*****SPOILERS*****
Questions
It’s
easier to label these as problems. However, there are ways to justify them.
It’s just problematic because they aren’t clear-cut.
Mr
Ping notes that Po is trimmer than he used to be. In that scene, he definitely
is trimmer. But in the rest of the film, his stomach is as big and round as the
first film. This could be due to the fact that the viewpoint is looking
straight on at Po, meaning that the change in wideness can be seen but any
depth can’t be seen, and Po being slimmer sideways is possible even if he’s as
deep.
When
Po and the Furious Five travel to Gongmeng City, they cross snows and a desert.
Considering the journey only took three days, snow with hot desert within such
a short period seems counterintuitive. Some deserts do have snow, but from the
shimmering air in the desert we know it’s a hot one, so it wouldn’t have snow.
However, mountains in hot Africa do have snow: the masters’ journey is
feasible.
Gorillas
work for Shen. They agreed to work with Shen? The options: they don’t know what
Shen and the wolves did to the pandas; they do know and they’re okay with it;
or they only found out after the agreed to work with Shen and their honour
means they can’t go back on their word to serve Shen.
Seeing
gorillas with Shen was, at first, odd because gorillas don’t live in Asia. But
Shen has been away for thirty years: that’s definitely enough time to travel to
the gorillas, employ them, then come back to China.
In
his memory, Po sees his panda dad use a sledgehammer to fight off the wolves.
But in the next film, Po’s dad doesn’t know how to fight. So either this is an
inconsistency or Po’s mind is elaborating memories, a known phenomenon in
people’s minds. Thus this mistake can be waved away by a legitimate reason,
even if it was an accidental inconsistency.
Problems
There
were many problems. The wolves had no idea about the Dragon Warrior. Po asks
for a hat for a gag. The Valley of Peace should be shocked Po’s alive but
they’re not. Toy Mantis was in the cage but he shouldn’t be. Plus some problems
with smaller discussions.
Some
problems don’t require much analysis.
Po
tells Tigress he just found out he was adopted. When Tigress says, “That must
have been a shock,” Po agrees. But before Po left, he told his dad he knew he
was adopted. Maybe it was the fact Mr Ping told Po out loud, that he was
shocked to finally have confirmation?
In
the jail, we only see three prisoners. Considering there had been a hostile
takeover, one would expect more prisoners. Maybe there have been executions, in
which case Po and the Furious Five should have been furious with Shen (pun
entirely intended). Or maybe the animators couldn’t be bothered to animate the
inmates because the angles of the shots within the prison definitely allowed
the audience to see inside loads of cells.
When
Tigress whispers to Po during their hug, she speaks in the quietest voice in
whole movie. That would be fine if the sound difference wasn’t so drastic: I
don’t like having to rewind, turn the volume up for a little sentence, then
remembering to turn the volume back down so the film doesn’t give me a
headache.
Shaping
the canons like dragons seems clever because both shoot fire from their mouths.
But the film’s based in China and Chinese dragons have nothing to do with fire.
Master
Shifu says that the day Oogway chose Po as Dragon Warrior was the worst day of
his life. However, one would think that his adopted son Tai Lung turning on
him, Oogway and the Valley of Peace would be the worse day of his life.
The
wolves had no idea about the Dragon Warrior, acting like they’d never heard of it
as a concept before. This doesn’t make sense.
There
are only three days between the Valley of Peace and Gongmeng City. That’s
plenty close enough to know what important concepts the other holds. As the
Dragon Warrior is important to the Valley of Peace, Gongmeng City residents
(which include the wolves) would know about the concept of the Dragon Warrior.
Also,
Gongmeng City was run by the Kung Fu Council once the peacock king died. This
means that kung fu is important to Gongmeng City. Considering the Dragon
Warrior is important to kung fu, the wolves of kung fu-loving Gongmeng City
should know the idea of the Dragon Warrior.
Po
told the Soothsayer that he needed a hat.
When
he goes to Shen, he throws the hat shouting, “Disc of Destruction” so we expect
a successful attack. It falls off course and fails completely. Whilst this is
funny, it seems like Po only asked for the hat for this gag (explaining why the
creators did it, not the character).
In
Po’s memories, a few pandas wore hats. So maybe he wanted to wear a hat to be
closer to his people? But the only ones wearing hats wore those in the
background. When people see or remember something for the first time, their
attention is almost always on the foreground, not the background, so the chance
of Po noticing that some pandas wore hats is low.
No-one
in the Valley of Peace seems surprised that Po exists.
Gongmeng
City is three days away from the Valley of Peace, so one would assume the
Valley’s residents would hear some news of Gongmeng. The heir to the throne
committing panda genocide and being banished for it (along with his army),
meaning the city had no heir at all, seems like pretty big news. There’s no way
the Valley didn’t hear about this. So how come no-one seems surprised that Po
exists?
Yes,
the residents could have agreed to be silent about it in order to protect Po,
but there’s no way that many people could be silent for so long. Po must have
asked about where the other pandas are. Any travellers to the Valley must have voiced
their curiosity, too.
Shen’s
banishment happened thirty years ago and Tai Lung was imprisoned twenty years
ago, so in the last film even Tai Lung would have known about the genocide. Yet
he doesn’t seem surprised Po’s alive. Yes, when he discovers Po’s the Dragon
Warrior, he says, “A panda?” On the surface, this might look like Tai Lung’s
shocked that there’s a living panda. However, he says this a while after
meeting Po and in none of the space between does he show shock (seeing
something people thought extinct would elicit some sort of expression). The way
Tai Lung says this is clearly in reference to everyone underestimating Po
because of his species.
The
only way this makes sense is if there are other panda villages out there. But
considering how shocked the wolves and Shen were when they found out about Po,
this seems unlikely. Why would they think Po’s existence was impossible if
there were other pandas out there?
Po
puts Mantis in the cage. When we next look in the cage, it’s Po’s toy of
Mantis. So either Mantis got out or Po put the toy in the cage in the first
place.
The
former is dismissed because we should have either seen how or be told how,
maybe with Mantis bragging. The latter is also out because as Mantis is being
put in the cage, many different parts of his body were moving at the same time:
there’s no way Po’s figures could have managed this, especially as the
movements were lifelike.
But
where did the toy even come from? At this point, Po didn’t have his backpack
with him, meaning the mantis toy was in his trousers. I doubt there would have
been room for a single toy in there so that’s unlikely. Also, Tigress is
clearly his favourite of the Furious Five, so if he were to pick a toy to
bring, surely he’d pick the Tigress toy?
This
film remains my favourite in the Kung Fu Panda series. It gave me unexpected
nostalgia many times, like how the way the wolves howl is exactly how the wolf
in the Rugrats Movie howled. To have a peacock as a main character is fabulous
for me personally so I guess I was always going to love this. My subjective
opinion aside, there are objective facts: it was clever, beautiful,
funny and thoughtful.
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