Don't Judge a Movie by its Audience
By Jonathan Lam on 01/31/16
Tagged: the-homework-life the-homework-life-thought
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Warning: Spoiler Alert!
The movie theater was already packed with youngsters by the time we got there. It was released only yesterday. And by "youngsters," I mean hoards of toddlers and their young parents that made my adolescent self feel very out of place.
We went to watch Kung Fu Panda 3 today in a cinema. It was a fast-paced movie that, despite having gone through three villains and two sequels with the same protagonists, has not gone downhill in its initial excitement. So it turned out to be a fun children's movie, and we got a kick out of our little family outing.
Or was it such a simple "kid's story"? Sure, it was the same stereotypical hero-beats-villain storyline that appeared in the two earlier Kung Fu Panda movies, but it added many creative twists and deeply-intertwined themes. To name a few:
- The importance of family
- The importance of individuality
- Finding your identity and place in life
- Problematic relationships with white lies and true love
- Fantastical stories for children with no scientific or logical limitations
It's difficult to keep this away from a movie review and more of an analytical, writing-focused piece that diverges away from the specifics and into the meaning of the movie, but I'll try anyways.
I've watched too many children's movies like this when I was little, and the animations and "cute" beings always fascinated me. The true themes behind the movie always eluded me, and I assume that it does for many other children too. However, in this creative high-school writing spree that has come upon me nowadays, I've emphasized the importance of paying attention to as much as I can in my everyday life— again, our writing classes have come to become more about the act of thinking than writing well. And what I realized was that, that which I was missing is the most important part! Those subtle themes allow us to subconsciously choose a movie over another. They make the movies different, even if the storylines are, for the most part, identical. They make the movies so wonderfully sweet and likeable. Large corporations like Disney or Dreamworks are the brilliant masterminds that do this so well.
Yes, I'll reiterate: in Kung Fu Panda, what kept the movies so vibrant was the changing up of themes and emotions. In the first two movies, there existed the concepts of the anonymous hero and the typical good-always-prevails. (And there's probably many more important themes, but I don't remember them too well anymore.) In this one, Po and the kung fu masters are stuck in a deeper ditch this time, in an even more drastic and disastrous situation that threatens all China. And again, he saves them with his ridiculous methods, even commanding the respect of a master from his teacher, Master Shi-Fu.
But the other pandas threw this idea off. What was their role in the movie? Well, they allowed Po to toy with his feelings of fitting into a family setting, something completely new to the movie. He keeps on learning more life lessons — more themes — that give him and the audience more wisdom. Ultimately, it is this new wisdom that fills our hearts with joy after watching a feel-good movie. They learned something, and we watched a movie. If we learned something, then we feel good. That is what differentiates it from the typical cheesy child-ish feel-good-ish movie that leaves you wondering, Why did I waste my time watching this?
No matter how much we complain about school, we all love learning at heart.