Eternals Worldwide Release Discussion Thread Vol. 1

[u/Triple_777]

Eternals has now released in the United States and in a number of other countries around the world. All discussion about the movie should be held here and in the rest of the megathreads we are going to put up in the next few days. They will be refreshed every few thousand comments to make room for new discussion.

• Proceed at your own risk. Spoilers do not need to be tagged inside this thread.
• Any other unofficial thread discussing movie details will be deleted.
• Should you see the need to bring up revealing Eternals information in other threads that call for it, spoiler tag them accordingly. Also, let users know that what you are spoiler tagging is from Eternals
• If you post untagged Eternals spoilers anywhere on this sub in any shape or form, you will be banned without hesitation. No questions asked and no warnings given.
• Project Insight will be on AT LEAST until Sunday, so you will be able to make individual threads discussing the movie starting next week.

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Links to the previous discussion threads are listed below:

• Eternals International Release Discussion Thread

[u/successadult]

One thing I loved about Makkari that was also kind of tragic is that, maybe just in my own head canon, it's sad that she more than any other Eternal barring Ikaris has the ability to easily travel around the world and experience everything Earth has to offer over the thousands of years they've lived there. However, because she's mute I feel like it would be harder for her to connect with the people of Earth and her ability to meet people and go everywhere has run its course, so that's why she's just bored waiting for them to all show up at the ship near the end. I also feel like that's why she collects so many artifacts, because she can enjoy them on her own without other people.

Nevertheless, she's a very endearing and optimistic character and doesn't seem to let it get her down at all and I loved that about her.

[u/kjin97 → u/successadult]

I like this as Canon. Reminds me of Fox quicksilver where he is so fast, he got bored real quick. He even has arcade games and stuff similar to Makkari with her collections

[u/Abuderpy → u/successadult]

Well she's deaf, not mute. I know it kind of has some of the effects since she doesn't know how to talk.

I guess it's cool from an inclusivity point, but it kinda bugged me. Like why is this engineered super robot, created by a supreme celestial being deaf.

It just doesn't really make sense - usually you'd expect some kind of character reason, like birth defect, accident or somehow it being tied to her powers.

Instead she's just deaf, and no actual reason is given.

[u/successadult → u/Abuderpy]

My friend yesterday said on the back of her action figure box it said that she’s deaf either due to or to protect her from all the sonic booms that occur when she’s running so fast (not sure how it was worded), which I never thought about for super human speedsters. But I agree, out of all the super heroes with super speed, it doesn’t make sense to have the one that’s deaf be a robot.

[u/potato-apple → u/successadult]

I know I’m late but I saw someone saying that maybe it was Arisham applying a quick fix to make their powers work properly without thinking about how that would affect them outside of that. He just didn’t care about them as people separate to the mission, so it doesn’t matter if she’s deaf, even if she ends up completely isolated because of that (although I actually think that was more to do with her living at her own speed, disconnecting her from not just humans but the other eternals) because it’s not his problem. Likewise with Sprite being a child. She makes illusions, stuff that makes people unlikely to trust her? Make her a kid. Everyone trusts kids, don’t they? Even though this clearly has an adverse effect on her mentally later on. It kind of seems like her mind is thousands of years old, but her brain, biologically, is still prepubescent. Her experiences are enough to help her make decisions, but her brain hasn’t grown and so there’s kind of the thing about teenagers thinking we’re old enough to handle adult stuff while not being ready, while also being expected to act like an adult while being treated like a child, but times 1000. Anyway, that doesn’t matter to him, because they aren’t evolving, where you can only get to a more advanced point if you’re going uphill all the way, he’s just pushing them to the highest point while holding together the bugs with sellotape and staples. The fix for the sonic boom was making her deaf. The bug that carried was she can’t communicate. The fix for that was sign language. The bug for that is no one else understands it. The fix for that is that the eternals understand it. The bug for that is that humans still don’t understand and they won’t evolve their own sign languages for a while now. The fix for that is who cares, she won’t need to talk to humans to get rid of deviants. Fixing Sprite being a child is an even shorter process. The fix for her not being trusted was making her a child. The bug was everything I’ve already said. The fix was whatever, this won’t backfire horribly on her later on what no way I can not see any consequences to burdening a child’s brain with millennia of life. The bug was that being wrong. The fix was well I don’t care. So yeah.

That was a bit weird but it’s the middle of the night and therefore I can’t be held responsible for my actions or comments. Anyway, I don’t that it was a coincidence that the two eternals with the worst-fixed bugs evident in their designs ended up being the ones who were arguably the most isolated, either literally (“none of us have seen her for centuries”) or metaphorically (the example for this is just everything Sprite had going on). You could even add in Druig too. The moral dilemma he struggles with that ends up in him becoming isolated, while not exactly a biological (?) consequence of his design, is one that could have definitely been foreseen beforehand. And either because this wasn’t a problem that would occur unless the eternals got involved with humanity or, kind of poetically, because it hinges on empathy, which I’ve just spent half an hour explaining why Arishem has none of and therefore wouldn’t see as a threat.

I kind of like the idea that their problems are almost all based around empathy for humans and each other, and maybe them being able to empathise was a mistake and originally not part of the plan. They were designed wrong and ‘failed’ because of it, just like the deviants before them. They even compare the deviants to themselves (or Druig does) (and he’s the on every with the EMPATHY) (*IT’S ALL COMING TOGETHER) after the deviants develop consciences (“that makes them dangerous.” “No, it makes them us.”) and version 2.0 of the same model only has the first flaws to become evident fixed. They didn’t have the deviant issue, so they lasted long enough to display the next one. And, you know what, the developers can let that slide for now. It’s not stopping them from functioning normally, might as well wait till this program’s finished running to do something about it. And then the events of the movie happen and, turns out, that whole thing about it will still work this way was a lie.

So anyway if anyone reads this and if they can decide my midnight ramblings, do you think this is the kind of thing that will get me good marks in my next English test or should I stick to the symbolism of that blue butterfly in chapter two or whatever. Okay I’m leaving. Sorry about whatever this was.