Kung Fu Panda franchise

Interview with Jennifer Yuh on her creative writing :)

So that's how she managed to keep her sanity.

I kid.

In all seriousness, I liked the video and some of her drawings and animation were interesting to look at. Too bad I can't draw for squat.

I read a post somewhere saying that the film was originally going to be darker as Kai would apparently have been swearing a lot? XD I don't see how they would have ever thought they'd put that in a family picture though.

I saw some people worrying that Comcast taking over Dreamworks means bad news for the kfp franchise as they might try to overtake it and create direct-to-dvd sequelitis or otherwise scrap it all together. I can't say I'm thrilled about the comcast thing as Dreamworks releasing more mediocre films because of it was my first thought too, then again I doubt Jennifer Yuh would allow her beloved kfp films to be subject to half-assed continuation by different people. Or so I would hope anyway. But I am wondering what the comcast thing overall will mean for them.

edited 18th Jul '16 7:11:13 AM by Lancelot07

Comcast also owns Universal, so I doubt they'll meddle too much. Right now Comcast appears to be trying to control all parts of the distribution system, but they don't really seem to care too much about what's actually being produced. They might push Dreamworks to put TV shows on TV instead of Netflix again, but I doubt they'll do too much.

It looks mostly like it'll be an umbrella corporation type set up where Dreamworks has Universal Comcast's distribution and funding behind it, but no forced corporate homogenization. Universal already has Illumination for that. It'll probably work more like D Isney and Pixar where Pixar and Disney Animation are both part of the same company, but they each do their own thing, with some cross pollination, without that much interference on the corporate level.

I'm replying late to this as I've been away in Japan. Anyways, I hope you're right. :)

Only just now found the track playing during the musician's village fight in the second film, starting at 1.22:

Damn, dat beat.

edited 16th Aug '16 1:56:23 PM by Lancelot07

So question?

If Kung Fu Panda dealt with Shifu's backstory, 2 with Po's, and 3 with Oogway's - who's backstory of the (purely theoretical) 4th film is it going to tackle?

(I'll try to rephrase it if it doesn't make sense.)

Ping's?

Eh, it seems like 3 wrapped the series up pretty nicely. We've had progressively dangerous villains already.

Tigress?

Personally, I'd like the next villain to be a reaction to Po being the Dragon Warrior and his heroing all over the place. Strength-wise, stronger than Shen but a little weaker than Tai Lung, with a gimmick to balance the scales sounds about right.

Tigress's backstory is kind of addressed in the first one, but I guess I wouldn't mind a expansion.

Ping would be an interesting choice for a backstory expansion.

As for sequels, I stand by if they do a Kung Fu Panda 4, I think the best route would be to circle the series back to KFP. In 3, Po has kind of reached his peak here, he has mastered Chi, which is explicetly noted to be the highest level of Kung Fu only few attain. So his journey is more or less done. Have 4 center on Po as the mentor (after a timeskip) training young apprentices to fight evil, and ending up on a Tai Lung-ish conundrum (a rebellious apprentice). So Po would end up in the exact same scenario Shifu was in the first movie, and the conflict would be less about beating up the bad guy, and more about seeing if Po can avoid the mistakes his Master did.

Po offers practically every villain a chance to be spared, but all three refuse. Maybe in this hypothetical fourth film his evil apprentice would actually accept it and redeem himself, thus Po would manage to avoid repeating Shifu's mistakes.

I love this idea. That's about what I would want as well.

That actually sounds pretty cool!

In case folks here didn't see it yet, someone went to the trouble of editing the missing track of the beginning of the film when Kai and Oogway battles, which I missed from the OST as I thought it was one of the best. I thought you'd particularly like 0:38, Berserker. ;)

Ah, I was wondering about that track. I agree, I do really like this rendition of Kai's theme.

Just rewatched this movie on Netflix. It's even better than I remember it being. Kai still carries a bunch of wasted potential, but everyone else is really wonderful. I've also got a lot more appreciation for the character arc Shifu goes through in the movies and various side stories like Secret of the Scroll (especially how the message he teaches Po in this movie is the one he learns the hard way in that story).

Man, these movies deserved a better tv series than the one they got. I didn't hate Legends of Awesomeness, but it was disappointing and missed out on a lot the potential that playing the Jade Palace crew as the kind of Badass Family the movies portrayed them as would've brought. If only they had made Legends Of Awesomeness a little bit later, when they started making their significantly-better-quality series for Netflix.

Hell, even if Po was still adapted as a Jerkass, a series like that written the way The Adventures of Puss in Boots is would've rocked way harder.

Granted, it was the stuff like Legends of Awesomeness that got them to the point of making the various Netflix series in the first place, so I guess it's unavoidable.

edited 5th Feb '18 11:02:05 PM by KnownUnknown

Good Lord how I hate Legends Of Awesomeness. It really pisses me off.

I think a great animated show of the films would be if they were done in 2D style similarly to the shorts.

I don't think the new show's going to be done in 2D, unfortunately, since they're apparently using a lot of the crew from All Hail King Julien.

Wait, what? There actually is a new show in the works? I thought the above tropers were talking hypotheticals.

I'd enjoy it if they did a KFP cartoon in the style of "Secrets of the Scroll."

There are a handful of things I like about Legends but they are few. There are a few cool rogues and the opening tune has the best joke of the entire show (which is Po forgetting the lyrics midway through and just flubbing it with "something something something ALIVE!").

Oh yeah. It hasn't been "officially" announced yet, but Mitch Watson sort of let it slip in a podcast (around 16:18), and alluded to working with some of the same crew in an interview.

Oh, and the trademark for Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny also popped up recently, which may or may not be related.

Hmm, interesting. I'm not overly excited about another animated series after LoA, but hoping it at least doesn't make the same mistakes. As long as Po actually behaves like Po, it'll already be a huge improvement.

Though I AM curious to see if they'll acknowledge events from the second and third movies now, since LoA made quite a few references to the first. Would be kinda neat to pick up right where 3 left off, with Po now actively teaching disciples at some new "Kung Fu Panda Academy". Unless that ends up being too much like some weird High School AU...

edited 7th Feb '18 4:45:30 PM by Berserker88