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Legend of Korra Book 4: Balance |OT| A Feast of Crows

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What the absolute fuck?

This is the equivalent of George Lucas selling Star Wars after ROJ in terms of batshit insanity

It's not like that all. It's standard practice for networks and/or production companies to have ownership of the intellectual properties that are created under their auspices and with their money. Nick has owned Avatar from the time they picked it up for a pilot more than a decade ago. George Lucas was actually in a similar position with Fox regarding Star Wars when he was trying to get the first film made, but he had a stronger negotiating position than Bryke did because he was already an established and successful filmmaker. This allowed Lucas to keep the merchandising rights to Star Wars (which Fox didn't care about that much anyway since movie merchandising as we know it was largely created by SW), and he used the money from this to buy back some of the rights to the first film and to finance the sequels himself. Bryke have never been in the position to do this; they had never created a show before Avatar and were in no position to demand concessions from Nick if they wanted to actually get to make a show.
 
WTF was that?
Nick screwing with the show yet again.
Nick slashed the budget for Book 4 and it was either do a clip show or let go of a significant amount of workers early.
We got the news from the higher-ups that our Book 4 budget was getting slashed, almost to the tune of an entire episode’s budget. We had two options: 1) let go a significant number of crew members several weeks early, or 2) make a clips episode. We never considered the first option. We weren’t going to do that to our crew, and even if we were callous enough to do so, we never would have been able to finish the season without them.
Bryan Konietzko
 
For those complaining or worrying about the pace, I'd like to point out that Season 3 ran at a similar pace until episode 8. Korra never even met Zaheer or was aware that he was a threat until episode 8. Before that the action focused on the Earth Queen, finding and training airbenders and the metal clan. Episode 8 she almost got kidnapped and they found out who was the snitch. Episode 9 she locates and talks to Zaheer and gets kidnapped by the Earth Kingdom. Episode 10 Zaheer kills the queen. Episode 11 Zaheer takes the air nation hostage. Episode 12 Korra gives herself up to Zaheer resulting in a huge battle cause P'Li's death. Episode 13 Final showdown.

The plot accelerated from 0 to 60 fairly quickly. I think there is still plenty of opportunity to have a big grand finale.
 
The Azula that Stole Christmas

Does the Avatar world even have that many holidays? There was the Glacier Spirits Festival in Book 2 but I'm drawing a blank on anything else.

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Avatar Day or the day the Avatar was not burned in oil


The Yangchen Festival
 
For those complaining or worrying about the pace, I'd like to point out that Season 3 ran at a similar pace until episode 8. Korra never even met Zaheer or was aware that he was a threat until episode 8. Before that the action focused on the Earth Queen, finding and training airbenders and the metal clan. Episode 8 she almost got kidnapped and they found out who was the snitch. Episode 9 she locates and talks to Zaheer and gets kidnapped by the Earth Kingdom. Episode 10 Zaheer kills the queen. Episode 11 Zaheer takes the air nation hostage. Episode 12 Korra gives herself up to Zaheer resulting in a huge battle cause P'Li's death. Episode 13 Final showdown.

The plot accelerated from 0 to 60 fairly quickly. I think there is still plenty of opportunity to have a big grand finale.

I see where you are coming from, but I don't really agree. Basically, I agree that the pacing for the main plot in Book 3 was strange. And in the grand scheme of things, we can even look back and say it was a misstep (since Zaheer needed more time to be fleshed out on a character level by the end of it). But this is why I don't think the comparison is 1:1.

First off, Book 3's side plots were quick paced. And while Zaheer and the main plot (ie. his motivation and Korra and him clashing) wasn't until the back half of the season, Zaheer + his group were a lot of fun to watch. Their jail break scenes, their fight sequences trying to get to Korra. It was all exhilarating stuff. Anytime they were on screen it was just pure entertainment. The air bending nation plot, the earth kingdom stuff, and even Lin and Su's back plot were all interesting stuff (on a smaller scale).

So while I agree that the pacing for the main plot was also kind of strange, I think the actual content that was the first half of Book 3, was either I. Fun. II. Interesting. III. Entertaining. Book 4 is different, in that most of the plot is a singular focus (Kuvira & Korra being broken). These two plot points are the sole focus, and run parallel. I guess it's subjective opinion, but I don't find Kuvira or her movement anywhere as entertaining or exciting as Zaheer, even if we didn't know what Zaheer or his motivations were until much later.

I also don't find the episodes in Book 4 up to this point, as fun/entertaining as Book 3's episodes were (on a self-contained individual level). I think Book 3 was aided, by Korra and the group traveling around (the call back to ATLA's adventure style) and so the side plot and whatever the episode was focused on (while maybe not important, like something like Kai)...were still fun and entertaining.

Kuvira on the other hand, is pretty stoic. She hasn't really played her cards, and is pretty steady with her image. We already know the drill with what her plans are. And it's just kind of a slow burn of her getting bigger and bigger, and Korra being off on her plot feeling broken and down. Book 4 is past the half way point, and everything feels like nothing progressed, and has actually taken steps back. All of Korra's plot, feels like it fell apart and needed to start over when she lost to Kuvira after 4 episodes being dedicated to her training. We finally got to see an interesting side to Kuvira, when she got smug and took delight in beating Korra down in front of others. But outside of that, we really don't know anymore about Kuvira. And again, her taking over the Earth Empire was already basically in motion since Episode 2. Her taking metal city wasn't really a big revelation. I would say the ONLY thing that has progressed with her plot, is the spirit vine stuff.

So yeah, in comparison I just think Book 4 feels a ton slower. We have these two single plot points, and they feel like they are running in place. Whereas Book 3 kind of felt like a mish mash of things. It was basically Team Avatar doing adventure shit, while a looming threat was off in the distance getting bigger and bigger. Book 4 is more like, the threat is already known. We already know what it is. Korra is just broken and not able to stand up to it. So it's pretty much all about Korra getting to a place to finally step up.

If they would have done more with Book 4's political plot, and asking a bit more interesting questions about the Role of the Avatar (and focusing on it from that perspective, rather than Korra just not being confident) -- then I would have said this Season could have been as interesting.
 
Woofington, I'm still working on a Santa version of your avatar. But something that always bugged me, is that your avatar has compression/artifacts due to it not being the right resolution for the boards avatar dimensions. Here is a high quality version of your picture, but with transparent background:

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Xmas version:

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I made sure to match up the hat so it's close to the same spot (so where the hat is a little on the left ear, the top hat also was there. I put them on top of one another). That said, I'm not sure if the hat is right in terms of the shape and angle. (It covers the left ear up a little bit more at the top just because the santa hat is wider. I don't know if I can make it better).

Thoughts?

Double edit: damn, just realized the hat goes behind the ears too. Fuuuu. Hmmm.

Triple edit: yeah lol maybe just go with the non x-mas version. Damn. Your avatar is really hard, because even if you can get the hat to go between the years (I did get it to do that), it doesn't look right as you would need to warp it to change the perspective. Which it's going at an angle to the back. Muh skills are being matched.

Final edit: OKAY...best I could do (after 1 hour of messing around):

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Lol I tried. If you don't want to use the Christmas ones, don't worry. I was bored, so no biggie (although you should at least use the first one :P as it's better quality and transparent :P). Yeahhhh. Gonna take off now. NIGHT

Also that is the record for most Edit's ever in a post suckas!

You could also post the transparent image I gave you in the Xmas thread, and a photoshop Wizard could do a better Santa hat job (just ask for inbetween the ears yo).
 
Yo quick question. Is the latest episode straight up just recap? Does nothing important happen?

Well...

Not "important" but there's some movement forward. There are like 5 minutes of new footage, chibi faces, Varrick comes up with an idea for a new Naktuk mover that is used as an excuse to play around with previous villains and footage.There's some signs that Wu is interested in actually becoming a good ruler. Team Avatar places itself ready to move-on from their past and latest mistakes (like Bolin). Korra doesn't resolve her final barrier, represented in those hallucinations, but Tenzin and Asami basically tell her that she's done good as the Avatar, some stuff about about balance, and "cheer-up" in general that mostly works.
 
Someone on Reddit put together an album of the remaining unaired scenes from the Book 4 trailer. Not too much left now that we haven't seen from the Book 4 trailer.
http://imgur.com/a/d873A#0

Wonder if the White Lotus "prison" will be showing up this week or not?
 
Book does Season 2 of Korra better than Korra does.
Real talk

Man, the Rift is definitely my favourite of the three Avatar comics. You've got Aang versus Toph, Top reuniting with her dad, ove the reconciliation scene between Aang and Roku and the giant rock titan that Aang makes to fight General Old Iron. It really is Book 2 done right with Aang trying to balance the human and spiritual world conflict.
 
Spongebob shits money though.

Although Nick's treatment of book 2 regarding scheduling and all that was pretty bad.
Based on what I heard Spongebob stopped being good years ago, but since it shits money they just cram it down people throats. No wonder why I barely watch Western cartoons. They can be good yes, but man they very rarely finish their intended stories.
 
Real talk

Man, the Rift is definitely my favourite of the three Avatar comics. You've got Aang versus Toph, Top reuniting with her dad, ove the reconciliation scene between Aang and Roku and the giant rock titan that Aang makes to fight General Old Iron. It really is Book 2 done right with Aang trying to balance the human and spiritual world conflict.

Well considering how the first two Avatar comic trilogies turned out, that's a pretty low bar. :P

I did like The Rift for what it was, but it still feels like glorified fanfic. I was surprised at the number of Korra references considering that the comic takes place almost 70 years before. The cabbage man stuff in part 3 in particular would be meaningless to anyone who hadn't watched Book 1 of Korra and thus knew about Cabbage Corp.
 
I can actually see her doing this to Zaheer. Got Dragons Age Inquisition this morning so I'll be going to "Not Mordor" this Thanksgiving break. Is there any way to uniquely Christmas cheer up this avatar? I feel left out.
Found these this morning, sorry for the big ass post:
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Are these supposed to be a strip or separate illustrations?
Good with either way.
 
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