Kung Fu Panda franchise

Exaggerating the attributes found in the movies is a movie cartoon staple, and it's definitely not something we can blame on Legends of Awesomeness. I haven't watched Dragons, but Monsters vs. Aliens and Penguins of Madagascar exaggerated all the characters for better or for worse.

But Legends Of Awesomeness was an unique brand of UTTERLY AWFUL.

Penguins of Madagascar did indeed exaggerate personality traits. It went well for giving the side characters such as Maurice, Kowalski, Rico and Private more defined and charismatic personalities — but Skipper and King Julien often came across as unlikable, sociopathic jerks.

Didn't watch Monsters vs Aliens, so I can't judge.

The Dragons show also exaggerated some traits, however this isn't as noticeable because the results were a mixed bag at best, and the show was often a straight-up action cartoon — a rarity during those times.

However, Snotlout became even more of an obnoxious ass (which sadly carried on throughout the franchise).

The Twins became lethally stupid (which sadly carried on throughout the franchise).

Astrid got flanderized into being someone who likes to punch people — which thankfully DID NOT carry on throughout the franchise.

Fishlegs became even more of a nerd, but it was refreshing compared to the rest of the testosterone-poisoned cast.

The show also tried to limit and retcon just how damaging Stoick's previous style of parenting for Hiccup was, to the franchise's detriment. He was a bad parent in the first movie, and that should not be sugarcoated or retconned. Full stop.

Legends of Awesomeness is indeed a unique brand of awful because it exaggerated a lot of character traits that just didn't exist in the first movie, or were solved by the end of it.

For all of his clumsiness and naivety, Po was NEVER a Jerkass Manchild.

Mr Ping never put his business above his son. Sure, he sometimes put it on the same level as his son, but NEVER above.

Po had already earned his respect from The Five, and it was just asinine to see the TV show bungle that friendship repeatedly.

Literally Tigress is the only one who can justifiably maintain an uptight demeanour, but not to the stick-in-the-mud extent that we saw in the show.

It was just awful. Period.

Riders of Berk started with them stupid and, over the course of its run, made them more intelligent - settling more on "crazy, but not exactly dumb" (a la the first movie) by the end of it. This became accentuated even moreso as the show transitioned into Race To The Edge.

How well the twins' characterization developed is ultimately one of my favorite character handlings of that series.

Same answer, more or less.

Not... really?

If anything, Riders Of Berk's problem with Astrid is that they were dead set on characterizing her as Hiccup's Number Two and giving her few if any traits outside of that. She's definitely the flattest of the group, even by the end of the series.

That I can't really argue with.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 7th 2019 at 10:07:07 AM

Look at Seasons 1 and 2 and make a drinking game of how much she punches her friends (yes, even Fishlegs and Hiccup).

That was an annoying character trait to watch. Glad the writers phased that out.

Edited by BrightLight on Nov 8th 2019 at 7:18:31 AM

They were going by her characterization in the first movie, which was tsundere through and through. They tonned that way down in later seasons.

I find your judgement of the characters flawed, because they did change over time. And in the movies they are flat mostly because of limited screentime.

Snotlout by the last movie is nowhere as obnoxious as the first.

Fishlegs remained the same.

And the twins did show more personality by the third movie.

Po was always characterized as slightly immature and impulsive. Him playing with action figures and gushing over the kung fu museum, handling priceless artefacts was showing that. But it was never an overriding trait. It did get more prominent in 3, though, where Po and his dad were pretty much going wild in the museum. I suppose those character traits just got flanderized somewhat in the cartoon.

As for Ping putting his restaurant over Po, well, there were jokes to that effect in the movies, where Ping would try to tie everything Po did back to the restaurant, which made it look like this was the case. Maybe the writers of the cartoon made the mistake of making the joke an actual character trait.

How does that translate into raging asshole?

Flanderization.

The Monsters VS Aliens show's biggest flaw in my opinion is that they made BOB and the president, the idiotic comic reliefs, the protagonists of too many episodes.

Edited by Weirdguy149 on Nov 8th 2019 at 9:22:47 AM

That seems like a criticism you could make about a lot of spin-offs.

“This thing happens a lot with this character” and “the character is characterized around doing this thing” are two different statements.

I’d maybe call it a Character Tic (or a Running Gag), but it’s definitively not accurate to say she was flanderized into “the girl who punches everybody” - at least to any extent more than she had already been portrayed that way. I had problems with Astrid’s characterization on the show, but that wasn’t one of them.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 8th 2019 at 10:53:12 AM

Does the show in its succeeding seasons actually shows Hiccup & Astrid being involved?

The show’s last season ends right before the second movie (where they’re engaged), and the last few seasons have them in a “they’re effectively together but nobody really draws attention to it” thing. IIRC, there’s an episode where Hiccup proposes.

Man it’s always kinda annoying when they never give it any notice.

Though damn Hiccup proposing, I’d like to see that.

I might have overstated it. It’s more like that “oh look, Hiccup and Astrid were alone when this scene started. It’s obvious they were on a date, but nobody directly says so” thing that you get in animated shows that don’t really want to get into romance like that.

The proposal thing does get a bit of focus in the last season, though. I at least remember a couple episodes about it.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Nov 8th 2019 at 11:13:56 AM

Astrid punching people isn't exactly character derailment I mean the first movie had her doing exactly that with the whole "That's for kidnapping me." "That's for everything else."

The Holiday Special has her threaten it when the others wouldn’t try her (terrible) holiday drink, too.

I think it's because most of the exaggerations in Legends of Awesomeness kinda led to the cast feeling unlikeable, Po being more overwhelmingly selfish and irresponsible while his movie counterpart is sensitive and enthusiastic, the Furious Five just staying as moody assholes who will turn their back on Po at the drop of a hat, etc. These were things that had proper background and subtlety in the first movie, hence being dropped or at least downplayed in the later movies.

I found this comment on the toonzone thread for The Epic Tales Of Captain Underpants, which carries the same showrunner as Kung Fu Panda The Legends Of Awesomeness, that being Peter Hastings, which probably explains most people's issues with the latter series:

"Peter Hastings is mainly known for his work in episodic comedies with little to no continuity and characters that, charming as they may be, almost never develop in the long term. Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Pinky And The Brain, and Catscratch are a few examples. Said comedies generally have 2-3 segments, not one whole story. That probably explains some of your issues with the series. It's not in his usual style."

To add to this, Peter Hastings is better with sketch comedy, or shows with the 11 minute format, not so much with the 22 minute format.

https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/the-epic-tales-of-captain-underpants-talkback-thread-spoilers.5666271/page-2#post-87540441

God. And they gave him the Captain Underpants show. Which if I heard correctly is another pile of awful.

Aw man, a big part of the appeal of the Captain Underpants comic was that despite its episodic nature, it actually kept really good continuity, and it wasn't unusual to see a Chekovs Gun or Brick Joke come back in a much later book.

It's formulaic, maybe to a fault, but I wouldn't call the Captain Underpants shoe awful, really.

Too bad that doesnt aply to the show...

...I'll see myself out.

Ha, but seriously, it's a pretty good show. I'd even say it's a good adaptation of the comic. Episodic, with good continuity.