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nikox400x · 7 months

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KFP 4: The true hell behind the cameras ft. The Co-director of KFP4

I know I already made my review to this thing, and believe me when I say that I didn't want to talk anymore about this dawn movie (For call it something). But the reason for this statement is something that I cannot ignore, so hold on to your seat because what you are going to read is not a mission impossible movie, this really happened in the same Dreamworks studios.

The devil has different names depending on the religion;

-In the Catholic religion he is called Satan.

-In Islam he's Iblís.

-In Buddhism it's Mara.

But in the world of kung fu panda, the devil has a human name, Mike Mitchell.

Context? Three days ago, as a result of all the protests about the poor narrative quality of the film, the KFP's reddit community was able to find someone from within the production of the film, a witness who could corroborate everything that we assumed was happening within that studio.

This person is no one else but the co-director of kfp4, Stephanie Ma Stine. One of the main people who, along with a large part of the team of animators who love this saga too, fought and fought throughout the production so that the film was not completely destroyed from the beginning.

This woman was contacted by a discord channel to answer some questions that the community was asking in the company of the administrators of the discord group of the kung fu panda fandom, at first this woman seemed frustrated by something that I am going to explain, The entire conversation was recorded and uploaded to YouTube to expose the nauseating experience that Stephanie had to endure during the production of this film.

To begin with, she had almost no power within the production because she was considered someone new to her job and the disgusting bosses at Dreamworks had no better idea than to give all creative control to Mike.

Dreamworks gave a time limit for the duration of the film, later you will know why. This guy didn't have the slightest idea how to direct such a short movie, much less if it was a kung fu panda movie, since the guy treated kung fu panda like a chinese version of the minions, obviously because he didn't give a shit about franchise and he just wanted something that would make people laugh (But his humor and the scriptwriters's was so bad that even it would insult ilumination itself) although not even the children could find this humor funny.

What kind of humor? Well, you know; fart humor, jokes with a childish tone, random chases that contribute nothing to the plot, jokes about annoying and invincible children, jokes without charisma, generation Z humor, random hits, etc...

And like any sane person would do, Stephanie tried to give it that serious but parodic and heartfelt tone that the first triology had, but obviously they barely listened to her because she was considered new. So she had to resort to encouraging people passionate about the saga within the studio to insist on adding things that would improve the plot. Most of the time when they insisted on improving the quality of the script it ended in a roll of eyes from the higher ups within the production as if trying to tell them; "Damn stupid people, so much bother for a children's saga that is only used to make easy money"

The problem transcended for a long time as more and more absurd ideas came out of the writing team, some of them that even destroyed the logic of the world they were building, all of this was translated into a long and nightmarish trench war between those who love the saga and the psychopaths who only cared about money.

So, what happened next? Well, the movie came out and fans (and non-fans) were disappointed because the movie seems like a draft made by people who didn't seem to speak the same language during the artistic decisiones in the movie. Exactly, because of all this conflict between those who agreed with Stephanie and those who listened to Mike.

And in the end, it was Stephanie who had to politely come forward in front of the disappointed people to give these professionally humiliating explanations, and what did Mike do on his part? Bury his head like an ostrich and do not listen to the criticism that he generated for their horrible decisions.

youtube

(Stephanie's user is called storyduke)

This is the conversation between her and the administrators of the discord group, pause the video calmly and read on your own if you need it, for prove I haven't invented anything of this to defame Mike or something like this. All this comes from the person who was by his side during all production.

In order not to overwhelm you because the video is very long, I leave you a summary of what she said below. I will mainly use the comment of this reddit user called Mystic3012 who explains all this quite well (My comments will be marked in red):

Early on, KFP4 was considered to be live action-animation hybrid, and featured humans (WTF?!). I posted concept art of the human Chameleon (then, The Collector, even though we already have Kai the Collector) vs Po. Seems like Zhen would've been human too. They'd have come from Hu-man City (Wow, how originally -_-), apparently... To add insult to injury, one of these versions had Po, the protagonist, stuck in a BOX for 20 MINUTES. (20 minutes... no words for this. And no, you're not reading wrong, HUMANS IN KUNG FU PANDA. If it hadn't been for Stephanie, this is what they would have given us. Thanks Stephanie, guys)

Mike Mitchell, the director, had total creative freedom. Hence, him + the studio leadership wanting laughs and a more joke-y vibe led to the overall tone, like the F5's comical side missions. Jack Black called him the "comedy guy"(I want to think jack Black is another victim here and he simply couldn't do nothing because his contract does not allow it), while Stephanie brought "things deeper" and "more heart".

Additionally, it was Mitchell who insisted against fleshing out the Chameleon's backstory "What a surprise...right guys?". Apparently, Chameleon and Zhen had ZERO backstory in early versions. By the time the crew pushed him enough to change his mind, they were too far along in animating to add anything but the Chameleon's few lines.

The runtime was a studio mandate since they believed children can't watch a longer film + maximize profits (You motherfu...).

TV shows are non-canon, as they are under separate film and television divisions that are "rivals".

Lord Shen, General Kai, and the Furious Five were VERY last minute additions to the point that their animation rigs were "made of sticks and glue"(The 3D models were so poorly made due to lack of time that if they made original animations, they would directly break, they had to reuse animations from the first, second, third movie and from the Christmas short for the credits. The animations of Crane and Shen's feathers, according to her, were bugged a lot and the wings tended to separate from the body or bend in unrealistic ways during animation tests). Hence, no plot relevance (e.g. not redeemed properly) and inability to bring back their actors, as much as some of the crew advocated for their return. Furthermore, there's a thing where actors are brought in for voice roles with X amount of money, and exponential increases for sequels. Apparently, a single line from Jolie would've cost $20 million (Easy Angelina!! XD. They could have simply changed the actress who played her like for example the one who play her in Secrets of the Scroll or the one of Legend of Awessomless, this was simply used as an excuse not to add them to the film), so you can imagine why the Five were absent...

Not everyone who dies goes to the Spirit Realm. It's not a definite rule behind-the-scenes, but it's vaguely agreed upon that only kung fu practitioners can pass on. It was also Mitchell's idea that all 3 villains were indeed sent to the Realm and that the Chameleon only wanted master VILLAINS summoned. [Pretty sure that retcons Lord Shen but alas-]

Pelican is named Chip, and a female. The fish in her beak is Fish.

Calvin Tsang, Head of Story, directed "a short film for KFP 4". Though, DreamWorks gave him a low budget but apparently he pulled enough favours for it to work out, with Stephanie describing it as "amazing, seriously" and shows "how strong of a director's voice he has".

Future spin-offs uncertain. DreamWorks has dissolved most, if not all, of its TV division.

Though, Mitchell was very vocal about a F5 spinoff. Execs are aware of the fans' demand for it (Wow thank you...-_-, just don't ruin it again).

Shifu's staff lacks its golden piece since it has been repaired following his mastery of Chi, per production designer Paul Duncan. (Same man responsible for bringing back the Dagger of Deng Wa with his attention to detail) (Niceee)

Universal mandated for a tentpole film like KFP4 to have "stars" hired for voicework.

For the record, Stephanie wanted for KFP4 to "stay truer to KFP1 and KFP 2" but was dismissed as a nobody by the crew (Basically what I said before, Mike and a good part of his team are anything but respectful of other people's works).

Case in point, she wanted Tai Lung being brought back to be done right. She pitched for Po/Shifu to have a vision of the Chameleon kidnapping Shifu, prompting Po to go on a quest to stop her. Shifu gets kidnapped anyway due to the Chameleon's manipulations, and he's hence present to say goodbye to Tai Lung. The execs loved it but "someone axed it" (That person better not know their identity because the fans cling to Tai Lung, I don't think they'll laugh much at this 😅). For those who've seen the film, the vision was reduced to Po's dream enroute to Juniper City.

Another example of Stephanie's intervention, she fought for Zhen to be redeemed ONSCREEN after betraying Po, much to the writers' refusal (These people don't even respect their own characters). She was supposed to swoop in out of nowhere to fight the Chameleon for a bit and disappears quickly again. She also ensured that her redemption scene wasn't just dialogue and had action going on. (She admits to Po and Zhen's underbaked relationship not supplementing this scene enough though.)

The writers seemed to HATE comments "poking holes at the story" (And then what do they want us to call that; "purposely destroy the canon of history because of its inaccuracy?" On top of bad in their own job, they're crybabies).

Zhen is a Corsac Fox as its the Asian fox with distinctive facial features.

Nico Marlet, renowned concept artist, only worked on the film for a week, left, and refused to come back (I don't even know if I want to know why, just imagine it).

Many crewmembers pitched ideas for Zhen's family's backstory but all were discarded (They can't even develop their own character, I'll call that technique "Work? What is that? it is eatable? XD").

By the way, the thing about humans was no joke.

(Conceptual art made by Luca Pisanu)

Original reddit forum:

Guys, that's it, how not to write a movie. I think you can already imagine my opinion, it is a complete shame what they tried to do with this saga but at least she was able to save it from being completely ruined. I sincerely ask you all to spread this information, I will leave you a link to the original reddit thread for your inspection. And I'm just saying one thing: I hope they fire Mike Mitchell and all his damn inept scriptwriters, and I hope we never see them again in another production of this saga. And of course, to the executives at Dreamworks: Stick your finger up your ass and don't touch what you don't know how to touch.

Don't be silent about these things, because you know what will happen? That they will do the same thing again with the fifth film because they see that the method works, in addition to the fact that they will also exploit their workers for nothing for such a mediocre product (Because yes, they also exploited them to finish the finale on time). Let this not happen again guys, please I ask you.

#kung fu panda #dreamworks #kung fu panda 4 #notmykfp4 #mike mitchell #Youtube

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deke-rivers-1957 · 1 month

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Kung Fu Elvis Part 4

If you're new to this series, the point of this is to find out which Elvis character is the best fighter given an uninterrupted hand to hand combat styled fight. The goal is to rank each individual Elvis character and then within each tier determine who would win against who.

How I plan on determining this will be by finding each character's age, size and general background. How well a character does in on screen fights will also be considered but analyzed on a case by case basis. Sometimes an Elvis character loses a fight simply because it's a comedy, or due to the low quality stage fighting wins because his opponents are laughably weak.

At the end of the day this is all headcanon as these are all fictional characters. If you disagree with how I rank a character I would love to hear your thoughts on where you would put them.

While it isn't specifically stated, Change of Habit takes place in 1969. Sister Irene even being in the same sisterhood and being allowed to share housing with Sisters Michelle and Barbara who are both white is a sign this is after the Civil Rights Act of 1968. That law specifically cracks on discrimination regarding housing meaning it would be against the law to disallow Sister Irene from rooming with her white Sisters. Any issues regarding Sister Irene's race is seen at a de facto level since just because a law is past, doesn't mean everyone's attitudes immediately change to reflect it. Amanda canonically having autism and Dr. Carpenter using a rage reduction therapy also indicates this is 1969 at the earliest. Robert Zaslow's practice of using this therapy doesn't take off on a widespread level until the 1970s, but since no one else seemed to know about the therapy it's safe to assume this was when it was still in its infancy. Despite being a doctor, he's not necessarily comfortably well off because he works in an under privileged neighborhood. Clinics like the one we see didn't exactly get that much money compared to state/federally funded hospitals, so it's very possible for him to have to pay for medical supplies out of his own pocket. While he wouldn't have exactly starved since this town wasn't a food desert, it isn't out of the question to assume he had to keep his meals very simple. And since fitness culture as we know it wouldn't exist for about another decade, there was no need for him to have well defined muscles.

I'm making a revision on John's age. In my tidbit I said that I was making him an even 30 years old to reflect how long medical school takes. After going back and really thinking about the line where he explains why he became a doctor, I need to make a change. John mentions that he became a doctor as a way to pay it forward after his army sergeant saved his life. Since John specifically said this sergeant was killed on the other side of the world, the most likely assumption is that he was killed in a war. My best guess is that based on the amount of time John could be in the army and become a medical doctor, John would've served during the Korean War. Given that Elvis himself was born in 1935, John would actually need to be older than Elvis by at least a few months for this to be possible. Therefore, Dr. John Carpenter is at least 35 years old.

A Blue Hawaii movie poster appearing in the background strongly indicates that this was in 1962. Blue Hawaii came out in November, 1961. Since Christmas is literally never mentioned as being any time soon, you can assume this was after the New Year. No one needing so much as a windbreaker while over open waters indicates it's at least March. In fact, in the scene where Ross and Laurel are staying at the Yung family's house during the night, there's heavy rain. That type of heavy rain in Honolulu typically occurs between October and April with the summer months being relatively dry. The fishing season for tuna in particular takes place between March and August. You even see Ross try to help land a marlin at the beginning and they can be found in Hawaiian waters all year. However, because you only see them trying to catch one once, you get the idea that this is outside of their peak fishing season which is purely during the summer. Ross having the connections that he does with the Stavros family and the Yung family keeps him from being completely on his own. Even if he didn't have their help regarding a job and shelter, he's right by open waters. The native Hawaiians lasted a significantly long period of time fishing on a personal level, so at the very least Ross will not be at a risk of starving. If anything if a lot of Ross' meals contained properly prepared tuna, it would actually be very beneficial to his health. Tuna is one of the best foods a man can consume to not only reduce his risk of heart disease, but is also a great source of protein which promotes muscle growth (which is an important factor to consider when talking about the science behind fighting).

Like I said in my tidbit, I don't really have that many clues about how old Ross would be. We only get an indication of his past through a non-descript account of what happened. We don't know how much time has passed since his mother died, only that it was after he was born. Maternal mortality rates being relatively high in the 1930s doesn't make things easier when determining a specific year. His dad dying while talked about as if it was a recent enough event also doesn't help because nothing is specific. If Ross is able to work in a night club, and has been working for on a fishing boat for a long enough period of time yet not have the savings to buy the boat back himself, he has to be pretty young. Ross has never mentioned being in the military which would make him around the same age as Elvis. When you look at the draft numbers by year, once the Korean War ended, draft rates are pretty low. If the possibility of him being drafted isn't even a consideration, Ross would've had to turn 18 in late 1953 or later. For it to still not be a consideration Ross would have to be older than 25 since that's the Selective Service cutoff. Therefore, Ross is in his mid to late 20s.

My tidbit went into a lot of detail regarding the history of the Southwest and Mexico. One thing I will edit is that we can no longer assume this takes place in Tucson. I've since found signs found on a couple businesses that says the town's name is Rio Seco. Even though there are apartment complexes in Tucson with that name, this town is most likely fictional. What I didn't even consider is the type of guns that the characters use. Assuming the props seen are accurately depicting what is meant to happen, we can use these to determine a range of time. As a reminder the initial range that I used as a starting point is 1867-1910. So for the revolvers used, they were Colt Single Action Army Civilian models. Since it's defined as having a 4.75 inch barrel and .45 cartridge this type of gun would've entered the civilian market in 1874. Most rifles shown are 1892 Winchesters and are described as being a .38-40 caliber, making it an original design. Therefore, we'll just put this movie between the late 1890s and early 1910s. Since a small desert town like that wouldn't have significant changes from year to year, Jess' living conditions that I mentioned in my tidbit wouldn't change. Maybe if he comes back to town as the new sheriff, there's a reduced chance of starving but it still wouldn't be enough to promote adequate muscle growth.

I have no choice but to stick with what I guessed in my tidbit. Unless someone has more information from reading the book, I just don't have the information to make a better guess. I don't have the knowledge on how old you have to be to be sheriff in that time period. Even if I did, it Jess wasn't officially elected so his actual age wouldn't be a factor in that decision. The only confirmation I have to my guess is that the timeline would add up for Jess to have some familiarity to the Emperor's failed campaign in 1867 and still be in his early 30s.

I'm genuinely amazed that when looking up female bullfighters, Dolores was actually ahead of her time. Unless this movie's trying to tell us it really takes place before the Spanish Civil War, Dolores being an extremely famous female bullfighter is fictional. The Spanish Civil War was in the 1930s and many Spanish speaking countries had women banned from the sport. Unless there's a matadora that I'm not aware of Mexico didn't even have a matadora that famous until 2010. I have no idea who Dolores is meant to be a reference to since the only female bullfighters from the same time period as the movie were American. Figuring out where and when the former Duke and Margarita lost their peerage titles wouldn't help either since most abolished monarchies in Europe occurred during the 1940s or well after the movie was made. What is indisputable though is that Mike stays at the Acapulco Hilton Hotel which is still open as the Emporio Acapulco Hotel. This specific hotel opened in 1962 meaning it would have to take place around then as well. Given that trapeze artists still had relative success in the 1960s and need a specific diet, Mike would've had light, protein rich regular meals.

Like I said in my tidbit, we simply don't have enough clues on Mike's age outside of the obvious. Mike not getting a work VISA had nothing to do with his age since you can be as young as 15 and get one. Mike is obviously older than 15. For simplicity's sake the drinking age in all of Mexico is 18. Meaning they will not sell you alcohol if you don't prove you're 18 or older. Since Mike isn't noticeably carded for age verification, we can at the very least assume he's over 18 years old. Mike being part of a family trapeze act and a cliff diver doesn't necessarily help us either since there's no specific age requirement that would break this down any further. Only thing I can say is that for Olympic sport climbers, the average man is about 26 years old. I specified sport climber because it's the closest equivalent to Mike having to climb up the side of a cliff. So if we statistically label 26 years old as around a man's peak, we can assume Mike is around this age.

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John is the oldest Elvis character both based on how he's writing and based on how Change of Habit was his last movie. Being 35 means he would be at a big age disadvantage. Since I'm using MMA standards to determine a man's physical peak, John is well beyond that. Also look at his opponents: he punched an overweight man who looked old enough to be a senior citizen and his lackeys but the way it was portrayed felt very lackluster, and he disarmed Julio which doesn't even count.

I know I put him in C tier but the more I look at him, John is not capable of handling an official fight. He's so skinny that I highly doubt his ability to take a punch against someone a lot stronger than him. Also look at his stamina. Despite being a former military man, John is shown as being winded playing football with children. John might be able to get lucky hits in and can beat old people but he stands no chance against those who are younger than him. He's in D tier simply because he's not even close to being physically capable of beating better opponents.

Ross has little variety in his opponents. Only a severely drunk man and Mr. Johnson who's about John's age. I know it's a matter of what the story dictates but Ross being able to dodge a drunk man's attack indicates that he has at least some reflexes. Being in his mid-late 20s puts him at his peak where he has the right combination of strength and experience. Even though he fought an older man twice, he was able to beat him twice. Fighting the same opponent more than once can be a disadvantage if you're not as skilled because your opponent would've had the ability to counteract any surprises. Ross beating Mr. Johnson twice is a sign that his first win was more than luck. He had to have a genuine amount of skill to win given that Mr. Johnson was outright expecting a fight of some kind.

Ross is a great example of how you can be skilled without having direct training. Working on a boat allowed Ross to build up some muscle in his upper body and walking/running everywhere (especially on uneven terrain) built up his leg muscles as well. One aspect of fighting that really works to Ross' advantage is footwork and balance. Being on a boat in the open waters is as unstable as you can get outside of being in a severe earthquake. If you can handle that without losing your balance or getting sick, a fight on a flat surface should be easy. Easily a B tier fighter since his footwork gives him an advantage against other "common man" opponents.

Jess doesn't have a single fight that would count under my rules. You don't bring weapons to a fist fight and that's what we're determining. Jess slamming Billy Roy's head into the jail cell's bar or punching him after he shot the sheriff doesn't even count as fights since Billy Roy wasn't in any position to fight back on both occasions.

When you consider that he comes from a completely different time period where food was a bit more scarce; he's older than 30 which puts him past his peak; and he doesn't have a single onscreen fist fight win under his belt, Jess would be at a huge disadvantage. I'll have to update Clint's rank in my final list based on my choice to include Does Not Apply since he comes from even earlier in time than Jess. It simply isn't fair to put people from the 1860s in fights against people from ~100 years in the future when society as a whole has changed.

Moreno is his only fight but his physical activity more than makes up for it. There was no cheap shot, one punch knock situation. This was a clean fist fight. He's a trapeze artist and was able to successfully attempt one of the most dangerous cliff dives in the world without ever officially training for it. The upper body strength from being a trapeze artist would give him a big advantage when generating a strong swing.

I know I just said physical activity more than makes up for only having one fight, but that's only in regards to even giving him a rank. You know that he's physically capable of putting an opponent down. I'd say he's about equal to Ross and would put him in B tier. I think between the two, Ross might be slightly younger and has a more well rounded strength that serves him better in in a fist fight.

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To summarize this part:

Ross is in B tier.

Mike W. is in B tier below Ross.

Dr. John Carpenter is in D tier.

Jess simply DNA and will not get an official rank.

Tagging: @karel-in-wonderland, @crash-and-cure, @lynettethemadscientist, @leighpc, @alienelvisobsession,

@seredelgi, @southcarolinawoman, @arrolyn1114, @ash-omalley, @snicks-12,

@freudianslumber, @be-my-ally, @xanatenshi @vintagepresley, @peaceloveelvis,

@tupelomiss, @peskybedtime, @squaggleson, @idk583838, @mercsandmonsters,

@wanderingelvis, @ssinnerplazahotel, @50sexyshadesfashionista, @lola-1013, @smokeymountainboy,

@lookingforrainbows, @polksaladava, @butler-on-beale-street, @an-americcan-trilogy, @lilmisspeaches,

@illtakeyouhomeagain, @livelaughelvis, @elvispresley1935, @eapep, @thelonelyheart,

@presleysweetheart, @dreamingofep, @mooodyblue, @makethemorning, @whositmcwhatsit,

@suraemoon, @swingdownsweetchariot, @theelvisprincess, @theelvispres-blog, @somethingaboutelvis,

@eapep, @pledgingmylovee and @hooked-on-elvis.

#kung fu elvis #jess wade #dr. carpenter #mike windgren #ross carpenter #charro!#change of habit #fun in acapulco #girls! girls! girls!

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