Marvel's The Eternals

[Leo656]

What kinda dumbass thinks that Terence Howard and Don Cheadle look anything remotely similar?

That goes beyond racism into "I just shot smack into both my eyeballs" territory.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

What kinda dumbass thinks that Terence Howard and Don Cheadle look anything remotely similar?

That goes beyond racism into "I just shot smack into both my eyeballs" territory.

I don't get into these fake "That's racist!" discussions... but yeah, I've had that same thought. You'd be hard-pressed to find two black guys that look more different than Terence Howard and Don Cheadle. Like, behind the scenes, maybe they didn't say it... but there must have been this general understanding of, "Well... it IS another black guy, right? That's good enough, yeah?"

[Andrew NDB]

This must be the clip Jester saw. It's not GHASTLY... but man, what a weird clip to throw out there to try and drum up interest in the movie. This has, like, the opposite effect. I want to see it less now.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

This must be the clip Jester saw. It's not GHASTLY... but man, what a weird clip to throw out there to try and drum up interest in the movie. This has, like, the opposite effect. I want to see it less now.

"The world outside your window". We don't measure things in terms of quality anymore and we aren't allowed to say that any aspect of a culture is a personal turn-off. Instead we are supposed to be, as was alluded to by another dromer here, "intellectually open-minded" which now means that being gay, evaluating cultural oddities and so on are automatically just things that you enjoy and embrace in your life.

Instead of... you know evaluating it's place in your life and either doing it or rejecting it. Like a person who understands things.

Understand the ridiculousness of this? Some of the mouth-breathers here will miss the nuance. We now live. In a world. Where being "open-minded". No longer means evaluation. But instead just means "everything is okay" and should be partaken in. I grew up in an area of Chicagoland that had a lot of Indian Immigrants in it. I had Indian friends. Cool people. I have nothing against Indian culture and need to say that here for the mouth breathers who can't grasp my point.

"Inclusion" no longer means respecting a culture or what people choose to do. Instead, inclusion now means do what we do or you are a bigot. This movie is woke $#!(. Stop being so easily manipulated people.

[sdp]

I think we can all agree no matter how you feel about the MCU that the peak was reached with end game and it'll never reach that point again. It's not going to die overnight of course, it'll continue to do just fine for the next few years but on a downward trend. X-Men is not going to magically save the MCU, hell not even Iron Man coming back with RDJ.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by sdp

I think we can all agree no matter how you feel about the MCU that the peak was reached with end game and it'll never reach that point again. It's not going to die overnight of course, it'll continue to do just fine for the next few years but on a downward trend. X-Men is not going to magically save the MCU, hell not even Iron Man coming back with RDJ.

They can't even bring RDJ back as Iron Man in any gratifying way.

I'll tell you exactly what they are going to do - RDJ will come back as Iron Man. In a final bow out he will appear in two movies - at the end of an Avengers flick he will be revealed as a pawn of Kang (and to be evil).

And then in the next movie he will rebel against Kang doing something that let's the "new heroes" defeat Kang.

It will take from the most hated Iron Man story in history - "The Crossing". And that will be RDJ's "encore" under the guise that he returned to "do something new".

And it will f'n SUCK.

[Andrew NDB]

Guaranteed we get a "Tony plucked from a point in time" to show up in Avengers vs. X-Men.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Guaranteed we get a "Tony plucked from a point in time" to show up in Avengers vs. X-Men.

See, if that were the case, maybe that'd be entertaining.

But with the confirmation that Kang is the next bad guy, and given how "The Crossing" was structured in the late 90's book event, and how this would allow Downey an "encore" and then to be killed off again to "pass the torch", I can't help but believe that it's going to play out as "Evil Iron Man manipulated by Kang only to betray him at the last minute, die again and pass the torch".

I mean - the whole thing is literally setup to the patterns of "The Crossing" story adapted to film where Kang plucks Iron Man from a timeline to use him for evil. The audience cheers at RDJ's return, but the "artsy BS" is in place for Downey to "do something different with the character" as a send off.

[AquaParade]

There are a gazillion different "cool" ways to bring Tony back, and all you need is some creativity. I mean, generally speaking, I'd like for a larger sense of consequence, in regards to death, within the MCU. That aside, you could come up with a bunch of creative ways to bring back Tony in a way that is fun and exciting, and I don't think it's fair to say the MCU is devoid of creativity.

There are so many ways to do it, they probably haven't even decided yet. But for sure, they are already planning it. I think plucking him from somewhere in the timeline is the obvious route to go, because you don't want to undo his death. A "variant" version is just as likely. I mean, there are so many cool things you could do with that, if you're creatively inclined. I wouldn't mind seeing Tony's reaction to the news that his death is imminent within the next few years, were they to pluck him from the "main" MCU timeline.

[ProphetofGanja]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

There are a gazillion different "cool" ways to bring Tony back, and all you need is some creativity.

I don't know about y'all but I'm ready to see an Iron Man variant in the next Doctor Stange flick played by Tom Cruise

Originally Posted by sdp

...the peak was reached with end game infinity war and it'll never reach that point again...

there, fixed it for you

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by ProphetofGanja

I don't know about y'all but I'm ready to see an Iron Man variant in the next Doctor Stange flick played by Tom Cruise




there, fixed it for you

YESSSSss.... End Game was incredibly underwhelming. Especially when measured against Infinity War. It was truly a Back to the Future III as compared to Back to the Future II.

[ProphetofGanja]

Originally Posted by IMJ

YESSSSss.... End Game was incredibly underwhelming. Especially when measured against Infinity War. It was truly a Back to the Future III as compared to Back to the Future II.

I mean I'm a HUGE MCU fan, and I really, really wanted to love it, but there were just a few too many plot holes or instances where I feel like narratively they made a misstep for me to truly love it. I liked it for the most part when I saw it theaters, was largely dissatisfied with it the first time I rewatched it at home, but now I've made my peace with it and am more looking forward to the next installments of the Marvel franchises I enjoy most (Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, etc.).

I mean christ if the directors and writers of a movie can't even agree on how time travel/timeline hopping works then how are we supposed to trust in the validity of any of the in-universe rules they've set-up?

[sdp]

You don't have to love it, Marvel will never hit that pop culture peak ever again, the amount of hype out of 10 years worth of movies culminated in it whether you liked it or not it was still the top of relevance the brand will ever have. A bad example since I think Pokemon is far more popular than Marvel but as popular as it is right now it will never reach the height of the Pokemon Go fad, and the Pokemon Go fad never reached the height of the original 1999/2000 fad. It might be good, the worse these movies get the less we'll get and the more quality we'll get out of them and hopefully other genres that aren't cape stuff gets movies made.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by IMJ

YESSSSss.... End Game was incredibly underwhelming. Especially when measured against Infinity War. It was truly a Back to the Future III as compared to Back to the Future II.

There's a lot to like in Endgame (also a lot to dislike) but yeah, it's not nearly the polished machine that Infinity War was.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by ProphetofGanja

I mean I'm a HUGE MCU fan, and I really, really wanted to love it, but there were just a few too many plot holes or instances where I feel like narratively they made a misstep for me to truly love it. I liked it for the most part when I saw it theaters, was largely dissatisfied with it the first time I rewatched it at home, but now I've made my peace with it and am more looking forward to the next installments of the Marvel franchises I enjoy most (Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, etc.).

I mean christ if the directors and writers of a movie can't even agree on how time travel/timeline hopping works then how are we supposed to trust in the validity of any of the in-universe rules they've set-up?

We are, given what you said here, apparently on close to identical pages regarding all of this.

[neatoman]

The movie premiered in Sweden today so I went to see it and... Yeah, it is bad, there really isn't much in terms of redeeming qualities. Here is a non-spoiler rundown of why it doesn't work:

• The actors have very little chemistry and that might be in part because most of them don't just have very little screen time together, many of them don't have much screen time at all.
• While I would commend the movie for trying to give the goal of saving the world some kind of moral dilemma, it doesn't really mean much if you spend more than a few minutes thinking about it.
• There is a lot of really weird humor in this movie, not only is much of it unfunny, it lacks proper timing and often interrupt moments that are meant to be taken seriously.
• Many of the characters just seem really underdeveloped, they just don't seem much like believable people.
• In many ways it seems like perfect example of the MCU biggest criticism, "Set-Up for Set-Up for Set-Up the movie". The movie proper ends with a cliffhanger and the two after credits scenes seem like set-up for two other movies, yes, this movie really does just seem like forerunner for three different movies.
• Finally, it is boring, it is really boring. It is very long, it is very slow and I swear there is a lot that could have been cut.

As for spoilers:

Spoiler:

Celestials incubate within planets and new Celestials need to be created to maintain a living universe. For some poorly explained reason I can't remember, an intelligent population is required for the new Celestials to emerge, killing them all in the process. To make sure intelligent life emerges, the Deviants were created to hunt down any creature that stood in the way of intelligent life evolving, the problem is that they eventually start to hunt the intelligent life. To solve this problem the Eternals, who are Androids in this version and thus can't change to become a threat to intelligent life, were created to hunt down the Deviants. When the intelligent life reaches it's zenith, the Celestial emerges. To prevent the Eternals from getting attached and protecting the intelligent life beyond it's purpose, they are lead to believe they're a natural alien race and their minds are reset so they can continue to do this several times over. The reason it goes differently this time is because the leader is allowed to know the truth and something about Humans was different enough for her not to let it happen.

There are several problems with this.

First off. Yes, I understand that saving the world this time does have some negative side effects as it will prevent new stars from forming. However, what actually prevents the Celestials from trying this on another planet? How many other Celestials are incubating? Surely the loss of one has to be more of a setback than a catastrophe. Indeed, the movie ends with some of the Eternals being sent off to trial for killing the Celestial incubating in Earth, the outcome of which will determine if it was justified. So clearly the notion that humanity might have been worth the death of a Celestial is being given serious thought.

The movie also confirms that Thanos is indeed an Eternal in this continuity but this raises questions about their nature. Eros shows up and claims to be the Brother of Thanos and there is an artbook or something that states Thanos has a father. The problem here is that if the Eternals are unchanging Androids with built in limits that prevent them from going too far, they should not really be able to procreate. Granted, we don't know the full extent of what family means here but Infinity War did indeed imply Thanos was a Titan native and that he was part of the Titan race, a planet of Eternals doesn't really make sense regardless because their purpose is to protect intelligent life rather than have societies of their own. And if Thanos and his family were just protectors of Titan, it shouldn't have failed to overpopulation itself, Titan's Celestial would just have emerged and destroyed the planet, there would have been no ruins to go back to. This also raises the question as to why Thanos and Eros weren't just reset and sent off to other worlds, why was Thanos allowed to conquer and wipe out populations if this goes against the purpose of Eternals?

We are also not really given a reason for why Earth is special. We are told it because the leader saw goodness in humanity but surely that can't be unique to humanity? And when we are given examples of problems with humanity, we are shown the Spanish wiping out the Aztecs and the ruins of Hiroshima. The defense of humanity seems pretty weak. The Hiroshima bombing even seems emotionally crushing to one of them, granted he doesn't remember helping to destroy planets but how much worse can the previous alien civilizations have been in comparison? If they were comparable to what humanity is now, what could they possibly have done that was so much worse that they weren't worth saving?

[Andrew NDB]

Might as well spill what the after credits scenes are all about.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by neatoman

The movie premiered in Sweden today so I went to see it and... Yeah, it is bad, there really isn't much in terms of redeeming qualities. Here is a non-spoiler rundown of why it doesn't work:

• The actors have very little chemistry and that might be in part because most of them don't just have very little screen time together, many of them don't have much screen time at all.
• While I would commend the movie for trying to give the goal of saving the world some kind of moral dilemma, it doesn't really mean much if you spend more than a few minutes thinking about it.
• There is a lot of really weird humor in this movie, not only is much of it unfunny, it lacks proper timing and often interrupt moments that are meant to be taken seriously.
• Many of the characters just seem really underdeveloped, they just don't seem much like believable people.
• In many ways it seems like perfect example of the MCU biggest criticism, "Set-Up for Set-Up for Set-Up the movie". The movie proper ends with a cliffhanger and the two after credits scenes seem like set-up for two other movies, yes, this movie really does just seem like forerunner for three different movies.
• Finally, it is boring, it is really boring. It is very long, it is very slow and I swear there is a lot that could have been cut.

As for spoilers:

Spoiler:

Celestials incubate within planets and new Celestials need to be created to maintain a living universe. For some poorly explained reason I can't remember, an intelligent population is required for the new Celestials to emerge, killing them all in the process. To make sure intelligent life emerges, the Deviants were created to hunt down any creature that stood in the way of intelligent life evolving, the problem is that they eventually start to hunt the intelligent life. To solve this problem the Eternals, who are Androids in this version and thus can't change to become a threat to intelligent life, were created to hunt down the Deviants. When the intelligent life reaches it's zenith, the Celestial emerges. To prevent the Eternals from getting attached and protecting the intelligent life beyond it's purpose, they are lead to believe they're a natural alien race and their minds are reset so they can continue to do this several times over. The reason it goes differently this time is because the leader is allowed to know the truth and something about Humans was different enough for her not to let it happen.

There are several problems with this.

First off. Yes, I understand that saving the world this time does have some negative side effects as it will prevent new stars from forming. However, what actually prevents the Celestials from trying this on another planet? How many other Celestials are incubating? Surely the loss of one has to be more of a setback than a catastrophe. Indeed, the movie ends with some of the Eternals being sent off to trial for killing the Celestial incubating in Earth, the outcome of which will determine if it was justified. So clearly the notion that humanity might have been worth the death of a Celestial is being given serious thought.

The movie also confirms that Thanos is indeed an Eternal in this continuity but this raises questions about their nature. Eros shows up and claims to be the Brother of Thanos and there is an artbook or something that states Thanos has a father. The problem here is that if the Eternals are unchanging Androids with built in limits that prevent them from going too far, they should not really be able to procreate. Granted, we don't know the full extent of what family means here but Infinity War did indeed imply Thanos was a Titan native and that he was part of the Titan race, a planet of Eternals doesn't really make sense regardless because their purpose is to protect intelligent life rather than have societies of their own. And if Thanos and his family were just protectors of Titan, it shouldn't have failed to overpopulation itself, Titan's Celestial would just have emerged and destroyed the planet, there would have been no ruins to go back to. This also raises the question as to why Thanos and Eros weren't just reset and sent off to other worlds, why was Thanos allowed to conquer and wipe out populations if this goes against the purpose of Eternals?

We are also not really given a reason for why Earth is special. We are told it because the leader saw goodness in humanity but surely that can't be unique to humanity? And when we are given examples of problems with humanity, we are shown the Spanish wiping out the Aztecs and the ruins of Hiroshima. The defense of humanity seems pretty weak. The Hiroshima bombing even seems emotionally crushing to one of them, granted he doesn't remember helping to destroy planets but how much worse can the previous alien civilizations have been in comparison? If they were comparable to what humanity is now, what could they possibly have done that was so much worse that they weren't worth saving?

Just curious - given the marketing, the word of mouth, etc; did you expect this to be a good movie? Why did you fork over the cash and reward this?

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Might as well spill what the after credits scenes are all about.

My understanding is that Harry Stiles appears as Eros - a character the media shills made a huge deal about but that 99% of the movie going population will have ZERO clue about if the aren't into the deeper Marvel material.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Might as well spill what the after credits scenes are all about.

Spoiler:

The first one is Eros showing up because he needs the help of his fellow Eternals. I'm assuming this task is unrelated to the trial because why else wouldn't they all be on trial otherwise? This is also the scene where Thanos is confirmed to be an Eternal.

The second one is where Sersi's boyfried (who was barely in the movie by the way) is revealed to be in posession of a magic sword which he will pick up and Become the Black Knight in a future movie. This scene is absolutely an example of the MCU's worst tendencies. It really does seem like he is only in this movie to hype up the next movie he'll be in, there was virtually no point in having him in this movie beyond the need to set-up the hook.

Originally Posted by IMJ

Just curious - given the marketing, the word of mouth, etc; did you expect this to be a good movie? Why did you fork over the cash and reward this?

I expected it to be less awkward, not good but at least following a decent structure. I go watch movies I figured was going to be worse than I expected this to be (and indeed are), sometimes I even go and watch movies I know for a fact are bad. It's a little complicated to answer but I don't think it's a bad thing to deliberately watch bad movies. Good movies are certainly preferable but there is something refreshing about watching bad ones.

I guess you need to see Andy Warhol's "art" in order to appreciate a real artist sometimes?

[Andrew NDB]

So basically...

Spoiler:

... no Galactus or Fantastic Four stuff. Lame.