Black Panther (2018) (1 Viewer)

[Johnny Angell]

I don’t want to see a sequel poke holes into that story.

However, if they had Wakanda technology way back when, think how easy it would have been to bring back Curly for City Slickers 2.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Right before he falls over, T'Challa asks him if he'd like for them to try to heal him, and Eric says no, watches the sunset and dies. But what if T'Challa brought him to Shuri's lab

I don't think T'Challa would disrespect his wishes. Also, I think it would be smart for the sequel to present T'Challa with new conflicts, rather than retreading old ones.

The other complication if he were alive would be what he was up to during Infinity War/Endgame. I'm taking it as a given that Black Panther 2 will occur after those movies, and if he was alive, they'd have some explaining to do. I really think he'll stay dead.

That being said, they might find some way to have him return in a flashback or dream sequence or something. If Michael B. Jordan is not back, it would be Ryan Coogler's first film in which he does not appear, which is why I was taken aback when he died.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Road to Endgame Revisit #17:
"Baba." "Yes, my son?" "Tell me a story."
Right from that opening exchange of dialogue, I knew was in for something special. Right out of the gate, the audience gets a history lesson about Wakanda rooted in a strong oral tradition. We learn the facts of Wakanda, but we also learn how Wakanda tells stories. And we get a glimpse into the personal, because this is a father (N'Jobu) tellng his son (N'Jadaka) a bedtime story.

After the Marvel titlecard, we're dropped into Oakland, California in 1992, the year of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles four hundred miles to the south. N'Jobu is preparing to break the American mother of his child out of prison, when his brother T'Chaka drops by. T'Chaka happens to be the king of Wakanda, and the king is not happy that N'Jobu has abandoned his role as observer for a more interventionist stance. It sets up the central conflict of the movie: Is Wakanda better off keeping to itself and defending its own interests, or does it have a moral obligation to the African dispora all around the world, that has suffered greatly for Wakanda's isolation?

Our jump to the present is initiated with a BBC news report recapping the events of Captain America: Civil War that are pertinent to this movie. We are reminded of the perils of an interventionist stance: T'Chaka tried it after Wakandans died in Lagos, and it got him killed right in front of his son.

This movie picks up with the consequences of that death, which is a transition in power; the king is dead, long live the king. We drop into the jungles of Nigeria, where a convoy of militants is transporting a caravan of young women who have been taken hostage. It is a reminder of the perilous world that exists outside Wakanda. Black Panther swoops in, takes down the militants, and liberates the captured women. We think this is the kind of thing that the Black Panther is for, but no; Nakia was working undercover in the caravan gathering intelligence, and T'Challa wants her to come home for his coronation. That is the only reason for his intervention.

Nakia is an interesting character, because she shares a lot of similarities with Black Widow. They are both spies, infiltrators, manipulators. But Natasha has a very fractured, traumatic past. Nakia does not. When she finishes an assignment, she has a life to go back to. As the movie begins, T'Challa and Nakia are clearly estranged. But even so, observe the tenderness between them as they fly back home, the comfort and sympathy and shared sense of loss she provides him in the wake of his father's death.

The capital of Wakanda, the golden city, is a triumph of production design. It's futuristic, but not in any way that we usually think of futuristic design. It's not Western at all, and the future and the past and natural all are weaved together seamlessly. It flows out of the the landscape rather than juts up from the landscape. It plays as the African realization of the mythical city of El Dorado.

Upon his arrival home, he is greeted by his mother (Ramonda, the recently widowed queen and soon-to-be Queen Mother) and his sister (Shuri, princess of Wakanda and one of its foremost scientific minds).

The first couple times I saw this movie, I really zeroed in on what it had to say about fathers and sons. This time around, I found what it had to say about siblings -- both literal siblings, and the more metaphorical brotherhood (or lack thereof) between Africans and African Americans, Afro-Carribbeans, black Canadians, Zanj, and Siddis) -- far more important. In that sense, the relationship between T'Challa and Shuri is probably the most important one in the movie. And right from that first scene on the landing pad, there is such a contrast between T'Chaka and N'Jobu's acrimonious dynamic and the harmonious love that exists between T'Challa and Shuri. Yes, she teases him pretty relentlessly. But that in and of itself says so much about him, and what kind of big brother he was when she was growing up, that she feels comfortable and safe doing that. T'Challa is not someone who relies on fear; he is someone who nurtures trust.

Everything from the way Shuri dresses, to the way she carries herself, to the decorative flourishes in her lab, speaks to character. Wakanda is a very isolated nation, and one infers that Shuri has led a very isolated life. At the same time, Wakanda is a very advanced nation. It has probably had the Internet, or its own equivalent, long before DARPA started networking computers together in the 1960s. In order to preserve their isolation, there must be some kind of intermediary between Wakanda's internet and the world's internet, its own Great Firewall of China. As princess and one of Wakanda's top inventors, Shuri is not subject to the restrictions of that barrier. She is exposed to the outside world, but primarily though the digital record. Her experience with the outside world is through screens, through recorded media. You see things like zippers on her clothes that you don't see elsewhere in Wakandan dress. But her look is also very individual, it can't be pinpointed to one place, and it uses materials that aren't common anywhere else.

The sequence in the British museum approaches that barrier from the opposite direction. It is presenting African artifacts, but it is doing so -- despite the best efforts of the highly educated and credentialed researchers and curators -- through a flawed Western European perspective. The movie tends to use the color blue to symbolize the West and the forces of colonization, and the color blue is all over this sequence, from the clothes to the sets to even the tinting of the image. It speaks to the complexity of history, the complications that are introduced when outside points of view are imposed.

It's our introduction to Erik Stevens aka N'Jadaka aka Killmonger as an adult, and its our reintroduction to South African arms dealer Ulysses Klaue -- last seen losing an arm to a homicidal artificial intelligence in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Klaue is the mustache-twirling, scenery chewing villain of the movie. He's also a red herring and a MacGuffin, first distracting the audience from Killmonger and then serving as the point on which several characters' allegiances pivot. He has a new arm here, with new tricks. Andy Serkis is great in one of his few live action roles.

The initial coronation challenge ceremony is absolutely breathtaking, and one of the scenes that won Ruth E. Carter her much-deserved Oscar. The level of thought and detail and storytelling that went into the costumes is just astounding. Everything from the river rafts to array of people along the cliffside did so much to sell Wakanda as a real lived in place with long and venerated traditions and history.

The challenge between T'Challa and M'Baku is important. It provides a contrast with the subsequent challenge later on in the film. It shows us what kind of man and what kind of leader T'Challa is. And it provides a basis for the decisions that M'Baku makes later on in the movie.

When T'Challa wins, the coronation necklace is a wonderful organic parallel to the collar on the Black Panther suit; seeing it, we understand where the design of the Black Panther suit came from. In the garden of the heart-shaped herb, we see that it is purple and we suddenly understand why the religious garb of Wakanda is purple. This first visit to the ancestral plane is still cloaked in T'Challa's misconceptions. He sees his predecessors as panthers rather than men. And he is still blinded by his idealization of his father. He is not ready to grapple with his father as a flawed human being. His father sees the dangers in this; T'Challa is a good man, his father tells him, but "it's hard for a good man to be king."

Because blue has already been established as the color of Killmonger and of outside forces, the fact that W'Kabi is wearing a blue cloak when we first meet him foreshadows where his allegiances will shift later on in the movie. That he is T'Challa's childhood friend, and Okoye's love, makes his opposition more fraught. His willingness to embrace Killmonger's vision is one of the key factors that leads to the civil war within Wakanda, and his ultimately unwillingness to go against Okoye is one of the key factors that ends the civil war within Wakanda.

The casino sequence in Busan, South Korea is classic James Bond. In addition to providing a thrilling fight sequence that is primarily told in one continuous shot, it reintroduces Everett Ross from Captain America: Civil War as a Felix Leiter-esque character -- a sympathetic and competent American sidekick with his own agenda whose objectives and sympathies are usually aligned with the protagonist. He serves a number of functions here: He's a surrogate for the audience, exposed to Wakanda for the first time, and asking the questions we might want to ask. He's provides knowledge and strategic understanding of Killmonger to T'Challa and his allies. And he's a mechanism for the filmmakers to comment on things, either through him or in reaction to him. Martin Freeman is appropriately understated in the role. He understands that people aren't turning out to this movie to see him. But he's also plausible as a senior operative for the CIA; everything he knows about Wakanda is turned upside down in this movie, and all things considered, he adapts pretty quickly.

The interrogation of Klaue at the CIA black site is very instructive; T'Challa puts Ross in that room because he wants to observe him, see what Klaue tells him and how Ross reacts to it. One of T'Challa's defining traits is that he is a pretty excellent judge of character. His instinct is to trust Ross, and he's using Ross as a trial run to weigh how the world might react to the truth about Wakanda. When Killmonger launches an attack on the CIA black site to recapture Klaue, Ross is willing to risk his own life to protect Nakia. Such a drastic thing is necessary to justify bringing a high-ranking intelligence official from the outside world's foremost military power behind the veil of Wakanda.

When he wakes up in Shuri's lab, he's Alice going down the rabbit hole. Shuri's line, "Don't scare me like that, colonizer!", kills every time I've seen the movie, and it speaks to the inverted power dynamics at play during Ross's entire visit to Wakanda. But the fact that Shuri has not isolated him in a cell somewhere, where wouldn't be able to see anything of strategic importance, speaks to the depth of trust that she places in her brother's judgement. Shuri may tease T'Challa but she wouldn't second-guess him. That Ross is accepted as much as he is and as quickly as he is in general speaks volumes about who he is.

The sequence at the abandoned airfield likewise speaks volumes about who Killmonger is. He knows that Klaue is his travel visa into Wakanda, and he won't let anything get between him and his goal. One of the starkest contrasts between the two cousins is that T'Challa respects, values, and relies upon the women in his life while Killmonger treats the women in his life like disposable objects. In this scene, he murders his girlfriend to get to Klaue. Later in the film, he kills a member of the Dora Milaje. Perhaps most egregiously, he grabs the female elder by the neck and strangles her.

That disrespect is seen more generally at the second coronation challenge, at twilight. T'Challa comes into that fight badly shaken by the revelation that his beloved father had killed his uncle and then abandoned his cousin in Oakland. Killmonger comes into the challenge focused like a laser on his objective. But he sees the challenge not as a hallowed rite but an obstacle that must be overcome. He disrespects the sacred spear, snapping it in half to make it into a more strategic weapon. And then he kills Zuri. To the people of Wakanda, Zuri is the top priest responsible for preserved the nation's history and traditions. To Killmonger, Zuri is Uncle Jimmy, who betrayed his father and stood by while his father got murdered.

When Killmonger prevails in the challenge, there's a sense that his victory was earned. But it doesn't feel just because there's also a sense that T'Challa is paying the price for his father's sins.

The aftermath is very revealing of the characters of the women that T'Challa has surrounded himself with.

Okoye is a traditionalist. Though she has great personal fondness for T'Challa, her loyalty is to the institution of the monarchy, not any one man. Nakia is a spy and saboteur, and her worldview isn't nearly so black and white. T'Challa is her great love, so she could never forgive Killmonger for killing him. But more than that, from a purely pragmatic point of view, she understands what a disaster Killmonger will be as leader. She steals the bud of one of the heart-shaped herbs before Killmonger has a chance to destroy the rest, with the intention of making M'Baku the next Black Panther. Ramonda and Shuri are loyal to their family, and they follow Nakia's lead because they can't accept the man who killed the man they love. Everett Ross has a similar background to Nakia, and sees the same hazards on the horizon that she does. He also knows that he's only been allowed in Wakanda at T'Challa's invitation, which makes him suddenly very exposed after T'Challa's apparent death.

While the ancestral plane manifested for T'Challa as the African savanna, it manifests for Killmonger as the apartment in Oakland where his father died. The exchange between him and his father allows a vulnerability that he would never allow himself in the real world. The fact that T'Challa's ancestral plane is vast and wide open, while Killmonger's ancestral plane is walled in and claustrophobic, says a lot about how the world has shaped each of them.

When Ramonda, Nakia, Shuri arrive at the top of the mountain, it's basically a Hail Mary. M'Baku isn't their favorite person, but he's better than the alternative. Until this point, we've been observing events from the crown's perspective. But the Jabari keep themselves separate from the other tribes. They are not impressed by the royalty from the golden city. They certainly aren't impressed by a CIA operative who has no meaningful stake in the current succession drama. This is M'Baku's domain, and he wields absolute authority. Nakia is offering him exactly what he's wanted, what he fought for and nearly died for at the beginning of the movie. But he chooses honor over selfishness. He leads the three women to T'Challa, pulled out of the river unconscious and near death.

Angela Bassett is wonderful as Ramonda in this scene; she has been Queen for many years, but she is a woman of Wakanda, and she knows the old ways. Shuri, who has been this genius inventor the whole movie, does not know the old ways. Amidst all of the drama and conflict, there is this wonderful mother-daughter moment where the older generation passes on knowledge to the younger generation. It's the kind of thing that Killmonger was deprived of as a child, with a father who was killed when he was young and a mother who was in and out of prison. Because he didn't experience it, he doesn't appreciate it. That is part of what leads to his ultimate downfall.

So T'Challa is saved, but his salvation is a consequence of how he lived before this crisis. He spared M'Baku's life when he could have killed him. He believed in and trusted these three women. He has qualities that Killmonger does not, and they make his strength less brittle than Killmonger's strength.

T'Challa's second visit to the ancestral plane reflects the ways his perception of things has changed. The African savanna is still there, but the elders are men instead of beasts. He pushes back against them, especially his father, in a pretty disrespectful way -- but in a necessary way. He is not going to repeat their mistakes.

When the supply ship crashes outside the vibranium mine and Black Panther steps out from behind the ruins, it's a thrilling moment. But it's also a moment that speaks to character: T'Challa calls Killmonger out by using his African name, N'Jadaka. He is publicly acknowledging the validity of Killmonger's claim to being part of the royal family. His argument is rooted in the traditions underpinning the monarchy: since he is still alive, and he never yielded, the challenge for the throne was technically never finished. Killmonger's response is very American, and very dismissive. He's in the power position now, and he's not going to let it go on a technicality.

Since the challenge, Okoye has been serving Killmonger because she thought he had won the challenge. T'Challa's argument might not have resonated with Killmonger, but it did resonate with her; her natural allegiance is to T'Challa, and now he has provided her with an institutional reason to support him.

If W'Kabi had backed her change in loyalties, Killmonger would have been defeated without anybody else having to die. But Killmonger was the one who killed Klaue for the border tribe, and W'Kabi still believes in the world Killmonger is trying to create. So traditions and rules be damned, he's sticking with Killmonger. The result is that you have a (fortunately very brief) civil war with Wakandans killing Wakandans.

I'm not sure it works having Ross shooting down the Wakandan delivery ships. The power dynamic shift is interesting, with him essentially taking orders from the 16-year-old girl, but it still seems wrong having an outsider potentially killing Wakandans. It seems like a subplot that was stuck in there because they realized that Ross was still hanging around and needed something to do.

The relationship between T'Challa and Shuri is reinforced in this bath, with each saving the other at various points. There is a moment in which T'Challa is overwhelming, and then he spots Killmonger about to attack Shuri. It gives him the motivation and strength to take all of them out to get to her.

The MCU's version of vibranium, in addition to its comics properties, is basically indestructible like adamantium in the X-Men œuvre. What this movie establishes is that vibranium is vulnerable to sound waves, which weaken its properties. To make transport safter, the rail lines in the vibranium mine are lined with dampeners tuned to the exact frequency that deactivates the vibranium. So they way to get around two guys in indestructible suits fighting each other, they end up on the rail line, where the dampeners deactivate chunks of their Panther suits at a time.

At the challenge, T'Challa was shaken by the revelations of his father's misdeeds, his understanding of the world on shaky ground, while Killmonger had complete clarity of purpose. This time, it is T'Challa who has clarity of purpose. He knows what Wakanda is, what Wakanda means, in a way that Killmonger does not. He has people to fight for, in a way that Killmonger does not. It isn't a coincidence that the killing blow comes from that same broken spear from the challenge; if T'Challa's salvation was a consequence of his choices and decisions, then Killmonger's defeat was also a consequence of his choices and decisions.

But again, T'Challa reveals the kind of man he is. Once he's won, he switches hats, and jumps immediately into the role of concerned cousin. For the first time with Killmonger in the real world, we see the wounded child come out. He confesses to T'Challa the Wakanda he'd always imagined, based on his father's stories. Though Killmonger tried to kill him, though Killmonger set his countrymen against one another, T'Challa recognizes that Killmonger is the result of Wakanda failing to do right by Erik Stevens. He takes the dying man up to the surface, and gives him the beauty of a Wakandan sunset. He offers to attempt medical intervention to save Killmonger's life.

But Killmonger grew up with a mother who was incarcerated. He fears being locked up more than he fears dying. These two men are cousins, but only one of them is the descendant of slaves. It is his African American identity that Killmonger asserts in his final moment: "Just bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, 'cause they knew death was better than bondage."

That the right man won is reinforced when T'Challa seeks Nakia out and thanks her for saving him. He has humility, and also an appreciation that his success depends on the efforts of many.

Throughout the movie there has been this push and pull between the traditionalists and the innovators, and the scenes that follow Killmonger's death hint that perhaps a middle ground between the two is possible:

• After centuries of isolation for the Jabari, we see M'Baku participating in the tribal council.
• T'Challa has purchased the housing projects in Oakland where Erik Stevens grew up, since condemned by the city, and enlists his sister to turn it into Wakanda's first international outreach center. There is an impactful symmetry to having the movie start with two siblings talking in Oakland, and end with two siblings talking in Oakland. What T'Challa's doing is a more positive version of what his uncle was seeking from his father. And while T'Chaka's confrontation with N'Jobu was full of recrimination, T'Challa's conversation with Shuri is pure love.
• As a child, Erik watched his uncle's ship fly away. Here, 26 years later, the local kids see a Wakandan ship arrive. One of the kids, who looks strikingly like Erik as a child, approaches T'Challa. "Who are you?" he asks, a question that has threaded throughout the whole movie, and has had very different answers as the movie's gone on. Here, the answer seems to be: Someone who will provide you will the opportunity to make different choices than Killmonger did.
• This movie deals with a lot of politically fraught subject matter, but only time it really gets into a didactic space is the mid-credits scene at the United Nations, where T'Challa makes an impassioned argument for global cooperation. It works mainly because he spent most of the movie arguing for the opposite position.

Connections to other parts of the MCU: The events of Captain America: Civil War set the events of this movie into motion. Two major characters (in addition to the title character) originated in other MCU movies: Ulysses Klaue came from Age of Ultron while Everett K. Ross came from Civil War. Vibranium, the extraterrestrial metal that allowed Wakanda to thrive, is the metal used in Captain America's shield. The poignant post-credits scene picks up where the Civil War post-credits scene left off. Bucky Barnes has been deprogrammed by Shuri and had the remainder of his memories restored. He lives among the people of Wakanda, a one armed man. He is enough of an oddity that the local children have nicknamed him the White Wolf. I love the gratitude that Sebastian Stan conveys in that scene. And I love the kindness and respect that Letitia Wright brings to Shuri in that scene.

 

[TJPC]

Good lord! When does your book come out?

 

[Sam Favate]

Thanks, Adam! That’s one of the most thoughtful and in-depth reviews I’ve seen yet. You pointed out things I didn’t know and I’ve seen the movie 4 times!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Thanks, Adam! That’s one of the most thoughtful and in-depth reviews I’ve seen yet. You pointed out things I didn’t know and I’ve seen the movie 4 times!

Thanks for the kind words, Sam!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I agree with Sam. Adam, you’ve been knocking it out of the park with all of these recaps but this one was a grand slam.

 

[Cranston37+]

Chadwick Boseman - dead at 43

Chadwick Boseman, ‘Black Panther’ Star, Dies at 43

"Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman has died at 43. His Twitter account reported that he had been battling colon cancer.

variety.com

 

[Matt Hough]

I just saw the news. I could NOT be more shocked! Very, very sad.

 

[Tino]

What??? How terrible.

 

[TravisR]

That's shocking and truly awful. That the Black Panther character and movie was really inspiring to alot of people makes this even more sad.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Holy shit. I didn't even know he was sick. He must have been an incredible trooper to keep working so steadily while undergoing treatment these last few years.

Obviously not at all important in light of a life cut short far too soon, but they're almost certainly going to have throw out their plans for the sequel and start over from scratch.

 

[Jake Lipson]

This year just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?

This is particularly shocking because I don't think his illness was public knowledge. While it was absolutely his right to keep it private, it just feels jarring.

I loved him in Black Panther and was really looking forward to seeing more of him in that role. At least he leaves behind an incredible legacy in it and his other work, and that movie will be watched and loved for generations to come. But that doesn't make it any easier as a fan, let alone how his family, friends and colleagues must be feeling. What an incredible talent gone far too soon.

May he Rest In Peace.

 

[TonyD]

This is truly heartbreaking for me. I don’t know why.

I guess I know why but it is affecting me more then I expect it should.

 

[dpippel]

What TERRIBLE news! He was such a young man. Completely tragic! I swear, I'd like to take this whole fucking year, stuff it into a black hole somewhere, and start all over!

 

[Sam Favate]

This is absolutely dreadful news. So sad about this. What a huge talent.

 

[Tommy R]

So young! He was an amazing actor.

 

[TonyD]

 

[Jake Lipson]

Obviously, I never met him personally (I wish I had), but in all of the press interviews and stuff I've seen with him, Boseman seemed like a genuinely nice human being who deserved all the good things that came his way. It's possible for stardom to go to people's heads, but it doesn't seem like that was ever the case here. His apparent decency and kindness makes this so much worse.

 

[dpippel]

He deserves his own thread:

Chadwick Bosman Has Died at 43

What a complete shock: https://variety.com/2020/film/news/chadwick-boseman-dead-dies-black-panther-1234753232/

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