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Chadwick Boseman is actually very good and charismatic, but I still think Black Panther shows that you can prop up a superhero film on the side characters. If they give Momoa a good supporting cast, he might be able to get to an ok movie. Otherwise, I have no interest. He was the least interesting League member by a wide margin. Give me my Cyborg movie. And a short Flash movie.
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Feb 28, 2018 16:40
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Momoa wasn't terribly interesting in JL but he was also given nothing to do after his introduction.
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Feb 28, 2018 16:55
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Bleh already posted
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Feb 28, 2018 17:15
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The guy playing M’Baku (a character in the comics who is called Man-Ape, which is pretty drat problematic in 2018) was easily my favorite side character.
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Feb 28, 2018 18:02
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Man-Ape rules. I was so happy he was included at all. Every time he left a scene I was like "I'd be fine if that was the last we saw of him in the film" and then he kept coming back and topping it.
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Feb 28, 2018 18:13
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FlamingLiberal posted:The guy playing M’Baku (a character in the comics who is called Man-Ape, which is pretty drat problematic in 2018) was easily my favorite side character. Yeah I figured he wouldn't be a pseudo racist caricature but I did not expect him to be my favorite either. But for real though, what character do we actually think they're going to cram into New Mutants? Cypher could be interesting powersetwise and obviously they're missing Karma but maybe they decided to make Emma Frost the secret head of whatever facility they're trapped in.
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Feb 28, 2018 18:18
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Sgt. Politeness posted:maybe they decided to make Emma Frost the secret head of whatever facility they're trapped in. This but Bolivar Trask.
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Feb 28, 2018 18:22
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Lurdiak posted:Man-Ape rules. I was so happy he was included at all. Every time he left a scene I was like "I'd be fine if that was the last we saw of him in the film" and then he kept coming back and topping it. The movie rules in general, but I will say that was the most surprising and awesome aspect. Another thing that I found really interesting, especially with regards to the criticism the film got for Martin Freeman's character, was his somewhat embarrassed admission on how Killmonger's actions made sense. The Wakandans were all horrified by him burning the herb, preparing for war, etc. Meanwhile Ross admits that it's because he learned exactly how to do that...in the American military...
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Feb 28, 2018 18:33
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SonicRulez posted:Chadwick Boseman is actually very good and charismatic, but I still think Black Panther shows that you can prop up a superhero film on the side characters. If they give Momoa a good supporting cast, he might be able to get to an ok movie. Otherwise, I have no interest. He was the least interesting League member by a wide margin. Give me my Cyborg movie. And a short Flash movie. Boseman was outshined by pretty much everyone of the side characters. His sister, his love interest, that bald warrior lady, , Killmonger, even M'baku were more interesting than he was, so I agree that a strong supporting cast was can compensate for a slightly boring lead. BP's supporting cast was really stellar. I'm not sure where I stand with Momoa though. Like Zaphod says, he didn't get much to do in JL. He was like Hawkguy in the first Avengers movie, kinda just there for the sake of it. Interesting sidenote about the Flash movie. Originally it was meant to co-star Cyborg, and would include themes like police brutality vs minorities, and include a black love interest, but after the response to BvS was...varied, let's say, it was scrapped as it was deemed to be too controversial for the poor fragile white audience viewers. Lager posted:The movie rules in general, but I will say that was the most surprising and awesome aspect. I loved M'baku, but when I later read up on his comic book history I was a bit horrified to learn he was a supervillain called Man-Ape. The problem with Martin Freeman's character is that no one ever calls out the CIA for its poo poo, but instead he gets to play a heroic role in the third act of the movie. His inclusion and portrayal is probably the biggest flaw of the movie for me. McCloud fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Feb 28, 2018 |
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Feb 28, 2018 18:46
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Martin Freeman's character explicitly details the crimes of the CIA
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Feb 28, 2018 18:54
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^^^^yeah but nobody tells him they think that's hosed up and he doesn't seem to show any remorse. I think they may have avoided that interaction because then Ross would have had to defend the actions of the CIA making him a less likable character. Well I personally hope they learn from Black Panther's success and double back on Flash, it would be great to make his subplot about learning how to be a better ally. Plus black dudes love the Flash so you might as well make it black as hell. Sgt. Politeness fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Feb 28, 2018 |
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Feb 28, 2018 18:56
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Lager posted:The movie rules in general, but I will say that was the most surprising and awesome aspect. I was incredibly amused when someone said Killmonger was "radicalized" by living in the US. McCloud posted:The problem with Martin Freeman's character is that no one ever calls out the CIA for its poo poo, but instead he gets to play a heroic role in the third act of the movie. His inclusion and portrayal is probably the biggest flaw of the movie for me. I would've been fine with him being heroic if he had more of an arc (changing his worldview after figuring out how great Wakanda is and realizing how lovely the CIA and the US are in comparison) and he died to save it instead of just being fine. Man-Ape is an unfortunate name and there's definitely some racism going on in some of his appearances but I maintain that the character rules because he's a guy who killed and ate a gorilla's heart just so he could kick Black Panther's rear end. He's kind of become impossible to take seriously as a villain but he's sort of moved into a more neutral role in recent years and I think he's good there. That's obviously what the movie was drawing on.
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Feb 28, 2018 18:56
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Arist posted:Martin Freeman's character explicitly details the crimes of the CIA And it's explicitly ignored by the rest of the cast. Lurdiak posted:
I agree, if they've had him renounce the CIA or its methods (or even acknowledge that its history on this matter is poo poo) I'd have been way less harsh on it, but he's clearly the worst addition to the movie. Which sucks, cause I'm a big fan of Freemans Aw shucks characters. Re: Man-Ape, it's kind of hard to look at a black man living in Africa calling himself man-ape and not see the racist overtones, yeah, but this movie did a good job of keeping the essence of him without it becoming too weird
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Feb 28, 2018 19:11
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McCloud posted:And it's explicitly ignored by the rest of the cast. No, it's not.
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Feb 28, 2018 19:12
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Lurdiak posted:I would've been fine with him being heroic if he had more of an arc (changing his worldview after figuring out how great Wakanda is and realizing how lovely the CIA and the US are in comparison) and he died to save it instead of just being fine. I feel like that's giving him too much place in a movie that's not about him. It's not Everett Ross, Black Panther's Pal, it's Black Panther, and so Ross doesn't need to spend minutes on his own journey of discovery. It's a pretty subtle way to handle it, subtle enough that I am possibly just reading stuff into what was actually just a bunch of stuff that wound up being in the movie for reasons, but I'm going to assume it was intentional. Specifically, I'm going to assume it was intentional that there's a white guy from the CIA who nobody exactly likes or trusts, but who winds up in the middle of all this for vague everyman hero reasons, reveals in a very understated moment that oh yeah, this is exactly what the CIA trained the villain to do (which nobody really reacts to because it's not new information to them), and then finds that ultimately his place in life is to be helpful by using his skills in the ways that smarter black characters direct him to. Some people think that somebody should have directly called out the CIA as responsible for this, but I think they way they handled it is better and lets them get a more direct thrust into the film under the radar.
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Feb 28, 2018 19:15
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Shuri calls him a ‘colonizer’ at one point, and in the club location in Busan, they make it clear that the Wakandans are not thrilled to see Ross working with Klaue and want to capture him rather than do whatever plan Ross had.
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Feb 28, 2018 19:19
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Arist posted:No, it's not. Yes, it is. Rand Brittain posted:Some people think that somebody should have directly called out the CIA as responsible for this, but I think they way they handled it is better and lets them get a more direct thrust into the film under the radar. And all that is hunky dory until the final third act of the film where he gets a big heroic moment. Remove that from the film and I would have agreed with your assessment, but as it stands, him having that scene undercuts your argument.
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Feb 28, 2018 19:33
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I didn't need a whole scene of story arc for Ross, it could have just been Ross: "CIA did that" Everyone else: (shaking their heads/shade) Ross: "Yeah... I know" Just a little bit of acknowledgement.
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Feb 28, 2018 19:49
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Lurdiak posted:Man-Ape is an unfortunate name and there's definitely some racism going on in some of his appearances but I maintain that the character rules because he's a guy who killed and ate a gorilla's heart just so he could kick Black Panther's rear end. He's kind of become impossible to take seriously as a villain but he's sort of moved into a more neutral role in recent years and I think he's good there. That's obviously what the movie was drawing on. Agreed. I read somewhere that the director confirmed (as if it wasn't obvious) how intentional they were with treating M'Baku. Ditching the Man-Ape name and the literal gorilla costume worked wonders for him, and they managed to preserve the most interesting elements of the character.
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Feb 28, 2018 20:44
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Arist posted:No, it's not. Yes it is. Ross explains that the US GOVERNMENT trained a super villain to infiltrate and destroy foreign governments from the inside in a movie about not loving up other countries like it's just no big deal and business as usual and everyone just moves on. It's my only real issue with the story other than Killmonger's resolution
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Feb 28, 2018 20:55
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The first time I saw BP I thought Ross really did die when the lab exploded, since he doesn't appear in the film again until the mid-credits UN scene and he's easy to miss there. Dying defending a foreign country from an outsider trained by and using tactics from your own agency to take it over would have been pretty much the definition of redemption by heroic self-sacrifice, and it almost happened, so... partial credit, maybe?
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Feb 28, 2018 21:51
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As much as I don't agree with the "defeating Killmonger = saving rich white people" I do think Ross is stopping the delivery of weapons to other countries more than he is protecting Wakanda's secrets. I was still confused when he didn't die, like drat Marvel, you got important plans for this guy?
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Feb 28, 2018 22:07
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Unmature posted:Yes it is. Ross explains that the US GOVERNMENT trained a super villain to infiltrate and destroy foreign governments from the inside in a movie about not loving up other countries like it's just no big deal and business as usual and everyone just moves on. Because it is business as usual. That's not news to anyone in the room.
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Feb 28, 2018 22:07
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Sgt. Politeness posted:As much as I don't agree with the "defeating Killmonger = saving rich white people" I do think Ross is stopping the delivery of weapons to other countries more than he is protecting Wakanda's secrets. They're gonna be retiring a lot of active heroes as their actors' contracts expire/the status quo shifts after Infinity War, and they need a Coulson to act as a thread of continuity between the new players, but Whedon already used one of The Only Three Tricks Whedon Knows How To Write and arbitrarily killed off a well liked side character as a cheap means of motivating other characters, and there's no way to write Coulson back into the film continuity without having to explain where he's been, why, what the fallout of that regime of lies would be, etc
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Feb 28, 2018 22:21
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One way to look at Ross is that the racially separate member of the cast trading on stereotypes of his race (lol) had a hero moment at the end by working for the mission of the real hero. I've never seen that before, also lol.
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Feb 28, 2018 22:34
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Arist posted:Because it is business as usual. That's not news to anyone in the room. This isn't a documentary, this is a movie, played by actors, following a script. If the scriptwriters wanted to make a statement about how hosed up the CIA is, they could easily have had someone comment on it. The absence of such commentary is commentary in of itself.
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Feb 28, 2018 22:36
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Black Panther is not woke enough, I'm afraid.
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Feb 28, 2018 22:37
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SlimGoodbody posted:They're gonna be retiring a lot of active heroes as their actors' contracts expire/the status quo shifts after Infinity War, and they need a Coulson to act as a thread of continuity between the new players, but Whedon already used one of The Only Three Tricks Whedon Knows How To Write and arbitrarily killed off a well liked side character as a cheap means of motivating other characters, and there's no way to write Coulson back into the film continuity without having to explain where he's been, why, what the fallout of that regime of lies would be, etc Except I'm like 83% certain killing Coulson wasn't Whedon's idea
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Feb 28, 2018 22:42
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McCloud posted:This isn't a documentary, this is a movie, played by actors, following a script. If the scriptwriters wanted to make a statement about how hosed up the CIA is, they could easily have had someone comment on it. The absence of such commentary is commentary in of itself. I mean...do we really need someone to call out how hosed up usurping the leadership of a sovereign nation and destabilizing the world order is in a movie about how someone usurping the leadership of a sovereign nation and destabilizing the world order is hosed up? Should we have so little faith in our audience? Then again, some people didn’t know Groot died, so...
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Feb 28, 2018 22:44
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McCloud posted:This isn't a documentary, this is a movie, played by actors, following a script. If the scriptwriters wanted to make a statement about how hosed up the CIA is, they could easily have had someone comment on it. The absence of such commentary is commentary in of itself. They do! Ross does!
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Feb 28, 2018 22:44
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Phylodox posted:I mean...do we really need someone to call out how hosed up usurping the leadership of a sovereign nation and destabilizing the world order is in a movie about how someone usurping the leadership of a sovereign nation and destabilizing the world order is hosed up? Should we have so little faith in our audience? I have seen some surprisingly dumb questions, even on these forums, so depending on how clear you want to be, subtlety is usually not your friend. Still, the problem is that they muddle the waters in the third act. Without it, I'd totally buy into that they're using Killmonger as a shorthand for what dicks the CIA are. But by giving a CIA agent a heroic moment, it undercuts that message. Especially considering said heroic moments consists of him using a drone to kill Wakandians.
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Feb 28, 2018 22:56
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Phylodox posted:I mean...do we really need someone to call out how hosed up usurping the leadership of a sovereign nation and destabilizing the world order is in a movie about how someone usurping the leadership of a sovereign nation and destabilizing the world order is hosed up? Should we have so little faith in our audience? i mean, maybe not for the main audience but plenty of white folk still believe that agencies like CIA have been/are doing good work
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Feb 28, 2018 23:00
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They established Ross as being 'One of the Good Ones' when he took the bullet.
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Feb 28, 2018 23:03
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McCloud posted:I have seen some surprisingly dumb questions, even on these forums, so depending on how clear you want to be, subtlety is usually not your friend. I’d absolutely prefer if movies err on the side of subtlety. I’d rather miss something and be delighted by discovering it later (like the significance of adult Quill’s introductory scene in Guardians of the Galaxy) than just have characters dully expound the themes at me. And I’m not fully opposed to Ross having his moment of heroism. Being a CIA agent doesn’t render him automatically irredeemable. His agency helped create Killmonger, he plays his part in helping to contain the damage. It’s not great that he had to kill those pilots, but that’s what they went with.
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Feb 28, 2018 23:08
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I think Ross should have been shoved in a secret vault in Shauri's lab for safe keeping. Then stop referencing him through the rest of the movie, he is simply forgotten. Then in an after credits scene have Shauri head in the vault for work reasons, to find Ross in survival mode, having been locked away for a week or so in the commotion of the coup and re-coup.
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Feb 28, 2018 23:17
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I think part of the nuance with Ross there is that Killmonger was using CIA methods but he was not working as an agent of the CIA at the time. Indeed was he even affiliated with the CIA at the start?
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Mar 1, 2018 01:07
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Could you guys please stop falling for the CD troll?
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Mar 1, 2018 01:13
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Honestly, the use of a white CIA character, and the very understated mention of the CIA's underhanded tactics, is an interesting choice, and given the context of this movie and the team behind it, I'm going to assume it was deliberate. What does it mean that they deliberately used Ross in this situation, and in this way (if your answer implies that the movie is insufficiently woke for your standards please answer in some other thread)? ps my answer is "doing it very subtly let them get a huge dig at the US government in without having to explain themselves to any producers"
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Mar 1, 2018 02:06
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In Priest's run doesn't Ross end up disillusioned with the CIA before leaving / being pushed out?
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Mar 1, 2018 02:12
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Rand Brittain posted:Honestly, the use of a white CIA character, and the very understated mention of the CIA's underhanded tactics, is an interesting choice, and given the context of this movie and the team behind it, I'm going to assume it was deliberate. I thought it was very clear that it was a huge dig at the US Military Machine.
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