I say that because I felt like Rose was a complete cash grab, and the most pointless supporting character in franchise history. She’s worse than Jar Jar Binks. The second I realized she was going to have more than 30 seconds of screen time, all I could imagine was the writers going “well, forced diversity is what’s hip now, so let’s throw a random chubby Asian chick”. That, and of course the whole casino planet segment was pointless and added nothing to anything. 

I just think she was poorly used, along with Finn, on a pointless story arc that kept them out of the way and unintentionally sabotaged the mission.

The arms race plot point was fine and worth entertaining, but so much of it was unnecessary. If the goal was for it to highlight minorities, it severely backfired, as they undermined the resistance's cause and were relegated to tangential role.

People here are missing the point. The problem isnt that the movie has a primarily black cast. That is obviously to be expected and there's nothing wrong with that. So stop arguing that point, no one has an issue with a movie set in Africa having a black cast, just like no one here complained about Moonlight or Straight out of Compton being mostly black.

The problem is that it being a cultural/social statement for POC is promoted as a BENEFIT/FEATURE of the movie that is to be celebrated. The fact that it IS mostly black played a significant role in this becoming the (ATM) 4th highest grossing movie of all time in the US.

You can read numerous articles online about the cultural impact of this movie and how its being celebrated for its diversity (which it isn't, representing one group isnt diverse but I digress) purely because it made an effort to have a largely black cast and crew.

MANY people have celebrated this movie not primarily for it's merit as a movie, but it's merit as a social and cultural influencer for POC. The problem with that? There are other groups of people that can do the exact same thing this movie did, which is deliberately make an attempt to hire all white crew, staff and actors and promote it from the angle of being a social/cultural statement and get killed by the press. Which would be the correct position. However that should be the correct position when any group does it.

The problem isn't that it's a primarily black movie (no problem), the problem is that fact is being celebrated in itself.

People that cant handle honest disagreement and debate without reaching for the "racist" card don't belong on a discussion forum.

Only Alara and AngryLittleAlchemist have made reasonable arguments about the actual points being discussed and didn't just resort to denial or changing the framing of the debate to people having a problem with majority black casts (which isnt the debate) I disagree with their argument, but their argument is at least legitimate and addresses the issue in an honest way.

Anyway I'm done with this thread, clearly people are now inflamed and no longer interested in having a discussion without name calling in this thread.

There are two separate issues here: 1) whether there's anything celebratory about a primarily black cast movie doing well (understatement) at the box office, and 2) whether the casting played a significant role in its success.

Taking the last claim first, I don't see how you would draw that conclusion, given all of the films with a predominantly (or completely) black cast which have done worse at the box office, and some quite poorly. Perhaps there's something about the combination of a Marvel movie about a black superhero which was also well received critically that has helped to spark its success -- but that's a lot of factors coming together, and it might be hard to parse them intelligently.

As for the first, it seems to be a reaction to longstanding fears or prejudices that films with predominantly black casts won't do as well as films with predominantly white casts. Is that a cause for celebration? Maybe so, especially if you believe that there are still remnants of discrimination within Hollywood and etc., and/or if you have a vested interest in similar projects getting off of the ground.

Perhaps it's true that people are celebrating Black Panther for "its merit as a social and cultural influencer," whatever that means, but the reviews I've read mainly discuss its merits as a film. I went to see it both because it's a Marvel film -- and I am invested in that universe, for better or worse -- and because I had heard that it was good. I expect mostly that other people went to see it for these same sorts of reasons. If some black father took his son to see it because he wanted his kid to have the opportunity to see a black superhero on screen, I'm supposed to take issue with that?

Is that what you're arguing against?

This.

Nobody in here has a problem with the cast being black.

Everyone is fully aware that Black Panther's predominantly black cast is because Wakanda is located in Africa. Of course everyone would be black or of native African descent.

My problem with Black Panther isn't the film having an all black cast, it's the film being celebrated and being put on a pedestal BECAUSE the cast is black. Nevermind the quality of the movie, that's irrelevant - both to critics and journalists.

Proof:

"Marvel's Black Panther is more than just a movie - it's a mic drop with a reverberating, triumphant thump that serves as a wake-up call for anyone still sleeping on the cinematic potential of superhero movies" - Critic Review

"The majority of moviegoers want to see films led by strong, intelligent characters that are more diverse than just heterosexual white men, especially when they are as thoughtfully and beautifully made as this one." - Critic Review

"Black Panther is not just smart and politically aware for a superhero film -- it's smart and politically aware, full stop." - Critic Review

"This is a big budget film directed by a black man, with a black superhero and a largely black cast. This kind of black power is something so rare in movies that it seemed like I was watching a foreign film, made in Wakanda, rather than Hollywood." - Critic Review

That's the kind of crap I've been talking about. Take that quoated second review and replace "heterosexual white male" with "heterosexual black male". See the double standard yet? Had the critic posted the latter, he'd be fired right now. But I guess it's okay to say that about a white demographic. 

I don't hate Black Panthers black cast, I hate that it's celebrated BECAUSE it has a black cast - and not because of the quality of the film itself. It's lauded for it's political identity, and not it's movie quality. It's a box office success because of it's cultural hype, and not because it had revolutionary VFX like Jurassic Park or Avatar. 

Thanks, I like you too, and your reasonable posts as well as the posts of others is why I decided to chime in, actually.

To open the discussion up a bit past Black Panther, for the sake of context, I feel it is somewhat important to look at WHY people believe this kind of stuff. A historical breakdown of sorts. A few years ago it started to become a consistent trend that movie studios would take characters and movies and reboot them as a new gender or race. A lot of people didn't like this and started to feel like Hollywood was using this as an excuse to - A ) Sell bad movies with gimmicks and B ) Try and change the characters they love for a more "diverse casting". When this kind of stuff first started happening, I was  very much on the side that changing the race or gender of a character was illogical and just a poor way of spreading an agenda. 

But then it became more than that. You started to see movies create completely ORIGINAL characters that were getting backlash, because, they were only made .... for forced diversity .... ? The new Star Wars movies are a prime example of this. People automatically got on the defensive from characters like Rey and Finn because there must be some agenda being pushed with these kind of characters. I'll admit in my  naivety I believed this for a short time too. 

Now the notion has changed yet AGAIN, and just having a movie featuring an originally black cast of characters is in some way spreading an agenda! It's funny how we've gone from "Keep characters the same race/gender" to "Why did you make a movie about an originally black character?". It's so ironic and yet sad at the same time. 

I think there's a few misconceptions that really need to be addressed on this front. The first is that, we never really got the chance to judge movies that changed characters races or gender. They always ended up feeling like a half-assed attempt at a gimmick. They were never, "redeemed" so to speak, with movies like Ghostbusters or the new Harry Potter films not really being all that beloved among most fans. Even original characters were often criticized for ... errr .... being overpowered, in the Star Wars films. 

Of course the problem with this logic is that the people who should be blamed are Hollywood for making something a gimmick, and not the ideas and movements that created a need for more diverse films in the first place. Hollywood has, since the beginning of time, made everything a gimmick for the sake of profitability. And to distinguish race, or gender, or any type of diversity as the core problem, is to miss all the other times where we rightfully blame Hollywood and not the core message. Because gimmicks, bad film making, and diversity are not even close to being mutually exclusive.

When characters that aren't based around their race have actors of a different ethnicity than that of the source material, acting like it is a big deal can feel like a step too far. We often hear these people use the argument that  actors should be cast based on their skill and not their race, as a way of fighting against racial changes of a character, again referencing diversity as a whole like a gimmick. Yet, there is no evidence to show that these actors are less talented than the other individuals that sought after the job, and of course if these characters followed the ethnicity of the source material NO ONE would think for a second that they were picked on anything but their acting ability. Black Panther, of course, is not even close to being a case of this. It HAS to be about a black character.

Hollywood might have a problem with making diversity a gimmick, but that is only because Hollywood in general has a quality problem. Nothing to do with diversity really. Remember, this is a business and anything that is easily marketable will be taken advantage of for profit. Why do you think that Tom Cruise is in so many movies? But of course - I am not saying that Black Panther is a slouch in this way either. Because really, if there is anything that should be positively reinforced in business, it SHOULD be diversity. I'm not the market for Black Panther, I am not into super hero movies. But if the market as a whole wants more diversity, why not? Nobody forced this shift onto people, and clearly people see something in this movie that they didn't see in Ghostbusters. This is a movie that needed to happen , preferably sooner rather than later, it's a growing pain that the industry needs to face. I'm not saying Hollywood is racist, or that there are necessarily less black actors than white actors, but when you look at diversity in proportion to LEADING roles in BLOCKBUSTER movies you see a huge whole that needed to be filled. 

I can understand where people get their paranoia, I guess. But think about it, if we shaped the movie industry after these people that find offense in every black casting there is, after a while there REALLY WOULDN'T BE any black casts. That's what this kind of criticism does, by being paranoid of an agenda being pushed to this extent, you make it more and more likely that in a universe where the industry is dictated by your thoughts, there really would be no diversity out of fear that it might come off as pretentious to the audience. So really, it is better to just get this over with now, because in 20-30 years this will be normalized anyways, and no one will have complaints. And after a while, you have to ask, even if there is an agenda that dictates what movies are created and what discussions are made, so what? If it doesn't impact the quality of the film (like say, a film that would have ONLY BEEN MADE if it stared black actors) why does it even matter?

@TranceformerFX

"I don't hate Black Panthers black cast, I hate that it's celebrated BECAUSE it has a black cast - and not because of the quality of the film itself. It's lauded for it's political identity, and not it's movie quality. It's a box office success because of it's cultural hype, and not because it had revolutionary VFX like Jurassic Park or Avatar. "

So do you hate Tom Cruise movies for getting popular because Tom Cruise is in it? 

You can't be serious.

Perfect analogy? No, far from it. Almost no analogies are perfect. 

Whether or not Black Panther is given more credit than it deserves though, is very subjective. And arguing over whether is it because of a black cast or not is almost pointless. Does Black Panther get some free brownie points for being a diverse movie? Probably. How is that any more legitimate than a movie getting more money from better special effects? Or from a lead actor (who is way past his prime, who does stunts younger people could also do, who is far from the greatest actor) making a movie a success? The argument, of course, is going to be that better special effects, or a recognizable lead actor, make a movie better. But at the root they are both very superficial reasons for a movie to make more money or to become more praised. The reality is, when it comes to mediums that make money almost entirely on presentation, superficiality is a big selling point. 

So back to the question. Did Black Panther make more money for having a black cast? Did Black Panther get more praise from having a black cast? Sure, it probably did. Is that any more superficial than the other parameters of success? Not at all. In fact, while the ethnicity of a character rarely directly impacts the quality of a film, it is arguably less superficial because people are praising it within the context of an entire industry and not a bubble. And of course, there is always the possibility that we are overthinking it.  I have already seen more Marvel movies than I would care to in my life time, most of the movies I have seen from them have been overrated for my tastes personally, they hold the entire superhero market by the balls and I don't see their perception changing anytime soon. So Black Panther isnt even that different all things considered.

Well i finally watched it yesterday.

Was a good intro movie to a franchise however a couple things spoiled it for me a little because in the world we live in atm it will just fuel conspiracy nuts to argue their agendas about race.

1. When they were discussing about opening up Wakanda to help out the rest of Africa, the guy basically said if you let the poor people in it would ruin Wakanda.

2. The main plot of the bad guy was to wipe out the West because Africa has been oppressed lol, but yet his own people abandoned him and killed his father and even practically said lets rule them before they rule us lol. Why did it need to be spun that way? Doesn't it kind of make them hypocritical in point 1, aren't they technically oppressing their own people in Africa by not helping them? They should have just spun it as he wanted to reset/liberate the world through force as in his time in the military he has seen so many people be exploited/abandoned by the people in power of their own countries and through wars with other countries not that it is our time to rule the world and be on top lol. Then the internal war could have been about we want to reveal ourselves to the world peacefully vs forcefully which would cause the world to fear us and retaliate.


In saying all this, the ending was perfect. The little internal war finally got them to get other their fear and announce themselves to the world and try to work with the world the right way and not via force. This shoudl make for an interesting sequel and on where the story will lead us.

Oh my gawd... Just.. nevermind. Clearly you don't understand the point I'm trying to make.