4268 réponses à ce sujet

[OdanUrr]

Brought to you by the same people that created Ollicity. 

 

Spoiler

 

[OdanUrr]

Me quiero morir, che! You hate me don't you? LOL

 

Of course not. It's not as if I linked a YT video, is it?

 

Spoiler

 

Oops, guess I just did.  

[addiction21]

So it was that simple, huh? Truth be told, I expected something a bit more elaborate from Zaheer. Will try to post a review later today.

 

Thinking it over and the rest of the antagonists it feels like all this was part of a larger arc but how this series has been handled has done more harm to it over all.

 

That has been the near constant complaint about Korra the shallow stories and character arcs. I would take the AtLAB filler episodes that expanded and informed about the setting and characters over these short runs trying to force it in and it falling flat.

 

 

[Greenface21]

Pretty solid finale for LoK. Though I'd have preferred a little more insight into Korra's melancholy at the end. 

 

I wonder if they'll ever address the problem of spirits invading civilization at the beginning or will that just take a back seat and be forgotten like the non-bender vs. bender issue in season 1.

[Dominus]

I enjoyed it greatly, they handled the finale well. Regarding the underwhelming nature of the Red Lotus, guess I was hoping for a more Out-Of-This-World super secret plan from Homie Zaheer. The action sequences were similar to the previous episode with The Ultimatum, though more 3D effects were applied, as well as first Family-Friendly portrayal of

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Beheading Via Combustion. Ick.

I wonder if they'll ever address the problem of spirits invading civilization at the beginning or will that just take a back seat and be forgotten like the non-bender vs. bender issue in season 1.

Good question. Seemed like the Change in population was used more as a match to light the way for the Red Lotus. They may have a villain/issue that targets the topic with greater focus, but hard to say.

Korra learned Flamethrower!

She's also a nifty rocket in that fight with Homie Zaheer.

It was all very "Battle of Wulong Forest", wasn't it?

Yeah, I figured there was a reference there. Though naturally the ending diverged a bit.

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I figured a tornado that size couldn't have been airbended by one person. It was legitimately touching for me.

[Aimi]

She's also a nifty rocket in that fight with Homie Zaheer.

It was all very "Battle of Wulong Forest", wasn't it?

[spirosz]

...amazing.

 

Seriously though.

 

Release Season 2 Score and Season 3.  

 

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Holy ****.  When Korra was chained up and Vaatu was stating "Let Go" - did anyone else get this resemblance? 

 

 

 

And

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Korra's Avatar state battle was amazing! Plus, I loved what they did with showcasing the airbenders working together... brought a nice element to obviously not ever seeing so many airbenders at once in a long time.  Overall, I believe Zaheer had a strong goal, yet simple, which isn't a bad thing - not everything needs to be so complex.  He just wanted a new "world" - without an Avatar, a new era... basically - I love that motivation.

 

Honestly, this season was so well done, it captured why I love and I mean love the series - it sparked what ATLA sparked for me when I originally watched it and I cannot wait for season four.  

 

 

Honestly - 

 

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I believe the last scene with Korra was her really contempleting her past actions and her really missing, yet regretting what happened to the "Avatar Cycle"  Something about the way her eyes were portrayed in the scene... I don't know, just a feeling I have from her.  

 

 

I'm an emotional mess right now.

 

ps.

 

Jinora looks like Aang, straight up.  

[spirosz]

And one of my favourite characters.... 

 

Spoiler

 

Y u make me cri 

[spirosz]

WHY JUST GIVE US TIDBITS?

 

WHY ZUCK?  WHY?

 

Track Team - Service and Sacrifice

[TheChosenOne]

And one of my favourite characters.... 

 

Spoiler

 

Y u make me cri 

 

I totally called it.

[ruggly]

So uh....season 4 now. Right now.

[addiction21]

So uh....season 4 now. Right now.

 

How this last season got pushed out I wouldn't be surprised to see the next one soon since its being worked on already. Late winter early Spring maybe.

[OdanUrr]

It is time. Long have I hunted you. Long have you eluded me. No more. Behold the review of the finale!
 
...
 
Ehem... Behold the review!
 
...
 
I said behold, damn it!
 

Spoiler

So, we've made it to the finale. "The Ultimatum" ended in a foreboding note, with the airbenders captured and Tenzin beaten to a pulp by Zaheer and his minions. "Enter the Void" begins with the first, and only, time we'll see a bunch of people actually making plans in preparation for something as Lin, Su, and Tonraq, discuss how to rescue the airbenders without surrendering Korra to Zaheer. Cue in Bolin's inevitable "funny" moment and cut to a resolute Korra stating they cannot risk the lives of the airbenders. She will surrender herself to Zaheer and only then can the others worry about how they'll save her. Korra, you know I love you to bits but that really is the same as having no plan. Worse, because you can bet your ass Zaheer's planned ahead. And, indeed, he has.
 
Korra contacts Zaheer to inform him of her decision and naively believes that's all it'll take for him to release the airbenders. Naturally, Zaheer has other plans (at least he has some!) and instructs her to meet him alone on the top of Laghima's peak. Korra shares this news with the others and a plan of their own begins to take shape now. Su realizes they have an advantage over Zaheer: he doesn't know how many of them there are (thank God someone thought! Granted I would have expected Zaheer to factor in the metalbenders). As a result, while Mako, Bolin, and Asami, go to the temple to pick up the airbenders, Su, Lin, Tonraq, and the metalbenders, will scale up the side of the peak and wait until the airbenders have been rescued to ambush Zaheer.
 
In the meantime we're treated to a brief interlude of Buddha Guru Zaheer repeating platitudes no one has ever bothered to explain as the writers rush in P'Li to drop a few lines of the backstory they forgot to include in Book Three. Seriously, P'Li's line in this scene is way longer than it has any right to be.
 

 
Yes, guys, you forgot about the villains being, you know, people. There's nothing you can do about it now. Just because you have them say they love each other and kiss doesn't mean I'm going to believe it. Credit where credit's due though, P'Li was a lot more convincing in this scene than Zaheer. And so as everyone says their farewells ...
 

 

I totally didn't choose that one farewell on purpose.

 
... we enter the void! Just kidding, that shark will jump in due course. As Korra meets up with Zaheer and P'Li on top of Mount Doom, the rest of Team Avatar are led into a trap the temple by Ghazan where they find Tenzin tied in chains and the rest of the airbenders pleasantly sitting with their faces covered by their hoods. Okaaaaaaaay, nothing wrong here at all. Mako radios Korra that Zaheer's held up his end of the bargain so Korra surrenders and agrees to be chained by P'Li... only Zaheer hasn't really been upfront as the airbenders melt away to reveal their puppeteer, Ming-Hua!
 

 
No, ****. As Ghazan and Ming-Hua attack the rescue squad, Lin and Su's own face off against P'Li while Korra and Tonraq deal with Zaheer and the mother of all battles begins! Just replay that battle over this theme song:
 

 

(I am so going to do a video on this!  )

 
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, MORTAL KOMBAT!!! So everyone kicks some ass but Tonraq and Korra take the prize here, particularly Korra seeing as she was tied up and still managed to bend her body away like a pro. Let's give it up for our kickass Water Tribe duo:
 

 
But Ming-Hua decides to rain on our parade and orders Ghazan to quit fooling around and bring the building down on Mako, Bolin, Asami, and Tenzin, only he gets a bit carried away and somehow melts the whole damn temple away! Isn't this a nice setup for Bolin to save the day with some newfound lavabending skills? And nobody had to say it was "Bolin time" or any such nonsense. Bolin just had to save his friends and that he did. This is such an awesome scene that no gif would truly do it justice and, consequently, nobody has bothered to upload one. It's just that good. Bolin's delivery when he confirms he's a lavabender is just priceless. Meanwhile, on that other battlefield, this happens:
 

 
That's one down for the count. This causes Zaheer to really get mad and enter the void jump the shark as he discovers he's the last son of Krypton and has the ability to fly. I'm not kidding. In a moment resembling that of Aang's energybending in "Sozin's Comet," Zaheer starts to spout some more platitudes and suddenly flies away with Korra. He has released his burden, he's no longer bound to this world by earthly desires. He just wants to kill the Avatar and every leader from here to the spirit world but that's okay, those are not earthly desires. It really is a shame that the entire "Guru Laghima" thing was only brought up for this instead of discussing the merits of his ideas or philosophy. Oh, well. So Zaheer flies off into the sunset while Team Avatar recuperates and formulates a plan to rescue Korra and Tonraq thanks the woman who saved his life who in no way will be important even though we've given her a name and a close-up:
 

 

Remember, forget this woman. She will in no way be important in future episodes.

 
And so we enter... Haha, you thought I was going to say "the void," didn't you? Admit it! No, this time we enter "Venom of the Red Lotus" as Zaheer and his minions prepare to poison Korra so it'll trigger her Avatar State and they can kill her, thus putting an end to the Avatar Cycle. I hate to say this but as utterly simple as Zaheer's ultimate goal turned out to be it is nonetheless coherent with his philosophy. I said it before (see here) that if we followed his logic to the ultimate conclusion, the figure of the Avatar was the embodiment of imbalance and it should therefore be removed. I guess Zaheer took my advice a bit literally but killing Korra in the Avatar State achieves that purpose. I still think it's a bit stupid that the Avatar State can be triggered so easily. It's the same situation we had in "Sozin's Comet" where Aang's Avatar State was triggered by a sharp rock. And here I thought the Avatar was a communion between two worlds and their representatives, Raava and Korra, and that Raava would understand and let Korra die lest the cycle be brought to an end. I guess you don't control the Avatar State in the end. The Avatar State controls you.
 
So while the Red Lotus attempts to exorcise Korra ...
 

 

Sweet mother of Jesus! That scared the crap out of me.

 
... Jinora and the airbenders try to figure out a way to escape. Wait, what? Why are the airbenders still alive at this point? It was clear Zaheer never meant to keep his word, further undermining his character, so why keep them alive at all? He can still use them as bargaining chips dead, he used water puppets after all. Why does he need... Oh, I see what's going on here. He just wants to fill in Tenzin's shoes and mold these young airbenders into his image. Why, Zaheer, you sly dog! And here I thought you'd given up on "earthly desires." I mean, nothing says earthly as wanting to build your own private army, right?
 
Anyway, while Jinora, Meelo, and Opal's failed breakout gets salvaged by Su and Lin, the Red Lotus is finally getting more than they bargained for as Korra finally breaks and enters the Avatar State, smashing Ming-Hua to a wall, treating Ghazan to a dose of his own medicine, and breaking her chains to start after Zaheer who decides it's a nice day to test out his flying skills. So now we enter Mortal Kombat part 2, with Zaheer vs. Avatar State Korra, while Mako and Bolin face off against Ming-Hua and Ghazan respectively. Out of the three battles, I enjoyed the duel between Bolin and Ghazan the most. I don't know why but I had the feeling Ghazan was testing/teaching Bolin as much as he was trying to defeat him. I suppose there aren't many earthbenders who can lavabend so Ghazan may have simply welcomed the opportunity to test the new guy instead of outright killing him. Mako's own realization that electricity and water do not mingle came close though.
 

 

Took you long enough.

 
With Ming-Hua dead and Ghazan soon-to-follow we're back to the duel between Korra and Zaheer. While it certainly was reminiscent of "Sozin's Comet" (as if we didn't have enough references already) with all the thrashing between mountain peaks it didn't really do it for me. Aang was much more impressive in the Avatar State than Korra was here and, indeed, that's perhaps the problem. I never really saw Korra in the Avatar State fighting Zaheer so much as Korra with glowing eyes fighting Zaheer. You can blame it on the poison in her body, sure, and the writers even resort to that to cripple Korra right before she took that killing blow. And here I thought they were going to do something clever like have Korra try to exit the Avatar State so as not to kill Zaheer.
 
In any case, as Zaheer's about to pull an Earth-Queen on Korra, Jinora gathers the rest of the airbenders and creates ... a tornado? How's that going to help? I mean, sure, if Zaheer did something as stupid as brag about his flying while killing Korra then that tornado could suck him in- You already know they did that, so why bother? The tornado sucks both of them to the ground where Lin and Su promptly encase Zaheer in a prison of rock. Korra, however, is starting to fade as the poison finally takes hold ... Until Jinora points out the poison is mercury and Su quickly extracts it from her body. Um, how did Jinora know that? Never mind, I guess the Red Lotus had run out of literally-every-other-poison-that-is-not-a-metal. With a raving Zaheer encased in rock (it was pretty sad to watch such a promising character come to this) and a recuperated Korra it was time for...
 

 

 

 
Any moment now.
 
Any... moment... now.
 
...
 
Guess that didn't happen. I mean, it would have been too reminiscent of Sozin's Comet. We literally ripped everything else but this was going too far. He'll be fine in prison. It's not like he escaped from one already, or wants to kill the world's leaders, or even killed one already. The season ends with a downbeat Korra attending Claudia's induction into the Assassin Order Jinora's anointing as an airbending master and this scene everyone's scratching their heads to figure out what it means:
 

 

 

 
In the end, I felt the season finale was a rather messy and haphazard affair held together by the show's characteristically great action set-pieces. While Zaheer's actions to try and kill Korra in the Avatar State were coherent with his notion of "bringing balance" there are many more that weren't, and so a mysterious character who had the potential to become one of Korra's greatest villains was turned into a simple fanatic overpowered by the writers and the Guru Laghima plot device. His fellows didn't fare much better as Book Three never really delved into their backstory and gave us a reason to connect with them. Even the plot with the spirits back on our side of the portals was never addressed after the season's opening. Korra didn't explore her feelings after the events of Book Two nor did she try to pause and meditate on this new threat posed by Zaheer and the Red Lotus. Some characters much-loved by the fans were introduced or made a reappearance but the season could have worked just as well without them.

 

 

It's a shame because this season started out strong and continued thus for seven more episodes, with "The Stakeout" being the first episode where I began to feel apprehension as the above issues weren't being addressed and we were running out of time. And so we did.

 

Left-over thoughts

 

 

 

Loving that height difference.

 

 

Oh, come on!! You're not even trying!

[AresKeith]

And one of my favourite characters.... 

 

Spoiler

 

Y u make me cri 

 

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The fate of all Sparky Sparky boom people

[RobRam10]

Here's hoping for Book 4 to be about war, like a foreign civilization finding the four nations and invading it and taking place in the Fire Nation then we can have a reason to finally see Zuko's daugther.

[AresKeith]

 

 

 

Remember, forget this woman. She will in no way be important in future episodes.

 

 

What if she does though?

[Dovahzeymahlkey]

Korra's a real mess right now. There are fights that make you stronger when you come out of it and there are fights that destroy who you are. I think this fight has been the latter for Korra.

[KT Chong]

I think Bolin's ability to lava-bend may have something to do with his heritage: his parents were an earthbender and a firebender.  So, earth + fire = lava.  So, while metalbending is grounded in philosophy, (i.e., most metals are impure, and earthbenders can manipulate the microscopic earth impurities in metals,) lavabending is a genetic trait resulted from combining earthbending and firebending parentage.   Bolin just needed a triggering event to unlock his genetic potential. (My guess is that Ghazan's parentage was also earthbender + firebender.)

[TheClonesLegacy]

That would make sense actually.

[KT Chong]

A lot of people complain that a flying airbender is ridiculous.  An airbender being able to fly is not that much for a stretch.  The air bisons are the original airbenders, and they can fly.  Air bisons use airbending to fly.  We have known that since the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender.  

 

Here is why only Zaheer could fly:

 

The combustion lady P'Li's was the last earthly and emotional attachment for Zaheer.  When P'Li blew off her own head, her death released him of his only earthly tether, and that allowed him to fly.   So, in order for an airbender to be able to fly, he must be able to let go of all earthly possessions and all emotional attachments -- friends, family, loved ones.  He must let go of all of them.  Only Zaheer was able to do accomplish that.  Even Aang (who cared for Katara and his friends) and Tenzin (who cared for his wife and children) could not let go of their earthly emotional attachments, so they would never be able to fly.

[Steelcan]

Pretty much what I was thinking about the whole thing. Still called BS on it, only because Zaheer and co. (who weren't native benders) have been REALLY OP throughout the whole season and he didn't need another advantage.

 

On another note, I like how Jinora came out looking like Aang at the end.

I thought that the other 3 were benders before Korra let the cat out of the bag

[Milan92]

The first thing that popped into my mind when Zaheer started to fly was DBZ