Black Panther Would Be Great if it Hadn’t Cut This Scene
How an editorial mistake prevents the film from being a masterpiece
Black Panther (2018) is a good movie that comes tantalizingly close to being great.
But it never manages to achieve that high bar because of one glaring editorial error: the omission of a key scene crucial to selling audiences on the turn taken by W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluyya), who starts out as a close friend and ally of king T’Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), but ultimately chooses to side with the villain Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) in the film’s second half.
In this article, I will talk about what I would term as the film’s ‘W-Kabi problem’ and how it could’ve easily been avoided in post-production.
The W’Kabi Problem
If you’ve read my article about emotional realism, you should know that one of the key ways in which movies immerse audiences into their illusory reality is by maintaining consistency on the character level of storytelling. The filmmakers’ goal is to always sell viewers emotionally on what’s going on in the film, to make them at every single point understand what the characters are doing and why they are doing it. So long as the characters behave consistently and believably, the illusion remains unbroken.
Editing determines what ultimately ends up constituting the ‘whole’ of the film, and thus is intrinsic to the construction and maintenance of emotional realism. This ties into the principle of unity, which posits that every element in a film works in conjunction with other elements as a part of a larger, singular whole. Nothing must be extraneous, nor should anything be missing, allowing the editing to be wholly invisible and the picture to offer a complete, wholesome experience. Otherwise, the unity of a work is disrupted and its illusion of reality weakened.
For the first ninety minutes or so of its running time, Black Panther feels fully unified. Every character action, every beat in the film feels sufficiently motivated and not a single beat feels rushed or extraneous. And this is true of W’Kabi, whose characterization feels consistent and easy to follow.
The first real scene between him and T-Challa establishes that they have a close per-sonal relationship. Moreover, we learn that while he strongly believes in preserving Wakanda’s way of life and so is against accepting refugees, he also is open to going to other countries to potentially help their people by overthrowing their governments, something T’Challa opposes.
W’Kabi: Now if you said you wanted me and my men to go out there and clean up the world, then I’ll be all for it.
T’Challa: But waging war on other countries has never been our way.
The next scene then establishes that his parents were murdered by Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) and that he is strongly driven by the desire to capture Klaue, who has eluded Wakanda for 30 years, to either have him stand trial or be executed.
We then later see him grow disenchanted with T’Challa, when he fails to bring Klaue back to Wakandan custody. So, it makes sense that when Killmonger arrives in Wakanda and offers him the dead body of Klaue, W’Kabi permits him entry into the country and secures an audience with T’Challa and the other leaders.
So far, so good.
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But then, after Killmonger takes the throne, we arrive at the first council scene where Killmonger is now king and things start to get a little murky. Here, W’Kabi all-too-willingly voices his support for Killmonger’s plan for a global revolution, where Wakanda emerges as an eternal global empire, painting an ‘us against them’ view of the world and claims that he’d prefer to be the ‘conqueror’ than the ‘conquered.’
When seeing the movie in theaters, I was somewhat confused by W-Kabi’s motives and actions here, given his earlier established relationship with T’Challa.
And my confusion then turned into outright bewilderment when W’Kabi chose to side with Killmonger when T’Challa returns and reveals that the ‘challenge’ that allowed the villain to take the throne was technically never really completed in the third act. In effect, W’Kabi renounced the rules and principles he had been sworn to in favor of his new preferred king, going so far as to kickstart a civil war.
But why? Why does W’Kabi choose Killmonger? How did he go so quickly from T’Challa’s ‘brother’ to a Killmonger loyalist?
The way the film plays out suggests that W’Kabi was completely sold on Killmonger by the fact that he managed to bring Klaue to him, succeeding where T’Challa had failed. But this becomes hard to believe when you consider the fact that Killmonger had actually liberated Klaue earlier from T’Challa’s (and the CIA’s) custody.
T’Challa and Okoye (Danai Gurira) both know this and so, logically, they would have informed W’Kabi of the fact that Killmonger had rescued Klaue, only to then murder him for his own benefit. So, is W’Kabi not aware of this? Or does he not care? If getting Klaue was so important to him, why does he support someone that directly undermined Klaue’s capture in the first place?
The problem here is that the movie has not really done enough to suggest that something else drives W’Kabi to choose Killmonger’s side. His heel turn as a whole then comes off as unconvincing and lacking in proper setup. So, I was quite surprised to discover that a crucial scene that connects the dots in terms of W’Kabi’s motives and his turn was filmed but ultimately cut from the theatrical release.
The Cut Confrontation:
Apparently set right after the aforementioned council scene, there is a deleted confrontation scene between W’Kabi and Okoye, who we learn are, in fact, a married couple.* It is an amazing scene that helps to truly define W’Kabi as a character, clarifying where he stands and establishing what he actually wants, and why.
And it does so in less than two minutes of running time!
As it turns out, W’Kabi indeed becomes aware of Killmonger’s manipulation, but nonetheless views Killmonger as the more appropriate leader. (It’s possible he knew even before Okoye tells him.) His disenchantment with T’Challa stems not so much from the fact that he let Klaue get away, but rather that he had put the interests of foreigners - the UN and the CIA specifically - ahead of Wakanda’s.
*This detail would not be confirmed canonically until the release of the sequel Wakanda Forever, where a line of dialogue alludes to Okoye’s ‘husband’ being in custody.
Okoye: He had him [Klaue]. N’Jadaka stole him from our…
W’Kabi: I don’t care! Klaue stole from us! He murdered my mother and father! Thirty years there’s been no justice! And T’Challa swore to bring him back! Not take him to the UN! Not take him to the CIA! But bring him here to us! Like a real king.”
W’Kabi, as we come to realize, is ultimately a nationalist, someone who believes in Wakanda’s greatness and chafes at having to basically bow down before other, lesser world powers. No wonder then as to why he finds Killmonger’s vision of a “truly free world” where Wakanda is at the top of the hierarchy quite appealing.
Had this scene remained in the final cut, Black Panther would’ve been fully unified from beginning to end. So why was it cut?
According to producer Nate Moore, the decision apparently came down to pacing.
"Unfortunately, it occurred at a point in the movie where audiences just wanted to get to the resolution and so it slowed down a part of the movie and we were afraid audiences were checking out. We were also afraid if we took it out we’re going to ruin this movie—‘guys we’re going to ruin this movie; let’s not take it out.’ We didn’t take it out for three or four screenings and we finally took it out and I think Ryan and I were probably the last men on that beach saying don’t take it out."
Quotes from: https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/black-panther-deleted-scene-okoye-wkabi/
Original Source: An Empire Podcast Special with Moore and Coogler
I respectfully disagree with the decision to cut the scene. Pacing is important. But I’d say it’s less important than character consistency and viewer immersion.
Had it remained in the film, the W’Kabi problem, which creates a pretty big hole in the movie’s emotional/character layer storytelling and so disrupts immersion in the film, would not exist. Quite simply, in the final cut, W’Kabi comes off as a tool of the plot rather than a believable character, and this is distracting.
So I think Moore and Coogler should’ve stuck to their guns and kept it in the movie.
Black Panther isn’t ruined by the scene’s absence, but it is considerably diminished. It’s still quite good. But had it not dropped the ball with W’Kabi’s character, it would be a legitimately great film, the masterpiece that so many fans and critics proclaim it to be.
Filmmakers can sometimes make mistakes in the editing room. On some occasions, stuff that should be in the movie is cut out. On others, stuff that shouldn’t be in the movie is left in. If you enjoyed this reading this article, then please consider:
But what do you think? Does W'Kabi's character still make sense in the theatrical release? Is the film hurt by the absence of this scene or was deleting it for the best?
Can you think of any other deleted scenes from movies you like that should've stayed in the film? Aside from 'Return of the King' that is?
Please leave a comment! (Or perhaps a note.)
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Great read.
That turn always struck me as abrupt. I can understand the desire to tighten the film, but I think it would've made more sense if they'd left it.