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[LinearPhilosopher]

Slow Ben, on 24 February 2018 - 04:26 PM, said:

The 2 white actors in Black Panther also played Gollum and Bilbo Baggins.


I guess they are the two Tolkien white guys of the movie.

shared this on my FB a few days ago.

Was a quality pun.

[Morgoth]

stone monkey, on 23 February 2018 - 05:23 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 23 February 2018 - 07:10 AM, said:

stone monkey, on 23 February 2018 - 01:28 AM, said:

I think Maark may be overstating his case somewhat.

Cut down to just this point, but no, one of my author friends quite literally stated that they'd said they didn't enjoy it and were called out as a racist for that. I'm not joking. I really wish I was. Her viewpoint was "Well, it's Marvel, so it was probably always going to be naff".
My post should be taken as a lampoon of that viewpoint however because it's patently ridiculous.

A ton of issues around this film... Including a number of members of the alt-right doing their usual kind of nonsense and complaining on social media about physical attacks on white cinemagoers that didn't happen (with appropriated or faked photos to boot).

Poe's Law applies here, I think.

And as I've said before, if you think being a white person who thinks it's anything less than perfect is difficult, try being black and of the same persuasion.

Maark alas is continously persecuted by feminists, so it's rather hard to fully appreciate his struggle.

[worry]

Just got home from this. Don't wanna butt into an ongoing convo, so I'll just say I liked it a whoooole lot. Maybe not my personal favorite MCU, but I can see it being a lot of people's, as it's definitely top echelon. Spider-Man got a lot of deserved credit for having a villain with a strong & grounded POV, and I think BP does it even better with Killmonger. Also I love thick Andy Serkis.

[Maark Abbott]

stone monkey, on 23 February 2018 - 05:23 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 23 February 2018 - 07:10 AM, said:

stone monkey, on 23 February 2018 - 01:28 AM, said:

I think Maark may be overstating his case somewhat.

Cut down to just this point, but no, one of my author friends quite literally stated that they'd said they didn't enjoy it and were called out as a racist for that. I'm not joking. I really wish I was. Her viewpoint was "Well, it's Marvel, so it was probably always going to be naff".
My post should be taken as a lampoon of that viewpoint however because it's patently ridiculous.

A ton of issues around this film... Including a number of members of the alt-right doing their usual kind of nonsense and complaining on social media about physical attacks on white cinemagoers that didn't happen (with appropriated or faked photos to boot).

Poe's Law applies here, I think.

And as I've said before, if you think being a white person who thinks it's anything less than perfect is difficult, try being black and of the same persuasion.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe anything in terms of people being attacked for going to see a film. I'm merely pointing out a situation I saw unfolding and querying why the same would come to pass. I suppose the sort of person who will associate not enjoying this film due to reasons concerning the film itself (i.e. cinematography, soundtrack, writing) with being an active racist is a nutbar roughly on par but at an opposite end of the scale to an alt-righter. Obviously people who say "It bad cos dey blak an it mak wity look bad!" don't have opinions that are even worth considering.

With your last comment - have you any experience / examples of what happens then? Please don't take this as a person challenge (it's certainly not intended as such) but the way you've worded it is a bit worrisome and projects to me an image of, say, The Simpsons Movie after the mob descends upon the Simpson house.

[Cause]

Oh one thing I forgot to mention. I was surprised to M'baku present in the film. Though they made damn sure never to call him the Man-Ape or anything close to it which I believe earlier in the thread someone mentioned received a lot of flak for being racist. Which I can see, especially after the H and M debacle.

Still I thought before and after the movie that facing a coup from M'baku who would be more familiar with Wkanda might have made more sense. Could still have had the interventionist vs isolationist argument. Which is more complicated than it seems. Especially when you look at say Syria for example. Did not expect M'baku to end up being a strong ally

[worry]

This is so sweet! Big grin.

[Slow Ben]

By Odeon


 panther.jpg (80.86K)
Number of downloads: 0



60% of the time, it works every time.

[Salt-Man Z]

It was awesome. I had no problem with the rhinos, but the free-falling/fighting panthers looked oddly rubbery and weightless (ha) duking it out and bouncing around off each other in midair.

stone monkey, on 19 February 2018 - 10:57 PM, said:

Spoiler

While I get the sentiment, obviously, Killmonger's final line about being buried at sea like his ancestors who jumped off ship rather than live a life of bondage makes no logical sense; they'd have to have actually survived The Middle Passage in order to even become his ancestors, surely?

You're at least the third person I've seen complain about this, but even if it wasn't strictly metaphorical, there are plenty of ways for it to make logical sense.

[stone monkey]

Salt-Man Z, on 06 March 2018 - 08:45 PM, said:

You're at least the third person I've seen complain about this, but even if it wasn't strictly metaphorical, there are plenty of ways for it to make logical sense.

If any of them involve one of his female ancestors being pregnant during the middle passage, then you need to read up on the demographics of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

[Gothos]

Hokay.
So, for starters, I did enjoy the film... somewhat. About as much as I enjoyed The Last Jedi. It's OK to pass the time but the more you think about it, the worse it seems. Also like The Last Jedi.

I'm going to spoiler tag the rest because I'm too lazy to divide my post by what's a spoiler and what's not.

Spoiler

So my greatest gripe with this film are Wakanda and T'Challa himself. Now, I understand that it's limited by the source material of the comics, but I don't 100% accept that as an excuse. Captain America's origin story was likely extremely cringe-worthy from a modern perspective, but I think his first film did quite well with the source material it had.
Now, on with the show.
Wakanda just screams to me of extremely lazy theme park design. They had an awesome opportunity, with a hypothetical extremely advanced African nation that has never known the yoke of colonization. That had thousands of years of progress and security under its belt. But what do they do with it? It's a tribe with unobtainium-powered magic. This supposedly advanced, developed and civilized society has a government that closely resembles a semi-absolute monarchy, with its succession mechanic being a trial by combat. Now, this seems to me like a recipe for disaster. Someone wins a fight and wins overlordship of a potentially dominant country without the people's say-so? This goes well beyond my limit for suspension of disbelief.
Moving on to their military - if you could call it that - they have access to a miraculous substance that can greatly enhance anyone's potential - physical, mental - and they can grow it. Yet, it is reserved for the one person in power. Even within this isolationist foreign policy, why would they not spread it to everyone in the country? They also have control over a seemingly inexhaustible deposit of god-metal, advanced medicine and engineering, yet next to a futuristic and functional dropship and fighters we see armored rhinos, shield-cloaks, spears and ceremonial tribal robes. It's like it's unfathomable that an african nation could develop a structure different from a tribal band that we're seeing in the movie. If Killmonger wanted to send these weapons to civilians outside to arm them against The Man, I don't see them doing anything of consequence with them. Modern warfare is a lot, lot more than just shiny advanced weapons - doctrines, tactics, combined-arms integration - any uprising started with wakandan weapons but without Killmonger's training and expertise would fail very quickly. Thus his whole plan meant no tension whatsoever to me.
Now we come to T'challa. I don't see any character progression that some folks here seem to have loved. What's changed about him from Civil War to the start of Black Panther to the end of Black Panther? The only thing I can think of is going against the isolationist policy, but then again I never doubted he would. He doesn't seem particularly good at anything he does, and quite frankly anyone else could be given the super-mojo and godmode-suit and do just as well or better. He doesn't have Steve Rogers' resolve, Tony Stark's genius or Thor's courage. His god-suit drains all tension from any situation he's in. The only situation where he could've been threathened - at the trail by combat against Killmonger - is wasted because we can all be sure that he'll survive as the titular hero, and there it goes - he strikes the water and floats UPSTREAM INTO THE MOUNTAINS to be found and saved by being buried in snow. His last fight with Killmonger is a random hack and slash where they're both invulnerable except for random bits of their suits that appear and disappear with no regard for skill or tactics.

Now, the film has plenty more ridiculous concepts and moments, but listing them all would be moot. It's not a terrible film, but it's also not great at all. It has two good villains, one of which was, I think, wasted (Gollum) - this is a nice moment to mention that I'm pretty sad that Zemo from Civil War doesn't get more love as an interesting villain (then again I could be biased - places like Sokovia are the exact kind of Inexistan that seems to cover my entire part of the world in comic book fictions, so there) ... but I found the protagonist and side characters to be entirely forgettable, and all in all - the entire film is, to me, a wasted opportunity to do something fresh.

This post has been edited by Gothos: 14 March 2018 - 03:04 PM