A thought occurs - when does the panthering-up take place? I get that immediately after the coronation of a new king, or after a king has survived a challenge (during which he’d be de-panthered), but in Winter Soldier, did T’Challa automatically inherit the kingdom and the right to get panthered upon his father’s death, or had he been panthered already by then and ready to start chasing Barnes? I don’t recall a gap where he returned to Wakanda for the elevation and panthering, and if he had, why was there an elaborate coronation ritual in this film? He had to be de-panthered for this, so when did he get initially panthered? Panthering seems pretty elaborate, involving not just consuming the herb but also a ritual burial.
For that matter, I’m unclear on the timeline - was the start of the film in the immediate aftermath of the bombing that killed T’Challa’s father and there was a gap in there somewhere during which the events of Winter Soldier took place?
I like using “panther” as a verb, by the way.
You mean the events of Civil War. The news reports talking about the bombing said that a suspect had been taken into custody, and the picture they showed on the screen was (IIRC) the real villain, not Bucky, so it had to be after Civil War.
Plus, of course, by the time Ross is brought in, Shuri already had one broken white boy to fix.
A couple of other things I was wondering about: First, who played Killmonger’s girlfriend, and what else would I have seen her in? She looked very familiar.
And second, when Killmonger is on the Plane of Ancestors looking through his dad’s stuff, the journal entry shows a latitude and longitude (presumably of Wakanda). Did anyone catch where that was?
Normally, the King and the Black Panther are one and the same, but when the king is too old, he passes the mantle down. So T’Challa was already the Black Panther prior to the king dying. Presumably, he had eaten the herb, but hadn’t gone through the whole “being buried” ritual. He had the power, but hadn’t visited the ancestral plane.
According to the beginning news story, the king had been dead for a week, so this takes place almost immediately after Civil War. He had already brought Bucky back to be frozen, then left to get Nakia, presumably while Cap went off to free the rest of the Avengers.
Yeah, the old king was getting pretty out of shape, and he said something about it being a father’s duty to prepare his son for his death. Probably as soon as T’Challa came of age, he gave him the Herb. He might have even visited the Ancestors’ Plane at the time, but it wouldn’t have been as significant for him then, because his father wouldn’t yet be among them.
Looking into it a bit it seems that early on in the comic book it’s location was a lot more ambiguous. Over the years different maps showed different locations. Most recently they fleshed out its location more to include other surrounding fictional countries. It’s in the location the movie shows.
That sounds so weird to me, but perhaps it is because, as a Hispanic white middle-class, middle-aged female engineer, if I was expecting characters to match my census profile I’d never watch a movie. And yet, according to a lot of articles about marketing and market sectors apparently a lot of people need characters to match their census profile a lot closer than I do.
Yeah, I felt appropriately represented by virtue of there being a well-portrayed nerd in the movie, never mind that she’s black, female, and half my age.
Though apparently not in the same place, and the MCU is inconsistent on where it is located. According to Civil War it was considerably more NE. Include the comics, and it could be in Australia for all we know. It also appears in CW to correspond to a conveniently disputed area.
They’re trying to make money, not burn it! You can always do your standard Bay/Golden Gate Bridge flyby, then go to Vancouver or something.
I was going by the comic universe which currently matches what’s in this movie. Like I said it’s shifted over the decades but whenever they most recently addressed the issue it’s right where Rwanda should be with several other fictional countries covering the rest of the area. Maybe fictional Marvel Africa is bigger and holds all those fake countries as well as all of the real ones.
Saw it last night and really, really liked it (especially the design work - as one of the people I saw it with said “I know what I’m dressing up as for the next three Halloweens.”)
The villain bothered me. Michael B Jordan was amazing - well acted and has charisma and presence to burn. But his post accession plan didn’t make any sense. It sounded like the kind of thing that you’d hear from an idealistic teenager who has read a bunch of books on politics during their summer break; it did not sound like the plan from someone who had degrees from two of the most prestigious institutions in the world and had first hand experience cleaning up after people who had handed weapons out left and right to achieve ill-defined objectives.
But other than that, really, really liked it.
I agree. I also agree with MaxTheVool’s lengthy criticisms and (if he didn’t mention this) thought it was too long.
But overall, I liked it. I have now seen 14 of the 18 MCU movies, and this is solidly in the second tier of “quite good but not great” along with “Avengers 2”, “Iron Man 3”, “Ant-Man”, and “Captain America: Civil War”, but not in the league of “Iron Man”, “Spider Man Homecoming”, or especially “Avengers”. That’s just judging it straight up as a movie. Given the issues of representation and what it means to the black community (I was amazed by how many black people it turns out live in Fargo-Moorhead!), it’s obviously more significant than the other movies in that “tier”.
Completely agree, and it drives me a little nutty when people try to argue that he’s actually the hero of the story! Whatever extreme anticolonial ideology that represents, no thank you.
And BTW, although I am not familiar with the Arrowverse, I completely agree about OUAT, at least the part I watched (first two seasons). Regina was literally guilty of genocide, but then went into a snit because she brought a dessert to a potluck that no one wanted to eat?!?