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Oxxidation posted:Stop. Thank you for not actually quoting a Toxxucupation post so I don't have to see it. computer parts posted:The only real issue with Season 1 is the flub of the last ~5 minutes or so (post Amon reveal), but that could have easily been executed better. Everything else was nerd projection of the same variety as the Cthulu stuff in True Detective. Season 2 was again people being mad that the bad guy was clearly the bad guy, and sub-par animation for the first half didn't help. I don't think that interpretation is true at all; for starters Sokka and Iroh are the best characters. mycot fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jun 23, 2015 |
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Jun 23, 2015 17:27
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Was never really a big Zuko fan. I mean his story arc was cool and all but he wasn't the reason I watched the show. In fact, LOk seemed to up the elements that were present in Zuko's story which made a lot of the relationship stuff more melodramatic than it needed to be. That combined with the technologic and time jump ended up making the world less foreign and mystical and more dull.
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Jun 23, 2015 17:31
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Gaunab posted:Was never really a big Zuko fan. I mean his story arc was cool and all but he wasn't the reason I watched the show. In fact, LOk seemed to up the elements that were present in Zuko's story which made a lot of the relationship stuff more melodramatic than it needed to be. That combined with the technologic and time jump ended up making the world less foreign and mystical and more dull. I agree, the world just wasn't as interesting with all the technology and the setting basically being modern times with old timey flair (and zeppelins for some reason, was it supposed to be steampunk?).
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Jun 23, 2015 17:33
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Thanks thread, I'm now very, very happy that I've never watched Airbender or Kora.
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Jun 23, 2015 17:40
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uncleKitchener posted:Has there been any reveal as to why LOK ended up half good half bad throughout the years? Some people blame Nick while others say the creators also didn't press all the right buttons the whole time. Calling Korra "half" good is being mighty generous.
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Jun 23, 2015 18:01
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mycot posted:
Iroh is basically Zuko as an old man/after his turn to good. I'm actually very glad that they managed to differentiate him in Korra.
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Jun 23, 2015 19:20
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raditts posted:Calling Korra "half" good is being mighty generous. Parts were good. Parts were bad. I don't know if they can be represented on a scale, but it's balanced while leaning a bit towards bad. Okay, team Avatar this time around only had good character (Asami), but the villians with exception of S2 bad guy were pretty cool dudes. The rest of the cast with the exception of the old timers were hit and miss. It was pretty too. I like looking at this show most of the time.
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Jun 23, 2015 19:28
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It was also a paean to the liberal-capitalist establishment.
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Jun 23, 2015 19:58
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El Tortuga posted:Thanks thread, I'm now very, very happy that I've never watched Airbender or Kora. No, no, you should watch Airbender because it's good, then promptly ignore the fact that a sequel series exists. Or watch Korra if you like arguing on the internet.
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Jun 23, 2015 22:01
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TwoPair posted:No, no, you should watch Airbender because it's good, then promptly ignore the fact that a sequel series exists. Or watch Korra if you like arguing on the internet. Also, there is no movie, live action or otherwise.
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Jun 23, 2015 22:10
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Rassle posted:Also, there is no movie, live action or otherwise. I still can't believe how terrible the bending looked, a bunch of guys start dancing and a rock floats in from off screen... wtf...
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Jun 23, 2015 22:28
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Both AtLA and Korra had the runtime and the tone to make the serious points, like climactic fights and big dramatic moments feel really enjoyable to watch and have a lot of weight to them, but in my opinion they were both kinda weak when they weren't doing those things, especially in a post-Adventure Time space where there's kids shows handling character and humour better than either Avatar series ever did. The format let it have some really strong moments, like how Zuko has several seasons worth of buildup before he finally gets to his big dramatic character scenes of cutting loose and getting over his abusive family, and none of the current animated shows really do a continuous storyline that will let them do quite the same thing. Even Steven Universe I'm not sure if they'd be able to do that with quite the same impact, since there's a much heavier focus on standalone episodes and the episodes themselves are shorter.
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Jun 23, 2015 22:30
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Toxxupation posted:Also the realization is that ATLA was never really that good in the first place, with stuff like Aang meeting a magical frog who allows him to bypass the whole moral conundrum of "should i kill, even when it's justified? even when if i don't then everyone will die because the person I'm fighting has no morals to appeal to?" dude this is a kid's show
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Jun 23, 2015 23:19
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ATLA is a season and a half of good TV buried in three seasons of decent Americanime. Now that every other cartoon in production is full of serial storylines and grimdark villains it's not nearly as mind-blowing as it was 10 years ago.
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Jun 23, 2015 23:51
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ElCondemn posted:But they did a terrible job of indulging fans, the show begins with every rando on the street being able to metal bend, use lightning, and blood bend. Weren't these techniques established as super difficult in ATLA? But now they're super common, they lose their impact because of that. I wasn't a fan of Korra, but I find this criticism a bit odd. Almost everything that's at one point difficult becomes easier as time goes on. For instance, due to nutrition and better training methods, our best athletes today are physically far superior to those even 30,50,100 years ago, doing feats that would have been "very difficut" then much more easily. I don't find it hard to believe that with Toph founding a special school and teaching people metal bending that it would still be as rare over half a century later. Bloodbending is maybe a bit different because it was a secret forbidden technique, but the rest I think can be put down to things like better nutrition, more experienced bending instructors, more cultural awareness of these techniques, and so on. Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 00:39
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I think having secondary bending techniques be common in LoK was actually pretty predictable and good fanservice. Were people really watching and going "Hmm...this magic martial art has no impact anymore" as opposed to "gently caress, metalbending is cool!"
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Jun 24, 2015 00:44
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Jsor posted:I wasn't a fan of Korra, but I find this criticism a bit odd. Almost everything that's at one point difficult becomes easier as time goes on. For instance, due to nutrition, our best athletes today are physically far superior to those even 30,50,100 years ago, doing feats that would have been "very difficut" then much more easily. I don't find it hard to believe that with Toph founding a special school and teaching people metal bending that it would still be as rare over half a century later. Bloodbending is maybe a bit different because it was a secret forbidden technique, but the rest I think can be put down to things like better nutrition, more experienced bending instructors, more cultural awareness of these techniques, and so on. I'm not talking about how reality works, I'm saying one of the cool things about ATLA was how they found new uses for bending, and one character even invented a new form of bending. In LOK everyone knows all the techniques, it's not fun or cool anymore, it's just normal to them, nobody is impressed. As you said it's just like athletes in real life. They're faster, stronger and better than they used to be but nobody is impressed when they break a record that was set 100 years ago, it's just normal now. What I wanted was more cool and interesting ways to use bending, and for it to be impressive when they do use those new techniques. dogsicle posted:I think having secondary bending techniques be common in LoK was actually pretty predictable and good fanservice. Were people really watching and going "Hmm...this magic martial art has no impact anymore" as opposed to "gently caress, metalbending is cool!" It's only cool if it's unique, would you think the force is cool in Star Wars if everyone was just force choking each other left and right? I'm just saying it lost the wow factor by becoming common. I guess maybe it was fanservice, more of what people liked in the original, but I guess what I'm saying it was disappointing that bending is normal every day poo poo now.
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Jun 24, 2015 00:59
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ElCondemn posted:I guess maybe it was fanservice, more of what people liked in the original, but I guess what I'm saying it was disappointing that bending is normal every day poo poo now. One of the best parts of Atla's setting was that bending was mundane and actually used in society though. None of this "Oh, this magic is too convenient and powerful to use, I will only use it in the most impractical forms possible!", people used bending to make buildings and fuel stuff because why not.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:07
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mycot posted:One of the best parts of Atla's setting was that bending was mundane and actually used in society though. None of this "Oh, this magic is too convenient and powerful to use, I will only use it in the most impractical forms possible!", people used bending to make buildings and fuel stuff because why not. I don't agree, nobody could metal bend, few could use lighting, even healing with bending was novel. Sure bending is part of the universe, but there is a big difference between normal every day benders having god powers and just a few special people having them.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:19
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ElCondemn posted:I don't agree, nobody could metal bend, few could use lighting, even healing with bending was novel. Sure bending is part of the universe, but there is a big difference between normal every day benders having god powers and just a few special people having them. Bending is god powers, even if it's just the ability to lift a rock.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:23
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ElCondemn posted:It's only cool if it's unique, would you think the force is cool in Star Wars if everyone was just force choking each other left and right? I'm just saying it lost the wow factor by becoming common. In a sense it does lose wow factor. It just was not significant to me, and LoK also added more wow factor stuff in to compensate. Bloodbending was still rare afaik and it had the new use of blocking bending. Metalbending was common, but used by a crazy flying police corps that Spider-Man swung around and used their armor as a weapon. I honestly don't remember lightning coming up much in what of s1 I watched though. Bending was interesting because they did so much with it. Even basic bending fights/pro bending had wow factor because of the choreography and individual interpretations on "move rock/water or create fire/wind."
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Jun 24, 2015 01:24
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I think it would have been very odd for technology to progress to the degree it did, but have bending stuck the way it was 75 years beforehand. If they made any correct move, I think it is that bending advanced from new discoveries and techniques from the past century. Now, I would probably agree with you if everyone could energy bend or something, but that's not the case. Besides, I think you're overstating how common a lot of these things were. Wasn't it explicitly stated like only one in a hundred earthbenders that try actually successfully learn to metal bend?
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Jun 24, 2015 01:25
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computer parts posted:Bending is god powers, even if it's just the ability to lift a rock. It's not god powers if everyone can do it, it's just normal.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:26
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uncleKitchener posted:Has there been any reveal as to why LOK ended up half good half bad throughout the years? Some people blame Nick while others say the creators also didn't press all the right buttons the whole time. Other folks have said some good stuff, but I generally attribute it to the much larger writing team they had for ATLA. When Korra started, it was just the two show creators, and then they added in a couple more for the next few seasons. So while TLA was this big collaborative thing made with the involvement of a multitude of talented people, Korra...wasn't. And it showed. Especially when the creators shoved in stuff that they personally like that is just awful (pro-bending, playing to shippers). There was just no one in that writing room to go "hey, this sucks and makes for bad pacing, we should do some trimming." So the show felt like they were trying to condense 20-ish episodes into 12, instead of just writing for the 12.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:28
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ElCondemn posted:It's not god powers if everyone can do it, it's just normal. Except LoK also has people who can't bend at all. Which is a more important distinction than earth vs metal bending.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:32
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dogsicle posted:In a sense it does lose wow factor. It just was not significant to me, and LoK also added more wow factor stuff in to compensate. Bloodbending was still rare afaik and it had the new use of blocking bending. Metalbending was common, but used by a crazy flying police corps that Spider-Man swung around and used their armor as a weapon. I honestly don't remember lightning coming up much in what of s1 I watched though. Bending was interesting because they did so much with it. Even basic bending fights/pro bending had wow factor because of the choreography and individual interpretations on "move rock/water or create fire/wind." I found the fight scenes in ATLA way better and more interesting than any of the fights in LOK. I wouldn't be complaining if they did it better than the original, but I don't think they did. Hell, they literally made Korra a giant and she had a godzilla fight, and it was boring! Jsor posted:Besides, I think you're overstating how common a lot of these things were. Wasn't it explicitly stated like only one in a hundred earthbenders that try actually successfully learn to metal bend? It doesn't matter if they say nobody but a select few can do it, everyone on screen could (except Bolin for some reason). dogsicle posted:Except LoK also has people who can't bend at all. Which is a more important distinction than earth vs metal bending. I don't understand why it matters, I thought the bending was inferior in this compared to the previous series. I think it's because bending was no longer impressive, they should've figured out a way to make it interesting again instead of focusing so much on relationship drama. ElCondemn fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 01:33
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There was also the weird thing where the ability to use advanced bending techniques turns from the product of extensive training and enlightenment into this weird thing where it's predestined whether or not you have the innate ability? Which makes the world of LoK into even more of a weird de facto caste system than it was in season 1. There wasn't really much dramatic weight to bending compared to AtLA. Mako can shoot lightning all day, but it's never relevant to the story. Korra learned to metalbend like it was nothing. Bolin had some trouble with it, but then it just turned out he was destined to bend lava instead, and it's over like that. Season 3 had a random pack of villains with gimmicky superpowers, but there's never really any introspection into why they have the powers they do, they're just some dudes. I think there's about two times in the entire series when people actually have to struggle and put both physical and mental effort into attaining their powers, and that was Korra with airbending and Zahir with his goofy flight. In AtLA, everybody has to train and re-train constantly in order to do the things they do, and not just train, but look within themselves and really think about what they're doing in order to accomplish things. That's really the problem a lot of the Legend of Korra has: no real dramatic weight. Like how so much screen time is given to pro-bending, only for it to remain pointless and be forgotten by the end of the season, or how the arguments of every season's villain fall upon deaf ears and are forgotten. Also the idea that ""oh no, now you can't metalbend because it turns out platinum is unbendable" is patently ridiculous.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:58
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SlothfulCobra posted:There was also the weird thing where the ability to use advanced bending techniques turns from the product of extensive training and enlightenment into this weird thing where it's predestined whether or not you have the innate ability? It's exactly the same logic behind Combustion Man.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:08
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computer parts posted:It's exactly the same logic behind Combustion Man. Did they ever explain why he can do what he does?
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Jun 24, 2015 02:09
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I thought the extensive metalbending and so forth was a good nod towards the whole March of Progress thing Korra had going on. What was once truly exceptional in one age becomes commonplace in a later time, and so forth. 
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Jun 24, 2015 03:41
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Anyone else here excited about that Digimon movie trilogy that's a sequel to the original series?
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Jun 24, 2015 04:05
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Jack Gladney posted:Clarence has something similar, with a father figure who's obviously descended from Homer Simpson who is a believable loser, but he's emotionally real and motivated by love for Clarence and his mom--and in a reversal of the Simpsons parent-child dynamic, Clarence idolizes him and has no idea that he's in any way deficient as a father-figure or an adult. Did anyone see the final episode of Phineas and Ferb? The AV Club review said it was disappointing because it left so many questions unanswered. Maybe if there was a one-week episode bomb like Cartoon Network did with Adventure Time and Steven Universe (and are currently doing with Regular Show), they wouldn't have had this problem. But we all know how bad Disney is with show scheduling- even Phineas and Ferb got screwed over in its last couple of years. The second-to-last episode was good, mostly for the mid-life crisis B-plot. Wrapping up the Phineas/Isabella love story was obvious fanservice, but it was cute all the same.
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Jun 24, 2015 05:25
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The spread of once-exclusionary knowledge is one of my favorite things about Korra's world! I think it really fits in with the theme of their world becoming more and more globalized, and while the show had problems, I don't think any of them stemmed from that. Anyway, I get the feeling goons are confusing the quality of the show with the quality of the thread about the show. Apart from the Mako stuff, everyone was pretty positive about season 1 until the bad season finale. Season 2 at least had that Wan two-parter going for it, and as I recall, the Korra thread was pretty upbeat about the quality of seasons 3 and 4. That's a better track record than many shows.
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Jun 24, 2015 05:56
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Argue posted:The spread of once-exclusionary knowledge is one of my favorite things about Korra's world! I think it really fits in with the theme of their world becoming more and more globalized, and while the show had problems, I don't think any of them stemmed from that. I didn't hate LoK, I just enjoyed it a lot less than the first series. I'd agree that by the end it became better, it almost lost me after season 2.
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Jun 24, 2015 06:09
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for me besides the overabundance of melodrama, the main thing I didn't like about most of LoK was that the Bending combat was mostly mediocre compared to ATLA for almost the entire show, still the show had it's moments, including having some very good villains(ignoring Season 2), the Wan 2 parter, and the Series Finale was actually pretty great even if they stretched out taking down the giant robot a bit too long
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Jun 24, 2015 06:18
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Argue posted:Anyway, I get the feeling goons are confusing the quality of the show with the quality of the thread about the show. Apart from the Mako stuff, everyone was pretty positive about season 1 until the bad season finale. Season 2 at least had that Wan two-parter going for it, and as I recall, the Korra thread was pretty upbeat about the quality of seasons 3 and 4. That's a better track record than many shows. This is how I feel regarding the quality of the show. It was good for the most part, though the pacing was off in many places and sometimes things were resolved too quickly because of bad pacing. Everyone knows Full Metal Alchemist and ATLA are better alternatives, but Korra was decent too.
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Jun 24, 2015 10:55
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El Tortuga posted:Anyone else here excited about that Digimon movie trilogy that's a sequel to the original series? Whoa whoa hold the phone. I hadn't heard about that at all and I am now way more excited than I reasonably should be.
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Jun 24, 2015 15:01
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TwoPair posted:Whoa whoa hold the phone. I hadn't heard about that at all and I am now way more excited than I reasonably should be. A quick google search just shows me this.
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Jun 24, 2015 16:09
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Y-Hat posted:Clarence is an oblivious kid in general. I thought that Caveman Dad was actually Clarence's dad, but in the episode where his grandma (Clarence's mom's mom) comes over, she says that he's just her live-in boyfriend and that Clarence's actual dad left her. There was also a gay male couple in one episode that was supposed to kiss each other on the lips, but Cartoon Network wouldn't allow it, so they settled for a kiss on the cheek. If you think that all TV shows need to be approved of politically, Clarence is as good as it gets. One of Clarence's main friends, Jeff, has two mothers too. For all legal stuff CN has them as "two females who live together and are both the legal guardians of Jeff" to be vague enough for countries where it's actually illegal to depict homosexual relationships, but the "sub"text is clear enough. Clarence is pretty fun. What the hell kind of questions does Phineas and Ferb have to leave unanswered? I only gave the show a few watches here and there in the last few seasons but did it suddenly grow lore out of nowhere or something? On Korra: I liked it a lot, Book 3 was to LoK what Book 2 was to ATLA: a peak in quality the show would never reach again. Last book was pretty good too, at least.
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Jun 24, 2015 16:23
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El Tortuga posted:Anyone else here excited about that Digimon movie trilogy that's a sequel to the original series? iirc it was originally going to be a new tv series (which would already be airing). The bait and switch has kinda soured me on it.
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Jun 24, 2015 16:29
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