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First Bass posted:
You're right; I guess I'm just frustrated at so many things not being explained, when ATLA went through great lengths to explain every little last bit of bending. We got a whole episode on chakras for Chrissakes. On a kid's show. Combustion Man was the exception to a general rule. We knew why Korra could blood bend on the full moon and why Toph could metalbend. We had the intrinsic properties of inner fire explained to us by multiple people over multiple seasons. Then Tarlokk's dad just comes along and psychic bloodbends all over the place and Sokka has to draw a connect line to Combustion Man because yes, it's a new bending that they don't understand, but we also get Amon, whose powers are also never explained. Was he chi-blocking bending with blood bending? Why did he go for the back of the neck (I think Amon is like a pressure point but the show never actually went into this)? Unalaq's good spirit bending was explained but what was that purple evil spirit bending? What did it do? What were the consequences? I just feel that the show has, in its desire to do more without a solid plot structure, gone a little off the rails. Maybe they're just not taking the time they had with a longer set of episodes for ATLA, or because the writing staff is different (and smaller). I admited ATLA because of its impressive internal consistency and genuine desire to offer you a chance to understand how its unique bending world worked. ALOK doesn't seem to want to make the effort.
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Jul 3, 2014 08:16
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Waterbending is based off of Tai Chi, and the healing subskill is related to adjusting the flow of Qi throughout the body along the meridians. Blockage of proper Qi flow is known to block bending. Amon just does it permanently with waterbending-based Qi manipulation rather than striking along the meridians and pressure points like Ty Lee did.
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Jul 3, 2014 12:01
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I think that what dj_clawson may to some extent mean is power creep - remember how lightning was a big deal in ATLA, Zuko himself couldn't do it, and that was a big deal in itself, etc. etc.? And then in Korra Book 1 Mako used it to power a power station. To me, at least, it felt... well, wrong and disrespectful, in a way, of the original series. It could be the difference of perceiving bending as art vs. craft. Arts require intuition and a genius. Crafts can be taught and learnt.
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Jul 3, 2014 15:53
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Wasn't Avatar originally set in the far future with robots? I hope they revive that idea for a one-shot or another Platinum game.
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Jul 3, 2014 15:56
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meristem posted:I think that what dj_clawson may to some extent mean is power creep - remember how lightning was a big deal in ATLA, Zuko himself couldn't do it, and that was a big deal in itself, etc. etc.? And then in Korra Book 1 Mako used it to power a power station. To me, at least, it felt... well, wrong and disrespectful, in a way, of the original series. Why? poo poo advances all of the time. 50 years ago, my grandparents were using a loving washing board and hang drying their clothes. Nowdays we have washing machines. 50 years ago radios were the poo poo. nowadays we are carrying phones which are able to connect wirelessly to a global network and pull information from anywhere in the world. It's not disrespectful, just people better understanding how things work as years go by.
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Jul 3, 2014 16:07
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meristem posted:I think that what dj_clawson may to some extent mean is power creep - remember how lightning was a big deal in ATLA, Zuko himself couldn't do it, and that was a big deal in itself, etc. etc.? And then in Korra Book 1 Mako used it to power a power station. To me, at least, it felt... well, wrong and disrespectful, in a way, of the original series. It's almost like Korra is set 70 years after Avatar and the world has changed and advanced in that time. As I recall, Zuko couldn't Lightningbend because of personal problems, internal conflicts, not because he was physically incapable. It's a skill that could probably fairly easily be taught at all Firebenders, and odds are good at least a small percentage of them will be able to pull it off. Just like Metalbending becoming the cornerstone of the Republic City police force. Those people aren't all Toph's kids, they're benders who were taught a new skill and now put it to functional use. That's part of why I liked pro-bending too, if for no reason than it showed how bending could change. Bolin's entire Earthbending style reminds me much more of boxing than the last series' Earthbending, and I think that's really neat. It isn't just "this element is always this style of martial art", things can change as time passes. It makes the world feel more alive.
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Jul 3, 2014 16:08
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As I said, arts vs. crafts. How many people today can play sports professionally? I play snooker. I understand the principles behind it. I train. I love it. I can win a match against another mook. There's no goddamn way that I'd ever reach Ronnie O'Sullivan's level - I just don't have the genes for it. ATLA seemed to imply that with some things, you needed genes/genius/spirituality - mere training wasn't enough. I found it pretty realistic, myself.
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Jul 3, 2014 16:23
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I'm not sure how LoK has changed that, though. We've seen more people Lightning and Metalbend, but it doesn't seem to be something everyone can do. Psychic Bloodbending was unique to a single family, just as what was basically Psychic Firebending was unique to one person (and Combustion Lady might even be related, for all we know). Hell, Korra's whole thing was she couldn't grasp Airbending because she had a difficult time connecting with her spirituality and there's a decent chance some level of spiritual awareness determined who got Airbending when the spirits went around handing it out after Harmonic Convergence.
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Jul 3, 2014 16:57
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meristem posted:As I said, arts vs. crafts. How many people today can play sports professionally? In one of the art books, they note that at the time, lightning-bending was reserved for the royal family and high-ranking military officers. So it's less to do with genetics and more to do with an enforced restriction.
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Jul 3, 2014 17:01
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meristem posted:As I said, arts vs. crafts. How many people today can play sports professionally? This is covered, absolutely, 100%, by the fact that some people master techniques better than others. Even if the "secret techniques" of the previous show (which is more what lightning bending was presented like) had died out entirely instead of spreading, some powerful masters would be better than others. Even the more average benders, provided they lacked some outright disability, would still be able to master every available technique and still be formidable to someone who did not, even those who have more talent but haven't put in the time and effort. Just like in real world sports, arts, and other games. I won't make the art-vs-craft comparison because there isn't one: arts are crafts, at least when it comes to mastery of fundamental skills and technologies, and less definable "talent" just determining how you stand out against those of comparable technical skill. So, yes, intrinsic factors that come into play, but ones that determine whether long training and mastery of principles will make you great, or merely good.
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Jul 3, 2014 17:09
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Apparently they'll be airing two episodes every Friday through the end of the season. It'll be done on August 8th. 
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Jul 3, 2014 17:40
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Fifty Three posted:Apparently they'll be airing two episodes every Friday through the end of the season. It'll be done on August 8th. What the hell is up with this? They have to want this to fail.
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Jul 3, 2014 17:42
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MrAristocrates posted:What the hell is up with this? They have to want this to fail. How is airing two episodes a week going to make it fail? I'm delighted to get two episodes a week! It's not like it's going to make it harder to follow.
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Jul 3, 2014 17:43
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thexerox123 posted:How is airing two episodes a week going to make it fail? I'm delighted to get two episodes a week! It's not like it's going to make it harder to follow. It's a burnoff. They released the first three with next to no marketing after a week's notice and are then airing two a week for four weeks. That's not how you treat a show you want to keep around.
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Jul 3, 2014 17:46
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MrAristocrates posted:What the hell is up with this? They have to want this to fail. http://fronttowardsgamer.com/2012/07/18/legend-of-korra-renewed-through-season-4-and-details-about-season-2/ They're going to make 4 seasons no matter what. It's more likely that Nickelodeon knows the audience for this show skews way higher then AtLA and more money can be made from DVD/Blu-ray sales then ads for barbies and transformer toys. pentyne fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 3, 2014 17:47
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MrAristocrates posted:It's a burnoff. They released the first three with next to no marketing after a week's notice and are then airing two a week for four weeks. Except they're also re-airing those first three tomorrow, and Book 4 is already well into production. Considering the trend towards binge-watching nowadays, I'd say it seems more like another reaction to the internet leaks instead of any real sort of gently caress-this-show burnoff.
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Jul 3, 2014 17:48
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MrAristocrates posted:It's a burnoff. They released the first three with next to no marketing after a week's notice and are then airing two a week for four weeks. That's not how you treat a show you want to keep around. Hasn't Book 4 already been ordered and is in production, though?
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Jul 3, 2014 17:49
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MrAristocrates posted:It's a burnoff. They released the first three with next to no marketing after a week's notice and are then airing two a week for four weeks. That's not how you treat a show you want to keep around. Everything I've heard from beyond this thread is that Legend of Korra is still insanely popular and well received too, at least on par with most of Last Airbender, so I doubt I have to side with the whole "the audience is older and more likely to buy DVDs than watch our commercials" thing. Though last time I watched Nick, they seemed to be skewing towards that "live-action TV is cheaper than animation" trend, so maybe that's part of it? I can't say I paid attention to commercials last week.
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Jul 3, 2014 17:58
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With regards to the "things advance" this: I'm rereading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy right now. The titular guide is presented in-book as this staggeringly advanced piece of technology that is utterly incomprehensible and in-depth and full of details. However the actual descriptions of the guide mean it is actually significantly weaker and smaller than any modern tablet and with less storage space to boot. Obviously Mystical Kung Fu is different from the advance of technology but even that is addressed in-series. Iroh was able to create a new technique (lightning redirection) because he studied the techniques of the Waterbenders. With the different cultures mingling after 100 years of brutal war, there's room for these things to change. thexerox123 posted:Except they're also re-airing those first three tomorrow, and Book 4 is already well into production. Considering the trend towards binge-watching nowadays, I'd say it seems more like another reaction to the internet leaks instead of any real sort of gently caress-this-show burnoff. I would suspect that whatever they're getting from the series, it isn't what they originally intended. Nick's execs flat-out said they were hoping for a show to replace Spongebob as their core merchandising/toyseller and neither Avatar show as particularly successful there. (Although you can argue that is due to poor marketing as much as anything.) I wonder if they're trying to rush to DVD because they're seeing more of a profit from than than television airings.
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Jul 3, 2014 18:10
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Rincewind posted:Hasn't Book 4 already been ordered and is in production, though? It's not just in production, it's almost finished. Mike and Bryan have posted status updates on their tumblrs occasionally; apparently they're close to the point of not needing entire teams of people because all their work for the series is already done.
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Jul 3, 2014 18:13
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Fifty Three posted:Apparently they'll be airing two episodes every Friday through the end of the season. It'll be done on August 8th. Jackard posted:Why not just go with hourlong episodes.
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Jul 3, 2014 18:42
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Look for Book 4 of Korra premiering in 2015 on HBO!
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Jul 3, 2014 19:06
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Rincewind posted:Look for Book 4 of Korra premiering in 2015 on HBO! Lin Beifong - True Detective
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Jul 3, 2014 19:08
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Jorenko posted:It's not just in production, it's almost finished. Mike and Bryan have posted status updates on their tumblrs occasionally; apparently they're close to the point of not needing entire teams of people because all their work for the series is already done. Yeah, the designers finished a week ago, and the background painters will be done soon, so they're almost done pre-production for Book 4.
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Jul 3, 2014 19:43
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Re: Advancements in bending, here is a side by side comparison of the gold medal winning Olympic vaults from 1956 and 2012.
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Jul 3, 2014 20:09
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Also, with regards to the new airing schedule, my theory, as someone who knows absolutely nothing about the inner workings of Nickelodeon or any television network, is that their eagerness to finish off the season is related to Book 3 not being on iTunes, Amazon, or even the official website. Again, I have literally nothing to back this up, but considering Korra is such a heavily serialized show on a network that is not known at all for that sort of thing, along with the fact that there is no legal way to watch episodes that you have missed, leads me to this hypothesis.
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Jul 3, 2014 20:17
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RyuujinBlueZ posted:It's almost like Korra is set 70 years after Avatar and the world has changed and advanced in that time. As I recall, Zuko couldn't Lightningbend because of personal problems, internal conflicts, not because he was physically incapable. It's a skill that could probably fairly easily be taught at all Firebenders, and odds are good at least a small percentage of them will be able to pull it off. Just like Metalbending becoming the cornerstone of the Republic City police force. Those people aren't all Toph's kids, they're benders who were taught a new skill and now put it to functional use. I would be fine with all of this if somebody in the show took the time to explain the mechanics of how new skills were popping up. Bending's been around for 10,000 years. An Industrial Revolution (which, to be fair, was caused by war and fire bending) isn't really going to change that. If they explained how Amon's powers worked instead of us speculating, I would say, "Oh, that's neat. It's cool that you thought of that world-changing ability but still kept it within the logic of the universe you've created." The same thing with Unalaq's evil spirit bending - I just wanted to know how it worked. The show didn't take the time to explain it to me.
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Jul 3, 2014 20:20
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I don't care about "advancements in bending" or whatever because it reeked of power creep. It felt like a way to make the villain immediately threatening by tying them back to a super technique from the original series except he's way better at it because he's superspecial! It retroactively lessened the significance of the original episode while actually making the villain far less interesting in several ways, while being boring as poo poo to actually watch because he didn't even need to move to do it. It's not that it didn't make logical sense, it's that it was boring, and boring in a lot of ways. It didn't make sense as a narrative choice.
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Jul 3, 2014 20:21
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SpiderHyphenMan posted:Also, with regards to the new airing schedule, my theory, as someone who knows absolutely nothing about the inner workings of Nickelodeon or any television network, is that their eagerness to finish off the season is related to Book 3 not being on iTunes, Amazon, or even the official website. Again, I have literally nothing to back this up, but considering Korra is such a heavily serialized show on a network that is not known at all for that sort of thing, along with the fact that there is no legal way to watch episodes that you have missed, leads me to this hypothesis. My theory is that they realized the show doesn't sell toys, and since they don't make money off of adults dressing up at Comic-Con, they decided to get it out of the way to focus on shows that do sell toys and are watched by their target demographic. Seriously. The network is for-profit. Even if the shows are good shows, their bottom line is about selling advertising space to companies that want to sell products to children. That's why we saw commercials for super soakers while watching Korra. That is their advertising set. Korra is expensive and they're probably losing money on it. They're not a charity.
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Jul 3, 2014 20:23
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dj_clawson posted:I would be fine with all of this if somebody in the show took the time to explain the mechanics of how new skills were popping up. Bending's been around for 10,000 years. An Industrial Revolution (which, to be fair, was caused by war and fire bending) isn't really going to change that. If they explained how Amon's powers worked instead of us speculating, I would say, "Oh, that's neat. It's cool that you thought of that world-changing ability but still kept it within the logic of the universe you've created." The same thing with Unalaq's evil spirit bending - I just wanted to know how it worked. The show didn't take the time to explain it to me. Nature tries to balance/ raise itself against/over technology.
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Jul 3, 2014 20:27
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dj_clawson posted:I would be fine with all of this if somebody in the show took the time to explain the mechanics of how new skills were popping up. Bending's been around for 10,000 years. An Industrial Revolution (which, to be fair, was caused by war and fire bending) isn't really going to change that. If they explained how Amon's powers worked instead of us speculating, I would say, "Oh, that's neat. It's cool that you thought of that world-changing ability but still kept it within the logic of the universe you've created." The same thing with Unalaq's evil spirit bending - I just wanted to know how it worked. The show didn't take the time to explain it to me. It's like, "hey, how does the same thing that lets you pyschokinetically choke someone allow you to manipulate their mind in a way to make them more agreeable without also causing lasting brain damage?"
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Jul 3, 2014 20:39
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Combustion Man emitted explosions from his Third Eye chakra, which is supposed to have spooky powers when "opened" in eastern metaphysics. EDIT: Just sayin' that there's a legit reason for these things.
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Jul 3, 2014 20:41
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ShadowCatboy posted:Combustion Man emitted explosions from his Third Eye chakra, which is supposed to have spooky powers when "opened" in eastern metaphysics. The Book 1 Blu-Ray Commentary has Miike and Bryan saying that Amon uses bloodbending as some sort of reverse-healing to take away bending. We know that waterbending can be used to open chakras and heal Qi and even wounds, so the idea of Bloodbending being used to block bending is not at all a stretch. But to say, "no, that's bullshit, the show didn't explain it explicitly enough," I feel is just asking for bendingchlorians at a certain point. Unalaq's spiritbending was just healing for spirits. Again, not hard. Just because Unalaq didn't say in the show "I'm applying healing techniques to spirits!" doesn't make his abilities inconsistent with the show's universe. Psychic Bloodbending, on the other hand... while Combustion Man is a sort of precedent for psychic bending, I do agree with people who feel that it's kinda bullshit since there isn't really the same eastern metaphysical backing to psychic mass puppetry. Unless there is. Is there?
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Jul 3, 2014 20:49
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RyuujinBlueZ posted:Everything I've heard from beyond this thread is that Legend of Korra is still insanely popular and well received too, at least on par with most of Last Airbender, so I doubt I have to side with the whole "the audience is older and more likely to buy DVDs than watch our commercials" thing. Most later AtLA episodes averaged 3-4 million views, with some of the big ones peaking around 5m. Book one of Korra drew 3.8m per episode on average, 4.5m on the premier. That's strongly on par to AtLA, thus the next three seasons getting ordered. Book two of Korra averaged 2.6m per episode, significantly lower. Granted you can almost certainly chalk this up to Nick with their changing the timeslot every loving week, but I'm sure the execs think it's the shows' fault and not theirs. The three episodes of book three averaged 1.5m. Again, compare to the premier of season one, which got 4.5m. I'm positive this is due to the rushed nature of the release. Based on this, my guess for why we're getting two episodes a week is that Nick has written this season off as a loss due to the leak. So they're going to just blast out the episodes in the hope that more people will catch them (after all, it's much easier to completely miss a half hour show than an hour long one) in order to milk maximum ratings in the shortest span before anything catastrophic can happen again. Then, they'll probably throw some marketing weight behind season four and try to really hype up the season, in order to ensure high viewership and have the show go out with a bang, ratings-wise.
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Jul 3, 2014 21:01
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Combustion Man worked for two reasons: 1) After 2 and a half seasons of primarily fire-bending antagonists he's a nice visual and stylistic break, at least for a couple fights. They also did a good job making his attacks still feel very powerful and kinetic. His inhaling wind-up built tension and the rings around the attack line created neat visuals. The psychic bloodbenders were a huge step down comparatively, just characters standing around going "urgh ugh" but without the cinematography that made Darth Vader's force choke so effective. 2) They didn't hinge the entire plot on Combustion Man's abilities. He could have used traditional fire-bending, or any other bending, or like a greatbow with explosive arrows or been a spirit or anything really without changing the plot or characters. What's important is that he's this indifferent, implacable force that Zuko unleashed and how this effects and reflects Zuko's development and relationship with Aang and co. It's ok for his abilities to just get filed under weird poo poo about the world, but Korra's season 1 depends entirely on the existence of psychic bloodbending. Sure it makes sense for the characters to go 'oh well' but its narratively unsatisfying.
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Jul 3, 2014 21:04
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Bringing this back to Book 3, I just hope that they never call what the armless waterbender is doing "psychic" so as to keep the phantom limb fan theory alive, because that's way more interesting than loving "I was born with no arms and learned to use waterbending to compensate for my disability like Toph!"
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Jul 3, 2014 21:11
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Mazerunner posted:Combustion Man worked for two reasons: Do you not remember the end of the fight between Tarrlok and Korra?
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Jul 3, 2014 21:42
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Mazerunner posted:It's ok for his abilities to just get filed under weird poo poo about the world, but Korra's season 1 depends entirely on the existence of psychic bloodbending.
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Jul 3, 2014 21:59
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X_Toad posted:No, it does not. It depends on the existence of a bloodbending prodigy and the technique he created to take away bending with bloodbending. Amon himself almost never uses psychic bloodbending (he used it once againt Tarlokk). That part was pretty bullshit, honestly.
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Jul 3, 2014 22:13
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Have you guys never watched/read a shonen anime/manga before? LoK pretty much follows the standard shonen power-creep model to the tee. In the first series, bloodbending was like this "Oooh, super scary, super-strong forbidden art  ", same as lightningbending and metalbending. So in order to make new antagonists seem like a credible threat after the time-skip, they had to show these as more common-place and try to push it the next step up with psychic versions of the same techniques. It's just like in Bleach, One Piece, or Naruto!
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Jul 3, 2014 22:23
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