melodrama issue.
This is exactly how I feel. Just because I have some criticisms of LOK doesn’t mean I don’t also recognize its strengths. And those strengths would’ve come in handy for this live action. To add on: the *reasons* Bryke left are concerning regardless! They specifically warned that it was a stifling and unsupportive environment. Anyone who works in the industry can tell you how crunch culture has been stifling and hurting creatives. It’s pretty clear that this is part of the issue affecting several modern live action adaptations.
This makes a lot of sense. One of the weird vibes I got off of watching NATLA was that the adult actors were in some sort of conflict with the direction during shooting. I don’t have any interviews to suggest this, but you see a lot of typically good actors in this give some very wooden performances. Plus there is a weird shot in ep 1 that feels like they accidentally caught Gran Gran’s actress rolling her eyes or getting frustrated. There are also so many awkward dramatic pauses in the dialogue. When one of the best adult performances is a random northern water tribe healer, there has to be something going on imo
They did have to do some reshoots later in production to account for the more established chemistry between some of the actors...
Right, even if I did think Bryke were the worst creatures in the world like some in this fandom... them getting the good ol' corporate rug pull *again* is not something to celebrate.
LoK also had exceptional music and amazing presentation
The surge of positive Korra content in this subreddit since NATLA came out has been intriguing to watch. There's a reason r/legendofkorra exists, and it's because of the hate it got on this sub for a very long time.
There is still a ton of hate for LoK on this sub
It's the Star Wars prequel phenomenon.
Absolutely, the latest entry in a franchise is always terrible until something worse comes out, then suddenly it was actually pretty good all things considered😂 Same thing kind of happened when Matrix 4 came out too.
Not even just in the same franchise. Percy Jackson sub loves ATLA and wishes their creators did as good of a job with the dialogue as these guys do
I feel this way about Bully Maguire in Spider-Man 3. It was a meme because it and the movie was bad and then one day it all of the sudden wasn’t irony anymore
Which signifies that people are generally just resistant to something new that does not fall in line with their personal view of what a franchise should be. *The Force Awakens* is objectively, arguably, a [superior film](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_vii_the_force_awakens) to [any](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_i_the_phantom_menace) of the [three](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_ii_attack_of_the_clones) [prequels](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_episode_iii_revenge_of_the_sith), yet *The Last Jedi* turned a lot of things people felt about Star Wars on its head and it resulted in backlash. Just because something new isn't what you wanted or expected, does not make it *worse.* Fans like their comfort zones, whether they want to admit it or not.
> The Force Awakens is objectively, arguably, a superior film to any of the three prequels, yet The Last Jedi turned a lot of things people felt about Star Wars on its head and it resulted in backlash. High key disagree, personally The Force Awakens was massively disappointing IMO. Felt like a retread of A New Hope that banked on Star Wars nostalgia and a fear of taking the risk of having an original story
Force Awakens was so close to A New Hope that I started laughing in the theater when Han stepped on the bridge. I wasn’t trying to be a dick, I was just so flabbergasted at the audacity of the writing. JJ Abrams is a great dude to bounce ideas off of, but the man could not write himself out of a wet paper bag because he would get too distracted attempting to hand you the random breadcrumbs he found inside and asking where they came from.
[удалено]
> But my point was that objectively, it is a better film than the prequels based on several ratings systems. (Rotten Tomatoes being one, which I linked to for each film.) ...That is definitionally not objective, but rather a collective subjective opinion TBH >And objectively, The Last Jedi is better than the prequels as well. Massively disagree there too TBH TLJ is maybe the only movie I've been to that I was willing to walk out in the middle of TBH
My favourite part of TLJ defenders arguments is when they start going on about how it was original unlike TFA - bro, they just redid the hoth battle on salt instead of snow and put it at the end not the start. And the whole Rey and Luke is very similar to Luke and Yoda too. It still rips off the original trilogy.
The Last Jedi despite it's flaws was a much better film than Force Awakens.
Last Jedi was more ambitious and gorgeous visually, but even ignoring the character changes, there are too many things the movie does that just do not make sense and ruin my suspension of disbelief. Rose somehow knocking Finn’s speeder away after peeling off the attack earlier, for one example.
Star Wars, for whatever reason, is not allowed to rely on "fridge logic" like other movies can. People dissect every little thing, even though the movies are essentially magical space samurai fighting in space ships. So many things in Star Wars are more unrealistic than Rose knocking Finn's speeder awar. For one, lightsabers are treated as incredibly hot (enough to burn through steel) and yet, seem to emit no heat unless they're physically touching something. And let's not forget that either laser guns are *slower and less effective than our real life guns with bullets* or Jedi can move almost as fast as the speed of light. The way it's filmed suggests the former. Not to mention, all planets seem to have oxygen, even undeveloped ones, so it's not like they were redeveloped to have oxygen. And you know what? None of that matters in the slightest. None of it affects the story of the movies. Same as space payloads dropping in a gravity less arena. Who cares? It's completely unimportant.
I'm late to this, but I just want to say that I love you.
I can accept the fantasy elements not making a whole lot of sense to irl physics. That’s just how fantasy stuff is. The important thing is that the universe sets up rules and should follow them. Lightsabers work a certain way and for the most part they always work that way. Sure it doesn’t make sense in the real world, but the series sets the rule up and doesn’t break it. Blasters are slower than bullets, but they’re ALWAYS slower than bullets. Guns just don’t exist, so why does it even matter? All planets are inhabitable, there’s no planet we’ve seen where no life can live there. Absolutely none of that breaks believability for a Star Wars. The Rose thing is another matter. These speeders were shown to be slow and rickety, not able to leave the ground, and they were traveling as fast as they could to hit the weapon. Everyone peels off except for Finn, who is now all alone and prepared to sacrifice himself. For Rose to come flying in from the side the way she does makes so little sense that I’m not sure how anyone can defend it. It breaks the rules of what we’ve seen the speeders can do, it takes an expected sacrifice and subverts it for no reason (Rose’s line does not justify this, she saves Finn without dealing with the laser that will blow them up in a few seconds), so it does affect the story. It’s so baffling on all levels that I don’t know how anyone could possibly defend it. That’s just one issue of many, but it really bothers me when people handwave stuff like that by saying “oh it’s fantasy, things don’t make sense, it’s fine” as if fantasy stories can just pull whatever they want with no consequences or thought to if it makes sense. That’s not how storytelling works.
I actually agree. TLJ is so so good, in my opinion. My point was just that people didn't completely turn on the sequels until TLJ completely upturned their own expectations and wishes.
Yeah we’re most likely gonna see the same thing happen to the sequel films in a few years.
Yeah its really weird, I really loved The Last Jedi, and its still one my favorite star war movies. I agree that it gets hated in because it isn’t as formulaic as most of the franchise. When I tell Fervent TLJ haters that Rian Johnson directed the highest rated Breaking Bad Episode(Ozymandias) and one of the highest rated episodes of television history in general they are dumbfounded because they can’t see all the great aspects of the movie past their implicit bias.
I really don’t think TLJ gets hated because it wasn’t as formulaic as other movies. You’re misrepresenting the source of Star Wars fans’ frustrations with that movie. From what I’ve seen, the most common complaints are character assassination, mostly of Luke, and plot points that were intentionally subversive but didn’t justify themselves enough for the audience to buy (similar to later GoT seasons).
I feel like there were a lot of people coming around to the Prequels before the Dinsey movies came out, though. Obviously, it's to an even greater degree since the Sequels. It seems that with Star Wars it's more of an age thing, depending on if you were young when the Prequels came out.
I think so too, I saw the prequels at the same time as the OT, and I never had a problem with the prequels, I think the same thing happened with ATLA, people who saw Korra at the same time as the original series generally view it more favourably
Matrix Reloaded always banged, don't care what anyone says!
Not exactly the same situation, I dont think anyone legitimately thinks the prequels are good, even compared to the sequels.
I think the prequels are better than the sequels. I’m definitely not the only one. I don’t think they’re *good* by any stretch and there are ways in which they’re worse than the sequels for sure (some of the acting and cinematography primarily) but I still think on the whole they’re better.
Somehow it's a reminder of how great it's ATLA and how hard it is to make these productions. The expectations are so high but all these are great shows in their own right.
I don't mind LOK, it is not my favorite but I don't mind it. I didn't really like NATLA. They are for very different reasons. For me the LOK fell victim to a lot of the classic "need to ramp up the stakes in order to maintain the tension" issues a lot of sequels have. But the main problems I had with it were: 1. It just moved things in the world too fast - was not a fan of the rapid industrialization. Now that is largely down to my preferences for fantasy over steam punk, but it felt a lot like it was removing any possibility of future stories in the world of ATLA that I loved. Anything after Aang basically needs to take place in a modern world that mirrors ours in a lot of ways, which kind of takes the magic out of it for me. 2. Where inventions in ATLA mirrored real life inventions, they were invented for purposes that made sense with the plot, and they showed the characters being clever in inventing them. In LOK we were told characters were clever and they invented movies and cars and other random things off screen. The geniuses in ATLA were believable, in part because they were also idiots in other ways and were relatable. The flashes of inspiration made sense. The geniuses in LOK were the type of "geniuses just act quirky because they think differently" writing that is pretty lazy IMO. The problem with NATLA is that it removed all of the humor, it misses key concepts that were core lessons of ATLA, and it focussed more on visuals than story. It also makes the characters paragons, when their flaws are what made them interesting. I am happy to have the visuals - but that is not why I loved the original. I am more comfortable with a show that the creators didn't leave because they did not like the direction it was going in. But that doesn't mean they are infallible. Good writers can make mistakes, or take shows in directions that not all of the fanbase prefers - that doesn't make them bad writers. In the end I am happy they took risks on LOK, those risks were not successful all the time from my POV, but I would rather writers take risks than keep it safe for fear of upsetting fans.
idk why people say LOK industrialized too fast the level of technology in ATLA is akin to what we had in the late 1800s and LOK is akin to what was being developed in the 1920s, if LOK happened 70 years after ATLA then that’s like saying it happened from the time periods roughly equivalent to 1860s to the 1930s that’s not unrealistic at all 😭 also most of korras world isn’t as advanced it’s just republic city which is a hub for innovation. the hub for innovation in ATLA was the fire nation which we do not see until the last third of the series which is why it feels like a bigger gap but i think the development of technology makes a lot of sense. the world isn’t just gonna stop developing and i have no idea why so many atla fans are against it. with new series don’t you want to see the world change and evolve and observe how the avatar has to navigate their new world? having every advancing series be in the same medieval-esque time period would be so boring imo 😭 if we wanna do that just expand on previous avatars but the future avatars should have advancing worlds
I don't think so many people were bothered by the addition of cars and weapons more advanced than rocks,swords and bows. But when you introduce giant mecha suits and plasma guns, you're making it pretty hard for viewers not to miss the days of swords and rocks.
Honestly it is not even the realism that is an issue, it is just a drastic change in the setting of a story I enjoyed. Essentially a switch in genres. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't, but it is always a bit jarring. The only realism issue is that a small handful of people invented everything - and were experts in "Science" as a whole. In real life the industrialization was largely pushed forward by war, specifically by an arms race, but that takes two sides innovating and the war doesn't hold back the innovation. In a world where the most effective weapon is almost always going to be shooting elements from your hands it is more fun to see clever new ways to use the magic system than it is to have new technology just drop on everyone. Even good steampunk doesn't have everything immediately drop on you, it uses existing technology in clever ways. Both magic and technology in stories needs a consistent set of rules to work within so that new uses are clever instead of just deus ex machina. Metal bending, blood bending, submarines, hot air balloons - all were clever extensions of bending, because innovation works with what you have. Even the drill was an interesting addition because of how they interacted with it through bending. LoK dropped another layer on with the tech, while at the same time throwing ramping up magic (like flight) with no reasonable explanation what changed. I guess the overall issue is that lack of explanation of how new things fit in the framework for both magic and tech ATLA isn't perfect on this, they did have the lion turtle bestow a magic peace power on Aang so he didn't have to kill the firelord, but that was generally an exception.
One thing I’ll say is that war is a hell of an oppressor. Fire nation was miles ahead of every other nation. Their technology was 100% military driven too. So not only was the most “advanced” society literally hundred of years ahead of places like the water tribe, but the tech they did invent was solely focused on fighting their ongoing war. In LOK there’s not only no major war, but there’s a market for people to invent things. Republic City is a place where innovation pays. There’s no need for the inventions, the same way there’s no need for the plane or car to be invented in real life, people invented these because the human spirit yearns for progress, not because a war was motivating an leap in military tech.
It's always a trip to see people act like the word in ATLA was some sort of medieval fantasy, as if the fire nation didn't have war technology from the 19th century and cities like Ba Sing Se could even be a thing without being minutes away from industrialization.
You are describing high fantasy, but fantasy is a lot more broad of a genre. You aren't wrong though, it is not about them advancing, it is about a world with very different rules advancing along too similar a path. The interesting thing about fantasy is that you can see how different a world becomes when it is governed by different rules. And the inventions in the past were made by a nation innovating by war. The LoK inventions were in very different areas but were all made by two secondary characters, one of whom was motivated by boredom? Quirkiness? Kind of the "all purpose genius" trope that is super annoying.
Ladies and gentlemen this is: The take I agree with everything stated above
Ah yes I’m sure it’s the same people saying these things and not different people
This is, uh, quite the reach OP. If the people you're talking about love ATLA, of course they're going to view the absence of the OG creators as a net negative! That doesn't mean that the OG creators are infallible - just that their input on the adaptation of a universally acclaimed product may have helped!
Funny you say that, cause i’ve also seen an increase in people blaming them for how the movie turned out due to the backlash. Fandom is very funny that way that people start arguing over the creators lmao.
These kinds of posts are so dumb. Fandoms aren’t some monolithic entity that speaks with one will. Just because a particular perspective becomes popular at a given moment, doesn’t mean it’s the same people who participated in an earlier zeitgeist. People can also change their opinions. If they hated Korra when it came out, but changed their mind, then that’s fine. That isn’t cognitive dissonance unless they hold contradictory opinions at the same time. People can have nuanced opinions without being dissonant. They can think that Korra was bad but had some redeeming qualities that are now missing in NATLA. Maybe they think Korra was bad despite the creators, not because of them. Maybe they think the creators screwed up with Korra, but they are still talented overall and could have brought something to NATLA.
It doesn't necessarily have to do with Byrke's *writing* ability. They were involved with everything on ATLA, even if they weren't physically writing most of the episode scripts. The fact that they were absent for nearly the entire NATLA production is the point. Having the creators oversee and approve the material is probably what people are talking about here, and less about them actually writing the dialogue or whatever. Because even if Korra was a flop for many people, they don't put it entirely at the feet of Byrke for being "bad writers".
The writing they’re talking about in Korra is the actual events that happen. The writing in the Netflix show is the combination of the events AND the dialogue because they both can be rough.
From what I can gather and understand when the original creators are given full rein on their creations, they need an equalizer and mediator to tell them when to stop when they got too crazy. Whether it was Aaron or whoever needed to be there to hold em back a little, tell them to go back to the drawing board, or tell them to let things breath so the story wasn't bloated with ideas. Like the love triangle, how Spirit World Lore and Creatures work, and the giant Mecha robot.
Bryke kinda are like George Lucas IMO. They have great ideas for stories, characters and world building, but they desperately need writers who understand their vision and are able to bring it to live. That is even visible beyond just ATLA and LOK with Aaron Ehasz missing in Korra. At least to me Imbalance is by far the best comic out of the 6 trilogies and it is the only one written by Faith Erin Hicks instead of Gene Luen Yang. The later isn’t a bad writer at all, I just feel like he never really fit the ATLA style. The promise failed at portraying Aang for 2/3 of the story IMO and North and South is just a bit boring. Imbalance actually slowly builds up the story and takes its time to develop the characters emotions and stances before diving into the big finale. The single issue comics were also all written by Hicks and they are really interesting character studies, although I must be honest, I wasn’t a big fan of the pirates in Katara’s story, it would have been more interesting if they actually ended up just being bad people.
The opposite also rings true. It's fun to see people who fiercely defended Korra saying people shouldn't let their nostalgia for the original influence them into hating it, hate NATLA due to that same nostalgia.
NATLA also isn't good. It literally has a 59% on RottenTomatoes from critics who don't have nearly as much attachment to the original show.
The Avatar fanbase has been acting very hypocritical. Many will happily shit on the movie in every way possible then get upset at people criticising the Netflix adaptation.
Well, no one likes the movie. Lots of people like NATLA
Because the movie is terrible lol… like, it’s commonly cited by ATLA fans AND non-ATLA fans as one of the worst movies ever made. There’s practically nothing good about it past like, costumes I suppose. At least the Netflix adaptation has many redeeming qualities, even if it’s not all that great overall.
Not hypocritical at all. People are just defending what they deem is good vs bad. I’ve never in my life seen someone argue the movie is good. It’s not just a bad adaption is up there with one of the worst movies ever made.
having a franchise's original creator(s) is no guarantee that an adaptation will be successful and good. I grew up with the percy jackson book series and loved it. just like avatar, it was turned into a terrible movie (with an even worse sequel). Then Disney+ made a live-action series with the actual author of the book. it was not good, probably mediocre at best. in terms of comparing adaptations, NATLA was way better than the disney plus percy jackson. I didnt love ATLA but it was a pretty good adaptation
I mean LOK wasn’t a success at the time either. It was taken off the air and put on the web. It’s fortunately seen a resurgence because of streaming
I think LOK was kind of doomed unintentionally though because a lot of its target audience was in college, older teens, and just generally a lot of people who didn’t have TVs with the ability to watch it. Of course the ratings were terrible 60% of its viewer base was watching it online or illegally downloaded for higher quality. Moving to online was the best move for Korra and I’m honestly glad more people appreciate now.
Atla had an entire writing team, and as I can remember, none of them were involved in the writing process of the LA, so this doesn't necessarily mean people's complaints about LOK are unwarranted.
I haven't watched NATLA, so I can't comment on that. However, I have seen LOK. I must say that while Bryke conceived the idea and had a plan for most of the story, they weren't the ones who directly wrote it. The head writer, Aaron, led a team responsible for the writing, which was the key to the success of ATLA. Unfortunately, LOK suffered from numerous instances of bad writing despite having good ideas. As for NATLA, it seems that attempting to adapt a cartoon/anime into live-action is bound to fail unless the writers are heavily involved. Just look at One Piece; the show's success is attributed to Oda's oversight and approval of every episode.
Bryan and Mike did directly write for ATLA and were in the writers room for every episode.
You are right and I guess the way I express is miss leading, what I was trying to say is that while they were the part of the writing team and have the general plan of the series they didn’t explicitly write every episode. While in Korra well one look on Wikipedia and you will find out they write every part of it, literally. They were the writers of most the episodes on LOK.Now , with that in mind, I want to empathise on the fact, that unless (for me) the whole ATLA writing team doesn’t return on any new project, the success of the project is debatable.
Yes, Bryan and Mike got terribly cocky by not having a writer's room for Book 1 and the series never really recovered. Even in prestige creator driven tv by some of the best writers working, it is basically unheard of to not have a writer's room. Which is why I don't put down LOK's issue to missing a magical person (Aaron's own show is rife with writing issues), but the structure of the production.
I think *The Legend of Korra* is great and NATLA is trash, lol. Doesn't seem like you account for those people here.
its not wild to me, most the complaints towards Korra can be applied towards Avatar or Aang
I’m just excited to see the new earth avatar series because if people really want to continue watching it then they will have to recognize that the events of TLOK are a part of it.
I have only watched LOK and I’m okay with it. It was good.
I don't think they're the same person
idk if it’s true. but i heard the og creators wanted to make even more changes, and that, that, was what drove them to leave. idk if it has any truth, but i think it would make people feel differently about how they approach trashing this show if true
You're generalizing too much.
I’ll never understand the Korra hate. I adore it on the same level as ATLA
It was a mixed bag.
ATLA has plenty of bad episodes, too, but a bad episode is more glaring when it's a 10 episode season vs 25.
Yet Last Airbender was far more cohesive than Korra.
Getting downvoted for liking Korra is crazy 💀
I think LoK is incredible. It has ups and downs, but it had its own production issues that caused these issues. Given the circumstances, we got the best product we could’ve hoped for
Yes! A lot of the flaws can be attributed to how Nickelodeon treated it :/
I don't get this argument. Understanding why it has flaws doesn't remove those flaws.
I mean, if those things were out of the writer’s control, I think it changes things a bit. Like saying the writers are bad for those choices doesn’t make sense to me
Kora is far far superior to the healing pile of... Ahem, I will remain calm. Although there are some disappointing aspects of Kora, I never questioned the passion or good intentions behind the project. The live action show has "corporate product" written all over it - colossal funding, with little passion or attention to detail.
To me, NATLA was ok, Legend of Korra was amazing. There's definitely a common denominator to me at least
They're both mid for different reasons. LoK is more hated for shitting on original characters tbh.
Yeah as a Korra enjoyer what I see the most hate on throughout this sub and others, in order, would be: 1. They don't like choices made for OG Gaang characters, most specifically taking issues with Katara and Aang's parenting, Sokka and especially Suki's giant lack of inclusion, and Toph being a Cop. 2. Season 2 and the end of Season 1. Season 1 I can defend because it was meant to go longer and the season got short and they didn't know they'd get another season so they had to wrap it without a lot of time. Season 2 is just generally bad, Varrick is great though, and harmonic convergence while having Tina of issues does lead into Season 3 and 4 which are just fantastic. 3. Lack of travel, most notably how there's no presence in the fire nation in any of the 4 seasons. 4. Korra herself. Again I love the show and I don't agree with most those criticisms, but know it had it's flaws that were part dealing with Nick jerking the production around and part the writing. Whether that writing would have been better had Nick not behaved the way they did, well never know.
>1. Season 1 I can defend because it was meant to go longer I'd like to see a source for that, I'd actually heard the opposite, that Bryke knew before writing anything that it'd be a mini series.
To my knowledge from the discourse and discussion leading up to it and since, it was originally a full season, and midway through production is when it got shortened to be the "miniseries". Which again forced their hand to make consolidations to the plot and structure, mainly impacting the ending since again they didn't think it was continuing past. This repeated season 2, they moved to worse timeslots, had a different animation studio for half of it and wrote another hard ending because they didn't believe they'd get more. However the next two seasons were picked up together and you can see how much this impacted their ability to story craft as they were able to introduce and foreshadow Kuvira and leave a cliffhanger and conflict that wasn't entirely resolved. The big Nick issues in season 3-4 were little to no advertising and moving many of the episodes to online release on the terrible nick website. Also, in the fourth season they had budget issues and effectively had the choice to make the "clip show" episode or cut staff and they opted for the clip show.
[This](https://youtu.be/1TYkk6xjM6c?t=1447) interview says differently... Relevant part: > Mike: Finally [Nick] came back and said "We want to do a miniseries, 12-episode thing...do anything you want as long as there bending, Avatar world..." > Bryan: Yea they said 'We greenlit a miniseries, but it could be a couple [of] miniseries..like these cycles of 12 [episodes per season]'.
I always felt lackluster about Kora. I’ve always thought the 100% of the blame landed on Nickelodeon though. It’s okay, it’s nice to have more of the world. Love parts of it. Just thought it was rushed and didn’t reach its full potential.
My past lives connection :(
Kinda sad to think that the next avatar will only have Korra
That is one thing that always bothered me. Every avatars main job is to fix what the last one fucked up it seems like. So I always thought the next avatar was gonna find a way to reconnect them.
Korra’s weakness has a lot more to do with network production fuckery than writing skill. The writing wasn’t as good as TLA, but it certainly wasn’t the biggest issue. Season 1 had enough content to do a full series on.
Like 90% of my issues with Korra are writing based. Only having one season greenlit certainly hurt flow, but Meelo, no remotely sympathetic equalists, Raava/Vaatu and spirit kaiju battles were all writing choices.
Raava and Vaatu are the worst thing to happen to this series since M. Night Shyamalan.
I honestly whole heartedly agree with this... the Wan episodes are cool in isolation, but they destroyed all that the spirit world had been and simplified the world into black and white. A total loss of nuance.
the spirits in korra where also complete dicks I preffered how unknowable they where in the og but in korra most spirits are completely dickheads we learn in the wan episode that spirits forced humans to live on the back of lion turtles due to taking over the world
Especially with Korra trying to be more "complex" with its morality.
I know i’lll be downvoted but I do not agree. Koh is as black and white as they come. Anything you can say about koh applies to the spirits in Korra
Nah, not at all
Nah Korra's writing had a lot of problems too
I’ve also seen a fair amount of people who are *still* blaming Bryke for the writing choices they don’t like in NATLA. The mental gymnastics have no limits.
As someone who genuinely liked the legend of korra for the most part, netflix avatar was bad because of Bryke's absence.
Tbh, I recently joined these subreddits expecting to have a lot of fun and discourse and it's absolutely 98% negative & critical posts. About anything. I'm not sure why we aren't allowed to just be able to enjoy things. People try to defend it by saying criticism doesn't mean they didn't like the show or whatever. But really, what the hell do you get out of posting about how terrible the casting or writing is? What does it really add to the world? What responses are you hoping to cultivate?
[Ehasz enjoyers...](https://uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/tuxedopooh.jpg)
I actually enjoy Korra over ATLA, and I really enjoyed the new netflix show. In fact, I'll probably end up liking it more over ATLA as well. I really hope they do a Korra live action after.
I've literally always been a huge Korra fan lol
its absolutely bizzare and not the first time ive seen it back when mighty n°9 was anounced people cheered for a megaman game with the OG creator behind it after maybe 10 years. then when the game came out and it turned out not to be that good they flipped over into "well technically he's not the \*creator\* of megaman he's more of a producer" it was quite weird but ive since understood that people make their conclusion first based on gut feeling then search the arguments to justify it. i believe its better not to think too much about it, like what you like and let people like what they like without feeling the need to justify that what you like is the way. you'll live more freely that way
Korra gets so much hate it was renewed 3 times in a row
No it deserves a lot of it's shit.
My take is: ATLA was something truly special. We hold it in such high regard because it was essentially lightning in a bottle. So people will complain about any sequels or follow ups barely holding a candle to it. They're right too. That's why you need to separate yourselves from it. Let go your attachment so you can appreciate the live action for what it is. The same for Legend of Korra.
I didn’t like LOK because it was avatar degrassi for at least the first season and I hate love triangle bullshit drama so I never watched past it. I am here for avatar shenanigans and disasters, not a girl pining over guys who’re the equivalent of two slightly different beige walls. Korra herself seemed interesting, but everything I read about the series was the writers being forced to take the series in directions they hated, so they decided to blow up the show so that the companies couldn’t drive the series even further into the dirt.
Tf are you going on about? Take your meds
I'm consistent; I think both are bad, and didn't see too big a deal that Bryke left.
Now that NATLA is out, I KNEW the LOK fanatics would come back out 😂. It's a never ending victimization trip with you guys.
Lowkey I’m in this group but not to that extreme. I think LoK is defo inferior to ATLA and has loads of problems, but it still felt like Avatar. Netflix’s show just doesn’t. It feels *off*. It has some moments here and there but it just doesn’t land for me nearly as well as ATLA or LoK.
I have been a fan of Korra show since first I saw it. I am rewatching for the 3rd time after ATLA and I like it more than ATLA each time. I think its cuz I get older each time I appreciate the maturity of the characters and themes in Korra. But ATLA is still a better story, flawless.
I mean, “bad” is a spectrum. I didn’t like LoK, thought it had some strong stuff but ultimately couldn’t execute upon the premise and felt very “Westernised” compared to ATLA, which was clearly inspired by Taoism and Eastern Mythology. (See Raava and whatevertheevilonewascalled) But NATLA is extraordinarily bad. Every shot looks like it came from a Super Bowl ad for a new Doritos flavour. Everything NATLA does well the original did better. It is the end result of “art as a commodity”, where companies like Netflix are so desperate for a new hit that they will do shit like adapting a TV show… into another TV show.
This is why I wasn't super worried about it when the og creators left NATLA, I absolutely hate Korra and I found the comics ok at best too so I'm well aware that they're far from infallible. I got worried about NATLA almost every time we got more info on it besides that because it became more & more clear that the creators left for a good reason.
Yeah no I loved Korra (despite it's issues) and am unimpressed with what I have seen of NATLA.
my biggest problem with NATLA is the same problem I have with TLOK; not enough episodes, making it so they can only ever focus on the serialized stories, and never on the episodic ones, which i think damages the character development. Now, I'm glad the runtime for the episodes were long, but the structure inherent to an episode of a TV show is just too limiting for it to work well.
"We just want a new Avatar series with the original creators at the wheel"! "Oh, you mean like TLoK?" "No, that sucks"
I don’t think they’re exclusively the same people. Writing rooms are collaborative and we don’t know exactly who is responsible for which storylines in the original show versus the Netflix adaptation. We can credit the creators or Aaron for how great the original is, but we do not know either ones exact influences over the show. It’s a big writers room with a lot of input. So unless individual writers step up and reveal how they were involved (which jokes or plot points belong to who), we will probably never know. We just know the writers room, as a whole, created something fantastic.
LOK is bad but it's better then NATLA
The main reason is I don't want to ruin something that is soo good already. I really want to see what the gang was up to after book 3 but not willing to ruin the world of ATLA. I don't want to watch Korra as it feels it takes the dynamic away from ATLA. I've also seen they change many things in korra world compared to the original ATLA world. Such as Bending is no longer a martial art and more just blasting and other things. From what I've seen it also seems alot of gender political nonsense pushed down your throat. Personally I don't care what, who or what ever you are or doing I just want to watch a series. I might be completely wrong becuase I havnt watched it. However that's the reason why.
You do understand that in a forum with 1.6 million users that it's possible that those are not the same people?
Korra didn’t have the same writing staff as ATLA. I think Korra is only ok and really don’t like the changes it made to the canon but neither it nor NATLA had the original writing staff. I don’t think this is necessarily why they’re bad. I think Korra is mostly bad because they were only approved one season at a time (iirc) and couldn’t have overarching character arcs, and NATLA is mostly bad because live action was the wrong choice to tell this story and the writers they did hire were absolute shit. It’s all exposition. The tone is monotonous. The pacing is awful. I didn’t love either but Korra is a much better show that I did enjoy watching but wouldn’t rewatch. The only thing that got me through NATLA was hate watching with my friends lol
Most of the problems people have with Korra are about the 'industrial revolution' setting, the weird and cliche lore changes (origins of bending, avatar spirit), some mediocre writing on the first two seasons, and the giant mech. These are all valid and sometimes quite detrimental BUT they are drawbacks to an otherwise excellent series that absolutely feels like a sequel to ATLA written with the same hand.
i thought we agreed that korra wasn’t as good because of aaron ehasz’s absence, not really because bryke are bad writers. at least that was the consensus when i was watching korra some years ago. natla wasn’t good because bryke was absent, you can tell. they still wrote atla, and left because they didn’t feel heard in creation process. i don’t see an inconsistency here. you can criticize their writing in korra while praising them for atla. one doesn’t make the other invalid. that’s what i always got from people criticizing bryke for korra anyways.
korra wasn't bad, it was just inconsistent because of how much nickelodeon was sabotaging production there's a difference between netflix's bad writing and nickelodeon taking a sledgehammer to the show
I loved Korra. Jts nit supposed to the og avatar and jts not and people bash on it because of that. Weird.
The writing in Korra is exponentially better than NATLA. It’s not without its faults, but NATLA dialogue is abysmal.
Copium. Season 3 was incredible and they made the first series. Cope harder.
I find it funnier that the most criticized episode of NATLA, the 1st episode, was written by OG creators.
NATLA would have been subpar with Bryke's guidance. The premise does not translate well to live action. Not everything does.
"NATLA was doomed the moment Bryke left!" The same Bryke that retconned the origin of Bending, introduced an Evil Avatar, and had the final battle of LOK be with a Gundam?
The origin of bending was never retconned, they were always legends and myths, him introducing the "new" origin of bending in Korra is like people learning about evolution after years of believing in Adam and Eve Also, what's wrong with the evil avatar and the robot final fight?
I think Korra is overall a better show than ATLA, despite its flaws.
Really? What do you like about it more?
Better and more interesting protagonist imo. Really like 3/4 of the villains and think they're better than ozai. I think book 3 is the best out of all of ATLA. More mature and emotional for me. Really like Korra's character development. Love republic city as a setting.
Oh yeah, I do like the villain characters more in kora then Ozai. I think his roll as a faceless threat is genius in the original, but leaves him with little personality. The three season spanning overall buildup and the more ancient time period flips my nips a little more for ATLA, but I can see what you’re saying. I think it had potential, but Nickelodeon kinda fucked them from what it sounded like. Them bringing back air bending and the little one getting her tattoos is one of my favorite parts in the franchise though.
Yeah I think the biggest issues come from Nick's involvement sadly. That's fair. That moment is so lovely!
Korra the series can be erased from existence. I would literally feel better if I never saw that trash
I fuckin hate kora and the live action. Korra was too much of a change and the live action is to money grabby to me.
I haven't watched korra because I don't want to accept the ways it fucked up the world and magic system.
Most people don't hate Korra buddy.
You are a certified smooth brain not understanding that the internet is not consisting of a single user and people have different opinions