Darkush, I agree that not all of those who were disturbingly challenged were unenlightened. Do you see how those people may feel alienated from the book and character? Do you see how I might empathize with those people?
Now my wonderment is: Would T'Challa have been any less awesome and central if that potentially disturbing challenge had not been presented? And Do books with white leads present potentially disturbing challenges to readers on any issue at all?
That would be a pretty interesting change.
How would you want them to play that out: Lynne openly an agent assigned to T'Challa? Basically merging Lynne and Everett K. Ross?
Lynne undercover, spying on T'Challa unbeknownst to him? The dramatic tension being will he find out or will she be "turned" by T'Challa?
Or T'Challa knowing Lynne is a CIA mole and using that to his advantage? Basically both of them gaming each other?
I think the latter would be kind of awesome in that it flies in the face of a traditional superhero romance. Dramatic tension galore as they both court and lie to each other.
Monica as a CIA agent or something similar would be great. I'd like it if her superiors strong armed her into trying to get close to T'Challa just to spy on him. She doesn't want to do it, but she has to go along with it because it's her job and she'd get fired if she turns down an assignment. Near the end of the movie T'Challa acknowledges that he knows she's spying on him the whole time, and that he manipulated things a bit to get her close to him for a couple of reasons. One, he knows she's honest enough to only give them enough info to shut them up. Kinda like Sam on Burn Notice with the FBI. Secondly, he likes her, wanted to see her get ahead since she's honest, and she's not too bad on the eyes. Maybe at some point in the series she gives up the CIA to focus more on a singing career due to having too many conflicts with her superiors. That way they could keep the singer background from the comics.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I would want to make it a kind of reveal, bypassing the need to go much into how and why she took the assignment, and at the end of the film she breaks with the CIA. I guess it would add to the tension of their interaction if she was shown reporting to her superiors earlier, and holding something back, or disagreeing with her orders. I really like the idea of them courting while playing a game of secrets. That could be a LOT of fun, and really make her something absolutely incredible for the film. It also makes it more fun if the Dora Milaje are suspicious/jealous of her.
I wouldn't have Monica and T'Challa actually settle together/happily ever after. It'd be that "No, you have a kingdom to run and... responsibilities (snide look at the Dora)... my life is elsewhere..." but you still know there's unfinished business there, that whole shtick.
I would leave Everett Ross as the clear State Department wannabe-Ambassador, total scaredy-cat, where his arc is basically T'Challa teaching him to grow a pair, which is why he's accepted as an American ambassador to Wakanda because he has the gall to defend Wakanda's interests to his superiors.
I just got this crazy idea in my head for a nice echo/foreshadowing. Earlier in the film as T'Challa is telling Ross about the Black Panther Legacy all the hersay about T'Chaka is mentioned "The Black Panther can sneak up on you in broad daylight, The Black Panther has weapons that make the nuclear bomb look like sticks and stones, The Black Panther can put 1,000 men to flight by himself, The Black Panther fears nothing but his own relentless power." As the movie continues, these things become true of T'Challa so at the end when the Chiefs of Staff are all "we can't let this man usurp this asset" Ross is like "No, you don't understand... The Black Panther can sneak up on you in broad daylight..."
On S'yan, I also imagined an early fight scene being T'Challa taking the mantle of BP from S'yan via combat. I guess a Morgan Freeman stuntman wouldn't be all that convincing from a visual perspective. I'd put Djimon in there as S'Yan then. Tim Russ is awesome too though.
And those three, with T'Challa, Klaw and to some degree M'Baka, would be the core cast in my version of the film. S'yan would take that advisor role and be the mentor that gets killed. Lynne for romance, Ross for comic relief, Klaw as a crazy mastermind villain, M'Baka as the muscle villain.
Now what would be REALLY crazy is if Monica Lynne was just the cover and her actual name was Monica Rambeau or worse: Misty Knight, lol!
