For those of us who wanted to discuss the film in more depth and not spoil it for anyone on the other Black Panther thread, I have created this spoilers thread. So last chance to leave the thread if you haven't seen the film...
First off, amazing film! Visually it was stunning and excellent story line. All the actors were stellar and a great combination of action scenes and humor throughout the film.
Great showcase of the technology advancements that Wakanda has done, especially with Shuri and all the weapons and engineering designs that she came up with. On that note, I thought the brother\sister relationship with Letitia Wright and Chadwick Boseman was spot on with their sibling rivalry.
Michael B. Jordan gave a lot of depth as the villain Killmonger. Really liked his backstory and his plans to take down Wakanda and the World from within.
When CIA agent Ross was interrogating Klaw, did anyone else have flashback to the Lord of the Ring/Hobbit movies with Bilbo Baggins and Gollum\Smeagol?
So much more I want to discuss about this film but I just wanted to add how awesome where those Battle Rhinos?
Btw, I feel like Killmonger was "right" in a sense: Oh, you guys had the ability to prevent slavery and the Holocaust and just sat there? I get that T'Challa is trying to remedy that at the end....
Isolation, which Wakanda preached was in reality creating things and situations that allowed it was trying to hide from. Keeping their resources and knowledge to themselves in actuality created a nightmare situation where the problems of the world came to their doorstep.
Too many people are trying to draw parallels to day's world and specifically the political climate here in the US. The issues with Wakanda were not legal vs illegal immigration it was complete isolation both inwards and outwards of a people and culture. Holding back knowledge, seeing to help others was the big problem. They chose to act like their place was its own world, instead being part of a larger community.
The movie itself I thought was good, but over hyped. As an MCU movie, I'd say it was average ( which is still better than any DC movie except Wonder Woman ). On the positive side the acting was good and many of the characters were interesting. I particularly liked T'Challa , his Father, and my favorite Shuri. Killmonger was a disappointment . He was a stereotypical angry black man that we've been seeing in the movies going back to the blaxploitation films of the 70's. The other theme of T'Challa's goals of openness and inclusion were interesting, but I didn't think groundbreaking. Besides his best speech came in an after credits Easter egg that a lot of people missed. Also the soundtrack was nothing special.
A down side of this movie, and I'm surprised no one has mentioned it, is that the technical aspects of this movie are not good. The CGI is downright bad, especially in 3D. Instead of filming this movie in sub-tropical Africa, or someplace that could pass for Africa, they filmed it in Georgia with CGI'd mountains in the background, and it shows. They only foreign locale they used was South Korea, which was unnecessary because except for one CGI'd car chase all the scenes are indoors.
Although that's not counting Josh Brolin's Thanos yet.
Link - ( New Window )
Loki: adopted brother trying to prove himself
Vulture: trying to earn a living to support his family
I’m not sure Thanos — who is Marvel’s version of Darkseid — will be compelling in the same way. The ‘rule the universe b/c I’m a God’ isn’t as interesting. But the doomsday scenario does make for the need to have heroes band together, of course.
Loki: adopted brother trying to prove himself
Vulture: trying to earn a living to support his family
I’m not sure Thanos — who is Marvel’s version of Darkseid — will be compelling in the same way. The ‘rule the universe b/c I’m a God’ isn’t as interesting. But the doomsday scenario does make for the need to have heroes band together, of course.
In the case of the villains mentioned here, Vulture thinks he was screwed by Tony Stark and Loki is the unfavored brother. In the case of Killmonger one of his motives is that T'Challa and his father stole his inheritance. I wish they had played that up more and de-emphasized the social commentary.
Jordan going above and beyond to amplify several stereotypes was meant to draw a clear distinction between the culture he grew up in versus that of Wakanda, and how it has affected him as a person to have that detachment from his father's homeland.
He wasn't just playing up the "angry black man" angle, but also eliciting the arrogance, abrasiveness, and lack of reverence to foreign cultures that people all over the world have come to associate and attach to ALL American citizens - which was consistent to the repeating theme of disdain that the Wakandan people had for westerners.
Killmonger already has quite a bit of complexities to him, so if any more nuance was added to this character, or if Jordan toned him down, then he likely would not have made much of a villain (for a comic book movie). Even given what was presented his death at the end still felt very tragic, and the pain that T'Challa felt in having to kill him was palpable through screen. So yes, Jordan was a little cartoonish at times but he was effective in providing what was needed for that role.
When we meet him again at the start of the movie, the sole reason he leaves Wakanda is to get Klawe. When he learns what his father did to his uncle, his sole question is why they left the boy who becomes Killmonger there.
This again, shows a Wakanda-centric viewpoint. Nothing matters to him outside Wakanda.
When he and Killmonger meet, Killmonger immediately works on challenging all that T'Challa thinks. Killmonger questions why Wakanda has done nothing for "2 Billion people who look like me." When Killmonger claims the throne, he immediately decides to change history and give the weapons needed to not only overthrow the world order, but to kill all who resist.
When T'Challa enters the spirit realm, when he tells his father that he was wrong, the original thought is that he is telling his father that leaving the boy Killmonger was wrong- but as we see soon thereafter, what he was really saying is that the choices that Wakanda made were wrong.
When Blank Panther fights back, his first goal is to stop the weapons from leaving Wakanda- and then stop Killmonger. However, we see that at the end, when Killmonger choses death and the words he chose to tell that to T'Challa impact T'Challa as much as any injury he has suffered.
Without the over-the-top way Killmonger was portrayed or the reasons why Killmonger makes his choices, T'Challa is never presented with a reason to change Wakanda. In a way, Killmonger's overzealousness is what forces T'Challa to make the choice to open Wakanda to the world. T'Challa had been raised, as is repeated throughout the movie, to view "Wakanda, always." It is an exclusionary idea- Wakanda comes first, everyone and everything else, second.
While T'Challa does not renounce that idea, he realizes that Killmonger was not a lone-wolf threat, but is instead the result of the choices Wakanda has made- and that he, as the king, must fix and atone for those mistakes.
I think he sees the danger- that there will be a backlash against Wakanda for inaction over the centuries. There will also be the inevitable negative reaction by the powerful to whom Wakanda will be an immediate threat that they have not prepared for.
That was why I think T'Challa chose his words before the U.N. carefully- he was offering to work together with other nations because threats off-planet are rising, but he also makes clear that if this is going to work, people must trust as one unified people and leave old grudges behind.
He realizes that if people follow Killmonger's example, all will fall. He also realizes that if the powerful resist, Wakanda will have to act accordingly. I believe that is why there was no Tony Stark style grand reveal (I am Iron Man and Iron Man is me) at the speech. Just a offer to the world.
I absolutely loved the female leads in this movie. Especially Shuri.
this movie was great - still thinking about it even though I saw it thursday
one thing I don't quite understand
at the end Killmonger chooses death rather than imprisonment
but what did he do wrong ?
Killmonger won the ritual fight and was king when he decided to make the decisions about sharing weapons. - totally within his rights as King .
When T'Challa reappears - he says that he never surrendered to challenge .. but you could argue that technically he did lose the challenge
Killmonger wanted to upend tradition of Wakanda not sharing technology -
but T'Challa comes to same conclusion. the only difference is that T'Challa doesn't want to cause revolution in the world.
Nothing Killmonger did in the kingdom warranted a prison sentence.
Nothing Killmonger did in the kingdom warranted a prison sentence.
Killing Zuri would have warranted a prison sentence. Zuri offered up his life in order to save T'Challa's, as he was on the brink of death. Killmonger then decides to kill both Zuri and throw T'Challa off the cliff to his apparent death.
Killing someone outside of the ritual combat would be prison sentence worthy.
As T'Challa noted, he did not submit- and clearly was not dead, so the match was not over.
However, this was a weakness in the plot, even though it was necessary to get T'Challa back as king- in the movies, the bad guy never finishes the job.
It was a bit odd that Killmonger, who as the hundreds of kills he has demonstrated, was not afraid of finishing the job. That was too cliche.
I thought a lamer plot point was the mountain clan coming back at the last minute. Very much Gandalf in the Two Towers, the Knights of the Vale with Jon Snow, etc. Overplayed trope.
I thought a lamer plot point was the mountain clan coming back at the last minute. Very much Gandalf in the Two Towers, the Knights of the Vale with Jon Snow, etc. Overplayed trope.
The moment the Jabari come to TChalla's aid has a little more significance than the the generic calvary coming in at the last minute in that MBaku and the Jabari have hated the other tribes for a very long time - it was a big turning point for them. The movie does a bad job of nailing down that history, especially with all the light banter we got between MBaku and TChalla's crew. But yes, point taken that them coming in at the end to save the day was still pretty predictable
For fans of the movie, there is a cool video breaking down the fight scene in the club in Korea:
Coogler Breaks Down Black Panther South Korea Fight Scene - ( New Window )
$242 million domestic in the first four days. $404m worldwide.
Justice League to date pulled in $224m domestic.
I re-watched Civil War last night and it just looked soooo, um, thin in comparison.
I did like Klawe better as the villain as compared to Michael B Jordan, but he that might because he was a comic book villain (I like comic books). More depth to Jordan's character.
I'm on the side that feels the Jabari rescue was contrived. Also, there was no real epiphany there. No reason to not agree immediately, other than the cavalry thing, to help.
What I really felt was contrived (and also insanely predictable), which is sad because it's like one of the main things, T'Challa surviving the fight. It was predictable that he lose and predictable that he win...but that's comic books for you.But I didn't like that he survived (in a sense) because it's an assault to the senses to believe a guy falls off a mountain (and he did make it all the way down to the river) and lives. You don't go into a coma; all your bones become coffee grounds.