Good review, but I disagree with Ed Liu in regards to Kung Fu Panda being better than How To Train Your Dragon. Personally, while I enjoyed both movies, the latter gets an edge over the former for actually having a respectable ending. My single biggest problem with Panda was how, just when it seemed it was going for a heartfelt, sentimental finale, it suddenly jumped back into typical Dreamworks shitck. The end result was that I felt as though I was watching a parody of the ending rather than the actual movie's conclusion, with the very last line being some lame quip about "getting something to eat" and containing absolutely no pay-off for what the final scene seemed to be building up to. I was extremely disapointed that the producers decided to go in that direction, since practically every other scene in the movie was played straight and felt like traditional storytelling.
Dragon, on the other hand, had an honestly spectacular ending, which both subverted the typical "Disney Death" cliche and perfectly concluded the movie. Also, I don't agree that the side characters in Panda were really any more interesting than those in Dragon. Aside from Po himself, Masters Shifu and Oogway, and maybe Mr, Ping, I can't think of a single character who got any reasonable development or even more than a single memorable line. Heck, Jackey Chan's Monkey and Seth Rogen's Mantis barely spoke at all - talk about a waste of celebrity voice talent. :shrug: However, the "Secrets of the Furious Five" short looked as though it might have fleshed out the side characters more, which gives me hope that the How To Train Your Dragon TV series and sequel will be able to do the same with the other dragon-riding kids.
