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Eternals | Full Watch Along | Patreon Exclusive

🕑 Added 2025-10-23 00:07:39 +0000 UTC
Eternals | Full Watch Along | Patreon Exclusive

Comments

Darian Harman

Tl;dr: I think Zhao did a phenomenal job with this film. Moon Knight was the first comic book I've ever read, but five minutes after reading that, I read an Eternals comic and fell in LOVE, even though my little-kid brain had not one semblance of an idea, at the time, as to how to process the ridiculous cosmology being explored in its pages. I say, "ridiculous", because if you're familiar with the fallacious, borderline farcical works of Von Daniken, then you have some inkling as to what was inspiring Jack Kirby around this time. Whereas Von Daniken was creating charlatanical narratives in an attempt to turn reality into fiction, Jack Kirby employed similar ideas to create a fictional world through which cosmological and philosophical concepts of that sort could be entertainingly explored. When it was announced that Chloe Zhao would be directing this, I was all kinds of excited; but between knowing the kind of filmmaker she is, and already being familiar with Eternals, I expected this film to be at least moderately divisive before even the first trailer was released. For those who do not know, she is deeeeeeeeeeeep into manga and anime, so much so, that just yesterday, it was announced that she and Nicolas Gonda have launched Kodansha Studios. This new studio's focus is on adapting manga/novels into live-action films; and if you know next-to-nothing about manga, as most westerners, it should suffice for me to say: There is a manga for literally EVERYTHING. Drama, Romance, Cooking, Academia, Figure Skating, World War II, etc, etc. Where I grew up in Misawa, Japan, I was obsessed with Dragon Ball, of course, but eeeeeeeveryone was obsessed with a basketball anime called Slam Dunk!! When Zhao was younger, she developed a very strong affinity for mythological and allegorical storytelling, but her film career did not immediately veer into that direction until Eternals, a film the likes of which she'd always wanted to make. By my speculation, she likely debated about how to go about this film for quite a while. You can either gradually dole out the mythology/lore over the course of several films/series, or go full bore and headfirst into (almost) all of it in one go. Clearly, she chose to do the latter, and in my view, she F'ing nailed it. I could not have been happier with the film she made, but I completely, completely understand how this one can be too off-putting, challenging, boring, overwhelming, confusing, or any other "ing" for many people. I think my "ing" is: Heartwarming. That somebody would put this much effort into something that almost nobody knows anything about, and to do it so beautifully, with so much reverence for this mythology is, to me, just awesome. I cherish this film, because it is probably the only one like it that we'll ever get from Marvel. At any rate, I am reeeally excited to watch this reaction in 3, 2, 1, aaaaand I'm pressing play NOW!

Ricardo de Leon

It was an enjoyable film with incredible cinematography, a fascinating showcase of anthropology, and an epic cast. Yet as others mentioned, it was a lot to take in one go. It could've been better served as a cinematic series (it had major Game of Thrones vibes and some of the leads). I'm curious where they go from here. The beauty of the MCU is that watching later films brings a new appreciation for films that have come out before.


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