Eternals

Scott Hardie: Two things have made me wonder if this movie will age well.

A Marvel fan recently told me that based on his knowledge of the comics, this movie seemed to spend a lot of time establishing a lot of details about the greater cosmos in the MCU, and he thinks that audiences will appreciate it more in hindsight once everyone sees how much groundwork it had to lay. I'm skeptical of this, since the first Guardians of the Galaxy also did a ton of world-building AND managed to be hugely entertaining, but I'd like to be wrong.

Also, I've been thinking a lot lately about themes of power and ethics, particularly since we're re-watching season 1 of Jessica Jones and season 2 of Agent Carter which both deal heavily with those same themes. I definitely didn't give Eternals enough credit for the big philosophical ideas driving the plot. Here's a group of super-beings who have the ability to help ordinary humans in need and a commandment never to use those abilities. That's an exciting conflict, and the schism that forms in the team over whether their abilities in fact obligate them to help ordinary humans is one of the MCU's more thoughtful explorations of the topic. In fact, it could be argued that different Eternals embody different ideas about how power should be applied (if I remember correctly after this long): Druig that people must always be helped with their power, Phastos who channels his power into other works if he cannot use it, Ikaris that their commandment is what restrains them from abusing their power, Thena that she deserves the right to make her own choice without manipulation, Sersi that they should do the "right" thing even as her conscience changes her mind as to what that means, and so on. The movie failed as entertainment, but I don't think it failed as a philosophical exercise; somewhere there's a Philosophy 101 student who got a decent essay out of it.

I don't know if a sequel will happen, but I wouldn't mind seeing an episode of What If...? that depicts what would have happened if the Eternals had intervened against Thanos during the events of Avengers: Infinity War, since the line of dialogue in the film about why they sat out the conflict doesn't feel satisfying. − April 1, 2023 • more by Scott

Scott Hardie: Making other movies about individual Eternals might have helped, or it might have revealed that they're unlikable after spending a smaller sum. This one promises that "the Eternals will return" but I very much doubt that they'll have any significant role to play in the future, given the relative unpopularity of this film. If Kevin Feige had a plan to put the Eternals front and center in a post-Avengers MCU, he's frantically reworking it now.

The lack of personality was really the most glaring flaw. The movie gave Kumail Nanjiani's character a personal valet sidekick in order to add some levity, and that character was mildly amusing, but if you already have TEN main characters and you find yourself adding a funny fat best friend because none of them are interesting enough, maybe you should rethink what you're doing.This reply contains spoilers. Reveal it. − December 7, 2021 • more by Scott

Evie Totty: Haha FOR REAL! − December 7, 2021 • more by Evie

Scott Hardie: Yeah, the introductions of Puck, Eros, Black Knight, and Blade in the closing credits aren't just a problem in the way that plagues so many MCU credits scenes (everything feels like a trailer for something else instead of feeling complete), and they're not just a problem because three of those characters will be of zero interest to a mass audience. They're a problem because they assume some transference of excitement from the Eternals to these new characters, and the Eternals are the most boring superheroes who ever bored an audience. I remember liking Puck and Black Knight from the comics, but I could't give a damn what happens to them after seeing them at the tail end of this disaster.

Presumably many viewers were excited to see Harry Styles in a cameo as Eros, but I'm amused at the idea of the nerds in the audience being just as excited to spot Patton Oswalt as Puck. :-)This reply contains spoilers. Reveal it. − January 15, 2022 • more by Scott

Matthew Preston: Ha! It's funny you say that because I immediately recognized Patton Oswalt, but had no idea who Harry Styles was.This reply contains spoilers. Reveal it. − January 15, 2022 • more by Matthew

Evie Totty: LOL Saaaaaame.

BTW - Scott, would you say this movie was boring? − January 16, 2022 • more by Evie

Scott Hardie: Yes. And I believe that's one of the worst things that you can say about a movie. The Room was terrible, but it wasn't boring. − January 16, 2022 • more by Scott

Scott Hardie: A friend of mine fell asleep while seeing it in the theaters. :-( − January 17, 2022 • more by Scott

Matthew Preston: Yikes, I've known some folks to drift off in a movie theater, but some of that blame has to be on how comfortable the seats are these days. :-) − January 17, 2022 • more by Matthew

Matthew Preston: After watching Encanto for the 8th time (not an exaggeration!), I realized that we could use Lin- Manuel Miranda to do a character intro song for all of the Eternals at the beginning of this film. Something where each character's name is sung several times, a brief background on them, and what their powers are. It would be extremely helpful (and fun to watch)! − January 17, 2022 • more by Matthew

Scott Hardie: Kelly, who really enjoyed Encanto and has been humming the songs for two days, thoroughly approves of your idea and started making up the lyrics as soon as I mentioned it. − January 18, 2022 • more by Scott