1. Introducing Kung Fu Panda

The opening scene in Kung Fu Panda, from DreamWorks Animation, is surely one of the best in any CGI film. Kung Fu Panda channels the fantasies of every action fan who has fantasized about saving the world in a singular awesome display.

Panda protagonist Po, voiced by a sometimes over the top by Jack Black, mows down fields of villains in such acrobatic fashion that the Furious Five, a team of highly adept, kung-fu practioners, can do nothing but admire Po as he saves them. As Po basks in his self-anointed awesomeness, the whole town celebrates Po’s accomplishments with a parade, until… his father’s call to prepare noodles rousts him out of his day dream and his bed room! How awesome is that?

Kung-fu Panda is ostensibly about the trite adage to believe in yourself to accomplish what others think you cannot do. But it is also about the iterative advances in technical achievement that are manifested in each new animated feature film. Moore’s law has resulted in a slew of new movie-making “laws” that are just as directly tied to technological speed and capacity. With every finished product, kids and action-hero fans will swoon and cheer, but the rest of the audience will come away impressed by the new state of the art in computer-assisted animation.