Reviews

In general I wouldn't call the show bad, but it suffers from being extremely derivative of much better shows and having hideous animation. The story itself is your by-the-books fantasy setup mixed with almost the exact same history of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and is cliche to the point of even younger kids knowing that it's mediocre. Throughout the show I never really found the characters to have any major aspects that attached me to them, again being pretty run of the mill overall.

The animation is distracting in its jerkiness, with extremely low frame rate on moving objects coupled with curiously smooth camera movement. It seems like they could have animated everything as well as the camera movement, but I guess not. This low-quality 3D animation style is becoming popular yet it only seems to be getting uglier and uglier.

Other odd points are the questionable use of music that doesn't seem to fit the atmosphere or setting of the show. Again, it sounds similar to the Avatar music, which has an entirely different setting and suggested time period than this show. The jokes and humor in this show are also very hit and miss, even avoiding personal bias.

Even though the show is made by just one of the Avatar writers and one of the producers (the creators of ATLA were NOT involved in this show), it feels like a 10-years-too-late knock off of it. It doesn't show a lack of effort, and it isn't a complete disaster, but it's merely background noise or something you watch between episodes of ATLA or LOK without paying attention.

Overall, I would say that I enjoy this show. It has great animation, excellent voice acting, and characters with potential. Unfortunately, my attachment to this show seems to be relying solely on potential I see that has yet to be met, even after 2 seasons.

The main issue with this show is that it has no idea what its strengths and weaknesses are. It tries to do a TON of different things, just trying to see what sticks. Another big issue is the conveniences. Many characters are capable of or learn special abilities in the show, yet they seem to only work once and NOT when they're most needed.

The series has arguably 7 main characters. While I didn't enjoy Keith or Shiro in the first season, they were virtually the only characters that had any sort of...well, CHARACTER in Season 2. Everyone else is abruptly shoved to the sideline and shoehorned into a single defining trait, making them dull and repetitive. Hunk is the food-obsessed fat guy. Pidge is the tech geek. Lance is the comedy guy. That's all they are, nothing more. The villains are also about as compelling as a cardboard box, as we are given nearly no backstory or decent motivation for them at all.

It's overall pretty disappointing to see people who worked on such great shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Justice League Unlimited, and The Legend of Korra write such a sloppy show with so much unused potential. What could be episodes focused on developing characters and working towards the plot are spent on pointless side quests with more-miss-than-hit comedy, most of which having to do with fueling their ship. None of the character balance, consistent pacing, compelling story, atmosphere, or depth from the staff's prior work seems to be fully realized in this project.

That being said, the show is not completely doomed. It still has a lot of potential. If the next season(s) spend more time making the characters interesting and creating a more compelling story, it could definitely live up to the hype. I don't want this show to be bad, and I'm going to continue watching it in hopes that it realizes exactly how great it could be.