Wakanda Forever was made to commem­o­rate the memory of actor Chad­wick Bose­man, who died in August of 2020 and performed as King T’Challa of Wakanda in the 2018 film “Black Panther”. 

In the recent film, the view­ers focus on T’chal­la’s younger sister, Shuri. Shuri, her mother Ramonda, and the people of Wakanda, strug­gle to deal with the loss of some­one they never thought they would have to live with­out, their unify­ing leader. 

While deal­ing with the new threats to Wakanda, Shuri fights to honor the memory of her brother, and do what she believes is in the best inter­est of her people. While battling the real­ity of her broth­er’s death, she must learn the value of mercy and the peace it can lead to. Queen Ramonda, who has assumed the throne temporar­ily after T’Challa’s death, works to keep Wakanda stand­ing against inter­na­tional threats. The King of the aquatic nation of Talokan, the antag­o­nist of the story, tries to persuade Wakanda to be involved in an anti-impe­ri­al­ist alliance. 

Ryan Coogler, the direc­tor of Black Panther and its sequel, revealed to the New York Times that the orig­i­nal plan of the sequel was for the theme of grief to be simi­lar through­out. Still, instead of griev­ing over the loss of T’challa, it would have been over the loss of time. The blip would have caused him to lose five years with his son. Addi­tion­ally, there would have been two black panthers. 

Even after the year ended, the movie had a 7.2÷10 rating on IMDB during the first week of Janu­ary. This movie means so many things to many commu­ni­ties. In the words of T’Challa’s love, Nakia, “He was King and Black Panther to every­one, but to me, he was everything.”