Kung Fu Panda 4 released earlier this month worldwide for DreamWorks Animation and has just passed $300 million worldwide, projecting to earn somewhere between $550 and $600 million worldwide on a $85 million budget. If those projections turn out true, this will undoubtedly turn a profit for DreamWorks and could potentially see a Kung Fu Panda 5 being greenlighted sometime soon. And considering how little marketing the film have with only main trailer being released, that’s quite impressive.
However, the response the film has gotten to those who actually watched it has been quite all over the place. Although the film’s reception from critics and mainstream audience seems to be generally positive, it has gotten a very mixed response from the fans of the franchise. Some saw Kung Fu Panda 4 as another solid entry to the series while others, such as yours truly, found it very underwhelming.
Most of the criticism of Kung Fu Panda 4 mostly revolved around elements that fans felt didn’t fit with what the Kung Fu Panda franchise normally stands for. Things such as feeling too inconsequential, relying too much on watered down humor, introducing characters and plot points that are barely explored, fan favorite characters such as Tai Lung and The Furious Five being sidelined or written out, and not pushing the series forward in any meaningful way. When watching the film, it’s easy to get the impressions that it felt like a mix mash of multiple different visions crammed into one, leaving the end product feeling rushed and unfocused as a result. And if a recent Q&A section with Stephanie Ma Stine is anything to go by, those impressions would turn out to be true.
In case anyone doesn’t know, Stephanie Ma Stine is the co-director of Kung Fu Panda 4. She’s co-directed the latest entry with Po alongside Mike Mitchell, who previously did Shrek Forever After and Trolls for DreamWorks. Stephanie is not a big name in the animation industry but has worked as a story artist on several things in that field such as the Big Hero 6 series, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power series, How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, and Raya and the Last Dragon. Kung Fu Panda 4 happens to be her first credited directorial debut and perhaps the biggest project she has ever worked on. However, if you were to go by comments she said in her Q&A through Discord, you would be hard pressed to believe she was meant to be a co-director when it feels like she was anything but that.
I will leave links below to a video that showcased the full review on Discord along with notes taking from those that participated in that Q&A but I will go over some of the main points that Stephanie mentioned when answering questions from fans on Discord and how it goes into what this piece will be about.
So, if you watch that video or read through the talking points from @RickDaSquirrel that I just posted, it seems like Kung Fu Panda 4 went through quite a messy production. From the film’s lower budget to choosing a proper direction to conflicting with the overall tone of the story to constant changes in the script to multiple ideas that were suggested but scrapped completely. All of that and more might explain why it took eight years for DreamWorks to release a fourth installment for one of their top pole franchises. However, the main thing that has stuck to fans of the series was how shockingly ignored Stephanie Ma Stine’s role was in production despite being credited as the co-director.
If we are going by her own words, it seems like she brought a number of ideas to the table for Kung Fu Panda 4 along with wanting to go with a direction that likely would have aligned more of what folks wanted for the latest entry of Kung Fu Panda. These includes things such as Master Shifu having a much bigger role, Tai Lung’s return feeling more welcome, adding more emotion and weight to the story, the new characters of Zhen and The Chameleon being fleshed out more, and the most noteworthy component, wanting to reign closer to the quality of Kung Fu Panda 1 and Kung Fu Panda 2, often regarded as the two best films in the series. However, none of those things came to pass because poor Stephanie was dismissed as a “nobody” by the crew, despite being credited as the co-director of Kung Fu Panda 4.
Instead the movie that we got in theaters more aligned with what other co-director Mike Mitchell was wanting for the film. He was given complete creative freedom by DreamWorks and because of that, he chose to go in a more comedic direction for the picture and put the majority of the focus on the jokes and gags. So much so that Jack Black even referred to him as the “comedy guy”.
He also initially was against the idea of providing backstories to the new characters of Zhen and The Chameleon, with early versions including ZERO backstories for their characters whatsoever. Aside from possibly wanting to bring back The Furious Five in a big role (with the Q&A suggestion that there is a push for DreamWorks to make a spin-off with them), Kung Fu Panda 4 seems to be much more of the movie that Mike Mitchell wanted to make rather than Stephanie Ma Stine.
To make this clear, I do NOT think what Stephanie said in her Q&A session was meant to be a hit on Mike Mitchell himself. I’m sure she enjoyed working with him and isn’t trying to put the full blame on him for fans that were disappointed in Kung Fu Panda 4. She was likely just trying to go into detail on the full process of making a film and the obstacles that everyone working on the film has to overcome throughout development in order to make it to the finish line right on time. She just wanted to be honest and share her experience working on Kung Fu Panda 4. While I’m sure I and many others appreciated that honesty from Stephanie, I believe that painted quite a picture on how movies are being made nowadays and how much of that development can be pointed at the studio executives.
Am I the only one who finds it crazy how despite being credited as a co-director, it seems as though the development for Kung Fu Panda 4 was completely one-sided with the film largely being 90% of Mike Mitchell’s vision and like 10% of Stephanie Ma Stine’s vision? You would think with a co-director duo, it would at least be a 50/50, with both sides coming together to find a way to make both of their visions jell together properly. When it comes to Kung Fu Panda 4, that didn’t’ seem to be the case whatsoever, feeling more like Stephanie Ma Stine took a backseat in the director’s chair to warming it for Mike Mitchell exactly.
I don’t know if this is because Mike Mitchell is a veteran director with a ton of experience in the animation industry, making him someone that the crew felt more compelled to listen to rather than a much less experienced Stephanie Ma Stine. I don’t know if it’s just because DreamWorks wanted to prove how diverse they are to everybody by giving a woman like Stephanie Ma Stine credit as co-director, despite her mostly being anything but that during development. I don’t know if it had to do with Stephanie not standing up for herself enough and/or Mike just not having her back enough. All I know is that even being credited as director of said film does NOT guarantee you releasing the film you actually wanted to make for the studio.
It’s just bizarre to me how not even literal directors of films nowadays can admit that the film that is being shown all around the world was really their actual film. Even when you are a directing duo or group, it’s largely just one person that is taking charge. Even when you are a solo director, it’s largely just the studio that decides what kind of film they want to make. This is not only the case with Kung Fu Panda 4 but with how most franchise installments are being made nowadays. So much so that it’s become progressively harder and harder to put the full blame of a failed product on a director when it’s likely the studio that is more at fault here. As much as fans who were disappointed in Kung Fu Panda 4 are putting the blame on Mike Mitchell, there’s likely a chance that not even he was happy with some of the end results of the movie himself.
Perhaps he wanted The Furious Five to play an actual role in the story, much like how he wants to make a Furious Five spin-off. Perhaps he wanted to bring back not just Tai Lung but also other notable foes such as Shen and Kai and have all three of them play a big role in the story and give them the Spider-Man: No Way Home treatment. Perhaps he wanted a bigger budget that would allow for those story elements to actually be a thing. Unfortunately, those are the kind of decisions that is not up to him as a director but the studios of DreamWorks themselves. After all, they are the ones in charge of the budget and they are the ones to give the thumbs up on whether or not a finished film is even remotely releasable. When taking all those factors into considerations, can you always blame the director for when a big film turns out bad or the studio that told them that the big finished film is perfectly fine and it’s good for release?
If there’s one thing that is a miracle about Kung Fu Panda 4, it’s that it somehow didn’t turn up worse than it actually was. While I gave it a two out of four stars in my review, there were plenty of redeemable qualities to it such as the nice animation, solid fight scenes, and a commendable voice cast all around. Unfortunately, it was the script and direction that brought down the entire movie, the two elements which seems to be the biggest problem with development. The fact that was a struggle practically put this movie in peril from day one.
The reason I felt compelled to make this piece is to give viewers the heads up next time a big film comes out that turns out to be disappointing for you. Don’t just put the full blame on the directors of the picture but more point the fingers at the studio who gave them permission to release the film the way that they intended. With Kung Fu Panda 4, you would assume that the project was both Mike Mitchell and Stephanie Ma Stine at the same time but it really wasn’t. It was either fully Mike Mitchell’s baby or fully DreamWorks’ baby but it really didn’t seem to be Stephanie Ma Stine’s baby.
While I’m sure she steered up controversy that she really didn’t intend to, I do thank Stephane Ma Stine for taking the time during her Q&A session to explain the process of making Kung Fu Panda 4. I think it gave plenty of folks good insight to making a film and how it’s not always about what you want your film to be but what everyone else around you wants it to be as well. Even if it’s not entirely what you want, it’s still a business at the end of the day.
I really hope that if a Kung Fu Panda 5 does happen, that Stephanie Ma Stine is giving much more control next time around along with bringing back Jennifer Yuh Nelson, story head of Kung Fu Panda, director of Kung Fu Panda 2, and co-director of Kung Fu Panda 3. I strongly believe if those two ladies are giving the shot to work together on the next one and are able to let their ideas blossom, it could be another triumph in the Kung Fu Panda franchise, up there with the first two films.
Even so, I do wish the very best for Stephanie Ma Stine and the other animators at DreamWorks who were recently laid off from the company. I do hope that the studio meddling of KP4 and recent staffing cuts doesn’t stop any of them for wanting to pursue greater talents and I strongly hope they are given better chances to display their talents in the future.
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