Back in 2021, I wrote that Eternals was my new favorite Marvel movie, and guess what. It’s still my favorite Marvel movie.
And look, I know, I know. Nobody claims Eternals as their favorite Marvel movie. In fact, many lists (including our own), usually tend to put Eternals toward the bottom when ranking all of the Marvel films. But do you know what? I don’t care. I watched it recently again, thinking that maybe it was just a fluke that I loved it so much back then, but no. I still love it just as much today.
That said, while I’m not upset that the fans didn’t like it, I am upset with Marvel as a whole when it comes to Eternals, and I have five reasons why.
Eternals Never Received The Late Blooming Love That I Thought It Would Receive
In a lot of ways, I just thought that maybe Eternals needed to find its audience. When looking at the first four phases of the MCU, it made sense to me that Eternals would be seen as terrible, as it, Black Widow, and Shang-Chi had a hard act to follow after Avengers: Endgame. In fact, all of the movies following that epic had a hard road ahead of them, as everything afterward pretty much had to carve out its own identity.
So, in that way, I just thought that people needed to acclimate themselves to what I thought was the new direction of the MCU, because Eternals signaled that the brand was making some major swings for the fences.
And then they didn’t. Not only that, but the MCU seemed to just totally forget (or more like abandon) Eternals. At first, I thought it was because it must have bombed at the box office, but it didn’t! It was the sixth highest grossing movie of 2021 at $164,870,234, and it even beat out movies like Sing 2, No Time to Die, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. So no, it didn’t make all of the money in the world (that would have been Spider-Man: No Way Home that year), but it still made bank!
So, why didn’t Marvel seemingly push it harder? Yes, of course I would have preferred if people just found Eternals on their own organically, but couldn’t Marvel have continued to push it long after its release?
By the time it hit Disney+, a lot of people already had it in their heads that it sucked, and a part of me feels like Marvel could have played up how different it was from all of their other films. But, that's just one reason why I’m upset with Marvel...
All Those Plot Threads Were Apparently Just Abandoned
When thinking about MCU characters whose futures might be in limbo, the two that come to mind instantly are Dane Whitman (a.k.a., Black Knight), and Starfox, the latter of which appeared in an end-credits scene.
But also, what about the ENORMOUS Celestial that’s just chilling out in the ocean right now? Isn’t anybody going to bring that up? Or what about the Celestials as a whole? Sure, some have appeared again in Thor: Love and Thunder, and in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3, but these seemed like afterthoughts, when they were such a huge focal point in Eternals.
In fact, what about the Eternals in general. It feels like they’ve been completely erased from the MCU altogether, which I think is messed up. I mean, even Thor: The Dark World, which is arguably one of the worst MCU movies, plays a HUGE role in Avengers: Endgame. So why has there been no follow-up to the threads set up in Eternals?
Later MCU Projects Have Shown That The Studio Is Now Taking Less Risks, Rather Than More
Do you know how many MCU films are coming out in 2024? One. And that’s Deadpool 3 (which we know a thing or two about). Sure, there will be multiple MCU shows, with the surprisingly bingeable Echo, being the first out of the gate, but honestly, when looking at this slate of upcoming releases, it looks like the MCU is taking less risks rather than more.
Which makes sense, I know. The MCU hasn’t had the dominance that it once had, so of course Kevin Feige and Co. would hedge their bets a bit more. But honestly, how has that been working out for them lately? The sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, didn’t do well at the box office, and The Marvels, another sequel, also didn’t do well.
And, what did I just say was coming out this year? That’s right. Deadpool THREE! Yes, this one arguably has a lot more hype behind it than Ant-Man: Quantumania, or The Marvels, but what happened to the company that once took a relatively unknown cast of characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy, and made them into household names?
I know Eternals was kind of dead on arrival, but that movie came out in Covid times. Risks can pay off, if pushed.
Artsy Marvel Has A Place, But It Apparently Died With Eternals
Eternals is still, to this day, the only MCU film that has the pedigree of being directed by somebody who has actually won an Academy Award for directing. That’s not everything, but it certainly is something. Chloe Zhao took a weird story by Jack Kirby, and made it into a weird movie. That said, it’s also really artsy, with scenes of romance, and even dancing.
It also has a very distinct style to it that is unlike any other MCU film. In fact, a lot of people who I’ve talked to have called Eternals “boring,” with one of my friends even saying that it’s like “going to the museum.”
Now, I don’t know about you, but I actually love going to the museum. Though I understand that most MCU fans don’t want that out of their movies, I still think it was (and still is) really unique for a Marvel movie.
However, the artsy side of Marvel doesn’t seem to be something that anybody else wants besides me, because we haven’t gotten anything like it since. And, we likely never will again.
Eternals Is The Last Truly Great MCU Film - For Me Anyway - And That Depresses Me
Lastly, and this is probably my biggest bone to pick with the MCU, but I haven’t seen a movie or TV show from them that has resonated with me in the same way that Eternals did. In fact, like a lot of people, I got off the Marvel hype train quite a while ago, and I really don’t see a reason to get back on again.
Sure, I still kind of like the MCU, but I don’t love it like I once did, and I think a huge reason for that is because it doesn’t take many risks anymore, and it’s not even trying to be artsy again. It’s just trying to be what it’s always been, and for me, that’s just not enough.
When I watched Eternals again the other day, it genuinely pained me to see that the MCU has just been taking the lazy way out and pumping out more and more sequels. Yes, sequels are the lifeblood of the film industry, but Eternals was daring back then, and it still feels daring today, and the MCU never capitalized on it, which really sucks.
But, what do you think? For more news on everything MCU-related, be sure to swing around here often!
