Earlier this week, we had a review for Legend of Korra (the series). You can click the link HERE to see
the whole thing. Alternatively, if you’ve already seen it and came for the
supplementary post where I bash Nickelodeon and give a bit of praise to the
creators for the ending of the series… You’ve come to the right place. So sit
back as we kick things off for a rather savage beating of Nickelodeon and their
inability to do their job right.
Big publishers in both film (including TV) and games are a
necessary evil in a lot of horrible ways. While they are usually void of any
creative ability at all to produce anything worthwhile on their own, they
somehow have the cash to pay any developer or creator what is needed to make
something worthwhile. In the case of publishers like Nintendo or Valve, you
tend to get money going to good developers to make high quality titles like Bayonetta 2, Portal, or Hyrule Warriors.
But then for each good company doing right with their mountain of gold, you
have old guard publishers who don’t understand what they’re doing and making a
mess of things, such is the case with Ubisoft and (usually) EA. 
Film is almost no different, especially as the film industry
feels like an aging specter that needs to compete harder with video games and
the internet to keep people’s attention and combat piracy at the same time. New
gimmicks are invented or brought back to make the movie going or TV watching
experience more enjoyable while better producers are smart and use the tools of
the internet to their advantage. Such is the case with most who decided to buy
into Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon Prime when things were just kicking off. But
despite the offerings of big changes and opportunities, many companies are
simply too chained to the way things used to work to do things properly. As
such, you have complete clusterfucks like Legend
Of Korra failing to meet the unreasonable demands of their corporate
overlords simply because they don’t understand what makes that show good or
even how to keep it relevant.
When Legend of Korra aired,
it was years after all the shit that happened with Avatar The Last Airbender. For those that don’t clearly remember (I
know I do because I’m insane) what happened is the first two seasons of Airbender (Water and Earth) aired with
almost no problems. Season three, however, was delayed. And when it aired, the
scheduling wasn’t advertised or even consistent. Several episodes would pop up
for a little while. Then some were released on DVD though I never saw them air
at all. Then we had the big mid-season event that was advertised for about a
week or two. Then the second half of the season (10 episodes) were spurted onto
the air in under a month.
This isn’t proper scheduling of any kind. If you want to get
better ratings or even consistent ratings, you don’t change the fucking air
times for a show. You don’t fail to advertise the show. You don’t throw out
DVDs of your show before the episodes have had time to air. I don’t know if this
was marketing problems at Nickelodeon or budget problems, but this didn’t start
with Korra and it is unfortunate that
Korra suffered far worse than Airbender ever did.
For starters, when the first season was made, the creators
weren’t even sure if they’d get more than a single season. So they had to write
the story in such a way where it was all self-contained in the even Nickelodeon
decided to pass on more episodes. This forced lots of rushed character
development and story arcs that could have been better had the series been
given more time to breathe. The remaining seasons were much the same way where
the structure all felt rushed to tell the story without pausing to give us good
character development like Airbender did.
And, again, this is largely the fault of Nickelodeon.
Let’s not forget the bullshit that happened during season
three of Legend of Korra. That season
wasn’t promoted in anyway until the last minute. But that’s not the worst of
it. After several episodes, the show went to an online-only format and was
removed from the airwaves due to ratings. According to many sources this was
also the season where it moved from its Saturday morning timeslot to its
current Friday evening timeslot because apparently network executives didn’t
think the show was “kid friendly” enough for a Saturday Morning Cartoon. Have
you guys seen what other networks air?
But, again, most of these changes were done without really
telling the fans. So of course you’re going to lose ratings when you change
times for your show. Most fans that haven’t been told and are going to try to watch it Saturday morning only to find out you
pulled the rug out from under them. Then you pull it from TV to the online-only
format during the MIDDLE of the season and most of us only knew about that
because we were following the creators on Twitter or Facebook and they were
kind enough to keep us informed unlike the big multi-million dollar
entertainment company that can’t seem to use social media to promote anything
worthwhile.
What’s dumb is Nickelodeon should have ALWAYS offered its
shows in an online format as well as the normal TV format. This would have been
their way to combat the fact people watch their content on other sites because
they don’t make it available on Hulu or Netflix. But then the other issue
becomes their sites player is terrible. It pauses frequently, it drops the
resolution quality at random times and is generally just inferior to the
third-party sites that don’t make money off this content. Again, how is a
multi-million dollar entertainment company functioning with these kinds of
issues?
And most fans are already familiar with the budget issues
that came into season four. Forgetting that Season Four was shoved out the door
on the heels of season three because apparently Nickelodeon just wanted to end
the fucking thing already, they also screwed over the budget for the show. The
creators were ordered to have 13 episodes for the season in any way possible.
However, during production, their budget was cut, forcing the creators to a
decision. They could either fire everyone on their staff a week early or they
could do a crappy clip-show episode which would be cheap, but low quality in
comparison to everything else.
We all know what they picked, but the fact the decision even
had to be made is disgusting. I get you don’t think the show is performing
well, but if you see someone dying, you don’t cut off their air supply to keep
yourself alive. You help them back on their feet as best you can. And not only
that, it’s representative of everything wrong with Nickelodeon’s attitude
towards this series and its fans. They make low quality content cheaply to make
the most money. When a good show that people genuinely like comes around, they
don’t know how to actually market the damn thing. So they screw it up and force
budget cuts and kneecap the show’s overall potential for no reason other than
pure idiocy.
All that said, I still want to end this on a positive note.
After all, we’re talking about Legend of
Korra. And while it might have been plagued with production issues, that
doesn’t take away from the fact the show is still enjoyable and worth a look.
So ending this little rant, I want to discuss the ending of the series. You
know? The scene where Korra and Asami hold hands as they walk off into the
sunset (spirit portal)? Yeah. That one.
There was much dissonance among “fans” as many were on the
side that this was as subtle nod that the Korra and Asami relationship (ie, a
homosexual relationship) was a real thing in the series (canonical). But there
were also many “fans” who disagreed and said that it wasn’t the case at all.
Either they are homophobic or they are as oblivious as a brick. But, much to my
chagrin and to said “fans” dismay, the creators of the series have actually
come out and said that the ending is in fact supposed to represent the two of
them are finally in a relationship together. Korra and Asami’s love is
officially canonical.
What does this mean? On the plus side, yes, this is a
positive note for homosexuals everywhere as another somewhat mainstream series
accepts their existence. It also pushes forth a message of acceptance and
tolerance for those who aren’t homosexual. Again, this is a kids show, and
messages of acceptance for those who are go a long way to making future
generations more accepting of people with different ethnicities and ways of
life. It’s a shame the show had to be so subtle that some people didn’t get the
message, but, again, kids show. Nickelodeon probably didn’t want to push the
envelope too much and, for that one, I can’t necessarily blame them. Though it
is still cowardly.
There are some negatives. Namely, it doesn’t feel rather
trope-like when the tough female character ends up with another female
character. This is something we’ve seen before and while this isn’t a horrible cliché,
it’s still something akin to a cliché. This doesn’t kill the series in any way,
but just something notable to point out. Likewise, it’s a relationship I would
have loved to seen explored more instead of spending so much time on the wasted
relationship that was Mako and Korra. Again, totally understand that that didn’t
happen, but doesn’t mean I can’t call foul on it.
Overall, I’m in full support of this ending and couldn’t
think of a better way to really go with it beyond dialing back the subtlety a
bit. The creators did a fantastic job putting together the ending and worked
well with the tools they had at their disposal. I’m glad Legend of Korra is finally over. I loved the show. But it was like
seeing a wounded puppy trying to get across a minefield. You’re rooting for
that puppy to make it because it didn’t do anything wrong and just wants to
live. Now that we’re finally past all that, I don’t have to sit and complain
about Nickelodeon killing another great show before its time. Here’s hoping the
creators find a better place to do their work because they can certainly do
better than Nickelodeon.
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