Black Panther

I'm likewise back from the film. My God I love this film more than anything in my life. The afrofutiristic aesthetics, cultural references, the traditional african soundtrack (despite what the trailers would lead you to believe, rap/hip-hop is absent for 99% of the film), philosophical musings on Africa and black people, tribal politics powerplays, mysticism, rich layered characters, pumping action scene, this film has absolutely everything.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

I'm both happy and disappointed. The African soundtrack is much more fitting for a movie like this. However, as a huge Kendrick Lamar fan, I bought the Black Panther soundtrack instantly and really liked it. I wanted to see how they would incorporate it in the film.

Still excited for it, nonetheless.

Rap has its place in the sequences set outside of Wakanda (South Korea, London, California), but since this movie is unabashedly African in the most glorious way possible. It is so bizarrely refreshing to see a film where people randomly lapse in a native African language (Xhosa, I believe?) during conversations, speaking in very thick African accent, wearing vibrant tribal clothes, beads, piercings, and all being portrayed as a very layered, respectable and multidimensional society rather than a exotic object or a gang of savages.

The fact the soundtrack is more concerned with drumbeats and singing in native tongues rather than latin chanting and violins just adds to the effect.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

I'm a bit torn about all of that since around here the people who go for the whole traditional culture pride, glorious civilisation stuff also tend to be reactionaries.

So I kind of have a knee jerk reaction here.

Wakandans have been isolationist reactionaries for much of their history. Social progress and genuine revolution has come fairly recently.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Well, they've got a very good bass section, mind, but no top tenors, that's for sure.

Some friends of mine really want to see this, so guess I'll have my thoughts on it later today. The vague impression that I've gotten from reviews is that it's a very different Marvel film in terms of focus and themes, with a strong dose of world building and surprisingly little comic relief (by Marvel standards anyway). I'm curious to see how that turned out, because pre release materials made it sound downright painful with both how implausible the world building is (comic book microstates are often like that; looking at you, Doom) and how fundamentally American its whole viewpoint is (not helped by the fact that a country set within the borders of modern Ethiopia has its characters played by West African descended Americans speaking Xhosa... which is kinda like having Sokovians being played by French Arabs speaking Kazakh because, you know, foreigners). In any case it'll be refreshing to view a Marvel film as an actual film instead of having all criticism shut down with "it's a comic book movie, you can't criticize anything about it because those things are SUPPOSED to be terrible."

edited 15th Feb '18 12:29:34 PM by NogaiKhan

1) I see your Zulu quote.

2) Marvel used Xhosa because the actor who played T’Chaka in Civil War speaks it; he taught some to Chadwick Boseman. So it might be silly in universe but the out of universe explanation is sweet so I don’t care.

Just saw it. It is good! One of the better ones, go watch it. Marvel movies have gone a long way, I hope they keep making good ones like this one.

“You can’t be an important and life-changing presence for some people without also being a joke and embarrassment to others.” -Mark Manson.

That's such a hilarious concept, I want to actually see it.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Yeah I know, but they could have also hired someone who speaks one of the Afroasiatic or Nilo Saharan languages from that area. At least get the right language family. He was only in the film for like two minutes. It's a minor detail, but it creates that impression going into the feature, you know? The impression that the movie is falling into the trap of "all foreign cultures are interchangeable because the people have a somewhat similar phenotype and are on roughly the same land mass, and that's how we view it in America." Like Interchangeable Asian Cultures.

edited 15th Feb '18 12:40:25 PM by NogaiKhan

Let's all just pretend the Wakandans invaded from the Deep (African) South and completely did not mix or trade or mingle with their surroundings.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Well, that doesn't really help. The idea that a super-advanced isolationist state would have zero interaction or impact whatsoever on its neighbors is itself bad world-building. Bad for a film that apparently emphasizes world building and real world issues.

edited 15th Feb '18 1:01:41 PM by NogaiKhan

The movie addresses pretty much all of our complaints (aside from the pretentious "criticize it as a film" snide comment which really, doesn't need to be addressed).

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Wakanda being a technologically advanced isolationist enclave is kind of just part of the premise of Wakanda. It does stretch credulity a bit, but plenty of things in the Marvel canon stretch credulity in a similar way, and here it has a definite purpose. After all, it boggles the mind just how differently the history of the entire world would have changed had Wakanda leveraged it's Vibranium-derived supertechnology into global political power. They would basically have to rewrite the entire history of the world, much less the plot of literally every other Marvel movie, in order to make that stick, so in this case I think it's the lesser of two incredulities.

Furthermore, the movie's plot, despite featuring a Lion King-esque succession crisis, is actually about Wakanda's foreign policy and how this philosophy of isolationsim which it has cleaved to for so long- which made perfect sense from the standpoint of the Wakandan state for centuries- is no longer suitable for a modern world.

yey

I read a review mentioning that Wakanda would probably work better as an island. Thoughts?

That would make it easier to be an isolationist... until the 20th century.

Where there's life, there's hope.

I'd assume Wakanda have some cloaking technology and easily be able to repel any of the Europeans.

A good adaptation would get pragmatic and cut out the stupidest parts. Like say making Wakanda akin to Singapore with certain small secret sci-fi government programs, which has had considerable (but still relatively small) cultural and economic exchange with the countries on the coast, instead of basically making it an alien enclave on Earth that doesn't follow any known rules of politics, psychology, or economics and has had zero effect on its surroundings despite being a massive deal by real world standards. An example of such pragmatism would be how the MCU pretty much edited down Civil War to its bare essentials. Wakanda's premise doesn't necessitate it being a terrible bit of world building and narrative fiat... that's a huge risk of the premise, but a good writer can make it work while still keeping the essentials.

Though it doesn't sound like that's what they did. I'll have to see how it works out. The reviews sound promising, at least.

Definitely would for simple reasons of geography. Wakanda in its current form would be swamped by millions of refugees unless they adopted a "kill all foreigners on sight" policy which is, seemingly, what they did. In the comics they made themselves a land island with an impossibly high and thick wall.

edited 15th Feb '18 5:24:38 PM by NogaiKhan

Irony thy name is Wakanda.

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!

Which is why alt right trolls have (ironically?) claimed B.P as their favourite hero. With countless gormless idiots parroting that talking point because they’re sick of the hype ( like I get it, it’s honestly a little much but ... have you take a look at who’s running the White House ? Let people have their fun) .

Although from what I’ve heard the movie has taken the track of the better written B.P comics and thoroughly criticised that viewpoint making them look like idiots.

Shocker.

Watched this yesterday.

Oh man. I am actually IN Busan for my leave and it was such an amusing experience watching the scenes taking place in Busan.

If nothing else, the audiences in the theatre got a good laugh everytime the cast tried to speak Korean. XD

Speaking of which, I really appreciated how often the cast spoke to each other in African language. One of the things I really appreciated about Inglorious Basterds was that English is spoken by only those who are either expected (British, American) or specifically noted for being able to.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Just got back from seeing it with friends. It's good, but I'm honestly pretty disappointed. Were it not for the more diverse cast and aesthetics, this movie would easily be seen as paint-by-numbers Marvel. I know that of any Marvel hero the one to get a classical Hero's Journey type story would be Black Panther but that doesn't make it any less uninspired watching it.

Killing Klaw is a ridiculous waste, especially given how entertaining he was. The fact that neither he nor Killmonger survived the movie still demonstrates a lack of foresight when it comes to the potential Marvel's villains have. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character yet again.

The supporting cast really make this movie. One of my friends pointed out that out of the whole cast, T'Challa is probably the most boring. I still liked him, but again, he's a more conventional hero than he had to be - but I'm always down for a "What does it take to be a good leader/King" story.

Other than the soundtrack and visuals though and a pretty epic climax...I wasn't blown away. It had an awesome cultural flair but that doesn't excuse that it's a pretty basic type of story we've seen before. I don't expect many people to be agreeing with me on that because the movie has so many diversity and culture points going for it - but imo, that diversity and culture deserved a better story, even if the representation was there. Also I feel like Killmonger's whole philosophy wasn't refuted strongly enough. I could easily see him being seen by some on the alt-left (which does exist) looking at him as a Draco in Leather Pants with far more valid points than he deserves.

Good movie, just not as original as I expected it to be. That being said, kudos to it for being more standalone than most Marvel films.

"A king has no friends. Only subjects and enemies."

Burning the heartshaped herb crop is just the most egregious act of vandalism.. and also doesnt make much sense for Killmongers goals. I mean, it would have been way funnier if order one had been "How long would it take you to grow enough for every Wakandan above the age of 14?" He wants world conquest, right? Panters by the millions would be the logical starting point for that.

mod note: added spoilers. it just came out today, dude.

edited 15th Feb '18 11:40:07 PM by nombretomado

SPOILER TAGS PLEASE.

Pretty sure this is what I'll be saying tomorrow

edited 15th Feb '18 11:40:22 PM by thatindiantroper