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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Nov. 12th, 2022 02:03 pmThis is actually the first MCU anything I've seen since Endgame; I intend to watch Ms. Marvel but just haven't gotten around to it, and while I was thinking about Thor: Love and Thunder, I've been reading the comics runs that it's adapting and quite liking them, so I didn't think that particular adaptation was likely to land well.
Outside of a spoiler cut, I think I would say that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was a pretty good MCU movie. It was as beautifully acted, visually impressive, and thoughtful about the worldbuilding as the first. Its treatment of T'Challa's offscreen death (and by extension, Chadwick Boseman's) is both its strength and weakness, I would say: it is very heartfelt and moving, but it did add some plot and character arc elements that were less successful. And of course, ultimately it is an MCU movie and has the limitations thereof.
There is a mid-credits scene and no scene after the end of the credits.
I brought the kids to see this, and I was fascinated (since it is self-indulgent parental blogging day here) at their immediate post-movie reaction: they thought it started strong, but was too long and overstuffed, especially because half of it was an origin story that ended up going nowhere. I certainly agreed with them about the start and length, but I was still thinking about how sad Boseman's death was, so hadn't moved on to consider the MCU significance of the mid-credits scene. And yeah, it really was not "and now Shuri is the Black Panther, stick around for movies about her." She's not ruling Wakanda—which I liked in the moment, though I can see how others would feel otherwise—and it felt much more like "meet the next generation's Black Panther" than "there are still stories to tell for Shuri." Will we see her in the suit again in the next big multi-character movie? Likely. Does it seem like there will be a Black Panther 3 that's about her? I haven't looked at articles or anything (even if you could trust anything that anyone would say this far out), and I don't know, maybe it was an unintended side effect for the happier resolution they wanted to give to Shuri's grief (as long as you don't think about her family not telling her all this time). But this is one of the things I meant about its treatment of T'Challa's death being a weakness as well as a strength.
The other is the way Shuri ended up being given reprises of T'Challa's and Erik's arcs instead of her own. Even if you lampshade it by repeating the vengeance consuming line, and having Erik come back (and that was, admittedly, a very good scene), it's still recycled. Also a way of how the MCU frequently collapses political dilemmas down to individual fistfights; also cheesy as hell with all the flashbacks in the scene where she changes her mind.
Anyway. Our new characters, Riri Williams and Namor, were great, even though three origin stories for one movie is, again, a lot. Changing Atlantis to Talokan was both great and a little frustrating, because they so clearly ought to have been allies from the beginning that I spent a good chunk of the movie hoping for the introduction of a mutual antagonist, rather than whatever would lead them to fighting each other. (Would Nakia, without orders from her Queen, have used lethal force in rescuing Shuri and Riri?) I do hope they can make Namor a continuing character in an interesting and complex way.
...and I have just completely lost track of whatever else I was going to say, and need to stop typing also.
What did other people think?
Outside of a spoiler cut, I think I would say that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was a pretty good MCU movie. It was as beautifully acted, visually impressive, and thoughtful about the worldbuilding as the first. Its treatment of T'Challa's offscreen death (and by extension, Chadwick Boseman's) is both its strength and weakness, I would say: it is very heartfelt and moving, but it did add some plot and character arc elements that were less successful. And of course, ultimately it is an MCU movie and has the limitations thereof.
There is a mid-credits scene and no scene after the end of the credits.
And now, SPOILERS.
I brought the kids to see this, and I was fascinated (since it is self-indulgent parental blogging day here) at their immediate post-movie reaction: they thought it started strong, but was too long and overstuffed, especially because half of it was an origin story that ended up going nowhere. I certainly agreed with them about the start and length, but I was still thinking about how sad Boseman's death was, so hadn't moved on to consider the MCU significance of the mid-credits scene. And yeah, it really was not "and now Shuri is the Black Panther, stick around for movies about her." She's not ruling Wakanda—which I liked in the moment, though I can see how others would feel otherwise—and it felt much more like "meet the next generation's Black Panther" than "there are still stories to tell for Shuri." Will we see her in the suit again in the next big multi-character movie? Likely. Does it seem like there will be a Black Panther 3 that's about her? I haven't looked at articles or anything (even if you could trust anything that anyone would say this far out), and I don't know, maybe it was an unintended side effect for the happier resolution they wanted to give to Shuri's grief (as long as you don't think about her family not telling her all this time). But this is one of the things I meant about its treatment of T'Challa's death being a weakness as well as a strength.
The other is the way Shuri ended up being given reprises of T'Challa's and Erik's arcs instead of her own. Even if you lampshade it by repeating the vengeance consuming line, and having Erik come back (and that was, admittedly, a very good scene), it's still recycled. Also a way of how the MCU frequently collapses political dilemmas down to individual fistfights; also cheesy as hell with all the flashbacks in the scene where she changes her mind.
Anyway. Our new characters, Riri Williams and Namor, were great, even though three origin stories for one movie is, again, a lot. Changing Atlantis to Talokan was both great and a little frustrating, because they so clearly ought to have been allies from the beginning that I spent a good chunk of the movie hoping for the introduction of a mutual antagonist, rather than whatever would lead them to fighting each other. (Would Nakia, without orders from her Queen, have used lethal force in rescuing Shuri and Riri?) I do hope they can make Namor a continuing character in an interesting and complex way.
...and I have just completely lost track of whatever else I was going to say, and need to stop typing also.
What did other people think?
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+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?
