/what's a king to a god?/What's a god to a non-believer?/
- Kanye WestThe floor of the ocean is paved with the bones of slaves.
- Souls at Sea (1937)
Okay, so at first this wasn't actually going to be a Skeleton of a Better Movie post because I honestly couldn't think of anything that could have been better done with this material (except perhaps the over-CGfied bossfight at the end. And Killmonger not having a deeper broader plan. And the movie not being longer. And an immediate Okoye sequel not being released. And ...)
Okay there are a few things I can think of that could have made this movie better. We're going to talk about some of them today and you know what that means?
SPOILERS, YO!!!
if you haven't seen the movie yet, first of all, WHY? second of all, this is the part where you need to GTFO
Boy, this is a tough one. For one thing (as anyone who knows me knows), I am ... extremely biased in favour of this movie -- but even taking that into account, Black Panther is already among the top five best Marvel movies of all time (the other four being Winter Soldier, Avengers 1, Iron Man 1. and Thor: Ragnarok.) Argue with your ancestors about it if you disagree -- but just know that as I type this, Black Panther's box office has crossed 1 BILLION dollars worldwide and it's the highest earning non-sequel superhero movie ever 👺👺👺
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One of the nicer things about this movie is that, thanks to Captain America: Civil War, we don't need an origin story for T'Challa because we already know who he is, what he can do and why.
Now we get to see where he's from and where he's going.
If you are black, whether African-American or African-African and watched this movie, you understand how this place feels to us. It's something we never had in real life, something we might have had the chance to make for ourselves if certain other occupants of this planet had been a little less rapacious. Emphasis on might. Alas.
So. Wakanda. Home of T'Challa, the Black Panther. It is a small and insular East African nation, unique on the continent in that it has never been conquered by any of its neighbours, not one of its citizens was ever taken as a slave and it was never colonized by the Western powers. Their secret?
To any Marvel fan, this will be no new thing. For those of you who haven't been soul-deep in comic books and movies for the past forty years, vibranium is a wonder metal that can absorb sound, vibration and kinetic energy in general with near-perfect thermodynamic efficiency. With a little imagination, you can see the dozens of possible applications. The Wakandans have been using it for hundreds of years if not thousands; in their science and spirituality, in their weapons and shields, in their industry, in their farming implements, heck, they even sew it into their clothes.
This allowed them to become essentially the most technologically advanced nation on MCU Earth -- and essentially nobody even knows it. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, they are utterly boring, farmers and weavers with crap soil and nice textiles and NO OIL WHATSOEVER SO DON'T BOTHER COMING OVER THE MOUNTAINS TO VISIT BECAUSE THEY ARE BORING. A big win for the Wakandans.
This strict secrecy is however not without price. It meant that while the rest of Africa fell to ruin at the hands of foreign exploiters and corrupt indigenes, Wakanda was forced to maintain that secrecy because to reveal themselves would be to ... well, I'll pause to quote Vision from Civil War (ironically relevant because T'Challa's first appearance):
Our very strength invites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict breeds catastrophe.
- The Vision, Captain America: Civil War
There is no point in human history where Wakanda revealing themselves wouldn't have been an utter disaster for Wakanda one way or another. Endless war would have been inevitable until they'd be forced to go on a global conquest spree just to get some peace. Ponder that little irony.
And yet. When you consider the near-annihilation of African cultures by Western education, missionary Christianity and exploitative capitalism, when you consider the horrors of slavery, the brutal dehumanizing racism that followed, apartheid -- the list goes on, really -- it's hard to think about what kind of ruthless realpolitik it took for the Wakandans to close their eyes and turn their backs on all this. Like a pan-African take on Le Guin's Omelas, the price of Wakandan prosperity, power and peace is them ignoring the suffering of every non-Wakandan black person on the planet.
This movie is about how that choice - as valid as it is and was - comes back to bite them in the ass.
you wanna be in the trunk with the booming box
Then two " ... Grace Jones-looking chicks" with spears show up, followed by the king of Wakanda. Boom. Worlds collide! It's middle-aged T'Chaka played by the real-life son of John Kani (the T'Chaka we saw in Civil War) Turns out that the elder of the two occupants is none other than N'Jobu, younger brother to the king of Wakanda and that he was running a sleeper cell in America on Wakanda's behalf. It also transpires that he looked upon the suffering of blacks in America and could not look away so he did something about it, something his king is very displeased about. Things go south and T'Chaka flies away into the night sky, leaving N'Jobu dead and N'Jobu's son from an American woman behind, orphaned and forgotten on that basketball court several stories below.
The boy however, did not forget.
THE KING
what happens in the ancestral plane stays in the ancestral plane
Once there was a boy. He was born a prince, son of a king, grandson of a king and so on. He grew up healthy and happy, surrounded by love and power and strength, rooted in joy and history, all of which he absorbed into himself like so much mother's milk. The boy grew strong and wise and, when his father died as fathers do, the man became king. Faced with a path of revenge, he instead chose peace and the building of bridges.
Quite a few reviewers have said T'Challa was too serious, that he's a cipher and so on. That's a bunch of nonsense. Clearly those people fell alseep during literally every scene he had with Shuri and quite a few with Okoye (or for that matter, Nakia. Does his silly attempt at duck-season-wabbit-season-ing her into wanting to be queen ring a bell?) He has a sense of humour, a sense of honor and a sense of duty. It is that sense of duty that weighs heaviest as we join him in the movie.
He and Okoye take a day trip to Nigeria to apparently shut down some Boko Haram soldiers. Turns out that's just a secondary objective and the actual goal was to pick up Nakia, a Wakandan spy undercover among the captives -- and also T'Challa's ex from happier more carefree times. They give her a ride back to Wakanda for his official coronation -- where he immediately has to fight for his life in a ritual succession challenge duel against M'Baku, leader of a rival tribe, while stripped of his Panther powers no less. Eventually triumphant, the newly crowned king receives a fresh dose of Heart-Shaped Herb to restore his powers and, as a most pleasant side-effect, visits the ancestral plane to speak with his father T'Chaka. It is sorrowful and joyous and ennobling and mystical.Having communed with the post-mortal, our king returns to the world of flesh and dust. Discussions follow regarding what if anything Wakanda owes to the world given the power and resources it possesses. He talks to Nakia. He talks to his close friend W'Kabi, Champion of the Border Tribe. He talks to Shuri about his new upgraded suit, one that absorbs the energies of his foes attacks only to be fired back at them at the opportune moment.
Soon after, Ulysses Klaue, the only (white) man to successfully steal vibranium from Wakanda and live to tell the tale, pops up on their radar in Korea. Cue Black James Bond spy action with Nakia, Okoye and Princess Shuri as Q Division. Klaue is briefly captured only to be rescued by a mercenary in an Mgbedike mask -- and carrying a Wakandan royal ring.
🎵 Dun-dun-duuuuuuuun!!! 🎶
THE REVOLUTION(ARY)
Once there was a boy. He was born the son of a prince, grandson of a king and so on. He did not grow surrounded by love and power and strength, rooted in joy and history. He grew up loved, yes, by his father but hated by a world not his own, a concrete prison of brutality and trauma, his roots torn out four hundred years before his birth. His father slain too soon, the boy was cast into an already harsh world, alone, desolate, memory and revenge his only lodestones. Against that harsh world, he broke himself and grew, strong, skilled, deadly, his crooked path winding its way to one place. Where it all began.
London, British Museum. A black American dressed like a stereotype with only some Clark Kent glasses to cloud the issue stands observing the various African artifacts looted by the British over the centuries. Security hovers a little too close -- as they inevitably do when there's a black man in a white space -- and the museum curator approaches to question him. Turns out that for once they're right to be concerned. One quick heist later and the mysterious black American and Ulysses Klaue and their small team are out the door, bodies in their wake, one vibranium artifact richer.Also, one Mgbedike mask.
Fast-forward to Korea. The Wakandans make their move, the CIA make their move, the mercenary and Klaue make their moves. When the smoke clears, our villain is at the Wakandan border, Klaue's corpse in tow, waiting to be let in. This is done and for the first time, our villain lays eyes on our hero. Rebel versus King, Black America versus Black Africa, Diaspora versus the Motherland.
Moments later, our villain is revealed to be to be Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, freelance mercenary by way of the CIA's Special Activities division by way of JSOC by way of the US Navy SEALs by way of the mean streets of Oakland, CA. Moments after that, he blows the roof off by revealing his "true" identity as N'Jadaka, son of murdered N'jobu, cousin of T'Chaka and thus valid claimant to the throne of Wakanda. It is here that his true game is revealed, revenge against the son of his father's slayer, revenge against Wakanda for abandoning him, revenge against the white-dominated world that he damaged himself against until he became a monster -- and revenge against the white-dominated world that had broken so many untold millions of his fellow blacks. Victory by ritual challenge leaves him as newly crowned king of Wakanda and now he's ready for the final phase of his plan.
Now, Killmonger's scheme was ... well, solid insofar as it was a bold plan swiftly executable (and executed) by one man with the skills, credentials and audacity to come at the king and not miss. Basically, he hacked the Wakandan political system, moved fast and broke things, shocking them with the revelation of his true identity and then immediately challenging for the throne before they could close the loopholes.
Downside of long-held tradition: there's always a better rules-lawyer.
His plan could have been waaaay better though. As it stands in canon, he showed up, won the throne in ritual combat and immediately initiated plans to put the full Wakandan ultratech arsenal in the hands of War Dogs and black revolutionaries the world over, to start insurrection, kill the masters and basically flip the script from conquered to conqueror in a worldwide race war, creating a new world order with Wakanda (and blacks in general) on top. This has the virtue of being a simple plan if an utterly deranged one that would be doomed to fail even in a world without Hulk and the Abomination and Thor.
Oh, and Thanos, can't forget him.
I'd like to consider an alternate scenario where he had a bigger deeper plan. What if during his travels with Special Activities Division and later as a mercenary, he'd managed to compromise a bunch of War Dog units worldwide? There's no way in hell his father was the only War Dog - especially in America - to look at the plight of blacks and think: "Yo, this some bullshit." Heck, his girlfriend Linda (who by the way he shot once her safety was in the way of his mission) that he went on the museum heist with would have made total sense as a subverted War Dog.
This would give him access to Wakanda's security apparati and a great deal of inside knowledge, more current than what dear old dad passed down before T'Chaka left some panther claws in his chest. It also puts him in communication with tribal leaders and such.The plan could have involved having multiple inside men (perhaps W'Kabi, perhaps not) and him as N'Jadaka making public political moves within Wakanda. This would mean he wouldn't show up and be locked in ritual combat with T'Challa within minutes of his arrival. It would mean him doing the demagogue thing, swaying the masses and some of the tribes to his cause and thus becoming a political opponent. You still get your Wakandan civil war but now it's not all conveniently contained on the slopes of the Great Mound.
Even the final showdown could have been more interesting. The Korea sequence proved that Coogler can stage an action sequence on par with anything we saw in Winter Soldier. Instead of the CGI bullshit, it could have been a contest between Killmonger using Wakandan vibrospear cannons and other weaponry versus T'Challa's superior understanding of the Panther suit capabilities - a running battle, high mobility, using cover and evasion and clever applications of the kinetic-absorb-and-release power of the suits before they end up on the underground railroad and then things end as they did in canon.
Alas, movie runtime and the storytelling realities of a Disney-powered Marvel meant having to have the bad guy be a bad guy in the end. The filmmakers kind of had to give the dog a bad name so they could hang him. His rage is valid, his words are valid, Wakanda does owe something to all those black people they had the power to save -- and didn't. If he had been any less extreme, if he'd had just a few more redeeming qualities, Killmonger would have been the hero.
Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage
- Killmonger's last words
All in all, Erik "Killmonger" Stevens aka N'Jadaka son of N'Jobu is one of Marvel's few high quality villains. Like Loki and Vanko and Vulture before him, he is an excellent villain because he has a valid point that you can understand, sympathize and even agree with -- then takes it about 66 bridges too far. As a result, all his plan ultimately proved was that primogeniture and succession by combat are lousy ways to run a government.
Well, that and a man who fights alone will die alone but the man with peoples behind him? Will rise to every height. When those peoples are the incredible women of Wakanda, how can a man be anything but a king?
TINKER
Once there was a girl. She was not the Black Panther. That particular honour belonged to her older brother. However, in a family like theirs where nothing less than Excellence was permissible, she could hardly sit on her butt and paint her nails all day. Nor could she spend her days getting high and laid at Coachella.
Thus, instead the girl turned to Science. Her name is Shuri and she is a Genius. She is amazing and little black girls all over the world are going to go into engineering and computer programming and mathematics and materials science because of her. Princess Shuri of the Wakandan royal family is a prodigy with access to all the vibranium her genius heart could possibly desire and booyyyy does she put it to use! Come Infinity War, Thanos won't know what hit him. Can't wait to see what she and Stark and Pym can build together.
She is also Best Little Sister and torments her big bro in the best possible ways. No improvements to be made here.
TAILOR
Haha. The Tailor is also Shuri. Issa Joke. We're done here. Next!
SOLDIER
Once there was a girl who loved her country more than life itself and who wanted nothing more than to defend it against all comers. She grew up to do exactly that. Okoye is the General of the Dora Milaje, royal bodyguards to the Panther kings and the finest warriors in all of Wakanda. She is also T'Challa's friend, confidante and adviser. She has her country, her job, her skills, her love of W'Kabi and her being an absolute unadulterated badass. Her life is awesome.
Okoye is the best damn character in the movie. She has some of the coolest lines, the coolest action sequences (Spear Beats Gun. It Also Beats Car) and the coolest moments (toss-up between her stopping a War Rhino with her mere presence, threatening to nail a CIA officer to the nearest table in HIS OWN DAMN OFFICE or her opening a fight by SNATCHING HER OWN WIG.) Okoye is a boss.Little more is there to be said. The only improvement I can offer to Okoye's role as played by the transcendent Danai Gurira is that there should have been more of her. Kneel before your President Empress God-Queen.
SPY
Once there was a girl. She loved her country with a heart as big as the world so she went out into that world to ask not what it could do for her country but the other thing instead. Nakia is a Hatut Zeraze aka a War Dog (the name no doubt left over from bloodier days in Wakandan history) which means she's one of Wakanda's global network of embedded super-spies and sleeper agents who keep their country up-to-date on the movements of the outside world. She's basically Black Female James Bond with a social conscience -- and boy is she black and boy is she female and boy is she Bond.
AND IT IS GLORIOUS.
Nakia might not be quite as badass as Okoye (nobody is really) but she's plenty badass, her spy skills basically save the day and not the least of it is that #nakiawasright. Contrary to what he or T'Challa might have thought, Killmonger's real ideological counterpart wasn't T'Challa. It was Nakia.Think about it: long before Killmonger was even in the picture, Nakia's entire schtick was already that Wakanda needs to step beyond its borders and start helping people more. Everybody talks about the straw that breaks the camel's back. Nobody ever talks about the load that came before and made it possible.
She said it, that Wakanda needed to step outside its borders and start using some of that power and capability to help other suffering nations, in Africa and even elsewhere. T'Challa heard her. He listened. He was thinking about it. That's why he talked to W'Kabi about it (and that was decent foreshadowing of later events, having W'Kabi be like "Refugees? Naaw, they bring their problems into Wakanda with them. Now if you asked me and my boys to roll out there and kick some ass ...") It was on the table and it all started with Nakia.
Then Killmonger comes and blows a GIANT FUCKING HOLE in Wakandan supremacy while ALSO saying it. And then DIES DRAMATICALLY IN THE SUNSET.
It added up, is what I'm saying.
Quite a few reviewers also say this is a representation of how women aren't listened to in real life and that Nakia wasn't listened to in the movie. This is of course utter nonsense. T'Challa does nothing but listen to women in this movie and a good thing too, he'd be dead about fifty times over had he not.
OTHERS
M'Baku. What can I say about this imposing yet amusing, boisterous yet calculating god among men that hasn't already been said?
Winston Duke from Person of Interest does a spectacular job in his small but absolutely essential role as M'Baku, leader of the Jabari tribe, dwellers of Wakanda's snowy mountain regions, gorilla worshipers that eschew the use of vibranium and who are almost as isolated from the rest of Wakanda as Wakanda is from the world. Their men are big, their women are fierce and they love it when you underestimate them by buying their "primitive savage" schtick. M'Baku is awesome. He shuts up whitesplainers with a single grunt, kicks the ass of anybody in his path, cares deeply for his people and most of all:
SMALL THINGS I LIKED THAT YOU SHOULD TOO
- on the one hand, I agree CIA guy got to be too heroic, especially given he's the one describing how the CIA destabilizes governments and all that. Especially given the CIA's history in Africa.
- then again, look who he's played by. How do you turn him into a villain? Can't do it.
- Andy Serkis' Ulysses Klaue was brilliant just like he was in Age of Ultron, him getting killed off was a subjective travesty"
- "I made it rain!" 🤣😂🤣He made it rain! 🤣
- aside from Loki, Marvel has a distressing habit of killing off quality villains.
- underside of ship is a mask
- exhaust is written language
- "your people need you"
- Buried alive in one world, rising from the earth in the other
- the Heart-Shaped Herb has vibranium in its DNA. Thus, the Panther does too, borderlines of mysticism and science. The MCU is, for the most part, very good at this, consolidating details and streamlining origins; in a lot of ways, it is far more unified and coherent than the comics.
- Nakia does not want to be queen
- nor does she want to be a Dora Milaje
- speaking of Nakia and the River Tribe, behold the awesomeness of her tribal Elder:
- their holograms are physical rather than photonic
- the accents make acting difficult. Shuri works through it better than most
- "I call them sneakers" 🤣
- "Which side of the road is it?"
- "Don't scare me like that, colonizer!" Hahahahahahahha, Leticia Wright as Shuri is a national treasure
- Killlmonger breaking the spear, while a total Shaka Zulu reference, seemed to me to just be a more pragmatic move on his part. US military training, however elite, is unlikely to have covered spear-fighting. Turning it into essentially a short sword (or a long dagger) was practical and brought it back in line with his experience.
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Meanwhile in real life, thanks to the twin sins of colonialism and slavery, the black race has been divided into two, split down the middle with a ragged cut from a blunt blade and both sides of the divide were stabbed through the heart by their respective historical tragedies. The fact that a freaking superhero movie from Disney is doing such an amazing job of bringing something like unity to that separation? Is utterly insane and we must ride that madness as far as it will take us, on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing until we are one people again.
In conclusion, Black Panther, much as people like me wanted it years even decades ago, could only have had its perfect moment right here, right now in 2018. Without social media, without the sheer weight of black tragedies and black excellence that has been piling up before our very eyes, without a growing number of millennials in the diaspora who were and are so ready for this, without the growing demand for diversity in representation, without this particular cast and crew? This crazy diamond would never have shone so fine, so glorious -- and so black.
🙅🏾♂️🙅🏽♀️
Elsewhere
You might also enjoy previous entries in this movie review series:
Skeleton of a Better Movie - The Mummy (2017)
Skeleton of a Better Movie - Jason Bourne (2016)
Skeleton of a Better Movie - Suicide Squad (2016)
Donations are super welcome :D Descending order of preference if that matters 👇:
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