Penguin Wednesday I
Surf's Up
10 September 2025
Hey!! So, after a conversation I had with my friends about my fursona and how she was created, I realized there are actually a bunch of fun penguin movies around that I really love, especially of the animated variety. There are a few of them that I consider my favorites for different reasons, and I plan to talk a little bit about one of them today, because I do have it freshest in my mind. However, there are also a few live-action peguin movies that I'm still due watching, and which pretty much sparked an interest in me only because they feature penguins, let's be real here. SO, I have decided to make this a fun little segment for my media blog. I can't guarantee that these will be posted every single week, but I will hopefully be posting these semi-regularly.
Let's talk about Surf's Up!
I have to say I giggled a little to myself when I realized this is a Sony Pictures Animation movie. There's a lot of talk about Sony Pictures lately; they have become a big name in the animation industry and are especially prominent right now amongst animation fans for doing what they've always done: animated movies that are fun, beautifully stylized, and try to push the visual and technical boundaries of what 3D animation can do. Because, let's be honest, their movies don't tend to be complex, they never claim to have any sort of mature message or present revolutionary stories. Mostly, they just seem to come from a good old "wouldn't it be cool/funny if...?", and I am all for it, in fact. Their movies are also distinct, very visually and thematically unique. There is no legitimate way you can compare Hotel Transylvania with the Spiderverse, with today's movie, Surf's Up, with, I don't know, the infamous Emoji Movie. Isn't it a little ironic, that the most quoted examples of THE GOOD ANIMATION (Spiderverse) and THE BAD ANIMATION (The Emoji Movie) are both by the same studio? Shows you what happens when you diversify and experiment. Actually, I haven't watched the Emoji Movie, but after everything that happened with the industry since 2017, I'm kinda curious to see how it aged. Might make it another blog post.
I've only been getting into the intricacies of storytelling recently, upon starting to seriously get work done on my personal projects. Generally, movie critics will comment on the stories and how they were written as a criteria for judging whether a movie is good or bad, and I agree up to a point. It's very hard that a movie will be considered good if it doesn't have a solidly written plot, the characters don't have character arcs that follow a certain logic, or the ending doesn't resolve the issues that had been set up in a satisfying way. However, a solid story isn't the only criteria worth considering, because at the end of the day, it isn't the only thing that sticks to you. The story may not even be what you remember about it at all.
The reason I say this is that, with animation movies specifically, the premise and the visuals cannot be brushed off. Surf's Up is one of those movies that I distinctly remember and adore for the character designs, the visuals, the wacky premise, and its unique mockumentary format. The barebones of the story may appear overdone and tired (inexperienced and impulsive teen meets a patient mentor who sets him on the right path? another one of those?) when you compare it to the uniqueness of the concept of "biopic of a surfing penguin". However, the movie is good because it is a good blend of everything. The premise is funny, and it allows for interesting, inspired character designs, but all of that becomes enjoyable and exists in the context of a well-written story that is brimming with earnestness.
Surf's Up is also a sports movie, so it has all of its basic elements; Cody Maverick is an underdog with humble origins who wants to win the Big Sports Competition and prove that he's got what it takes to be a champion. So he makes great efforts and suffers great pains and risks it all to win and be the best, and, uh... Well, actually some amount of genre subversion ensues here. It's another reason I think it particularly stands out as a sports movie. I'll get back to this later.
So, visuals. The movie has three basic elements that blend into a unique visual landscape: penguins, surfing, and a tropical island. The visual development team took these and really created a believable, cohesive and interesting environment. I especially want to gush about the character designs, because they are absolutely EVERYTHING that good character designs should be. First, they're undeniably penguins; meaning, their shapes and animation and color palette are accurate to real penguins, even if they are anthropomorphized. I really love it when animal designs stay true to what the animal's limbs look and feel like, even if they're functioning like human hands. It's something I especially love to see in animated movies with bird characters (the Rio duology is another good example). You can even tell which species of penguin they all are! Second, they're all incredibly distinct, even comparing penguins of the same species. Their proportions and shapes are pushed in such a way that you can immediately tell who you're looking at in a glance, and even from a distance in wide shots. Third, you can tell these characters belong where they are, and live and breathe every day there. I will forever be insane about the beach/tropical patterns that the characters have on their feathers. They're sneaky enough to maybe pass as something natural, but also clear enough to immediately mark them as cool surfers and tell you something about their personalities. They also make Cody look "different" from his family, and like he doesn't really belong where he's from. All of that together with a clever use of a penguin's color palette makes for really memorable designs.
I hear that this movie is very accurate to the reality of surfing, the slang, the kind of characters you can find in the surfing scene. I cannot speak to that because I know nothing about surfing, but I can definitely believe it, because I felt immersed in it from point one. This is important: the concept of surfing penguins is funny, but the characters themselves take surfing seriously. That's what sells you into the idea. Not only that, but it's an opportunity for unfamiliar people to get introduced to surfing, especially children (side note: it is my personal opinion that adults who find enjoyable things about/feel touched or emotional about children's media and say "this stuff has no right to be/shouldn't be for children" are completely missing the point, but that might be worth making a new post entirely). I didn't get the urge to become a surfer just by watching this movie as a kid, but I did get an understanding of what the sport is and entails on a fundamental level. I earned appreciation and respect for the people who do it. I thought surfing was extremely cool. This kind of stuff is important. And since we're now speaking on a meta level, I feel it is also important that we can see characters of all kinds of heights, sizes, body types and backgrounds participating in sports, even having a fat character shown as the most proficient of them. I think it is important especially for teens to watch this kind of stuff, while they're figuring out what they think is cool, who they are and what they'd like to do in life.
Finally, let's dive a little bit into the story and characters. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows me that I love mentor-student narratives so much. I actually love them more and more the older I get, because I start to understand the true value of experience, and the reality of "maturing" in your passions. I also really, really love sports movies, and that may perhaps surprise the people who know me, because 1) I'm not a very sporty person myself and 2) the average sports movie doesn't tend to do anything particularly interesting with its characters, other than getting them from insecure losers to confident winners. Some of them barely have a story or an arc. But gosh... they're just a guilty pleasure of mine. They cater to that specific competitive fiber I have that's always pushing me to get better and work harder and earn glory. My self-image is heavily performance-based, so I really enjoy movies where pure perseverance and a good performance are what makes you the "hero" in the end.
I think any person who works in competitive fields can easily relate to sports movies, and can feel vindicated and hyped up when the hard-working protagonist achieves their goal in the end. The trophy represents ultimate happiness. However, in Surf's Up, the creators present a slightly different kind of thesis, something more intimate and less epic.
Story discussion contains spoilers that I have hidden! You can click below to show them.
So, Cody is an inexperienced but energetic teenager who absolutely loves surfing. He's the only one in town who does, and that has a particular kind of merit, being self-taught. Shows he has real passion for the sport, in spite of his circumstances. This is not a realistic career path where he's from, so he's seen as lazy and, well, a birdbrain. Cody feels unloved, and extremely underappreciated, and lonely. He cannot even share his joy with his own family. So he's developed a very competitive mindset; he hypes himself up as being the best and coolest and most competent when it comes to surfing, and practices endlessly to prove it so, if only for his hero and surfing legend, Big Z. When a chance presents itself to follow on Z's footsteps and enter a famous surfing contest, he goes above and beyond to convince the talent scout that he's got what it takes.
It turns out that the competitive scene is absolutely merciless. The champion of the contest, Tank Evans, will literally stop at nothing to win, even if it means luring other surfers to their deaths. He's a jerk with no remorse who is obsessed with the trophies to the point of insanity. And of course, he demolishes Cody. If he wants to win this contest, then Cody needs help. And he does get it! From none other than his hero, the one and only Big Z.
The story's main villain, the jerk nobody likes and whose passion is destroying anything and anyone in the water, is in fact the one with the most trophies, the most competent person, the championship winner. This is not exactly a subversion of the genre when it comes to sports movies, but the way he's "defeated" is. So, Tank is everything Cody claims to want; and yet, he's not Big Z, he's not a legend like Z was. Why? Because Z understood something that Cody is going to have to learn over the course of the movie, and it will take some work. Surprise twist, and here's the genre subversion: It's not about winning.
Okay, sure, yeah, everyone says that, right? But it is about winning, though, isn't it? What even is a sport without winners and losers? What is a sport without the competition, and the testing of limits, and the euphoria of knowing there's something about you that's greater than anyone else? Isn't it supposed to be about how the little guys can win with effort and heart, too?
That is indeed the question that this movie is posing: Why do you surf, really? When you take away the competition, and the glory, and the public recognition, what is left? What keeps you going?
Like I said before, I'm the type to get competitive and work myself to the bone over things I'm good at, and that's why I dig sports movies so much. Cody Maverick reminds me a lot of who I was when I started putting myself out there on the internet as an artist. He's incredibly passionate and, being self-taught, he's got a strange combination of adrenaline-fueled competence and complete lack of technique/knowledge. Add the impulsivity and insecurity of teenagehood and the idolization of a pro surfer's career, and you've got a goal-oriented penguin who will either get first place on his first try, or live in shame and misery forever. Sometimes my brain tricks me into forgetting these things, but that used to be me! When Cody first challenges Tank and gets humiliated, he is faced with the perspective of returning to the beach for the competition, and is just about ready to give up on everything, right there and then. That used to be me. I used to think that I was failing or there was something wrong with my skills or ideas if I didn't win that year's postcard contest at my high school. I used to outright refuse trying to draw anything that I wasn't immediately good and confident at. I used to think that I would fail as an artist if I didn't ever get commissioned, and watching other artists' work on the internet would demoralize me and make me feel unworthy. Often, being both good at something and passionate about it will lead to overwhelming pressure and feelings of failure. And here's something so wonderful about movies: as a kid, I would get frustrated and angry at Cody's behavior with Geek. I would go "quit being so dramatic! Listen to your peers!" That kind of perspective, on the long run, was helpful in learning to understand and manage my own teenage emotions.
I think nowadays I have a more mature understanding of art, and in that sense I relate more to Geek (or, as we soon come to learn, surfing legend Big Z). He is laid-back and lazy, and has a pointed hatred for the competitive scene, because he knows how much it messes with people's heads; he's lived it, after all. He got to the point of faking his own death just to protect his own sanity, which I could sort of amusingly compare to my own period of leaving social media entirely. Just outright disappearing. Z recognized that the pressure to win was destroying him, so he gave up and ran away. He even directly says this at one point in the movie: "Giving up, that's my way". The competition made Z miserable... But his fear is making him miserable as well. He's been avoiding the water entirely, as if getting back onto a board would get him hurt again, but he loves surfing. He really, really does. It is Cody's presence that manages to get him down to the beach again, because Z's love of the sport won't allow him to let the kid go. Surfing is too important to be reduced to a mindless race, and he needs to prove it for this kid. Art and sport are both an endeavor of passion, yes, but neither will thrive in a vacuum; because passion is our own nature in motion, and our nature is to exist in community. Art needs company to thrive. It needs to be seen, and shared, and understood and carried along.
All throughout the movie, Cody Maverick slowly learns that the sense of belonging and confidence he desperately wants does not come from a pretty trophy, but from his own work, the friends he loves, and the joy he feels when he's on a board. Z learns that it is okay to face people with the truth of who he is, and not only will it not be the end of the world if he does, but in fact it will improve his and everyone's lives significantly.
I am really, really fond of Chicken Joe. He is a secondary character, or, as I have recently started to refer to characters without arcs, a type of "non-character". He does not have an arc because he is perfect just the way he is, and we like him that way. In this movie, Chicken Joe is meant to be the model surfer; not just because of his "outsider" look (he looks different even among the surfers), or his slangy, absent-minded way of speaking, or chill and overly positive demeanor, but because he perfectly embodies all the qualities that both Cody and Z are taking the entire movie to learn. Chicken Joe isn't in the competition to win, he's there to have fun and make friends, but he's not shying away from it either; he embraces every challenge effortlessly and lets things happen as they will. He is confident and brave, competent and humble, and is in complete harmony with the waves.
So, I was talking about slight subversions of the genre in this movie. It seems to have all the elements of a regular sports movie, but the nature of these characters and the arcs they need to go through require a sort of unconventional ending. Tank is established to be the greatest competitor, the surfing champion, the embodiment of glory-obsessed malice. He needs to get "defeated" in some way. Normally, sports movies will simply have the underdog win against the champion because they have completed their arc and are now more worthy, more righteous, or otherwise the trophy represents a personal and emotional victory. However, the point of this particular movie is to negate the value of the trophy entirely; so not only Tank needs to get defeated, but the concept of winning as a whole. You don't drive that point home by simply winning the competition. What happens in this movie is that during the competition, Tank, who is obsessed with destroying the competition, ends up sabotaging himself. Tank is defeated by his own hubris and the point is made. Later on, Cody defeats his desire to win; he lets go of the chance to score in order to save his friend Chicken Joe. Z also gets his own chance to feature in the ending, because he needs to complete his arc as well. He is forced to choose between staying in obscurity or getting out there and saving his student, and of course, at this point the decision is a no-brainer, just like Cody's. Actually it is Cody's new ability to "let go" and trust his teacher that ends up saving his life, as well as being a beautiful throwback to him and Z's fun training together. It's a bit of a dramatic, over-the-top ending, but it perfectly matches the stakes that were established for the competition, and The Boneyard nicely contrasts with the visuals of the "good" beach, where there's no pressure involved. So... who wins the competition in the end? Why, it's Chicken Joe, of course! The guy who's been having fun all along! He's even kind enough to present the movie's thesis one final time for the audience with his perfectly delivered "I won?" The trophy itself gets literally (and comically easily) destroyed in an accident. It's all so perfect and clear.
The more I think about it, the more I believe surfing was the perfect sport to present a thesis like this. I don't think any other sport gets as deeply and intrinsically related to non-competitive things, like vacationing, nice fruity drinks, lazying around with your friends, harmony with nature, relaxed personalities, etc.
Alrighty, I don't have much more to say here. Love what you do, and do it out of love. Nothing more, nothing less. I hope you enjoyed my infodump, and if you haven't watched this movie, I really recommend it! It's great fun. Thank you for reading! Tune in for the next Penguin Wednesday!
