Ryan Coogler’s 2018 movie, Black Panther, became the comic-book film that robbed the bank, (loved by audiences and critics). Sure, from the $1bb return on the $200mm budget, it would be easy to simply write BP off as a silly popcorn movie. Until you watched it…
Combining deft social commentary and unsettling questions of what the present owes the past, in perfect counterbeat to brilliant action and razor-sharp story BP does something original: it teaches without preaching. It also showed movie fans what the comic book fandom has known for generations: a good story allows you a new perspective on old problems .
The sequel was guaranteed. However, life happens. Pandemics, illness, and death also happen. The resulting sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, is a worthy successor to the original. It is also a fat vein of writing gold, (vibranium?). Let’s take a look at just the immediate riches here.
Obviously, there will be spoilers, read accordingly
BP dramatized how to answer injustice with compassion, the generational cost of violence, the power of love over hatred, and most of all, the importance of considerate deliberation instead of hamfisted gratification. Obviously, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had a heavy legacy to uphold. What BPWF also had is a visionary writer to tackle the challenge. So, the lessons for writers…
Conflict is the meat of any story
The first lines we hear is Shuri, (Leticia Wright) in prayer. As she works in panic to replicate the heart-shaped herb, (from which the Black Panther derives his strength) she barters with the Goddess Bast for her brother, T’Challa’s life. Her pledge of faith is as inert as her replicated heart-shaped herb. Unable to save her brother, Shuri questions her vaunted intellect and her purpose. Our new hero begins her journey broken.
Were it to be done, best it be done quickly…
Death slams into the audience with the impact of a car crash. It is devastating and bone-achingly real in light of Chadwick Boseman’s death from colon cancer but also in the wake of a pandemic that killed over 6 million people worldwide. It also is the introduction of the central conflict of the film in situ.
Complicate, complicate, complicate—drama is a dance
When foreign operators raid a Wakanda outreach facility, they are quickly subdued by the elite Dora Milaje. Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) parades the captive mercenaries through a U.N. meeting as a warning: the Black Panther isn’t Wakanda’s only defense.
In turn, the Americans intensify their search for other sources of vibranium—only to provoke an even deadlier nation: the sub-sea people of Talocan. Like the Wakandans the Talocanians know the power of vibranium and have kept themselves (and their metal) hidden for hundreds of years. Unlike the Wakadans, they have had first-hand experience with the horrors of colonial powers.
Talocan’s King Namor, (Tenoch Huerta) holds Wakanda responsible for the threat to his people, (see the movie for specifics, it’s a lot to unpack) issues a simple warning: deliver the scientist developing the vibranium-seeking machines to him or he will destroy Wakanda.
Heroes fail
In an interview, Danai Gurira (General Okoye) said that while black women have seen remarkable gains in film, they have often had to maintain the “strong black woman” identity foisted on them like a costume.
Shuri and Okeye do find the scientist, a student named Riri Williams, (Dominique Thorne). Then Shuri and Riri are captured. Just as Shuri fails to save her brother, Okoye fails to protect her princess. Queen Ramonda then fails to think, giving full reign to her emotions. Okoye is stripped of her rank and dismissed from the Dora Milaje.
For every action there is an equal yet opposite reaction, Newton’s Third Law
At the Queen’s behest, T’Challa’s widow, Nakia, (Lupita Nyongo) frees Shuri and Riri from Talocan. And then Namor attacks Wakanda to devastating results. There is more death, more loss.
In the wreckage of grief, Shuri successfully replicates the heart-shaped herb. Upon ingesting it, she ascends to the ancestral plane. But the only one to greet her is Cousin N’Jadaka, (Michael B. Jordan) who challenges Shuri to embrace vengeance and “handle business.”
Sometimes, expedient and ethical travel together
Newly invested as both the Black Panther but also as supreme monarch, Shuri has power and she has rage and she wants justice. She also has an unsettling memory of her cousin and what vengeance did to him. What she cannot ignore after going to Talocan is logistics: Namor’s threat of an army that dwarf’s Wakanda is no idle boast.
Further, where Wakanda is built on science, innovation, and the peaceful exchange of ideas, the Talocanians are heirs of colonial ruin. Theirs is a warrior culture. Any war between them would be years if not centuries in duration, destroying both cultures.
Shuri knows that killing Namor will not end the conflict. Defeating Talocan in a single battle will not end the conflict. The difference between knowing and doing is the heart of the conflict here.
Victory doesn’t always look like you think
Ryan Coogler’s best gift to writers in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the ending. Often the MCU ties everything off in a nice neat bow. Sometimes we’re left with a clear path to another movie. Instead of a nice-neat-conclusive, or even a “next time on…” ending, we’re left uncertain, just like anyone who has experienced loss. Nothing is guaranteed.
Shuri’s victory is far from decisive and it cost her so very much. While she finds reconciliation it is not necessarily a comfort. The only thing clearly resolved is that she is the Black Panther and heavy is the head that wears the helm. Namor and Talocan are at peace with Shuri and Wakanda but as current events bear out, peace is always uneasy, never permanent.
The best Shuri can hope for, that any of us can hope for, is to be present and connected to the here and now. That is where we find the promise of tomorrow. Those are the promises that sustain us.
Side note
Tenoch Huerta is pitch-perfect as Namor. It is a loveless task to bring the fabled Sub-Mariner—who fought along side of Captain America against the Nazis and then battled most of Marvel’s biggest heroes—to a contemporary audience. Namor has done more heel/face/heel turns than the typical professional wrestler. There was a high expectation among the faithful and disinterest among those with no regard for comics’ golden age.
But Tenoch nails the personality in understated brilliance. He infuses the character with immediate vitality and smoldering rage. Instead of the bombastic bluster from the pulp pages, Huerta’s Namor is thoughtful and deliberate. He is in turns, seductive and menacing. I can’t wait to see what the MCU boys do with this excellent actor and exciting character.
Wakanda Forever is a fantastic movie jam-packed with subtext and nuance beyond what I can articulate. Check it out as a fan. Then study it as a writer.
The photo above, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever movie poster is the property of Walt Disney Studios. It is used here for educational/instructional purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.
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