The Wisdom in Kung Fu Panda(moviewise.substack.com)
moviewise.substack.com
The Wisdom in Kung Fu Panda
https://moviewise.substack.com/p/the-wisdom-in-kung-fu-panda
184 comments
I think it's not specifically thinking that you should stop doing, but worrying. "Maybe I should just quit and go back to making noodles" is not a phrase he says while thinking, he says it while sulking.
Part of living in the moment, is taking the time to reflect on your feelings and your dreams and judge them against the path that you are on. Just don't cross the line and fall over into the pool, make sure that once you've thought your thoughts you do the things you want and/or need to do to continue on your path.
There is another Oogway quote that can be taken in a similar wrong way. He says "There is just news. There is no good or bad". Immediately after Shifu tells the news and Oogway hilariously responds "that is bad news". He seems to be contradicting himself, but I think the lesson should be taken from his demeanor, not from his literal words. Shifu is clearly distressed about the news, but Oogway takes it calmly. Not worrying, but carefully considering.
Such a great movie :)
Part of living in the moment, is taking the time to reflect on your feelings and your dreams and judge them against the path that you are on. Just don't cross the line and fall over into the pool, make sure that once you've thought your thoughts you do the things you want and/or need to do to continue on your path.
There is another Oogway quote that can be taken in a similar wrong way. He says "There is just news. There is no good or bad". Immediately after Shifu tells the news and Oogway hilariously responds "that is bad news". He seems to be contradicting himself, but I think the lesson should be taken from his demeanor, not from his literal words. Shifu is clearly distressed about the news, but Oogway takes it calmly. Not worrying, but carefully considering.
Such a great movie :)
> Oogway hilariously responds "that is bad news"
Ahh, but don't forget, there's a small pause before Oogway continues "...if you do not believe that the Dragon Warrior can stop him"
Admittedly, I only know this because my oldest daughter is obsessed with Kung Fu Panda at the moment and we watch it daily.
Ahh, but don't forget, there's a small pause before Oogway continues "...if you do not believe that the Dragon Warrior can stop him"
Admittedly, I only know this because my oldest daughter is obsessed with Kung Fu Panda at the moment and we watch it daily.
Ah I forgot about that, I have only watched it twice as an adult with no children ;)
I think Incredible String Band sums it up nicely in their song Job's Tears:
"Happy man, the happy man Doing the best he can, the best he can "
Surprisingly deep wisdom from such young artists, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd5yq76q51c
"Happy man, the happy man Doing the best he can, the best he can "
Surprisingly deep wisdom from such young artists, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd5yq76q51c
I've always been curious why we translate old passages into "thou"s and "let not"s.
This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even though we're basically identical.
I connect a lot better with:
> "Forget the future. When and if it comes, you’ll have the same resources to draw on—the same logos"
(from Gregory Hayes translation, if I'm not mistaken)
https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Au...
This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even though we're basically identical.
I connect a lot better with:
> "Forget the future. When and if it comes, you’ll have the same resources to draw on—the same logos"
(from Gregory Hayes translation, if I'm not mistaken)
https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Au...
I agree - I think a case could be made for translating older versions of a language into the latest one, but especially if it's already a translation from a completely different language.
What's news to me is that people in the present are translating old non-English texts into some older form of English - is that true?
What's news to me is that people in the present are translating old non-English texts into some older form of English - is that true?
No, I don't think that's true, unless perhaps there's a tense or other grammatical structure in the source that was present in early modern English but not in present-day English, and they chose to use it for grammatical accuracy.
More likely, it's an old translation from the Latin. Many of the translations we have now originate from 150+ years ago.
More likely, it's an old translation from the Latin. Many of the translations we have now originate from 150+ years ago.
> I've always been curious why we translate old passages into "thou"s and "let not"s.
> This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even though we're basically identical.
If the original text used what was already considered an archaic or rarefied register at its time of composition (as is often true of various classical works, indeed this is often basically what a "classical language" means), then a translator, in the process of trying to convey the original author's tone and intent, might choose to do the same in the target language.
> This might be why modern people feel so disconnected from past people, even though we're basically identical.
If the original text used what was already considered an archaic or rarefied register at its time of composition (as is often true of various classical works, indeed this is often basically what a "classical language" means), then a translator, in the process of trying to convey the original author's tone and intent, might choose to do the same in the target language.
What a terrible translation. it's not true at all. Same resoucres in the futute? Unlikely. Nothing provides such guarantee.
The original quote with thou and thees that you're curious about instead speaks to the intrinsic motivations being available when the future arrives not resources.
So there is your answer? Meaning is lost in translation so best to stay as true to the original message as possible.
The original quote with thou and thees that you're curious about instead speaks to the intrinsic motivations being available when the future arrives not resources.
So there is your answer? Meaning is lost in translation so best to stay as true to the original message as possible.
How would you translate the original quote into modern English?
Surely any major human language can accurately capture a translation from any other major human language, even if it requires more words than the original to convey the meaning.
Surely any major human language can accurately capture a translation from any other major human language, even if it requires more words than the original to convey the meaning.
The translation I've always heard is:
"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."
"Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present."
Aren't these just old translations, written when that kind of language was commonly spoken?
A lot of these translations were from the 20th century, with "thous" and "let thy"s found only in translated biblical verses and er, these translations of ancient works.
If I'm guessing, they're likely trying to convey the formality or informality of the pronoun used in the original, what's called the T - V distinction (from Latin, the informal tu vs the formal vos)
In English, thou was the informal, you the formal, as the subject in a sentence, with thee and ye the object form. Hence "God rest ye merry gentlemen" is better translated these days as "God rest you, merry gentlemen".
The T-V distinction is also why the Quakers maintained the thou form for some time, to indicate equality among all men (in the gender-neutral sense of the world), as you implied a difference in status.
The question of why the Bible used thous and thees is another interesting rabbit hole.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/pronouns-q...
In English, thou was the informal, you the formal, as the subject in a sentence, with thee and ye the object form. Hence "God rest ye merry gentlemen" is better translated these days as "God rest you, merry gentlemen".
The T-V distinction is also why the Quakers maintained the thou form for some time, to indicate equality among all men (in the gender-neutral sense of the world), as you implied a difference in status.
The question of why the Bible used thous and thees is another interesting rabbit hole.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/pronouns-q...
You could have a look at what Eckhart Tolle had to say on the subject and take it from there.
"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the now the primary focus of your life."
Bear in mind that Kung Fu Panda is to philosophy is what Kung Fu Panda is to martial arts.
"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the now the primary focus of your life."
Bear in mind that Kung Fu Panda is to philosophy is what Kung Fu Panda is to martial arts.
"What happened in Monte Carlo happened, what happened in Barcelona happened and what happened in Madrid happened, so here we are we are in Rome" - Rafa Nadal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIkp6n53g2w
"if if if, it doesn't exists" - Rafa Nadal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T6S9Kbh69Y
"I can lose, he can beat me, but i can't give up" - Rafa Nadal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L8bnASLDwA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIkp6n53g2w
"if if if, it doesn't exists" - Rafa Nadal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T6S9Kbh69Y
"I can lose, he can beat me, but i can't give up" - Rafa Nadal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L8bnASLDwA
> Sometimes you just need to stop thinking so much and get through the day.
I can be moved by this philosophy all the way to tears and crying (and it did happen in the past). However, the even more tragic part is that it doesn't exactly apply in today's world where most people are bound to their jobs. If they don't "worry" about the future and quit and try to do something else that doesn't work out... well... rent / mortgage installment is still due in two weeks.
I really LOVE the philosophy you cited. I just can't see how it's applicable to today's world. The system is specifically made to keep us as hamsters on wheels.
I can be moved by this philosophy all the way to tears and crying (and it did happen in the past). However, the even more tragic part is that it doesn't exactly apply in today's world where most people are bound to their jobs. If they don't "worry" about the future and quit and try to do something else that doesn't work out... well... rent / mortgage installment is still due in two weeks.
I really LOVE the philosophy you cited. I just can't see how it's applicable to today's world. The system is specifically made to keep us as hamsters on wheels.
There is a different way to think about this - The problem is the worrying, not that you can live on air or universe juice. Even Buddha needs food, water and shelter.
The problem as you correctly put is that people worry, but that does not lead to a solution. There is really no point in worrying - if you cannot change something, why worry about it? If you can change it, why worry? You might have to think deeply about how to change it and act on it, but just worrying is like praying - it gives an semblance of action without actually doing anything.
The hamster, the wheel and the cage are illusions. We choose certain things as more important to us than others. You can always quit and walk out, but a lot of times we prioritize our comfort, an (illusory) stable earnings etc. over freedom.
The problem as you correctly put is that people worry, but that does not lead to a solution. There is really no point in worrying - if you cannot change something, why worry about it? If you can change it, why worry? You might have to think deeply about how to change it and act on it, but just worrying is like praying - it gives an semblance of action without actually doing anything.
The hamster, the wheel and the cage are illusions. We choose certain things as more important to us than others. You can always quit and walk out, but a lot of times we prioritize our comfort, an (illusory) stable earnings etc. over freedom.
“Worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” - Van Wilder
>There is really no point in worrying - if you cannot change something, why worry about it? If you can change it, why worry?
Worrying clearly has a function, or else we would not have evolved to do so. Worrying motivates action - it is a countervailing force to laziness. Worrying draws conscious and subconscious attention to problems that need solving. It is necessary, like pain. How do you know you can't change something without thinking about it? Why would you think about it if you weren't worried about it?
I charitably interpret all the anti-worrying propaganda as an exhortation to try and maintain worry as a transient state that goes away when you commit to a course, as opposed to an ongoing coping mechanism.
Worrying clearly has a function, or else we would not have evolved to do so. Worrying motivates action - it is a countervailing force to laziness. Worrying draws conscious and subconscious attention to problems that need solving. It is necessary, like pain. How do you know you can't change something without thinking about it? Why would you think about it if you weren't worried about it?
I charitably interpret all the anti-worrying propaganda as an exhortation to try and maintain worry as a transient state that goes away when you commit to a course, as opposed to an ongoing coping mechanism.
I'm currently reading Thich Nhat Hanh's Peace Is Every Step [0]. In it he says something similar. It's not that worrying is not useful. You need to worry for sustenance, shelter. But a lot of thinking that we as modern humans do is useless. Me going over over on why I didn't get that job, or why did my colleague say or ..., you get the idea. Mindfulness can help with this a bit where if you find yourself caught in a useless thought loop, you can step back and try to figure out if you do have agency, if not, just move on.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Every-Step-Mindfulness-Everyday...
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Every-Step-Mindfulness-Everyday...
My three rules of worrying:
1. Can I do something about it right now? If so, do it, and stop worrying.
2. Can I do something about it later? If so, wait til later, do it, and stop worrying.
3. There is nothing I can do. If so, there's nothing to worry about because I can't do anything about it.
1. Can I do something about it right now? If so, do it, and stop worrying.
2. Can I do something about it later? If so, wait til later, do it, and stop worrying.
3. There is nothing I can do. If so, there's nothing to worry about because I can't do anything about it.
> people worry, but that does not lead to a solution.
Jesus said, "who of you by worrying can add one moment to their lifespan?" (or in another saying "...add one inch to their stature?")
Jesus said, "who of you by worrying can add one moment to their lifespan?" (or in another saying "...add one inch to their stature?")
Yep, I like that point of view as well. I guess we should all work on removing anxiety from our brains as much as we can.
We are more mobile today than at any point in history, to be honest (at least in western European style cultures... for a large portion of the world, this statement might hold true, but to a much lesser degree, if at all). Indentures servitude has been abolished to a large degree (this can be argued, but this is argumentative on the basis of predatory and college loans) and slavery has been outlawed (again, this can be argued than prison labor is a form of slave labor in states like California when used to fight wildfires, but I'm not sure how much water those arguments hold). Conscripted military service is gone in America and a lot of European countries (though several have mandatory service requirements). Job mobility and the ability to save money is, while not easier than any point in history on a point by point history basis (the 60's and 80's, I believe were easier... check my math, I might be wrong, there may have been others), on a macro scale of history - comparing medieval, renaissance or previous Europe and Russian and Chinese wealth distribution, mobility and freedoms of self - rent/mortgage may be due, but you can still break your agreement, sell your house (there may be a penalty), quit your job and be a homeless ascetic if you want. There are dozens of YouTube channels on VanLife you can watch people doing it... not for me, but you can do it. You can join an abbey (though, I think you could have always done this... I'm not sure about this). You can leave the system and jump off the wheel, you just have to jump off the wheel and stop getting what the wheel gives you.
I hope you don't mind, but I've reformatted your comment so that I could read it more easily and thought others would benefit as well:
We are more mobile today than at any point in history, to be honest[0]. Indentures servitude has been abolished to a large degree[1] and slavery has been outlawed[2]. Conscripted military service is gone in America and a lot of European countries[3]. Job mobility and the ability to save money is, while not easier than any point in history on a point by point history basis[4], on a macro scale of history - comparing medieval, renaissance or previous Europe and Russian and Chinese wealth distribution, mobility and freedoms of self - rent/mortgage may be due, but you can still break your agreement, sell your house[5], quit your job and be a homeless ascetic if you want. There are dozens of YouTube channels on VanLife you can watch people doing it... not for me, but you can do it. You can join an abbey[6]. You can leave the system and jump off the wheel, you just have to jump off the wheel and stop getting what the wheel gives you.
[0] at least in western European style cultures... for a large portion of the world, this statement might hold true, but to a much lesser degree, if at all
[1] this can be argued, but this is argumentative on the basis of predatory and college loans
[2] again, this can be argued than prison labor is a form of slave labor in states like California when used to fight wildfires, but I'm not sure how much water those arguments hold
[3] though several have mandatory service requirements
[4] the 60's and 80's, I believe were easier... check my math, I might be wrong, there may have been others
[5] there may be a penalty
[6] though, I think you could have always done this... I'm not sure about this
We are more mobile today than at any point in history, to be honest[0]. Indentures servitude has been abolished to a large degree[1] and slavery has been outlawed[2]. Conscripted military service is gone in America and a lot of European countries[3]. Job mobility and the ability to save money is, while not easier than any point in history on a point by point history basis[4], on a macro scale of history - comparing medieval, renaissance or previous Europe and Russian and Chinese wealth distribution, mobility and freedoms of self - rent/mortgage may be due, but you can still break your agreement, sell your house[5], quit your job and be a homeless ascetic if you want. There are dozens of YouTube channels on VanLife you can watch people doing it... not for me, but you can do it. You can join an abbey[6]. You can leave the system and jump off the wheel, you just have to jump off the wheel and stop getting what the wheel gives you.
[0] at least in western European style cultures... for a large portion of the world, this statement might hold true, but to a much lesser degree, if at all
[1] this can be argued, but this is argumentative on the basis of predatory and college loans
[2] again, this can be argued than prison labor is a form of slave labor in states like California when used to fight wildfires, but I'm not sure how much water those arguments hold
[3] though several have mandatory service requirements
[4] the 60's and 80's, I believe were easier... check my math, I might be wrong, there may have been others
[5] there may be a penalty
[6] though, I think you could have always done this... I'm not sure about this
Yeah, sorry. I was rushing to get the thought out. I should have gone back and reformatted to make it legible. Thank you =)
I have to stop and comment on parent's behavior. You saw a comment that was poorly written and took on the job to rewrite and extract the good part so it could be understood by the general public. It's such a nice gesture and at the same time shows a lot of initiative and attitude that I wish people in my team had it hard coded in their kernels. Your team, whoever they are, are lucky to have you.
We have less freedom of movement at will and ability to disobey orders than at many long stretches of civilization, at least according to anthro and archaeology research covered in Graeber’s last/new book
> However, the even more tragic part is that it doesn't exactly apply in today's world where most people are bound to their jobs.
I'm not sure it's really all that different now than it has ever been. Sure, it's not like people were always and everywhere working for some other entity in what we'd tend to recognize as a "job", but there has always been a struggle. The struggle in the past was to be able to grow enough food to last the winter to stave off starvation.
I'm not sure it's really all that different now than it has ever been. Sure, it's not like people were always and everywhere working for some other entity in what we'd tend to recognize as a "job", but there has always been a struggle. The struggle in the past was to be able to grow enough food to last the winter to stave off starvation.
Worrying about what will be in 3 years doesn’t help you pay the rent now. Thinking about what was 3 years ago definitely does nothing for your rent now.
If the rent is due and there’s no money, what can you do now to fix that? What action can you take, right now, that gets you closer to paying rent? All the worrying in the world does nothing to fix the situation.
Yes have a long-term plan, follow a strategy, even make time in the day/week/quarter to realign and think about that stuff. But when shit hits the fan, only doing something right now gets you closer to a solution.
If the rent is due and there’s no money, what can you do now to fix that? What action can you take, right now, that gets you closer to paying rent? All the worrying in the world does nothing to fix the situation.
Yes have a long-term plan, follow a strategy, even make time in the day/week/quarter to realign and think about that stuff. But when shit hits the fan, only doing something right now gets you closer to a solution.
Yeah, that I like much more. Being able to fix the problems now while doing some minimal planning seems to be a better strategy if we're optimizing for mental health (and we really should).
Yeah I think mindfulness is not about ignoring your problems. It's more about not letting your mind wander unnecessarily. I think this is our gift and curse as humans--we can plan for the future and reminisce on the past, which enables great achievements, but tied up with this kind of 'time traveling' thinking are emotions like anxiety, sadness, disappointment. So if we could somehow just be efficient calculating machines we wouldn't need this philosophy.
(Although lately I've been realizing that if we were just cold calculating machines maybe we wouldn't have complex drives and passions, so probably emotions are not just an extraneous 'curse', and are part of why we do what we do.)
(Although lately I've been realizing that if we were just cold calculating machines maybe we wouldn't have complex drives and passions, so probably emotions are not just an extraneous 'curse', and are part of why we do what we do.)
> Yeah I think mindfulness is not about ignoring your problems. It's more about not letting your mind wander unnecessarily.
Learning to focus is one of the hidden lessons in "Kung Fu Panda." Po's journey allows him to finally reveal to his father his true passion because he learns to focus on his own destiny rather than letting the pressures of the larger society, as represented by his father's expectations, control him.
Learning to focus is one of the hidden lessons in "Kung Fu Panda." Po's journey allows him to finally reveal to his father his true passion because he learns to focus on his own destiny rather than letting the pressures of the larger society, as represented by his father's expectations, control him.
The entire premise of the website where we're discussing this topic, was to create a culture of equipping programmers to escape the hamster wheel of employment by starting their own businesses.
No, it's not easy. But there's also the early retirement people, who spend little and save aggressively to escape the hamster wheel.
And there is also the mentality of not letting the thing you do to pay the rent or mortgage define you. Put in your 8 hours, but don't let it consume you outside of those hours.
You don't have to spend your whole life in the noodle shop. There are other ways to live.
No, it's not easy. But there's also the early retirement people, who spend little and save aggressively to escape the hamster wheel.
And there is also the mentality of not letting the thing you do to pay the rent or mortgage define you. Put in your 8 hours, but don't let it consume you outside of those hours.
You don't have to spend your whole life in the noodle shop. There are other ways to live.
> The entire premise of the website where we're discussing this topic, was to create a culture of equipping programmers to escape the hamster wheel of employment by starting their own businesses.
This seems like a minority these days. Most people are just chasing the house ownership hamster wheel.
This seems like a minority these days. Most people are just chasing the house ownership hamster wheel.
You'll be okay without a job, money, maybe even housing and food.
I think the other meaning of the quote is not to avoid planning or only live in the moment or that day but to just pick something and go for it. Do it well - be excellent. You can worry about what was and what will be but at the end of the day we are all masters of our own narrative journey.
> just pick something and go for it. Do it well - be excellent.
It's funny that another Jack Black movie, "The School of Rock" (2003), has a similar message: Do what you love because you love it. Even if you are not very good at it, you can find a way to fit it into your life. https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/the-school-of-roc...
Another movie that shows this lesson is the 2013 documentary "Salinger": Be driven by making your work great, not by the reactions of others. https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/salinger/
Which is influenced by Hinduism, "you should do your work as perfectly as you possibly can with no thought of rewards, and only that way can you be a really happy person.”
It's funny that another Jack Black movie, "The School of Rock" (2003), has a similar message: Do what you love because you love it. Even if you are not very good at it, you can find a way to fit it into your life. https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/the-school-of-roc...
Another movie that shows this lesson is the 2013 documentary "Salinger": Be driven by making your work great, not by the reactions of others. https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/salinger/
Which is influenced by Hinduism, "you should do your work as perfectly as you possibly can with no thought of rewards, and only that way can you be a really happy person.”
I don't think that's an 'other' meaning as much as a natural extension. It's not about planning or not planning. It's not about being a master of your own journey.
It's about being able to identify what you can and what you cannot control, focusing on the can control and just letting the rest occur. This is something I struggle with.
I see things, constantly, that are just rage inducing in terms of how stupid they are and how the problems they cause impact my life negatively. And I can't do anything about them. Yet I still spend time being negative, anxious, or otherwise focusing on them. It doesn't help, the problems still happen, and I spent time ruminating about them.
It's about being able to identify what you can and what you cannot control, focusing on the can control and just letting the rest occur. This is something I struggle with.
I see things, constantly, that are just rage inducing in terms of how stupid they are and how the problems they cause impact my life negatively. And I can't do anything about them. Yet I still spend time being negative, anxious, or otherwise focusing on them. It doesn't help, the problems still happen, and I spent time ruminating about them.
This reminds me my father when I mentioned bad news he always referred to a saying; no need to worry, things you can't control you can do nothing about them, and why worry about things you can control.
I think the frustration often arise when we create the illusion of control and unexpected events shatter that idea, bringing ourselves in denial.
A good measure is to keep a buffer for unexpected events and prepare yourself sentimentally.
I think the frustration often arise when we create the illusion of control and unexpected events shatter that idea, bringing ourselves in denial.
A good measure is to keep a buffer for unexpected events and prepare yourself sentimentally.
Reminded me on this great answer by Eric Weinstein on Quora
https://www.quora.com/In-Kung-Fu-Panda-how-does-Po-end-up-de...
> "Let not future things disturb thee, for thou wilt come to them... having with thee the same reason which now thou usest."
That's what Marcus said? Or rather a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery old and dusty translation of what he said?
That's what Marcus said? Or rather a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery old and dusty translation of what he said?
I have this viscous view on things that the future is 1% change daily. You can't really plan anything in an organic social system where everything is coupled to everything. You push a bit and see, push a bit more.
> I actually have found comfort in my personal life from thinking about that little passage...
This idea of finding comfort or guidance in movies is exactly how I feel, and it is what motivates me to catalogue the life lessons found in movies on "moviewise."
This idea of finding comfort or guidance in movies is exactly how I feel, and it is what motivates me to catalogue the life lessons found in movies on "moviewise."
The past is history,
future a mystery.
Present is reality,
that's what we are.
(Rainbow song)
(Rainbow song)
The Beowülf song "today is a gift" sampled the "noodles" exchange, which prompted me to watch the KFP movies.
I'd like to add that Kung Fu Panda actually illustrates a genuine philosophical conflict between Daoism and Confucianism, which played out across early China during the Spring and Autumn period.
Oogway represents Daoism with its search for inner peace and going with the flow/dao. Shifu, on the other hand, represents Confucianism with its concerns for moral duty and worldly social harmony. The internal and external, immaterial and material—each has a role in the construction of a philosophy conducive to success.
"Oogway explains that he can not make the peach tree blossom or bear fruit before it is ready. Shifu retorts that there are things that can be controlled like when the fruit falls or where the seeds are planted. Oogway finalizes by saying that no matter what is done, the tree will still grow to be a peach tree, instead of any other kind of tree and that great things can happen if it is helped and nurtured. Oogway argues the point of Daoism and that nature will take its course. Shifu argues the point of Confucianism and that everything has order." [1]
Also shameless plug for my essay about Culture, Philosophy, and Reinforcement Learning which comments on similar dualities and their relations. [2]
[1] https://medium.com/@gvreligion/quit-dont-quit-noodles-don-t-...
[2] https://medium.com/@rohan.pandey/culture-philosophy-and-rein...
Oogway represents Daoism with its search for inner peace and going with the flow/dao. Shifu, on the other hand, represents Confucianism with its concerns for moral duty and worldly social harmony. The internal and external, immaterial and material—each has a role in the construction of a philosophy conducive to success.
"Oogway explains that he can not make the peach tree blossom or bear fruit before it is ready. Shifu retorts that there are things that can be controlled like when the fruit falls or where the seeds are planted. Oogway finalizes by saying that no matter what is done, the tree will still grow to be a peach tree, instead of any other kind of tree and that great things can happen if it is helped and nurtured. Oogway argues the point of Daoism and that nature will take its course. Shifu argues the point of Confucianism and that everything has order." [1]
Also shameless plug for my essay about Culture, Philosophy, and Reinforcement Learning which comments on similar dualities and their relations. [2]
[1] https://medium.com/@gvreligion/quit-dont-quit-noodles-don-t-...
[2] https://medium.com/@rohan.pandey/culture-philosophy-and-rein...
"The Kung Fu Panda movies focus on moving away from the tradition of Confucianism and moving towards the Daoism ideas of doing what feels natural."
I haven't watched the movies, but it seems Panda-Daoism happens to conform to Hollywood's western individualist thought and therefore predictably "wins". I'd love to watch or read something that lets the Confucianist be the deeper truth, for a change. Do you happen to know of anything?
I suspect there are is quite a bit of wisdom in there worth exploring, and wouldn't mind to be confronted with a stronger dose of "different" once in a while.
I haven't watched the movies, but it seems Panda-Daoism happens to conform to Hollywood's western individualist thought and therefore predictably "wins". I'd love to watch or read something that lets the Confucianist be the deeper truth, for a change. Do you happen to know of anything?
I suspect there are is quite a bit of wisdom in there worth exploring, and wouldn't mind to be confronted with a stronger dose of "different" once in a while.
I think you'll have to search long to even find a Chinese who thinks that Confucianism is in any way more "true" or a "deeper truth" than Daoism (or any other of the Tang-Dynasty-era philosophies like Legalism or Mozi). The philosophies are not in opposition, they look at different aspects of life.
Good points about Dao vs Confucius. In our times the debate seems to be between autocracy vs. democracy.
Is this some how related to propaganda against CCP.
Great article! Kung Fu Panda remains in my memory even so many years after I've watched it because of its memorable quotes, but also because of the tragic and relatable motivation of its villain (Tai Lung). I've always found the exchange between Tai Lung and Shifu towards the end of the film to be profoundly sad, partly because of the great vocal performance by Ian McShane:
> Who filled my head with dreams? Who drove me to train until my bones cracked? Who denied me my destiny? [...] All I ever did, I did to make you proud. Tell me how proud you are, Shifu! Tell me!
> I have always been proud of you. From the first moment, I've been proud of you. And it was my pride that blinded me. I loved you too much to see what you were becoming, what I was turning you into. I'm sorry.
There's also brief moment where Tai Lung's facial expression changes to hint that he took the apology to heart. I'm not used to seeing that amount of depth in kids' films!
> Who filled my head with dreams? Who drove me to train until my bones cracked? Who denied me my destiny? [...] All I ever did, I did to make you proud. Tell me how proud you are, Shifu! Tell me!
> I have always been proud of you. From the first moment, I've been proud of you. And it was my pride that blinded me. I loved you too much to see what you were becoming, what I was turning you into. I'm sorry.
There's also brief moment where Tai Lung's facial expression changes to hint that he took the apology to heart. I'm not used to seeing that amount of depth in kids' films!
> I'm not used to seeing that amount of depth in kids' films!
I think it was Heinlein who when asked how to write a good novel for juveniles said that you write a good novel and then take out the sex scenes.
The major studios have long been following that approach with their big-budget animated films.
I think it was Heinlein who when asked how to write a good novel for juveniles said that you write a good novel and then take out the sex scenes.
The major studios have long been following that approach with their big-budget animated films.
An apology that came twenty years too late!
Fun fact: this movie sparked a huge cultural debate in China because of how accurate to Chinese culture it was. The center of the debate was the perception that Westerners were better at making a movie with accurate Chinese cultural elements than the Chinese themselves.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-film-panda/kung-fu-...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-film-panda/kung-fu-...
It's little more complex than that. The Accented Cinema YT channel has an excellent video on this topic - https://youtu.be/tCCRuUlJ_nA
How dare you one up me with nuance! :P
Thanks for the link, I'll definitely give this a watch.
Thanks for the link, I'll definitely give this a watch.
That was a great video - thank you for the share!
It was excellent and is definitely worth the time. Thanks!
I feel that there is a difference between "believe in yourself" and "embrace who you are / love yourself." The former is about confidence, the latter is about ego.
Information about China is easily available outside of Chine, not to mention that there are large numbers of Chinese people living abroad.
A movie made outside of China that contains elements of traditional Chinese culture won't be spoiled with corrections to fit communist ideals and narratives.
A movie made outside of China that contains elements of traditional Chinese culture won't be spoiled with corrections to fit communist ideals and narratives.
No, it would be spoiled with corrections to fit US ideals and narratives.
Since around the cultural revolution of the 1960's, a lot of the US ideals are just a mashup of eastern philosophies anyway, though.
In the 1960's, large numbers of hippies became interested in alternative religions from the world, such as Buddhism and others.
Today, for instance, finding the "Zen" in something is a household concept now, like ordering pizza.
In the 1960's, large numbers of hippies became interested in alternative religions from the world, such as Buddhism and others.
Today, for instance, finding the "Zen" in something is a household concept now, like ordering pizza.
> The center of the debate was the perception that Westerners were better at making a movie with accurate Chinese cultural elements than the Chinese themselves.
A large part of that likely has to do with people and their descendants that had escaped communist China, bringing along the traditional values of pre-communist China. Couple with the PRC actively trying to destroy the past, it's a recipe for Chinese culture to be best preserved outside of its homeland.
A large part of that likely has to do with people and their descendants that had escaped communist China, bringing along the traditional values of pre-communist China. Couple with the PRC actively trying to destroy the past, it's a recipe for Chinese culture to be best preserved outside of its homeland.
I wouldn't read too much into that narrative, as I find it often overstretched and coloured by stereotypes.
No reason for this comment to be downvoted. It is a major topic discussed by many Chinese intellectuals.
Readers who are not familiar with the history of Communist China can read following Wikipedia pages:
破四旧 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Olds : The Four Olds or the Four Old Things (simplified Chinese: 四旧; traditional Chinese: 四舊; pinyin: sì jiù) was a term used during the Cultural Revolution by the student-led Red Guards in the People's Republic of China in reference to the pre-communist elements of Chinese culture they attempted to destroy. The Four Olds were: Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs (Chinese: Jiù Sīxiǎng 旧思想, Jiù Wénhuà 旧文化, Jiù Fēngsú 旧风俗, and Jiù Xíguàn 旧习惯).[1] The campaign to destroy the Four Olds began in Beijing on August 19, 1966 (the "Red August", during which a massacre also took place in Beijing[2]), shortly after the launch of the Cultural Revolution.
批林批孔 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticize_Lin,_Criticize_Confu... The Criticize Lin (Biao), Criticize Confucius Campaign (simplified Chinese: 批林批孔运动; traditional Chinese: 批林批孔運動; pinyin: pī Lín pī Kǒng yùndòng; also called the Anti-Lin Biao, Anti-Confucius campaign) was a political propaganda campaign started by Mao Zedong and his wife, Jiang Qing, the leader of the Gang of Four. It lasted from 1973 until the end of the Cultural Revolution, in 1976. The campaign continued in several phases, beginning as an academic attempt to interpret Chinese history according to Mao's political theories. In 1974 the campaign was joined with another, pre-existent campaign to criticise Lin Biao, who had allegedly attempted to assassinate Mao in a failed coup before his death in 1971. In early 1975 the campaign was modified to indirectly criticise China's Premier, Zhou Enlai, and other senior Chinese leaders. In mid-1975 the Gang of Four introduced debate on Water Margin as a tool for criticism of their opponents. The campaign ended in 1976, when the Gang of Four were arrested.
Readers who are not familiar with the history of Communist China can read following Wikipedia pages:
破四旧 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Olds : The Four Olds or the Four Old Things (simplified Chinese: 四旧; traditional Chinese: 四舊; pinyin: sì jiù) was a term used during the Cultural Revolution by the student-led Red Guards in the People's Republic of China in reference to the pre-communist elements of Chinese culture they attempted to destroy. The Four Olds were: Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs (Chinese: Jiù Sīxiǎng 旧思想, Jiù Wénhuà 旧文化, Jiù Fēngsú 旧风俗, and Jiù Xíguàn 旧习惯).[1] The campaign to destroy the Four Olds began in Beijing on August 19, 1966 (the "Red August", during which a massacre also took place in Beijing[2]), shortly after the launch of the Cultural Revolution.
批林批孔 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticize_Lin,_Criticize_Confu... The Criticize Lin (Biao), Criticize Confucius Campaign (simplified Chinese: 批林批孔运动; traditional Chinese: 批林批孔運動; pinyin: pī Lín pī Kǒng yùndòng; also called the Anti-Lin Biao, Anti-Confucius campaign) was a political propaganda campaign started by Mao Zedong and his wife, Jiang Qing, the leader of the Gang of Four. It lasted from 1973 until the end of the Cultural Revolution, in 1976. The campaign continued in several phases, beginning as an academic attempt to interpret Chinese history according to Mao's political theories. In 1974 the campaign was joined with another, pre-existent campaign to criticise Lin Biao, who had allegedly attempted to assassinate Mao in a failed coup before his death in 1971. In early 1975 the campaign was modified to indirectly criticise China's Premier, Zhou Enlai, and other senior Chinese leaders. In mid-1975 the Gang of Four introduced debate on Water Margin as a tool for criticism of their opponents. The campaign ended in 1976, when the Gang of Four were arrested.
"There's no secret ingredient"
I've found this to be very applicable to life. I often instinctively look for some magical silver bullet solution for hard problems. This makes it easy to procrastinate instead of just taking the best action I can come up with right now. To not act is also a choice and we often forget to compare the utility of non-action to action.
I've found this to be very applicable to life. I often instinctively look for some magical silver bullet solution for hard problems. This makes it easy to procrastinate instead of just taking the best action I can come up with right now. To not act is also a choice and we often forget to compare the utility of non-action to action.
Also you don't need the best action you can come up with. A good enough action will do (even inaction is an action). Also, if it turns out it wasn't a good action, well, s** happens, that's the upredicatable nature of life, so it will be fine, you will recover from it.
Sometimes it's better not to act. It's all situation dependent.
Sure but some of us (self included) seem to have a bias towards waiting for perfect information to appear.
Loved the article. I only have one thing to add from my personal experience.
In the past, when I was dealing with severe depression, if I read this article or similar, I would've thought "this is such bullshit, wtf is this moron talking about".
Reading the article today, after being "cured" from depression by Electroconvulsive therapy, I thought it was so helpful and insightful. I was able to actually understand what the author was saying and take their words to heart.
It's crazy how depression clouds things like that, something that could be really helpful is seen as super-positive bs and unrealistic. Something that you (depressed person) could never achieve. Truly sick disease.
If you're dealing with depression right now, please keep pushing, it really really does get better :)
In the past, when I was dealing with severe depression, if I read this article or similar, I would've thought "this is such bullshit, wtf is this moron talking about".
Reading the article today, after being "cured" from depression by Electroconvulsive therapy, I thought it was so helpful and insightful. I was able to actually understand what the author was saying and take their words to heart.
It's crazy how depression clouds things like that, something that could be really helpful is seen as super-positive bs and unrealistic. Something that you (depressed person) could never achieve. Truly sick disease.
If you're dealing with depression right now, please keep pushing, it really really does get better :)
Thank you for sharing this. It's an interesting observation that the people who may best be helped by what I call "movie therapy" would be the most resistant to it, as they are not in the right frame of mind to consider new ideas or perspectives. It's one of those terrible ironies of life.
"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why it is called the present" - Master Oogway
There's a very nice kernel of truth in that but come on, the way it's said is just an English-specific pun.
EDIT: to clarify: I 100% agree with the quote but I don't find puns a good medium through which to convey an eternal wisdom as that quote.
EDIT: to clarify: I 100% agree with the quote but I don't find puns a good medium through which to convey an eternal wisdom as that quote.
It works also in Italian and probably in Dutch, French, Swedish, Portuguese and Catalanl; the root is from Latin praesentāre (“to show”), common to all these languages (and others).
Is present synonymous with "now" and "gift" in italian? Can you provide an example? Regardless, it certainly doesn't apply to chinese.
Correct, one example for gift:
- Ho portato questo piccolo presente per you. - I brought this small gift for you.
On for "now":
- Faresti meglio a pensare al presente. - You should be thinking more about your present.
- Ho portato questo piccolo presente per you. - I brought this small gift for you.
On for "now":
- Faresti meglio a pensare al presente. - You should be thinking more about your present.
I know I'm being too literal but I kinda hate quips like that which rely on turns of phrases. They are completely devoid of any basis.
I'm sure there are languages that don't have the duality of gift/present as well as a coincidence in meaning for the word meaning "now".
I mean, sure, it's "aunt cute" or whatever but other than that it has not meaning.
I'm sure there are languages that don't have the duality of gift/present as well as a coincidence in meaning for the word meaning "now".
I mean, sure, it's "aunt cute" or whatever but other than that it has not meaning.
> They are completely devoid of any basis.
No pal, that's just you and your inability to accept that you may not know everything there is to know, and so you cannot accept that these play on words may carry wisdom in them that you are not aware of yet, or just haven't quite cognized.
And pal... Duality is in almost nearly everything. It's not language specific. It's universe specific. In our reality, there is generally almost always an equal and opposite to everything. If you don't know what somethings equal or opposite is yet, you just have yet to find it. This seems to be true regardless of whoever argues, because all it takes is time to find that proof.
Even Time has its own equal and opposite. Space. Through time you travel when moving through space, but in space you can travel through time as well by not moving at all...
So yeah, it's not even a case of you being too literal. You are just being obtuse or ignorant. Maybe even arrogant. But not too literal.
No pal, that's just you and your inability to accept that you may not know everything there is to know, and so you cannot accept that these play on words may carry wisdom in them that you are not aware of yet, or just haven't quite cognized.
And pal... Duality is in almost nearly everything. It's not language specific. It's universe specific. In our reality, there is generally almost always an equal and opposite to everything. If you don't know what somethings equal or opposite is yet, you just have yet to find it. This seems to be true regardless of whoever argues, because all it takes is time to find that proof.
Even Time has its own equal and opposite. Space. Through time you travel when moving through space, but in space you can travel through time as well by not moving at all...
So yeah, it's not even a case of you being too literal. You are just being obtuse or ignorant. Maybe even arrogant. But not too literal.
It has very profound meaning, and always living in the now is a central tenet of Buddhist philosophy.
An example that comes to mind is the English "to be" working for both essence and state. In Portuguese we have different verbs, so we have the sentence "ele não é assim, ele está assim" which conveys the message that whatever he is going through right now, it doesn't define who he is deep down inside. But a literal translation just becomes the nonsensical "he isn't like that, he is like that".
I was trying to explain to a foreigner when to use "ser" or "estar" when translating "to be" and I tried to explain that one conveys essence and the other state, but that didn't seem to clarify things in his mind. He just kept saying it was all arbitrary which frankly doesn't make much sense in my head.
So I wonder if this linguistical difference provokes dramatical differences in inner thinking and culture as well. For instance, does the message of the aforementioned aphorism still works in English, I just have to find a better translation? Or do English natives will naturally have a stronger sense of a person being tainted by their actions?
I was trying to explain to a foreigner when to use "ser" or "estar" when translating "to be" and I tried to explain that one conveys essence and the other state, but that didn't seem to clarify things in his mind. He just kept saying it was all arbitrary which frankly doesn't make much sense in my head.
So I wonder if this linguistical difference provokes dramatical differences in inner thinking and culture as well. For instance, does the message of the aforementioned aphorism still works in English, I just have to find a better translation? Or do English natives will naturally have a stronger sense of a person being tainted by their actions?
> But a literal translation just becomes the nonsensical "he isn't like that, he is like that".
I guess a better translation is "He isn't that, he is like that." But I agree that English doesn't have a distinction between permanent states vs impermanent states in the "to be" verb.
I guess a better translation is "He isn't that, he is like that." But I agree that English doesn't have a distinction between permanent states vs impermanent states in the "to be" verb.
>There is basis, yesterday did in fact happen in the past and tomorrow can not be said with certainty.
>There are many phrases in many languages that don't have translations to others or may mean something different. See the phrase "lost in translation". Even something as little as "no worries" without translation can still be lost in translation culture.
>There are many phrases in many languages that don't have translations to others or may mean something different. See the phrase "lost in translation". Even something as little as "no worries" without translation can still be lost in translation culture.
> See the phrase "lost in translation". Even something as little as "no worries" without translation can still be lost in translation culture.
Exactly. You may know the word for 'worry' or 'worries', but you may not know the word for 'no'. And in that moment you could be misinterpreting the intentions and actions/words of a person who only told you 'don't worry'. Meanwhile, you are big worrying.
Exactly. You may know the word for 'worry' or 'worries', but you may not know the word for 'no'. And in that moment you could be misinterpreting the intentions and actions/words of a person who only told you 'don't worry'. Meanwhile, you are big worrying.
You're not entirely wrong, a catchy or pithy enough saying tends to gain traction among pseudo-intellectuals just by virtue of a clever turn of phrase. It's like all of the stupid analogies that they make in episodes of TNG whenever they're trying to explain a difficult technological concept.
Eg "Adversity is a good thing. Kites rise against, not with, the wind". Congratulations you managed to find a physical world corollary that ultimately has no relationship to what it's being compared to.
Eg "Adversity is a good thing. Kites rise against, not with, the wind". Congratulations you managed to find a physical world corollary that ultimately has no relationship to what it's being compared to.
I find that western culture emphasizes the importance of agency at the expense of community. Kung fu panda, and most animated movies are good examples of where we see agency exalted as a desirable trait, and acts of rebellion are portrayed as “brave.” While rebellion is a necessary part of growing up, it is merely a manifestation of becoming comfortable with one’s agency in the world and nothing more.
The article explains why kung fu panda is a great movie by starting with a quote highlighting the pandas desire to break away from expectations to pursue his passion. By the end of the article, there’s a quote about illusion of control. It’s contradictory, and ultimately I think we’re ingrained to favor sentiments of agency and discount any notion of loss-of-control which is a shame.
Societies are created by individual pursuits towards “happiness.” I submit that societies crumble because of the same forces. By prioritizing individualistic endeavors, and cherishing agency, we fail to account for the need to compromise, and collaborate to fulfill societal duties (whatever those may be in any given time)
The article explains why kung fu panda is a great movie by starting with a quote highlighting the pandas desire to break away from expectations to pursue his passion. By the end of the article, there’s a quote about illusion of control. It’s contradictory, and ultimately I think we’re ingrained to favor sentiments of agency and discount any notion of loss-of-control which is a shame.
Societies are created by individual pursuits towards “happiness.” I submit that societies crumble because of the same forces. By prioritizing individualistic endeavors, and cherishing agency, we fail to account for the need to compromise, and collaborate to fulfill societal duties (whatever those may be in any given time)
> The article explains why kung fu panda is a great movie by starting with a quote highlighting the pandas desire to break away from expectations to pursue his passion. By the end of the article, there’s a quote about illusion of control. It’s contradictory
I think the "desire to break away from expectations" and the "illusion of control" are not contradictory because they represent different struggles. The former is a struggle within, the latter is a struggle against the world. Understanding for yourself what you want to accept from the larger society, the expectations, is an inner struggle. Understanding that you have little control over that society, over life itself, is an outward struggle that doesn't have to consume you if you let go of the illusion of control.
The first one is about choosing what to focus on, the second one is about choosing to be at peace with that which you cannot control. These two work in tandem and are not contradictory.
I think the "desire to break away from expectations" and the "illusion of control" are not contradictory because they represent different struggles. The former is a struggle within, the latter is a struggle against the world. Understanding for yourself what you want to accept from the larger society, the expectations, is an inner struggle. Understanding that you have little control over that society, over life itself, is an outward struggle that doesn't have to consume you if you let go of the illusion of control.
The first one is about choosing what to focus on, the second one is about choosing to be at peace with that which you cannot control. These two work in tandem and are not contradictory.
Western culture is also soaked in politics. It’s almost all we talk about. And it’s all about compromises.
I totally missed out the Kung Fu Panda "event" when it was released and I just watched it with my son some weeks ago, choosing it randomly on Netflix, remembering myself that i heard it was good. I was just expecting some good Dreamworks blockbuster.
Well, I was mind blown. The first movie is a masterpiece, the trilogy is really solid. It's pretty deep, entertaining, fun, and beautiful and it carries a lot of interesting messages. I loved it.
Well, I was mind blown. The first movie is a masterpiece, the trilogy is really solid. It's pretty deep, entertaining, fun, and beautiful and it carries a lot of interesting messages. I loved it.
Agreed. It was one of the first movies that made me realize what animated movies were truly capable of. Fast forward 10 years and now I'm absolutely obsessed with animation -- it's one of my all time favorite art forms! You can convey emotional ideas so specifically and precisely with the control that animation gives. It's fantastic, and KFP makes great use of the medium. There are few kinds of entertainment I enjoy more than a well-written animated movie.
Eric Weinstein also wrote an excellent analysis of Kung Fu Panda on Quora.
https://www.quora.com/In-Kung-Fu-Panda-how-does-Po-end-up-de...
https://www.quora.com/In-Kung-Fu-Panda-how-does-Po-end-up-de...
I love Kung Fu Panda! It secretly became my favorite movie. Secretly, because it wasn't until years after I'd seen it that I realized how much I liked it compared to... every other movie.
Immediately what I thought of. I miss this era of Weinstein when he stuck to conveying things the way he thought of them (with all the underlying mathematical abstractions intact) rather than simplify it to reach a broader audience.
Description of working on Kung Fu Panda from Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty):
> My hats off to anyone that can write a Dreamworks Animation film. They have a unique process.
> First they storyboard the entire film. That is the first step. Not kidding. No writers, no script, just a story, and an entire film drawn on pieces of paper.
> Then Katzenberg watches an animatic of the boards and says, surprisingly, "this needs a lot of work. You have a month."
> Then they hire their first writer. And spend that month changing as much of the storyboards as they can, which is about 20 to 30 percent. If the 30 percent change isn't the right kind of change, people get fired. Maybe the director, maybe the writer, maybe both…
> I came in about four writers into the process. It's kind of hard to write a "better" scene than the last writer when the rules are that you can only change 30 percent of each scene or completely change 30 percent of the scenes, per Katzenberg screening. So, for instance, in this scene, the panda comes up a flight of stairs carrying a bucket of water, slips on a banana peel, says something to two geese and does an air guitar. The good news? There can be anything in the bucket. Your mission: make the movie better.
https://www.avclub.com/hilarious-things-to-put-in-kung-fu-pa...
> My hats off to anyone that can write a Dreamworks Animation film. They have a unique process.
> First they storyboard the entire film. That is the first step. Not kidding. No writers, no script, just a story, and an entire film drawn on pieces of paper.
> Then Katzenberg watches an animatic of the boards and says, surprisingly, "this needs a lot of work. You have a month."
> Then they hire their first writer. And spend that month changing as much of the storyboards as they can, which is about 20 to 30 percent. If the 30 percent change isn't the right kind of change, people get fired. Maybe the director, maybe the writer, maybe both…
> I came in about four writers into the process. It's kind of hard to write a "better" scene than the last writer when the rules are that you can only change 30 percent of each scene or completely change 30 percent of the scenes, per Katzenberg screening. So, for instance, in this scene, the panda comes up a flight of stairs carrying a bucket of water, slips on a banana peel, says something to two geese and does an air guitar. The good news? There can be anything in the bucket. Your mission: make the movie better.
https://www.avclub.com/hilarious-things-to-put-in-kung-fu-pa...
I am half Chinese and a martial artist (northern shaolin kung fu). I'm also a huge fan of philosophy as expressed via animation or science fiction.
When I saw Kung Fu Panda in the theater, I was impressed with how a mainstream American animated film captured the subtle aspects of my culture. KhoomeiK gets into the details below (I would add Buddhism to Daoism and Confucianism, but that's minor), but the general stoicism expressed by the characters (except Po) is the environment I knew as a child.
Of course Mulan had come out before this, but Mulan was more focused on the narrative and themes around the protagonist. KFP has an ensemble cast beginning-to-end, which allowed for a broader exploration of the philosophy. Each time two characters interact, you get some additional debate that paints a broader picture, leading to the amazing quotes in this article.
At the time, there were even articles about how surprisingly successful it was in China despite being made in the US about Chinese philosophy [1]. You could argue this kicked off what has now become a much larger Chinese film industry.
I'll add from a strictly technical standpoint, the subtle animations for the martial arts are superbly correct. The different animals (Tiger, Crane, etc) are explicit Kung Fu styles. The stances, forms, weapons and training they show are really exact. There's a scene where Shifu corrects young Tai Lung's stance with a stick. The stance is real down to the feet placement in the animation (bow and arrow stance), and in traditional training they do correct you with sticks.
I'll end with one last anecdote: In KFP 2, there's a scene where Tigress says she learned punching "hard style" by hitting an ironwood tree for 20 years. It's written as a joke, but I actually had a Kung Fu instructor who trained that way in real life. Now you train on progressively harder surfaces for punching over a period of 7 years or more, but when he started in the 80's you apparently did it on trees.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/0...
When I saw Kung Fu Panda in the theater, I was impressed with how a mainstream American animated film captured the subtle aspects of my culture. KhoomeiK gets into the details below (I would add Buddhism to Daoism and Confucianism, but that's minor), but the general stoicism expressed by the characters (except Po) is the environment I knew as a child.
Of course Mulan had come out before this, but Mulan was more focused on the narrative and themes around the protagonist. KFP has an ensemble cast beginning-to-end, which allowed for a broader exploration of the philosophy. Each time two characters interact, you get some additional debate that paints a broader picture, leading to the amazing quotes in this article.
At the time, there were even articles about how surprisingly successful it was in China despite being made in the US about Chinese philosophy [1]. You could argue this kicked off what has now become a much larger Chinese film industry.
I'll add from a strictly technical standpoint, the subtle animations for the martial arts are superbly correct. The different animals (Tiger, Crane, etc) are explicit Kung Fu styles. The stances, forms, weapons and training they show are really exact. There's a scene where Shifu corrects young Tai Lung's stance with a stick. The stance is real down to the feet placement in the animation (bow and arrow stance), and in traditional training they do correct you with sticks.
I'll end with one last anecdote: In KFP 2, there's a scene where Tigress says she learned punching "hard style" by hitting an ironwood tree for 20 years. It's written as a joke, but I actually had a Kung Fu instructor who trained that way in real life. Now you train on progressively harder surfaces for punching over a period of 7 years or more, but when he started in the 80's you apparently did it on trees.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/0...
> Of course Mulan had come out before this (same year but March vs June)
For anyone who was panicking over the passage of time when reading this: Kung Fu Panda was released in 2008, Mulan came out in 1998.
For anyone who was panicking over the passage of time when reading this: Kung Fu Panda was released in 2008, Mulan came out in 1998.
Woops! Corrected.
as someone with both Chinese parents and also m.a. (Chow Gar school), I felt disrespected when Po plays with Ninja stars. I cannot understand why movie that attempts to reflect as much Chinese culture as possible (excluding decorating everything with Dragons, which is a secret Chinese symbol and not used for decorations - even in the biggest Chinese movies you won't find too many Dragons) added this insult.
> I cannot understand why movie that attempts to reflect as much Chinese culture as possible (excluding decorating everything with Dragons, which is a secret Chinese symbol and not used for decorations - even in the biggest Chinese movies you won't find too many Dragons) added this insult.
Kung Fu Panda is a movie made by Westerners, for Westerners, about the cultural zeitgeist of Asian martial arts films and their common tropes as interpreted by Westerners, for whom the distinction between Japanese and Chinese martial disciplines isn't really relevant. Dreamworks didn't add "ninja stars" as a sly insult to Chinese culture, they added "ninja stars" because "ninja stars" are a common element in the films being parodied.
I mean, it isn't a documentary about Chinese history, it's a comedy with talking cartoon animals. Get over yourself, sheesh.
Kung Fu Panda is a movie made by Westerners, for Westerners, about the cultural zeitgeist of Asian martial arts films and their common tropes as interpreted by Westerners, for whom the distinction between Japanese and Chinese martial disciplines isn't really relevant. Dreamworks didn't add "ninja stars" as a sly insult to Chinese culture, they added "ninja stars" because "ninja stars" are a common element in the films being parodied.
I mean, it isn't a documentary about Chinese history, it's a comedy with talking cartoon animals. Get over yourself, sheesh.
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KFP is one of my favorite movies; I (an adult without kids) watch it yearly on my birthday. It's got so much heart and it's fight choreography is up there with other all-timers (ip man, crouching tiger, hidden dragon, the matrix).
If you only watch one clip, check out this segment from the training montage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCk9VAxEpD0&t=156s
Their use of visual boundaries and transitions is just so superb.
If you only watch one clip, check out this segment from the training montage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCk9VAxEpD0&t=156s
Their use of visual boundaries and transitions is just so superb.
Quote: "You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach".
Lesson: There are some things you can't change.
Quote: "There is no secret ingredient" Lesson: It's just you, keep grinding!
Quote: "There is no secret ingredient" Lesson: It's just you, keep grinding!
This made me think of the old quote "When life gives you lemons..." which is (I think) supposed to be inspirational in that even when you get dealt a bad hand you should still keep going and make the best of it.
The thing is I freaking love lemons and use them in all kinds of shit - when life gives ME lemons it ends up being a very, very good day :-)
The thing is I freaking love lemons and use them in all kinds of shit - when life gives ME lemons it ends up being a very, very good day :-)
Even stranger is that lemons themselves are a hybrid of bitter orange and citron. So life really did give us lemons, though humans may have helped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon
Almost all citrus is man made - from what I remember the only OG ones were mandarins, pomelos, and something else....
The part of the scroll being blank also goes way back, reminiscent of the “true and wordless scripture” of Buddhism
Not to start a huge philosophy argument but I always only understood it as "the real power to change things around is only in you -- no magic scrolls will help you with that".
In a very typical (and loved by me) Buddhism fashion you have the protagonist of a tale e.g. be promised wisdom or power if they climb a mountain and talk to the monks on top and eventually it turns out that while you were climbing the mountain you gained the wisdom and strength you were seeking. Arriving at the top of the mountain was just the event that is supposed to make you aware that you have now succeeded.
I viewed Kung Fu Panda part 1 similarly. If you go through all the trials to gain the Dragon Scroll and finish them successfully then you ALREADY ARE the "dragon warrior". You don't no need scroll for that. That's why it's empty. Not just empty; it's a mirror. To show you that the wisdom and power are already inside you.
That's what I got out of it.
In a very typical (and loved by me) Buddhism fashion you have the protagonist of a tale e.g. be promised wisdom or power if they climb a mountain and talk to the monks on top and eventually it turns out that while you were climbing the mountain you gained the wisdom and strength you were seeking. Arriving at the top of the mountain was just the event that is supposed to make you aware that you have now succeeded.
I viewed Kung Fu Panda part 1 similarly. If you go through all the trials to gain the Dragon Scroll and finish them successfully then you ALREADY ARE the "dragon warrior". You don't no need scroll for that. That's why it's empty. Not just empty; it's a mirror. To show you that the wisdom and power are already inside you.
That's what I got out of it.
I'm no expert on Chinese culture. But the message is at least as old as "Journey to the West" (aka: 'that monkey king story'). Where Tang Sanzang travels westward in search of paradise. At the end of the trip, he fails to find paradise, and Buddha IIRC tells him to turn around and look back upon his journey.
Tang Sanzang created paradise in his time, by solving all the issues of the people along the way. It was the journey that made paradise, not the end. If he just teleported to the West, there would have been no paradise.
------
Probably a Buddhism thing that keeps coming up over and over again over the centuries. But I liked that one.
Tang Sanzang created paradise in his time, by solving all the issues of the people along the way. It was the journey that made paradise, not the end. If he just teleported to the West, there would have been no paradise.
------
Probably a Buddhism thing that keeps coming up over and over again over the centuries. But I liked that one.
One of the under-appreciated bits of wisdom in this movie, to my mind, is "Do not attempt to fly by means of Fireworks fastened to furniture."
Sure, it works out for the implausibly resilient cartoon panda but even he suffers some. It's never that pleasant in the real world.
Sure, it works out for the implausibly resilient cartoon panda but even he suffers some. It's never that pleasant in the real world.
> "Do not attempt to fly by means of Fireworks fastened to furniture."
Do not attempt to fly by means of {VC Money} fastened to {hyper-growth mindset}
Do not attempt to fly by means of {VC Money} fastened to {hyper-growth mindset}
I loved that bit because it was an explicit reference to the Chinese legend of Wan Hu, the mandarin who attempted to do just that.
That's probably one of the reasons why the Chinese animation industry panicked upon Kung Fu Panda's release, judging the West to be doing better Chinese-themed animation than the Chinese were capable of at the time.
That's probably one of the reasons why the Chinese animation industry panicked upon Kung Fu Panda's release, judging the West to be doing better Chinese-themed animation than the Chinese were capable of at the time.
That calls to mind one of my favorite bits from RFC 1925 ("The Twelve Networking Truths") [0]:
> With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.
[0] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1925
> With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.
[0] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1925
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I love KFP and this article as well, but this one seems a bit off?
> "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it." > Life Lesson: You bring about what you focus on, whether good or bad.
Oogway tells Shifu about his vision that Tai Lung will return, in response Shifu orders that guards and arms at the prison should be doubled to prevent Tai Lung's escape.
Oogway then response with that line, which is basically saying no matter what he does, he's not going to prevent Tai Lung's escape. So the quote seems to be more about the wisdom of accepting your current circumstances so that you can better deal with them (the quote about stilling your mind comes right after.)
> "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it." > Life Lesson: You bring about what you focus on, whether good or bad.
Oogway tells Shifu about his vision that Tai Lung will return, in response Shifu orders that guards and arms at the prison should be doubled to prevent Tai Lung's escape.
Oogway then response with that line, which is basically saying no matter what he does, he's not going to prevent Tai Lung's escape. So the quote seems to be more about the wisdom of accepting your current circumstances so that you can better deal with them (the quote about stilling your mind comes right after.)
> Oogway then responds with that line, which is basically saying no matter what he does, he's not going to prevent Tai Lung's escape.
This is the difference between fate and destiny. If what we do does not matter, then that is fate, which is very confining, like a prison where you are restricted from having any meaningful impact on your own life. If fate were true, we could all just sit in a room quietly, waiting for fate to intervene and lead us by the nose down a path we never expected.
But that doesn't sound like the life we experience. We do make choices, those choices have consequences, and our lives are different because of the paths we took. This is destiny, and it has to do with what we choose to focus on, good or bad. If you spend your time doing things that are healthy for you and others, you and those around you become healthier. If instead you choose to focus on potential catastrophes, then that is what you and those around you experience.
And this kind of focus will likely enable the catastrophe to materialize because part of you will be working to fulfill this negative expectation to justify all the life that was wasted in worrying about it.
I believe this is a tenet of Karma in Jainism: "There is no retribution, judgment or reward involved but a natural consequences of the choices in life made either knowingly or unknowingly."
"a good and virtuous life indicates a latent desire to experience good and virtuous themes of life. Therefore, such a person attracts karma that ensures that their future births will allow them to experience and manifest their virtues and good feelings unhindered" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation
This is the difference between fate and destiny. If what we do does not matter, then that is fate, which is very confining, like a prison where you are restricted from having any meaningful impact on your own life. If fate were true, we could all just sit in a room quietly, waiting for fate to intervene and lead us by the nose down a path we never expected.
But that doesn't sound like the life we experience. We do make choices, those choices have consequences, and our lives are different because of the paths we took. This is destiny, and it has to do with what we choose to focus on, good or bad. If you spend your time doing things that are healthy for you and others, you and those around you become healthier. If instead you choose to focus on potential catastrophes, then that is what you and those around you experience.
And this kind of focus will likely enable the catastrophe to materialize because part of you will be working to fulfill this negative expectation to justify all the life that was wasted in worrying about it.
I believe this is a tenet of Karma in Jainism: "There is no retribution, judgment or reward involved but a natural consequences of the choices in life made either knowingly or unknowingly."
"a good and virtuous life indicates a latent desire to experience good and virtuous themes of life. Therefore, such a person attracts karma that ensures that their future births will allow them to experience and manifest their virtues and good feelings unhindered" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation
The bit that gets me is when Oogway ascends. In my opinion it's not because he's really old or just because it's his time.
He realises that he has to go because, otherwise Shifu is always going to look to him for answers, and he will never find his way until he is gone.
He realises that he has to go because, otherwise Shifu is always going to look to him for answers, and he will never find his way until he is gone.
The climactic wisdom in Kung Fu Panda is a trope from Dumbo [movie about elephant, 1941].
An object believed to be magic, giving abilities to the possessor, turns out to be just a prop. It's all in you, you just have to believe in yourself.
An object believed to be magic, giving abilities to the possessor, turns out to be just a prop. It's all in you, you just have to believe in yourself.
It's an ancient trope: It appears in the epic of Gilgamesh, who searches for immortality in the form of a magic coral flower, which eventually gets stolen, only for Gilgamesh to realize he was immortal all along, because of his legacy in his city Uruk. He also gets made a god after his death.
> appears in the epic of Gilgamesh
Slam, dunk, QED. Well done!
Slam, dunk, QED. Well done!
Or put another way: mind over matter is amplified by psychosomatism. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss...
An under-rated movie (and trilogy as a whole). They take philosophy and ethics and morph it into something so easy to understand even a child enjoys listening to it.
This makes me feel old. It reminds me of the scores of "wasn't Fern Gully actually surprisingly poignant?" articles that came out in around 2008, or the "philosophy of Shrek" from around 2013.
Now the kids who grew up with Kung Fu Panda are internet journalists.
Now the kids who grew up with Kung Fu Panda are internet journalists.
Lets hope the tradition continues and people talk about how awesome Megamind was in a few years.
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Relevant; to get a good practical overview of Taoism/Confucianism/Buddhism "Wisdom" see Master of the Three Ways: Reflections of a Chinese Sage on Living a Satisfying Life by Hung Ying-Ming and translated by William Scott Wilson.
Summary at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caigentan
Summary at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caigentan
I’m a big fan of esoteric wisdom. Eg conferences in western esotericism.
Trolls 2 was directly based on deep esoteric wisdom. Shocking. Also, Frozen 2. That’s funny, right?
Trolls 2 was directly based on deep esoteric wisdom. Shocking. Also, Frozen 2. That’s funny, right?
Kung-Fu Panda is an under-rated trilogy. The relation to philosophy and ethics is strong and very poignant
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First, I want to say I really like Kung Fu Panda... now.
In particular, I really like the 2D intro (I wish the whole movie was drawn in that style, which reminds me of the awesome Samurai Jack), and also Tai Lung's escape is a masterpiece of foreboding and action. This is a credible villain that everyone fears, and he quickly demonstrates why.
That said, back when it was released I was training in kung fu and some of the message of "the untrained newcomer is better than the devoted pupils" felt irritating to me. They've been training hard for years, they are pretty good, but the movie effectively tell them: you're not the chosen ones, let's pick someone who's never trained instead.
This is a frequent Hollywood trope that I always find annoying, The Newcomer (usually a child) Who Trumps All Experts. I understand why it exists: the novice newcomer serves as the point of view of the audience. But it's still annoying.
In particular, I really like the 2D intro (I wish the whole movie was drawn in that style, which reminds me of the awesome Samurai Jack), and also Tai Lung's escape is a masterpiece of foreboding and action. This is a credible villain that everyone fears, and he quickly demonstrates why.
That said, back when it was released I was training in kung fu and some of the message of "the untrained newcomer is better than the devoted pupils" felt irritating to me. They've been training hard for years, they are pretty good, but the movie effectively tell them: you're not the chosen ones, let's pick someone who's never trained instead.
This is a frequent Hollywood trope that I always find annoying, The Newcomer (usually a child) Who Trumps All Experts. I understand why it exists: the novice newcomer serves as the point of view of the audience. But it's still annoying.
To me it speaks more about how in the end no matter how much training or hard work you put in, sometimes it all comes down to a question of genetics.
Thousands of sprinters put in the same hard work and training regimen every day but there can only be one Usain Bolt.
Thousands of sprinters put in the same hard work and training regimen every day but there can only be one Usain Bolt.
There's also the aspect of the new guy who doesn't know what others say is impossible, so he tries things others don't even attempt. And sometimes, that leads to success.
Yes, of course. But did they show in the movie the failings or shortcomings of all the other trainees, what it was that they considered "impossible"? They were training hard and didn't understand why Po was picked over them. We, the audience, are also not told why.
They were all susceptible to the dreaded nerve attack. Po, not so much.
Hard training is not the only ingredient to excellence. Po had an abundance of the secret ingredient: a spirit of authentic love and enthusiasm, leading to a practice dominated by play.
It's a theme you can encounter in a lot of martial arts contexts. You could say it is the entire lesson of Dragon Ball Z -- Vegeta exemplifies the ambitious hard work guts and glory approach. And it takes him very far. But he's always playing second fiddle to Goku's approach, defined by love, enthusiasm, and play. Likewise, Shifu cannot surpass Oogway.
It's a theme you'll encounter outside of martial arts, too. For example, high level hackers are said to be characterized by playfulness -- you find puns and puzzles and riddles and laughter, devouring of technical manuals like candy. There are rigorous hours of morally disciplined study, but this could not really be said to be the source of their power or the character of their existence. Sure, there's plenty of hard work, and it's unavoidable, but the spirit of love and curiosity and play and enthusiasm will take you much farther than the spirit of discipline and ambition alone.
I have a book about learning electric guitar that repeats the lesson. The author writes (in paraphrase - I don't have it with me at the moment), "In my experience, there are two groups of students of the guitar: those who practice a lot because they want to be good, and those who practice every spare moment because they literally would rather not do anything else. One of these groups gets really, really good -- I'll let you guess which."
Po has that. His authentic enthusiasm leads to a spirit that finds the suffering of practice to be light because he is so overjoyed that he is doing kung fu. It leads to an encyclopedic knowledge of the art because he would literally not rather be reading about anything else. He surpasses Shifu and perhaps eventually Oogway in subsequent films, entirely because this spirit leads him places that mere discipline and ambition never would.
Are his kicks as clean as the five? Never. That's not his strength. And to the film's credit, he doesn't skip the discipline and training aspect. But he remains physically a bit sloppy to the end of the series, and I think this is making the point that this is not what strength is. Po's strength is in his spirit, and this is what in the end makes him the greatest master.
I have always found his fight with Tai Lung a little unsatisfying, too. It seems odd that he's immune to nerve attacks. What, because he's fat or furry or something? What does that have to do with excellence? It seems a one off oddity, not a deep lesson. But the film is so philosophically on point that I doubt it's something this dumb. The lesson about the superiority of a spirit of play is so true to life that I have to think there's something here.
The best interpretation I have is this -- what we see with Po and Tai Lung might be metaphorically talking about a real life phenomenon: facing an opponent as overpowering as Tai Lung will absolutely sap the strength from your limbs if your faith is in your body and in your training. You think you're strong? He's stronger. You think you're well trained? Please. There will always be someone better, and when you face them, you will be paralyzed and weak by the knowledge of that fact. But if you are a lover of the art and it's something you cannot turn off, that effect does not work on you. You cannot lose faith because your efforts were never about faith. As hopeless as you may feel about your odds of success (and Po feels hopeless right up until the moment when he wins!), you retain your strength and alertness because to you fighting is not about winning -- it is about being who you are. The situation cannot change who you are.
It's a theme you can encounter in a lot of martial arts contexts. You could say it is the entire lesson of Dragon Ball Z -- Vegeta exemplifies the ambitious hard work guts and glory approach. And it takes him very far. But he's always playing second fiddle to Goku's approach, defined by love, enthusiasm, and play. Likewise, Shifu cannot surpass Oogway.
It's a theme you'll encounter outside of martial arts, too. For example, high level hackers are said to be characterized by playfulness -- you find puns and puzzles and riddles and laughter, devouring of technical manuals like candy. There are rigorous hours of morally disciplined study, but this could not really be said to be the source of their power or the character of their existence. Sure, there's plenty of hard work, and it's unavoidable, but the spirit of love and curiosity and play and enthusiasm will take you much farther than the spirit of discipline and ambition alone.
I have a book about learning electric guitar that repeats the lesson. The author writes (in paraphrase - I don't have it with me at the moment), "In my experience, there are two groups of students of the guitar: those who practice a lot because they want to be good, and those who practice every spare moment because they literally would rather not do anything else. One of these groups gets really, really good -- I'll let you guess which."
Po has that. His authentic enthusiasm leads to a spirit that finds the suffering of practice to be light because he is so overjoyed that he is doing kung fu. It leads to an encyclopedic knowledge of the art because he would literally not rather be reading about anything else. He surpasses Shifu and perhaps eventually Oogway in subsequent films, entirely because this spirit leads him places that mere discipline and ambition never would.
Are his kicks as clean as the five? Never. That's not his strength. And to the film's credit, he doesn't skip the discipline and training aspect. But he remains physically a bit sloppy to the end of the series, and I think this is making the point that this is not what strength is. Po's strength is in his spirit, and this is what in the end makes him the greatest master.
I have always found his fight with Tai Lung a little unsatisfying, too. It seems odd that he's immune to nerve attacks. What, because he's fat or furry or something? What does that have to do with excellence? It seems a one off oddity, not a deep lesson. But the film is so philosophically on point that I doubt it's something this dumb. The lesson about the superiority of a spirit of play is so true to life that I have to think there's something here.
The best interpretation I have is this -- what we see with Po and Tai Lung might be metaphorically talking about a real life phenomenon: facing an opponent as overpowering as Tai Lung will absolutely sap the strength from your limbs if your faith is in your body and in your training. You think you're strong? He's stronger. You think you're well trained? Please. There will always be someone better, and when you face them, you will be paralyzed and weak by the knowledge of that fact. But if you are a lover of the art and it's something you cannot turn off, that effect does not work on you. You cannot lose faith because your efforts were never about faith. As hopeless as you may feel about your odds of success (and Po feels hopeless right up until the moment when he wins!), you retain your strength and alertness because to you fighting is not about winning -- it is about being who you are. The situation cannot change who you are.
You wrote a thorough post, thanks. That said,
> Hard training is not the only ingredient to excellence
It's not the only ingredient, but it is the sine qua non of martial arts excellence. When have you ever seen a martial arts teacher (of whatever martial art) value the slob newcomer over his hard training students? Most martial arts teach strenuous training and repetition.
You first build a foundation of solid work and training, and only then you can become the "chosen one" or the playful one. Po's merits are that... he's an optimist and a daydreamer, I guess? Who said none of the Five were also optimists, loved their art or had good qualities as well as rigorous training and excellence?
> Hard training is not the only ingredient to excellence
It's not the only ingredient, but it is the sine qua non of martial arts excellence. When have you ever seen a martial arts teacher (of whatever martial art) value the slob newcomer over his hard training students? Most martial arts teach strenuous training and repetition.
You first build a foundation of solid work and training, and only then you can become the "chosen one" or the playful one. Po's merits are that... he's an optimist and a daydreamer, I guess? Who said none of the Five were also optimists, loved their art or had good qualities as well as rigorous training and excellence?
Hard training may be an essential ingredient of physical excellence, but it is insufficient for true brilliance in any creative field. Jimi Hendrix did have to practice, but he did not become Jimi Hendrix by practicing. You cannot practice your way to that, no matter how much you do.
I don't think Oogway saw that spark in Po at the festival - that was fate and prophecy. But I do think by the cherry blossom scene, he knew what was going on. You don't have to train a lot to reveal a purity and intensity of love that will yield brilliance in time.
I don't think Oogway saw that spark in Po at the festival - that was fate and prophecy. But I do think by the cherry blossom scene, he knew what was going on. You don't have to train a lot to reveal a purity and intensity of love that will yield brilliance in time.
> that was fate and prophecy
That's the part I found objectionable. It's that bit of Hollywood magic woo where the newcomer always "has it" and the long struggling devoted practitioners never have. It makes a nice story, but the philosophy behind it is weak, doesn't reflect the actual world and I find it disrespectful of actual practitioners (of whatever (martial) art).
One last thing,
> Hard training may be an essential ingredient of physical excellence, but it is insufficient for true brilliance in any creative field.
Yes, but before he drew doodles, Picasso was a master of more classical forms. You really cannot skip steps. You know the saying about inspiration vs perspiration (often attributed to Einstein, I think?).
That's the part I found objectionable. It's that bit of Hollywood magic woo where the newcomer always "has it" and the long struggling devoted practitioners never have. It makes a nice story, but the philosophy behind it is weak, doesn't reflect the actual world and I find it disrespectful of actual practitioners (of whatever (martial) art).
One last thing,
> Hard training may be an essential ingredient of physical excellence, but it is insufficient for true brilliance in any creative field.
Yes, but before he drew doodles, Picasso was a master of more classical forms. You really cannot skip steps. You know the saying about inspiration vs perspiration (often attributed to Einstein, I think?).
The Panda is also a bumbling unskilled male who fails upwards while being supported by a female who put in years of work to build real expertise (Tigress).
Because the Tigress paints inside the line and follows all the rules. Where Oogway specifically chooses Po because he is a self learner and innovates and does things in an unconventional way. Which is why he is the one who beats Tai Lung.
My favorite movie because - definitely gonna need then universe juice!
Obligatory link to Slavoj Žižek's take on Kong Fu Panda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCD3hg6OEQw
"The friend noticed there above the entrance to the house, a horseshoe, which I don't know how it is here. In Europe it is a superstitious item preventing evil spirits to enter the house. So the friend asked Niels Bohr, but what you mean aren't you a scientist? Do you believe in this? Niels Bohr says, of course, I'm not crazy, I don't. So the friend asked him, why do you have it there? You know what Neils Bohr answered? He said, of course I don't believe in it, but I have it there because I was told that it works even if you don't believe in it."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr
This is just an animated movie cartoon right, is it really that deep?
Good animated movies / cartoons can be more deep and existential than live-action, much like how a Picasso painting can more deeply reveal the secrets of shapes than many photographs.
I don't think Kung Fu Panda is particularly deep, but probably is deeper than a lot of other Hollywood films. I'd say the deeper animated films I've seen are Secret of Kells (largely an adventure story, but very in depth with regards to dark-age Irish history/legends/mythology).
There are a lot of in-depth Anime movies, hard to pick anything in particular that stands out. Tokyo Godfathers, and Wolf Children, probably affected me emotionally the most (despite being mostly mundane situations). I think a lot of the more sci-fi / dream / supernatural stuff loses points due to technobabble (Ghost in a Shell, Evangelion, Paprika), but these are also deeper movies than typical.
Tokyo Godfathers / Wolf children manage to be deep about a relatively mundane subject. Homeless people for Tokyo Godfathers, and Wolf Children is basically a simple "raising a young girl / young boy" story, with the wolf-myth just largely representing the uncertainty that all mothers face when raising kids for the first time. Despite being about mundane subjects with only the barest of myth/sci-fi/fantasy in it, these movies seem to discuss the human condition better than many other films (even contrasted to other anime films, like Evangeleon)
I don't think Kung Fu Panda is particularly deep, but probably is deeper than a lot of other Hollywood films. I'd say the deeper animated films I've seen are Secret of Kells (largely an adventure story, but very in depth with regards to dark-age Irish history/legends/mythology).
There are a lot of in-depth Anime movies, hard to pick anything in particular that stands out. Tokyo Godfathers, and Wolf Children, probably affected me emotionally the most (despite being mostly mundane situations). I think a lot of the more sci-fi / dream / supernatural stuff loses points due to technobabble (Ghost in a Shell, Evangelion, Paprika), but these are also deeper movies than typical.
Tokyo Godfathers / Wolf children manage to be deep about a relatively mundane subject. Homeless people for Tokyo Godfathers, and Wolf Children is basically a simple "raising a young girl / young boy" story, with the wolf-myth just largely representing the uncertainty that all mothers face when raising kids for the first time. Despite being about mundane subjects with only the barest of myth/sci-fi/fantasy in it, these movies seem to discuss the human condition better than many other films (even contrasted to other anime films, like Evangeleon)
> I think a lot of the more sci-fi / dream / supernatural stuff loses points due to technobabble
I think you can mostly ignore the technobabble without issues, most of the time it's here for the setting but not necessary. For example, Akagi and Ten (mangas by Nobuyuki Fukumoto) feature a lot of mahjong, but mahjong is secondary to what's really happening, which is a clash of multiple personalities/ways of life. You can usually see this because the important moments don't usually feature the technoblabble part. The gambling house arc in Akagi doesn't feature any mahjong, yet is the point that defines Akagi as a character. The last three volumes of Ten also don't feature any mahjong, and are in my opinion the most beautiful manga chapters ever written. Evangelion is so loved because the characters are flawed humans trying to go through life, the setting is almost secondary. Patlabor 2 features large robots in a sci-fi world but the politics are the same as ever.
All of these stories are stories about humans before everything else, which is why they are so good.
I think you can mostly ignore the technobabble without issues, most of the time it's here for the setting but not necessary. For example, Akagi and Ten (mangas by Nobuyuki Fukumoto) feature a lot of mahjong, but mahjong is secondary to what's really happening, which is a clash of multiple personalities/ways of life. You can usually see this because the important moments don't usually feature the technoblabble part. The gambling house arc in Akagi doesn't feature any mahjong, yet is the point that defines Akagi as a character. The last three volumes of Ten also don't feature any mahjong, and are in my opinion the most beautiful manga chapters ever written. Evangelion is so loved because the characters are flawed humans trying to go through life, the setting is almost secondary. Patlabor 2 features large robots in a sci-fi world but the politics are the same as ever.
All of these stories are stories about humans before everything else, which is why they are so good.
> I think you can mostly ignore the technobabble without issues, most of the time it's here for the setting but not necessary
I agree that its largely ignorable. Actually, the "technobabble" adds a lot of flavor and "coolness" to a lot of situations, so its fine for my reptilian brain.
The issue is that every minute of technobabble on the screen is another wasted minute from a storytelling perspective. When you watch a denser film (like Secret of Kells), that's lacking any of that techno-babble... or even something like Fate/Stay (which largely cuts out the techno-magic babble aside from a few key phrases), the storyline is heavier and denser. More things "happen" because there's less "filler technobabble" going on.
So when we talk about pleasing my "higher-order" brain (as opposed to my reptile brain which is pleased with the technobabble + explosions), my high-order brain enjoys the character interactions and the deeper analogies to the human condition.
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So from the "higher-order" perspective, something like Tokyo Godfathers can tell a fuller story in a shorter amount of time, because there's less technobabble eating up the screentime.
I agree that its largely ignorable. Actually, the "technobabble" adds a lot of flavor and "coolness" to a lot of situations, so its fine for my reptilian brain.
The issue is that every minute of technobabble on the screen is another wasted minute from a storytelling perspective. When you watch a denser film (like Secret of Kells), that's lacking any of that techno-babble... or even something like Fate/Stay (which largely cuts out the techno-magic babble aside from a few key phrases), the storyline is heavier and denser. More things "happen" because there's less "filler technobabble" going on.
So when we talk about pleasing my "higher-order" brain (as opposed to my reptile brain which is pleased with the technobabble + explosions), my high-order brain enjoys the character interactions and the deeper analogies to the human condition.
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So from the "higher-order" perspective, something like Tokyo Godfathers can tell a fuller story in a shorter amount of time, because there's less technobabble eating up the screentime.
I wouldn't call that time wasted, I think it's usually very important to create an atmosphere, and to better understand the world that the people we're watching are living in. I've never watched Secret of Kells so I can't comment on that.
But it's funny that you pick something like Fate, in both the original Stay Night (the visual novel) and Zero (the light novel), there is a lot of technobabble. It gets cut in the anime adaptations, along with most of the interesting parts of the characters and the story. The original Stay Night by DEEN was a weird mix of all three routes, not great by any means but at least brought something new, UBW was butchered, and I'm trying to keep things civil so I won't talk about Heaven's Feel. Zero had the same treatment, most of the internal dialogue of characters was cut, leaving a story with half-baked characters and trying to compensate with the visuals.
> So from the "higher-order" perspective, something like Tokyo Godfathers can tell a fuller story in a shorter amount of time, because there's less technobabble eating up the screentime.
That's true. However, I think time is not always a hard limit. Sometimes the movie being slow is part of the experience. It is something I like a lot, so I probably have a bias here.
But it's funny that you pick something like Fate, in both the original Stay Night (the visual novel) and Zero (the light novel), there is a lot of technobabble. It gets cut in the anime adaptations, along with most of the interesting parts of the characters and the story. The original Stay Night by DEEN was a weird mix of all three routes, not great by any means but at least brought something new, UBW was butchered, and I'm trying to keep things civil so I won't talk about Heaven's Feel. Zero had the same treatment, most of the internal dialogue of characters was cut, leaving a story with half-baked characters and trying to compensate with the visuals.
> So from the "higher-order" perspective, something like Tokyo Godfathers can tell a fuller story in a shorter amount of time, because there's less technobabble eating up the screentime.
That's true. However, I think time is not always a hard limit. Sometimes the movie being slow is part of the experience. It is something I like a lot, so I probably have a bias here.
> But it's funny that you pick something like Fate, in both the original Stay Night (the visual novel) and Zero (the light novel), there is a lot of technobabble. It gets cut in the anime adaptations, along with most of the interesting parts of the characters and the story.
Fate/Stay anime is interesting as a series and as a storytelling medium.
On the face of it, it feels like Fate/Stay is a soft-magic system where the magic is called out as magic and rarely elaborated on. Here's healing magic here, or noble phantasms over there, or reality marbles, or whatever.
But in actuality, Fate/Stay is a hard-magic system, supported by the depth of the original story. All the magic has rules. They just skip over the rules explanation in the anime, because they don't have the time for it (ie: they chose not to have time for it, and focus on other elements of the story).
I agree that pointing out to the audience the hard-magic system and its rules probably would be beneficial. On the other hand... maybe not? All of the anime (including the Tsukihime and Garden of Sinners anime/OVAs) consistently skip over these explanations and just leave it up to the audience to figure out the rule system on their own (if they care).
"Story told as if it were soft magic", but with a hard-magic reference point thanks to a series of in-depth rules published in that visual novel that a much smaller portion of the fanbase has read is... fine. Its like how Lord of the Rings has all this history in the Silmarillion that 99% of readers don't know about. If the audience cares about the details, the original VNs / wikis / etc. etc. exist. If they don't care about the details, all the better, they didn't want to hear the explanation in the first place.
Its a compromise system, but its an interesting compromise. Frankly, a lot of audience members are happy with the soft-magic hand-waved explanations given in the anime.
I don't think Fate/Stay is a "deep" anime, not on the levels of the other shows I've discussed. But it still shows how cutting out the techno-babble in the actual anime (and just handwaving the details) increases the density of the show. Especially because the "harder" fans know how in-depth all of those explanations actually go.
Fate/Stay anime is interesting as a series and as a storytelling medium.
On the face of it, it feels like Fate/Stay is a soft-magic system where the magic is called out as magic and rarely elaborated on. Here's healing magic here, or noble phantasms over there, or reality marbles, or whatever.
But in actuality, Fate/Stay is a hard-magic system, supported by the depth of the original story. All the magic has rules. They just skip over the rules explanation in the anime, because they don't have the time for it (ie: they chose not to have time for it, and focus on other elements of the story).
I agree that pointing out to the audience the hard-magic system and its rules probably would be beneficial. On the other hand... maybe not? All of the anime (including the Tsukihime and Garden of Sinners anime/OVAs) consistently skip over these explanations and just leave it up to the audience to figure out the rule system on their own (if they care).
"Story told as if it were soft magic", but with a hard-magic reference point thanks to a series of in-depth rules published in that visual novel that a much smaller portion of the fanbase has read is... fine. Its like how Lord of the Rings has all this history in the Silmarillion that 99% of readers don't know about. If the audience cares about the details, the original VNs / wikis / etc. etc. exist. If they don't care about the details, all the better, they didn't want to hear the explanation in the first place.
Its a compromise system, but its an interesting compromise. Frankly, a lot of audience members are happy with the soft-magic hand-waved explanations given in the anime.
I don't think Fate/Stay is a "deep" anime, not on the levels of the other shows I've discussed. But it still shows how cutting out the techno-babble in the actual anime (and just handwaving the details) increases the density of the show. Especially because the "harder" fans know how in-depth all of those explanations actually go.
Crime & Punishment is just ink on paper, right?
There's nothing about the medium that says how good the message is. If anything not having to work with human actors and real world physics should give a bit of flexibility in the storytelling.
There's nothing about the medium that says how good the message is. If anything not having to work with human actors and real world physics should give a bit of flexibility in the storytelling.
I don't really understand your point. It is an animated movie, but why "just" and why would that prevent it from being "deep"? I'll also add that wisdom doesn't need to be "deep". The article focuses mostly on explaining quotes which aren't really deep. But that doesn't prevent them from being wise.
My guess is that the OPs thinking went something like: cartoons are primarily geared towards young people, right? And younger people haven’t had as much life experience to appreciate some of the more complicated nuances of life. Ergo, this movie cannot succeed at topics deep. It’s a pretty reasonable/straightforward conclusion to reach. Even if it’s not as simple as that.
Sure, but Pixar / Disney make their movies in a way that the kids have what to giggle at and adults are given some food for thought (or emotions). I find that formula to have worked with crushing success in Kung Fu Panda parts 1 and 2 in particular. Also Megamind.
That's right - these animation studios are aware that kids are watching these movies... with their parents!
There is, at least for me, a big difference between "most things in this category tend to be this way", and "this thing is in that category, therefore it can't be that way". The first statement is a often useful heuristic, the second statement is an expression of close mindedness. Note that by categories here I mean vague human categories like "animated movie" and "deep".
There are many ways to look at it. Deep, insightful sayings are easy to come by. There are books of wise, buddhist and dao sayings.
The real depth, in anything insightful said, is created by the listener and how they choose to take the words to heart.
The real depth, in anything insightful said, is created by the listener and how they choose to take the words to heart.
> The real depth, in anything insightful said, is created by the listener and how they choose to take the words to heart.
This is what life all is about.
This is what life all is about.
Who says cartoons/animations can't go deep? Take a look at Bojack Horseman.
Or Rick and Morty, The Midnight Gospel, Studio Ghibli?
I wouldn't say Midnight Gospel is really deep, isn't it basically just his podcast set to a aesthetically stimulating background animation that's tangentially related to what their talking about?
Did you watch all the episodes?
I'm not saying it's bad, just that "deep" to my understanding is when a piece of art has more to it than what it appears to at first glance. Midnight Gospel is about a guy doing a "spacecast" where he interviews random aliens he finds. But when you look "deeper', it's really....a guy doing a podcast where he interviews people. Not a lot going on under the surface, just reskinning the interviews into a different format and adding a small bit of sci-fi world building.
Yeah, I guess that's true, but that doesn't make them any less "deep" for me. All the episodes got me thinking about things in a general sense, which is what I'm looking for from what I'd call "deep". However, the last episode was on a different level than anything I've ever viewed before. It does have more to it that what it appears to at first glance, at least it did to me. Are you aware of the background of that episode? Maybe that one episode causes me to attribute a deeper deepness to the show as a whole.
Rick and Morty fakes a lot of its depth with nonsense technobabble, akin to Evangeleon's biblical references which are largely nonsense.
The good bits of Rick and Morty are very short, maybe 1-minute sections of episodes. Morty's relationship with Planetina was one of the deeper moments of all of season 5, except it is summarized in maybe 90-seconds of story at the most.
And its really not much deeper than "some eco-friendly people turn out to be eco-terrorists", and that's enough to ruin a relationship. Yeah, sucks for Morty, but... its not exactly a particularly deep message (deep in the context of the rest of the show, yes. And I definitely enjoy those kinds of moments. But something needs to be longer than 90-seconds of story for me to call it "deep", especially compared to other things I've seen)
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I dunno, as far as technobabble / nonsense words go, I prefer Evangeleon from that perspective. There's a lot to be said about Shinji's exploration of his depression (caused by Gendo, his father's, obsession over the Human Instrumentality Project).
Rick is just a toxic asshole that the show forces you to watch. Someone like Morty should have run away / cut Rick out of his life a long long time ago. At least in Evangelion, Shinji is actively trying to cut out the entire mecha-project out of his life (running away multiple times), but since Shinji is one of the few candidates who can pilot the mech, he's forced back into the job over-and-over again (unlike Morty who seems to just be this passive guy who is needlessly picked on by Rick for 5 seasons).
If nothing really matters, then Morty could just leave and that's that (and the fact that this hasn't been explored across ~5 seasons shows the limitations of the relatively shallow, episodic format... forcing Rick and Morty to be friends again by the start of the next episode to keep things serialized). What makes Shinji's situation unique is that Shinji's worth as a pilot is more than he gives credit for, and each time he tries to leave, a disaster occurs. Each time Shinji does fight, a disaster also occurs by his hands. So Shinji's confusion and depression is far more understanding.
Ex: Shinji's relationship with Toji evolves over a few episodes, and is deeper than all 5 season's of Morty's development.
Shinji is forced to pilot the mech in episode 1. Shinji's inexperience with the mech causes collateral damage, and Toji's sister gets trapped in the rubble. Toji bullies Shinji until Shinji saves him in the next fight, as Toji didn't realize the issues of being a pilot. The arc culminates as Toji himself becomes a pilot, and Shinji is forced by his father to destroy Toji's mech. Shinji is being forced to follow Gendo (his father's) plans as scripted out by "The Dead Sea Scrolls" (aka: technobabble), but the important thing is that Gendo's ambition for the project is so great, he's willing to traumatize his own son over it. Shinji x Toji's relationship is just one sacrifice Gendo makes, and Shinji's depression goes even deeper because of it.
The good bits of Rick and Morty are very short, maybe 1-minute sections of episodes. Morty's relationship with Planetina was one of the deeper moments of all of season 5, except it is summarized in maybe 90-seconds of story at the most.
And its really not much deeper than "some eco-friendly people turn out to be eco-terrorists", and that's enough to ruin a relationship. Yeah, sucks for Morty, but... its not exactly a particularly deep message (deep in the context of the rest of the show, yes. And I definitely enjoy those kinds of moments. But something needs to be longer than 90-seconds of story for me to call it "deep", especially compared to other things I've seen)
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I dunno, as far as technobabble / nonsense words go, I prefer Evangeleon from that perspective. There's a lot to be said about Shinji's exploration of his depression (caused by Gendo, his father's, obsession over the Human Instrumentality Project).
Rick is just a toxic asshole that the show forces you to watch. Someone like Morty should have run away / cut Rick out of his life a long long time ago. At least in Evangelion, Shinji is actively trying to cut out the entire mecha-project out of his life (running away multiple times), but since Shinji is one of the few candidates who can pilot the mech, he's forced back into the job over-and-over again (unlike Morty who seems to just be this passive guy who is needlessly picked on by Rick for 5 seasons).
If nothing really matters, then Morty could just leave and that's that (and the fact that this hasn't been explored across ~5 seasons shows the limitations of the relatively shallow, episodic format... forcing Rick and Morty to be friends again by the start of the next episode to keep things serialized). What makes Shinji's situation unique is that Shinji's worth as a pilot is more than he gives credit for, and each time he tries to leave, a disaster occurs. Each time Shinji does fight, a disaster also occurs by his hands. So Shinji's confusion and depression is far more understanding.
Ex: Shinji's relationship with Toji evolves over a few episodes, and is deeper than all 5 season's of Morty's development.
Shinji is forced to pilot the mech in episode 1. Shinji's inexperience with the mech causes collateral damage, and Toji's sister gets trapped in the rubble. Toji bullies Shinji until Shinji saves him in the next fight, as Toji didn't realize the issues of being a pilot. The arc culminates as Toji himself becomes a pilot, and Shinji is forced by his father to destroy Toji's mech. Shinji is being forced to follow Gendo (his father's) plans as scripted out by "The Dead Sea Scrolls" (aka: technobabble), but the important thing is that Gendo's ambition for the project is so great, he's willing to traumatize his own son over it. Shinji x Toji's relationship is just one sacrifice Gendo makes, and Shinji's depression goes even deeper because of it.
Plug for CJ the X's excellent video essay on the dialectics of Rick and Morty. Given the thought you put into your breakdowns of both R&M and NGE, I think you might like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm4dxUIRZso
Note that Gendo has always been focused on getting his wife back, the Human Instrumentality Project was just a means to his ends. In both timelines/stories, the original series Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Rebuilds, he doesn't follow the plan.
Well yes but I'm trying to avoid unnecessary spoilers, in case the readers haven't seen the ending yet.
The Toji sub-plot is all wrapped up before the 10th episode, and is a side-story at best. Its barely a spoiler IMO. What makes Evangelion great is that its filled with these interactions: Misato's interactions with Ritsuko, Ritsuko interacting with Rei, Rei interacting with Asuka, etc. etc.
Its filled to the brim, not all of the interactions are depressing, some are ridiculously over-the-top / campy (especially the excuses for fanservice scenes), but the "serious story" that's told over the 26 episodes (or 4 OVA movies for the new timeline) is pretty good. Albeit heavily laden with long-winded dialogs about Selee, Three Magi computer system, Dead Sea Scrolls, AT Fields, the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th impact events and Hedgehog's Paradox (Okay, Hedgehog's Paradox actually is relevant and the running theme between all of these characters. But a lot of the other stuff doesn't matter, lol).
The Toji sub-plot is all wrapped up before the 10th episode, and is a side-story at best. Its barely a spoiler IMO. What makes Evangelion great is that its filled with these interactions: Misato's interactions with Ritsuko, Ritsuko interacting with Rei, Rei interacting with Asuka, etc. etc.
Its filled to the brim, not all of the interactions are depressing, some are ridiculously over-the-top / campy (especially the excuses for fanservice scenes), but the "serious story" that's told over the 26 episodes (or 4 OVA movies for the new timeline) is pretty good. Albeit heavily laden with long-winded dialogs about Selee, Three Magi computer system, Dead Sea Scrolls, AT Fields, the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th impact events and Hedgehog's Paradox (Okay, Hedgehog's Paradox actually is relevant and the running theme between all of these characters. But a lot of the other stuff doesn't matter, lol).
Thanks for the reply, I'm only about 6 episodes into R&M so my view might change. What is "deep" is probably a better question, The Simpsons is pretty deep if you choose to look at it that way. I'm sure many people have written PHD thesis on this kind of thing. Personally I found the Midnight Gospel pretty deep as it basically rehashes a lot of Buddhist philosophies which Duncan Trussell is very fond of.
I think R&M is an unusual message, in that it tries to take a Nihilist stance on a lot of subjects. Combined with pop-culture references and technobabble, it can come off as more high-brow than it really is IMO.
Neon Genesis Evangelion, really did the Nihilist thing better though. No matter what Shinji tried, things kept getting worse. Rick is "too obvious" of an asshole. Gendo (Shinji's father) is better, because nominally speaking, Gendo is working on a project to literally cancel out the apocalypse that's occurring in the series.
So when Gendo says "Get in the mech and fight that monster", you generally know that Shinji (probably) should do that, you know, to save the world. The long-term effects of this decision (as well as the alternative decision: for Shinji to run away from this responsibility) are explored in the short 26 episodes of the series.
When Rick says "shove these 'Mega Seeds' up your ass Morty", I'm not entirely sure if Morty should comply with that. They have some foreshadowing going on for the "what if Morty stopped listening to Rick all the time", thanks to the "Alternate Universe Evil Morty" plotline going on, but we've had like 4 episodes so far with that character? And most of the time, that character doesn't interact with mainline Rick/mainline Morty.
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The show is randomly pretty good with some relationships. Rick x Unity was a good episode, as was Morty x Planetina. Otherwise, I think its largely just a comedy show where ridiculous things happen in a crude manner, with a mildly Nihilist perspective on events.
A lot of R&M scenes are due to incredibly poor decisions of the main characters: Rick outright lying to Morty and then hiding the lie through toxic interactions (its your fault Morty). Morty becoming so overly influenced by his sexual desire to potentially cause a world-ending (or universe-ending) event. Jerry wimping out of some fight. And these decisions are largely encoded into the format of these characters. These characters rarely "try something else", because doing so would break the serialization format (ie: the golden rule of American cartoons. Do not change the characters).
Neon Genesis Evangelion, really did the Nihilist thing better though. No matter what Shinji tried, things kept getting worse. Rick is "too obvious" of an asshole. Gendo (Shinji's father) is better, because nominally speaking, Gendo is working on a project to literally cancel out the apocalypse that's occurring in the series.
So when Gendo says "Get in the mech and fight that monster", you generally know that Shinji (probably) should do that, you know, to save the world. The long-term effects of this decision (as well as the alternative decision: for Shinji to run away from this responsibility) are explored in the short 26 episodes of the series.
When Rick says "shove these 'Mega Seeds' up your ass Morty", I'm not entirely sure if Morty should comply with that. They have some foreshadowing going on for the "what if Morty stopped listening to Rick all the time", thanks to the "Alternate Universe Evil Morty" plotline going on, but we've had like 4 episodes so far with that character? And most of the time, that character doesn't interact with mainline Rick/mainline Morty.
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The show is randomly pretty good with some relationships. Rick x Unity was a good episode, as was Morty x Planetina. Otherwise, I think its largely just a comedy show where ridiculous things happen in a crude manner, with a mildly Nihilist perspective on events.
A lot of R&M scenes are due to incredibly poor decisions of the main characters: Rick outright lying to Morty and then hiding the lie through toxic interactions (its your fault Morty). Morty becoming so overly influenced by his sexual desire to potentially cause a world-ending (or universe-ending) event. Jerry wimping out of some fight. And these decisions are largely encoded into the format of these characters. These characters rarely "try something else", because doing so would break the serialization format (ie: the golden rule of American cartoons. Do not change the characters).
They can definitely go very deep - it is just a very western (or maybe even specifically American) thing where people think "Cartoons are just for kids".
Grave of the Fireflies is depressing as fuck and definitely does not skip the serious stuff.
Grave of the Fireflies is depressing as fuck and definitely does not skip the serious stuff.
too deep
Let's hear your take on what you consider deep?
Sometimes you just need to stop thinking so much and get through the day.
There is a similar point from Marcus Aurelius where he says (in this old timey translation): "Let not future things disturb thee, for thou wilt come to them... having with thee the same reason which now thou usest."
PS. Another example of unexpectedly good writing is when the student-turned-bad-guy bitterly says, "What I ever did, I did to make you proud! Tell me how proud you are, Shifu", and then after a pause Shifu replies with genuine agreement: "I have always been proud of you... And it was my pride that blinded me... too much to see what you were becoming."