The Legend of Korra S03E09-13 – Review

By: Michael Dante DiMartino, Joshua Hamilton, Tim Hedrick (story)

The Story: To make a better world, it’s got to be a more violent, crime-ridden one first.

The Review: Gol-ly! It’s been ages, hasn’t it? Mostly my fault; with Korra now exclusively an online show, you’d think I’d have more freedom to watch it than ever, but that hasn’t been the case, unfortunately. My internet being unreliable as it is, it was often the case that I’d stream about five minutes of an episode before the whole thing cut out and I’d have to rejigger the connection to get it back on. Ultimately, I found it easier to—ahem—torrent the episodes and watch them at leisure. Please don’t tell anyone.

In a way, though, it’s nice to review a whole batch of episodes at once because you come away with a better sense of Korra‘s big picture and tackle some big points all at once. For example, instead of spending a paragraph every week rhapsodizing over the gorgeous bending sequences we’ve gotten lately, I can just use this one paragraph to say these are some gorgeous bending sequences. If the Powers That Be ever get foolhardy enough to attempt a live-action adaptation of this series, I’m positive no budget will be able to capture the pulsing choreography and lithe movements of multiple benders flinging, thrusting, whipping their various elements at each other.

The Legend of Korra S03E06-07

By: Katie Matilla & Tim Hedrick (story)

The Story: Family, the ties that bind and gag.

The Review: There was a long period, starting in Season 1 and gaining steam in Season 2, when it looked like Korra might turn into the least likable character in her own show—which would have been awkward, to say the least. You could forgive her hot temperament, impulsiveness, and pride, but her tendency to trust her enemies before her friends displayed such a severe lack of common sense that you couldn’t help feeling her position as avatar was ill-deserved.

But her spiritual experiences last season have done a lot to polish her personality and give her some measure of wisdom. She’s humble enough to freely admit her inability to metalbend, sensible enough for Tenzin to take her advice seriously, likable enough that even when she has the occasional outburst, she seems passionate rather than nauseatingly self-righteous. All this evolution is conveyed through Janet Varney’s centered voicing, which keeps Korra sounding firm and strong, but with gentler delivery.

The Legend of Korra S03E01-05 – Review

By: Tim Hedrick, Joshua Hamilton, Michael Dante DiMartino (story)

The Story: Suddenly, being an airbender is a whole lot less special.

The Review: So for all those who thought that maybe I Dropped this series, my sincerest apologies. I hate to turn bar prep into my personal scapegoat for all my failings, but you have to admit, it’s a good one. Indeed, it wasn’t until commenters Daniel and Del Keyes mentioned it—thanks, pals!—that I remembered there was such a thing as Legend of Korra. Seriously, my reaction was something along the lines of, “Oh, yeah…”

I picked a real bad season to forget about the premiere, too, since the show came right out the gate with three episodes, and seems set to follow a two-episode-a-week schedule from now on. So just like my bar prep, I have a lot of catching up to do. To get started, let’s do as the show does and get the return of the spirits out of the way first. It’s exactly as disruptive as you’d expect, with vining habitats randomly popping up across Republic City, but since the show can’t exactly revive the spirit-human conflict without becoming repetitious, there’s not much anyone can do about the situation except deal with it, albeit sullenly.

The Legend of Korra S02E11 & E12 – Review

By: Joshua Hamilton & Tim Hedrick (story)

The Story: Once again, Nuktuk, hero of the South, saves the day!

The Review: [Incidentally, I understand the season finale is up for viewing on the Nick website, but I’m planning to cover them once they have their TV showing.] Ever since the double-headed “Beginnings,” this show has experienced a pretty dramatic turnaround.  Up until those episodes, both the characters and plot seemed painfully thin, despite repeated efforts to generate some kind of material worth investing in.  Had the show continued in that manner, I probably would have had to reconsider any commitment to review the series past the season.  Fortunately, the writers are absolving themselves quite admirably.

Make no mistake, though, that this is a rehabilitation going on in the show.  You can see that just by the way the writers still struggle with squaring the Water Tribe’s rather dull civil war with the far more interesting going-on’s of the Harmonic Convergence.  Even now, Unalaq fails to articulate his initial need to dominate the Southern Tribe, especially since he later reveals his overarching goal in allying with Vaatu:

The Legend of Korra S02E10 – Review

By: Tim Hedrick (story)

The Story: The fact the world is facing Armageddon doesn’t excuse missing tea time.

The Review: The last three episodes have marked a noticeable turnaround for the season, driving the show towards heights of fantasy that we haven’t seen since the end of the first Avatar series.  Although the political storylines have been sincere attempts to give this cartoon some sophistication, they’ve more often than not lost steam shortly after they’ve begun.  Case in point: the Water Tribe’s civil war bore little interest when it started and by now is best ignored.

In hindsight, the war seems to have been an unintended consequence of Unalaq’s plan to…I don’t know, take over the world, or something?  Had things gone his way, Korra would have acquiesced to his initial subterfuges and he might have gotten away with a semi-legitimate claim to total leadership.  But once that plan fell through, it was not only Unalaq left with an awkward military conflict on his hands, but the show as well, and neither have seemed very interested in developing that particular plotline.

The Legend of Korra S02 E07-E08 – Review

By: Michael Dante DiMartino & Tim Hedrick (story)

The Story: Presenting…the Avatar origin story.

The Review: There have been many times when I wished that instead of a watered down spin-off, we had gotten a direct sequel to The Last Airbender.  It wasn’t always because of Korra either, believe it or not.*  Airbender left behind a lot of unanswered questions about its own mythology, frequently raising hopes it would return to those points later on, only it never had a chance.  It was too busy overthrowing evil overlords in the present to look back on the past.

Consequently, we’ve taken for granted the whole notion of having an Avatar to begin with.  In both Airbender and Korra, the opening voiceover repeatedly states that only the Avatar “can bring balance to the world.”  In Airbender, we naturally assumed this meant finding peace among the four nations and that seemed to be the understanding among the characters in that series as well.  Somehow, we always ignored the basic questions of how the Avatar first came into being, who assigned him/her the balancing act, and what regulates the Avatar’s cycle of life and death.  These two episodes provide us direct answers to all these issues, making them by far Korra’s most important chapters on top of being crucial to the Avatar canon as a whole.

The Legend of Korra S02E05 – Review

By: Tim Hedrick (story)

The Story: It’s always best to not argue with your girlfriend—especially if she’s the Avatar.

The Review: Alright, folks, I’m officially starting to feel concerned.  I admit that I’ve never been much taken with Korra as a character, but I thought over time she might at least grow on me a little.  Instead, I find myself very much on the verge of outright hating her, which is not a good situation for a viewer and is even worse for a reviewer.  A critic can’t exactly do his job properly if his instinct is to fast-forward through every scene the protagonist is in.

I suspect even the most ardent Korra fans have to admit that lately, the Avatar has been letting her inner child run wild.  It sure explains how the other characters’ tolerance for her seems to weaken proportionately to their maturity levels, leaving Tenzin, Asami, Mako, and the President of the United Republic exasperated with her behavior and only the impulsive Varrick and dimwitted Bolin still in her camp.  At least the characters’ reactions to Korra are logical enough to prove that Hedrick and the other writers are very well aware of their lead’s flaws.