Avatar was a surprise hit for Nick despite it breaking all the rules that made other Nick shows like Spongebob popular. As a result, Nick execs weren't sure how to treat the show and constantly made poor decisions that Avatar's creators had to correct later (like airing reruns out of order). This culminated with the release of Korra when Nick started to straight up interfere with the show's success by censoring the planned story, messing with the budget, and pulling the show from air midseason. But Avatar persisted and now that it's super popular again, Nick is throwing the original creators a ton of money and giving them their own studio that they (presumably) have way more freedom to grow the franchise 👍
I feel like that probably has something to do with the fact that Nickelodeon has always been primarily focused on more comedic series, with Avatar being the biggest standout to break that mold. Because of this, it seems like they have been focusing more on those types of shows recently, with there being a particularly large emphasis on cashing in on SpongeBob by having made a couple of different spin-offs of it because it has become the face of the network. That said, it would be better to focus more on Avatar instead, in my opinion, as ATLA definitely has more appeal to a broader audience than SpongeBob does, and the fact that the series is still so beloved and has practically everyone who talks about it singing it's praises is just proof of how great it is
which is why I don't trust another single good avatar project to be produced again, Korra was already basically the star wars prequels of Avatar, from this point on we're only going to get Star wars sequel quality. I'd rather the series and world stay dead than see it get destroyed. the one good thing though is even if it does get ruined (which lets be honest is going to happen) we'll always have the original.
Around this time period, it was highly common for cartoons (in general, not on Nick specifically) to be cancelled at 65 episodes. I believe Disney actually had this as a hard rule. Nick shows frequently went longer (sometimes *much* longer, in the case of Spongebob and a few others), but AtLA was not one of those shows, ending after 61 episodes. Why 65? Because 65 = 5 × 13. That lets you run an episode once every weekday for a quarter (13 weeks), so it neatly fits into a simple "weekdays at [whenever]" timeslot. This is considered the minimum for syndication, or was at the time. If you have more than 65 episodes, the extra episodes are "wasted" because they don't fit into the rotation (and so they don't get aired, or only get aired as part of next quarter's rotation, if there is one). So Disney, and some other studios, would just cancel the show as soon as they had enough episodes. Presumably, Nick didn't care about this limit because Nicktoons were rarely (never?) syndicated. But it still goes to show the overall attitude that the (western) industry took towards animation at the time - it was a business, not an art form, and the business was selling toys. Making a good show was seen as a means to that end, not a goal in its own right. Similar problems can be seen with Gargoyles and quite a few other 90's to early 2000's shows throughout the industry. It would take a good 20 or so years for the industry to fully adapt to all the barriers that Batman: The Animated Series managed to break during its run in the 90's.
they were probably released chronologically, but on re-runs they would play episodes at random because they thought thats what they do for all the other shows, why wouldn’t it work for this one?
Nick: "Air Bender sold really well, so we'll let you do a little bit of violence for Korra, okay?" Bryke: "I'm-a suffocate a queen." Nick: "Wait, what?" Bryke: "And make a chick blow up her own head." Nick: "..." Bryke: "And give Korra PTSD."
They werent hamstrung. They lied out their asses nick bought and paid for the whole series before the first episode even aired. They just dont know how to write anything worth a pile of dogshit. The show would have been shitcanned for ratings being awful if they hadn't already paid for it in advance. And everyone sucks them off as these poor artists fighting against the evil corporate powers
@@ezracohen6020 Why despise the show when you should put all that hate into Nickelodeon? Lok wasn't even that bad and I believe it's overhated show. A lot things people nit pick and try make it as if it's some big deal is rediculus.
@@BiG-JuPO1O1 There are a lot of reasons I don't like the show, and I'll go through them briefly at a later point in this comment, but I'll start off with the reason I actually despise it and don't just dislike it. (any typos are most likely the result of voice recognition so just point them out and I'll fix them) The Legend of Korra felt to me like it was actively disrespecting the lore and world of Avatar, had it been entirely its own story with no connection to Avatar I would dislike it but I would not hate it. The show starts off on a bad note, Korra being able to bend three of the elements at such a young age was absurd, in the last Avatar it's set up that Aang is younger than other avatars when they went through the process of mastering the elements, and when it was first found out he was the Avatar it wasn't because he was bending multiple elements but because he passed a test and was drawn to items from his past lives. This is a small example that ultimately has no impact on the story, but it's made worse by the fact that it was ultimately unnecessary, the show could have easily just started with her training and using three of the elements sort of like the next scene where she's fighting the firebenders in training. The next thing is the bending styles themselves, they all sort of felt like they were mixed martial arts or boxing and the lost a lot of the uniqueness that they had in the original series, aside from the Red Lotus in season 3 people don't have all that unique of a style, it's the loss of something that made Avatar special. Continuing with bending, lightning bending becoming so common cheapened it. Still in the first season the next issue is with blood bending, they broke all of the rules that it functioned by and turned it into something completely different, being able to be used without a full moon, being able to be used telepathically (the only thing close to bending with little movement in the original is Bumi, so while it could theoretically be possible with everything else the whole thing is just pushing the limits), and the fact that it can permanently take away someone's bending, something we only see the Avatar do with energy bending. Now moving on to the second season we get to spirits, and this is far and away the worst offender. Spirits in avatar are complex, interesting, and inhuman creatures that don't fit into categories of being good or evil as we understand them. In The Legend of Korra they are still strange and inhuman, but in a more colorful and fairy-like way, and now they can be much more easily placed into categories of good or evil with Raava and Vaatu. They are generally good and docile and cute in the show unless they get corrupted by Vaatu, but also can be turned back after being corrupted through Spirit Bending. The spirit world is now much more reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, and things we see like different Spirits combining into one or Spirit Vines are very different to how they functioned before. All of this would be fine if it wasn't placed in the world of avatar, but when you already have Spirits as one thing and then they become something completely different because you want them to fill a different role without putting in the effort of trying to make them fill that role in a way that still makes sense with what they are then it's just a slap in the face to anyone who cared about the original. And I'm not even done with the spirits yet, because in addition to putting a black and white morality onto Spirits the addition of Raava and Vaatu also made spirits an energy source. Something that leads to the season 2 finale where we have giant people shooting lasers at each other and even into season 4 where we have Spirit Vines harnessed as energy for a death laser, both of which don't fit with the original series. I'm fine with a new series coming up with something new to add to the original or modifying something in a way that makes sense and recontextualizes our understanding of what came before it, but the Legend of Korra didn't do that in these cases, it had ideas and instead of trying to fit them into the world that already existed just put them in and hoped no one would notice the difference. Side note, season 3 is an exception to basically everything I have said and everything I will say, it was genuinely really good. Now as for reasons that I dislike the show, first of all I didn't like the majority of the characters, and I didn't like Republic City as a setting, these are personal things but it made it really difficult for me to watch the show. One thing I especially disliked was characters constantly insisting that Korra had changed or grown when it didn't feel like she actually did, the later seasons are an exception to this but before then every time someone said something about how much she has improved as a person it just felt to me like the show was trying to shove down my throat that she was changing without actually changing her as a character. Another thing is I don't particularly enjoy romance and stories, so I despised how much focus and drama came from the Love Triangle situation, also particularly for the first season I really didn't care all that much about Pro bending so a lot of the time focused on that I didn't enjoy either. I also felt that the show consistently failed to live up to its potential. In the first season we have Amon and a whole Revolution about non-bender inequality, but not enough is done to show that there is non-bender inequality except for the depiction of the response to the equalists. It also entirely ignores the fact that an increase in technology means that in this time period non-benders are closer to being equal to Benders than they ever have been. Also it doesn't make sense that the whole Revolution would fall apart just because its leader was revealed to be a bender, people would still care about the issues even if one person in the movement who was important was revealed to be a hypocrite. In the second season we have an interesting discussion about issues that even the Avatar can't solve, and we actually have Korra side with the wrong people, but then the entirety of that gets derailed by Spirit shenanigans. And in season 4 we have a really interesting antagonist who is through Force uniting the Earth Kingdom again, and our main Heroes are actually split on whether she's right or not at the beginning of it, but by the end it's just a fight with a giant Mech.
@@ezracohen6020 Korra is gifted on her physical side, water, earth and fire naturally came to her and took her until she age of 12 to master water. By age 17 she mastered fire, earth and around 18 she mastered air. It's the samething to Aang being naturally gifted on his spiritual side at very young age yet that gets a passed. She only knew the basics and that was clear. We seen young Azula and Zuko bend at a very young age around 5 to 10 and yet you're not going complain about that? Not every avatar struggles to bend the elements, because every avatar began differently and each have their own weakness and strengths. Would you complain about Avatar Kyoshi naturally possessing raw power to point giant chunks of earth from the sea floor despite just beginning her training as the avatar? Bending isn't ruined. People in Republic city relies on pro bending that fits the tight and highly dense cities. It's more of precise and fast fighting style to prevent damage to the city and their surroundings. We've seen Korra use traditional bending and look what happened. She caused too much damage and got in trouble. Even flash back we've seen Aang fighting style more tame because he in dense populated area of Republic city. Going back to bending, Iroh explains it within ATLA that bending will continue to evolve and how benders often gain knowledge and similar techniques from other elements to prevent their skills being too rigid and stale. It's more than Red Lotus who remains with traditional bending style. We seen Amon, Tarlock, Tenzin, Lin, Sue, Red Lotus, Eska and Desna, Unalaq, Tonraq and Korra who uses both, all have their own bending style and mainly uses traditional bending. Also people forget that in ATLA they also used boxing styles at times and simple jabs. I'll go no further in explanation as I'm not here to write an essay about it. Just simply saying bending and unique styles still remains in the show. Kuvira for example created her own style of metal bending, that precise, and effective technique where she rag dolls her opponents like they're nothing. Amon blood bending isn't far fetch and neither is psychic bending isn't anything new, when it's proven talented benders can bend with their mind with enough concentration and mastery of their own element. List of people who could, Amon, Tarlock, Yakone, Ming Qua, Toph, and Bumi. Amon was trained at young age and mastered it all at age of 14, which is nothing new when we see people like Aang master air at age 12 and manages to perform large scale feats for person of his age. Azula is the same case to and yet you don't complain about that? Also look at Toph who simply 10 year old mastered throwing giant boulders and performing large scale attacks. Look at Katara who some how manages to blood bend a person who has decades of experience and creator of blood bending and yet she managed to over power her despite being 14 and still training. Book two spirits I don't blame you but neither was it the writers fault. It was due to Nickelodeon demanding three more books out of no where and wanted book two to be released in short period of time. The writers had to start from scratch and create another story and a new villain. Amon was killed off because the writers were done is what they believed to be until Nickelodeon changed that immediately. Spirit world what we've seen is more than just creepy place but a place that can be altered by our feeling and emotions. Iroh easily explains how spirit world can be mysterious and strange place but it's obvious spirit world isn't meant to be creepy place. Spirit world represent spiritual side of the world and how spiritual side of things can appear creepy, strange to light warning place it can all be at once. I'll leave that to your own opinion and taste how spirit world was presented. Book four: Book four is more than the team deciding whether or not Kuvira was right. It's more about Korra journey and character development she actually receives. What I like about Korra is how she shows human side of being the avatar and that part of the point of her story. Giant mech doesn't bother me, because it's literally 70 years after 100 year war. So much can change in short span of time if you compare 1900 to 1970, you'll see two completely different worlds and within those 70 years humans has managed to accomplish so much that brought change to the world and same goes for avatar world. Aang time takes place industrial era/late 1800s to Korra 1920s to 1940s design. Did you complain about giant drill, submarines that can go on land and have caterpillar structure, air ships, tanks that can climb on walls? From here I see your perspective I didn't like change and misunderstanding of the show. The show has it's flaws but does it deserve the hate it receives? Nope the show is still amazing, and better than most cartoons out there. I respect your opinion tho.
If I had a penny for every time a network ruined an amazing animated show because of their incompetence, I'd be rich. Looking also at you, owl house, you will never be forgotten
@@ThiccDaddy326 Disney has only had 3 hits in the last decade or so: Owl house, Amphibia, and Gravity Falls. Disney should be latching hold of every show that's well-received, not cancelling them. (Though I do think they made the right call with Gravity Falls and maybe for Amphibia) Owl House was the only one of the three with the potential for long-term development. The world-building in the first season alone provides the foundation for a 10-20 season run with movies, comics, and video games. Why they didn't decide to keep pursuing it is mind-boggling. Owl House could have been Disney's Avatar, Disney's Harry Potter, Disney's very own Star Wars EU, but they'd rather besmirch their own legacy and drag anything they can down with them.
@@trajectoryunown I feel the only problem with that is that unless they make a new story in the same world, Owl House would've become stale quickly. There's a reason Gravity Falls ended after 2 seasons: it didn't overstay it's welcome. When you tell a story, you should condense your story to just that. Don't milk it to the point it besmirches what you already have
@@look-its-mac Gravity Falls had a rare "perfect" ending. There wasn't a reason to continue it as far as writing goes. Maybe there's a reuinion special or two some years down the road. Maybe not. The writers wrapped it up nice and clean then tied off with a bow. That's a rarity in entertainment. Amphibia got a bit weird towards the end and was also at a pretty good stopping point. The reason I believe Owl House is different is because they set up a lot with the side-characters. A return to "normal" life would still be interesting. Between that, Luz's time at school, and the fact that most of the world was never even touched on... Well, there's a lot there. Unfortunately, Owl House was on borrowed time since season 2. It was clear the writers knew it was going to end soon, but they weren't quite sure when. That just got amplified drastically as time went on. Season 3 was rushed beyond belief, and the fact that Disney didn't even green light a full 4th season is baffling. Too busy using that budget to ruin classic IPs, I'm sure. Point is, Owl House _definitely_ has at least a good 2 or more full seasons left in it, even if it's just an end-game romp it'd still be worth watching. If they come up with a new big bad or overarching sub-plot, many more.
I always used to wonder why Nickelodeon made such weird choices in regards to avatar, but I'm glad BryKe got that deal for avatar studios. Can't wait to see what they create for the Avatar universe, been a fan since 2005! If this channel is Avatar based content, then you've got my sub for sure!
First-ever comment, let's go! Yeah, Bryke deserves it for creating such an incredible world. I'm hyped for what they have in store! Since everyone loves the show so much but the comics/novels/production stuff are all kinda hard to keep track of, I figured I could do my best to help show what's most interesting!
The more I think about the production issues that the creators faced I keep thinking about what it would have been like if the shows aired on different channels. Image how crazy would it have been if ATLA and TLOK were on toonami.
@@avatar5023 dude it take place darning the war... How can they keep kids friendly long enough without anyone dying or see death, blood, people rip in piece etc etc anime is beyond what America cartoon can get because they are not afraid to show it
I remember watching TLA finale, it was an amazing 2 hours and me and my brother just went crazy over everything that was happening. I also remember watching TLOK during season 3 and was confused when it stopped. but was even more confused when season 4 aired on tv.
@@tolkienblack they were trying to kill it, the ratings were extremely low Nick had no reason to let it air over shows other kids would rather enjoy watching
TIL LOK season 4 actually did air on TV (well, episode 9 onwards anyway). It was on Nicktoons rather than the main Nickelodeon channel though, which explains why I didn't catch any of it. I thought it exclusively aired online and never even received a broadcast run. I know I and a bunch of others only watched the episodes when they were released online. Even though I don't love Korra the way I love TLA, it still makes me sad how Nick did the series so dirty.
23:06 I’m not gonna lie, I’d rather just purchase the 60$ Blu Ray set of the whole series than pay for a month of Paramount Plus+, in that respect, he’s a mad genius. His plan is so bad that it makes people pay more for less, there is no scenario in which he doesn’t make bank.
@IncendiarySolution I mean it can be, but it is often blown out of proportion. I am a supporter of it in certain aspects such as textbooks and media that aren't available or accessible.
Wow, what a super well put together video! You've got a talent for taking information and giving it to the viewer in a way that's easy to understand. Plus, you're talking about Avatar, which is always a plus!
The "Someone will be making Avatar 10" thing is exactly the reason why big franchises fail so often. Once a story told everything it's designed to tell, everything that follows because "i like money" will have much less quality. In some cases it's as obvious like putting the name of a franchise on a movie or series that has literally nothing to do with the original work anymore.
The sad thing is that Avatar is PERFECT for prequels and sequels with the avatar cycle. But unfortunately Nick wanted to bank on those live action movies, and when those failed they totally disrespected the franchise. I believe a lot of Korras short comings come from Nick just not giving the writers enough room... not all of the shortcomings though, there's a lot of things I respect about Korra and also a lot I dont lol but it notably doesn't have the extremely tight writing that ATLA has, and I think thats bc Nick was too vague about how many episodes they'd get or giving them too many restrictions.
I loved the Avatar Extras, Avatar reruns with pop-up commentary from the creators, especially during the Pro-Wrestling parody episode, once The Boulder comes in, it switches from talking about Toph and the episode as a whole, to gushing about the fact they actually got to work with Mick Foley (originally they wanted The Rock, but the director of the episode remembered that Mick had a really good Rock Impression), and being huge wrestling fans, that was a big 'Mark out' moment for them.
The scene in "The Drill" where the go underground and it's completely pitch black dark: Sokka: it's so dark down here! I can't see a thing Toph: Oh no! What a nightmare! Sokka: Sorry Avatar Extras: This was the easily scene to animate!
@@avatar5023 according to the Extras,The Rock was busy with something else, Mick was originally their as the go-between for Rock and Nickelodeon, the director was the one who came up with the idea to have Mick voice The Boulder.
What are you talking about? Adventure Time's best vampire bisexual? She's ALWAYS been called Madelin? I'm pretty sure anyway😂😂 that's why everyone calls her Marci- uh... Maddie!
ATLA is such a powerhouse. Its animation, its story and charecters are just *chefs kiss* Even a gen x coworker of mine has praised it for how amazing it is. She is someone I'd never think would watch something like atla but the other day I was just mentioning the legend of genji and how it was a fan created sequel to atla/ korra and she went on for a couple minutes just praising the show. I'm so glad people recognize how much of a gem it really is even when they didn't grow up with it.
Just when I was about to look up more of your videos, you said that this was your first one. It is really well made and I can't wait to see more of them in the future!
You also forget during LOK they told them each series "you're only getting this one series, suck it" which hurt their ability to create an overarching lot like LOA
Not true. There's an interview with Brian Konietzko where he says that before LoK episode one even aired Nickelodeon payed for all 4 seasons upfront. Nick just asked them to keep each season partially self-contained which they agreed to. Brian also stated that at one point during the production of season 2, the whole crew was working on 30 episodes at a single time. th-cam.com/video/ytauJfsyCE4/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/1TYkk6xjM6c/w-d-xo.htmlsi=pc9da9QOTdwe-riP&t=1749
"Well...at least it was mostly non-lethal.." Dude, I snorted. Great job, keep it up. I enjoyed the breakdown of the behind the scenes stuff. And now I know who to blame for the movies. "Cyma..." *Said in the same tone as the classic "Dinkleberg"*
"Let me just toss a bunch of armored sailors into arctic water in the winter, and sink their ship while I'm at it. That's definitely not lethal at all." And let's not forget that elemental death can be some of the worst ways to die or get injured. The Earth Queen is one example. Fong burying Katara is another, since all it would take is a little squeeze and she'd suddenly turn into a red geyser. Then there's drowning/freezing, or the myriad of ways fire can hurt, just take a single glance at Zuko.
That moment where Lin’s like “I’m watchin’ U” and Korra mimics her *_WILL ALWAYS_* kill me. Lin’s expression is just like “B•tch go home!” and forever keeps me cackling 🤣🤣🤣
My opinion on Korra was it was a good show but the supporting cast wasn’t as strong as the first shows, and instead people drifted more to the children of their favorite characters, I just always felt like they didn’t flesh the main characters out enough
I remember having to go on their website to see book 4 of korra. And then halfway through, or maybe it was just the finale, i can't remember, they put it back on the air. The heads at Nick are just so strange in how they handled LOK.
That's because the creators snuck in their politics under Nick's nose. They admitted they did this. They were trying to be sneaky, because they knew everyone would be creeped out by their attempts at pushing sex propaganda onto people's kids. No, it was not strange. The creators got a big head and did something idiotic. Not to mention this entire paid-for show was not getting shit for views. Gee I wonder why. It's almost like these supposedly infallible creators tossed aside their honest vision for their creepy politics.
@@screwgoogle4993 even if your ignorant comments were true, that “sex propaganda” scene you’re talking about isn’t even explicit, much less long. The show didn’t perform well because the writing had a very rough start in the first two books and left a poor impression going forward, largely in part because of the “sex propaganda” love triangle.
@@screwgoogle4993wow dude you’re projecting hard here. There are few things more creepy than a flagrant bigot. “Sex propaganda?” What in the world are you talking about? Let me guess. A lesbian relationship is “propaganda” to you? And yet a straight one wouldn’t be? This IP isn’t for you dude. This series has always been about love and acceptance. Your lack of values goes against the nature of the world of Avatar. Stick to Matt Walsh or whatever POS anti-intellectuals you subscribe to.
The issue was the ratings. Korra was on a downfall on a episode-by-epsiode basis. With a few exceptions, each new episode did worse than the previous one. And from S2 onwards, that included the finales, which is the equivalent of a red start a 5cm of your face in terms of "red lights". They cut it off from TV because S3 was already paid for, but the viewership hit the 1million mark, equivalent to ATLA premiere, too low for a series expected to be in the 3 to 5 million range - they could just re-run some episodes and get 3 to 4 million from ATLA, or at least throw some random spongebob there and get 2m effortlessly.
@@screwgoogle4993 oh do go on, please explain how a two second shot of korra and asami holding hands is "propaganda". and if you hate the existence of gay people so much, what are you doing here, for a show with multiple canonical gay characters? you're the creep that's not welcome here.
you did a good job. lwatched the whole video and then at the end when you said it was you first one i was like wait--what?! It's really well-made and professional. you've got a real talent for this, whoever you are.
Thanks for the kind words! I love that people are still enjoying this first video. I'm only at video number 9 now, but I think the quality is still getting better with each and every upload :)
25:28 - If I had a nickel for every time since yesterday that I saw a youtuber's first video essay and which looked and felt absolutely professional, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Good job.
Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are the creators of The Last Airbender not "Nickelodeon" , the network aired the episodes, the animation studio "Nickelodeon Animation Studio" partially animated the episodes and then later a Korean Animation Studio (I can't find the name of it right now) created a lot of the animation for the episodes of season two onwards.
The Last Airbender was lightening in the bottle, neither the creators, Nick, nor Netflix can recreate it. As controversial as my opinion maybe, the boundaries Nick places on the show probably also helped a lot; the show might’ve never become so creative and philosophical if Nick gave them the green light to just stab and kill ever problem the heroes faced, like most shows today.
10:58 It's... beyond comprehension that someone would air Avatar at random. It's like... I don't know, it's like whoever took that decision was braindead before their lobotomy and was iliterate before their brain death.
Agreed while skipping episodes for themed marathons makes sense on occasion, normally you'll want the episodes broadcast in order. This is how things go for most series, the order shouldn't be random even if order doesn't matter because cycling makes it easier for viewers to watch all the episodes. Frustrating when there are episodes that never get shown while a certain group of episodes are frequently broadcast.
I remember watching the LOK episodes in 2014 when season 3 and season 4 were coming out. In season 4 they had cut their budget a lot they had make a filler episode. This was a similar incident during ATLA where the budget cut and deadline thing was even indicated in the dialogue by Sokka. When Sokka says let's overlap our lunch time with Potty breaks.
I remember when LOK went online-only I was nervous for what that meant for the show but was excited for myself as I could finally actually watch the series. I had a computer but we didn’t have cable tv
Understanding that Nick mishandled Korra makes so much more sense to me now and I understand why the Korrasami ship came so far out of left field. I still think S2 is hot garbage, but --- semantics.
The Last Airbender series had a premodern setting. Each episode took place in a different town, with different peoples, with different customs and different culture. The identities of people were organic and pastoral. The decision to bring Korra into modernity, into a liberal technocratic order, into democratic factionalism, and into modern day metapolitical identity categories all contributed to alienate the Korra series from the vitality that the last air bender had.
@@tobiassamuelforrestdohlin9684 I mean if you don't know much about technocracy, factionalism or metapolitics then I suppose those would be empty words to you. You probably lack the reading comprehension to catch onto the main point: the original series was obviously pre modern, while the (mistake) Korra made was to bring the setting into modernity and all of the presuppositions that go along with it. It fundamentally changed the world.
Probably. The world in ATLA sure felt... idk, more in tune with itself or something, I can't really describe it properly. Like... magic and the "middle ages" really work well together aesthetically, having it in a modern looking world like ours is a bit weird. Guess it's kinda hardwired into our brain that mages "existed" in the age of castles and trebuchets... I mean that's basically what actual people believed in those times and television turned it into "reality". (I'm talking crap but guess ya get my point lol)
@@hunormagyar1843 those are the stereo types, and new ones feel like are becoming more common. Harry Potter being a modern fantasy series was making it more common to bad world wise it's mediocre.
This was an excellent excellent video which I saw in the algo, and I was familiar with a lot of these events but some things I was not. The way you put it all together and edited everything, I was truly blown away when you said it was your first video. That’s just remarkable I never usually say something like this but you earned a sub and longtime avatar fan. I can’t imagine how good your newer content is
My favorite part about starting this channel is seeing how something I put together a year ago can still have a positive impact on people's lives. Thanks for reminding me of that
Great job! I learned several things I’d never heard about the Avatar, and your choice of video to accompany your script were often very clever and entertaining. And I know what you mean about how our voices sound to ourselves, but don’t worry, yours is welcoming, clear, and just a bit sexy - all of which work well here.
As someone who did not like the legend of korra, and who felt intensely dissatisfied with the direction it took with Avatar, I can only look forward to seeing what happens when the writing team for Avatar isn't being constantly chained to their desks by nonsense mandates.
To be fair, Bryke had a lot more creative freedom with Korra than ATLA. If you disliked Korra, more creative freedom is the last thing you want for an Avatar sequel.
My great fear is that they'll double down on the "we're hip to the times, man!" stuff, where they try to engage on social issues via virtue signalling rather than actually telling good stories that may happen to deal with social issues. Good sci-fi that deals with controversial social and political issues starts by showing at least a modicum of understanding of where a society with the exaggerated issues it depicts could come from. In so doing, it at least demonstrates a moderate understanding of "the other side" and why anybody would be on that side. If you're going to persuade people on that side, you MUST show them that you understand - to at least some extent - why they believe as they do. You have to get them to _identify with_ the problematic portions of society that you want them to have some sort of epiphany about. If you can't do that - if all you can do is throw mud at anybody who recognizes what you're doing by saying, "You're just like these evil people for not agreeing with me," you turn off any part of the audience you might have had hope of persuading. The modern version of this is not the good, classic, thoughtful sci-fi. Instead, it's just staking a flag saying, "I am on this side of the issue! Comrades in arms, come to my side and cheer for me as we insult the heathens and wicked devils opposing us!" And it doesn't matter which side of an argument is doing this, it is equally useless except to rally those who already agree with you. This is why old-school "Christian TV" tends to be just as cringe-worthy as Captain Planet. And I fear, in today's climate, Avatar Studios will try to lean into Korra/Asami stuff in order to virtue signal, rather than actually tell a good story with deep themes the way Avatar: The Last Airbender did. Especially since they're starting by "remaking" the original. The original is, hands-down, one of the best pieces of modern fiction, in any medium. I doubt they can top it. It'd be impressive if they could match it. I suspect htey'll fail at both, and lean into virtue signalling to demand fealty and praise that is not earned by the story. I hope I am wrong.
Honestly hearing about all these issues makes me love ATLA and LOK even more, even with all these obstacles and restrictions the creators where still able to create lovable memorable characters and stories. I hope one day they are able to create new content that is more free and expressive as they truly want it to be.
Damn, man. This is only your first video? You did great! Anyway, I'm glad the creators of this show are finally getting their due.If I remember right, I started watching the show by complete accident in the middle of Book 2 waiting to watch Dragon Ball Z Kai back when Nick aired that and by the time the finally came, Avatar had completely taken priority. You really are something special if you could take priority over Dragon Ball at my age
This was a show I never payed much attention to when it first came out and never cared much when people would recommend it until lockdown then I couldn't get enough of it. "Leaves from the vine, falling so slow" uncle Iroh is the best character for me.
Yeah dude because that was the only connection the network allowed for Korra and Asami if they were allowed to they would’ve made it happen earlier and less subtle
Your voice is fine man! :) You sound like you have multiple cultural influences on your speech, it's unique and interesting. Also, you'll get used to your own voice with time! Thanks for the great video. I adore Avatar and didn't even notice that it boomed in 2020, lol.
Great video! I think this isn't talked about enough. A few other things (spoiler warning for Book 3 of LoK) 1) The long hiatus between books 1 and 2 of Korra contributed to the show's struggle with ratings moving on, as it lost a good portion of its audience due to this. 2) Nickelodeon first ordering a 12-episode miniseries, then ordering Book 2, and lastly ordering Books 3 and 4. This is the reason why each season has a separate arc and not enough time to flesh out relevant characters (ie. the villains). Also the reason behind the long hiatus in the first place. 3) Episodes 3,4,5 and 6 of Book 3 were wrongly uploaded to mundonick (Nickelodeon's Latin American website) instead of episodes 3,4,5 and 6 of Book 2. This was before the season even started airing in the US. A lot of people watched the leaks when the news broke out, and then didn't watch the episodes when they actually aired, hurting the ratings of Book 3 even more. Also, you guys know what happens in these episodes. Even if the first two episodes of the season weren't leaked, the big surprises such as the new airbenders or Zuko's returns, were pretty much ruined.
Thanks for point these out! The season 3 and 4 leaks were a giant part of LOK's production troubles, but since they weren't purposely done by nick I didn't include them here. Still notable though!
this was a great video!! the flow of information was so smooth and there were some details that i didnt know so clearly you did great research! i was shocked at the end when i heard this was your first video, keep it up man also i wanna mention that i think you accidentally said ‘’madeline” instead of “marceline” when talking about bubbline haha
@@BabyLionTurtle I honestly just assumed you were trolling. Though it irritated me way more than it probably should've. Also- If you hadn't watched Adventure time before- watch Adventure time. You won't regret it. It, like avatar, actually explores a lot of deep themes... if not quite to the same extent. Just to summarize a few details, you've got a fairly big character having magic alzheimer's that I won't go into more detail about because spoilers but it does get pretty damn depressing at times because damn, the philosophical implications of cloning, multiple times actually, or even just some one-off episodes that *don't* play into an overarching plot while exploring certain themes. Like, who can forget 'trans-rights cookie committing soup-a-slide'? and no, that is not a joke. Themes of life, death, reincarnation, and cyclicality- don't get me started on Distant Lands... though save that for the end. Adventure time isn't a grand, overarching adventure exploring the horrors of war in quite the same way as ATLA, but, I think you might enjoy it.
21:26 y'know. I always found the shipping of PB and Marceline a bit weird, because PB was calling Marceline slurs and was really hateful towards she in earlier episodes
so what’s up with the live action that was planned for netflix? last i heard the original creators were not attached to the project anymore. great video btw! i loved seeing how everything pieces together
I imagine that the contract for the live-action series was part of the original licensing deal that brought ATLA back to Netflix in 2020. And then once Viacom saw how popular the show still was they decided to greenlight Avatar Studios. But since they can't break the existing contract with Netflix, the live-action show is still happening too. It's mostly speculation, but I might make a video expanding on why I think this.
This was your first video?! That was frikkin amazing. I'm glad Bryke are getting their do. Networks need to go back to basics. It's almost like people knew what they were doing in the 90s and early 00s. That was one of the last golden ages of animated content. Doesn't feel like it's been nearly 18 yrs at all
I was all aboard Korra up until they started doing the love triangle BS. The romance even in the original were the weakest part of the show. No clue why they decided to focus on that instead of the story. When I saw the sad eyes of Bolin and how Korra betrayed him in S1E5, I just gave up on the show from there. I don't know how much I can excuse the failures of Korra on studio interferences when even without that interference the show was garbage. Only good things I can say about Korra are that the animation is gorgeous along with the fight choreography. But the story and themes are fucking horseshit.
I was not completely against an Avatar live action movie, but it was quite a premature move, especially considering Nickelodeon was already fully established in the animated films department, they should have released Avatar in that format to test the waters and if the franchise could sail in the film waters.
about the Marceline and bubble gum thing it just reminds me of the song True kind of love from the Steven Universe movie and the Steven Universe character Garnet as a whole.
Dude really focused more on discussing myths about the avatar movie’s casting than talking about how it was overall terribly written. Aside from that, this is a very good video essay.
I loved book 1 of korra over all the others and still hope someday they’ll remake it with longer episodes and get more into the rushed story beats with Tarrlok and Amon
Season 2 was total ass and spirit bending was retarded. However all the stuff in season 2 about Avatar Wan was super interesting and I would love to see a whole series about just him
@@youtubesucks1821 I think if they went with the idea of just making Season 1 the entire show there would've easily been places to put in the Avatar Won stuff and even make his backstory into a mini arc
@@TrixyTrixter I disagree, he revealed she finally connected to her spiritual side. With his greatest statement when you're at your lowest point we're open to greater change.
@@BiG-JuPO1O1 And that does not change that it made the entire thing feel like an ass pull because they thought they only had one season at the time. Aang loses the avatar state. Only gets it back at the end after going a full season without it. (Not gonna claim that the rock hitting him perfectly to do that was not also a bit of an ass pull but he at least had to wait for it.) Korra loses her first three bending types, Gets given them all back that same evening via deus ex Aang ehile also getting full spirit bending ability. Real huge ass pull that makes it all incedibly pointless. what was even the point in taking it away? Also amon was not even spirit bender he was just a water bender so why was spirit bending even needed here?
Legend of Korra doesn't hold water with the original. I stopped watching it after Season 2, because it was literally the same story every time. Korra faces a threat; she tries (and failed at least once) to stop them. Only with others' help was the villain(s) stopped. The same thing thing could be said for the original, but that was done much better. As for "Korrasami", I never thought much of it, even though it came from nowhere. I don't really care that they did it. People can do what they want, though some could make an argument that it shouldn't be put in a cartoon meant for kids.
@@BabyLionTurtle my king id still argue we are.. we got no purpose flour as the protagonists and POC as the genocide nation. the timeline with mcartney at least is offering the same garbage movie but minus the jarring wtf of seeing barley scarred zuko and an iroh that blends into his family... like fr iroh was out of place in that movie. i kept forgetting hes zukos uncle watching it
From what I've heard, Korra was renewed on a season by season basis, while Airbender was approved all at once. As a result, it was harder to do an overarching, multi season story with Korra because if it DIDN'T get renewed for another season, they'd leave their fans with a cliffhanger. The creators didn't want to risk doing that to the fans.
It was until the final 2 seasons. That's why 3 and 4 have story lines that carry over. It's a shame they didn't greenlight all 4 seasons, can't imagine how much better Korra would be.
@@herrikudo Nope it wasn't, Lok was meant to be one season show until Nickelodeon decided to give the writers hell and wanted three more books by a certain time. Book two was messy due to having shorter time to develop an actual story. Book three and four came out later on, so writers at least have some time to do something for book three and four.
I remember getting pissed by seing Zuko as indian instead of eastern asian when I first saw the movie, they didn't even minded to give him his ponytail.
I really expected this to be about the issues Avatar: The Last Airbender faced in it's production (Which I've heard some issues about it in passing). There was a brief mention of the series not wanting to show physical violence, but didn't touch on anything else regarding the limitations of the show/showrunner put on by Nick, and instead focused on distribution after release. The ladder half of the video is all focused on other projects, like Legend of Korra or the novels.
I overanalyze and overspeculate shows I watch. And I'm a shameless shipper who looks for any excuse to talk about why two characters would be cute together. I didn't see any clear KorrAsami stuff that I didn't have to stretch to speculate about until season 4.
Gonna have to be honest, too much misinformation began when you talked about Korra. To say Korra was a universally acclaimed series is not true, and especially not from a viewings per episode point of view. While the first book did extremely well, with some episodes' views rivaling those of highly acclaimed AtLA episodes, tLoK took a nose dive from there. Book 2, from a purely finacial point of view, was a wreck, with average views around the worst AtLA episodes, and the viewings only falling from there. This is important to keep in mind, as while AtLA and tLoK are beloved by their repspective fanbases, Nick only considers the financial view. And they poured a lot of money into tLoK, so to have their views fall dramatically instead of going up, well, that's not good. And while this timeline does line up with tLoK being moved to friday evenings, we honestly flat out doesn't know if this was the reason behind the failure. Nich just straight up never told us, and we can only speculate this is the reason. And then, it was moved online, which was honestly just dumb, yeah, you're right on that one. And it was around this time Nich was just trying to squeesh the last money out of tLoK, therefore the budget cuts. From their point of view, the show was dying anyway. Why keep throwing money at it? And then there was Korrasami, which is honestly just a hilarious situation. According to Bryke themselves, the reason for all of half baked clues, wasn't because Nick told them they had to do it that way, like you're claiming, but because it was an unspoken rule at Nick. And when they actually pitched the idea to Nick, they faced absolutely no resistance. That's from Bryke themselves. The Nick executives were never hesistant about it, but Bryke thought they would be, and held back. At least according to Bryke themselves
Nickelodeon also approached Jonan Vasquez, author of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, which is a comic that is exactly as it sounds. They approached this guy with the mindset, "This man would be great to write a children's show." Invader Zim was one of its most popular series, but they heavily censored Mr. Vasquez.
I watched LoK for the first time on Netflix and was so underwhelmed... Like for me, the show was one big meh. I don't think Nick's interference was the sole reason it failed, but damn, they could have shown more support to Mike and Bryan
Thank you for explaining everything that went wrong with Korra. I'm not saying Korra was perfect, but Nick was a *huge* reason why Korra had so many struggles.
that punch with the two fire blasts paralleling the two dragon would have worked so well. It came right after we see Azula breathing frantically and Zuko takes that deep breath which the dragon fire would have done amazing to amplify that change. It would also motivate Azula becoming more aggressive and charging Zuko. Seeing the dragon fire would tell her she has already lost and she would be aggressive and grasping at anything trying to win.
This is such a great video and it’s your first one and in a short time just earned a sub :)) I normally don’t subscribe to people unless they deserved it and you definitely did !!
Theyre in luck too, cuz all the kids that grew up with this masterpiece are now old enough to have jobs and have their own income, theyre gonna make it rain cuz we sure as hell wanna pass down this beauty to all of the newer generations. -
I don't know why but seeing each nation in avatar have their own culture, environment and beliefs was great but then legend of Korra takes it away and now you see the world becoming more modernized with people with new bending abilities
He left this out of the video but the truth is season 3 was pushed out so fast because it had accidentally leaked online and people were watching it there.
I'm glad like super glad that Nick and Brian got their own studio (Avatar Studios) so they can make practically whatever they want for the verse and then it goes to stream on Paramount+ instead of Nick. Like were getting what? 3 or 4 animated Avatar movies (1 about Zuko, one for Kyoshi, one for Korra and one for the gaang as young adults)? Not to mention the new Avatar animated series for after Korra which will be coming out next year. Plus were getting an open world Avatar console game soon too all from Avatar Studio's. I'm extremely happy that all the bs that they had to go through didn't stop them from achieving their ultimate goal for the Avatar Universe.
....unfortunately, it appears bryan, who I think lost his touch with korra, seems to be fucking up again with a new series taking place after korra. the world they made with korra limited the scope as it is....this will be worse.
@@KingZNIN look up legend of whorra, a series that will be far more in depth than I could ever be. I will say my biggest gripe is that mako got cucked hard, for someone named as a tribute to a great actor, they sure went out of their way to make him a butt monkey. oh and also korra felt up everyone on the team, and thats what we get for bi rep.... (I've heard owl house is a lot better, idk if I'll watch it though, cant even find it for free most anywhere I look).
4:55 and as we all know they never got the funding together for any movie to be made, and on an unrelated note the Earth King has invited Baby Lion Turtle to an exciting Lake Laogai vacation
can someone please sum up what this dude tells us in 26 minutes?
Avatar was a surprise hit for Nick despite it breaking all the rules that made other Nick shows like Spongebob popular. As a result, Nick execs weren't sure how to treat the show and constantly made poor decisions that Avatar's creators had to correct later (like airing reruns out of order). This culminated with the release of Korra when Nick started to straight up interfere with the show's success by censoring the planned story, messing with the budget, and pulling the show from air midseason. But Avatar persisted and now that it's super popular again, Nick is throwing the original creators a ton of money and giving them their own studio that they (presumably) have way more freedom to grow the franchise 👍
@@BabyLionTurtleLMAO
No fuck nick 😤
@@BabyLionTurtle wait they are getting resources for a new project?? holy shit
@@BabyLionTurtle you should of generated a transcript and replied it lol
Avatar proves Nickelodeon has no idea how to handle more story driven shows lol
I feel like that probably has something to do with the fact that Nickelodeon has always been primarily focused on more comedic series, with Avatar being the biggest standout to break that mold. Because of this, it seems like they have been focusing more on those types of shows recently, with there being a particularly large emphasis on cashing in on SpongeBob by having made a couple of different spin-offs of it because it has become the face of the network. That said, it would be better to focus more on Avatar instead, in my opinion, as ATLA definitely has more appeal to a broader audience than SpongeBob does, and the fact that the series is still so beloved and has practically everyone who talks about it singing it's praises is just proof of how great it is
which is why I don't trust another single good avatar project to be produced again, Korra was already basically the star wars prequels of Avatar, from this point on we're only going to get Star wars sequel quality. I'd rather the series and world stay dead than see it get destroyed. the one good thing though is even if it does get ruined (which lets be honest is going to happen) we'll always have the original.
Around this time period, it was highly common for cartoons (in general, not on Nick specifically) to be cancelled at 65 episodes. I believe Disney actually had this as a hard rule. Nick shows frequently went longer (sometimes *much* longer, in the case of Spongebob and a few others), but AtLA was not one of those shows, ending after 61 episodes.
Why 65? Because 65 = 5 × 13. That lets you run an episode once every weekday for a quarter (13 weeks), so it neatly fits into a simple "weekdays at [whenever]" timeslot. This is considered the minimum for syndication, or was at the time. If you have more than 65 episodes, the extra episodes are "wasted" because they don't fit into the rotation (and so they don't get aired, or only get aired as part of next quarter's rotation, if there is one). So Disney, and some other studios, would just cancel the show as soon as they had enough episodes.
Presumably, Nick didn't care about this limit because Nicktoons were rarely (never?) syndicated. But it still goes to show the overall attitude that the (western) industry took towards animation at the time - it was a business, not an art form, and the business was selling toys. Making a good show was seen as a means to that end, not a goal in its own right. Similar problems can be seen with Gargoyles and quite a few other 90's to early 2000's shows throughout the industry. It would take a good 20 or so years for the industry to fully adapt to all the barriers that Batman: The Animated Series managed to break during its run in the 90's.
@@DaWoWzer Imagine if James Cameron was given the rights to Avatar, this one I mean.
Yea I mean spongebob is their main advertised cartoon.
I can't believe they didn't realise that releasing the episodes chronologically would be the best way. That's insane.
279 likes and 0 replies?let me fix that!
279 months no father? I can't fix that!
they were probably released chronologically, but on re-runs they would play episodes at random because they thought thats what they do for all the other shows, why wouldn’t it work for this one?
Nick: "Air Bender sold really well, so we'll let you do a little bit of violence for Korra, okay?"
Bryke: "I'm-a suffocate a queen."
Nick: "Wait, what?"
Bryke: "And make a chick blow up her own head."
Nick: "..."
Bryke: "And give Korra PTSD."
And mercury poisoning, that's pretty brutal
@@chriscobb2102 Ah yes, very true.
Korra can have a little violence as a treat
And yet those were the best parts of Season 3.
And make Korra loose all contact of the other Avatar before her to make it even more stressful for her to know what to do.
I had plenty of issues with Korra, but the creators being hamstrung by the network is starting to put things in perspective for me.
They werent hamstrung. They lied out their asses nick bought and paid for the whole series before the first episode even aired. They just dont know how to write anything worth a pile of dogshit. The show would have been shitcanned for ratings being awful if they hadn't already paid for it in advance.
And everyone sucks them off as these poor artists fighting against the evil corporate powers
I agree, I will forever despise the show but I do recognize that it was given production hell and part of why it suffers is because of that
@@ezracohen6020 Why despise the show when you should put all that hate into Nickelodeon? Lok wasn't even that bad and I believe it's overhated show. A lot things people nit pick and try make it as if it's some big deal is rediculus.
@@BiG-JuPO1O1 There are a lot of reasons I don't like the show, and I'll go through them briefly at a later point in this comment, but I'll start off with the reason I actually despise it and don't just dislike it. (any typos are most likely the result of voice recognition so just point them out and I'll fix them)
The Legend of Korra felt to me like it was actively disrespecting the lore and world of Avatar, had it been entirely its own story with no connection to Avatar I would dislike it but I would not hate it. The show starts off on a bad note, Korra being able to bend three of the elements at such a young age was absurd, in the last Avatar it's set up that Aang is younger than other avatars when they went through the process of mastering the elements, and when it was first found out he was the Avatar it wasn't because he was bending multiple elements but because he passed a test and was drawn to items from his past lives. This is a small example that ultimately has no impact on the story, but it's made worse by the fact that it was ultimately unnecessary, the show could have easily just started with her training and using three of the elements sort of like the next scene where she's fighting the firebenders in training. The next thing is the bending styles themselves, they all sort of felt like they were mixed martial arts or boxing and the lost a lot of the uniqueness that they had in the original series, aside from the Red Lotus in season 3 people don't have all that unique of a style, it's the loss of something that made Avatar special. Continuing with bending, lightning bending becoming so common cheapened it. Still in the first season the next issue is with blood bending, they broke all of the rules that it functioned by and turned it into something completely different, being able to be used without a full moon, being able to be used telepathically (the only thing close to bending with little movement in the original is Bumi, so while it could theoretically be possible with everything else the whole thing is just pushing the limits), and the fact that it can permanently take away someone's bending, something we only see the Avatar do with energy bending. Now moving on to the second season we get to spirits, and this is far and away the worst offender. Spirits in avatar are complex, interesting, and inhuman creatures that don't fit into categories of being good or evil as we understand them. In The Legend of Korra they are still strange and inhuman, but in a more colorful and fairy-like way, and now they can be much more easily placed into categories of good or evil with Raava and Vaatu. They are generally good and docile and cute in the show unless they get corrupted by Vaatu, but also can be turned back after being corrupted through Spirit Bending. The spirit world is now much more reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, and things we see like different Spirits combining into one or Spirit Vines are very different to how they functioned before. All of this would be fine if it wasn't placed in the world of avatar, but when you already have Spirits as one thing and then they become something completely different because you want them to fill a different role without putting in the effort of trying to make them fill that role in a way that still makes sense with what they are then it's just a slap in the face to anyone who cared about the original. And I'm not even done with the spirits yet, because in addition to putting a black and white morality onto Spirits the addition of Raava and Vaatu also made spirits an energy source. Something that leads to the season 2 finale where we have giant people shooting lasers at each other and even into season 4 where we have Spirit Vines harnessed as energy for a death laser, both of which don't fit with the original series. I'm fine with a new series coming up with something new to add to the original or modifying something in a way that makes sense and recontextualizes our understanding of what came before it, but the Legend of Korra didn't do that in these cases, it had ideas and instead of trying to fit them into the world that already existed just put them in and hoped no one would notice the difference.
Side note, season 3 is an exception to basically everything I have said and everything I will say, it was genuinely really good.
Now as for reasons that I dislike the show, first of all I didn't like the majority of the characters, and I didn't like Republic City as a setting, these are personal things but it made it really difficult for me to watch the show. One thing I especially disliked was characters constantly insisting that Korra had changed or grown when it didn't feel like she actually did, the later seasons are an exception to this but before then every time someone said something about how much she has improved as a person it just felt to me like the show was trying to shove down my throat that she was changing without actually changing her as a character. Another thing is I don't particularly enjoy romance and stories, so I despised how much focus and drama came from the Love Triangle situation, also particularly for the first season I really didn't care all that much about Pro bending so a lot of the time focused on that I didn't enjoy either. I also felt that the show consistently failed to live up to its potential. In the first season we have Amon and a whole Revolution about non-bender inequality, but not enough is done to show that there is non-bender inequality except for the depiction of the response to the equalists. It also entirely ignores the fact that an increase in technology means that in this time period non-benders are closer to being equal to Benders than they ever have been. Also it doesn't make sense that the whole Revolution would fall apart just because its leader was revealed to be a bender, people would still care about the issues even if one person in the movement who was important was revealed to be a hypocrite. In the second season we have an interesting discussion about issues that even the Avatar can't solve, and we actually have Korra side with the wrong people, but then the entirety of that gets derailed by Spirit shenanigans. And in season 4 we have a really interesting antagonist who is through Force uniting the Earth Kingdom again, and our main Heroes are actually split on whether she's right or not at the beginning of it, but by the end it's just a fight with a giant Mech.
@@ezracohen6020 Korra is gifted on her physical side, water, earth and fire naturally came to her and took her until she age of 12 to master water. By age 17 she mastered fire, earth and around 18 she mastered air. It's the samething to Aang being naturally gifted on his spiritual side at very young age yet that gets a passed. She only knew the basics and that was clear. We seen young Azula and Zuko bend at a very young age around 5 to 10 and yet you're not going complain about that? Not every avatar struggles to bend the elements, because every avatar began differently and each have their own weakness and strengths. Would you complain about Avatar Kyoshi naturally possessing raw power to point giant chunks of earth from the sea floor despite just beginning her training as the avatar?
Bending isn't ruined. People in Republic city relies on pro bending that fits the tight and highly dense cities. It's more of precise and fast fighting style to prevent damage to the city and their surroundings. We've seen Korra use traditional bending and look what happened. She caused too much damage and got in trouble. Even flash back we've seen Aang fighting style more tame because he in dense populated area of Republic city. Going back to bending, Iroh explains it within ATLA that bending will continue to evolve and how benders often gain knowledge and similar techniques from other elements to prevent their skills being too rigid and stale. It's more than Red Lotus who remains with traditional bending style. We seen Amon, Tarlock, Tenzin, Lin, Sue, Red Lotus, Eska and Desna, Unalaq, Tonraq and Korra who uses both, all have their own bending style and mainly uses traditional bending. Also people forget that in ATLA they also used boxing styles at times and simple jabs. I'll go no further in explanation as I'm not here to write an essay about it. Just simply saying bending and unique styles still remains in the show. Kuvira for example created her own style of metal bending, that precise, and effective technique where she rag dolls her opponents like they're nothing.
Amon blood bending isn't far fetch and neither is psychic bending isn't anything new, when it's proven talented benders can bend with their mind with enough concentration and mastery of their own element. List of people who could, Amon, Tarlock, Yakone, Ming Qua, Toph, and Bumi. Amon was trained at young age and mastered it all at age of 14, which is nothing new when we see people like Aang master air at age 12 and manages to perform large scale feats for person of his age. Azula is the same case to and yet you don't complain about that? Also look at Toph who simply 10 year old mastered throwing giant boulders and performing large scale attacks. Look at Katara who some how manages to blood bend a person who has decades of experience and creator of blood bending and yet she managed to over power her despite being 14 and still training.
Book two spirits I don't blame you but neither was it the writers fault. It was due to Nickelodeon demanding three more books out of no where and wanted book two to be released in short period of time. The writers had to start from scratch and create another story and a new villain. Amon was killed off because the writers were done is what they believed to be until Nickelodeon changed that immediately.
Spirit world what we've seen is more than just creepy place but a place that can be altered by our feeling and emotions. Iroh easily explains how spirit world can be mysterious and strange place but it's obvious spirit world isn't meant to be creepy place. Spirit world represent spiritual side of the world and how spiritual side of things can appear creepy, strange to light warning place it can all be at once. I'll leave that to your own opinion and taste how spirit world was presented.
Book four: Book four is more than the team deciding whether or not Kuvira was right. It's more about Korra journey and character development she actually receives. What I like about Korra is how she shows human side of being the avatar and that part of the point of her story. Giant mech doesn't bother me, because it's literally 70 years after 100 year war. So much can change in short span of time if you compare 1900 to 1970, you'll see two completely different worlds and within those 70 years humans has managed to accomplish so much that brought change to the world and same goes for avatar world. Aang time takes place industrial era/late 1800s to Korra 1920s to 1940s design. Did you complain about giant drill, submarines that can go on land and have caterpillar structure, air ships, tanks that can climb on walls?
From here I see your perspective I didn't like change and misunderstanding of the show. The show has it's flaws but does it deserve the hate it receives? Nope the show is still amazing, and better than most cartoons out there. I respect your opinion tho.
If I had a penny for every time a network ruined an amazing animated show because of their incompetence, I'd be rich. Looking also at you, owl house, you will never be forgotten
Owl house is lame anyway
@@ThiccDaddy326 why do i have a feeling you thinking it's lame has nothing to do with why you're saying this
@@ThiccDaddy326 Disney has only had 3 hits in the last decade or so: Owl house, Amphibia, and Gravity Falls.
Disney should be latching hold of every show that's well-received, not cancelling them. (Though I do think they made the right call with Gravity Falls and maybe for Amphibia)
Owl House was the only one of the three with the potential for long-term development. The world-building in the first season alone provides the foundation for a 10-20 season run with movies, comics, and video games. Why they didn't decide to keep pursuing it is mind-boggling. Owl House could have been Disney's Avatar, Disney's Harry Potter, Disney's very own Star Wars EU, but they'd rather besmirch their own legacy and drag anything they can down with them.
@@trajectoryunown I feel the only problem with that is that unless they make a new story in the same world, Owl House would've become stale quickly. There's a reason Gravity Falls ended after 2 seasons: it didn't overstay it's welcome. When you tell a story, you should condense your story to just that. Don't milk it to the point it besmirches what you already have
@@look-its-mac Gravity Falls had a rare "perfect" ending. There wasn't a reason to continue it as far as writing goes. Maybe there's a reuinion special or two some years down the road. Maybe not. The writers wrapped it up nice and clean then tied off with a bow. That's a rarity in entertainment. Amphibia got a bit weird towards the end and was also at a pretty good stopping point.
The reason I believe Owl House is different is because they set up a lot with the side-characters. A return to "normal" life would still be interesting. Between that, Luz's time at school, and the fact that most of the world was never even touched on... Well, there's a lot there.
Unfortunately, Owl House was on borrowed time since season 2. It was clear the writers knew it was going to end soon, but they weren't quite sure when. That just got amplified drastically as time went on. Season 3 was rushed beyond belief, and the fact that Disney didn't even green light a full 4th season is baffling. Too busy using that budget to ruin classic IPs, I'm sure.
Point is, Owl House _definitely_ has at least a good 2 or more full seasons left in it, even if it's just an end-game romp it'd still be worth watching. If they come up with a new big bad or overarching sub-plot, many more.
I always used to wonder why Nickelodeon made such weird choices in regards to avatar, but I'm glad BryKe got that deal for avatar studios. Can't wait to see what they create for the Avatar universe, been a fan since 2005! If this channel is Avatar based content, then you've got my sub for sure!
First-ever comment, let's go!
Yeah, Bryke deserves it for creating such an incredible world. I'm hyped for what they have in store! Since everyone loves the show so much but the comics/novels/production stuff are all kinda hard to keep track of, I figured I could do my best to help show what's most interesting!
Nickelodeon did wanted a action adventure cartoon
I can’t wait either
I'm honestly hoping they scrap a lot of what happened in Korra
@@saintjames1995 I mean they gotta keep continuity. Since the second season changed a lot. Avatar Wan's episode in particular.
The more I think about the production issues that the creators faced I keep thinking about what it would have been like if the shows aired on different channels. Image how crazy would it have been if ATLA and TLOK were on toonami.
Imagine it on adult swim
@@ziel32 I don't want to... It's just to disturbing.
@@avatar5023 there would be literal on screen deaths
@@batpat830 I admit that would be awesome to see. But imagine how many beloved characters would just get killed out of nowhere.
@@avatar5023 dude it take place darning the war... How can they keep kids friendly long enough without anyone dying or see death, blood, people rip in piece etc etc anime is beyond what America cartoon can get because they are not afraid to show it
“Boys thought Korra was very awesome and very buff” I mean she was what awakened my taste in buff women. 😳
"Buff" 😆
Lol
Me too
And made some want to become buff women too :v
Fr
I remember watching TLA finale, it was an amazing 2 hours and me and my brother just went crazy over everything that was happening.
I also remember watching TLOK during season 3 and was confused when it stopped. but was even more confused when season 4 aired on tv.
Yeah, Nick really should have advertised the move when the show went to online only.
@@sbatou87it really felt like they were trying their hardest to kill it
@@tolkienblack They was, after how violent book three has gotten.
@@tolkienblack they were trying to kill it, the ratings were extremely low Nick had no reason to let it air over shows other kids would rather enjoy watching
TIL LOK season 4 actually did air on TV (well, episode 9 onwards anyway). It was on Nicktoons rather than the main Nickelodeon channel though, which explains why I didn't catch any of it.
I thought it exclusively aired online and never even received a broadcast run. I know I and a bunch of others only watched the episodes when they were released online.
Even though I don't love Korra the way I love TLA, it still makes me sad how Nick did the series so dirty.
23:06 I’m not gonna lie, I’d rather just purchase the 60$ Blu Ray set of the whole series than pay for a month of Paramount Plus+, in that respect, he’s a mad genius. His plan is so bad that it makes people pay more for less, there is no scenario in which he doesn’t make bank.
Yo-ho-ho, the High Sea's are calling
@@SkylerLinux And people said sea shanties were a fad.
@IncendiarySolution Piracy is mainly a supply problem, so easy access fixes most of it.
@@bestaround3323 i mean, assuming piracy is a problem
@IncendiarySolution I mean it can be, but it is often blown out of proportion. I am a supporter of it in certain aspects such as textbooks and media that aren't available or accessible.
I'm at the point where Im convinced that Nickelodeon despises Avatar but acknowledges that it's popular and makes them money
Wow, what a super well put together video! You've got a talent for taking information and giving it to the viewer in a way that's easy to understand. Plus, you're talking about Avatar, which is always a plus!
:D
@@BabyLionTurtle :D
@@BabyLionTurtle nice alt account bro
@@tomispandacuddle My alt account's nowhere near that obvious :P
Well now you know
Honestly, Nick still treated the series better than some of their other animated IPs.
I remember how dirty they did Invader Zim ... oof.Least the Netflix Movie was decent.
@@names_are_useless whats invader zim
@@soondslash You're the first person I've met online that hasn't heard of Invader Zim.
@@acmeanvil3022 as it turns out the show began over seven years before my birth so uh
@@soondslash should've considered being born earlier then
The "Someone will be making Avatar 10" thing is exactly the reason why big franchises fail so often.
Once a story told everything it's designed to tell, everything that follows because "i like money" will have much less quality. In some cases it's as obvious like putting the name of a franchise on a movie or series that has literally nothing to do with the original work anymore.
The sad thing is that Avatar is PERFECT for prequels and sequels with the avatar cycle. But unfortunately Nick wanted to bank on those live action movies, and when those failed they totally disrespected the franchise. I believe a lot of Korras short comings come from Nick just not giving the writers enough room... not all of the shortcomings though, there's a lot of things I respect about Korra and also a lot I dont lol but it notably doesn't have the extremely tight writing that ATLA has, and I think thats bc Nick was too vague about how many episodes they'd get or giving them too many restrictions.
Yeah, things like spongebob are milked dry.
Boruto is a great example of this
Harry potter fantastic beasts
@@mroversteer3739 exactly where my mind went, Boruto is probably one the most shameless cash grabs I ever saw.
I loved the Avatar Extras, Avatar reruns with pop-up commentary from the creators, especially during the Pro-Wrestling parody episode, once The Boulder comes in, it switches from talking about Toph and the episode as a whole, to gushing about the fact they actually got to work with Mick Foley (originally they wanted The Rock, but the director of the episode remembered that Mick had a really good Rock Impression), and being huge wrestling fans, that was a big 'Mark out' moment for them.
The scene in "The Drill" where the go underground and it's completely pitch black dark:
Sokka: it's so dark down here! I can't see a thing
Toph: Oh no! What a nightmare!
Sokka: Sorry
Avatar Extras: This was the easily scene to animate!
It would have been worth it to spend the extra money to get the rock to play the boulder! He would have killed in that role!
@@avatar5023 according to the Extras,The Rock was busy with something else, Mick was originally their as the go-between for Rock and Nickelodeon, the director was the one who came up with the idea to have Mick voice The Boulder.
@@supersasukemaniac I would have loved it if they had have waited and cast the Rock instead! A lot of people would've payed more to see it to.
Avatar Extras was great, & I was hoping for Korra Extras. That said I was fine with how The Boulder turned out.
Bro actually called Marceline the vampire Queen "Madeline"
Three cheers for Madeline
What are you talking about? Adventure Time's best vampire bisexual? She's ALWAYS been called Madelin? I'm pretty sure anyway😂😂 that's why everyone calls her Marci- uh... Maddie!
Unforgivable
ATLA is such a powerhouse. Its animation, its story and charecters are just *chefs kiss* Even a gen x coworker of mine has praised it for how amazing it is. She is someone I'd never think would watch something like atla but the other day I was just mentioning the legend of genji and how it was a fan created sequel to atla/ korra and she went on for a couple minutes just praising the show. I'm so glad people recognize how much of a gem it really is even when they didn't grow up with it.
Just when I was about to look up more of your videos, you said that this was your first one. It is really well made and I can't wait to see more of them in the future!
The idea that bending wasnt added until 2 weeks of worldbuilding is insane. Like its so core to the setting
You also forget during LOK they told them each series "you're only getting this one series, suck it" which hurt their ability to create an overarching lot like LOA
Not true.
There's an interview with Brian Konietzko where he says that before LoK episode one even aired Nickelodeon payed for all 4 seasons upfront. Nick just asked them to keep each season partially self-contained which they agreed to. Brian also stated that at one point during the production of season 2, the whole crew was working on 30 episodes at a single time.
th-cam.com/video/ytauJfsyCE4/w-d-xo.html
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"Well...at least it was mostly non-lethal.." Dude, I snorted.
Great job, keep it up. I enjoyed the breakdown of the behind the scenes stuff. And now I know who to blame for the movies.
"Cyma..." *Said in the same tone as the classic "Dinkleberg"*
"Let me just toss a bunch of armored sailors into arctic water in the winter, and sink their ship while I'm at it. That's definitely not lethal at all." And let's not forget that elemental death can be some of the worst ways to die or get injured. The Earth Queen is one example. Fong burying Katara is another, since all it would take is a little squeeze and she'd suddenly turn into a red geyser. Then there's drowning/freezing, or the myriad of ways fire can hurt, just take a single glance at Zuko.
@@bluesbest1 Well, we see armoured soldiers floating in water later in the show
That moment where Lin’s like “I’m watchin’ U” and Korra mimics her *_WILL ALWAYS_* kill me. Lin’s expression is just like “B•tch go home!” and forever keeps me cackling 🤣🤣🤣
My opinion on Korra was it was a good show but the supporting cast wasn’t as strong as the first shows, and instead people drifted more to the children of their favorite characters, I just always felt like they didn’t flesh the main characters out enough
2:47 Justin Hammer: I'd like the record to reflect that Tenzin survived
I remember having to go on their website to see book 4 of korra. And then halfway through, or maybe it was just the finale, i can't remember, they put it back on the air. The heads at Nick are just so strange in how they handled LOK.
That's because the creators snuck in their politics under Nick's nose. They admitted they did this. They were trying to be sneaky, because they knew everyone would be creeped out by their attempts at pushing sex propaganda onto people's kids. No, it was not strange. The creators got a big head and did something idiotic. Not to mention this entire paid-for show was not getting shit for views. Gee I wonder why. It's almost like these supposedly infallible creators tossed aside their honest vision for their creepy politics.
@@screwgoogle4993 even if your ignorant comments were true, that “sex propaganda” scene you’re talking about isn’t even explicit, much less long. The show didn’t perform well because the writing had a very rough start in the first two books and left a poor impression going forward, largely in part because of the “sex propaganda” love triangle.
@@screwgoogle4993wow dude you’re projecting hard here. There are few things more creepy than a flagrant bigot. “Sex propaganda?” What in the world are you talking about?
Let me guess. A lesbian relationship is “propaganda” to you? And yet a straight one wouldn’t be?
This IP isn’t for you dude. This series has always been about love and acceptance. Your lack of values goes against the nature of the world of Avatar. Stick to Matt Walsh or whatever POS anti-intellectuals you subscribe to.
The issue was the ratings. Korra was on a downfall on a episode-by-epsiode basis. With a few exceptions, each new episode did worse than the previous one. And from S2 onwards, that included the finales, which is the equivalent of a red start a 5cm of your face in terms of "red lights". They cut it off from TV because S3 was already paid for, but the viewership hit the 1million mark, equivalent to ATLA premiere, too low for a series expected to be in the 3 to 5 million range - they could just re-run some episodes and get 3 to 4 million from ATLA, or at least throw some random spongebob there and get 2m effortlessly.
@@screwgoogle4993 oh do go on, please explain how a two second shot of korra and asami holding hands is "propaganda". and if you hate the existence of gay people so much, what are you doing here, for a show with multiple canonical gay characters? you're the creep that's not welcome here.
you did a good job. lwatched the whole video and then at the end when you said it was you first one i was like wait--what?! It's really well-made and professional. you've got a real talent for this, whoever you are.
Thanks for the kind words! I love that people are still enjoying this first video. I'm only at video number 9 now, but I think the quality is still getting better with each and every upload :)
Right? I am shocked to the CORE!
It's okay.
25:28 - If I had a nickel for every time since yesterday that I saw a youtuber's first video essay and which looked and felt absolutely professional, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Good job.
Is that a Phineas and Ferb reference?
@@jjjjjj2323
Yes. It's from "Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension".
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Disney buying avatar franchise will be the worse thing ever for our beloved franchise.
Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are the creators of The Last Airbender not "Nickelodeon" ,
the network aired the episodes, the animation studio "Nickelodeon Animation Studio" partially animated the episodes and then later a Korean Animation Studio (I can't find the name of it right now) created a lot of the animation for the episodes of season two onwards.
Bro i did a double take when you said this was your first video, great job!
"Non-lethal combat system"
The Boulder is confused by your words
The Last Airbender was lightening in the bottle, neither the creators, Nick, nor Netflix can recreate it.
As controversial as my opinion maybe, the boundaries Nick places on the show probably also helped a lot; the show might’ve never become so creative and philosophical if Nick gave them the green light to just stab and kill ever problem the heroes faced, like most shows today.
i didnt even know LOK exsisted til years later and i vaguely remember watching ATLA as it premiered and being so fucking into it
10:58 It's... beyond comprehension that someone would air Avatar at random.
It's like... I don't know, it's like whoever took that decision was braindead before their lobotomy and was iliterate before their brain death.
Agreed while skipping episodes for themed marathons makes sense on occasion, normally you'll want the episodes broadcast in order. This is how things go for most series, the order shouldn't be random even if order doesn't matter because cycling makes it easier for viewers to watch all the episodes. Frustrating when there are episodes that never get shown while a certain group of episodes are frequently broadcast.
“princess bibble hum and *madelline* ” hurt me on another level
I remember watching the LOK episodes in 2014 when season 3 and season 4 were coming out. In season 4 they had cut their budget a lot they had make a filler episode.
This was a similar incident during ATLA where the budget cut and deadline thing was even indicated in the dialogue by Sokka. When Sokka says let's overlap our lunch time with Potty breaks.
I remember when LOK went online-only I was nervous for what that meant for the show but was excited for myself as I could finally actually watch the series. I had a computer but we didn’t have cable tv
Understanding that Nick mishandled Korra makes so much more sense to me now and I understand why the Korrasami ship came so far out of left field.
I still think S2 is hot garbage, but --- semantics.
The Last Airbender series had a premodern setting. Each episode took place in a different town, with different peoples, with different customs and different culture. The identities of people were organic and pastoral.
The decision to bring Korra into modernity, into a liberal technocratic order, into democratic factionalism, and into modern day metapolitical identity categories all contributed to alienate the Korra series from the vitality that the last air bender had.
lmfao "technocratic" "factionalism" "metapolitical" like actually relax bro. pedant
@@tobiassamuelforrestdohlin9684 I mean if you don't know much about technocracy, factionalism or metapolitics then I suppose those would be empty words to you.
You probably lack the reading comprehension to catch onto the main point: the original series was obviously pre modern, while the (mistake) Korra made was to bring the setting into modernity and all of the presuppositions that go along with it. It fundamentally changed the world.
@@merek5380 well they went from the late 1800s-early 1900 to the mid 1900s-late 1900s what did you expect to happen?
Probably. The world in ATLA sure felt... idk, more in tune with itself or something, I can't really describe it properly. Like... magic and the "middle ages" really work well together aesthetically, having it in a modern looking world like ours is a bit weird. Guess it's kinda hardwired into our brain that mages "existed" in the age of castles and trebuchets... I mean that's basically what actual people believed in those times and television turned it into "reality".
(I'm talking crap but guess ya get my point lol)
@@hunormagyar1843 those are the stereo types, and new ones feel like are becoming more common. Harry Potter being a modern fantasy series was making it more common to bad world wise it's mediocre.
This was an excellent excellent video which I saw in the algo, and I was familiar with a lot of these events but some things I was not. The way you put it all together and edited everything, I was truly blown away when you said it was your first video. That’s just remarkable I never usually say something like this but you earned a sub and longtime avatar fan. I can’t imagine how good your newer content is
My favorite part about starting this channel is seeing how something I put together a year ago can still have a positive impact on people's lives. Thanks for reminding me of that
Great job! I learned several things I’d never heard about the Avatar, and your choice of video to accompany your script were often very clever and entertaining. And I know what you mean about how our voices sound to ourselves, but don’t worry, yours is welcoming, clear, and just a bit sexy - all of which work well here.
This is a very good first video!
I was wondering why no content was made after Korra, so thanks for explaining stuff^^
Always great to have more quality long-form essay video makers. Enjoyed this video and topic immensely.
As someone who did not like the legend of korra, and who felt intensely dissatisfied with the direction it took with Avatar, I can only look forward to seeing what happens when the writing team for Avatar isn't being constantly chained to their desks by nonsense mandates.
To be fair, Bryke had a lot more creative freedom with Korra than ATLA. If you disliked Korra, more creative freedom is the last thing you want for an Avatar sequel.
@@ggwp638BC Korra didn't have the same head writer as first series, which probably way many people have issues with Korra.
It wasn’t the nonsense mandates, although that didn’t help. It was the fact that Korra had different, inferior writers.
My great fear is that they'll double down on the "we're hip to the times, man!" stuff, where they try to engage on social issues via virtue signalling rather than actually telling good stories that may happen to deal with social issues. Good sci-fi that deals with controversial social and political issues starts by showing at least a modicum of understanding of where a society with the exaggerated issues it depicts could come from. In so doing, it at least demonstrates a moderate understanding of "the other side" and why anybody would be on that side. If you're going to persuade people on that side, you MUST show them that you understand - to at least some extent - why they believe as they do. You have to get them to _identify with_ the problematic portions of society that you want them to have some sort of epiphany about. If you can't do that - if all you can do is throw mud at anybody who recognizes what you're doing by saying, "You're just like these evil people for not agreeing with me," you turn off any part of the audience you might have had hope of persuading.
The modern version of this is not the good, classic, thoughtful sci-fi. Instead, it's just staking a flag saying, "I am on this side of the issue! Comrades in arms, come to my side and cheer for me as we insult the heathens and wicked devils opposing us!" And it doesn't matter which side of an argument is doing this, it is equally useless except to rally those who already agree with you. This is why old-school "Christian TV" tends to be just as cringe-worthy as Captain Planet.
And I fear, in today's climate, Avatar Studios will try to lean into Korra/Asami stuff in order to virtue signal, rather than actually tell a good story with deep themes the way Avatar: The Last Airbender did.
Especially since they're starting by "remaking" the original. The original is, hands-down, one of the best pieces of modern fiction, in any medium. I doubt they can top it. It'd be impressive if they could match it. I suspect htey'll fail at both, and lean into virtue signalling to demand fealty and praise that is not earned by the story.
I hope I am wrong.
@@segevstormlord3713 me too. As long as the leave out the woke crap, they can guarantee that i will watch their stuff.
It still hurts to hear my younger cousin reply back with "blue cat people" every time i say avatar show
If you watch the documentary Avatar Spirits, you can see that Bryke actually approached the network themselves.
well done video, man! some stuff here i actually didn’t know yet, which is surprising!
That was your first ever TH-cam video??? It was so good!
I can’t believe this was your first video! It's made so well and kept my attention the whole way though
Honestly hearing about all these issues makes me love ATLA and LOK even more, even with all these obstacles and restrictions the creators where still able to create lovable memorable characters and stories. I hope one day they are able to create new content that is more free and expressive as they truly want it to be.
Damn, man. This is only your first video? You did great! Anyway, I'm glad the creators of this show are finally getting their due.If I remember right, I started watching the show by complete accident in the middle of Book 2 waiting to watch Dragon Ball Z Kai back when Nick aired that and by the time the finally came, Avatar had completely taken priority. You really are something special if you could take priority over Dragon Ball at my age
Got to the end of the video and was suprised to hear this was your first. Amazing job, it was so well made.
Marceline*, not Madeline.
That said, this is a great video. Great work! Subbed.
This was a show I never payed much attention to when it first came out and never cared much when people would recommend it until lockdown then I couldn't get enough of it. "Leaves from the vine, falling so slow" uncle Iroh is the best character for me.
nice vid. Lets hope avatar studios isnt plagued with all these problems
The lesbian relationship was still forced and out of nowhere. Having the same boyfriend doesn't turn you into a lesbian couple.
Yeah dude because that was the only connection the network allowed for Korra and Asami if they were allowed to they would’ve made it happen earlier and less subtle
@@KnightoSea yeah, that doesn't make it any better. Their "relationship" if you can even call it that is paper thin at best.
Your voice is fine man! :) You sound like you have multiple cultural influences on your speech, it's unique and interesting. Also, you'll get used to your own voice with time! Thanks for the great video. I adore Avatar and didn't even notice that it boomed in 2020, lol.
Thanks for the reassurance! And glad my video taught you something!
For a studio focused on children audience, they seem to make moves that hurt themselves more than a suicidal teenage girl
Great video! I think this isn't talked about enough.
A few other things (spoiler warning for Book 3 of LoK)
1) The long hiatus between books 1 and 2 of Korra contributed to the show's struggle with ratings moving on, as it lost a good portion of its audience due to this.
2) Nickelodeon first ordering a 12-episode miniseries, then ordering Book 2, and lastly ordering Books 3 and 4. This is the reason why each season has a separate arc and not enough time to flesh out relevant characters (ie. the villains). Also the reason behind the long hiatus in the first place.
3) Episodes 3,4,5 and 6 of Book 3 were wrongly uploaded to mundonick (Nickelodeon's Latin American website) instead of episodes 3,4,5 and 6 of Book 2. This was before the season even started airing in the US. A lot of people watched the leaks when the news broke out, and then didn't watch the episodes when they actually aired, hurting the ratings of Book 3 even more. Also, you guys know what happens in these episodes. Even if the first two episodes of the season weren't leaked, the big surprises such as the new airbenders or Zuko's returns, were pretty much ruined.
Thanks for point these out! The season 3 and 4 leaks were a giant part of LOK's production troubles, but since they weren't purposely done by nick I didn't include them here. Still notable though!
this was a great video!! the flow of information was so smooth and there were some details that i didnt know so clearly you did great research! i was shocked at the end when i heard this was your first video, keep it up man
also i wanna mention that i think you accidentally said ‘’madeline” instead of “marceline” when talking about bubbline haha
Thanks do much! I'm a Avatar channel so of course I made a goof the singular time I branched out from the franchise lol
@@BabyLionTurtle I honestly just assumed you were trolling. Though it irritated me way more than it probably should've.
Also- If you hadn't watched Adventure time before- watch Adventure time. You won't regret it. It, like avatar, actually explores a lot of deep themes... if not quite to the same extent.
Just to summarize a few details, you've got a fairly big character having magic alzheimer's that I won't go into more detail about because spoilers but it does get pretty damn depressing at times because damn, the philosophical implications of cloning, multiple times actually, or even just some one-off episodes that *don't* play into an overarching plot while exploring certain themes. Like, who can forget 'trans-rights cookie committing soup-a-slide'? and no, that is not a joke. Themes of life, death, reincarnation, and cyclicality- don't get me started on Distant Lands... though save that for the end. Adventure time isn't a grand, overarching adventure exploring the horrors of war in quite the same way as ATLA, but, I think you might enjoy it.
21:26 y'know. I always found the shipping of PB and Marceline a bit weird, because PB was calling Marceline slurs and was really hateful towards she in earlier episodes
When did PB call her slurs? And they were exes, that’s why they were mean to each other
20:42 it felt like a gut punch when you pronounced Marceline like this.
so what’s up with the live action that was planned for netflix? last i heard the original creators were not attached to the project anymore.
great video btw! i loved seeing how everything pieces together
I imagine that the contract for the live-action series was part of the original licensing deal that brought ATLA back to Netflix in 2020. And then once Viacom saw how popular the show still was they decided to greenlight Avatar Studios. But since they can't break the existing contract with Netflix, the live-action show is still happening too.
It's mostly speculation, but I might make a video expanding on why I think this.
A lot of casting news was released relatively recently. It's still early days.
@@Sinewmireyou couldn’t be more wrong. The show is done being made. A trailer is almost certain to arrive in a matter of weeks.
@@gfyGoogle OK.
This was your first video?! That was frikkin amazing. I'm glad Bryke are getting their do. Networks need to go back to basics. It's almost like people knew what they were doing in the 90s and early 00s. That was one of the last golden ages of animated content. Doesn't feel like it's been nearly 18 yrs at all
I was all aboard Korra up until they started doing the love triangle BS. The romance even in the original were the weakest part of the show. No clue why they decided to focus on that instead of the story. When I saw the sad eyes of Bolin and how Korra betrayed him in S1E5, I just gave up on the show from there.
I don't know how much I can excuse the failures of Korra on studio interferences when even without that interference the show was garbage.
Only good things I can say about Korra are that the animation is gorgeous along with the fight choreography. But the story and themes are fucking horseshit.
Great first video mate, not often you end up watching almost half an hour of someones first video. But you gained 1 sub at least!
Love to hear it! It was supposed to be ~12min but thanks got out of hand haha
I was not completely against an Avatar live action movie, but it was quite a premature move, especially considering Nickelodeon was already fully established in the animated films department, they should have released Avatar in that format to test the waters and if the franchise could sail in the film waters.
about the Marceline and bubble gum thing it just reminds me of the song True kind of love from the Steven Universe movie and the Steven Universe character Garnet as a whole.
Dude really focused more on discussing myths about the avatar movie’s casting than talking about how it was overall terribly written. Aside from that, this is a very good video essay.
Well every youtube channel and their monther have talked about the bad writing. Wouldn't be very interesting or new lol
@@BabyLionTurtle yeah because nobody has eeeever talked about "racism bad"
@@BabyLionTurtle yeah the whole DE&I crap is already forced enough. You don't need to add to it.
I was so shocked at the end when you said this was your first video you did an amazing job
I loved book 1 of korra over all the others and still hope someday they’ll remake it with longer episodes and get more into the rushed story beats with Tarrlok and Amon
Season 2 was total ass and spirit bending was retarded. However all the stuff in season 2 about Avatar Wan was super interesting and I would love to see a whole series about just him
@@youtubesucks1821 I think if they went with the idea of just making Season 1 the entire show there would've easily been places to put in the Avatar Won stuff and even make his backstory into a mini arc
I did enjoy season 1 and 3 of korra tho I think deux ex aang to cure her instantly was a huge story mistake.
@@TrixyTrixter I disagree, he revealed she finally connected to her spiritual side. With his greatest statement when you're at your lowest point we're open to greater change.
@@BiG-JuPO1O1 And that does not change that it made the entire thing feel like an ass pull because they thought they only had one season at the time.
Aang loses the avatar state. Only gets it back at the end after going a full season without it. (Not gonna claim that the rock hitting him perfectly to do that was not also a bit of an ass pull but he at least had to wait for it.)
Korra loses her first three bending types, Gets given them all back that same evening via deus ex Aang ehile also getting full spirit bending ability. Real huge ass pull that makes it all incedibly pointless. what was even the point in taking it away? Also amon was not even spirit bender he was just a water bender so why was spirit bending even needed here?
Legend of Korra doesn't hold water with the original. I stopped watching it after Season 2, because it was literally the same story every time. Korra faces a threat; she tries (and failed at least once) to stop them. Only with others' help was the villain(s) stopped. The same thing thing could be said for the original, but that was done much better. As for "Korrasami", I never thought much of it, even though it came from nowhere. I don't really care that they did it. People can do what they want, though some could make an argument that it shouldn't be put in a cartoon meant for kids.
Did i just hear JESSE MCARTNEY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ZUKO! Wtf…
Ikr!? Makes me think that maybe we aren't on the darkest timeline after all
@@BabyLionTurtle my king id still argue we are.. we got no purpose flour as the protagonists and POC as the genocide nation. the timeline with mcartney at least is offering the same garbage movie but minus the jarring wtf of seeing barley scarred zuko and an iroh that blends into his family... like fr iroh was out of place in that movie. i kept forgetting hes zukos uncle watching it
The biggest surprise in this video is learning it was your first. This is such a high quality video essay!
From what I've heard, Korra was renewed on a season by season basis, while Airbender was approved all at once.
As a result, it was harder to do an overarching, multi season story with Korra because if it DIDN'T get renewed for another season, they'd leave their fans with a cliffhanger.
The creators didn't want to risk doing that to the fans.
It was until the final 2 seasons. That's why 3 and 4 have story lines that carry over. It's a shame they didn't greenlight all 4 seasons, can't imagine how much better Korra would be.
@@styx15 that makes sense! But yeah, I can only imagine how AMAZING Korra would have been if given proper treatment.
Not at all true. The whole show was greenlit before episode one even premiered.
Source? It's widely known it was given season to season treatment
@@herrikudo Nope it wasn't, Lok was meant to be one season show until Nickelodeon decided to give the writers hell and wanted three more books by a certain time. Book two was messy due to having shorter time to develop an actual story. Book three and four came out later on, so writers at least have some time to do something for book three and four.
That was your first TH-cam video!!! Omg!! I wish I found this sooner
Every once in awhile, you just need to sit back and take a moment to appreciate how dumb corporate executives are.
You're a poet with words lol
Dude awesome video! And the baby lion turtle is such a cool name! Keep up the good work!
I remember getting pissed by seing Zuko as indian instead of eastern asian when I first saw the movie, they didn't even minded to give him his ponytail.
I really expected this to be about the issues Avatar: The Last Airbender faced in it's production (Which I've heard some issues about it in passing). There was a brief mention of the series not wanting to show physical violence, but didn't touch on anything else regarding the limitations of the show/showrunner put on by Nick, and instead focused on distribution after release. The ladder half of the video is all focused on other projects, like Legend of Korra or the novels.
I overanalyze and overspeculate shows I watch. And I'm a shameless shipper who looks for any excuse to talk about why two characters would be cute together. I didn't see any clear KorrAsami stuff that I didn't have to stretch to speculate about until season 4.
Gonna have to be honest, too much misinformation began when you talked about Korra.
To say Korra was a universally acclaimed series is not true, and especially not from a viewings per episode point of view. While the first book did extremely well, with some episodes' views rivaling those of highly acclaimed AtLA episodes, tLoK took a nose dive from there. Book 2, from a purely finacial point of view, was a wreck, with average views around the worst AtLA episodes, and the viewings only falling from there. This is important to keep in mind, as while AtLA and tLoK are beloved by their repspective fanbases, Nick only considers the financial view. And they poured a lot of money into tLoK, so to have their views fall dramatically instead of going up, well, that's not good. And while this timeline does line up with tLoK being moved to friday evenings, we honestly flat out doesn't know if this was the reason behind the failure. Nich just straight up never told us, and we can only speculate this is the reason.
And then, it was moved online, which was honestly just dumb, yeah, you're right on that one. And it was around this time Nich was just trying to squeesh the last money out of tLoK, therefore the budget cuts. From their point of view, the show was dying anyway. Why keep throwing money at it?
And then there was Korrasami, which is honestly just a hilarious situation. According to Bryke themselves, the reason for all of half baked clues, wasn't because Nick told them they had to do it that way, like you're claiming, but because it was an unspoken rule at Nick. And when they actually pitched the idea to Nick, they faced absolutely no resistance. That's from Bryke themselves. The Nick executives were never hesistant about it, but Bryke thought they would be, and held back. At least according to Bryke themselves
Interesting.
Nickelodeon also approached Jonan Vasquez, author of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, which is a comic that is exactly as it sounds. They approached this guy with the mindset, "This man would be great to write a children's show." Invader Zim was one of its most popular series, but they heavily censored Mr. Vasquez.
[0:08] I'm kinda sad that they didn't reveal Zuko's spouse but I'd like to believe that Mai is Izumi's mother.
I watched LoK for the first time on Netflix and was so underwhelmed... Like for me, the show was one big meh. I don't think Nick's interference was the sole reason it failed, but damn, they could have shown more support to Mike and Bryan
"Princess bubblegum and Madeline" 💀
Thank you for explaining everything that went wrong with Korra. I'm not saying Korra was perfect, but Nick was a *huge* reason why Korra had so many struggles.
that punch with the two fire blasts paralleling the two dragon would have worked so well. It came right after we see Azula breathing frantically and Zuko takes that deep breath which the dragon fire would have done amazing to amplify that change. It would also motivate Azula becoming more aggressive and charging Zuko. Seeing the dragon fire would tell her she has already lost and she would be aggressive and grasping at anything trying to win.
"non-lethal" *proceeds to show Azula striking aang with lighting and literally killing him*
This is such a great video and it’s your first one and in a short time just earned a sub :)) I normally don’t subscribe to people unless they deserved it and you definitely did !!
Theyre in luck too, cuz all the kids that grew up with this masterpiece are now old enough to have jobs and have their own income, theyre gonna make it rain cuz we sure as hell wanna pass down this beauty to all of the newer generations. -
I don't know why but seeing each nation in avatar have their own culture, environment and beliefs was great but then legend of Korra takes it away and now you see the world becoming more modernized with people with new bending abilities
I remember those DVDs, I still have them, but I don't any kind of DVD player anymore, so I unfortunately can't check for myself.
If the move from on-air to online was the reason because of a bigger audience, WHY THE HELL WASN'T THE MOVE ADVERTISED?!
He left this out of the video but the truth is season 3 was pushed out so fast because it had accidentally leaked online and people were watching it there.
@@iamwhoiam7887 Well, yes, I know why Book 3 came out so fast, by why didn't Nick advertise the move to online only?
@@sbatou87 cuz ur gay
I'm glad like super glad that Nick and Brian got their own studio (Avatar Studios) so they can make practically whatever they want for the verse and then it goes to stream on Paramount+ instead of Nick. Like were getting what? 3 or 4 animated Avatar movies (1 about Zuko, one for Kyoshi, one for Korra and one for the gaang as young adults)? Not to mention the new Avatar animated series for after Korra which will be coming out next year. Plus were getting an open world Avatar console game soon too all from Avatar Studio's. I'm extremely happy that all the bs that they had to go through didn't stop them from achieving their ultimate goal for the Avatar Universe.
....unfortunately, it appears bryan, who I think lost his touch with korra, seems to be fucking up again with a new series taking place after korra.
the world they made with korra limited the scope as it is....this will be worse.
What was your problem with Kora outside of what could be explained by Nick constantly trying to cancel it.
@@KingZNIN look up legend of whorra, a series that will be far more in depth than I could ever be.
I will say my biggest gripe is that mako got cucked hard, for someone named as a tribute to a great actor, they sure went out of their way to make him a butt monkey.
oh and also korra felt up everyone on the team, and thats what we get for bi rep.... (I've heard owl house is a lot better, idk if I'll watch it though, cant even find it for free most anywhere I look).
4:55 and as we all know they never got the funding together for any movie to be made, and on an unrelated note the Earth King has invited Baby Lion Turtle to an exciting Lake Laogai vacation
I only watch the original show and read two of the comics, The Promise and The Search. That’s my canon.
ATLA came out well, but Korra still came out as shit.