Kung Fu Panda

Post by **Whippet Angel** » June 12th, 2008, 10:41 pm

Yeah..... About the Turtle

Post by **PULPHERO33** » June 13th, 2008, 2:50 am

Hey the name's Ronald. I have posted here before, but forgot my password and was forced to register again using a different e-mail adress.

Well I for one loved Kung Fu Panda. In fact I thought it was DreamWorks’s best CGI animated film since Over The Hedge. I have never been a big fan of DreamWorks’s CGI efforts. I never cared for any of the Shrek films; the third one was particularly bad. Shark Tale and Madagascar were pure garbage and the second Madagascar does not look much better.

To me there has only been a few stand out animated films that DreamWorks has done. Most of them have been 2D (Prince of Egypt, Sinbad, Spirit) or stopmotion/claymation (Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit) but most of their CGI films have fallen short for me. I saw them as cheap films. Filled to the brim with contemporary pop songs and pop culture references to appeal to the tween crowd. No real story to speak of, just a mish mash of jokes and gags with really choppy and bad pacing.

I have always been a much bigger Pixar fan in this regard, but that all changed when I found myself enjoying Over The Hedge more than Cars. I found that strange. I was like Shy violet , but the other way around. To me DreamWorks was evil and Pixar can do no wrong, but that idea was challenged with Over The Hedge and Cars.

Then Ratatouille came and that was just brilliant, but that was to be expected. It was Brad Bird, the guy who gave me my all time favorite animated film period The Incredibles.

Anyway Kung Fu Panda was great. It was funny and exciting. It had a great main character that was funny and endearing, who you wanted to see achieve his goal. Po was just laugh out loud hilarious and also irresistibly sweet and cute. Jack Black did an awesome job as did Dustin Hoffman as Shifu.

I loved the animation and design. The action was crazy and uber cool. Tai Lung’s escape and the Bridge fight were awesome. This is the first movie of it’s kind folks. I don’t think that an animated Kung Fu movie has ever been attempted before, at least not like this.

I also appreciated it’s strong music score. Hans Zimmer and John Powel did a bang up job. Great themes and awesome action cues. Great use of Chinese instruments and sounds. I also liked how at times it sounded like a Kung Fu movie from the 1970’s.

Most of DreamWorks’s CGI films the music score is there only as an after thought and simply there to fill in the gaps left by the loads of pop songs that they lazily slap on to these films. This I feel is a shame because it insults the composers.

Over The Hedge was not like this and neither was Kung Fu Panda, Sure Over The Hedge had songs in it, but all were written for the film and all blended seamlessly with the music score that was mostly prominent. Hmmm now that I think about it Bee Movie was also like this, mostly score and very little songs.

Anyway that’s all I have to say about that.

5 sequels yea thats too much. Shrek has already worn out his welcome a long time ago.

I could see the story for a Kung Fu Panda sequel though. I see the villian as being more of the supernatural kind, like a Sorcerer or something. I would like to see Po and the Five take on hordes of undead warriors.

I could also see the film's opening scene. Po and the five are at a bar on inn and Po with his usual clumsy self manages to unintentially pick a fight with some nasty characters. Then Po and the Five have to fight themselves out of it.

I think that Oogway's death was to be interperted like Obi Wan Kenobi's or Yoda's death in the Star Wars Classic Trilogy.

Post by **K3vin** » June 13th, 2008, 6:34 pm

I saw it about 3 minutes ago and I enjoyed it, It was great but not awesome. I'm not a dreamworks fan neither but I have to admet that this is probably their best movie since the first Shrek and Over the Hedge.

But during all the movie, I had this feeling of Déjà-Vu (Hey, I'm french. Why am I putting this word in Italic ? Anyway) because most of the jokes were "He's a big fat panda, he sucks". The script is not very original :

I know it's an Animated that Kids will enjoy but there points in the script who deserved to be explored (But why so many sequels). The story focus about Po and Shi-Fu but not about the other characters, I find they are interesting.

Well, let's talk about the good things in the movie : The animation is very great, impressive. The fights are very cool. Nothing else to say, it's very great. The music and the climax are just awesome. Dreamworks has made a very good job on that movie.

So, in conclusion, the movie was pretty cool but the script is the weakess thing. But who cares guys ? We all want to see a big fat panda making Kung-Fu ! Wohoo !

Post by **Whippet Angel** » June 14th, 2008, 12:00 am

I saw it again this afternoon (as I finished running some errands early, and had several hours to kill while waiting for my BF to get off work)

Two more things I noticed:

Ian McShane is a wonderful voice actor! He really established Tai Lung's character (very much like he did for Ragnar the Ice Bear in Golden Compass).

I also noticed when the credits rolled (after that cute 2D animated sequence) there is some rather lovely character artwork shown in the background. I hope all that stuff is in the "Art of" book, cause I'd definitely buy it. ^__^

I think that Oogway's death was to be interperted like Obi Wan Kenobi's or Yoda's death in the Star Wars Classic Trilogy.

Ah, that makes a bit more sense. I still thought it was kinda bizarre though

Post by **Vernadyn** » June 19th, 2008, 4:16 pm

I could've done without that slow-mo butt shot of Po, and the middle of the film seemed to be a bit rushed. Other problems that I had with the film have already been stated. Otherwise, an entertaining film with an absolutely stellar opening sequence. I agree with K3vin: "great but not awesome." It's nice to see the talent that DreamWorks Animation artists display on their blogs finally make it to one of their features.

Post by **Ben** » June 20th, 2008, 3:15 pm

Slo-mo does seem to be the trademark DWA visual trick. Can't think of one of their comedy films that doesn't have a slo-mo sot in it, actually.

Post by **James** » June 20th, 2008, 4:16 pm

Put to the best use in Over the Hedge methinks.

Post by **Ben** » June 21st, 2008, 5:52 pm

Yes, I liked that. Very funny. Good little movie. Every now and then DWA can really pull something out that's just a little offbeat, in a good way.

Post by **Zach** » July 1st, 2008, 10:55 pm

I went to see it today. It was really good, but not exactly what I expected. I thought it would have more comedy in it, but it still had its moments. I enjoyed it overall. As far as having five more sequels, let's hope that doesn't happen. One or two more would be fine. I hope they don't go overboard with it though.

Post by **JOHN•E** » July 17th, 2008, 3:20 pm

I don't really like any of DreamWorks Animated movies.

But I thought this one was okay.

~~ JOHN•E

Post by **Marcellus** » August 15th, 2008, 3:32 am

Not sure if this is the real thing, but I think I've found Kung Fu Panda's DVD Cover Art. New to the Animated-News forum, so do not know how to insert the image from my computer. If you go to the link now, you will not see it, but I was able to download the image first. So how can I insert it?

Post by **Daniel** » August 15th, 2008, 12:16 pm

You could try uploading the image on a hosting site, such as ImageShack or Photobucket and then getting the picture link.

Hope your able to, and welcome!

Post by **Marcellus** » August 16th, 2008, 10:08 pm

I think I did it. To gain access to the Kung Fu Panda Cover Art use the following link to get image. Click on the 2nd pic(Higher Res than the first) in "My Images".

http://profile.imageshack.us/user/wattsand/

Post by **Ben** » August 17th, 2008, 8:08 am

Pretty nice attempt there by a home designer (is it yours, Marcellus?), but this is obviously not the DVD cover for Kung Fu Panda...at least not the final one.

Post by **Marcellus** » August 17th, 2008, 6:50 pm

I thought the same, maybe they got some high res stuff various sites. They did a good job whoever it was, but it wasn't me. I just figured Dreamworks doesn't really put a lot of time into their DVD Cover Art and it looks along the lines of what they'd put together. But we'll see I guess.

Kung Fu Panda

Kung Fu Cover Art

DVD Cover Art

Kung Fu Panda DVD Cover Art