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Kung Fu Panda DVD

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Kung Fu Panda DVD

"When you're making computer animation, technology is the essence of what we do. And having the best tool set in the hands of great artists, makes great movies." Jeffery Katzenberg

Granted that was said in the HP promo section, but isn't it doesn't a great story and great artists make for a great movie? I think right there is the fundemental difference between Dreamworks Feature Animation and PIXAR. PIXAR is always pushing the story telling and art, while Dreamworks tends to push more the tech.

It makes me very sad to hear that fromthe CEO of Dreamworks Animation, esspecially on Kung Fu Panda which is the only animated feature from them that I've liked since Prince of Egypt.

Personally I loved this movie. I thought the story was fun and inventive, with outstanding animation, BG's and effects. I like Jack Black, but only in small doses so I was dreading listening to him for an hour and a half. In the end, I felt he did a great job. He fit the character and didn't over play it too much.

One other thing I'd like to commend Dreamworks on is that they didn't promote the voice talent. All I saw on movie posters was Jack Black's name. I'm very very impressed that they got Angelina Jolie and didn't promote the hell out of that. Kudo's to the marketing department on this one.

I know I'm a die hard PIXAR fan, but I think I'm going to have to favor Kung Fu Panda this year in the Oscar race.

Aloha,
the Ape

Animated Ape's picture

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

I know I'm a die hard PIXAR fan, but I think I'm going to have to favor Kung Fu Panda this year in the Oscar race.

I think Wall-E will win, but I liked Kung Fu Panda more. It was just so much fun, such a solid story, cast, and animation and design. Just stellar all around. Wall-E was great too, but it just wasn't as fun to me.

And I think I'd chalk that comment about technology mostly up to butt-kissing HP. Pixar relies as heavily on technology as anyone, they just don't talk about it (which is a good thing, but it doesn't mean it's not there).

Did you guys see the traditionally animated Secrets of the Furious Five short they put together?

Nethery-Ramsey Productions
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"We make the movies we want to watch, because nobody else is making them," -Randy S. Nelson, Dean of Pixar University

-Member formerly known as Spoooze!-

I liked Wall-E heaps more over Kung-fu Panda, and I was hoping to like the later more than I did.

It came off very flat to me, mostly because of the ( over-high-priced) voice talent.

IMO, Jack Black should never be used to do voice work again........he brought NOTHING to the Panda that I liked. Across the board, the voice work was bland. Seriously, whatever happened to the days of June Foray?
I don't care about having a cast of big stars, I want MEMORABLE characters, with voices that make them stand out and be interesting. The actors they selected ( with maybe one exception) did not fill that bill.

The story was so-so...........okay, I thought it was very hum-drum. I kept waiting to gain some empathy from the characters......and got nothing.
There seemed to be a lot of build up.......and then it would promptly fizzle.
The Furious Five were made out to be these fantastic martial arts cut-ups able to parry any attack, and yet when the Panda shows up they fall prey to his clumsiness just like anyone else.

I thought the most interesting bit was with the chopstick battle scene. IMO, I think they should have played up more cooking gags. As much as the others were martial arts masters, the Panda should have been some kind of serious cooking prodigy. The end battle should have had Po resort to what he truly knows best......cooking. I think it would have meant getting some inventive gags out of it, and provided a topical theme.

Yea, a topical theme over a timeless one. Normally a animated film should, imo, choose to eschew timeless over topical--because times and trends change and fade in relevancy. Unfortunately, when the voice talent cast are so "trendy" and not at all timeless in their performances.......then why even try to avoid trends? So playing up the current trends in TV cooking shows and celebrity chefs would have probably worked better, and milked some better gags. It would have also set this film apart from others.
As it is........I thought it was a weak half-measure. Nope, I did not like it.

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

Kung Fu Panda is my favourite 3D DreamWorks feature - however, that's not saying much. I've only seen the German dub, of course, and even though the main part went to a recognisable German name it was an unusual choice because they didn't go for a two-bit German imitation of Jack Black like they usually would have done.
It's indeed sad that a movie which ten or twenty years ago would have been just average in terms of content (anthropomorphic animals, fish-out-of-water / believe-in-yourself story) these days is such a rarity. The ultimate low to me is Shark Tale. What I dislike about it most strongly is everything I commend Kung Fu Panda for - Kung Fu Panda's character design was NOT just an abominable attempt to caricature the voice actors. Kung Fu Panda was NOT just a poorly constructed vehicle to have overpriced big names deliver uninspired versions of their acting stereotypes. Kung Fu Panda did NOT embarrass itself by trying to sell us poorly disguised product placement as satire. Kung Fu Panda was NOT just a brainless barrage of one-liners and poor pop culture innuendos vomitted in our faces.
So in a way I'm saying Kung Fu Panda, after today's standards, was "good" because of what it DIDN'T do. What it did it didn't do extraoridnarily. There were some scenes and character bits I liked and that's it. However, there's so little reason to go and see 3D features these days that I'm grateful for "just" that.
That said, I haven't seen Wall-E yet. I'll rent the DVD but what kept me from seeing it in spite of the praise heaped upon it is that the premise doesn't tickle me. Not robot love, not Number 5's stunted cousin falling in robot love with an iPod, not a satiric view on the future. I'm also not impressed by a 3D feature's technical achievements; I didn't care about how well they simulated fur or wet fabric in Ratatouille and I don't care how photorealistically they rendered a junk-filled earth in Wall-E.

If a movie motivates me to the point that I wont to own a copy, then for me they produced a very show feature. I have seen both "Wall-e" and "Kung Fu Panda" but I only bought "Kung Fu Panda".

All the comments made about Kung Fu Panda are spot on. I thought the voice talent was good but not great. I do think that if they had used other talent, this would had been a totally different movie.

The mix of animation styles really cough my eye. They could have easily stuck with the 2D style with those sharp colors. The intro was a very good salute to Mega animation.

The story is simple, you could see that they made no effort to show time passing. Who know how long it took Panda to train before the big final battle started. It did not bother me in the least that the story evolved the way it did.

I like animation a lot but I do not like all animation. I do have an appreciation for those movies and I hope to keep watching them for many years to come.

Jack Black is Jack Black, but he worked for me. But I thought Ian McShane was great as Tai Lung. I couldn't figure out Dustin Hoffmans voice till the credits and for me, he made a good, fustrated teacher. Also how can you not love James Hong?

I agree though. Dreamworks movies are less timeless and much more trendy. I think Panda has much less of this than most DW movies, and so will stand the test of time better than say Shrek.

Why I liked Panda better than Wall-e, was that I felt like I was so hit over the head with their message.

The chopstick battle was pretty cool. I also really liked Tai Lung's escape. Also the feel the art direction on Panda is by far DW best so far.

Aloha,
the Ape

Oh, and Po's training took a day. :P

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Oh, and Po's training took a day. :P

That's the one big writing flaw - after a sequence as impressive as Tai Lung's escape it's really next to impossible to make the audience truly believe someone like Po could beat him at his own game.
Ken is right - if they had made the character realise and use what he's already excellent at it would not only have been more believable, it would have been truer to the spirit of the whole movie, too. Kung Fu, after all, means "achievement through hard work" and that's not limited to martial arts. The scene in which Po makes soup for the Furious Five really seemed to set such an ending up.

Ken is right - if they had made the character realise and use what he's already excellent at it would not only have been more believable,

Belivable? He's a talking panda! Hahahaha, I'm just kidding. I agree with you guys on that.

As for the training time span, A lot of movies try to squeek things by the audience hoping that they are too busy cheering for the caracter that they don't really care. Sometimes it works: Woody using Buzz's helmet as a magnafining glass to light the fuze of the rocket in Toy Story. Other times it doesn't, Po's one day mega-training session. But if I'm being entertained, these things don't bother me.

Then there's also the problem that Crane could fly the other four back faster then Tai Lung could run.

Oh, and one of my favorite animated sequences. When Po has the rocket chair straped to him and he fall's flat on his face. His expression of him on the verge of crying and being ashamed is so well done.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Belivable? He's a talking panda! Hahahaha, I'm just kidding. I agree with you guys on that.

As for the training time span, A lot of movies try to squeek things by the audience hoping that they are too busy cheering for the caracter that they don't really care. Sometimes it works: Woody using Buzz's helmet as a magnafining glass to light the fuze of the rocket in Toy Story. Other times it doesn't, Po's one day mega-training session. But if I'm being entertained, these things don't bother me.

Aloha,
the Ape

In the DVD commentary they pointed out that the time line was not clear. All we know is the Po's training took the time for Tai Lung took to get to the temple, that could have been weeks.