Compare to what we would all consider an enlightened, modern monarchy. What, exactly, are the limits on the Queen of England? Where are they codified or written down? There are norms and expectations, and the entire royal family is raised from birth to respect those norms and expectations, but in theory, the monarch still holds vast power should she ever choose to exercise it. And what if the monarch were suddenly replaced by one who didn’t respect those norms?
In the case of the United Kingdom specifically, the monarch would likely lose those powers altogether if not be outright deposed. (See John, James II, and especially Charles I.)
But Killmonger didn’t win. Victory is achieved by submission or death, neither of which applied to T’Challa at the end of their initial bout. That Killmonger threw him off the cliff and assumed him dead is enough - Bast didn’t need to strike Killmonger dead, only keep T’Challa alive and guide him to a safe place while he recuperated.
Who’s to say Bast didn’t step in because he didn’t need to?
Is Bast being real from the comics? I didn’t see anything in the film implying there’s an actual god influencing the plot.
Isn’t Bast a she?
The old legends involve Bast, but then again, those are legends. On the other hand, the heart-shaped herb is said to increase wisdom in the same way that it increases strength and speed. That could also account for none of Wakanda’s previous rulers going expansionist.
But, if someone stepped in during a time of turmoil, both from within and from outside, and managed to get support from key members of parliament (by killing and returning a much hated enemy that the current king failed to do), while following the training received by the US CIA in manipulating and overthrowing governments, he may manage to take more control than expected.
There did seem to be quite a number who were quite excited about this new direction the new monarch was taking them in.
Keep in mind that the Wakandans were not all unified behind the new leader. Even the ones that felt that they had to follow whoever sat on the thrown were conflicted, and jumped at the first technicality* that they could find that allowed them to join in on deposing the monarch.
(*I don’t know all the rules of ritual combat in Wakanda, but while the duel may not be over due to him not yielding or dieing, you generally are also not allowed to receive assistance from other people during a duel, either. When T’challa was healed of his wounds sustained, that should have disqualified him from further combat.)
That they had communications with their ancestors that provided verifiable information (so not just a hallucination from the herb and asphyxiation), so there is something on a higher plane going on.
As a box office numbers geek I’ve been following the domestic gross of this movie.
It crossed $699M on Saturday.
Which means $700M is just around the corner, right? Not so fast. It is slipping rapidly at the box office. It will lose even more screens with the next round of block busters. The dollar theaters aren’t going to add much. Etc.
It could take a while. In the worst case not until a re-release or some such.
(It’s foreign total is at $646M. Something Hollywood “knew” was impossible for a movie with an black cast.)
England has a Prime minister and a Parliament. Wakanda does not. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair took England to the Falklands and Iraq, not the Queen. I don’t know enough about British law to say exactly what would happen if Future King Andrew decided to invade France, but I am certain his orders wouldn’t be obeyed. If he persisted the United Kingdom would become the United Republic pretty quickly.
I’m not criticizing the movie here. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I’m willing to accept that the enlightened nation of Wakanda would be an absolute monarchy with the king having to prove himself in ritual combat. I’ve already accepted literal Norse gods,flying aircraft carriers, and the reality of magic, among many other things. But you can’t make Wakanda plausible. The monarch is only one of many implausible things. The question “Why didn’t Wakanda help the rest of the world” has a simple answer: Wakanda doesn’t exist. It’s the same reason energy isn’t derived from arc reactors.
Did they? I thought it was ambiguous as to whether that was real or a hallucination. What was verifiable and impossible to know/guess subconsciously?
The one good question would be: Then how come Wakanda wasn’t conquered by colonizers like the rest of Africa?
The comics hand wave it by having Wakanda be mostly surrounded by impenetrable mountains and extremely dense jungle. This is a standard “lost world” trope that predates comics. I believe it was used by Doyle and Haggard in their adventure tales.
In reality, Wakanda would have been colonized, and vibranium would have been taken to Europe for study. If the Europeans discovered the magic powers of vibranium, the Wakandans would have been exploited for their labor, just like Africans across the continent were.
Of course in the movie and comics the Wakandans are able to construct a technologically sophisticated society with aircraft, computers, electricity etc independently of the rest of the world. Again it’s just something you have to buy into. It isn’t really plausible.
I was assuming that, by the time of colonization, Wakanda was already advanced enough to resist colonization. Guns, germs, and vibranium.
Then other nations would have known they were more than ‘a nation of farmers’.
Depends on how they resisted. One Black Panther killing off the scouts could probably make it look like an accident.
A colonial power that tried to take Wakanda and failed, and then found out the Wakandans were willing to say and do nothing further about it due to isolationism, would likely decide to not look a gift horse in the mouth. 
I’m reminded of that small island nation over there by India that continues to chase off visitors with spears. Perhaps the Sentinelese have vibratium.
Zuri being present when T’Chaka killed Killmonger Sr.
I just rewatched this movie on an airplane.
There’s a lot to admire about this movie, but overall I’m feeling dissatisfied.
The biggest problem I had was with characters who are supposed to be Africans who have been living in a largely isolated society speaking almost entirely in contemporary American cliches and snark, just with an African-sounding accent. That really put me off right at the start with the “You froze, didn’t you?” and the “Isn’t it a bad idea to take your ex on a mission?” Their speech patterns were way too familiar to me to believe that they’re part of this previously unknown Wakandan culture that I’m being introduced to. I didn’t like how so many of the lines were spoken with a smirk or a wink to the audience.
Second, I was very uncomfortable with the idea that I’m being presented with an ideal of a technologically and scientifically advanced culture—more advanced than our own—that still operates with the cliches of absolute monarchy with a leader chosen by ritual combat. That was extremely disappointing.
Third, somehow the movie failed to take me on the emotional journey from the kid in the basketball court to Killmonger in a way that made my sympathetic at all to his character.
Fourth, what the fuck with Martin Freeman? I mean, I like him and all, but he seemed entirely unnecessary to this movie. His screen time was a waste. And why pick a famous-as-balls actor to play an American with an obviously fake American accent? I hate that (same with Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange and Hugh Laurie as Dr. House).
Fifth, I did not care about T’Challa and Nakia’s romance at all.
On the good side — Angela Basset, Forrest Whitaker, and Andy Serkis—Ulysses Klaue was a delicious villain with too little screen time and too early an exit.
I loved the underlying moral struggle of whether Wakandans should use their assets to help others or to continue hiding themselves—very relevant question for the world today.
By the way, do I have a bad memory or did Angela Basset’s hair turn white mid-film?
Another question—The Border Tribe’s rhinoceroses, are they supposed to be super-giant rhinos? I’m afraid I don’t have a strong conception of the true scale of a rhino.
Would you rather they spoke an African language (e.g. Swahili) with English subtitles? Or Shakespearean English? Or the Romanised English of Spartacus?
But I agree with you about Serkis. His was a stand-out performance.
What I would have preferred is that their lines be written so as not to sound so contemporary and slangy in a that’s-how-I-hear-people-talking-around-me-all-the-time manner. This is pulled off all the time in theater, film, and television. You can still have jokes, but in slightly less casual language. It’s like the way we see ancient Romans, or space aliens, or Soviet submarine commanders talking, less slangy, more literal word choices, perhaps.