6 Things Which Ruins Kung Fu Panda 3 · 9:43pm Apr 14th, 2016
Hello my dear readers and welcome to a new blog entry of mine! Today I want to get rid of something that has been bugging my mind since when I’ve saw it weeks ago: Kung Fu Panda 3. What is my problem with this third installment of one of the best franchise made by DreamWorks? Is that the movie is bad? The answer would be no. Or, to be more precisely, I don’t think it’s a bad movie at all… but it has some problems that, once you got over laughing in the theater you may starting to notice. And that’s what I’m about to tell you: This is my top 6 of the things that ruins Kung Fu Panda 3! Attention, there are going to be SPOILERS so if you haven’t seen the movie yet don’t read it!
6) The pandas: Now, the pandas are not bad characters per se. They are cute, funny and have their own character and talent. The problem is that once you get over how funny they act and what their fighting style is there is not much to them. At best they sound like a two-dimensional kind of character to me. Of course this is not a new problem because the same could be said about the Furious 5 in the very first KFP movie. The thing is that after KFP we got a special in which showed their past and how they learned their strengths and flaws, improving them into a more three-dimensional kind of personality. Now, Po’s father, Li Shan is without a doubt the best of them if not one of the best characters in the whole movie. But that’s obvious being the father of the main protagonist. The same can’t be said for Mei-Mei. Who’s Mei-Mei? The result of meddling with the story by taking away the role of a character and then keep such character for “reasons”. In the very first script of KFP 3 there was supposed to be a sub-plot in which Po would deal with an arranged marriage between him and Mei, but that part got cancelled and there is none of that in here. Yet they wanted to keep the character just to have some funny scene in which Po would be creep out by her flirtatious ways and that’s it. So, in a way she reminds of Flash Sentry but, at the same time, she’s not as pointless as he is (She makes herself useful in the final fight) and at least they make us the great favor to not shoehorn MeiXPo as a couple. And I add, that pair is officially dead, giving that at the end of KFP 3 she gets with another panda.
5) Kai: The villain of KFP 3 is another nice addition to the ones we got from this series. He’s fun, ominous and competent, with a fighting style/weapons that reminds me a lot of Kratos of God of War. Oh and he has a nice theme to boot and that sounds exactly as a song of the Imagine Dragons. So what is the problem with him? Well, for how much badass his main problem is the lack of emotion that I can feel for him. Both Tai Lung and Shen (Heck, especially Shen) were great at making you feel sort of bad for them despite all the bad things they did. Kai? Not so much. There is this backstory of how he was a great friend of Oogway, considered him as a brother. Then, after seeing what the pandas could do with the chi he decides to be a prick and steal their skills (That alone makes me ask: how did he learned to do that so well?) so Oogway had to stop him. In the movie we got few and brief moments in which we see how Kai felt bad about it and that’s it. And is such a shame because I’m sure that if they put a bit more effort into him (rather than other things I’m going to mention soon enough) he may have been as great as Shen or at least Tai Lung. So, all and all I won’t say he’s a bad villain, but sadly is not as memorable as the other two.
4) The tone of the movie: Kung Fu Panda managed to have quite the balance between funny scenes and the most serious one. The sequel, while keeping the humor, decided to be made with a bit of darker tone. The characters acted much more adult like and the somber moments gave way to the not-somber moments to shine and make me and other laugh. Kung Fu Panda 3 instead focus a LOT more about making you laugh than making you sad. Sure, there are some creepy and even tear jerking scenes here and there but, just like I’ve mentioned with Kai, they last few minutes at best and right after it there is some funny joke inserted. Is it a bad thing? Well, that depends by anyone opinion, really. Me? I loved how darker KFP 2 was compared to the one and this sudden change annoyed me a little. Sometimes I felt like the jokes are really starting to get in the way of the story, wasting time that could be used to improve the characters and made some scenes made more sense. Again, this is my personal opinion and, again, is not such a big problem… the next three points however ARE NOT!
3) Lack of continuity: Let’s go back to Kung Fu Panda 2 for a bit. In that movie Po was more than capable to do special moves with each of the Furious 5 in the heart of the battle and beating now armies of bad guys without breaking a sweat… right? Well, no. Po now suddenly is incapable to give smart orders to the five in a normal training! Why? Because so the director could make some more funny scenes in which the 5 would look like clowns (Apparently they would follow what their master would say without allowing their logic to kick in and tell them that what such master said would hurt them really badly) and because then there would be no the issue of Po training the Pandas. This contrivance makes no sense at all and made me cringe and ruins the story in favor of some silly laughs! Also, what exactly can Po teach them to do that Shifu couldn’t? Maybe, if the directors made the movie a bit darker they could have made Shifu choose Po as to train the five because he’s gotten old or some shit like that, which would have worked much better. Also, the whole “If you do what you can you will never find out what you can’t do” is a nice moral, but it doesn’t automatically fix this contrivance. Also, the whole thing of “be yourself” while not bad per se is getting repetitive.
2) Tigress: Rant mode initiated: *Sigh* What they have done to you Tigress? What happened to the sweet and yet strong female character we saw in Kung Fu Panda Holiday Special, KFP 2 and the latest short, Secret of the Scroll? Sure, she’s not as unlikable as the one in LOA but I could swear that the director took some bit from her. After KFP 2 I was hoping to see her friendship with Po explored a bit more (and, being a TiPo fan, evolve into love) or, at least, having her act just like in the first sequel. But no. Tigress acts cold towards Po (At least cold compared to KFP 2) with very few moments in which she acts as she should be, offering advice to Po. Well at least she does something in the movie like the last time, right? The answer is MEH. For one part she manages to impress Kai, defending the panda village and helping Po to defeat the villain. But other than that she does nothing at all. While Po trains the pandas she does nothing other than looking confused at how Po trains them and act exasperated for a bit by the little panda girl before growing soft to her.
Tigress shouldn’t have had any problems with that little panda! In fact, she would have enjoyed the attention while as well helping Po rather than just doing NOTHING AT ALL! Now I can understand that the director may have overlooked the holiday special (Despite the fact that is some of the best out there), I can understand ignoring the Furious 5 special but I can’t believe they overlooked the very first KFP in which we can see Tigress holding a baby pig in her arms and looking concerned at her. So no, is not new that Tigress is good with handling the children and this desperate attempt to make her less cold is both stupid and pointless. This lack of attention to the continuity about how character development is an offense to both her and the movie. I can only hope that now that Po has finally complete his arc to becoming a master of master the director will focus more on Tigress backstory and keeping her character acting as it should: a great friend of Po, someone ready to help him not only by beating him up but to comfort him when she notice he’s upset and, possibly, making their relationship grow more rather than be devolved.
Rant mode finished.
Now you may ask how the rest of the Furious 5, Shifu and Mister Ping comes out from this movie. They are all in character but, Ping aside, they all got pushed in the background by the pandas. Something that I and many other had predicted. I can only hope that in KFP 4 they will be back into focus.
1) The Ending: Now here’s your last chance to get out of this blog because in this part the spoiler part is going to be serious.
So, Po defeats Kai, save the panda village and get to exchange some talk with Oogway in the spirit realm. And here the old turtle says that he had a vision of Po saving the world by defeating the collector of chi. Now, you’re asking yourself “Why is this such big problem?”. The answer may sound very personal, but for is just that much of a problem so let me try to explain it.
The very first Kung Fu Panda movie told us that Po was in NO WAY a chosen one to become the dragon warrior. That was the whole point of the first movie that there is secret ingredient, nothing special, Po managed to beat Tai Lung because he fought using his own skills to win. It was a nice moral for kids, showing that you don’t have to be a chosen one to be the hero… and then Oogway reveals that he knew all along that Po was the chosen one, he knew that Kai would come back and etc. All of this would be contrived and a bit forced by itself, but then, again there is the whole thing of how it ruins the message of the very first movie. I mean do you realize now what the message is supposed to be? “Be yourself, especially if you are the chosen one”. What kind of message is that?!? You know, for all the bad things I’ve stated above, at least those things can be fixed. This one? I doubt that there would be a way to fix this.
So this are my problems with Kung Fu Panda 3. I know that I may sound like I’m nitpicking, but it’s just that I love this franchise so much that I don’t feel to let such flaws pass. I want this series to conclude on an high note and to have the guts to don’t let this series become too much of a joke. If truly they are going to make more sequels they’ll better try to improve them not just in humor department, but in the story section.
All in all, despite all the flaws I’ve written here, Kung Fu Panda 3 is still a decent movie and is far better than Shrek the Third and many other crappy third sequels out there so, if you want to check it out, feel free to do so, you may like it more than I do.
That’s all I have to say for now. Bu-By!
So, we've got Po getting a promotion. He is now the teacher. And he is now much more important than his other five friends, (even if you can argue that has always kind of been, being the leader Dragon Warrior and the main character) and all of them bow in respect to him.
So what's the problem? Where is the conflict? Well, Po doesn't know what to do and so he asks his former mentor for guidance and in reply he gets a vague answer.
Po is demoralized.
The main villain appears! He is a General (of what, we don't know! Since he was one-man army) and he wants to steal the Chi from everyone!
So how can they stop him? Well, we've got Po sent to complete is training and learn this Chi thing while Master Shifu sends some of the good guys to keep an eye on the bad guy. They become his slaves.
Po struggles keep giving fruitless results while at the Jade Palace we see Master shifu getting owned
Some important stuff happens
The villain reaches the village, ready to face the main character and steal all of his magic! There is a fight, but it's no use! Some stuff happens Po has learned that what's is truly important is being yourself so he masters Chi, Deus-ex-machina happens, villain loses and Po gets a new Crystal Library Castle!
And he's going to teach others to be themselves! In that way they'll learn Kung Fu! Friendship! Friendship everywhere!
Kung Fu Panda 3 in a nutshell.
3945878 Yeah, the more I think about it the more I notice similiarities with FIM and not in the season 1 and 2 kind of way but more Season 3 and beyond.