Book II is definitely the series' weakest installment, and I think the blame for that can be placed pretty squarely on Nickelodeon's shoulders for dicking the creators around about how many seasons they were going to have, and making the final decision so late. My guess is that between having already completed their planned character arc and not having as much time as they should have had to properly plan the rest of the series, the best the creative team could do was slack a bit on Book II by retreading a lot of Book I in order to buy themselves time to properly plan out Books III and IV.
Honestly, as Screwed by the Network as this show was, it's pretty impressive that it still turned out as great as it did.
What matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. - F. Rogers.
Agreed, totally. The review sounds harsher than I meant it to be; I genuinely like Korra more. Sure, TLA had a more cohesive plot and time to develop the characters (and more consistant characterization) but Korra had more interesting characters who just didn't have time to develop (for understandable reasons in most cases). If I had one big issue with this show it's that I can understand needing each book to wrap up the arc incase it is the last, even being fairly self-contained, but I really feel that they fail to capitalized on /previous/ Books and development. Sometimes it's as though they hired a new writing team with each Book, who even though they watched the show before, they'd all go in slightly different directions and have their own takes on what to develop.
I suspect writing this that they were originally expecting to have a full arc and so when they found out they wouldn't necessarily have Book II they already had part of the script for Book II written, only to have to go back and cram in a lot more development to Book I in fear that they wouldn't get a sequel. Meanwhile once they did air Book II it was with the idea that it might be their last; so they rushed three books worth of story into one and as a result, it feels schizophrenic and rushed. Vaatu and Raava don't make sense as mid-series enemies, nothing Korra faces afterwards is on the same scale. Frankly, I think they should have avoided the plot line altogether.
The result is that Book I has flaws but is over all solid and self contained but Book II is sort of a mess and I'm /really/ not fond of the theology. The ancient history with Wan is cool but feels a bit plot tumor-y since it takes so much time in a series which has precious little for each arc.
Over all; I have to admit it's not technically as well put together as the original and while I recognize the Network has a lot of blame on them? I think the writers could have dealt with things better regardless, still I enjoy it more than TLA. The potential is there and the setting is simply more novel and fascinating. The Politics are awesome (except the need to always make it clear cut at the end) and the world building is great. It's just not as well lived in as the original setting.
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Interesting but Stunted: Spoilers
Honestly, a part of me likes Korra more than TLA; not for the story or characters though, it's for the 20s aesthetic and the focus on politics.
Korra is an interesting character and an enjoyable one; She starts out strongheaded and overconfident only to move past, only to become obcessed with her failures. It's believeable and honestly, she's more fun than Aang in my eyes. A lot of the characters have an interesting development; the Beifong family have an interesting dynamic and the adults from it are all awesome individually, Zhu Li and Varrik are great, Tenzin's older family members are fascinating and even the Kids could be interesting. Asami is great and the arc with her father is well done.
The feel and aesthetic of the world in Avatar moving forward and having an industrial revolution? It's why I love this series. If nothing else, they pulled that off well.
The main problem with this series is that the individual Books don't connect. There are reasons that each book is a self-contained arc, sure. Still Book II is a prime example of ignoring character growth. A major part of Book I was Korra learning to respect Tenzin, Book II has her run off immediately. Bolin becomes Narcissistic when this trait isn't in Book I (IV does it better). Another major problem is that the villains have fascinating premises but they rarely get explored: Both Book I and IV but feel weakened by the need to make their villains evil rather than ambiguous. Was Kuvira having re-education camps necessary?
Zahir and the Red Lotus come off particularly bad in this; their motivation is poorly thought out and frankly comes off as a caricature of Anarchism. His co-operation with Korra in book IV is really strange, both in character and thematically; I can understand the moral of accepting the past where you were a victim but confronting the attacker in person for absolution seems like an awful idea.
Book II was a disaster; As said before, the character development is overlooked while the theology is dumbed down. Raava and Vaatu give a very wierd dualistic element to a character that represents Balance, while they develop Wan only to remove him. At least the twins and Varrik give us fun moments.
In short, Book I was great; if nothing else watch that. After that, the show is a mixed bag but still fun. Don't let Book II turn you off and you might enjoy it.