Toon Zone Talkback - "Kung Panda" Sequel Moves Up a Week; New Actors Join Cast

I'd like Tai Lung to come back and redeem himself. He showed flashes of (you should pardon the expression) humanity in the first film, and while his rage was all out of proportion to his loss of the Dragon Scroll, he did have some justification to feel he'd been cheated. In a sequel film, I can see Tai as a repentant, lone warrior in disguise, working his way through the countryside helping defend the weak or helpless in order to redeem his honor. And I can see Po eventually discovering his identity and resolving to help him (although Shifu would probably condemn his efforts and Tai Lung might be reluctant to accept his aid at first). I can even see a funny scene where Po tells Tai that he still has his action figure :D. Tai Lung is just too cool to discard as a one-time villain. I really hope we see him again.
 
And so a movie that does not need a sequel gets a sequel. The title sounds lame and although in the KP universe any animal can be a fierce opponent I can't see a peacock being more fierce than Tai Lung. Of course they don't have to go that route he can just be really evil and mess things up but still in an action flick the next villain really should be mightier than the first to some degree.
 
I'm not against the notion of Tai Lung returning, but I think bringing him back for the second movie would've been too soon. At this stage, it would have just made the 2nd film look like a rehash of the first. Let Po and the Furious Five face some new threats before Tai Lung resurfaces, if he ever does.

And I wholeheartedly disagree with the statement that Tai Lung was the only good thing about the first movie. On the contrary, I actually felt that Tai Lung was a pretty standard issue villain, and he mainly just fulfilled the villain requirement for the story (though Ian MacShane did a decent job of voicing Lung). I thought Po, Shifu and the Five were far more interesting characters, which is why I'd like to see what they do when they're not preparing to fight Tai Lung again.

I'm looking forward to the sequel, I just hope that this combined with the impending Kung Fu Panda TV series doesn't saturate the KFP franchise and cause it to go the Shrek route.
 
Actually, I meant that Tai Lung should return only to work alongside the heroes, even if reluctantly or not. Simply put, in the first movie, Tai Lung's motivation was the Dragon Scroll, nothing more and nothing less, and we saw the breakdown he had when he found out it was blank. Thus, he should have no more reason to seek the scroll. Though, considering how proud he is, defeating Po in combat could count as revenge and be a new motivation for him. But having him return as a villain would get tedious and boring, since we know Po will always win in the end due to the rule of children's movies.

Nevertheless, the plot for the new movie states that the new villain has an ultra powerful weapon, and also states that Po must confront his past. Of course, this could mean he gets to learn about his birth parents (cause, you know, that dad of his...) but it could also mean a need to confront Tai Lung in order to try to convince him to help out in defeating this new threat, seeing as how Tai Lung's powerful enough to defeat all the Furious Five and even Shifu, so his strength would be needed. That and having him around could cause all sorts of comedic situations between him and the other characters, especially if he has to spend time and fight alongside Po.

I sure do hope that that's what it means, since Tai Lung has the most potential out of any of the characters in KFP, in my opinion. Sadly, the series is still titled Kung Fu Panda, not Kung Fu Snow Leopard, so it sorta worries me that a character of such potential could be wasted. That and it would be a disappointment, as well as a huge cop-out by the makers of the film, if we never get an explanation as to what the heck happened to Tai Lung after the Wuxi Finger Hold.
 
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