Black Panther - Pre-release Thread
- Thread starter JD
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Fair enough and normally I would concede on that point because I do miss things. However, because I listened to the soundtrack multiple times prior to the film, I noticed the few songs use when they appeared right away. With that in mind, if I did mess them, then they're probably not that overt in the first place and shouldn't be a "problem."
Jeez - it was O.K., a 7 out of 10 movie, but not exactly that.
Pretty, decent plot, well acted but not exactly 'Wow'...
The CGI rhinos? They were never all that convincing to my eye. Especially wearing the vibranium armor.
They don't bother me as much as Black Panther and Killmonger in the fight.
Yeah, they looked like cartoon characters there.
Yeah, readable, but it's not Black Panther. I wouldn't even give 7 out of 10 to something that's barely useful to torture high-schoolers and literature majors.
BP has already made more money than Justice League did in it's entire run, and it had a bigger four day opening than The Last Jedi.
Wow, I was expecting it to do well, but not quite like this. I loved it, so I think it deserves this.
Wow, I was expecting it to do well, but not quite like this. I loved it, so I think it deserves this.
When I see all the joyous, hopeful reactions from black audiences (and others) to the utopian vision that Wakanda offers them, I realize that it's the same way my generation and the one before it reacted to the Federation in Star Trek. This is more than just a movie to a lot of people. I think it's going to have a lasting impact. And I haven't even seen it yet...
I'm still offended by the fact that we needed a fake African country to make Africa "cool". I guess people are cool with it though, so what do I know.
Well, it's tough to see a lot of hope in Africa when even one of their major cities (Cape Town) is experiencing a terrible water crisis, and climate change is going to hit that continent hard. As of 2012, half the continent was living on less than $1.70 a day, and their resources have been pillaged over the years by foreign powers.
That's exactly why Wakanda is such an appealing fantasy. Africa is a wreck because of centuries of rapacious colonialism. Wakanda is a vision of an Africa that was never tainted by colonialism, and that's aspirational. The value of ideals is that they're better than reality. They give us a vision of a better possibility, and thereby motivate us to make the real world better.
Like I said, that's why Star Trek was so revelatory and powerful to generations of fans, especially female and minority fans for whom the very idea "you are included in the future" was deeply empowering in a way their daily experience of real-world oppression and marginalization had never been. Countless people were inspired to become scientists and engineers and astronauts and doctors because of Star Trek. How many future scientists will be inspired by Shuri?
You're so confused...
Star Trek gave people a vision of a better FUTURE. Wakanda is a vision of a PAST that never was. If that's your hope, then all hope has been lost.
Why can't Wakanda be a vision of what we can aspire to create or become?
Hope works in all directions and you can't say what does or doesn't inspire people.
Aren't we going to need vibranium to become this vision?
Not really, that's not how visions work. You don't need anti-matter to unite humanity, or to be inspired to go to the stars, or aspire to make a medical tricorder.
You're taking it too literally. Superhero movies are metaphors. Captain America is literally a super-powered soldier. He is metaphorically a statement on America, how it sees itself and an ideal for it to live up to and to inspire. Wakanda is the same- it doesn't 'exist' in the same way Captain America doesn't exist. But the metaphor still holds power, in both cases. The better Marvel movies are the ones that leverage that metaphor to give them added power- this is why The Winter Soldier is so well regarded, because below the superhero action there is a lot of substance to what you are seeing. Black Panther is similar- it operates on two levels, what you're literally seeing, which is not real (just as Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor and Asgard are not real) and what it is saying, which does reference, comment on and influence our contemporary reality.
