Social media of ATLA & TLOK staff (Bryan, Mike, voice actors, etc...)

[PrincessBlazefire]

Ohhhh boy. Now here's a touchy subject.

I have... mixed feelings about this. While I think it's cool that writers listen to fans and try to give them a story that they would want to read/see/hear, I also think it's a risky business because put frankly, there is NO away that you're gonna be able to please everyone. And if you start implementing fandom things into canon, then you're basically picking and choosing who your favorite fans are and pandering to them specifically. Not everyone in fandom agrees on things, so it's unfair that only some people get their ideas into the story and not the others.

Also, doing this sort of thing very much comes across like lazy writing. Like, you as the writer couldn't figure out what needed to happen by yourself? You had to have the audience come up with the story for you?? What am I even bothering with this story for then if I have to make up portions of the story myself??

I've been having to deal with this very issue once again in Overwatch. This wonderful, creative world was created that so many people are interested in, but the writers have no idea what they're doing with the story (they even outright said this publicly!). They've retconned a lot of things already, to the point where they cancelled an entire graphic novel delving into the past of Overwatch literally days before it was supposed to be released. It's a giant mess right now. But you know what? At least they've been honest about it. Jeff Kaplan, the head of the Overwatch team, has clearly stated that they listen to the fandom and want to implement things that the fandom wants to see in the story and basically have told everyone that the story is ours to interpret and mold into what we want it to be. It's frustrating, but I appreciate their honesty about all of it. I'd much rather the writers be upfront about their struggles with writing the story than skirting around the issue, acting like everything's fine, but still being influenced by fandom without saying anything.

[mmoon24]

Most likely, no one will ever know. It would upset one side or the other.

[Fire Rose]

Ohhhh boy. Now here's a touchy subject.

I have... mixed feelings about this. While I think it's cool that writers listen to fans and try to give them a story that they would want to read/see/hear, I also think it's a risky business because put frankly, there is NO away that you're gonna be able to please everyone. And if you start implementing fandom things into canon, then you're basically picking and choosing who your favorite fans are and pandering to them specifically. Not everyone in fandom agrees on things, so it's unfair that only some people get their ideas into the story and not the others.

Also, doing this sort of thing very much comes across like lazy writing. Like, you as the writer couldn't figure out what needed to happen by yourself? You had to have the audience come up with the story for you?? What am I even bothering with this story for then if I have to make up portions of the story myself??

It's one thing to listen to fans for feedback on the story (the constructive criticism kind) but it's another to have the fans tell the story for you. Have M&B really gotten lazy?

[Loopy]

I think we have to draw the line between storytelling that's meant to be art and storytelling that's meant to be crowd-pleasing entertainment. Bowing to audience demands in either one isn't a good thing (audiences don't actually know what they like), but for the latter kind of storytelling, it isn't a bad thing to pay attention to audience reaction and then making adjustment to hit the notes you want to hit. Like, "Oh, that character wasn't meant to be taken as sympathetic, just having a recognizable kind of evil, so I better make the character worse." That's fine.

It starts to get a bit blurrier if it becomes about giving more focus and story to a minor character who has become popular. Good things can come from that, or else a balance can be thrown off and a character never meant to be more than one-note loses its charm or becomes a weight around the neck of the plot. Same thing with romances being introduced for characters who were never meant to be together but who the audience has "shipped."

And then there's "art." In that case, audience reaction isn't something that the artist should, usually, pay attention to. The art is an expression from the artist, but traditionally there's no mandate that the artist's intent actually be perceived. It's kind of what makes art weird.

So if the quote is meant to highlight that there are two opposing kinds of audiences, then it's kind of a no-brainer. There are people who want to appreciate their favorite entertainment as art, and sometimes that entertainment is meant to be art. In that case, it's expected that much of the story would have been planned out at the beginning. Then there's popular entertainment, where shippers can reasonably expect to influence things if they reach a critical audience mass.

If it's meant to say that everyone has those two sides in them, and people are therefore awful, then I don't agree.

If it's meant to say that it's tough being a storyteller because nowadays both of those kinds of audiences inevitably show up, well, that's why Hollywood storytellers get paid the big bucks, right?

[Nausicaa]

Oh yeah, KorraNation posted some pictures reminding people that there's going to be a booth selling Avatar and Korra books at SDCC. They posted gifs of them flipping through Turf Wars and the Korra colouring book too. Looks like a bunch of the other books will be available too.

This probably means that some people have read the whole of Turf Wars already?

[Icy_Ashford]

Well, it's due to be released on 26 Jul so I'm not surprised Dark Horse sold copies early at SDCC.

[hmweasley]

This probably means that some people have read the whole of Turf Wars already?

There are people posting pictures of their signed copies on Tumblr and talking about what happens in it.

[ByStorm]

Ohhhh boy. Now here's a touchy subject.

I have... mixed feelings about this. While I think it's cool that writers listen to fans and try to give them a story that they would want to read/see/hear, I also think it's a risky business because put frankly, there is NO away that you're gonna be able to please everyone. And if you start implementing fandom things into canon, then you're basically picking and choosing who your favorite fans are and pandering to them specifically. Not everyone in fandom agrees on things, so it's unfair that only some people get their ideas into the story and not the others.

Also, doing this sort of thing very much comes across like lazy writing. Like, you as the writer couldn't figure out what needed to happen by yourself? You had to have the audience come up with the story for you?? What am I even bothering with this story for then if I have to make up portions of the story myself??

It's one thing to listen to fans for feedback on the story (the constructive criticism kind) but it's another to have the fans tell the story for you. Have M&B really gotten lazy?

To be fair, they've always ridden on the talents of others who executed those ideas far better or offered better changes than they did. Most of the iconic ideas from the original show [like Iroh being Zuko's loving uncle, Sokka's comedic personality, Toph being a girl, the character designs of Jet's gang, , the writing, etc.] all came from other writers and crew anyways. Even with a few writers for ATLA/Korra on Voltron, it seems quite hackneyed at times.

This is precisely why M and B shouldn't get all the credit for the show being what it is. It's like giving Stan Lee credit for everything Chris Claremont did in the X-Men in the 80s, or for Jack Kirby.  Granted, they created the general plot of the original series, but ATLA probably would've bombed had it been exclusively only M and B's talents. They're idea people more than they are at in executing them. Every single problem inherent in  the TLA movie is inherent in Korra, yet M and B get spared from criticism and defended for no decent reason. And to be honest? They should just pretend Korra never happened if someone else makes another Avatar series, if not merely reboot it. Retell the story, but get rid of all the nonsense like a Brotherhood version.

I've seen other Nick creators bomb once they lost that collaboration, take Jorge Gutierrez on The Book of Life. Story was stale and a pale imitation of El Tigre down to all the character roles in the film itself, largely because the movie had been in development hell for years even before Del Toro gotten to it. And looking back, the movie didn't get any better. It's pretty, but that's the only positive trait it has to it. I bet Coco will obviously make it even more obscure from all the buzz around it.

Beyond that ,most creators in TV animation don't tend to make anything larger to begin with, or heavily depend on collaboration until it's a crutch. But it seems like they all have a common storytelling flaw where they cannot hold up their own work on their own merits.

[AtoMaki]

Odd. I do have experiences with a storyline that almost exclusively relied on fan-input to progress (Legend of the Five Rings), and it wasn't really that bad. Like, most of the problems with it came from the developer (AEG) undermining the fan-input rather than listening to it.

[longman83]

^ That's a game though, so maybe it's different?

I suppose it depends on what the fandom wants, or what the writers think they want, and what side of the fandom they are paying attention to. Avatar apparently had an outsized shipping representation, so that was always going to be dicey in terms of implementation. Too bad there wasn't enough of this to turn Bryke's head.

But to go back to Mike's tumblr post, how would someone like GRRM respond to those questions? That guy doesn't come off as particularly moved by the fandom. LoK was marketed as GoT-lite, so I don't think it is an unfair comparison.

[Loopy]

To be fair, they've always ridden on the talents of others who executed those ideas far better or offered better changes than they did. Most of the iconic ideas from the original show [like Iroh being Zuko's loving uncle, Sokka's comedic personality, Toph being a girl, the character designs of Jet's gang, , the writing, etc.] all came from other writers and crew anyways. Even with a few writers for ATLA/Korra on Voltron, it seems quite hackneyed at times.

This is precisely why M and B shouldn't get all the credit for the show being what it is. It's like giving Stan Lee credit for everything Chris Claremont did in the X-Men in the 80s, or for Jack Kirby.  Granted, they created the general plot of the original series, but ATLA probably would've bombed had it been exclusively only M and B's talents. They're idea people more than they are at in executing them.

Well, I mean, let's not go crazy, here. It's wrong to give the Mike and the Bryan full credit for AtLA, but they were the showrunners. They had final approval of everything, and we don't know anything about all the ideas that they didn't approve, aside from what they've shared of their early work. Let's not get too reductive with the phrase "idea men." They had the vision for the show, and it's a vision that's present in LoK, and distinctly lacking in M Nighty's work. (Also, TLA had terrible acting. LoK had voices that didn't quite match the characters, IMO, but no one was acting poorly.)

They were the ones in the Writers' Room, running the story, when all those writers were putting together the nitty-gritty. They were the ones who wanted to do an anime(-esque) epic that could stand as a work of art.

Their reach just exceeded their grasp.

[Icy_Ashford]

Get back on topic and take the conversation to the PMs or the relevant threads.

[Fire Rose]

So Aaron Ehasz, head writer of ATLA, has started a new production company called WonderStorm and is planning on making a new series on Netflix.

http://korranews.com/post/168061894470/the-head-writer-and-a-director-of-avatar-the-last

[Runamuck]

A little while ago Michael Dante DiMartino got a new website:
http://www.michaeldantedimartino.com/

[Justrec]

So Aaron Ehasz, head writer of ATLA, has started a new production company called WonderStorm and is planning on making a new series on Netflix.

http://korranews.com/post/168061894470/the-head-writer-and-a-director-of-avatar-the-last

this didnt get its own thread? i searched and found nothing. weird. aaron was one of the reasons this show was so phenomenal and it has a couple of avatar alumni on the project as well as superb talent from other works also

[Loopy]

Well, there's not a lot to go on, right now. Personally, I'm stoked about Giancarlo Volpe's involement; he did a great job as showrunner for the Green Lantern series.