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RTTP: The Legend of Korra vs The Last Airbender

Kuro

Member
I don't even like ATLA that much but all 3 seasons shit on the best of what Korra had to offer. Korra was a massive waste with bad writing.
 
I don't even like ATLA that much but all 3 seasons shit on the best of what Korra had to offer. Korra was a massive waste with bad writing.

Korra Season 3 is arguably better than Book 1 of ATLA. If you only had to go through season 1 of Korra, I'd say go for it. But you also have to get through season 2. Ugh.
 

Einchy

semen stains the mountaintops
What?!?!?

Season 2 had almost double the budget of season 1 primarily because season 1 was so successful for Nick.

Why what? Literally above you is someone explaining why they animation quality was so low but apparently only for half the season.
 

Wiseblade

Member
All of TLA > All of Korra. Just thinking about how excited I was over something that turned out to be a huge disappointment is so crazy.
 

Principate

Saint Titanfall
they only had the first 13 episodes ordered upfront iirc

It's why episode 12, the storm, goes deep into Aang and Zuko's backstory and why the blue spirit has them both engage each other, it was supposed to be a sort of resolution between the two characters. The success of show let them continue the story they had planned out. There's a three month delay between episode 13 and 14.
Basically says it all ATLA has the whole story planned our. Korea had jack shot planned out and existed because it could based on the success of the predecessor.
 

Reset

Member
I enjoyed all the seasons of TLA, but only like season 1 and 3 of LoK. The Last Airbender is the better show.
 
I want a 3rd series with a cyberpunk theme.

josh-hutchinson-future-waterbender-final-02-small.jpg
 

LotusHD

Banned
TLA is close to perfection, whereas LoK was just a good show. I can never agree with those that think that LoK was trash, but I do somewhat understand the sentiment because yes, it admittedly was a huge step down from how utterly amazing TLA was in several aspects, namely the protagonists.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Korra Season 3 is arguably better than Book 1 of ATLA. If you only had to go through season 1 of Korra, I'd say go for it. But you also have to get through season 2. Ugh.

I must admit I prefered Korra's first season to the third. The first showed promise, even if unfulfilled, there was a clear desire to do its own thing. The third was just... more ATLA, except with worse characters. I think if I'd never seen ATLA, I'd have had Korra S3 > S1, but as it was, S3 to me was just a giant reminder that this show really was never going to live up to where it started.

I'm not sure where I rank Korra S3 against ATLA S1. Honestly, I think in the end any given season of ATLA was better than any given season of Korra.
 

Wiseblade

Member
Exactly how I feel.
Man, it was crazy. I made the Korra Book one OT and got so excited when the first few episodes turned out good. Even by the end of Book 1 I was still interested, even if my expectations had been put in check. But then Book 2 happened. Honestly, that season was so bad it tainted the show going forward. Even when Book 3 was a relative return to form, it was built on a rotten foundation. The show didn't have enough time to really explore the ideas it put out either, making the whole thing feel shallow by the end.
 
The first avatar season started out a bit janky (and given it's the first of its kind in production, that's inevitable), so it's hard to compare that with Korra, but TLA almost consistently beats out TLK. It's a shame, cause season 1 of Korra started out fantastically, and season 3 would've been amazing if the payoff in the next season wasn't so underwhelming. I don't understand how, in a show about young adults and aimed at an older audience, TLK only manages to have two properly developed character arcs (Korra and Bolin).
 

higemaru

Member
I watched both series back to back with my roommates who were big fans of both series and they all liked TLA but I thought Korra was leagues better. TLA felt more like a fairytale that set up the world while Korra capitalized on the opportunity to build that world up. I really liked seeing Metal-bending being used by people and how the main cast was powerful but not absurdly broken like Aang and Toph were. The villains in TLA were pretty dull too, except Azula, while I remember really liking a lot of Korra's villains.

There were some bad spots
Kuvira randomly being a villain (albeit an interesting motivation and Iroh becoming a spirit or whatever
but I enjoyed it a lot more overall.

Also Aang is legitimately irritating.
 
TLA is better than LoK due to the writing alone.

LoK had all the elements to make a good show, but just couldn't keep it together. Every season had a good premise that was squandered.
 

KillLaCam

Banned
Korra was good but I like The Last Airbender better. Its seasons felt more connected than the ones in Korra. The Fire Nation was always a threat throughout the whole show. They had some small villains that weren't from the Fire Nation but even those peoples actions were influenced by something that the Fire Nation did. Plus it has Azula as a character.

Korra had some great villains though Kuvira and Zaheer were amazing. But Korra felt more random to me. Zaheer , Amon and Tarrlok were just people who hated the avatar. Unalaq was salty because he wasn't the Avatar. Kuvira was just a conqueror. The villains barely had anything to do with each other. They all felt like random comic book bad guys.

Season 1 didn't interest me at all besides the blood bending. Everyone being able to lightning bend really bothered me because of how cool it was in The Last Airbender.
But season 2 was REALLY boring to me besides the Avatar Wan episodes. The last 2 seasons of Korra were great though. I liked Korra as a character a trillion times better than Aang. But I didnt like Mako and Bolin at all.


As a whole show I prefer The Last Airbender by far. I can't think of that many moments when I was bored or not interested in what was going on. I was interested in the more of the main characters as well.

TLA 2&3
LoK 3&4
Avatar Wan episode
TLA 1
LoK 1
.
.
.
.
LoK 2
 

A-V-B

Member
Just gonna repeat some of my earlier thoughts.

Legend of Korra blew up the entire franchise's mythos. Hard core. Hard to survive that.
 

Hollycat

Member
I think I put Korra book 3 at the tippy-top of all of it. Then Avatar season 3 and then Korra season 4 and then the rest of Avatar and then Korra season 1 and then Korra season 2?
 
TLA for dayyyyyyyyyyyyyys. Korra is ok, some episodes were even great, but the problem with Korra from the outset was that it was never a continuous series with a straight and continuous story line like with TLA. This made it possible for the story to have pacing issues and inconsistent character development from one season to another. I blame this squarely on Nick as they initially only wanted 1 season and then when the fanbase erupted and demanded more, well, the story and character issues started from then on.

TLA never had this problem. From the outset, after Nick greenlit the production, it was always supposed to be a 3 book production. This made it possible to have consistent and well-formed characters and a plot and story that made sense with the universe and the world that Di Martino/Konietzko brilliantly imagined up. Nothing felt out of place or a shortcut is taken to meet deadlines or meet Nick's demands. It is a sure shot classic, in my eyes, as you can keep going back to this show time and time again and never, ever get bored. The same can't be said of Korra. If a show can pull off this ultimate test, then it proves that it is a classic in my opinion.
 

Wiseblade

Member
What part of the mythos did Korra blow up? Do you mean like how Korra ended the Avatar line?
The part where Avatar Wan dispels basically all of the the mystique around the Avatar, bending and it's place in the world. It's on par with Midichlorians as lore-ruining.
 

Verelios

Member
The part where Avatar Wan dispels basically all of the the mystique around the Avatar, bending and it's place in the world. It's on par with Midichlorians as lore-ruining.
Gotta say, I agree with this. Having Rava, alien spirit of light be the functional core of the avatar spirit...instead of the avatar being the quintessential representative of the world's spirit or part of the world's natural order was bunk.

The spirit world was also kind of handled poorly. In TLA, spirits were neither good or bad, they're forces moved by their own compulsions and the world's circumstances. Defining them by giving them human traits is weak and having them come to an understanding with humans is weird.
 
TLA is much better. Korra, the writers didn't know how many seasons they were getting, had to rethink plans on the go, no cohesive start middle and end story, rather several different stories, some better than others.

The side characters for the most part aren't as great as the TLA ones. Never quite make the jump from sidekicks to characters I actually want to follow, never mind the main story. Korra herself is also a "worse" character than Aang, she feels more childish but she's supposed to be a young woman while Aang was just a kid.

ETA: What renegade_dewitt said...
 

NEO0MJ

Member
Something that doesn't get brought up is that a lot of the writers from ATLA did not come back to this. I feel they played a bigger role than some thought.

Edit: Actually was wrong on that. It seems that two of the main writers other than the creators were there from season 2 onwards. Wonder what went wrong, then.
 

Oddish1

Member
I vastly prefer The Last Airbender over Korra. I think even season 1 of TLA when the show was at its most inconsistent was still preferable to the frustration of Korra wasting good ideas.

The animation of Korra and its visuals are easily its highlights, there's a lot to appreciate there. Although I'm one of those people who think TLA's fight scenes are superior to Korra's because of everyone's different fighting styles while Korra's fights scenes always end up just being punches and kicks. They're well animated but they're not as interesting.

I found Red Lotus to be pretty flat as villains go. I'm also really bothered by how little their sense their plan makes. Amon is the best villain of both series for about *looks up* ten episodes and then everything that made him work just falls apart (like the rest of LoK season one). The season 2 villain is so boring and bad I forgot his name and I'm not even going to look it up, and I never watched LoK season 4 because I've been burned so much by the show by that point. So I have to give TLA the villains win because Azula's great and the Fire Lord is boring but has some stuff to him that makes him work.

EDIT:
Something that doesn't get brought up is that a lot of the writers from ATLA did not come back to this. I feel they played a bigger role than some thought.

Edit: Actually was wrong on that. It seems that two of the main writers other than the creators were there from season 2 onwards. Wonder what went wrong, then.

That's four of the original nineteen writers. And notably, the head writer of TLA Aaron Ehasz had nothing to do with LoK at all.
 
Gotta say, I agree with this. Having Rava, alien spirit of light be the functional core of the avatar spirit...instead of the avatar being the quintessential representative of the world's spirit or part of the world's natural order was bunk.

The spirit world was also kind of handled poorly. In TLA, spirits were neither good or bad, they're forces moved by their own compulsions and the world's circumstances. Defining them by giving them human traits is weak and having them come to an understanding with humans is weird.

Hmm, I didn't really mind Rava, but I do agree that the spirits in Korra were kinda meh. They acted too much like little children, probably not helped by the fact that like 90% of them were voiced by children haha.


As far as Amon goes, did people think his backstory made him weaker or more interesting? For me, while I thought it was a really cool and tragic backstory, I was kinda disappointed that he was just a bloodbender, instead of a non-bender who genuinely believed in his crusade. I remember after the episode where he resists his brother's bloodbending in the warehouse, the internet was lit up with theories about who he really was. Turns out hes just another bender, which is fine, but some of those theories were really cool haha.
 

NEO0MJ

Member
Man, don't remind me about how hyped we were theorizing about Amon's origins and how he blocked bending. That terrible feeling when it all came crashing down...

That's four of the original nineteen writers. And notably, the head writer of TLA Aaron Ehasz had nothing to do with LoK at all.

I see. Still, Tim Hedrick and Joshua Hamilton wrote a significant number of the original show's episodes so it's a shame their output was no where near as good.
 
ATLA and it isn't close. One is a masterpiece, the other feels like fanfiction.

Don't get me wrong, I like LOK and absolutely enjoyed watching it. I'm not here to hate. But it doesn't touch ATLA. At its best it's flashy and beautifully animated, but even then we're still talking style over substance. At its worst it's a complete mess.

I wanted this to be good so badly that I did not resign myself to reality until after the show was over and I revisited it a few times. Believe me, one of the things I wanted most in the world was more content in this universe of a comparable quality. Sadly, that's not what we got.

The two don't compare.
 

Shaanyboi

Banned
I enjoyed Korra, but while Avatar is a wildly more successful show, I will still give Korra props for handling some more difficult themes.
 
I like them both, but I can watch any episode in isolation from Aang and enjoy it. Korra's not as enjoyable if I don't start from the beginning of the season, making it difficult for casual re-watching. Also, Iroh is difficult to top.
 

shira

Member
Last Airbender forever.

Ultimately Korra is an interesting disappointment by comparison, with the high point being season 3.

My ranking of the seasons:

TLA Season 2 >
TLA Season 3 >
LoK Season 3 >
LoK Season 1 >
TLA Season 1 >
LoK Season 4 >
LoK Season 2
LoK S2 needs to be lower
sick.gif
 

Cruxist

Member
ATLA by a mile, but both had great highs and annoying lows.

ATLA's biggest annoyance for me is how Aang gets the Avatar state back. Just get bumped by a rock and you're good to wreck house! That was a major cop out and frustrates me to no end. But it's made up for the fact that we got that amazing Avatar play episode right before.

Korra does some great stuff with the worldbuilding, but yeah, tying the Avatar to one specific spirit is pretty frustrating. Makes it less mystical, I guess?
 
ATLA by a mile, but both had great highs and annoying lows.

ATLA's biggest annoyance for me is how Aang gets the Avatar state back. Just get bumped by a rock and you're good to wreck house! That was a major cop out and frustrates me to no end.

Yeah, honestly I think ATLA often get a free pass for its lows because 1) it was a very particular show than those on TV in that time and 2) it was a kid show on a kid channel, so there were some limits on what they can do.

My impression with Korra was they tried to make a YA show still on a kid channel, so these limits went against the atmosphere of the show. This, and the horrible writing.
 

A-V-B

Member
Gotta say, I agree with this. Having Rava, alien spirit of light be the functional core of the avatar spirit...instead of the avatar being the quintessential representative of the world's spirit or part of the world's natural order was bunk.

The spirit world was also kind of handled poorly. In TLA, spirits were neither good or bad, they're forces moved by their own compulsions and the world's circumstances. Defining them by giving them human traits is weak and having them come to an understanding with humans is weird.

I enjoyed them mightily as weird spirits that don't act like people. Inscrutable, unpredictable, and probably tremendously dangerous, with the rare, barely moral spirit floating among them who might help the hero. Maybe. I've never owned a statuette in my life, but if I did I'd get one of the monkey spirit and one of Koh the face stealer.

But I'm a total mark for that kind of shit. David Lynch, del Toro, Hayao Miyazaki, Neil Gaiman, and old Russian, Irish and Japanese folktales are my jam.

That's four of the original nineteen writers. And notably, the head writer of TLA Aaron Ehasz had nothing to do with LoK at all.

Aaron Ehasz's influence simply can not be understated. Where Konietzko and DeMartino were the wild sparks at the heart that created and fueled the show, Aaron Ehasz seemed to be the steady hand that gave it a solid foundation and maintained its philosophy. He was the third Beatle. Damn shame he never came back.
 
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