Black Panther - AfroFuturism takes on Broadway!!

[Kitten Champion]

The earliest BP comic I've read was Jungle Action #5 from '73 - so I don't know if before that his setup was initially intended to be something different - but much of what the movie portrayed was already there in terms of concept.

Hell, in that very comic T'Challa brings his Avenger friends via his automated airplane through the artificially-arranged jungle into the "mechanized wonderland" of Wakanda where they're waylaid by Wakandans with future-tech guns until T'Challa makes his presences known.

Also Man Ape.

[Prime32]

That's not the original Black Panther story. That's only the one that was used in the 90s Fantastic 4 cartoon. every other version of the character and story has Wakanda being Technologically advanced since the dawn of civilization.

The cartoon was a reasonably faithful adaptation of the story where Black Panther debuted (Fantastic Four #52-53 from 1966). The most notable difference is that in the original story they brought Johnny's roommate with them, and since Black Panther wasn't expecting him he was able to sneak around and free the Four from his traps. IIRC in the cartoon they just escape without explanation.

Given how quickly Wakanda had already developed in such a short time, it's not weird that later stories portray it as more advanced. But "it was always advanced" was a retcon, just like how Iron Man hasn't been a Vietnam veteran "powered by transistors" in a long time.

[Ramza00]

So Black Panther is now #10 Movie of All Time (World Wide Gross not adjusted for Inflation) and #4 Movie of All Time in the US Market.

Furthermore Black Panther needs only $6.8 million to be #3 in the US Market surpassing Titanic for #3. Beating #2 (Avatar) and #1 (Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens) is a lot harder with $107.9 million for #2, and $284.1 million for #1.

Black Panther in the World Market to move from

#10 to #9 would need $53.3 million (Star Wars 8: The Last Jedi),
#10 to #8 would need $62.2 million (Harry Potter 8, Deathly Hallows Part 2)
#10 to #7 would need $126.1 million (Avengers 2: Age of Ultron)
#10 to #6 would need $236.7 million (Furious 7)
#10 to #5 would need $239.5 million (Avengers 1)
#10 to #4 would need $392.4 million (Jurassic World)
#10 to #3 would need $788.9 million (Star Wars 7: The Force Awakens)
#10 to #2 would need $908.2 million (Titanic)
#10 to #1 would need $1508.7 million (Avatar). Remember the current worldwide gross is $1279.3 million so it needs to more than double its current receipts to beat Avatar.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I rewatched the movie again since it's finally moving out to make room for something else, and noticed something new.

When M'Baku is giving the party grief, he mentions the Jibari are vegetarians.

And my brain said 'just like gorillas'.

Thought it was a nice tidbit.

[deuterio12]

It's also a clean reboot from the original M'Baku who got his powers from eating gorilla meat.

[Ramza00]

So Black Panther beating Titanic for US Gross #3 slot happened a while ago. Current US sales are $697.8 million and I was hoping it would be $700 million for a nice round number. But with it coming out digital 2 weeks ago and blu ray last week I doubt it will make the last $2.2 million.

Infinity War is already #4 for all time world wide and #8 for US sales with $1.8430 billion world wide sales and $603.3 US Sales. This is insane for Infinity War has only been out for 3 weeks 5 days. Give it 2 more weeks and I can see IW being the NEW #3 beating Black Panther and beating Avatar for number #2 is still on the table if enough people go back compared to the other Summer movies.

[Malimar]

I rewatched the movie again since it's finally moving out to make room for something else, and noticed something new.

When M'Baku is giving the party grief, he mentions the Jibari are vegetarians.

And my brain said 'just like gorillas'.

Thought it was a nice tidbit.

It's not entirely clear to me whether "we" in that line meant the Jibari as a whole, or just M'Baku and his children. After all, the Jibari fish the river (hence how they found T'Challa), do they not?

[deuterio12]

It's not entirely clear to me whether "we" in that line meant the Jibari as a whole, or just M'Baku and his children. After all, the Jibari fish the river (hence how they found T'Challa), do they not?

As pointed out earlier in this thread, there are plenty of people in the real world that call themselves vegetarians while still nomming fish in a regular basis. Seems like they consider that only red meat is "bad" and everything else's fair game.

[Rogar Demonblud]

More accurately, 'vegetarian' covered a whole swath of dietary options (essentially everything other than 'eats beef'), and is still getting refined (hence vegans calving off as their own thing). The term is probably too broad to be useful, as part of the spectrum includes 'no processed foods' (so no sugars, nothing preserved, no white flour etc should be included, but aren't).

[Ramza00]

Remember humans, we use "language games" for language is an organic process and the language is not written in chiseled stone tablets delivered from up high. No language is a organic process, that is descriptive, but remember each individual human on the planet may be describing different things in the mind's eye and the mind's voice and thus may not pick the most accurate descriptive terms. Or they did pick accurate terms in their mind but they did not think of the dozens of ways someone can interpret their language.

----

Sidenote I love XKCD and according to the fans / wiki of the almost 2000 XKCDs 139 are jokes / punchiles about how complicated language

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/ind...egory:Language

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/ind...l_interactions

Except some of the comics I think that are about language are not even listed under the language tag and thus those 139 jokes, for example this one.

1984:Misinterpretation



Title Text: (You have to hold your mouse over the image for a while and then it displays.) "But there are seven billion people in the world! I can't possibly stop to consider how ALL of them might interpret something!" "Ah, yes, there's no middle ground between 'taking personal responsibility for the thoughts and feelings of every single person on Earth' and 'covering your eyes and ears and yelling logically correct statements into the void.' That's a very insightful point and not at all inane."

----

We can't know all the information M'Baku is trying to express with his line "we are all vegeterians."

• Who is we? M'Baku, his royal court, his family, all of the Jabari Tribe, perhaps not all of the Jabari Tribe but all adults but not pregnant mothers, we do not know all we know is M'Baku used the word we and we means something but we have to do followup questions to figure out what we is or just live with the language ambiguity.
• Same thing with vegeterians, what is a vegeterians according to M'baku
• Lastly other parts of the sentence. Are is a linking verb not an action verb (also called a cop·u·la, copulas are connecting words and are very important in English Languages, Romance Language, Germanic Language and the other PIE languages). Are is a state of being, just like I was, I am, I will be, I stand / I remain, I become, etc. So if you ate meat in the past are you allowed to connect we and vegeterians, or is it only refering to the present where you make a vow to be a vegeterian from now on, and so on.

We just have to live with the ambiguity we do not know EXACTLY what M'baku means, even if we are looking for secret information, secret signs, in this beautiful world-building that is the Black Panther.

[GloatingSwine]

We just have to live with the ambiguity we do not know EXACTLY what M'baku means, even if we are looking for secret information, secret signs, in this beautiful world-building that is the Black Panther.

We don't know exactly, but the contextual clues are strong.

The lines are "One more word and I'll feed you to my children.... Just kidding we are vegetarians".

Nothing in the film indicates that M'baku thinks of the Jabari tribe as a whole as his children, and that would be odd to infer because he's pretty young and "leader is regarded as father of the tribe" is not present as a social concept in Wakanda in general, so it is most likely he is talking about his actual children.

Contextually, then, "we" more likely refers specifically to M'baku and his children, not the tribe as a whole.

[Cikomyr]

Guys. Even if the Jabari tribe as a whole was Vegetarian. And even if "Vegetarian" in that context meant "not eating fish", i still have no issue with a Jabari fisherman.

Why? Wakanda dont eat Vibranium, AFAIK. So its possible the Jabari sell fish to the City Folks.

There, problem solved.

[deuterio12]

It would be really weird if they're selling something that they don't approve of.

[Cikomyr]

It would be really weird if they're selling something that they don't approve of.

Why?

Maybe it's nothing like a moral judgement

[Rogar Demonblud]

It would be really weird if they're selling something that they don't approve of.

Not in the least weird. Just trading something you don't value for something you do. The number of examples is endless.

[Malimar]

[much text]

That's an awful lot of thought and words to wind up coming to the simple conclusion that the line is ambiguous, which was the whole point of contention in the first place. I'm... impressed?

[Rogar Demonblud]

We're geeks on the internet. Overthinking is kind of our thing.