Kung Fu Panda 3/Trivia

This is a list of trivia from Kung Fu Panda 3.

Trivia

• Mr. Ping mentioned that he raised Po in twenty years before he adoped him. However, in Kung Fu Panda 2, Shen waited thirty years to rule Gongmen City alongside his cannon, probably since then he started to use fireworks gunpower for weapons and its' not mentioned or shown he did it years before or it was less than thirty years he attacked the panda village where Po lived when he was a infant and was exiled.
• During the traveling montage Po and his father endure on their way to the secret panda village, they pass by two large stones that sit on an equally stone-like terrain and are slanted toward the right of the screen. Shrek and Donkey pass by these same stones on their way to Fiona's castle in Shrek.
• The film was originally scheduled for December 23, 2015 but the studio delayed to avoid directly competing with Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).
• Four of Angelina Jolie's children, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, Pax Jolie-Pitt, Knox Jolie-Pitt and Zahara Jolie Pitt, are voice extras in the scene when Po talks to the pandas about a game plan.
• In order to get a feel for how pandas live, the filmmakers went directly to China's biggest panda preserve in Chengdu. While there, the filmmakers noted that pandas rolled to get places and incorporated that into the film.
• The CEO of Dreamworks confirmed that this is not the last movie in the franchise and that three Kung Fu Panda films are planned ahead.
• On Kai's chain belt with the chi amulets of masters that had died are a number of masters that he did not use: among them can be seen an elephant amulet, a frog amulet, a hippo amulet, and an amulet of Tai Lung himself, indicating that Tai Lung was banished to the Spirit Realm when Po used the Wuxi Finger Hold on him in Kung Fu Panda (2008).
• This has been the longest wait for a sequel to a previous DreamWorks computer-animated film to date, being released 5 years after Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011).
• Kai's theme is actually a remix of the Imagine Dragons song "I'm So Sorry".
• The Jombies were animated to skip some frames throughout their movements to be in direct contrast to the living masters, who are more fluid in movements.
• Kai's green eyes are in accordance with the Chinese legends of green eyes being synonymous with evil.
• Kai is the first Kung Fu Panda villain to not have a British accent.
• Rebel Wilson was the original choice for Mei Mei, but dropped out due to schedule conflicts and was replaced by Kate Hudson.
• One third of the film was made in China, and the rest was made in the United States, at DreamWorks Animation.
• This is the first time that any major American animated feature film has been co-produced with a Chinese firm.
• This is the first animated film of 2016 to star J. K. Simmons, the other one being Zootopia (2016), which released just over a month later.
• Jamie Campbell Bower was cast to voice Po's biological father but was replaced by actor Bryan Cranston. Neither of these actors voiced Po's father at the end of Kung Fu Panda 2, instead being voiced by experienced voice actor Fred Tatasciore (who also voiced Shifu in the Kung Fu Panda video games and the Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness TV series).
• Kai's name was initially going to be Tian Sha, which means "ferocious (spirit) from heaven", and the characters separately mean "heaven" and "evil spirit" respectively. In the Chinese dub of the film, his name remains Tian Sha.
• The first Kung Fu Panda film to be distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, eight years ago since the end of DreamWorks Animation's deal with Paramount Pictures in 2012.
• This is the first Kung Fu Panda film where Tigress wears different clothes. In the first and second films, she wore a red cheongsam with golden vine patterns and black pants. In this film, she wears a long-sleeved yellow tunic with red vine patterns and black pants.
• Four of the Jombie masters can be seen as they appeared in life in Po's room: Master Porcupine was gray with orange robes, the Master Badger Twins were black with yellow robes, and Master Gorilla was shown to resemble Lord Shen's gorilla warriors from Kung Fu Panda 2.
• Master Porcupine's design came from concept art of a porcupine that was using his quills to practice acupuncture. This design was initially intended to be used in the first Kung Fu Panda.
• Kai's original appearance would have had him with four arms, to resemble a character that was drawn in development for the first Kung Fu Panda film, known as the "Four-Armed Yak Demon God on Fire" who initially would have served as a member of Tai Lung's gang.
• Kai was previously reported to be voiced by Mads Mikkelsen, who dropped from the film due to his character being rewritten.
• Po's voice actor from the Kung Fu Panda video games and Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, Mick Wingert, voiced the goose and rabbit farmers in this film.
• Actors David Cross (Crane) and J. K. Simmons (Kai) previously worked together for DreamWorks' 2010 film Megamind. Six years later, in Kung Fu Panda 3, this is their second collaboration.
• There's a panda when Po and his parents are received by all the family that resembles Hodor from the Game of Thrones series.
• Initially the character designer Nicolas Marlet designed scarab Jombies to serve as sidekicks to Kai, among them were some that had flame designs and ribbons like Chinese dancers.
• Wayne Knight who voiced one of the pandas in the Panda Village had also been in the first Kung Fu Panda film as the voice of the enemy chief from Po's dream at the start of the film that Kai had been inspired from.