Though details on the leak are still extremely murky, it appears that Nickelodeon’s affiliate in Mexico, MundoNick, accidentally released several early episodes some time on Saturday. The episodes of “Book 3: Change” are dubbed in Spanish, and were presumably not meant to be disseminated to the public until a much later date.
The news of the leak is rather ironic, given that co-creator Mike DiMartino only recently announced that all work had recently been completed on The Legend of Korra season 3. Otherwise, there is little news about when the highly-anticipated season will air (in a legal and legitimate fashion) on Nickelodeon.
But fans of the Avatar universe are an eagle-eyed bunch, and the leaked episodes were rapidly consumed by enterprising fans. Though the incriminating links have apparently been removed from the internet, a breathtaking number of inexpressibly spoilerific screenshots have been taken from these early episodes of The Legend of Korra season 3. Other Spanish-speaking fans have translated and summarized the events of the leaked episodes. We caution any and all curious fans to proceed cautiously with any material from The Legend of Korra season 3.
Bryan Konietzko, co-creator of The Legend of Korra & Avatar: The Last Airbender:
"Howdy, friends. As you have likely already heard, four episodes from Book 3 were leaked this past weekend. It is bad enough that it happened at all, but it would have been a little less of a disaster had it at least been the first four episodes of the season. Instead, the third through the sixth episodes popped out online, causing confusion and, at least on our end of things, frustration. As you all know, these episodes take a ton of concerted effort from scores of individuals. We craft these continuous storylines and the animation as best we can, and hope that they are presented in a way that allows everyone to enjoy them to the fullest. But when leaks happen, the work we meticulously prepared for the audience is fumbled unceremoniously.
Nickelodeon is obviously a massive corporation with outlets all over the world. These outlets get the episodes in advance so they can translate and dub them for their markets. We typically deliver the episodes to the network quite close to their U.S. premieres, but in the case of Book 3, we have actually already finished the entire season as of last week. The network has some plans in the works for it and needs to wait on its release, so we have been keeping quiet while keeping our noses to the Book 4 grindstone. Unfortunately, the longer the episodes sit on all these shelves all over the world, the probability of leaks increases.
So, yeah… It is unfortunate it played out this way. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before Book 3 is released properly and with respect to all the people who worked hard to make it and to the audience who wants to watch it."
Titles of the first six episodes of Book 3:
Episode 1: “A Breath of Fresh Air”
Episode 2: “Rebirth”
Episode 3: “The Earth Queen
Episode 4: “In Harm’s Way”
Episode 5: “The Metal Clans”
Episode 6: “Old Wounds”
Guess who's back?
Source, Bryan Konietzko's tumblr