**SPOILERS AHEAD**
Maybe there’s something to be said for Marvel movies that don’t have a hardline connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Last fall’s “Thor: Ragnarok” was (mostly) content to riff on its own irreverent spirit, and if you hadn’t seen the previous ‘Thor’ flicks or last couple MCU entries you’d still (mostly) be fine. The same goes for the staggering smash hit “Black Panther,” which brings audiences to Wakanda without too much fuss about what else is going on in the Avengers-verse. As a result, both films were able to execute the unique vision of their directors, and had a lot of fun doing it.
That being said, conversations must’ve certainly been had about how much or how little those films needed to plug into the MCU. As director Ryan Coogler explains, “Black Panther” had enough going on narratively that it didn’t need to dive into the whole Infinity Stones thing.
“I love the Infinity Stones as much as any comic book fan,” he told IGN. “It’s just Wakanda already has its thing, which is Vibranium. For us, that was special enough. So to throw in something like another special thing didn’t feel right. It felt like we should stick with our one MacGuffin for the country and explore that. Let that be the important thing because, frankly we didn’t need to have another piece like that.”
It’s a smart choice among many Coogler made for the movie, and it allowed him the space to tell a superhero story that hasn’t been seen before on the big screen.
“Black Panther” is now playing everywhere. [via io9]