Emeritus
Reviews 11 Approval 81%
Soundoffs 232 News Articles 130 Band Edits + Tags 54 Album Edits 144
Album Ratings 1501 Objectivity 38%
Last Active 01-01-70 12:00 am Joined 01-01-70
Review Comments 31,865
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theacademy
08.22.17 | list is 5s | Papa Universe
08.22.17 | The Movie | Drifter
08.22.17 | Airb | Papa Universe
08.22.17 | -nb | VaxXi
08.22.17 | Korea was a mistake | VaxXi
08.22.17 | I meant to say Korra but that works too | Drifter
08.22.17 | Lmfao | ArsMoriendi
08.22.17 | Last Airbender is better.
But Korra rules
"Korra was a mistake"
Only season 2. The rest rules. | Papa Universe
08.22.17 | " "Korra was a mistake" "
Pretty sure he said Korea. | danielito19
08.22.17 | LoK seemed really childish when I watched the first half of s1. AtLA is probably the best children's show ever though | Drifter
08.22.17 | [2] | Drifter
08.22.17 | One of em | danielito19
08.22.17 | Only other children's show I enjoyed near as much was Regular show | Drifter
08.22.17 | Yeah regular show, airbender, and SpongeBob are top 3 | Drifter
08.22.17 | Probably | demigod!
08.23.17 | airbender so hard! | rodrigo90
08.23.17 | Aang rules man. | rodrigo90
08.23.17 | Only other children's show I enjoyed near as much was Regular show
GUMBALL IS THE SHIT | heck
08.23.17 | Korra tbh. had one bad season but the rest ruled. | zaruyache
08.23.17 | I liked Korra more because of its more mature themes, and sort of out spite for how poorly Nik handled it after season 1. | Neatoo
08.23.17 | LoA is where it's at. Better characters, better animation, better story and better excecution overall.
| brainmelter
08.23.17 | Last airb is way better all around but I enjoyed Korra. The third season of Korra is pretty top tier. Not to be missed | dimsim3478
08.23.17 | ppl hate on korra season 2 but i actually thought it was phenomenal (i rank the last three seasons equally).
possibly because i was so emotionally invested in the season when it was airing (like i remember when they rapidly started airing the last few episodes and i was freakin the fuck out cuz there was like new korra every day) but in retrospect i thought the story was great and the storytelling rlly fluid. only downside was kinda the korra/mako drama; seemed badly written to me but still emotionally resonant tbf. | ArsMoriendi
08.23.17 | The fact that Korra didn't even end up saving the world in season 2, but instead Jinora a 12 year old living deus ex machina did ugh. | Keyblade
08.23.17 | it's not even close. Korra ain't had shit on last Airbender | TheSonomaDude
08.23.17 | yah easily TLA | Aerisavion
08.23.17 | Sometimes I watch the movie when I want to remind myself how much more of a mess my life actually could be. | Madbutcher3
08.23.17 | TLA is miles better. Korra has terrible pacing in all but the last 2 seasons and is structured in a really "linear" way. The whole adventurous feeling of TLA which made is so good (along with the good character development) is lost with the more arc based style of Korra. | Asdfp277
08.23.17 | the last airbender, hands down. not that korra is bad tho, it isn't | Madbutcher3
08.23.17 | tbh i think korra sucks except for seasons 3 and 4. just plods along without any energy for the first 2 seasons. | Crymsonblaze
08.23.17 | The Last Airbender is one of the best kids' shows of all time.
The first season of Korra is great, season 3 is okay, 2 and 4 are pretty awful. But in general, it's a weird direction to take TLA universe and I think you can pretty much skip it completely. | mifzal
08.24.17 | I prefer Korra. The Tone, Fights, Meelo, Boalin and Varrik. Also I personally prefer flawed leads, not all saint preachy monks.
TLA was overall more smooth and balanced. | SteakByrnes
08.24.17 | Korra was really boring to me | mifzal
08.24.17 | well that your taste, I liked them both, Korra just got the edge for me | Papa Universe
09.06.17 | It was obvious that the focus group of LoK was much older. While AtLA was cleverly balancing its kids show aesthetic, it also provided us with a horde of breathtaking mythos and some really heavy themes. Besides, it was all-in-all entertaining as hell. Now, I'm someone, who takes a lot of interest in background dealings and the making-of stories and I can't omit the torment Korra was created in, when criticising it. Sure enough, it was not a perfect show, though.
However, AtLA had a designed story from the beginning. They knew, where they were going with it and how they were going to show it, whilst still adding some minor (and a few rather major) changes, like that Katara and Zuko were supposed to get together, but they eventually decided that a duo of two 100% protagonists should end up together at the end, otherwise kids that hang out of DeviantArt won't like it, so the idea was tossed away, except most of the bonding scenes remained. But that's not the point.
With LoK, they only knew that they had 1 season. So they made a season; developed a story, characters and gave it an intriguing ending. Sure enough, Nickelodeon deemed it to be quite a downer, so the final happy end muff was added. Of course, you can't end a season of a show that is most likely never coming back on such a low note. But it did come back; Nickelodeon revived it. But with a renewal as sudden as that, a lot of problems arrive. For one, they were still only trying out this atmosphere of maturity, leaving the "kids show" shtick behind and heading towards some sort of 13+ audience. Second, the time they were given to write and animate the season was critically short. That is the reason the villain seems one-dimensional and characters act as if the script said "And then the conversation heats up into an argument and she stroms off (to be added later)", cause that's most likely how it actually looked. That is the reason season 2 was such a bummer.
Naturally, after that they had a lot more time to develop further seasons and we got some seriously heavy and mature tales... | Papa Universe
09.06.17 | ...
Of course, LoK has many more problems that were not necessarily caused by the confusing development and rushed production. For one, I personally think that for a show that poses itself as seriously and maturely (especially in its heaviest and hardest season, the 4th one), it has way too many fart-jokes. Then, the character of Bolin is gradually dumbed down into an absolute doofus. Sure, he masters lava-bending, but that doesn't excuse his sometimes utterly idiotic behaviour. General Iroh was a completely useless throwaway character, whose presence only served as means of getting Dante Basco back into the recording booth. (you could argue that Uncle Bumi's character is just as pointless).
However, the parts that LoK does right, it does right. The darker atmosphere and the often terrifying villains that are in my opinion much better than most of AtLA villains, plus the origin story from season 2 that provided more lore than anything in either shows combined, it all made up for the missteps.
I think both shows are up to par. Of course, LoK is often regarder as inferior, but I believe it is mostly because it, after all, is just a follow-up to Avatar. And let's be honest, anything that follows AtLA would have immediately been regarded as "not as good". The level you need to beat is just impossibly high. | Papa Universe
09.06.17 | Also, it's not like AtLA had an all time perfect run... | Papa Universe
09.06.17 | yeah, this was pointless to post now, the buzz is over | Madbutcher3
09.07.17 | the big problem with korra is that it is painfully boring and the core cast blows | Crymsonblaze
09.07.17 | I like the core cast individually, but I don't think they mesh together nearly as well as the AtLA cast
But yeah, literally half the series is super boring. Even S1 of AtLA, the worst season, is better than 90% of Korra | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | I don't know, I found the tightness of the LoK seasons to be much more dynamic and progressive. Although I do admit that LoK season 2, up until episode 6 or 7 is an excruciating bore. | dimsim3478
09.07.17 | "And then the conversation heats up into an argument and she stroms off (to be added later)"
I genuinely love season 2...except for those moments. They're about as nonsensical as Arya vs. Sansa on this recent season of Game of Thrones.
"I don't think they mesh together nearly as well as the AtLA cast"
Agreed, the "Team Avatar we're best friends forever" vibe is noticeably lacking in comparison, which is why I thought separating the characters in season 4 was such a smart move. So many aspects of ATLA were like lightning in a bottle, particularly the characters and their interrelationships, so comparison is difficult.
Also have y'all read the new Korra comic? There's a lotta LGBT talk in there...maybe too much, from a storytelling point-of-view... | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | But I also think that the LoK bonds are a tad more realistic. They were friends, indeed. But they were also all meant to head their own way. That is only proven to be true at the beginning of season 4. While AtLA team looks like they're going to have all sorts of misadventures for the rest of their lives, LoK team is compiled of adults and season 4 opens with them acknowledging that they have all drifted apart. It's a bond established a little too late to be as powerful as the one in AtLA, but is one nonetheless. | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | Also, the ending of LoK, while an interesting turn of events, from a storytelling perspective made no sense. Korra and Asami had probably one or two actually close scenes thoroughout the entire season. I would have honestly seen even Mako and Korra getting back together as a more logical step. Still, the perfect conclusion would have been is the whole team avatar stepped into that portal. That'd be quite bittersweet as well, because we've established from the beginning of the season that they are not a team anymore, more like some friends with similar goals. So this could have hinted at a possible 'final adventure' of team avatar, before they all at last drift apart, leading their own lives. | dimsim3478
09.07.17 | "But I also think that the LoK bonds are a tad more realistic."
Agreed again.
"Also, the ending of LoK, while an interesting turn of events, from a storytelling perspective made no sense. Korra and Asami had probably one or two actually close scenes thoroughout the entire season. I would have honestly seen even Mako and Korra getting back together as a more logical step."
Y'know that part in season 3 where Korra hugs Mako and the music gets all...y'know? Yeaaaaaah, seemed like they were obviously trying to set up Mako and Korra getting back together (even up to that last scene where Mako's sayin' like he'll always be there for Korra or some shit). Nevertheless, the reason I bought the Korrasami ending was because it didn't seem like it was saying "ooooh these two characters are in looooooove"; it seemed more like they had these two characters who were implied to have a bit of an attraction to each other, and now they're going off on their own to see where that attraction leads. It doesn't jump from Korra blushing a little bit at something Asami said to her early in season 4 to them being soulmates at the end of it.
This is contrast to Game of Thrones season 7 with Jon and Dany who I felt had next to no scenes that built a genuine romantic connection between them - just scenes where they talk super srsly about non-romantic shit, and then a buncha characters are sayin' "dayum you got the hots for that other person don'tcha", and then they're naked goin' at it.
You gotta build on-screen romances with scenes that genuinely establish a romantic connection between a pairing. You can't just do next to none of that and then all of a sudden, two people are super in love. I don't think it's impossible in a season of TV to set up a convincing romance in like two or three scenes. I certainly think it's hard, but if you don't got the time for a bunch of lovey-dovey scenes, you can't just forgo them entirely without dropping the proposed pair-up altogether. | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | Well, Avatar creators are notorious for untangling romantic subplots last minute. I mean, in AtLA, Zuko and Katara were supposed to get together, but they changed it last minute, added some scenes of bonding between Katara and Aang, but kept most of Katara/Zuko bonding scenes too. But even then, at least they did add something, so that the kiss in finale seemed acceptable. It's not like the two behaved like brother and sister and then at the very final moment, without any prior indication of it, we were told "Nope, they always had a thing for each other."
I personally didn't mind the Jon/Dany chemistry. It certainly wasn't a romantic one, but there was that spark you talk about in Korrasami. There isn't any love to explore, but there is a certain level of attraction. I think Jon was the first person to actually somewhat intimidate Dany and surprise her with his body language... only to amaze her with the language of his body later. (sorry, couldn't help myself) | dimsim3478
09.07.17 | "in AtLA, Zuko and Katara were supposed to get together, but they changed it last minute, added some scenes of bonding between Katara and Aang, but kept most of Katara/Zuko bonding scenes too."
haha yeaaaa this is so weird to me. i think the only way katara/zuko woulda worked is if the series was longer and zuko spent more time with team avatar...BUT there's still the unsightly complication of aang's attraction to katara, which was built over the previous two seasons, whereas katara x zuko only started to form when they were hanging out in the cave together. if they were gonna have katara and zuko pair up, dealing with removing aang from the picture (which would probably involve resolving the romance between aang and katara AND ALSO introducing a new love interest for aang) would have been near impossible EVEN IF they had more episodes to do that in.
i've been trying to change my view of the katara/zuko relationship to completely remove any romantic implications therein. theres other meaningful ways to construe their bond, like two characters who are so opposed to each other (katara with respect to zuko especially) coming to form a deep bond with each other. i'm in the process of rewatching ATLA atm for the first time in years so i'll see whether i can completely set aside any hints of zuko/katara romance this time around.
"I think Jon was the first person to actually somewhat intimidate Dany and surprise her with his body language"
I didn't pick up on this while watching. That's probably why I felt there wasn't any chemistry between Jon and Dany. But in my defense, I felt like the way Jon talked to Dany when they first met and for the rest of the time they were hangin' out on Dragonstone was just like the way he talks to fuckin' everybody about the White Walkers ("you gotta fight with us or all of humanity's gonna be wiped out"; i feel like he's given the same speech so many times now). | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | They developed the plot right away. They knew there were going to be approximately 3 seasons, so they developed all the important subplots and such, but (if I remember correctly) Nickelodean didn't like that the good boy didn't end up with the good girl and that everyone, except for Aang had a romantic plotline, so they had to add the scenes of bonding at the expense of the scenes of bonding between Katara and Zuko and also some between Sokka and Suki (although those are so sweet as they are, they didn't even need more scenes, they're like Ned+Chuck from Pushing Daisies combined with the two cops from Gravity Falls level of sweet). Then they just added some scenes of Zuko and Mei together, which is why it is never established that the two have fallen for each other, we're just told that they are together at the beginning of season 3. | dimsim3478
09.07.17 | "Nickelodean didn't like that the good boy didn't end up with the good girl and that everyone, except for Aang had a romantic plotline"
tbh i'm kinda happy katara x zuko didn't go thru. you can't have episodes like cave of two lovers (and I mean aang x katara was the whole point of his thing with guru pathik) and then have katara end up with someone else unless you somehow figured out how to convincingly do away with all the aang x katara stuff you set up over the first two seasons.
unless by "developed the plot right away" you mean they had the whole thing mapped out before they made season 1 or season 2 and nickelodeon shut 'em down before then.
"which is why it is never established that the two have fallen for each other"
I accepted immediately that Zuko and Mei were an item because they were childhood sweethearts. Also there's a really distinct dynamic with Zuko and Mei, moreso than with Zuko and Katara imo (although there's some real depth between Z & K stemming from their common traumas, but that wasn't fleshed out enuf for romance to spring from it). The beach episode is fucking priceless. | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | The childhood sweethearts thing was established through a flashback after we found out that they were a couple. The writers were just throwing in some justification for the romance. Also, I'm pretty sure that the Cave of Two Lovers is one of those episodes that was conceived during a rewrite period after Nickelodeon shut down the Katara/Zuko plotline. Then again, on one hand I'm quite happy that it happened, cause the Guru Pathik thing wouldn't have happened then.
But like I said, they intended to make Katara fall for Zuko and some of the bonding scenes are still there, the dungeon in Ba Sing Se, Southern Raiders and even the final fight against Azula, which was supposed to be the final testament to their "love". On the other hand, Zuko and Mei, what with all theit gloominess and unimpressed nature, seem made for each other. Which might also be true, that they were literally m a d e for each other, considering the rewrites... | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | And as I said, there were supposed to be many more Zukatara scenes, but they had to change up the plot and eventually added more of Kataraang stuff. | dimsim3478
09.07.17 | tbh i dont know that they really did plan for zuko/katara to be a thing from reading this
https://www.quora.com/Did-the-Avatar-writers-originally-intend-for-Zuko-and-Katara-to-be-together
"The childhood sweethearts thing was established through a flashback after we found out that they were a couple."
Forgot that, as it's been a long time since I've seen the series. The only other thing was when Ty Lee says something about Zuko in season 2 and Mai smiles a little, but that's hardly romance building. | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | Man, I miss the show so much, I started watching people's reactions to it on Youtube. REACTIONS ON YOUTUBE, man! I'm too far gone. I'm awaiting new episodes of that as much as I was awaiting new episodes of Avatar, when it was on. I understand that keeping this train going for another series is an overkill, but I crave more.
Also, if what that article says is actually the case, then my sources have been exceptionally false. | dimsim3478
09.07.17 | Dude have you tried out the comics? | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | The AtLA ones, I didn't touch on the LoK yet, but I'm getting there. | dimsim3478
09.07.17 | Well, the Korra comics only just started.
But if the methadone clinic that is the comic continuation can't satiate you, I'll be praying for your Avatar addiction, friend. | Papa Universe
09.07.17 | It only got stronger after I watched the movie adaptations. People shit on Shyamalan for fucking up the story and such, but at least he didn't butcher it as much as Cameron, that fucking unfaithful twat. | Crymsonblaze
09.08.17 | Yeah Cameron's version changed pretty much everything :( | Crymsonblaze
09.08.17 | I really don't like Korra's ending. I've got no problem with Korea being bi or whatever, but it really wasn't built-up very well.
Also I really like Jon and Dany's chemistry, even though I've pretty much hated Dany up until the last half of this season. Kit and Emilia work pretty well together, I think. | Papa Universe
09.08.17 | You pretty much precisely summed up what dimsim and I talked about. | Papa Universe
09.11.17 | I know the convo is pretty much over, but I just want to throw this one thing in. General Iroh in LoK is utterly useless and so are the Rough Rhinos in AtLA. Fuckers didn't do shit, came in all tough and such and got their asses kicked every time. | Madbutcher3
09.11.17 | better than having the main character do that... |
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