The Marvel Cinematic Universe- Silver Surfer cast

[MacReady]

Just now, August4th said:

Don't get how anyone can't see the impact the success BP can have on pop culture

Impact or significance?  Which is it? 

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a all-black cast in a big budget film that takes place in Eastern Africa has never been done before

 

What does this have to do with literally anything?  I don't want to turn this into a great big discussion, but do you honestly believe that Black Panther would have been made if it hadn't been attached to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?  Do you think it would have had 200 million dollars?  Do you think the movie would have been made at all if Black Panther hadn't been introduced earlier? 

It's just silly to me that people act like this was some major cultural stepping stone when it wouldn't have ever happened if not for the 16 movies that came before it leading up to it.  Additionally, it's not the first to do really anything.  People really connected with it, and that's good.  Very good to connect with a movie.  Doesn't mean it's culturally significant. 

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already seeing the impact of it.. HBO green-lit a Afro-futurist  Game of the thrones type show a few months after BP success...

I really hate to burst your bubble because you seem very passionate about this, but this is false information.  If you're referring to HBO's Who Fears Death "afro-futurist" Game of Thrones type show, that had already gone into development in July of 2017.  Black Panther was, of course, released in February of 2018.

Black Panther was not culturally significant.  It is not having some massive impact on movies.  It did nothing that hasn't been done before.  Unless you think the very fact that a 200 million dollar movie with an all-black cast set in East Africa is enough to classify a movie as culturally significant, it's not culturally significant.  And that's a pretty silly argument to make, too.  Fans have wanted Black Panther for a long time.  Marvel has made 16 other movies first.  Once they introduced the character in Civil War, what did you think they were going to do?  Tell a Black Panther story while introducing their role in vibranium, explain Wakanda and do a semi-origin/explanation of the character of Black Panther all while being set in New England? 

[BleedTheClock]

Black Panther was good, but it's not because it was some groundbreaking black culture movement movie. It had nothing to do with the advancement of black people. It was a freaking superhero movie set in an all-black area. It was a good movie, but I agree with the other posters that said it had nothing to do with the "advancement" of black culture. It was just a good superhero flick. 

[August4th]

2 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

  It did nothing that hasn't been done before. 

name another blockbuster film with a all-black cast that takes place in Africa before BP

[Mox]

If that's the bar for culturally significant than there are a lot more groundbreaking movies than I thought.

[MacReady]

Just now, August4th said:

name another blockbuster film with a all-black cast that takes place in Africa before BP

What's the significance of that?  Seriously, what's the significance of that?  What other all-black cast movies required a gigantic budget to tell their story? 

Australia is the whitest country in the world.  Mad Max: Fury Road is the first big budget movie with an all-white cast that takes place in Australia.  Is Mad Max culturally significant? 

 

[August4th]

52 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

What's the significance of that?  Seriously, what's the significance of that?  What other all-black cast movies required a gigantic budget to tell their story? 

Australia is the whitest country in the world.  Mad Max: Fury Road is the first big budget movie with an all-white cast that takes place in Australia.  Is Mad Max culturally significant? 

 

the significance is that it shows films with that kind of cast and setting can be financially successful(it being part of the Marvel machine helps.. but its still a step forward) . Think of the big-budget Hollywood films that have taken place in Africa before..they always show the continent in war and they almost always have the white savior trope or black people are  just in the background...hopefully with the success of BP..Hollywood execs would be more open to showing different kinds a stories on that Continent.. maybe open the door for a big budget film on mansa musa and other African rulers and stories.. for myself I rather see those films than another Robin Hood film(its a pipe dream, but you never know)

 

for Australian cinema.. I would say so. But that comparison is kinda apples and oranges. we've seen all-white cast on big budget films before Mad Max. I would say Mad Max broke ground for the action genre and world building.

I don't think BP was a great film, but its success is still a big deal ...guess we'll have to wait and see if it impacts the way Hollywood goes about producing films about Africa

Edited August 28, 2018 by August4th

[MacReady]

Just now, August4th said:

the significance is that it shows films with that kind of that cast and setting can be financially successful(it being part of the Marvel machine helps.. but its still a step forward) .

That was NEVER something that needed to be proved.  Have you ever heard of blaxploitation?  Tyler Perry proves that with every insulting Madea movie he makes.  Every single Marvel movie for about the past ten years has doubled its budget domestically without a hint of blaxploitation.  Add a little of that to a Marvel movie and you get more.  It's simple.  It's not significant. 

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Think of the big-budget Hollywood films that have taken place in Africa before..they always show the continent in war and they almost always have the white savior trope or black people are  just in the background...hopefully with the success of BP..

WHAT DOES AFRICA HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?  Wakanda is a fictional location set in Africa.  That's from the source material.  The fact that it was set in Africa is no more historically significant than a large part of Captain America: The First Avenger taking place primarily in Germany. 

They always show the continent in war?  Lol.  You mean kinda like all of Wakanda breaking into a civil war?  White savior trope?  You mean kinda like one of its two Tolkien white characters preparing to sacrifice himself in a fighter jet to save Wakanda?

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Hollywood execs would be more open to showing different kinds a stories on that Continent.. maybe open the door for a big budget film on mansa musa and other African rulers and stories.. for myself I rather see those films than another Robin Hood film(its a pipe dream, but you never know)

You think a superhero movie should equate to more big budget movies about a continent?  What sense does that make?  Did the success of Civil War open up a floodgate of stories on the American Civil War?  They don't equate. 

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for Australian cinema.. I would say so. But that comparison is kinda apples and oranges. we've seen all-white cast on big budget films before Mad Max. I would say Mad Max broke ground for the action genre and world building.

You're missing the point.  The point is that the setting has nothing to do with cultural significance.  It was the first white-led cast set in the most predominantly white country in the world.  You're trying to act like Black Panther being set in Africa with a huge budget is significant when it's not.  Detroit has one of the highest percentage of African Americans in the country.  How many movies have been set in Detroit with a black actor?  Compare that with Scottsdale, AZ.  Or Billings, Montana.  How many movies have been set in Billings or Scottsdale compared to Detroit? 

The setting has nothing to do with cultural significance.  Just like Mad Max being set in Australia isn't going to open up a floodgate of movies based on Australian history, Black Panther being set in Africa isn't going to open a floodgate of movies based on Africa's history. 

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I don't think BP was a great film, but its success is still a big deal ...guess we'll have to wait and see if it impacts the way Hollywood goes about producing films about Africa

It's not going to.  Black Panther was a SUPERHERO MOVIE.  If there were more superhero characters with a backstory in Africa, those would be gobbled up.  There aren't.  The movie wasn't a massive success because it was set in Africa.  The movie was a massive success because it was a superhero movie about a superhero from a fictional country in Africa.

[Deadpulse]

1 hour ago, Outpost31 said:

It's just silly to me that people act like this was some major cultural stepping stone when it wouldn't have ever happened if not for the 16 movies that came before it leading up to it. 

This is true of all things. Rock and Roll never happens if the Blues never happens. Everything has something that came before it to make that new thing possible. It doesnt discredit that new thing. Its also literally why it is a stepping stone, because its in line with the other stepping stones behind it and hopefully after it. Not sure why you think this detracts from the significance of the film. Yes, the MCU made this possible, but that doesnt change the outcome. 

[MacReady]

Just now, Deadpulse said:

Yes, the MCU made this possible, but that doesnt change the outcome. 

The difference is that, without the MCU, it was the same in a long line of blaxploitation.  The MCU gave blaxploitation a bigger budget.  That's all this is. 

Why is this so hard to understand?  This is literally nothing different. 

Aimed at an African American audience - CHECK.
Primarily black cast - CHECK.
Use of soundtrack to further entice black audience - CHECK.
Black characters and communities as heroes and subjects of the film - CHECK.

You could literally go down the line of every single parameter of a blaxploitation movie and check off every single determining factor to classify Black Panther as blaxploitation.  So where's the disconnect in the argument here? 

You and August4th think that this movie is going to open the floodgates for more big budget movies with black casts etc.  It won't.  The ONLY possible influence this movie is ever going to have is in trying to attach blaxploitation to other established franchises.  Poor example, but this might lead to a Mission Impossible movie with a black lead offshoot of the series.  The only thing it will do is show Hollywood that if you mix blaxploitation with an already built-in audience, it might be a hit. 

It's already been done, and it was done before Black Panther.  Creed is literally the same thing.  Take a predominantly white series, Rocky, add blaxsploitation, boom.  Profit. 

So it isn't even the first to do it.  It's literally right there in front of you. 

Creed - Longstanding series previously marketed towards a white audience.  Make an offshoot/spinoff with a black character.  Use primarily black cast.  Even cast Michael B. Jordan. 

And this has nothing to do with culture, either.  You want to talk culture?  Okay, let's talk about culture.  Not race, not setting, but culture.  That's pretty important when talking about CULTURALLY SIGNIFICANT, right?  So let's talk about it.

Music - It's been done before.  Ten thousand billion times.  Black Panther is not the first movie to use the culture of music. 
African culture.  Black Panther had a lot of it.  From costume design to historical artifacts etc.  We gonna see more movies focus on this aspect of African American culture?  Is that how Black Panther was such a sweeping success?  Did it make millions of dollars in profit because of the music and the African culture? 

No.  It made money because it was a superhero movie that used genre conventions of a blaxploitation movie in a previously established franchise of movies. 

Everybody wants to see some sweeping cultural achievement when it's just not there. 

If Black Panther had used music from white artists, say Imagine Dragons, in its soundtrack, it still would have made massive amounts of money.

If Black Panther had been set primarily in America (say Oakland or Detroit) with a predominantly black cast, it still would have made a massive amount of money. 

Neither of the cultural elements in this movie led to it being a massive success.  If you want to talk about its budget, it doesn't even qualify.  Creed was made for 35 million dollars.  The previous Rocky movie, about Rocky, had a budget of 24 million.  There's more to suggest Creed was more significant to Rocky than Black Panther was to Marvel.  If it had been a story about space boxers with Creed's 13th grandson set on the moon, it would have had a bigger budget.  The budget was required for the scope of the movie. 

Captain America: Civil War had a 250 million budget.
Thor: Ragnarok had a 180 million dollar budget.
Winter Soldier had a 170 budget.
Iron Man 3, made 5 years earlier, had a 200 million dollar budget.

There is no disparity between Black Panther's budget and every other Marvel movie's budget.

There's nothing there to call this culturally significant.  Nothing.  People WANT it to have been culturally significant because they connected with it on a cultural level, but it wasn't significant to culture in the grand scheme of things. 

 

[August4th]

17 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

There's nothing there to call this culturally significant.  Nothing.  People WANT it to have been culturally significant because they connected with it on a cultural level, but it wasn't significant to culture in the grand scheme of things. 

 

we're on different wavelengths here... so I'll just agree to disagree lol

[Deadpulse]

@Outpost31, not sure why you are lumping me in with other arguments like they are my words. I honestly didnt even have a chance to read the other posts. Black Panther is simply a step in the right direction. That has impact. Its not changing the world, and I hope no one is arguing that. However, it still has significance in the future of film making. 

 

 

[MacReady]

Just now, August4th said:

we're on different wavelengths here... so I'll just agree to disagree lol

Don't do this.  Agree to disagree is what people say when they have no leg to stand on in a debate.  This is just a cheap response.  If you were content with disagreeing, you'd be content with not carrying on the conversation instead of being sure to add this final parting shot.  You clearly aren't, you clearly don't have a rebuttal to my points and counterpoints, you didn't even acknowledge that the show by HBO was announced before Black Panther had its first preview, and you're just trying to get the last word. 

In a fair conversation/debate, it's just so disheartening to end it on something like that.  It's tantamount to saying, "You're wrong because my opinion is different than yours." 

Just now, Deadpulse said:

@Outpost31, not sure why you are lumping me in with other arguments like they are my words. I honestly didnt even have a chance to read the other posts. Black Panther is simply a step in the right direction. That has impact. Its not changing the world, and I hope no one is arguing that. However, it still has significance in the future of film making.

I disagree.  I don't think it's all that significant at all.  People were saying Blade changed things.  It was 20 years before the next major black superhero.  If you want to convince me something is groundbreaking in the superhero genre, show me an original superhero movie with a black superhero that doesn't rely on a pre-established universe.  Otherwise, Black Panther, to me, is blaxploitation with a bigger budget that will only influence Hollywood to try to exploit that audience in other already established franchises. 

I've just provided paragraphs upon paragraphs of points, counterpoints, historical context and thought out opinions to prove my point.  The others saying it IS culturally significant have cited Africa (which isn't a culture), wavelengths and that they disagree with me. 

If it's as culturally significant as people like to claim, there can be undisputed points to counter my argument. 

The whole thing is frustrating to me.  One BS idiot wrote an article stating Black Panther was a top five cultural moment on the level of Rosa Parks and it makes me sick.  It's a ****ing superhero movie. 

Edited August 28, 2018 by Outpost31

[August4th]

33 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

Agree to disagree is what people say when they have no leg to stand on in a debate.  This is just a cheapshot response.  If you were content with disagreeing, you'd be content with not carrying on the debate.  You clearly aren't, you clearly don't have a rebuttal to my points and counterpoints, you didn't even acknowledge that the show by HBO was announced before Black Panther had its first preview, and you're just trying to take a last shot at me. 

 

I thought HBO officially green lit the show around March. I knew they were considering it around this time last year. Remember thinking the success of BP may of helped HBO with going forward with the project.. guess I was wrong..

just think your mostly wrong on BP not being culturally important to people and the film industry...

you can google "black panther culturally importance" and loads of articles will pop up. Go read them. can also go on its wiki page and it has two sections on its importance featuring people who work in fields that study cultures and psychology   .. I think they would know what they are talking about

you still haven't named another blockbuster film that takes place on Africa that features a mostly black cast that highlights African culture in a positive light. thats why its significant to a lot of people.. it may not be to you ..and that's fine.. but it was still a big deal for a lot of people around the world .. the box office numbers show that ... it was a major event for black people all over the world ... what other film can you say that did that? give me some names

 

Edited August 28, 2018 by August4th

[August4th]

37 minutes ago, Outpost31 said:

The whole thing is frustrating to me.  One BS idiot wrote an article stating Black Panther was a top five cultural moment on the level of Rosa Parks and it makes me sick.  It's a ****ing superhero movie. 

see I don't think BP was that important... it annoying to put a film on the same level of an event that helped sparked a civil rights movement .. that's crazy

 

[MacReady]

Just now, August4th said:

you can google "black panther culturally importance" and loads of articles will pop up. Go read them. can also go on its wiki page and it has two sections on its importance featuring people who work in fields that study cultures and psychology   .. I think they would know what they are talking about

Yeah, you can Google Get Out and find 10,000 articles about how it's the greatest horror movie to ever be.  Doesn't mean it's true.  You'll also see people who said how important Halle Berry was in Die Another Day and the hype she caused.  These things always happen, then they fade away five years later and people are embarrassed by how much they hyped it.  Let's also not act like Google isn't COMPLETELY warped towards anything that even sniffs left-leaning ideologies.  Hell, I Googled "Black Panther ISN'T culturally significant," for the hell of it and the first link was an article from a guy likening Black Panther to Rosa Parks.  Using Google is like citing Infowars for a right-leaning opinion. 

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you still haven't named another blockbuster film that takes place on Africa that features a mostly black cast that highlights African culture in a positive light. thats why its significant to a lot of people.. it may not be to you ..and that's fine.. but it was still a big deal for a lot of people around the world ..

I've already talked about your African setting.  It's a setting.  The movie didn't do so well because it was set in Africa, it didn't do so well because it featured African culture.  Just like Mad Max's setting in Australia didn't make it culturally significant, Black Panther being set in Africa doesn't make IT culturally significant. 

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the box office numbers show that ... it was a major event for black people all over the world ... what other film can you say that did that? give me some names

Literally every single Tyler Perry movie ever made.  That's what blaxploitation is.  It's just downright absurd to give Black Panther that credit.  You had black people going to it purely because of blaxploitation techniques that I've already listed, but you also had the 10 years of Marvel movies built in audience. 

I've already covered this, you're just refusing to see its validity.  The exact same director did the exact same thing with the exact same actor 3 years before he did Black Panther.  He took an established franchise, implemented blaxploitation, got over 3 times the budget back domestically on Creed.  Rinse and repeat with Black Panther.  Fan loyalty of Rocky is ****.  Fan loyalty of Marvel is HUGE. 

Since Black Panther wasn't given a budget significantly greater than anything else in Marvel, you cannot disassociate it from Marvel.  Therefore, it's not culturally significant.  It's blaxploitation.  You want to Google things?  Google blaxploitation.  Not even Google can hide the fact that Black Panther is blaxploitation.