Avatar The Last Airbender vs. Korra: An Overanalyzing Review
Added 2025-04-01 18:52:45 +0000 UTCSorry about lack of thumbnail, working on getting a special one made up. Once again thanks a lot to everyone for all of the support on both series. I'm in the middle of moving house right now, so the next video probably won't be right away, but don't worry I have something planned and it won't be too far off. Thanks especially of course to everyone who stays on board the patreon, you guys rule.
See you soon.
Comments
I’ve been watching your vids on YouTube for a good while now. Been a fan on Patreon less time than that but I haven’t commented before. I just wanted to say all of your ATLA and LoK content I’ve watched (which is all of it including live action, except the recent iceberg video) is top tier premium stuff. When I found the first video recommendation on YouTube it took everything in me to not binge your entire series until I was caught up with you releasing. I managed to hang strong and now that I’m nearly fully caught up I just wanted to give my thanks for making very very entertaining, informative and heartfelt content on one of if not my favorite shows of all time! Side note: in this ^video, you mentioned that when you first saw the show and trailers/commercials you weren’t all that into it, well SAME here lol. I don’t know for sure but I couldn’t have been more then 8 or 9 and I totally thought I was “too cool” for a new kids show but my Dad got me to watch the first ep with him and we watched every episode on release as they came out after that. He really saved me from missing out on one of my favorite experiences and it really made me laugh how we both initially didn’t think we’d like the show only to proven wrong in the best way. Long sappy rant over, keep up the great work and hope you’re having a great day!
Chris Owens
2025-07-10 04:23:39 +0000 UTCI think the big problem with Republic City isn't just that it lacks cool fantastical concepts. There's just a lack of interesting places within the city. Like what places can you even remember, apart from Tenzin's little island, the pro-bending arena, and Tarlok's serial-killer shack? Even Tenzin's island doesn't quite feel right. It should feel important, the characters, and viewers, should see it as cozy and safe and familiar, but it just doesn't have that impact. At least not for me. I didn't feel anything when the island was threatened by the Equalists towards the end of season 1. But just giving the locations some personality would have gone a long way. They eat at a diner a few times in Republic City; if that diner had some significance to the characters, and had characters specific to that location, then the world-building would feel a lot stronger. But it's just a diner. I think there are a few spots they visit over and over again- like the park where Korra attacks the Equalist protester, or the city square- but again, there's nothing interesting about those locations. Early on it seems like the gym in the arena might serve as a sort of home-base for the Krew- a place for them to rest and train. But that just sort of gets dropped, and it just becomes a place to see pro-bending. Amon's attack would have been a much bigger deal if it *was* a home base for the main characters. Not only does all this make Republic City kind of boring, but you don't feel like the characters really live in this city and have a real connection to it.
Warren Patton
2025-04-14 03:26:47 +0000 UTCThe video is private
Justin Gregory
2025-04-13 19:23:34 +0000 UTCI remember Korra being the first show I really disliked. I was like 12 or something, so it was around the time when I first started understand that some media was good and some was bad, and I could explain why. I think your series made me appreciate some things about it more. Looking at it with a more developed critical eye now, I still don’t like it. Ultimately, I find it uninteresting. I find the changes to the world less interesting, I find the characters less interesting, and most importantly I find the threats less interesting. The four ideas for conflict they came up with are good ideas. I just think they fumbled on every one. Like, the bender vs non-bender thing just wasn’t touched on in Airbender basically at all. But in reality, it would be extremely fucked up and lead to a lot of problems. But it’s like the Harry Potter house elves thing. If you don’t draw attention to it no one will ask, but the moment you do, you HAVE to deal with it, and deal with it well. The issue is they thought it was a cool conflict, but they really didn’t want to confront that part of the world. So the oppression of non-benders just doesn’t actually exist. So why does the plot exist? I might be completely off the mark with this, but I always read that the reason they made electricity bending so common was because they didn’t like the idea of genetic bloodline bending. I figured that, if the ruling class of a society had special powers only for them, the writers would think it’s (A) fucked up, and (B) limiting on the stories they can tell. They like the idea for the conflict but don’t like the implications on the world, so they just include the conflict and leave behind the implications. Season 2, they liked the idea of a spiritual conflict, but didn’t like how the spirit world was set up in Airbender and how nebulous it was, so they just made it a battle between god and satan. Seasons 3 and 4 have their own problems. I kind of see how this happened though. At least for the first 2 seasons, these are very obvious conflicts. I think the writers chose these topics because it’s definitely what fans talked about and wanted to see. But if you had these plot lines play out in a way where they really meant something and were really interesting, the universe of the show irrevocably changes forever is huge ways that will ripple out into all future and past projects. I feel like they were between a rock and a hard place basically.
Aeiou
2025-04-12 13:34:28 +0000 UTCI'm with you on the idea that the scattershot production is a big reason this show was messy. But I don't think bigger seasons are a solution. I mean, this show had 13 episodes and still found time to waste entire episodes. What they really needed was more time in pre-production for each season. Time to outline and redraft each season. And yes, I mean for each season, not the whole show. Don't forget, a lot of changes came as a result of fan feedback. Including the changes to Korra as a character and the story moving away from the romance. If this show had been planned as a 4 season package from the start, there's a good chance we'd gotten *even more* of those and other issues.
E. Tadeu
2025-04-07 12:31:53 +0000 UTC“It’s like if the two shows were running a hundred meter dash and airbender started at the fifty yard line.” I see what you did there.
Ensign
2025-04-06 06:34:11 +0000 UTC
