#SIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHh

[zeravmeta]

so i saw kfp4. thoughts below. spoilers obviously read or dont im not your mom

unsurprisingly it was disappointing but surprisingly not disappointing in the way I expected, and honestly I came out of the movie a bit madder than expected because the concepts presented could have actually been pretty amazing if done well

so the main plot as presented is that the chameleon is the cool new badass villain whose main gimmick is stealing the powers of past kung fu villains and thus po and the new ally zhen must go and stop her!!! and this is where the problems begin

im just gonna say it: zhen is not only disappointing but also a character that functionally should not exist. shes immediately presented as being a Cool and Quirky Dastardly Rouge and so much of the movie hinges on us liking her but we have basically zero reason to, and throughout the movie she has literally no character arc. the twist is that she was working for the chameleon the whole time to steal po's staff, and now suddenly she feels bad about it and wants to help po because its. the right thing i guess. thats word for word the reason given. shes ultimately a nothing character who basically coin flips twice in terms of personality, and there's nothing to her

the chameleon, on the other hand, is beautiful missed opportunity

so as shown in the trailers her main gimmick is stealing the powers of past kung fu masters to be your standard copycat villain, but unlike what was expected, her backstory actually makes her pretty interesting:

the chameleon is just like po

she was a kung fu super fan who went from master to master across china, to every and any dojo she could find, all so that she could actually properly learn kung fu, but she was rejected for being too small. too weak. for being nothing more than a little runt, the same way po was just a big flabby panda that no one believed in

because of this, she decided to become a sorceress, with the goal of actually stealing the kung fun mastery of the masters in the spirit realm so that she can actually be worth something and no one could ever tell her that shes lesser again. literally the first line she says to tai lung when she summons him (and to some of the other masters) is that shes a big fan, and continually keeps naming the special techniques of each master she takes from ala the way po fanboys when being attacked by other masters

Honestly, she could have been the perfect case for a redeemed villain, because the big next lesson shifu presents to po in this movie is that its time for him to move on from being the dragon warrior, and to select a successor to that title while he becomes a spiritual grandmaster, equal to oogway, to be better than not only what others believe but what he himself believes. The chameleon and po were both characters that no one believed in and who succeeded despite the odds, which the chameleon herself says and po lampshades by going "man the amount of times a villain has told me we're identical, but this time its true".

Thats part of where the other issues come in: Tai lung and the spirit warriors summoned.

Tai lung in this film was not only missed opportunity, but he (and the past villains shen and kai) are so wildly out of character its kind of weird that theyre even in this movie. They basically show up at the tail end of the film just to have their powers stolen and get put into cages, tai lung says oogway made the wrong choice with po (kai and shen dont have a single speaking line), and when po wins we have tai lung going "maybe... oogway was right after all" and then they all bow to po and go back to the spirit realm.

..................yeah.

quick addendum a whole bunch of characters were also out of character, mainly shifu being a bit more dickish than he usually is, and especially po whose just like. a cop?? about zhen. "youre a thief therefore EVIL" and shying away from the criminal underworld section of the movie. like guys this is the guy who broke into a museum literally so he could geek out about the displays. but yeah

If they Seriously Truly Desperately Needed the successor plot point, there is both tai lung and the main fucking villain as options, and each are charming for their own reasons and leagues better than zhen: Tai Lung to finally achieve his dream after he'd basically been lied to his entire life and maybe reach some kind of reconciliation with shifu, and the chameleon to follow through on the themeings of the franchise of someone's belief and hard work actually being what allows them to be good at kung fu

instead we get lame fox zhen whose so much of a nothing character that the best sequence with her was right at the end of the movie when the furious five cameo and go through a montage of her eating shit the way po did initially.

aside from all the plot stuff the movie is a little wonky animated, like it actually is well animated and cool like all KFPs but the character designs and backgrounds did feel a little out of place, though the chameleon def works style wise.

ultimately malding because this movie could have actually worked really well if they just switched out a few things: Have the chameleon fool po for his staff, steal tai lungs powers, and then tai lung and po have to work together to defeat the chameleon with the rest of the movie having them reconcile as two people who worked towards impossible expectations, ultimately culminating in them defeating the chameleon with this same lesson, and maybe po either anoints tai lung as the new dragon warrior (if hes allowed to stick around) or maybe the chameleon as the new dragon warrior and someone for po to help redeem

boom far easier 10/10 movie with no stupid aggressively "like me pls" fox character. oh well, i love stale bread and water without any ice, see you in kung fu panda five everybody