Dude, CGI on TV is expensive. Like, really really expensive. More expensive than bringing back the old voice cast, even. That's why the textures are more simplistic. They don't have the money to render each of Po's hairs separately anymore.
Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
At first, to me he sounded so much like Jack Black I thought it was actually him, since he hasn't had many movies lately. And haven't heard the whole true fans line in a while.
Yeah okay. It's not all bad. I know how expensive CGI is, and it's nice to have more Kung Fu Panda out in the public. I might've gotten a little carried away. But still, I think it could use a little more effort.
Wackd: Sure, movie-quality CGI is expensive, and it goes without saying that it's not affordable. But what's Lucy Mae 2 supposed to do? Say he likes it even thought it looks bad? That it's budget problems that are the cause for the bad CGI doesn't make it good, it just explains why it's bad.
^ Some times things are not really perceived as bad but just not as good as they can be.
^^ But it's not fair. Critiques should be covering things that could hypothetically be changed or done differently. They're doing the best they can. Criticizing the show for its animation is like criticizing Clerks for being black-and-white.
Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
A critique should cover things that could be reasonably changed, but a review should look at the end results. The budget size doesn't mean much to the viewer that's stuck with something mediocre
Of course it does, budget is a line with which we alter our expectations, it's for the same reason that you can't expect Charmed to have special effects on the level of lord of the rings. If the complain was that the show has poor CGI when compared to other CGI animated tv series it would be understandable but not a years in the making, multi-million dollar movie. Like comparing a school play's props with that of a professional theatrical production.
It's not so much the budget, that's just one point. I basically just don't find it funny.
When I first watched the first Kung Fu Panda movie, I actually enjoyed the comedy and some parts of action put into it but the second movie seemed less appealing to me than the first movie. When I heard of Kung Fu Panda being made into a TV show, I watched some episodes and I have yet to say that it wasn't as quite as good as I hoped and was a bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong or anything, I was a Kung Fu Panda fan in the beginning, but when they went over the borderline by making it into a TV show, I thought it was all too much.
-Dear Math, please grow up and solve your own problems, I'm tired of solving them for you. -
I think it's important to note that, as Lucymae herself admitted, the issue of how good or bad the animation is is only one point she raised in her review. And setting aside the animation, for the reasons you've all quite accurately described, doesn't change the fact that her other points have merit. Personally I like the voice-acting, and I like a lot (though not all) of the new characters, but I have to agree that overall the writing of the show suffers compared to the movies. There's lots of laugh-out loud moments; some heartwarming and tear jerker moments; some truly awesome moments. But overall the plots do seem to follow the same formula, I really don't like the way Po is being written, and the heart just doesn't seem to be there.
The show isn't *bad*, and in fact is better than a lot of the ones out there. But I think Lucymae's ultimate conclusion is correct—it could be more, it could be so much better. And I hope that in time it will be.
If I felt I had anything constructive or interesting to say about her other points, I would've. I agree with most of the review.
Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
I would have liked the show if it was done in 2-d animation since cgi does not work well on television.
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I'm Not a Fan
I loved Kung Fu Panda, and it's sequel, and when I heard there was a TV Series coming out on Nickelodeon, I was overjoyed!
Now, I'm disappointed. I watched most of the first season, and it failed to impress me. Now I can't stand watching it, due to the fact that it lacks basic Kung-Fu Panda-ness. I know TV shows never really live up to the expectations of the movie, but this goes lower than any other I've seen so far.
First of all, the animation is awful. In the original films, it was excellent, and made clear that the characters were meant to be animated that way. I can deal with the Penguins of Madagascar, because they're penguins, and there's not much texture on the penguins. Also, I'd like to note that Cartoon Network is doing a better job animating Dragons: Riders of Berk, despite the obvious budget changes from a movie to a TV show. Secondly, the voice actors. This isn't a complete failure, because I know it would be hard and expensive to get the original voice actors to work on the show, but Po's voice doesn't sound like it did in the movies. Or at least, that's what I think. There is an upside, though. The amount of kung-fu fighting in both movies can be found here. In every episode I saw, there was some sort of fight. However, due to the low quality of the animation, it doesn't dazzle as much as it used to. The episodes introduce new characters that I don't like, and they get heavily flanderized just over the course of the first season. The writing's pretty clear. There's gonna be a problem. Po messes something up. There's a fight. There's a lesson. It's over. I'm not saying the plots of the movies were amazingly original, but the show could've done a lot better with this.
In conclusion, I don't really find any interest in this show. Sure, there's some humor somewhere in there, but other than that, there's really nothing. It's a pretty hollow TV Show, in my opinion. There's nothing wrong if you like it, and it's nice to see more Kung Fu Panda out there. But I just think it could use a little more effort, because it certainly had potential.