by Merrill Barr:
Nickelodeon’s Avatar franchise created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael danta DiMartino is truly one of the biggest surprise hits of the last decade. A family show that combines the spectacle of animation with adult story-telling is a rarity, especially one met with the reception this franchise has received over the years.
For the first time in franchise history, the latest iteration of the series, The Legend of Korra was brought out east for New York Comic-Con in a panel that featured Konietzko, EP Joaquim Dos Santos, Janet Varney (Korra), P.J. Byrne (Bolin) and the newest cast member, Steven “Walking Dead” Yeun (Wan). Together, the 5 of them answered fan questions and broke down the lengthy process it takes to make up a single scene of the series.
But before any of that happened, the audience was treated to a special advanced screening of next week’s episode titled “Beginnings, Part 1.” In the episode we see the origins of the first avatar, Wan, as he gains his powers over the element of fire and learns just how small his little world has truly been. That’s all I’m willing to spill in broad strokes, the rest you’ll just have to see for yourself this Friday.
The most fascinating thing about the episode is the animation style. It’s completely different from the style used on the show currently, and pays a lot of homage to, according to Bryan, the film Spirited Away. It was a true joy to watch this particular episode with a crowd full of fans and is an episode that’s going to blow the rest of the season out of the water.
During the Q & A that followed the screening Varney admitted her love of the fan art she sees online for the show, and is blown away by the work the fans put into each piece. P.J. was then asked about his characters “relationship” in the show and stated “if you are in a relationship like that, get out,” clearly taking notice of the response the story line has received online about it being an abusive relationship.
Yeun, when asked about joining the show, stated that he took the role very seriously but was also very nervous about screwing up the origin of the first avatar in the world. He added that he was turned on to the show prior to booking the role by the same friend that turned him on to The Walking Dead comics.
As far as news is concerned, Bryan stated the voice cast is in the process of recording Book 4 of the series (the reported final book which is still 2 years away as we are currently in book 2), and that it has become very hard to keep track of where the crew is in production versus where the audience is in viewing the episodes.
To close out the panel, Bryan ran through a slide show showing off the step-by-step process it takes to build a 30 second scene of the series, a process that I and the rest of the audience learned is extremely extensive and explains why the show takes such a long time to produce. Bryan added that a single episode can contain as many as 15,000 drawings that all need to be individually processed.
In the end, the Korra panel was much more than the audience bargained for. They were treated to the best episode of the season (possible series) to date, and got to go behind the scenes of the show they love so dear. This is a comic-con panel done right.
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