How great are the White Falls Wolfbats? Come on, you may love to hate Tahno, but their entrance was one of the best set-pieces I’ve seen in a while. They came out in those masks and I was already at the edge of my seat making metal horns with my fingers…and then they lit the fireworks. Just glorious spectacle…sincerely rivaled by the existence of Fire Ferrets cosplayers. Three of the fans in the stadium are dressed up like Korra, Bolin and Mako, and it is such a great little nod towards the real world fans that I couldn’t help but be charmed.
The meta doesn’t stop there, either; the announcer of the match is the same voice as the recap narrator, and there is a sequence that is just one big wink at the duality of both in-story and out-of-story elements. The post-modern angle of it is hidden underneath a little bit of slapstick, but that is the internal logic of The Legend of Korra; it isn’t a pretentious collection of cinematic sleight of hand but a much more complicated and fun weaving of a story. Heck, even the use of slow motion and rewind is a repurposing of sports tropes…in order to tell a tale of reincarnation and social justice.
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