Terrence Briggs wrote:
> Reply crossposted to on-topic groups. Followups set to
> rec.arts.animation and rec.arts.movies.current-films.
> Pop quiz, Mr. Netherlands: How many lines did each of the Furios Five
> get during the course of the movie? With the exception of Tigress, I
> doubt any of them had more than 5 lines. (Jackie Chan only had 2.)
> They were like cameos. More stunt casting nonsense, but celebrity
> nonsense makes for good PR sometimes.
Crane and Mantis had a decent number of lines.
>> Oogway, Shifu's master has a vision that Tai Lung
>> (Ian McShane, with a level of menace that would make Scar from The
>> Lion King proud), the most feared warrior ever, is about to escape
>> his bonds and get revenge. A ceremony is held to choose the new
>> Dragon Warrior. Due to an accident, Po inserts himself into the
>> ceremony and is branded the Chosen One, much to the anger of Shifu
>> and the others. They plot to overwhelm Po and bring on a new choice
>> before it is too late.
>
> Don't get me started on the plot. "There are no accidents", sure, but
Guzen ja nai.
> I'm really starting to tire of "chosen ones". (It's bad enough when
> the Asian soruce amterial uses it!) Why can't big fat fanboy slob be
> like Sammo Hung, and just want to learn Kung Fu and help his friends,
> without being some mythical, mystical, divinely chosen doofus destined
> for greatness by some prophecy? Rant off.
Think about how it feels for us absolute-free-will objectivists? It's
almost herasy to me. The only Fate I care about shares a bed with Nanoha.
>> I admit my hopes for this movie were very low.
>
> Ditto. Admittedly, the martial arts animation looked good in the
> trailers and previews, even if the Jack Black panda pratfalls didn't.
>
>> Like Bruckheimer and other
>> movie factories, Dreamworks has found a formula for making flicks
>> that click, and I was expecting it to fall into the same
>> crowd-pleaser mode of previous films like Madagascar and the Shrek
>> franchise. This wasn't helped by one of the co-directors, John
>> Stevenson, being an art director on Madagascar and director of four
>> episodes of Father Of The Pride.
> Without giving anything away, my main problem with the finale is an
> expected problem: A previously unstoppable force gets mad and loses to
> an inferior opponent. Again, kid-friendly Hollywood storytelling
> demands that the titular character will do everything himself.
> (Rec.arts.anime.misc just had a discussion about that last month, with
> respect to Naruto and Bleach, and that was anime!)
They missed a chance for a really good line. "Ok, TaiLung - you have the
scroll, but are you able to understand it?"
