Seven Thoughts About The Wonders of WAKANDA FOREVER (Patreon)

This is only for those who have seen the film! Spoilers and stuff!

1. An Impossible Task

By its very nature, making a sequel to Black Panther was a seemingly impossible task. That first film was a landmark cultural event. One that was at once born out of the hyper-success of the MCU - and yet completely transcendent of it, too. While it’s easy to remember the cultural adoration, the rousing financial success, and the best picture nomination, it’s important to remember it was just really, truly that good. The kind of popular film that managed to craft a complete artistic and cultural statement. But then, just a few short years later, in a fit of cruelty from the universe, Chadwick Boseman was stricken with colon cancer and passed away. It left a hole of equally impossible size. Not just because we all had the feeling like things were just getting started for T’Challa’s character, but because of the impact of what he already meant to so many. And to simply dive back into the waters? To continue in the forever capitalist march of tentpole sequels that is demanded of us? Oof. I mean, how do you go back to recapture something that was so damn essential? The truth is that very impossibility is often the very reason to try. Moreover, it’s also the opportunity to find something new.

2. Ryan Coogler, The Smuggler Supreme

The modern internet loves to talk about how big popular mainstream things are a valid art. I don’t say this disparagingly, I count myself among them. I love really diving into the artistic capacities of popular movies, video games. and all the like. Just as I often talk about how populist filmmakers like Spielberg, Nolan, etc always know to anchor a meaningful idea or two right into their filmmaking bravado. But if we’re being really, really honest? There just aren’t that many filmmakers who jump at the chance to “smuggle art” into mainstream fare with all the energy they can muster. Who are willing to get into the true semiotic capacity of all of it. And who take it all on as an immense responsibility… But Ryan Coogler is absolutely one of those artists. He’s someone who will use each and every inch of a film to find an idea. An image. A commiseration. A feeling. Something that speaks to innate conditions of how we live today, and brings it to life. Because in the end, it’s not just about “saying something” like it's a speech… It is the ability to make the experience and identity of people in the audience feel recognized and seen. And I think he’s incredible at it.

3. A World of Wonders

So Production Design teams are probably my favorite people in all of filmmaking (okay it might also go to Stunt People, but it’s a dead heat). It starts with the fact that they have to be artistic polyglots. Because when you are designing “the look” of a movie that means… everything in it, which means there are so many practical arts you have to combine and communicate about. There’s drawing, painting, fashion, make-up, hairstyling, location scouting, physical construction, and SFX design, plus a million little practical issues you would never think about (like food consumption and its role in continuity). This means having a lot of existing knowhow and yet being in a constant state of research. One project you’re looking at real pictures of 1950s New York, the next you are studying medieval garments, and the next talking to futurists and designers to figure out just what computers might look like in 30 years. For Black Panther, I think the production design of Wakanda remains one of the genuine feats of practical movie making of the last twenty years? I don’t want to be hyperbolic, I’m just trying to think of anything else that’s become as beloved, iconic, and more importantly, filled with semiotic details that hold great cultural meaning. I remember reading piece after piece after piece about the production design of the film and learning so much (for instance, I specifically remember one tweeter from Africa being amazed at M’Baku’s Hanuman reference and its less publicized role in regional African religions).

And when you talk about smuggling art into every inch of a film, Wakanda Forever is no exception. Specifically the way they get to re-imagine the world of Namor and his people, swapping the comic’s Euro-centric Atlantean myth for a poetic, heartbreaking tale of a people of Mayan descent finding a home beneath the ocean. Heck, the sequence of Shuri visiting Talokan is worth the price of admission alone. There is an innate joyfulness in the details of all this design, once again showing the Black Panther films’ power for imagining cultures untouched by the ravages of colonialism. And in doing so, Coogler and the production team can tell an empathetic story about the indigenous peoples of the Americas, along with the pains of frictions and allyship between cultures. And just like last time, I just can’t wait to read a million new pieces on the design, cultural insight, and even possible criticisms that inherently come along with it. Speaking of which…

4. Criticism, Screenwriting, and Love

I often think about whether or not criticizing things has any inherent value. That may seem odd for someone who is literally doing film criticism all the time, but that’s exactly why I question it. I mean, is it really worth getting into the nitty gritty of a film like this? For a film that is obviously doing so much good? Besides, who the hell am I to even talk about it? Especially because I understand that implicitly this is a movie that is not “for” me, but for so many other audiences in such a more personal way? Really, this is the kind of movie that asks you to consider what it is to be a good guest and supporter of another culture at large. So genuinely, what’s the point of me even bringing up my usual pesky little screenwriting things that inherently come in most stories? In truth, there isn’t much value. The wonders of the film that I’m mentioning here all speak for themselves, mostly. So the only real thing I can argue is that talking about such small story criticisms is just part of just trying to uphold the greatness or value of any work. To talk about the forever process of ALL OF US trying to tell stories that are impeccably crafted and get to a maximized catharsis. To get everything to be the very best it could be.

And to that, there’s just a couple pesky things about the central conflict and motivation between the two groups that I really think could have been finessed? It starts with the fact that we have to recognize the end goal of catharsis. Because from the very first moment we inherently WANT these two sides to come to a meaningful peace (because we totally both like them). And it’s why the movie never truly tips the scales of any of them into full on villainy. But as old friend’s great deleted tweet regarding Marvel’s ongoing sympathetic villain problem where it notes they have all these amazing, progressive qualities but: “… if only i didn’t love murder :(“ To be clear, Namor’s not exactly like that, but I remember getting caught up on the suddenness of his hardline stances a few times. I know the character in the comics is temperamental, but it didn’t exactly feel like that. Just sometimes these motivation confusions and an unreasonable demand here or there? Specifically, the war with the surface world stuff, which felt like it was going back and forth with the isolationist instincts? It felt like it just needed to be a tad more defensive and fearful than more pure aggressive at times? To be clear, it’s not a massive problem, but I feel like there could these ever so slight tweaks where you start off with this real place of promise between the two groups, so you feel like there’s something that could really be lost, but as the outside pressure mounts and if there were more personal losses on Namor’s side too, then you could have done that would have ratcheted up the tragic nature of the conflict more organically (especially because the first Black Panther is GREAT at this, specifically how it gets at the hypocrisy of the heroes). It all would help the ending feel like a true catharsis between the two.

Speaking of which, I guess this is more of a side thought, but did anyone think that it was possibly heading in a possible love story direction with Shuri and Namor? That scene between them just felt really warm and I get that making that story choice might be a little reductive. I mean, lord knows we don’t want to define important heroes (especially women) by these love things. But I once heard this old movie exec dude say “people like to see pretty people like each other” and I kind of laugh at that conventional wisdom (and lord knows tumblr agrees with him). But we also know how many movies make love interests the be all end all. But at the same time it shows how a-romantic a lot of these MCU movies are? A little tiny bit of even interest could have gone a long way? But at the same time these movies are always skipping over the good parts where characters actually fall in love and just show the results. And if we’re going to make something super emotionally charged, it just feels like another way to have possibly more? I honestly don’t know, I’m sort of many minds about it and rambling questions off the top of my head, but I’m curious what y’all think.. Maybe it’s just that Tenoch Huerta is incredibly handsome and I would like see do kiss… yes, please do kiss.

5. Fun and Games

As serious, haunting, and dramatic as moments of Black Panther were, one of the delights of it was how damn funny it was, too. It often felt like it was just bursting with life. But by its very nature, Wakanda Forever is inherently saddled with the duties that befall the subjects of grief, anger, and all that comes in the way of losing Chadwick. It handles these things admirably (especially with the film’s beautiful bookmark sequences). But it’s also precisely what makes the times the film stops for all the fun and games all the more refreshing. For instance, I’m ecstatic at how much Okoye got to do in this one. And from all the fun it’s the surprisingly emotional firing scene that got some of the biggest audience reactions. But it’s also Riri Williams AKA Ironheart who is the damn breath of fresh air (and much more central to the plot than I realized). The only thing I can say is that I want 500 times more M’baku than is in the film.

6. Cognitive Dissonance

Okay, so let’s get to it. Letitia Wright is a great actress. I think she does a stellar job in this film, especially as the role requires so many kinds of emotional states than so much that we’ve seen from her character before. And storywise, of course the film had to be about her. And of course she was the one to take up the mantle. But I admit, there were a couple times where the real life cognitive dissonance hit me. Because here is this character, the greatest scientist in the world and she was being played by a vaccine skeptic and… it’s just hard. Over six and a half million people have died and try as we might with actors, especially superheroes, we attach certain kinships to those stars and… It’s just hard. I know this is not the fault of anyone on the production, the pandemic all just swooped in and turned everything up into down and I’m sure it made for a production mess. But most importantly, I know there’s just so many other important emotional things that are wrapped up in this film. And because of that it is completely unfair to knock the film just because of one person who didn’t know better. So it’s something we all have to kind of just make peace with? And whatever really went on, I hope it was addressed. I don’t really know what to do with it.  I just know it’s there. And I imagine it might have been there for some of you too? But maybe that’s okay.

Because in the end, the film is about so much more than that…

7. A Chance To Say Goodbye

In the end, Wakanda Forever knows what it’s really about. Sure, we can broadly apply the thematic concepts of grief and mourning, but we are all here to do the same thing… and that is to say goodbye to Chadwick. To its credit, the film knows how important and powerful that is and thus does not lean on it. In fact, the film’s smartest decision was to use his imagery so sparingly. The first time comes at the beginning and it’s possibly the most effective? After we learn the news of T’Challa’s sudden passing, the trademark marvel logo with its swarms of heroes is suddenly replaced with only images of Chadwick, set to dead silence. You could hear the sobs in the audience (FWIW that logo is never something I’ve been crazy about, but this single decision seems to make it all more than worth it). And better yet, the imagery is something book marked by the ending itself. After all the yearning to burn the world, Shuri comes to realize it’s time to burn one simple piece of clothing and thus finally say goodbye. Finally, we see the images of the last film. The smiles. The kindness. And we get the peaceful words from Nakia that help us make peace with the passing in turn. It is here we understand that film was not actually “an impossible task” by its very nature… but instead a completely necessary event. A gathering. An honoring. And an act of commiseration. And a gesture of love and appreciation. For that, and for all the film does…

It is worth being celebrated.

<3HULK