'Wakanda Forever' Editor Talks Deleted Scenes and Shuri's Bond With Namor

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever had a difficult job to do. Not only did it need to honor the late Chadwick Boseman and tackle grief in a respectful way, it also had to introduce a new villain, establish T'Challa's successor, and set up a whole host of Disney+ projects including Ironheart.

As such, the Marvel film had a lot to work with, so much so that there were whole storylines that had to be reworked and several scenes that didn't make the cut, film editor Michael P. Shawver told Newsweek.

Working alongside Kelley Dixon and Jennifer Lame, Shawver helped bring director Ryan Coogler's vision to life, but also had some interesting suggestions of his own.

'Wakanda Forever' Editor on Deleted Scenes

Wakanda Forever finds the nation in mourning following the death of King T'Challa (Boseman), with his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) and their mother Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) doing their best to lead the nation as other world powers try to take their Vibranium.

One way in which the U.S. and the CIA attempt to do this, for example, is by stealing an invention created by Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) which is capable of detecting Vibranium, and it brings them close to the underwater nation of Talokan. Their leader, Namor (Tenoch Huerta), appeals to Wakanda to help him stop the surface world from discovering Talokan, or risk becoming his enemy as well.

Already there is a lot to work with in the film, but originally the Marvel flick was over four and a half hours long (it's now two hours 40 minutes long) and so there were certain things that needed to be cut, and storylines that needed to be reworked.

The scene in which Namor introduces Shuri to Talokan was much longer, for example, while there was a whole storyline with Shuri, Riri and Namor that had to be cut for time.

"Knowing what's going to make the movie and what's not is sort of the first steps and that's very difficult," Shawver shared. "There was a subplot in it where Shuri and Riri work together to help Namor do something in Talokan, and it was the vessel for Shuri and Riri to bond and to feel their smart scientists' connection that they have, which we were able to implement later in the movie with reshoots."

Relating the process of cutting this plot for time to playing with a particularly difficult Rubik's Cube, Shawver added: "When we took that section out that solved one problem, but then came several other issues because then we felt like Riri wasn't as involved in the story in the movie.

"[She] basically became a MacGuffin as opposed to a real character which we don't like, people should be fleshed out, real people. And so we had to find ways to have them connect."

They did so through reshoots, which saw Shuri and Riri come up with a plan together to defeat Namor by stopping him from being able to absorb oxygen through his skin.

But it also meant that they needed to rework the whole middle section of the film: "Once that gets taken out then there was less of a relationship, but there was also less plot stuff that [was] keeping us informed.

"So, then, we realized 'Okay, while [Shuri's] down there [in Talokan], we need to have Ramonda be more active to get her daughter back, and we need to get to Lupita [Nyong'o, who plays Nakia] a little quicker, we need to get her involved.

"It was that sort of middle chunk, that [idea of] how do we move this along in a good way?"

On Shuri's Bond With Namor

One thing that has stood out amongst fans since the film was released is Shuri's bond with Namor, and whether there is any potential for romance between the pair.

When they first meet, Namor urges Shuri and her mother Queen Ramonda to work with him to retrieve the scientist responsible for making a Vibranium detector, Riri, or face the wrath of Talokan.

Later, when Shuri goes to Talokan with Riri, the Talokan leader tells the Wakandan princess of his history, and how his people came to establish the underwater nation after being oppressed by Spanish colonizers. Namor shows Shuri his kingdom and she comes to realize how similar Talokan is to Wakanda and this has inspired some fans to believe a romance could be on the cards for them.

Shawver explained that idea was something that was discussed during the film's creation process, and was even something they tested, but ultimately Shuri's bond with Namor felt like it should be something different.

"I think what's really interesting is there were takes where there was some connection there," Shawver said. "And at one point in an early cut we discussed like, 'Hey, do we leave it there? Do we just put it out there? Let's just add some complexity to the relationship.'

"But, then, you've got to watch out for portraying, for example, Shuri flirting to get what she wants as opposed to being a diplomatic leader and becoming the leader that she needs to be, that she'll get to at the end.

"So what we ultimately focused on was Namor's line where he says 'only the most damaged people can be truly great leaders', and that's planting the seed of the shared trauma that she realizes at the end [of the film].

"But that's essentially who they are, they're trying to lead and be a leader of their nations with all this pain, carrying around this heavy heart."

The editor explained that Namor "sort of became [a] big brother" to Shuri "because of the similarity she saw when she saw their world and hearing the story." He added that there is "obviously a shared cultural trauma between his people and her people" and "what she lost at the beginning he started to fill that void, and that felt the most genuine to the characters."

Even so, that didn't mean that the editors and Coogler felt the pair were completely unsuited to each other, because Shawver said: "They relate, and I think that anytime we can relate to somebody there can be undertones of that kind of thing, you know what I mean?"

Referring to how Namor gave Shuri his mother's bracelet in the film, the editor added: "Honestly, we've got to keep ourselves sane and laugh a lot, especially with the tougher moments or the serious moments, so we would always joke that when he gave her that bracelet they were married now, and she didn't know it.

"There's a whole different movie where she's like, 'wait, what, I'm the queen of Talokan now?'"

Honoring Chadwick Boseman

Shawver and director Coogler studied at film school together, and they have worked together ever since. This meant that, when it came to Wakanda Forever, Shawver understood what it was that the director wanted to bring across onscreen.

This was particularly true for the way in which the film honored Boseman with two tribute scenes, one at the start and one at the end in which footage of the late star was shown without music or dialogue. This was something Shawver suggested.

"Ryan has a very strong idea of what he wants," Shawver said. "But he's wildly open to other people's stories and he knows that these movies are for everybody, and so if everybody can add some of their story into it, the world can feel it.

"This was, obviously, a very difficult movie. I had to stop editing several times during some of these scenes because I was just weeping."

He went on: "One thing Ryan and I talked about was this is going to be the world's grieving process for Chad, and that makes it a very difficult movie, because you've still got to make a movie that's self-contained.

"And, the truth is that the way technology, and kids and their attention spans are going now, 10 years from now they won't know the context in which this movie came out, and so you have to make it self-contained. You have to sort of bookend it, and tell this complete story about a sister grieving over her brother and a family grieving over their son, and a nation and their king.

"And so we knew we wanted to use that logo of Chadwick and how we get into it went through a couple of different iterations."

Boseman died of cancer in August 2020 at the age of 43.

The film's Boseman-centric Marvel logo was originally going to feature the voices of newscasters and heroes from the MCU, but in the end a later scene inspired Shawver to suggest a different approach.

"We always wanted to find a way to honor Chadwick in a profound way, and so it was actually during the editors' cut there's the scene on the riverbank between Ramonda and Shuri, really the whole movie is about that, that's the story.

"And Ramonda says, 'I could feel him, his hand was on my shoulder and I could feel him in the breeze.' And [I thought] that's sort of how we've felt making this movie, that Chadwick was with us, and so I was like, 'well, let's put a breeze there. Let's put a wind down there, so it's a moment of silence but you hear it' but you don't have any idea why it's like that.

"But then, if you are really an attentive watcher or you watch it the second or third time, you'll realize that that's basically Ramonda saying we can feel him in the breeze."

The film also ends on a similar moment, with Shuri thinking of her brother and allowing herself to start healing. Scenes of T'Challa and Shuri are shown as she cries before the film fades to black, with the post-credit scene taking place moments later. But that wasn't always the plan.

"Originally, she shuts her eyes then accepts it and can begin to move forward, and then after she has that release you see Nakia and young T'Challa walk behind them and you're like, 'wait a second, what's that?'" Shawver said. "But we realized that it was sort of stepping on Shuri's journey, that twist was taking center stage when it shouldn't, when it needed to be her.

"And so then, as we were cutting with Ryan in the studio, we said let's move this, let's move this to the end."

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is out in theaters now.