Republic City Dispatch

This twist would make me happy, but it would also surprise me. I guess I’ve placed Varrick and Unalaq in the “lying” category and everyone else in the “one step behind” category. 

I’m sure Devindra would also love to see more Lin being awesome. Me, I’m sad we got distracted from going to the Fire Nation by having to prevent Harmonic Convergence.

-Da7e-

Hello Anonymous!

This season’s animation has left some people a little miffed, to be sure (hopefully Beginnings was as pleasant a departure for you as it was for me), but I’m not sure if we’re seeing less Martial Arts Reference work in Book Two or if we just haven’t seen that much direct bending in Book Two. Outside of fighting the Dark Spirit in the premiere, most of Korra’s bending has been in restricted space, even using that rope like a ribbon dagger when she thought her father was part of the rebellion.

The first season had reference, but since this is far in the future from A:TLA’s nation-specific type bending, the styles were re-defined and mixed with some MMA for Book One:

Featuring:
Sifu Kisu – Traditional Chinese Martial Arts
Mac Danzig and Jeremy Umphries’s Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)
Steve Terada and Jake Huang’s “Tricking” Martial Arts

Book Two has had a different and less fluid look to it thus far. I don’t think they’d go as far as to abandon all animation reference for the battle scenes, but the one “Epic” battle we’ve gotten this season was between Wan and Vaatu and was animated by Studio Mir, so it’s hard to make a call at the moment.

-Da7e-

Teaser!

-Da7e-

Yes.

We were being coy. : )

But because Beginnings showed at NYCC, we kinda know what happens.

-Da7e-

No, it’s not just you.

I keep wanting to bring this up on the podcast, but the Japanese-based animation company Studio Pierrot is handling the majority of this season where as A:TLA and Book One were done by Korean-based animation company Studio Mir. 

Studio Mir is going to be taking over The Beginnings episode, which means the flashback sprit world could be a return to form.

Studio Pierrot simply uses fewer character keyframes, so there isn’t a lot of motion while people are talking. They are a big fan of panning across scenes and switching the blur effect to give the illusion of a focus-pull, but those are movements that don’t involve actually drawing the character again.

So, the dialogue scenes have been missing some dynamic movement, but when it comes to the battles, Studio Pierrot hasn’t shied away from some cool looking bending (Korra using the rope in Civil Wars comes to mind), so it’s hard for me to tell if what we’re looking at is Studio Pierrot having a less-dynamic style or Studio Pierrot working under budget constraints and having to reduce the number of drawings in non-action scenes. 

Anyway. I’m not happy about it, and I’m noticing. Especially last week when everyone was on the docks and NOT MOVING except for their mouths. UUUUUUUGH.

-Da7e-

I think we pointed out that Unalaq line that ended with a focus on Varrick in the podcast! Which just makes me happy that we noticed it. Though it’s still unclear if Unalaq knows or if that’s a camera motion meant to foreshadow just to the audience.

And I think the Mako/Bolin heartbreaker exchange is still totally funny. Mostly because I see Mako and Korra ending up together at the end of the series as a whole, so this just feels like mutually-assured suffering on both sides. 

They’ll grow and learn and kiss again someday.

-Da7e-

Is this the same cartoon that ended in a murder/suicide last season?

-Da7e-

We’re just used to Patches being crazy. : )

-Da7e-

It’s one of the more important quotes of understanding why the US is at war all the time.

And on a side note, my “OR WALT DISNEY” in reference to Varrick got stomped on a bit while we were talking about Nazi Propaganda. Before we demonize Varrick as a villain, war profiteering and propaganda happens on all sides.

What I brought up (but it got kind of smushed in the mix) was Walt Disney’s Victory Through Air Power about how we should build the world’s most advanced air force and keep building lots and lots of bombs.

It’s in the public domain, and if you have about 30 minutes to look at some amazing American propaganda:

-Da7e-

NOOOOOO, STAR WARS PREQUELS!

Ok, I’m going to try to not think about how much the Anakin/Padme relationship was botched in execution and just address what you’re talking about:

Yes. 

Actually the similarity goes deeper as Padme primarily wants to protect her people and her myopic view allows Palpatine to take over the Senate (SPOILER, but I also spared you having to look up “vote of no confidence”), while Anakin works for what is essentially a police force (until the Clones…uh…attack?) that shouldn’t be controlled by Palpatine but is.

In this example, Palpatine is Varrick, not Unalaq. Unalaq is, like, Count Dooku.

If we’re going to talk emotions, it’s hard because the Star Wars Prequel doesn’t really have any (BUUUUUUUURN!), but what they were trying to set up was something like what we saw on Korra and what you identify: serving politics over your relationship will end your relationship.

The main difference between the two, though, is that I don’t see Mako going dark, I see him coming around once he realizes the police are less about honor and more like those two practical-joke officers in The Peacekeepers.

-Da7e-

Isn’t that in the pit? The pit with the old Fire Nation Lady at the top of it? Ok, so maybe Korra isn’t in the pit, but someone is in the pit and being ask if she knows who she is.

I think Korra’s going to be doing a lot of stuff in the Spirit World. Not only is there the Wan episodes, but there’s that shot of her riding the Phoenix Dragon and that shot where she has the three – uh – spirit dogs? – behind her. All this plus the stuff where she sees Roku and meditates with both Tenzin and Jinora.

Anyway, once she gets all spiritual, I’m hoping she also gets a little more Avatar-y and calm and doesn’t run around making rash decisions.

-Da7e-

Korra is winning Friday’s cable ratings, first broadcast, written. Or “non-reality.” It’s the WWE that’s beating Korra.

Nick wise, Spongebob frequently beats Korra (though not by much). Last July, Nick basically won kid’s programming and kept showing growth:

NEW YORK–July 30, 2013–Nickelodeon’s July performance marked the net’s sixth straight month of gains for 2013, with the channel posting double-digit, year-over-year (+19%) growth with K2-11 (3.0/982,000).  Nick’s gains were fueled by solid performances from SpongeBob SquarePants, which ranks as the top animated series for the month with K2-11 (4.8/1.6M) and its hit preschool lineup, which netted Nickelodeon the top spot with preschoolers for July (3.2/428K; +42%).  Bubble Guppies ranks as Nick’s top preschool series for the month, averaging a 5.0/673K with K2-5.  In addition to its monthly gains, Nickelodeon’s preschool block is posting double-digit year to date increases, up +12% with K2-5.

All this means we shouldn’t be worried about Nick. And if Nick has already paid for two additional seasons of Korra, we will get those two seasons somehow.

Moving Korra off Saturday Mornings seems like a weird idea, but someone suggested to me that this might be so Korra can make a run at the prime time Emmys…? Seems off-base to me.

-Da7e-