Do not become attached to this planet. -Arishem
When you love something, you protect it. -Thena
What I loved about Eternals is its philosophical depth
unlike other asinine Marvel Universe movies like Spiderman. The film’s
storyline was nicely done but most characters like Angelina Jolie’s were shallow and overlooked. Yet, it is the
seriousness of the storytelling and rushed scenes that make Eternals enjoyable.
Eternals starts on a high note but slightly blunders by
mixing up science and ancient mythologies starting from Greek (Olympia Mountain
& Eternals), Babylonian myths (Arishem) & legends (Ikarus & Gilgamesh
& A-Thena goddess of war) a crude form of Big Bang theory (Deviants &
Tiamut as life forms emerging from primordial soup). Where Eternals blunders it
also beats all Marvel films by expertly combining themes of cosmology, metaphysics, and existentialist ethics.
Summary and Review
Eternals has a very basic storyline. Arishem formed Earth
and other universes. However, there is a design flaw in the sense that dragon-like
creatures called Deviants are killing humans. So Arishem creates Eternals and
sends them to save humankind by killing Deviants.
Eternals tries to shoehorn cosmology and metaphysics in
its storyline. Arishem created people so that they could become food for a new
god. But when deviants began sabotaging the birth of a new god by eating
people, Arishem created Eternals to go kill the deviants and ensure that human
population would grow large enough to become food for the new god Tiamut.
The birth of this god is like a remake of the Big Bang
theory. Once Earth has reached its carrying capacity, the energy produced by
people is supposed to be enough to cause the emergence of the god Tiamut from
the depths of the seas. Tiamut’s emergence will finally annihilate earth. Eternals
end up embracing utilitarianism to destroy Tiamut and save humankind.
Given that Eternals occur after Thanos, this is one of the
few movies that considers overpopulation as beneficial. It also raises the
creation of whether Tiamut would have emerged if the Avengers in Endgame had
not time-traveled.
The Eternals accomplishes what other MCU movies like The Winter Soldier, Dr Strange and Endgame
tried but failed. The Winter Soldier explored cosmic horror wrought by man, Dr
Strange considered whether man has a higher duty than self-preservation, and
Endgame considered the vanity of humanity trying to solve its problems by
destroying an enemy instead of solving the actual problem! Anyway, I watched
Endgame for the time travel and boy wasn’t I disappointed when Ant-man claimed
that he had been in the quantum world for 5 hours yet 5 years had passed on
Earth. Eternals weaved all these themes into one gripping story, but a story
that is weaker compared to Hulk.
(PS: Time is immaterial and it exists in our real material
world and in the immaterial quantum world. Events in our world happen along the
time continuum and they require time to happen. That’s why you can say that you
slept yesterday and you will run tomorrow because you require time to sleep and
you will run in a time that is yet to happen. It is therefore a logical
contradiction for Ant-Man to say that time in quantum physics is different from the time in our material world. Time is
immaterial and it flows at the same speed irrespective of whether you are time-traveling
or you in a quantum world)
Anyone who loves a movie that forces you to think as you
watch will likely enjoy Eternals.
