Marvel’s Eternals – SPOILER discussion

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Out on 5 November.

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Currently the lowest-rated MCU movie on RT and the first to be rated ‘rotten’.

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/eternals-lowest-rated-mcu-rotten-tomatoes-1235100644/

At least that puts paid to the notion that all reviewers are paid Disney stooges!

 

Or that it’s soooo bad that they can’t even pretend =P

Weird movie though, lots of conflicting reactions from what I’ve read/seen… kind of all over the place… I guess we’ll see. I wonder if they’ll reconsider the whole day and date thing, but probably not, given the strenght of the cast and the Marvel brand.

I’ll probably still go and see it. But I’ve thought the trailers have been a bit boring, and that seems to be one of the criticisms about the actual film from some of the reviews.

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Todd

The Essential ETERNALS Comics Reading List

I read the Eternals back when it came out and it did feel more like a continuation of Kirby’s 2001: A Space Odyssey series and Machine Man (a direct sequel) with the Celestials being the aliens behind the monolith.

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

I read the Eternals back when it came out and it did feel more like a continuation of Kirby’s 2001: A Space Odyssey series and Machine Man (a direct sequel) with the Celestials being the aliens behind the monolith.

Wasn’t one of Kirby’s inspirations for the Eternals the book “Chariots of the Gods”?

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Absolutely which today is still giving life to things like ANCIENT ALIENS and the movie PROMETHEUS. Van Daniken’s theories though can be traced back to the literally fictional works of HP Lovecraft specifically AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS. So, it is a little funny that The Eternals movie has such a diverse cast when it was basically inspired by a pseudoscience that is based on the idea nonEuropean civilizations could not have built the pyramids or anything unless white people from the stars taught them to do it.

however Chariots of the Gods was all the rage back then and Kirby was great at grabbing the most popular idea in the culture and making a superhero out of it. It was his basic MO.

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Todd

Yeesh, it’s fallen down to rotten at 53% at the moment I’m typing this… I’d say this doesn’t bode well, but there’s usually a big gap between critics and audiences for this type of movies, so we’ll have to wait for BO numbers, but yeah, pretty sure this is a first for the MCU.

I haven’t checked out every MCU film but this probably appealed to me the least out of all of them so far based on the promo.

True, diversity is good for casts, but at the same time, these are gods in all but name. Even billionaire playboy Tony Stark seems more relatable to anyone over immortal, super powered alien astronauts (who also all appear to live like rich Westerners). I was a little more interested in the Deviants actually.

of course, that could be the theme of the movie. That the Deviants actually have more in common with humanity than the Eternals.

It is a divergence from the basic model of the Marvel hero in that they usually start as someone normal and then are thrown into unusual circumstances. Even Thor had to get his powers taken away before he became the hero.

Oof.  Saw this this afternoon and… Well. It’s definitely a movie. Which is probably to its detriment. It really felt like it would have benefitted from being a TV series and had more room to do its “the Eternals hang out on Earth through most of human civilisation”. Those snapshots are unsatisfyingly fleeting (and one in particular just felt downright distasteful).

Not that a longer running time would have solved this film’s other problems. Maybe the fact that its ponderous, poorly structured and drags throughout its 2.5 hour run time, but it wouldn’t have anything for the flat tone, gloomy visuals and fairly uninteresting characters.

There were large chunks of the film where I really couldn’t tell what specifically was going on because it was so dim. Admittedly, I was in an unfamiliar cinema, so maybe the out of focus feeling was just the projection being out of focus, and maybe it would have been easier to see if there wasn’t a lit fire exit sign brighter than anything on screen just a few metres to the left, but yeah, visually, it was not a treat.

The story is a mess. I’m not sure if the film consciously rejects the usual MCU tone or if it’s just too inept to manage it. Remember that super-clunky pseudo-laugh line about the Avengers from the end of the first trailer? It’s edited differently here and actually worse.

I like some of the character, but mainly the ones that weren’t used much and I assume that’s just because they weren’t on-screen  long enough to be disappointing (Dane Whitman, for instance, is an extended cameo at best). Sersi is disappointingly bland. The film’s attempts at creating conflict and growth for her are weak at best. “I can’t contact Ashiram. I keep trying, but I can’t do it,” she says, absolutely not having been showing trying. It’s fine though, because she then immediately manages it.

The film’s attempts at creating ideological conflict are pretty thin. “Can we justify putting this creature to sleep in order to save the Earth? Oh never mind, I just killed it instead.” I don’t particularly get the logic of Ikaris’s plan either, but then I really don’t care enough to try and think it through.

At least discussions about what the worst MCU film is will be much simpler now.

I enjoyed most of the movie, but it falls apart at the end even more than most of these movies do. Definitely better than I expected given the reviews.

Random thoughts:

• I liked most of the cast. I’m glad Chan got a second chance in a Marvel movie after being mostly wasted in Captain Marvel. The stuff with Bryan Tyree Henry and his family was very sweet.
• Barry Keoghan stuck out like a sore thumb. Maybe I’m just used to seeing him as a creepy weirdo in other roles, and he was using his regular voice, but I was shocked that he didn’t turn out to be a villain, especially with his creepy mind control stuff.
• That Hiroshima scene didn’t work at all. I get what they were going for, but it was a big miss.
• I liked the Ikaris twist, and didn’t see it coming. I didn’t buy Sprite choosing to side with him though, and Kingo not being in the final showdown at all was odd.
• The movie looked lovely! The action scenes were boring, and the Deviants were horribly generic, but all of the locations looked better than the rest of the MCU.
• The cast was too big, and the movie far too long. Brian Tyree Henry and Lauren Ridloff are barely even in the movie, not showing up in the present day until close to the end. We get at least two too many scenes of them arriving at a location to reunite with another family member, and it just becomes repetitive.
• The inclusion of all the Dane/Black Knight stuff was baffling. Completely unconnected to anything else, and not even slightly interesting.
• That third act was really dull. I look forward to watching the movie again, but I’ll probably end up fast-forwarding through that battle scene.
• All of the attempts to tie in to the MCU felt very off, especially the half-hearted “Why didn’t you stop Thanos?” bit. At least the “I could replace Captain Rogers” scene isn’t as bad as in the trailer. This would have worked much better as its own thing.

Far from the best of the MCU, I’m still glad they tried something different.

So I just went ahead and spoiled myself on the 2 post-credit scenes… intriguing, particularly one, if you know me, but damn it makes me hate Endgame even more… u_u

I’ve been hearing a lot the same coment about Eternals feeling more like a DC movie… I’m assuming that refers to the more Snyder-ish mythological aspect of the DCEU… Hey, Zhao for JL2? That could be interesting… =P

Jon wrote:

intriguing, particularly one, if you know me,

Big Harry Styles fan?

Oh, the other thing that occurred to me while watching this – especially when they revealed the naff idea straight out of Earth X – is that it really feels like they’re going to tie Galactus up into the Celestials when he shows up. No longer just draining worlds of their life-force but specifically “eating” Celestial embryos gestating in planets (which I think was his deal in Earth X), possibly as some kind of fallen Celestial, Celestial vampire or something.

That’s probably a good idea, since that was one of the best ideas within Earth X… and considering the current context of the MCU, yeah, I can see that happening…

‘Eternals’ star Brian Tyree Henry thought Marvel was going to ask him to lose weight to play a superhero. He was shocked to hear the director say, ‘We want you exactly as you are.’

https://www.insider.com/eternals-brian-tyree-henry-wasnt-asked-lose-weight-2021-11

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Todd

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njerry

Seems like the movie has done decent business, if not outstanding.

https://variety.com/2021/film/news/marvel-eternals-box-office-opening-results-1235106813/

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Rocket, Todd, njerry

Why Is Chloé Zhao’s ‘Eternals’ Being Called the Worst MCU Movie Ever? For Reasons That Are Not Onscreen (Column)

https://variety.com/2021/film/columns/chloe-zhaos-eternals-worst-mcu-movie-why-1235106850/

ETERNALS held on pretty well for the second week. I think it indicates Marvel may be on the right path. I’m more interested in seeing it than I have been for the other Marvel movies this year.

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Rocket

My take on this

It was not a Marvel movie  but the end scenes were classic Marvel. I have a 2nd cousin who, like Jon, worships the actor who played Eros and she was SOOOOOO Excited. It felt like Phase 4 is finally starting.

Martin Smith wrote:

I don’t particularly get the logic of Ikaris’s plan

Ikaris did not have a plan. He was the “Good Soldier”. He was given a job and he followed through. He is a warrior and knows what to do in combat and lead in battle but that is it.  He has no clue what to do about the “big picture”.

I feel bad for Brian Tyree Henry. He was a “deus ex machina” I totally got Hiroshima. There was no Einstein or Oppenheimer here. It was Phastos.

Despite the movie being too long, the one storyline I would have liked to see more of was Kingo and Makkari.

I liked the use of “mindweary” and unimind.

Phastos’ kid interacting with the other Eternals was cute

The GOT interaction was good. Rob was the good soldier and gets shafted. Jon does his own thing and gets the girl.

Arishem made a big mistake. Except for Ikaris, the rest settled down and became attached to Earth. No way he should have left them there that long. It is possible the Deviants arrived on Earth too early or not. by the time Tiamat was ready, the Eternals had evolved(except for Ikaris).

I liked it and look forward to seeing the characters again

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Rocket wrote:

Ikaris did not have a plan. He was the “Good Soldier”. He was given a job and he followed through. He is a warrior and knows what to do in combat and lead in battle but that is it.  He has no clue what to do about the “big picture”.

I meant insofar as leading Ajak to the Deviants, having her killed, then taking her body back to her house, then seemingly leading the Deviants to Sersi so she’ll want to gather everyone together and thus find Ajak’s body etc. If he’d just killed Ajak, then Deviants and not told anyone, Tiamat would have emerged no problem.

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I quite liked it, probably in part because expectations were lowered.

it’s true we did not get to know most of the characters that well, due to the sheer number, but I liked most of them. It really wasn’t that different from a war movie in that regard — you get to know the troops, who are kind of stick types— just enough to care a bit whether they survive.

That brings up the next point, in that you really didn’t know who, if anyone, was “safe.” That’s very unusual for a Marvel film. Of course, the mechanism is built into the story that any of them could come back story.

I liked as well that characters chose sides in ways that were not expected, but for me the reasons worked well enough. Even more unexpected that one character decided not to fight at all. Nothing was “automatic” in that regard.

It defied the Marvel formula, for the most part. And it seemed to me to be making a pretty ballsy political statement as well, but I’ll avoid saying more as I’m sure some will especially dislike that.

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Uncle Retrospective, njerry

I finally saw it today.

I thought it was just okay.

I think what really hampered the movie was not having a clear villain. The Deviants just didn’t feel like a real threat and “fighting” a Celestial felt awkward.

On the positive, the characters felt, on the whole, a bit more fleshed out. It felt like they were trying to do something different with the characters.

I will say that if they cut about 45 minutes off of the runtime, it would have helped.

This was a mid-tier MCU movie. While not great, it was not the shitshow the critics made it out to be. I’d give it a C-.

[Ian Smith]

Got around to seeing it this morning and I definitely made the right choice skipping it at the pictures.

I thought it was a bit of a mess with too many characters, weak villains, wooden performances and a bloated runtime.

I did like Kit Harington, even though he basically had nothing to do, but I assume he’ll have more screen time in Blade.

 

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by Ian Smith.

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Todd

Sooooo… huh, I kind of enjoyed this one… it does feel quite different to the other MCU movies… less obnoxious humour for one thing, which I was very thankful for.

I do agree that it’s both too long and too short and perhaps a D+ show would’ve been a better medium for this, so they could’ve fleshed the characters a bit more… although, now that I think about it, they were mostly fine, I got the gist of all of them well enough.

And yeah, the present-day deviants were a bit of a waste of time, I mean, the problem is mostly that it looked like they were going for something more with the main deviant, and then they go nowhere except a shitty looking CGI fight, so yeah, that’s the main thing that would’ve benefited from a longer run on a TV show.

Other than that, I dunno, it was okay I guess… the CGI was good except when it came down to some of the creatures… speaking of which HOLY SHIT what did they do to Pip the troll????? burn it with fire pleaseee!!!! And I actually don’t know who that Harry Styles everyone keeps talking about is, but meh… he didn’t even have Starfox’s signature hairdo… lame.

Oh and the whole thing with a Celestial being born within the planet is cool and all, buuuuuuuut that’s kind of a thing they’re gonna have to adress going forward or else it’ll seem just weird that there’s a gigantic hand and head on the planet that everyone ignores… plus, I’m not sure how that physically works, I’m pretty sure that’d create some problematic side effects to earth… then there’s also a huge eternal appearing near earth and then creating a black hole near erath and appraently everything is fine… yeah maybe they went a bit too dumdum on this one =P

And the Celestials needed more Kirby, it’s all I’m gonna say.

Anyways, I wouldn’t say it’s a great movie, but it’s fine… at least I didn’t feel like I was watching yet another Disney MCU movie like it tends to go with these things in recent years… so I guess that’s a win?

Yeah, this wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t especially entertaining either. For a movie about such a far-out, stoner 70s concept it all looked so very beige so much of the time.

I am not that familiar with the Eternals but was it essential for all of these characters to be included in this movie? I can’t remember all of their names but the movie could have cut Bollywood guy, Hungover Irish guy, family guy, speed lady and Wee Jimmy Krankie without missing much. Not to mention Sersi’s boyfriend, who seemed to exist solely to set up a completely different movie.

Also, at what point do the people of the MCU Earth start freaking out about all of this? People seemed rather blasé when finding out about the Eternals and the Celestials, despite it proving every single religious and scientific theory about the history of humanity and Earth wrong.

The big red Celestial seemed like a bit of a dope. Why not check up on Earth when the emergence is mere days away? Why not just extract the Eternals at that point? The movie might actually have had more urgency had it begun with that and the Eternals finding out the truth and trying to get back to Earth in time to save it. Still doesn’t really explain why they decided it was unacceptable for all of humanity to die but they were cool with Thanos killing half of them a few years ago.

I don’t know what is going on with Starfox and Pip but their scene did not look good at all. Starfox reminded me of that old sitcom with Father Dougal as a superhero. Pip gave me the same irrational reaction as Neelix from Star Trek Voyager – an urge to bash it in the face until it goes away. Must do better.

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Uncle Retrospective

The whole Thanos thing is Marvel adressing an issue that wasn’t an issue in the first place… if anyone asks “why didn’t the Eternals help against Thanos?” Well help how? How were they supposed to know? What were they supposed to do? Thanos literally just teleports his ass to earth for about 10 minutes while he gets the mind stone and snaps his fingers (and the other Thanos just appears out of nowhere too), so how were they supposed to help? It’s not like any of them had the means to undo the snappening.

My point is, that’s just a question that people have in the real world, but there was a better answer than “oh we couldn’t get involved in that”, which just sound stupid, the answer being “Thanos caught everyone by surprise” because that’s what he did.

That could explain that one fight. Still, they didn’t exactly rush to help resolve the issue. Not to mention that Earth had been subjected to multiple major threats from otherworldly sources in their time. Yet the Eternals wouldn’t get involved unless the threat was specifically from Deviants and nothing else.

I did see this on in the theatre, and I liked it well enough. Saw the plot twist the moment they discovered Ajak’s body, but the whole thing did get a lot more interesting once Ikaris really got going. Pretty much agree with what others have said about its weaknesses. It’s definitely one of the weakest Marvel movies, but I didn’t regret seeing it on the big screen.

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Todd

Note to the moderators and admins… I posted this earlier, but for some reason, I am not seeing the edited post on the forum. If this is a repeat, please delete the earlier posts, and keep this one…. Thank you.

I saw the MCU Eternals film on Disney+ last night.

Spoilers follow….

I’m sorry to say that the MCU Eternals film didn’t work for me.

Part of it was my own expectations. As originally conceived, a kind of mash-up of creation myths, Clarke & Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, Erich von Däniken’s “Chariot of the Gods,” and Lee & Kirby’s “Mighty Thor,” the title was clearly intended to invoke a sense of mystery, discovery, grandeur and awe. None of that was present for me.

More critically, part of it was how the writers and director tried to introduce so many characters, and jam so much story into one film. Too many major characters felt sketched in, and inadequately developed, motivations and reasons quickly stated (as opposed to shown over time) and came and went too quickly (particularly the two who died in the telling of the story). <span style=”font-family: inherit;”>This aspect of the film disappointed me, as one of the hallmarks of the MCU is their willingness to take their time to introduce and develop characters over the course of several films, so the choices they make and the actions they take, in the heat of the moment, feel earned and satisfy (or cleverly defy) audience expectations.

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It could’ve worked. What should’ve been the climax, the decision by one group of characters to fulfill their original mission, and another not too, and the conflict that ensued between members of what is essentially an extended family, might have worked better as the last chapter of three films. <span style=”font-family: inherit;”>For example, previous chapters could’ve been devoted to following say, Sersi and Dane Whitman around as they try to solve a mystery (say the disappearance of Ajax), face and overcome smaller challenges/conflicts, while meeting different subsets of Eternals along the way. Here, Sersi would’ve played “guide” and Dane Whitman our human “point of view” character, with us (the audience) discovering the Eternals, and more of their story, as the road trip progressed. (This is similar to the role Ikaris played in the original series, gradually revealing his ‘world view” (and introducing his fellow Eternals) to archeologist Daniel Damian and his daughter Margo.). </span><span style=”font-family: inherit;”>A good model for this kind of “road trip of discovery” story (one that would’ve been in keeping with Chloé Zhao’s indie movie style of storytelling) might’ve been “Brief Lives,” one of Neil Gaimen’s story arcs in the DC Vertigo “Sandman” title (another tale of a Pantheon/Family of gods); the one where Delight/Delirium impels Dream to accompany her on a road trip to find out what happened to their brother Destruction (meeting various fallen gods along the way).
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I have to admit that the rushed storytelling in the MCU “Eternals” worries me. I really hope we don’t see this kind of rushed introduction to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, when they are introduced into the MCU.

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garjones, Al-x, Ben, Christian, Todd

Won! Yay! Great to see you!

WonK wrote:

It could’ve worked. What should’ve been the climax, the decision by one group of characters to fulfill their original mission, and another not too, and the conflict that ensued between members of what is essentially an extended family, might have worked better as the last chapter of three films.

Yeah, I think one thing pretty much everybody agrees is that this would’ve needed a longer form. Maybe a TV series rather than a sequence of movies. That would’ve allowed them to really focus on the characters and develop the plot in a way that would’ve allowed for the twist to really pack a punch.

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Todd

Wow! Talk about a blast from the past! Wonk

So… I just saw it on Disney+. It was… interesting. The diverse cast was all right for the most part. Please don’t force it, let it happen in the course of the storytelling.

MCU films have the usual copy and paste of choreographed martial arts, CGI, fancy light show battles, advanced Tech, shiny constumes.

This one had that but it had a little more posturing of humanist philosophy with its commentary on humanity, Earth history, and the human experience.

I have to say that the MCU special effects will be there, that is a given. Therefore, more should be spent on the storytelling and overall material.

Eternals was imho, Greek god pantheon drama MCU style.

I know some might want to see how it fits in MCU continuity and the questions and problems that arise. I just wonder: Do the mythologies that each new MCU films introduce conflict with one another? How are they related?

Wow. Kirby had… imagination. Can we put him up there in his own way with Tolkien, GRRM, etc. ?

The elf that emerged from that portal onto the ship threw me off as well as Thanos’ brother played by you know.

Now, the Kit Harrington guy was about to tell Cersi his story and then she got raptured by Arishem.

He opens some box with a sword and a voice comes up behind him.

What next?

I watched the first scene but 10 minutes in and my irkometer was already in the red, so switched to something else.

“Deal or no deal?”

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So my mum is really into the MCU (via the X-Men films, via a recommendation from my grandad who happened to catch the first one on ITV way back in the day), she watches everything in it, when it gets a home media release, and I tend to think of her as a good barometer for the quiet bulk of its audience. She doesn’t read comics, she’s entirely detached from online fandom and movie gossip (which puts her in the enviable position of always going into these films knowing absolutely nothing of what’s in them – I suspect she’ll actually get to be surprised by No Way Home), she’s not got particularly esoteric tastes (Spider-Verse was just outsider her comfort zone) but is fine with genre fiction (she’s seen every episode of Stargate, she used to watched Doctor Who regularly until the Capaldi era). And she’s relatively uncritical about things she likes. Not to say she likes anything and everything, but if she likes something, she’s generally in it for the long haul and doesn’t ask much of it and is easily satisfied by it. I think she’s been sufficiently entertained by every bit of the MCU and she enjoyed all the X-Men films too, even Wolverine Origins. As I say, I think she’s a good gauge of the silent majority, as Nixon put it. (The audience Doctor Who needs to win back, I would argue.)

Anyway, I asked her what she thought of Eternals. “Welllll,” pause. “It was,” long pause as she struggled to think of anything positive to say about it. She thought it was too long, had too many characters and the concept of the Earth being an egg for a giant space being was too out of kilter with everything in the other films. Her favourite parts were “the trailers in the credits”, which I mean, doesn’t say much about the film itself.

Also, she didn’t know who was talking to Dane off-screen in that post-credit scene (she vaguely recognised the voice, because she’s seen Luke Cage and the 4400, but didn’t peg it for Mahershala Ali or know it was Blade) but somehow managed to work out it’s something to do with vampires.

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Todd

I watched Eternals yesterday and, well, yeah. That was two and a half hours of movie. The dialogue was fine, the performances were good, and while the ending was a CGI-fest, it was focused on the characters as opposed to two big blobs of whatever running at each other.

But there was no dramatic or emotional weight to anything. The movie meanders and tells us stuff that happens and doesn’t invest any of it with a decent reason to care. I think you could rearrange things a bit and get a better story – primarily switch the big revelation to coming from Megatron the Celestial to that Deviant who gains the ability to talk, and maybe jettison a bunch of the flashbacks in favour of more modern-day drama (and/or cut half an hour from the movie)

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Martin Smith, Todd

It’s a movie I truly doubt I’ll watch again. Like I said upthread, it wasn’t great but it wasn’t horrible. A C- movie at best.

Thinking back on it, it was a bit flat. Characters, performances, designs, costumes, effects, fights. Nothing really stood out. Nobody and nothing really grabbed me and said, “HEY, LOOK AT ME!!!” It felt surprisingly bland for a Marvel movie.

Having too many leads and no real “bad guy” didn’t help. I appreciate them trying to do something different but with what wat put forth here, it really would have worked better as an miniseries on D+. Give it 7-9 parts so it has the space to breathe and explore.

While I’m sure Marvel already has plans set in motion for the characters, I do wonder if there are some revisions and tweaks going on behind the scenes due to the “meh” reaction to the movie. I would be truly surprised if we got a sequel and if by some cosmic miracle we get a sequel, I doubt Chloe Zhao will be back.

Then again, we’re getting a third Ant-Man movie and it’s tied to the new Big Bad. I think it’s fair to say no one had that on their bingo card.

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Uncle Retrospective

Al-x wrote:

Now, the Kit Harrington guy was about to tell Cersi his story and then she got raptured by Arishem. He opens some box with a sword and a voice comes up behind him. What next?

He’s the Black Knight, I cottoned on to that 20 minutes in when it showed “Dane Whitman” on Sersi’s phone.

It’s probably Blade that was addressing him. Which is another nationality switch in the movies, as I remember it Dane was American and Blade was British in their origin stories. Based on the accent and my guess they seem to have reversed that.

It’s a bit disappointing really that what seemed a very progressive idea in the 1970s that the Arthurian based guy was American and the cool black guy with the shades was British rather reverts to stereotype.

 

Watched this on BR, enjoyed it quite a bit.

It also had a distinct visual style that was more noticeable to me than prior MCU entries.

Sure, you can say the Deviants were CGI, but they looked amazing and made for a different kind of enemy.

Surprisingly good.

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Hank Cannon