Kung fu panda 3

Why does it seem like people didn't like this movie? I avoided most of the discussion back when because I didn't want spoilers, but it seemed like people viewed it as "meh".

I watched it yesterday without any expectations either way, but I was very positively surprised. It had probably some of the intense fights in recent memory and the special effects design was probably the best I've seen. But what I liked most were the feelings of despair and hopelessness it had in the face of this overwhelmingly powerful villain and the loss of allies. Especially when he first entered the panda village, it felt like the end for everything has come and nobody truly believed they could stop it.

It also explained a lot of the vagueness in the previous movies, like the dragon warrior and all the weird light energy things and nature of the wuxi finger hold.

My biggest issue was that Po's final showdown was kind of an asspull, because he supposedly "mastered" chi out of nowhere. I suppose he might have been powered by the other people's chi, but it really looked like he just said "sweet" and exploded into this magic master.

If it were up to me, I'd have dropped all the "sweets" and "woahs" and make Po look into himself and others right before he "powered up" to gain some kind of awakening like the inner peace in the second movie. The joking and such doesn't blend well with the shiny master appearance he gained. The fact that he lost the shine as he exited the spirit realm also suggests that he was powered up somehow and maybe the spirit realm has different properties than the normal realm.

I guess Kai's motivations also weren't as good as the previous villains. From what I gather he wanted revenge and to erase Oogway's memory since Kai fell from history himself. Tai Lung was similar, but his sense of betrayal was more legitimate. Kai wanted power for himself by stealing other people's chi and was stopped, Tai Lung wanted to become the dragon warrior so he could make Shifu proud but the title was denied from him.

But nonetheless I still enjoyed it a lot despite ending with kind of a spiritual powerlevel thing. I think I enjoy feelsy moments and visuals more than most people though and it can make up for the shortcomings of the story to some degree. There wasn't any real kind of shipping like people were anticipating, which was good I guess even though I'm a sucker for seeing Tigress soften up, but the movie had it's share of that in a different way.

...

It was a January movie and a second sequel

It was too much of a rehash of the second movie, except that it didn't even have a good villain like the second one did

Too similar to the previous movies? I can kinda see that. It was different enough with the spiritual elements IMO.

I think the villain was good in it's own way. He didn't necessarily have as compelling of a story, but he introduced a different setting, one where everyone is at stake and the power to stop him doesn't exist.

Kai's pretty cool. He's not as deep or compelling as the other villains, but I get a real rock star vibe from him, especially with the entrance before

I think the reason many didn't like this movie is because it's more "jokey." Kai wasn't taken too seriously, and there was alot of focus on the panda village, complete with fat jokes.

It was good. My favorite is still the second one though. The conflict in KFP3 lacked importance, somehow.

I wasn't bothered by "fat jokes", the whole trilogy has been full of that. The fact that they try to shoehorn humor into everything is a bit tiresome, but I think that describes the majority of 3D movies. Though some of the humor felt more casual and enjoyable somehow, like the part where Shifu sends Crane and Mantis on a search.


There was something very personal to Po about Shen, which I guess made him a more relevant villain. Plus of course his story and character was the best of them all. Interestingly he was also the weakest of the villains, his power came from the weapon and his army rather than himself, which I guess makes him more grounded and in a way relatable.

Kai had more to do with Oogway and his legacy which had over arching relevancy to everyone/thing. Po is significant part of that, but he's the "legendary dragon warrior" which is much harder to relate with.

the whole chi shit was just a copy-paste of "inner peace" from the second movie, complete with Po suddenly mastering it in the last minute and using it to beat the baddie. Also, they just went ahead and gave everybody chi in the end, which defeats the purpose of the whole buildup and makes you wonder why the fuck Oogway and Shifu had to try so hard to do it.

Inner peace was more like a state of mind than an actual "power" like Chi, although the method of obtaining it is very similar and just as vague.

I guess that was supposed to have something to do with the fact that Po was teaching them, but yeah everyone including Po really pull it out of their ass at the end.

That's what I mean. It wasn't like KF2 where the jokes were timed with the plot and action. A third of the screentime used for the panda village could've been used to develop Kai, Li, or even the Furious Five.


One thing I really liked about KFP3 was the continuity. Now that we know pandas specialized in healing with chi (probably because they're simple people, which makes "mastery of self" easier), everything from Po being chosen to his learning certain principles faster makes sense.


Chi mastery comes from "knowing who you are," and farmers and villagers have more "grounding" and alot less conflict than kung fu masters. It's still pretty dumb, though. "Mastery of self" could've come from teaching; helping people grow into the people they're meant to be while learning from them. This could be a good reason why Oogway mastered chi while Shifu is still trying. Oogway's personal journey is over, but Shifu's still recovering from his past and has alot to learn.

I forgot to add that this reflects on Kai, too. Unlike Po and his panda army, Kai was just using the masters he captured. He learned nothing from them, so he's "empty;" everything he did revolved around Oogway, the closest thing he had to a partnership. Although he didn't get what was wrong with him taking a panda's chi, he felt betrayed by Oogway stopping him from taking more. Kai is not a deep thinker; he understood the value of partnerships, but not that they're a two-way street. You get out what you put in.

sage for double post.

nice headcanon. I guess that explains why it took Oogway THIRTY FUCKING YEARS SITTING IN A GODDAMN CAVE to master chi, whereas Joe Normal can do it in like a week.

There's kind of a confusion about how Oogway mastered chi. Shifu says that Oogway sat in a cave for 30 years, but didn't specifically say it was required for chi mastery. Oogway's scroll however says that the pandas taught him to give chi, and it didn't seem like he would have spent 30+ years on the mountain with Kai.

It's implied that the key to chi mastery is true knowledge of self. Since Oogway was a warlord himself, I guess the events with Kai rocked him so hard it took him thirty years to find out who he truly was.

I imagine it's easy to get the gist of it, or learning the "giving chi" part, but mastering it properly is much harder.

This
The overabundance terrible shoehorned humor made this movie intolerable. The kind of humor seen in the third film was probably what most people expected of the first one.

It's a couple things. This movie shoves humor in a lot more where it doesn't really need to be, where in the first couple of films the humor seemed to be more a biproduct of the characters personalities and the actions taking place. Like a lot of classing Jackie Chan flicks, they're slapsticky and kind of silly more as a byproduct of the action taking place and who it's taking place as a result of. This one just can't help itself and it has to make fatty jokes every five seconds.

Then there was chi, a stupid mystical power that kind of comes out of nowhere and ruins a lot of the mysticism that made Kung Fu as cool as it was in the past couple of films.

Kung Fu was the mystical power that drove the universe. It was a martial art taken to a Hollywood extreme. Taking that away and going 'lol Kung Fu is only as good as it is 'cus Chi!' is retarded. It also makes me wonder why, for such an important thing, it never cropped up in any of the films beforehand.

All in all, it just wasn't executed anywhere near as well as the first couple of films.

Well, I'm just about to watch it, but I'm going to guess that it has the same problem that the 2nd movie had: it suffers from trying too hard to be a kids movie.

He going to fuck tiger or what?

No, he's not gonna fuck the tiger.

I knew someone was going to broach the subject eventually

The main problem I had with KFP3 is that the fight scenes were much, much weaker than the other two movies. Chi ends up becoming a big flashy crutch in the opening and finale where characters gesture at each other and things happen instead of the tight fighting choreography that the series was so great about before. In the worst cases, you'd have scenes like the ship, where Mantis and Crane totally job to Kai while out of frame. In comparison, The Furious Five all end up jobbing to Tai Lung on the bridge in KFP1, but not before putting out one of the best fight scenes in the movie.
The only action scene that really wowed me in 3 was the panda village defense scene, which was full of great physical comedy and gave most of the characters screen time to show off their moves.

I'm pretty sure it draws from the Confucian philosophy of Chi. 'When all know their place. There is clarity and righteous harmony'. Farmers generally know their place and so are more susceptible to chi mastery, it also explains why pandas specialised in healing chi and Oogway learnt chi that stunned or incapacitated.

Thank god though, if they ever add that plot point I fucking quit life!

Awful enough that people won't understand that Nick and Judy are just working partners *GASP, fat 13 year old chicks dying*

I don't think it would be that bad.

Yeah, I agree on that one.

Having just finished 3, I can now say with confidence that my expectations are confirmed: the thing that held the movie back the most was it trying to be a kid's movie too hard. It is otherwise a serviceable movie, albeit one that has played itself out.

I think what bothered me most about this movie is that Oogway killed his best friend 500 years ago, then made a prophecy about a Panda restoring Tai Chi but in order to fulfill that prophecy the Panda would have to completely irradiate Kai's soul from all existence. It's kind of a dick move. Yeah, Kai is stealing everyone's powers, but they all come back in the end, so no one was really even dead. Yet Kai is killed in the AFTER LIFE. So where did the dude go? Did he die twice? Like his spirit is just exploded and gone now? Fuck. How is Oogway the good guy in this story? He didn't even seem concerned that his best friend is now gone forever. Time to go back to floating and meditating.

To be fair, if it came out any earlier or later, it would have been dominated by Force Awakens or Zootopia.

Nah, fam, that can't be on the table even in a Dreamworks film.

I'm glad a thread was made for this. I didn't participate in the one that was made when it hit theaters since I didn't want to spoil it for myself.

It's pretty average to be honest. It lost a lot of momentum the series had built up with Kung Fu Panda 2. I felt the plot and writing was weaker, and the villain, despite having an interesting concept, lacks a lot of depth compared to Tai Lung and Shen. Whereas Tai Lung had Shifu's pride and Shen had his parental issues, Kai was sort of just "Lust for power". He also doesn't put up much of a fight against Po compared to the last two villains. Also, the Jade Zombie stuff was a bit wasted potential. He has Oogway's soul trapped but he doesn't use him in battle.

I feel the film tries to rush things or not spend time on the right moments and instead wastes more time on goofier moments. Po doesn't even tell his Father that he defeated the guy who tried to wipe them all out. You'd think that'd be something pretty significant to let his father know. I know it's a trend in the series, but they really need to learn to not force humour into serious moments. It's pretty distracting. Like how in Avengers 2 they're always making jokes and stuff in the climax when it's really not a good time. Also there was some noticeably cut content. Wasn't there supposed to be an arranged marriage with Mei that that Po wanted to get out of? In the final film she's just an extra who's sorta just there like teh other minor villager characters. There was also some really lame jokes like the (male) Duck crapping out a tonne of eggs when frightened or Po and Monkey saying "jinx" since they called the Jade Zombies "Jombies" at the same time.

To be honest, I didn't like how Oogway chose Po because he knew Pandas were good at chi due to being saved by the village centuries ago. I feel it takes away from the whole "destiny works in mysterious ways" the original film went with. Also, while this sort of applied to the last two films with the Wushi Finger Hold and Inner Peace, Po mastering Chi at the last moment to wreck Kai (even if was due to the other villagers, who also conveniently learnt how to use Chi again) was a massive Deus Ex Machina. At least in the last two films he knew of the hold and practiced Inner Peace at least once..

Basically the whole thing seems like the weaker, usual Dreamworks fair rather than being reflective of the standards set by the second film. They said they wanted there to be six films, but at this rate it's clear they can't keep up the quality and things will likely go the way of Shrek. I guess in some ways the series is held back by being stuck as a kid's film series.

Also, Monkey still has like three lines again. Even though Crane gets a bit more screen-time it's clear that like the last two films the only one of the five they give a damn about it Tigress. Makes you wonder why the bothered having an ensemble of them in the first place.

They must have felt bad about working around Jackie Chan's limited English, because in the Chinese version he plays Po's dad

But he talks English in a lot of films. That's a pretty cool tidbit there about his Dad in the Chinese version though.

Biological, if that wasn't clear before

It's things like these that give me desire to become skilled with art/animation/stuff myself so I could somehow, somewhere, someday, influence and be a part of some group that makes top tier quality animated action movies that aren't filled to the brim with le fanny jokes.


I kept wondering that too, like what are they even going to do in future movies? They almost have to start focusing on other characters now that Po is practically on a same level as/above Shifu in some ways. They already did this OP magic villain so they can't easily one-up that without going for literal gods or something, and anything less would probably be underwhelming.

Something they maybe could do is focus on someone from the "next generation" struggling because they're a normal person with no special abilities any way whatsoever, while Po had everything come to him so easily, and even the five had some kind of power/talent to start with so "harness your abilities" isn't useful advice. So instead, they'll have to raise up with nothing but hard work and determination.

Also since the finger hold doesn't seem to necessarily kill the target, I wonder if Tai Lung is still "alive".

Yeah, that's what I assumed.


Said this in my big post just below yours, but yeah, part of me wishes this series was aimed at a slightly older audience. It's really tied to the restrictions of being a kid's film. Although trying to aim an animal people movie at older people is basically suicide (even if you take into account furries throwing money at it). But aiming at adults with animation in general is suicide in the theaters. Remember Beowulf?

Same goes for How To Tame Your Dragon 2 in some ways. Like how Hiccup has that flame sword but since it's a kid's movies he's never gonna be able to hit someone with it.


>I kept wondering that too, like what are they even going to do in future movies? They almost have to start focusing on other characters now that Po is practically on a same level as/above Shifu in some ways. They already did this OP magic villain so they can't easily one-up that without going for literal gods or something, and anything less would probably be underwhelming.
Oh I forgot to mention that in my original post. He's mastered powerful techniques like the Wushi Finger Hold, Inner Peace and Chi, and each villain he faced was tougher than the last (Shen's weaker than Tai Lung but he has the cannons to make up for that) and it seems like at this point it's gonna fall into some formula of Po some last-minute power to defeat the foe of the week.

*learning some last-minute power

To expand upon my statement that it's "trying to be a kid's movie too hard": It's not that the movie needs to aim for a more mature audience; Shrek was technically aimed at an older audience, but it's certainly no more serious than the KFP series. I just think that KFP has some sort of really neat Kung Fu action flick that unfortunately pulls punches and holds back because "it's a kids movie!"

For a really egregious instance, take a look at KFP 2. It seems clear to me that the opening narration with different animation was added after the story was mostly in place. Think about it: if that bit wasn't in there, the movie has set up this jarring reveal about how truly evil the villain is; the movie implied that he had done something bad, but explicit genocide would've have made for one hell of a twist.

But that would have been far too dark for a kid's movie! So the whole thing gets told to the audience in the first five minutes, causing the reveal to have no bite. Sure, it still gets undermined with the sequel hook, but what can you do about that?

Wait, shit, now I'm thinking about a campy, PG-13 live action flick with the same basic narrative and have made myself sad.

What's what I meant though. If it was aimed an audience that was a little older they wouldn't have to do that. Like how Samurai Jack would be able to use his sword on enemies that weren't robots if it wasn't a kid's cartoon, or how Mai in Avatar would be able to do more with her knives beside pin people to walls by snagging their clothing. That reminds me, I'm still kinda surprised they let a character get killed by knives on-screen in Kung Fu Panda 2.

I never thought about that regarding the intro with Kung Fu Panda 2, but I guess it never bothered me (admitted I knew about Shen being responsible for the Panda genocide prior to the seeing the movie though). I guess I wasn't expecting it to be some sort of huge twist moment so that's why I thought nothing of it being in the opening.


Of what, KFP or Beowulf?

KFP. It would still probably work better as some kind of animation, but you're right on the mark about how well animated movies go for older audiences.
And who got killed with knives? Rhino gets shot, Shen gets gets crushed, Po's mother is killed off camera. Who have I missed?

Wolf Pack Leader

If I remember correctly there's a scene where you can see a Jade Totem with Tai Lung's likeness on it on Kai's belt.

Holy shit there totally is

That's pretty cool.