Dude, too much logic. Focus on the cool lights and the anti-vibranuim gag.
(which means you are absolutely correct)
Maybe if this weren’t an MCU movie I would have liked it better, even if it was exactly the same movie.
It stacks up well against the origin movies like Thor, Captain America, or Dr. Strange. It wasn’t nearly as fun as Thor Ragnarok, but that’s with the benefit of well-established characters and the ability to play against their known types.
That ended up being literally my only disappointment with the movie! And it’s hard to call it that, because now we get this wonderful orchestral score interwoven with the beats from the Kendrick album (and a couple choice songs) on top of the best Marvel movie since the first Avengers.
I don’t have much to add that wasn’t already covered in the podcast, but I would note that the very deliberate pacing in the film doesn’t just establish stakes for a bunch of brand new characters. It also lends the whole kingdom of Wakanda a sense of majesty and gravitas that simply wouldn’t exist in a quicker movie. It’s very Lawrence that way. I don’t feel a frame was wasted.
And truly no one expects surprise war rhinos!
Hmm… Do you have aphantasia?
One of my pinball teammates does, and he processes things, especially spatial information, very differently from me. We’re both math people, so we can see it abstractly in the way I have lots of geometric intuition but he has an almost purely algebraic intuition, far beyond what my algebraic capacity allows.
What do you mean you don’t buy it? We were shown the trains earlier, along with the explanation of the rail system that deactivates the unstable vibranium. Your impressions read like you were in the bathroom for large swathes of the movie.
It very well might have. Possible spoilers for Infinity War:
The purple soul stone has not yet been accounted for. The ability for Wakandan rulers to visit with their ancestors seems like it might be a manifestation of said stone. Plus, from the trailers, there seems to be some reason for Thanos’ forces to attack Wakanda.
Yep. It mostly sucks. Though, like your friend, I have a much better mind for algebra than geometry, to the point that I’d always find ways to convert geometry problems to algebra problems as quickly as possible so they’d make sense. All the shapes and angles confused the fuck outta me, but nice, comforting numbers I could deal with.
But yes, I have essentially no sensory imagination or memory. My mind is a storehouse of words, and I’ve gotten pretty good at using that method, and sometimes even speak in common idioms (“I imagine he’s a very ugly dog, Ted”), but it’s more or less an endless black void in my skull. Blah.
I’m imagining a mine. They’ve carved a mineshaft deep into the mountain of vibranium. There, at the very bottom of the mineshaft, is a set of tracks for minecarts to take the vibranium out of the mine.
In this picture, it doesn’t make much sense to have minecarts traveling 60 miles per hour horizontally. From out of sight in one direction to out of sight in the other direction. The point of a minecart is to get ore out of the mine. Also, generally mineshafts are not wide enough at the bottom for the train we see to make any sense.
Maybe my picture is wrong. Maybe there is a giant cave under there, that stretches for miles in every direction, and for some reason they want to carry vibranium all the way across the bottom of that cave before taking it up to the surface. Maybe. But that still seems like about the least efficient way to get ore out of a mine that I can imagine.
Of course the whole thing makes basically no sense anyway, since wouldn’t the vibranium-deactivating devices also deactivate the trains, since they are presumably made of vibranium, as all Wakandan tech is? Wouldn’t those devices be considered the most dangerous items in the world to them, as a single one in the wrong hands could probably bring down their entire civilization in a day? I mean, basically anybody could murder the king in his sleep with one of them.
Don’t you guys get it, man?
The ‘train’ is the Underground Railroad.
Yes, there is. That’s what they show in the movie!
Shuri’s lab is in the giant cavern which houses the mining operation. Presumably the underground trains carry the unrefined ore to a processing facility elsewhere.
There are various facilities within the mine between which the trains carry the vibranium ore/product. Some of the tracks are slightly inclined. For vertical removal there is a lift which carries the finished products up.
-xtien
I’m totally down for digging into (heh heh) the logistics of mining vibranium. Black Panther’s Wakanda trains seemed perfectly plausible to me. Admittedly, everything I know about mining I know from this scene:
There’s a whole lotta lateral movement going on and it seems pretty fast to me.
-Tom
I thought of a much better way to illustrate my argument:
Also it reminded me of this, and I don’t like to be reminded of this:
The key here is “once you’ve gone home.” You have no idea how many times some people have watched these movies. I barely recall the Gladiator music, but that is in part because I’ve only seen it a couple of times, and the last time was probably more than five years ago.
It’s also a bit of literary affectation, in fairness. I don’t think I’m significantly better able to hum Background Swell #37 from Avengers 10 minutes later versus 10 hours later. My mind just jettisons this info.
Damn y’all gotta stop replying me in this thread until I’m able to see the movie. I have no idea how far back to scroll now ;-)
I just saw the movie. One part that I immediately did not understand is how Michael B. Jordan’s character possibly won a fight with a purple heart juiced T’Challa.
I mean, they make this stuff out to basically be the same thing as Captain America’s super solider serum. In fact, in the casino scene, we see T’Challa jump from the floor to the balcony (a super-human feat).
But Michael B. Jordan, a strong but still ordinary human, just kicks his ass? Huh?
I’ve seen Gladiator maybe… twice. I’ve got a feeling I could pick the theme out pretty quickly… It was a… remarkable piece. Black Panther’s theme… if he had one, didn’t stick at all, I’ll probably see it again this weekend but I expect it won’t again.
I could pick out almost any movie music. That’s easy. The question is, can I recall it, note for note for long stretches of music, in my head without having it played for me?
I can do that with movies that I’ve seen repeatedly, like Star Wars. I know the Imperial March. If you gave me a piano, I could probably sit down and slowly pick out the tune. I cannot do it with movies I saw once or twice a long time ago, like Gladiator. Someone would have to play it for me for me to then recall it.
In fact, right now, I keep trying to recall the Gladiator music, and the music that plays when he’s fading out, returning to his wife while touching the wheat keeps running together with Babu Yetu from Civilization in my head. :)
For Gladiator… yeah pretty close, the one song. The one they played a gazillion times when it won a ton of awards. It’s very moving. I could probably sing the main part now. It’s a great piece like Braveheart has but it’s… long and slow so the main themes aren’t as pronounced.
Black Panther has this soundtrack people seen to love, rap heavy, and some drum heavy pieces I enjoyed but it doesn’t have a theme that stay heavy.
I wonder if @ArmandoPenblade might like the heavier pieces, and of course I couldn’t resist summoning him back.
They were both unpowered in the first challenge fight. Then, they were both powered up in the final fight.
No they weren’t. T’Challa was already king, and had already been given the purple heart juice in his first fight. Michael B. Jordan’s character had not (unless I missed them giving it to him quickly).
We know this because that first fight between them took place after the whole casino scene and car chase, where T’Challa was doing superhuman shit. Then on top of it, if I recall, they actually gave him more of it right before the fight. Though I’m not sure why, since it is supposed to stay with you forever (which is why Michael B. Jordan’s character had them burn it after they had finally given it to him, which only happened after he defeated T’Challa).