Spidey Freak

Lol this was the episode where I fell in love with the reserved awesomeness that is Mai "I don't care what batshit crazy stuff Azula does to me but I ain't jumping into that gross drain!"

Damn Pixar snubbing all those other good dinosaurs.

I don't get why more people aren't seeing the glaring similarities to IA myself. Color me unimpressed.

Korra's biggest drawback is It slightly removes the edge off the ballsy ending for me. ETA: Spoiler tagging just in case, even though several websites are mentioning this info right in their article and banner headings.

To be fair, the technological and societal advancement made IRL during the 80 year period between say 1882 and 1962 is pretty freakish too! And there was precedence in ATLA for a technologically enlightened world. I'm sure the dad/son duo from the Northern Air Temple (forget their names) were pioneers in the technological revolution. The end of the 100-Year battle facilitated progressive and creative thinking on a global level.

Whatever happened to that Spring Awakening movie?

Penguins was coming after M3, the highest grossing Madagascar, which provided DWA some leverage. Also, BH6 is not a princess musical like Frozen. If it had been Giants or Moana, then I'm sure WDAS would've felt gutsier to take on PoM head on.

Hey, I thought it was pretty neat! And I thought they made it pretty clear that the pro-bending events worked as a social glue bringing together people from all strata of bending and non-bending societies. That was the reason the Equalists targeted the finals. Pro-bending also helped distinguish Korra's star jock persona from Aang's humble nomadic monk right from the outset, IMO.

Yeah, Book 2 would've been stronger if they had left Korra and Lin's recovery for it but the fact that that was already used up in the Book 1 finale did make that finale an incredibly strong one. Book 1 has this weirdly awesome and exciting kinetic energy to it as well. Once you get past the initial disbelief of "How did the world advance THIS MUCH in 80 years?", it is fun exploring the new settings, learning about the new issues and getting to meet the legacy characters. The "Occupy Movement" and racial profiling tinged themes of Book 1 were very fascinating as well. Pro-bending vs. Varrick is a pretty subjective thing, I guess, coming down to what you like more, sports or movies. I love Aubrey Plaza but Esna/Deska and their Bolin subplot played for the lolz was really dragging. And I didn't like the fact that the spirits could now be punched physically even by ordinary non-benders.

???? You have VARRICK as your avi! Though on second thought, it makes complete sense why you would betray Korra if you have Varrick as your avi. I agree that I wouldn't call the first season weaker than the second. Book 2 is way more inconsistent but I loved it once they hit the point with the First Avatar and Raava/Vaatu mythos. Books 3 and 4 are insane however.

I thought LoK showed us that the powers was not the main reason the world needed the Avatar. Personally, I think a futuristic or modern day Avatar would be really interesting as she/he would have to face issues of rising irrelevancy in a world that is more technologically and socio-politically advanced than never before. I'd love to see the rise of mass media in the Avatar Verse and how it affects the cultural workings of the world and different nations. I don't think the historical setting was the USP of ATLA, but the rich cultural setting. That can easily be retained for a modern day universe.

IN!

ATLA is 61. And 9 episodes does make a whole lot of difference especially when LoK average season was just 13 episodes. Even ATLA's filler episodes like The Beach, Tales of Baa Sing Se and The Ember Island Players provided us with incredible character beats and relationship development. Those were exactly the ingredients missing in LoK that I really wanted to get to know characters like Asami and Mako better. Regarding the third Avatar show, I personally have a great idea for Korra's Earth Kingdom based successor, but I'm sure DiMartino/Konietzko won't let us down either. Disney picking up the Avatar-verse is an interesting thought. Nick has completely dropped the ball when it comes to the brand's immense marketing potential.

But such a close second is incredible considering so many people watched it in theaters AND bought original DVD/Blu Rays unlike Wolf.

Yeah, this. An overarching plotline throughout all four books would have really helped make LoK feel like one large, tonally consistent epic instead of four separate (albeit strong) stories. Korra's incredible arc is the only thing tying the books together. I'm also very ambivalent regarding the prominence of the Airbender Family and the Beifong sisters in the show. They were the greatest examples of the original Team Avatar's legacy and them being given significant focus did lead to some great moments (my favorites being Jinora's anointment as Airbender Master and Meelo's "That lady is my hero!" exclamation when Lin singlehandedly brought down the Equalist zepellins pursuing his family). But the downside to having soo many major characters is that some very necessary focus is taken away from the core characters. I wanted fleshed out, nuanced backstories and personalities for Asami, Mako and Bolin but sadly the smaller number of episodes didn't allow them to be as fully realized or explored as Katara, Toph and Sokka. As a result, I couldn't connect to Team Avatar II on a level that I did with Team Avatar I. This also had an impact on their camaraderie. Team Avatar II wasn't very different from your two-dimensional do-gooder gang in Hanna-Barbera cartoons when they were all together. Whereas you could feel the pulsating emotional bond between the members of the original Avatar team. Then there's the fact that none of the Korra villains, despite being fascinating, came close to the intriguing richness and layered dynamics of ATLA's Fire Nation Royal Family. So yeah, I guess the smaller number of episodes combined with the larger cast and some tonal inconsistency keeps LoK from reaching ATLA's greatness. But it is still one of the most daring, ambitious and beautiful television shows ever made.

Definitely. I'm already kicking myself for not placing it in my Top 10 despite not starting Book 4 at the time. That Book 3 ending with Jinora being anointed as Airbender Master, complete with shaved head and tats, and a battered but not broken Korra sitting on the side, managing one single tear, is a goosebump inducing scene all by its self.

Seeing how we have no clue about Arianne's impact on the endgame of the series, criticising the show writers for excluding her character is a vain effort, especially as she has been pretty inconsequential to the overall plot so far despite taking so much page time away from other, more important players.

But like Iceroll said, many people like those moments between characters we have grown to like/love, including me.

What is this personal fluff? The only thing I can think of is the Roz sexposition and they put an end to that a long time ago. Every other scene has just been about character and plot.

I'm sorry but D&D did what they had to do. Some character arcs in the books have been derailed because GRRM has lost his pacing after Book 3. The Daenerys and Tyrion arcs are just stagnating or gone off on too much of a tangent, prominent characters like Jaime have been benched and if rumours are to be believed, characters who don't have much of an impact on the endgame are getting too much focus. D&D are just streamlining the storyline by getting rid of the inconsequential and fleshing out aspects that actually matter.

The Chosen One and The Avatar need to be higher. Realized that Lost has beaten them which is Lol @ The Walking Snore getting #14!

Oh, Korra's journey and characterisation was way more unique and faceted than Aang's for sure. Still think ATLA did the non-protagonist characterisations far better. ATLA had more episodes and a smaller number of major characters which helped a lot though.

I'm using the crazy Early Renaissance streak for reference as that is the best comparison. The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin all fed each other as they belonged to the same genre: musicals based on fairy-tales featuring princesses. Aladdin was a seamless evolution from TLM and BatB that succeeded in making the musical genre and WDAS more boy-friendly, setting the stage for The Lion King. Completely forgotten thanks to the Big Four? Poor Rescuers Down Under coz of its lack of princesses and musical sequences. The fact that it was a jarringly different movie from Mermaid definitely affected its BO reception despite its actual quality. There is an audience out there that expects a specific kind of movie from WDAS. There is a reason the last Frozen trailer had "Biggest Disney Animated Event since The Lion King" line included. Even WDAS know what their USP is. Of course, that's not to say they should be chained to the musical genre forever. But there's no challenging the fact that when it comes to WDAS, the musical genre is the King! Or Queen, in Frozen's case. Moana by its very virtue of being a musical and having a "princess" as its protagonist would have benefited to a greater extent than BH6 if it were the one to directly follow Frozen. Giants too. Giants could have even played the role of Aladdin in proving that WDAS could be successfully boy-centric too without alienating the princess loving girls and fans of the musicals/fairy-tales, allowing for a greater success of more boy-leaning films. BH6 could have performed much better if it had succeeded Giants instead of Frozen.

Go Into the Woods! I hope it makes 17.423!

IMO, S1 was pretty fun and cool with some great standout moments, first half of S2 was the weakest part of the entire show until Beginnings when the show reached new levels altogether, and S3 and S4 were brilliant. Still think ATLA is better simply because none of the Korra antagonists came close to Azula and Zuko's complexity, though the Royal Fire Nation Family had the entire series to develop their characterisations and back stories over. Team Avatar 1 had more spark and camaraderie than Team Avatar 2 and the unnecessary but believable love triangle as well. And while Tenzin as the mentor figure had to make a character journey of his own unlike Iroh as the mentor figure, appeal wise he is nowhere close to the Dragon of the West!