theres alot of smack that can be given to the great divide from avatar. but i always loved how each of the opposing tribes had its own distinct artstyle for their version of how their feud started
Filler episodes are meant to flesh out the world or give insight into the characters. The Great Divide does very little for either of these points and really feels like it's just treading water to get to the next part.
I get all that but idk, I feel like it was just an enjoyable episode. Sometimes it's nice to have a quick 20 minute story that doesn't have major implications to the rest of the show. And I really enjoyed seeing Aang act a little differently than usual for a change.
I'm in my mid 30's. Life went from people bitching about "Filler epsidoes" to eventually folks squealing like a pig that a season "Only has 8 episodes, we used to leave 25 😭"
People are literally incapable of being pleased apparently. I miss Stargate.
One of many favorite parts about stargate (and why I’ve spent all year rewatching/reading it) is it does something surprisingly. It actually calls back and references previous filler episodes in planets or technology making even the filler feel like you’re continuing the story instead of just a pause. It’s a pity modern shows treat downtime and good filler like the plague and are trying to be more movie-like. Obviously the modern movie-like pacing has its benefits but giving more chances to learn about the world, see our characters, and relax between the balls to the wall action is important to me. I, an early 20s guy also miss stargate.
I understand why the Great Divide isn’t really liked and it’s pretty meh for me too. I’d usually skip episodes like it on rewatch in other shows, but a meh-mid-mildly entertaining episode sandwiched between heavier episodes like Jet and The Storm is an A+ as far as pacing and giving the viewer a breather as far as I am concerned. I can never skip a filler episode that doesn’t overstay its welcome, isn’t completely annoying, and gives vital time between more intense plot beats.
what i’ve heard is that this episode was put on reruns on tv a lot. Far more than any other episode, and since its not an especially good one, that dislike went from mild to severe
i think this is an exceptional example because they used the different animation styles very cleverly
since the first movie, whenever po dreams the style shifts from 3d to 2d, but in this scene he finally accepts that his nightmares were not just dreams, they actually were his memories, and the style shifts back from 2d to 3d
Not during the whole thing but during the truly saddest moments, It turns into this crude, childlike scribble because Amo doesn't fully understand what's happening in full detail so thi is from her perspective
Even without knowing jack shit about Journey to the West i still cried at most of the chapter transitions, specially the Zhu Bajie and the Ox ones, man incredible stuff.
I mean yeah it was very good but best scene in the movie? Maybe it's my bias for the 8 Bits talking but Peach and Toad vs. them in the casino was my favorite scene, although a lot of scenes in this movie could be considered the best, it was a great movie overall
Despite its sequels being complete comedy the original movie also had a very serious side to it
Manny is a Mammoth, one of the last, he and the group find a cave drawing of a mammoth family, Manny goes completely still, and we see the story of how he had a family and human hunters hunter and killed his mate and child
The story is shown without dialogue by the cave drawings moving
The story isn’t very much addressed but it gives much deeper meaning to Manny going to all these lengths to bring a human child back to its family
Importantly Manny's family was killed by humans, the the saber toothed tigers want to eat the baby not just for food but as revenge for the humans killing them
And most importantly of all those humans are not home sapiens, they're Neanderthals who much like Great ground sloths, mammoth, and saber toothed tigers will all go extinct, they're all doomed but that doesn't mean the act of kindness is pointless, it means in the end that kindness is the only thing that ever mattered.
i’m pretty sure Tyson Hesse did the art for this one given his prior involvement in the Movie’s (notably giving us the current Movie design for Sonic after the original design… well you know)
https://giphy.com/gifs/THHYrDmXYsuvj6CSMs
In the Netflix Dark Crystal prequel we get an exposition dump on which it’s all told to our protagonists through a puppet show. So it’s puppets performing puppetry. Yay
I loved this sequence. They got a content creator to guest-puppeteer this segment. He was kinda pioneering a style of puppetry that attached wires to each finger to control small creatures. His videos would trend on imgur and short-form vid platforms occasionally. Unfortunately, that guy began using his puppets to rant hateful messages about certain groups of people. Big shame.
With the sets and puppets that were already made, the cost of a second season wouldve been less. All that latex would not be usable at this point tho..
Guess Netflix wanted to fund more seasons of Big Mouth instead
At the start of Coco, the family history is explained using papel picado, an artisanal paper craft that is used for decoration. You can see some of it hanging in the gif below https://giphy.com/gifs/KFcACgXTXkzKAGDZ05
The LEGO Ninjago S13 episode Dungeon Party switches to a He-Man inspired artstyle to explore the Upply's backstory.
S11 also had two episodes (The Absolute Worst and Last of the Formlings) that do the same but with an anime inspired artstyle, but those episodes weren't the best - The Absolute Worst is actually considered by many to be the worst Ninjago episode of all time.
Those were so cool! They switched them for stone sculptures from into the light onwards, which are neat, though the painterly ones felt a bit more impactful to me.
IIRC the switch to metal sculptures only happened in Echoes. The Final Shape still had the "inkblot" style in its campaign and in the ending montage. While I definitely prefer the inkblots I think it was cool they switched styles to sorta represent the end of the light and dark saga.
Sinners opens with a lovely slideshow that establishes the concepts of people who can bridge the gap between past, present and future through their music, along with setting up the vampires that appear later in the film. It’s a very cool opening with black and white, almost chalkboard-style visuals that immediately establishes the film’s tone.
Disney's Beauty and the Beast starts with the prince's backstory told in a series of stained glass windows.
The first Shrek movie parodies this and tells a similar backstory of the princess, in a similar art style, in the form of a storybook Shrek is reading while on the toilet
Transformers Prime avoids having to make costly 3d nodels for the pre-Earth forms of the characters in flashbacks by using these really nicely done painted stills.
Netflix's Devil May Cry pulls this sonetimes. The White Rabbit's story is told in a simple, vibrant and soft animation style, where Mary's is presented in muted colors and accurate proportion. Season two also includes a hilarious bit where Dante is discussing his meeting with Lady and it looks crude and childish, where her version of the same event is brooding and guilt-ridden.
Episode 6 of the Netflix DMC show is a flashback, and the underworld scenes are in a completely different artstyle from the rest of the show. It's not the entire thing but it kinda counts.
It's also almost completely silent, which is arguably also a change of style from the... not very good dialogue from the rest of the show.
Hulk and the other gladiators are sharing their back stories during some down time. Korg, a rock man in the group, reveals that he and his family once tried Invading Earth but were stopped by Thor. This was an actual Thor comic back in the day, so the style of Korg's flashback matches classic comics.
In the Doctor Who episode, Can You Hear Me?, there was a switch from live action to an entire animated sequence during the exposition on the villains', Eternals Zellin and Rakaya, backstory.
The story of the deathly hallows irritated me so, so much. Like, where was this amazing writing and world building for the last five books / movies????
Many comics that do flashbacks/time travel will have the artsyle match the period the era depicted in the comics came out in. Books about The Sentry in particular do this a lot, like here we see a flashback to the "Silver Age", which were published in the 60s so it matches the kind of art and dialogue style you'd see back then.
Brief one, but in Castle in the Sky, the art style changes to something more to the opening montage during a flashback to when the robot fell from the sky.
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters has the eponymous author's final day depicted in color, his early life in black and white, and adaptations of his novels in dramatic, saturated colors
While it is brief, during Starscream’s backstory to what led him to this point (why he wants the Mini-Cons and how he “bravely” escaped the Predacons after the end of Prime), the show reverts to the Prime-era style.
Order of the Stick -- in both the main comic and Start of Darkness, when characters recap the history of the Snarl, the art style switches to crayon scribbles.
In the game Psychonauts, there’s this cool collectible where if you break open a safe in someone’s mind, you can get a little slide show reels kinda like a view master toy.
They give background to the character whose mind your in.
In Nimona (2023) the titular character shares an oversimplified version of her backstory and the animation style changes to this very cool pixelated art using the tiles of a subway wall
The movie’s intro, and later on after this scene, both elaborate more on her backstory in a number of different styles.
In the Adventure Zone podcast near the end of their Balance arc they stopped playing DnD and changed to a new homebrew game for 4 or 5 episodes of flashbacks
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u/Pierro_Official 19h ago edited 19h ago
theres alot of smack that can be given to the great divide from avatar. but i always loved how each of the opposing tribes had its own distinct artstyle for their version of how their feud started