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Spoilers Black Panther Wakanda Forever

Apparently the tone of the movie didn't change much after Chadwick died, it was always going to be about grief, except it was about the 5 years T'Challa lost while blipped.

I was surprised it was left as subtext that Nakia didn't come to the funeral (in part) because it was just too emotionally taxing to mourn someone who'd died, come back to life five years later, then died again two years after that, and they never explicitly alluded to the Blip and how that might affect the people who lost T'Challa so soon after getting him back.
 
I'm also not a fan of antivaxxers getting to be a role mode of science.

Good lord, give it up already...

Anyway, I thought the film was a solid 7/10. The reason being, I thought the Ross and Dreyfus scenes were absolutely not needed. I guess they were there to set up the next films they will be in. Ironheart was pretty lame and not really sure of her purpose. Because she invented something she had to be killed? But slavery is wrong? Ok, whatever Namor.

Loved Shuri's character arc, but felt like the Queen was done dirty. Considering how massive Namor said his army was, the ending battle was a bit underwhelming and too contained.
 
Would it be fair to say this origin of Namor is unique for the Marvel film universe? My comic knowledge of him is rather limited, and I agree that for movie purposes it was very well done. :D

My only nitpick in terms of his writing is I felt the movie did a great bit of worldbuilding in having Namor show Shuri his undersea empire and try to genuinely persuade her why an alliance would benefit both realms, because they share many qualities that isolate them from the surface world. Wakanda had a similar crisis in the earlier movies, when T'Challa had to balance the knowledge of how Wakandan resources could benefit the larger world (while also potentially making it easier for that world to see Wakanda as an ally) with the risks of those advantages also being abused, if only out of fear or good intentions that misfired. And it's a nice parallel to Shuri having to struggle with her own rage against the human world, the part of her that wants revenge even if it's the wrong path.

But when Namor later meets with Ramonda, he doesn't share any of that expanded context or try to persuade her the same way. He just blatantly threatens Wakanda and even the possibility of harming Shuri, who is potential leverage as well as perhaps a future ally. He's clearly smart enough to understand that Wakanda could be a more serious threat as an enemy than other nations, as well as a powerful ally, but this just seems a bit odd.

Also, was it ever explained how Namor and his people were able to avoid detection during their incursions into Wakanda? I do recall during his initial appearance, he somehow evaded all forms of detection rather conveniently.

Overall, I enjoyed the film. I'd definitely say it's one of the darker, more mature chapters in the Marvel film universe but not in a bad way. :)

Yeah, the motivations and power of Talokan were never really well explained. Sure they are individually stronger than normal humans and they can defeat a ship full of Navy Seals and one of their leaders has defeated the Dora Milaje general but other than that we just have to accept the fact that Talokan can take on the entire world by itself? I find that not very plausible given what we saw in the movie. In the same vein it's also not plausible that Wakanda can conquer the Earth just by numbers alone - for ever Vibranium equipped Wakandan soldier the world can provide 100+ soldiers - numbers matter ( but then again i am talking realism vs. comicbook superhero movies ;) ).
 
I think the idea isn't that they had the numbers, just that they could use their Vibranium to create superweapons that would be too much for the rest of the world to handle.
 
Unpopular opinion - I liked but didn’t love the first movie. I probably need to see it again and I realise what huge cultural significance it seems to have had to the African-American community. But it wasn’t in my top-tier Marvel list.

I was of course saddened to learn of Chadwick’s too-young death and having since watched Da 5 Bloods, 42 and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, it’s clear he was one of the greats. It was hard not to wonder how Marvel would address his death; it was difficult enough for Chris Nolan making a third Batman film without Heath Ledger, but it wasn’t like he lost Christian Bale. Marvel could be forgiven for secretly wishing they’d cast Boseman as Killmonger and Michael B. Jordan as T’Challa. I’m struggling to think of any comparable dilemma faced by a new but already successful hero franchise.

Anyway, it must be said that in the face of such a difficult situation, Ryan Coogler and crew absolutely rose to the occasion. This film really hit every mark and wrenched every drop of emotion, without wallowing in sentimentality. From the shocking offscreen death (kudos to those who predicted he’d die from natural causes rather than in battle), to the silent all-T’Challa opening credits, to the final scenes of that beautiful man at the end, Boseman’s presence was at once felt and yet was compensated for by the rest of the cast.

I initially rolled my eyes at the clickbait sites talking about an Oscar nomination for Angela Bassett but having seen her performance, I think it would be entirely merited.

BP is one of the MCU films to avoid the usual “marvel villain” problem, with the more layered and motivated Killmonger and this was the case too with the charismatic Namor, who again had reasons for his behaviour. Loved how his tribe was presented and how their visuals, movements and battle formations contrasted with the Wakandans.

The film had a wealth of strong women roles but never felt that it was smug, preaching the point congratulating itself for doing so. If I have a criticism it’s that the status quo seemed to revert with .

I’m really keen to see where the world of Wakanda goes next and also to see more of Namor.
 
I was of course saddened to learn of Chadwick’s too-young death and having since watched Da 5 Bloods, 42 and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, it’s clear he was one of the greats. It was hard not to wonder how Marvel would address his death; it was difficult enough for Chris Nolan making a third Batman film without Heath Ledger, but it wasn’t like he lost Christian Bale. Marvel could be forgiven for secretly wishing they’d cast Boseman as Killmonger and Michael B. Jordan as T’Challa. I’m struggling to think of any comparable dilemma faced by a new but already successful hero franchise.
It's obviously not at the scale of Black Panther, but one of the closest examples that comes to mind for me would be Starz's Spartacus series, which had to recast the title character after the original actor was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after the first season.
 
For those who felt Riri was tacked on for the sake of her upcoming show, producer Nate Moore says she was written into the film without any notion of that she would get her own show afterwards. He also points out important parallels between her Killmonger and Shuri.
 
Not as bad as the last Thor movie, but still ... I expected so much more from this one! I don't know why they needed over two and a half hours to tell a story that would have fitted into a single D+ episode. The resolution was forseeable from the very beginning, and the only purpose of Iron Heart in this movie was to say "hi, I'm the new kid on the block ... watch out for me in the next Avengers movie!"

I know the mid credits scene was supposed to move everyone to tears, but to me it was pure soap opera. At least there was a tiny bit of MCU world building ... I hope that Quantumania will finally get to the point!

Oh, and Okoye has a super suit now ... which pretty much ruins her for me. I always thought she was especially cool because she had no super powers and no super suit, she was just a normal being kicking ass!
 
Well, as we (and she) saw, 'normal being kicking ass' just wasn't going to cut it with Namor and the Talokans, so we can give Okoye a pass in this particular case. She'll most likely hand the Midnight Angel suit over to Ayo (who wore it in the comics alongside her lover Aneka) going forward.
 
Nothing much to add here. I felt the film was pretty much perfect. I had some doubts about Letitia Wright, but she rose to the occasion.
 
I'll say this again. Disney should have re-cast the T'Challa role for the second Black Panther film. I feel nothing but resentment that Disney and Marvel weren't willing to continue T'Challa's arc and used Chadwick Boseman's death as an excuse not to do it. After all, the MCU was willing to recast the Thaddeus Ross role less than a year after William Hurt's death with Harrison Ford. What makes this even worse for me is that T'Challa - a major MCU character - had died offscreen.
 
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