Avatar: The Legend of Korra
I watched the first episode, and that was enough for me to realize that this was not good at all. In fact, it made me depressed. It was almost as bad as seeing The Last Airbender by M. N. Shyamalan. Because at least Korra would be good as a stand alone project while the movie just sucked big, hairy lollipops.
Now, if I had never seen Avatar The Last Airbender, I would have probably enjoyed the show since it has a decent cast, cool fight scenes, and some very intense plots. However, because I was graced with the greatest thing to hit Western animation since the Miyazaki releases and Bambi, I was severely disappointed at Korra's flop.
Why did it flop? Well sit back, because this may take a while and perhaps suck the life out of you like a demonic, vampire, leech.
CHAPTER ONE
REPUBLIC CITY
This will be long because I am going over not just the city itself but the horrible crap they shoved into it too.
Republic City is supposed to be every Race Rights Activists' dream: a place where all four nations and humans alike can co-exist in harmony and skyscrapers.
WTF?
Skyscrapers?
I'll get back to that.
PART ONE: the War
The world was at war!
Doesn't anyone remember the 100 year war that had been happening? Does anyone remember the awful brutality that happened off-screen during the three seasons of Avatar?
The whole world was at war for a hundred years. The people wouldn't suddenly decide to become friends just because the Avatar and the brand new Fire lord are buddy-buddies. In fact, they would just be more suspicious. The world knows Zuko as the spoiled brat of the world's worst dictator who was banished and then spent oh-so-many years hunting down the Avatar to KILL him! Now suddenly they're friends? There should have been at least one WTF scene. Wouldn't someone have speculated that maybe this was a Fire Nation plot? That maybe they were being tricked to all come to one area at a certain time to "build a new city" just so the firebenders could go "psyche" and just burn them to a crisp? I mean, I at least would be suspicious. If I was a leader of a nation or other person in power, I would say, "Hell no! I am not going to be pulled into your game! I know you're up to something!"
At the end of a war, there are at least a few light skirmishes between countries before they dwindle and die out. Either because of power, money, or opportunity to seize more territory.
We also have something important to remember: the economic state of the world.
Take it from our own world wars or better yet, the 100 years war (that was in France). At the end of them, everyone was plunged into economic depression. People could barely feed themselves, and the governments had to dish out to keep their whole city from dying off. They have barely enough money to keep the town going let alone build a new city with SKYSCRAPERS! (seriously, wtf?)
I would also imagine that with the end of their war, like any other country, they would have disbanded their excess soldiers. So now you have a poverty stricken country in absolute ruins with hundreds of men all clamoring for nonexistent jobs. Programs would have to be put in place to get them back on their feet again, either by getting them land to have a house or learning a trade to get them better equipped for jobs.
So we have suspicions over SUDDEN (and it was sudden) peace treaty and economic depression. What's next? Oh right, population!
Have you seen the death count in wars? The American Civil War alone generated anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 deaths. Now imagine that sort of thing going on for hundreds of years. The numbers go up don't they? Now add on all the people that died of diseases, stillborns, accidents, non-combat deaths, old age, suicide, etc. Got a rough number in your head? Good.
Now consider that pretty much EVERY ABLE BODIED MAN is OUT fighting! So that leaves some women at home to do... what? Well, they manage the household. That's nice. But since their husbands are all off fighting in the war, they have no one to procreate with. Notice that in Avatar, the majority of people they meet are old people, unless they go to shady villages in the middle of nowhere or untouched cities.
So you have hundreds of thousands of people dying every few years and not enough people left behind to make more people. The total number worldwide begins to diminish.
Before I wrap up that point, let me add this one because it does tie in: people desire a normal life. It's in every apocalypse/horror/zombie film out there and it's true of real people in real life. When World War Two ended, the Italians didn't all sing kumbaya and build a new city with the Greeks and Germans, did they. NO! They headed for home to rebuild what they had lost because they wanted their old lives again. You can bet your butts that the benders felt the same way.
And who would even fill a new city of that scale? Maybe a hundred thousand people, but that is pretty much the total number of people left on the planet (give or take).
I know why the writers made Republic City. They were saying how the refugees of other countries had all kind of mingled together and grew lives with each other. Some had even married. So where do the earthbender and his waterbender wife go? Or the firebender and his waterbender wife?
They go where the husband goes. Have none of you read about Asian group psychology? *facepalm*
Especially in those time periods (middle ages-ish) the wife left her whole family behind to follow her husband. So even though she would feel kind of awkward, the waterbender wife would be just fine living in Ba Sing Se with her earthbending husband and his rock lifting family. Because in Asian group psychology the group comes before the individual. That's why family honor is such a big thing. You dishonor yourself, you dishonor the family, because you are not a true individual, you are part of a greater whole. So therefore, the waterbender wife would have understood herself to have become part of a different whole (something she would have realized when she agreed to marry the guy) and she would go with him to Ba Sing Se.
So the point is that people desire normalcy and they would go wherever they were originally from/wherever their new family head is from.
PART TWO: Development
70 years.
You can NOT build that many skyscrapers in 70 years.
Unless you already had the technology to build them in the first place. Which they didn't. The rest of the world looked like typical middle ages Asia. I did not see any skyscrapers in A:TLA, therefore there cannot be skyscrapers now.
Everyone says "Oh, but they had earthbenders that could just make them out of earth."
Ahem.
No.
There is a reason why our skyscrapers are built from iron, steel, and other metals. It is because things at that height are constantly buffeted by the strongest winds you ever did feel. rock and stone cannot withstand that. Unless it is as wide as a mountain. Notice how Omashu was super tall and looked like a big fat hill. That is because it was made of stone, and the only way for stone to stand that high is because it needs a large, solid base.
Physics.
CHAPTER TWO
70 YEARS
All the things that cannot happen in 70 years.
You cannot tell me that the world jumped from Middle Ages war-ridden destitute Asia to 1930s America in 70 years. You just can't!
Motorcars? Maaaaybe. Especially since the firebenders were top of the line when it came to vehicle transports, motor cars are expected.
But the fashions? The gramophones? The skyscrapers?
No.
You still have fighters. You still have benders! They would never go around prancing in corsets, tight button shoes, with buttresses under their skirts. They WOULD NOT!
Fashion does not go like that. Fashion develops based on how society changes. If anything, I would expect much of the same as A:TLA with maybe minor modifications. Not freaking 1930s America.
A city of metalbenders. Cannot happen.
Take Toph, alright. She discovered it after how many years of earthbenders before her trying and failing? You think everyone else is going to pick up on it super fast too? No.
They will try and fail. Metalbending is about digging deep inside the metal and maneuvering the earth particles.
Also remember that people are lazy. Especially people in post-war A:TLA who are busy trying to find their lost family, bury their loved ones, and fix up their ransacked home. Only a few would have bothered to try and learn metalbending and fewer would have mastered it to Toph's level. That's way too few to start a whole city of them.
Perhaps that is a personal opinion, but there you have it.
CHAPTER THREE
THE PLOT
The plot, the plot, the plot.
Antibenders! Whoo!
NO!
It makes LITERALLY NO SENSE!
It's the equivalent of saying "Death to all people with black hair!"
Honestly? You are friends with blackhaired people. Your relatives have black hair. Your dog has black hair. But now all the black haired people are suddenly unnatural and can't coexist with the rest of us and should all... what exactly? Die? I never understood what they wanted those people to do. Like... stop bending or something.
"DAMN IT! Treat yourself to chemo and wear a wig! Get rid of your natural black hair that you were born with and cannot do a thing about that we have been living with since the dawn of time!"
I mean X-Men made sense. It did because mutants were fairly new, gaining in numbers as time went on because humans were "evolving". So the uproar made sense. They were weird and unknown (which all humans fear) and the humans wanted something done to them.
But benders? Really? Your planet was built by muthafreaking benders! You can't possibly say no to them.
Dumbest. Plot. Ever.
And then they were blaming benders for the war.
What was that? Sorry, couldn't hear you over the sound of how much you need the Avatar who bends all four elements.
CHAPTER FOUR
KORRA.
*sigh*
She bends three elements off the bat at 3 years old (one for each year I guess).
What?
Aang couldn't do that. Hell, NONE of the Avatars could do that. Aang had to learn how to master air since he was a little bitty one. At twelve he was pretty darn good. But Korra just struts up there like a Mary Sue with her noise in the air and in a tinny voice like nails on a chalkboard, states, "Well I can bend ALL THREE!"
Mmhmm.
"But, but, but... she cannot control them properly and she needs to master air because she's all hotheaded and stuff!"
So that means she's really Zuko and Katara's lovechild. She's a firebender who was sent to the North Pole. Fanfic has been made.
Why did I say that? Because that could be the only explanation.
What is water? Water is changing, shifting, cool, adaptable. It can be rough and and all tempest-tossed about, but it is not raging inferno and backlashing hotheaded!
If she cannot be that, then she cannot be a waterbender.
And you're saying air is the problem?
I do not care that she has not "mastered" the three elements. She is WAY too overpowered for her age. And she seemed to have a pretty damn good mastery of it when the White Lotus came to get a look at her.
I seriously believe Korra should have been a firebender. Then they could have decided to make this show set 200 years after Aang, and then all the changes to the world, society, etc as we know it would have made sense.
So this is my first draft of my issues with Korra. Stay tuned for the remake when I get responses on it.
Peace off minions.
No comments:
Post a Comment