What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?

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What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord
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"What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?"
What If...? episode
Promotional poster
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 2
Directed byBryan Andrews
Written byMatthew Chauncey
Produced byA. C. Bradley
Editing byGraham Fisher
Original release dateAugust 18, 2021 (2021-08-18)
Running time32 minutes
Cast
Episode chronology
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"What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?" is the second episode of the

T'Challa instead of Peter Quill. The episode was written by story editor Matthew Chauncey and directed by Bryan Andrews
.

Watcher, with this episode also starring the voices of Chadwick Boseman (T'Challa), Michael Rooker (Udonta), Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro, Kurt Russell, Ophelia Lovibond, Carrie Coon, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John Kani, Sean Gunn, Chris Sullivan, Seth Green, and Danai Gurira. The series began development by September 2018, with Andrews joining soon after, and many actors expected to reprise their roles from the MCU films. Animation for the episode was provided by Blue Spirit, with Stephan Franck
serving as head of animation. The episode shows the impact T'Challa would have across the galaxy, and is dedicated to Boseman, who died in August 2020.

"What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?" was released on

Primetime Emmy Award
for his performance.

Plot

In 1988, the

Wakanda
.

20 years later, T'Challa has become a famous intergalactic pirate and hero known as Star-Lord, reformed the Ravagers using the Earth hero Robin Hood and his Merry Men as inspiration, and persuaded Thanos to abandon his plan of eliminating half of all life in the universe and join the Ravagers. He also believes that Udonta attempted to return him to Wakanda as a child, but it had been destroyed.

After obtaining an orb containing the

Black Order
, while Nebula and Udonta offer him the orb, allowing T'Challa to infiltrate Tivan's vast collection for the Embers. Instead, he finds a Wakandan spacecraft sent in search of him, realizes that Udonta lied about Wakanda, and falls out with Udonta before Nebula seemingly betrays the Ravagers and has them captured.

T'Challa decries Tivan's practice of imprisoning others in his collection, which inspires Tivan's slave,

Carina
, to free T'Challa. Having obtained the Embers, Nebula frees the Ravagers and helps them defeat the Black Order while T'Challa and Udonta defeat Tivan and leave him at Carina and his captives' mercy.

T'Challa forgives Udonta for his deception before the Ravagers return to Earth so T'Challa can reunite with his family. Elsewhere on Earth, an older Quill is now working as a Dairy Queen janitor when Ego approaches him.

Production

Development

External videos
video icon What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord? | Marvel Studios' What If...? | Disney+, a promotional video introducing the episode's "what if" concept with narration by
the Watcher, video from the What If...? Twitter
account

By September 2018,

Louis D'Esposito, and Victoria Alonso.[6]: 2  Story editor Matthew Chauncey wrote the second episode,[7] titled "What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?",[8] which features an alternate storyline of the films Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Black Panther (2018).[9] The episode is dedicated to star Chadwick Boseman, who reprised his Black Panther role prior to his death in August 2020.[8] "What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?" was released on Disney+ on August 18, 2021.[10]

Writing

The episode was written around January and February 2019.

Nate Moore were shown the script to ensure it was a faithful adaption of T'Challa and his world. The episode is inspired by heist films,[11] with Bradley taking specific influence for the episode's tone from the film Ocean's Eleven (2001);[4] this became slightly more serious following Boseman's death.[16]

Boseman felt the episode allowed T'Challa to have "more of a wink and a smile" without the pressure of being king, but still retained his "moral compass".

Tess Ocean-type role in the episode,[11][12][17] with this version of the character marketed as "Heist Nebula".[18]

Casting and voice recording

Star-Lord T'Challa
and died in August 2020

Cull Obsidian, and Cosmo the Spacedog appear in non-speaking roles.[21]

Corvus Glaive in the episode, replacing original actors Dave Bautista and Michael James Shaw, respectively.[19] Bautista indicated that he was not asked by Marvel to be a part of the series,[22] which surprised Winderbaum who assumed that there was some miscommunication at some point because he believed all MCU actors were asked, through their agents or directly, to participate in the series.[23] Brian T. Delaney voices Peter Quill, replacing Chris Pratt,[19] while Tanya Wheelock voices a female Ravager.[7]
: 30:55 

What If...? was Boseman's final performance. Andrews said Boseman approached the voice recording sessions "from a theatrically-trained actor's point of view", reading the scene descriptions between his lines to make it feel like a play. According to Andrews, Boseman enjoyed this version of the character because he was "the King without the mantle, the royalty and everything else that goes along with it". This allowed Boseman to bring a lighter approach and "jokey" feel to the performance.

ad lib from Gillan that the creatives enjoyed and added to multiple scenes since that banter is a staple of the heist genre. Gunn also ad libbed a line that Bradley felt was the funniest of the episode, but it was ultimately cut.[11] The episode's version of Thanos was jokingly referred to as "California Thanos" by the creatives due to Brolin's "mellow" approach to recording, as if he was "hanging out in boardshorts".[26]

Animation

Animation for the episode was provided by Blue Spirit,[7]: 31:31 [6]: 4  with Stephan Franck serving as head of animation.[27] Andrews developed the series' cel-shaded animation style with Ryan Meinerding, the head of visual development at Marvel Studios.[28][29] Though the series has a consistent art style, elements such as the color palette differ between episodes; Meinerding stated that this episode has more of a science-fiction style compared to the previous episode.[6]: 4  Concept art for the episode is included during the end credits, and was released online by Marvel following the episode's premiere.[30]

To depict the "friendly" version of characters in the episode, such as Thanos, Meinerding wanted to differentiate them from their MCU counterparts using costume design, but also looked for ways to use different facial expressions.[31] They wanted T'Challa's costume in the episode to be a "more sexy version of Peter Quill [with] cooler clothes and purple goggles", with production designer Paul Lasaine noting that T'Challa's influence on his environment is reflected by adding purple accents to the episode's backgrounds.[32] Andrews wanted the Collector's Museum environment to be much larger than it is in Guardians of the Galaxy, where it is depicted as a single room filled with cases. In the episode there are multiple rooms, and there are some shots with so many cases in the background that it would be very difficult to create them all in a painted background with the correct perspectives. The production design team used different techniques to depict this, such as painting simple squares in a pattern or using computer-generated boxes instead. Lasaine felt these techniques worked well to create "an illustrated version [of the environment]. It's more of a symbolic version of a place rather than the place itself."[33]

Music

External audio
audio icon A Prince Goes Home (From "What If...T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?"/Audio Only) presents composer Laura Karpman's music for the dedication to Chadwick Boseman at the end of the episode,
MarvelMusicVevo
's channel

Composer

Black Panther score for this episode. She combined these by taking the non-orchestral elements of Göransson's score, including electronic sounds and ethnic instruments and vocals, and mixing them with Bates' orchestral main Guardians of the Galaxy theme as well as original orchestral music for the episode.[34][35] Karpman thought the two scores "strangely [work] together pretty darn well".[34] Much of her original music for the episode is for the heist scenes, for which she wrote "groovy jazz" music inspired by Ocean's Eleven that she described as "a dance with picture".[36] She also wrote "T'Challa cantina" music that took a lot of finessing to sound like a playlist that T'Challa might listen to.[37]

A soundtrack for the episode was released digitally by

Marvel Music and Hollywood Records on August 23, 2021, featuring Karpman's score.[38] The last track, "A Prince Goes Home", is heard over the dedication to Boseman at the end of the episode.[39] It combines new music for the sequence with Karpman's theme for the Watcher, and she hoped the audience would be moved by it.[36] She additionally shared the track via Twitter on August 28, the anniversary of Boseman's death.[39]

What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord? (Original Soundtrack)[38]
No.TitleLength
1."Explorer"1:39
2."Use the Gun"1:32
3."The Plan"0:39
4."Alien Lounging"1:29
5."Necklace"0:53
6."Maniac"0:59
7."The Soul"0:43
8."Strategy"1:24
9."Lockdown"1:15
10."Just Like Me"1:57
11."I Abhor Drama"1:25
12."Prisoners Escape"1:35
13."Not Crazy...Mad"2:02
14."Eat This"0:57
15."To the Skies"0:43
16."Cocktails"0:41
17."The Universe"1:31
18."A Prince Goes Home"1:03
Total length:22:35

Marketing

On August 19, 2021, Marvel released a promotional poster for the episode, featuring elements of T'Challa's Star-Lord and Wakandan design, as well as a quotation from the episode.

Funko Pops, Marvel Legends, and Lego sets based on Star-Lord T'Challa and Heist Nebula.[41]

Reception

Audience viewership

According to Nielsen Media Research, who measure the number of minutes watched by United States audiences on television sets, What If...? was the ninth-most watched original series across streaming services for the week of August 16 to August 22, 2021, with 225 million minutes watched.[42]

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating with an average score of 9.7/10 based on 5 reviews.[43]

Josh Brolin's portrayal of Thanos in the episode was highlighted by critics

Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter felt the episode "combines the goofiness of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies with the earnest heroism of Black Panther to delightful effect, and in the process allows Chadwick Boseman to voice a lighter, funnier version of his beloved character", adding that it was "easily the best" of the three episodes critics were given to review ahead of the series' release. She felt the episode was "worth the price of admission just to hear Nebula flirtatiously refer to T'Challa as 'Cha Cha'".[44] Tom Jorgensen at IGN gave the episode an 8 out of 10 and described it as a "rollicking 30 minutes of [television]" that "goes for broke" with its changes to existing MCU characters. He found it to be a better fit for the series' format and style than the "surprisingly average" first episode of the series, and highlighted the "bold" choice to have one of this episode's changes be a reformed Thanos with "Big Dad Energy". Jorgensen praised Boseman's performance as an "absolute joy", but felt the other returning MCU actors had "mixed success" translating their performances to animation despite being better overall compared to the previous episode.[45]

Writing for The A.V. Club, Sam Barsanti gave the episode a "B", finding it even more fun than the premise suggested with a heist sequence that "hit all of the main caper highlights". Barsanti did criticize the voice acting, including the performances of Boseman, Rooker, and Gillan, for missing a "spark" from their live-action versions, but he attributed this in-part to the series' animation style. He also gave Hounsou and Brolin as exceptions to this, feeling that Hounsou in particular deserved to get more voice acting and comedic work based on this performance.[8] Giving the episode 3.5 out of 5 stars, Kirsten Howard of Den of Geek said the episode was consistently funny in showing how much better T'Challa is as Star-Lord than Peter Quill. She enjoyed this version of Thanos and seeing Howard the Duck, and felt it was "hard not to get choked up during the episode's final scene in Wakanda" knowing What If...? was Boseman's final performance.[46] io9's Charlies Pulliam-Moore felt the episode "turns T'Challa into an interesting centerpiece for the larger universe to move around" and the character "becoming a humanitarian space pirate completely works on a character level, and lends itself to the episode's fast-paced heist story".[17] Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone felt the episode took better advantage of the series' premise than the first episode, and also used Boseman's "underrated facility with light comedy" well, for its "well-executed" heist plot. Sepinwall said a lot of thought had been given to showing how the MCU's cosmic side would be altered by T'Challa, and particularly enjoyed the character's impact on Thanos.[47]

Accolades

Boseman won Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance at the 74th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards.[48]

Notes

  1. ^ This choice is when the story diverges from the events of the film Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

References

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External links