As most of you know, Dora and the Lost City of Gold isn’t Nickelodeon’s first attempt at making a live-action adaption of a pre-existing Nicktoon: In 2010, they teamed up with M Night Shyamalan to create a movie based on the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Today, however, I won’t be talking about that movie. Instead, I will talk about Nick's two previous attempts at making more grown-up stories with classic characters: All Grown Up and The Legend of Korra. First, let's take a look back at the Rugrats spinoff All Grown Up.
All Grown Up started as a half-hour TV special in 2001 to accommodate the 10th anniversary of The Rugrats. Titled 'All Growed Up', the special was about the babies and Angelica imagining what their life would be like ten years in the future, and it depicted the characters as 10-to-13-year-olds. The TV special was hugely successful, raking in millions of viewers, and Nickelodeon commissioned creators Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo to create a spinoff series called All Grown Up, as well as cancel the original Rugrats. Anyway, the series revolved around Tommy and the gang ten years older than they were on The Rugrats: Tommy, Phil, Lil, and Kimi were now 11, Dil was now 10, Chuckie was now 12, and Angelica and Susie were now both 13. The characters are now drastically different than how they were in The Rugrats, such as Tommy wanting to be a film director, Phil being a talented cook, Chuckie becoming a lady's man, Angelica becoming nicer, and, oddly enough, Dil having a connection with aliens. The series would focus on the characters going through problems that tweens would have, such as puberty, being bullied, and trying to be cool. Some fans loved the new series and thought it gave the characters more depth and had more interesting plots, while others think it ruined the original series and drained the magic of the original source material. I personally feel that it was unnecessary because Nickelodeon already had another series with a similar premise: As Told By Ginger. I never seen it, but I heard it was actually pretty good.
Too bad this show was never released on DVD as a complete set.
The Legend of Korra was originally conceived as a miniseries (but eventually made into a full-fledged TV series with 52 episodes), taking place 70 years after 'Avatar'. Aang has passed away, and now a new Avatar has been chosen: A 17-year-old Water-Bender named Korra. She has mastered all four of the major elements but Air. Joined by her polar bear dog Naga, Earth-Bending and Fire-Bending brothers Bolin and Mako, and mechanic Asami Sato, they fight for and protect Republic City from villains like Bender-hating Amon, Dark Avatar spirit Vaatu, and evil Earth Queen Kuvira. Since a lot of people already talked about the flaws of The Legend of Korra, even going as far as ranting about it, I'm going to sum it up: No over-arching plots, underdeveloped characters, clumsy writing, and few returning characters that didn't do much. Not to mention that some of the new technology in 'Korra' was too advanced for the Avatar world, even going as far as having radios and movies with sound!
Seriously? A telephone during the Imperial Ages?
As for what viewers thought of 'Korra', it mostly got positive reviews. However, it is rather divisive among the Avatar fanbase: Some love it and think it's better than the original, while some hate it because it isn't like The Last Airbender.
To be continued in Part 2, in which I will talk about the actual Dora movie.
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