Black Panther: Wakanda Forever SPOILER discussion

Topic

Out this week, so we should probably have a discussion thread for it.

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Reviews are out and seem largely positive so far:

The first reviews are in for Black Panther: #WakandaForever – currently it's #Fresh at 93% on the #Tomatometer, with 75 reviews: https://t.co/B52KOcQTWP pic.twitter.com/NsrhuASORZ

— Rotten Tomatoes (@RottenTomatoes) November 8, 2022

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Todd

That’s to be expected… this movie’s gonna have VERY high ratings, whether it actually deserves them or not… but from what I’ve read it’s not a comedy-fest (for obvious reasons) like the other recent MCU movies, so at least it should be a breath of fresh air… so let’s hope that’s the case.

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Al-x, Todd

For comparison, it’s got 70% on metacritic. Which is probably quite similar to 93% on rottentomatoes…
But Black Panther had 88% on metacritic – so while 70 is still very good for a superhero movie on metacritic, it’s not among the best-rated there.

Just got back from this. I had no real expectations either way, had avoided all trailers but had the cast spoiled by Marvel Legends figure promotion (seriously Hasbro, wait til the film’s out!)

I thought it was pretty solid.

Shuri works better as a lead than I thought she might. Winston Duke does really well out of the absence of any other pre-existing male characters (Posh Kenneth’s absence due to scheduling conflicts is explained away). But the most impressive part is Namor. I guess they felt their hand was forced by Aquaman (which I’ve not seen still) coming out first so this is a broad reinvention of Atlantis on a foundation of Mayan culture and it works really well. Visually appealing and feels like a properly rich culture, equal to Wakanda, which I can’t say I’ve often thought about Atlantis. The guy playing Namor is great and the reinterpretation of “first son of Atlantis” gives him more texture.

There’s a mid-credit scene, which is important, but nothing else.

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Todd

I didn’t love it to be honest.

I could really feel the lack of an engaging main character to tie the whole thing together. They tried with Shuri, Ramonda, Okoye and Nakia as a group, but it just didn’t quite work. Letitia Wright as Shuri is especially weak for me and I just can’t see her leading a movie like this.

The action is all quite underwhelming and surprisingly badly shot at time as well. And I think Riri Williams works just fine as the maguffin scientist that needs to be protected, but her also being this Iron Man knock off feels completely forced into an already overly long film. And the way they reset her character at the end, to lead into her Disney+ series just made me groan.

I did like Namor and all the Talokan scenes. And while I though the way Nakia was handled was a bit messy, I do think Lupita Nyong’o is absolutely stunning and actually has some presence on screen. She should have been the new Black Panther imo🤷‍♂️.

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Al-x

I thought it was good, but not great. It was better than I expected. I liked that they dialed down the jokiness a lot. The nature of the story didn’t lend itself to being funny. It didn’t feel like the typical superhero movie Marvel has been putting out. Namor was a vey pleasant surprise. I look forward to seeing more of him. I never really warmed up to Shuri but she did fine.

Overall, I thought it was better than expected but nothing spectacular.

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Rocket

I really liked this a lot, judging by other views probably controversially, more than the first one. Mainly because it felt less formulaic than most MCU films. We got a villain with a level of complexity in Namor, the emotional beats really worked for me, especially the very final scene being contemplative rather than a gag or teaser reveal (although the latter came mid credits). The main leads got their chance to make bad decisions but understandable ones.  The music choices were also outside the norm.

A refreshing change of pace for me and the best of phase 4 (no I didn’t love the fan service level in the Spider-Man one).

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Hank Cannon, Todd, njerry

I enjoyed it quite a bit. I actually liked Shuri as a lead. It was an incredibly difficult position for a fun, supporting character to be thrust into the lead role. Especially the reason her character had to take over. It was a lot of weight to carry. Now, I think Lupita Nyong’o is a better actor? Yes. Would I have been okay if the mantle went to her? Absolutely. But it definitely made more logical sense for this to be about Shuri.

Namor was, and should continue to be, a good addition to the MCU. I’ll be looking forward to more Riri as well. This was a movie with a lot of strong female leads that didn’t feel the need to remind you that it was a movie with a lot of strong female leads, if that makes sense. I really appreciated that.

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Hank Cannon, Todd, Martin Smith

This was a movie with a lot of strong female leads that didn’t feel the need to remind you that it was a movie with a lot of strong female leads, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I definitely get what you mean. It had the self-assurance in its characters that it didn’t need one of those cringe moments that Endgame had of the female heroes all ending up in the same place during the battle so the film could beat you over the head going “look how bad ass they are!”

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Todd, garjones, Chris D

Yeah that stuff is always more effective if it’s just taken as natural and normal.

There was an interesting line from Riri where she mentioned being black and then realising that’s not really a factor in Wakandan society.

[Al-x]

Probably the best the MCU put out this year. (I don’t exactly have a listing of everything released in front of me.) As I said before, it might be for the best to put the comical content in streaming and the more serious material (sprinkled with some comic relief) in the big screen.

Now… Let’s get the FF in the MCU asap for Namor! Loved the wings, the green shorts instead of a speedo. The origin modification fit the MCU better.

Every new character is going out of their way to say they are a mutant 🤣

All these ancient herbs, I swear…

Maybe Shuri could have avoided all that if she extended that conversation with him in Atlantis. Countered with a treaty? Atlantis has vibranium, but no real tech being underwater. Atlantis could have offered to trade some of their vibranium for favors etc. being that Wakanda is on land.

Namor was right: They let the cat out of the bag in saying they had vibranium.

As advanced as Wakandan society is, and having that tech would call for objectivity to make such innovations, they still bind themselves to rituals and belief systems that should be seen are archaic if Wakandans are that objective.

Shuri took some of that Atlantis DNA to complete their super soldier serum.

They let the kid return to MIT…

The colonizer’s ex-wife

Nakia went to live Haiti while pregnant with Toussaint. She did what she felt she had to do, but it was step down.

Does the movie miss Chadwick? They did the best they could

Having these Atlanteans there all this time… like the Eternals were supposedly there in history all along. Too many MCU contradictions to get into.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Al-x.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Al-x.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Al-x.

garjones wrote:

Having these Atlanteans there all this time… like the Eternals were supposedly there in history all along. Too many MCU contradictions to get into.

I don’t know if it’s a contradiction really.

The origin they gave was they left the land and only went back once to bury his mother. It’s only Namor who can breathe properly out of the water so that’s pretty strong motivation to stay where you are. It noted rumours of a wing footed man but which is pretty much the kind of legend you’d get with one-off sightings, wider society wouldn’t believe it even if you took photos.

The Eternals are a bit harder to explain away as easily because they are always among humans poking their noses in and fighting Deviants with super powers.

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Al-x

Black Panther Wakanda Forever’s twist ending ruins X-Men hero’s introduction

JRCarter wrote:

Black Panther Wakanda Forever’s twist ending ruins X-Men hero’s introduction

“This would obviously be a crying shame for fans of the X-Men who no doubt expected the MCU to follow the comic books a little closer.”

Fuck them.

The movies are their own thing with their own continuity. And who’s to say he won’t have an X-gene?

I initially read “Charles Xavier’s hit squad” as “Charles Xavier Shit Squad” and thought that was a bit of a rude way to refer to the X-Men.

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Todd

Dave wrote:

I initially read “Charles Xavier’s hit squad” as “Charles Xavier Shit Squad” and thought that was a bit of a rude way to refer to the X-Men.

“Hit squad” isn’t exactly all that more polite.

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Todd

Literally never even heard of that character.

Martin Smith wrote:

Literally never even heard of that character.

Same. But also, they could easily age up kid T’Challa, have him become Black Panther and meet and marry Storm. Or bring in T’Challa from another universe. Or they can continue to do their own thing.

But it’s not like the X-Men are even in the MCU yet. Sure, we’ve seen Xavier out in the multiverse, but that’s it. That article is just a weird, lazy complaint for the sake of complaining.

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Todd

Chris D wrote:

That article is just a weird, lazy complaint for the sake of complaining.

That describes pretty much 99.99% of articles on the internet.

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Chris D

The movie was enjoyable. Was lucky enough to see it on opening night here in my area. Not that much of a fan of Namor. I do know that he’s the first mutant. When he mentioned that he was a mutant was nice. I guess his background and origin were different but his character was close to the comics. Namor is kind of an a-hole from what I’ve heard of his character and I did kind of got that vibe from him. Riri was good though not that familiar with her character from the comics. Would’ve been cool to have Bucky help out Wakanda in this movie since he owes them a lot but after Falcon and Winter Soldier, there was no chance of him making an appearance. Overall, the movie was good. It did get a reaction in my theater so I guess that’s something.

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Hank Cannon, njerry

francisg wrote:

Riri was good though not that familiar with her character from the comics.

She’s pretty much the same as the comics although they have aged her up from school age to college.

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francisg

[Al-x]

Regarding continuity: Did Namor lose half of his people for five years?

T’Challa disappeared for the 5 years, reappeared but stayed a year or so until his untimely demise.

Now I hear this movie marks the end of Phase 4…

Interesting pic:🤣🤣🤣

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Al-x.

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JRCarter

[Al-x]

I knew about that Universal deal from the Hulk TV series. In fact,

Marvel comics got Stan Lee to develop She Hulk before Universal

made their own female Hulk for the show.

But I didn’t know that Namor was also in that deal.

 

Marvel got so many characters copyrights scattered here and there,

go through a few hoops to get them on screen and they

still do better than DC.

 

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Al-x.

I don’t believe it is copyright.

Marvel can make a Hulk movie but they signed an agreement when Incredible Hulk came out that Universal had to distribute any Hulk sequels. Since the Disney buyout they do their own distribution and don’t want to hand money to Universal. That’s why Hulk has featured many times and they are free to do a She-Hulk show but we’re unlikely to see another Hulk titled solo movie.

There probably is a web page listing on who has what from Marvel.
At least Marvel got back the X-Men and FF, and they can “borrow”
Spider- Man.

It would just be good to have Namor “available” when they get around
to MCU FF.

But he is available to be in an FF film. He just can’t be the eponymous character in one.

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garjones, Al-x

Ian Smith wrote:

I didn’t love it to be honest.

I could really feel the lack of an engaging main character to tie the whole thing together. They tried with Shuri, Ramonda, Okoye and Nakia as a group, but it just didn’t quite work. Letitia Wright as Shuri is especially weak for me and I just can’t see her leading a movie like this.

The action is all quite underwhelming and surprisingly badly shot at time as well. And I think Riri Williams works just fine as the maguffin scientist that needs to be protected, but her also being this Iron Man knock off feels completely forced into an already overly long film. And the way they reset her character at the end, to lead into her Disney+ series just made me groan.

I did like Namor and all the Talokan scenes. And while I though the way Nakia was handled was a bit messy, I do think Lupita Nyong’o is absolutely stunning and actually has some presence on screen. She should have been the new Black Panther imo🤷‍♂️.

Ian’s post summarises the main points that I went away with, as well. Saw it yesterday, and yeah, my main problem was that Letitia Wright just isn’t charismatic enough for a lead. Her performance is also just too wooden, plus even with BP super-powers it’s not very believable that she’s suddenly an expert fighter when her background is just science. Lupita Nyong’o would’ve been able to carry the performance, and Nakia would’ve been a much more believable Black Panther. So there were some very basic decisions that weren’t right. I’m afraid I had the same problem with Angela Bassett, who is of course a great actress, but she was just so forceful in all her scenes… she didn’t make a great co-lead in this, I’m afraid.

Also, the plot didn’t work very well for me:
– The entire plot was based on a conflict that could’ve been worked out in five minutes by the main characters doing a bit of proper diplomacy. Take the kid to Wakanda, add the kind of treaty that Nato has where an attack against one state means that the other has to join them. All done, pretty much. Yes, things go wrong in diplomacy in the real world too and all that, but we don’t even see any of the characters suggesting reasonable solutions, of which there would be a whole lot. It’s all based on the main characters being dumb as shit, which is always an annoyance.
– The whole movie was just too long and they should’ve trimmed a lot of fat. At the same time, some aspects of it, like Ross’ role and Riri as a character, were underdeveloped. You could easily have explored some of those by cutting down on long shots of Shuri mourning, or by cutting out the whole Okoye being fired thing which didn’t serve a single purpose in the plot.
– Riri as Ironheart felt tacked on and like it didn’t really fit the movie. Like it was just there to introduce the character to the MCU. Like I said, they would’ve had the time to introduce the character properly, but if they couldn’t do that, they should have let it be with her being a genius student and leave the rest for later.

And two more things that are more about mood and style:
Too many of the scenes and too much of the dialogue were over-explicit or over-intentional. Stuff that was explained that would’ve been better left for us to figure out ourselves, moments that were just there to make sure that we really got it. (Like, the opposite of what Tony Gilroy did so fantastically well in Andor.) The peak of that was the Queen apparently shouting from beyond the grave to Shuri to “Show him who you really are!” because the series of flashbacks we got to really drive that point home apparently wasn’t sledgehammer-y enough. That moment made me laugh out loud, I’m afraid, because it was so terrible.

The other one is… Yes, this was a moment about mourning, and a lot of it was pretty bleak by nature. And that’s something you can do, sure – you can make a grim, bleak action movie that leads to the light of hope at the end of it (see: The Batman). But here, they tried to have those light moments of snappy banter, too, and they all fell completely flat. Didn’t laugh once at any of those bits, they were just dead in the water. Especially Riri’s lines, who had quite a few that were supposed to be light and funny when she was in Wakanda, but which didn’t work at all.

Things I did like:

– I liked Namor and the whole Atlantean Inca vibe, that all worked pretty well and was visually very nice. And Namor made for a better MCU antagonist than almost any before him.
– There were some spectacular visuals overall, especially some of the underwater stuff.
– Some of the action was well done, and I liked the first big battle.
– M’Baku was fun.
– They certainly made sure to show how much Chadwick Boseman meant to them and to respectfully say goodbye to him.

I think this may have been the weakest MCU movie in a long time, for me.

Marvel Studios Wanted TWO Black Panthers Simultaneously In the MCU

Chris D wrote:

I enjoyed it quite a bit. I actually liked Shuri as a lead. It was an incredibly difficult position for a fun, supporting character to be thrust into the lead role. Especially the reason her character had to take over. It was a lot of weight to carry. Now, I think Lupita Nyong’o is a better actor? Yes. Would I have been okay if the mantle went to her? Absolutely. But it definitely made more logical sense for this to be about Shuri.

Namor was, and should continue to be, a good addition to the MCU. I’ll be looking forward to more Riri as well. This was a movie with a lot of strong female leads that didn’t feel the need to remind you that it was a movie with a lot of strong female leads, if that makes sense. I really appreciated that.

I completely agree with you. I also enjoyed the show a lot and thought Shuri did a great job as the lead. It must have been a huge responsibility for her character to take on, especially considering the circumstances, but she carried it well. I do think Lupita Nyong’o is a fantastic actor, but I can definitely understand why the mantle went to Shuri in this case. It made logical sense and I’m glad the show didn’t feel the need to constantly remind us that it had strong female leads. That can sometimes be distracting and take away from the story. I also really liked Namor as a villain and am looking forward to seeing more of Riri in future episodes. Overall, I thought the show had a great balance of strong female characters without it feeling forced or preachy.

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Hank Cannon, Christian, Todd, garjones

ehh… unsurprisinlgy, I didn’t like this either… too slow and boring overall, with quite bad CGI… again… and I absolutely hated the music throughout the movie (not my taste AT ALL).

Angela Basset was the MVP, no big surprise there.

Iron Heart was absolutely unnecessary and just a plot device.

Shuri was fine, but not that charismatic to replace Boseman going forward.

I like the actor who played Namor, I didn’t like him as Namor… he did a good job but he just looked wrong, and I don’t mean the face or the mexican features, it’s just the dude was just not in the shape I would’ve expected for such a character, and his design was a bit bleh… I did LOVE what they did with the flying, that was a very cool thing, like he was jumping on the air with the wings. So I was very mixed on namor, didn’t hate him, didn’t love him, but I can live with it I guess… I’m not a fan of that silly lazy explanation for atlanteans tho.

Action was sparse and generally bad I have to say, nothing had that “whoa that shit looked insane” factor (some of Namor’s scenes had it a bit ’cause of the weird flying, but not really), and once again it was too CGI-y, like waaay too obviously.

So yeah, pretty mediocre overall.

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Al-x

Late to the party as ever but I finally managed to see all of this.  Wound up having to watch it in chunks over three evenings but hey ho.

I do appreciate this movie. They handled Boseman’s passing in a tasteful manner. The fact that the first movie was so impactful placed a burden on how to treat Wakanda going forward and I think they did a decent job in navigating that. At its core this is a story about a young woman dealing with the loss of her brother (and mother) whilst unexpectedly carrying the hopes of a nation on her shoulders, all set against the backdrop of international resource politicking. That’s heady stuff for a superhero movie and it was refreshing to have an MCU movie that skewed away from the typical quip-tastic irreverence in favour of gravitas.

That said, there were some inherent problems. Again, the movie was longer than it needed to be. With some very minor tweaks to the plot all of the Ironheart and Martin Freeman stuff could have been ditched and the running time trimmed down to well under two hours. I get the reasons for them inserting backdoor-pilot parts to these movies but this seemed like the most egregious example of it since Iron Man 2.

The movie was also way too dark at times (in terms of visuals, that is). Perhaps this is just my eyes now being of a certain age and trying to watch telly late at night but there were several scenes where I really had no idea what was going on, especially the Chicago chase scene and the attack on the research vessel.

Namor was obviously the stand-out here, much as T’Challa was in the Civil War movie. He could stand to be a little bit more of a dick but thankfully his final conversation with Namora was essentially “I promise to be more of a dick next time.”

They didn’t really clarify how much Wakanda is doing to help internationally (in non-vibranium terms) but one would hope they can at least provide significant support to MCU Haiti.

saga wrote:

Again, the movie was longer than it needed to be.

My only serious complaint about the film

saga wrote:

I really had no idea what was going on, especially the Chicago chase scene

Especially when you consider that the car chase took place near MIT in Boston/Cambridge….

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Todd

It was so dark I had no idea where it was. Toronto, eh?

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Todd

Finally got around to watching this.

It is a damn fine farewell to Boseman, they nailed that.

Tanoklan was smartly done but Namor was a macho idiot.  Too bad Shuri wasn’t allowed to slice his nuts off.  Still, you can say its true to the comics because he’s a bastard there too.

Schiff was oddly wasted as a guest star.

The final resolution with Namor didn’t work for me, he has no honour.  The rest of it? Pretty much worked OK.  It’s easily Marvel’s most serious film to date but there was no ducking that with how things are.

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Hank Cannon