Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Legend of Korra Episodes 1 and 2 Review

Welcome to the long post were I rant on and on about the first two episodes of The Legend of Korra.  If you aren't aware, Nickelodeon released the first two episodes on the Korra Nation website weeks before its release on television.  This post will definitely include spoilers for episodes one and two of Korra.

From the very beginning, I really liked Korra's character.  She's so different from Aang, and it'll be interesting to see how she develops over the series.  Aang was such a spiritual person, and that's Korra's biggest struggle. Plus, I realized while watching the second episode that this will be the first time we've seen someone learn airbending, since Aang was already a master of that element.  It's cool to see Tenzin teaching an element that we've never seen taught before.

I immediately recognized Katara when she came on screen.  I was kind of waiting for her since I knew she was coming thanks to spoilers that I tried so hard to avoid.  I was beyond happy.  Katara was my favorite character of the last series, and I loved getting to see her at least in the first episode.  It was weird seeing her older and with a different voice though.  You can also tell that she's not exactly the same.  She's grown old and changed (matured I guess) over the years.  I loved seeing her.

It seemed as if Tenzin's kids had never met Katara though, which makes me incredibly sad.  Does Tenzin never bring them to visit?  I also wonder where Aang and Katara lived.  They seemed to have lived on Air Temple Island, so I assume Katara only moved back to the Southern Water Tribe after Aang died or when she was needed to train Korra.  (I kind of get the hint that Katara was Korra's waterbending teacher, but I could be completely wrong.)

I loved the little reference to Ursa.  Too bad Katara was interrupted.  Hopefully that will be answered in The Promise comics.  It's nice because it shows the creators do pay attention to the fans though.  I do hope we see Zuko's descendants though.  There has to be some way they can work the current Fire Lord (who I assume would be Zuko's son/daughter or grandson/granddaughter.

I just want to quickly mention how beautiful the animation is.  It's particularly obvious when the show shots of Republic City.  The pro-bending building is absolutely magnificent.

I also love how Katara mentions all of her and Aang's children's names.  Now we know them all!  (We've learned a decent amount about Aang and Katara's lives, and we know Toph had a daughter.  Now we just need to learn what happened to everyone else...  I wonder if we'll ever get any sort of an idea.)

Even though Tenzin's kids seemed to have never met Katara, Tenzin and Korra seemed to have met some how before.  I wonder how that happened.

One thing that really gets me is how isolated they keep Korra.  That really surprised me.  I mean a compound?  Really?  She couldn't at least have lived in the village with some people protecting it?  They had to stick her in a compound?  That's insane.  I wonder if she was moved their immediately after they discovered she was the Avatar, and her parents aren't living there at the start of the series.  Did they live with her when she was younger, or was she basically raised by the White Lotus and her masters (after they discovered she was the Avatar).  I have so many questions about that.  It seriously seems like she needs contact with the outside world though.  How can she maintain peace and balance in the world if she's never allowed to see and live in the world?  I can see that factoring into the show.

I loved the Aang and Toph statues.  They're just cool.

I can definitely see some of Toph in Lin.  Since I love Toph, I can see myself liking Lin even if she doesn't seem to like Korra that much.  I just wish we could know more about Lin's father...  I'm insanely curious to know what type of person Toph would have found "acceptable."  Also, I love Tenzin and Lin's interaction.  I found it incredibly amusing.  I don't know how close they are in age, but I wonder if they've known each other their whole lives since their parents knew each other.  Maybe they got stuck together all the time and argued.  At least, that's what I'm thinking in my head unless we learn differently.  I find that idea really amusing for some reason.

I love Tenzin's little outburst of, "Don't bring my mother into this!"  Also, he always seems to refer to them as mother or father, which isn't very personal.  And at least once I remember him saying Aang instead of my father.  I just thought that's a little odd.  I can't picture him having bad relationships with Katara or especially Aang.  I mean, maybe there was some resentment towards having the Avatar as a father, but Aang had to be a pretty loving dad.  I'm probably reading far too much into this though.  Tenzin's a pretty serious guy.  Saying mother and father is probably just his character.  He definitely has a great respect for Aang if nothing else, and he's the only airbender, so that would have given him a deep connection with Aang.  On a somewhat similar note, I love how Tenzin's kids all call him daddy instead of just dad or something.

Can I say again that I just love the contrast between Korra's struggle and Aang's.  Tenzin likened Korra's problems with airbending to Aang's problem with earthbending, which I see, but I thought of Aang's firebending first.  Korra doesn't think she needs to airbend, and Aang didn't want to learn firebending for a while.  Still, I love how different their problems are.

The "be the leaf" moment was adorable.  I absolutely love all of Tenzin's kids.  The meditating scene with Meelo was so cute!

And of course we get to see Mako and Bolin!  There's so much I could say about them.  I like both of their characters, but I think I like Mako a bit more than Bolin.  It's early though, so who knows.  Also, I'm not going to say I ship anything yet since it's quite early, but I definitely want to see Mako and Korra interact more.  It seems like they would be cute together.  I might change my mind after a while though.  I've seen a few people mention a love triangle, which I really don't want to see, especially since their brothers.  If Korra's going to be shipped with one of them, I hope to God it's only one of them and the other one and Korra have no feelings for each other what-so-ever.  A love triangle is one thing, but a love triangle with brothers is just too complicated and messy.  Maybe they'll do it and do it well though.  We'll see.  I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of both Bolin and Mako regardless of what happens with them and Korra romantically.

Even after this long post, there's so much more I could say.  I'll leave it here though, since I've been writing this forever and have other things to do.  Now it's just a month's wait for more episodes...

No comments:

Post a Comment