Honestly… the news that Bryke have left the live action Avatar remake doesn’t really effect my thoughts on the show’s potential in a negative manner. Like… yeah, they made Avatar originally… but they’ve also proven to be fallible on multiple occasions within the past. While both have their good points, some very poor decisions were made with both the comics and with Legend of Korra, in terms of the writing and the content, and Korra at least really suffers in comparison to the original Avatar in terms of writing. Please note, I’m not talking about the characters or the world-building or any of that - other people with more experience and passion for the show have written about the problems those topics have - I am talking purely from a ‘how well is this story written’ perspective.
The original Avatar has its weak points - episodes, characterization choices, bits and pieces here and there - but overall it’s a show that holds up to the rewatch. The story is engaging, interesting, and decently complicated while still being loose enough that missing the odd episode here and there won’t ruin the experience for you. The characters, world, tension, and stakes grow at a good rate over each season, and it’s a pretty solid piece of storytelling.
Legend of Korra, however… I wanted to like this show. I really, really wanted to be drawn back into this world I love so much. I just… never was. Legend of Korra introduced some potentially fascinating concepts - the anti-bender movement, the spirit world and the human world rejoining, the sudden return of airbending to the world… but most of it only felt interesting in retrospect. I couldn’t watch past the first episode of the final season, just because I was so bored and frustrated by that point, and the only characters that truly sparked my curiosity, oddly enough, were the Red Lotus Society. Not even as villains, but because they all genuinely sparked interest in me, how they came together, how they ended up as they are. If their characterizations, attributes, and stories had been used for the main characters, I would have loved that, that would have been absolutely fascinating.
I don’t blame the characters in Korra, I don’t think Korra herself, her Team Avatar, or any of their allies are ‘bad’ - I get what the people who like them enjoy about these characters - I just think the people writing them let them down. I think the people creating the universe and story they inhabited let them down. And, frankly, I was not keen to see the people who decided that this was the appropriate way to follow up Last Airbender would do if allowed to remake Last Airbender.
Bryke are leaving the Last Avatar live action remake? That’s fine, that’s their choice. I’ve been in fandom long enough to know that we don’t need them to tell a good Last Airbender story. They started the ball, but that does not mean they’re necessary to keep it rolling.
