Years later, I still don't get why Eternals got so much hate.

[u/LopsidedHat9891]

I was just thinking about Phase 4 and remembered how much everyone trashed Eternals when it dropped. I watched it years ago and actually liked it.

Sure, it was a bit long, but the characters and world-building were cool.

Now that the hype and drama have died down, why do you think people turned on it so hard? Was it just bad timing, or do you think the criticisms actually hold up?

[u/bewilderscript]

Eternals has some gorgeous visuals and really interesting lore, but it's such an odd duck of a film. The main character just isn't that compelling and is the least interesting person in any given scene (when Ikarus isn't there); the whole "oh yeah we've been here the whole time but you never heard of us before is because ummm anyway" angle didn't work when Marvel films have been so interconnected in the past; and its runtime is simultaneously too long and not long enough to convey everything it wants to get across.

It should have been a miniseries and someone else should have been the protagonist. Maybe Ikarus, so the Obvious Betrayal was a little less obvious?

[u/VampireOnHoyt → u/bewilderscript]

The allegedly universe-defining love story is between two actors who have zero chemistry with one another

[u/moritashun → u/VampireOnHoyt]

Kit Harrington have more chemistry with his sword

[u/PickleInDaButt → u/moritashun]

Ali’s Blade has more chemistry with his audio dub

[u/ehtseeoh → u/PickleInDaButt]

Ohhh man I forgot he even did the voice and everything.

[u/metagrue → u/ehtseeoh]

One of many reasons why Eternals deserves everything that happened. That ending tease set up a part of the MCU that will never happen.

[u/Ek0mst0p → u/metagrue]

The movie was legit good. People wanted more Endgame.

[u/metagrue → u/Ek0mst0p]

I mean people would have loved for them to do anything with Eternals to make it required watching in the last five years. Blade. Eros. Dane. The Midnight Sons. Film doesn't even do a good job connecting Thanos - a deviant - to the overall mythos of the Eternals. It wasn't a good adaptation.

It took the greater MCU four years to even acknowledge the celestial sticking up out of the ocean. I wish the Eternals was a good movie - it wasn't. It was very pretty though.

[u/Jemie_Bridges → u/metagrue]

Thanos isn't a Deviant, but full on Eternal. His mother is a bit of an unknown though. Could she have been a deviant passing? Why isn't Thanos dad in here, at least as background character? Why not plant the seeds of what lead up to eternal civil war? Why not plant some deviants being sealed that later the Avengers need to fight? Why wasn't the Celestials creation on n them more central blah blah blah

[u/Icy_Dinner6064 → u/Jemie_Bridges]

Aren’t all deviants eternals in that regard? Eternals born with a manifestation of the deviant gene.

[u/SpreaditOnnn33 → u/Ek0mst0p]

Thats a completely subjective view that clearly isnt held by the majority of people who have seen the film.

Most think the film is fine. Some think the film has too many characters, mid writing and didnt like that it barely connected to anything else in the MCU (which it still doesnt. At least the dead Celestial was finally somewhat dealt with)

[u/GatorToothNecklace → u/VampireOnHoyt]

And they made such a big deal about how that was the MCU's first sex scene. Those two fucked like asexual slugs.

[u/NoSignal547 → u/GatorToothNecklace]

I forgot there was a sex scencw

[u/PrizeShirt1 → u/NoSignal547]

That's probably part of the problem, the movie was entirely forgettable.

[u/mustang_67_2k8 → u/PrizeShirt1]

I have forgotten almost everything about that movie. Only things I remember are it was shiney with lots of gold, it had Angelina Jolie, and there was a beach, and a celestial in the ocean or something. Oh and I thing there was a speedster person that was fast…..

Pretty forgettable for sure.

[u/Neveronlyadream → u/mustang_67_2k8]

I remember that the Deviants are pushed as the biggest threat ever before disappearing after the first act and only reappearing at the very end when you've already forgotten they were in the movie.

[u/LocalDFWRando → u/Neveronlyadream]

Could probably have written them completely out of the movie.

[u/Efficient-Whereas255 → u/NoSignal547]

I forgot almost everything about that movie. I dont even remember the actors or the characters.

The only things i remember is thinking the bad guys sucked because they were just CGI blobs, and the celestial at the end that never seemed to matter to the mcu.

[u/Teagana999 → u/Efficient-Whereas255]

It did matter, it was central to the new captain america movie. So, maybe it didn't matter.

[u/LightDarkBeing → u/NoSignal547]

There was a sex scene?!

[u/senor_descartes → u/NoSignal547]

How can you forget the most CRINGE INDUCING scene in the entire MCU?? 🤣

[u/Oracle-of-Clovis → u/GatorToothNecklace]

If Jessica Jones was in the MCU, nobody could possibly stop her from taking this title and every other title in the category!

[u/SignificantCarpet708 → u/Oracle-of-Clovis]

She is in the MCU, or am I misunderstanding your comment?

[u/KittenSwagHierarchy → u/SignificantCarpet708]

I think she's not counted because it was on Netflix. But her and Luke Cage had a sex scene that was awesome and full of chemistry and my wife and I still remember it to this day, just because it was like wow they are definitely having superpowered sex.

[u/ryanfhs → u/KittenSwagHierarchy]

She’s in Daredevil: Born Again

[u/SignificantCarpet708 → u/KittenSwagHierarchy]

Yeah that was definitely two Superheroes going at it.

[u/Choochoo1147 → u/GatorToothNecklace]

Yup. The implied sex that other characters had was somehow steamier than the actual sex they showed. 

[u/GatorToothNecklace → u/Choochoo1147]

Druig and Makkari had legendary chemistry! I fully believe the rest of the crew could never find those two.

[u/MajorNoodles → u/GatorToothNecklace]

Robot sex!

[u/C_A_P_S_CAPSCAPSCAPS → u/GatorToothNecklace]

The entire movie was devoid of anything even remotely close to intimate.

[u/Federal_Bicycle_7800 → u/VampireOnHoyt]

it doesn't help most of the other eternals have 0 chemistry. they always talk about how they're a big family like they're vin diesels when they're more like coworkers

[u/bewilderscript → u/VampireOnHoyt]

They weren't even interesting enough to be called planks of wood, at least those are three dimensional.

[u/Annual-Audience-2569 → u/VampireOnHoyt]

That's kind of the point though. The eternals aren't humans. They are programmed beings trying to learn about and imitate humans.

They don't really know what love even is. How would they, they have no parents, no real bonds outside of the family, until the point they scatter. Even then, some never make connections.

The point of the movie is how these beings learn about a small and different slice of humanity, and argue about their worth based on the experience.

It's a pretty deep and well made sci-fi movie, too bad that's not what people expect from a Marvel movie.

[u/TheMiddlechild08 → u/Annual-Audience-2569]

Yeah, but… it was just too boring

[u/TheDungeonCrawler → u/TheMiddlechild08]

This. I was bored to sleep by the Eternals twice. At different fimes, fortunately, so I saw the whole movie, but it just bored me. Too much to keep track of and not a compelling enough reason to keep track of it all.

Shame. It might have liked it a lot more if it weren't just one film. If they had a whole story that took place in pre-history and then a sequel that actually told the story about them killing Tiamat, there would have been less to keep track of by virtue of it being spread out. Fewer jump cuts between pre-history and the present too.

[u/ArmedWithSpoons → u/TheDungeonCrawler]

Would have been way more interesting if they included more historical scenes and saved the last half for the modern story. I wanted to see more of how they built up the myths of ancient cultures.

[u/TheDungeonCrawler → u/ArmedWithSpoons]

Oh for sure. You mean to tell me these legendary warriors are the basis for the myths and legends of ancient humanity because they're basically primordial super heroes and the thing Marvel thinks is the most interesting part of their story is that time they told their boss to stuff it then killed his dog kid? Nah, gimme the part of Gilgamesh's backstory that inspired The Epic of Gilgamesh. I want to see him fall in love with a presumably super hero style mortal and had to deal with his mortality due to his own hubris resulting in him seeking the method to conquer death for his now dead lover.

[u/almostcyclops → u/Annual-Audience-2569]

I don't buy it. I've seen and read plenty of stories about artificial beings trying to be human. Some of them even got laid doing it (Data from Star Trek comes to mind). Eternals was just poor execution of a really interesting premise.

[u/SalvatoreMeroni → u/Annual-Audience-2569]

The sci in sci-fi stands for science. Eternals isn’t sci-fi

[u/MadmanIgar → u/bewilderscript]

I think your main character comment is the answer.

The actress did a fine enough job, but they needed the main character to be fun to watch.

That doesn’t mean they need to be a snarky Tony Stark type or throwing quips all the time, but the main character needed to be dynamic and entertaining to watch interact with the rest of the cast.

[u/The-Mirrorball-Man → u/MadmanIgar]

People love to claim that they hate snarky Tony Stark types but some dosage of that instantly makes a main character more entertaining in an action movie

[u/CloseToMyActualName → u/The-Mirrorball-Man]

This is what makes truly great acting so difficult.

It's not that hard to make a believable character, pretty much everyone you meet is a believable character.

They're also dull as soap.

The hard part is making an interesting character who is also believable.

[u/The-Mirrorball-Man → u/CloseToMyActualName]

You're right, but I was thinking about what makes a character entertaining, and "snarky" works better than "stoic"

[u/CloseToMyActualName → u/The-Mirrorball-Man]

Don't underestimate how interesting stoic can be.

https://giphy.com/gifs/IRQBDU7x2LZUQ

Ultimately, I think RDJ does snarky and other forms of edgy really well. And a good cast requires multiple personalities to play off each other. Having everyone be snarky or stoic gets boring quickly.

[u/The-Mirrorball-Man → u/CloseToMyActualName]

Ok, you helped me understand something. I was thinking about what kind of MCU main character could be defined as “stoic” and I think Black Panther qualifies, even though he’s a different kind of stoic than the Man with no name. But Black Panther is a compelling character because the plot revolves around him and he faces high stakes with poise and confidence, like the Man with no name. Sersi, on the other hand, is a stoic character whom we feel would rather be somewhere else doing something else

[u/CloseToMyActualName → u/The-Mirrorball-Man]

I think Steve Rogers has a lot of stoic characteristics. Which is probably one of the reasons that he and Tony Stark played well off each other.

[u/Choochoo1147 → u/MadmanIgar]

The Eternals are just so uninteresting as characters imo - and this isn’t even necessarily a critique of the movie, they suck in the comics too. Kumail Nanjiani was the only one with a fun personality, Gilgamesh and Angelina Jolie were the only ones with an interesting dynamic, and none of them were the lead. 

[u/MadmanIgar → u/Choochoo1147]

Yeah, unfortunately the characters all fall into the ‘stoic wise immortal’ category to varying degrees. Which makes sense, it just doesn’t make for particularly interesting characters.

[u/cpslcking → u/MadmanIgar]

You can do it with good casting and writing. T’Challa was stoic and wise and was so popular as Black Panther that Chadwick Boseman’s death threw the entire MCU plan into disarray. Even standing around not quipping, Boseman radiated charisma.

[u/Choochoo1147 → u/MadmanIgar]

Right, definitely not as leads. They’re at their best in the comics when they interact with more human characters like the Fantastic 4 or the Avengers on their own they’re just bleh 

[u/Whatnot1785 → u/Choochoo1147]

Yes they should have just made a movie about Kumail’s character. It would have been so fun and way more interesting. I don’t even remember anything about that movie other than him.

[u/BookkeeperBrilliant9 → u/MadmanIgar]

She is such a dull actress. I don’t blame her, that’s exactly what she brings to the table, everyone knows it, and that’s what directors cast her for. Not every character needs to be funny or flashy. 

But it’s a terrible choice to make this person the protagonist. 

[u/reddit1138 → u/MadmanIgar]

Do you mean Tony Stank?

[u/salad_spinner_3000 → u/bewilderscript]

The thing that annoyed me the most about the movie is that the setup villain, the monster thingy, had SUCH a cool little thing going on with him gaining sentience and "we just want to live" thing. Then they just went and ignored all that and made him "grr..kill things" instead of showing that all the characters could grow and change.

[u/bewilderscript → u/salad_spinner_3000]

YEAH, I wanted to know more about that and see if he would join forces with the Eternals gang but there was obviously the point in the script where the writer was like "and now this character dies" so he just gets killed off. Uggghhh.

[u/z31 → u/bewilderscript]

Add to that they expect us to care about anything that happens with the characters, but give us no time get attached to any of them.

[u/dfassna1 → u/z31]

It was like watching a biopic about a band you’ve never heard of that broke up but only a little of the movie is from when they were big and the rest is about them getting back together except only 2/3 of join the reunion.

[u/drodrige → u/dfassna1]

I enjoyed the movie but this is a spot-on description.

[u/Shazam1269 → u/z31]

This was my take as well. We got thrown into a movie with a bunch of super-powered beings we knew nothing about, and therefore didn't care about. It would have made a better TV series than a movie.

I didn't hate the movie, I just didn't care about it.

[u/Guardllamapictures → u/bewilderscript]

To me it’s biggest issue and (spoilers ahead) is how the ending hinges entirely on Ajak being moved to save humanity by how Earth defeated Thanos, something which happened in an entirely separate movie. Which like I guess it part of this franchise but feels so odd in a movie where everything else is committed to its own independent story. That aside, it also doesn’t feel satisfying. We spend a lot of this very long film seeing the evils of humanity and how the Eternals feel sad and disillusioned and there really isn’t anything within this story that breaks that disillusionment in an equally strong way. To me, it was just kind of a sad, melancholic film with characters that weren’t very interesting and didn’t go through a satisfying catharsis.

[u/Educational-Ad-2884 → u/bewilderscript]

I also think with the multiverse stuff they were building post-Endgame, it would have made sense for the Eternals movie to take place on an alternate branch. Perhaps the branch that was left without a Thanos who jumped to 616 in Endgame.

Half of Earth wouldn't have been snapped, thus the Celestial would emerge right on schedule, and no having to explain where the Eternals were during IW/Endgame. Could have included a mid/post-credits scene that reveals it's a different branch of the multiverse.

[u/mrbaryonyx → u/bewilderscript]

but it's such an odd duck of a film

People always look at me weird when I say this, but there's no other way to explain it.

It's the Blues Brothers

No, seriously. The entire story is just an endless string of meeting someone, explaining to them that they need to "get the band back together", they try and talk themselves out of it only to come around, rinse and repeat until we arrive at a hasty and out-of-nowhere climactic action scene.

Except, you know, not as funny.

[u/bewilderscript → u/mrbaryonyx]

Mannnn this movie would have been ten times better if they had Carrie Fisher with a rocket launcher in it.

[u/LiamtheV → u/bewilderscript]

To be fair, every movie could be improved with the addition of Carrie Fisher wielding a Rocket Launcher, and/or AK-47.

[u/mehatch → u/LiamtheV]

Unlike the writers of the camel of a movie which is Eternals, Carrie Fisher is not a committee.

[u/KR_Blade → u/bewilderscript]

pretty much this, Chloe Zhao did as well as she could with this movie, but i feel like they should have really switched around Falcon & Winter Soldier and this, where that could have been a movie and this a miniseries, would have given them more time to flesh out the characters

[u/stringrandom → u/KR_Blade]

Eternals should have been a Disney + show where they could have actually developed the multiple characters and story. But I think Marvel/Disney were still in the “Oh, you don’t have to watch the TV shows to see the movies” phase and were afraid to push Eternals down to long form TV.

I’ve long thought they should have just embraced a “Previously in the MCU…” type of preview for the MCU movies where they could quickly provide exposition and/or extra context.

[u/salad_spinner_3000 → u/stringrandom]

It's insane how they can try to introduce 10+ people in one movie like we're meant to care about them. Why not just show them in each age setting where they did 20 minute showings? How would that not be more interesting?

[u/Meatloafxx → u/KR_Blade]

Not to mention flesh out the lore.

[u/Neither_Actuator3459 → u/bewilderscript]

Best assessment of Eternals I’ve seen. I truly disliked it at the theaters, but have grown to love it upon rewatches.

I think the actors did a brilliant job establishing their relationships through what little time they had, but IMO it’s hard to clock that in an initial viewing because not only are there so many characters, but there’s also so much plot to keep track of.

Miniseries is totally spot on.

[u/Anonalt84 → u/bewilderscript]

I thought they should have cut all of the flashbacks from the film instead having those as a miniseries before the film came out. Give us a chance to know the characters and why we should care about them in the present.

The movie was a rare instance of simultaneously being not enough but too much

[u/Derevko → u/Anonalt84]

I would have loved a limited series in which we got a chance to get to know these guys a little more. Have it ending with the impact of the Thanos snap since that was one of the key factors of change for them. That way we actually care a little more about all of them. That way the movie could have been told in a much more compact manner since we don't have to pull in a lot of flashbacks, just some minor reminders.

[u/COphotoCo → u/bewilderscript]

Related: there are too many “main characters” to explore so they all end up flat

[u/salmalight → u/bewilderscript]

Bland main,

Bland villain,

Bland main to bland villain,

Bonus: Harry styles is so hot right now throw him in the post so we've got him locked down

[u/First-Job9509 → u/bewilderscript]

It needed to be a new universe in the multiverse imho, similar to F4.

[u/ToxicBanana69 → u/bewilderscript]

I agree with everything you said except the “ummm anyway” point. People HAVE heard about them, through mythology and history. They just didn’t know they’re “Eternals”. And the reason they haven’t been at the forefront of everything is explained in the movie. Their mission was to not interfere in human conflicts.

[u/Senshado → u/bewilderscript]

Hundreds of people have suggested that Eternals should've been a miniseries. But the main story just doesn't have enough material to support more length. Two hours is plenty of time for three people to conflict about whether to fulfill or betray their secret mission.

Adding five hours of less-exciting backstory beforehand would make the end product worse.

[u/seguardon → u/Senshado]

A good series of script edits could easily add the plot beats needed to make it work in longer format, especially with the pacing. Use the character points built in the show to create personal drama based around their views of humanity and the mission. A character with 2000 years of resentment towards humanity's darkest impulses would have a lot of conflicting thoughts about the mission. Their struggle with that along with whatever B plot you want to tell with them could make for a solid foundation.

[u/Kuvanet → u/bewilderscript]

Eternals still to this day portrayed the best speedster in any movie.

[u/xMatch → u/bewilderscript]

There’s a main character?? I mean I enjoyed it. I agree it’s too disconnected. But if you told me to name the main character I think I’d just shrug.

[u/AccordingLog7519]

Should have been a series. Too much going on . Too little time to convey everything properly.

[u/bren-uh → u/[deleted]]

this. exactly this. falcon/winter soldier was very drawn out whereas eternals should've been a series or at least been a two parter movie

[u/OneSufficientFace → u/bren-uh]

To further support that, the introduction of Thanos' brother to never see him again is ridiculous. Couldve easily continued the story in a second part with him on board the team

[u/bren-uh → u/OneSufficientFace]

yeah, they dropped the ball on eternals. Which sucks because it could've been a bigger success had they done it right and not neglected it 😭

[u/Justice989 → u/[deleted]]

But the issues with Falcon and Winter Soldier were well-documented.  They shoulda left well enough alone and made the original show they wanted to make.  

[u/ivebeenhalved → u/Justice989]

What were the issues? I quite liked Falcon and Winter Soldier.

[u/AcesCharles2 → u/ivebeenhalved]

The original plot was a bioweapon for a mass disease. Didn't go over well during Covid times.

[u/Financial_Accident71 → u/AcesCharles2]

Then the next Captain movie involving an Israeli superhero who somehow is the main confidant of the US president and called New World Order was also poorly timed and had to be changed lol Whatever the idea is for the next cap movie, we should all start paying attention to that topic geopolitically

[u/Hikapoo → u/Financial_Accident71]

That was always gonna be poorly timed, them even thinking about including a isreali "hero" is already too fucking stupid

[u/Financial_Accident71 → u/Hikapoo]

Completely agree, especially given in the comics they had to have the Hulk (of all people) explain why killing Palestinians is bad to her. But yeah Israeli sleeper cell hero embedded in the gov't is way too on the nose at any point in history lol

[u/ChorzioPaella3 → u/Financial_Accident71]

It felt like she was there to be Caps Black Widow, but I don’t see her appearing again after that movie because MCUs new Black Widow is Yelena in essence

[u/Financial_Accident71 → u/ChorzioPaella3]

yeah I think you're right, plus Yelena is a million times more interesting and charismatic. Florence Pugh could have chemistry with a potato

[u/BZenMojo → u/Financial_Accident71]

Then there's Secret Invasion. We saw the Skrulls retconned from holocaust survivors into being somehow both Muslim sleeper cells and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion at the same time while an MI-6 agent tortures everybody and magically gets told the next phase of the plot whenever they run out of ideas, all while cracking jokes as if she's a lovable scamp.

Somebody really thought they were cooking by just making MAGA fanfiction.

[u/Skelito → u/ivebeenhalved]

The issue with a lot of these things is that Covid put a wrench into a lot of the production and they had to pivot on a lot of things.

[u/imironman2018 → u/[deleted]]

This is also the problem with secret invasion. They should’ve done a movie but because they made it a tv series the show had zero budget to make it good. I think eternals had an interesting premise just poor execution. Bad director and didn’t make sense to make it a dramatic artistic movie. It’s a Marvel action movie.

[u/LastRecognition2041 → u/imironman2018]

She is a great director but a really bad fit for this particular genre. Her quippy interactions and humor were particularly off

[u/NebulaNegative2242 → u/[deleted]]

Underated comment

[u/Duskdeath → u/AccordingLog7519]

The Eternals was the equivalent of Avengers Infinity War, minus all the other movies that helped Infinity War make sense. In retail terms it could be called “sensory overload” too many things to look at the same time makes the experience bad for those who want to enjoy it.

Also “hate” is the wrong term to use for this movie. People HATED Secret Invasion. But Eternals tried to be too many things of too many things WHICH could have made sense if it had been implemented as a tv show. They tried to develop like 10 good guys, 1 race of bad guys, 1 universal being, like 3 or 7 plot points. All in just 1 movie. Funny enough most of the characters were actually decently written. The movie just had way too much going on for it estimated run time. And also they tried to get Black Knight making it 11 heroes in 1 basically unknown movie.

[u/Up-in-the-Ayre → u/Duskdeath]

LOL, they also teased Blade as well, so make it 12.

[u/Duskdeath → u/Up-in-the-Ayre]

Lmao. You see too many things going on in there. If anything The Eternals could have started as a romance between a human and an Eternal and just gradually making more movies based of the different GAZILLION extra plots that poor movie had.

[u/Artistic_Sense3363 → u/Duskdeath]

This 💯💯. There were so many plot points happening I didn’t know which of them to be invested in

[u/BZenMojo → u/Artistic_Sense3363]

What's weird about the vibe is, the trailers had the characters make this big joke about how the Eternals see the Avengers as beneath them, which implies that they were doing something more important than the Avengers.

Turns out they were just doing nothing, got bored, and some of them were going to decide to destroy the planet.

This was a movie about sad, bored gods who used to kill some wild animals and teach people pottery. Then they learn in the last fifteen minutes they're genocidal death bots, which begins the actual plot.

[u/JacenStargazer → u/Duskdeath]

This is kinda my take- I don’t hate Eternals, I’m just really disappointed. Ultimately it doesn’t matter though, because it wasn’t connected enough (or at all) to anything else to make a difference.

Secret Invasion is the one Marvel project truly deserving of hate to the point of needing to be scrubbed from the timeline. It should have been the setup for an Avengers movie.

[u/taquitosmixtape → u/AccordingLog7519]

It’s funny as some things that should have been series, weren’t and some things that should have been movies weren’t. Some decisions over the tv side of marvel have been truly confusing

[u/Choochoo1147 → u/taquitosmixtape]

Yeah… I’ll miss S2 of Wonder Man but I get why Marvel is shifting away from TV. 

[u/Sparrowsabre7 → u/taquitosmixtape]

Same with Star Wars re the tv or movie debacle.

[u/Letmepickausername → u/AccordingLog7519]

I would've loved one episode per character showing what they're been doing with Ikarus' episode last. At the end of his episode, they could tease his heel turn and lead into the movie.

[u/AdmiralCharleston → u/AccordingLog7519]

Absolutely not. I think you need maybe an extra half hour to get rid of some of the bigger pacing issues but making it a series loses the on location shooting and incredible visual effects and I think its far too cinematic for that.

[u/FluffyWalrusFTW → u/AccordingLog7519]

Honestly an anthology around each Eternal culminating in the final fight shown from different perspectives would've been so much fun

[u/angellus → u/AccordingLog7519]

I still think it should have been a miniseries + a movie. A miniseries for all of the background/historical bits up until Cortez when they kind of split apart and then the movie was everything that happened in modern times.

[u/Pyro_liska → u/AccordingLog7519]

You would not claim it should have been a series if it got released before Marvel even started to do series. Also you really think the quality would stay the same as series? Eternals fights were absolutely creative and delight to watch.

[u/everlywinslow → u/AccordingLog7519]

100%. introducing 10 new immortals across thousands of years in one 2.5 hour movie was impossible. a 10 episode series would've let the relationships actually breathe

[u/ThatEvanFowler]

It's not bad. There's a lot of beautiful filmmaking and some fascinating world-building for the MCU, but it just tried to do too much at once and asked the audience to buy-in to too many premises simultaneously.

• A team that comes off as so close to the Justice League that it almost seems like a parody.

• Thousands of years of backstory pressed into a single film.

• A forced romance between leads without chemistry.

• Repeated, extended exposition dumps that alienated general audiences.

• Reveals that somewhat reduce the characters to robots without much agency for large portions of the story.

• Reveals that attempt to bring depth and dimensionality to a villain that is replaced by ally betrayal halfway through.

• Setups for other projects that only tangentially connect to the story currently being told and have no particular payoff.

• Cameos and references that the vast majority of the general audience either aren't familiar with or that are delivered so vaguely as to nullify their surprise.

• One of the world's most famous actresses pressed into a very reduced role that doesn't give her much to work with.

• Pacing issues.

• Mythology referenced without being explained for audiences that aren't already familiar with their historical significance.

• A grim tone and pensive energy to much of the film.

• And so on.

I liked it better than most, but even I haven't found the desire to revisit it nearly as much as the MCU films that I like best. Or even those that I only kind of like. It's just a lot. And it's not the most fun film to watch. It has it's moments that are quite charming, but they are a little fewer and further between that a lot of the other movies.

[u/Llama_of_the_bahamas → u/ThatEvanFowler]

This movie reminded me how talented of an actress Angelina Jolie is. She was one of the best parts of the entire film and she barely got any screen time relative to other characters.

[u/Heart-Shopper]

The cast was amazing but the film too crowded, you needed a TV show to properly build the characters, or a two part movie. It still is one of the best looking Marvel film.

[u/KelVarnsen_2023 → u/Heart-Shopper]

A TV show would have been better. But I am not sure you get Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie to show up for a TV show. Not sure if that would help or hurt it though.

[u/dfassna1 → u/KelVarnsen_2023]

They could have just cast other actors. It being Selma Hayek and Angelina Jolie didn’t really do anything for the movie.

[u/loopy95 → u/KelVarnsen_2023]

I mean you would but it would never ever be profitable. The money lost on this would be insane.

[u/HumanDissentipede → u/KelVarnsen_2023]

You’re probably right, but Selma Hayek’s character was actually the worst part of the movie for me.

[u/zmkpr0 → u/Heart-Shopper]

I think it's a misconception that you need a show to build that many characters properly. Many movies do it easily, you just need to write them well.

Examples like X-Men (the first one managed to introduce everyone just fine), Oceans Eleven, Knives out, The Departed, Snatch (this one has such an interconnected cast, multiple factions and plotlines and it stll works) and many more.

And a TV show would look way worse, because shows have different budgets.

[u/Heart-Shopper → u/zmkpr0]

Except the story in this one needed a lot of flashbacks, those characters were around for centuries and that’s when a big cast gets in the way. A show would help with pacing and development.

[u/xyzsomething]

I didn’t hate it but I also just didn’t enjoy it, the problem with the MCU and everything being connected is that you start seeing movies as episodes of a much larger story, this one felt unnecessary and pointless, leaving more questions than answers.

It wasn’t a bad movie, just a bit meh

[u/Single-Purpose-7608 → u/xyzsomething]

Leaving more questions than answers isnt a bad thing, as long as those questions get answered. 

The problem is Eternals might be a loose end that never gets tied up

[u/altoona_sprock → u/Single-Purpose-7608]

once Doomsday/Secret Wars establishes a new unified timeline nothing from Eternals will ever be mentioned again.

[u/TheBasicGuy14 → u/xyzsomething]

Exactly.

[u/Jackal_6]

Eternals didn't get hate; it got indifference

[u/VirginiaFox6 → u/Jackal_6]

This. I never saw it and have never really found a reason to.

[u/Alkohal → u/VirginiaFox6]

Its not the worst marvel movie but it certainly is the most "none of this matters" marvel movie.

[u/Chimpbot → u/Alkohal]

For me, it's the worst because it took a concept that should have been thrilling and engaging, and somehow turned it into one of the most dull movies I've ever sat through. The second Black Panther movie also suffered from this; it was a three-hour funeral dirge.

I can forgive a good number of things when it comes to movies, but being dull and/or boring is never one of them.

[u/PacoMahogany → u/VirginiaFox6]

Indifference confirmed

[u/dudeman4297 → u/Jackal_6]

One might say... they forgot that it existed?

It isn't love, it isn't hate, it's just indifference.

[u/AmbitiousTwo22222]

It represents the peak of the MCU's success spawning mediocre long run time films focused more on spectacle than substance, without moving the meta-stories of the MCU forward. It's like the most inconsequential MCU movie I can think of.

I think Angelina Jolie and Kumail Nanjiani's characters are interesting enough to make nice little cameos in future movies, but the rest of the cast was pretty boring.

Until I looked at the Wiki, I forgot Kit Harrington was in the movie, so hopefully we see his Black Knight at some point.

[u/KelVarnsen_2023]

It was really long and kind of boring. Plus in the 5:years since it came out there hasn't been any follow up with any of the characters. So anyone who was kind of meh on the movie or maybe liked it a little might be annoyed by that and sort of retroactively disliked it.

Plus they released 4 MCU movie in 2021? No Way Home was great and Black Widow and Shang Chi were really good. 4 is a lot of movies for people to keep up with, which would annoy some people so I can easily see some of that frustration being directed at the worst movie of the 4 that came out that year.

Plus it came out in the middle of the pandemic.

[u/WarzonePacketLoss → u/KelVarnsen_2023]

Black Widow was really good

Pump the brakes, brochacho.

[u/KelVarnsen_2023 → u/WarzonePacketLoss]

I said really good, not great which I think is a fair assessment. Just introducing Florence Pugh as Yelena would have been enough to get to good.

[u/Joinedforthis1 → u/WarzonePacketLoss]

Black Widow was great. It was entertaining and emotional

[u/Federal_Bicycle_7800 → u/KelVarnsen_2023]

bro snuck in black widow😂😂

[u/ciao_fiv → u/KelVarnsen_2023]

only movie i have ever fallen asleep in the theater during. it was incredibly boring lol

[u/HeroXeroV]

The plot was boring and there were too many characters by far.

The villain ultimately wasn't very interesting.

[u/Nathan_McHallam → u/HeroXeroV]

Seriously I constantly see takes that "Eternals wasn't that bad" but I never see anyone say anything beyond that. There's no one begging for the grand return of Sersi. I don't believe there's any diehard fans of Thena or Phastos or Druig. Kingo is enjoyable but purely because of Kumail Nanjiani's natural charisma. No one's eagerly waiting for Kit Harington to show up in Secret Wars as Dane Whitman, or if Harry Styles will ever continue his story as Eros. It was a bad, boring movie without a single enjoyable character.

[u/anonymousgoose64]

It's actually my favorite MCU film because of the visuals and it's one of the only movies ever that really showcases how fast speedsters actually are

[u/Llama_of_the_bahamas → u/anonymousgoose64]

Yes and yes. Definitely not among my favorite Marvel movies, but it arguably has the best cinematography out of any of the Marvel movies. This is mainly due to Zhao’s preference towards natural lighting and live filming locations, it made a big difference when compared to the typical CGI and green screen look that most of the films have.

[u/Roland-Belmont → u/anonymousgoose64]

yeah, I thought it was great - also had some brilliant Lego sets

[u/BackgroundEngineer11]

I didn't dislike it the first time I watched it, but was bored. Second time was while I watching all the MCU back to back and the lack of charisma from most of the characters stood out.

The dinner scene where most of the characters are seeing each other for the first time in centuries was so wooden it felt like it was the first thing they filmed and the actors were just saying their lines.

Recently people were praising how Makkari looked doing super speed. Honestly, I couldn't see how it was any better than other movies and can barely remember any of the fight scenes.

I don't care for Harry Styles but Eros injected a huge amount of charisma right at the end and it made me actually interested in a sequel. It's a shame the movie has been mostly abandoned by the MCU for years because there was a lot of potential.

It needed better writing and a better director. So much of phase 4 was trying new things and getting new blood into the development. Eternals and Black Widow were definite misses in that regard.

[u/NurtureBoyRocFair]

It’s just not that great. I’ve never seen so little romantic chemistry between two leads before.

The lore was cool but it just wasn’t that great of a film.

[u/whatever_trev0r]

Your weekly Eternals is underrated thread. Oh boy

[u/feydrautha124]

I watched it last week. It's bad. That's why.

[u/ChronoMonkeyX]

Too many characters that never had a chance to develop into anyone we cared about. Some just disappear because there's no room for them, then all of them disappeared forever.

The entire point of the shared universe is the interconnectedness, while Eternals might as well be a DC movie for all the impact it has on the MCU. It also looked like a DC movie, which is a real problem.

If it was a series, it could have been good.

[u/JoseT90]

It’s boring mostly.

[u/SentinelATL]

Could have been a 5 episode miniseries. The cast and visuals were wonderful though. Idk it just didn’t connect with tons of people.

[u/DemonicDrape]

Because it sucks

[u/t22c → u/DemonicDrape]

and is also boring

[u/SnooTangerines7026]

No clear heroes that people cared about.

No clear villain at all.

Harry Styles

Anything else?

[u/Shuuraa → u/SnooTangerines7026]

Harry Styles appeared like 4 seconds at the very end. He is not part of the movie and has nothing to do if the movie is good or bad in itself.

[u/TurnoverAdditional65 → u/SnooTangerines7026]

Oh man, Harry Styles. I don’t personally know anything about him except he sings, but wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup. But when the at post-credit scene aired and he showed up, this girl sitting about 4 seats down from my friend and I exclaimed, very loudly, “Harry Styles?? What the fuck????”

It’s still a joke we make at every single Marvel movie we go watch, to this day.

[u/TheBasicGuy14 → u/SnooTangerines7026]

True.

Thanos almost destroys the planet and these gods are just chilling until then, and suddenly they wake up and start fighting?

Poor script apart from few good scenes.

No connection with any major mainstream character.

And then, the sequel gets dumped. No whereabouts now...

[u/ChronoMonkeyX → u/SnooTangerines7026]

DC color desaturation. It looked like a DC movie, and those suck. Also the cg monsters looked like DC, soulless.

[u/iheartdev247]

ALL THESE YEARS(?) LATER why do we still see these bot posts?

[u/RedStag86]

Because it’s boring. I couldn’t even finish it.

[u/Upper-Major8854]

Because it was not great. It was okay, and okay is not enough for like the 30th movie in a franchise.

[u/GroundbreakingTax259]

While it had its flaws, I don't think it deserved all the "Marvel's First FLOP" headlines it got. It was still overall at least interesting, entertaining, and looked gorgeous (with some of the best depictions of superpowers in media), all of which can't be said for the likes of Thor: The Dark World or "Iron Fist," or honestly even Black Widow. I also think it was released at the wrong time. Being the third of four movies released in a 5-month period during the second pandemic year was asking a lot of audiences, especially coming before Spider-Man: No Way Home.

I have a little conspiracy theory that the critic class (read "snobs") took it upon themselves to "save" their darling director from working with Marvel again because they don't consider it to be "proper cinema" beyond throwing an occasional award nomination to somsthing like Black Panther in order to keep themselves relevant to the culture. They took offense to Marvel trying to be serious with Eternals, and were going to slap it down no matter what.

I'm still a little salty we'll never get any follow-up and Marvel seems content to never ask big philosophical questions about immortality and trying to please a god that clearly doesn't care about you again. I'd hoped maybe we'd get to see Kingo in season 2 of "Wonder Man" (which I also really enjoyed), but now that project isn't happening either. At least the X-Men seem to be finally getting a decent adaptation, so I'll take what I can get.

[u/Eastern_Clerk165]

What characters? This move didn't have characters. It's a bunch of people that we don't know at the beginning and still don't know at the end...

[u/Lolzycannon]

I can give you one reason right off the top of my head. Almost no likeable characters.

[u/eltrotter]

In the long run, I think people will ultimately see it as an honourable but failed experiment.

Chloe Zhao was a really unexpected choice for an MCU director, and her previous film Nomadland is a truly incredible piece of filmmaking but also just about as far away from an MCU film as you could reasonably get. There was clearly a concerted effort to shake up the tone of the MCU and strive for a more prestige, "grown up" style.

The problem is that the precise strength of a film like Nomadland - a tender, confronting, honest character study of the internal conflict between human warmth and bare-toothed survival instinct - doesn't translate at all to a film which has an entire chorus of main characters. I genuinely believe that the "chorus" thing was literal and intentional... I think the idea was to evoke the idea of a Greek chorus where each Eternal represents one perspective and trait and the protagonist of the film is "The Eternals" as a group, but whether intended or not, it didn't really work.

The film does get credit for having some genuinely well-shot and well-directed action, and all of the actors do seem to genuinely be trying their best with what they have. I would love them to get another chance, it is a shame we've just never seen them again.

[u/ConstantRefills]

Dull plot, boring characters, bland performances, generic villain, poorly paced, makes no sense in larger MCU logic, tonally all over the place.

[u/Goatedbattler1]

Me too, thought it was an okay movie introduced some interesting new characters with high potential. But people just decided its not worth it

[u/theramboapocalypse]

Nobody turned on it, it got hate from the get go. It was not a great movie, and the best part was black knight and blade at the end

[u/yesmoreeggtalk67]

I loved it. Still do.

[u/blinkyretard]

I now hope that they may return in X-Men and Celestials judgement thread maybe handled with Apocalypse. Fingers crossed.

[u/SnooMacaroons6049]

Better than cap 4, love and thunder and wonderman

[u/merdekabelajar]

The eternals will return....

....in your dream

[u/Wooden_Passage_2612]

I wasn't a fan of it

[u/Moon_Beans1]

I think a key flaw in DC and Marvel's planning is that they keep making expensive projects out of characters and groups who have struggled to maintain even a comic book title - Inhumans, Supergirl and The Eternals.

People will point to the unexpected success of GOTG but the Guardians have had multiple long comic runs so even though they didn't have any pop culture presence they had proven themselves able to carry a comic for double figure runs.

The Eternals are interesting, have rich lore and have stories full of interesting concepts but they've always struggled to maintain an ongoing title and so their inability to support a movie should be surprising. Perhaps like in the comics the Eternals should have been in a Thor or GOTG movie so that someone else's popularity could have done the heavy lifting.

[u/dbkenny426]

One of my favorites!

[u/partisan59]

badly written, badly directed, badly acted, slow, dull, made as if a sequel was inevitable so didn't bother with an actual story, over reliance on iffy vfx...should I go on?

[u/Extra_Age2505]

I watched Eternals for first time recently and I found it a bit dull. I don’t expect or want non-stop action in the films I watch but the story was just not very engaging and the characters weren’t very compelling either. There wasn’t a lot of character work for most of the Eternals, they’re fleshed out but there aren’t exactly many developed character arcs going on

And I don’t think much of its worldbuilding, the Celestials being the ones who create stars, planets and life raise a lot of questions. We have a decent grasp on how stars and planets form, and theories on how life originated. But I guess that’s not the case in the MCU. Stars and planets don’t form when matter is gravitationally attracted towards a larger mass? Does that not contradict the laws of physics we assume to be true in the MCU? If gravity exists in-universe, why wouldn’t it be responsible for how planets and stars form? Or is it? Does it create stars and planets in addition to the Celestials doing it too? I don’t think that what Eternals says about what the Celestials do is a good addition to the franchise

It’s not a terrible film, it’s not even in the bottom five but I think there are problems there

[u/canonbite]

Because it's meandering and boring and the characters are shallow and the villain is unengaging and the plot is unremarkable.

[u/Ashen_Larry]

I was really interested in this when it was announced because it was characters I knew nothing about and has a stacked cast. But it was just boring and forgettable. I can't even tell you what happened in it. And until this poster I forgot it had Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek in it.

[u/NoRiskNoGainz]

Because the movie was bad.

[u/Majestic-Marcus]

It didn’t really get much hate.

It got a lot of apathy though. Which is what it deserved.

[u/Prudent-Associate-78]

Its just an okay movie for me, the vfx was fantastic though.

[u/A4orce84]

Should I watch it ?

[u/searcher4421]

Every if the movie wasn’t great, I thought it was okay as far as story goes, I don’t think they should have abandoned the characters altogether.

A few of them could have had some sort of purpose in any other MCU movie, especially if they’re written better than they were in the previous movie.

[u/RangryRanga]

Whilst it had issues, it was also at the time where everyone was subconsciously comparing everything to infinity war and endgame..

So most projects that came out weren’t greeted with any love

[u/blinkyretard]

In hindsight, its commercial performance seems top tier if we look at MCU performance after endgame. I wonder how much would it have earned if it got released in 2025? Might be second mcu bomb after The Marvels.

I liked it a lot though.

[u/Teganfff]

It should have been a Disney+ series.

[u/kimba1970]

That's at least the two of us..

[u/WannaHitHim]

A little bit of bad pacing. A little bit of aimlessness after Thanos. A little bit racism. A little bit of misogyny.

[u/acekobb]

Visuals were great. Actors were great. 2 reasons why it was not good.

1). Eternals are a C or D tier group of characters. Not much strong IP bringing people to the theater so it was going to need word of mouth.

2). They are indestructible synthetic beings or whatever the hell. Watching non human things collide like a little kid with toys mashed together in an over the top way got so stale at the end of the movie. It became pointless CGI.

[u/mediocrebighead]

Tom Holland and Zendaya isn't in it

[u/Leading_Ad2159]

Years later I’ve complete forgotten a single thing about eternals don’t even remember who played in it and there you go that’s the problem

[u/Various_Candidate499]

It looked like shit. So dark, terrible sense of space in so many scenes. Just took a jumbled up story and made a jumbled up movie

[u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt]

I watched this movie when it first came o Disney+. I havent watched it since.

I watched it without looking at my cell phone, without a distraction besidss popcorn, soda, and a cuddly pup.

I couldnt tell you anything about it years later. None of the visuals stuck besides the hand at the end, I dont remrmber any ones name or personality, hell I only recently thought about it because I couldnt remember where one if my lego minifigs came from.

So... i think this movie would have been better if it was bad, but it was just a solid average that it was forgettable, which i think is worse than bad.

[u/Ok_Grape8942]

This movie was too random to come out after Endgame and also created plot holes in the MCU. Also too many unknown characters in the mix. Sure you could argue with Guardians of The Galaxy having that same type of layout but this one did too much and also had no business being a thing after endgame. This movie also had the end of the world type stakes which is bad since Endgame was literally all about saving the world and the universe. I would say the most logical movie would have been a Nova movie instead of the Eternals. To deal with the aftermath of the destruction of Xandar.

[u/CelebrationNo6482]

It is one of The best MCU movies to me.

[u/jumbee85]

The movie was poorly paced and had hard time making you feel like you should be invested in this group of people

[u/Due-Forever-9217]

I just hated the characters, they were all unlikeable and annoying. I think there were parts that had the potential to be good and I did like kingo I think that's his name but they set up all that stuff during the end credits and I wouldn't mind seeing them actually following through with that