Back in 2018, Marvel came out with a new movie, The Black Panther. African American actor, Chadwick Boseman starred in this film and stole people's hearts immediately. With The Black Panther being a very “family oriented” movie, Boseman played his role amazingly and genuinely. Unfortunately, at only the age of 43, Boseman passed away from colon cancer in August of 2020.
After his passing, fans were left heartbroken as well as concerned to how the Black Panther series would continue. In May of 2021, it was announced another Black Panther movie, “Wakanda Forever”, would be released in November of 2022. Since our original Black Panther had died, Marvel chose to not recast the role of T’Challa because Chadwick played it so iconically. How can the Black Panther series continue without the Black Panther?
This past weekend, I went and saw “Wakanda Forever”. Going in, I had no expectations because honestly, I didn’t know how they were going to pull it off without having their main character. As the movie started, I immediately locked in and my mind changed completely.
Instead of recasting the role of T’Challa, Marvel had his younger sister, Shuri, take over as the new Black Panther. At the beginning of the movie, there was a tribute to T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), where they not only acknowledged the death of the character but also the icon himself. After being left with no king of Wakanda, the mother of T’Challa and Shuri, Romonda, had to step up and take power as Queen. Towards the middle of the film, Romanda was killed leaving Shuri with complete control over Wakanda. She could have chosen to live her everyday life as Queen and rule her country, but that just wasn’t enough for this young genius. Shuri decided to take on the power of the Black Panther to continue her brother's legacy. At the end of the movie, Shuri as well as us, meet T’Challa’s son who he had with Nakia. He was 5 years old and had never met his aunt but it was noted that he did indeed meet T’Challa before his passing. After this heart warming meeting, the film ends leaving us with one note… “The Black Panther series will continue”.