HALF THE MATH, DOUBLE THE MYTH

How You Can Have a Bunch of Great Ideas but Still Fuck Up Real Bad: A Korra Essay

chirart:

Hahahaha ever since Saturday the Korra finale seems to make me angrier and angrier. As a storyteller and as a fan of solid storytelling, it is an atrocious mess! I stand by the creators are amazing directors, amazing concept artists, amazing producers, but wow are they terrible writers. They have absolutely no understanding of dramatic convention, and so the first season of The Legend of Korra suffered greatly from terrible execution, and the core ideas were so good it should’ve been a gamechanger. It should’ve been the most brilliant thing on television and instead we were given a 12-week narrative case of blue balls.

Disclaimer: if you enjoyed/love/fanatic about Korra, by all means continue to do so! I enjoyed a lot about Korra. In fact that is why I am so frustrated. But that aside, this is meant as a critique and a dissection and as such you can take it or you can leave it. Nothing I have to say will change the show, nor will anything I have to say will have any effect on what season 2 will bring. Mostly I have been ranting about it to everyone on a daily basis since Saturday and this is my way to finally just. get. it. all. out. So this is me shouting into the ether for my own cathartic glee.

Cool? Cool.

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Since watching the finale I’ve been trying to figure out what’s been bothering me about the show and why I don’t feel as strongly about it as I did AtLA, despite all the incredible stuff going on in it, and I think this just about hits it all on the head. Particularly the points about the last ten minutes of the finale, and about Mako, Bolin, and Korra’s character development (or lack thereof). And Amon. Ahghghg Amon.

I tried to ignore it, but I guess I have to admit to myself that I’m disappointed. But while I definitely wish the storytelling had been more cohesive and certain elements had felt less forced/pushed while others for some reason just kind of vanished or were left to hum unresolved in the background, Korra was still damn beautiful. Hopefully season two will probably work some of the kinks out and kick things up a notch, the way tLA did?

Anyway, even if you thought the season was perfect and wouldn’t change a thing, this is worth reading. There are some really important points about effective storytelling and… the art and ideas of Korra were beautiful, but the writing was a mess. The set-up was fantastic, but the follow-through fell so short in so many ways. I wish I didn’t feel this way, but… I really do hope the team gets it together for seasons two. :)

(via chirart)