Though The Legend of Korra is now available to stream on Netflix, an issue with the show’s frame rate may result in the show not looking quite as good as you remember. The animated series, a spinoff-sequel of Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, was made available for streaming on August 14th, giving fans renewed interest in the world of Avatar.
Avatar: The Last Airbender has been in the news this month for several reasons. Most notable is the fact that Avatar creators and Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko recently announced that they would be leaving the production team of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of their series. In an open letter, Konietzko attributed the pair’s departure to the negative work environment at Netflix. This announcement led to questions of whether Netflix would be able to handle the world of Avatar appropriately without the creators involved.
Though it is a small technical issue, the frame rate problem with The Legend of Korra certainly doesn’t help Netflix’s case. Spencer Wan discovered the issue and outlined the details on his Twitter. Wan, who is currently working in visual development for the upcoming Spider-Verse sequel, said that the frame rate issue with The Legend of Korra was frankly painful for his “animator eyes.” In the thread, Wan explains that the first season of The Legend of Korra had a rate of 23.97 frames per second, but later seasons switched to 24 frames per second. Unfortunately, Netflix has the entire series, including Season 1, playing back at 24 frames per second, which creates the “ghosting” effect you see below.
Oddly enough, Netflix isn’t the only streaming service that’s had trouble formatting old animation for streaming. Earlier this year, the new streaming service Disney+ had to reformat several episodes of The Simpsons that were being shown in the wrong aspect ratio. This is just another illustration of how the rapidly changing technology in animation is causing problems for platforms that want to maintain compatibility over several generations.
The good news, however, is that these issues are fixable. While it may take a bit of time and labor-intensive work on Netflix’s part, the streaming service should be able to fix this frame rate issue without too much hassle. Netflix has yet to issue any official statement on the problem; however, so it’s still unclear when viewers will get to see Legend of Korra again in all its animated glory.
Source: Spencer Wan on Twitter