Black Panther: Slow Motion and Still Life

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Black Panther: Slow Motion and Still Life

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Tenzarin posted:

I read a spoiler and how they have a country to pretend to be a 3rd world country just to hide that they are a super secret technological advanced country is loving hilarious.

You don't need to spoiler this because it was in the trailers.

You just have to suspend disbelief. All superhero movies are absurd. Don't get me started on the Joker in The Dark Knight. Think of Wakanda as a sort of black Atlantis. Superhero comics are full of secret cities.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 19:20

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 22:34

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

garycoleisgod posted:

I generally think Marvel movies are crap and I think Black Panther is one of the better ones, so you can decide what that means for yourself (either it's a really good movie or the kind of person who liked MoS and BvS thought it was better, which could mean it's crap).

The best thing about Black Panther is kinda also a drawback though, because the best thing in this film is Micheal B. Jordan's Killmonger. Most Marvel flicks have forgettable villians, but he's loving great. Unfortunately he's so good I started to wonder why I was supposed to be against him. Chadwick Boseman isn't terrible as Black Panther, but he's so reserved and stoic that he just doesn't draw the interest like Jordan does. They even give Killmonger a very sympathetic origin and goals, so they then have to add some evil poo poo on top of that to try to make sure the audience doesn't just side with him. Like all the kill memento scars and when he kills his girlfriend. A big part of the movie is about how Wakanda is a kinda hosed up place and Killmonger has a point. Personally, I'm Team Killmonger. I predict lots of "Killmonger Did Nothing Wrong" t-shirts (except for all the murder I suppose).

Killmonger's plan is unworkable. He thinks that by immediately distributing vibranium weapons to all the black people, they will all rise up and overthrow Whitey. But he would need a global political movement to do that, not just weapons. Before Communism revolutions took over half the world, Marxists spent the 19th century building political movements and spreading their ideology. Only when there was a robust movement did they start thinking about weapons. It's not unrealistic though. Lots of terrorists actually think like Killmonger, catastrophically misjudging how the masses will behave.

quote:

I am white and not American so some of the political points of view might be a bit foreign to me but I really found it strange that(end spoilers) when Wakanda decides to do outreach at the end of the film, they decide to start in Los Angeles and you know, not their poorer African neighbours. Also, when you consider the history of racial politics and "regime change" Killmonger is a scary man because when he was in the American military they taught him black ops poo poo and how to destabilize nations, but the CIA agent in the movie is a straight up good guy, who gets a big heroic moment at the end of the film. Like, the soldier who was trained to be a killer is scary and evil, but the government organisation that did all that black ops poo poo and ran all those regime changes, their representative in the film is a hero who does nothing wrong. Even at the end, he has a big smile on his face while Black Panther talks to the U.N., like he's a proud dad or something. It's so loving weird.

Ross is just one guy. He doesn't embody the whole CIA and its history. Maybe to him the CIA is just a job; he's just a cog in the machine who wants a paycheck and maybe do a little good while he's at it. Why must you think every thing and character in a film must be a metaphor for something?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 19:31

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

LesterGroans posted:

A guy who works for the CIA representing the CIA isn't much of a stretch for a metaphor.

Considering that Ross's role is pretty superfluous, I strongly doubt he was meant to be anything other than a connection to the wider MCU.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 20:49

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

BrianWilly posted:

the succession system of Wakanda is just, ultimately...really loving dumb? Like you probably shouldn't be talking about how advanced and wise your people are when your monarchy is basically decided through blood sport and also it doesn't even follow any real line of succession but like, all your cousins and neighbors and probably the dude who sells cars a block or two away can just challenge your right to rule through fisticuffs so that's probably something y'all should look into fixing

You don't need to spoiler this because we know this already from the comic books.

The only parallel I can think of in the real world is the Cult of the Birdman that the natives of Easter Island had before European contact. The natives held this competition where athletes would race to retrieve a bird egg from a neighboring island and present it intact to the priests. The winner's tribe would then get to manage the island's resources. It's the only example I know where power is awarded through a sporting competition.

But yeah, I actually think it's a bit insulting to think that an African kingdom would run on chimpanzee politics.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2018 09:37

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

I'm disappointed that Man-Ape didn't show up in a gorilla-like power armor.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2018 17:00

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

The plot unfolded pretty much as I expected from looking at the trailers. I knew that T'Challa would be challenged for the throne by a long-lost relative, because that's the sort of lazy plot you have when the hero is the heir to great wealth and power. We saw this with Thor and Iron Man. I knew this would be the case here as soon as I heard Michael B. Jordan's American accent in the trailers, and the Golden Panther suit. I knew there would be a scene in a museum where Klaue steals a Wakandan artifact. I knew one of the character would remark on the primitive tech of the outside world. The only surprise was the death of Klaue. It's a loving crime that they killed him off, Andy Serkis stole every scene he was in. Serkis would make a great Joker.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2018 17:08

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Killmonger's father we-must-liberate-all-the-black-people mission felt a little odd to me because black people are as fractured along ethnic, tribal, and religious lines as European ones (or even more so these days; there are no civil wars in Europe right now). It made no sense to me that N'Jobu saw African-Americans as "his" people. I'm not trying to be a troll by saying this, BTW.

Kurzon fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Feb 18, 2018

# ¿ Feb 18, 2018 10:35

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

SatansBestBuddy posted:

Ukraine is a thing. I think Spain came pretty close to being a thing recently? Those are both in Europe as far as I remember.

drat, forgot all about that.

SatansBestBuddy posted:

So really, this is a pretty neat movie built within the Marvel superhero framework, meaning it touches on interesting ideas but can't commit to them because it's primarily about action and heroics, with the deeper themes at play mostly being used for motivation, not commentary.

I felt the same about Captain America: Civil War. Plenty of opportunities to explore the nuances of geopolitics, bureaucracy, and intrigue, but the movie was just too much in a rush to show the Avengers clobbering each other.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2018 12:24

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

FilthyImp posted:

It's literally Use Klaue to discredit T'chala and ingratiate himself with Wakandans

I think people are making it more convoluted by assuming the things that happened were strictly to plan rather than a rough sequence of events.

I too struggle to figure out why Killmonger teamed up with Klaw. My understanding is that Killmonger wanted Klaw to sneak him into Wakanda. Klaw refused for some reason I can't remember, so Killmonger went with plan B: kill Klaw and deliver his corpse to the Wakandans to get the king's attention.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2018 18:54

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Dexo posted:

Lmao, you are so smart. Able to figure out the plots of super hero movies.

I didn't mean for that to come off like a brag. Rather, I wanted to express what aspects of this film disappointed me. Previous MCU movies gave us lots of delightful twists: Iron Man 3, Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, etc all had unpredictable plots. Whereas Doctor Strange had a very predictable, formulaic one. I feel Black Panther is on par with Doctor Strange: an old formula done well.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2018 21:14

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Should we keep blacking out spoilers at this point? It seems all the posts now contain spoilers. People who haven't seen the movie aren't coming here.

Killmonger knows how to tear down existing states but he doesn't know anything about building them back up. That's why his plan will fail. How do you think the black people of America will react if they wake up one morning and hear that a bunch of strange black dudes with funny accents are shooting up the Capitol? They will think it's a bunch of terrorists, maybe ISIS. The majority of blacks will not support the terrorists and the blacks in the police and armed forces will fight back alongside their white comrades. There is no global political movement in place to receive Killmonger's weapons and establish a new order. Do you think the Russian Revolution happened out of the blue? No, the Communists had for years built up a mass following which had the explicit goal of overthrowing the existing order.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2018 17:54

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

How often must an incumbent king face challenges for his throne? T'Chaka was too old to fight people, so either nobody wanted to challenge him because they liked his style so much, or they weren't allowed to. Maybe the trial by combat can only be done right after a king dies or abdicates.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 09:21

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

You guys shouldn't overanalyze Killmonger's secondary plan too much because it was obviously shoehorned in by the screenwriters to put innocent lives at stake. At some point in pre-production, the screenwriters realized that T'Challa was fighting to secure his own wealth and status, so they came up with this half-baked idea that Killmonger also wanted to engage in global terrorism for some dumb reason and T'Challa would be a hero for stopping that. It reminds me of Thor and Iron Man 2, where the innocent-lives-in-jeopardy felt like a afterthought.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2018 11:33

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Mazzagatti2Hotty posted:

Yeah I was gonna say, is there a source for this or is it Disney-screenwriter fanfic?

It's my interpretation. The basic plot of Black Panther is the same as the Iron Man movies and Thor 1: some usurper takes control of the hero's fortune and power and casts him out, and the hero has to rise up to defend his status. Innocent lives are only incidentally threatened, like how in Thor he only had lives to save when that metal golem started shooting up the town for no reason other than that Thor was in it, or in Iron Man 2 where Vanko decides he wants to shoot up a crowd for some reason I can't recall.

In Black Panther, nobody in Wakanda objects to Killmonger's plan. Do Wakandans feel kinship to non-Wakandan blacks? The amount of ethnic strife in modern Africa tells me they shouldn't. Wakanda has done well for itself through centuries of hermetic isolationism, so why does it need to reach out? How would the world's black people react when they wake up one morning to hear that some strange black dudes with funny accents are shooting up government buildings? Will they rise up in unison or will they react with horror and confusion? Won't the African-Americans in the police and armed forces actually fight back? It would make more sense for Killmonger to first organize a global black supremacy movement before distributing weapons. What about the Avengers? Does it make sense to use violence when slavery and colonialism are finished and all that's left is casual racism? These are questions the movie doesn't ask, perhaps deliberately. It felt half-assed, tacked-on.

I am not trying to be a troll, BTW.

Kurzon fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Feb 22, 2018

# ¿ Feb 22, 2018 18:54

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Mazzagatti2Hotty posted:

Gotcha. I don't agree with your interpretation that the uprising plot was tacked on, as it seems central to both his and his father's characters, and is the entire reason Erik is abandoned in the first place.

Well maybe Killmonger's attempt to revive the plan felt tacked on. That part could have been excised. What if Killmonger only wanted to avenge his daddy and take the throne?

Kurzon fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 22, 2018

# ¿ Feb 22, 2018 19:41

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

The Moderate Panther

Does it occur to you that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are not political scientists and consequently Wakanda is a totally absurd concept not worthy of serious analysis?

# ¿ Feb 24, 2018 18:09

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Ccs posted:

Yeah I thought that was pretty wack that the most scientifically advanced nation in Africa decides on a ruler through deadly ritualized combat. It's dramatic, but it makes people in Africa look stupid.

The closest parallel in the real world that I can think of is the Cult of the Birdman practiced by the natives of Easter Island before European contact. Every year the natives would hold a competition where contestants would race to retrieve a bird egg from a neighboring islet. The winner's tribe would then get favored access to the island's resources. It's the only example I can think of power being awarded by a sporting competition.

On another note, I was worried that the Jabari would be considered racist because they literally behave like apes. But nobody saw them that way.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2018 21:40

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

LORD OF BOOTY posted:

I think the underlying implication is that the concept is going to have inherent problems that even the most thoughtful take can't truly fix, simply because it was invented by two white dudes who didn't have a great handle on geopolitics or racial politics.

Basically my point. I didn't mean to insult anybody, or discourage anybody from having a little fun, just not to take things too seriously. I don't think Black Panther can teach us any lessons, though it might serve as a starting point for thoughtful conversations.

Rand Brittain posted:

A black person acting like a monkey is probably (I think) less racist when they look incredibly boss doing it. I'd have been too nervous to script that myself, but they made it work.

This movie was written and directed by black people. That was a good call by Kevin Feige. A white director/writer would have either been too timid or would have made some serious gaffes.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2018 21:47

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Does anyone think the Jabari's appearance in the climactic battle was a little botched? Unless they have the power of invisibility I don't know how they snuck up on everybody like that.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2018 23:05

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

i am the bird posted:

Although it is curious that he has the powers prior to T�Chaka dying. Maybe Wakandan kings can have a proxy Black Panther?

Being king and being Black Panther are two separate titles, obviously. Also, it seems that a king only has to face a challenge once in his lifetime because T'Chaka obviously couldn't face a ritual combat in his old age.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2018 10:23

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

temple posted:

why is it wakanda's responsibility to end oppression?

Why would Wakanda even care? Killmonger thought all black people were brothers. In reality, Africans are as broken by ethnic rivalries as Europeans are (or were). Do you know how white slavers obtained their slaves? They bought them from Africans. Most fresh slaves were captives from tribal wars. Sometimes African tribes would launch wars specifically to capture people from rival tribes that they could then sell to white slavers on the coast. What do you think the Wakandans thought when they saw all this? They chose to isolate themselves from the world long before they knew about Europeans. They didn't stop the slave trade because they didn't care about non-Wakandans.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 23:21

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

NecroMonster posted:

T'Chaka, and Wakanda's sin isn't one of oppression. It's one of negligence. Distance, comfort, ignorance, and power afford them the same ability to ignore the horrors of systemic oppression that all those in power enjoy. The question of who begat the oppression and/or who is oppressed is missing the point.

Is this a moral assertion you're making? That the powerful have a duty to help the oppressed?

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 11:30

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Jedit posted:

The white character was put in charge of the most advanced technology and the most important task while the black characters hit each other with sticks. If I didn't know this movie was written and directed by a black man, I would be boggling at how tone deaf that is.

Holy Christ this is a dumb post.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 16:26

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

I don't think there is anything special about Ross being CIA. The writers wanted somebody from the other MCU films to connect Black Panther to the wider MCU, and Ross being CIA made him convenient. They have a good pretext for inserting him: both Ross and T'Challa are after Klaue, which is what brings them together. I would have gone with Maria Hill or Hawkeye.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 19:15

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Avalerion posted:

I think the most important thing about BP isn�t supposed to be any message in the movie itself - it�s just another by the numbers marvel movie. How it could matter is as a signal to hollywood that a �black� movie can have main stream appeal and make millions in the box office, so stop being so aftaid of showing some diversity when casting this stuff.

There have been plenty of movies with all-black casts, even some superhero movies. What gave Black Panther its mainstream appeal is its connection to the MCU. T'Challa is cool enough to hang around with Iron Man.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2018 17:13

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

RareAcumen posted:

I'm not familiar with Black Panther- even less so than most comic book characters like, I had no loving idea who Peter Quill was before GotG- so how did Wakanda get so futuristic? I get that they had lots of Vibrainium but how'd they make the leap from spears to hoverships exactly? Did the fruit back then make people much smarter or was it aliens interacting as well? If the answer is just that Vibrainium is magic and you really start to notice when you've got more than enough of the stuff to smooth over the Grand Canyon and build a mountain on top of it that'd be fine with me.

Wakanda is just another one of those fabulous hidden cities that are common in adventure fiction. Opar, Atlantis, El Dorado, Gorilla City, Attilan, Titanos, etc. They never made sense.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2018 19:28

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Farg posted:

Superman allows oppression to continue even though he could do a lot to end it

Superman hardly ever tackles real-world issues like gay-bashing, domestic abuse, human trafficking, dictatorships, etc., and when he does it's usually in a half-hearted way. He spends most of his time fighting space wizards or whatever. But that's for normal for comic books. Even for Black Panther the whole oppression-of-the-blacks thing is more of a marginal issue compared to these two princes fighting over a throne.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2018 19:40

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

For me, the most remarkable thing about this film is not that they have an all-black cast but that they all speak with African accents. I think that if this movie had been made in the 1990s, they would have reworked T'Challa's backstory to make him an American guy from LA or New York who discovers he's a long-lost Wakandan prince. That way, the hero of the movie would speak in an African-American accent and spout ghetto slang to make him more "relatable". And his costume would be rubber.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2018 07:24

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

Darth Brooks posted:

Vibranium absorbs impacts so I think it would just plop.

Maybe the reason that the raw vibranium glows blue and is so unstable is that it is still holding in all that absorbed energy.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2018 07:28

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

You guys should pick apart the next Spongebob movie for political undertones. That'd be awesome.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2018 10:03

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

garycoleisgod posted:

Yes,the violence would be horrible and cost untold innocent lives.
But if you want change, what are the other options? As I said, we all know the outreach center ain't gonna do poo poo.
How many died in the French Revolution? The American Civil War? WWII? Were they worth it? Whats the difference between someone killed deliberately, accidentally or by inaction?

The more damning part abiut Killmongers plan is it would fail.
1) Arm people
2)????
3) Revolution!
Not much of a plan.

Correct me if I'm taking you out of context, but what about nonviolent change? What about the Civil Rights Movement, the feminist movement, the Indian independence movement, the gay rights movement, etc? All these achieved incredible change through nonviolence. The last time violence did positive change in America was the Civil War, when the slaves were liberated. Back in the days of colonialism and slavery, Killmonger's ideas would have been correct, but in the 21st century they are totally foolish.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2018 12:28

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

I think this movie would have resonated more with the racial angle had the prologue taken place in 1950, during the Jim Crow era. In 1992, race relations were a lot better and the Civil Rights Movement had demonstrated the effectiveness of non-violent protest, so I can't imagine why N'Jobu and then his son Erik could have thought that violence was a good idea.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2018 22:20

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

How well-known was Black Panther outside of comics fandom before this movie? I always thought of Black Panther as a C-list hero. He never had a movie or cartoon show, just some guest appearances on the Avengers cartoons. I don't think anyone outside of the fandom knew who he was. He was, I think, on par with Doctor Strange, which is why I expected this movie to make under $700 million.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2018 15:10

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

temple posted:

fyi: doom won bast's approval. pretty good defense imo

This is the dumbest defense ever. I wonder what Bast's reaction was. What was Doom asking for?

# ¿ Mar 6, 2018 19:45

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 22:34

Kurzon: May 10, 2013; by Hand Knit

TOOT BOOT posted:

Seems like a better plan would have been to give everyone the Black Panther superpowers and armor. A vibranium spear is still just a spear.

If everybody in Wakanda had superpowers it would have been even harder for them to keep their vibranium secret. Wakandans do interact with the outside world, and people would have noticed if they all had powers.

Also, to give everybody powers, they would have to breed enough of that magical heart-shaped herb plant for everybody. They'd have to farm it in such quantities that some seeds will inevitably escape to the outside world, and then the whole world will have that stuff and Wakanda loses its advantage. The Chinese tried to monopolize tea production, but of course it was just a matter of time before some Westerner smuggled out some seeds and started plantations in India.

Kurzon fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Mar 25, 2018

# ¿ Mar 25, 2018 00:48

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Black Panther: Slow Motion and Still Life