Forsher wrote:Cannot think of a name wrote:Well, again I think you're being rather generous with your assessment, but whatever.
You're also completely not understanding the nature of narrative to make your faulty comparison a strike against the film. Or how movies are made. There's this delightful assumption that one is absolutely a rip off of the other and who is the villain is based on one coming out four months ahead of the other, which ignores the complexity of how films are made. Unless you're under the impression that Coogler looked at the success of Tahiti's Ragnarok in October and then made a massive special effects laden blockbuster starting in November so it could be released in February. It is a completely adorable view of how the film industry works.
See... I'd like to say you're just being way too literal about what "ripoff" means (1.1) and I was going to say this yesterday when I got home but due to reasons I ended up falling asleep instead but I've changed my mind. People call Madagascar a ripoff or, alternatively, the Wild and similar with A Bug's Life and Antz... and, honestly, I doubt corporate espionage or whatever it was caused Antz and A Bug's Life to be (allegedly... I do not remember Antz) similar could give a more accurate impression of how the two films would play out. They wilfully decided to release two films set in futuristic monarchies right next to each other. That decision, right there, put them in a situation where they'd need to work to avoid plot similarity.Now, no doubt you're going to argue that since these are from the same studio and in fact the same shared universe that they are completely
They should share thematic similarities because they're in the same Universe... compare the other futuristic monarchy they made and Ragnarok, i.e. Inhumans. It's blatant and a good thing. The plot similarity is... you know, now that it comes up, I guess it's there but Maximus wasn't a secret rival and honestly if someone hadn't brought it up a few days ago I wouldn't even have remembered that he wanted to invade anywhere (also because it was a television show they also made everyone work towards coming back together whereas the movies don't).aware of each other during production and that is completely true of Fiege who oversees the production of all the films, but that also makes some wildly inaccurate assumptions of the nature of the industry or the freedoms and restrictions filmmakers like Tahiti and Coogler are given.
Not to mention you're not actually describing plot, something new screenwriters have a hard time dealing with, but rather similar elements. How the characters deal with those elements is the plot, and the two deal with them very differently with very different results and implications.
Do they though?
Sure, Wakanda doesn't get blown up but they both result in massive final battles over the future of the state (and in particular its foreign policy), both (for different reasons) see their central heroes fail to beat their villains in straight combat (T'Challa managing to use... his environment to stab his cousin does, at least, defeat his opponent 1v1), both have collect the team mini-plots with "refused the call and then changed his mind" moments and so on.Finally, your fascination with novelty is a misguided 20th century obsession that has fuckall to do with the quality of a story.
But everything to do with the original claims (also, return to the literalism of your definition of ripoff... although, yes, Ragnarok is a substantially better movie than BP):
- Black Panther is the "usual" MCU film but without the jokes.[/url
- ][url=https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=410049&p=35311390#p35311390]Black Panther is extremely repetitive of Ragnarok. Notice how this is a parenthetical remark?
- Black Panther is a BETTER story than Infinity War. Notice how this isn't a parenthetical remark?
I don't know what you think you read, but I didn't write it.
I set out to defend the claim that BP is a typical MCU film. I appear to have got you to migrate from "it's complete reach to say it's the same as Ragnarok" to "you're exaggerating the degree of similarity". That's a win, at least by the standards of viewpoint reconciliation in NSG.Shakespeare and Marlowe wrote many of the same stories. Hell, John Fletcher wrote a sequel to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew called A Woman's Prize or The Tamer Tamed. During Shakespeare's time to get Shakespeare's attention. You might want to go, "Well, how many people know that?" and my answer is, "People who like Jacobian theater do." The play was popular in its time.
And insofar as anything I wrote, I am on board with Fletcher, having SPECIFICALLY praised Black Panther for its ability to contribute to the pre-existing MCU storyline. But beyond that, this is just not relevant to what I've been saying.
As it happens... I do think Black Panther is weaker because it repeats stuff but it's not just the stuff that makes it a ripoff of Ragnarok. No, BP is run of the mill because it does a usual MCU thing...
- Killmonger is a classic Iron-Man villain complete with (dad related, here) revenge, identical powers and death in a dark fight scene, who also steals Vanko's "chase down the flying objects" finale;
- it (like Ragnarok) culminates in a massive fight (although it does have some overtures to furthering the story due to the romance side-plot with W'Kabi but you take that plot line out of the film and nothing changes at all);
- it (and this isn't a MCU exclusive and very annoying element) has a dark pitched battle ending too (made worse by how literal they made the mirror... compare Ragnarok where Hela and Thor have different powers and it's in the sunlight for both the big army piece and the 1v1);
- kill the bad guy (necessary for T'Challa's story, see Zemo, but in context of the wider MCU this has been a very frustrating and story limiting habit... at least with Ragnarok you can pretend, that Hela might have survived because there's some ambiguity)... twice.
But the key thing with BP versus Ragnarok is that Ragnarok is better because it's more enjoyable. And that's largely because I like funny films and BP's a bit of a cop out... unwilling to feel like The Incredible Hulk let alone Man of Steel or The Judge and unwilling to be like Ragnarok (probably because, if it did, everyone would recognise its blatant similarity).Also, let's grant your flimsy premise of 'total ripoff', as comically applied as it is. Going back to Taming of the Shrew, the literal plot of that was the inspiration of 10 Things I Hate About You. West Side Story? Romeo and Juliet. Lion King? Plenty of similarities to Hamlet. You can't watch West Side Story and assume to have seen Romeo and Juliet and these are intentional and direct influences.
I like your Third Rock from the Sun reference. (They bring up the Hamlet/Lion King thing.)Then there's things like the heroes journey and other mythology (which it's important to remember that Thor is a legitimate mythological character playing out an adaptation of the actual mythology of Ragnarok, the end of times. You know, how the only way to stop Hela was to allow for the destruction of Asgard, tying to the theme that Thor was not the god of hammers, he was the god of Thunder. The hammer was a focus, not his identity. The physical place of Asgard was a symbol of Asgard, but Asgard was its people. Whereas Killmonger is the result of a dogmatic adherence to isolation and protectionism that had allowed suffering that Wakanda could have prevented.
You're comparing the hero to the villain here. Hela is the result of a dogmatic adherence to anti-isolationism and... well, it's not really possible to say that she's got anything else in her motive... but she wants to do the same thing as Killmonger. His motives are the ideological crux of BP but they're not everything that's in it. And they don't change that the same "bigger picture" message is said by both.The absolute strength of Black Panther, the thing that people are responding to, is that Killmonger is in his core premise is right. Wakanda's isolation has tacitly endorsed the suffering it could have prevented. If we're going to reach and claw for a 'rip off' then it bears more similarities with Spider-man than Ragnarok. In this case Wakanda is Parker, focusing on their own power and allowing their Uncle Ben, the rest of the African people, get shot and not doing anything. Only it taking centuries. When the both the villain and the hero are right, it becomes a more compelling story. Hela's not 'right', she's just mad like every other super villain.
Killmonger practically quotes The White Man's Burden. He literally says "the sun will never set on the Wakandan Empire". He's not right. Nakia is right. As a tool of communication almost everyone... you included... takes the wrong message from Black Panther. The alternative is to believe that Coogler let stuff like that sun line into his film without realising how strong a critique they are of Killmonger's interpretations. T'Challa is presented as a conservative member of the Wakandan elite... wanting to continue traditional practices... contrasted with Nakia (good) and W'Kabi (bad) to start with... and then along comes Killmonger preaching the same W'Kabian messages T'Challa didn't embrace before.
You can take Ragnarok where Thor wants Loki!Odin to take a more pro-active stance but Loki claims he's respecting internal freedoms and then we meet Hela who would rule everywhere and steal from everyone. It's again about this same colonial relationship and it's the villain who makes it colonial whereas the heroic characters present two alternatives. Loki who agrees with T'Challa and Thor who is Nakian in his thinking.\If we're going to start calling 'rip off' about unknown claimants to the throne or a hero that has a hardship, a 'point of no return' at the end of the second act that they overcome it in the second, we're going to have to decide that most stories are just 'rip offs' of stories we've been telling for centuries at this point, as Ragnarok didn't invent the unknown claimant to the throne (Man in the Iron Mask, just off the top of my head), nor power struggles of the direction of the throne (Robin Hood?).
You want to attackh value judgements that aren't there.Frankly, you've fallen prey to a specific flavor of clickbaiting internet critique, that makes for five minute videos making mountains out of a few molehills of comparison, sort of a playschool version of critique that identifies elements and influences and places them in the context of the artform. It sure sounds good and makes for good clicks...it's how I make my living, so click away...but it's not the cut and dry thing you're trying to make it out to be. It's silly. You should stop and just enjoy your movies. Or not. But at least stop making these silly declaratives.
Mine is not a house of cards, but a cathedral made in stone.
Heavens portend...did the two super hero movies end in a climactic battle? Jebus, dude. This is such a bigass shoehorn I feel like it's all the evidence needed you're stretching this comparison tighter than a drum. No need to really reply. The arguments have been presented, people can make up their minds.
