To be fair, most of the carping about ethnicity and whatnot was in the run-up to release. Certainly after everyone realized how gawdawful the movie actually was, the casting decisions seemed trivial by comparison to the other (greater) flaws in the film.
The only caveat to the above is that the director defended the casting (pre-release) by stating that he chose the lead based on acting ability rather than race… which of course rings hollow once you hear the kid trying to “act”.
I wish the film had been as different as the HD Trailer 2 looks, where it’s a really dark film. That was a different direction from the anime and I’d have love to have seen that, especially as the anime had limits on how far it could go in that direction. Still, no getting around the bad acting, lame action and poor use of exposition.
I really loved the Dai-Leh(?), the way they were shown was just so menacing and they were always in control until you could see their eyes, at which point they would lose.
To be fair, Sokka’s girlfriend did turn into the moon. That had to suck. There were no deaths that I recall but there were losses: Toph and her family (not that it was a good family), bit actors probably got well-screwed in the loss during Sozen’s Comet, etc.
Also, I feel Azula’s arc was rushed in the last few episodes. It would have been much better for her descent into madness to have been drawn out a bit.
Also Jet died.
It’s easy to forget that this show was on Nickelodeon – the top show in the freakin 5 - 10 year old bracket. It’s pretty damn dark in that context.
Just the implication that the Fire Nation annihilated ALL the air benders is pretty horrifying. We see Aang stumble across the bones of his old monk friends. Kitara watching her mother get killed by a Fire Nation soldier.
Actually they make a joke out of you not seeing Jet die in the play episode. I can’t really count the Princess since she and Sokka “talk” a few times, I think this would have had more impact if he talked to the moon and it never talked back. Incidentally, about the only place I prefer the movie is the way they shoot her death.
But to me this is why the finale lacked the necessary punch, the victories in seasons 1 and 2 cost the heroes, but in season 3 they break out a Deus Ex mechanica for the win. I think it may have been a lack of more than one perspective that hurt a little here, in seasons one and two you have Zuko to give some emotional grounding to proceedings and a way to see things from the other side. At the start of 3 you get a view from inside the palace, but once Zuko joins the team you lose that, they never switch back to a fire nation perspective again.
Kitra never sees her mother killed, and I’m not sure that they find a body either, unless “gone” was a euphemism for dead. I think it probably was. I actually liked the way that arc played out, there was no arch-villain, no palace to storm, no big reveal, just some guy who committed a pointless murder and was living out his miserable life. They seemed to think this was pay-off for the blood bending episode though, but they were wrong, it was another newly introduced season 3 arc that went no where.
The loss of all airbenders is up there with “fate of the world” as being something too big to invest myself in. Perhaps if Anag had been more affected by it towards the end, but the series focused instead on his fears of failure. This led to the excellent discussions with previous avatars where they tell him what he doesn’t want to hear, that he must sacrifice a part of himself to do what needs to be done. Shame they then introduce the lion turtle and ruin all of that.
Azula’s arc was a little rushed, which is why it’s a mystery to me there was so much filler near the end (like Zuko relearning firebending. Why? In the end it doesn’t make any difference, he lost it and regained it all in the same episode and he’s still angry). While rushed though, I still think they’d build all the necessary groundwork for it to make sense and it was a great ending to her character. In the context of the beach episode I see it that the others know their flaws and it makes them miserable or angry, while she is bottling up all her misery and refusing to show it so she can be strong, and in the end she just snaps when she loses her support mechanisms.
I think my complaints are pretty minor though, areas where I think they could have made the end have more impactful and gotten me more emotionally invested. Seen as a whole though it was a superb series… especially 2 :) It’s just it doesn’t peak at the end as I hoped it would.
I’m halfway through the third season, and yes it’s a fantastic show. Watching the second season then going back to the first worked in order to overcome my initial anti-anime reaction.
H.
Narratively, I think that aside from teaching Aang firebending, and giving them some bonding time, it could be used to justify the fact that Zuko was equally matched with Azula in the last episode. Azula was clearly more powerful than Zuko prior to that, and the convention of gaining greater power by re-discovering the original essence of some magic is pretty well established.
Also, we got to see dragons.
And therein lies my problem, because that’s exactly what it should have been about, except he gets blasted with lightning when Azula fights dishonourably and it becomes irrelevant. Not to mention that Katara has already shown she can get the better of Azula at the end of series 2. In fact, it was at that point I thought Zuko became her match, he’s clearly a more powerful warrior there than before.
I think I pretty much agree with you. I wasn’t entirely happy with the way the final Zuko-Azula battle went. While I like Katara’s gambit at the end, it wasn’t as satisfying as it could have been, and the logistics of why Katara was even in the courtyard bother me slightly.
However, I can see why they would write it that way, since a large part of Zuko’s character’s journey is about foresaking power qua power in favor of valuing people. I think you need the combination of Zuko’s newfound balance and Azula’s progressive mental deterioration to make the battle even last as long as it did though, which is something which is pretty clear from a comment Zuko made but not actually explored.
That’s sort of where I feel the rushed elements start to show, you don’t get as much mental state in that battle. and while Aang-Sozun was a lot of fun visually, it didn’t have nearly as much emotional heft.
Overall, I think they feared bloat so much, there were a lot of things that didn’t have time to breathe sufficiently, but again, I appreciate where that decision came from, and think erring on the side of caution was probably a better bet.
First image of Kora, the lead character in the upcoming sequel series. I’m sad to note, though, that the quote says the show is coming out “next year.” Sad panda. Last I heard it was coming out in 2011.
According to that site Nickelodean is calling the show The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra rather than Avatar: Legend of Korra. Weird choice, since A) she’s not an airbender and B) there’s not one airbender who happens to be the last one.
I didn’t realize that the show was just going to be a 12 episode mini-series. That makes me a little sad.
Yeah, but I’ve read that the creators say they’re open to doing more if it does well.
And I’m guessing “The Last Airbender” stuff is branding. “Avatar: One of Many Water Benders” is a bit awkward. That and maybe trying to separate itself from Cameron’s Avatar movie.
They should be more concerned about trying to separate themselves from Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender movie.
This.
It’s not like they don’t have the rights to use “Avatar,” and I’d think any association, even mistaken association, with a Best Picture nominee would be better than association with Shyamalan’s… thing. It might even bring in a bunch of viewers who’d think it was a Cameron adaptation, and who knows, maybe a few would stick around after the rest rage quit.
I love the way Korra is drawn to have some muscle on her. Much better than the standard of having kick-ass martial arts chicks be fragile little waifs with scrawny stick arms. (Why yes, Joss Whedon, I am talking about you.)
I’m kind if interested in what appears to be a well-lit cityscape behind here. Can’t wait to see how much the world has changed since Aang’s time.
I love the tidbits we have so far on the Legend of Korra. Avatar had some cool themes that were hinted at but never explored. The one that comes to mind is the industrialization of the Fire Nation, and how that industrialization in general was making bending less relevant. Or why the Nations kept borders separated by bending ability in the first place.
From the wiki page, it sounds like they are fleshing this out:
The primary and only confirmed setting is Republic City, a “metropolis powered by steampunk-type technology”, “inhabited by people from all four nations”. There are Anti-Benders in Republic City who are strongly against the art of bending. Here, Korra must deal with rampant crime and an anti-bender revolt.
I’m assuming Republic City is the future of Ba Sing Se.
Much as I love my scrawny ass-kicking waifs (thanks, Joss Whedon, for giving us Summer!), it is a nice change of pace to see a chick with some heft to her.
Free bonus(?) - the predictable complaints about how she’s too butch by not being a scrawny waif!
I wonder if they’re going to deliberately make her thematically opposite from Aang. He was a kind of meek and pacifistic kid who had to learn to fight. Maybe Korra will be a headstrong brawler who has to learn to make peace.
That seems likely. The show runners have said that she starts out knowing all bending forms other than air bending.