150 replies to this topic

[Selena]

So, a few episodes of Book 3 were leaked in their entirety a few days ago. It was a midseason leak of the Spanish dub -- apparently someone at Latin America's version of Nick made a big boo-boo. The book's been done for a little while now, so Nick has them lined up and ready to go whenever the big-whig's get their butts in gear and pick an air date.

 

But, the early leaks prompted Nick to release the official trailer. See here:

 

 

 

 

 

I've seen the new episodes, aided by my rusty Spanish skills. It's really good. Lots of people who were turned off by Book 2 are saying that this upcoming season is bringing them back in -- and I agree. There's no trace of the annoying love subplots. It's full of action. It's beautiful. Looks very promising.

 

 

Basic plot outline (which I have haphazardly thrown together based off stuff I've seen):

 

A team of four super-powerful benders are hunting Korra down for a yet unknown reason. An evil airbender, an armless waterbender who uses bending as prosthetics, an earthbender who can bend magma, and a "sparky sparky boom woman" -- a female version of that combustion assassin in ATLA.

 

Meanwhile, Korra et al are in the Earth Kingdom -- where they're quickly pulled into what looks like a brewing peasant revolt against an obviously tyrannical Earth Queen. A plot that's been building up since the days of Avatar Kyoshi, if you're familiar with Avatar-lore.

 

She has also apparently been breeding airbenders. The Earth Kingdom apparently captured and imprisoned a few for rebreeding purposes during their genocide, and are now seemingly being used as soldiers? Details on this are not quite clear yet.

 

 

Also features:

 

* Zuko!

* Zuko on a dragon!

* Toph flashbacks.

* Toph is apparently rumored to still be alive.

* Lin has a half-sister named Su, who is a metalbending instructor.

* Su has children / Toph grandbabies.

* There's a big metalbender city that looks like Minas Tirith crossed with a lotus blossom. Made of metal.

* The creepy waterbending twins are back, having heel-faced.

* Korra learns metalbending.

* Korra and Asami fighting motorcycle gangs.

* The Dai Li is still around and still wholly corrupt and creepy.

[Masamune]

Given that Bumi is shown using airbending, it looks like there may be more to it. I get the sense that somehow the Airbenders are rebounding in a serious way. 

[Delphi]

*insert inelegant gibberish and blathering here* Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Okay now that that's over, actual content! Anyone else think Sparky-Sparky Boom Girl looks a lot like Azula?

[Selena]

One fan theory was that now that the spirit world is reconnected to the physical one, the natural order is noticing that the elements have gotten unfairly out of balance, and is trying to make up for it. But who knows! I can say from watching the episodes that the Earth Kingdom is using the Dai Li to imprison and quarantine them. Other than that, not sure. Episodes 3-6 were the ones leaked, so the opening wasn't available to watch.

[TheAvengerLever]

I was terribly disappointed with Book 2 because they ruined the characterization of almost every main character. It just seemed like they had to dumb them down in Book 2 just so that the plot of that whole season could exist, and that is not cool. Korra should have learned in Book 1 not to trust the authority figures around her without very good reason, but apparently she didn't learn that at all and ended up helping the villain in the beginning of Book 2 (who, I should mention, just reminded me of the villains from Book 1). Mako was fine at first until they put him back in Republic City mid-season and he also became more dumb. The only character who hadn't changed at all was Bolin, but that's because he's always fun. I stopped watching towards the end of the season and just got the summary from my wife instead. I never thought the first season was rushed like a lot of others, but Book 2 was pretty rushed.

 

I hope Book 3 will be on par with the first Book.

Edited by TheAvengerLever, 11 June 2014 - 11:44 PM.

[SteveT]

 Not to advocate finishing Book 2, but Bolin Saves The Day was one of the better episodes. I think it was third-to-last.

 

I'll give Book 3 a shot because it sounds like they're trying to improve things, but after what Book 2 did to the mythos and world-building, I'm already skeptical about the idea of airbenders repopulating.

[Egann]

I feel that I was more lenient with Book 2 than I probably should have been. The main plot line (especially the conclusion) felt like it had no screen time to breathe, and almost no screen time goes to making the big decisions while a lot goes to an iffy love quadrangle. I mean, seriously. You're going to give Mako's indecision several minutes of fallout in the final episode and NOT explain why Korra bound herself to Raava again, much less why she left the portals open?

 

The inclusion of SO MUCH lore also kinda irked me. We never heard about the valley Bumi and the others got lost in or the tree Korra meditated in, for instance, and why Korra had to find out about Wan was poorly explained. It was mostly included because the audience needed to know it for the conclusion, not because the story at that moment needed to see it. Now compare this with the moon sequence in the original series, which basically only set up that the moon allows water bending and that the sun allows fire bending. Other than giving us a really good season ending climax with a character death, this set up blood bending, the eclipse, and for the first time in the series Iroh came off as more than a caring, but inept old man.

 

When Korra book 2 was good, it was great, but it was meh at all the times it needed to be better.

 

OK, rant over.

 

 

I look forward to book 3, but I can also wait for the real release. I figure if this were a monster of the week series it would mean something, but an ongoing story? Watch it in order to avoid confusion and preconceived notions.

[Selena]

So, super last minute announcement -- Book 3 premieres (with three episodes) on June 27th. Like. Approximately a week from now. Good job with marketing Nick. You wonder why all your shows other than Spongebob have low ratings.

 

 

Maybe the leaks prompted early release or something.

[Jasi]

At this point even THAT should be predictable!

[DarkJuno]

Still waiting for the first series to come back to Netflix or just break down and buy the DVD's so I can finish that, but Korra is getting a game.

http://kotaku.com/le...etta-1595904358

On one hand, it's a licensed game from Activision, and the Avatar one was awful. On the other, it's being made by Platinum Games, the guys who did Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising, among other frankly excellent hack and slash/beat'em up games. Think it could work, or will it be kinda weirdly out of character like how that second Batman Animated game on the Cube/PS2/X-Box got rid of the detective work and stealth to be just a brawler?

[Selena]

Well, did anyone else watch the first three episodes? I think this season has a lot of potential -- and having seen the leaks of all four bad benders fighting, I can assure you that they make a really good villain team once they're all together. Motives yet unknown, though.

 

I like the general feel of this season so far. It's smaller, more compact, more personal. Apparently all four of these benders once tried to kidnap Korra when she was a little kid, so there's something going on there, too. Fingers crossed that Azula is the Charlie to their Angels, but highly unlikely. 

 

Also, Old Zuko! Eee! I can also confirm that we'll be seeing Toph in a flashback soon -- there's also a hint that she's still alive.

 

 

 

No episode this week because of the holiday (whyyyyy not wait until after July 4th to start the show without interruption, Nick?).

 

But TWO episodes next week. And apparently it'll be two episodes per week until it's done. Super rushed -- like they don't even care about their most critically acclaimed franchise and want it done ASAP so they can make room for yet more Spongebob. I don't even know with them.

 

 

 

 

I think Book 2 tried to do a lot of "big theme" ideas in a very limited amount of time. So it felt really rushed and underdeveloped. I still really think that Vaatu -- being the ultimate evil -- should have been saved until the very last book. With lots of build up beforehand. I think Korra's main issue is "interesting ideas and themes, but questionable execution."

[SteveT]

Are these...are these not streaming? Wtf, Nick?

[Masamune]

I caught them and I am incredibly impressed so far. I'm really excited about this season, granted, I wasn't too upset with the first season and I thought this one was pretty good. I think they're handling this plot with airbenders very smartly. So far, my only concern is that we may be retreading old territory from ATLA Season 2, but this early in the season, I expect it to be resolved fairly quickly. 

 

I just hope the airbenders stay. I'll be heartbroken if Bumi is bumped back to normal by season's end. 

[Egann]

Yeah, thusfar this season is REALLY good. But then all the Korra seasons thusfar start well, have a so-so middle, and then finish strong.

 

I've actually been rewatching most of Season 1 and parts of 2. It's actually better to rewatch than it was to first watch. Not really relevant, so I'll put my thoughts in a spoiler.

 

Spoiler

My original problem with Korra getting her bending back was that it felt like a plot hole. After rewatching, I have changed my mind. Raava is where Wan got the ability to manipulate more than one element from, and you cannot take that ability from Raava, ergo Raava can give it back to Korra. It feels cheap, but it's consistent.

 

Personally, I would have ended Season 1 with Korra besting Amon with non-bending and then chooses to become the non-bending Avatar, then end with a vision of Raava trying to reach out to Korra to fix her, but can't. The audience would get a deliberately bittersweet ending which foreshadows this isn't the end of Korra's bending and no exec would ever leave such an ending be. Come season 2, Korra reconnects with Raava and the Wan business becomes a mandatory part of Korra recovering her bending.

 

I expect that was actually the original plan, actually.

 

As to the relationship stuff in seasons 1 and 2, I actually can't think of anything to do. Yeah, it's boring and gets in the way, but it's also mandatory character stuff and we needed it to help break the action pace in the middle. It's very hard to actually fix this.

 

ON SEASON.

 

It's great seeing the fallout of the relationship stuff. Korra and Asami started off as explicit rivals, and now they're good friends who aren't particularly jealous of each other. Also, Bolin's impression of Mako was hilarious.

 

This season is clearly about bringing change to the Earth nation. Ba Sing Se has always been a bit of a police state dystopia, and I imagine that once Korra gets to the bottom of things that the airbenders will start breaking down the police state. I expect Tensin will get a character arc where he has to accept that even if their are air benders again, the Air Nation won't return. Airbending will likely be taught in local dojos about like we learn karate, and that's quite the shift for Tensin, who can't imagine anything other than an air nation.

 

Who else is looking forward to pro bending with airbenders in it? I know that the party has kinda leveled up past that stuff, but I did like the pro bending stuff and I do want to see how the rules change when the airbender can literally swoop falling teammates back onto the playing field. 

Edited by Egann, 03 July 2014 - 01:23 PM.

[Delphi]

So I don't have much to add at the moment as I'm just going to enjoy how the season unfolds so far but I had to add this text my sister sent me:

"The metal city in legend of korra is like the Portland* of the avatar kingdom."

I will never be able to look at that city the same again.

*Portland, Oregon

[Selena]

Well. They are only showing one episode this week, and then Korra is permanently off the air. 

 

The rest of Book 3 will air online -- though they still haven't said where, but hopefully it's a free stream on the Nick site. No reasons given yet, but logic dictates that it is due to low ratings. Book 3 has had pretty low ratings compared with many other shows. ...Probably due to the fact that they premiered the season with almost no notice and minimal marketing. And never offered re-runs or streaming for the people who were unavailable during the main broadcast.

 

So of course they're filling the Korra time slots with Spongebob until further notice. Rather than keep Korra going for... what, the two or three weeks it had left? 

 

 

 

This is very sad. I think Book 3 is easily the best season of the show so far. The creators have expressed a little sadness and surprise on their social media accounts, so I think this was an abrupt decision made by Nick within the last couple days. Poor guys. There's going to be some big announcements about Korra at Comic Con, apparently. Hopefully the show will live on via digital distribution. I know Book 4 is almost done, so it'd be a shame to never see it when it's so close to being finished already.

 

Even if you felt like Korra wasn't quite up to snuff compared with the original series, you've got to admit that it was easily the most impressive show on Nick as far as overall quality goes -- art, themes, stories that were actually well layered and not just a series of stupid jokes. 

 

I thought Korra suffered from a minor case of "good ideas, lackluster execution" syndrome, but I still loved watching it. And I still thought it was a good show in its own right. Especially since it was one of the few shows with a woman of color as a main protagonist. 

 

 

 

 

Just a shame, really. A damn shame.

[Delphi]

Just when things were getting good too!

I read this late last night/this morning so I was really hoping it was part if those freaky realistic dreams I have. Sadly your post is still here...

I wonder if another network will try to pick the show up for book 3 or if it's even possible. I really don't understand Nick's logic. It's like they're trying to kill the best cartoon it's had in over a decade. I mean they already nearly screwed the pooch with the first series' season three. That was a ridiculous wait and wasn't even because they were waiting for episodes to be finished animating.

Sometimes I wonder if there's not something in the water at Nick headquarters.

If their executives are so ass-backwards that they think a female protagonist, never mind a female of color, can't be marketable but a show that jumped the entire ocean never mind the shark is still good then maybe they need to clean house.

I mean who watches shows with female main characters? It's not like Disney ever had success with that! Kim Possi-who? Never heard of her!

[Jasi]

This is awful! This season is leaps and bounds better than the others. But if TV history has taught me anything, it's that the best shows always get screwed by the networks (cf. Community, Arrested Development, etc.).

[Selena]

Update.

 

The rest of the season will be digital release. You will be able to watch the remaining episodes of Korra on the following platforms:

 

- Nick.com 

- Nick app

- Google Play

- Hulu Plus

- Amazon

- Xbox

 

At least for now. Nick.com will premiere one episode per week online -- I am presuming for free. If you want to watch it anywhere else, though, it looks like you'll have to pay for it. Still no word on iTunes, which makes no sense, since a lot of people use that and all previous Avatar seasons were available on it. More information to come via Comic Con.

 

 

 

 

 

Still very disappointed in how Nick handled this season. Of course ratings are low -- you only gave people a week's notice that the show was even going to be on! No re-runs, and no streaming episodes, so anyone who missed it was SOL. Minimal marketing. Slamming out two episodes a week in a bad time slot. Felt like they were already trying to rush through it. Bad ratings should not be a surprise.

 

I think their original plan was to announce Book 3 at Comic Con, but then the leaks happened. And then Nick panicked and said "AIR IT ALL NOW." And then proceeded to do everything wrong. And so the show tanked.

 

 

 

Still no official word on what will happen with Book 4 -- but it sounds like it'll be digitally released, too. I guess that's the silver lining. Most other shows they would just outright cancel, so at least we're getting this. I guess. 

[SteveT]

Will the backlog for the season be on Nick's website?  Or are they just THAT dedicated to killing the show that they won't make it easy to catch up?

[Selena]

Yeah, they just announced that they are putting all previously aired Book 3 episodes up on their site tomorrow. Hulu is also showing signs that they'll be available there, too.

 

Nick site traffic is gonna be a nightmare, I fear. I remember watching the Book 2 finale online when they randomly decided to premiere it on their site rather than TV (another ????? decision). So much buffering.

[Masamune]

It's a shame that aside from Nick.com and Hulu Plus, they're not opting for airing the season in a way where they can legitimately experiment with making money off it. I mean sure, you can buy the episodes individually. But why not Amazon Instant Video or Netflix? With the kind of fanbase Korra has, I would think there's a legitimate possibility of the show being able to pay for itself with a purely online presence. 

[Selena]

I'm not sure what they're doing for Amazon -- if it's Instant Video or otherwise. They didn't really say yet. I think the Korra panel is tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be cleared up then. I would love to see the series move to Netflix just for the sake of convenience. Avatar used to be on there, and I'm not sure why they took it down. Licensing issues, maybe. But it would be great for both Avatar and Korra to go back on there.

 

Supposedly, while Book 2 didn't do very well in ratings either, it had digital sales and digital viewership that was through the roof. Probably because they kept changing the time slot every other week. So, in a way, maybe this is for the best.

 

Though with a mere two weeks to go until the whole thing was done anyway, it's kind of insulting.

 

 

 

 

Nick's twitter feed also tagged all the main Korra voice actors and said "WE'LL MISS YOU!!!"

 

Uh huh.

[Egann]

This is REALLY sad news. This season has been a perfect storm to kill Korra.

 

Was Korra as good as Airbender? Heck no, but it was every bit as inventive and creative. I will forgive sloppy or faulted execution if your ideas are good and you tried hard. And most of the time Korra was good, anyway, sometimes being absolutely epic.

 

It's just that Airbender came when television cartoons were at their height. I mean, Airbender came right behind Justice League Unlimited, and Cartoon Network had Toonami to boot. Korra, however, came after internet cut the floor out from underneath television. 20 episodes a season became 12, tight writing across three seasons became never knowing if the show was going to get cancelled, and a tight monetization scheme got replaced with...obsolescence.

 

And now a moment of silence.

[Masamune]

It's sad really but so many shows are going this route and it seems like we're our own worst enemies. The kind of shows we watch, we prefer an online venue, which few networks are willing to cater to. And so we end up with scraps while all the networks cater to the least common denominator. 

 

It's why I'm really hoping the Marvel/Netflix gambit to make a series of Marvel TV Shows pays off in a big way, because otherwise the only way we're going to see the kind of stuff we like is at a movie theater screen. Which is cool, but I'm not sure if it's worth the trade off.

[Egann]

Curiously, IGN just posted this image from the Co-creator's tumblr.

 

"Korra not cancelled. Moving to digital. Talk more at SDCC. Thanks for caring."

 

Maybe it's not the end of the world and Nick isn't completely inept. Korra is quite popular, but I'll believe it's gone all digital when we get episodes, not before.

Edited by Egann, 24 July 2014 - 06:58 PM.

[Selena]

Korra panel happening at Comic Con right now. I'll update with information as I find it:

 

 

* Korra is officially moving to streaming.

* They will premiere the remaining episodes online (on Nick and those other places). One episode per week.

* The season finale, however, will be a two-parter on August 22.

 

* The reason for this is because TV ratings have been very low, but digital streaming was through the roof. 

* So the digital audience heavily outweighs the TV audience.

 

* They are showing an early release of tonight's episode to the fans, so no huge deal there.

* Apparently it's really good, according to bloggers who watched.

 

 

 

Other than that, they just did standard Q&A from the audience and stuff. So. Yes. Move to digital confirmed, and with -- I guess -- understandable reasons. Still sucks that Nick never gave them they time of day while on the air, but hopefully this move will give them more room for creativity.

[DarkJuno]

Hmm, is Korra supposed to have another season? Or is it three books like the first series?

I have to wonder if this is really Nick being progressive or them PR speaking stuff away. This wouldn't be the only show that gets no promotion and/or gets weird scheduling from them and for some reason they get annoyed when ratings aren't great.

[Selena]

Book 4 is still being produced and should still air online. The creators were running the panel and said they were a little disappointed/shocked by Nick's abrupt decision. Which was handled very messily, both in public and in private.

 

But they also said that it was a sign of changing times -- that people, especially Korra's audience, are watching TV less and streaming more. That cable is being phased out by social changes. They said that Korra's Book 2 finale broke Nick's streaming records. So the show does have high viewership. Just not on cable. So they played it off as being a good opportunity. If one that came in a shitty looking box courtesy of Nick's lack of grace.

 

I see Book 4 as being Nick's big "experiment" with a streaming-only series to see if it can still be successful -- like how Orange is the New Black worked out for Netflix.

[SteveT]

Now that episodes are online, I've watched 3.  It doesn't suck!  And they address Korra's failings as an avatar!  And they realistically addressed Tenzin's unrealistic expectations!  And the Ba Sing Se is still North Korea!

 

Season 2 was already starting to lose me at this point, so I'm pretty happy about this so far.