Plan 9 meets Wakanda

I don't know whether it was a mistake to watch Black Panther and Plan 9 from Outer Space back-to-back on New Year's Eve, but it was certainly enlightening. Both films feature characters using advanced technology to reanimate the near-dead or recently-dead, but in Plan 9, it's never entirely clear what purpose it serves. I mean, sure, it's spooky to see Vampira wandering around a dark cemetery waving her scimitar-like fingernails in a futile attempt to look ghoulish, but I kept expecting to see the Scooby-Doo crew come whipping around the corner to unmask her--or, more likely, scare her away with one woof.

Only an idiot would send Scooby into Wakanda. One glare from the Black Panther's warrior women and he'd be toast.

I tried but failed to find other similarities. In fact, seeing the films back-to-back only intensified their differences:

Production budget
Black Panther: $200,000,000, every sparkling dime visible onscreen.
Plan 9: $60,000, although it's hard to see where the money went since most of the work seems to have been done by a third-grader equipped with blunt scissors and Elmer's glue.

Memorable settings
Black Panther: Wakanda forever!
Plan 9: (1) Airplane cockpit made from refrigerator boxes; (2) dark cemetery full of flimsy cardboard gravestones; (3) flying saucer that's saucer-shaped and shiny while flying but, on the ground, appears to be a stucco square.

Editing and continuity
Black Panther: Flawless, or else all the flaws are well hidden. That scene where they suddenly burst through the invisible barrier into Wakanda? Smooth and stunning.
Plan 9: Scenes shift with all the subtlety of a toddler running face-first into a glass door. One example: Someone discovers a couple of dead gravediggers in a dark cemetery and calls the cops, who lumber slowly into their police car, have trouble executing a turn, and then race awkwardly toward the cemetery in broad daylight, arriving at a cemetery swathed in darkness. That's not how light works in the real world, folks.

Arms and the man
Black Panther: Vibranium spears! Ring blades! Armored rhinoceroses! Ulysses Klaue's prosthetic arm, which can cut glass or blast cars to smithereens with equal ease!
Plan 9: Um, Vampira's claws? The aliens have some kind of ray gun that brings the recently dead back to life for no clear reason, but the ray gun has a tendency to jam, especially when wielded by a woman. Further, all the police officers on Earth appear to have graduated from the Barney Fife School of Gun Safety and Panic Management. I mean, it's one thing to wave guns toward other officers in a cavalier fashion, but when one detective uses his gun to scratch his own head with his finger on the trigger, you have to wonder whether there's any intelligent life on this planet.

Roles for women 
Black Panther: Scientists, social workers, fierce warriors entrusted with protecting the king--and hey, anyone who can halt a rampaging rhinoceros with a single look gets my respect.
Plan 9: (1) Vampira; (2) one female alien who barely speaks, can't manage her ray gun, and suffers an emotional collapse when things get hairy; (3) one pretty little wifey whose sole purpose is to run screaming around a dark cemetery while wearing a frilly pink negligee.

Costumes
Black Panther: Colorful textiles! Sleek embroidered tunics! Armor stylish enough to wear on the red carpet!
Plan 9: Trenchcoats, seriously? The supreme leader of the space aliens wears an ill-fitting tunic adorned with an image of some sort of medieval weapon. And let me tell you this: there's not enough shiny purple satin in the world to make Dudley Manlove look threatening.

Plot holes
Black Panther: No one survives a fall from so great a height.
Plan 9: The entire existence of Bela Lugosi in this film is inexplicable, but that's only one plot hole in a film that is more hole than plot. Okay, the space aliens have been contacting Earth's leaders for a while but we don't understand their alien language until we develop an instant translator, but then when the bumbling Barney Fifes finally come face-to-face with the aliens, they speak perfect English. (But they still don't make much sense!)

Memorable dialogue
Black Panther: "If you say one more word, I'll feed you to my children!...I'm kidding, we're vegetarians."

Plan 9: "In my land, women are for advancing the race, not for fighting man's battles."

Black Panther: "We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe."
Plan 9: "Why is it so important that you want to contact the governments of our Earth?" --"Because of death. Because all of you on Earth are idiots...Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!"

Black Panther: "Just bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships, 'cause they knew death was better than bondage."
Plan 9: "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

And that, my friends, is my final word on the matter.