Avatar: The Legend of Korra

[dman11235]

Those things felt rushed, and the whole series to me (yes, it was billed as a mini-series) felt rushed and compacted.  It felt like it should have been a full season (just one, but a full one), and that's not unlike what was originally said by Bryan and Michael.  So originally it was a full season I believe, but got shortened over the past year to a mini-series.  Do note that the change would have happened before the series aired, or even finished production.  Otherwise the whole thing would have been impossible to follow.

Do keep in mind that when a show is to be cut off early, they still have to give closure, they can't just stop.  So things get changed, plot points move up, etc., etc.  This is where a lot of things end up feeling rushed.

[SneeR]

The show was origianlly planned to be only a 12-episode mini-series. What you see is what was planned. During production they were approved for a second season.

The writers purposefully made the plot brisk and omitted filler in order to produce a concise but compelling narrative.

[ariasderros]

Do keep in mind that when a show is to be cut off early, they still have to give closure, they can't just stop.  So things get changed, plot points move up, etc., etc.  This is where a lot of things end up feeling rushed.

Look very closely at my avatar.

(click to show/hide)

Yup.  The happy ending was far from happy.  Unfortunately I don't think there were enough people watching for them to immediately say "let's finish this show", and it really did feel like the whole thing was rushed more than Bryan and Michael wanted it to be.  It felt like they wanted to explore that more, but it got cut off.

All of those things that were solved?  Those were the sub-issues of the season.  The primary issue was the anti-bending sentiment.  Which did not get solved.  And good news for my homebrew setting!  This means that it's actually still in canon!  And I can use this conflict as the start of the one that wiped technology back to the 100 Years War level!

Good point on the issue. And your homebrew setting has enough awesomeness to survive canon changes .

[Unbeliever]

I never watched Avatar, but I think Legend of Korra is fantastic.  One of the best shows of its genre that I've seen. 

Those things felt rushed, and the whole series to me (yes, it was billed as a mini-series) felt rushed and compacted
...

Do keep in mind that when a show is to be cut off early, they still have to give closure, they can't just stop.  So things get changed, plot points move up, etc., etc.  This is where a lot of things end up feeling rushed.

The show did feel brisk.  But, I actually felt that was a nice change of pace.  I watch a fair amount of shonen anime, which this is clearly close to:  coming of age story, fantastic martial arts, and so on.  Shonen anime tends to be glacial, though.  So, one where things actually happened, plots moved along, and so on is nice.  HBO and Japan have also gotten me in the habit of 12ish episode seasons.

I would have preferred there to be a few more episodes and some of the fights expanded a bit, but I think I'll take brisk over glacial if those are my choices.  Overall, I think it's a pretty fantastic show -- I'm surprised at how much I like it.

@the ending

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I was wondering if they'd leave Korra's remastery of bending to the next season or not.  It'd be a very dark note to end a season of for what is essentially a kids' show.  That being said, it was predictable, so there's some benefit to just getting it out there -- we all knew that Korra was going to go all Avatar Mode and undo Aman's blood bending. 

I did think the Tarlok resolution was, however, very dark. 

It's a little bit of a nice, neat bow of an ending, I'll grant that.  I would have preferred a shot or two of the scars that the conflict had left Republic City.  So, it's not perfect.  But, pretty solid.  Ditch the Tarlok part of the ending, and I'd probably be annoyed with it -- it lends some weight to the whole thing.
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