Legend of Korra spoilers and disappointments
Legend of Korra
The expectations were so damned high, there's no way it could have matched them, but still:
There is so much motionlessness in this cartoon-- in four episodes, there've been four seated scenes around tables, plus one seated scene under a tree, plus one seated scene in a car-- that the acting must save the day and it's not. When a voice actor delivers a line, the expressions that should accompany what is said are either drawn before the actor says it or afterward or completely missing. There's an emotional delay or a synch problem. The only character that doesn't have this problem is Tenzin.
Even if the voice acting/drawing synch wasn't outta whack, it's hard to watch so much motionlessness. What made The Last Airbender so special for me was all the "stage business" they threw in to make it sparkly fun to watch, rounding out characters and addeing information we wouldn't have known otherwise. Do you remember the Fortuneteller episode? Sure, Sokka and Aang sit down and talk, waiting for the Fortuneteller-- but remember the stage business with Sokka's fixation on the food? Fun! Or when Sokka and Aang are standing there, talking about whether prediction is possible and there was stage business with the duck that attacks Sokka? How about when the Fortuneteller says Sokka will always be his own worst enemy and he tosses a stone and it ricochets and hits him? Konietzko and Martino don't always tell the story, they show it. Or how about when the Fortuneteller announces that it will be a good year for twins and a pair of twins cheer and one says she's a bender and the other says she's not? Ok, so bending's not definitely inherited. K& M teach us stuff about the world without it being in the main storyline. Excellent. So now, where is the stage business, people? You have two orphan benders as main players and we have a prime opportunity to learn more about their upbringing and challenges and the K&M waste it. When Make and Bolin interact with other street urchins we don't get to see bender urchins facing off against each other or using waterbending to pickpocket or something. Either use the medium to tell as much of the story as possible or go back to a comic book format. Grrr.
The large expanses of motionlessness make me itch to see the plot advance faster. As we know, the only dude in the history of this world who's ever mentioned chi bending was Aang and he did it on the Fire Loserlord to take away his bending forever. Aang was a bender. The Equalist leader dude is clearly a bender too or he couldn't do it. He gives lip service to hating benders but he is one himself. All Korra has to do is point this out and there goes his power base. We've also learned that firebenders supply the city with electrical power-- if they all get stripped of their bending, where will the equalized city gets its volts? These are fantastically interesting things. It's hard to wait.
Thank god it has very cool music and there's a chance things will speed up.
The expectations were so damned high, there's no way it could have matched them, but still:
There is so much motionlessness in this cartoon-- in four episodes, there've been four seated scenes around tables, plus one seated scene under a tree, plus one seated scene in a car-- that the acting must save the day and it's not. When a voice actor delivers a line, the expressions that should accompany what is said are either drawn before the actor says it or afterward or completely missing. There's an emotional delay or a synch problem. The only character that doesn't have this problem is Tenzin.
Even if the voice acting/drawing synch wasn't outta whack, it's hard to watch so much motionlessness. What made The Last Airbender so special for me was all the "stage business" they threw in to make it sparkly fun to watch, rounding out characters and addeing information we wouldn't have known otherwise. Do you remember the Fortuneteller episode? Sure, Sokka and Aang sit down and talk, waiting for the Fortuneteller-- but remember the stage business with Sokka's fixation on the food? Fun! Or when Sokka and Aang are standing there, talking about whether prediction is possible and there was stage business with the duck that attacks Sokka? How about when the Fortuneteller says Sokka will always be his own worst enemy and he tosses a stone and it ricochets and hits him? Konietzko and Martino don't always tell the story, they show it. Or how about when the Fortuneteller announces that it will be a good year for twins and a pair of twins cheer and one says she's a bender and the other says she's not? Ok, so bending's not definitely inherited. K& M teach us stuff about the world without it being in the main storyline. Excellent. So now, where is the stage business, people? You have two orphan benders as main players and we have a prime opportunity to learn more about their upbringing and challenges and the K&M waste it. When Make and Bolin interact with other street urchins we don't get to see bender urchins facing off against each other or using waterbending to pickpocket or something. Either use the medium to tell as much of the story as possible or go back to a comic book format. Grrr.
The large expanses of motionlessness make me itch to see the plot advance faster. As we know, the only dude in the history of this world who's ever mentioned chi bending was Aang and he did it on the Fire Loserlord to take away his bending forever. Aang was a bender. The Equalist leader dude is clearly a bender too or he couldn't do it. He gives lip service to hating benders but he is one himself. All Korra has to do is point this out and there goes his power base. We've also learned that firebenders supply the city with electrical power-- if they all get stripped of their bending, where will the equalized city gets its volts? These are fantastically interesting things. It's hard to wait.
Thank god it has very cool music and there's a chance things will speed up.