Years from now, when kids look back at this film, it’s gonna be a little hard for me to explain to them how culturally significant it was not just for black filmmaking but to me personally. It can be challenging to talk about the things you love as you don’t want it to just be a ramble, but you also want to articulate every beautiful thing about it. I know there may not be much need to talk about how excellent this film is; everyone and their mother have probably seen it. Everyone says it’s the “best solo Superhero movie”; look at how much money it has made for all of 2018 despite coming out the same year as Avengers: Infinity War. So is it worth talking about again? Well, in my opinion, yes. Black Panther is an achievement of black genre fiction in film and Afrofuturism and a personal treasure. I want to discuss why I consider it my favorite superhero film and one of my favorite movies of all time.
Before I go into the beautiful writing, directing, acting, set designs, costume designs, action scenes, characters, and the soundtrack and score, I’d like to bring up my viewing experiences with this film.
Before Black Panther had come out, I was immersing myself in the world of Science-fiction. By the end of high school, I was already digging into Harlan Ellison, Jules Verne, H.G. Welles, Orson Scott Card, Charles Beaumont, and Philip K Dick. The world of science fiction always has and always will fascinate me. However, with Trump's reign becoming very…apparent in the cultural discussion on race, I had shifted my views on fiction towards something more…black. The year before Black Panther came out, I had discovered Afrofuturism. There are many different definitions of Afrofuturism, but I boil it down to black science fiction. It’s a form of science fiction that shows up in Janelle Monae, Funkadelic/Parliament, and even Outkast; it's a fiction that considers the world's future from a black perspective. Thanks to Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the Black Diaspora, I started following so many writers such as Walter Mosley, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany, and so many more writers of Afrofuturism. Even in college, I took more and more African American study classes such as African American history and Policing in the black experience. Slowly throughout all of 2017, I was building a renowned black and beautiful perspective on the world, and it was all due to the fiction I started consuming.
Of course, I also read the Black Panther comics as I did with almost any character getting their major adaption in the Marvel universe for the first time. I had read some of Te-Nehisi Coates, Christopher Priest, and Don McGregor to familiarize myself with the comic book character of T’Challa and what I found was a very noble, conflicted, intelligent, crafty, courageous, but ultimately vulnerable and humanist character. T’Challa, akin to Superman, is the black leader and champion that is a role-model and stand-in for black excellence as the king of Wakanda. Although not as emphasized as it was later in Coates’ run, Wakanda is a technological wonderland of what Africa could’ve been like had it not been colonized by the Europeans. It was black speculative fiction, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
So with all of this in mind, Black Panther releasing the following year of 2018 couldn’t have been better timing. Black Panther came out at a time when I was already engrossed in Afrofuturism, and Black Panther is an Afrofuturist masterpiece. Not only did I see it myself, but I saw it with my friends and with my grandmother! In this instance, cape-flicks weren’t just a me-thing. Black Panther brought out people who would usually not see a comic book movie and made the experience enjoyable to understand throughout the entire story. It was a movie that brought black people together in a time where racial tensions were growing, and it was incredibly refreshing; and it's all thanks to the man behind this masterpiece.
Ryan Coogler
To understand why Black Panther works so well, we need to understand Ryan Coogler. Coogler was a former football player that was considering going to medical school to become a doctor, but because of a creative writing course he took in undergrad and the positive feedback he gotten from the professor, Coogler decided to pursue filmmaking instead. Ryan Coogler’s creative work has been about capturing the black experience and portraying how humanistic and vulnerable we all are. Often, his works take a masculine perspective, but we see love, empathy, and vulnerability within that male point of view. Even watching his short film Locks, a short film that I had to watch and review for a screenwriting workshop I had in undergrad, you can see Coogler’s early themes. The short film stars a masculine and brooding young man with long-locks for hair walking through his ghetto and urban neighborhood with gang members and police officers patrolling the streets. As we follow the young man, we learn that he’s just going to the barber to get a haircut; an often popular spot in black films to show black discussion and discourse. When the young man returns home, we see without dialogue that he had shaved off all of his hair to make his little sister feel better about her cancer treatment. Already we can see Coogler loves to focus on the things that make us sweet and loving to each other.
Ryan Coogler’s need to demonstrate the black community's vulnerability and love will follow him into his next project Fruitville Station. Fruitville Station is a humanist and emotionally impactful film about the murder of Oscar Grant to the police force starring friend and frequent collaborator Michael B. Jordan. With Coogler’s direction, Jordan does an excellent job of showing Oscar Grant for who he was, a black man struggling and trying to make it in a world that was out to get him the minute he was born. The ending to Fruitville Station is so heart-breaking that its viewing left me emotionally numb. Even with knowing what happens, seeing Oscar Grant’s life in context with his worse qualities to his best being portrayed makes his inevitable death all the more tragic.
Although his next movie isn’t as original, being the 7th sequel in the Rocky franchise and all, Coogler approached the project through a personal lens. Coogler came onto the project of Creed with the goal of making a movie that his father, who had passed away a few years ago before the film’s production, would’ve loved since they both enjoyed the Rocky films when Coogler was a child. Much like his last project, Coogler shows that he knows how to work with actors to get emotional vulnerability out of them. Creed could have easily have been a Rocky knock-off story with a black make-over, but because Coogler’s script focuses on that personal connection with his father, because he loves showing the softer emotions and tender moments between characters Creed became something more than just a sequel; it became the “Rocky” of the modern age. Coogler’s scriptwriting would soon be put on a bigger platform when it came time to his work on Black Panther.
The Screenplay
Co-written with Joe Robert Cole (American Crime Story, The People V. O.J. Simpson), Coogler once again was faced with finding some way to bring a personal perspective onto writing Black Panther. Like most kids growing up in the ’80s, Coogler was more familiar with Spider-man and the X-Men than Black Panther. Of course, when he was brought on board for the project, Coogler had done his comic book research. The movie has the style and politics of the more recent Ta-Nehasi Coates run, the characterization and drama of the Don Mcgregor run, and the humor and black excellence of the Christopher Priest and Reginald Hudlin run. Coogler, however, still needed something about the story to make him emotionally invested. While working on the script, Coogler had taken a trip to Africa to learn about the various cultures and customs. During one of his visits, he was surprised about how similar some of their family customs were to his own. During that experience, Coogler realized that despite the cultural differences, they were all apart of the black and human experience; they were all connected through their kindness, love, and humanity.
When finally penning the story for Black Panther, Coogler approached it with a question like any great science fiction writer would: If there was a technologically advanced African nation that existed, how would you feel about it? Coogler, always going for his stories' emotions and humanity, would’ve felt angry if there was such a place. How dare they sit in their ivory towers while the rest of the black diaspora suffer under rule and after-effects of colonialism! Through answering this question, Coogler was able to frame the story of Black Panther, Wakanda, and what it meant to the world as a super-power through the lens of a science fiction/ Afrofuturist story about Afrofuturism.
On a subtextual level, Black Panther is about those that have access to the tools and knowledge of Afrofuturism and those that weren’t as blessed to be a part of it. Coogler and company understood what Wakanda represented to black people and knew that it had to be a symbol of what an entirely black world could be like; an unrestrained, intellectual, and emotionally mature black world where technological achievement flourishes, everyone is living comfortably, and women are respected as equals. Wakanda is an Afrofuturist utopia.
Black Panther, despite actually being the second cinematic appearance of T’Challa’ does an excellent job giving everything we need to know about him and his world within the first act of the movie. The world-building in this movie is phenomenal. You wouldn’t think that showing the process of one becoming the Black Panther in Wakanda would be interesting, but it does through the fantastic ceremonial/ritual duals in the waterfall scenes. Although Black Panther still follows the “Marvel formula,” Coogler and Cole use that formula to their advantage by filling it in with new mythology and new cinematic characters.
The Characters
T’Challa is such a good and heart-warming superhero in this movie. Everyone loves to bring up how brilliant and captivating Micheal B. Jordan’s Killmonger is (and he is, but I’ll get to him), but even from the first time I saw this movie, I’ve always felt that Chadwick Boseman’s performance as Black Panther was very under-appreciated. In a lot of ways, the world of Wakanda is authentic because of the choices Chadwick made. For example, did you know that initially, the Marvel executives wanted T’Challa, an African prince, to have a British accent? Marvel execs thought this would give him a sense of regalness and education with no reference to what African royalty would sound like. However, because Boseman took the time to learn some of the language of great South African actor John Kanti, he was able to establish Wakanda’s language, the Xhosa language, into the mainstream. It’s that commitment to authenticity to the African cultures carried throughout Black Panther's production, and it all started with Chadwick Boseman. Boseman as T’Challa embodies a vulnerability and emotional performance that you often don’t see in superhero performances. T’Challa has excellent speeches, great words of wisdom, and vulnerable self-doubting moments due to taking to the throne so suddenly. However, when T’Challa is triumphant and bold, he embodies a positive form of masculinity that listens to his elders and the women in his life. Chadwick’s T’Challa, like Superman, is a great a role-model for black boys and an excellent embodiment of black excellence.
Speaking of those women, the women's cast of Black Panther is in abundance, and they are all excellent and entertaining. Unlike most superhero films driven by a male protagonist, Black Panther puts its women characters in the forefront of drama and action. Nakia, played with grace and beauty by Lupita Nyongo, is T’Challa’s love interest, but she’s also a spy for Wakanda that challenges him on his views on what Wakanda can be. After the movie, fans were shouting about how “Killmonger was right” and had great points, but Nakia, earlier in the film, already understands this movie's great message. Nakia wants Wakanda to be a force for aid and refuge for the rest of the black diaspora in the world and others. Nakia is the one that was right all along without having to resort to imperialist methods as Killmonger does. Like all great lovers, she challenges T’Challa to be better.
Lastly, I would be remised for not mentioning the most relatable Marvel character ever put to the screen; Shuri. Shuri acts as T’Challa’s gadget and tech support like Q from the James Bond films, but she brings exciting youthful and comedic energy as well. From their first interactions on camera and rapport, you can tell the two have a brother/sister rivalry and dynamic. Like Nakia, however, she also understands a fundamental lesson in the film early on: “Just because something works, doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.” This is in the first act of the movie. Aren’t you impressed by this screenplay!
Almost every supporting character not only serves a purpose for world-building but gives off distinct personalities and serves the plot of the story. Winston Duke’s Mbaku took an arguably silly and stereotypical comic book villain and made him a fun rival turned alley to T’challa (and a great representation of bigger body-types for men on-screen). Daniel Kaluuya’s performance as W’Kabi is somewhat understated at first, but we can see some of that resentful anger for T’Challa boiling under the surface towards the end. There’s a deleted scene where W’Kabi argues and yells at Okoye about his stance to serve Killmonger, and I really really wish it had stayed in the final cut of the film as it shows that anger coming to the surface for him. The only supporting cast memeber I don’t think makes as strong an impact is Forrest Witikor’s Zuri as the mentor character. While he offers the exposition that reveals Killmonger’s true origins, I don’t think he has enough of a presence in T’Challa’s missions to make his death all the more impactful. If it were Okoye or Shuri that died, I certainly would’ve cried in my seat, but Zuri's presence doesn’t seem all that missed in the movie. The last supporting cast member that is worth noting is Andy Serkis as Klaw, and he’s….having a lot of fun just being a really goofy, racist, genocidal, South African gold-minor, but he stands in pale comparison to the one you’ve been waiting for
Killmonger
Honestly, what’s there to say about this performance that hasn’t been said already. Micheal B. Jordan’s Killmonger is a great villain. He perfectly embodies the anger of black liberation and power fulfillment that every black male wishes they had. Every detail of Killmonger's character, from his accent, the ritual scars all over his body, the background music that plays every time he enters the room, to his presence, to his evil plan, is all entirely well written. You can certainly tell that Coogler’s script hinges on Killmonger’s perspective as he’s the catalyst for all the criticisms, philosophical issues, and overall message about the black diaspora in the movie. There’s a reason why Killmonger is so quotable in this movie, and it's because Coogler started this script with the villain. Killmonger is a cautionary story about the dangers of leaving a child out of the privileged village who only comes back to make it burn for warmth. As fierce as Killmonger is, Micheal B. Jordan also shows that his anger comes from sadness and being abandoned by his people, from being cut from privilege, and from being forced to live in a world that saw him as a threat...as a killmonger. Killmonger embodies all of black people’s anger with the world, and his character was the first sign that this movie was going to bring up issues that I never thought a Marvel movie would do. I know many people hope that Killmonger comes back for the inevitable sequel, but honestly, after this movie, I hope he never comes back. Killmonger was so correctly used, and his death was so impactful that to bring him back would make that death meaningless. As Killmonger dies, T’Challa quietly laments on the family bond they could’ve had if Wakanda wasn’t obsessed over being isolationist and ignoring the rest of the world that could’ve used their help. That’s what makes Black Panther so beautiful as a narrative, it takes a grand issue and breaks it down to its most human and intimate levels, and I love it for doing that.
The Filmmaking
I’m not the best when talking about the craft of filmmaking, as there is still much I need to learn at this point, but you don’t need to be a film major to see how Black Panther sets itself aside from the rest of the MCU. Ryan Coogler, unlike other filmmakers in the MCU, had the freedom to choose his cameraman or woman, and he decided on the stellar Rachel Morrison to capture the beauty of Wakanda. With Coogler’s direction and Morrison’s guide, the camera always knows precisely how to frame the shot that’ll best look like a beautiful painting. Images like T’Challa looking up to all the different Wakandan animal tribes in the waterfall scene, the shots of the African landscape and cityscape of Wakanda when they first fly-in, and the shot of T’Challa and Killmonger looking at the Wakandan sunset perfectly paint this beautiful tapestry of a film.
There also needs to be praise for costume designer Ruth E. Carter who dcrafte the now iconic Black Panther suit, the Dora Milja’s armor and weapons, the causal clothes of T’Challa and Nakia, the technology, and the rest of the tribes of Wakanda. Because of Carter’s magnificent design, Black Panther’s world-building is so layered from the individual animal tribes such as the Gorilla, the alligator, the lion, and the rhino, with each tribe dressed in their corresponding colors. The authentic African design choices such as Killmonger’s scars were inspired by the scarification process known as “crocodile skin” practiced by many tribes in South Sudan, Ethiopia, the Nuer, and Uganda.
Hannah Beacher did the production design to translate Wakanda from the early Jack Kirby and Brian Stelfreeze comic books to a living, breathing, and authentic nation of its own. So much of the film basks in all of its set designs, from the regal throne room to Shuri’s poppy and colorful tech-room and the sweeping vistas of the Wakanda landscape and Wakandan vehicles. Admittedly some of the other visual choices like T’Challa’s full CGI suit and the last fight scene in the Vibranium train mound aren’t great, but in no way do they distract from the character drama of those scenes. Even though the CGI in the last fight scene isn’t great, Micheal B. Jordan’s sad and gripping last words still deliver. Plus, with great action set pieces such as the two intense and fun waterfall scenes that feel like something right out of an Akira Kurosawa samurai film, to the triple protagonist fight scene in the casino that’s like James Bond meets Africa, Black Panther still has some magnificent action set pieces. Like any good action movie, the action scenes are always in service to the plot and organically drives the narrative, and Black Panther does not fall short on that.
The Music
As if there wasn’t enough to say about this movie, Black Panther's music helps to set it apart from other superhero movies as well. Ludwig Goransson, best known for being the musical collaborator of Childish Gambino, studied African music and classical European marching music to make Black Panther's music sound authentic and heroic. In each musical motif, you can hear the personalities of the characters such as the brass horns and trumpets mixed with the African drums for T’Challa, the 808 beats and African flutes for Killmonger, and the biblical epic violins for T’Chaka, the clicks, and shouts of the Dora Milaja, along with so many more great motifs. I can’t do it any justice, but please watch this musical expert and Goransson himself talk about it down below:
I should also mention the inspired Black Panther album curated by the king of rap himself, Kendrick( Kung-Fu Kenny) Lamar. Ryan Coogler showed Kendrick the first 20 minutes or so of the movie, and he was already inspired to start writing verses for songs that would correlate with the themes of the film. The first titular song, “Black Panther,” talks about Kendrick’s responsibility as a famous person and compares that to T’Challa’s kingship. Kendrick and SZA’s song “All the stars” speaks on Black Panther’s themes in a broad sense as a narrative and captures that Afrofuturistic wonder that the film portrays so beautifully. The Weekend also offers some vocals on a song that talks about T’Challa’s heroism and sacrifice in the face of adversity. Other songs on the album may not correlate precisely with the movie's themes or characters, but the songs help establish the mood and style of the film mixing African American hip hop and trap with traditional Afro-beats. Please refer to the Most Unruly's short video on the Black Panther album for more interesting facts about the Black Panther album. He perfectly captures why this album made the film all the more of a big event than it already was:
The Best Superhero movie
I don’t need to talk about how great this movie is. People have already done it so often, and people will discuss this movie long after I’m dead, but I thought it was important to discuss what this movie meant for me. It’s a movie that took everything I love, African American culture, science fiction, and superhero films, and put it all together in a story about Afrofuturism. Black Panther is speculative fiction at its best; it places black people in positions of great power and discusses how that power can be used to better man-kind. T’Challa isn’t a perfect leader at the beginning of this movie, but through this family drama, through Killmonger’s anger, he learns that he shouldn’t look back to the past of great leaders and copy them, but to learn from their mistakes and be better. To be a great leader, to be a great hero is to strive for innovation, new ideas for the sake of saving more lives. Black Panther is a humanist story that inspires me to not only be a better teacher but to be a better and more powerful storyteller, and I would imagine it’ll inspire more in the years to come.