TV The Legend of Korra

[kkck]

Reading around it seems like the reason for the episode was a budget cut. I guess it is understandable for them to do this if they suddenly had to make the season without the budget. And nickelodeon rid us all for eternity of what could have been a perfectly good korra episode. Wish they would have done something more creative here, at least kinda like the ember island thing we saw during the last airbender.

 

[fayah]

Yeah if you check the creator's tumblrs they mentioned nick had a budget cut so it was either a recap episode or lower quality on all other episodes. I mostly just skipped it , I kinda hate recap episodes but I would rather have a recap then bad quality for the finale

 

[Jammin]

Nick programming directors must just hate Legend of Korra.

Budget cuts, switching it on and off digital mid season, airing episodes in clumps as if they were trying to get them off the air as soon as possible. I really hope Disney buys the Avatar franchise off them and then pairs it's next series up on DisneyXD with Star Wars Rebels and the new Guardians of the Galaxy cartoon; then proceeds to feed Nick dirt in the ratings for years.

 

[goldb]

Nick is bringing Korra back to TV. Now, as good as news this is for the viewers, it's absolutely annoying and I find it disrespectful to the show's creators and fans everywhere. The network bosses knew that the show only had one season before they pulled it off air, was it really worth it? they couldn't wait one more year or give it that final time?

 

[kkck]

I can't really make sense of this. They pulled book 3 off the air because of the leak and now that book 4 is close to the end they want to air it? What sort of twisted mind game are they playing? I guess it is good news to everyone but it is really hard to make sense of it. I wonder if they are planning on a future avatar series... They give it a go on air and see if it is worth it to continue the series with a future avatar...

 

[Jammin]

I can't really make sense of this. They pulled book 3 off the air because of the leak and now that book 4 is close to the end they want to air it? What sort of twisted mind game are they playing? I guess it is good news to everyone but it is really hard to make sense of it. I wonder if they are planning on a future avatar series... They give it a go on air and see if it is worth it to continue the series with a future avatar...

It's pretty incredible.

I have to think, and this is just my theory with no evidence backing it up, they were operating on the theory that whatever they put in Korra's time slot was going to get better ratings (most likely one of their terrible live action shows). Whatever it was most likely tanked. So they are stapling Korra back to the schedule since the online ratings look so much better than whatever crap they've had there.

The mind boggling thing to me is that they ever took it off in the first place. It's not like they don't have room. They air episodes of Full House in prime time. I mean, seriously...

It might also be a reaction to Nicktoons getting killed by DisneyXD in the ratings game since Star Wars Rebels premiered.

 

[kkck]

Isn't that nick at night? It wouldn't be a time at which they would want to air korra. I guess its not necessarily too late but they would normally want to air the show at times more convenient for little kids. I think there might be the weird aspect of where korra falls, its not precisely a show for kids. The themes we have seen since book 1 have gotten increasingly dark. Book 1 with the equalists had some political undertones to put it mildly and it ended with tarloc killing himself and his brother. Book two was somehow milder although I might have missed something. In book 3 they just didn't give a fuck and had the whole thing being entirely political, they murdered a bunch of people onscreen, they were reasonably graphic in how they poisoned korra and it did not even have a happy ending. The current book is not quite as dark but half of it was spent with korra dealing with severe psychological trauma and PTSD. And now kuvira went full nazi and has deployed concentration camps for non earth nation folk and is making the first weapon of mass destruction ever. To add to that toph had 2 daughers with different mysterious fathers whom no one knows. So there is also toph getting freaky in there. Korra is not what nickelodeon would normally consider a kids show (although a kid would probably miss all that).

 

[Jammin]

That is true. The new time is going to be 9 PM and that's into Nick's at night programming.

And there are a lot of elements of Korra that probably aren't ideal for a kids show even beyond the mature plot elements. For one thing the character ages are all wrong. Korra and her friends are all much older than Aang and his friends were. Tenzen's Airbender kids are actually closer to the usual age range.

 

[Zinc]

this season of korra seems its all about the FEELS and kids dont understand and not that interested in the FEELS like adults do and i just gotta say bolin and opel is the best pairing in the show ! cant wait for the next ep

 

[kkck]

Nice episode. We finally got some development.

Is it me or does korra have more angst now than as a teenager? I am hoping she finally got over her problems and she gets to kicking some ass. I guess the situation was about healing her body and then healing her spirit. Toph helped her with the body part and restoring her connection to rava and then confronting zaheer and accepting her past allowed her to heal her spirit and finally fully reconnect at a spiritual level with rava.

So they got varick and asami working together... they are going to have to come up with some serious weapons to match up to kuvira's army. I think they will end up working with hiroshi too, the guy is ultimately the one who invented mechs. If he gets pardoned for it everyone gets a happy ending.

I always wondered about zaheer's imprisonment. If he can simply go to the spirit world then how exactly does the prison do its job? I guess it is physically doing its job but only to an irrelevant stage as zaheer is not really imprisoned. Hell, he could simply call it quits and leave to the spirit world as iroh did. Well, that is basically dying but in the end still probably better than spending his life in chains. He might as well move on to where there are no chains. Free like the wind and whatnot. It does seem like he regrets what he did to korra to some extent and perhaps more specifically being responsible for kuvira. I guess his second round in prison and his failure and looses might have lead him to change his ideology away from anarchism.

I am surprised that korra can energybend at the spirit world. I guess it makes sense since that is not as much of a physical power. I am still somewhat surprised that no one cares to point out the spirit vines are actually spirits. We know that because that spirit in book 3 said it but it has yet to be acknowledged. In that regard we can make the case that kuvira harnessing the spirit wilds is a particularly brutal thing she is doing to spirits that did nothing to her. I find it a tad weird that toph has yet to take action against the earth empire. Perhaps she is going to bumi style wait for the perfect moment and then kick royal amounts of ass. And tech those kids what metalbending is all about. I am also a tad surprised that the forest itself cannot take care of the earth empire. It seems remarkably unsuccessful at fighting them off.

 

[Jammin]

Toph gives me mixed feelings.

I've always loved her character and in a way she's a more extreme version of what she always was. It's just... I was expecting her to not just age but also mature. She's obviously crazy powerful even old as she is but she's using her age as a reason not to intervene. As if it's none of her business and I don't buy into that reasoning. If the older people of Aang's generation had taken that stance he would have lost.

Badass episode though. Zhu Li has become far and away my favorite character in the series, I think. Suyin fighting Kuvira was also pretty great.

I'm also kinda hoping this grumpier Opal doesn't go away. She's a much more fun character when she's angry.

 

[kkck]

Toph gives me mixed feelings.

I've always loved her character and in a way she's a more extreme version of what she always was. It's just... I was expecting her to not just age but also mature. She's obviously crazy powerful even old as she is but she's using her age as a reason not to intervene. As if it's none of her business and I don't buy into that reasoning. If the older people of Aang's generation had taken that stance he would have lost.

Badass episode though. Zhu Li has become far and away my favorite character in the series, I think. Suyin fighting Kuvira was also pretty great.

I'm also kinda hoping this grumpier Opal doesn't go away. She's a much more fun character when she's angry.

Yeah, I had mixed feelings about that too. She is a polar opposite to bumi. Toph was always confrontational and prone to action but nowadays she seems to have become too cynical. Toph is old and probably weaker than what she was but with the people there I could honestly see them take out kuvira. Toph remains THAT powerful, the scale of what she can do still seems above what the others can do. She should man up, bumi was taking out fire nation tanks when he was 110 years young, 20 older than current toph. I am still hoping that she will reunite with katara and zuko and they will take out an army or something. White lotus style. I was disappointed at zuko's bending performance a while back, I am hoping he gets a chance to redeem himself and kick some mayor ass.

 

[goldb]

Toph gives me mixed feelings.

I've always loved her character and in a way she's a more extreme version of what she always was. It's just... I was expecting her to not just age but also mature. She's obviously crazy powerful even old as she is but she's using her age as a reason not to intervene. As if it's none of her business and I don't buy into that reasoning. If the older people of Aang's generation had taken that stance he would have lost.

Badass episode though. Zhu Li has become far and away my favorite character in the series, I think. Suyin fighting Kuvira was also pretty great.

I'm also kinda hoping this grumpier Opal doesn't go away. She's a much more fun character when she's angry.

Toph in this episode was definitely not what most of us were expecting with her being the legendary earthbender that she is. I was expecting some more ass-kicking on her part, especially seeing how easily she took care of Kuvira's minions to free her family. But worse of all was her excuse to not get involved in the current war, kinda weak and cliche as far excuses go.
What's interesting is that we know who Lin's father is but still nothing about Suyin's. I was hoping one of their fathers would be Sokka but it's unlikely.

Zhu Li did the thing! Varrick will be so proud when they reunite next episode.

Jammin you're so right about Opal; she was introduced as this intelligent and sort of shy girl and slowly interacted with other characters but she largely stayed in the shadows until the incidents revolving around her family's capture and her its effect on her relationship with Bolin. But now she'll be back to being good and I fear she'll go back to the shadows...

 

[kkck]

Was the episode aired? I can't find it anywhere....

 

[goldb]

Was the episode aired? I can't find it anywhere....

It's airing in 12 hours or so...( episode 11: Kuvira's Gambit)

 

[kkck]

^Just watched it actually. Cool episode but way over the top.

---------- Post added at 10:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:51 AM ----------

Spoiler

Seeing the episode... how is the avatar not obsolete anymore? The point of the avatar usually is that he/she is a force of goodness with the power to obliterate armies on his own and more. Moving continents, changing the earth, bringing down the hammer and all that stuff. It was toned down in korra but we have seen plenty of instances of the avatar state simply not giving a crap and destroying things easily. Kyoshi to that king guy, roku to sozin, aang to ozai... However kuvira right now has a weapon which can seemingly match the power of the avatar. I am guessing that the weapon will be conveniently immune to lightning and metalbending.

I am also surprised at the mastery of logistics people in the series have. They actually mostly evacuated the city peacefully within a week. Setting aside that this didn't crush the world's economy within the first few hours it is a remarkable achievement. I am guessing someone has mastery of logistics bending here. I know its a cartoon and this is looking to deep into it but damn, it is still somehow more insane than the giant mecha with a laser gun. If not more insane at least more impossible (well, perhaps not really as math should make a mecha like that impossible regardless of the technology involved). At this point I don't know what the craziest thing in the episode is. Its all insane. The writers clearly wrote this while in the middle of a meth-rage.

Seriously though, why not just have korra walk up to that thing and use the avatar state? It seems like the easy solution. I always wondered what would happen if an avatar masters combustion bending and uses it while in the avatar state.... Korra would already have the range to snipe kuvira and her mech. Perhaps korra can metalbend the robot with the avatar state even if it is made out of something which can't normally be bent? She can bend mercury and perhaps bending pure metal is a matter of mastery (although the concept of metalbending is about bending bits of earth so technically it is not really metalbending..)

 

[Jammin]

That episode was...odd.

I mean, how did nobody notice Kuvira creating a 25 story tall Gundam? And then they somehow have no idea how to stop it. Well here's an idea TRIP IT!!!!! It's not they have an army of people who can manipulate the earth or anything.

---------- Post added at 12:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:36 PM ----------

But the way, did anybody else get the feeling that if anybody was going to torture that guy it would have been Opal? The look on her face during that scene were he was tied to the chair suggested to me she was more than willing to break out the jumper cables on her brother.

 

[kkck]

I didn't think anyone there had it in him to actually torture that guy, specially opal. Kuvira is an idiot though. Why fire the cannon at them at all? She has a gundam, she could have lied, retrieved her to be husband and then still do whatever the fuck she wants. Instead she fired and is not even sure if she hit them. I was kinda expecting someone else to kinda just walking in, slashing out his arm and then begin asking questions (although it seems improbable).

I was surprised that she secretly created the gundam. The thing can be seen from miles away and requires thousands of tons of metal. But then again building it secretly is still more plausible than the gundam itself or the magical logistics and ironclad economy in avatar world. It kinda seems like korra could easily make a tunnel, head right under it and avatarstate-blast it out of existence.

Why hasn't anyone thought of asking the vines for help here? We already know the vines are spirits.

Also, kinda disappointed there was no korra bending this chapter.

 

[goldb]

It always seemed to me that if push came to shove, Kuvira would not hesitate in sacrificing Baatar Jr in order to fulfill her goals; and this episode showed it. Now that he's seen where he truly stands with her, it's just a question of time it'll take to reveal the mecha's weakness and how to neutralise his fiance.

The whole construction of this mecha being unknown to any( Zhu Li) aside, I was curiously waiting for Korra to get the idea to grow giant again as she did against the Dark Avatar, but it seems it's not the way the creators are taking this final fight.
I think the reason Korra doesn't try to take this giant robot head on( avatar state) is because the spirit beam can hurt her and most definitely kill her.

Besides all the questions and misgivings of the episode, I enjoyed it and looking forward to the next move; it's been good to see General Iroh again.

 

[kkck]

Well, the beam will without a doubt kill her if she is hit but I don't really see a reason for it to hit her at all. Go to the avatar state and have the land swallow that thing whole. How hard can it be for the avatar? Kyoshi made a giant lava pit more than large enough to fit that mecha. Technology definitely evens the scales a bit when it comes to facing the avatar but I don't see it being enough to take her down. But then again korra has never won by simply going into the avatar state, her power is toned down too much.