Spoilers Eternals grade and discussion thread

[Nerys Myk]

I had no idea Blade had any connection with the Black Knight so that's whole new territory for me.

None that I'm aware of. Perhaps the Ebony Blade has been used by Vampire hunters in the past.

Biggest disapointment for me in the film was the total waste of the Deviants and especially Kro. The relationship between Kro and Thena was one of the best parts of the comic.

 

[Turtletrekker]

None that I'm aware of.

Blade and Dane Whitman were on a team together.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MI-13_(comics)

 

[Nerys Myk]

Not a corner of the MU I'm familiar with.

 

[YLu]

What? We are talking about a quite linear movie here. It's a Marvel flick after all. Not Tenet or whatever

Yeah, but there's A LOT of exposition, dealing in a bunch of made-up terms and names, including talk about Thanos and the Blip that wouldn't mean anything to someone who didn't watch or doesn't remember Endgame. The very first line of the film is "Before the six Singularities and the dawn of creation..." or something.

 

[Skipper]

Yeah, but there's A LOT of exposition, dealing in a bunch of made-up terms and names, including talk about Thanos and the Blip that wouldn't mean anything to someone who didn't watch or doesn't remember Endgame. The very first line of the film is "Before the six Singularities and the dawn of creation..." or something.

You have a point. I just wouldn't want that if the movie didn't do well at the box office, some Marvel Studios executive would say, "See?!? We have to make dumber movies!".

 

[Booji]

If Arishem finds hewmons guilty in his trial, I wonder if they might use this as a way to bring in Galactus as his executioner.

 

[Nerys Myk]

If Arishem finds hewmons guilty in his trial, I wonder if they might use this as a way to bring in Galactus as his executioner.

A friend of mine had the same idea.

 

[StCoop]

Too long. Too slow. Too boring.

And if you need to stop the film halfway through for a ten minute exposition dump to explain the plot you've failed as a film maker.

That said, it certainly doesn't deserve the critical mauling it got. I've seen dozens of worse movies in my life; like Iron Man 2 and Thor 2 for example.

Also, I don't know what the reaction was like elsewhere but at my showing the audience erupted in laughter when Harry Styles appeared and not in a good way.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

If Arishem finds hewmons guilty in his trial, I wonder if they might use this as a way to bring in Galactus as his executioner.

I like that idea a lot. Plus that gives the film series enough time to establish the Fantastic Four before bringing in the threat of Galactus.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I like that idea a lot. Plus that gives the film series enough time to establish the Fantastic Four before bringing in the threat of Galactus.

A few years ago the idea of four civilians going into space seemed a bit preposterous. They even dumped the space angle in the last FF films. But with the advent of SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin it's no longer. So, I can see Reed as a Elon Musk type building his own rocket and recruiting his friends as crew.

 

[JD]

I don't know much about the Black Knight so I was intrigued by the post-credits scene. I figured we wouldn't get much about Dane beyond a tease, but I was surprised we didn't see him pick up the sword...nor did I expect the audio cameo from Mahershala Ali (whose voice I recognized but couldn't place until I read about it later). I had no idea Blade had any connection with the Black Knight so that's whole new territory for me.

Have they said anything yet about where we'll get the follow up on this? Could Mahershala Ali's be voice a hint it'll be Blade?
I actually missed the post-credits scene, the only one I'd heard about was the one with Harry Stlyes as Eros, so I thought that was the only one, and I didn't really feel like sitting through all of the rest of the credits to see if there was another.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

There's always a post-credits scene! Endgame and one of the phase one films (which had a trailer for The Avengers instead) are the only exceptions!

As for the Black Knight follow-up, we have no official word and Harrington has been very cagey about the whole thing (much like whether Jon Snow would stay dead or not and we all knew the answer). Ali's vocal cameo does seem to suggest it'll be in Blade. I don't know much about the character to make an educated guess where else he would show up and presumably Blade will come out before the possible second Eternals film.

 

[StCoop]

I don't know much about the character to make an educated guess where else he would show up and presumably Blade will come out before the possible second Eternals film.

Getting a sequel will be an interesting test of how much or little the success of one piece in the Marvel machine matters to Disney.

 

[Anwar]

If Arishem finds hewmons guilty in his trial, I wonder if they might use this as a way to bring in Galactus as his executioner.

Seeing how they made Ego into a Celestial when in the comics he isn't one, it's wholly possible that they'll make Galactus a Celestial as well.

Their Executioner, like you mentioned.

 

[Noname Given]

Getting a sequel will be an interesting test of how much or little the success of one piece in the Marvel machine matters to Disney.

It looks like they want the Eternals to drive the next Phase of the MCU. I believe there was an Eternals comic book storyline about having to stop the Celestials from returning to wipe out all life on Earth for some reason. I never read it but one of the people in our group who saw the movie was talking about that. So that's probably the next big background 'next disaster that the MCU Heroes have to avert' storyline that they're going with for this Phase.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It looks like they want the Eternals to drive the next Phase of the MCU. I believe there was an Eternals comic book storyline about having to stop the Celestials from returning to wipe out all life on Earth for some reason. I never read it but one of the people in our group who saw the movie was talking about that. So that's probably the next big background 'next disaster that the MCU Heroes have to avert' storyline that they're going with for this Phase.

Yeah,that's more or less the plot of the first Eternals series. The Celestials return to Earth several times over the millennia. Each time for a different purpose. The final one is judgement. The second host was responsible for the cataclysm that sunk Atlantis and gave rise to the various Great Flood myths

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I thought this movie had a lot of enjoyable moments. It just never seemed to find any real momentum to give it moments that stood out as great. And, for the length it was, it felt like it needed to feel like a rollercoaster ride where the time zips by.

Obviously, it couldn't be done with the expense, but I could almost see this working as a TV miniseries where it was broken down into four or five 45 minute segments combining together a flashback scene of an era with a present day scene.

 

[Saul]

I was uneven ground here since I knew nothing about the Eternals. The film was not bad, It is slow in the middle. I didn't know these characters so I wasn't really invested in them and there wasn't much momentum to the story so that didn't help with my enjoyment of the film. The last hour was pretty good though. I doubt it will be a marvel movie I will be revisiting much.

 

[Nightowl1701]

One thing I was confused on: What was the point of Kingo leaving the group instead of helping with the Uni-Mind? I get he didn't want to face Arishem but it felt like nothing came from that decision. He simply disappeared from the film until the denouement...when he's forced to face Arishem anyways. Either way, it was a shame not to see him part of the Uni-Mind during the climax.

I can only figure one of two things:

1) Rewrite/reshoots. Kingo and his buddy were supposed to be killed by Ikaris when he broke bad on their starship, but the comedy duo act proved too good to end so brutally and Zhao/Feige had a change of heart. Plus they might've figured Ikaris killing one more Eternal would have pushed him past the line of audience sympathy/redemption. But the final battle was already locked in place, so they had to come up with another reason Kingo wouldn't be there and then insert-shot him into the final scene.
2) COVID restrictions, or Kumail had other commitments ('Bless the Harts,' the Obi-Wan series) that precluded his being there for the battle and they had to write around it.

 

[Skywalker]

I really enjoyed it, and I'm disappointed by the poor reviews. Surely this movie isn't on the level of The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, or Thor: The Dark World.

I'd never read any Eternals comics so I went into this mostly not knowing what to expect, and honestly the movie didn't go anything like how I was thinking it might. For example, I thought Druig was going to be a bad guy and would, based on some stuff I'd read about Thena dealing with a mysterious mental problem, use his powers to control her as part of some evil plot. But instead Ikaris was the villain, which I didn't see coming at all. And I also thought the Emergence would have something to do with mutants, so while I'm mildly disappointed that it didn't (it's probably for the best anyway, Marvel has so many characters there's no need to rush the mutants) I quite liked the actual explanation for the event.

When I first heard that the Eternals were aware of Thanos and didn't do anything about him I was disappointed, but the reasoning made perfect sense to me once it was explained in the movie. The Blip was bad for business, in a manner of speaking!

I can understand why they changed the Deviants from fully sentient beings to mostly animalistic monsters, to be honest. I don't think it would have been a very good look if they'd kept the Deviants closer to their comic book counterparts and still had the Eternals going around massacring them. That being said, Kro was kind of wasted. Granted, he wasn't the primary antagonist we were expecting him to be, but I think it would have been interesting if he'd worked with the Eternals to stop Ikaris from preventing the Emergence. Oh well.

While I didn't really know much about the Eternals going into this, I'm more familiar with the Black Knight, so it was very fun to see Dane Whitman and the Ebony Blade (although, alas, not for very long.) I thought that was Mahershala Ali's voice at the very end, so I'm glad to see I was right about that; I can't wait to see his and the MCU's take on Blade. I guess this means we're going to see some form of MI-13 either in the movies or on Disney+, which could be fun. Hopefully that also means we'll get Captain Britain and the Excalibur team, too. In fact, I seem to recall Captain Britain and MI-13 being involved in fighting against the Skrulls in Secret Invasion...