#technically a vent post

[creaman]

—BECAUSE KUNG FU PANDA 4 KILLED MY GRANDMA, OKAY?

To preface, I watched this movie and I'm genuinely tweaking right now so I had to write down a very brief (lie) criticism on this film — which you should boycott, by the way.

Starting with the things I liked, before briefing my primary points of criticism:

Po's Character Regression

Po and Zhen's Dynamic

The Chameleon

I'd also yap about Lord Shen and the death of the art style and the entire narrative and pacing and use of the staff of wisdom but my therapist says being such a hater is 'unhealthy' or something. My heart is full of hatred.

SPOILERS for the entirety KFP4 for the 2 people who care.

KFP4 undermines and ignores the previous three movies — Unwriting character developments, outright removing the Furious Five, straying from the character design philosophies and is completely inconsistent with the established lore.

Things I Liked About Kung Fu Panda 4

The Chameleon's character design

Visual gag in the Tavern where Po uses a recently thrown axe as a hat rack (made me laugh)

When Mr. Ping did this:

so cute! the little heart!

Po — Character Writing

Po, as established in the previous movies, is confident in his abilities and identity — he’s learnt inner peace, he’s matured as a character. However, in KFP4, his character has completely regressed. He’s immature again (such as KFP1, possibly worse) and says verbatim, “only knows kicking butt and taking names” — UNLEARNING inner peace and insisting that “…being the Dragon Warrior is all I know.”

It’s childish, and sort of Hotel Transylvania-esque.

Which isn’t helped by the comedy, the dialogue — a large chunk of which are jokes in the style of:

Master Shifu says something philosophical

Po quips off of it / doesn’t get it (i.e. Whoa!! beat I don’t know what that means.)

Oh, it’s great, yeah, very tolerable. Po’s shenanigans are normally reeled in by the presence of the Furious Five who are generally more serious in nature, creating a much needed balance in the dynamic — So without them, it’s just Po becoming increasingly obnoxious and insufferable with every consecutive quip throughout the screenplay.

Po and Zhen — Character Dynamics

[No more graphics sorry I'm too angry]

As if it wasn’t obvious that Zhen was going to be the next Dragon Warrior the second she was introduced.

Zhen, as a character, has no depth besides being a quippy thief. She quips, she steals. This character has no motives — it can be assumed that the writers intended on a ‘change of heart’ thing, but she isn’t established as evil, her working for the Chameleon is written as a (albeit poor) twist reveal.

By which point, her taking either side wouldn’t make sense, given that she has shown no loyalty or attachment to either Po nor the Chameleon.

The movie artificially strengthens their bond by having Zhen start opening up about her backstory out of nowhere for no reason but they have done nothing to grow closer to each other.

Small tangent, her backstory is exactly what you’d expect it to be with no subversions or even emotional weight. Woe is me I was so small and hungry I had to steal to survive. Glossed over in about a minute.

The majority of the dialogue between Zhen and Po is spoken exposition — explaining how powerful and badass the Chameleon is, explaining how ‘we have to go here to do that’ and ‘this place was cool until the Chameleon did such and such’, and the rest of their time together is spent engaging in filler chase sequences and fight scenes.

The Chameleon

Where do I even start…

This is where it becomes apparent that the movie relies heavily on telling rather than showing —

She is the weakest villain by far, not only in universe but as a written character; which is particularly disheartening because I genuinely adore her character design and feel as though a shapeshifting character has great potential.

The movie artificially inflates her power by insisting through exposition that this is the most capable antagonist thus far (lie).

The audience is TOLD by Zhen and various restaurant patrons that the Chameleon is a powerful shapeshifting sorceress and that she 'dominates the city' whilst the film does nothing to showcase this.

'Dominating the city' meaning letting her henchpeople run amock and bully the civilians just like Lord Shen's wolves in KFP2... uninspired.

I just realised they didn't even give her a NAME what the FUCK is going on

She describes HERSELF as ruthless, clever and unsentimental when comparing Zhen to herself.

She says HERSELF that she’s “Stronger than every opponent you’ve ever faced.”

Let’s see what vile reprehensible things she’s done, shall we?

Gently push someone down some stairs

Her first appearance is through Zhen’s exposition, as opposed to the dramatic and memorable entrances of the previous villains. Her motives or character aren’t established until the final third of the film. She doesn’t even FIGHT anybody until the final third of the film; and even then, her fight sequences are uninspired and she never really poses a real threat. (She goes down in two hits.)

That being said, WE CAN STILL SAVE HER GUYS WE CAN STILL GET HER OUTTA THERE I'M COMING FOR YOU CHAMELEON I'M GONNA DRAFT YOU A PROPER BACKSTORY AND MOTIVE AND YOU'RE GONNA BE THE MOST THREATENING VILLAIN THUS FAR

There's a scene after the climax of the film where all the kung fu masters and previous villains from the spirit realm bow to Po. I'm not going to provide my thoughts on this because I fear I may burst a blood vessel. Good day!

Closing Statements

To put it simply, Kung Fu Panda 4 was my Megamind 2.

The film rejects its predecessors in every way. It really feels as though they brought in somebody with no prior knowledge of the franchise to direct the movie.

It's a film that relies heavily on telling rather than showing — banking on the previous three movies to carry it through the box office.

It's just really disheartening to see studio execs turn one of the best franchises into a safe sequel cash grab and regress every character's development.

Nevertheless. I do adore the chameleon's character design so I might do my own take on her character.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no fairy godmother, there is no tooth fairy, and there is no kung fu panda 4.

[gregory-meowse-md]

Just watched the whole of ofmd and let me just say I’m piissed like very much so like cause they introduce a character and I’m like erm idk if I like him and then I keep watching and I love him and then they fucking kill him!! What the hell!! Aahh!!!! Like wtf I’ve been like severely crying for like 10 minutes my head hurts why would they do this to me why did they do that!! What was the reason I’m so mad at them

[edit: over 40 minutes of crying acrually]

[deertremors]

I've been questioning my entire identity and being lately, if im actually plural or what not. Haven't really been paying attention to front. It stresses me out

But at the moment.. im a identity fluid shape-shifting deer-like creature that falls under labels such as traitblur and persolossfluix. These labels make sense to me, I often cannot differentiate a interest from an identity. Ect.

Whether or not I am plural who knows? I think if I was i don't know if I'd want to separate further or not. But it does annoy me/most of us to be seperate enough to be slightly distinct but together enough to not tell what we actually are.. im probably a median system, or fluid in how separate we are, because sometimes I can tell us apart and sometimes I can't.

Perhaps my headmates/facets are just different interests and how I respond to them. There's occasional noticeable personality differences but they're few and far between.

I do still consider myself plural as there's a small amount of amnesia caused by switches.

If I were to encourage separation it'd probably be because I wanna be less stressed about not being able to tell what I want. Its easier to tell when we are seperate.

But, yea. I am a shapeshifter, traitblur, persolossfluix, nonbinary, xenogender, alterhuman + nonhuman, probably plural and mostly traumagenic in origin, and certainly somewhat genderfluid + neurodivergent, and I frequently have delusions, negative and positive + panic attacks. May or may not identify with the term transpecies, (Anti rq) who suffers from ocd and possible ptsd, which is being screened for by my therapist and psych, and treated with emdr.

"Damn thats alot of labels are you faking?"

Man idk,

If you have a problem with my fucked up mentally ill identity i don't give a shit. Im literally not going to cause harm to anyone and don't intend on doing so, so why would you care? + everyone has a complex identity, we just all put ourselves in boxes way too much, myself included considering I like to label myself with everything I consider me.

Idk why im making this post but I hope it helps someone feel less alone.

[tweekerz]

not the dereality. sweetie NO

ANXIETY INDUCED DEREALIZIATION IS COMING TO EAT MEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[huntersapprentice]

I haven't been posting at all recently, but here's a status doodle

[starscreamingg]

Okay I'm so sleep deprived so pardon whatever this is but something that's got me FUCKED up about ai generated pictures songs writing is that it just fucking kills the ability to analyse for me because there's no fucking INTENTION behind it. Like why was this decision made why were these colours used what does that say about the work NOTHING because a bunch of programming took work that DID have intent and theme and purposeful choices and turned it into SLOP. Like I COULD analyse this but it doesn't MEAN anything it's EMPTY I want to EXPLODEEE

[what-aboutno]

Big brother things

[leikeliscomet]

It's okay to talk about how your romantic attraction overlaps with your asexuality. It's not greedy to want representation of both your romanticism and your asexuality together in 1 character. It's not a lesser form of asexual representation if the character has romantic attraction. It's not a lesser form of queer romantic representation if the character is asexual. You are not a lesser form of anything. You don't have to 'choose' whether your asexuality or your romanticism matters more. It's not amatornativity to want an asexual relationship for yourself or express your romantic attraction. It's not allonormative or gross to express your interest in the same gender if you have it. It's okay if sexual/romantic/platonic look and feel completely different to you. It's not automatically 'just sexual attraction then' if it involves anything physical. It's not a privilege to have romantic attraction if it's illegal, moralised or stigmatised despite being asexual. In case anyone needs to hear it.

[srslysunny]

um. hi guys

[poisonouspastels]

A mix of liquid rust remover, vinegar, and baking soda

[mistermalaprop]

*to the tune of fireflies* you would not believe your eyes... if ten million fireflights.... uh... got adopted???? maybe????

[existingandscared]

Dick Grayson, heavy on the Dick.

I’ve been feeling very “I want to slice my face off with a knife until I’m completely unrecognizable,” lately, so I did what any sane person would do, and projected onto my favorite character.

[dreamlightgallery]

Actual affirmation I just had to use on myself to send something important.

[dynamitekansai]

THE USOS REUNITE WWE SMACKDOWN (OCTOBER 25, 2024)

[chariix-creates]

Evil ooc sans drawing cause colors and self projection

Idek what I was doing w the bg but I don't wanna fit it

[foxok-stuff]

Interacts with people and says/does something normal -> oh my god, why did I say/do that... Ohh they probably think I'm weird or have some bad intentions behind what I did/said fuckkkk -> goes into THE HOLE for another week