This may be the world you want, the world you envision, but because of your mistakes, your missteps,
this is the world you will get. And the only way to stop it, to save it? Never listen to this turtle.
Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that knows that the secret to theorizing was inside of you all along.
And just to start, I'm sure many of you are probably a little bit confused right now.
Why did MatPat's voice suddenly drop a couple of octaves? Is this a true crime podcast now? Well, not exactly.
Obviously, I am NOT MatPat. My name is Lee. It's great to meet you.
I own four swords, and I've lost a game of Mario Party to Vegeta. Well, his voice actor. He's a nice guy.
I've actually been working behind the scenes here on the Theorist Channels for going on ten years now. No joke,
I was the third editor Matt ever hired all the way back in like August of 2014.
My very first episode was The Peach is Dead Game Theory,
but I've since been able to keyframe my way out of the editor dungeon,
and I've had a hand in Film Theory since the very beginning.
I have written or edited countless videos for the channels. Like, literally, I tried to count them, and I have no idea.
They all kind of just blur together at some point. Like, I think I did Gaster? Not Sans' Nest, though.
That was all Matt. Regardless, I know this is a big change, and I know it's a lot.
I'd say that this meme that's been floating around really kind of sums it up best.
My time has come.
You must continue your journey without me.
What, what, what, what are you?
What?
But something else that this meme reminded me of? The fact that Kung Fu Panda 4 is right about to hit theaters as of the time
of writing, and now that I've taken up the mantle of the Film Theorist,
I can't wait to watch it. In case you don't know,
Kung Fu Panda is about Po, a panda obsessed with kung fu and the martial arts masters that live in his village.
Master Oogway the Tortoise, the Furious Five, and Master Shifu, who is apparently a red panda?
Despite not having any traditional kung fu training, Po is named the dragon warrior that will gain limitless power,
much to the confusion and frustration of all the other masters. By the end, Po and the others learn that the limitless power is not
some magical technique or hidden energy. It's the realization that you were special just the way you are.
I was practically raised on these sorts of animated homages to martial arts like Jackie Chan Adventures and Xiaolin Showdown,
so I really connected with the Kung Fu Panda films. The wholesome message of loving yourself in one, the heartfelt themes of family in two,
the killer animation in three, and that's not even mentioning the multiple spinoff series and web shows and even a holiday special.
But the thing I respected the most? The restraint of not using the song
Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting until the third movie. That is true power.
But, of course, when you consume that much content as a theorist, you're bound to notice some inconsistencies.
Specifically when it comes to everyone's favorite old kindly kung fu tortoise, Master Oogway.
See, between the hours of meditation and giving out cryptic advice like
Quit. Don't quit. Noodles.
He's creating more problems than he's solving. He is not the wise master that this series has made him out to be.
In fact, he fails pretty much everyone he has ever taught, leaving his students in a worse place than where they started.
And the most disgraceful part of it? His flaws have created cycles of abuse and miscommunication that threaten to go on and on unless someone steps up to stop it.
Look within yourself and cook your noodles, loyal theorists. It's time for some Kung Fu Fighting.
SKADOOSH!
So how in the world am I going to make the argument that adorable old Master Oogway is actually the absolute worst?
Well, it comes down to what I have identified as his three major flaws.
His lies, his teaching, and his legacy.
Let's start with Oogway's first major flaw, his lies.
The entire conflict of the first movie is built completely on Oogway's lies about the Dragon Warrior.
See, the Dragon Warrior is a prodigy of Kung Fu who would be worthy to learn the secret held within the Dragon Scroll.
When they open the scroll, the Dragon Warrior would be granted limitless power, something they love to bring up in the first movie.
You think it's that easy, that I'm just going to hand you the secret to limitless power?
The scroll has given him power!
The prophecy was first foretold by Master Oogway, who said that the Dragon Warrior would protect both the Valley of Peace and its inhabitants.
It is as Oogway foretold. You have brought peace to this valley and to me.
But at the climax of the first movie, we learn that the legend of the Dragon Warrior is a sham.
After Po finally opens the scroll, he finds only a blank, shiny canvas.
Though he later sees himself in the scroll's reflection, realizing that...
There is no secret ingredient.
The secret power of the Dragon Warrior was just to believe in yourself.
Classic, the power was inside of you all along sort of stuff.
Regardless, the legend of the Dragon Warrior was never true, and all of it was something that Oogway made up to encourage others to train in Kung Fu,
to get better, and to protect the Valley of Peace.
Basically, it was kind of a deterrent.
If you're a bad guy, you wouldn't want to attack the Valley of Peace because it may cause the legendary Dragon Warrior to rise up and defeat you.
But therein lies the problem.
The prophecy doesn't do that.
In fact, it does the opposite, creating more havoc for the Valley of Peace than it prevents.
The villain of the first film, Tai Lung, was once a student of Shifu and Oogway who showed a natural talent in Kung Fu.
Enough so that Shifu considered him a serious candidate for Dragon Warrior.
Tai Lung spent his whole life training, Shifu filling his head with stories that he was going to fulfill the prophecy.
And because of this, Tai Lung pushed himself hard enough to the point of physical injury.
And yet, as Tai Lung was about to be given the title of Dragon Warrior,
shown that the secret of the power was just believing in himself, he was denied at the last hurdle.
And why?
Because Master Oogway got some bad vibes from him.
This ends up pushing Tai Lung over the edge as he goes on a rampage that terrorizes the Valley of Peace.
Oogway's creation of the legend of the Dragon Warrior, this goal, dangled before Tai Lung that he worked his entire life for,
and that was never given to him with no explanation as to why, was the core reason why Tai Lung did his Top 10 anime betrayal.
If Oogway had never lied or explained to Tai Lung the truth about the Dragon Warrior instead of just walking away disappointed,
Tai Lung probably would have been a pretty chill dude.
A dedicated master of Kung Fu raised in the Valley of Peace, and potentially part of the Furious Five.
But Tai Lung's fall from grace isn't the only preventable conflict created by Oogway's lie about the Dragon Warrior.
In the video game adaptation of Kung Fu Panda 2, a Komodo dragon named Zhao Dan challenges Po
because he wants to prove that the Dragon Warrior is not strong enough to stop him.
And the Legends of Awesomeness TV series has a ton of villains who have a bone to pick with the Dragon Warrior.
Kim the Invincible, obsessed with battling the strongest fighters in the world,
travels to China because he wants to defeat the fabled Dragon Warrior.
Hundun, a former guard of Tai Lung's prison, blames the Dragon Warrior for all of his troubles,
and learns Kung Fu specifically so he can destroy him.
Kwan the Unkillable tries to kill Po partially because he wants to defeat the Dragon Warrior and regain his fame.
Even the Emperor's Advisor uses Po's title as the Dragon Warrior
in an attempted plot to take the throne for himself.
I could go on and on, but you get the point.
Rather than the Dragon Warrior deterring the bad guys,
so many villains in this world only see Po as an obstacle,
someone to outsmart, or overpower, or defeat.
If Master Oogway's long-term goal was to get people to learn Kung Fu, congratulations, it worked.
But at what cost?
A creation of how many villains?
And as a result of it all, time and time again, danger is brought to the Valley of Peace.
But that's hardly the worst thing that this tortoise has done.
Oogway's second major flaw?
His teaching.
Master Oogway is just not as good of a teacher as this series makes him out to be,
and his lessons actually hurt more people than they help.
We've already talked at length about Tai Lung,
and Oogway's refusal to step in and take a guiding hand there,
but it goes so much further, especially in the Legends of Awesomeness TV series.
Similar to Tai Lung, another former student of the Jade Palace that went bad was Feng Huang.
She was personally trained by Master Oogway, but as she became more powerful,
she challenged Oogway for control of the Jade Palace.
In the show, it's framed as if Feng Huang had darkness in her heart, similar to Tai Lung.
But just listen to exactly how what Feng Huang did was described.
That's it.
No, she tried to murder all the students.
No, she tried to enslave the Valley.
No, I'm going to kill you specifically, Oogway.
All she did was challenge Oogway for mastery of the Jade Palace in a fair fight.
And what did Oogway do in response?
Instead of doing nothing like he did with Tai Lung, Oogway did something even worse.
He created an owl-shaped cage that was inescapable, perfectly fit for Feng Huang.
Even if it's all true and Feng Huang did start turning evil, which again, I'm not so sure of,
all this means is that Oogway didn't even try talking to her.
Instead, he saw the dark path that she started down and just decided that
imprisoning her in an Iron Maiden was the best course of action.
Exactly like we saw with Tai Lung.
For those of you keeping count at home, that is now two times where Oogway has
seen someone going down a dark path and done nothing about it.
In other cases where there is definitely some innate evil in some of his students,
Oogway takes no action before they hurt other people.
Case in point, Ding was a Kung Fu student at the Jade Palace who had incredible telekinetic abilities.
To his credit, Oogway recognized this talent, but instead of taking Ding under his wing,
Oogway sent him away to an order of monks to train.
This led to tragedy when Ding grew impatient,
using his abilities to hypnotize the monks and forcing them to jump to their deaths.
There is just so much wrong with this.
Like, if Oogway is so adept at sensing the darkness in people's hearts that he was
willing to prepare a cage to lock up one of the Furious Five, his most trusted students,
why didn't he sense Ding's darkness and put a stop to it before he murdered all of those
innocent monks?
But these sorts of special talents aren't always recognized.
For example, there's Taotie, one of the series' recurring antagonists who helped
Shifu construct the training hall of the Jade Palace.
He also became one of Oogway and Shifu's students, though he had a lot of trouble learning
martial arts.
But Taotie had other skills, putting his talents in engineering to good use before
constructing a giant wooden warrior that would fight for him.
Honestly, that's really cool and something that should be celebrated.
I mean, Kung Fu Panda is a franchise all about embracing who you are instead of trying to
be someone else.
Shouldn't this sort of inventiveness be held up?
Not if you're Oogway.
According to Taotie, Oogway felt that
Way to gatekeep there, my guy.
Time after time, in so many ways, Oogway's teachings fail many of his students, making
villains out of them when they didn't need to be.
And the only thing worse than that?
What happens to his successful students?
Oogway's third major flaw, his legacy.
Oogway has passed down his prejudice for those that he's deemed unacceptable.
And even the students that did live up to Oogway's expectations all inherit his worst
traits.
For example, let's start with Shifu.
Just think about how Shifu treats Tai Lung after Oogway denounces him.
Keep in mind, Shifu found Tai Lung as an infant and adopted him, raising him as a son.
Tai Lung looked to Shifu for approval like a father.
But what does Shifu do when Oogway refuses to name Tai Lung the Dragon Warrior?
Just shaking his head and walking away.
Instead of comforting his son, talking to him and encouraging him to keep at it, or
going to Oogway and asking for an explanation, Shifu does nothing.
This ends up taking a huge emotional toll on both Tai Lung and Shifu, destroying their
relationship.
And it also turns Shifu into a hardened and cold mentor, instead of the father figure
he was before Oogway's influence.
Look at that face!
Tigress, at this point a child, clearly needs support and approval, and Shifu cannot give
it because of Oogway's actions.
Just like his own master, Shifu has become a bad teacher.
But even without taking into account this moment that must have been emotionally devastating
for Shifu, there are situations where we see Shifu carry on the worst of Oogway's
teachings.
For example, we can look at the reaction when Oogway names Po as the Dragon Warrior.
Instead of respecting the choice, Shifu and the rest are rude to Po.
They intimidate him and try to get him to give up on his dream of being a Kung Fu master
to leave the Jade Palace.
They are gatekeeping Kung Fu, just like Oogway did with characters like Taotie.
What's more, they continue Oogway's questionable tactics on how to deal with students that
they deem to be headed down a dark path.
In that episode introducing Feng Huang, the owl who was the most powerful of the Furious
Five, the rest of the characters start treating Po strangely.
They worry that he's grown too powerful and will quote-unquote turn evil, just like
Feng Huang did.
And you know how Oogway made that perfectly sized owl-shaped cage for Feng Huang?
Well, the Furious Five were doing the exact same thing for Po, creating a panda-shaped
prison for him should he turn evil instead of, you know, communicating with him.
But the biggest tragedy here?
After experiencing all of this himself, even Po isn't free from the horrible influence
of Oogway and his teachings.
In The Legends of Awesomeness, Po meets Tai Lung's nephew Peng, who is incredibly talented
at Kung Fu.
Po and Shifu decide that he should train at the Jade Palace, but after Po sees the extent
of Peng's skill, he gets jealous, to the point that he tells Peng that he must leave.
He lies to Peng, explaining that he's not making the cut.
Now, where have I heard that story before?
Po did exactly the same thing to Peng that Oogway did to Tai Lung, telling a student
that they weren't good enough without communicating, and the results turned violent.
And it doesn't stop there, either.
In another episode, three pigs ask Po to teach them some secret Kung Fu moves, but Po turns
them down and smugly says,
As a result, the pigs kidnap Shifu and force him to teach them Kung Fu instead, all to
get revenge on Po.
Just like Oogway and Shifu before him, Po is gatekeeping Kung Fu here and making an
enemy out of someone he doesn't need to.
And then later, in the series' Paws of Destiny, four young pandas want to learn Kung
Fu, but Po initially refuses to teach them because,
Po, buddy, come here, do you remember where you started?
And also keep in mind that this series is set AFTER Kung Fu Panda 3, which is all about
learning that anyone can be a good fighter as long as they embrace what they're good at.
Ironic, since Po seems to be more like Oogway than his own person here.
The apple hasn't fallen far from the tree, or I guess it would be a peach in this case.
The point is, Po hasn't learned the ways of peace from Master Oogway or Shifu or the
Furious Five.
He's learned to be selfish, arrogant, and ensure that he's better than everyone else.
At every turn, from his lies about the Dragon Warrior, to his poor and cryptic style of
teaching, to even how his students carry on his legacy, Master Oogway did more harm than
good for the world of Kung Fu Panda.
Honestly, his teachings don't even live up to the core theming of the franchise.
In a series all about embracing the best parts of yourself, Oogway is all too eager to find
the worst traits in others, the darkness in their hearts, and throwing them away when
they don't meet his expectations.
And what's more, Oogway's gatekeeping goes directly against the meaning of Kung Fu itself.
Though we associate Kung Fu mostly with martial arts, that isn't what it's limited to.
In China, the term Kung Fu refers to anything that requires patience, discipline, and hard work.
Yes, Oogway is supportive of characters like Po and Shifu, encouraging them to embrace
what they're good at.
But why doesn't he do that for the others?
Why doesn't he celebrate the powerful drive of Tai Lung, the mechanical genius of Taotie,
the ambition of Feng Huang?
Those aren't bad traits, and with the right guiding hand, the right mentor, they can become
powerful tools in making the world a better place.
But hey, that's just a theory.
A FILM THEORY.
And cut.