So my Korra reviews kind of failed... At least, they didn't go according to plan.
That being said, I am looking to come back to this far more frequently (I really need to improve my writing ability over this year, if nothing else, and this seems as good a way as any to go about that). So, I decided to look at a series that is aimed at a similar market to Legend of Korra, but is very different in many respects. This, my friends (or enemies, since I'm sure you're reading too and - well, I don't want you to feel left out is all), are the Lorien Legacies.
Now, when I say 'Lorien', I do not mean Lothlorien, the forest where Lady Galadriel lives in Lord of the Rings (for maybe the 0.001% of the population who are nerdy enough to know they share a name and were getting confused by that - and I was one of them, in fairness, which is why I bothered to mention it in the first place). Lorien is the planet where the majority of the characters in this series are from, a much smaller, more beautiful planet than ours that was inhabited by beings called Lorics, who are basically like humans, but way more advanced. And some of them have superpowers. These would be the Garde, protectors of the Loric race. They do one heck of a job of that, of course, because when the book begins the planet of Lorien has been destroyed by an alien race called the Mogadorians, and the few survivors are young Garde and their carers who have been sent to Earth to train and become kickass fighters who will one day return and take back their home planet. Isn't that just the way?
That's the general point where we meet our protagonist, John Smith - the Fourth member of the Garde children sent to Earth. Yeah, there was a charm put on them saying they could only be killed in a certain order, One through to Nine - and with three of them dead by Chapter One, John is the next on the alien hit-list. So what do we get to see through this book? Well, he's a teenage alien who has superpowers, ends up living on a rural town in America somewhere (I'm British, alright? American geography means very little to me), and he spends a lot of time at high school... This is sounding like the early seasons of Smallville, isn't it? And to go with that, there's a stupid romance sub-plot in this book that seems to be the main focus of the book half the time - yeah, still sounds like Smallville. Although in fairness, the town is actually called Paradise, and is apparently situated in Ohio. I think. It's not set in the town of Smallville.
Not that I have a problem with Smallville. From what I've seen, it's a pretty good take on the character Superman. This book, though, kind of falls apart in a number of the areas it resembles that show. The romance and high school stuff in particular are a complete drag. I'll fill you in, if you don't know. John meets the most amazing girl in the high school, Sarah - and she seems to be the Edward Cullen of females. That is, she seems to be everything a guy should want; she's pretty, she's smart and she's kind. The problem is, guys don't tend to fall in love with fictional characters in quite the same way girls do, and girls for the most part seem to find her irritating. So I don't think the romance actually ended up pleasing anyone, but at least they tried. Actually, no. They shouldn't have tried, they should have kept the focus on the interesting stuff.
Because there is a lot of interesting stuff to find in this book. John being taught by his protector, Henri, to use the powers he learns and being filled in on the history of Lorien, namely. This stuff tends to be much more interesting, because the alien stuff and the powers is far more unique and creative (if a little indulgent on the writers' parts), and just holds my attention much more than the attempt at romance. It also features some pretty cool action sequences towards the end, when the Mogadorians find John and kill Henri in an explosive battle featuring John's pet chimaera Bernie Kosar (which think is a bit of a dumb name for a dog - seriously, why give a pet two names?), who he finds early in the book and thinks he's just a stray beagle; Sarah, John's aforementioned love interest; Sam, John's best friends who is really into aliens and probably one of the best characters in the series; Mark James, the resident bully and John's rival of sorts who hasn't made another appearance since this book; John and Henri, naturally, and number Six, who appears in all her badass glory outdoing John in terms of cool powers and fighting Mogadorians at just about every turn. They all go up against the Mogadorians, and a bunch of their crazy pet monsters. Wow, that was a long list.
The book ends with them cremating the fallen Henri; Sarah being told to stay in Paradise; John, Six, Sam and Bernie Kosar leaving to... Find the others, I think, and us wondering what on Earth might happen next in this gripping series.
I say 'gripping'. In fairness, it actually is. The book suffers from a lot of stereotypical, bland characterisations, poor dialogue between them and a few moments which make you feel like you're reading a fanfiction of a bunch of superheroes and sci-fi scenarios rolled into one, but in all honesty, I still really enjoy it. I suppose it's something of a guilty pleasure, because I am fully aware that this is not a well-written book, yet at the same time the plot is very intriguing and the concepts are still really cool. And there is a definite feeling of suspense at the end, of wanting to know what will happen to the characters and finding out what is happening to the rest of the Garde, of whom we only get glimpses of.
Overall, I'd say that this book - while not on the level of such series as Harry Potter, or Percy Jackson and the Olympians - is still fairly enjoyable, if you can get over the fact that the writing will occasionally make you cringe so much your face will end up permanently looking like you're sucking on a lemon. If you can, and you enjoy a fair bit of action and alien craziness mashed with superhero powers, give it a go. If not, don't waste money on it, and if you're somewhat intrigued but are sat on the fence as to whether it's worth the money, borrow it from a friend, or from a library. If you have one of them nearby and it stocks the book.
But don't watch the movie. It's stupid.
I'm Smith in the Attic, and this is one of my stories.
Saturday 12 October 2013
Monday 7 October 2013
Pretentious Reviews: The Legend of Korra, the remainder of Book 1
I know I expected the next episode's review to be out much quicker than the last one, and I mistakenly decided to announce it. In the unlikely event that anyone cares, I apologise; I was very wrong. What I intended to do was watch one episode at a time, review it, then move onto the next one, and repeat the process until I was done with the series. Instead, I found myself saying 'just one more', after each before I got around to doing the review, and before I knew it, I had watched the entire series. By the time I had, I learned that the next series would be coming out in a few weeks, so I decided to wait until closer to then and review the whole of Air, the first book, before starting on my reviews of Spirits, the second book. Completely forgetting that college was starting that same week, and I had a load of stuff to prepare for that, as well as University Open Days, volunteer work in my (sort of former but not quite) youth group, and church on Sunday mornings and my mother's birthday, and a load of stuff on the internet that does a very good job of distracting me from important things. So now I have most of that out of the way (aside from the internet stuff, there's always loads more I have yet to discover on their that could easily distract me), I am ready to just give you my review of the series as a whole.
It turns out that reviewing the series as a whole might be a better way of doing it in the first place; this series is way less episodic than The Legend of Aang/Last Airbender, with a much faster moving plot that moves forward fairly significantly most episodes. This seems to have been done because, in case you hadn't heard, Nickelodeon had only given creators Mike and Bryan twelve episodes to tell the story. While some have praised it for having a more streamlined, fast-paced plot, I personally preferred the slower-moving Legend of Aang. It allowed us to get to know the characters and the world better, and meant that when the finale did roll around some sixty episodes after it began, with everything on the line for both the characters and the world, the stakes were uber-high, the build-up was monumental, and as an audience we loved this explosive, action-packed finale (although the resolution of the conflict was somewhat divisive, I gather). That's not so much the case here.
Don't get me wrong, I still really like the series, I think it has some great characters, a great plot, great design - but the pacing was off, and a few things were thrown into the mix that were unnecessary, and therefore infuriating because of the time constraints and the need to miss out some things I think we'd all have liked to see. As far as unnecessary things go, I'm going to state the obvious - the love triangle. I honestly don't know anyone who thought it was a good idea to incorporate a love triangle into this story, since people are either on Korra's side and wish Asami had never been in the picture, or they are on Asami's side and think Korra is a two-faced whore and Mako is a cheating asshole who deserves death by mau mau. Or they don't care who Mako ends up with and just want to get back to the awesome main plot. I'm in the third camp, although I think there are some middle grounds between the three where a number of fans sit (although admittedly I don't like love triangles in general - it's one of the reasons I can't bring myself to re-watch Phantom of the Opera - which is probably my main reason for disliking that particular side of this show). That said, I do recognise that this isn't the worst love triangle ever made, and it's not totally unbearable to watch. It just comes at the expense of some stuff that would be far more entertaining.
Another unnecessary aspect, which I didn't expect myself to think when I started watching these episodes, was the pro bending. In my previous two reviews, I did state how much I enjoyed the pro bending; however, by the time Amon wrecked the championship final midway through the series, I was more than ready for it to be done. It did have a few good aspects, I will admit - Bolin winning that match for them when Korra and Mako are on bad terms was a great moment for him that showed a much more mature and dependable side than we were used to seeing from him, and I really wish we had seen more moments like that from him throughout the show. Another was when the Council decided to cancel the final in response to Amon's threat, despite Korra's pleas, and then Lin (Lin! YAY!) cuts in and persuades the council not to give in to these threats, and to let it continue. It showcased, yet again, how awesome she is. These two aside, though, it really felt like a bit of a distraction both to Korra and to the plot in general.
As for stuff that I'd have liked to see but weren't, seemingly because of time constraints, was character development - a problem that could have been solved had they included more filler episodes. I think the main sufferers here are Mako and Bolin, who we don't get any development particularly - their only real involvement in the story is because of their friendship with Korra. I'm thinking of doing an article on the two after this. The other characters don't get as much development as I would have liked either; Asami gets a lot of praise from fans for being a brilliant character, and though I did like her, I didn't find her as a character all that memorable - and given her story, it felt like it was a bit of a missed opportunity. Lin is still my favourite character, but I still wish she had gotten more screen time than she did - although the scene between her and Tenzin where she decides to protect his family was one of the best moments in the series, brilliantly subtle in both the animation and voice acting. Tenzin I will admit has turned out pretty well; he does a great job standing in as her father figure in this, and the moment when Korra finally admitted she was scared of Amon worked so well. And his kids grew on me too, though I will admit the comedy fell flat on a few occasions. Fartbending? Really? Oh, and I'd have liked to see more of Iroh. Because one can never have too much Dante Basco.
On the flip side, there were some truly fantastic moments in the show as well. Lin and Tenzin's moments were excellent, as there was clearly a past that the creators managed to speak volumes about without ever using flashbacks, or even having the characters talk about it for very long. The voice acting, animation and the few words spoken on the matter were enough to give a brilliant insight into their past together. The animation itself is absolutely fantastic, even more so than in Legend of Aang, which was itself wonderfully animated in its own right. The voice acting was also great (the episode which had Korra's vision of some of the previous series' cast when they were in their forties was great, Aang's particularly - I could hear their voices in there, but they definitely sounded much older and more mature). The villains were both done wonderfully, and I was honestly moved by their backstory - I swear, it was just one of those things that almost got me as emotional as Iroh the first holding the memorial for his son, or Zuko apologising to that same Iroh near the end of Legend of Aang. Almost, but not quite. Still, it was a pretty good piece of story that was very high on emotion, I have to give the creators credit for that (though I wish they had done it for the more central characters, but they haven't killed those off yet, so there's still time). The tone, particularly of the final few episodes had a very dark feel to them, and not in a we're-trying-to-make-our-story-dark-so-people-think-we're-good-but-we're-really-just-covering-up-our-lack-of-substance sort of way (for an example of such an offender though, I do intend to give my thoughts on Man of Steel at some point). The climax built very nicely, and while I agree with the general consensus that the ending felt a bit rushed, I am aware that the creators weren't given the time they needed and had to try and wrap it up in case they weren't allowed to return. A part of me wonders if they did such a shakey job with the end so the people in charge would say 'alright, here's more time - now go and make a better ending.' If that is the case... Well played Mike and Bryan. You got yourselves two more series. Please try to plug up the holes in this one and give more room for the stuff you have done well. I am fully aware that Legend of Aang was not nearly as good partway through as it is looking back and viewing it as a completed product; thus, I am not going to give it a full on comparison until the whole of Korra is finished. In two years time.
Well, those are my general thoughts on the first series of Legend of Korra - not quite at the same level of its predecessor (yet), but that was just one of the high points for TV of all time in my humble opinion, and trying to meet that may be ultimately futile. For what it was, I really enjoyed it despite its flaws, and am looking forward to where they take the next series.
On a more self-indulgent note, it occurs to me that the past couple of reviews weren't my strong suit, since I struggled to get around to reviewing each episode and gave up altogether. I won't be doing an episode by episode set of reviews for series two, though I may post something with my thoughts on how it's going at the mid-season points and at the end. I also plan to review more than just this series; I have a few other series, a couple of films and even some books in mind for my reviews, so I'll try and keep myself motivated by mixing it up a little more than I have been. Until then, bye. I guess.
It turns out that reviewing the series as a whole might be a better way of doing it in the first place; this series is way less episodic than The Legend of Aang/Last Airbender, with a much faster moving plot that moves forward fairly significantly most episodes. This seems to have been done because, in case you hadn't heard, Nickelodeon had only given creators Mike and Bryan twelve episodes to tell the story. While some have praised it for having a more streamlined, fast-paced plot, I personally preferred the slower-moving Legend of Aang. It allowed us to get to know the characters and the world better, and meant that when the finale did roll around some sixty episodes after it began, with everything on the line for both the characters and the world, the stakes were uber-high, the build-up was monumental, and as an audience we loved this explosive, action-packed finale (although the resolution of the conflict was somewhat divisive, I gather). That's not so much the case here.
Don't get me wrong, I still really like the series, I think it has some great characters, a great plot, great design - but the pacing was off, and a few things were thrown into the mix that were unnecessary, and therefore infuriating because of the time constraints and the need to miss out some things I think we'd all have liked to see. As far as unnecessary things go, I'm going to state the obvious - the love triangle. I honestly don't know anyone who thought it was a good idea to incorporate a love triangle into this story, since people are either on Korra's side and wish Asami had never been in the picture, or they are on Asami's side and think Korra is a two-faced whore and Mako is a cheating asshole who deserves death by mau mau. Or they don't care who Mako ends up with and just want to get back to the awesome main plot. I'm in the third camp, although I think there are some middle grounds between the three where a number of fans sit (although admittedly I don't like love triangles in general - it's one of the reasons I can't bring myself to re-watch Phantom of the Opera - which is probably my main reason for disliking that particular side of this show). That said, I do recognise that this isn't the worst love triangle ever made, and it's not totally unbearable to watch. It just comes at the expense of some stuff that would be far more entertaining.
Another unnecessary aspect, which I didn't expect myself to think when I started watching these episodes, was the pro bending. In my previous two reviews, I did state how much I enjoyed the pro bending; however, by the time Amon wrecked the championship final midway through the series, I was more than ready for it to be done. It did have a few good aspects, I will admit - Bolin winning that match for them when Korra and Mako are on bad terms was a great moment for him that showed a much more mature and dependable side than we were used to seeing from him, and I really wish we had seen more moments like that from him throughout the show. Another was when the Council decided to cancel the final in response to Amon's threat, despite Korra's pleas, and then Lin (Lin! YAY!) cuts in and persuades the council not to give in to these threats, and to let it continue. It showcased, yet again, how awesome she is. These two aside, though, it really felt like a bit of a distraction both to Korra and to the plot in general.
As for stuff that I'd have liked to see but weren't, seemingly because of time constraints, was character development - a problem that could have been solved had they included more filler episodes. I think the main sufferers here are Mako and Bolin, who we don't get any development particularly - their only real involvement in the story is because of their friendship with Korra. I'm thinking of doing an article on the two after this. The other characters don't get as much development as I would have liked either; Asami gets a lot of praise from fans for being a brilliant character, and though I did like her, I didn't find her as a character all that memorable - and given her story, it felt like it was a bit of a missed opportunity. Lin is still my favourite character, but I still wish she had gotten more screen time than she did - although the scene between her and Tenzin where she decides to protect his family was one of the best moments in the series, brilliantly subtle in both the animation and voice acting. Tenzin I will admit has turned out pretty well; he does a great job standing in as her father figure in this, and the moment when Korra finally admitted she was scared of Amon worked so well. And his kids grew on me too, though I will admit the comedy fell flat on a few occasions. Fartbending? Really? Oh, and I'd have liked to see more of Iroh. Because one can never have too much Dante Basco.
On the flip side, there were some truly fantastic moments in the show as well. Lin and Tenzin's moments were excellent, as there was clearly a past that the creators managed to speak volumes about without ever using flashbacks, or even having the characters talk about it for very long. The voice acting, animation and the few words spoken on the matter were enough to give a brilliant insight into their past together. The animation itself is absolutely fantastic, even more so than in Legend of Aang, which was itself wonderfully animated in its own right. The voice acting was also great (the episode which had Korra's vision of some of the previous series' cast when they were in their forties was great, Aang's particularly - I could hear their voices in there, but they definitely sounded much older and more mature). The villains were both done wonderfully, and I was honestly moved by their backstory - I swear, it was just one of those things that almost got me as emotional as Iroh the first holding the memorial for his son, or Zuko apologising to that same Iroh near the end of Legend of Aang. Almost, but not quite. Still, it was a pretty good piece of story that was very high on emotion, I have to give the creators credit for that (though I wish they had done it for the more central characters, but they haven't killed those off yet, so there's still time). The tone, particularly of the final few episodes had a very dark feel to them, and not in a we're-trying-to-make-our-story-dark-so-people-think-we're-good-but-we're-really-just-covering-up-our-lack-of-substance sort of way (for an example of such an offender though, I do intend to give my thoughts on Man of Steel at some point). The climax built very nicely, and while I agree with the general consensus that the ending felt a bit rushed, I am aware that the creators weren't given the time they needed and had to try and wrap it up in case they weren't allowed to return. A part of me wonders if they did such a shakey job with the end so the people in charge would say 'alright, here's more time - now go and make a better ending.' If that is the case... Well played Mike and Bryan. You got yourselves two more series. Please try to plug up the holes in this one and give more room for the stuff you have done well. I am fully aware that Legend of Aang was not nearly as good partway through as it is looking back and viewing it as a completed product; thus, I am not going to give it a full on comparison until the whole of Korra is finished. In two years time.
Well, those are my general thoughts on the first series of Legend of Korra - not quite at the same level of its predecessor (yet), but that was just one of the high points for TV of all time in my humble opinion, and trying to meet that may be ultimately futile. For what it was, I really enjoyed it despite its flaws, and am looking forward to where they take the next series.
On a more self-indulgent note, it occurs to me that the past couple of reviews weren't my strong suit, since I struggled to get around to reviewing each episode and gave up altogether. I won't be doing an episode by episode set of reviews for series two, though I may post something with my thoughts on how it's going at the mid-season points and at the end. I also plan to review more than just this series; I have a few other series, a couple of films and even some books in mind for my reviews, so I'll try and keep myself motivated by mixing it up a little more than I have been. Until then, bye. I guess.
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