Karate Kid: Legends is the latest entry in The Karate Kid franchise, and while some people are fans of the sequel, it was a bad idea from day one. While The Karate Kid franchise has been going since the original film was released in 1984, it has been going through a bit of a modern Renaissance, one that Karate Kid: Legends was attempting to capitalize on.

Karate Kid: Legends attempts to unite the three branches of The Karate Kid franchise, bringing the stories of the original series, the 2010 The Karate Kid remake, and the spinoff series Cobra Kai together. The combined characters are centered around an original Karate Kid: Legends character, a boy named Li Fong who moves to New York and joins a martial arts tournament.

Karate Kid: Legends has been a box office and critical disappointment. The film made $103 million on its relatively small budget of $45 million, and it currently has a 59% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. Karate Kid: Legends was seemingly meant to be the next chapter in The Karate Kid saga, but it failed thanks to its handling of one key part of the franchise.

Karate Kid: Legends Totally Misunderstood What Made Cobra Kai Popular

It Relies Too Heavily On Karate Kid Nostalgia

Cobra Kai is what has reignited interest in The Karate Kid franchise, and if it weren’t for the success of the spinoff series, it is doubtful that the 2025 film would exist. Cobra Kai expanded the world of The Karate Kid by telling a story about the later years of original series villain Johnny Lawrence, with him reopening the тιтular dojo, teaching a new group of students, and reuniting with Daniel LaRusso.

While Cobra Kai was incredibly popular, the connections to The Karate Kid are not why. Sure, having The Karate Kid brand attached helped Cobra Kai succeed. However, being a sequel to a trilogy of movies from three decades prior is not what allowed Cobra Kai to run for six seasons. The Karate Kid Easter eggs and references aren’t enough, and Cobra Kai knew that.

However, Karate Kid: Legends did not. The film’s original story is incredibly thin, with it following the template of the original The Karate Kid and its 2010 remake far too closely. Bringing back characters from The Karate Kid franchise’s past felt like more of a marketing gimmick than anything. If Karate Kid: Legends didn’t have the franchise attached, it would’ve just been another generic martial arts movie for kids.

Instead, the characters and story are what made Cobra Kai great. Most of Cobra Kai‘s characters are original to the Netflix show, meaning that they had to be built from the ground up. Despite this, fans still love them, as the series took its time to build interesting characters. The themes, story, and intrigue of Cobra Kai are missing from Karate Kid: Legends, explaining why it failed.

Ignoring Cobra Kai’s Characters & Story Made Karate Kid: Legends’ Premise Needlessly Confusing

It Was Clearly Trying To Remove Itself From Cobra Kai

Despite being the reason why The Karate Kid is so popular now, Cobra Kai was mostly ignored by Karate Kid: Legends. This is because the original characters from Cobra Kai can’t appear in Karate Kid: Legends, thanks to issues with the rights. Columbia doesn’t have the rights to use these Netflix characters, meaning that they could only use characters who existed before Cobra Kai, like Daniel and Johnny Lawrence.

However, this caused a lot of story issues. Firstly, Karate Kid: Legends had to intentionally disconnect itself from Cobra Kai. This is probably why Karate Kid: Legends is set three years after Cobra Kai, so as to have a clean break between the Netflix series and the legacy sequel. This could also explain why Karate Kid: Legends takes place in New York, moving away from the franchise’s staple California setting.

On top of that, Karate Kid: Legends had to bring back Daniel LaRusso without acknowledging any of his Cobra Kai story. While the film doesn’t explicitly retcon anything from the series, it is odd that Danny didn’t mention anyone from or anything that occurred in Cobra Kai. The only exception is Karate Kid: Legends‘ Johnny Lawrence cameo, which again is only loosely connected to Cobra Kai.

Karate Kid: Legends Tried Too Hard To Make The Unpopular 2010 Movie Relevant

It Was The Most Heavily Featured Karate Kid Project

Instead of focusing on Cobra Kai, Karate Kid: Legends, for some reason, heavily focused on the 2010 remake. 2010’s The Karate Kid is almost universally panned, but of all the branches of The Karate Kid franchise, this is the one that Karate Kid: Legends focused on the most.

Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han is a main character, while Daniel LaRusso is more of a supporting character who doesn’t appear until the second half of the movie. The movie is full of references to the 2010 remake, and it even fleshes out Mr. Han’s story, something that Karate Kid: Legends didn’t do with Danny, thanks to Cobra Kai.

The reasoning for this is incredibly confusing, as it isn’t hard to see that the legacy of the 2010 remake isn’t great. However, it could be that the studio wanted to bank on nostalgia, and since Cobra Kai already did that for the original trilogy, the 2010 remake was the next best thing. After all, it was a better pick than The Next Karate Kid.

The Original Karate Kid Was Always The Franchise’s Only Good Movie

And Karate Kid: Legends Doesn’t Change That

Despite the franchise being mᴀssive, the 1984 original is the only good movie in The Karate Kid series. The Next Karate Kid and 2010’s The Karate Kid are both universally panned, and there aren’t many defenders of The Karate Kid Part II or Part III. The franchise almost entirely coasted on the success of the original, with this allowing it to survive now five bad sequels.

Some hoped that the 2025 film would finally break this trend. However, Karate Kid: Legends has now reaffirmed that the original The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai are the only quality projects that the franchise has to offer.