Black Panther - Marvel's Wakandan Avenger

Great movie and a great step for superhero and film in general, but…

Are we just going to ignore the ridiculous ruling system of Wakanda?

Even with all their technology and intelligence, they still have a patriarchal, feudal system of kings? Women are allowed to be super badass military generals, but that’s it. They’re not allowed to lead the country. And the King has carte blanche to do anything he wants, including jaunting off to America and killing his own brother without anyone even asking what happened.

And everyone realizes that the movie was about what amounted to a coup, right? I mean Michael B. Jordan’s character won the fight fair and square, as far as everyone there knew. Why have this insane tradition of trial by combat to determine the new ruler if you aren’t ready to accept the consequences?

I mean I guess the country could work as long as everything is going great and nobody is unhappy or questions anything. But the second some Wakandan girl asks “daddy, why can’t I be the leader of Wakanda” it’s all going to fall apart. How did it survive as long as it did?

I just came back from seeing it with my son and I have mixed feelings about it. Everything good people said about the movie up thread and elsewhere is right, but we were both squirming in our seat 2/3 in waiting for it to end. I think that part of the problem is that Evil Plot™ was just too vague to get flustered about, and not too evil at that…

This is the one thing that annoyed me in this movie. They really couldn’t figure out something better?

Isn’t Nakia the warrior representing her tribe when T’Challa is first going through the ceremony? Nothing else said a woman couldn’t be the ruler, and that moment seems to indicate she could’ve rightfully challenged for the throne.

As for the legitimacy of Killmonger, T’Challa is correct that he technically never yielded or died, but also since in a lot of ways the movie was about the Wakandan society changing, I’m okay with what was certainly going to be a coup if they hadn’t found him still alive.

Someone please tell me there is at least one credits scene that helps set the stage for Avengers 3.

Spoilers for anyone who doesn’t want to know about the end credits:

Thanos beams into Wakanda and says, “Are we just going to ignore the ridiculous ruling system of Wakanda? Even with all your technology and intelligence, you still have a patriarchal, feudal system of kings? Women are allowed to be super badass military generals, but that’s it. They’re not allowed to lead the country. And the King has carte blanche to do anything he wants, including jaunting off to America and killing his own brother without anyone even asking what happened!”

And then he starts firing his lasers.

It’s a competent movie, but to call this great, I’m missing it. It’s not even really an origin movie as this is just another black panther in a lineage of black panthers. Humor was sorely missing, so I’d group it with the original Captain America.

I’ll probably get yelled at but to me it’s your standard “my daddy died, I’m going to get revenge” story.

I really liked it.

What really impressed me was that in a lesser movie, we’d have gotten scenes juxtaposing Killmonger’s childhood with T’Challa’s. How Erik’s lack of a father and life of transience, violence, and poverty as an orphan in Oakland informed his adult revolutionary ideals, set against TChalla’s careful and privileged life of royalty in a country that’s arguably more wealthy and compassionate than any other on the planet. Coogler knew we didn’t need that because we already have a pretty good idea of what growing up poor, black, and without a father in America means. We can all fill in the gaps because it’s a story that we’ve all heard countless times. That’s some bittersweet use of shorthand to tell a a story.

Also, I would watch a whole movie with nothing but Shuri, General Okoye, and Nakia.

Yes to that. But also, I’d watch an entire movie with nothing but the smirking adventures of Klaue. Give us a prequel for his original vibranium heist!

I re-watched Avengers 2 the other night, and I’d completely forgotten he was in that. I was like ‘hey, it’s that dude from the Black Panther trailers- oh, my, there goes his arm. Can’t wait to see how that resolves’. Not seeing BP until Wed night, though. :(

I quite liked it.

I really enjoyed it. I didn’t love it as much as I expected, but I loved several parts of it. If they spent half as much effort in making me care about Asgard as they did Wakanda, I’d probably care the other one is gone. Visually, the movie is stunning, and I don’t just mean technology advances and CGI, I mean holistically someone had a something to show us and they pulled it off.

This movie has some of the strongest supporting characters in the Marvel Verse, and it really made me want and think they have enough secondary, non-hero people now that maybe we’ll get the heroes in trouble and see a movie about them. The villain has to be a top villain too due to being believable. I didn’t spend a much of the movie wondering or doubting the motivation. Civil War made Black Panther’s POV and decisions a lot more believable in this one and… ummm

This might be the first movie, or just moment in life, where I heard a black individual referenced to a gorilla in a positive way…
it made me cry.

Black women having a range of hairstyles, or lack of, and clothes, well it was refreshing to see.

I don’t think it tops the ensemble movies but for the origin movies, definitely at the top, even towards the top for the solo hero fairs way up there.

Winston Duke also really stood out for me, which is surprising how good the whole cast was.

I saw this today and liked it, but was also a bit disappointed… mostly due to high expectations, which is on me, but is still part of how I experienced the movie. With the word out of the previews I was expecting the best Marvel movie thus far, and it wasn’t that. It did have maybe the best full cast of characters that we’ve seen so far - put me on the list for just watching a movie about the ladies - and I could have watched them introduce beautiful new scenery in that cool font all day long.

On the less great side, the back third or so of the movie (everything after Jordan shows up in Wakanda to challenge for the throne, really, except maybe the very end in Oakland) comes straight off the Marvel By The Book Predictable Resolution Assembly Line. Which is their thing, I get it, but almost by definition kept it from being the paradigm-changing experience that part of me was hoping for.

Enjoyed it quite a bit, particularly the first half. As noted, the beats of the last 3rd are too predictable.

Best part of its story is the parallel between T’Challa and Killmonger. One is the product of African culture affected by colonialists and the other an idealized result of a fictional Africa unblemished by foreign powers. One seeks revenge and redress for these wrongs, while the other ignored these wrongs to protect itself, its freedom and wealth. And of those two characters, one influenced the other more than vice versa, and it wasn’t the hero.

Tickets were a tough get on Saturday. I thought the first third of the film dragged a bit, mostly in the service of setting up the parallel vignettes. But definitely the most substantive Marvel origin movie. Nice use of BP characters over the years, from Klaw to Agent Ross.

Complaints were few, mostly the intrusive soundtrack and the leisurely pacing. Definitely could have been 10-15 minutes shorter with no real impact. But then audiences, including me, are pretty tolerant of Marvel movies going over 2 hours.

Spoliery: wow, they really glossed over that Killmonger was trying to start a race war.

I need to see that South Korea action sequence again. Especially the part in the casino. Absolutely brilliantly shot. So clear, long uninterrupted takes.

I was pleasantly surprised with the soundtrack, actually - I was expecting something much more ‘annoying’.

The movie was good, but doesn’t take the top spot for me - it seemed a bit more predictable or by the numbers than I was hoping for. I enjoyed General Okoye much more than T’Challa, to the point I wish she was the main character. And always nice to see Serkis given a chance to play a role outside of a mocap suit.

I thought it was great, predictable plot and all. Wish we had our own real world Wakanda to be discovered.

Yeah, I watched it yesterday, and really enjoyed it. I went in with low expectations (I didn’t particularly like the character in the movie he was in), but came away really invested by the middle of the movie. Like @Djscman said, it was kind of exhausting because it was about so many different things, and that would be my main criticism of it. I still had a lovely time, but I do wish they had narrowed the focus somewhat. And having the big battle at the end, both outside and the between the two Panthers was kind of anticlimatic in terms of payoff.

Very nice movie. I’d recommend it.

It’s been long enough since I’ve seen the older Marvel movies, that I didn’t remember any connections. I was surprised to read the posts above. So Andy Serkis’ character has been seen before? We got to see how he lost his arm? We’ve seen Vibranium before this movie? I guess I’m glad that not remembering any of that didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the movie because it wasn’t important in this story.

Vibranium is what Captain America’s Shield is made of…

It wasn’t a big thing- in Age of Ultron, Ultron wants Vibranium to make a new body, so he hunts up Serkis’ character, who’s just stolen a big load from Wakanda. Ultron pays him for the stuff, but right then the Avengers show up and a fight ensues. Ultron ‘accidentally’ rips his arm off in the fight (whoops!), but Serkis escapes with the aid of his henchmen and we never see him again. The Vibranium gets used to make Vision’s body. Like I said above- I’d totally forgotten it was in there until I just rewatched the Avengers/Infinity Stone movies in preparation for BP and Infinity War.