what went right?

it successfully recaptured everything that made the first film good, while adding a better villain and some backstory to the hero

>>89723051

The villain, the character development, the comedy, the action, the side characters. Pretty much everything. Kung Fu Panda 2 is my favorite animated movie.

>>89723999
Are you me?

>>89723999
Don't forget the beautiful score.

Everything was so good. Directing, color theory, storyboarding. Goddamn, I get gushy over this movie. I don't care, man.

Did you guys like 3?

>>89723051
The intro was beautiful. The flashback leading into scenes from the first movie was extremely well done.
The villain was a genuine threat and very charming. The animation was smooth.

This was way better than a DreamWorks movie should be

>>89723051
It was a sequel that managed to further develop Po.

>>89726038
It was good, but definitely the weakest of the three. I felt like it had a hard time knowing when to be funny and when to be serious, something two nailed perfectly and one only had minor problems with.

>>89723051
>what went right?
Everything that was not about giving the Furious Five a little bit more scenes

>make really good movie
>the sequel is basically a better version of the 1st movie
So few film series do this, how odd that its Kung Fu Panda that pulls it off.

>>89723051
Not much really. It was inferior to the first movie in almost every way.

>>89723051
Everything, honestly. Better visuals, better music, better action setpieces, better characters. It's the perfect sequel.

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>>89725963
>color theory
Goddamn, this.

The yellow vs red motif was so good

>>89726235
nah, I loved all 3, but 3 was imo the weakest, the villain wasn't as great, and the overall goofiness of all the Pandas felt weird, not to mention none of the Five were really all present outside of Tigress.

Not sure what was the point of the female panda, she rarely did anything, she didn't become a love interest for Po, yet they promoted the hell out of her, she was just there.

>>89726038
3 wasn't terrible, but it was a real step down from 2.

>>89726235
>>89728896

disregard , thought you were talking about 2.

>>89725825
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHmkN_nZp9M

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>>89726038
I loved 3 for the focus on the spiritual and philosophical side of kung fu, plus it had without a doubt the best visuals in the series, and it really felt like the perfect way to end Po's arc from student to master. Sadly the pacing wasn't as good and the comedy and drama weren't balanced as good as they were in the previous movies. I think with less wacky panda shenanigans and more focus on Kai/more kung fu scenes it might've been my favorite, but alas.

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>>89725825
>tfw the best music track wasn't even included on the OST
>tfw this happened AGAIN for the OST of Kung Fu Panda 3
What the fuck get your shit together Hans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Tn4BVBwWE

>>89723051
Everything. The jokes were gut-busting, the tragedy was gut-wrenching, and both were in perfect balance.

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>>89725963
>>89728884
My niggas, the color theory is the best. I did an analysis of the use of color in these movies and posted about it a while back in a KFP thread and people started calling me the color theory anon, haha. It's just such a cool detail that adds a lot to the movie.
The third movie wasn't out then, maybe I should go through it again to look at all the colors.

>>89729627
That's cool. I think I missed it, but I've babbled at length about the red vs yellow elsewhere on the internet, though.

Best example was how all the lamps in the stairwell of Shen's tower just magically transformed from yellow to red when shit got real, because fuck you. motif > continuity.

Keep meaning to write an essay or something.

>>89729846
>red vs yellow
Actually, that's not specifically a thing. There's several different colors that each have their own meaning and origins in chinese philosophy, and every single shot in the movie can be analyzed by just looking at the colors. It goes much deeper than simply 'color vs other color', but of course this is still a thing that happens sometimes.

Y'know what, fuck it. I'll just post my shit here again. Gimme a bit, I'll get my shit together.

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I'm writing this as I go, so bear with me.

Kung Fu Panda is one big tribute to chinese wuxia film. Wuxia is a chinese genre that has existed for over 2000 years, about a noble kung fu hero (often of lower class) with a moral code to fight evil wherever it pops up. It only got popular in the west thanks to ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, directed by Ang Lee. KFP, however, was more inspired by the work of another Wuxia director: Zhang Jimou, famous for ‘Hero’ and ‘House of Flying Daggers’. Hey guess what, he did cool shit with color theory too (pic related).

This theory has its roots in Wu Xing (Five Elements), a concept in chinese philosophy used in all kinds of stuff like feng shui, astrology, martial arts and more. It says there are five elements, and each element has many things corresponding to them: planets, seasons, and most importantly right now, colors and emotions. These are used in the movies with little change.

Earth is linked with the colors yellow, gold and shades of brown, and symbolizes heroism. In china yellow is the best color of them all and is used to symbolize the emperor.
Fire is linked with the color red, and symbolizes power
Wood is linked with ‘Qing’, which oddly enough is a combination of both blue and green. The movie splits these two. Blue symbolizes fear, bad luck and negative emotions, while green symbolizes wisdom and harmony.
Metal is linked with the color white, and symbolizes purity and courage.
Water is linked with the color black, which is a neutral color, but gains much importance when combined with white. Yin yang, obviously, symbolizes the ulitmate balance of all elements.

>Next: how are they used in the movie?

>>89730663
What does the water element represent?

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>>89730663
I’ll start by looking at some of the characters before looking at some of the cool scenes, because there’s some neat stuff here too.

Po is a panda, so obviously he’s black/white. Obvious yin yang. However, his eyes are green, which represents wisdom. This symbolizes his capacity and eagerness to learn kung fu. His yellowish beige pants are a hint at his role as the hero.
Shifu is mostly white and beige. Makes sense since he’s the wise teacher of the hero. Except he’s not that wise, he doesn’t have any green in his design. That all goes to Oogway who’s pretty much all green and is the wisest sage ever. In the second movie Shifu has a new outfit. At the end of the first movie, he achieved inner peace and took over Oogway’s role as wise sage, and his new outfit is all green to prove it.
Tai Lung is the fucking coolest. He’s all bluish grey, which makes him the living embodiment of fear. Except for his eyes, which are a bright burning yellow. Why is that? Because from his point of view (IN HIS EYES, WINK WINK) HE is the hero. He sees himself as a noble warrior who was betrayed and unjustly denied of his destiny, and his eyes burn with this belief. I fucking love this detail to much god damn. This can be applied to Tigress too, since in the first movie she believed she would be chosen as dragon warrior and feels it’s up to her to stop Tai Lung. Also, her outfit is red for power, since she’s the most powerful of the Furious Five.

Next up is the fun stuff: some scenes that use color really well. Note that these are all from the first movie, since that’s what my analysis was originally about, but maybe I’ll add some from 2 and 3 afterwards. If I feel like it.

>>89730908
Oops, my bad. Water is also linked with gentleness and resourcefulness
To be fair, there's a million things these elements represent, sometimes there's even some overlap. Chinese philosophy is confusing as hell man.

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>>89731035
Let's start with this one.

The only two colors here are blue (negativity) and an orangey gold (positivity). Blue is used whenever there's negativity or fear or anything bad happening. That's why every scene where Po doubts himself or anything bad happens, happens at night. Everything is bathed in darkness. Same as the first image here. Tai Lung escaped prison and is on his way. We just got to hear Tigress talk about all the mad shit Tai Lung did and is probably gonna do when he gets here. Shit's getting real. And then we get this scene, where Shifu learns that he's coming. But he doesn't know it yet. As far as he knows, everything's fine. He's meditating in a safe bubble of gold, when everything around him is blue, threatening to burst the bubble.

The second one uses the same colors, but in a different way. Again everything is blue, Po is doubting himself. Then Oogway arrives in with a lantern glowing a warm reassuring gold and provides Po with the wisdom he needs to keep going. Even when he exits, he leaves his lanters with Po, symbolizing the support and wisdom he just gave him.

>>89729627
KP3 was green as fuck.

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>>89731237
Tai Lung's escape.
Everything is dark blue. This symbolizes Tai Lung's presence, the entire prison was made just to keep him in. The only other color is bright red, which often lights up the rhino guards. This shows the huge power they commit to keep Tai Lung in there. A cool detail you might have missed is that whenever Tai Lung ascends, all the red torches on the floors beneath him are extinguished, leaving nothing but darkness. This entire escape scene is a fight between the blue and the red and it's rad.

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>>89731362
Here's a more 'regular' scene, but still you can see which colors they used. It's pretty much all gold and red, symbolizing Po's growth into a hero and his rise in power.

>>89726038
It was a disappointment. Not terrible, but disappointing.

>>89729846
I'm pretty sure you already know about this one, but when Po redirects the cannonballs, their glow changes from red to yellow. I always thought that was a neat touch

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>>89731415
Okay time for the second movie.

The only new thing they added was adding new meaning to white (which I forgot to mention in a previous post oops). In China, white is considered the color of death, so in this movie, oftentimes scenes with Shen are lit with bright white light instead of more natural colors.

Look at that blood red sky and bright white lighting. That shit makes no sense, but it sure as hell looks cool. Shen owns this place and bathes everything in the stark white, while the ominous red sky lets us know he's a powerful force to be reckoned with.

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>>89731502
Shen's palace is neat. Here you can see that tha palace itself has color, mostly reds to showcase his power, but the light in the room is pure white, which also makes a lot of the color in the room seem less vibrant, adding to the fact that this shit is for real.

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>>89731615
But then they fight back. As Po runs towards Shen, the Five destroy the cannon by kicking it through the floor. The explosion radiates a gold aura which appears behind Po as he strikes. Any time Po acts heroic, expect gold to randomly show up.

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>>89731699
Welp never mind, shit got rekt. In the span of a few seconds, all the color is gone and everything is suddenly blue and red. Makes no sense really, but it looks damn cool and does a good job showcasing the frightful power of Shen's cannons.

>>89730663
>>89731035
>>89731237
>>89731362
>>89731415
>>89731502
>>89731615
>>89731699
>>89731752
This is really interesting, thanks for sharing it colors anon

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>>89731752
The finale of 2 is really good, and has a subtle color changes that isn't really that noticeable at first, but pretty neat. It's about colors slowly changing so it doesn't really show up properly in screenshots, so watch that scene again and keep this and the next post in mind.

As expected by now, during the fight everything is blue and red, but when the tide changes (like when Master Ox and Croc or Shifu show up) the red light lighting everyone's faces slowly becomes a bit more orangey, getting closer to the hero's color, and keeps getting more orange/yellow as the fight progresses.

But then that all changes when Shen blows everything up. (continued in next post)

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>>89731990
AGAIN everything is blue (well, more grey-ish, since that's closer to Shen's white) and red. But as Po figures out how to redirect the cannonballs (which, as >>89731501 mentions, turn from red to yellow as he fires them back, super cool) keep your eye on the background. From that point on, the sky is slowly changing, showing some clouds being lit up by a rising sun behind them, glowing orange. As the scene progresses there are more and more clouds in this color as Po starts winning the fight, until he blows up the main ship and day finally breaks.

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>>89732147
The third movie fives us the spirit realm, which is pretty much the embodiment of the "two warring colors" thing. The entire sky is a single color depending on who has the upper hand. Green versus gold.

So yeah, Kai's color is obviously jade green. You can say that as he stole Oogways chi, he stole his primary color too.

Based Shen.

>>89726038
Not bad just bland coming from 2. Loved JK Simmons though

>>89732339
The panda village is also green as fuck.

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>>89732339
That also means that, instead of negative scenes being a dark blue or a greyish blue, the blue is now a bit brighter an more green-ish than the previous movies.

Then again, this specific scene has more green than usual since it also shows Shifu giving Po some wisdom. Also, the gold lantern of positivity is back! Shifu learned a lot from Oogway.

Also, another thing I now realize I forgot to mention, is Shifu's eyes are bluish grey, which in the context of the first movie symbolized that he was still haunted by Tai Lung and his past. Just thought I'd mention that too.

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>>89732500
Obvious color choices are obvious.

Fuck it now I'm just posting screencaps. I don't think I have much more to say about the color theory actually, I think I said pretty much all there is to say. Hope you liked it anons.

>>89732635
Also major props to them for making the obligatory 2D animated scene have this fucking amazing art style this time around. I love the floating text.

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>>89732703
And I forgot my image. Oops.

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>>89732729
I noticed this when I watched the third movie for the first time, but while it still has all the relevant colors from the previous movies and still uses color as a way to symbolize emotions and atmosphere, this movie also does a lot of "whatever looks cool". For example, these trees are blue. Why? Probably just because it looks cool and different from what we're used to in the Valley of Peace.

>>89732480
Yes to this, it's fucking green everywhere. Probably since this place is all about Po learning about his past and learning to accept himself.

Even if Kai ended up kinda subpar when compared to Shen or Tai Lung in the character department, he was still a badass. I could make a whole folder of just shots where Kai looks cool.

Fun fact: Kai used to have four arms and creepy hair/tendrils that grew like roots to absorb chi, but the arms were too hard to animate so they had to simplify his design.

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>>89733219
For fucks sake why do I suddenly keep forgetting to add my images.

>>89733248
with all this talk about color, let's not even start on the sound design.

HOLY SHIT, COLOR THEORY ANON IS BACK!

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>>89734056
If I see a KFP thread I always check in bro.
But more often than not the thread is run over by furries and then I get the fuck out of there.

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>>89723051
>hand drawn animated series never

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>>89733372
Do it anon. Become the sound design anon.

These colors in this entire sequence mean nothing, but god damn are they gorgeous.

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>>89735571

>>89735368
i would not be able to handle that level of cute from tigress on a constant basis. are you trying to kill me?

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>>89735622
Kek

Also, I think it's really cool how they even took stuff from the first movie and explained them, like the Wu Xi finger hold being an important plot point and actually explaining what it does.

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I liked the addition of the big fat rays of light in this movie

>>89735907
third movie is basically where the series went from dragonball to dbz

>>89723051
The cloaca fuck doujin

>>89732635
Thanks man, that was pretty good.

>>89723999
>the side characters

They were still underutilized imo. Still a great movie.

I liked that in 2 they avoided the easy story of blaming technology/progress as a whole, despite one of the most iconic moments of the movie being about the death of one of the greatest and wisest kung fu masters to a cannon

Does /co/ still want to fuck Kai? That shit was disturbing.

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Oh yeah, another thing I really love about the entire trilogy: CIRCLES.

Circles have always been loaded with philosophical meaning, as universal, sacred, representing the infinite nature of energy, not just in chinese philosophy but all over the world. You always saw them throughout the series: the perfectly circular water ripples in the water pond of the Jade Palace, the circles that appear when Tai Lung and Oogway hit pressure points, the wu xi finger hold shockwave, the circular motions to redirect the cannonballs, they were omnipresent. I love how they now tied it all together with chi, it representing the energy of life. Tai Lung was hitting nerves to block their chi, the wu xi finger hold is a big blast of chi with the power to connect directly to the spirit realm. Suddenly the old movies have a new perspective.

And it all culminates in the finale of 3. I know a lot of people were disappointed by the ending, and I can get that, I was expecting more kung fu fighting too, but it's the culmination of everything Po's done and all the chinese philosophical undertones of the entire series leading to this moment, where Po truly accepts his own identity and becomes the best version of himself, the one and only Dragon Warrior. It even ends with Oogway having a conversation with Po about the nature of the Dragon Warrior and straight up telling him why he was chosen all those years ago. It's the perfect ending to Po's character arc.

I know they're probably gonna make more, and I love these too much to say no, but in some ways I want this to be the final movie. It ends too well.

Okay my autism for this series has gone far enough I'm gonna stop now. Fuck.

The voice cast is astounding - I'd written off Angelina Jolie as one of those actresses that got acclaim for being hot, rather than being good, but she's used to good effect as the stoic Tigress. Plus, it was neat to have Jean-Claude Van Damme cameoing as Master Crocodile

skabump

I thought the visuals and musical number were top notch for all three films. KFP is probably Dreamworks best series.

Still miffed about the show. It wasn't great, but it was alright.

It has some pretty good waifus and husbandos that don't get enough screen time.

>>89723051
>what went right?
It had its own story to tell, and didn't just retrace the steps of the first movie.