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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph Black Panther (Wakanda Forever)

Discussion in 'Community' started by Sith_Sensei__Prime, Jun 9, 2017.

  1. Rylo Ken

    Rylo Ken Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Dec 19, 2015
    The whole enterprise makes me feel uncomfortable. First, see Wocky's astute comment above, second, isn't it just tone deaf to name a super hero after a political movement? In Chicago, for example, Fred Hampton's assassination is a terrible chapter in Chicago's history. Third, it just seems dumb to have a black character with the word "Black" in his name. Like "Meet Joe Black" starring Morgan Freeman. If this is ok, where's the reboot of "Blackula"? You know you want it.
     
    dp4m likes this.
  2. Adam of Nuchtern

    Adam of Nuchtern Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012

    The character was created before The Black Panthers were founded.
     
  3. Rylo Ken

    Rylo Ken Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Dec 19, 2015
    So it's dumb luck/unlucky coincidence of 1966 names. But really dumb and really unlucky.
     
    SuperWatto likes this.
  4. SergeyX2017

    SergeyX2017 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Jan 14, 2017
    Would be awesome to see him fight this guy
    [​IMG]
    Just to see who wins lol
     
  5. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    May 25, 2000
    #blackpanthersolit
     
    Sith_Sensei__Prime likes this.
  6. Alpha-Red

    Alpha-Red Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2004
    Wait, so we saw a bit of Wakanda in Civil War, as well as in this trailer...it looks like a modern metropolis. So what the hell is up with Klaue saying that it's some kind of hidden civilization that no one can find?
     
  7. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    That wasn't Wakanda in Civil War. The opening was in Lagos, Nigeria. The issue was that Wakandans were among the dead there.
     
    Darth Punk likes this.
  8. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    I thought we saw Wakanda at the very end of Civil War, after some superheroes relocate there? Havac

    It doesn't just look modern, it looks futuristic. Just from the trailer, I'm getting the sense that they have a few people "pretend" it's a poor 3rd-world country in a remote location... but it's really a sci-fi wonderland... and they do this extreme isolation to keep the country's prosperity and sovereignty protected.
     
    Jedi Merkurian likes this.
  9. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    It's in one of the after-credit scenes, yeah. Bucky's going into deep freeze in a lab and the camera pans to show the lush rainforest of Wakanda outside. But since that's all that was shown, I don't think that's the scene Alpha-Red is thinking of depicting a normal modern city.
     
  10. Jedi_Jade-Skywalker

    Jedi_Jade-Skywalker Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 8, 2000

    Technically, Black Panther (July 1966) came before the Black Panther party (October 1966). There's also the 761st Tank Battalion called the Black Panthers in WW2 and were one of the best tank battalions in the US Army. Based on timeline alone, I'd say their legacy and that of the comic book character take precedence over the terrorist political party who hijacked the name.

    Black Panther 761st Tank Battalion
    -Presidential Unit Citation
    -1 Medal of Honor
    -296 Purple Hearts (8 with clusters)
    -11 Silver Stars
    -69 Bronze Stars

    Black Panther- first black mainstream comic book character....still popular and about to be featured in his own movie 51 years after his first appearance.

    I'm certainly aware of the history of the BP party, but all the good from the tank battalion and comic book character outweigh that, IMHO.

    And I'm definitely looking forward to the movie. Hopefully it'll be better than most Marvel movies.
     
    Sarge likes this.
  11. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Terrorist political party?

    Sigh.
     
  12. SuperWatto

    SuperWatto Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 19, 2000
    You know, to call that one African American superhero "black something something" is already kind of off. Are there any Caucasian superheroes where the color of their skin is referenced in their superhero name?
    "Look! It's Lilywhite Tiger"
    "Look! It's Pink Parakeet"
    Chinese superhero.
    "Look! It's Yellow Yak"
     
  13. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    Well there was the White Tiger in Marvel, though he was Puerto Rican.

    The White Queen Emma Frost.
     
  14. Master_Lok

    Master_Lok Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 18, 2012
    Looks epic and fun. I'm in.
     
  15. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Yes, but Frost's appellation is not an explicit reference to her race. The name is objectionable for the reasons you highlighted, but also a product of an era that made villains like "The Mandarin" which was just a wholly unreconstructed Asian stereotype.
     
  16. Sarge

    Sarge Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 1998
    The Tuskegee Airmen also had a black panther on their uniform patches. I have one of my own. Did y'all know I'm a Tuskegee Airman? Obviously not one of THE Tuskegee Airmen!

    Anybody know if Sam Wilson/Falcon is in BP? I can't get enough of that character.
     
  17. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001

    I thought he was being sarca--


    ... oh.

    Yeah, no. :p
     
  18. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2002
    The FBI, local law enforcement such as the Chicago and LAPD, and the Nixon administration did such a good job demonizing (and murdering) the Black Panthers.
     
  19. Alpha-Red

    Alpha-Red Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2004
    Mmm well either way, it's not like you can hide the existence of New York City or London from the rest of the world.

    So what should he have been called...just "Panther"?
     
  20. Master_Lok

    Master_Lok Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 18, 2012
    I dig the concept of naming your character after a big cat whose color helps him blend in at night. Panthers are predators. This feline preys on those who would harm his people and community. The whole idea that Klaw builds up about Wakanda gives this country a mythological, epic feel. He and his team went in as hunters and wound up as the hunted.

    i love that this a royal family are pro-active in many, many ways; they are warriors and diplomats.

    P.S. where can I sign up to learn staff fighting from the lady? :D
     
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  21. SuperWatto

    SuperWatto Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 19, 2000
    You assume there was a need to create the character in the first place.
     
  22. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Before making this post, let me be clear that I hold nothing special against this character. He stood out really no more or less than any of the other characters incessantly punching one another in that Captain America movie. His mini-arc about rejecting the impulse for revenge was at least a small moment of interest. Nor am I trying to nitpick. But the film has the potential to be hugely problematic, especially in that we're likely to be subjected to some unsubtle suggestion that it is the most important moment in American race relations since the Civil Rights Act of 1965, and in that the character was pretty implicitly tied up in the image of black people, inflected through the eyes of a middle-aged white man who stole lots of others people's ideas for comic books.

    The "El Dorado" thing was stupid beyond belief. First, it is just facially non-sensical. Why would non-seafaring Mesoamerican natives have any legend about an African city? Even if they did, El Dorado was only really known in legends as a place of great material wealth: a city of gold. Far from over-turning the common stereotypes about the non-Western world, then, it would largely just confirm them. It's not different than praising the Saudi's oil deposits or Congolese diamonds. You're not actually saying anything about the underlying societies--which can still be dismissed as savage or backwards--and noting an accident of geography. This all begs the question of why they didn't reach for some sort of myth that was actually rooted in Africa. The Queen of Sheba, Prester John, or Great Zimbabwe, for instance? Given how much more easily this could have fit with what they were trying to accomplish, one suspects the filmmakers either didn't know or didn't care. A better movie still might have wrestled with the deeply racist legacy of Africa in the West, and the innumerable myths that reassigned anything of value or significance their as the work of some ancient, vanished tribe of "white" Africans.

    We could have the same discussion about any number of aspects of this film and character. For instance, in Africa as elsewhere the model of (absolute?) monarchy, is more a reflection of European misunderstanding of the societies than they encountered than an accurate description of their form of governance. Even accounting for that it's not very common and divorces Africans into a weird and monolithic permanence that pretends a society would be static for no reason.

    There are many interesting ways to have done this, and a plethora more that would have at least been respectful. Instead, we seem to be gearing up for another iteration of the Dark Continent, without history or meaning or any intrinsic worth, to be the blank canvas for a bunch of frankly unimaginative people to project onto in their cynical money-making exercise. I hope you'll forgive me for being less than excited.
     
  23. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    May 25, 2000
    Yes, because the entire context of hundreds, if not thousands of years of geo- and socio-political history can be summed up in a two-minute movie teaser...
     
  24. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    And it won't be summed up in a 2 hour movie about punching people, either. I realize. But I think that's more a caution against Wonder Woman/Black Panther style attempts to make a single character iconic of an entire minority group, rather than trying to tell stories peopled by a truly diverse cast.
     
  25. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Nov 8, 2001
    I mean, he's the first black superhero in comics ever and they're looking to make a film with a predominantly black cast, with actual African (not African-American... African) elements and aspects woven in, but yes... by all means let's poo-poo this before it comes out.