Avatar The Legend Of Korra Sequel

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Kanisha Dezarn

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Jul 27, 2024, 5:14:31 AM7/27/24

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When people ask me what my all-time favorite shows are, I can't say I'm a hipster with a particularly original list. I love The Wire, Breaking Bad, Arrested Development, and a host of other programs universally regarded as excellent. But one sneaks on that list that might not appear on some others? Avatar: The Last Airbender.

It may seem strange to place a Nickelodeon animated series about element-wielding warriors on a list next to the best comedies and dramas of all time, but years later, the show still holds a special place in my heart. It's not just one of the best animated shows I've seen (and I generally don't like anime), it's one of the best shows period, and when I first watched the series, I was amazed with the brilliance of the universe, the complexity of the characters, the humor, the emotion, all of it. It was pretty close to perfect.

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The same is true to some extent for The Legend of Korra, the sequel series to the original Avatar: The Last Airbender that fast-forwards a few decades into the future, creating a mostly new cast and storylines within the same universe. Again, it's one of the best shows airing now, animated or otherwise.

And yet, what's happening/has happened to the universe of The Last Airbender is one of the greatest tragedies of pop culture. The show has been routinely abused, not only in its adaptations to other forms of media, but also in how the show itself is being treated by its own parent network, Nickelodeon. Right now, the fourth season of Korra is airing only online, pulled from airwaves for reasons fans are still puzzling out. And all of this has become even more relevant given the recent release of Platinum's Legend of Korra video game, which is already being declared one of the worst releases of the year.

But to rewind, things started going downhill years ago. The original show was allowed to air on Nickelodeon without incident and attracted a worldwide fanbase as a result. Its popularity allowed Hollywood to seriously consider a big-budget blockbuster adaptation of the animated show, with live actors standing in for their 2D counterparts.

The movie was a disaster from the start. The film was helmed by director M. Night Shyamalan, a superfan of the show, but someone whose star had fallen sharply over the past decade, with each new movie worse than his last. But the real problem was said to be with the producers behind the film, who kept forcing elements into it that ruined everything. There are many urban legends about all the awfulness that happened with The Last Airbender, but chief among them was the desire for an all-white lead cast (the characters are Inuit/Asian on the show), with the villainous "Fire Nation" being entirely Indian. Lead actor Noah Ringer was not actually an actor, but a martial artist chosen for his acrobatic skills above all else. The show's trademark humor was stripped completely from the film, as were a large number of subplots from the show Shyamalan wanted included.

All of this added up to a terrible script read by a terrible cast that produced a terrible film. The movie scored a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, a score usually reserved for straight-to-DVD horror sequels. It's widely regarded as one of the worst big-budget films ever made, and not in a "it just wasn't marketed well" John Carter way. It really is that bad.

And now, The Last Airbender's other attempt to break out of TV has been met with similarly scathing reviews. The sequel series, The Legend of Korra, now has its own video game made by Bayonetta's Platinum Games. Reviews are rolling in and in an industry where a 6/10 is a failing grade, the game has been given 3s and 4s by major outlets. This is creating a very, very weird situation where one studio, Platinum, is releasing a GOTY contender in the form of Bayonetta 2, and one of the worst games of the year in the same week.

Again, the game shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the source material, all but completely devoid of a plot and other characters outside Korra herself. Combat is serviceable, depending on who you ask, but the overall experience is desperately lacking. Perhaps it's not quite as bad as The Last Airbender movie debacle, but it's definitely a big miss by most accounts.

These are two forms of media that could have done extremely well with the brilliant, element-bending universe of The Last Airbender, but the property was butchered into something unrecognizable not once, but twice now.

The saddest part of all of this is that the show's own masters, Nickelodeon, are abusing the one aspect of the universe that's actually still good, the show itself. Even after The Last Airbender was beloved and successful enough to spawn Korra, Nickelodeon pulled it off the air midway through the third season. Then, they decided to air the fourth season almost immediately after, but only streaming online.

Fans are still trying to figure out what the hell is going on, with the common thought that a combination of (relatively) low ratings and themes too mature for the channel have caused it simply not to fit into their line-up. That does make some amount of sense. The Legend of Korra is a very "adult" show, not in terms of violence or sex, but rather its actual maturity level. With that said, it is still bizarre that a network that has 24 hours of airtime every day can't find twenty minutes a week to air a show better than most live action dramas on TV today.

All of this is just profoundly sad, and it's a tragedy how one of the most innovative, creative universes filled with rich, interesting characters has missed so many opportunities to expand into other forms of media effectively, and now the show itself is under attack by the channel that birthed it in the first place.

I won't be playing The Legend of Korra to completion, as I don't need that series tainted like The Last Airbender movie marred the original Avatar. There's no word on where the series will go after Korra wraps, but hopefully Nickelodeon's mismanagement won't mean the universe is dead forever. There absolutely could be more sequel series, actually good film adaptations and amazing video games in The Last Airbender's future, but the brand has been dragged through the mud for years now, and hopefully it's not permanently crippled as a result.

Avatar News is in no way affiliated with Paramount, Nickelodeon, Avatar Studios, Dark Horse Comics, Abrams Books, Insight Editions, Netflix, or any other entity whose property may be present on the Avatar News website (avatarnews.co & korranews.com) or Avatar News social media accounts. Avatar News makes no claim of ownership to any content owned by any such entities.

What unfolded in the remaining episodes seemed to be a story that happened around her rather than being her story. Supporting characters stole the show from the its supposed lead. Those most notable ones for me were:

In the world of ATLA, viewers will remember that Katara struggled to find a water bending teacher. She was excluded from being taught because the male water bending master refused to teach a girl. She was told to go and learn to be a healer. Obviously, sexism and gender stereotypes existed in this world. The writers/creators seemed to come out in support of fierce, feminist women. Katara stood up and proved herself to the water bending master and was accepted into training.

As I said earlier, I was let down by The Legend of Korra. I loved the world of ATLA and its concepts, and I wanted an exciting sequel about a strong female Avatar. What I got was a moderately interesting sequel to ATLA in terms of how the world has developed, populated with a few strong females as secondary characters and one really boring female main character.

Evident by other areas in the story, I believe the problem rests with the writers skill (or attention to detail). Korra was not the only neglected character. Nearly all of the characters are extremely shallow; the audience may only relate to the characters through specific points rather than through a state of being or feeling. You simply did not intimately know any of the characters. You did not feel their struggles.

I could argue that every character had great possibilities for engaging struggles to which the audience could relate. Unfortunately very few of those struggles were developed, and the few developed struggles were not developed deeply enough for the audience to become emotionally involved to any intimate degree.

I agree on how the feminism part would of cluttered the story further. But honestly Korra disappointed me as the fact she reminds me of a man. The silly thought that a girl wearing pants and playing sports and burping makes you a strong female lead. It does not! And I hate that women have been brainwashed to think that being a female with man qualities and mannerism makes you a strong woman. I wanted to see a female avatar well rounded. Smart, Beautiful, Clever, maybe even funny/dynamic.

I think women should write their own stories that way they can represent their female characters as they feel right, i have noted that most of this stories are created by men as such you would understand why legend of korra is that way.

If Machismo feels that men tend to be lacking when it comes to fictional depictions of women, then maybe men should stick to writing men, and maybe women are better suited to writing women, because the author of this article believes that men dropped the ball on Korra, and Machismo agrees.

The love triangles are annoying, as is how Korra is more impulsive, emotional and confrontational where Aang was more introspective and spiritual. What bothers me more, however, is how it seems that more frequently than in Airbender, Korra is put into positions where she is rendered completely helpless and requires rescuing either by her friends, or circumstances not within her control, or just luck.