Black Panther (2018)

[HunterHunted]

A fan recut a Black Panther trailer from Killmonger's perspective.

[Dee]

Marvel boss Kevin Feige hints at what a Black Panther Oscar campaign might look like

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Almost halfway through 2018, Marvel’s Black Panther remains one of the biggest successes of the year, both critically and commercially.

It’s under $250,000 away from becoming just the third movie to cross the $700 million mark at the box office in the US and Canada, which it should manage sometime in early July. (Yes, it’s still playing in some theaters, even though it’s out on home video.) While it will only be the No. 2 movie of the year internationally, it’s all but certain to be the top movie of the year domestically, having held off Avengers: Infinity War.

But the movie’s reviews have set it apart from the superhero pack. With a 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and (even more impressively) an 88 on Metacritic — which measures not just whether a critic liked a movie but how much that critic liked it — Black Panther can boast numbers better than most superhero films.

The similarly buzzy Wonder Woman, for instance, scored only a 92 on Rotten Tomatoes and a 76 on Metacritic — good numbers, but not the sort of rarified air Black Panther breathes. (Infinity War, meanwhile, scored an 83 on Rotten Tomatoes and a 68 on Metacritic.)

That’s even before we talk about the way Black Panther has become a cultural sensation, or the way it incorporates modern political arguments into the midst of what is otherwise a typical superhero tale. All of the above — but especially those reviews — marks Black Panther not just as a hit but as a potential Oscar player.

I’ve written before about the potential for the film to become a hit with the Academy Awards, but doing so will require somebody at Marvel Studios or its parent company, Disney, to open up the pocketbook and spend on an Oscar campaign. So at a recent press event for Marvel’s upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp, I asked Marvel’s head producer Kevin Feige if an Oscar campaign might be in the offing.

He was characteristically cagey (Feige never met a question he couldn’t deflect), but I detected a hint of a strategy going forward.

Edited July 5, 2018 by Dee

[ChelseaNH]

How costumes establish characters and relationships (Okoye, Nakia, Shuri):

https://tomandlorenzo.com/2018/07/black-panther-movie-costume-analysis-reviews/

[scrb]

On 5/28/2018 at 8:13 AM, HunterHunted said:

I'm going to work a little bit all over the place in my response.

There is actually historical precedent that supports the narrative choice of having Killmonger in the military. A lot of civil rights and Black militant leaders actually have military experience. The contrast with what they were fighting for and how they were treated back in the states actually led them to start their political movements. Granted most of the historical examples didn't have careers that were nearly as long or notable as Killmonger's. It's very clear that Killmonger was aware of N'Jobu's past as a War Dog. Both of his parents were radicalized. There is also the grand sad tradition of Black interior lives being completely compartmentalized from their public selves. So I don't think it's inconceivable that Killmonger could be that angry and radicalized, but serve successfully in the military.

Additionally even with the crime or gang route, he'd still have to follow rules. Every semi-successful organization, military or civilian, legal or illegal, has rules and layers of authority. Pablo Escobar had rules. The Crips, Bloods, Mexican Mafia, MS-13, and the Aryan Brotherhood all have rules and leaders. The media is really bad at depicting that and so everyday people feel like these organizations are a free for all, but they aren't. So even if the movie had given him a criminal backstory, his ability to follow rules is still an important part of him rising through the ranks.

As @Apprentice79 said, all of Killmonger's military experience is in destablizing governments. He has no clue how to lead and all of the leadership that he witnessed first hand was when he was young from his father and mother or in the military. Also important is the fact that he served in the U.S. military during the war on terror, which is notable because the government had so little cultural understanding of the region that the U.S. got itself into messes just based on ignorance of the region. So it's not entirely surprising that Killmonger had no clue what he was doing in leadership and didn't understand enough about Wakanda to be a successful leader.

Finally, Killmonger's goal wasn't really to kill everyone; his goal was one of Wakandan manifest destiny and Wakandan exceptionalism. He wanted to completely reshape the world according to his and nominally Wakandan viewpoints. The biggest issue with him is that he knows just enough about everything/the world to be dangerous and not enough about it to actually improve the world.

I don't think there's anything noble about him.

He has a point that Black Panther's father abandoned him in Oakland, instead of taking him back to Wakanda.

It's one thing to grow up from that trauma, finding his dead father's body, having a chip on his shoulder.

But grown up, Killmonger killed without a second thought and made a fetish out of all his kills with the markings on his body.  OK this is a comic book world but that number of kills, even some of it from military service, are indicators of a psychopath.

The fetishization of the kills suggest he relished them.

One of his first acts was to call for the herb garden to be destroyed and when the priestess hesitated, he threatened to kill her, using vulgarity.  At least cartoon villains speak, if not nobly, then certainly not like a street thug.

As king of Wakanda, he immediately called for waging wars throughout the world.  Now that's cartoon villain stuff, so we shouldn't be shocked by it.  But the personal kills take him out of the comic book universe and more into the realm of serial murders.

I wouldn't think Coogler was having him represent or symbolize a reaction to discrimination against black people.  Killmonger says at one point he killed so many to come back to Wakanda.  But why would joining the military and killing hundreds of people personally be a necessary route to Wakanda?  Why would bringing the corpse of the Claw make him welcome in a society which is suppose to be enlightened and benevolent?

The vengeful and angry black man who would kill those who oppressed black people if given the power confirms the worst racial stereotypes of black men held by some people.  Killmonger's defeat is a rejection of that stereotype, as is BP's decision to engage with the world, to share Wakanda's wealth.

If they brought Killmonger back, it would be a commercial concession, to reverse the defeat of a character who embodied the worst aspects of humanity, in order to bring back a popular movie star.

[Luckylyn]

Creating an Empathetic Villian

[HunterHunted]

13 hours ago, scrb said:

But grown up, Killmonger killed without a second thought and made a fetish out of all his kills with the markings on his body.  OK this is a comic book world but that number of kills, even some of it from military service, are indicators of a psychopath.

The fetishization of the kills suggest he relished them.

Perhaps he did fetishize his kills, but how common is the depiction of WW 2 aces marking their planes up with the number of planes they've shot down. No one would ever call them psychopaths. Military snipers keep track of their dozens and hundreds of kills. Players do it in football to show the number of sacks, tackles, and interceptions. In competitive environments, this is just something humans do. It's probably not so much a measure of psychopathy as it is the dehumanization found in war and competition. 

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One of his first acts was to call for the herb garden to be destroyed and when the priestess hesitated, he threatened to kill her, using vulgarity.  At least cartoon villains speak, if not nobly, then certainly not like a street thug.

I just fundamentally disagree with the criticism of his language. He did grow up on the streets and in and out of foster homes. If you're familiar with the concept of code switching and if we think of AAVE as his native language, then speaking as a "street thug" shows just how serious he is. Cartoon villains speak or used to speak certain ways because there was no diversity in the writers who wrote them. Killmonger, as was Black Panther, was a character created by white people. These are people didn't know a ton about Black people or Africa (I've complained about this as a Nigerian-American). It's only because people like Christopher Priest and Dwayne McDuffie (RIP) have been grinding since the 80s to try to bring diversity to comics and not just tokenism that comics have more diversity in writers.

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As king of Wakanda, he immediately called for waging wars throughout the world.  Now that's cartoon villain stuff, so we shouldn't be shocked by it.  But the personal kills take him out of the comic book universe and more into the realm of serial murders.

I wouldn't think Coogler was having him represent or symbolize a reaction to discrimination against black people.  Killmonger says at one point he killed so many to come back to Wakanda.  But why would joining the military and killing hundreds of people personally be a necessary route to Wakanda?  Why would bringing the corpse of the Claw make him welcome in a society which is suppose to be enlightened and benevolent?

Secretly arming sleeper agents to overthrow governments and waging wars throughout the world isn't cartoon villain stuff. It is literally the way of the world. The Soviet Union did it. The British government did it. The U. S. Government does it. Right now there is some government supplying some dissident group with money and or weapons in order to obtain a regime change in their favor. This is shockingly realistic; we call it imperialism.

Also personal kills are seen both in the comic book universe and in real life. The sheer number of Killmonger's kills is what makes it comic book-y.

Why would Killmonger need to kill so many people to come back to Wakanda? Because he has father's stories and journals, but doesn't have true experience of the level of training and experience it takes to beat the King on challenge day. I can read a ton books about Kung Fu, but I'm not kicking anyone's ass based on what I read. Killmonger basically has to become a fighting polymath (aka Batman) because he can only guess at the skills he needs. 

The reason he needed to bring Klaue back to Wakanda is that Wakanda has never been conquered. Klaue's incursion, stealing a billion dollars worth of vibranium, and killing dozens of Wakandans is a great shame to them. They would want to see him brought to justice. T'Challa wants justice--a trial. W'Kabi lost his parents in that attack--he wants vengeance. A corpse is good enough for him.

Quote

The vengeful and angry black man who would kill those who oppressed black people if given the power confirms the worst racial stereotypes of black men held by some people.  Killmonger's defeat is a rejection of that stereotype, as is BP's decision to engage with the world, to share Wakanda's wealth.

If they brought Killmonger back, it would be a commercial concession, to reverse the defeat of a character who embodied the worst aspects of humanity, in order to bring back a popular movie star.

I don't know that I'd say that Killmonger embodied the worst aspects of humanity. Alexander Pierce was part of an ancient death cult that thought nothing of murdering millions of people in order to impose his fascist will on the planet, plus he blithely murdered his housekeeper and attempted to murder one of his best friends, Nick Fury. Obadiah Stane, Aldrich Killian, and Darren Cross were more than willing to murder people they knew and cared for in order to make money, to say nothing of their willingness to release weapons of mass destruction on the planet.

Killmonger is bad, but I'm not sure he's the worst in the MCU. For me, that honor will always go to Kilgrave, from Jessica Jones, who is a psychopath. He just cuts this murderous, rapey, tortuous swath through New York just for shits and giggles. Everyone else in the MCU is after money, power, revenge, or the misguided sense that they are the hero. Kilgrave just does these awful things because he can, he's bored, and it entertains him to hurt people. He's probably the closest the MCU has come to replicating the Joker.

Edited July 31, 2018 by HunterHunted

[scrb]

Why did he have to come back and become king?  Because he wanted to unleash destruction on the world.  So he had to practice for the challenge by killing hundreds of people?  That isn't morally justifiable on any level.

I didn't even mention the barbarism of the way they select kings or even having a king, for such a supposedly advanced society.

Of course for movie purposes, they have to have this big action scene, showing how bad ass BP is, even without the technology and the super powers.

But the aspirational mythology that Coogler is trying to construct is at odds with certain aspects of Wakandan society.

Edited July 31, 2018 by scrb

[ursula]

1 hour ago, HunterHunted said:

Killmonger is bad, but I'm not sure he's the worst in the MCU. For me, that honor will always go to Kilgrave, from Jessica Jones, who is a psychopath. He just cuts this murderous, rapey, tortuous swath through New York just for shits and giggles. Everyone else in the MCU is after money, power, revenge, or the misguided sense that they are the hero. Kilgrave just does these awful things because he can, he's bored, and it entertains him to hurt people. He's probably the closest the MCU has come to replicating the Joker.

I agree with this. As much as Killmonger's actions were deplorable, he was operating from a position of genuine betrayal. Kilgrave's "motivations" were his amusement. 

[HunterHunted]

20 minutes ago, scrb said:

Why did he have to come back and become king?  Because he wanted to unleash destruction on the world.  

No. Because he had seen people of color suffering, sometimes at his hands as he obeyed orders from the US military, and knew that with Wakandan technology and assistance he could end that suffering.

He felt his vision of the world was more correct than the current one. This is basically the ethos of any leader in a war--the War of the Roses, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Civil War, the Russian Revolution, etc. The side effect is that it might destroy the world, but that wasn't his intended goal nor was it the intended goal of any of those leaders who lead their troops into war.

30 minutes ago, scrb said:

I didn't even mention the barbarism of the way they select kings or even having a king, for such a supposedly advanced society.

31 minutes ago, scrb said:

So he had to practice for the challenge by killing hundreds of people?  That isn't morally justifiable on any level.

 

It isn't justifiable on any level to practice for the challenge by killing hundreds of people. However, it's clear that Wakanda is a closed society and that it never anticipated a situation where a Wakandan with no native fight training would challenge. It's a problem they had never anticipated so they had no solution for it. Given that Killmonger's father was murdered, his mother died in prison, he was raised in foster care, and both parents had taught him to be violently radical, it's not surprising to see that he's come up with a particularly violent and brutal kludge to substitute for Wakandan fight training.

Both the selection of a king and that they have a king are some of the most comic book-y elements of the movie. But once again, this is some of the Black Panther canon that existed long before Coogler. All of which was written by white guys. These were the same white guys who had no problem naming M'Baku, Man-Ape.

Coogler's aspirational afrofuturist vision is never going to square all that well with Black Panther's well intended, but still racially iffy origins. And while I'm sure they'll let Coogler use some while ignoring other parts of the canon, I think there is a limit to what he can toss aside. I suspect the Warrior Falls Challenge and the monarchy are two "must have" elements.

[mattie0808]

FINALLY!

Disney really had me worried they were going to leave it at $699+ million forever, when it’s needed such a small push to get over the hump. Only the third movie in history to reach this number. #WakandaForever

[anna0852]

You mean there are still some theaters out there running Black Panther? And none of them are near me?!

[Cobalt Stargazer]

On 7/31/2018 at 2:31 AM, scrb said:

I don't think there's anything noble about him.

He has a point that Black Panther's father abandoned him in Oakland, instead of taking him back to Wakanda.

It's one thing to grow up from that trauma, finding his dead father's body, having a chip on his shoulder.

But grown up, Killmonger killed without a second thought and made a fetish out of all his kills with the markings on his body.  OK this is a comic book world but that number of kills, even some of it from military service, are indicators of a psychopath.

When you add in that Eric couldn't even cry for his father, who was the entire motivator for him to turn himself into a killer, it undercuts even the alleged nobility of his cause. When he visits the spirit realm, which takes on the form of the apartment they lived in, Killmonger says "people die all the time" in response to his dad's "no tears for me, son?" Let's put aside the ritual scars, that he actually tells T'Challa that each kill was 'practice' for the day he'd try and take the throne. I could even accept an inference that the ability to weep had been burned out of him, but the cornerstone of his hatred for T'Chaka and his son is that the former killed his dad and the latter ascended to the throne almost without challenge, since no one anticipated that M'Baku would come down from his mountain and say, "I'll fight you." If he didn't even love his dad enough to squeeze out one tear, it was never justice he wanted, it was power and to reshape the world is his own image.

[ursula]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

When you add in that Eric couldn't even cry for his father, who was the entire motivator for him to turn himself into a killer, it undercuts even the alleged nobility of his cause. When he visits the spirit realm, which takes on the form of the apartment they lived in, Killmonger says "people die all the time" in response to his dad's "no tears for me, son?"

He did cry. 

[mattie0808]

^^^He absolutely did. That was one of the best acted scenes/moments in movie, IMO.

Edited August 4, 2018 by mattie0808

[Cobalt Stargazer]

5 hours ago, ursula said:

He did cry. 

I stand half-corrected, then, since IMO 'people die all the time' is much more indicative of Eric's world view. He was still entirely willing to kill as many people as he had to in order to get what he wanted, including his girlfriend. I like Killmonger as a villain, but it's due to Michael B. Jordan doing such a great job in the role, not because he's at all sympathetic. Take away the backstory about his father, and he's no different than Thanos, imposing his 'balance' on the world whether it needs it or not.

[Spartan Girl]

I agree. Yeah, he wept for his father. But that isn't saying much. Doesn't make all his other murders any less coldhearted. He probably orphaned a lot of other kids too. He loved his dad, he loved power more. So I will never feel sorry for him.

Edited August 5, 2018 by Spartan Girl

[ursula]

I actually love the fact that Killmonger is not one thing. That he's a guy that is at once staring stone-faced at his father's ghost and declaring he's not mourning, while literally shedding tears.  I think the problem is that we've got so used to nuances being used to excuse villainy *cough* Kylo Ren *cough* ?that we've gone back (?) to wanting villains to be one-dimensional. 

But that's on "fandom" (and I mean fandom in the general sense not these boards in particular), not the fault of the story. (At least when it's done right. Cough TLJ cough). 

Like T'Challa himself, we viewers can at the same time appreciate the tragedy of Killmonger, and blame who/what caused it ---- while accepting that he's an evil man that needed to be stopped.

It is possible to hold the image of Erik-the-victim and Killmonger-the-villain in our headspace without the latter erasing the former or the former excusing the latter. 

Edited August 5, 2018 by ursula

[scrb]

Avenging his father's death can be seen as heroic, if we're still living under the Mosaic code.

But those hundreds of kills have nothing to do with avenging the death.  Again, he did NOT have to try to defeat the king in this Wakandan ritual.  He could have poisoned BP or blow his head off while he was unshielded.

So this training for combat by killing others excuse doesn't fly.  Some of his kills were by shooting, like the last 2 or 3 we see on the screen.

What if Killmonger's route was more horrific, like was abused as a child.  Victims of childhood abuse sometimes become violent criminals.  They are both victims and victimizers.

But even in such cases, if they showed that they've killed many times in the past and will continue to kill, they have to be stopped, even if it means putting them down.

 

Anyways, my point was that if they wanted to bring the character back, it would be because they wanted Michael Jordan in future BP films, for box office reasons or whatever.  They may do everything to avoid making him a one-note monster but really there aren't too many moral shades of gray about his quest.

[Apprentice79]

1 hour ago, scrb said:

But those hundreds of kills have nothing to do with avenging the death.  Again, he did NOT have to try to defeat the king in this Wakandan ritual.  He could have poisoned BP or blow his head off while he was unshielded.

True, but poisoning would not work because T'Challa would be able to smell it because of his powers. Shooting him might work, but he  can also heal himself to a certain extent.  

Edited August 6, 2018 by Apprentice79

[anna0852]

Part of Killmongers goal was not only to kill T'Challa but also to take control of Wakanda. He would have to do that through the ritual combat otherwise he would never be accepted as the legit ruler which he did need in order to set his plans and motion. Trying to violently take over the country was not going to work in his favor. But as we saw, taking the legit route worked for him. At least until the Jabari decided that they weren't having this ?

[johntfs]

On 7/31/2018 at 1:31 AM, scrb said:

Why would bringing the corpse of the Claw make him welcome in a society which is suppose to be enlightened and benevolent?

Claw was basically Osama bin Laden for Wakanda.  Bringing Claw's corpse provided a kind of instant respect and interest that just showing up would not have done.

Edited August 6, 2018 by johntfs

[Wynterwolf]

4 minutes ago, johntfs said:

Claw was basically Osama bin Laden for Wakanda.  Bringing Claw's corpse provided a kind of instant respect interest that just showing up would not have done.

Yeah, and that action only appealed to a specific faction within Wakanda.  Like anyplace else, Wakanda isn't a monolith and Killmonger was able to find a point of dissension and exploit it.  

[Apprentice79]

7 hours ago, Wynterwolf said:

Yeah, and that action only appealed to a specific faction within Wakanda.  Like anyplace else, Wakanda isn't a monolith and Killmonger was able to find a point of dissension and exploit it.  

That was the weakest part of the movie. How Killmonger was able to get W'Kabi and the rest of the border to tribe to side with him, when T'Challa who was still their king was shown to be alive. 

[Raja]

2 hours ago, Apprentice79 said:

That was the weakest part of the movie. How Killmonger was able to get W'Kabi and the rest of the border to tribe to side with him, when T'Challa who was still their king was shown to be alive. 

T"Challa wasn't still their King he lost in ritual combat, that the Royal Guard flipped because of a technicality was why the civil war started.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

3 hours ago, Raja said:

T"Challa wasn't still their King he lost in ritual combat, that the Royal Guard flipped because of a technicality was why the civil war started.

I could be misremebering, but when T'Challa approached Killmonger's gathered soldiers, when they're about to launch the ships carrying weapons, doesn't he say something to the effect of, 'As you can see, I'm very much alive. We can continue the challenge now.? Erik retorts that he was the king and the challenge was over, but M'Baku stabbed him in the first fight, so I took it to mean that losing means you die. M'Baku only lost the fight because he tapped out, but he'd already wounded T'Challa fairly seriously. They did think he was dead, due to the whole being pitched off of a waterfall thing, but surviving the drop means the throne was still his. I could be wrong, though.

[Apprentice79]

8 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

I could be misremebering, but when T'Challa approached Killmonger's gathered soldiers, when they're about to launch the ships carrying weapons, doesn't he say something to the effect of, 'As you can see, I'm very much alive. We can continue the challenge now.? Erik retorts that he was the king and the challenge was over, but M'Baku stabbed him in the first fight, so I took it to mean that losing means you die. M'Baku only lost the fight because he tapped out, but he'd already wounded T'Challa fairly seriously. They did think he was dead, due to the whole being pitched off of a waterfall thing, but surviving the drop means the throne was still his. I could be wrong, though.

You are correct. Okoye reminded W'Kabi that the challenge was not complete.  W'Kabi was already on board with conquering the world with Killmonger. The deleted scene between he and Okoye shows that he did not care that Killmonger had prevented T'Challa from bringing Klaw back to Wakanda.  He wanted to be a conqueror and impose Wakandan values on the world.  

The appropriate thing to do was to let the two Black Panthers have it out without interference from anybody. Killmonger's refusal to continue the ritual combat shows his complete contempt for Wakandan culture. In addition, to him destroying the heart-shaped herb.  He was the embodiment of the colonizers whom he purported to hate. 

Edited August 7, 2018 by Apprentice79

[Perfect Xero]

19 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

I could be misremebering, but when T'Challa approached Killmonger's gathered soldiers, when they're about to launch the ships carrying weapons, doesn't he say something to the effect of, 'As you can see, I'm very much alive. We can continue the challenge now.? Erik retorts that he was the king and the challenge was over, but M'Baku stabbed him in the first fight, so I took it to mean that losing means you die. M'Baku only lost the fight because he tapped out, but he'd already wounded T'Challa fairly seriously. They did think he was dead, due to the whole being pitched off of a waterfall thing, but surviving the drop means the throne was still his. I could be wrong, though.

T'Challa only survives because people interfered on his behalf in the contest 3 separate times.

Zuri steps in and stops Killmonger from striking a killing blow. M'Baku and his people fish T'Challa out of the water and put him on ice, without which he would have died. And then team Royal Family gives T'Challa the herb (itself forbidden in the contest) to revive him.

The idea that the contest is still not over because T'Challa's friends and family cheated on his behalf in what is meant to be single combat over and over is rather absurd. N'Jadaka is unquestionably the legal King at the point or the rules of the contest are completely meaningless.

I also think it's kind of irrelevant at that point. W'Kabi was backing Erik at that point because he was doing the things W'Kabi had suggested to T'Challa earlier in the film (sending the Border Tribe army out to conquer before the outside world came to try to conquer them) rather than just because he was the rightful king. The Doras turned and backed T'Challa because they saw Erik was tearing down everything they had stood for as a people. If anything the idea that the contest was still ongoing was little more than a very weak legal justification for an otherwise very justifiable coup.

Now, T'Challa might still have the right to challenge again (hard to tell if it's a one shot type of deal, but I kind of doubt it as it's supposed to be a fight to the death), thought Erik might well have the right to refuse as T'Challa and his side had already shown they wouldn't abide by the rules of the contest.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Perfect Xero

[Apprentice79]

10 hours ago, Perfect Xero said:

Zuri steps in and stops Killmonger from striking a killing blow. M'Baku and his people fish T'Challa out of the water and put him on ice, without which he would have died. And then team Royal Family gives T'Challa the herb (itself forbidden in the contest) to revive him.

Nakia stole the herb from the garden after she saw Killmonger ordered the priestess to burn them, thereby eliminating any potential challengers for the throne and future Black Panthers. The Bast religion is the foundation of their society.  Nakia wanted to give it to M'Baku to challenge the outsider, as she correctly called him. If he truly loved Wakanda he would not have destroyed the heart-shaped herb.  Killmonger cheated first by doing that, so it was game on after that..

Edited August 8, 2018 by Apprentice79

[ursula]

1 hour ago, Perfect Xero said:

Zuri steps in and stops Killmonger from striking a killing blow.

This was a murder, wasn't it? Killmonger killing Zuri. No one addresses it. 

[Kel Varnsen]

On 5/27/2018 at 9:39 PM, Amethyst said:

Erik burning the garden with all the herbs felt incredibly short-sighted, because what if he has a child one day who wants to become the next Black Panther?  But Klaue (sp?) mentioned that there was a ton of Vibranium in the mountain, so much that the Wakandans hadn't even scratched the surface yet.  So I guess they can take some Vibranium and start a new garden.

 

Speaking of the burning of the herb, it would be hilarious if in the sequel Panther and someone are talking about how it is gone and what they are going to do and Shuri just says something about how she figured out how to clone that plant as a science project when she was 8 years old.

[Raja]

25 minutes ago, ursula said:

This was a murder, wasn't it? Killmonger killing Zuri. No one addresses it. 

Since it is an isolated kingdom we can only speculate on what their rules are should someone interfere with ritual combat. Watching the first contest with guard forces ready to strike each other was well as keep the combatants moving closer to a death or surrender decision I can only assume dealing Zuri's interference would not be considered a crime. And it was not considered like Zuri throwing in the towel for his fighter either.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

4 hours ago, Perfect Xero said:

T'Challa only survives because people interfered on his behalf in the contest 3 separate times.

Except it comes back to Erik destroying the herb garden, doesn't it? If T'Challa had died in the fall, if his family and the Jabari hadn't stepped in,, there would have been no one to fill the role of Black Panther after Killmonger. He certainly wasn't going to do it, since his main interest in being king was so he could subjugate the rest of the world. He didn't want to be a protector, he just wanted to conquer and destroy. Which is fine, because he's the bad guy, but it's odd conceptually to be mad because T'Challa "broke the rules" while overlooking Erik's ensuring that no one would be able to oppose him or even follow after him once he was no longer around. Given how he did things, someone would have ended up assassinating him, and then Wakanda would have really been in trouble.

[Perfect Xero]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Except it comes back to Erik destroying the herb garden, doesn't it? If T'Challa had died in the fall, if his family and the Jabari hadn't stepped in,, there would have been no one to fill the role of Black Panther after Killmonger. He certainly wasn't going to do it, since his main interest in being king was so he could subjugate the rest of the world. He didn't want to be a protector, he just wanted to conquer and destroy. Which is fine, because he's the bad guy, but it's odd conceptually to be mad because T'Challa "broke the rules" while overlooking Erik's ensuring that no one would be able to oppose him or even follow after him once he was no longer around. Given how he did things, someone would have ended up assassinating him, and then Wakanda would have really been in trouble.

The question is whether Killmonger or T'Challa is the king, and the answer is pretty clearly the former IMO, it's not about being mad, it's simply what happened. Erik kicked his ass, and multiple people interfering is the only reason that T'Challa is still alive.

Erik quickly showed himself to be a king who was going to tear down everything Wakanda had stood for in his personal quest for power and revenge, but that doesn't change the fact that he was the king and doing those things seemed to be within the scope of his powers.

I'm not saying that him being the legal king made the things he did right (they weren't), or that the rebellion against his rule when T'Challa returned wasn't justified (it was).

It just turns out that having an absolute monarch with seemingly no checks or balances on his powers AND having succession decided by who among the royal blood is better at fighting to the death is a pretty questionable system, particularly when taken together.

[Bruinsfan]

I suppose that's the trouble with keeping the traditions that were set down by an Egyptian panther goddess thousands of years ago when absolute monarchs ruled by divine right.

About the heart-shaped herb, would burning the above-ground garden necessarily prevent it from growing back next year? I know farmers sometimes burn off fields after a harvest to return nutrients to the soil; do some of the roots survive and send up new shoots without replanting being necessary?

[johntfs]

On 8/8/2018 at 10:29 AM, Bruinsfan said:

I suppose that's the trouble with keeping the traditions that were set down by an Egyptian panther goddess thousands of years ago when absolute monarchs ruled by divine right.

About the heart-shaped herb, would burning the above-ground garden necessarily prevent it from growing back next year? I know farmers sometimes burn off fields after a harvest to return nutrients to the soil; do some of the roots survive and send up new shoots without replanting being necessary?

For Wakanda's sake, here's hoping Killmonger wasn't up on his botany.

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, johntfs said:

For Wakanda's sake, here's hoping Killmonger wasn't up on his botany.

Mark Watney would never fall for that

[Ambrosefolly]

On 2/25/2018 at 11:25 AM, Katsullivan said:

Thank you. 

If Wakanda was a real country that had just revealed itself to the world, it won't last a year. Europe and America would set their well-oiled machinery of destabilising governments and invading countries into motion and the narrative would be that they were liberating Wakandans from a communist, totalitarian monarchy and protecting the world from Wakanda's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

 

So basically tehy would turn Wakanda into Iran. 

[Joe]

6 hours ago, Ambrosefolly said:

So basically tehy would turn Wakanda into Iran. 

More like Iraq or Afghanistan. Iran isn't a great place, but at least it's stable.

[ChromaKelly]

 was rewatching Black Panther yesterday and a couple things stuck out to me. 
-The score is fantastic, probably one of the best movie scores. My son is a competitive figure skater and I would love for him to skate to a track from it. Killmonger's theme and Burn It All (when he takes the throne) set the tone perfectly. 
-The upside-down shot of Killmonger walking into the throne room and it slowly rotating. It's both badass and chilling. 
-W'Kabi gets the title of Worst Friend Ever and I hope Okoye dumped his ass forever.
-T'Challa took Erik to see the sun set. That says everything about T'Challa. 

[Fukui San]

1 hour ago, ChromaKelly said:

 was rewatching Black Panther yesterday and a couple things stuck out to me. 
-The score is fantastic, probably one of the best movie scores. My son is a competitive figure skater and I would love for him to skate to a track from it. Killmonger's theme and Burn It All (when he takes the throne) set the tone perfectly. 
-The upside-down shot of Killmonger walking into the throne room and it slowly rotating. It's both badass and chilling. 
-W'Kabi gets the title of Worst Friend Ever and I hope Okoye dumped his ass forever.
-T'Challa took Erik to see the sun set. That says everything about T'Challa. 

Could your son skate in a full Killmonger costume? I'd love to see that.

[ChromaKelly]

7 minutes ago, Fukui San said:

Could your son skate in a full Killmonger costume? I'd love to see that.

Possibly. He is black with dreadlocs so there's that part down ;-D. He's going as Heimdall for our local ComicCon.

[Bruinsfan]

I'm now wondering if rhinestones could be done on a top in a way to evoke Killmonger's scarification pattern.

[ChromaKelly]

10 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

I'm now wondering if rhinestones could be done on a top in a way to evoke Killmonger's scarification pattern.

Ooh that would be cool! 

[starri]

I saw a clip of an actor doing an appearance as T'Challa in costume at Disneyland, flanked by two of the Doras.  And then I realized, Epcot really, REALLY needs a Wakanda pavilion.  I will go stand in line for it NOW.

[Zuleikha]

I finally saw Black Panther. I liked it a lot as a superhero movie--easily one of the best I've seen, although I couldn't personally pick among this, Winter Soldier, or Wonder Woman without having something like a back-to-back rewatch. 

However, I thought the basic facts of Killmonger's mother's story needed to be left in for Killmonger's story to have its full weight. As far as I knew, he wasn't orphaned. Leaving him in Oakland with his mother seemed like a very defensible choice! A few lines to clarify that his mother was in prison and he ended up in the foster care system as a result of N'Jobu's death would have helped make the ramifications of his abandonment clearer to me.

I didn't follow the movie's explanation for why T'Chaka felt it necessary to hide N'Jobu's death and Killmonger's existence, though, since N'Jobu was a pretty cold-blooded traitor at the point, killed in the process of attacking to avoid consequences for his actions. I initially thought the deception was to protect N'Jobu's reputation, but then later it seemed like the movie POV was that it was more about T'Chaka's reputation. 

[starri]

I looked back and didn't see anyone posting this, so I hope I didn't just brainfart and duplicate it.

I have my issues with CinemaSins, but the moment they played the "Bury me in the ocean" scene and just rolled back the counter without making any comment was...yeah.

[Perfect Xero]

22 hours ago, Zuleikha said:

I finally saw Black Panther. I liked it a lot as a superhero movie--easily one of the best I've seen, although I couldn't personally pick among this, Winter Soldier, or Wonder Woman without having something like a back-to-back rewatch. 

However, I thought the basic facts of Killmonger's mother's story needed to be left in for Killmonger's story to have its full weight. As far as I knew, he wasn't orphaned. Leaving him in Oakland with his mother seemed like a very defensible choice! A few lines to clarify that his mother was in prison and he ended up in the foster care system as a result of N'Jobu's death would have helped make the ramifications of his abandonment clearer to me.

I didn't follow the movie's explanation for why T'Chaka felt it necessary to hide N'Jobu's death and Killmonger's existence, though, since N'Jobu was a pretty cold-blooded traitor at the point, killed in the process of attacking to avoid consequences for his actions. I initially thought the deception was to protect N'Jobu's reputation, but then later it seemed like the movie POV was that it was more about T'Chaka's reputation. 

Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think that he hid N'Jobu's death, just the existence of Erik.

[starri]

If the Oscars shut out Black Panther, it won’t be for lack of trying on Marvel’s part. If they can wrangle one winner, I hope it’s Rachel Morrison. 

[Zuleikha]

I think Michael B. Jordan will get a nomination and has a good shot at a win. Likewise, I think they have to be seen as the favorite for Costume Design. Letitia Wright may get a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but I don't see her getting a win (my money's on Michelle Yeoh, although I haven't seen a lot of other movies). I wasn't super impressed with Boseman--he was fine, but didn't seem like a standout--so I would be shocked if he got a win.

[Morrigan2575]

1 hour ago, Zuleikha said:

I think Michael B. Jordan will get a nomination and has a good shot at a win. Likewise, I think they have to be seen as the favorite for Costume Design. Letitia Wright may get a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but I don't see her getting a win (my money's on Michelle Yeoh, although I haven't seen a lot of other movies). I wasn't super impressed with Boseman--he was fine, but didn't seem like a standout--so I would be shocked if he got a win.

Agree with all of this