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Black Panther Spoiler Topic -- because someone had to do it


Bastard of Boston

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On 2/20/2018 at 10:38 AM, Fiddler said:

I will admit, I probably rate the cap movies higher because that was my main comic as a kid, but I honestly love Winter Soldier and Civil War.  

I was prejudiced against Cap my whole life as an example of why comics were goofy and uncool.  Then Winter Soldier totally turned that around for me.  So it really is a great title, it's not just your inflated enjoyment cuz of Cap love.   Also.... if the same actor as Human Torch couldn't sell me on Fantastic 4, isn't that one more bit of evidence of some sort that we'll never see a 'great' F4 portrayal.... because it's simply impossible to do?

On 2/20/2018 at 3:49 PM, RumHam said:

 I got the impression T'Challa was the Black Panther for a while before his father died so I'm assuming the king and panther don't always have to be the same person. 

Maybe T'Chaka had bad knees?   "I'm too old for this shit!"

On 2/20/2018 at 5:59 PM, kuenjato said:

I didn't really dig that to "prove" one is a king, you have to fight in hand to hand combat. Seems pretty archaic considering their level of technology

It's how they prove to the black audience that they're not the bad detestable rich people, because they've kept struggle alive, kept themselves capable and real and hardened and sharp alongside all the ease of tech- rich living.  In some ways it was enviable to see Wakandans' ties to ancient ways because America is like the Craig line from This Is The End- - we talk about being hard, but we're soft and don't actually do anything that needs doing.   ...which is why we need to act hard so often.....

 

About the villain and social issues raised.... I'll offer this nugget up for ritual sacrifice:

This plot was a lesson on the wisdom of killing the messenger.  Killmonger was the product of a twisted world, and his protest got a nation's attention.  But then when asked Now What? his "content" (his idea for how to go forward) was better left unsaid, like so many other protesters who earn their way to a microphone but what then comes out of their mouths is not helpful to anyone, including their cause, because instead of untwisting the world they double down on the twist, because it's all they've known, and seeing a way through to a better world is exceedingly tough for people who've been through this one's grinder.  Maybe a new division of labor would be a better business model here, with the protesters' job being just to secure the stage and then step aside for a listenable speaker with future-building content not incendiaries. 

I'm filled with renewed appreciation for how MLK managed to avoid that pitfall and be already a product of the better world he saw, as if he already lived in that future and had time traveled back to this more pitiable era to show us the way.  Notice how when it came time for T'challa to show us the way, the movie ended?   That's how tough it is for writers to even imagine what the next step would be in really solving our divide.  But I would have added a couple more minutes on to the end, and at least tried to make them the truly important minutes.   A few more great lines of hope on par with Killmonger's great moment of warrior heart regret.

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2 minutes ago, The Mother of The Others said:

I was prejudiced against Cap my whole life as an example of why comics were goofy and uncool.  Then Winter Soldier totally turned that around for me.  So it really is a great title, it's not just your inflated enjoyment cuz of Cap love.   Also.... if the same actor as Human Torch couldn't sell me on Fantastic 4, isn't that one more bit of evidence of some sort that we'll never see a 'great' F4 portrayal.... because it's simply impossible to do?

Chris Evans played Johnny Storm... meh.

Chris Evans played Captain America... He's the greatest comic book movie portrayal ever!!!!!!

Michael B Jordan played Johnny Storm... double meh.  :stillsick: 

Michael B Jordan played Killmonger... He's the greatest comic book movie villain ever!!!!!!

Yeah, maybe we need to just accept that Fantastic Four is awful source material.

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24 minutes ago, The Mother of The Others said:

I'm filled with renewed appreciation for how MLK managed to avoid that pitfall and be already a product of the better world he saw, as if he already lived in that future and had time traveled back to this more pitiable era to show us the way.  Notice how when it came time for T'challa to show us the way, the movie ended?   That's how tough it is for writers to even imagine what the next step would be in really solving our divide.  But I would have added a couple more minutes on to the end, and at least tried to make them the truly important minutes.   A few more great lines of hope on par with Killmonger's great moment of warrior heart regret.

As always, there's a need for both the conciliator and the agitator. MLK's message isn't heard as an alternative if there aren't riots and Malcolm X, because otherwise the 'alternative' is the status quo. This movie encompassed that as well - that T'Challah didn't do anything or want to do anything until he was shown the other alternative, which was conquest and war and repeating the cycle. 

Also, mad, mad props to Chadwick Boseman who chose to speak with the accent and voice he did back in Civil War because to him, any African nation that hadn't been conquered would never, ever have any kind of English/American accent. That right there shaped so much of what the next movie was going to be like that it's pretty remarkable. It also made a perfectly awesome contrast with Erik. 

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8 hours ago, Rhom said:

Chris Evans played Johnny Storm... meh.

Chris Evans played Captain America... He's the greatest comic book movie portrayal ever!!!!!!

Michael B Jordan played Johnny Storm... double meh.  :stillsick: 

Michael B Jordan played Killmonger... He's the greatest comic book movie villain ever!!!!!!

Yeah, maybe we need to just accept that Fantastic Four is awful source material.

I liked them both as Johnny storm, lol.  The movies around them were crap (I enjoyed the first fantastic movie), but I don't think they were the problem.  Mainly writing and completely F'ing up one of the best Marvel villains ever.

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12 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Also, mad, mad props to Chadwick Boseman who chose to speak with the accent and voice he did back in Civil War because to him, any African nation that hadn't been conquered would never, ever have any kind of English/American accent. That right there shaped so much of what the next movie was going to be like that it's pretty remarkable. It also made a perfectly awesome contrast with Erik. 

I was thinking about the accent as I was watching. It seemed a little strong to me, I mean it’s pretty similar to the accents of nations that have been conquered by English speakers, so I’m not really tracking Boseman’s reasoning.  I would’ve thought if it’s an accent they adopted by choice, or for administrative purposes, it would be milder.

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4 hours ago, john said:

I liked them both as Johnny storm, lol.  The movies around them were crap (I enjoyed the first fantastic movie), but I don't think they were the problem.  Mainly writing and completely F'ing up one of the best Marvel villains ever.

I agree with this. Evans and Jordan weren't the problem with these movies. I'd like to see Marvel Studios take a crack at FF. If they can't do it, then bury the property.

ETA: I quoted john instead of Fiddler by mistake... I corrected the quoted text, but it still gives john credit.

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7 hours ago, john said:

I was thinking about the accent as I was watching. It seemed a little strong to me, I mean it’s pretty similar to the accents of nations that have been conquered by English speakers, so I’m not really tracking Boseman’s reasoning.  I would’ve thought if it’s an accent they adopted by choice, or for administrative purposes, it would be milder.

It is - it's a Xhosan accent, like Mandela and the like. The difference is that those are still Xhosan-speaking people who learned English as a second language, so those are the kinds of sounds that a Xhosan language native speaking English makes. 

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Finally got around to seeing it today.  Damned if it's not one of the best superhero movies I've ever seen.  Smart, funny, good story, great acting, and all the rest.  Really it struck me as a realpolitik fantasy, which reminds me of something.  Haven't read most any of this thread, but the obvious MLK/Malcolm X dynamic was very well done.  Really sorry Jordan's character isn't gonna stick around, but I suspect they figured his emerging stardom meant it wasn't worth paying him to be a bit player in future offerings.

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I saw the movie two weeks ago and I meant to come post about how great it was. That was a real fun watch, thoroughly enjoyable! I especially liked the serious issue of why don't the rich help the poor more.

But what I also have been wondering about since seeing it was the accents. I see after going through 6 pages of this thread the topic was finally broached. I wasn't sure at first whether or not I liked the accents, but if the characters did not have authentic accents of English-speaking Africans, what accents would they have? In my life I've heard all kinds of Africans speak with variously influenced accents, British and French in many cases. Would you say these are all American influenced speakers? Part of me just wanted to hear them speak in some generic mid-Atlantic accent, Wakandans speaking English all in the same voice as if we were hearing Wakandan being spoken, but in the end I decided the English-spoken-with-an-accent approach was better.

Another issue I came across before going to see the movie was, to quote a story I saw, "they could have had more Africans in a movie taking place in Africa". Quite a few of the minor characters were born in Africa, but almost everyone else was American or British. I was surprised to see Lupita Nyong'o was born in Mexico City, since people always call her a Kenyan (her parents are Kenyan) and she did go to Yale. Letitia Wright (Shuri) was born in Guyana, Florence Kasumba (Ayo) was born in Uganda but her bio calls her a German actress, and John Kani (T'Chaka) was born in South Africa. Not all the actors in the Imbd list have their place of birth listed. I think the same story talked about Africans who say to African-Americans 'you're Americans, not Africans', just the way many Europeans will say the same thing to hyphenated Americans of European stock.  I guess I can understand their feelings.

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I finally saw this. All in all, it was definitely a very enjoyable and interesting film- one of the better Marvel movies, IMO. Killmonger was an excellent villain and Serkis a fun one, the performances were strong, it was more thoughtful than your average Marvel movie, and the third act didn't descend into all out stupidity like most superhero movies do. And the soundtrack was excellent. In general, I've been pretty impressed with Marvel lately. They had a period where all their movies started to feel the same, but with Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnorak, and this, we've gotten to see directors explore different voices and very different styles of movies.

 

Edited to add that Shuri was a wonderful character.

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I have just watched it and it was AWESOME... This movie has SOUL which so many superhero movies these days lack. Everything was very well put, the direction, the movie, the humor, the music... The music... It was so poignant, somewhere between Lion King and Straight Outta Compton, with necessary inclusion of Marvel epicness. The costumes were truly gorgeous. The movie did everything it was meant to do and I have to applaud them. I was very skeptical of the way how this movie was advertised at the beginning (Feige talking about cast being 95% African-American) but at the end, the movie was so much more.

And yes, I froze :D I completely froze watching that movie and my eyes and ears were locked onto big screen. 

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On 3/8/2018 at 6:38 PM, dmc515 said:

Finally got around to seeing it today.  Damned if it's not one of the best superhero movies I've ever seen.  Smart, funny, good story, great acting, and all the rest.  Really it struck me as a realpolitik fantasy, which reminds me of something.  Haven't read most any of this thread, but the obvious MLK/Malcolm X dynamic was very well done.  Really sorry Jordan's character isn't gonna stick around, but I suspect they figured his emerging stardom meant it wasn't worth paying him to be a bit player in future offerings.

lol, 5 posts up
 

Quote

As always, there's a need for both the conciliator and the agitator. MLK's message isn't heard as an alternative if there aren't riots and Malcolm X, because otherwise the 'alternative' is the status quo. This movie encompassed that as well - that T'Challah didn't do anything or want to do anything until he was shown the other alternative, which was conquest and war and repeating the cycle. 

Also, the story of how a 17 year old girl broke her retainer when seeing Michael B. Jordan is awesome.

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On 3/10/2018 at 9:41 AM, Fragile Bird said:

But what I also have been wondering about since seeing it was the accents. I see after going through 6 pages of this thread the topic was finally broached. I wasn't sure at first whether or not I liked the accents, but if the characters did not have authentic accents of English-speaking Africans, what accents would they have? In my life I've heard all kinds of Africans speak with variously influenced accents, British and French in many cases. Would you say these are all American influenced speakers? Part of me just wanted to hear them speak in some generic mid-Atlantic accent, Wakandans speaking English all in the same voice as if we were hearing Wakandan being spoken, but in the end I decided the English-spoken-with-an-accent approach was better.

That was the same reaction I had.  I agree they need the accent, it would’ve been weird without it, plus from the link Kalbear posted it seems they took their lead from Boseman’s original performance choice.  But I was wracking my brains trying to think of an in-universe explanation (comic book readers call it a No-Prize) of why they would speak like that and there really isn’t one.

It’s an isolated nation, no contact with the west or with other English speaking African nations.  If you look at European nations that speak English well as a second language, they generally have a less strong accent, or in the case of someone very well educated, like a King, barely any at all.  African nations that speak English have an accent that’s developed over centuries of needing to speak the language of the oppressors.  I have an accent myself, as an English speaker, it’s because that’s the way it’s come to sound where I come from.  So it’s like Wakanda developed their own English, rather than teaching it as a foreign language, even though there’s no reason that should be the case.

Ultimately, they just didn’t want to have subtitles in a major movie.

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RE: Wakandan accents

They're not speaking English in Guardians of the Galaxy, as they're all aliens. There's also different accents in the movie as well -- both American and British. Gunn said everyone wears universal translators, however, we still hear one language, and we're not wearing them. I don't see the point in reading too much into it. It's done for the audience's benefit.

Just look at how the Wakandans go back and forth between speaking English IN Wakanda, to each other -- forget the accent. It's stylistic. Red Skull spoke English, in a German accent, to other Germans in Captain America: The First Avenger. It's just another version of subtitles -- you hear the accent and pretend they're speaking the language.

I also think people need to take into account the nature of Wakanda's isolationism. Just because others can't get in doesn't mean Wakandans can't get out. They're not captives. Wakanda is active within the rest of the world, it's just the rest of the world doesn't know Wakanda's secret. Wakanda also has a border tribe which is meant to be the "face" the outside world sees. If Wakanda is engaging with the rest of the planet, it wouldn't make much sense for them to be completely unchanged by it.

I think the point of this movie is that Wakanda's acculturation wasn't forced upon them by colonization -- it was the type of thing which happens to any society when engaging with others. Wakanda has the most advanced tech on the planet. I'm sure they watched MTV like the rest of us.

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23 minutes ago, Bastard of Boston said:

 It's just another version of subtitles -- you hear the accent and pretend they're speaking the language.

This is what I call the Allo Allo method of depicting foreign languages on screen

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After the experience with the endless impenetrable Klingon subtitles in Discovery, I'm quite glad to stick with accented English. Of course, perhaps by an amazing coincidence, Wakandan and English are exactly the same...

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