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Black Panther
150 Plays5 years ago
We continue our spotlight on black superheroes with a movie that looked at expectations for black superhero movies and just blew them right out. And that is what both Perry and Derrick agree is one of the greatest superhero films ever—2018’s Black Panther! Listen as we go in-depth with some of the deep themes of this movie and go nuts over the cast.
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Transcript
Killmonger's Ambition and T'Challa's Duty
00:00:20
Speaker
I'm standing in your house, serving justice to a man who stole your vibranium and murdered your people. Justice your king couldn't deliver. I don't care that you brought the clock. Only reason I don't kill you or your stand is because I know who you are. Now what do you want? I want the throne.
00:00:52
Speaker
Y'all sitting up here comfortable. Must feel good. It's about two billion people all over the world that looks like us. But their lives are a lot harder. Wakanda has the tools to liberate them all. And what tools are those? Vibrain you. Your weapons. Our weapons will not be used to wage war on the world. It is not our way to be judged, judged, and executioner for people who are not our own.
00:01:21
Speaker
Not you're wrong. But didn't life start right here on this continent? So ain't all people your people? I am not king of all people. I am king of Wakanda. And it is my responsibility to make sure our people are safe and that vibranium does not fall into the hands of a person like you. Son, we have entertained the charlatan for too long. Reject his request. Oh, I ain't requesting nothing. Ask who I am. You're Eric Stevens.
00:01:52
Speaker
An American black operative. A mercenary nicknamed Killmonger. That's who you are. That's not my name, Princess. Ask me, King. No. Ask me. Take him away. Ooh, good-bye, Nick! And Dingo and Jadaka!
00:02:15
Speaker
I found my daddy with panther claws in his chest. You ain't the son of a king, you're a son of a murderer. I'm afraid not, Queen Mother. Hey, Auntie. I'm exercising my blood writing. The challenge for the middles of King and Black Panther.
00:02:47
Speaker
Do not do this, T'Challa. As the son of Prince Injobo, he is within his rights. He has no rights here. The challenge will take weeks to prepare. Weeks? I don't need weeks. The whole country ain't got to be there. I just need him and somebody to get me out of these chains. T'Challa, what do you know of this? I accept your challenge.
Introduction and Anecdotes with Hosts
00:03:17
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. After some technical difficulties, I am half of your host, Perry Constantine. And I am the other half, Derek Ferguson. How you doing today, Derek? Pretty good. Today was a very good day. Here it is, the end of February, and it was 60 degrees here at Brooklyn today. Oh, nice.
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So Patricia and I got out. We did some things, you know, just to get outside and just enjoy, you know, the sunshine. And it's been a pretty mild winter here so far. Knock on wood. Hopefully I won't have to shovel any snow this winter.
00:03:58
Speaker
We got a little bit of snow last week, actually. Just one day, and when I took out the garbage in the morning, there was some snow on the roof of my car and some snow on the sidewalks. But I didn't actually have to go to work until that night. And by the time I went to work, the snow was already melted. Oh, OK, cool. Yeah. Now see, that's, yeah. See, you know what? I don't mind if it's snow.
00:04:20
Speaker
if the temperature goes up and then it and then everything melts afterwards which which is what which is what has happened uh twice here we you know we did get some snow we got a like about like an inch each time but both times yeah you know by the time i woke up in the morning yeah the snow it all melted away so yeah i've been here now for about you know 11 12 years and in that time
00:04:47
Speaker
Pretty much every single year there's been one day a year when we get like a light dusting of snow and then it's gone by the afternoon. There was like two years when we had actual you know snow that turned out to be a problem and one of those years I was actually on vacation so I didn't have to worry about it. Oh okay.
00:05:06
Speaker
But it's a far cry from Chicago when my first trip back, I went back at the end of March. And I thought, oh, this is a good time. You know, it's right when spring is starting. It won't be too cold, won't be too hot. And then, boom, last day of March, got hit with a friggin' blizzard. Oh, man. You know what happened to me last year when I went to Chicago? I went to Windy City. You know?
00:05:30
Speaker
And I went to a convention and, you know, I'm there, I'm having a good time and, you know, I'm hanging out with Ron Fortier and, you know, Tommy Hancock and who else was there? Van Allen, Plexico, you know, I'm hanging out and having a good time. And then I wake up Sunday morning and.
00:05:49
Speaker
It's like three inches of snow out of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. And I had, and you know, when I had to like really pack up real quick and I had to go to the airport because they sent me a text alert saying, you know, we'll listen.
00:06:02
Speaker
you better come to the airport right now if you want to try to get out of here before we decide to close this sucker down so yeah you know but everybody says that in Chicago that's like the standard thing that happens there all the time it doesn't surprise anybody you know not at all yeah it's the weather in Chicago is downright schizophrenic
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. That's what they were saying. They said, you know, the people would say, yeah, you know, they said this happens all the time. I said, really? Yeah. Yeah. That's why I only go back and I only visit my I only visit my mom, my sister and like August. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was saying to Patricia because she because she was asking me, she said, oh, well, are you going to go back to Windy City? I said, not unless they go have it during the summertime.
00:06:50
Speaker
That would make it so much better, because then I could actually go to Windy City, because I can't go in April when they usually have it. Yeah, I told her. I said, yeah, I said, I'll go if they're going to have it in August. We should start a campaign to get them to change it to August. Then we could both meet up there. We should. We should. You know what? I wish I wasn't so lazy, because I would try to organize something like that here in Brooklyn.
00:07:19
Speaker
You know, but like I said, I'm too lazy for that. I am. I'm not. Listen, folks, I'm not going to lie to you. You know, we've known each other too long for that.
Cultural Impact of Black Panther
00:07:31
Speaker
I'm lazy.
00:07:35
Speaker
All right, so today we're continuing on with spotlighting black movies, black superhero movies, and my pick was what I think is, at least for my money, the best black superhero movie, if not one of the best superhero movies in general, which is Black Panther, directed by Ryan Coogler.
00:07:59
Speaker
Um, okay. How do I start? Okay. First of all, folks, you have to know something that, that I owe Perry and a whole bunch of people, a lot of money, because for at least no lie, at least 20 years, for 20 years now, whenever the subject of a Black Panther movie has come up,
00:08:23
Speaker
You know, and I always would tell people, listen, I'm going to bet you they're never going to make a Black Panther movie. I was just convinced that I would never see one in my lifetime. I just knew it for a fact. They were going to make a Black Panther movie. Lo and behold, they made one. And as my esteemed co-host so accurately said, it is not. You know what?
00:08:48
Speaker
OK, I'm going to put myself out there. It is not only one of the best superhero movies ever made, it is the best black superhero movie made to date. Yeah, I think we're in agreement on that. Yeah, I don't think, you know what, I don't think anybody would disagree with me. This is like the Mount Everest of black superhero movies. It set a bar so high that it's going to be quite a while
00:09:19
Speaker
before, you know, it's matched. And the only way that I could think that they could do that is because Ryan Coogler is working on Black Panther 2 right now, as far as I know. Yeah. Yeah. And they've got most of the cast and the same crew back together again. And to me, I think that's the only way that they're going to be able to match this particular movie.
00:09:45
Speaker
yeah i mean this and plus i mean not only is it just a superior movie but this thing made all the money right oh my god it made so much money it was and this was the first marvel movie that made
00:10:04
Speaker
made back its budget in the opening weekend. Yeah. Yeah. That's how much money it'd be. I mean, you know what? And people have asked me, they said, well, have you ever seen anything like this? And I said, yeah, Batman in 1989. Yeah.
00:10:19
Speaker
Yeah, and it's so after how I mean, you've been around longer than me. You've been following this stuff longer than me. How many decades were they saying that a big budget movie with a leading black cast will not do as well as a big budget movie with a white cast? Oh, well, that's why I always said that.
00:10:42
Speaker
I didn't think that a Black Panther movie was going to get made. Because I said, no, they're not going to make it because they're going to keep saying, well, nobody's going to go see it because nobody wants to see a movie. Because Black Panther really, this movie has a totally black cast. We have white characters, but they are very much the secondary characters in this movie. They're not the stars. You know what they called them on the internet?
00:11:08
Speaker
What? The Tolkien white guys, because they were both in Lord of the Rings movies. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know something? I didn't think of that. That's right. Yeah. We had Andy Serkis, who plays the Billy Claw. Oh, my God. And you know what? There's so many things to talk about in this movie, but I just got to say right off the bat that Serkis was amazing in this movie. He was having so much fun. Oh, you know what? It was so obvious that he was enjoying
00:11:37
Speaker
acting in a movie where, you know, he's acting with his face and his body and everything like that. Yeah. He's having such a good time being a bad guy, which which me, I always love. I always love bad guys that are having a good time being a bad guy. Yeah. And that's exactly what he does in this movie. I mean, I'm really disappointed that he ends up dying in it because like I would love to see him come back and play the role again.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, you know, even though I consider this a damn near perfect movie, period, yeah, there are some things in there that, you know, and I really think that they passed up a sweet bet by, you know, killing him off in this movie instead of having him. Because, as you well know, in the comic books, Claude is a recurring villain. He's like the Black Panthers, you know, Dr. Doom or Joker or, you know, Lex Luthor.
00:12:31
Speaker
you know in recurring villain which is why it kind of surprised me I said well wow why did they you know because with a little rewriting you know they could have kept them around oh yeah well you know and and in the cut like there is a there is an out of course because in the comics claw becomes a being of living sound so so there is that possibility but
00:12:53
Speaker
The way he dies in this movie, it makes it a little hard to go that route because he doesn't die in like a sonic explosion or anything like that. Right, right. Which is, you know, if I were writing the movie, you know, that's probably what I would have done. I would have probably had to be caught in a vibranium explosion or something like that. And that would have turned him into a creature of, you know, living sound. Right.
00:13:17
Speaker
I didn't. And he's not, so we'll just live with what we got. Right. And then the other white guy we got in this is Martin Freeman, who's reprising. Also, you know, circus and Freeman, they're both reprising their roles because circus first played claw in Age of Ultron, which is where he lost his arm. And Martin Freeman, he's back as Everett K. Ross, which is what he played in Civil War.
00:13:44
Speaker
who is, I don't know how much, you've probably read the Christopher Priest run, right? On Black Panther. Yeah, right, yeah. Martin Freeman's character is completely different from the character in the Black Panther comics. Well, yeah, well, first of all, he's way more competent. Right, he's actually a CIA agent in this, whereas in the comics, he was a State Department employee who ends up befriending the Black Panther. Right, which kind of,
00:14:13
Speaker
explain why he was kind of bumbling and kind of incompetent because he wasn't meant to be a spy you know i mean the guy is used to just you know he he uh what's the kind of swagger describer he's a paper pusher he is he is and he was the whole point of that character in you know talking about how they thought that
00:14:34
Speaker
this type of movie wouldn't work for most audiences, Christopher Priest had those same fears about a Black Panther comic book. So he used Ross as like a gateway, like a
Authenticity and Setting of Wakanda
00:14:45
Speaker
POV character for the white audience. Right. Exactly. Exactly. He didn't need way, which, you know, something I can understand that, uh,
00:14:58
Speaker
he felt that, yeah, well, he needed to insert. Which is a narrative you find a lot in movies and TV shows that have a predominantly black cast. One of the most recent offenders of this, I could think of, there was a movie a couple of years ago about Miles Davis.
00:15:22
Speaker
And it was a biographical movie that Don Cheadle had wanted to make for years. And he was trying to get funding for this movie. And he was continually told that, you know, well, listen, you got to have white people in, you know, you got to have a white face in here. So what happened is that Ewan McGregor, he came aboard the project.
00:15:44
Speaker
Playing a reporter who was interviewing, you know, Miles Davis about his life and his work and everything like that Now the problem with this is that this reporter character was completely fictitious. Mm-hmm He was completely made up but he was a character that was made that they felt had to be in there so white audiences would go see the movie right now having said that I
00:16:09
Speaker
Let me just say something. I saw Black Panther three times in the theater, which is kind of unprecedented for me, because usually these days I just go see a movie one time and then, okay, well, I wait for the Blu-ray or I wait for it to come on Netflix, Amazon Prime or whatever. Okay.
00:16:25
Speaker
I saw it on a regular screen and I saw it in IMAX and I saw it in a format which is exclusive to the Regal Thedas called RPX, which is kind of like IMAX Lite. OK. OK. Every time I went to see it, Thedas was packed. And when I say packed, yes, I do mean they were filled to capacity. In fact, there was one show when I went to, people were sitting in the aisles. Damn.
00:16:56
Speaker
I would have to say that at each of these showings, at least a good 40% of the audience, 30 to 40% of the audience was white. And they were hooping and hollering and cheering and carrying on and doing everything that the Black audiences would do. They were into the movie, yeah.
00:17:19
Speaker
So I mean, I don't know if that's a sign of the times, how we have changed, how we have evolved. I don't know. Personally, me, I just think that people just like a good story. I don't think that people worry so much about the black and white as much as these studio executives do. No, no. I mean, they've got their minds so behind the deck, like decades stuck in the past.
00:17:46
Speaker
They don't think that, I don't know what they're thinking because the narrative, like we had a movie about freaking Asgard. We had a movie about a talking raccoon and a giant tree in space. And yet the narrative was still Wakanda will be unbelievable. How do we make Wakanda believable, realistic for an audience?
00:18:10
Speaker
Right, exactly, and that's exactly, and you know what, and I've read stories that they said that, you know, they had studio executives that was like, well, nobody's gonna believe this. Exactly, yeah. They can believe, you know, this fantasy realm that's connected by a rainbow bridge. They can believe in a talking raccoon, but they can't believe in a technologically advanced African nation. And let me just say this, that yes,
00:18:37
Speaker
Wakanda is on Earth, but it is just as much a fantastic realm as Asgard. You know, it's got its own culture. It's got its own, which we see. I mean, this movie immerses us in a whole world, just like the Thor movies immerses us in Asgard. Matter of fact, in this movie, it doesn't
00:18:59
Speaker
even more so because it is set on Earth. I was about to say the same thing because I was, it's funny you mentioned that because I was thinking of the first Thor movie when I was watching this movie because when they come into Wakanda, that first scene when the ship flies in, it is very much like that first scene in Kenneth Branagh's Thor when you see Asgard for the first time. It's got that same kind of feel to it.
00:19:25
Speaker
But right. That's different. But where it's different is when you get on the streets. Right. When T'Challa and. Oh, crap. I'm blanking on her name. Lupita's character. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When they walk her through the streets and they're looking at the shops and the people go, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
00:19:49
Speaker
You get immersed in this whole world. I was blanking on her name. But yeah, when they're walking on the streets and you see the street vendor selling meat in the background, you see all these people walking around. That's the difference between Kenneth Branagh's version of Asgard and Ryan Coogler's version of Wakanda is Wakanda feels lived in. Yeah. Kenneth Branagh's Asgard, it feels like a set piece. It feels like background. It doesn't feel lived in.
00:20:21
Speaker
Exactly. That's what I mean when I'm saying that, you know, because it's on Earth, it has to be grounded in some form of reality, which it is. And Ruth Carter, who we spoke about in our previous episode when we did the Meteor Man, she won the Academy Award for, you know, the costuming and the set design. And, you know, basically, she was one of the major architects
00:20:49
Speaker
behind the look of this movie. And it does, I mean, Black Panther doesn't look like any other superhero movie that came before it, simply because it is based in African culture. Yeah, I mean, this, this movie is so black, Mike Bloomberg has to apologize for stopping and frisking it. Oh man, I love that.
00:21:18
Speaker
It is. I mean, you know what? This movie is unapologetically black. Oh, completely. Like, it makes no excuses for anything. And even in the humor, too. Like, I love how...
00:21:30
Speaker
Shuri she calls When she first meets Ross, you know, she calls him colonizer. Yeah After she's healed them from the gunshot and you know, he's looking around he's trying to find out and you know And he just sees this little slip of a girl who looks like she should be in junior high school but she's like what like the second smartest person if not the smartest person on earth and
00:21:56
Speaker
Oh, I think I think Kevin Feige confirmed that she is the smartest person in the MCU. Oh, OK. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, she's I mean, this kid is amazing. And then he and then he walks up and she's, oh, don't scare me, Colin. He says, what did you call me? That's what you are. Oh, man. And and she has that terrific scene.
00:22:25
Speaker
with her brother where it plays like a James Bond movie where she's Q is she's giving them all the gadgets. That whole segment like when she's giving him the gadgets when they're in South Africa that right there that that whole thing is what like maybe 20 30 minutes long that whole segment is a better Bond movie than any Bond movie we've gotten since Casino Royale.
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah, this is what I consistently tell people. I say, you know what? The problem with James Bond movies now is that we have other movies that do James Bond movies better than the actual James Bond movies. And like you said, that whole little mission where he has to go to South Korea, that's a 30-minute James Bond movie right here. Yeah.
00:23:12
Speaker
It's terrific. And I'm not as against the Craig Bond movies, because I know you've got a lot of problems with them. So we're not going to get too much into that. But I don't have as many problems with them. But even still, I look at that, and I'm like, yeah, they're doing something that the Bond guys need to start taking note of. Yeah, absolutely. They should have been looking at this movie and say, damn, how come we can't do that? Like I said, this one?
00:23:40
Speaker
uh you know the fast and furious movies and the mission of possible movies yeah you know both of those franchises are doing i mean the fast and furious really does a better james bond movie than james bond give me a good one but you know i digress let's get back on point okay so um
00:24:03
Speaker
I'm not, like you said you read the priest run, but how far back with Black Panther do you go in the comics? I go all the way back to when he first showed up in Fantastic Four. Okay. And I would remind people who may not have read that comic book that when he originally shows up, the first time he shows up, the Black Panther fights the Fantastic Four and he
Black Panther's Comic Origins
00:24:29
Speaker
beats them. Yeah, he kicks their asses. By himself, yeah. He beats them by himself.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'd been exposed to him little by little. He was in the Fantastic Four cartoon and stuff like that. He had been around the comics. And I had started reading Avengers regularly with Busek and Perez. And he appeared a few times in there, but his own series was going on at the time, which I didn't. I picked up the first issue. I picked up all the first issues of the Marvel Night stuff, but I only really stuck with Daredevil at that time. OK.
00:25:04
Speaker
I think it was Jeff Jobs, when he was doing Avengers, like there was this, he did this arc with the Red Skull, it was called Red Zone, and he had this showdown between the Black Panther and the Red Skull, and it's one of the most memorable scenes where the Red Skull, I think he was using Wakandan technology, or I can't remember the exact details, but he had done something involving Wakanda to create this deadly virus.
00:25:34
Speaker
Okay, and there's this great scene where Black Panther tears off his gloves Right like literally rips him off and it's just like his his his hands his real hands and he holds up his fists And he says I'm going to break your jaw and then the red skull is just like those hands Don't you dare touch me with those filthy hands and the Black Panther proceeds to kick the shit out of him Okay
00:25:58
Speaker
I was like the black panther. All right. Yeah. And there's this other part where him and Iron Man were in this kind of argument. And Iron Man was like getting really pissed off at him. And he was saying, you use people like chess pieces. And he's like, I'm not going to have any of it. And then T'Challa just responds very coolly, very calmly, but you're my night stark.
00:26:19
Speaker
Ooh. See, now you make me want to go get this thing and read it for myself. Oh, yeah. Jeff Johns' Avengers run, it is so underrated. It's short run. He only did, like, I think, like three or four story arcs on it. But it is really good. Like, I put it below music's run in terms of, like, quality. Because here's the thing about the Black Panther. You know, even from
00:26:42
Speaker
his beginnings back in the 60s, he was he was presented by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as being a global character. Yeah. You know, whereas the other Avengers, even like Iron Man, even, you know, we are told that, you know, OK, well, Stark at the National is, you know, this worldwide multi billion dollar, but Iron Man tended to stay a lot in the United States. Right. You know, you could never tell where the Black Panther was going to show up at. Yeah.
00:27:12
Speaker
He was a character that literally went around the world, and he could show if he was in the great refuge. You didn't question it, because, yeah, okay, well, he's a Black Panther. If he was in Atlantis, he showed up in Atlantis. Well, he's a Black Panther. You know, this is what he can do. I remember, like, years ago, when Moon Knight came out, and everybody was saying, oh, yeah, well, at last, Marvel, they had their own Batman
00:27:37
Speaker
and i said well they've had their own batman the whole time the black panther oh my god and like when i finally got around to reading christopher priest run it was it was years after it finished and a friend of mine said look you gotta read this run it's amazing and i'm like all right yeah yeah sure so i so i read it and damn like this guy he's
00:27:58
Speaker
Batman but smarter and more money and with like a greater strategic mind Like he this guy could beat the shit out of Batman. He's Batman plus. Yeah Yeah, I Mean this is a guy that's got his own country. He's got his own mountain of this magic metal You know, I mean he's got generations of
00:28:24
Speaker
this heritage of power and prestige. I mean, anyway you look at it, the Black Panther is a magnificent creation, period. It's just a shame that it took this long for people to appreciate who he is.
00:28:41
Speaker
and what he represents. But I'm glad that now that people do and, you know, of course, I mean, you know, like we were saying, I mean, this movie was so successful that you remember that there was a little controversy because everybody was saying, well, Black Panther should get best picture, best picture. And the Academy was twisting themselves into all kinds of knots to the point where they were going to create a separate category. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.
00:29:09
Speaker
They were going to create a separate category because they didn't want to give the Academy Award to a black superhero movie as the best picture of the year.
00:29:26
Speaker
I mean, everybody loved this movie, except, of course, for the racists on the internet who were saying, oh, well, if we made a movie called White Panther, they'd be saying, you know, that we were racist and everything like that. Oh, and also bizarrely, Terry Gilliam hated it.
00:29:45
Speaker
I mean, he called it utter bullshit and said the crew had never been to Africa when they had filmed scenes in Africa. And they had brought in African history experts. They used African language.
00:30:02
Speaker
The costume designer said designer, she pulled so much from African culture and used it in this movie. And then you got Terry Gilliam, you know, white-splaining that it's bad for black kids.
00:30:17
Speaker
Well, you have to remember something about Terry Gilliam. And I say this with all love and respect for Terry Gilliam because time bandits and Brazil are magnificent works of art. But this is a guy that has wasted 20 years of his life trying to make a Don Quixote movie that nobody wanted to see except for him.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yes. Okay. Let's get that out of the way first. This is a guy who never understood that in order for you to keep on making movies, you have to make movies that make money. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Terry Gillam never understood this about the industry, you know, that, yeah. Okay. Listen, I respect artistic creativity to the highest. Yes. But
00:31:09
Speaker
There's a reason why it's called show business. Exactly. Yeah. You know, so and, you know, I mean, let's face it, his movies never made money. Right. So I can only imagine that he's probably very frustrated. But you've had a lot of these. I mean, you know, Martin Scorsese, you know, he you know, he was very vocal about it. And
00:31:35
Speaker
Well, not this movie and not this movie specifically. So just to give some context. Yeah. No. I mean, you know, not this movie specifically, but oh.
00:31:45
Speaker
These are guys that have to... First of all, Terry Gilliam never really found his place in Hollywood, period. Just because of the nature of his movies. Now, if he was smart, what he should have did, he should have did what Martin Scorsese did, and a lot of other filmmakers who realized that the culture has changed and the type of movies that they made.
00:32:09
Speaker
nobody is going to go to the theaters and see them anymore. So what do they do? Now they're going to Netflix, they're going to Amazon Prime, they're going to Hulu, they're going to Showtime, you know? I mean, because these are entertainment platforms that are willing to shovel plenty of money at them.
00:32:32
Speaker
I remember reading an interview where he said that when he was in talks with Netflix to do The Irishman, and they were asking, well, how much do you think it's going to cost? And he gave them a price. And they said, OK, fine. Go make the movie.
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, no negotiations, no nothing, no trying to talk him down. He said, because every time that he dealt with a studio, the one thing they always tried to do was to talk him down on the budget. Well, can you make it cheaper? Can you make it cheaper? He said, no, Netflix never did. He said in all his 40, what, 40 years of making movies, Mark's going to say, he said that never happened to him before, where a studio just said, yeah, OK, go make the movie. Don't worry about how much it costs. Yeah.
00:33:18
Speaker
Now, going back to Black Panther, I want to give credit to someone who has not gotten enough credit for his role in this movie, and that's Don McGregor, right? So he wrote, back in the 70s, back in the 70s, Marvel had this comic book called Jungle Action, and it was
00:33:39
Speaker
It was a pretty racist comic book before Don McGregor came along. It was just like all these stories about white guys. It was like Tarzan type stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It was a book of reprints actually full of Tarzan knockoffs. Yeah.
00:33:55
Speaker
So McGregor came in and he goes to Marvel and he says, well, wait a minute, you've got a character from Africa. He runs his own African country. You've got a comic book that's doing stories in Africa and they're not Black Panther stories. What the hell is wrong with you guys? So he did it as.
00:34:15
Speaker
Panther's Rage. It was a 13 issue story arc and this is where so much of the movie comes from because this is the story of Killmonger and going after Black Panther and taking the throne and all of that. And he followed this up with another story where Black Panther is in America and he goes after the KKK.
00:34:36
Speaker
Now, there's this meme that's been floating around ever since Black Panther came along. And all due respect to Jack Kirby, he deserves a lot of credit for a lot of stuff he's done in the industry. But this meme says that when Jack Kirby was doing Black Panther, Marvel criticized him, saying that there's not enough white characters, so then Jack Kirby did a story with Black Panther fighting the Ku Klux Klan. And that is not at all what happened. It was all Don McGregor doing that.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah. I mean Kirby, in fact, they canceled, they cut McGregor's KKK story short because Jack Kirby had just come back to Marvel and wanted to do his own Black Panther series. And his Black Panther series had, again, all due respect to Kirby, but his Black Panther series did not have even a fraction of the kind of social commentary and, you know, forward thinking nature that McGregor's stories did.
00:35:33
Speaker
Well, let me say this about before I jump in and, you know, OK, two things. Would you consider that Panthers Rage could be considered like really because that was like the first like graphic novel, really? Oh, yeah. I think that's how it was really structured.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah, it was structured right. That's what I'm trying to get across, that it wasn't structured so much as your typical monthly comic book. It was structured, yeah, like a graphic novel. And second of all, I take it back to nobody in my admiration and love and respect for Jack Kirby. But
00:36:17
Speaker
Jack Kirby, brilliant though, he may have been as an artist. He was not as brilliant when it came to writing. No, no. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. His Black Panther series. And I remember that I collected it, you know, like I bought. But then, you know, I bought it mostly for the artwork because, yeah, because like I said, Jack Kirby, when it came to writing, yeah, he wasn't
00:36:45
Speaker
How can, I don't know. That wasn't his strong point. Let me put it that way. No, Jack Kirby was much more about translating fantastic ideas onto the page in his artwork. You know it's probably the best writing that he did when he took over, what was it, Jimmy Olsen? Right, when he introduced the new gods. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:37:10
Speaker
And it still cracks me up to this day that the whole fourth world that DC is still strip mining for stories and ideas started out in Jimmy Olsen. And now it's getting a movie directed by Ava DuVernay. Yeah, yeah, but you know what?
00:37:31
Speaker
Jimmy Olsen, for anybody who has not read the Jack Kirby issues of Jimmy Olsen, I highly suggest you go and read, because that's some fantastic shit in there. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of this movie, it takes stuff straight from McGregor's work.
00:37:56
Speaker
And it mixes in some stuff with Christopher Priest, it takes some stuff from Reginald Hudlin, but most of it is Don McGregor in this movie. And what I really admire about this movie is that, yeah, it takes all of these, it takes something from just by every era.
00:38:13
Speaker
of the Black Panther. Well, I mean, what if it, it also, it can do that. It's easier for this movie to do it than say like Iron Man or Captain America, because sadly there have only been a few Black Panther runs. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's not like, um, I mean, Iron Man, I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff. Yeah.
00:38:37
Speaker
that, you know, to pick and choose from. But Black Panther, like you said, it's like the Don McGregor, which to me is like the gold standard. And yeah, and when I saw the movie, I was happy that I did recognize elements that was taken from the Don McGregor story and translated very well to this movie, especially with the character of Killmonger.
00:39:03
Speaker
Oh my God, like, hands down, one of the best Marvel villains that has been in one of these movies so far.
Killmonger's Motivations and Morality
00:39:12
Speaker
And you know why, okay, this is why I love Killmonger so much. Well, I love villains, period.
00:39:20
Speaker
that okay i watch what they're doing i don't like what they're doing i don't condone what they're doing but damn if i don't understand why they're doing it yeah i mean he makes a lot of good points yeah yeah i mean you know i mean you know you sit there and he's making the speeches and everything like that and he's explaining why he's doing this and then i say you know something
00:39:42
Speaker
He's a miserable son of a bitch, but damn if he doesn't have a point. And you know what? People don't seem to understand. That makes your hero stronger when your villain has a motivation that is just as powerful, if not more powerful, than the hero.
00:40:02
Speaker
Because that's where you get real caught, because now it's not just a physical thing. It's about the ideologies. Yeah. And Michael B. Jordan, he sells it so well. His portrayal is, oh, damn. It's just so good. I'm trying to think of a good way to put it into words beyond that. But it's a...
00:40:26
Speaker
You understand him. You can totally sympathize with what he's doing. That scene, when he's
00:40:33
Speaker
When he's buried and he goes to Dajaliya, the kind of ancestral plane, he meets his father. Yeah, yeah. And it cuts back and forth between him as a young kid and him as an adult. And Jordan, he wipes a tear away. You feel that emotion in that scene. I mean, it's a testament to the storytelling of this movie that they gave him that scene, that they said, you know what, they're not afraid to give
00:41:03
Speaker
added dimensions to this guy. Yeah. So we fully understand his pain and what he went through and why he's doing what he's doing. Well, something else, too, about about that scene and the job, his father was played by split amazingly well by Sterling K. Brown and just this very small role, but it's so impactful in the movie. And that's when he comes up to him and he sees
00:41:31
Speaker
Killmonger is a kid and he says, what are you doing? What did I tell you about looking at my things? And you think he's got like this stern tone of voice when he says that. And it would have been so easy for them to portray him as being like someone who beat his kid or something like that. And they kind of, and it seems like they're going down that road, but then, but then the kid looks up at him and then he just smiles and he laughs. He's like, what did you find? Right? You realize that this guy, you know, he was,
00:41:59
Speaker
He was not a bad guy, his father. He was trying to do the right thing by his son, too. Well, yeah, but see, that's the thing. And it goes back to what I always say. The best villains are the ones who don't think that they're the villains. Right. Now, like you said, the.
00:42:14
Speaker
have played brilliantly again by Sterling K. Brown. He honestly felt that what he was doing was best for his country and his people. And you know what? It's hard to disagree with him, because he makes a lot of good points. Because this is happening in 1992. They got the Rodney King beatings going on, watching on the TV and everything. Yeah.
00:42:38
Speaker
I mean, this movie isn't afraid to tie in real-world elements and deal with racism and, you know, classism and, you know, even in Wakanda, we see that, yeah, it's this technological paradise, but it's not perfect either. Right. There's got all these different tribes that are, you know, what is it, like five different tribes. Right.
00:43:05
Speaker
but they have their own conflicts and, you know. Well, yeah, there's a lot of issues with Wakanda, which is it's all kind of like in the background, but it helps add to the rich nature of this and to like, because that's one of the reasons why Wakanda feels so lived in, because you can feel the political strife going on in the background, like this whole push and pull between tradition and modernization. And T'Challa is like stuck in the middle of all that.
00:43:33
Speaker
Right, because you've got these elders who don't want to change. And then you've got people like Nakio who want to push forward and to join the rest of the world. And T'Challa is stuck here in the middle with this. And he sees the net, and that's one of the messages of this film, is that
00:43:53
Speaker
He's not, you know, when you have all this power and you don't help anyone but yourself, you know, yeah, you're not causing trouble but you're not really living up to your responsibilities.
00:44:06
Speaker
mmm good point excellent point yeah and there is yes and you see that because they have this i mean they they decide who's going to rule their their country by ritual combat like so they've got all this technological advancements but they're still stuck in the past in so many ways yeah yeah and i think the movie makes an excellent
00:44:29
Speaker
point of showing that conflict so that when we get to the end of the movie and we see that T'Challa has made the decision to bring Wakanda into the 21st century, which of course is going to have ramifications, you know, because I see Wakanda as being like a Pandora's box almost. Right. And if it's opened by the wrong people or open in the wrong way,
00:44:53
Speaker
You know, it has the capacity for, you know, immense destructive capabilities, you know, if it's not user. See, this is why I love this movie so much because every time I saw this movie and I went with what? Two times I went to see it with.
00:45:12
Speaker
a bunch of people and the third time I went to see it with my wife. And every time after we came out of the movie, we had discussions about it. I mean, and long discussions, not about the fighting and, you know, and everything like that, but about what the characters represented and what, you know, because everybody in this movie has a different point of view. It's not right. It's not wrong. It's just their point of view. It's their worldview. It's how they see the world based on how they were brought up.
00:45:41
Speaker
their life experiences, how they were taught. I think even more than The Winter Soldier, this might be Marvel's most political film.
00:45:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and again, like Winter Soldier, it's not afraid to shy away from these very deep, heavy political subjects that you wouldn't normally expect to
Political Themes in Black Panther
00:46:09
Speaker
find in a superhero movie, but
00:46:12
Speaker
They don't slow down the story. They do what they're supposed to do. They enhance the story and give a level to it and raise the stakes for all of the characters. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, and something interesting about Michael B. Jordan. I didn't know this until I was reading the trivia, but he auditioned for the Falcon in Winter Soldier.
00:46:35
Speaker
And obviously you know that went to Anthony Mackie who does a great job, but I'm glad he got this other opportunity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean if I had to go between the two, yeah, I you know.
00:46:49
Speaker
I'm glad that he didn't get the Falcon just so he could get this. And you know what? I got a theory. I have a personal theory. A lot of people say I'm crazy or I just want the guy to be alive. But I don't think he was dead at the end of the movie. Well, there's been talk of him possibly appearing in the next movie. But I think if he does, it'll be more as kind of like an hallucination or a flashback or something along those lines.
00:47:17
Speaker
Well, it would be interesting if Disney. Oh, what I would do is I would have a Killmonger TV series, you know, detailing his life before, of course. Well, you know, I wouldn't do it on Disney Plus, because I think something like that would need to be you'd need something a little bit more riskier than what Disney Plus might be willing to do. But put that on Hulu, I think, like what they're doing with with Hellstorm.
00:47:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's right, because they got that deal with Hulu that they're going to put something in more, quote unquote, adult themed. Right. Right. Yeah, because Disney has a controlling stake in Hulu after they bought out the Fox's assets. Oh, OK. Yeah, I heard that. Yeah, that they own a large piece of Hulu. Yeah. So I think it was anything that Disney doesn't own at this point.
00:48:10
Speaker
I mean, you know what? Part of me is really glad that all the Marvel stuff is under one home and that they've got the money to keep making movies and TV shows and to keep expanding the MCU like they have been. But another part of me is looking at Disney like, you guys are starting to scare me a little bit here.
00:48:33
Speaker
Why are they starting to scare you? Wow, what's up? Just because there's all this media consolidation, right? And I think that poses some really ethical questions about media monopolization. And yeah, you know me. I'm someone who's very wary of corporations to begin with. Oh, yeah. And rightly so.
00:49:01
Speaker
But so, yeah, I'm a little bit like back when I was in when I was in college, a friend of mine, she she was like this. She was this tech. She was this really techy person. And she said, she's like, I love Google, but they scare me. And that's how I feel about Disney now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, having all of your entertainment or so much of our entertainment owned by one corporation.
00:49:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of, you know, you got to look at them and you say, listen, I'm not so sure about this. You know, I don't know if I want everything I like being owned by one big giant corporation and they're buying up stuff left and right. I mean, you know, every every time you turn around, it's like, OK, well, Disney, they've acquired this and they've acquired that, acquired this and that and other. And, you know,
00:49:52
Speaker
Where does it end? I mean, how much money can you make? Yeah. Yeah. On the other hand, we keep getting movies like this. Yeah. So that's what I said. I like the fact that all the Marvel stuff is under one umbrella. They've given it to Kevin Feige, who knows what he's doing, who clearly loves these characters. But it's just like all the consolidation is a little worrying. And they apparently have no problem with spending as much money
00:50:22
Speaker
as they can to make these movies. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, it's going close to $300 million. OK, here, take it and go. And you know what? So this is also, too, because Michael B. Jordan played the Human Torch in Joshua Trank's Fantastic Four movie. Yep.
00:50:39
Speaker
Chris Evans played the Human Torch in Tim Story's Fantastic Four movie. So now Marvel has given a second chance to two different Human Torch actors. And you just know Jay Underwood, who played the character in the Roger Corman Fantastic Four, is waiting by his phone, just like rubbing his hands. He was like, any day now. Any day now. Any day now. OK. He's telling the wife of kids, stay on that phone. Don't touch it.
00:51:04
Speaker
They're going to be calling me any day now. That's why I've been looking at them, just shaking his hands, saying, come on, kids, let's go. I'm telling you, go. But again, we got to go back to something that we've always emphasized as being the one thing about all these MCU movies. The casting is impeccable. Oh, yeah. I mean, everybody in this movie
00:51:32
Speaker
Chadwick Boseman as a Black Panther. Again, just like we said with Captain America, you know, Chris Evans as Captain. I cannot imagine anybody else playing the Black Panther. No, no. And you know what? About Chadwick Boseman, it still feels so unreal when I watch him in interviews and he's using his normal voice because his African accent is so good that when he speaks in his normal voice, I'm like,
00:52:02
Speaker
That's not your real voice. Come on. You're doing an American accent, aren't you? I know. It just throws you off completely. Yeah. And he sells it so good. And you know what? Chadwick Boseman, man, he's building up a... talking about monopolies. He's building up a monopoly on black icons now, because he's done...
00:52:22
Speaker
What he was in, he did James Brown. He did- Yeah, James Brown. Thurgood Marshall. Thurgood Marshall. He's doing Yasuke, the Black Samurai. He's getting so- Listen, dude, let somebody else play this little Black hero. You don't have to play him along now. Oh, that's hilarious. But you know what? I'm glad to see
00:52:53
Speaker
You know that he is playing all these different type of black heroes. Because it goes back to something that and you know what I get into arguments with people all the time when they talk about that. Well, why doesn't Idris Elba play James Bond or why doesn't this black actor play James Bond? And I say, no, I have no interest in seeing a black James Bond. I said, we as black people, we have our own heroes.
00:53:18
Speaker
We don't need to take a white hero, give him a tan, and then say, OK, well, James Bond is black now. No, he's not black. James Bond was created by a white man to represent a particular white point of view. Having a black James Bond, to me, makes about as much sense as having a white John Shaft. I don't want to see Michael Fassbender playing John Shaft.
00:53:46
Speaker
OK, so yeah, we have our own heroes. And I think I would like to think that now the pro all these different projects that we're seeing on TV and in movies with black characters, I'd like to think that Black Panther kind of jump started all of that. Yeah, I think it definitely did. And we're going to I mean, well, also, I think we got to give some credit because Luke Cage came out before this, I believe.
00:54:15
Speaker
Yes, it did. Yeah. And it was also very much unapologetically black, too. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was a show that broke the Internet. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Netflix literally crashed because so many people were trying to watch it when it premiered. I know I did. I. What was it that Friday? That was.
00:54:39
Speaker
I was sitting at home. I think I watched the first season, yeah, all in one day. I think I did too. And I got lucky because it came out here when everybody in America was asleep. So I was able to watch the whole thing without having to worry about anything crashing. Mm-hmm.
00:54:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think Minecraft watch for what like three or four episodes and then after that, you know, just shut down and send the old man. Listen, you can't watch no more. And then after a couple of hours, I let it go by and then I turned it back on and I finished watching it. But yeah, but Luke Cage, you know, and again,
Evolution of Black Characters in Media
00:55:19
Speaker
this is another black superhero, but
00:55:23
Speaker
by no means can you say that he was a copy of black panther or is there any similarity to the two characters just because they're black they were just as different as say like iron man and captain america right well also too like you know luke cage when he first premiered was a lot more stereotypical than black panther when he first appeared
00:55:44
Speaker
Oh yeah. And the show made a lot of adjustments to Luke Cage's character. So he was a lot less angry black guy when they did the Luke Cage TV show. And he was much more speak softly and carry a big stick type.
00:56:01
Speaker
Well, Luke Cage in the comic book, when he appeared in the comic book, he was born out of the, you know, the Blaxploitation movies that were popular at that time in the 1970s. And in fact, at one time back then,
00:56:18
Speaker
It was rumored. I don't know how to this rumor is, folks, but this is one of the rooms that that Jim Brown was going to be playing Luke Cage in a movie back then, you know, during the 70s. But you know who else would have also been good is Fred Williamson.
00:56:36
Speaker
Yes, Fred Williamson. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking of. Black Caesar himself. Yeah, that's how I always saw Luke Cage as more Fred Williamson than Jim Brown. Same here, yeah. Because Jim Brown, he was athletic. He was much more fluid, much more slim. But Fred Williamson is like carved out of granite. Yeah.
00:57:03
Speaker
And I could actually see Fred Williamson saying something like, Sweet Christmas. Oh, hell yeah. And pulling it off. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Jim Brown, I couldn't see him selling it. No. Yeah. So yeah. But the original character, as he was originally conceived, it was much more in the vein of the Black exploitation movies of that era. Whereas now when we got to Netflix series,
00:57:30
Speaker
He was a much more contemporary character. Yeah. You know, which also worked for him. I mean. Oh, yeah. Great. I mean, I love Luke Cage. You know, Daredevil obviously holds a gold standard, but Luke Cage is a close second. How about Jessica Jones? Jessica Jones. I like Jessica Jones too, but I think I like Luke Cage and Daredevil more. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:54
Speaker
Jessica Jones got kind of, Jessica Jones is kind of dragging in spots. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the first season was good, but it still had that kind of like soggy middle that a lot of these Netflix shows had. And and then the last two seasons, just like it kind of dropped down, I felt. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you know what?
00:58:16
Speaker
And we've talked about this before here on this podcast, and I've, you know, you and I have talked about it privately. I'm a big believer, listen, if you only have enough story for six episodes, that just makes sense episodes. Well, that's what Iron Fist season two did. They cut down the episode number from like 13 to 10, and it really benefited the show to have that tighter contention.
00:58:42
Speaker
Yeah, because you know what? I don't want to have three or four episodes in the middle. I don't want to have the first three episodes, okay, everything is happening. Then we get three or four episodes where absolutely nothing happens and it's just the characters regurgitating.
00:58:57
Speaker
right still dialogue right we've heard one of the show and then the last three episodes everything happens in the last three episodes yeah i mean i put in some extra b plots or something to move it along or cut the episode number down like watchman did this perfectly right oh nine episodes very tight lots of story and
00:59:17
Speaker
It's perfect. It's like pitch perfect execution from episode one all through episode nine. There's not a moment of that show that I'm not sitting on the edge of my seat.
00:59:27
Speaker
Absolutely. This is what I'm saying. And yes, I get this from people that say, well, you don't understand that's characterization and world building. No, it's not. It's padding. Exactly. There's a difference. I know padding when I see padding, trust me. I know the difference between characterization and world building. But there's some people, quite frankly, there's some people that will sit and watch anything.
00:59:51
Speaker
They will, you know, they'll watch anything. Now going back to the movie and the cast in this, as awesome as Chadwick Boseman is, a lot of that awesomeness is just kind of a continuation of when he first played this character in Civil War. But like when you put him in the midst of all these other characters, these other actors who are amazing, like he kind of gets overshadowed in his own movie a little bit.
01:00:19
Speaker
well yeah well yeah kind of because um and that's not that's not a knock against bozeman's performance because he's great in the movie but it's just everyone else is amazing winston duke who steals every day i've seen he's in yes oh my god yeah and it's so it's so great what they do with mubaku because in the in the comics the man ap's
01:00:43
Speaker
kind of a crap character, right? He's not really that interesting. He's kind of like one note. When Christopher Priest used him in his Black Panther run, he was kind of like written off, like he's like not really a big threat. But in this, they give a completely different version of Mabaku, and I love what they do with him in this. Because in the comic books, the man name's whole thing is
01:01:05
Speaker
He's against Wakandan technology, right? He's so much into the past and tradition that he thinks Wakanda should shun technology completely. Mubaku in this movie is not like that. Like he says when he first comes in, and his whole thing is he's more pissed at Shuri, not for using technology, but for scoffing at tradition. Yeah, exactly.
01:01:33
Speaker
And I love the scene when they go see him, and Ross tries to plead the case, and he starts barking at him. Yeah, and he barks at me and says, I didn't give you leave to speak. And he just totally dismisses it. But also, then he makes it. He's like, I will feed you to my children. And then he just laughs, and he's like, we're vegetarians.
01:01:58
Speaker
Well, see, that's the whole thing I love about the character is that, yeah, he does these things where he comes off like he's trying to be big and bad and tough and intimidating everything like that. And then he undercuts his own self by making a joke out of it. The greatest thing, too, is he's the only one who laughs at his own joke.
01:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Nobody knows things this shit is funny. You know, even his guard is kind of like, what are you doing, man? Yeah, but he's having the time of his life. You know, you kind of get to feel that he's a very benevolent ruler. Yeah. You know, he really does a strange issue. But yeah, but listen to, I mean, he steals every single scene that he's in. Who else? Forest Whitaker. Yeah.
01:02:42
Speaker
who's been stealing scenes now for like 30, 40 years now. You know, it's no secret that he knows how to steal a scene. He's good. Angela Bassett. Yes. As Black Panther's mother.
01:02:56
Speaker
Ramonda, yeah, she's so good. She's just, and there's a hint of like what we could have seen of her with the white hair and everything, which I know Ramonda has in the comics, but still, this kind of makes you a little bit wistful. It's like, she could have been Storm, man. Yeah, yeah, she could. Know something? That's the exact same thing I thought when I saw her with the white hair. I'm trying to say, you know what? Is that like a subtle statement that they're trying to make
01:03:26
Speaker
they're saying okay well this is what you could have had because you know that she did try out for the role you know she wanted the role and then they went with haley berry instead yeah the studio said you know you're too old
01:03:39
Speaker
Yeah. Like, even now, she looks like she could still play the role. Oh, yeah. I mean, absolutely. You know, if they were going to make a Storm movie tomorrow, yeah, put Angela Bass in it. As a matter of fact, there's only two people, there's only two actresses I have ever seen in my mind as playing Storm. And one is Angela Bass, and the other one is David Bowie's wife, Iman. Iman, yeah. I remember she was mentioned a lot, too. Yeah.
01:04:09
Speaker
But who else? I recently watched The Hate U Give. And I thought the young actress in that movie, I thought she was really good. And I think she's actually been mentioned as a possible contender. Oh, OK. For when they eventually bring the X-Men into the MCU. I think it's mostly like fan cast and that kind of thing. But she was really impressive in The Hate U Give. So I think she could probably do a pretty good job.
01:04:37
Speaker
Yeah, because it's going to happen sooner or later eventually. Oh, definitely. Then you'll bring X-Men in. Now they don't. Boy, they're about lock, stock, and barrel, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, they got all of it. Yeah. So not only Angela Bette, but Latisha Wright as Shuri. I was never a big Shuri fan in the comics. I didn't really get into Reginald Hudlin's Black Panther run. I tried reading a little bit of it. It wasn't really my thing.
01:05:05
Speaker
And he created Shuri in the comics, but Letitia Wright is brilliant. She's so good in this movie. I mean, she manages to pull off something to me that is very difficult to do. She pulls off.
01:05:21
Speaker
OK, she's this little sweet, innocent looking kid. Like I said, she looked like she belongs in junior high school. Yeah. And she's still got that innocence of youth and that wonder and everything like that. But then but then she is able to project this immense intelligence that she has.
01:05:40
Speaker
To me, that's very hard to do, but she pulls it off, you know? She doesn't do, you know, when she's showing off her toys, you know, to her brother there, and she's got this excitement, and, you know, she's just so thrilled that she's able to build all of this stuff and everything like that. And, yeah, intelligence is kind of hard to pull off in movies, I think, because there's a tendency that you can go the way that
01:06:06
Speaker
Robert Downey Jr. did, where, you know, Tony Stark is arrogant, you know, he's brilliant, he knows he's brilliant, and he's gonna make sure you know that he's brilliant, or you have the other type of genius that's very reclusive. Right, like Mark Ruffalo's banner. Right, exactly. But sure, it is like,
01:06:28
Speaker
She manages to get across all of the attributes of a teenage girl while still projecting that fearsome intelligence that she has. Yeah. And it's an amazing performance. Yeah, it is. It's an amazing, in a movie full of amazing performances. Yeah, hers stand out. Yeah. Matter of fact, I think that my favorite actors in the movie is her, Winston Duke, and
01:06:57
Speaker
Ooh, I just said his name. Kill Mom. Oh, Michael B. Jordan. Yeah, those would be my top three as well. Those are the ones that really stand out to me. And you know what? I want to see Shuri and Tom Holland's Peter Parker interact at some point, because there's so much energy between those two. And you can imagine the interplay between them would be a lot of fun to watch.
01:07:23
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. I mean, somebody needs to put those two together in a movie. They really do. And of course, we got to see a scene with her at Tony Stark.
01:07:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, a little bit hard now, but yeah, I wish we could have seen some. In fact, I was so expecting when in the trailers for Infinity War, when we first see that, you know, Iron Man is now using this like nano machine suit, I was so expecting there to be some reference that it come from Wakandan technology because that's what she does with Black Panther suit.
01:07:59
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah. So I think maybe I think maybe at one point there will be some like mention where is like, you know, in like the next movie or something like that, there's some mention of like, yeah, we gave some technology to Stark. But OK. But speaking about Tony Stark, isn't he supposed to be in the Black Widow movie that's coming up? Well, yeah. But that's set before Infinity War. That's set between Civil War and Infinity War.
01:08:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, you can't completely write him off because they can always still do more movies and show. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, this took place before Infinity War, you know. Yeah, they could do something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You're right.
01:08:43
Speaker
Yeah, so that would be great to see the two of them interacting. Because I loved what that brief interaction she had with Banner in Infinity War. And he's talking about what they did with Vision. And she's like, well, why did she just do it this way? And even the Vision looks at him like, yeah, why didn't you do it that way? And Banner's like, because we didn't think of it. Yeah, we didn't think of it. And she's just so fatigued to say, colonizers. She's like, I'm sure you did the best you could.
01:09:13
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, it's difficult to pull it, but I think that because she projects that innocence and she's got the qualities of a teenage girl, that kind of tempers the intelligence a little bit so that people don't feel intimidated by her, like they do with Tony Stark.
01:09:35
Speaker
And he does that on purpose. He intimidates people with his smarts, you know, but she doesn't do that. You know why? She doesn't feel the need to do that. Yeah. And let's also talk about Lupita Nyong'o as Nakia and Danai Gurida as Okoye because both of them, you know, they're both, their roles are so improved from the comics because, you know, in the comics, Nakia and Okoye, the Dora Milaje, they're,
Representation of Black Women in Black Panther
01:10:02
Speaker
sort of their their bodyguards too but they're also kind of like wives in waiting type of thing is how they're described yeah exactly but in this they're just they're just there's no mention of that in this they're just flat out royal guard in this yeah they're bodyguards yeah what's that kind of like i like i like it a lot better i like the idea of them being like this kind of like warrior class it it fits them so much better
01:10:25
Speaker
Matter of fact, I like the way that women are handled in this movie, period. Oh, yeah. As much as it celebrates, like we were saying, African culture and all that, but it really celebrates black women. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I took Patricia to see it, and that was it. When she came out, I couldn't tell her anything for the next two weeks afterwards.
01:10:55
Speaker
I said, I said, I am not buying you a spear, Patricia. No, she wanted to speak. No, you can't have a spear. You don't know what to do with it. You'll kill yourself with it, or maybe. And she's like, shut up, colonizer. Well, one colonizer with some milk, trust me.
01:11:17
Speaker
But yeah, but I mean, this is a movie that's got plenty of strong black women. And then all again, I go back to everybody's got their own character, like in the scene, like with Killmonger, where he throws the child off the cliffs. And Angela Bassett, you know, she's got to run for cover because she's afraid she's going to be killed and everything like that. And Lupita Nyong'o,
01:11:42
Speaker
uh she talks to uh what's her name yeah she talks to us says okay well we gotta go and she says well what do you mean we gotta go i'm not going anywhere well what are you talking about and she says listen my loyalty is to the throne and who sits on it doesn't matter and i say you know some
01:12:01
Speaker
Again, I didn't agree with her, but I respected her. My duty is to Wakanda. And that's also another example of that kind of push and pull between tradition and modernization.
01:12:19
Speaker
Because Nakia really represents the kind of change that's come into Wakanda. And she's like, no, we've got to help T'Challa. But even still, Okoye does not tell her, don't go, right? She still says, look, I understand what you have to do. Okoye still respects Nakia's decision to leave. Yeah. Yeah. She said, listen, if you got to go, you go. I got to stay in.
01:12:48
Speaker
I don't know. I just really get off on that type of interaction between characters and how they have different points of view, but they can still respect each other. And and nobody is 100 percent wrong and nobody is 100 percent right. Yeah. This movie does a really good job at portraying complexity. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There's a definite complexity to all the relationships between these characters that
01:13:17
Speaker
I really think that resonated with people. After a while, you actually forget you're watching the superhero movie. Really, you do. You could easily take all the superhero stuff out of this movie, and this would work straight up as a political thriller.
01:13:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Even if you didn't have a superhero sub, right? You take out the world, take out the technology, the work on the technology and, you know, the suit and everything like that. Yeah. And you'd have a straight up political thrill. Yeah, you would. Yeah. And like it again, you know, all due respect to Winter Soldier because that set the bar really high. But Black Panther just kind of blew through it.
01:13:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And as I was saying earlier, this is a movie that was such a cultural touchstone. I mean, this movie, and you know, not just here, not just here, but worldwide. I mean, people just fell in love with this movie. I mean, people went back to see it multiple times, which they know. Like I said, I went back and saw it three times. I can't remember the last movie that I went back.
01:14:25
Speaker
you know to see in the theater and pay to see in the theater three times you know i think it was i think it was mark bernard and uh... who hosts fat man beyond with kevin smith and he when they were talking about this movie and you know mark bernard is a black writer and he was saying i i i think i'm pretty sure it was him i could i might be wrong if i'm wrong i apologize uh... but but he said that you know you know black people we've had our culture taken away from us our our national identity taken away from us so
01:14:54
Speaker
Why not let it be Wakanda? That's our culture. You know you had a lot of people. They said there was an unusually large amount of Google searches
01:15:15
Speaker
People asking the question, is Wakanda a real country? Because they wanted to go there.
Wakanda's Realism and Cultural Impact
01:15:22
Speaker
Which I think is a testimony to the art of the filmmakers that they put this world on screen so effectively that people actually wanted to believe that this was real. Yeah, and you know, people are doing the, I remember when the film came out, there's so many photos on social media of people doing the Wakandan salute.
01:15:45
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And excuse me. And there were people that were going to the movies dressed up in African regalia. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I didn't see it myself. But I know that I have friends of mine that was telling me, yeah, man, I went there. And about like 30 people came in there. And we thought they were real Africans until they broke the head, you know. But you know, people felt touched by this movie that they wanted to come. And you know, this was their way of showing
01:16:15
Speaker
their respect or having some kind of further connection with the movie that, yeah, you have people that have shown up in full African regalia to go see the movie. Yeah. And I really like what they did. I really like what they did with Nakia, because if you remember in Christopher Priest's run, there was this scene where Black Panther T'Challa, when he was under the influence of, I think it was Mephisto, like brainwashing him or something, he ended up having this kind of like hallucinogenic episode where he thought he was kissing his ex-girlfriend.
01:16:45
Speaker
who was Monica. Yeah, Monica Lynn. Monica Lynn, thank you. Yeah. And then it turned out he was kissing Nakia and in the comics that was like him committing himself to Nakia. And when he told her, when he tried to explain the situation to her, she went kind of insane and she became a villain.
01:17:04
Speaker
But but this movie, you know, they kind of they kind of combined Nokia with elements of Monica Lynn because you know they used to date they've clearly got this history between them and I really kind of like that I Although it does kind of make me wonder will they ever be able to bring in Monica Lynn now, too? Mmm, yeah, that's because well, I think that in the next movie they probably should do something in a
01:17:32
Speaker
Although as much as I would love to see them stay in Wakanda and just deal with Wakanda, but kind of now at the end of the movie when he's, you know, he has a sister, he takes her to Oakland, you know, California, and he does say that he's done bought the property and he's going to establish an embassy. Excuse me, you know.
01:17:55
Speaker
and he wants her to run the embassy and the science center and everything like that. So I guess in the second movie, we're going to see more of his involvement in the United States, which also would be interesting to see how Black Americans would react to the Black Panther and, you know, what they would think of him and, you know, what he's doing and how he's doing it. Again, getting into another level that would add
01:18:20
Speaker
to what we've already seen. Right. There's that there's that great scene at the end where the little black kid comes up to him and he's like, is that your ship? And he's like, yes. And he's like, who are you? Right. And so like there's and you can kind of see like the on his face, which which also kind of, you know, like we were talking about last week with the meteor managed like giving this kind of symbol to black kids. And that's that's a perfect example of that right there, like the kind of wonder in his face when he looks at T'Challa.
01:18:48
Speaker
Oh, that was a perfect way to end. Yeah, that was a pro, because he just walks up to him and he's like, oh man, is that your ship? Yeah. He said, yeah, that's right. Wow. Who are you? And he just, and then, you know, the child just gives him like that little smile, everything like that. And then bam, we cut the arc. Yeah. Everybody in the theater lost it. Yeah.
01:19:10
Speaker
but also they had Daniel Kaluuya, who played Wakabi, who's different from what he is in the comics. In the comics, he's much more of a very faithful advisor to T'Challa. But here, he's a... In the comics, he was a toady. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:19:31
Speaker
But but in this, you know, he's in fact, you know, I kind of noticed that Daniel Kaluuya was not in Infinity War. He wasn't among the army there. So it makes me wonder if maybe he's a facing some punishment after after the rebellion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But again,
01:19:49
Speaker
we understand why he does what he does too you know because and you get and they really in in a short amount of time because um they have that scene where they're next to the pin where the war rhinos are kept yeah yeah and you know and and they're talking and in a very short amount of time we
01:20:14
Speaker
get their whole relationship. You probably get the feeling that these guys have grown up together since they were boys, and they know each other really well, and you know, they're best friends, which gives added poignancy to when he makes some promise that, you know, you're gonna get claw, right? You're gonna get claw. And he says, yeah, yeah, yeah, man, I'm gonna get claw. Then he does get claw.
01:20:36
Speaker
Right, and he says like, you know, your father promised the same thing too.
Addressing Colonization and Technology
01:20:40
Speaker
So, and he's also, you know, it's interesting because he's a victim in a way of, he's a symbol of a victim of colonization because it was a, because it was Claude who was coming in to exploit vibranium that killed his parents. So like he's not straight out a victim of colonization, but that's what he's supposed to represent in that. Yeah, exactly. But you see how it's changed him.
01:21:08
Speaker
He's kind of thinking the same way they are because he tells T'Challa, a refugee program would be bad. He says, if you bring in refugees, you bring in their problems. And then he supports Killmonger and he says, it's going to be the conquered or the conquerors and I know which one I want to be. So he's kind of stuck in that mentality.
01:21:31
Speaker
And Nakia, she represents another aspect of that because she's been out there. She's seen it. She's been all throughout Africa helping these people. She's seen the effects of colonization and what this kind of mentality has done to other people in Africa, how it has kind of twisted them. So now it is, they are only thinking in the same way that their oppressors thought of too. And she's trying to say, no, we got to find a different way.
01:21:53
Speaker
Yeah, we have to find another way. There has to be a better way to, you know, do it. And yeah, I mean, you know, listen, how often do you find themes like that in a superhero movie? No, almost never. Not until Black Panther. Yeah. And I love how it just treats these. It's so, you know, it's so it's it doesn't it doesn't shy away from these very heavy themes and it just puts them right up on screen.
01:22:24
Speaker
It puts them in your face. Exactly, yeah. It makes you, which is, you know, as I was saying earlier, every time I left out of the showing, the people I was with, we got into these long, you know, we went out for dinner, we got into these long discussions, and we were talking about the themes of the movie.
01:22:40
Speaker
You know, we weren't talking about, you know, oh, man, wasn't that bad when he kicked him? No, we were talking about, well, how about when so-and-so said to so-and-so, and she said that's what we were doing. And I suspected that's what a lot of people were doing when they came out of this movie, that they were talking about the themes that were raised about various, you know,
01:23:05
Speaker
uh as you said um you know um what am i trying to say the things of colonization and technology and how technology can be used and abused and was it right for Wakanda to hide themselves you know from the world right the black nationalism themes and all that kind of stuff right yeah all of that kind of stuff they like i said you would not expect to find a superhero movie mainly because superhero movies
01:23:35
Speaker
didn't think that they should tackle these heavy themes you know but as we can see again it resonated with a lot of people because this movie made a shitload of money and it was written up in all the magazines I mean people were writing you know
01:23:57
Speaker
all kinds of you know papers and essays and stuff like I mean like going deep into the themes of this movie that I never saw with any other superhero movie previous to this one but because I think that nobody expected this one first of all I don't think anybody expected this movie to be as good as it was no no definitely not and this is a movie that you know
Adapting Black Panther: Film and Series
01:24:21
Speaker
Which kind of which kind of the reason why you made bets with so many people that now you're gonna go bankrupt paying them all off Because this movie has some version of this movie has been talked about For years going back to the early 90s when Wesley Snipes wanted to do it. Yeah. Yeah Wesley Snipes wanted to do this right after blade. Oh, yeah his suit even after blade came out He was still saying Black Panther is gonna be my next project
01:24:49
Speaker
The story that I heard was that the studio said, no, well, we're not interested. What I heard was that apparently, I think it was, he was involved with John Singleton. And I think it was John Singleton. Yeah, John Singleton. And John Singleton, though, he wanted to set it in, yeah, John Singleton. He wanted to set it during the civil rights movement in America. But Wesley Snipes wanted to keep it set in Africa. And that was like the big, they could never breach that divide.
01:25:19
Speaker
No, okay. Yeah, because I know that Wesley Snakes, this was like his dream project that he wanted to do, you know, Black Panther. Yeah, and I remember also Tim Story was talking about it too, because he was, there was a time when he was going to be doing a third Fantastic Four movie. And he said like in the third movie, we're bringing in Black Panther, we're going to Wakanda. And I think he was talking about getting Jiman Hanso to play the role.
01:25:47
Speaker
Mm, okay. I can see that. Yeah, because after Hanso blew up in Blood Diamond, everyone was talking about him as a potential Black Panther. Him as Black Panther, yep. I remember him. I think he was an Amistad, too.
01:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, homicide, yeah. And it was all, yeah, I remember there was a lot of told, well, if they ever make a Black Panther movie, this is the guy. And I can see that. Oh yeah, I can definitely see that. Well, he did the voice of the character in, um, there was a short-lived Black Panther animated series. And, uh, yeah. And he did the voice of T'Challa in that.
01:26:27
Speaker
So I think one of the reasons he probably did the voice is because Reginald Hudlin, who wrote the comic at the time that was the heavy basis for the cartoon, he ran BET.
01:26:42
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because I remember the cartoon. Right. Because I remember the cartoon wasn't a B.T. Yeah. I saw that. Yeah. So I wonder if maybe there was like some deal like maybe Hudlin was trying to lead this up to to get financing or something for a Black Panther movie. And he probably promised the world a Hanzo if he played him in the in the animated series.
01:27:04
Speaker
Yeah, because it was only five episodes. Right. So that's why I think it probably didn't do what it was expected. And so it never ended up materializing. Because I remember when it was on BET, it was a different episode every night for five nights. Yeah. Yeah. I think it came on like 8 o'clock or something like that. Yeah. And I remember saying, oh, shit, my pant. OK. Yeah, the animation wasn't that great, as I remember, though.
01:27:27
Speaker
No, it was kind of like, you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of a enhanced version of the Marvel superhero from the 60s. Right. It's like a motion comic type thing. Motion comic, yeah. That's what it reminded me of.
01:27:46
Speaker
That's one of my, and I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that if anybody's interested, you can find that on YouTube, those episodes on YouTube. Whatever the theme song was pretty cool. Yo, yeah, definitely. I forget who that, it was somebody pretty well known who did it also. I can't think of who it is right now, I'd have to look it up. But yeah, it had a cool theme song. But I do remember that it was billed as, it was a special event on BET, you know, Five Nights.
01:28:18
Speaker
Um, and it's well worth looking up folks. If anybody's interested, like I said, I believe it is on YouTube. Yeah. I'm looking up right now, trying to find some information about it. Um,
01:28:41
Speaker
No, this isn't safe Yeah, but look it up online like the opening alone is worth it like that. It's an awesome It's an awesome opening to the series Okay, so is there anything else we want to touch on with Black Panther? Is there anything else we need to we haven't talked about yet? one thing I thought about and talking about the whole influence of Colonization type stuff and all that was the whole thing about him being Killmonger
01:29:11
Speaker
that scene when he faces off in the challenge and he takes off his shirt and he's got the scarring on his body that he's done for one of those for every person he's killed and he talks about how that he's killed his black brothers and sisters on this very continent.
01:29:31
Speaker
in the name of an American form of imperialism. So he's kind of, it's interesting to where he's kind of doing what Malcolm X used to advocate for in a kind of perverse way, the whole any means necessary thing.
01:29:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, and we're like, he's been brought up, he's been trained by the American military, he's been trained in black ops and all this stuff, and he's now using those skills. It's like, it is kind of any means necessary. He's been using each thing as like a stepping stone to kind of eventually turn back on the oppressors. But in the context of doing that, he's also been a tool of the oppressors too. So that is that kind of interesting complexity we've been talking about before.
01:30:14
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. I think that next to Loki, Killmonger is probably the best villain that we've seen in the MCU. Definitely. Well, I think he's definitely the most complex. Oh, absolutely. Loki's the best just because he's so entertaining. But as far as in terms of complexity of character, I think Killmonger easily walks away with the honors. Yeah, yeah.
01:30:42
Speaker
riveting performance. And I know that most of the people out there that are listening to this, you know, you've probably seen them. I mean, I hope you've seen the movie. I mean, I'm pretty sure there's probably some people living in out of Mongolia, someplace where I've seen Black Panther. But
01:31:02
Speaker
If there is some chance you have not seen this movie, then I strongly urge that you stop listening to us pontificate and you go and if you got Disney Plus, because it's on Disney Plus, you can watch it on there or you can get to sell the Blu-ray. For anyone who's living outside of America, I'm pretty sure a lot of the MCU movies are also on Netflix too. At least here in Japan, a lot of them are.
01:31:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, there's a lot of them there. There's a lot of them that are still on Netflix as well. I think that when the contract is up, then it's going to go exclusively to Disney Plus. Right, right. But yeah, but some of the MCU movies are still on there. But yeah, this is a movie that you see not just for the superheroics, which is outstanding, the action sequences, like we talked earlier on about that whole South Korea
Socio-Political Themes and Action Analysis
01:31:57
Speaker
uh, sequence that is like, forget about it. That's even better than the, than the final battle, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. Actually, actually I thought, I mean, that's like a showstopper, you know, but you have the relationships between the characters, the socio political themes of the movie.
01:32:22
Speaker
uh, Killmonger, who is, I mean, Shuri. I could go on, I could easily sit here for another three hours and talk about Black Panther, but that would get boring after a while, because all I would do is just gush on it. If I do have a problem with the movie, is I have a problem with the fact that when, okay, I didn't like how, okay, they would give them, um,
01:32:50
Speaker
Oh, what am I trying to say? Okay, when they do the ritual combat thing, right, and they drink the berry to take away the powers of the Black Panther, they drink it in 30 seconds. Okay, the powers are going away. They drink it again 30 seconds, they got the powers back. It was like, you know, twit's celebrated for me. Okay. You know, like, I don't think it should be that easy to, you know, gain the powers of the Black Panther.
01:33:20
Speaker
Okay, you drink this in like 30 seconds, boom. Okay, you got all of these extraordinary physical powers. And then in that final fight, they had a scene that reminded me of, what was it? Spider-Man 3. Remember Spider-Man 3 when Spider-Man was fighting Venom? Oh, yeah, yeah. And every time that they had a talk,
01:33:44
Speaker
you know, they took off their mask. Yeah, yeah. And put it back on and took it off and put it back. Well, that got kind of annoying in the final fight where every time they were talking and, you know, well, I guess since you had the nanotechnology, it's easier to do it, but still. And you know what, I think that's one of the, like, the nanotech armor they've been using for a lot more of the characters. First, Black Panther, then Iron Man, you know, Spider-Man has it now. And going forward, I think more and more characters are gonna start using this kind of tech.
01:34:11
Speaker
And it's going to make it almost too easy for them to easily take off the masks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I really don't like any way that they're taking the mask off and on and off and on and on. To me, that's kind of distracting. I agree, yeah.
01:34:32
Speaker
But considering how much they got right in this movie, uh, the things that they, that I perceive is, you know, they got rural. Listen, any movie that has armored war rhinoceroses, I mean, how bad can the movie be?
01:34:51
Speaker
Duh, it's not bad at all. Well, something else I love too is that last scene with Killmonger, Killmonger's death scene, right? When he says, you know, he's like, T'Challa gives him a chance to like save him. And he says, no, I don't want to do it. Instead, bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who chose death over slavery. That was just such a powerful line. And then he takes him to see the sunset.
01:35:20
Speaker
Right? And he says that, you know, because his father always told him that Wakanda has the most beautiful sunsets in the world. And then it's this very subtle thing. I didn't even notice it the first time I watched the movie. But I noticed on the second time where T'Challa takes Killmonger's arms and puts them in the Wakandan salute. Yeah. And it's just it was it was so powerful. And it's just like this is, you know, he didn't get to
01:35:45
Speaker
make amends for his father's actions. So, like, the least he can do is let him die a Wakandan. Yeah, let him. Yeah, exactly. You know, let him feel that he's been accepted at last. You know, he gave him that, which, yeah, you're right. It's one of the most touching death scenes I've ever seen in any movie. And like I said before, I, me personally, I don't think he's dead because
01:36:14
Speaker
He's royalty, right? So it stands reason they would have had a royal funeral for him. You don't see any funeral. You don't hear any mention of Kill Mom after. And we've seen how extraordinary Wakanda technology is. Yeah, but don't you think that would kind of undermine how powerful that scene was?
01:36:36
Speaker
Yeah, but you know something? I just love Killmonger so much that I don't want to believe you dead. Mostly that's what it is. It's me. It's not you, it's me. Well, you know what I think, how I think they'll use him if he is going to be in the sequel, like it's been rumored, is I think he'll be in that, the ancestral plane.
01:36:56
Speaker
Yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to go. That's a good way to use him going forward, I think, because you can still have him be like kind of like this ideological foil to Challa in some way at certain points, but while still preserving the power of that scene.
01:37:18
Speaker
Yeah, he's in the afterlife, and he's still telling T'Challa, kill him, kill him all. Yeah, yeah. Unleash Wakanda in the world. Oh, here's something interesting. Yaya Abdul-Mateen II, who, you know, he played Black Manta in Aquaman, and he was in Watchmen, the TV show. He auditioned for Mumbaku. Really? Yeah.
01:37:42
Speaker
I love them in Aquaman. Oh, and in Watchmen as well. Another great Black Village. All right, so is there anything else we have to do, we have to talk about on this? Anything we need to touch on?
01:38:04
Speaker
Like I said, people are gonna get tired of me gushing about it. You know what, I can't say, really, I can't, you know what, I really can't say anything. Even the little nitpicking things that I just mentioned, that's what they are, nitpicking. Black Panther is just about a perfect movie, period. It's not only just a perfect superhero movie, it's just about a perfect, you know, yeah. And in the pantheon of the MCU,
01:38:32
Speaker
If I was going to put together a list of, like, the top five MCU movies, Black Panther would probably, I'm with you, it'd probably be either number one and number two. For me, like, number one for me is Endgame, number two is The First Avengers, and number three is Black Panther. OK. OK. That sounds right. Yeah, because Endgame, I mean, yeah, you can, you know, as we said before, if they never make another
01:39:02
Speaker
MCU movie after endgame, that would be perfect. That is the perfect way to cap off everything. Yeah, of course. Of course, we got other ones that's coming up after that. But I mean, even if you decide, well, you know what? I don't want to watch any more movies after that. You got a story right there. You got a whole universe right in those 22 movies. But yeah.
01:39:24
Speaker
If I was going for the top five, yeah, I would say, yeah, Black Panther would probably be number, for me, would either be number three or number two. Oh, also, there's another really big known African celebrity in this movie, and that's Trevor Noah has a secret role in this movie. Really? He plays the voice of the computer when Ross is flying the ship.
01:39:50
Speaker
Oh, you know what? I've seen this movie maybe what? How many times now? About like eight or nine times now. And this is the first time that I've known that. Thank you. I only knew it because I read an article about it. And but yeah, they asked him to be in it and he just came in and he just, you know, just like just a day's work comes in and he films and he records a few lines for them. Which I read, you know, and I
01:40:18
Speaker
I really liked that notion that somebody who is actually African did have a part in this movie. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, how much more can we go on to say that this is a terrific movie? And if you haven't seen it.
01:40:35
Speaker
By all means, you just see it. And if you if you have seen it, watch it again. What the hell? Yeah. I mean, I just watched it, you know, the other day and prepare for this. And, you know, it's such a captivating movie. It's so good. Yeah. I watched it yesterday. And, you know, like I'm watching and like about like 15 minutes into the movie, I forgot that I'm supposed to be watching this for research. It's usually
01:41:02
Speaker
When I'm doing research, I'm doing the air quote thing, folks. When I'm doing the research for whatever movie that we're going to do, I have my notebook and I'm making notes, you know, of things that I want to talk about, you know, as I'm going along. 15 minutes into the movie, I wasn't making any more notes because I was engrossing the story all over again. And like I said, I've seen this movie eight or nine times now, but that 15 minutes, I'm not taking notes. I'm not.
01:41:32
Speaker
I'm not in my critical podcasts host mode, which I get into when I'm watching a movie. No, that was going. I was just watching it as
01:41:42
Speaker
somebody who just loved this movie and was just digging it and was just enjoying the movie, the experience of watching it all over again. Yeah, absolutely. Same here.
Podcast Future and Listener Engagement
01:41:52
Speaker
And yeah, we could both go keep going on and on about this movie. So I think instead of just growing, I think people probably start unsubscribing if we just keep on gushing for the next three hours.
01:42:05
Speaker
I know we should pick a movie. The next movie we should pick should be one that we hate. That's actually a nice segue because next movie is your pick. So have you even any thought to what you want to do next? Oh, I don't know. Are we still going to go with the black superhero? Because because this is we're recording this in the last week in February. So next time we're going to do something, it's going to be in March. Well, it's up to you. I'll let you make the call on that. OK.
01:42:36
Speaker
Okay, here's what we should do. We're going to cap off the whole theme of black superhero movies by doing one that actually somebody recommended on Superhero Center files, the Facebook
01:42:53
Speaker
group that we have. Somebody had asked, I don't remember their name right now, excuse me for forgetting your name, but they had asked us, were we going to do ABOT, the first black super mess. Right, yeah, we got an email about it. I'm looking up right now. Oh, was it an email? I thought it was on the Facebook group, which is a non-unsettled plug for
01:43:18
Speaker
Those of you who haven't joined the group yet to go to Facebook, Superhero Center Files. Yeah, I believe it was Brad Mengele. Send us an email. OK, yeah.
01:43:34
Speaker
So yeah, okay, so A-Bar the Black Superman, the first Black Superman it's called, so. All right, so yeah, come join us next episode. We will be talking about that, which is the first Black superhero movie. So the title is the first Black Superman and it's accurate.
01:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's the first one. So I think that it would be fitting that we cap off this series by doing that movie. OK. All right, that sounds good. We're going to do that. And I do believe it's available on YouTube. Yeah, yeah.
01:44:07
Speaker
All right, so come listen to us next time. We talk about ABAR, the first black Superman. Meantime, watch Black Panther if you haven't. Watch it again if you have, because it's just an amazing film. And yeah, drop on over. As Derek said, we got a Facebook group, Superhero Cinephiles. Drop in, join the group.
01:44:28
Speaker
start joining the discussions. Derek posts a lot of the movie reviews from his website on there. We post about some news and other sort of discussions about superhero movies in general. So yeah, stop on by, join in, and also
01:44:43
Speaker
We're on Twitter. Go over to our Patreon site, which you can link to through SuperheroCinephiles.com. Give us a few bucks, because every little bit you give, even if it's a small amount, it helps us to support the hosting of the show and to improve it going forward.
01:45:03
Speaker
And also, you know, if you're on iTunes or Stitcher or anything like that, wherever you get your podcasts, go drop in and leave us a review so that, um, that it can help people find the show. And yeah, I think that's about it for this episode. Um, I would just like to thank everybody. Um, apparently, uh, this series, this little mini series that we've done on black superhero movies, you know, some people have,
01:45:30
Speaker
told me in private conversations how much they appreciated some of you on the facebook group have told us how much you know you enjoyed our opinions and are pontificating about these black superhero movies and hopefully if we're still around next year
01:45:48
Speaker
you know, next February, we'll come back and we'll do the movies that we didn't get a chance to do this time around. Yeah, sounds good. Even some of the bad ones. Yeah. I know we've got to start doing some movies that we, you know, don't like just as a contrast. You know, see, but you know what? I'm the type of person, you know me, Perry, I'm the type of person
01:46:09
Speaker
I like to encourage people to watch stuff that they're gonna enjoy. I don't enjoy, you know, going on and, you know, ripping a movie to shreds and talking about how much I hate it or everything like that. I would much rather steer people towards stuff that I think they're gonna enjoy rather than rip apart something that, you know, really. I don't know. I've listened to a lot of podcasts where they do that all the time. They just tear movies to shreds and everything like that. And I don't understand why.
01:46:38
Speaker
If you profess to love movies that much, you devote that much energy into telling people how much you hate.
01:46:47
Speaker
this movie or that movie or this movie or that movie. Talk about the movies that you're enjoying that you think other people will enjoy. That's my thing. So, I mean, you look at a lot of the movies that we've talked about on this show. Like a lot of them are movies that, you know, people tear apart, you know, Swamp Thing, the original Doctor Strange, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Meteor Man, which did last episode. Like, you know, we found a lot of good things to talk about in these movies.
01:47:15
Speaker
Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't recommend movies to people, because you know what? This is the way that I see it. And I always tell people like this when they talk about, especially when I'm talking to other writers about reviews. And they say that people write reviews, and they write these horrible reviews, and they tore their books apart, and they hated them and stuff like that. And they ask me, well,
01:47:45
Speaker
How do you deal
01:48:03
Speaker
And they tell me a shit, I got to take that. Yeah. Because they invested the time in it. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, now I may not like it. I mean, I mean, I may not like it. But hey, I can't tell a person, you know, well, you have to tell me nicely that you thought my book was shit. No, you think it should just say shit. You know what? I'm sorry. I'll write a better book next time. I've actually given people all their money back.
01:48:32
Speaker
Okay, you know, I've given them the money back when they needed to you know, they hated the book and everything well and I asked what do you want the money back and They say yes. Okay. Here you go. I'll give it to them back. Okay. All right Okay, so that does it for us. Yeah next time we'll talk about a bar the first black Superman which I think we may I haven't seen it yet but from what I've understood from some reviews we might have some critical things to say about that one and
01:48:58
Speaker
You know what, I have seen it, but I saw it like years ago it was on, it must have been about
01:49:06
Speaker
three or four years ago, it was on Turner Classic Movies. They're underground, a series of movies. I saw it there. I saw it there, and like a lot of their movies that they show on their underground slate of films, I could not believe what I was watching. So I'm looking forward to seeing it again, to see if I still had that same reaction to it that I don't believe that.
01:49:34
Speaker
All right, so that would be fun to watch and talk about. Okay, that's all. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll be back next time. Okay, thank you, folks. Good night, God bless.
01:49:49
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superherocinephiles at gmail.com. Or you can also visit us on the web at superherocinephiles.com. If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners.
01:50:16
Speaker
You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of Wesleyan Studios.com.