Also my 2 cents on the matter.
If you’ve been living under a rock for the last week, you’ve probably heard that the pilot of The Legend of Kora leaked out on to the torrent sites. Pretty much, someone took a screener copy and threw it up on the net. So, anyone savvy enough to find and download it has been watching the 2 part pilot for a few days now.
And raving about it.
Now, what dose Nickelodeon do? Do they pull a SyFy and try to yank down all the copies that got out there so that more people don’t see it before it’s televised release date? No.. Instead, going off the good word and the fact that it’s already out there, they did the most common sense thing they could: Released it for everyone to see. So, if you can’t wait a few more weeks to see how good The Legend of Korra is, pop a squat and head on over to their site and watch the full 44 minute pilot to the next incarnation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Now for my thoughts:
FUCK and YES!
After being hounded by everyone I knew to watch the original Avatar series, I proclaimed it to be the best written show of it’s kind since Gargoyles. As far as animated series go, it ranks with the likes of the original Batman and Justice League in terms of animation and story telling. It neither talked down to it’s audience, nor did it pull any punches for what would normally be a kids show. In short, it was near perfect.
So now we have The Legend of Korra. A new timeline and characters set in the Avatar universe to watch and play with. Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino have managed to do every right thing with a sequel series in 44 minutes than most franchise do in numerous sequels. Familiarity, yet new. Something that a studio head would KILL for.
Korra, the new Avatar, captures you like Aang did. Unlike Aang, she’s far more aggressive and a little less passionate. (Also she’s much older than Aang was in the original series) Her quest to learn Airbending from Aang’s oldest son Tenzin is the crux of the series so far. Her clashing over Tenzin’s distant training leads her to revolt from her teacher and head out into the newly established world of Republic City. A land where all races are welcomed, yet not all is well. I dare not go into more as it would spoil the rest.
Like the last series, Legend of Korra is already full of characters, old and new, that you latch on to and can’t help but love. Be ides Korra, you have Tenzin, who’d brilliantly voiced by J.K. Simmons. Keeping his father Aang’s legacy alive in Republic City while being one of the few Airbenders left and having to look after Kora is taxing on him. He’s the clearly the new Iroh of the series.
Speaking of Iroh, who was voiced by Mako until his death. He’s paid tribute in this show by who is surly to be Korra’s love interest: A fire bender named Mako. Voiced by Bud Bundy himself, David Faustino, Mako and his brother Brolin introduce Korra to one of the best new things about this series: Pro Bending. Unlike Toph’s pro wresting style Earth Bending league, the Pro Bending games looks to be a fantastic bending version of dodge ball that every nutty fan will be playing at anime conventions for the foreseeable future.
I can’t stress enough how damn good this show is already. Everything is smartly written and acted. As I said before, it’s different enough from the original series while retaining just enough of the original to make it feel familiar. Best yet, Nickelodeon ditched the shitty The Last Airbender title to tie it in with the late term abortion that was the live action film. If Nick want’s to do right, they’ll give us a a good four or five seasons of this show. For we the people desperately need something this good on TV at all times.
If you don’t feel like watching it now, you can wait til April 14th to watch The Legend of Korra on Nickelodeon.
