Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us
talk about the ‘Eyes of Wakanda’… Pause.
Well, first let me admit that, apparently, I got it
wrong – the video of Ms. Sarah and Ms. Aimee painting plastic pigeon figurines
wasn’t the Kickstarter, more like a special feature to motivate the financing
of the Kickstarter, or whatever… Fair enough, but listen: LN openly admits that
her YouTube channel is a business venture, she is in for money – and she shares
money with her underlings and coworkers. Have to respect her for her openness
and honesty, if nothing else, (and there is much more).
BB, on the other hand… are largely similar, but are
not as successful as LN is. In part, this is because they’re a part of PBS, and
PBS overall is suffering due to the Donald’s meddling in the American world,
(real life sucks, remember?), but still, the sight of Ms. Sarah and Ms. Aimee
just painting tiny pigeons while muttering some facts about the pigeons from
the Internet… just no…
In addition, speaking of facts, what about the
‘Eyes’? Yes, they are a work of fiction, but in the episode 1x02, they went
after the ‘Iliad’, and…
Yes, true, there was a Troy in RL, and there
possibly was a Trojan War in RL too, but so far, we have no idea what actually
went down, so we have to accept Homer’s version as canon, which makes ‘Iliad’
& ‘Odyssey’ about as real as MCU. Moreover, Achilles, Odysseus, and co. are
a part of Marvel comics – and been so for a while, nothing new here, but,
again, what is with the disrespect? The second episode of ‘Eyes’ plays fast and
loose with the ‘Iliad’, so it will ruffle some feathers – it ruffled mine,
which is why I am writing about the ‘Eyes’ more than 2 weeks after it had
aired. Pause.
Taking a breath and starting anew. In many ways, the
‘Eyes’ are clichéd and banal. In the first episode, Noni is the maverick who
makes the right in choice in saving Wakanda from… what? Exposure? The Lion did
not care about it, he wanted to rule outside of it, but because Wakanda had a
PR problem even in the 1260 BC or so, the Dora Milaje sent Noni to bring the
Lion to heel – she caused him to die instead, but, hey, she recovered the
artefacts, so yay! She becomes a War Dog instead.
That is one of Wakanda’s flaws – it is isolationist,
it wants to stay largely isolated, it comes down hard on those, who disagree
with it, yet when those dissidents leave and start their own thing, the
Wakandan government (well, the royal family) short-circuits and does its’ best
to bring those dissidents to heel or just kill them. MCU and co. deal with this
problem by making such renegades evil, but still, it is not one of Wakanda’s
best aspects.
Back to the ‘Eyes’… sigh. The Lion was a variant
Killmonger from the first Black Panther film, and the final episode actually
sets up the first Black Panther film, to a certain extent. The Lion wasn’t a
bad character, but as a villain? He fell flat.
In addition, in the second, ‘Iliad’ episode, we have
B’Kai, who joined the Greek army to retrieve a Wakandan amulet, and he does. He
also lets Helen run away with Paris-
Helen never escaped with Paris; Paris died awhile
before Odysseus came up with the Trojan Horse, and Helen would eventually
return home with her legal husband, Menelaus. Helen of Troy, in fact, is
partially a romantic heroine from the knightly stories of later days, and
partially – a modern femme fatale, but we digress.
I don’t want to discuss all the ways how much did
the ‘Eyes’ mess with the ‘Iliad’, I’ll just point out that Memnon/B’Kai isn’t
from Homer – he is from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’; he was an Egyptian, or an
Ethiopian, general, sent to help the Trojans. He was also the son of Eos, or
Aurora, the goddess of Dawn. He went against Achilles, died, and his entourage
became birds. Sigh. If the bigwigs in MCU wanted to, they could have made quite
a story about the Wakandan meddling the Trojan War and remained much more true
to the original classical sources as well.
As for the last two episode of the ‘Eyes’… Pause.
The first two episodes were connected to each other via the character of Noni
and the plot continuity; the last two episodes were much more detached from
each other and the first two. Were there supposed to be more episodes of ‘Eyes’
than just four? Did some rushed editing had to take place? Disney/MCU are not
telling…
Anyhow, the third episode feels like a filler – the
south meets the east, that sort of thing, Wakanda meets the K’un Lun, eh? It
does not amount to anything… and the final episode mostly just sets-up the
first Black Panther movie. Fun!
Only not, as B’Kai, for example, reminded me of
Grant Ward, who betrayed his new friends for duty. Only because B’Kai’s duty
was to Wakanda, not to Hydra, he is a protagonist, rather than an antagonist
instead. MCU really does its’ best to recycle the old ideas in new ways, but
maybe it should just go with outright new ideas instead? It worked for the new
F4 film…
There is one more aspect to the ‘Eyes’, however –
the African/Afro-American one. As the ‘Black Panther’ films showed, they are
MCU’s Afro-Futurism reps, and for Disney/MCU, political correctness in regards
to the Africans/Afro-Americans is a very big deal.
Unfortunately, before the ‘Eyes’, MCU’s latest
depiction of Afro-Americans came from ‘Ironheart’ – I’m talking about Riri
here. In the BP2 film, she was… average. In ‘Ironheart’, MCU did not know what
to do with her, and it showed – she made Sony’s Kraven look good. Also –
competent and coherent, (the movie, not the main character). Something had to
be done, so MCU quickly made, or remade, the ‘Eyes’, and used them to cover up ‘Ironheart’
as the latest MCU bit that features people of color. The ‘Eyes’ do a better job
of it than ‘Ironheart’ did, but then again, almost anything would – ‘Ironheart’
set the bar this low, and the ‘Eyes’ still feel like a rushed job that MCU
doesn’t really needs, you know? Ah well, Disney/MCU have a better idea of what
MCU/its’ audience needs than MCU’s actual viewers do no doubt… That is real
life for you. It sucks. Just look at the Donald, Putin, and the Alaska story –
but we will discuss that another time…
For now though, this is it. See you all soon!
