Eternals MCU - *Spoilers*

[Mox]

10 minutes ago, Kiltman said:

They went their separate ways because their job was done and it was clear yeah that they were starting to disagree heavily. Also Athena’s condition became known at the same time, so they had a couple reasons to split.

They were a family that despite small differences would come back together. Some closer than others.

Sprites thing comes out of left field but when you tie it to her deeper anger at forever being a child it makes sense why she would resent Sersi for being with this perfect person. And why she would glorify Ikaris and his looks/powers. He’s both what she wanted to be and what she desired to be with once she was. And Kingo was for the Celestial awakening, he didn’t just nope for no reason. He clearly states he doesn’t think it’s fair to disrupt the order of things but he loved them all more than his beliefs. I think a lot of this is just examples of how humanity is and a lot of the film is the eternals being very human.

As for the last part, I can see where you are coming from but it’s kinda just movies in general. Especially ensemble movies. I think they had a choice of splitting the narrative to show their history here and seed why they are the way they are. Or spend all the time in the present exploring those ideas, which I agree I would’ve liked to see a little more. Neither is a new take for the MCU. If you bastardize Phastos’ you get to Ultron, if you follow Druid’s path you kinda get to what Loki was talking about. Both have been mined before, just not in a loving, meaning the best sorta way. I think playing off the past made sense because it did sit them in the history fairly well, and it made the final act feel better. Had they spent the whole movie in the 2020s, you lose a lot of the character context and the celestial thing feels like a crappy tack on ending. Whereas how it is now it was like “oh ok yeah this has been building while they did all this stuff for thousands of years.”

I enjoyed that it wasn’t a black and white story. No one was right, they all just had their own perspectives. The celestials, eternals and even the deviants kinda (once you realize why they are doing what they are doing).

I don’t think it was perfect by any stretch and many MCU movies were better from a pure entertainment perspective. But think it has gotten a lot more hate than it deserves, personally. Like themes, dialog, acting, visuals were way better in this than others.

 

That's fair that were multiple conflicts but again there wasn't any real animosity between them. They certainly weren't fractured. I understand Sprite's story, it was just told terribly. It was seemingly added simply to give Ikaris someone on his side, and then it was immediately fixed at the end...somehow. It was as surface level as that story could get. I know Kingo was for the awakening.

I'd argue every MCU ensemble movie does a way better job of getting you to care about the characters than Eternals did. It's why I said this should have been a series. The cast was too big, we had no pre-existing reason to care about them, and we weren't given any in this. The point about Phastos and Druig is not that they are unique, it's that they were given interesting perspectives, and those perspectives were immediately ditched so we could further the plot, and they were ditched because we are told they were. That's bad writing.

When you combine bad writing, forgettable characters, and bad pacing, you're going to get a boring movie, and that's what this was. It's not unwatchable, it's simply a drag. That's really disappointing with all the talent this movie had, and clearly a lot of people agree. The story outline was fine, and the talent was there but the execution and strength in details wasn't.

[djw4bucs]

Just saw it yesterday, and while i had low expections heading into it, it was better than i thought it would be, but not by much.

Action was good, but like others have said the pacing was bad imo and i think if u would have made this a disney plus 6-8 episode series, people would love it cause u could have a few different episodes of them in periods of the past and how they saved those people from different deviants.

I thought the deviant that stole the powers they didn't do enough with, same with Thena's illness.

Druig should have played a bigger part in the end since he was the first one to disobey Arishem, but yet the made his role at the end for a cheap laugh.

But overall i thought it was decent addition that could have been a great tv series.

[Kiltman]

13 minutes ago, Bullet Club said:

That's fair that were multiple conflicts but again there wasn't any real animosity between them. They certainly weren't fractured. I understand Sprite's story, it was just told terribly. It was seemingly added simply to give Ikaris someone on his side, and then it was immediately fixed at the end...somehow. It was as surface level as that story could get. I know Kingo was for the awakening.

I'd argue every MCU ensemble movie does a way better job of getting you to care about the characters than Eternals did. It's why I said this should have been a series. The cast was too big, we had no pre-existing reason to care about them, and we weren't given any in this. The point about Phastos and Druig is not that they are unique, it's that they were given interesting perspectives, and those perspectives were immediately ditched so we could further the plot, and they were ditched because we are told they were. That's bad writing.

When you combine bad writing, forgettable characters, and bad pacing, you're going to get a boring movie, and that's what this was. It's not unwatchable, it's simply a drag. That's really disappointing with all the talent this movie had, and clearly a lot of people agree. The story outline was fine, and the talent was there but the execution and strength in details wasn't.

Yeah the bulk of the group was fine, Ikaris was the only one who really went too far. I agree Sprite’s turn was weak. I got it but like she was really just what the story needed her to be. You can kinda explain some of it away as her and most just found out the celestial thing at the end. So it was a new line being drawn…so it’s not that odd to have people shuffle away from who they are close with on that. But the hate/jealousy for Sersi was outta left field. Like to the point she stabbed her just was odd.

To be fair every other ensemble of this size had multiple movies where characters got their own stories. The closest comparable in the MCU would been Guardians and they had half the amount of people, and really only went super deep with a couple of them. Spreading it out the first X-men or Justice League would be the most comparable…and they both had the luxury of being very well known going into it.

I think Druid’s will still be there, he didn’t really ditch it it just wasn’t pertinent to the ending. It informed one of the stronger reasons they parted ways and the global “hey they all see things differently” that was came into play. Phastos definitely could’ve used more scenes to set up his change of heart and explore how much he was done with humanity. Like even just a montage of him talking about the gifts he helped guide them to and how they would continue to misuse them…culminating in the bomb being dropped on Japan would’ve been a lot stronger. Also showing his husband and kid breaking through to get him back.

Won’t disagree with the last part too much, think it’s pretty fair. I didn’t think the writing was noticeably bad for Marvel as a whole. It was all a bit passive, but then again it was kinda what the characters were supposed to be. Passive guardians, only allowed to interfere in preset circumstances. The whole a to b was them trying to break from that preordained role or be a prisoner to it. Play on faith, fairness and the greater good.

I liked the characters and am interested in what they can become. But I can see people taking them on face value from this being “eh” on them.

[Mox]

6 minutes ago, Kiltman said:

Yeah the bulk of the group was fine, Ikaris was the only one who really went too far. I agree Sprite’s turn was weak. I got it but like she was really just what the story needed her to be. You can kinda explain some of it away as her and most just found out the celestial thing at the end. So it was a new line being drawn…so it’s not that odd to have people shuffle away from who they are close with on that. But the hate/jealousy for Sersi was outta left field. Like to the point she stabbed her just was odd.

To be fair every other ensemble of this size had multiple movies where characters got their own stories. The closest comparable in the MCU would been Guardians and they had half the amount of people, and really only went super deep with a couple of them. Spreading it out the first X-men or Justice League would be the most comparable…and they both had the luxury of being very well known going into it.

I think Druid’s will still be there, he didn’t really ditch it it just wasn’t pertinent to the ending. It informed one of the stronger reasons they parted ways and the global “hey they all see things differently” that was came into play. Phastos definitely could’ve used more scenes to set up his change of heart and explore how much he was done with humanity. Like even just a montage of him talking about the gifts he helped guide them to and how they would continue to misuse them…culminating in the bomb being dropped on Japan would’ve been a lot stronger. Also showing his husband and kid breaking through to get him back.

Won’t disagree with the last part too much, think it’s pretty fair. I didn’t think the writing was noticeably bad for Marvel as a whole. It was all a bit passive, but then again it was kinda what the characters were supposed to be. Passive guardians, only allowed to interfere in preset circumstances. The whole a to b was them trying to break from that preordained role or be a prisoner to it. Play on faith, fairness and the greater good.

I liked the characters and am interested in what they can become. But I can see people taking them on face value from this being “eh” on them.

When I say bad writing I should clarify and say I really mean "sloppy writing". I don't think the story was bad in a general sense, I think the characters were written poorly and sloppily, and the execution of said story was not well done. As for the bolded, this is why I don't think this should've been a movie. It had too much working against it right away. Hindsight is 20/20 but this was a bad decision by Marvel. If they had to keep it a movie, they could've cut the cast in half, really hammered home the passive guardian element to make us feel the moral conflict more, and then played off Druig as the big bad (though that'd be kind of similar to Shang-Chi), setting up a sequel where you introduce the others and stop the celestial. 

[Kiltman]

2 minutes ago, Bullet Club said:

When I say bad writing I should clarify and say I really mean "sloppy writing". I don't think the story was bad in a general sense, I think the characters were written poorly and sloppily, and the execution of said story was not well done. As for the bolded, this is why I don't think this should've been a movie. It had too much working against it right away. Hindsight is 20/20 but this was a bad decision by Marvel. If they had to keep it a movie, they could've cut the cast in half, really hammered home the passive guardian element to make us feel the moral conflict more, and then played off Druig as the big bad (though that'd be kind of similar to Shang-Chi), setting up a sequel where you introduce the others and stop the celestial. 

Gotcha gotcha

Yeah I think if they were in their headquarters now drawing this up they might think about doing this differently with how core Disney+ is now.
Back then obviously it wasn't part of the equation. 

I think they could've done that yeah, maybe not Druig as some big bad. But just like tell a story of them through the ages like we got. Showing more how they had to passively sit on the sidelines and bring them to sometime before the MCU really kicked off, like they could've made a historical point in the 20th century where they divided and part of them interfered. Truly fracturing the group in a core way. It would've been very Fox's X-men-like, but it could work. The ending/epilogue showing them being on the sidelines of events afterwards. And the sequel being the Celestial birth, make it so the deviants are drawn to it as it grows....Not just they were just cubed up north. So it's a mystery as to why the Deviants are coming back still, and the answer is the twist of their purpose and the Celestial soon to emerge. That twist redrawing lines of whos on whos side. I agree they just needed more time to explore this stuff.

I'm interested where it goes and where all these characters get spread off to. 

[Mox]

8 minutes ago, Kiltman said:

Gotcha gotcha

Yeah I think if they were in their headquarters now drawing this up they might think about doing this differently with how core Disney+ is now.
Back then obviously it wasn't part of the equation. 

I think they could've done that yeah, maybe not Druig as some big bad. But just like tell a story of them through the ages like we got. Showing more how they had to passively sit on the sidelines and bring them to sometime before the MCU really kicked off, like they could've made a historical point in the 20th century where they divided and part of them interfered. Truly fracturing the group in a core way. It would've been very Fox's X-men-like, but it could work. The ending/epilogue showing them being on the sidelines of events afterwards. And the sequel being the Celestial birth, make it so the deviants are drawn to it as it grows....Not just they were just cubed up north. So it's a mystery as to why the Deviants are coming back still, and the answer is the twist of their purpose and the Celestial soon to emerge. That twist redrawing lines of whos on whos side. I agree they just needed more time to explore this stuff.

I'm interested where it goes and where all these characters get spread off to. 

I should've said antagonist not big bad.

[THE DUKE]

Ok, finally got around to see this, and I have to agree that this could have been an epically good series with a 10 episodes each an hour long.  They just try to get too much in here. I still enjoyed it though, and it's a movie I don't think i'll have an issue watching again.

Pros

• I loved loved loved how ambitious this movie was.  They took a big swing here and while it wasn't a home run I think they connected enough that this will have some legs into the next phase or two of the MCU.  It introduced some big concepts and a host of new characters.
• I liked that it had some stakes.  Characters died and they aren't coming back, at least not as we know them. While Thena and Gilgamesh weren't nearly fleshed out enough to care about Gilgamesh dying, they at least established their connection to where you know it hits hard for them even if we can't quite feel it as the audience.  It at least hits somewhat because of that.
• The acting was great all around. This could have become very cheesy very easily with the concepts they were throwing around and the absurdity of some of the plot points.
• Arishem was done great, and I really like that we got insight into a Celestial. That shot at the end of him looming on the horizon when he comes for Sersi, Phastos, and Kingo was a great shot and something I hope they follow up on with people freaking the **** out, especially as this is just 5 years after Thanos. I liked that we got a real explanation on how a celestial is born/created.
• I thought how they used their powers together as a team was very well done. The only ones who are really way OP is Ikaris and Druig.
• He really seemed superfluous in this movie, but I am excited to see the direction Kit Harrington's character goes in, and loved Mahershala's line dropped in at the end there.
• Kingo and his valet were gold in just about every scene they were in.  The valet actually brought a nice touch of humanity to the story and when he thought that the world was going to end him thanking them for all they had done for mankind hit for me.

Cons

• Just too much to fit in a 155 minute movie.  This needed 8-10 hours to really flesh out some characters and backstories to make you care about them before they try to pay off the storylines.  This had big ideas and really expanded the MCU with Universe defining stuff and it just needed more time.
• So if they are essentially robots, why do they all look different, why is one deaf, why are they built to defy Arishem, why, why, why, why, why, why, etc.....??????!!!????!!!?? Ok, they are "synthetic beings" but yet they all seem to have human anatomy. Just a 1001 questions around this that make no sense if you look beyond the surface layer.
• Most of the payoffs aren't earned. 7000 years and "Oh, hey, I can do this, didn't know I can do that" and then that translates into killing a celestial? And somehow the celestial itself helped give the power and unified the Eternals to kill itself?  I'm still not sure how they were trying to explain that.
• I actually liked Richard Madden as Ikaris, but his motivations were puzzling and I don't think the character was written particularly well.  I think Madden elevated it above where it would have been had a lesser actor been in the role.  I get why he flew into the sun (did he actually die though?) at the end as he betrayed his love but his indecision then led to him failing his life's mission, it just needed to be set up more.  I kind of saw the heel turn coming and liked it, it just needed more time and to be fleshed out more.
• Why in the blue hell did Ajak tell Ikaris their true purpose back in 1521 after keeping it a secret for 6500 years?
• Phastos losing faith in humanity and the very next scene it's back. Seemed like a cop out.
• Am I the only one who saw Druig as evil? He basically surrounds himself with an army of slaves and convinces himself he is doing good because those people are so far beneath him and can't live their own life.

All in all I did like the movie though. It had potential to be so much more and I could probably go another 5 deep on the pros and cons alike, but this is what came to mind first. I am looking forward to what these characters do moving forward though.

B

The Duke's MCU Ranking

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2. Avengers: Infinity War
3. Avengers: Endgame
4. The Avengers
5. Captain America: Civil War
6. Doctor Strange
7. Thor: Ragnarok
8. Iron Man
9. Guardians of the Galaxy
10. WandaVision
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron
12. Captain America: The First Avenger
13. Thor
14. Spider-Man: Homecoming
15. Loki
16. Ant-Man
17. Spider-Man: Far From Home
18. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
19. Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2
20. Ant-Man and the Wasp
21. Eternals
22. What If?
23. Iron Man 2
24. Black Widow
25. Black Panther
26. Falcon and the Winter Soldier
27. Captain Marvel
28. Iron Man 3
29. The Incredible Hulk
30. Thor: The Dark World

[JonStark]

Just saw this and loved it. Pretty sure anyone who thinks it's awful was just looking for another generic marvel formula movie, which it definitely was not. Give me this over Captain Marvel any day. 

[mse326]

On 11/22/2021 at 8:52 AM, THE DUKE said:

So if they are essentially robots, why do they all look different, why is one deaf, why are they built to defy Arishem, why, why, why, why, why, why, etc.....??????!!!????!!!?? Ok, they are "synthetic beings" but yet they all seem to have human anatomy. Just a 1001 questions around this that make no sense if you look beyond the surface layer.

So I know I'm super late in given my "answer" but I just saw it. What I got for this is 

1) They look different so they can blend in to human cultures. They weren't meant to just be on the ship until a deviant attack
2) I don't know why they made her deaf. My only guess is playing on the when one sense is gone others heighten and they made a point to say how good she was a sensing vibrations. That could be useful to alerting to a deviant attack
3) I don't think they were built to defy Arishem. Remeber the Deviants were created and evolved to a point that was counterproductive. That is why the Eternals were created as non evolving synthetic. He thought that would fix the issue But he also said he keeps the memories that are wiped to study the Deviants to see what went wrong hinting that they don't have a clear answer to that so it is entirely possible the "defect" still remains. I would suggest giving them emotions at all is likely that defect
4) They have out human anatomy. We don't know anything about inner anatomy. They seem to bleed but not nearly as much as a human would with those injuries. But this also goes back to point 1. They need to blend in so need to appear human

[D82]

So finally saw this. 

It didn't feel like a Marvel movie. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly great either. To be honest it left me wanting to see more from Harrington's character than anything. 

[sdrawkcab321]

Holy hell what a boring movie.

[D82]

Another thing that bothered me - if max population was the ultimate goal, why in the hell were the Eternals not allowed to interfere in wars or other conflicts? 

[Tetsujin]

It definitely felt as long as its running time, but I found it pretty engrossing overall. 

[mse326]

23 hours ago, D82 said:

Another thing that bothered me - if max population was the ultimate goal, why in the hell were the Eternals not allowed to interfere in wars or other conflicts? 

For general human wars they said it was because war drives innovation and medicine that was necesary for growth. I can get on board with that as a plausible enough explanation, except...

Not being involved in the infintiy war makes zero sense.

[AlexGreen#20]

if maximum population is the goal, Ikarus needs to start rounding up humans into a farm and Druig needs to make them get down to business. We could've wrapped this thing up in a tight 1000 years? If the tech guy developed all the cool tech anyway and you had a perfect healer on your squad, this was dumb.

And I get this criticism is the equivalent of the "If superman was really used for his most uilitarian task, it would be cranking a lever connected to a turbine forever to generate CO2 free power for the entire world" but it just seemed odd. 

Frustrating movie, there was promise and it wasn't reached.