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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - 11/11/2022 (Spoilers)


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I’ll take your word for it. We tapped out on Elvis because my wife doesn’t like Baz’s style, and no one’s going to make me care about the Air Force. I’ll see Tom Cruise when he’s being interesting again, which for me is when he’s throwing himself off of buildings. 

Edit: I also don’t care about the Navy, which is the branch that I guess those movies actually take place in. 

Edited by (BP)
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With ten noms and the precedent of the first BP cracking the field, it's not out of the question for the same to happen this season if it's received similarly. At least one giant blockbuster among this, Avatar, and Maverick is making many prediction lists.

Fabelmans is seemingly a lock for a BP nom. The Mendes less so.

Give it all to the action psycho's loud plane movie. Vroom vroom.

Edited by John from Cincinnati
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Really f'n great, and super psyched to have Namor in the MCU. Letitia Wright the human has her obvious faults but she crushed this, and as said before, easier to replace her if needed (though the far more problematic Evangeline Lily is still around so...).

I'm kinda glad the rumored end credit scene didn't happen. Focus on Kang plz. 

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I hate that things are busy on the weekends this month but I need to find a way to see this.  When seeing the original it was such a beautiful experience between the movie and the crowd being so into it.  While D+ is certainly an option I feel a need to see this in theatres hopefully sometime soon.

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just got back from seeing this in the theater.  yeah, i didn't love this the way everyone else seems to. Mostly i just feel like nothing that was set up had any real payoff.

 

SPOILERS ABOUND:

Spoiler

Opening with a funeral service for T'Challa was excellent, and the international political fallout was a pretty great way to integrate.

Namor's entire history was wholly different from the comics, and yet i think it really worked well. His motivations and the way he wanted his nation to remain so insular was a pretty damn good take on the character. Plus, it was a novel way of differentiating from Aquaman. 

i am pretty neutral on Riri Williams. i haven't read any comics that she's in. she wasn't bad here, but also didn't feel integral. i'm a little confused because she created this Vibranium finding machine as a class project. We're lead to believe that her professor sold the design to the CIA? that seems like a pretty fucking major plotline that needs to be expanded upon, but it's never mentioned again.

M'Baku stepped up pretty well, but besides offering a small amount of guidance, i feel like he could've had more to do.

Queen Ramonda was good. i have no complaints. she very easily provided the most emotional attachments of the movie, and for good reason. 

this movie did Okoye dirty. Outside of T'Challa, she's the best character in the franchise. Once Shuri surrenders herself to the underwater contingent, Okoye is left behind. She gets relieved of her duty. Then she's brought back when Shuri returns and dons the armor of the "Midnight Angel", a suit of armor that she expressed she did not like multiple times. Despite wearing this new armor, she still cannot defeat her underwater counterpart. (i have no memory of whoever the 2nd Midnight Angel character was, despite just having rewatched BP1 a few days ago). the Midnight Angel needs to be a centerpoint of whatever future Wakanda content comes later, because otherwise this seems like a huge demotion for the character. I really thought they were setting her up to be the Black Panther, which would have made a fuckton of sense and been awesome. speaking of...

Shuri. first, my biggest problem is that during her fight with Namor, he FUCKING IMPALES HER and 30 seconds later she's doing a flip and whatever. It has already been established in the BP movies that you're not impervious to damage just because you ingested the heart-shaped herb (after all, Killmonger would still be alive if that were the case). But again, after she pulls herself off the spear, it's just never mentioned again. Not even a throwaway line. Just a complete non-event. Really killed the big climactic scene for me. She provides ZERO leadership in the absence of her brother and father. She theoretically should be the Queen of Wakanda, and this isn't ever even acknowledged on screen.

also, is America still potentially going to attack Wakanda? once again, literally set up and then never mentioned again. 

and no post-credits scene? WTF Marvel? (There was a mid-credits scene, but hasn't every movie had both?)

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18 minutes ago, twiztor said:

 

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Opening with a funeral service for T'Challa was excellent, and the international political fallout was a pretty great way to integrate.

Namor's entire history was wholly different from the comics, and yet i think it really worked well. His motivations and the way he wanted his nation to remain so insular was a pretty damn good take on the character. Plus, it was a novel way of differentiating from Aquaman. 

i am pretty neutral on Riri Williams. i haven't read any comics that she's in. she wasn't bad here, but also didn't feel integral. i'm a little confused because she created this Vibranium finding machine as a class project. We're lead to believe that her professor sold the design to the CIA? that seems like a pretty fucking major plotline that needs to be expanded upon, but it's never mentioned again.

M'Baku stepped up pretty well, but besides offering a small amount of guidance, i feel like he could've had more to do.

Queen Ramonda was good. i have no complaints. she very easily provided the most emotional attachments of the movie, and for good reason. 

this movie did Okoye dirty. Outside of T'Challa, she's the best character in the franchise. Once Shuri surrenders herself to the underwater contingent, Okoye is left behind. She gets relieved of her duty. Then she's brought back when Shuri returns and dons the armor of the "Midnight Angel", a suit of armor that she expressed she did not like multiple times. Despite wearing this new armor, she still cannot defeat her underwater counterpart. (i have no memory of whoever the 2nd Midnight Angel character was, despite just having rewatched BP1 a few days ago). the Midnight Angel needs to be a centerpoint of whatever future Wakanda content comes later, because otherwise this seems like a huge demotion for the character. I really thought they were setting her up to be the Black Panther, which would have made a fuckton of sense and been awesome. speaking of...

Shuri. first, my biggest problem is that during her fight with Namor, he FUCKING IMPALES HER and 30 seconds later she's doing a flip and whatever. It has already been established in the BP movies that you're not impervious to damage just because you ingested the heart-shaped herb (after all, Killmonger would still be alive if that were the case). But again, after she pulls herself off the spear, it's just never mentioned again. Not even a throwaway line. Just a complete non-event. Really killed the big climactic scene for me. She provides ZERO leadership in the absence of her brother and father. She theoretically should be the Queen of Wakanda, and this isn't ever even acknowledged on screen.

also, is America still potentially going to attack Wakanda? once again, literally set up and then never mentioned again. 

and no post-credits scene? WTF Marvel? (There was a mid-credits scene, but hasn't every movie had both?)

No. Endgame didn't. Infinity War only had the post credits scene and not a mid credits one. Lots have only had one.

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8 minutes ago, twiztor said:

SPOILERS ABOUND:

  Hide contents

We're lead to believe that her professor sold the design to the CIA? that seems like a pretty fucking major plotline that needs to be expanded upon, but it's never mentioned again.

Shuri. first, my biggest problem is that during her fight with Namor, he FUCKING IMPALES HER and 30 seconds later she's doing a flip and whatever. It has already been established in the BP movies that you're not impervious to damage just because you ingested the heart-shaped herb (after all, Killmonger would still be alive if that were the case). But again, after she pulls herself off the spear, it's just never mentioned again. Not even a throwaway line. Just a complete non-event. Really killed the big climactic scene for me. She provides ZERO leadership in the absence of her brother and father. She theoretically should be the Queen of Wakanda, and this isn't ever even acknowledged on screen.

also, is America still potentially going to attack Wakanda? once again, literally set up and then never mentioned again. 

and no post-credits scene? WTF Marvel? (There was a mid-credits scene, but hasn't every movie had both?)

Spoiler

I think the thing with Riri’s professor was just a reference to the Ivy League to CIA pipeline.

I just figured Shuri’s armor had some kind of component that closed up her wound so she could keep going short term like when Tony was impaled by Thanos. It’s all soft science fiction gobbledygook anyway. 

Valentina knew that Wakanda wasn’t actually responsible for the attacks because she’d been ahead of Ross the entire time, so I think most of the invasion talk was a smoke screen so he’d reach out to Ramonda again.  

I liked that there wasn’t an extraneous post credits scene, but I think they primarily did it because it’d probably be detrimental to Oscar season. 
 

 

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11 hours ago, (BP) said:
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I think the thing with Riri’s professor was just a reference to the Ivy League to CIA pipeline.

I just figured Shuri’s armor had some kind of component that closed up her wound so she could keep going short term like when Tony was impaled by Thanos. It’s all soft science fiction gobbledygook anyway. 

Valentina knew that Wakanda wasn’t actually responsible for the attacks because she’d been ahead of Ross the entire time, so I think most of the invasion talk was a smoke screen so he’d reach out to Ramonda again.  

I liked that there wasn’t an extraneous post credits scene, but I think they primarily did it because it’d probably be detrimental to Oscar season. 
 

an Ivy League -> CIA pipeline? is that in real life or in the movieverse? not something i've really heard of either way.

yes, i also assume that's what they were going for. but it goes against what has already been established. Had she pulled herself off the spear, stopped Namor, and then collapsed to one knee holding her wound or something, i could overlook it. But, she did the equivalent of being locked in the figure four, almost tapping, but popping up and hitting the F5. i guess i just wanted more selling.

did the generals know? the ones who were essentially advocating for war? unresolved.

i'm ok with it, just caught me off guard. like @Craig H pointed out, it is not the first. 

Edited by twiztor
fixed a quoting issue
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1 minute ago, twiztor said:

an Ivy League -> CIA pipeline? is that in real life or in the movieverse? not something i've really heard of either way.

It’s very real, reaching back to the CIA’s predecessor, the OSS. There’s plenty of fascinating stuff out there about it. One little chestnut is that during Ted Kaczynski’s time at Harvard he was part of a private undergraduate program with a professor whom he thought was mentoring him. Eventually he found out he was actually a guinea pig in a CIA-subsidized MK Ultra experiment involving psychological torture. It was basically designed around building up his self esteem and then destroying it over and over again for a year. I’m sure it didn’t do any lasting damage to his relationship to society or the sciences that’s relevant *shrugs*. 

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I really liked it but the no-selling of the full on impalement was ridiculous, yeah. 

The movie didn't need a post credits, it's the official end of this MCU phase and they've already introduced the next major antagonist. 

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Going into this, I was probably as cold on the MCU as I've ever been.

This is really a great movie. Yeah, there may be minor quibbles, but overall I loved it.

They paid tribute to Boseman in about the most tasteful and touching way that they could. Big kudos for pulling that off. That could have gone VERY wrong.

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I know others have mentioned it too, and regardless of her stance on vaccines and whatever, but Letitia Wright carried this movie in a way I didn't even think would be possible. Huge, huge, huge props to her for stepping up in the way she did. She went from basically a bit player kind of comic relief to her in universe brother to coming in second to Angela Bassett for carrying the weight of what is what like to lose T'Challa/Boseman in the way that they did.

Couple spoilery things...

Spoiler

Why I loved the CGI ghost Harold Ramis in Ghostbusters and it made me cry a ton, I was really hoping they wouldn't do that here. Then to see the motherfucking Killmonger in all his glory instead fucking RULED. Now THAT is how you do a surprise appearance. Killmonger has so much swag that it sucks that Jordan wanted to be killed off. I wish someone could have talked him into not doing that. 

And then again I was worried we were going to get ghost CGI T'Challa and instead they ran with such beautiful clips of Boseman instead that it got the whole theater in tears.

Just a really lovely movie.

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Aside from the other stuff I’ve mentioned, the set pieces, especially in the first half, have a very cool Donner Superman vibe. I think it’s because they’re often about the impression that Namor and his tribe leave on regular people, kind of like the Kryptonians in Superman II. 

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Did they mention why no "outsiders" like the Avengers or even Everett were not at the funeral?  Was there even a token "wakandans only/private ceremony"? If there was, I missed it. 

I certainly wasn't prepared for either a cold open or our theater screwing up the start of the film. 

And I'm glad we know what the Contessa's job is now.

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The Wakandans have always been very private and in that UN meeting in Geneva one of the complaints levied at Ramonda is that in the years since T'Challa said Wakanda would open up to the world, they still really hadn't. I just figured it was Wakanda being closed off and a funeral for a king is at lot different than a funeral for a regular old citizen even if that citizen is Tony Stark.

I was a little surprised they didn't have Namor be more of a dick. After seeing him in comics for what feels like forever, he just always feels like a cocky asshole. So I guess considering there's plenty of cocky folks in the MCU, portraying him more as a conniving and dangerous leader of his people was a better move.

The only thing I wish they had done differently and I still don't want to spoil that one huge moment even though this is a spoiler thread is that I kind of wish Shuri would have told that person there's a different path to both be like them and to be like someone like T'Challa. 

Oh, and they kind of did go through with a mini Namor destroys Wakanda thing, albeit obviously without Namor being taken over by the Phoenix, which would have been really fucking wild if they went that far. 

We're definitely setting the table for more mutants now. Makes me wonder if Contessa will wind up as the MCUs version of Stryker or Trask or Senator Kelly and maybe she assembles the Thunderbolts to hunt down mutants until they tell her to fuck off and then we get a tease with Sentinels.

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It’s interesting that I don’t think we ever established that “the outside world” know about Namor yet. Even though the fight is in the middle of the ocean, I’d presume everyone’s satellites picked up on it. 
 

I think he’s a dick in the movie, just a justified one. While he yields in the fight, it’s not like he did a babyface turn or anything.

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