Wakanda Forever – Coogler & The Gang

Full transcript of Wakanda Forever – Coogler & The Gang.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household, and it is another emotional journey, Oti.

0:06Oti: Mm-hmm.

0:06KT: not just in the beautifully steeped in quality film that we will be talking about today, but we've mentioned it many times and welcome friends and lovers. Our very first episode was Black Panther. And we also had our tribute episode to Chadwick Boseman, where we covered Da 5 Bloods. We did watch Thurgood Marshall, but we were too sad to talk about it.

0:29Oti: it

0:33KT: Um, so, you know, um, This film is more than a film. It is a movement, and it is absolutely like the gentle waters of healing. Um, shout outs to Rob, our beloved Rob from Smoke and Mirrors. Um, he decided to listen to our Black Panther episode even now.

0:55Oti: Oh,

0:57KT: Um, and he also mentioned the box office. It made 330 million worldwide in three days, and it's going to absolutely keep climbing, um, as, as many that feel moved by any sort of. Spirit to brown liquor and otherwise, I would dedicate this episode and this recording to everyone that has lost someone and is currently grieving. We'll get through it together, friends and lovers. Let's get on with the show. Hey, friends and quaint, colonizing lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. You got your hears

1:51Oti: and Oti

1:53KT: Assume formation with pocket spears, mountain books and winged ankles. Remain in the stillness of grief and feel the healing waters of Wakanda Forever this week.

2:08KT: Wow. Oh wow. Tell them, uh, shout outs to fufu and tis for running a screening for the community. It was made quite clear that I was not part of the community, but it was nice to Um, it was nice to be, um, in the cinema. Before we get into the recording, Oti, just an emotional check in. How are you feeling? It's been a couple of days since we've actually watched Wakanda Forever. How are you feeling? my love.

2:40Oti: Wow. Uh, man, I think I needed some time after the movie to just stick it all in. Uh, it was very eventful. Uh, we all had thoughts afterwards and I'm sure we'll share them here, but Wow. Wow,

2:52KT: Cool. Let's get into general stats and information we have coming back to the ranks. Are you excited for Creed III, Oti? Wow. That's a majors on your front. Am I right?

3:05Oti: Sure is

3:07KT: Um, we have the Fruitvale station of it all, the creed of it, all. The original Black Panther of it all. Ryan Coogler in the seat hemming as director, as well as writer. We have Joe Robert Cole credited, um, for the screenplay as well. This film, this monumental shift in culture, which is black culture, but as we all know, is a part of global culture. Uh, Disney slash Marvel. I would say, yeah, I would say this is my favorite Marvel film. Yeah. It feels like chewing on glass, but

3:45Oti: Wow. I do not see that coming.

3:47KT: Yeah. If I have more character development than your fas friends and lovers, you got a problem

3:52Oti: Uh,

3:53KT: in regards to budget 250 million and again, run it back a worldwide gross of $330 million. Oh, Thank you. Y G Oti,

4:09Oti: He makes it appear as if it's often

4:10KT: song In way of cast, we have Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Winston thick thigh Duke. He resha my thirsty story. So we're obviously retiring Oti off the back of his thighs, uh, Florence Kasumba, Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel. Oh, spoiler alert. I cried more than once, and one of them was just beholding Michaela Coel. Wow. Wow. I don't know if I'm gonna make it through this recording, Oti, uh, Tenoch Huerta, Martin Freeman, your Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Would you believe mm-hmm. Wow. Way to suck the color out of the room.

4:55Oti: Ah,

4:58KT: and the ever eternal non spoiler. But we love Angela.

5:05Oti: It sure do.

5:05KT: Baby Bassett, otherwise.

5:07Oti: Mm-hmm.

5:08KT: Oh, well, uh, let's get into first impressions. Like we said, this is kind of a full circle, Oti, solstice of it all because this is really where we started our podcast. And you know, unless you ask Rob in theory, I would say the Black Panther recording kind of encapsulates who we are as a podcast and maybe perhaps how we are as a couple.

5:32KT: Um, so, you know, we even re-watched the original OG Black Panther before we dived into this one. So I wanna get a bit of your thoughts on re-watching probably since we actually covered it three and a half years ago. Um, before we start talking about Wakanda Forever, how did you feel re-watching the OG? My love.

5:52Oti: It got me really excited watching, um, the sequel. I think part of it was just seeing Chadwick as Black Panther, you know, you get the feels and afterwards I was like, you know what? Let's, let's play the Rihanna song again. You know, Just, just, just get the feels up and running. Yeah. Uh, I think that's one of the biggest sort of aspects, what I knew that I'd expect from, uh, Wakanda Forever, because I knew it's gonna be super emotional just by the soundtrack alone.

6:20Oti: You know, they dropped it, I knew what the tos gonna be, I it's gonna be a dedication to charter Christ power, and Wow. They delivered everything. I was super excited

6:29KT: And the interesting thing is, you know, if we know we're gonna watch it, we don't really, you know, obviously you can't avoid posters, but we don't watch trailers and that sort of thing. The only inkling that we had into Wakanda Forever was Rihanna's song. And you were absolutely sold. You were all the way in.

6:46Oti: All the way in.

6:47KT: I don't think there was anything that didn't work for you in the original Black Panther, right?

6:51Oti: No. I told you it was a masterpiece and

6:54KT: wasn't a masterpiece. There were qualms, quarrels, and quands.

6:57Oti: Every masterpiece has qualms, quarrels, and quandaries. You know, it's only after a few millennia that people are like, Oh, this is actually quite cool.

7:07KT: I don't know what broken off Benin artifacts you have as masterpieces It needs to be it's experience in its whole entirety. Viola Davis

7:17Oti: Uh, I'm one of those people who see a masterpiece and admit it's a fucking masterpiece in that moment. And it was.

7:23KT: And that's why when Oti says, I'm a 10 outta 10, don't believe him. I'm a podcaster's. 10 Well, I guess just to capture off our OG Black Panther feelings, I had a fundamental qualm quarrel and quandary in the sense that we are still dealing with. Marvel sort of ip. Um, and to have Killmonger literally like draw parallels to real life, ie. Slavery and just like abandoning a kid in Oakland, California in 1992, like that was some hard shit to deal with. Right.

8:01Oti: Yeah.

8:01KT: While we're getting an Ant-Man five, like it's like how do these exist on the same plane? You see what I'm saying? So, you know, re-watching the OG one, I got scared because I actually felt less than I felt when we originally watched Black Panther, and I was worried about how we were going to go in. Um, and I guess just very, very briefly, because obviously I don't want to take away from the impact that we both felt from the film.

8:29KT: But obviously there was a lot of anti-vax shit with Letitia. Right. And I wasn't sure where people were just, are we just ignoring it and we're moving on. Okay, cool. Like, I wasn't sure what the temperature was.

8:41KT: Um, and you know, any sort of scrap of, um, you know, maybe a quote, maybe a whisper of what the production of the film would be. They were theorizing about whether they were going. Replace Chadwick, whether they were going to have a different sort of legacy, like there was so much theorizing that just got in the way and I'm glad that we, Well, there's, there's some, again, as a film podcast, there are some things on the timeline we can't avoid, but I'm glad that we just left it and we just walked in and experienced the film because a lot of that sort of discourse just got in the way.

9:18Oti: Yeah, I hear you.

9:19KT: let's get into your first impressions for Wakanda Forever. He laughed in

9:25Oti: Uh, I, Wow.

9:27KT: Can I just say, you know, we talk about this, um, you know, a lot, female isn't a bad word. It just depends on who's saying female. The way some people were saying Wakanda, you know, I'm talking about Everett Ross and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. But you, you continue laughing in Wanda.

9:49Oti: Well, I, I didn't get as emotional as you did, you know, It wasn't up until the very end and realizing the finality of it all, you know,

9:58KT: Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. Vibranium tissues, vibranium tissues, vibranium tissues,

10:04Oti: Realizing its finality and just understanding that this is it for Chadwick and how they're going to move on from him. And then the Rihanna song came in and then the water walk started. I think that was the moment where you're like, Oh shit. That's the moment. That really, really got me. Yeah. Uh, I, going into this movie, I suspected that would get Letitia as Black Panther because there was no, they wouldn't do it any other way. And,

10:35KT: but it, it's also important in how it was decided to be done, which I think we both agree was done perfectly.

10:41Oti: Right. Right. And it would've been such a misstep if it was any other person. So seeing the opening scenes with her, struggling with grief and all that, that was, that was quite, um, heart pulling. And you're like, Okay, cool. I, I know this is gonna set the tone for the whole movie. Yeah. And what happened in between those scenes? Then that's where we can now start talking about the qualms when we're gone.

11:06KT: Well, I already have qualms because, you know, Shuri's character was the sort of tried and tested formula within Marvel films of that sort of levity and I didn't care for that in the first one. What are those, you know, all of those ridiculous sort of comments that she would make. It didn't add to my experience watching Black Panther.

11:30KT: Um, but I will say re-watching. All these years later, I was all for Killmonger tonally. I feel like the OG still didn't, um, mesh well together in the Marvels and the outrightly calling out slavery and colonization. However, I was, I was like, Get in, loser. We're going museum shopping

11:52Oti: No. Cause your, your Killmonger mood every day, all day

11:57KT: I am. And that's why I don't belong in your Disney tours. I don't, I don't belong in your Marvel forums, and I know to leave your Discords alone. Um, but in regards to, you know, this Wakanda Forever. Um, I wasn't sure, you know, Letitia Wright opinion decide. I wasn't sure what a film centering Shuri would be, but this film wasn't that.

12:23KT: And I'm so glad that like, you, like you talk about, like, obviously we're going to talk about grief in a bit more detail. Um, but I, I love how the film chose. Its moments and it chose the focus and it wasn't always centered on Shuri. There was so much detail. There was so much characters that were worth exploring that were set up in the first like Okoye, hands down MVP, right? Yeah. Even though W'Kabi wasn't there, but we're still checking for him. Right.

12:51Oti: So it could be shit

12:54KT: I don't know about that. I, I'm not, I cannot speak nor be the signatory for that statement. Um, do you have any other general thoughts about Wakanda Forever?

13:04Oti: Nah, man.

13:05KT: I would say, you know, we already talked about spoilers. I would say it's unfuck unfortunate that all of the black and native indigenous representation had to happen in this one film. Like again, we're getting all of this depth in Wakanda Forever, and we are dealing with the fifth Ant-Man, or whatever the fuck Chris Pratt is doing in an Italian accent. You know what I mean? like. There needs to be an equal sort of distribution across the whole timeline. Otherwise, friends and lovers playing at home. It's fucking tokenism.

13:38Oti: Wow.

13:39KT: Not to this particular film, but that's what I'm saying, like if you wanna get the accolades, you kind of need to be about it all the way throughout however many fucking phases they have in the Marvel timeline. Right. I don't know what's happening to Mahershala Ali's Blade, but I hope we still get to see it. Hopefully.

13:58Oti: Yeah, man. Uh, if it feels up to you, we'd have Black Panther every year, eh,

14:04KT: or I'll, I'll start a GoFundMe and I'll just do a super cut of Wesley Snipes in Coming 2 America sequel. That will be your Blade. It's the Blade we all deserve. Oti.

14:14Oti: Wow.

14:16KT: Um, I feel like there was a lot of richness in exploring. You know, ancient Mayan culture or Mesoamerican culture, um, that I really feel like it deserve to have its own moment to shine.

14:32KT: Right? And, you know, don't worry friends and lovers, I've left it near the end, but we do have a theme of pitting black and, you know, brown people against each other. But we'll get into that into more detail, however, We knew that it wasn't going to be an all out brawl, so for me, any sort of fighting was going to amount to nothing because we were going to hug and be Care Bear best pals at the end of the day.

14:57KT: But I love this. I, I absolutely love this. And this is also why friends and lovers, we don't provide our numerical rating for how we feel about a film. Cause why the fuck would you have a 30 to 40 minute episode if you're just gonna give it a fucking number? Right? We're here to immerse ourselves, to heal and to digest, you know, what we've consumed in the world of Wakanda Forever.

15:24KT: Um, let's get into our themes. Obviously, we'll talk about the characters as we get there. Um, I wanna talk about the world of Wakanda. So it's, it's definitely evolved in the time that we've seen it from the original film. Um, you know, even a lot of the development programs that they had in Oakland, for example, and we obviously see Riri's character later on in the film. How did you feel the world of Wakanda was portrayed in this film?

15:55Oti: I get the need for Wakanda to try and share their resources to help other people outside of Wakanda. I understand and I appreciate that, but to me it should have started home. You know, we in the first Black Panther, we got Nakia, who was literally a stone throw away from Wakanda trying to help people from the Boko Haram tour terrorists. Right. And from my understanding, Wakanda didn't give a shit. Ah. So when that was

16:24KT: on her own, it wasn't a representative of,

16:26Oti: Now when fast forward to Wakanda Forever, all the efforts are going to America, cities and whatnot. I'm like, Bra, let's start at home

16:35KT: Wait. But that's also something interesting as well because the interdynamics of the African continent was such a big focus in the first one. So we are just saying that everyone is best friends now.

16:49Oti: Yeah, everyone. Everyone's singing through the same.

16:51KT: Is that believable to you?

16:52Oti: Uh, not really, but we just assumed within the five year span, a lot of peace treaties and, and, and contracts were signed.

17:03KT: We didn't see the aga with Viola Davis sliding in Hey, if you're gonna snap bubble over the queen, I'm just going to mention it on the podcast. Um, But you know, I, I mentioned it earlier that this is my favorite Marvel film. You know, Ryan Coogler, like this is, friends and lovers, This is a perfect example of allowing creatives and directives to have full fucking reign, to be able to tell a whole story.

17:36KT: Cause this was like, you know, without any sort of restraint, I felt, was able to tell the story in full vibrancy. However, in contrast, talking about vibrancy, I wanna talk about the, the colors on the film because we had just watched the original Black Panther and each, each tribe was so distinct and was so not just that, not just that they were distinct, but there were so vibrant, like there was so much color in the film. Um, but this film felt very blue.

18:08Oti: Yeah, it would've been nice to see a variety of different sort of, um, colors that sort of resembled African the richness in African culture.

18:17KT: Speaking of the richness in African culture of a man, um, I wanna talk about production design and I wanna talk about costume. Well, first off, I wanna lay some love splu and accolades because everything was, uh, my eye kept following Okoye.

18:32KT: But everyone looked great. And again, I was getting very distracted and I think everyone is my type because M'Baku with his thick ass thigh was my. In, in every facet was my type. Nakia in every fucking suit she had was absolutely my type. So I was getting very distracted. But you know, you talked about how you saw influences even in the original Black Panther and even he about like Maasai sort of costuming. I wanna get a bit of your sort of insight.

19:08Oti: we saw different costumes which resemble different tribes and that sort of true to, you know, we saw with the sort of Maasai culture in there, which was nice to. Represent Kenya, whoop, whoop, , uh, which was really interesting to me. So it was great when they're doing the ceremony to see all those people, different tribes coming together to, to sort of usher in the new, uh, the new era.

19:33KT: Nice. The soundtrack was very interesting because, you know, when I think of albums, I think of them being a cohesive piece of. Art, and I feel like the original Black Panther soundtrack moved in a way that I understand albums to be usually with like film soundtracks. And I'm thinking of like Bridget Jones for example. Like it's kind of just the mish mash of whatever the scene needed, right? Um, The soundtrack for this film was very interesting because it felt different.

20:05KT: Not, I wouldn't say disjointed, but the, the themes throughout the soundtrack were very different, but they always harken back to the stillness.

20:14Oti: Yeah. I think it sort of set the mood of what to expect with the movie, and I think it did it perfectly for me. Would every sort of scene that had sort of the it somber or even trying to pump it up a bit, it wasn't like, Ooh, let's put in some high-tempo Afrobeats in there.

20:31Oti: You know, like, I appreciated the direction of this and how they just nested it in quite seamlessly and to elevate sort of each scene that we got when we got to Tems' No Woman, No Cry, I'm like, Oh, take me to another level. You know, it, it just, Lifted the whole, lifted the whole cinema. You could feel the emotion.

20:53Oti: You know, we, we watched it in a predominantly sort of black event, which is good because you, you could tell the, the atmosphere and how it meant to everyone and, and you could feel the resonance in the fucking air. I could not picture that moment any differently.

21:07KT: And I think just to point out, for our international, mostly our American friends and lovers, um, in Australia, Sydney is one of the most multicultural, but unless you're actually planning for it, it's hard to have the experience that Oti is talking about where you would have a predominantly black cinema.

21:25KT: So I'm glad you could enjoy that moment and you could tackle over the colonizer comments and all Um, just finishing off soundtrack or lack of the decision to remove the usual marvel like audio and have it still and silent the decidedly. Silent moment of the film and oh, even just seeing it in my head is making me emotional and to have footage of Chadwick Boseman was to high impact.

21:58Oti: Oh, for sure.

21:58KT: I think that was, I cried four times in this film.

22:01KT: Oti. did? I cried four times and I'm saying Big man is, I was, I was doing some Big Man is and that, yeah, that intro just set me off, man. Like it really absolutely got to me. And you know, this is absolutely, um, you know, the bread and butter of what we're getting into. Now I wanna talk about grief, Oti. You know, um, celebrity deaths obviously depends on what the impacts were for you, but I think globally there was a feeling of loss when Chadwick Boseman

22:37Oti: Oh yeah, for sure. You know, we talked about in the first Black Panther, how it, it was more than a movie. It was a movement, right? Yeah. Uh, we were in Kenya at that time as well during the release, and I think it was like, what, a month after. And cinemas was still fucking packed. You couldn't get. Tickets. It was just a phenomenon, you know?

22:58Oti: And the fact that you get a black sort of superhero that means so much to people and what it represents. Yeah. You know, we've grown up with a lot of shit that we don't see ourselves on screen. And once you put that in and you see the resonance and how it meant to people, all the kids that can look up and feel like they can do fucking anything, it was the person that held the role so well.

23:21Oti: Yeah. Um, not being there anymore. know, in as much as losing someone is sad, can also celebrate, uh, his achievements and, and everything is done because it'll stick with us forever, man. Like, it's fucking brilliant.

23:35KT: I, I would also add another layer on there. Um, Chadwick Boseman passed away at a time where not just the world, but black people were going through so much, I would say too fucking much, Right? We were dealing with. A global pandemic. Um, you know, George Floyd's death, Black Lives Matter, protests all around the world.

23:57KT: And just a general, a general widening of the gap of if you were about black lives, you were about black lives, and if you didn't fucking care, then that was just going to add to that sort of dissonance. Right? Um, and unfuck, unfortunately for a lot, Um, ethnicities around the world. Even though we are two, three years into a pandemic, a lot of us are still grieving our kin.

24:24KT: Mm-hmm. A lot of us are still trying to make sense, if not directly from Covid, but, you know, as byproducts of as losing funding can also lead to neglect of our own people. Um, you know, personally, this film hit. On a lot of levels. Um, you know, I kind of talked about it in the Nope review of, I, I guess in that sense it was more salacious and it was more, um, through symbolism about talking about the need for release, right?

24:55KT: Mm-hmm. We were all ready to be go and just fuck it up. or being the horse, um, aptly named Ghost and just running off into the field, right?

25:05Oti: Mm-hmm.

25:06KT: Well, personally, I feel like globally there is a need to release and there is a need to fucking grieve, and that's what I felt this film did personally for me.

25:17Oti: Yeah, that's very interesting because it, it did give us that sort of opportunity to reflect. Right. And I just think the way they executed it, um, was brilliant. I think the level of respect you could see that they put in, they put in a lot of thought. It was just something to

25:37KT: And we haven't even talked about the opening scene, you know, when they do the funeral sort of procession. Right. That was again, that, that, that was, you know, it's not therapy, but it was absolutely healing. Right. And to see even Okoye, you know, even to see, you know, the women in his life warriors, but also women in his life bearing his coffin.

26:02KT: And it also being a moment of celebration, but it also being a moment, like you say, of reflection. I absolutely loved, you know, my, my, my heart is still being tussled, but I absolutely loved the way that they dealt with that. And you know, even later on in the film, man, Yeah. and Ryan, big balls, Coogler. Cause who the fuck kills off? Angela Bassett? You don't kill off Athena from nine one.

26:31Oti: Mm-hmm.

26:33KT: How did you, how did you feel about that? Because personally I was like, This is fucked. But also, again, unexpectedly having to grieve and continue to grieve for my kin, I fucking got it.

26:47Oti: There had to be something radical that needed to happen to get Shuri to become Black Panther, for Shuri to see the need that Black Panther is needed within the community. You know, it wasn't gonna happen otherwise if, if Ramonda was still. I feel like Shuri would've just been like, Oh, let's try and figure out how we can defeat this guy.

27:10Oti: This ain't got technology and all that shit. When Ramonda gone, gave Shuri a kick up the box side like, Mate, you need to get up, you need to figure out what you're gonna do. You need to get Black Panther back. He's just more than a superpowered cut. You know? He, he, he symbolized so much more for everyone in that community. So it was needed, It was important for that moment to happen. Otherwise, Shuri doesn't get to be Black Panther,

27:33KT: Can I be honest with you? I actually didn't care about Shuri coming into her and becoming Black Yeah. Well, again, I, I didn't necessarily care for her character and I think I was already riding the wave of what whatever was being offered to me in this film, whether she was a successful Black Panther or not. It, it didn't add or remove anything to my experience, which I guess in that sense is a good

28:00Oti: The gimmicky sort of character that we got, Shuri in the first Black Panther, you know, full of Hix and all that. That Shuri isn't what we get here. Yeah. We get a more so by Shuri, a Shuri that has more responsibilities. Mm-hmm. that is facing a world where everything that she thought was stable is slowly being lost. Yeah. I think the perfect moment to encapsulate that was when she did take the flower shaped. And you know who she saw. No one else other than Killmonger

28:30KT: Hey, cuz. Oh, hey, niece. Oh man. Panties. Panties. Were being thrown in the cinema. I kept my panties from M'Baku, but still panties.

28:43Oti: True, True. Uh, like we know how much hatred she felt, how much anger she felt, and with all those emotions, and then seeing Killmonger, thinking that her ancestors didn't want anything to do with it. No. Cause that wasn't the. You needed to sort out your anger. The same anger that Killmonger had the same, you know, rightfully so as well.

29:05KT: Yeah. Oh absolutely. Absolutely.

29:09Oti: And for her to see Killmonger, be like, Oh, what the fuck did people abandon

29:14KT: Well, at least they consistent. Cause you said, why didn't Wakandans care about anyone else? They didn't even care about some Wakandans

29:22Oti: Now,

29:23KT: Killmonger deserved the mantle. Absolutely.

29:26Oti: Yeah. If Killmonger was still alive, definitely the mantle would've gone to him, but this is where my qualm with the movie comes in.

29:34KT: Ooh, it only took you this long. Welcome, Oti.

29:37Oti: Yeah. Something that you also raised it while we were watching in the movie. Is, why are brown and black people fighting each other? Yeah, there's a fucking big enemy out

29:46KT: You didn't see my furious tip pad on

29:48Oti: Why? Or why? Yeah. You know, and I said this and, and I told you, I told you in the first movie, if you're not pitting Wakandans against each other, Killmonger doesn't fucking die because people come and see him. His energy, fine. He wanted to be Black Panther and whatnot, but there were ways to handle that. There are ways to handle that

30:14KT: Burn that shit to the ground. I say

30:19Oti: Brian

30:20KT: Cly, step in for Michael B. Jordan, next movie.

30:22Oti: And that's why we get, And then in this movie, it's not, we move from internal fucking bickering and fighting. We come here, we find another society who has vibranium full of bloody brown people. And then we fight them too. Yeah. I'm like, bro, what the.

30:38KT: Well, I'll also shout out my, my best childhood friend that is Nigerian. You know, if I wasn't sure there was a divide, she was making it very clear. Every time we had Naples people come up, she's like, Can you handle your people? What the fuck are your people doing? I'm like, Hey, I'm not even May. Um, ah, okay. Well, I guess we're gonna get into it. Hey. Um, yeah, I didn't like that. I absolutely didn't like that.

31:07KT: Um, first off, again, like I said earlier, the richness of the ancient Mayan culture should have been in a separate film. It was weird, kind of like when we were talking about Halloween. In the trilogy, they introduce a new fucking character, like in a film where we were grieving and we were trying to move on. You are introducing not just a new character, but a whole fucking world.

31:31Oti: I don't even have qualms with introducing the world there because I think How Marvel do they introduce it in another sort of movie? So Black Panther was introduced in Avengers and whatnot. Fine, I I can understand that and I can appreciate that. I'm pretty sure we'll get an Atlantis movie. All of them.

31:48KT: I think there's gonna be a companion show.

31:50Oti: Yeah. So,

31:51KT: so you

31:51Oti: I didn't have issues because you have to introduce them somewhere. It makes it made sense to me for them to be introduced here. What didn't make sense is people with a, with sort of a shared understanding of their world and what's good and bad still could not come to the table and fucking agree. And in this, Wakandans are the fucking.

32:11KT: What?

32:11Oti: pissed me off even more. That's what pissed me even more. Wow. Like the fact that Wakandans, Ramonda specifically Oh, made decisions that was just fucking unbelievable.

32:23KT: You waited for our loyal friends and lovers to get to this part. Hey,

32:26Oti: Like it's, It's true though. They didn't do anything wrong. They wanted to kill the person who was fucking. Gadget to detect vibranium. Fair. Fair.

32:35KT: But also taking Shuri wasn't a problem either.

32:38Oti: Shuri offered herself. Yeah. So And they treated Shuri with so much fucking respect.

32:42KT: Yeah. They even gave her royal garb

32:44Oti: for Ramonda to then go kill the guys kid. Of course there's gotta be retaliation.

32:50KT: Yeah. Oh absolutely.

32:51Oti: the baddies in this movie.

32:52KT: Why are you saying we,

32:53Oti: because we are Wakandans. Don't you see

32:55KT: I thought it was made very clear that I'm not a part of the community

33:02Oti: I just didn't appreciate that. I was like, What is going on?

33:06KT: that's what I'm saying. You keep, you keep acknowledging the Marvel machine, but you also don't understand that the, the, the lack of capacity and storytelling is because of the Marvel machine. It couldn't go that deep. And also, I'm going to start a consultancy brand. Um, firm mot you can't, I feel like the word colonizer was used at least three times.

33:30KT: You can't use the word colonizer three times and have two groups of people. Black and brown people that have been colonized and still feel the ongoing ramifications of colonization fucking fight each other. Why the two white ex-wife and ex-husband just giggle gaggle over bagels. Fuck off

33:53Oti: It's the all we living though, right?

33:55KT: You were getting me to my final form. I

33:58Oti: getting you to your final form, but I wanna. The next iteration of Black Panther. Should we not fucking fight each other again because I'm over fucking blah. It's ridiculous. It's gotten to a point where I vibed with Killmonger because he made sense.

34:11KT: He made sense. But tonally the film didn't make sense. At least we can agree on that. Yeah,

34:15Oti: tonally everything made sense to me, right. With this I'm like, great, you found people. I'll like you and then you're gonna go on and fight each other. Yeah. And not only that, we're gonna get Shuri, who, KT loves montages.

34:30KT: I love montage.

34:33Oti: If a montage doesn't happen, shit didn't go through

34:36KT: Montage.

34:37Oti: I get the, the HA gave Shuri some powers.

34:41KT: but how we need to know,

34:43Oti: how could she defeat

34:46KT: OIE guys?

34:47Oti: It made no sense. It felt like, um, what, what movie was that? When we saw, um, Awkwafina shoot an arrow. Shang-Chi. Yeah. Yeah. Awkwafina came out of nowhere Fucking killed the main boss. I was like, Yeah, show over with, with One Arrow. I'm like, How, where, what,

35:06KT: what, what was this all for?

35:12Oti: This guy's been battling for centuries.

35:15KT: but I think also at the same time, they're introducing Namor and they want us to love him, but he was also because for the most part, the film was being told from the point of view of the Wakandans. So if you're not with the Wakandans, that means you're the enemy. Therefore, Namor is the enemy. But now they want us to be cool with him. So I'm like, I don't, it doesn't make sense.

35:37Oti: No. To me it was quite clear that they're gonna be body buddies. They're gonna come by end.

35:43KT: But that's what I'm saying. What was the point of them fucking fighting?

35:46Oti: Yeah. It, it just felt so unnecessary and that's why I, I was so frustrated with Ramonda. She should have known better. And that's why when she died I was like, You know what, this is a change of gut. We need some people with fucking sense.

35:58KT: Tell us you have a abolished the matriarchy shirt without telling us. Where's all your antifeminist memorabilia? O

36:10Oti: It's, you know,

36:11KT: Yeah.

36:13KT: back slash back slash back slash Oti. Wow, you are really coming. Forand. So you are, So all of the problems are solved now cuz she's not around, right? Is that what you're saying?

36:23Oti: Pretty much a clean slate afterwards. Right. She calls to the death of Kahn's daughter. Fine. She's dead now. The debt is paid. Clean slate. So I can understand he can go back to his community and be like, You know what? I was beat. I'm gonna bend down to these guys. Let's now,

36:40KT: But if, if you're already, you as, when you say collective, we, you're talking about you. We, not me, we, um, but when we talk about Namor, I would not, because now he looks fucking weak. How many drug game shows do you need to watch, Oti, to know that he's lost respect from his.

37:01Oti: Yeah. The, the two I see was like, you know what? Why did you bow down to these people?

37:05KT: it's true. He looks weak now

37:07Oti: he does look weak.

37:08KT: Especially because they were treating him like he was lesser, Like their people were lesser. They have a fucking underwater empire. You bitches. Even to the way that they, they had woven into the beads and you know, even the fact that Shuri was so impressed by their technology as if perhaps, perhaps they're more and with my whole brown lips. Maybe they were more advanced than the Wakandans. I don't know.

37:37KT: But I'm just saying like it feels it, it's got that Roy Wood Jr. Residue. You know the Wakandans are doing a bit of some oppressing if you ask me No, but it's true because they're both on level of having vibranium and I would say even supported through evidence in dialogue in the film.

37:56KT: That they, the kins were more powerful in regards to their usage of vibranium. Right. But they were made to feel lesser again, through your anti matriarchy of Ramonda, they were made to feel lesser and feel disgusting, and for some reason, Namor, with his cute little ankle wings, decided that he will take that subservient role.

38:18Oti: Yeah. I, I

38:19KT: just never yield my friend.

38:21Oti: Yeah. Never yield man. You, God, you've been there for years and

38:25KT: God. So, and getting stabbed with a little pencil I'm sorry I'm not about toxic masculinity, but Shuri in that suit did not look very formidable to me.

38:37Oti: Wow.

38:39KT: come on, be honest.

38:41Oti: True. that, true that I, I'm gonna fight. I I just, I just wanted a montage where she learn how to fight. The suit can only give you so much, you have to bring some skills to the book.

38:50KT: Even Tan Dway would fill the suit better.

38:52Oti: Hey, do you think a mother looked like anyone there?

38:55KT: Like Namor, but yeah, pitting black and brown. You know what? And you know we're getting very spicy, very mu. since you've made it this far, friends and lovers, congratulations. Um, colonizers and otherwise. Um, if, what if, if the story was only necessary by the way that it was told, I would prefer that the brown people weren't in it. Okay. And have a separate film and just have Wakandans fighting each other after they grieve. I don't know, but I it just felt their,

39:33Oti: Yeah. Like we get forces, we get different countries trying to come and steal vibranium, you know,

39:39KT: Yeah, but it wasn't, it wasn't the,

39:41Oti: they're doing cover cover ops. I'm like, Okay, we know who the bad guys are. Why introducing brown people? Yeah. So he can fight. Well, in reality, we shouldn't be because we know better. And they surely do know better because at the end, they saved themselves.

39:59KT: Thank you,

40:01KT: At least. At least fully commit. At least fully commit. And don't acknowledge them as colonizers because at that point you're just like giggling around. That doesn't make. That's like a Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit level of joking around with the enemy.

40:16Oti: Mm. I wouldn't go that far, but

40:18KT: Well then why treat the brown people so much of an enemy? If, if Everett Ross can be a cuddly bear, why are the brown people suddenly the native savages? That's not fair. Yeah.

40:29Oti: they've gotta do it differently. They've gotta, We know who the enemies are. Let's stop the in fighting. Let's fight some proper bad guys. Bro,

40:38KT: we write it down. we haven't really covered off any characters, Oti. Um, and, you know, maybe we can talk at, at length at Christmas time, but you know, there's a couple that we haven't even talked about at all. I wanna talk about Aneka. I wanna talk about Michaela Coel's character. Mm-hmm. I thought she was a lot of fun. That's all.

41:02Oti: Yeah. She showed the difference between, Cause you could tell Okoye is super OG. Yeah.

41:08KT: she, She's very traditional.

41:09Oti: Yeah. And Aneka is like, okay, I've got new tools. I don't need cur. Sp I've got this das made by Shuri. Which are cool, which give me extra agility in the battlefield.

41:19Oti: And Okoye is like, Nah man, Spear is spear, So you, you could tell where they're coming from and I think one of the best moments, Let me just pivot for a bit because I brought up Okoye was her being told the truth by Ramonda. I think that was really important for her to hear. Yeah. Because you can be so traditional and you can be so OG that you, you can stick to the Lord to the.

41:42Oti: But for you to then feel like, Oh man, give me another opportunity. Give me another chance to, to, to prove my, wha there's only so much string you can get. And I think what Ramonda was telling Okoye was a hundred percent needed. She needed to hear that shit.

41:57KT: I retract my, Yeah, I didn't realize this is where you were going cuz I do not agree with you.

42:01Oti: What don't you agree with?

42:02KT: Ramonda only said that because it served her

42:06Oti: but it was fact shit needed to be aired out when, when they were being thrown out in the first, uh, Black Panther, Okoye was like, Nah, this is my duty. I've gotta stay and I'll be with, um, Killmonger. It wasn't until later on when she was like, Oh man, Killmonger's a beat. Bit unhinged, let me know. Change sides.

42:24KT: No, but that was also because they thought T'Challa died. So the, the, the, the mantle of their family didn't remain in the same position because they thought T'Challa was dead.

42:35Oti: doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You, you've got to have some

42:38KT: But you say you also love Killmonger. So he wasn't that bad of a cat. It

42:42Oti: He wasn't a bad of a guy. But if I, if, if I was to expect to have a relationship with someone like Ramonda thought Lou had, and for Ramonda to even ask, she asked specifically, What the fuck is Okoye?

42:52KT: So, So loyalty to the throne means nothing to use what you're saying.

42:56Oti: It can be loyal to the throne to some degree, but then you have to take some, There has to be some nuances, bro. It can't just be all the throne. Yeah. Jery on the throne. Yeah.

43:07KT: No. Denis on the throne. No, no,

43:10Oti: you've gotta put some sense on it. It's not just bland loyalty.

43:13KT: Okay.

43:14Oti: And yes, she did flip and she and she did do right by everyone else at the end, even against W'Kabi. But I think that instance where Ramonda first betrayed, she had been clinging onto it and she needed to let that shit out. And she could tell Okoye was like tearing. And she knew. She knew she had fucked up. It needed to be aired up. Facts.

43:33KT: Say something positive about a female character. Facts. is your, You like getting about it.

43:44Oti: I do. It's all, I dislike them. I love Okoye. I'm just saying it was a moment where she needed to be told how it is. You know, she's either or not. She feels like spears are what traditional and what should be used by everybody. Like you need to be more open to the ways of the world. And I think that's what we get at the end. We get a sense of her accepting even the costume.

44:06KT: I feel like she was never wrong though.

44:08Oti: Okay. That's, that's on you, man. That's on you because then we don't get the character development that she gets in this movie.

44:14KT: No, that's on me. And I'll be laying on the bosoms of my lady.

44:18Oti: Okay. Fair enough, man.

44:19KT: Um, I didn't know that was going that way. I absolutely loved Okoye. I, and again, there is a way to do humor and everything in regards to humor with Okoye's character landed every single time.

44:30Oti: Mm.

44:31KT: Uh, I really love Namor's character regardless of how I felt about the structuring of the storytelling, um, of the film.

44:40KT: I also feel like for it to take up so much of the film, It felt like it was really just Namor and Namora and maybe even Attuma. Like there was only really three characters on top of the expansive cast of Wakanda. You know what I mean? So first off, that means the kins are never gonna win. And second of all, like what was like, are we bringing in richness or are we just bringing in the brown people to the gladiatorial arena?

45:08Oti: Wow.

45:08KT: Exactly. Okay. Well obviously there, there's, there's a lot more, um, to talk about, but I think this is a good time to, um, you know, move into the healing waters of the wa And the only thing I wanna say about that is, you know, a lot of ancient cultures in the world find healing through water. Right. Um, and if you listen to the MURU, um, review also the interview, um, that I was able to do, we talk about that, you know, like in the Pasifika sort of cultures, we call it the wa.

45:40KT: And you know, going into the ocean for that clarity, for that healing, you know, for that sort of reflection. Um, and first off, I love that the brown people were in the ocean. And second off, I love how it really did just wash. Over a lot of the pain, whether executed or not. Um, but I just wanted to give a little call out. Um, you know, because I am a little bit of a water bending baby.

46:07Oti: Mm.

46:08KT: Let's finish off with, uh, I guess the most buoyant of themes that we have. I really missed Forest Whitaker, I must say. Um, let's talk about the accent in the film. How did you feel, you know, like how did you feel with the OG Black Panther compared to this one?

46:26Oti: It didn't distract me as, as much as a first one, um, which was weird, but I think more I had my expectations with, with the mood being set quite hardly. My focus was farthest away from it. I think I was just encapsulating the moment and seeing everything unveil rather than focusing on things that would distract me from that.

46:45KT: Nice. I would say Angela Bassett kind of distracted me. I, I would say because she was one of the main, and cuz she had a lot of dialogue, her accent, if that's what you want to call it, was a bit distracting to me. Especially because a lot of her speeches were very powerful and serious. Like, it wasn't like a joke. You got a little bit of time, you got a little bit of love for M'Baku.

47:07Oti: Oh, loving M'Baku, man. Wow. He, he's, Would you have loved to see him as Black Panther even for a little bit?

47:14KT: I thought they were kind of teasing that at the end. I, however, I would say, and again, that this is talking to performances as well as writing, um, to me it's believable that he wouldn't take the mantle outta respect for T'Challa.

47:28Oti: change.

47:29KT: Um, even the M'Baku that we got in this film, he was fine to be in the background, especially to a lot of the. In Wakanda. Right. Um, we got albeit tantalizing and mu, um, but we got a more somber sort of M'Baku and you know, even, even his comment about talking about and being like, What You didn't know we had books in the mountains.

48:00Oti: Yeah. That was hilarious. I think just one of my closing things is I, the suits distracted me. Like not, Not the Black Panther suit, not, Yeah, the co. So they sort of Iron Manning everyone up. I was like, come on now we can do better than.

48:17KT: Stop leaning to Westernized Iron Man. Yeah.

48:21Oti: Put it in the bin.

48:22KT: Look. Look at what thes are doing. I'm sure they're leaning on indigenous ingenuity.

48:27Oti: Fine, Riri from America. Fine. Let her do the Iron Man Shit. But giving Okoye. Yeah. Like qui. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was like, Why? What? What is

48:41KT: It's Ant-Man five

48:45Oti: No, I just, I just wanted something different. I don't know what, even the suits looked shitty as

48:51KT: It, it didn't, it didn't, it wasn't cohesive to the world of that we know of Wakanda.

48:56Oti: It did. Exactly.

48:57KT: Cause what's the point of vibranium if you can just go and do what, um, Iron Man does.

49:03Oti: I was like, I needed something

49:05KT: Why were you, why were you harnessing your hot commodity when you're just going to go next door and buy a Transformer's outfit? Like what's the point?

49:15Oti: I don't know what I expected. I just didn't want, I didn't, I didn't appreciate the Iron Man-ness of it. Yeah. I was like, Ugh, fuck sakes.

49:22KT: It was like Don Cheadle putting it on. Right.

49:25Oti: Dondo should just come and join the army.

49:27KT: Oti, fund my screenplay. Cheadle Monga. Okay. Um, let's finish off with this. Um, sort of discussion point. Well, first off, I did mention I cried four times. Uh, the first one was opening credits, obviously at the end of the film, and then two of them had to do with Nakia. Um, obviously when you have Lupita at the helm, there's going to be a lot of quality.

49:53KT: There's going to be a lot of. Thespian acting right. Um, she brought a lot of depth and I really appreciated that. You know, there, there was a lot of grounding, there was a lot of anchorage in this fictional world. Um, and it's, it's definitely the reason why I love this film so much is because it didn't feel like a Marvel film. It felt like a drama. Yeah.

50:15Oti: She, she really does ground this movie in all the scenes, even in, in the first instance, She's out there trying to rescue women from Boko Haram in this. She's volunteering somewhere else trying to do good. You know, it's not just about being closed off in Wakanda and doing Wakanda shit. It's about, okay, I know that I can help people out there and that's not key for

50:37KT: can,

50:38Oti: And her character in this is just fucking a marvel to behold. Even when she said that, I, she couldn't just be in Wakanda, you know? Yeah. Because you. You had Black Panther there doing Black Panther shit, but he, she didn't really need that.

50:53Oti: Yeah. You know, she wanted more, She wanted something, you know, she wanted a society where with all the work resources Wakanda has, that can help everyone else be lifted up, especially everyone else within the community. And that's why I love Nakia. She, she's one of the favorites and I think the last scene, seeing the baby.

51:12KT: The Weeba Shame

51:14Oti: Oh Wow. So this probably gives them the clean slate to choose whoever they want, um, to do, to be Black Panther in the features in the future. Movies.

51:23KT: Well, they have a House of the Dragon scenario and sure he tries to hold on. You know, part of the magical thing about cinema is that no matter what your preconceived sort of notions are, no matter what you think your theory is, that would be the best sort of decision for a film. It all doesn't fucking matter if you surrender yourself to the art of film.

51:49Oti: to mm-hmm.

51:50KT: If you remove the layers of, Oh, you know, leave, Leave Chadwick's legacy alone. Oh, you can't touch T'Challa. Oh, you can't introduce a kid into this. If you just remove all the fucking layers, the Wherehow skis. Deconstructionism matrix of it all. If you as a lover, as a film goer, just remove all those fucking layers and allow yourself to experience the film at its serving suggestion. You might just feel fucking something. Ooh, how are you feeling? My love.

52:26Oti: It was quite cathartic just talking about this movie. I think with all the qualms I raised, I think those were very minimal compared to the overall experience that I got. Um, I love this. I think what it does for the community is also great. So you know what, If you've watched it already, go to the cinemas again and watch it again, however many times you won.

52:45KT: I hope when you said it was cathartic, it wasn't because you needed to let go of your hatred for brown people, We wanna have a ot mon or

52:59Oti: wow,

53:01KT: but I, I, I absolutely agree with you. Um, again, it's not therapy, but it's, it's very healing. Um, and there's a lot of emotion to be felt, but, Oh, Ooh, Like a warm embrace and a slap on the ass. Am I right, Oti?

53:17Oti: Mm-hmm.

53:18KT: That's the customary welcoming in the For Your Reference household, we're gonna finish off in segment we call For Your Reference, Oti.

53:27Oti: I'm gonna go a bit left field today. Usually For Your Reference section, we reference movies or TV shows that we've, that we've enjoyed previously. By this time I'm gonna reference a comic book. I'm gonna reference Indigenous

53:41KT: Hey,

53:42Oti: Aboriginal superhero comic. It's amazing. Our patrons will be getting their copies soon. It's one of those things that, you know, it sets ground, it felt, it feels very Black Panther esque.

53:53KT: Wow.

53:54Oti: I love it. I've read it multiple times. I can't wait for the second part to come out, which is soon. Which you can pre-order as of

54:02KT: Hey,

54:03Oti: uh, bro, Indigenous is, is is something that I'm hoping we getting adopted to, to a movie or show soon enough. Wow. But for now, you can enjoy it as a comic and you won't be disappointed.

54:17KT: Wow. Well, you're definitely on the side of the family in Wakanda. Um, I will reference. Another unfortunate moment in time when the lead talent passed away and the production had to continue. Yes, I am talking about the Starz production of Spartacus. Rest in love and peace and power. Andy Whitfield and rest in wherever you are, Jai Courtney. Um, if you found Jai Courtney on Twitter and Instagram, let us know. We're @ForYourRefPod.

54:57Oti: Write us an email, hello@fyrpodcast.com.

55:00KT: We're also on Enter the black and brown people into the Gladiatorial Arena podcast. If you like to leave a rating and review and we'll see you guys next week.

55:09Oti: Why can't.

55:11KT: Who?