It's finally here, Marvel's Black Panther debuts nationwide today, and is ready to inject a much-needed adrenaline rush into theatres. The film, which is being heralded by critics as the indisputable king of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has been riding a ceaseless wave of hype for months as audiences gear up to witness a historical first, a black superhero film.
Ryan Coogler, the director who helped realize the script into this cinematic outing, recently sat down with the New York Times to properly dissect a scene from the film for their Anatomy of a Scene series. Coogler provides the narration for the clip, while a song from the recently-released Kendrick Lamar soundtrack pulses in the background. In the clip, the director elaborates on some pertinent contextual information about the film that is evident in the car chase scene.
Coogler notes how "the whole idea for this scene is we wanted to have a car chase that was unlike any car chase we had seen before—combining the technology of Wakanda and juxtaposing that with the tradition of this African warrior culture. In our film, we kind of broke down characters between traditionalists and innovators."
The director continues to reveal that "we always thought it would be fun to contrast these pairings of an innovator with a traditionalist. T'Challa is a traditionalist when we first meet him. His younger sister Shuri is an innovator. So we paired them together. In the other car we have Nakia and Okoye, which is also a traditionalist and innovator pairing. Nakia is a spy, who we learn is kind of unconventional. Okoye is a staunch traditionalist, probably one of our most traditional characters in the film. You know, she doesn't really like being in clothes that aren't Wakandan, and this scene is kind of about her bringing the Wakandan out."