SPOILERS for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, What If…? Season 3, and any MCU TV/Film released up to June 2025.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was first released in late 2022.
The series Ironheart, featuring Riri Williams who first debuted in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, releases on June 24, 2025.
With the exception of What If…? S03E05 “What If… the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?”, we haven’t seen Riri Williams in ~2.5 years.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is also just a great film.
I rewatched this recently myself and I liked it a lot more the second time. It’s still pretty flawed but it really shines in the first and second acts. Which isn’t surprising considering the things that makes it shine are what made the original shine. That is wakanda itself. The world building. It’s such an interesting setting. Namur and a hidden civilization is an awesome idea. World tension and renewed colonial intentions of the west needing to be resisted was awesome if under explored. Angela Bassett.
That said it had some problems. I still don’t find Shuri to be a good lead character. She was better supporting. Riri Williams seemed unnecessary and superfluous. The third act was just janky and underwhelming. Special effects particularly hurt it. Most of all though they should have just recast T’Challa.
Angela Bassett was phenomenal. There was a lot of good in the movie. It’s a shame they seemed to try to differentiate themselves so hard from Aquaman because the dark wasn’t very cinematic.
Overall I thought it was a very mediocre post-Endgame movie with fun moments like The Marvels and Captain America: BNW. There are much worse and much better movies post-Endgame.
Her speech to Okoye is so powerful.
Okoye just wants to help but she points out the betrayal from the first film and how she ignored her advice causing Shuri to be captured. She’s 100% right but it hurts so much, both of them.
Looking at Riri Williams, it’s weird, you could probably cut her from the film and not a lot would change.
You’d need to find a different reason to introduce Namor, but after that Riri just kinda hangs out.
She goes with Shuri to Talokan, but she’s unconscious when she is taken there and just sits around until they leave.
She makes a cool suit for herself. She might have helped with the Midnight Angel armor, but it’s clear Shuri did the bulk of the design. In either case, while cool, none of the armor created is key to the end battle.
Obviously Shuri is smart, so having her struggle and then Riri just show up and solve things would be cheap. Maybe they could have leaned more into Shuri being angry and that causing her to mess up or be less receptive to feedback.
Riri was also the only one able to build a vibranium detector. Maybe find a reason for her to swear she’ll never build one again, stay behind but still have Shuri taken to Talokan, and then Riri builds another one. That both justifies Namor’s distrust and Riri’s importance.
Riri is the obvious Marvel Studios-mandated appearance imo. Maybe Coogler was the one who wanted to include her - but it very much feels like Marvel was like “hey you need to have her in this movie in order to set up her series”.
Haha I remember the Coogler! Undergrads was a great show.
For me, it did not live up to the first one. It did not help that the actress playing science geek shuri went full anti-vaxx during covid.
Story was meh, some interesting plot points but no connection to the MCU. One of the weaker marvel films, like Thor II or Iron Man 3
TBH I don’t remember much about this one, but the sendoff to Chadwick Boseman was very well done, and captured the emotion we all felt of his loss.
I like the ending where they had the Landfill #2 moment with T’Challa’s son. I suspect he’ll be aged up the next time they want to use Black Panther.
Landfill #2 moment
Come again?
Watch the clip.
I liked how Shuri’s arc mirrored T’Challa’s arc in Civil War. It was each of their first appearances as Black Panther, and they each struggled with vengeance in the face of a murdered parent.
Overall I thought it was a great movie. The plotting was so tight. The way all the elements tied together was just really well done.
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T’Challa’s death being tied to the heart shaped herb, which then creates a tie between Wakanda and Talokan, as well as giving a plausible and satisfying workaround to the corner they wrote themselves into by destroying the herb in the first movie.
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Namor’s motivation being tied to the conflict (and conclusion) of the first movie, specifically because of the presence of vibranium in Wakanda and Talokan, which creates another tie.
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And of course the heart shaped herb gets its power from the vibranium, so we again get to focus on a story that takes place with a consistent set of rules, because all the hand-waving is pretty much confined to that one thing.
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The only exception to that is Riri, but the arc reactor is well established in the universe, so that’s not a big deal. Plus she also ties back to the conclusion of the first movie (Wakandan outreach), so it’s not like she’s coming out of nowhere.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that one of the pitfalls of superhero movies is that sometimes elements of the story can just pop up in a way that feels arbitrary and unsatisfying. Wakanda Forever deftly avoids this. All of the new stuff branches out organically from established elements from the first movie. Very tight writing.
I just finished my rewatch and I think I agree with you, except for the ending battle. That’s the part that feels rushed.
When Killmonger takes over he rules with an iron fist, he goes too far by destroying the herb, and Wakanda isn’t saved until T’Challa returns.
When Shuri takes over she similarly goes right into revenge mode, but then she sorta just saves herself and resolves everything.
I would have liked to see Shuri take things a little too far. I would have liked to see her really channel Killmonger. I know she burns Namor but that’s not quite enough.
In the same way that T’Challa was an outside force, someone needed to be her outside force. I think M’Baku would be best, especially as he ends up becoming king.
I totally see what you’re saying, that the conclusion of Shuri’s arc doesn’t feel as organic as it could.
I think the movie just changes its frame of reference, or rather Shuri does. Her redemption moment is her deciding that she’s not Killmonger in Black Panther; she’s T’Challa in Civil War. That final scene is parallel to when her brother caught up with Zemo in Siberia and showed mercy, and her decision to do the same is how she honors her brother.
It wasn’t perfect, but it couldn’t be without Chadwick Boseman.
That’s a fair point, although T’Challa gets to see Iron Man, Cal & Bucky fight, which I think is a powerful “Oh shit” moment.
I think instead of Shuri & Namor fighting solo they should have been part of the main battle. Then Shuri could have at least seen the war/destruction around her and that could have been the catalyst.
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I couldn’t take Namor seriously with his little ankle wings. I know they’re in the comics, but some things just don’t work in live action.
To each their own, but I thought they did a great job with the ankle wings. Namor didn’t fly the same way other flying MCU heroes do; he bobbed and weaved through the air like a soccer player freed of the constraints of gravity.
I think it’s also fun for flying characters to have a reason for flying. It gives you something to point to or a weakness to try and attack.
Ironman/War Machine/Ironheart fly because of their mech suit.
Ultron/Vision are robots based on the above.
Doctor Strange has his cape.
Mordo has his boots.
Thor has his hammer.
Ebony Maw clearly has psychic powers.
Captain Marvel is the only one who is flying “just because” . (Yes, it’s infinity stone power, but she can’t lose it and it just is.)
Yep in my opinion it was the best movie of Phase 4, due in no small part to Namor being completely awesome as well as a fascinating character. Shuri’s encounter with Killmonger on the Ancestral Plane was also very well done. Pretty much every aspect was good, except, as with the first one, some of the visual effects. The Midnite Angels looked cartoonish and the Ironheart suit lacked weight. Not all the visual effects were bad, though, and everything involving the Talokanil looked good. Especially that opening sequence. Gott DAYUM, that opening sequence was excellent.
My problem is that they failed to make me care about Namor or his entire nation.
That’s purely on them: I didn’t care about Iron Man when I went to see that MCU movie and came home feeling different.
Namor not so much.
Removed by mod
What a bonkers comment this is. Like incredibly irrational hostility for no reason.
I’m just saying, nothing there was a response to anything I said, aside from me saying I liked it and them saying they didn’t like it. I see no reason for that comment to be a response to my comment specifically. Singling out me, someone expressing positivity for the movie, to tell me “actually IMO it was bad” is what’s hostile. I’m not interested in a non-conversation argument where I say something and somebody else basically says “nuh-uh”. What’s my response supposed to be? “Yuh-huh”? I’m not here to convince people to like something they don’t like, and I don’t see why anyone would want me to do that. If you don’t like the movie you can say so without needing to make me a part of it. Like seriously, what was I supposed to say in response to that? And if I wasn’t supposed to respond, then in what way was it necessary to make that comment a response to my comment?
Brother that’s what discussion forums are. If you don’t want people to respond to you or share their opinions with you then why are you making comments at all? How bizarre that you think that you could be in a discussion forum and not have people respond to you. Its even in the title of the thread. Discussion. Certainly no reason to be rude to them for doing what we’re supposed to be doing here. Maybe just try to be a little kinder in the future.
Again: in what way was it responding to anything I said? There’s a difference between talking WITH people and talking AT people.
No it wasn’t, imho, it was doghouse. And racist. Mexican culture bad mkay.
Did you take drugs before watching the film? Where do you get racist and anti-Mexican from it?
IDK maybe taking an entire culture and making it the antagonist?
Tbh I simply didn’t buy their motivation for fighting Wakanda specifically because they did such a good job of showing why they should be killing every colonizer in sight instead.
Are you talking about the made-up culture of blue water breathers? Or the made-up culture of tech wizard Africans?
Did you get worked up this much about the made-up green shapeshifters or the made-up blue space nazis?
In other words, touch grass. Blocked.
Oh no! Anyway…
