MovieChat Forums > Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) Discussion > The Ending Needs Fixing and Here is How....

The Ending Needs Fixing and Here is How...

posted 9 years ago by FairlyAnonymous
10 replies | jump to latest

The biggest problem with this movie (aside from too many anti-climatic jokes) is the ending. I still like this movie and it is good, but for a finale to the series (they aren't certain if they are going to make 3 more) it wasn't quite strong enough.

Why doesn't the ending work?

Well, for a couple of reasons... and it mostly deals with Kai.

Kai is a cool and interesting villain. What makes him even cooler is that he was once friends with Master Oogway. Now there is a lot you can do with this, but nothing is really done with it. For example, what is Kai's motivation?

Can anyone figure out why Kai, the person who risked everything to save his best friend Oogway, would suddenly turn on the people who just saved his best friend? Does that make sense? No, it doesn't. The plot essentially makes Kai evil with no reasoning other than "power" and even then they never say he did it for power. This is a big problem with the film; however, there could be an easy solution.

Remember, Oogway and Kai were fighting a war at the time. What if Kai learned how to absorb people's chi in the war? The pandas taught him after healing Oogway, and then Kai swore revenge on the people who harmed Oogway why stealing all of their chi. Then this is where Kai's soul becomes plagued because he has the chi of an entire evil army inside of him.

THAT MAKES SENSE!

And you know what would make it better? He doesn't get "poofed" by Po. Remember in the beginning of the movie when Shifu tells Po "Being the dragon warrior is more than using your fists and fighting". What if Po defeated Kai by using the "given chi" to uncorrupt him? Or what if Po had to beat Kai in a way that didn't involve fists? As far as storytelling goes, Kai getting destroyed by having "too much power" makes no sense. Kai was already going to absorb everyone so why would gaining the energy from them hurt him?

KAI REPRESENTS UNLIMITED POWER! HE NEEDED TO HAVE BEEN DEFEATED BY SOMETHING THAT ISN'T POWER.

How much better would it have been for the movie to have ended with Kai and Oogway in the spirit realm as friends again? How much more satisfying would that have been for a conclusion to the series? Po actually saves a villain. He doesn't let the villain die, or poof the villain, but his final villain is converted; thus showing that Po has grown beyond his old ways.

And yes, I still like the movie, but there were some major missed opportunities here. Heck, technically the ancient pandas never died since they were all absorbed. You could even do something with that in the plot. Maybe Po could've learned chi from the ancient pandas? There are just a lot of more interesting things that could've been done.

[–] wiseguyclothing 9 years ago

Horrible and downright embarrassing idea.

[–] jshadowhunter1 9 years ago

Maybe they're trying to rip off Mists of Pandaria, where an ancient evil rests beneath the land and can affect a person with inner turmoil if one is conflicted even a little.

[–] Yodoralas 9 years ago

You should've written the movie! This was way better than the original ending. Makes more sense to me this way.

[–] anblq10 9 years ago

"Can anyone figure out why Kai, the person who risked everything to save his best friend Oogway, would suddenly turn on the people who just saved his best friend? Does that make sense? No, it doesn't. The plot essentially makes Kai evil with no reasoning other than "power" and even then they never say he did it for power. This is a big problem with the film; however, there could be an easy solution."

The way I interpreted Kai's motivation was once he saw the power of chi, he got corrupt by it and decided that only he should have that power/ability.

Yes, I agree it seems silly that Kai was best friends with Oogway and helped saved his life, but still, people do turn on each other easily at some points and over stupid reasons, so this isn't out of the realm of reality.

[–] FairlyAnonymous 9 years ago

It just bugs me because it would be much more interesting if he used the power of Chi on the army that hurt Oogway... you know... revenge? So he absorbed the army that hurt Oogway, but in effect he became corrupted. Simple, yet logical.

Also, his death doesn't make much sense, but whatever...

[–] anblq10 9 years ago

"It just bugs me because it would be much more interesting if he used the power of Chi on the army that hurt Oogway... you know... revenge? So he absorbed the army that hurt Oogway, but in effect he became corrupted. Simple, yet logical."

Yes, but if he did this, then there would be no movie. Unless you're going to say that he uses the power of chi to destroy the army that they were originally fighting but then goes on and starts to conquer a lot of other places using chi and Oogway tells him to stop but Kai refuses and then they fight each other. Either way, for this movie to work, Oogway and Kai have to be against each other.

As for his death, yes, it doesn't make total sense. Perhaps, Kai wasn't a complete/real master of chi and so that's why the chi ends up destroying him? Like maybe, there is only one true master and that turns out to be Po/Dragon Warrior? Or perhaps, the ancient pandas knew that absorbing too much chi is dangerous and that no one person should absorb too much? Something like that.

[–] StrongRex 9 years ago

Maybe I missed something. Kai kept saying Oogway "betrayed" him. But I don't remember him explaining why he thinks that, or the flashbacks indicating anything of the kind.

[–] OhNooos 9 years ago

I thought his sense of betrayal referred to Oogway fighting him and sending him to the spirit realm, after he had tried to steal the Chi from the pandas.

[–] letimoore 9 years ago

Oogway stopped Kai from stealing the pandas chi and fought him over it. Oogway explained that Kai turned into something evil and if he didn't stop him he would keep destroying. Kai felt that Oogway betrayed him by not letting him do what he wanted and then fighting him over the pandas. Or he could have be jealous that the pandas taught Oogway chi and not him.

[–] q_leo_rahman 9 years ago

Kai's an okay villain, but he is sadly a bad one when compared to Tai Lung and Shen. Both are complex characters with issues of anger and rejection, while Kai is just a power-hungry warlord.

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