The Legend of Korra (2012)

Creators: Michael Dante DiMartino, Brian Konietzko

Various writers and directors
Studio: Nickelodeon Animation, Studio Mir, Studio Pierrot

Completed viewing on 22/09/2020

***SPOILERS***

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
6		4	5	7	6

Legend of Kora had so much potential but they made such a mess of it. Watching the show, it's really clear that its biggest problem wasn't the script, wasn't retcon and wasn't feminism; it was the bullshit surrounding its production run. Season 1 was clearly meant to be the entire show and it was pretty great by itself (not perfect, mind) but the 3 seasons after that felt like they were each just randomly tacked onto the last. The show was still really fun to watch but on balance, I'd say it did more harm than good overall.

The thing that made series 1 so great, in my opinion, was its absolutely gorgeous animation. I really sat there in awe and amazement after episode 1, in complete disbelief at how good the show looked. That included everything from the expressive speech/body movement to the incredible action and combat sequences. Season 1's animation was an 8 outta 10. Sadly, the quality in that department fell off a cliff for seasons 2 and 3. Really stiff and stagnant, with a lot more faces drawn completely side-on. Speech was animated lazily and there's a load of floaty, robotic hover animations, especially for the spirits and the bison. Season 4 brought it back slightly, especially for speech but it never reached the levels of the first season. Two things were consistent throughout though: the disappointing but expected use of CGI for all the vehicles (and that awful mech-suit); and the stunning background art/environments. Just straight up really nice throughout but also distinctive and moody. It even worked well when the background was clearly a painting; it never felt at odds with the characters.

The stories had varying levels of quality and potential but none were executed perfectly. As mentioned, season 1 was great and part of that was the idea of an avatar who is fiery and non-spiritual, in complete contrast with Aang. It asks the question of what relevance bending has in a more modern world. It also has a pretty cool villain. I'd level similar criticisms at it as I did ATLA though: the ending kinda comes outta nowehere. Korra is struggling with her patience, with fear, with air bending and with spirituality and the solution to all of these should come together at significant plot points with a story-relevant solution or explanation. They just don't though. She suddenly just can air bend, then suddenly just can go into the avatar state. It basically doesn't really tie together. The other stories are okay. In fact Season 2's probably had the most potential - Unalaq was actually the best villain because he not only had some redeeming qualities but also a clear and quite clever plan. This also fit in with all the world-building of the series (on a side note, the avatar Wan episodes were possibly the high point of the entire show). But again, the resolution at the end of that story comes out of almost nowhere and what the hell is that giant avatar fight? Season 3 had a good premise as well but needed fleshing out. The poisoning and stuff felt really insignificant, so it was a bit weird to find it being such a turning point for Korra going into Season 4. And Season 4's story was the worst and easily the simplest. Kuvira was a terrible, bland villain, who was given about 30 seconds of backstory. Can't help but feel that was just another slap in the face for female characters (as she was the only female antagonist). Her voice actor was none other than Zelda Williams though, who did an excellent job and has a great voice - hope she does more stuff.

That said, the stories weren't criminally bad but the way they tried to make the stories drastically change the ATLA/LoK universe was forced and unnecessary. They could have completely left alone the link to Rava and the past avatars and been absolutely fine. Korra would still be a great, flawed avatar but she wouldn't have fucked it up for all the rest of them going forward. Similarly, the union of the material and spirit worlds was really cool but completely redefined (or even nullified) the role of the avatar. That's the difference, really: they let Aang just be a good avatar, restoring the balance to world but they forced Korra to be a special/unique avatar, fundamentally changing what that balance was. That kinda ruined it. Also, as the story went on and Korra became more in touch with her spirituality, it would have been cool to see her getting advice from past avatars (I'm obviously intrigued by Kyoshi but they could even have introduced new older avatars), the way we saw a lot of Roku in ATLA.

As far as other characters, there was a whole range of them in there. The broad spectrum of characters is best summed up by Mako and Tenzin, who are both 'boring' but end up being arguably the worst character and one of the better characters respectively. Through the 50-odd episodes, Mako basically has no opinions, no development and no surprises.Tenzin, on the other hand, although a boring person, starts off as this pillar of wisdom and spirituality but as the show goes on, you realise he's self-centred, insensitive and not even talented spiritually. That's what a good character should be - sadly there weren't too many like that. There's a range of villains too, with Zaheer being another example of unrealised potential ( great motive, stupid plan and again, too little backstory). Jinora was also great and I don't know how to describe it but Su Beifong literally felt real. Like she could be your aunt in real life. Character designs were mostly pretty cool but nothing amazing.

The storytelling was fine. As I often find myself writing, there wasn't much story to tell, so it followed that there was only so much telling to be done. I did really enjoy the change in style for the Wan story though.

Overall, I think the world would pretty much be the same without the Legend of Korra ever airing (or not airing for the later seasons), except maybe people would be gagging for more from the creators of Avatar. Maybe that would be a good thing.

Other random thoughts: It was very cool getting to see Aang as a parent and even beyond that, breaking his perfect image by showing him as a bad parent; Adding in the resilience of Kya and Bumi and how they grew as people took that all up to excellent; Meelo kinda only worked for 1 season, because kids get un-cute so quickly; Prince Wu was alright; the airbenders adapting to the modern world and changing their outfits was sweet.

Æon Flux (1991)

Creator/Director: Peter Chung

Studio: Colossal Pictures, MTV Animation

Completed on 13/08/20

***SPOILERS***

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
7		5	6	7	6

This show is a trip and a half. You can easily get lost or confused watching it but it's so intriguing and so cool that it's definitely worth it. It also came at a strange time for the genre and formed a great foundation for what animation aimed at adults should have been for decades to come. All of that makes it bitterly disappointing that there is so little else out there like it.

The production and history of Æon Flux is slightly strange. It was initially a set of 2-5 minute shorts across 2 seasons of an experimental animated clip show by MTV, called Liquid Television (which also birthed Beavis and Butthead). It then went on to get a 'third' season of its own, with 10 full-length (22 minutes) episodes. To me, it's still unclear whether all these episodes are connected - there are some that are definitely standalone but once or twice, there are references to older characters and events. This is probably the show's greatest enabler and constraint (because it isn't really a strength/weakness in itself).

The creators took full advantage of the license this gave them; episodes aren't just independent of each other but sometimes feel like they've each got a series worth of context behind them... but they don't. The world- and character-building needed for some of the impactful moment is glossed over and the show gets to take the glory without putting in the graft. It's a bit of a cheat but they did it and it works - fair play. There is a Star-Wars-style prologue before each episode, which does a great job of introducing the plot but the characters with these seemingly deep, elaborate backstories just get dropped in at random. It doesn't detract too much from how enjoyable the show is but it is strange. That said, the creators made the absolute most of the liberties they took. Each episode can hook you in and completely captivate you. This is possibly the least quantifiable statement I'll ever use in one of these blogs but: so many moments in this series make you feel something. Through the combination of the design and colour work, the trippy, spaced-out music, the sharp dialogue and the straight-up mad, imaginative nature of the storylines, you get moments that really do give you feelings of wonder, disgust, intrigue, contempt, amazement and so much more. That's hard to do and Chung and co. did it really well. The team behind the show was clearly very clever and there's no question they were well ahead of their time.

The stories themselves are good but don't do anything amazing. Some are pretty simple with a twist or two but others definitely try to do too much. They all present interesting and always-relevent themes though; totalitarianism, autonomy, identity, rebellion, class, technology, nature etc. I enjoyed the show's very progressive attitudes towards sex and relationships but it definitely went overboard with completely unnecessary sexual moments. The characters within the stories are also seemingly complicated but the disjointed nature of the stories means you don't get any depth of understanding of any of them. So similar to the storylines, it's a sort of faux complication that they have. They're mostly very interesting still and the love-hate relationship between the two main characters is pretty cool too.

Lastly, the art and animation are what really cements the show's identity (and why I imagine it just didn't work as a live action film). Everything is stylised almost to the maximum amount possible; long, slinky characters with exaggerated muscles, proportions, bellies and whatever else the artists wanted to use to make you feel that little bit uneasy while watching. They adopted a similarly exaggerated animation style, which adds to the feeling of the show but also feels like a shortcut to me. They make the most out of key poses and are clearly light on the in-betweens. It's a little bit jittery, like everything else in the show, so it definitely works. My very personal preference would have been to still go for smooth animation with the unique art style but that just wouldn't have been Aeon Flux.

Overall, the show is weird and confusing but cool and interesting. Everything about it is unusual but it works in perfect harmony. For people who think that adult animation should be more than Bojack Horseman and South Park, this definitely offers a glimmer of hope and a reminder of what we could have had.