Tag: Nickelodeon

Fantasy, Television

Did Xena: Warrior Princess Inspire Legend of Korra?

In the 1990s, Xena: Warrior Princess — starring Lucy Lawless — ruled TV. Her chakram, armor, and famous warrior cry helped elevate Xena to one of the 25 best TV shows of all time. It’s 2015, and we have a new TV super woman, and her name is Korra, the Avatar (voiced by Janet Varney). The Legend of Korra is the Nickelodeon animated series that tells the story of a young woman who has the power to control the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Her power to control the elements makes her the most powerful human on the planet. Korra is tasked with bringing balance to the world by merging the spirit and human world in perfect harmony.

Being a fan of both Xena and Korra, the wheels started turning in my head, so I came up with a theory that the creators of Legend of Korra had a little Xena inspiration.

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Sci Fi, Television

Why The Tomorrow People Didn’t Take

With more than a few articles revolving around a certain Scarlet Speedster (I so wouldn’t know anything about that), our fearless leader Keith Chow has deemed this unofficial Flash Week here at the N.O.C.

In keeping with the theme, I wanted to switch gears and review another CW series that featured a few Flash alums, The Tomorrow People.

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Animation, Guest Post

Why Are We Forgetting About Korra?

by Gabrielle Smith

A month ago, at New York Comic-Con, I attended a panel for The Legend of Korra. It was full of sneak peeks, laughs, and goodbyes (considering this is likely their last panel for the series) but there was also a reminder — that Platinum Games is making a video game derived from the series. It takes place between the second and third books of the series, where Korra is stripped of her bending by a chi-blocker, and must regain her abilities throughout the game.

What I’ve found is that people aren’t really talking much about the game. I even forgot myself, considering it was a nice reminder at New York Comic-Con. The creators basically mentioned it as a passing thought, but that may have been due to time constraints. The game isn’t meant to be long (it’s about four to six hours to play), and is a digital download, so that’s likely an aspect of it. The game isn’t a full-fledged entity, but a charming addition to the series. It’s not the most important thing. However, forgetting Korra… this isn’t exactly new. Let’s talk about how Nickelodeon has been treating the series.

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Animation, Music, Nerdcore

SkyBlew Pays Homage to Nickelodeon’s Hey Arnold!

“The Ballad of Pigeon Man” — featuring D&D Sluggers and produced by SublimeCloud of The Digi Destined — is the latest single from North Carolina-based emcee SkyBlew. The song pays homage to the classic Nickelodeon cartoon Hey Arnold!, a show that had a major impact on SkyBlew’s life and serves as the main subject of his latest album.

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Comics & Graphic Novels, Movies

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Proves Michael Bay Does Not Care About You

Very rarely do the things we cherish as youth hold up over time. By the 1980s, the cartoons my generation watched were mostly extended commercials to sell toys. Nevertheless, the lasting ones all seemed to have a good spirit. There were lessons to be learned about teamwork, camaraderie, and leadership. And, then we would go buy some toys.

The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action reboot is a hollow Makerbot rendering of a movie. It is a garbled pastiche of disconnected pop culture references crudely assembled, as if by not-yet-ready-for-Skynet A.I. trying to calculate the best ratio of human enjoyment vs product placement.

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Animation, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps The Legend of Korra: Where in the World is Zaheer?

Episode Nine: “The Stakeout”

This first part of Book 3 has been fast and full of non-stop action. So you know there would be some “set up” episodes and “The Stakeout” falls under this category. There isn’t too much revealed and not much action, but we do see the return of the spirit world and we learned about Zaheer’s past and perhaps clues to his intentions with Avatar Korra.

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Animation, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps The Legend of Korra: Battlefield Earth

Episode Eight: “The Terror Within”

Note from Julie: This week, I’m going to keep the recap brief in order to discuss Nickelodeon’s decision to pull The Legend of Korra off the air into online-only distribution, and to showcase some choice cosplay from San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend!

Korra is already metalbending like a champ, but Bolin has yet to bend any metal at all. Combine that with Opal leaving for the Northern Air Temple to train with Tenzin, and he is despondent, uttering lovesick schlock such as “Every time I eat raw kale, I’m gonna think of you.” Opal still is charmed by him, bless her heart.

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Animation, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps The Legend of Korra: I am the Son and the Air

Episode Seven: “Original Airbenders”

This episode showcased the rise of the new Air Nation. Tenzin is the master teacher of about a dozen new recruits, and in his typical way, is pedantic and tone-deaf to their needs. He drones on about the histories of various ancient monks, while his brother Bumi and the other recruits die of boredom.

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Animation, Recaps, Television

NOC Recaps The Legend of Korra: Sister, Sister

Episode Six: “Old Wounds”

There are some opportunities when my whole family sits down and enjoy a TV show, The Legend of Korra is one of them. This is episode really dives into the history of the Beifong family, sibling fighting  and of course metal bending.

Beifong and team Avatar are in Metal City trying to recruit Opal who has now discovered she is an air bender. Beifong blew up at her when she tried to introduce herself and we start this episode at the breakfast table.

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Animation, Marvel, Movies

Casting for Big Hero 6 Goes Big on Diversity

Back in May, I wrote about Marvel and Disney getting ready to start a big promotional push for the upcoming animated movie Big Hero 6 later this year. At that time only a few names had been announced for the voice actors: Jamie Chung as Go Go Tamago and T.J. Miller as Fred. Maya Rudolph was announced as part of the cast but was tied to an unnamed role. Today, Disney finally announced the actors for the rest of the voice cast.

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