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Spoilers Black Panther grade and discussion thread

How do you rate "Black Panther"?

  • Total voters
    113
Come to think of it, not only is N’Jadaka not a criminal under Wakandan law, I think he may still be in the line of succession for the throne. If T’Challa dies childless, who is his heir? If women are allowed to inherit the throne, it would be Shuri, but if not, N’Jadaka would be next of kin, no?
 
Shuri becomes queen in the comics and some fans speculate that will happen in the films, too. Letitia Wright has already said she wants to do it.
 
Killmonger had to die because he murdered "Uncle James" and caused a civil war. He had Wakandan blood on his hands.

He never would have settled for a peaceful coexistence anyway. He said it himself. His whole life was focused on avenging his father and taking the throne.
 
Emh said:
Shuri becomes queen in the comics and some fans speculate that will happen in the films, too. Letitia Wright has already said she wants to do it.
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Even if Shuri is ahead of N’Jadaka in the line of succession, that’s not necessarily a bad thing for his cause. She seems like she might be susceptible to his argument. She is extremely proud of Wakandan technology and wants to use it to do good. If you can’t convince T’Challa, try Shuri.

urbandefault said:
Killmonger had to die because he murdered "Uncle James" and caused a civil war. He had Wakandan blood on his hands.
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Was that really murder? When two people are engaged in a legally sanctioned fight to the death and you interfere on behalf of one party, aren’t you kind of inviting the other to use lethal force against you? He was literally asking for it. He actually said, “Kill me.”

He never would have settled for a peaceful coexistence anyway. He said it himself. His whole life was focused on avenging his father and taking the throne.
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I thought he was focused on using Wakandan technology to help his two billion oppressed brothers and sisters. Silly me. He’s really just Inigo Montoya. The political cause is a cover.
 
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Captrek said:
I thought he was focused on using Wakandan technology to help his two billion oppressed brothers and sisters. Silly me. He’s really just Inigo Montoya. The political cause is a cover.
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Exactly this.

Killmonger is the sympathetic hero of some less mainstream movie released by some studio other than The Mouse. Another reason Black Panther stands out.
 
Killmonger could not live a free man. At the very least, T'Challa would have to extradite him to answer for the murders in the museum at the beginning of the movie. His choice was to die looking out over Wakanda, the place he'd lived his whole life working towards, or spend the rest of his life in some prison or other. The only third option would be to surrender and then hope for a chance to escape somewhere down the line.
 
grendelsbayne said:
His choice was to die looking out over Wakanda, the place he'd lived his whole life working towards, or spend the rest of his life in some prison or other.
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Which Killmonger directly referred to when he said:

"Why? So you can just lock me up? Nah. Just bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships. 'Cause they knew death was better than bondage."
 
M'rk son of Mogh said:
He's an irredeemable monster...
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Or, the head of state of a militarily powerful Western nation.

That is part of the argument going on in the movie, after all: should the Wakandans respond to the oppressing colonizers in the way that the colonizers have treated the less powerful folks of the planet? It's very much a "shoe on the other foot" prospect.

Peaceful idealism wins the day because, hey, it's a comic book.
 
grendelsbayne said:
Killmonger could not live a free man. At the very least, T'Challa would have to extradite him to answer for the murders in the museum at the beginning of the movie. His choice was to die looking out over Wakanda, the place he'd lived his whole life working towards, or spend the rest of his life in some prison or other. The only third option would be to surrender and then hope for a chance to escape somewhere down the line.
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Does this famously isolated nation even have extradition agreements with Western nations?

I don’t have the film to refer to right now, but IIRC, Ross indicated that America would not give Klaue to Wakanda, despite Klaue being involved in greater crimes against Wakanda than against America. T’Challa seemed to be planning to steal him before N’Jadaka beat him to it.
 
Captrek said:
Does this famously isolated nation even have extradition agreements with Western nations?

I don’t have the film to refer to right now, but IIRC, Ross indicated that America would not give Klaue to Wakanda, despite Klaue being involved in greater crimes against Wakanda than against America. T’Challa seemed to be planning to steal him before N’Jadaka beat him to it.
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Klaue's crimes against Wakanda were theft and smuggling... Outside Wakanda he was involved in murder, arms dealing and international terrorism.

Regardless, I don't think it even matters if there is any existing extradition agreement or not. T'Challa's entire Kingship is predicated on the concept of opening Wakanda to the world in order to make it better. That absolutely 100% requires Wakanda to gain the trust of the world, and you just don't do that by rewarding terrorists or murderers with total freedom from prosecution. If T'Challa did set Killmonger free within Wakanda, it would torpedo every hope and dream he could've ever had of actually influencing and improving the world.
 
grendelsbayne said:
Klaue's crimes against Wakanda were theft and smuggling... Outside Wakanda he was involved in murder, arms dealing and international terrorism.

Regardless, I don't think it even matters if there is any existing extradition agreement or not. T'Challa's entire Kingship is predicated on the concept of opening Wakanda to the world in order to make it better. That absolutely 100% requires Wakanda to gain the trust of the world, and you just don't do that by rewarding terrorists or murderers with total freedom from prosecution. If T'Challa did set Killmonger free within Wakanda, it would torpedo every hope and dream he could've ever had of actually influencing and improving the world.
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Wakanda has a lot of leverage here. There is no "civilized community of nations" that exists apart from national interests.
 
Serveaux said:
Wakanda has a lot of leverage here. There is no "civilized community of nations" that exists apart from national interests.
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Leverage to do what?

Wakanda is already off on the wrong foot by having to publicly admit they've been deliberately hiding their wealth and military power. The world is automatically going to be suspicious (even worse if Ross tells anyone about Killmonger's nearly successful plan to invade the whole world). If T'Challa then follows that up with treating Killmonger like royalty, who seriously believes that that isn't going to lead to sanctions (which will outright destroy the entire outreach center program) and major espionage efforts (which could easily lead to war, that Wakanda isn't even guaranteed to win since their technological advantage is massively offset by a huge numerical disadvantage).
 
There's also a question of how much sympathy Killmonger would get inside Wakanda once the dust settled. Sure, he brought in Klaue's dead body, but how long until W'Kabi finds out the reason Killmonger was on the outs in the first place was that his father is the one who helped Klaue get into Wakanda and kill his parents, never mind that Erik himself worked with Klaue for years? And once his initial goodwill has been pissed away, what does that make Erik?

Well, he's an American who came up to an African nation waving around a lot of grandiose promises, put himself in charge because he knew better than their backwards and primitive ways, and got to work erasing their culture and exploiting their human, natural, mineral, and technological wealth for his own ends, which he's sure the Wakandan people will go along with because of what they look like.
 
With this weekend's take, the film has cleared $699 million domestically ($699,129,850 to be exact)...and at its current pace, I'm not certain it will reach $700 million. About a month ago, I predicted it would've gotten to that mark by day 100 (which was a week ago) but I had forgotten about the upcoming releases of Deadpool 2 and Solo as well as the film becoming available on home media. Now the likelihood of the film reaching that threshold seems low, which is going to kill me because of my obsession with numbers. The film might make $700 million if it stays in theaters long enough but it's already down to a mere 284 theaters, so it seems unlikely at this point. :(
 
In perhaps in an effort to help the film reach that magical $700 million landmark, the number of theaters showing Black Panther surged from 28 to 154 this weekend, which resulted in earning an estimated $25,000 over the last three days. The film now sits at $699,931,862.

My obsession with numbers loves this sudden surge because it was killing me that it didn't look the film would reach that meaningless landmark.
 
Emh said:
In perhaps in an effort to help the film reach that magical $700 million landmark, the number of theaters showing Black Panther surged from 28 to 154 this weekend, which resulted in earning an estimated $25,000 over the last three days. The film now sits at $699,931,862.

My obsession with numbers loves this sudden surge because it was killing me that it didn't look the film would reach that meaningless landmark.
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There’s always classic movie nights at a lot of theaters. If it falls very short of $700M in its initial theatrical run, it will still have a chance to make it over the line some day.

Hey, give it a one-day rerelease when Black Panther 2 comes out, so obsessed fans can watch a Black Panther double header. That’ll get it over the line.
 
Yeah, both of those will probably happen, but the purist in me wants the film to reach the mark entirely on its initial run.
 
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