It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
Great promise could be ahead, that is certain.
@RC7, that may be an impossibility for me at this point. Spider-Man 2 is my favorite of the genre, because it could be an exciting blockbuster while telling a truly compelling story with some of the greatest themes, motifs, choreography, effects, music and more that I've ever seen in a film of its kind, or any film period. I still get emotional whenever I watch that Aunt May scene at the yard sale, such a perfectly crafted message that explains why heroes will always be around in popular culture.
Like The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2 was able to serve its genre, but go even more beyond that to appeal to those who simply enjoy cinema and all its power. Homecoming is an enjoyable and fun film, but very much encased in its genre and it's not interested in going outside the box or doing things that'll surprise you. Nothing wrong with that per se, but we have to be honest about it.
It’s a place Marvel fans have been waiting years to visit – and the film provides a starring role to the historic first black comic-book superhero, whose power to inspire transcends even his feats of physical strength.
In Marvel lore, T’Challa’s homeland is the site of massive natural deposits of Vibranium, the near-mystical metal that comprises Captain America’s shield, is woven into his Black Panther, and has allowed the people of Wakanda to make technological leaps nearly a century ahead of the rest of the world.
But as T’Challa learns upon ascending the throne, the minute others know you have something valuable, someone will try to take it from you.
In self-defense, Wakanda has closed itself off from the other nations of Earth, maintaining a false front that it’s a mere third-world nowhere – full of mines, farms, and jungle creatures. The truth is, its mines produce the rarest, most precious metal on earth, its fields grows the Heart-Shaped Herb, a Vibranium-enriched plant that grants its leaders superhuman strength, and its jungle creatures provide inspiration for one of the sleekest superheroes to ever leap from the page to the screen.
In our preview of the Feb. 16 film, EW explores the threat to T’Challa’s kingdom from both within and without. Standing by his side is Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, a covert agent whose job is to stifle word of Wakanda’s secrets, hunting down its enemies with deadly force.
One such foe is Michael B. Jordan’s Erik Killmonger, a dissident from the country and aspiring prince who has colluded with a hostile foreign adversary in a bid to bring down the rightful heir to Wakanda’s throne.
Loving Killmonger's skin (whatever the hell it's supposed to be)
In our preview of the Feb. 16 film, EW explores the threat to T’Challa’s kingdom from both within and without. Standing by his side is Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, a covert agent whose job is to stifle word of Wakanda’s secrets, hunting down its enemies with deadly force.
One such foe is Michael B. Jordan’s Erik Killmonger, a dissident from the country and aspiring prince who has colluded with a hostile foreign adversary in a bid to bring down the rightful heir to Wakanda’s throne.
The enemy Killmonger has aligned with is Andy Serkis’ Ulysses Klaue, the Vibranium poacher last seen having his arm sliced off in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He has replaced the appendage with a piece of sonic mining equipment stolen from Wakanda, but the real danger is what he could tell the outside world about the nation’s secrets.
With Klaue and Killmonger joing forces, T’Challa already faces an ominous external threat, but there is also unrest among the tribal leaders of Wakanda, who fear the young king is repeating his father’s mistakes by engaging too much with the outside world.
“In this movie, a lot like politics, it’s a little tricky to define who’s [a good guy],” says director and co-writer Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed). “The film very much plays with those concepts, looking at conflicts and different motivations, and who’s with who.”
Wakanda has never been conquered. But that doesn’t mean ruin can’t come from within.
The costume and production design is looking Oscar worthy!
This is a life long dream come true that started with my own father when he was a kid reading the comics and to see all this...not gonna lie, I shed a tear
The Wakandan Royal Portrait offers clues to the dangers within the fictional nation.
We are in the Hall of Kings. It’s a place rich in history. The spiritual center of Wakanda.
Vines creep the ancient stone steps, still growing strong after centuries — much like the royal family arrayed before us.
This is a portrait of the ruling Wakandans fromMarvel’s new Black Panther film, with the title hero played by Chadwick Boseman standing front and center, clad in the onyx-hued armored suit he uses to defend this technologically advanced wonderland from the outside world.
The Black Panther suit is woven with Vibranium, the indestructible yet-surprisingly-maleable mineral that is nearly non-existent around the world but can be found in abundance beneath the surface of Wakanda — a fact its people have kept secret for thousands of years.
They’ve mined it, experimented with it, and used it to develop medicines, vehicles, and weaponry that make the rest of the industrialized nations look primitive.
Wakanda is a land that has never been conquered. And as long as outsiders remain in the dark about its treasures and advancements, maybe no one will really try.
But that’s wishful thinking. There are myriad threats from outside its borders, and now there may be uprising and revolution within. T’Challa is a young man, a novice on the throne, and the assassination of his father is proof to many within Wakanda that outreach to the rest of the world is foolish. Maybe it’s time for someone else to seize the reins of power.
In that way, executive producer Nate Moore tells us that Black Panther pays tribute to two cinematic classics.
One is an iconic saga about a son rising to fill the void of a fallen patriarch, and “the five families” competing to seize power amid the upheaval.
The other is a fun-loving action series about a hero with a license to kill.
“What I think we landed on was sort of a cross between James Bond andThe Godfather,” Moore tells EW. “A big, operatic family drama centered on a world of international espionage. So hopefully we’re getting the best of both worlds.”
T’CHALLA
“What makes him different from other superheroes first and foremost is he doesn’t see himself as a superhero,” says director and co-writer Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station,Creed). “He sees himself as a politician. That’s the first thing on his mind when he wakes up in the morning. ‘How am I going to fulfill my duties as king of this place?’”
That means not just fighting external foes, but keeping the citizens of his nation happy. He’s a king, but not a tyrant. And Wakandans don’t speak with only one voice. There are many political factions, many clashing points of view. Some are ready for revolution. Some are being pushed.
“He has to keep harmony between the tribes within his country, and that means managing expectations and doing things that are unpopular,” Coogler says. “At the same time, he is the protector of that nation.”
RAMONDA
Angela Bassett costars as Ramonda, once the queen, now the mother of the king.
“She is one of the advisors that he would look to,” Boseman says. “He has to look to her for some of the answers of what his father might want or might do. She may not be exactly right all the time, but she definitely has insights. She is the queen mother. And she’s that for not just him, but for everybody.”
Bozeman laughs. “She’s has her hands in everything — even his love life.”
“The one thing I will say about all the female characters in this movie is that they are very strong,” Boseman says. “It’s a very matriarchal society.”
One of them is Wakanda’s undercover operative Nakia, played by 12 Years a Slave Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o. She may actually be the closest thing to 007 in this movie, and she’s a former lover of T’Challa’s.
“She is a departure from what she was in the comic book,” Nyong’o says. “Nakia is a war dog. She is basically an undercover spy for Wakanda. Her job is to go out into the world and report back on what’s going on.”
She also boasts some unique weaponry. “We call them her ring blades,” says Moore. “The ones Lupita carries while in the green outfit are based on traditional African weaponry. However, she does get a hi-tech upgrade later in the film, compliments of Shuri.”
SHURI
Letitia Wright plays T’Challa’s kid sister, who is no one you want to face in battle either. “She is also a genius and runs the entire Wakandan design group,” says producer Kevin Feige, whose also president of Marvel Studios and one of the chief architects of its interlocked universe. “She’s responsible for all these amazing technological advances that Vibranium has brought about from Wakanda.”
Here she is pictured with twin, panther-shaped weapons. It’s not clear yet what they do exactly, but it probably hurts.
OKOYE
She’s not technically family, but she’s just as close. This character played by The Walking Dead‘s Danai Gurira is the head of the Dora Milaje, the all-female special soldiers unit that protects the kingdom (and the king) from harm.
“They are a very powerful force,” she says. “They are not utopic, but what Wakanda has down well is it has allowed people to function within their strengths. These women, their strength is to preserve Wakanda. It’s more like the secret service in a sense that it’s not just military. She is head of intel.”
Okoye has guilt over the death of the previous king, and she’s generally a stoic presence. But she’s not unfeeling. “She can be serious, but she also has an unexpected sense of humor,” Gurira says. “She has a heart, but for her country and for her people. She’s not a person who doesn’t connect to human beings as a result of what she does.”
ERIK KILLMONGER
There is an enemy in this portrait.
In the comics, he was once a Wakandan known as N’Jadaka, but he took on this “death-dealing” nom de guerre when he became a dissident, then an exile, from his homeland.
Michael B. Jordan’s character is one of the antagonists of the film, allied with the mercenary Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, reprising his role from Avengers: Age of Ultron), an arms dealer who has plundered Vibranium before and plans to do it again. He’s addicted.
In The Godfather terms, Killmonger has sided with this outsider against “the family,” his brothers and sisters of Wakanda. “I think Killmonger has his own opinion on how Wakanda has been run and should run, and what I think Michael brings to the table is sort of a charming antagonist, who doesn’t agree with how T’Challa is running things, frankly,” says Moore. “I think that puts T’Challa in a difficult situation. Killmonger is a voice of a different side of Wakanda.”
Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya plays T’Challa’s best friend, who is also a member of one of the most vital groups in the nation. “W’Kabi is the head of security for the Border Tribe,” says Moore. “They live on the borders of Wakanda and serve as the first line of defense for the country.”
In other words, he helps maintain the disguise that Wakanda is just mines, farms, and woods.
“To outsiders they appear to be what people would ‘expect’ of a small provincial African nation – but the truth is they are some of the fiercest warriors in Wakanda, intent on protecting the secrets of their advanced nation at all costs,” Moore says. Now that T’Challa is king, he asks W’Kabi to join him as a palace advisor.
ZURI
Another vital voice of reason for the young king is Forest Whitaker’s shaman, a longtime advisor to T’Challa’s father and the keeper of the Heart-Shaped Herb, a plant that grows only in Wakanda and absorbs the Vibranium-rich minerals. When consumed, it gives the new leader superhuman strength. (But in the comics, it only works on members of the royal bloodline.)
“He’s somewhat a religious figure or spiritual figure,” Coogler says of Zuri. “Spirituality is something that exists in Wakanda in the comics, and it’s something we wanted to have elements of in the film. Forest’s character, more than anything, is a major tie-back to T’Challa’s father. Zuri is someone he looks to for guidance.”
As wondrous as Wakanda seems, it can also be treacherous. For all the talk of honor in The Godfather, the families were compulsively driven to destroy each other. 007 may venture to the most beautiful places (and people) on Earth, but there’s always a villain determined to wipe those places off the map. If Black Panther owes thematic inspiration to those predecessors, the danger comes hand in hand with the beauty.
But that’s where the similarities will end. When the Marvel Studios movie debuts Feb. 16, the story will remain on Earth, but its creators pledge to take fans to a world they’ve never seen before nonetheless.
“I don’t think people are prepared for what this movie is going to be,” says Feige. “Not just Black Panther, but the Dora Milaje, and Killmonger, and the entire design of Wakanda – both its traditional African-inspired elements, but also the Vibranium inspired techno-elements. I can’t think of a blend that has happened like that before in movies.”
There’s only one Black Panther, after all.
No matter who wants to lay claim to his throne.
"The 2017 San Diego Comic-Con is about to be underway, and comic book movie fans are (as always) psyched to see what the big two (DC Films and Marvel Studios) will offer.
In the friendly competition between superhero movie studios, hype is everything - and today the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Jade Giant (aka Mark Ruffalo) is getting the hype machine going strong!
In a Tweet, Ruffalo teased Marvel fans with what he alleges to be the most EPIC MCU sizzle reel yet. He doesn't reveal what the footage will cover, but whatever is shown willapparently blow the minds of everyone in Hall H:
In terms of expectations, we no doubt expect to see the first footage fromAvengers: Infinity War,which will be the biggestMCU film of all time. However, both Thor:Ragnarok and Black Panther are far enough along in production to produce quality sizzle reels of their own.
Infinity War alone would be enough of a "sell," for Hall H - but if Marvel Studios has strung together all three films into one big sizzle reel montage, itwould truly be in the running for "greatest Hall H presentation of all time."
D23:
Apparently the upcoming Spider-Man PS4 game will be talked about and/or shown at D23 too, which is strange since it already had a demo shown at E3 a month back. I just want Insomniac and Sony to release a playable demo on the PSN store so that I can get my Spidey fix. I've been spending the last week playing some old Spider-Man games, wanting to swing around after seeing Homecoming.
Re: The Spidey game. It looks so awesome. At first I was put off by the giant white spider symbol but now I couldn't care less. The game looks like it's going to offer the definitive spider-man experience and I can't wait. I'm just glad the makers have been taking their time with it and not rushing to put out a garbage game as quick cash grab to coincide with the release of Homecoming. We're in for such a treat!
@doubleoego, I agree. I think it'll be a Spider-Man simulator like the Arkham games were Batman ones. I'm pumped to swing around the city in the Homecoming suit, when the game finally launches with alternate skins!
Descriptions from the IW trailer shown at D23!
"Avengers: Infinity War will include "Every Marvel hero that's been seen in a movie"
Cap has a beard!
Black Widow is blonde
Doctor Strange creating footpads for Star-Lord to jump on while fighting
Brandon Davis? @BrandonDavisBD
The color scheme of Avengers: Infinity War is unreal. Golden space battles. Dark ruin on Earth. Everything is unexpected and brilliant.
Black Panther and Bucky are seen with the Wakandan army.
Black Panther vs Black Dwarf!!!
Trailer ends with Thanos beating IM badly with Star-Lord nearby
Thanos is seen squeezing Thor's skull while wearing the incomplete gauntlet.
Thanos THROWING planets!!
EPIC isn't sufficient enough to describe this!!! This film is blowing every cbm ever made that came before it away! Marvel's next 3 films are individually going to set a new bar for the genre!
Your wish is my command :
marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Order_(Earth-616)
Comics lore can definitely get nutty, especially when you're discussing different "earth" versions of characters that are different from the other hundred plus parallel reality versions of themselves.
The illuminati is already everywhere else, so it's only a matter of time. The villain would probably have one giant eye, and be the leader of them. Whether or not he'd be pyramid shaped would be up for debate, you'd imagine.
Anyway this is so badass
Great thanks. It definitely is confusing to read as @boldfinger said, but at least I know a bit about those characters.