Nickelodian's Avatar series getting another spin off possible more than one?

Discussion in 'Movies and Television' started by Tekkaman Blade, Feb 24, 2021.

  1. mx-01 archon

    mx-01 archon Well-Known Member

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    Do three seasons worth of physical and mental trauma not count for anything? A huge part of the final season was Korra being forced to work through her PTSD after the torture she suffered at the hands of Zaheer.

    Certainly, there were elements that could have been handled better in the series, a lot of them exacerbated by being jerked around by the network. The narrative through-line of the story would have been a lot stronger if they had been able continue with the story of Korra having her powers sealed, and you can see some of the DNA of the follow-through in place in the second season, just heavily neutered with the rejiggered premise of spirit-talking training instead. The overall gist remained though, with Korra continually being frustrated and angry at herself for being unable to master what should have been a basic technique for her.
     
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  2. Scrapmaker

    Scrapmaker Hadar Sen Olmen

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    I would also like to add: her entire character arc hinges on how she defines herself, and every single villain challenges that. She defines herself by what she is, the Avatar. She says as much, "All I've ever wanted is to be the Avatar." Each villain challenges that one way or another, questioning the necessity or validity of the idea of the Avatar. Amon's fake story claims that the spirits have told him "that the Avatar has failed humanity." Unalaq argued a similar perspective, in the sense that the Avatar wasn't the spiritual leader he believed the world needed. Zaheer and the Red Lotus believed that the mere existence of the Avatar was fundamentally wrong and needed to be removed. Kuvira felt it necessary to take matters into her own hands in the absence of the Avatar, and refused to back down when Korra tried to reason with her.

    Korra's frustration ultimately comes from her desire to be what she believes the Avatar is supposed to be, and that has a tendency to make things harder for her. Her arc is sort of like the opposite of Aang's, conceptually. Aang's arc was about accepting his responsibilities as the Avatar and coming into his own when the world needed him to; Korra's is about connecting with the world and with other people, not as the Avatar but as herself, to define herself by who she is rather than what she is. Like what Tenzin says of Wan, "He became a legend because of who he was, not what he was."
     
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  3. mx-01 archon

    mx-01 archon Well-Known Member

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    Also, the larger overarching theme of the series was about whether or not the world even needed the Avatar anymore.

    Comparing Korra directly to Aang is disingenuous, without judging her against the story being told. She's not a "Mary Sue" for instantly mastering Bending where Aang struggled, because that wasn't the point. Aang needed power to take on an entire empire by himself. By contrast, Korra had power, but struggled to figure out how to apply it in the best/most meaningful way.

    Do note that Aang's development was also stunted. He should have been able to master Bending at a similar rate to Korra, but being a fugitive on the run meant that he was denied proper tutelage.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2021
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  4. CybertronianFan

    CybertronianFan Well-Known Member

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    I've been advocating for another Avatar series for YEARS now. Personally, I'd like to see the progression post Korra and the aftermath of those events (be it years or decades later). I also wouldn't mind seeing a series based on Avatars prior Aang. But for the love of God, PLEASE PUT OUT ANOTHER ANIMATED SERIES!!
     
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  5. Hanzkaz

    Hanzkaz Well-Known Member

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    I'll take a dozen..:) 
     
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  6. Chopperface

    Chopperface Chadwick Forever

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    I really do wanna see what’s next in Korra’s time (besides the comics). Aang’s story was definitely a happy ending where you didn’t need to see what came next, but Korra’s ending left the door wide open for what came next, now that she’s recovered from her depression, become more powerful than ever, found love, and changed a world that’s going through big upheavals.

    Which I suppose all can be said of Aang too lol, but I felt like Aang’s show wrapped up with a bow besides Zuko’s mom. Korra felt more like it could be followed up on with an immediate sequel/another season. I get what Korra was teaching us in its final season, that there will always be more obstacles in life to face and happily ever doesn’t exist, and fictional characters only have that luxury if you stop watching. Which we never will since we love Avatar.
     
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  7. Scrapmaker

    Scrapmaker Hadar Sen Olmen

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    Absolutely. Korra is more open-ended than ATLA and I think that's a deliberate choice. While obviously there were always more adventures to be had by the original Gaang, those weren't stories that necessarily needed to be told - that they have been told is more than welcome, though.

    Korra also didn't "instantly master" bending anyway. Her bending abilities, save for air, simply manifested early. She demonstrated some surprising proficiency for a four year old, but that's not the same as having "mastered" them. She still took 13 years of training under the White Lotus to be considered a master of any of the elements, and they still weren't sure if they considered her ready to move on to the next stage of her training.
     
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  8. Dead Metal

    Dead Metal Well-Known Member

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    I like that they opened a whole studio just for Avatar media, I hope it fares better than when Sony did it for Ghostbusters.

    I hope the next chapter is set either before Aang, or right after Korra, but fixes the damage Kora did.

    I liked the original series of Korra, she was the opposite of Aang. Aaang was physically weak, but spiritually fully developed while Korra was physically strong but spiritually handicapped. Kora's story was basically her getting more and more in tune with the spiritual aspect of being the Avatar, while Aang had to get ore in tune with the non spiritual aspect of being the Avatar. The trouble was just, that Korra's first season was the high point of her show, it was really obvious that the show was meant as just a 13 episode mini series and that everything later was tacked on quite poorly.
    While I wasn't a fan of the weird WTF last second reveal of Korra and Asami suddenly being a couple, since their whole arch to that point was them fighting over the same guy. What really hurt the show was the weird reaction to fans. The original mini series hinted at and included adult versions of the original gang, but just enough to make us want more of them, so they cut down on that and got publicly annoyed when people wanted to know more. And I believe that is what lead them to kill and destroy the franchise's most unique and defining feature, the Avatar itself.
    The whole concept of the Avatar getting reborn, but his previous lives essentially existing as separate spirits they could call upon for wisdom and help was fantastic. Removing and destroying that aspect because you wanted Korra to stand on her own without being defined by her past selves was stupid.

    The most interesting and exiting aspects of Last Airbender was when Aang's past selves would manifest to help him out or give him advice. The conflict from this was also really great. Roku regretting how he handled the situation and not being able to stop the war, Aang desperately trying to find a past self that agreed with his desire to not kill Ozai. etc.

    I also got annoyed and weirded out how the show seamed to focus so much on torturing Korra, it was almost a fetish in the end. Not really enjoyable seeing the supposedly powerful character get completely stomped by guys who are less powerful, or in one case even just being a bender for like a month.

    So yeah, whatever they do, they should fix that mistake.
     
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  9. Scrapmaker

    Scrapmaker Hadar Sen Olmen

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    I realize it doesn't do much good to discuss how I would have done things if I had the reins (and it's probably a good thing that I don't, I'm not much of a writer), but...Ah, what the hell.

    Now I liked the origin episodes. I found Wan to be an engaging protagonist and I enjoyed seeing things like how he learned from watching the movements of a dragon to refine his fire bending into an early form of the Dancing Dragon technique learned by Aang and Zuko, I enjoyed the concept of the Lion Turtle cities and their role in the origins of elemental bending (even if there's a bit of a plot hole - "We will no longer give humans the power of the elements" - well why do humans still have that power then?), some of the concepts behind Raava and Vaatu...That said, it could do with some refinement. Now we already knew that there had to be an original Avatar, and a time before control of the elements was an ability that humans could just naturally have - per the series finale of ATLA, "In the era before the Avatar, we bent not the elements, but the energy within ourselves" - so Energy Bending was always the precursor to the elemental bending forms. You can infer a lot from just that one line, and I don't feel like the origin episodes outright contradicted it. It's just odd when you consider that it was implied that there used to be human Energy Benders, not that it was just the Lion Turtles handing out super powers like candy. On top of that, Energy Bending seems to also be expressed in a few different ways through the elemental bending arts - Water Bending with it's healing abilities, lightning generation from Fire Bending, how Toph learned Earth Bending and created Metal Bending, the very nature of Air Bending as the most spiritually inclined and free of the elements...

    Anyway, I have no idea how I'd cover the exact origins of Bending. I'm just here to cover what I'd do differently for Raava and Vaatu. In the series proper, their conflict is treated fundamentally as good vs evil, and Vaatu is probably the most flat and uninteresting villain besides his co-star, Unalaq. My version of the pair would take a bit of a different turn. Spirits are shown to have two forms - a calm form and a monstrous form. Hei Bai's panda form and his weird monster form that looked like it walked out of Evangelion, and the Ocean Spirit's koi fish form and Koizilla, for example. Raava and Vaatu would be representations of that, actually being the same spirit, but the divide between the two forms makes them into two distinct individuals.

    My Raava and Vaatu in turn represent balance, in different ways. Raava represents patience, restraint, and order; balance through caution. She's calm and collected, stern but fair, emotionally distant, but surprisingly irritable.
    Vaatu, by contrast, is pure emotion. He is passionate, prone to anger, and reckless, representing balance through change and upheaval. Rather than being malevolent, you could say that he cares too much.
    When the world suffers great spiritual imbalance and unrest, Vaatu grows more restless and violent, which forces Raava to restrain him to prevent his destructive tendencies from causing unnecessary damage. But neither are inherently good or evil. Raava stresses the importance of caution moving forward, but her ways can lead to stagnation when imbalanced; by contrast, Vaatu believes in the necessity of change, but when imbalanced can cause widespread destruction. Only together can they balance each other and properly enforce the metaphysical balance of the world itself.

    So then Wan inadvertently separates them when he misunderstands the situation. Vaatu, free of Raava's restraint, grows more imbalanced and destructive over time in his quest to restore what he considers the proper balance in the world, unable to see the error in his judgement without Raava. Vaatu's not out to bring about "10,000 years of darkness", he's more out to bring about his divine wrath on humanity for their hubris and start over. This would mark another difference between the two; while Raava can be stubborn, judgemental, and rigid, she's not inflexible and can be negotiated with. Vaatu, once he sets his mind to something, can be almost impossible to reason with.

    At Harmonic Convergence, the two are meant to merge into one spirit, re-balancing themselves and the world's energy. As imbalanced as Vaatu is, he'd become the dominant force and use that to bring about his judgement on the world and humankind. Raava and Wan try to reason with him, but he's so far gone that won't listen, forcing them to fight him. To make a long story short, the basics of it are mostly the same, they fight, Wan merges with Raava because weird spirit energy shenanigans during Harmonic Convergence, they seal Vaatu away in the Tree of Time, and so begins the Avatar Cycle.


    Not a perfect re-imagining but it's better than Vaatu being just straight up the devil.
     
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  10. Scarlet knight

    Scarlet knight Emergency Food Connoisseur

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    Am I the only one who wants to see an animated series taking place right after The Last Airbender ended? I've wanted that since I first finished the show.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2021
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  11. SHIELD Agent 47

    SHIELD Agent 47 生死有命,富貴在天

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  12. Venixion

    Venixion Its always the middle of the night in Moonside

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    Umm I'll pass on this. TLoK had potential, but they squandered it by making Korra one dimensional, not learning from her mistakes, neglecting the spiritual side of things, and downgrading the fight scenes. I left early on. ATLA was lightning in a bottle, and they ain't gonna capture it twice. But they are also a talented team of animators and story tellers and I'd love to see them make brand new stuff.
     
  13. Paladin

    Paladin Have Zord, Will Travel

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    ...WHY?!?!!

    You TOLD Aangs' story. You told the story AFTER Aangs' story. They're both over.

    MOVE ON. DO SOMETHING NEW!!!
     
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  14. jala12

    jala12 Fiery Adventurer

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    So, you say it was squandered potential despite the fact that you treat the series like season 1 was all that ever existed of it because that's all you ever watched. In which case aren't you robbing yourself of seeing those issues get resolved? The following seasons especially 3 address your criticisms with her character, spirituality, fights, etc.
     
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  15. SHIELD Agent 47

    SHIELD Agent 47 生死有命,富貴在天

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  16. Tekkaman Blade

    Tekkaman Blade Professor of Animation

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    Hope there is better art than the Turtles series
     
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  17. Gaastra

    Gaastra Well-Known Member

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