Black Panther Analysis — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:01] I've been a little exhausted by the whole Marvel Studios experiment for the past couple years. The movies are usually passable, and that's it. Which is why there are hundreds of articles and videos with the thesis Marvel has a fill-in-the-blank problem,

[00:15] from unmemorable soundtracks to ugly color grading and generic villains. This includes one of my own videos critiquing Marvel's brand of comedy, which overuses a technique called Bezos, where dramatic moments are consistently undercut by a joke.

[00:30] And it makes it difficult for me to get invested in their stories. So imagine my delight upon watching Black Panther and seeing director Ryan Coogler address almost every single issue.

[00:48] It's like he said, oh, you thought Marvel had bad music? Okay, well then have fun getting Killmonger's theme out of your head. Oh, and speaking of Killmonger, I'm going to make a villain who is, you know, actually interesting and intimidating and multidimensional.

[01:03] We're not going to waste a millisecond setting up other movies, and we're going to have female characters that rock. I heard you guys were tired of heroes fighting generic Grey Army's tension at the end. Well, then I'll make sure to clearly establish every faction involved in the final fight,

[01:16] and make them all colorful and easily recognizable so that you never get lost in the action. Do you find Stan Lee cameos distracting? Well, actually, we're still going to do that. We can't change everything after all. but Bezos? Gone. Now stop complaining. Now, there's maybe one or two moments in this

[01:30] movie that would qualify as Bezos, but for me it's not a binary thing where the movie is bad if it uses this technique and good if it doesn't. It's about the frequency of use and the timing I mean in that new Thor movie they do it multiple times in practically every scene It a movie where Thor loses his father his three best friends his home hundreds of his fellow Asgardians and I never really feel sad because Thor only occasionally does The rest of the time he seems to be having fun And Black

[01:58] Panther is strangely almost the same story as Thor Ragnarok. And I'm going to go into further territory from here on out, so if you haven't seen this movie, go and do that. I mean, think about it, Both stories are, my father the king is dead, and now a family member I didn't know I had has shown up to usurp the throne,

[02:15] so I must atone for the sins of my father, unite my friends and former enemies, and restore order to my homeland. The difference is entirely about execution. Ryan Coogler took this material seriously. This film gave me real characters and challenging themes.

[02:29] Thematically, Marvel movies are pretty simple. It's either become who you were meant to be, or learn to work as a team. For the record, that's not necessarily a problem, it's just what they are. But Black Panther? It's about the responsibility that people belonging to oppressed communities have when they manage to attain wealth and power for themselves.

[02:47] It's about the legacy of slavery, colonialism, and I can't believe Marvel made this movie. And it's not just about what it says, the scenes it chooses to engage, but the way it approaches them. The storytelling craft on display here is really impressive.

[03:01] It helps that the protagonist is already established from a previous film, since it gives the movie a lot more time to develop side characters, allowing them to be just as vibrant and sensual as T'Challa. The result is a world that feels more nuanced than any other in a Marvel film.

[03:16] And that's especially true for Killmonger. I mean, oh my god, Killmonger! I mean, he is unquestionably the most well-drawn villain in a Marvel movie. More than that, he's one of the best movie villains, period. So what makes him such an effective opponent?

[03:29] Well rarely has the line no one thinks there a villain been more applicable Because if you step back for a second the arc of his story isn necessarily villainous He basically Batman I mean he loses a parental figure at a young age

[03:42] vows revenge, takes up an idealistic cause, spends his entire life in pursuit of that goal, hones himself into a perfect weapon, and executes on his plan to bring justice to the guilty. It's pretty much the most archetypically heroic plotline there is.

[03:56] And if it wasn't the most famous line in another Marvel franchise, you could easily imagine Killmonger being the one to say, He actually reminds me a lot of the villains in The Legend of Korra,

[04:10] which I talked about in this video. He has correctly identified a huge problem in the world. He is right to criticize Wakanda's selfish policy of isolationism. He's only really wrong in the means he uses to realize his vision.

[04:24] And that sets up an ending that is really impressive. In the anatomy of story, one of the storytelling steps John Truby says is vital is self-revelation. It's the moment the hero realizes what they've been wrong about, changes, and grows.

[04:38] So in Black Panther, T'Challa actually learns a moral lesson from his opponent. He literally wakes up and gets woke at the same time. But Truby also defines an advanced technique that he calls double reversal, that he says is powerful but not common.

[04:53] In this technique, you give the opponent, as well as the hero, a self-revelation. It's not common because most writers don't create opponents who are capable of a self-revelation. But Kugler did. Killmonger is capable of change.

[05:07] He realizes a second too late what he has lost because of his crusade. He's lost the chance to truly experience and appreciate the beauty of the land of his father, of the world he dreamed of of an untouched Africa and in that moment his violent exterior that only knows rage melts away leaving us only with the little boy who found his father dead weeping

[05:30] It's a beautiful moment of contradictory and complicated emotions that are at once deeply personal and globally significant. It's a real testament to the creative team that they were able to find this crucial and

[05:42] defining moment of empathy. There's been a lot of hype surrounding the release of this film, primarily because of what it means to black audiences to finally have a movie that not only features a black superhero,

[05:54] that's been done, but one that also features a predominantly black cast, has a black writer-director, and a story that promised to celebrate African culture. So, now that it's been released, it's satisfying to say that it also happens to be moving,

[06:09] meaningful, and masterfully told. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. If you need a domain, website, or online store, Squarespace is an excellent all-in-one platform with nothing to install, patch, or upgrade.

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[07:09] Thank you.