I was recently prevailed upon to watch Kung Fu Panda 4, despite having heard that it was inferior to the previous movies in the sequence. My misgivings were correct; I suppose this will be yet another franchise sequel that in my head is demoted to the status of expensively produced fan fiction, rather than being canon. (E.g. most of the new Star Wars movies.)

I won’t bother rehashing most of the flaws of the movie, which have been ably dissected by many other reviewers, other than to note that many of them were downstream of the business decision to make the movie on a relatively small budget. (Nothing wrong with that per se, and the decision was objectively correct in a commercial sense since it guaranteed that the movie would be profitable. The problem was that the execution of the script was incompetent and dishonest. Why promote the movie as featuring the return of all our favorite villains, when only one of them has a speaking part?)

No, today I wanted to focus on a very specific problem of the movie: it lays bare the shallowness and lack of wisdom of the script.

(I won’t even bother with a spoiler warning, because you shouldn’t bother to see this movie.)

The KFP trilogy had come to a triumphant conclusion with KFP 3: Po has finally embraced the role of teacher and has fulfilled the true potential of his position as the Dragon Warrior. That doesn’t leave much room for a further sequel, however. So the scriptwriters invent a new role for Master Shifu to thrust Po into: that of “spiritual leader” of the Valley of Peace, as Master Oogway was in the past. This necessitates that Po step down as Dragon Warrior, which means that he must choose a successor. And this, in turn, sets up the explicit theme of the movie: embracing change.

The problems with this setup are manifold. Master Oogway was a spiritual leader not because someone anointed him to be such, but because he had achieved true wisdom—he had spent decades (centuries?) working out the principles of kung fu, and then spent 30 years meditating in a cave in order to know himself more deeply and master the principles of chi (and by the way, Po’s own proficiency with chi is practically irrelevant in this movie, reduced to a finishing combat move).

Po, by contrast, is still groping towards wisdom. Thanks to the intervention of his family and friends, and to already being present in the spirit realm, he was able to leapfrog his development of chi in KFP 3; but the wisdom that comes with it is still a work in progress. Note also that KFP 2 and 3 both treated Po’s spiritual journey with seriousness, not as a punchline.

But in KFP 4, this changes. In this movie, what does it mean for Po to be a spiritual leader? Apparently, to spout fortune-cookie aphorisms. I mean that quite literally. (If one is charitable, one could also include Po’s mentoring of his new protégé; except that nothing about that role relates to being a “spiritual leader” of a community, rather than a teacher as he was in the last movie.) Worse, the aphorisms are generally treated as laugh lines.

I am forced to the conclusion that the scriptwriters either (i) have no idea what a “spiritual leader” is, and what role such a leader plays; or (ii) are contemptuous of the very concept of spiritual leadership—or perhaps, resistant to it. Instead, they direct our attention to the theme of embracing change, which is the most trite, inoffensive bit of pablum that one can imagine in our present, protean society.

And change from what to what? Why is Po’s new role better than his previous one? Why is the unfocused predation of the Thieves’ Den worse than, um, whatever it is that they come up with next? Speaking of which, one of the recurring punchlines of Po’s attempts at spiritual wisdom is that they make no sense, but then the Thieves reinterpret the aphorisms into something relevant to their own interests that actually encourages them to develop some manner of virtue. This is perceived as them comically missing the point; except that they actually didn’t miss the point; they just apply the point from within an amoral framework that makes the heroes queasy, but which they cannot refute.

Why can’t they? Because the script lack a spiritual core that guides Po’s behavior. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, except that by making Po’s ascension to “spiritual leader” the central character problem of the movie, the scriptwriters are painting themselves into a corner and highlighting the movie’s spiritual emptiness.

I would take two lessons from our present discussion (aside from the host of lessons one could draw from the other flaws of the movie, not discussed here). First, don’t let your script make promises that your typewriter won’t cash. If you say that the movie is about spiritual leadership, then actually make it about spiritual leadership! Second, many people are falling into the trap of thinking that because we believe in spiritual pluralism and religious freedom, or else to appeal to the widest audience possible in a global society that includes conflicting religions, atheists, narcissists, hedonists, and China, our stories should shy away from providing real spiritual direction. This is a mistake. Not only does it surround our children with stories that lack moral value, it makes the stories themselves weaker, flabbier, less inspiring—less entertaining.

And it’s unnecessary: all functional societies, regardless of their specific moral beliefs, share certain core principles that are crucial to maintaining those functional societies—the value of work, delayed gratification, raising children, learning from others, keeping your promises, etc. If we lose those, society ceases to function. And fortune-cookie triteness is not enough to save our stories or our societies. Grow some backbone, and don’t be afraid to build your stories on things that are actually important.