Amph Black Panther (Wakanda Forever)

Okoye has some strange desires (Starbucks? Yo she has Bucky in her country, he is a lot better than caramel frappachinos ) Alas, I am still waiting for iTunes to release this for rental.

 

Nothing is better than coffee, not even Bucky.

 

That gif is better than Coffee.

 

Yeah. But good coffee.

 

A lot of people fell in love with Shuri. So much so they wanted to see her meet Peter Parker and Tony Stark and teach them a thing or two. Somewhere down the line, it's conceivable that she could take the mantle of Black Panther.

 

T'Challa is not a quipster.

 

Finally watching it now.

 

So I rented Black Panther.

I liked it. Loved the very end including the mid-credits scene. It was great that it ended on a very hopeful note. That was a neat way to show that T'Challa and Erik were right and that by combing what they both believed in, good could come from their shared efforts.

Michael B. Jordan, Winston Duke, Letitia, and Danai stood out. I loved seeing Angela Bassett as well. Chadwick really came into his own late into the movie, and I think he'll continue to grow as the character. He's quite good. I liked Martin Freeman too, I thought Andy Serkis played Klaue in a, particularly annoying fashion (probably on purpose). I did not find the film as message-centric as I thought it might be from reviews. It indeed is a humanist movie meaning that everyone can take something away from it, or just have a good time. And War Rhinos are the bomb. I love the ancestral plane and that the former black panthers are literal black panthers until they take their human form before those who visit. What will happen with the heart shaped herb? I hope it grows back or that they can synthesize it again.

Quibbles: some of the CGI was absolute garbage. That truly surprised me because the ancestral plane moments were some of the most beautiful and original I'd seen in any recent film and I was looking forward to the end fight as a result. I found myself tapping out frequently because the CGI looked incomplete or rushed. A lot of the fighting was just meh. Okoye's spear work was the most impressive choreography and I could watch her fight all day. She was great.

Klaue was ridiculous in a not-so-good way, and most of the humor did not work, save for two exceptions. The music failed in some spots too, but I understood the choices. Sometimes, I felt Chadwick took a back seat to everyone else; he finally had the chance to be the lead toward the end of the film. That made me wish he had more opportunities to do so earlier in the movie. I understand they had to set up Killmonger and other aspects of the story, but I wanted more with T'Challa. Ditto for Shuri. I was disappointed at how little screen time she had.

Now I want a mini-movie with Shuri teaching Bucky about Wakanda and other things (of course I watched that post-credits scene several times.) Was partially impressed that Sebastian modulated his voice to sound more like the young man we met in Captain America The First Avenger. It was just enough to show that his decades as that dreaded Cold War Myth the Winter Soldier were indeed over. Bucky always has excellent post-credit scenes.

The two bits of humor I did like, M'Baku's vegetarian line and the rhino licking Okoye - which made me laugh pretty hard.

I suspect that T'Challa will be a lot like Steve Rogers in his moral code (and he already is like the MCU Steve in that way).

So when T'Challa comes back, and Steve moves or passes on, I think the MCU is in fine hands regarding a good man who does right by himself, his country, and the world. I suspect future BP films will explore more of T'Challa the man and I look forward to that. Is Black Panther the earth shattering movie that rang in the hype? No. Neither is Infinity War...so...

Does BP show the world that we've got a very talented generation of filmmakers stepping up to the plate? Absolutely. Ryan Coogler delivered a very good film and for a third movie in your dossier, that's ridiculously impressive. I hope he continues to grow with Wakanda. I think it's a beautiful thing that more people will be able to see themselves as super hero or strong roles going forward. Well done.

 

Indeed. Which you won't find at a Starbucks.

 

That... is not true at this point.

The cold brews -- especially both the Cold Foam and the Nitro -- are delicious.

 

"Precious!"

 

I always imagined that someone would ask Trump about his thoughts about Wakanda's announcement and how it would effect its relationship with the US.

Some kid, pretty much did this type of thing with his teacher. The video is awesome.

 

Anybody see Chadwick Boseman honor the Waffle House hero at the MTV movie awards last night?

 

Black Panther's T'Challa Fights Tiffany Haddish for the Crown at the MTV Movie & TV Awards

 

I've seen what you call coffee in NY. Ironically the only people who make it in a way that's not an affront are antipodes. Like most foods, it's awful there.

Also I just saw this film and I was underwhelmed. I don't have the same connection to the African American experience, and I think without that it felt like a very generic retread of the same Marvel formula in terms of the hero is crowned, challenged, hobbled, and triumphant at the end. Dr Strange had all the same story beats, for example. I actually preferred T'Challa of the books and of Civil War I have to say.

But, having said that, I'm so far from the target audience it's not really a surprise I don't feel anything when watching it.

 

It was clearly a Marvel film. That said, the most refreshing departures were:

1. The hero. He was, for once, not “witty” and was explicitly neither the best warrior nor a super spy, nor some absurd super genius. In populating the world with others who bested him in most all major domains, they came their closest ever to creating a believably human character.

2. The villain. This is the first whose goal was really ideologically coherent and had a plan that emerged even semi-naturally from that. Literally every other Marvel villain has been idiotic in that regard; people only ever dare to compare Thanos, and his reasoning falls apart after a good thirty seconds.

3. Like Raimi Spiderman films, it tries to explore at least a basic theme during its run time. What people in power owe the oppressed, and the danger of revenge based strategies is at least a step beyond the generic “friendship is good” pablum the franchise usually offers.

4. Events actually turn on the emotional content of the story (sort of). Compare the order to stand down in this film to the way these films usually have their resolution.

None of these features are ground-breaking. I would hope they were standard features of storytelling. But it highlights their absence elsewhere and the degree to which the MCU has dumbed down even mass entertainment.

 

I disagree on #2, because it was I felt a delicious part for an actor of Michael B Jordan's considerable calibre to chew on. The villains all have some grievance; I don't feel that it was a more compelling plot than Zemo's (which to be fair did have to exist as a response to the destruction of the Avengers films) as an example. Same as #4; I didn't feel emotionally invested (and haven't really I don't think for a while in Marvel films). But again, I'm watching this as an outsider so there's probably an element I'm missing entirely.

Also on #3; the main difference is that the hero in Black Panther was obviously able to read human emotions and do other things Tubgoat Maguire's character couldn't. So, a tick for Black Panther on that one.

 

The wife and I just watched the movie. I enjoyed it just as much, if not more, as I did the first time.

 

Maybe it is a better if I illustrate. Let's look at motivations and plans:

1. Obadiah Stane- Immoral capitalist is unhappy with the new direction of corporate governance. He could have staged a shareholder's revolt. Collected up like-minded people from the shuttered divisions an formed his own weapons company. A millions things that make sense for a person of his background an position. Instead, he builds a robot death suit and challenges Tony Stark to a one-on-one duel.

2. Nemo- Upset over the loss of a loved one, he decides to get revenge. But rather than actually hurt anyone, he decides to make them. . .not be personal friends anymore. Then, rather than simply sending Stark a video that would make him turn against the other Avengers by revealing the identity of his parents' murderers, he conceives of some absurdly complicated "fake" plan designed to make everyone arrive in one location at the exact same moment while a video tape happens to be playing showing the key events.

3. Scarlet Witch- Upset over the loss of a loved one, this Slavic character somehow finds a super-secret organization, then joins them, despite their being explicitly Nazi in their ideology, then decides to help the creation of a robot that literally wants to destroy all life on Earth. Because. .. something. Presumably there is at least a few other people's whose deaths she'd be sad about?

4. Loki- Is an ice monster thing. For some reason he wants to take over Earth, even though that's treated as beneath the notice of Asgardians previously. But now this is so important to him that he makes a deal with some guy that looks like he's slathered in barbecue sauce.

5. Space Elves- Something something ancient power. Or something. Uncommonly good cookies? There was some flying portals and a hammer. So, yeah. that.

I hope you can see, how, by comparison "Thinks the modern world order was founded on oppression so he wants to arm and incite the oppressed to revolt' represents a watershed moment for inserting basic logic into these stories.

I don't mean your emotional investment. I mean the characters themselves. For instance, the Borderlands surrenders when they decide they don't want to kill their friends and relatives over the political cause of some stranger. People make those sorts of choices. Compare that to the tone deaf light-hearted jokes that followed the death of Thor's "best friends" and the complete lack of emotional acknowledgement about the whole thing.

 

I think you're underselling Zemo's plan a bit. He knew the Winter Soldier was key to driving a schism between Stark and Rogers, and played that off. But nonetheless; I agree Killmonger's motives were grounded and I did like how Hollywood went the anti-Bolshevik, safe liberal route in the end.