Are the Wakandans a bunch of hypocrites who look down on the rest of the world as "backwards" while they live lives of luxury and refuse to lift a finger to help anybody else? Or are they properly paranoid, knowing that if the rest of the world knew how blessed Wakanda is, the tiny nation would quickly be conquered -- or just obliterated -- by larger nations that would be envious of all their cool stuff?
I think the movie did a good job proving there isn't a right answer to these questions. In the same breath, it did say there are wrong methods to either.
I had a similar experience to Bort, in that it was perhaps hyped up a bit too much for me, so the reality was a little disappointing.
Nonetheless, it was one of the best MCU movies and had some more interesting ideas than perhaps any of them.
As a linguist who has studied a little bit of Swahili, some of the things bothered me but they were almost exclusively the fault of the comic book writers so I don't blame the movie. It would've been a good opportunity to try to force Marvel to retcon some aspects of Black Panther to be more linguistically accurate. Of course, some could be justified as Wakandan just being unusual for a language in that area.
Spoilered for linguistics rambling:
They used isiXhosa for the language in the film. It obviously makes no sense for modern Xhosa to be spoken in Wakanda despite centuries of isolation, so I assume we are meant to pretend that it is a language unique to Wakanda. Wakandans are implied to have stayed in that area for hundreds or thousands of years, which works fine with the estimated timeline for the Bantu expansion into East Africa, but would mean their language ought to be more closely related to Bantu languages in the area. Wakandan names certainly sound Bantu, and the region they're in is overwhelmingly Bantu speaking, but they resemble Swahili more than Xhosa. The only Bantu languages that have clicks are found in southern Africa, which is where the Khoi-San languages that have extensive use of clicks are concentrated and their influence is why they exist in Xhosa and Zulu (and a few others in the region). While there are a few click languages that are found almost that far north, they are not Bantu languages. One is an isolate, one is an isolate theorized to maybe be related to the Khoe languages of southern Africa, and one is Cushitic, and theorized to have clicks due to speakers of a click language shifting to a Cushitic language. Clicks could exist in Wakandan, but since Proto-Bantu did not have clicks, you'd have to hypothesize that they were borrowed from a click language (not numerous in East Africa) or due to an indigenous population of click-language-speaking Wakandans shifting to the Bantu Wakandan language. But it's not a likely scenario.
More likely, they just thought clicks of Xhosa sounded cool and super-African (and it is true that click languages are basically unique to Africa). But clicks don't sound East African, given that only about 63,000 people speak click languages in a region (African Great Lakes region) with over 100 million people.
They like apostrophes in the orthography, and while it is used in Swahili, Luo (for example, in the name of cast member Lupita Nyong'o) and Xhosa, no languages in the region using them the way they're used in Wakandan names. In Swahili, Luo and Xhosa, represents the velar nasal [ŋ], while represents prenasalized [g], so approximately [ŋg] (comparable to 'singer' vs. 'finger' in English). The apostrophe in T'challa, T'chaka and W'kabi appears to represent a schwa, a highly reduced vowel. It is possible that Wakandan has a reduced vowel like schwa while (afaik) no other Bantu language does, but again not a likely scenario. The other use is in names like N'Jadaka, N'Jobu and M'Baku, where the apostrophe serves no purpose at all. I'd also note that unless Wakandan has geminate consonants like Italian (which would again be unusual for a Bantu language), there's no reason for it to be T'challa rather than T'chala. Since Wakandan in the film has its own writing system, there's no reason for transliteration into English not to be more consistent and rational.
The use of the name Bast for the panther goddess also doesn't make sense. First of all, it's an Egyptian goddess. I mean, that's fine, maybe Egyptian religion spread down into Wakanda. But presumably the name would be adapted to Bantu phonology - every other word ends in a vowel (a requirement found for words in both Swahili and Xhosa). And consonant clusters aren't allowed. Given that the Egyptian name was Bastet, it would make more sense for her to be called Basateta or something along those lines. But I suppose referring to her as Bast in English could be justified (given that's the form the name usually takes in English based on the Egyptian pronunciation).
Ok, it has been mentioned elsewhere, but not here yet, for some reason, Avengers: Infinity War (, part 1 - as I insist on calling it still)
I don't usually watch most movies on the big screen, and that includes even most Marvel flicks, but I watched this twice this weekend, in 2D and 3D according to what they had that day (I preferred the 2D, as tends to be the case).
So much amazingness, and, to quote myself from elsewhere: can I just say FUN?! At least the first 2/3 of the film was just one amazing moment after another. Various characters meeting and reacting to each other, the humour, the scenery. Just amazing.
Last third also amazing, but differently.
And awesome though it would be if Marvel just dropped the mic and left everything there, I don't for a minute think that especially the ending of the movie will be permanent, second half coming next year, I think?
I had actively avoided EVERYTHING about this film beforehand outside of the other films and shows, and Peter Dinklage was a super-pleasant surprise for me.
Prediction
I think the original Avengers, who are all still alive as far as we know, will sacrifice themselves to undo the culling. 6 Avengers, 6 stones, and there were too many instances of people who have good vision of the future sacrificing themselves and/or a stone for the life of an original Avenger.
Will the shows reflect any of these goings-on? Agents of Shield used to be tied to the movies to a certain extent, but I think they have pulled away from that after it really dragged them down in the first season.
As has been mentioned already, Brolin did a fine acting job through all the prosthetics and CGI. It was also refreshing to see a villain who truly believed that was he was doing was right -- or at least necessary -- and that he'd be hailed as a hero in the end.
Of course, he's delusional, given the frickin' huge flaw in his plan.
So, he plans to save trillions of sentient beings from death by starvation by ... killing them. Okay.
And what, exactly, does he plan to do when, within a generation or two, the survivors have reproduced and brought their numbers right back up to where they had been? Does he think, "Eh, I'll kill half of 'em again, and just keep doing that every few years -- over and over and over again." Maybe, he's hoping, they'll eventually get the message and take steps to ensure that they don't let their populations grow beyond the capacities of their ecosystems to support them. On the other hand, if people were inclined to think like that, overpopulation wouldn't be an issue in the first place.
Even so, if Thanos was truly interested in eliminating poverty, hunger, etc. -- he did have all 6 Infinity Stones at his disposal. It's not as if he couldn't have simply wished for all sentient species to now and forever live within the limits of their ecosystems.
***
It was stated that Thanos killed half the surviving Asgardians. So where are they? [Given that the Asgardians had just suffered a huge population decrease (and didn't seem to be overpopulated in any event) you'd think that he wouldn't have felt the need to eliminate half of them.]
Are they being held captive on Thanos' ship? Maybe so.
Dr. Strange insisted that giving Thanos the Time Stone was necessary in order for the Good Guys to ultimately prevail, so it'll be interesting to see how that works out.
I'm looking forward to Part II, to see how all of this is sorted out. There's no way they're letting Spider-Man and Black Panther stay dead, I'm sure. Vision and Loki will likely stay dead, though, I'm guessing.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
Infinity War was so dense. Usually I can find a favorite something that I can latch onto and say that thing is why I came to see this movie. There's so much great humor and tense drama and fun action and sweet character moments. I literally can't even.
I mean really.
The three things I walked away with in my head: GIANT. SPACE. DWARFS. (Think of Minsc and Boo from Baldur's Gate fame. luls, miniature giant space hamster) Alan Silvestri can score the hell out of a film. And the third is the thing from the post credits.
What's really not helping my inability to is that all this is happening so soon after Black Panther. Now, I was totally jazzed for BP. Too jazzed as I've said. I didn't get any time, really, to hype myself out for Infinity War. I was ready for it but that was about it. That lack of grace period to build myself for the next experience didn't help me watching. Though I otherwise was totes blown out by the movie.
My great hope is that they can keep the Russo Brothers around for special occassions because damn they can work it.
Death is a tricky thing in the comic books, and it can be doubly so for any live action translation. All of the characters who were "snapped" out of existence aren't really dead to me. I mourn not for their disappearance because by the time all is said and done I expect most of them to return, no harm - no foul. Sort of. (And no real attachment to the innumerable others across the galaxies.)
The character(s) I thought were going to get dead didn't get died. I kinda figured that Vision was def on the chopping block what with being an embodiment of a stone, so I wasn't shocked or hurt or emotional about his demise. Though there was some of the empathy for the relationship with Wanda.
The emotional weight of Thanos' sacrifice, as such, didn't hit me as hard as it could have. One, though I like Gamora - her space in the Guardians movies - she's not favored. And, really? Honest and true? Well, of course, The Mad Titan would sacrifice someone else for his greater ambitions. Yeah, he "gave up a daughter," who, okay, I can believe he had some emotion for. But it didn't strike me as, say, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to the Lord - mirrored by Jacob's willingness to be sacrificed.
BOOK SPOILER FOR DRESDEN FILES SKIN GAME:
In a similar vein, Nicodemus sacrifices his blood daughter to gain access to Hades' vault. It's all part of his greater plan to do something (we the readers don't know his long term plans). His daughter was in on it and willing to be sacrificed for this. It all makes sense in-universe and though they are evil villains who are worth hating, it's still an incredibly touching moment.
Now then.
Where do they go from here?
Dudes. I have no clue.
What will [Character Referenced at the Post Credits] bring to the table that can turn the tide?
If the Hulk can be cowed by Thanos htf can anyone stand against him?
Hulk.
STRONGEST THERE IS.
I would have sent Strange and Vision somewhere the fuck else - opposite ends of the universe for all the good it wouldn't have done.
What did I expect though? I was waiting for Tony or Cap to get killed. I mean, they're not exactly safe what with a whole 'nother movie coming up. But still.
So, yeah.
I definitely have to see it again. At least one (hundred) more times to wrap my head around it all.
HOW CAN YOU HAVE THE MOTHER EFFING STORMBREAKER BUT NO BETA RAY BILL. THIS IS A TRAVESTY AND I'M NEVER WATCHING ANOTHER MARVEL THING UNTIL THIS IS ADDRESSED AND CORRECTED AND I AM MADE WHOLE.
And in all this excitement with a fantastic villain, not enough people are as excited as I was...
I KNEW THE RED SKULL WAS STILL ALIVE AND I'M PLEASED AS PUNCH HE'S STILL OUT THERE. HE CAN COME BACK AND BE EVIL OR NOT-EVIL OR BOTH OR NEITHER AND I WILL WATCH THE SHIT OUT OF THAT MOVIE.
I really have no issues with the movie, nothing significant. There were parts that I wished were fleshed out more, characters that I wished got more focus, but still these are more the wishes of a fanboy.
This was a good telling of Thanos' story and the focus was appropriately on him.
In his story, Captain America is barely a blip. He's just a human who surprised Thanos every so briefly with his stubborn resistance. In his story, the losses that happen to others are simply added onto what Thanos has already had to endure. In his story, he has finally achieved the one thing that would set the Universe right. The one thing that only he alone could do.
I'm curious to see what is the post-IW impact in the MCU. I know that Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel will mostly take place before the events of IW. But, will the same be true of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or any of the Netflix Defenders series.
I have to imagine that the Netflix Defenders will probably have to take place before IW. I mean, no matter what threats that they might be facing, all of that would have to be completely overwhelmed by half the people in NYC disappearing. That event has to be THE ONLY thing that matters in any series after IW.
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"Her eyes in certain light were violet, and all her teeth were even. That's a rare, fair feature: even teeth. She smiled to excess, but she chewed with real distinction." - Eleanor of Aquitaine
We saw Deadpool 2 this afternoon and both enjoyed it as much as the first one.
There were multiple laugh out loud moments, ludicrous times of violence/gore, good music and generally great acting. Josh Brolin was great as Cable and they did a great job with him imo.
If you have managed to stay spoiler free so far, keep it that way! I had no idea about "it" and was super surprised and excited. Like I might have actually screamed/cheered a little.
Overall, if you enjoyed the first one I think you'll enjoy this one.
I liked some aspects better than the first (I thought the humor was a little too immature in the first one, but this one had a better balance) so overall I liked it a little better.
I too enjoyed the Deadpool 2. I feel I've spent all my hype resources on Black Panther and Civil War. I'm waiting to build up to Incredibles 2 but I think I've peaked at just "happy to see it." Deadpool 2 was more of the same. But it was a fun same watching Ryan Reynolds play the part he seems to have been born to play. I did kinda fall in fatuation with Zazie Beetz as Domino. And the midcredits sequence is worth the price of admission by itself.