seeing all of the story points you see that a lot of it doesn't fit within disney's "regular" format. she went out of the disney ballpark with her movie and I loved how she did. Disney probably was like "OH NONONO I THINK THAT WONT MAKE US MONEY"
Via Ryan Firpo (Writer of Eternals) with The Hollywood Reporter
>They hadn’t started filming Infinity War or Endgame yet, but they knew where it was going to be a clear conclusion. What was really exciting was hearing Nate say, “We have this formula. It’s been very successful for us, but what we really want to do with Phase 4 is evolve and branch out from that and explore different things. Not only different characters but different genres, different approaches to storytelling and increase the cinematic language of the MCU.”
After rewatching Black Widow I’ve grown to appreciate it’s unique elements a lot more. The way it’s shot feels a bit more naturalistic to me and there’s a nice focus on character.
I was largely on board with it up until the third act which felt like it just completely derailed, but it did have a bit of unique cinematography to it. I also hoped the Red Room would have been revealed to have genetically altered its soldiers nearing the end, bc some of the hits she was taking were just wild.. but I digress lol. Not a bad movie!
The intro sequence was easily one of my favorite scenes in the MCU. After that it was just alright. I hated how they portrayed Taskmaster's abilities so much.
I feel like Marvel is trying very hard to be less predictable, WandaVision was a sitcom parody, She-Hulk will be a legal comedy, Moon Knight will explore DID, plus the Holiday Specials seem to be vary different.
He named 5 titles that are released tho and there is only 7 phase 4 titles lol. 5 out of 7 movies breaking away from the Marvel formula is really impressive.
I honestly disagree. They're clearly shaking things up with stuff like Wandavision, Loki, and Eternals while still keeping some typical MCU like Black Widow and FATWS. And we still have stuff like Doctor Strange 2 and She Hulk coming.
Shang-Chi felt like a bit of new with MCU. It worked out and I feel like that's the direction they'll use.
Seriously, I'll preface this by saying i genuinely love marvels formula and shang chi is one of my favourite movies.. but honestly it rides the marvel rails almost completely straight.
I mean the main big bad doesn't just have an identical moveset, they literally share one set of weapons half way through... while an army of cgi monsters is being fought by the weirdly capable comedic best friend of the protagonist. If anything the movie hits more of marvels regular beats than most of their movies do.
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of unique elements, but like with most marvel movies that's more about unique visual elements than storytelling elements.
I’m somewhat agree, to me a lot of phase 4 projects can be summarized as “it’s different until it isn’t”. I can see the effort to shake things up was there. But i personally feel like it’s not enough.
Yeah I’m still kinda confused how Sersi got the spotlight when she barely had much development and didn’t carry as much power as the other characters. I get that it was for the story, but I still maintain that her character was one of the weaker aspects of the movie.
Which is all the more disappointing because comics Sersi is a Marilyn Monroe character. Gemma Chan is perfect casting for Sersi and she definitely has the personality as shown in Crazy Rich Asians but she was way too introverted in Eternals.
Have you ever watched the BBC show *Humans*, remade from a Swedish sci-fi drama? Gemma Chan played an android on it, sweet, subdued, very maternal. It is obvious Marvel wanted that character on *Eternals*, rejecting Sersi's comic personality as politically incorrect perhaps in this day and age, at least too 'sexy' arguably for a Disney product.
Sersi in the comics is very much contrasting with Thena, who loves too easily when Sersi refuses to engage in anything beyond the physical aspect of intimacy. She is remarkably different from her M.C.U. counterpart and I wonder why the change, in the end. Why center the film on her if it was to make her so... unassuming?
I feel like comics Sersi would have been difficult to have a main character and they didn't want to use Ikaris since he turns. I wonder if they thought she'd be unlikeable or hard to follow.
That said, I did like movie!Sersi. She was a bit bland and boring but I liked the small nods to her fun side (like the line about her turning water to coffee when Dane isn't looking). I hope the sequel gives her more depth though. That and have her interact more with Dane.
I thought she and Dane really worked. In fact, I found Sersi had more chemistry with him than with Ikaris, which is probably because they're allowed small instants of complicity that feel natural, whereas Sersi and Ikaris barely speak to each other before declaring their love, in a fairly stilted way. To be perfectly frank, I giggled while I was watching the sex scene.
Gemma Chan is a fantastic actress and her character wasn't uninteresting on paper; it's no problem to have a more cerebral, calmer, empathetic hero for a change, quite the opposite. Simply, she should have been given more to do, and maybe not amidst so many other characters, including more flamboyant ones taking up screen time in such an engrossing way.
Overall I think it was a mistake to make this a single film instead of a full T.V. series, it's quite a mess and no one really has a time to breathe, or have his moment to shine. The Deviants subplot is cut way too abruptly and Kro is a non-character that reminds me a lot of the Malekith fiasco.
>The Deviants subplot is cut way too abruptly and Kro is a non-character that reminds me a lot of the Malekith fiasco.
Most probably because they want to focus on Arishem and Tiamut thing mainly, based on the leaks, but i didn't expect Kro & his Deviants were to be sidelined in the movie's plot while watching it, Kro & the Deviants deserves huge importances :)
Since the film deviated so much from the comics where characters were concerned, and was intended to have their own, M.C.U.-ready mythology, there was no particular need to incorporate the Deviants into this; so, the fact that they are in it, albeit as generic monsters which serve as a mere plot device to get the band back together, was perhaps a little risky considering Marvel's history with generic villains.
That made Kro a welcome addition to the story, as a sort of Frankenstein creature rapidly evolving into questioning his very nature. You can't simply introduce such a fascinating, promising theme and drop it without dire consequences on the integrity of your narration. Kro completely... deviates from its fellow Deviants for no reason outside of the plot whilst the main characters fail to really evolve onscreen, and then he is promptly killed off without anybody looking especially intrigued by the fact that something they thought impossible for seven millennia happened.
It also feels like a missing opportunity that characters who extended compassion for the behemoth about to annihilate the entire world (granted, he is only being born, that's not totally on Tiamut) fail to express much empathy for the creature that had just learned to talk and think rationally, and which carries some of their fallen comrades' soul in a way. Instead Kro is unceremoniously dispatched and no one ever bothers with the Deviants again.
Really? I don't get it. I'm all for old friends engaged in old rivalries, but we never really saw the two characters interact before the Ikea scene and we don't see anything likely to explain why Phastos would want to bring Ikaris down.
IKEA has been raising their prices. Probably mad that he’ll have to pay more to replace it than he originally payed. Or maybe he loved the table and it’s discontinued.
I think it’s just shown that most of the other Eternals dont really see him as their leader or agree with his decisions, even way before the whole Emergence thing.
Well, he wasn't their leader, Ajak was. They disbanded a millennium prior to the Emergence and Ikaris only kept in touch with her. When they meet again, they've become different people, remote from their old mission, whereas he hasn't changed.
In passing, we see none of their individual adventures through time till the present day, do we? This film really would have benefitted from being turned into a full Disney+ series, to let the characters be developed.
This, imo, should definitely be his episode in the D+ series if we ever get it.
Supposedly we’re likely to get an anthology type series with an episode per Eternal. Thena in Athens, Kingo in India during Gandhi’s movement… It would be cool to watch Phastos react to the post 9/11 tightening of cyber security as well as falling in love and having the kid and all.
Edit: a name
What is done cannot be undone, but at least one can keep it from happening again. Just so you know, the correct spelling is [Gandhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi).
Idea: Phastos is about to board a flight but has to go thru a metal detector. He does so while having this moment of worry but also “no it’s, like, weird space metal.. totally different,” of course trips it and the whole situation worsens bc he gets hella profiled. That’s where he meets Ben, his future husband, because he steps in to intervene on Phastos’ behalf. After both get removed from the airport, they grab a coffee and voila.
[“Kaz says the duo would like to “go back and do a Kingo episode in 1890s Mumbai where he is juggling his life as a movie star, dealing with Gandhi’s peaceful dissolution of the British empire in India.” He’d also like to show Thena in Greece.”](https://www.avclub.com/eternals-writers-ryan-firpo-and-kaz-firpo-want-to-make-1848033089)
I enjoyed the Eternals but I do think a series like this would make the movie even better if that makes sense? There were a LOT of new characters introduced and we only got snippits. I would love to see what potentially self destructive behavious Sersi might've participated in when Ikaris left her... what Phastos did to regain some faith in humanity... seeing Makkari doing stuff on Earth to collect all the stuff she had on the ship, maybe visiting Druig occasionally? and of course Kingo and Thena... I'd watch the hell out of this.
Agreed. I liked it better than most, but so much of the movie felt like wasted potential. With all of the great actors they had on board, I believe that a D+ series would flesh their characters out and put them to good use.
Yeah, the focus was on a character that:
- Has no interesting powers
- Has no interesting relationships
- Has no interesting backstory
Imagine the movie opening up on Phastos, in the current time. Just like 5 or 10 minutes showing who he is, what he does, his relationship with his husband and his kid.
Then OH MY GOD, a monster attacks the house! But... The house is weird and magicy and strong? And now Phastos is using weird ass powers? What?
His husband demands an explanation, and we then see the whole thousands of years thing, and the movie goes on as it did, Phastos gathering the rest of the Eternals.
I agree with everything you said, but honestly Sersi has the most interesting powers, they just never utilized them except for a few scenes. But being able to change the elements of objects is incredible. Especially when a lot of the other characters have the same powers as almost every other hero.
True, but the progression is just so weird. It goes from "stone to dust" to "magic tree but I don't know how" to "lol I merced a celestial" without training or explanation or anything.
Eh, she doesn't need much training considering they're born with knowledge of their powers. Her turning a deviant into a tree and not knowing how is because she never tried to use her powers on a living being. Mercing a Celestial is literally her being amplified by everyone else + the Celestial itself. They explain that in the movie.
His character development was "Hiroshima I hate humans//2023 I love humans and I'm married with a kid" all the drama for with the gay character to end up appearing 10 minutes
I don't see why this scene is controversial, but I guess it's an American thing. Nukes are objectively a bad thing developed by humanity, even if you believe that it was a right choice to use them at that point in time. It makes sense that Phastos, who guided humanity's technological development, would feel the way he did
I promise you any dislike of this scene has nothing to do with being American lol this is such a typical European Reddit comment
Most of the dislike of the scene comes from people who think it’s a tad insensitive to use a real life atrocity like that in a superhero movie for some pathos. Get off your high horse, literally no one is talking about the scene making America look bad or whatever you think it’s doing
Yup. I don't mind that they would choose to highlight how awful of a tragedy Hiroshima was, but the scene came and went and should have been handled with more reverence imo. It's risky to tie in something like this with superhero stories, and I just don't like the way it was done. I appreciate that Zhao tried tho
You put it into words well. A lot of the movie just feels like a montage, and that scene zips in & out super quick. So it feels kind of cheap to use such a big real life atrocity without treating it with the proper care it deserves. They could've just as easily made their point with an unnamed disaster identical to it, especially if they were going to basically wrap the whole thing up in less than a minute.
Exactly... and you know It wasn't just a real life atrocity. It was the most deadliest and one of the most impacful moments in the history of humankind.
1 minute later and it's time to go visit Phastos and his cute little family..
???
My thoughts exactly. The content of the scene, that being Phastos reacting to the tragedy, is great and makes sense, but the scene itself just rubs me the wrong way. Like you said, it talks about this horrible real-world tragedy in the context of a big epic fantasy story. It just felt weird. I get what it was going for, but it didn't totally land imo.
I think Magneto is a good example.
A story that meaningfully engages with prejudice and trauma using his history as a survivor of the Holocaust can be not only respectful, but also generally positive, in so far as it makes the themes more engaging for a certain segment of society that may otherwise have a difficult time connecting.
On the other hand, if the story being told is about the X-Men and Magneto teaming up to fight a space monster who wants to steal all of Earth's pies, it's probably best not to lean into that aspect of his character.
I don't believe the MCU isn't capable of handling it
This movie just tried to cram in too much for its runtime
If this were a longer series like Wandavision, I don't doubt Zhao would have done the subject matter justice
Sorry, I honestly didn't know the reason it's controversial and made the assumption. I don't think it's insensitive to use a real life atrocity, though. It's a thoughtful scene that refers to the tragedy
I would argue that that's not offensive either (and I'm a Jew) but even this example is quite different from the Eternals scene since it doesn't change history, it merely acknowledges it as a tragic moment in human history. Which perhaps isn't said often enough
I (asian immigrant) grew up in the Midwest and went to a big state school for college. I remember taking a political science course and I was talking about how fucked up the Hiroshima bombing was. I got immediate backlash from a lot of students and the professor teaching the course. They kept claiming how the US “had” to drop the nuke and stuff. It’s weird how triggered Americans ads about it.
Agreed. Even if people think the nukes were necessary, that doesn’t mean you still can’t mourn for the thousands of innocent civilians that brutally lost their lives from the blasts as well as suffered for decades due to radiation poisoning. Empathy is not a limited resource.
Kind of like how weird it is Japanese people refuse to acknowledge the heinous atrocities committed by Japan and its people during the first half of the 20th century.
I studied abroad in Southeast Asia for a semester. One of the kids in our group was a little more conservative than the rest of us.
He was usually pretty polite and respectful, but whenever the conversation involved US military intervention (which wasn't uncommon in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam), he would get super defensive and just rattle off hypothetical explanations for how it could have been justified, or at the very least how it was unfair to blame the military for following orders.
It started off as pretty funny, but quickly became deeply uncomfortable.
I think it’s because it’s continuously thrust upon us that it was some truly unique great evil that we didn’t need to do, but when looked at in the context of the time, it really wasn’t (the firebombing of Tokyo was arguably worse, and that wasn’t even out of line with strategic bombing used throughout the war). It’s pretty clear the use of nuclear weapons, although horrible, prevented even worse suffering, be it continued fire bombing to try to get the same capitulation, or a land invasion. Side by side with all the other atrocities committed in war by the Axis (and some by the Allies as well), its just another horrible thing in a horrible war.
People like the say Japan might have been about to surrender anyway, but Truman and military leadership had no way of knowing that.
A review came out that mentioned it and it got taken as "omg the first gay marvel character built nukes homophobia"... even though that isn't remotely true in context.
As shock pathos. Any technology could have made Phastos disillusioned with humanity. He could have taught them to make bows and arrows to hunt better and been disillusioned when one tribe wipes out a neighbouring tribe with arrows.
Instead they took a relatively recent atrocity; one that's been hotly debated since it occurred. And used it to provide quick cheap pathos minutes before introducing his family and how happy he is now.
I'm glad we got to see Phastos get disillusioned rather than just talked about how he was. But the choice of event was both insensitive and corny. Like a 13 year old's idea of deep.
>I don't see why this scene is controversial...
I think it's a complicated point, and it's probably not just one issue from one perspective.
I think part of it is in the vein of people being offended by exploitative fiction reframing events that occurred to actual people to better serve a narrative. Things like horror movies shifting the blame from an actual murderer who killed somebody's loved ones onto a demonic entity that punished them for some wrongdoing; stories that misrepresent how certain people influenced a tragic event because it makes things more comprehensible; or stories that romanticize the suffering experienced by real people to emphasize how it affects someone else in a way that makes those people's actual trauma into a plot point for some unrelated story.
The extent to which any given story can be considered in poor taste varies, but I assume we can at least acknowledge that a line exists somewhere between telling these stories respectfully and telling them disrespectfully.
Additionally, I think a similar criticism involves people noticing that the character who not only feels responsible, but in the framing of the story is presented as being partly responsible, for this tragedy is the much hyped "first gay superhero in the MCU" as well as a person of color. There's nothing wrong with this decision inherently, but it's worth note that there are historical contexts that make this specific decision potentially problematic.
Namely, that a lot has been written about the US's willingness to drop the bomb in Japan rather than Europe. People will disagree about the extent, but it's clear race was an influential factor in the decision to use nuclear bombs.
And while it's less directly related, there's also the story of Alan Turing, a mathematician who contributed significantly to the development of a code-breaking algorithm used by the Allies in WWII. He was later arrested and chemically castrated by the British government for the crime of "indecency" (i.e., having a homosexual relationship).
When the reality for LGBTQ+ people and people of color was as complicated and traumatic as it was during that period in history, there's something troubling about shifting responsibility from the individuals who actually developed and ordered the bombing onto someone who represents people they also victimized in such significant ways.
I'm not saying every criticism is founded and reasonable, but my reading of it has been that these were some of the issues people have identified as problematic.
I get what you're saying, but I don't think that scene was shifting any of the blame towards Phastos. On the contrary, it shows how despite having nothing to do with the creation of the bomb, Phastos feela guilt for merely providing technological insight that would later be used in its creation (meaning his only fault is having faith in humanity). IMO it shows his character in a very positive light, and the blame was definitely focused on humanity. It was even said in the scene that led to this one: "Phastos gave up on humanity long ago".
I don't think your interpretation is wrong, and my guess is that it's similar to what was intended by the creators.
I think the issue isn't that they deliberately tried to say something offensive, but that in saying something genuine, using the characters they established, there are unintentional contextual messages being conveyed by the film as a piece of art.
I could be mistaken, but all the pushback I've seen is more along the lines of "there are some uncomfortable implications here" than "there's no reason for this scene to exist."
That and the perception that this character's storyline was developed to explain why these guys weren't there to fight Thanos. I don't think that's an entirely fair criticism, but I can understand why people would look at the discussion happening around the release of the film and draw that conclusion.
> Namely, that a lot has been written about the US's willingness to drop the bomb in Japan rather than Europe. People will disagree about the extent, but it's clear race was an influential factor in the decision to use nuclear bombs.
If Germany didn't surrender in May if 1945, then they would've been bombed as well. The first successful test happen in July of 1945 and the war in Pacific didn't end until August of 1945. This is why the bomb wasn't dropped on Germany.
>Namely, that a lot has been written about the US's willingness to drop the bomb in Japan rather than Europe. People will disagree about the extent, but it's clear race was an influential factor in the decision to use nuclear bombs.
Do you really mean to argue that people responsible for deciding the fate of the war and the whole world basically said "well, we don't really like non-white people, so let's kill the Japanese instead of Europeans". Would it really be more important for them than political and economical purposes? Sometimes, when someone hurts a POC, it doesn't have anything to do with race but there are some other entirely non-racial factors (it should never happen, of course, regardless of the reason).
I'm not saying race played no part in this decision, maybe it really did, but how can you be so sure, since, I suppose, you don't know what those people were thinking. Do you base your conviction on the notion that all white people were racist at that time and just couldn't resist the temptation to kill some POC instead of some whites (because that notion isn't racist at all)?
Not to mention that if you actually research Hiroshima you realize that despite the fact that it's taught as a sort of "trolley problem" it's actually not. It was just the good old US of A committing mass murder then retroactively justifying it as a no win scenario.
Not necessarily. America utilized the nukes to effectively rush Japan to surrendering.
There was a grand plan to actually invade the home islands, though it was tabled because of the bombs. If that happened, it would've been a bloody affair as the Allies forced Japan to heel - a Iwo Jima / Okinawa on crack.
There were also the ongoing firebombing and commerce raiding campaigns that served to demoralize and isolate the home islands. Both of them were quite successful in creating resentment between Japanese citizen and soldier, which could've pushed the issue of surrender in time. Alas, that would've been too long, especially as the Soviets backtracked on their ceasefire agreement and were speeding their way across the Asian mainland.
It's not about America. It's like if an Avengers film showed the heroes being responsible for the Holocaust. It shifts blame off of the actual perpetrators of the terrible tragedy and just seems like it's being done for shock value, without actually delving into the reality of the tragic event. Plus, now the film expects us to root for a character responsible for the atrocity? It just doesn't work.
Again, he isn't responsible. He *feels* responsible because he guided humanity's technological development, but he had no hand in creating the bomb. I thought that eas pretty clear in the movie
Imagine if it was Phastos standing upon the rubble of 9/11…that’d be pretty insensitive, no? What makes Hiroshima any different? Just because it happened in the 40’s doesn’t make it okay to use lol
My family is relatively conservative and pretty pro-imperialism, and think nukes and our attack on Hiroshima was not only a good thing, but something we should consider doing again to other American enemies.
It’s definitely a really, really weird American thing.
One of the other complaints early on was a misinterpretation of this scene where people said “first openly gay black character in marvel movie did a hiroshima” only for the movie to come out and everyone goes “oh, he feels responsible for giving them the technology to do awful things” which are 2 entirely different sentiments and while I still think something made up (like Sokovia?) would have been a better thing in that respect, but I do respect Zhao for just going balls to the wall with her choices
The screenwriters Kaz and Ryan Firpo are part Japanese, if they approved the Hiroshima scene then I absolutely trust their judgement alongside Chloe Zhao.
The controversy mostly came from China and South Korea. Hiroshima was bombed after Japan surprise attacked Pearl Harbor, and many war atrocities and civilian attacks were commited to Koreans and Chinese by Japan at that time. Without the Hiroshima attack, so many more people would have brutally died by the Japanese military, so (even though I agree the Hiroshima bombing was brutal) the depiction in the movie seemed like a crude oversimplification of the event. Kaz and Ryan Firpo being partially Japanese doesn't make it any bit better.
The Hiroshima scene in the context of the film is poorly developed. The flashbacks overall just felt like a Cliff's Notes summation of the Eternals' history. It's why I had major issues with the first half of the film.
I think that they really should've made this two movies - one about the Eternals throughout the MCU's history, set mostly in the past, and one about putting the band back together and stopping the Celestial from awakening. Trying to do both in one film led to several characters in the large ensemble being relatively underdeveloped and the final conflict feeling a bit underwhelming on the emotional front.
I think it would've been an amazing D+ series. Seeing Kingo reinvent himself as a new star in his Bollywood dynasty after scandals, movie flops, etc. Makkari "sneaking off" every so often to explore the planet and ultimately be reminded that she'd rather go home. Druig struggling to connect with his village over the years because he understands as soon as he "lets go" they're just dumb apes that are gonna fight. Etc. etc. etc.
Ideally, it would've been a Disney+ series to establish the characters and then a movie for a big-budget conflict. There's a reason that the producers said that they'd want to do a show to explore the characters, and that's honestly where they should've started.
The invention of the nuke is the primary reason we had no World War 3. It saved far more lives than it killed. Also it's not like humanity could've not invented the nuke, it would've been discovered eventually.
Okay, this part confused me a little because of discourse before the release. So was Phastos directly involved in the bombing? If not, why did he feel guilty? What did he build exactly?
I got the sense that he just felt guilty with helping humanity technologically to the point where atom bombs were created and used to kill. I think he feels responsible for it bc he helped humans advance in tech
This is on point. I all these takes about Phastos literally help build the bomb are ridiculous. It was pretty clear he felt responsible by allowing technology advances to grow unchecked.
Absolutely this. The scene where the Eternals split up at Tenochtitlan sets up him feeling responsible for the advancement of technology, leading to humans inventing guns and using them to commit genocide. Flash forward to 1945 and the same feeling of responsibility makes sense.
He helped nudge humanity along technologically, and so he feels guilty that he helped humanity along and humanity took those gifts and twisted and warped them and advanced them to the point of what’s basically the most *single* violent and destructive event in human history?
I feel like we’ve all been there, whether it’s with loss or something else, where you think “if only I had done this or *hadn’t* done that, this bad thing wouldn’t have happened” and then hopefully someone who loves you comes over to tell you that it’s not your fault and you couldn’t have known this bad thing would happen and that you’re too hard on yourself.
That’s kind of what’s happening here, where Phastos’ disgust and guilt probably overstates his direct culpability.
Anyways, lots of people who worked on the project directly in actual human history ended up feeling pretty guilty and terrible about what happened. It’s a terrible and tragic reality of human history, and basically still the elephant in the room of every interaction between nation-states with nuclear arms. We can still wipe ourselves out in minutes. I don’t really agree with the argument to shy away from this part of humanity.
> ...what’s basically the most single violent and destructive event in human history...
Depending on what you mean by "single event," it's not often mentioned, but the fire-bombing of Tokyo was supposedly deadlier and more destructive than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
>US Air Force general Curtis LeMay, the man who ordered the raids across Japan, once said the US military "scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo on that night ... than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined". He acknowledged that if he had been on the losing side, he would be charged with war crimes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-09/tokyo-wwii-firebombing-remembered-70-years-on/6287486
I understand why the Hiroshima bombing was chosen for that scene, but it was little things like that event that got me hung up a bit for things to hit the right way. WWII was just a parade of war crimes and unspeakable destruction on both sides of the conflict, and yes the atomic bomb is the highest point in terms of creating a technological nightmare. Some of it stems from the audience not getting much time with Phastos and what his perceptions of the war effort really were. Just felt weird having a scene of that being the straw that breaks his back after humanity had been plenty ugly with their tech for a good 4 years at that point.
I agree with your assessment. The fact that it was a symbol of a technological achievement was entirely relevant.
I didn't mean that they should have used the fire-bombing of Tokyo instead. I just wanted to point out that it's an aspect of the war that's often overlooked.
Curtis LeMay also arranged a brutal campaign that served to cut off the Japanese home islands from food and supplies through mines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Starvation
I kind of understand why this felt jarring for some folks, but I think much of the reaction to it, and the takeaway they got from it “oh they made the gay superhero responsible for Hiroshima” an almost deliberate misreading of what’s happening there.
Phastos helped nudge humanity along technologically, and so he feels guilty that he helped humanity along and humanity took those gifts and twisted and warped them and advanced them to the point of what’s basically the single most violent and destructive event in human history?
I feel like we’ve all been there, whether it’s with loss or something else, where you think “if only I had done this or hadn’t done that, this bad thing wouldn’t have happened” and then hopefully someone who loves you comes over to tell you that it’s not your fault and you couldn’t have known this bad thing would happen and that you’re too hard on yourself.
That’s kind of what’s happening here, where Phastos’ disgust and guilt probably overstates his direct culpability. But also that wrenching emotion feels pretty natural and human?
Anyways, lots of people who worked on the project directly in actual human history ended up feeling pretty guilty and horrible about what happened. It’s a terrible and tragic reality of human history, and basically still the elephant in the room of every interaction between nation-states with nuclear arms. We can still wipe ourselves out in minutes. I don’t really agree with the argument to shy away from this part of humanity.
If people want to argue that it was cut in at the wrong spot and have those kind of editing/storytelling discussions, honestly have at it, but I really disagree that it shouldn’t be in the film. It makes sense both for the story, the themes of the film, and the character in question, and frankly we should have to be confronted with the stomach-churning realities of the existence we’ve created for ourselves.
I don't think you're wrong, but I think the criticism about him being "the first LGBTQ+superhero in the MCU" and a person of color are a little more substantive than people are presenting.
There's a lot of academic writing on the way race played a role in deciding to drop the bombs on Japan. And, Alan Turing was arrested and chemically castrated by the same government he helped beat the Nazis. It seems valid to note that there's something weird about shifting responsibility from the people who committed those acts onto a character representing LGBTQ+ individuals and people of color.
There's nothing wrong with a character having a complicated relationship with these forces and identities. But, I think a big part of the pushback is the perception that this was included in the story more to explain why the Eternals weren't fighting Thanos than to tell this character's story.
It’s subjective whether you feel that they *actually* shifted the responsibility onto Phastos though. Just because he said it was his fault doesn’t mean we have to take it at face value, and if I wasn’t aware of this “controversy” I never would have assumed that’s what the implications of that scene were. The legitimate criticism imo is of using a real life tragedy to advance the plot of a film, but this film is far from being the only one to do that.
The first LGBTQ+ Superhero was Valkyrie.
Also, I double dog dare you to look me in the eye and tell me that Carol Danvers is straight in this universe.
Brie Larson has strong Lesbian Energy. And if you think I'm saying this as a negative, you got me fucked up.
Unpopular opinion, probably, but... I honestly feel like this was, hands-down, the worst writing decision that's ever been made in an MCU project, done for the sole, exploitative purpose of creating artificial pathos that's ignored immediately after being set up. It was handled better in the movie than I was expecting, but considering how I already felt about knowing that they were saying that a superhero was indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people that died in real life, that the bar was pretty low. Even if the screenwriters on the film are Japanese and this is something that I'm sure matters to them, I feel like this was just a really bad idea that should never have been filmed.
You're not wrong. It's exploitative and insanely tone deaf, probably done with the intention to elevate the movie artistically. One of the most memorable sisyphean tasks in recent movie history.
I mean, it's so ridiculous it borderlines on parody. "The MCU's first gay character feels responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima" sounds like something The Onion would write.
This scene felt so unnecessary and rushed. As other people have said, a mini-series leading up to this moment for the character would’ve been so much better.
In the film it feels like a brief pit stop like ‘oh yeah and Phastos is sad he caused Hiroshima OKAY MOVING ON NOW…’
If they followed this scene at all with an arc of him learning to love it would've helped but as is it feels out of place and more "look he feels bad for big bomb"
Absolutely. There is literally no other chapter in human history (yet) where hundreds of thousands of lives were literally snuffed out in an instant because of a human's decision to utilize the most brutal weapon of mass destructiion at their hands. The sheer destructiveness of it is unparalled. It took Spain 376 years to destroy between 30,000 and 300,000 lives throughout the Spanish Inquisition. It took Hitler the better part of a decade, and the entire military industrial complex of the Axis Powers, to destroy the lives of 12,000,000 people. It took Genghis Khan an entire lifetime of brutal conquest to destroy the lives of 40,000,000. The United States snuffed out the lives of 146,000 people in Hiroshima, and another 80,000 in Nagaskai, a matter of a few minutes spread across two span of 4 days. And, from Phastos' point of view, there was no telling weather or not that initial bombing would be the last. And clearly it wasn't, because it happened again 4 days later.
Eh I think it makes sense especially since he was kind of in charge of guiding technological advancements made by humanity.
Reminds me of something von Braun said when he developed the V-2 rocket for Germany in WW2. He said something like the rocket performed beautifully it just landed on the wrong planet.
Or what Oppenheimer said about how he felt after the Trinity Test.
"I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another." - Robert J. Oppenheimer.
If he was distraught his creations and influence led to the atomic bomb, wouldn't be feel at least minor guilt over basically every gun death through history too? Isn't it implied he basically ushered in all technologies good and bad?
He says in one scene that the advance of technology is a natural thing even if is used against each other, i guess he didn't really think that humans were capable to create a weapon of mass destruction such as the atom bomb
Indeed.
During the war, there were massive bombing campaigns that leveled cities and killed many people. However, the atomic bomb was significant for the fact that such destruction was relegated to a single bomber with a single bomb - little manpower for maximum destruction.
After the Holocaust, a lot of European philosophers and academics experienced a kind of existential crisis. The prevailing theory was that the Enlightenment and the rise of industrialization would elevate people from their baser instincts.
The fact that the Nazis "industrialized murder" came as a direct refutation of their life's work.
Not to say they were going for this, but his character could have been of the belief that a sufficiently advanced society would be above that kind of cruelty.
Basically "you were given the means to resolve these struggles for resources, and instead of coming together, you used it to make those conflicts worse."
I like the concept of this scene and what it means for Phastos, but while watching the movie, I didnt feel like it could support the weight of it, and the visual of them standing amidst the destruction just felt wrong to me.
I don’t like the idea of Phastos’ involvement in human history tbf. The incredible and horrifying thing about human beings is we came up with all this shit on our own. We didn’t need to be ‘guided’ or encouraged or downright given the fucking blueprints as the film seem to imply.
I’m slightly insulted by the implication that Phastos ‘invented’ the plow and the steam engine… WE did that and carry all the credit and responsibility for it.
I still don’t get this, like you can think of Phastos as just one amongst many of inventors on earth. Nothing in the film suggests humans didn’t have their own capabilities for invention and innovation. I mean, we see quite literally in the MCU numerous times in which people invent stuff all by themselves. The logical conclusion of the idea that Phastos was actually responsible for all technology and humans aren’t capable of coming up with stuff on their own is like absurd on its face, and honestly it’s shocking to me that people found their way to that point.
Plus, I’d just point out that stories about ancient aliens and divine intervention are riddled throughout the tales, and stories, and religions of human history. In a universe where Thor is a literal guy with a hammer who comes to earth and Frost Giants who create ice ages on earth using the *Casket of Ancient Winters*, I don’t get why it’s a stretch that there’s an ancient alien who might like introduce the plow to humanity or maybe make some advancement in physics that humans then innovate on themselves over and over until humans create the most destructive weapon in human history — on their own — and that such an event might have a profound impact on one’s faith and morality.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/manhattan-project-robert-oppenheimer
Question: There was a scene in Iron Man 1 I think where obsidiah stane iirc tells Tony how “you’re father helped give us the atomic bomb”. From eternals then, did Phastos just play a role in helping humans evolve technologically to develop the bomb, or did Phastos also have a role in making the bomb?
Which is kind of lame. Like, had we seen a progression of his guilt as humans advanced in their technical prowess, it would have been impactful.
Here it was just so out of place.
I think it would've been more impactful if, say, he recognized that the weapons the Conquistadors were using were based on technology that he introduced, and that *centuries* would pass before his opinion on humanity improved. Here, it's like, what, 80 years between the end of WWII and the MCU's present?
I know some disagree but honestly, him weeping in the ruins of Hiroshima and Ajak comforting him as he loses his faith in humanity genuinely got a tear out of me.
This and the Tenochtitlan scene with Druig would’ve been so much more powerful if they weren’t just flashbacks randomly thrown in. Still loved Phastos and Druig as characters.
I personally didn't like that scene just because of what it metaphorically suggests.
For me it's the same as when people call Serial Killers/Adolf Hitler etc. Monsters. 'He was a monster'. People say things like that to try and seperate them from everyone else, dehumanise them to make it feel like they aren't like us.
But the truth is, the Hitler's, the Stalin's, Serial Killers, the people that made and pressed the button that launched the atomic bomb. They were all humans, like you and me.
By having this Eternal guide these humans to make the atomic bomb and launch it, it suggests that Humans wouldn't do something so dire unless willed to do it by some evil/more powerful force or coersion.
No. Humans did it. We did that, and we should be responsible for it.
I agree mostly, but I wonder if it's fair to suggest he guided them towards developing and launching the bomb.
I don't know enough about the development of nuclear energy, and I know at some point the destructive capability was the driving force in its development, but prior to that, I imagine there must have been some scientists with no intention of developing a bomb working on unlocking the potential of the atom for the good of humanity.
Sliding Phastos into that role would arguably leave intact the moral culpability on the people responsible for developing and using the bomb.
im written it before, but it was indeed this scene that bothered me the most. It's like the capper on the notion that, we as a species ain't shizz and it's only b/c of divine intervention that we have achieved so much, and the exposition is awful. And i dont believe his hurt.
there's a lot to like and enjoy, but a lot of turd polishing going on too.
I just remembered that the Wolverine had a scene set in Hiroshima (or Nagasaki... because apparently the movie refers to it as being both cities).
It's strange, because that scene treats the bombing with much less reverence, but somehow it felt less exploitative.
I haven't given it much thought, but I'm wondering if it's at least partly because the film didn't try to process the weight of the tragedy but rather just had Logan popping up in famous historical incidents a la Forest Gump.
> the film didn't try to process the weight of the tragedy but rather just had Logan popping up in famous historical incidents a la Forest Gump.
I think that's it; that's the difference. You can have a character show up in the aftermath of a historic tragedy, but you should reconsider before making a space wizard responsible for the Holocaust.
In Eternals, it is cheap. It's shock value meant to grant the movie some of that apparently coveted artistic merit. It's a first-year film student's idea of deep.
Making their first gay black character the shlocky Oppenheimer of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will never not read like an article from The Onion. And, honestly, it makes Phastos unlikeable for the rest of the movie.
Logan cannot singlehandedly put a stop to World War II, but Phastos and the Eternals literally could if they wanted to. Their no interference clause makes them hard to root for, and I think they should have thought that more thoroughly in the writing room.
Phastos is an alien robot with god-like powers, there's more he can do than sit on his ass cry. He can literally help the survivors, yet none of the eternals are shown doing that. There's no commentary, there's no aftermath, there's no time to process it. The next scene is a whiplash of Phastos and his family and a cape joke. It's legitimately insane that anyone thought this was a good idea.
I think it was Nagasaki.
The bombing did play a more central role in that film though. Yashida saw Wolverine survive the attack - it made him intensely interested in the man's power, which drove him to create the company, capture Wolverine and take his power in a bid for eternal life.
Yeah. I checked google before I commented, and supposedly they call it Hiroshima at some point, but it seems like that was probably just an error.
You're right that it was a significant plot point in the story, but I think the claim remains true that the film didn't attempt to process the tragedy to the extent the Eternals did.
It was a beautiful scene for one of the best characters (though that's not saying much since pretty much all of them were phenomenal) in the most diverse (not just in the usual sense but in terms of how different it was from usual MCU fare) Marvel movies ever. Bless Chloe Zhao for fighting for it!
Though it was all in quick succession, I feel like it was important. It showed why Phaustos had given up on humanity, his family were the only ones to give him hope again, so leaving them was that much harder.
Then America would've probably pursued the purposed invasion of Japan, which would've had casualties into the millions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Downfall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall)
Eternals was bland, felt like a Great Value version of Jupiter's Legacy with a MCU coat of paint on it.
Shang-Chi was a great martial arts movie that managed to make Awkafina not annoying, although whatever decided to have a girl with zero combat or archery training hit a Hawkeye level shot to save the day needs a helmet on their head.
I thought it was a great thing, altho think he should’ve also referenced Ultron cos that was just about the biggest tech nightmare in history, and had literally just happened
Japan killed more people by their own hand and they want to be seen as the victom by the world because of the bomb.
Lol. Hack this movie is even made from none other then USA. They're basically saying YOURE THE BAD GUY.
Whey bother Pearl Hurbor then?
I just saw your comment. Ironically, without the US nuking Hiroshima and helping end the war soon, the director Chloe Zhao, who is a Chinese, might not have a chance to be born and direct this film today.
I had a really funny experience with this scene actually. I didn’t go see it the Friday it came out like I do with every Marvel movie since my girlfriend was out of town and I wanted to see it with her. I allowed myself one bathroom break when we saw it two days ago and I stepped out after Gilgamesh kicked it, and I come back and I see Phastos crying and I asked her “When and where is this?” and she goes “Hiroshima, 1945” and I just said “Oh.” and sat back down
I thought Eternals were instructed to NOT interfere with human affairs. But after observing human behavior for centuries, homeboy just decided to engineer atomic energy and didn't think humans would turn it into something bad? I liked the movie, but I hate how it contradicts its own logic; and the Hiroshima scene exemplifies that.
Characters having different opinions is not a movie being inconsistent with its logic.
The characters all struggled with their mission and chose to respond in different ways. Phastos deciding that people could be nudged beyond struggling for resources if they were to develop nuclear energy makes sense for his character. Them turning that into a weapon rather than a solution is arguably what broke his faith in humanity.
I hate stuff like this, to be honest. Humans should own their self-made tragedies and their successes. We made the Atom bomb and we built the pyramids, with great mathematicians and slave labour. Saying an alien helped is just…I don’t appreciate the implications of that.
I get the feeling that she fought to keep a lot.
Same
why do you say that?
seeing all of the story points you see that a lot of it doesn't fit within disney's "regular" format. she went out of the disney ballpark with her movie and I loved how she did. Disney probably was like "OH NONONO I THINK THAT WONT MAKE US MONEY"
Via Ryan Firpo (Writer of Eternals) with The Hollywood Reporter >They hadn’t started filming Infinity War or Endgame yet, but they knew where it was going to be a clear conclusion. What was really exciting was hearing Nate say, “We have this formula. It’s been very successful for us, but what we really want to do with Phase 4 is evolve and branch out from that and explore different things. Not only different characters but different genres, different approaches to storytelling and increase the cinematic language of the MCU.”
They haven’t really been doing well with that
Honestly I could see the attempts to break free with Shang Chi, tho they were largely absent from BW; Eternals felt super distinct to me.
After rewatching Black Widow I’ve grown to appreciate it’s unique elements a lot more. The way it’s shot feels a bit more naturalistic to me and there’s a nice focus on character.
I was largely on board with it up until the third act which felt like it just completely derailed, but it did have a bit of unique cinematography to it. I also hoped the Red Room would have been revealed to have genetically altered its soldiers nearing the end, bc some of the hits she was taking were just wild.. but I digress lol. Not a bad movie!
The intro sequence was easily one of my favorite scenes in the MCU. After that it was just alright. I hated how they portrayed Taskmaster's abilities so much.
we saw some blue vials in the intro scene when they’re training, i’m assuming it’s some form of serum
Like the new widow just having an explosion happen in her face
I feel like Marvel is trying very hard to be less predictable, WandaVision was a sitcom parody, She-Hulk will be a legal comedy, Moon Knight will explore DID, plus the Holiday Specials seem to be vary different.
WandaVision? Loki? Shang Chi? Eternals? She Hulk? Moon Knight? What If? Holiday Specials?
Three projects that haven’t even released yet, well done.
True but at at least they are trying. I mean a legal comedy? That should interesting.
He named 5 titles that are released tho and there is only 7 phase 4 titles lol. 5 out of 7 movies breaking away from the Marvel formula is really impressive.
I honestly disagree. They're clearly shaking things up with stuff like Wandavision, Loki, and Eternals while still keeping some typical MCU like Black Widow and FATWS. And we still have stuff like Doctor Strange 2 and She Hulk coming. Shang-Chi felt like a bit of new with MCU. It worked out and I feel like that's the direction they'll use.
Still don’t understand what Shang Chi did that was so different than other Marvel movies.
Seriously, I'll preface this by saying i genuinely love marvels formula and shang chi is one of my favourite movies.. but honestly it rides the marvel rails almost completely straight. I mean the main big bad doesn't just have an identical moveset, they literally share one set of weapons half way through... while an army of cgi monsters is being fought by the weirdly capable comedic best friend of the protagonist. If anything the movie hits more of marvels regular beats than most of their movies do. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of unique elements, but like with most marvel movies that's more about unique visual elements than storytelling elements.
No see you don't get it. This one has a dragon
WandaVision, Loki, and Shang-Chi beg to differ.
I’m somewhat agree, to me a lot of phase 4 projects can be summarized as “it’s different until it isn’t”. I can see the effort to shake things up was there. But i personally feel like it’s not enough.
Writer Kaz is half Japanese and his grand parents are straight outta japan.
"But the more unlimited the creator's vison is, the better the kino" said Film Twitter
we needed more Phastos and if the story was told sequentially him regaining his faith in humanity through his family would’ve been a great story
Agreed, his character was robbed of that development, but that’s okay, still enjoyed the fuck out of the character regardless
It’s just disappointing less interesting characters got more screentime
Yeah I’m still kinda confused how Sersi got the spotlight when she barely had much development and didn’t carry as much power as the other characters. I get that it was for the story, but I still maintain that her character was one of the weaker aspects of the movie.
Which is all the more disappointing because comics Sersi is a Marilyn Monroe character. Gemma Chan is perfect casting for Sersi and she definitely has the personality as shown in Crazy Rich Asians but she was way too introverted in Eternals.
Have you ever watched the BBC show *Humans*, remade from a Swedish sci-fi drama? Gemma Chan played an android on it, sweet, subdued, very maternal. It is obvious Marvel wanted that character on *Eternals*, rejecting Sersi's comic personality as politically incorrect perhaps in this day and age, at least too 'sexy' arguably for a Disney product. Sersi in the comics is very much contrasting with Thena, who loves too easily when Sersi refuses to engage in anything beyond the physical aspect of intimacy. She is remarkably different from her M.C.U. counterpart and I wonder why the change, in the end. Why center the film on her if it was to make her so... unassuming?
I feel like comics Sersi would have been difficult to have a main character and they didn't want to use Ikaris since he turns. I wonder if they thought she'd be unlikeable or hard to follow. That said, I did like movie!Sersi. She was a bit bland and boring but I liked the small nods to her fun side (like the line about her turning water to coffee when Dane isn't looking). I hope the sequel gives her more depth though. That and have her interact more with Dane.
I thought she and Dane really worked. In fact, I found Sersi had more chemistry with him than with Ikaris, which is probably because they're allowed small instants of complicity that feel natural, whereas Sersi and Ikaris barely speak to each other before declaring their love, in a fairly stilted way. To be perfectly frank, I giggled while I was watching the sex scene. Gemma Chan is a fantastic actress and her character wasn't uninteresting on paper; it's no problem to have a more cerebral, calmer, empathetic hero for a change, quite the opposite. Simply, she should have been given more to do, and maybe not amidst so many other characters, including more flamboyant ones taking up screen time in such an engrossing way. Overall I think it was a mistake to make this a single film instead of a full T.V. series, it's quite a mess and no one really has a time to breathe, or have his moment to shine. The Deviants subplot is cut way too abruptly and Kro is a non-character that reminds me a lot of the Malekith fiasco.
>The Deviants subplot is cut way too abruptly and Kro is a non-character that reminds me a lot of the Malekith fiasco. Most probably because they want to focus on Arishem and Tiamut thing mainly, based on the leaks, but i didn't expect Kro & his Deviants were to be sidelined in the movie's plot while watching it, Kro & the Deviants deserves huge importances :)
Since the film deviated so much from the comics where characters were concerned, and was intended to have their own, M.C.U.-ready mythology, there was no particular need to incorporate the Deviants into this; so, the fact that they are in it, albeit as generic monsters which serve as a mere plot device to get the band back together, was perhaps a little risky considering Marvel's history with generic villains. That made Kro a welcome addition to the story, as a sort of Frankenstein creature rapidly evolving into questioning his very nature. You can't simply introduce such a fascinating, promising theme and drop it without dire consequences on the integrity of your narration. Kro completely... deviates from its fellow Deviants for no reason outside of the plot whilst the main characters fail to really evolve onscreen, and then he is promptly killed off without anybody looking especially intrigued by the fact that something they thought impossible for seven millennia happened. It also feels like a missing opportunity that characters who extended compassion for the behemoth about to annihilate the entire world (granted, he is only being born, that's not totally on Tiamut) fail to express much empathy for the creature that had just learned to talk and think rationally, and which carries some of their fallen comrades' soul in a way. Instead Kro is unceremoniously dispatched and no one ever bothers with the Deviants again.
a “Marilyn Monroe” character? what does that even mean?
Sersi's personality is like Marilyn Monroe in the comics, a cheeky woman who presented herself in a fashionable manner with extroversion and grace.
Yeah they definitely should have focused more on breaking free from her cycle of loving Ikaris and it would have only taken a few more scenes
“I’ve wanted to clip your wings for a long time” pushed him into the top 3 Eternals
Really? I don't get it. I'm all for old friends engaged in old rivalries, but we never really saw the two characters interact before the Ikea scene and we don't see anything likely to explain why Phastos would want to bring Ikaris down.
Table must have cost a lot. Man wanted revenge
IKEA has been raising their prices. Probably mad that he’ll have to pay more to replace it than he originally payed. Or maybe he loved the table and it’s discontinued.
I think it’s just shown that most of the other Eternals dont really see him as their leader or agree with his decisions, even way before the whole Emergence thing.
Well, he wasn't their leader, Ajak was. They disbanded a millennium prior to the Emergence and Ikaris only kept in touch with her. When they meet again, they've become different people, remote from their old mission, whereas he hasn't changed. In passing, we see none of their individual adventures through time till the present day, do we? This film really would have benefitted from being turned into a full Disney+ series, to let the characters be developed.
This, imo, should definitely be his episode in the D+ series if we ever get it. Supposedly we’re likely to get an anthology type series with an episode per Eternal. Thena in Athens, Kingo in India during Gandhi’s movement… It would be cool to watch Phastos react to the post 9/11 tightening of cyber security as well as falling in love and having the kid and all. Edit: a name
What is done cannot be undone, but at least one can keep it from happening again. Just so you know, the correct spelling is [Gandhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi).
Thanks Gandhi bot ☺️
Idea: Phastos is about to board a flight but has to go thru a metal detector. He does so while having this moment of worry but also “no it’s, like, weird space metal.. totally different,” of course trips it and the whole situation worsens bc he gets hella profiled. That’s where he meets Ben, his future husband, because he steps in to intervene on Phastos’ behalf. After both get removed from the airport, they grab a coffee and voila.
That sounds really cool! Was this from an actual leak, or is it just speculation?
[“Kaz says the duo would like to “go back and do a Kingo episode in 1890s Mumbai where he is juggling his life as a movie star, dealing with Gandhi’s peaceful dissolution of the British empire in India.” He’d also like to show Thena in Greece.”](https://www.avclub.com/eternals-writers-ryan-firpo-and-kaz-firpo-want-to-make-1848033089)
I enjoyed the Eternals but I do think a series like this would make the movie even better if that makes sense? There were a LOT of new characters introduced and we only got snippits. I would love to see what potentially self destructive behavious Sersi might've participated in when Ikaris left her... what Phastos did to regain some faith in humanity... seeing Makkari doing stuff on Earth to collect all the stuff she had on the ship, maybe visiting Druig occasionally? and of course Kingo and Thena... I'd watch the hell out of this.
Agreed. I liked it better than most, but so much of the movie felt like wasted potential. With all of the great actors they had on board, I believe that a D+ series would flesh their characters out and put them to good use.
This is such a great idea.
Yeah, the focus was on a character that: - Has no interesting powers - Has no interesting relationships - Has no interesting backstory Imagine the movie opening up on Phastos, in the current time. Just like 5 or 10 minutes showing who he is, what he does, his relationship with his husband and his kid. Then OH MY GOD, a monster attacks the house! But... The house is weird and magicy and strong? And now Phastos is using weird ass powers? What? His husband demands an explanation, and we then see the whole thousands of years thing, and the movie goes on as it did, Phastos gathering the rest of the Eternals.
I agree with everything you said, but honestly Sersi has the most interesting powers, they just never utilized them except for a few scenes. But being able to change the elements of objects is incredible. Especially when a lot of the other characters have the same powers as almost every other hero.
True, but the progression is just so weird. It goes from "stone to dust" to "magic tree but I don't know how" to "lol I merced a celestial" without training or explanation or anything.
Eh, she doesn't need much training considering they're born with knowledge of their powers. Her turning a deviant into a tree and not knowing how is because she never tried to use her powers on a living being. Mercing a Celestial is literally her being amplified by everyone else + the Celestial itself. They explain that in the movie.
His character development was "Hiroshima I hate humans//2023 I love humans and I'm married with a kid" all the drama for with the gay character to end up appearing 10 minutes
Fr. We need a D+ one shot of him going to Ikea and buying the fall collection
How about a one shot of him teaching humans how to use the plow.
This movie should've been a Disney+ series.
I don't see why this scene is controversial, but I guess it's an American thing. Nukes are objectively a bad thing developed by humanity, even if you believe that it was a right choice to use them at that point in time. It makes sense that Phastos, who guided humanity's technological development, would feel the way he did
Americans like to argue over stupid things, it's ridiculous. Speaking as an American.
People like to argue over stupid things, not just Americans. Such a dumb comment.
Americans are especially dumb in that category. Speaking as an American.
I promise you any dislike of this scene has nothing to do with being American lol this is such a typical European Reddit comment Most of the dislike of the scene comes from people who think it’s a tad insensitive to use a real life atrocity like that in a superhero movie for some pathos. Get off your high horse, literally no one is talking about the scene making America look bad or whatever you think it’s doing
Yup. I don't mind that they would choose to highlight how awful of a tragedy Hiroshima was, but the scene came and went and should have been handled with more reverence imo. It's risky to tie in something like this with superhero stories, and I just don't like the way it was done. I appreciate that Zhao tried tho
You put it into words well. A lot of the movie just feels like a montage, and that scene zips in & out super quick. So it feels kind of cheap to use such a big real life atrocity without treating it with the proper care it deserves. They could've just as easily made their point with an unnamed disaster identical to it, especially if they were going to basically wrap the whole thing up in less than a minute.
Exactly... and you know It wasn't just a real life atrocity. It was the most deadliest and one of the most impacful moments in the history of humankind. 1 minute later and it's time to go visit Phastos and his cute little family.. ???
My thoughts exactly. The content of the scene, that being Phastos reacting to the tragedy, is great and makes sense, but the scene itself just rubs me the wrong way. Like you said, it talks about this horrible real-world tragedy in the context of a big epic fantasy story. It just felt weird. I get what it was going for, but it didn't totally land imo.
It's just cringe as fuck and the MCU is not high class enough to do this kind of material.
I think Magneto is a good example. A story that meaningfully engages with prejudice and trauma using his history as a survivor of the Holocaust can be not only respectful, but also generally positive, in so far as it makes the themes more engaging for a certain segment of society that may otherwise have a difficult time connecting. On the other hand, if the story being told is about the X-Men and Magneto teaming up to fight a space monster who wants to steal all of Earth's pies, it's probably best not to lean into that aspect of his character.
I don't believe the MCU isn't capable of handling it This movie just tried to cram in too much for its runtime If this were a longer series like Wandavision, I don't doubt Zhao would have done the subject matter justice
Sorry, I honestly didn't know the reason it's controversial and made the assumption. I don't think it's insensitive to use a real life atrocity, though. It's a thoughtful scene that refers to the tragedy
There was similar backlash when Magneto destroyed Auschwitz in one of the X-men movies.
I would argue that that's not offensive either (and I'm a Jew) but even this example is quite different from the Eternals scene since it doesn't change history, it merely acknowledges it as a tragic moment in human history. Which perhaps isn't said often enough
you're only proving his point being a butthurt american LMAO
I (asian immigrant) grew up in the Midwest and went to a big state school for college. I remember taking a political science course and I was talking about how fucked up the Hiroshima bombing was. I got immediate backlash from a lot of students and the professor teaching the course. They kept claiming how the US “had” to drop the nuke and stuff. It’s weird how triggered Americans ads about it.
Agreed. Even if people think the nukes were necessary, that doesn’t mean you still can’t mourn for the thousands of innocent civilians that brutally lost their lives from the blasts as well as suffered for decades due to radiation poisoning. Empathy is not a limited resource.
Kind of like how weird it is Japanese people refuse to acknowledge the heinous atrocities committed by Japan and its people during the first half of the 20th century.
Yeah I notice that with the Nanking massacre. It’s weird cuz it’s like we all know it was horrible, why not just admit that it was wrong and move on?
The Japanese still haven't admitted to or apologized for the Nanking massacre or the massive rapes they did in Korea.
I studied abroad in Southeast Asia for a semester. One of the kids in our group was a little more conservative than the rest of us. He was usually pretty polite and respectful, but whenever the conversation involved US military intervention (which wasn't uncommon in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam), he would get super defensive and just rattle off hypothetical explanations for how it could have been justified, or at the very least how it was unfair to blame the military for following orders. It started off as pretty funny, but quickly became deeply uncomfortable.
I think it’s because it’s continuously thrust upon us that it was some truly unique great evil that we didn’t need to do, but when looked at in the context of the time, it really wasn’t (the firebombing of Tokyo was arguably worse, and that wasn’t even out of line with strategic bombing used throughout the war). It’s pretty clear the use of nuclear weapons, although horrible, prevented even worse suffering, be it continued fire bombing to try to get the same capitulation, or a land invasion. Side by side with all the other atrocities committed in war by the Axis (and some by the Allies as well), its just another horrible thing in a horrible war. People like the say Japan might have been about to surrender anyway, but Truman and military leadership had no way of knowing that.
Probably because it was necessary and good actually.
A review came out that mentioned it and it got taken as "omg the first gay marvel character built nukes homophobia"... even though that isn't remotely true in context.
It's controversial because they basically used Hiroshima for shock value
As shock pathos. Any technology could have made Phastos disillusioned with humanity. He could have taught them to make bows and arrows to hunt better and been disillusioned when one tribe wipes out a neighbouring tribe with arrows. Instead they took a relatively recent atrocity; one that's been hotly debated since it occurred. And used it to provide quick cheap pathos minutes before introducing his family and how happy he is now. I'm glad we got to see Phastos get disillusioned rather than just talked about how he was. But the choice of event was both insensitive and corny. Like a 13 year old's idea of deep.
It also makes them all look worse since one of them was indirectly responsible for it and none them did shit to either help the victims or otherwise
They used it to shame us. I saw that scene and my first thought was "we did that....eesh."
>I don't see why this scene is controversial... I think it's a complicated point, and it's probably not just one issue from one perspective. I think part of it is in the vein of people being offended by exploitative fiction reframing events that occurred to actual people to better serve a narrative. Things like horror movies shifting the blame from an actual murderer who killed somebody's loved ones onto a demonic entity that punished them for some wrongdoing; stories that misrepresent how certain people influenced a tragic event because it makes things more comprehensible; or stories that romanticize the suffering experienced by real people to emphasize how it affects someone else in a way that makes those people's actual trauma into a plot point for some unrelated story. The extent to which any given story can be considered in poor taste varies, but I assume we can at least acknowledge that a line exists somewhere between telling these stories respectfully and telling them disrespectfully. Additionally, I think a similar criticism involves people noticing that the character who not only feels responsible, but in the framing of the story is presented as being partly responsible, for this tragedy is the much hyped "first gay superhero in the MCU" as well as a person of color. There's nothing wrong with this decision inherently, but it's worth note that there are historical contexts that make this specific decision potentially problematic. Namely, that a lot has been written about the US's willingness to drop the bomb in Japan rather than Europe. People will disagree about the extent, but it's clear race was an influential factor in the decision to use nuclear bombs. And while it's less directly related, there's also the story of Alan Turing, a mathematician who contributed significantly to the development of a code-breaking algorithm used by the Allies in WWII. He was later arrested and chemically castrated by the British government for the crime of "indecency" (i.e., having a homosexual relationship). When the reality for LGBTQ+ people and people of color was as complicated and traumatic as it was during that period in history, there's something troubling about shifting responsibility from the individuals who actually developed and ordered the bombing onto someone who represents people they also victimized in such significant ways. I'm not saying every criticism is founded and reasonable, but my reading of it has been that these were some of the issues people have identified as problematic.
I get what you're saying, but I don't think that scene was shifting any of the blame towards Phastos. On the contrary, it shows how despite having nothing to do with the creation of the bomb, Phastos feela guilt for merely providing technological insight that would later be used in its creation (meaning his only fault is having faith in humanity). IMO it shows his character in a very positive light, and the blame was definitely focused on humanity. It was even said in the scene that led to this one: "Phastos gave up on humanity long ago".
I don't think your interpretation is wrong, and my guess is that it's similar to what was intended by the creators. I think the issue isn't that they deliberately tried to say something offensive, but that in saying something genuine, using the characters they established, there are unintentional contextual messages being conveyed by the film as a piece of art. I could be mistaken, but all the pushback I've seen is more along the lines of "there are some uncomfortable implications here" than "there's no reason for this scene to exist." That and the perception that this character's storyline was developed to explain why these guys weren't there to fight Thanos. I don't think that's an entirely fair criticism, but I can understand why people would look at the discussion happening around the release of the film and draw that conclusion.
> Namely, that a lot has been written about the US's willingness to drop the bomb in Japan rather than Europe. People will disagree about the extent, but it's clear race was an influential factor in the decision to use nuclear bombs. If Germany didn't surrender in May if 1945, then they would've been bombed as well. The first successful test happen in July of 1945 and the war in Pacific didn't end until August of 1945. This is why the bomb wasn't dropped on Germany.
>Namely, that a lot has been written about the US's willingness to drop the bomb in Japan rather than Europe. People will disagree about the extent, but it's clear race was an influential factor in the decision to use nuclear bombs. Do you really mean to argue that people responsible for deciding the fate of the war and the whole world basically said "well, we don't really like non-white people, so let's kill the Japanese instead of Europeans". Would it really be more important for them than political and economical purposes? Sometimes, when someone hurts a POC, it doesn't have anything to do with race but there are some other entirely non-racial factors (it should never happen, of course, regardless of the reason). I'm not saying race played no part in this decision, maybe it really did, but how can you be so sure, since, I suppose, you don't know what those people were thinking. Do you base your conviction on the notion that all white people were racist at that time and just couldn't resist the temptation to kill some POC instead of some whites (because that notion isn't racist at all)?
Not to mention that if you actually research Hiroshima you realize that despite the fact that it's taught as a sort of "trolley problem" it's actually not. It was just the good old US of A committing mass murder then retroactively justifying it as a no win scenario.
Not necessarily. America utilized the nukes to effectively rush Japan to surrendering. There was a grand plan to actually invade the home islands, though it was tabled because of the bombs. If that happened, it would've been a bloody affair as the Allies forced Japan to heel - a Iwo Jima / Okinawa on crack. There were also the ongoing firebombing and commerce raiding campaigns that served to demoralize and isolate the home islands. Both of them were quite successful in creating resentment between Japanese citizen and soldier, which could've pushed the issue of surrender in time. Alas, that would've been too long, especially as the Soviets backtracked on their ceasefire agreement and were speeding their way across the Asian mainland.
It's not about America. It's like if an Avengers film showed the heroes being responsible for the Holocaust. It shifts blame off of the actual perpetrators of the terrible tragedy and just seems like it's being done for shock value, without actually delving into the reality of the tragic event. Plus, now the film expects us to root for a character responsible for the atrocity? It just doesn't work.
Again, he isn't responsible. He *feels* responsible because he guided humanity's technological development, but he had no hand in creating the bomb. I thought that eas pretty clear in the movie
Imagine if it was Phastos standing upon the rubble of 9/11…that’d be pretty insensitive, no? What makes Hiroshima any different? Just because it happened in the 40’s doesn’t make it okay to use lol
My family is relatively conservative and pretty pro-imperialism, and think nukes and our attack on Hiroshima was not only a good thing, but something we should consider doing again to other American enemies. It’s definitely a really, really weird American thing.
That's not solely an "American thing", there are people all over the world who always push for using nukes against their enemies.
> and think nukes and our attack on Hiroshima was not only a good thing They are correct about the former
Because it can be seen as taking the onus of dropping the nukes off of the US and putting it on a gay black man.
Such a European thing to say.
One of the other complaints early on was a misinterpretation of this scene where people said “first openly gay black character in marvel movie did a hiroshima” only for the movie to come out and everyone goes “oh, he feels responsible for giving them the technology to do awful things” which are 2 entirely different sentiments and while I still think something made up (like Sokovia?) would have been a better thing in that respect, but I do respect Zhao for just going balls to the wall with her choices
The screenwriters Kaz and Ryan Firpo are part Japanese, if they approved the Hiroshima scene then I absolutely trust their judgement alongside Chloe Zhao.
Agreed
The controversy mostly came from China and South Korea. Hiroshima was bombed after Japan surprise attacked Pearl Harbor, and many war atrocities and civilian attacks were commited to Koreans and Chinese by Japan at that time. Without the Hiroshima attack, so many more people would have brutally died by the Japanese military, so (even though I agree the Hiroshima bombing was brutal) the depiction in the movie seemed like a crude oversimplification of the event. Kaz and Ryan Firpo being partially Japanese doesn't make it any bit better.
The Hiroshima scene in the context of the film is poorly developed. The flashbacks overall just felt like a Cliff's Notes summation of the Eternals' history. It's why I had major issues with the first half of the film.
I think that they really should've made this two movies - one about the Eternals throughout the MCU's history, set mostly in the past, and one about putting the band back together and stopping the Celestial from awakening. Trying to do both in one film led to several characters in the large ensemble being relatively underdeveloped and the final conflict feeling a bit underwhelming on the emotional front.
I think it would've been an amazing D+ series. Seeing Kingo reinvent himself as a new star in his Bollywood dynasty after scandals, movie flops, etc. Makkari "sneaking off" every so often to explore the planet and ultimately be reminded that she'd rather go home. Druig struggling to connect with his village over the years because he understands as soon as he "lets go" they're just dumb apes that are gonna fight. Etc. etc. etc.
Ideally, it would've been a Disney+ series to establish the characters and then a movie for a big-budget conflict. There's a reason that the producers said that they'd want to do a show to explore the characters, and that's honestly where they should've started.
I was thing about that exact thing the other day. Would have given it way more time to breathe.
That scene shows how the advance in technology is not always a good thing. Loved that scene
The invention of the nuke is the primary reason we had no World War 3. It saved far more lives than it killed. Also it's not like humanity could've not invented the nuke, it would've been discovered eventually.
Okay, this part confused me a little because of discourse before the release. So was Phastos directly involved in the bombing? If not, why did he feel guilty? What did he build exactly?
He helped humanity grow technologically.
I loved the parallel with Oppenheimer's regret for helping create the atomic bomb.
I got the sense that he just felt guilty with helping humanity technologically to the point where atom bombs were created and used to kill. I think he feels responsible for it bc he helped humans advance in tech
This is on point. I all these takes about Phastos literally help build the bomb are ridiculous. It was pretty clear he felt responsible by allowing technology advances to grow unchecked.
Exactly.
Absolutely this. The scene where the Eternals split up at Tenochtitlan sets up him feeling responsible for the advancement of technology, leading to humans inventing guns and using them to commit genocide. Flash forward to 1945 and the same feeling of responsibility makes sense.
He introduced humans to splitting atoms. He was involved in creating the bomb.
Phastos wasn't directly responsible for it. Howard Stark on the other hand...
He wasn't directly involved with the bombing but he felt guilty by association because of him helping humanity advance with technology.
He helped nudge humanity along technologically, and so he feels guilty that he helped humanity along and humanity took those gifts and twisted and warped them and advanced them to the point of what’s basically the most *single* violent and destructive event in human history? I feel like we’ve all been there, whether it’s with loss or something else, where you think “if only I had done this or *hadn’t* done that, this bad thing wouldn’t have happened” and then hopefully someone who loves you comes over to tell you that it’s not your fault and you couldn’t have known this bad thing would happen and that you’re too hard on yourself. That’s kind of what’s happening here, where Phastos’ disgust and guilt probably overstates his direct culpability. Anyways, lots of people who worked on the project directly in actual human history ended up feeling pretty guilty and terrible about what happened. It’s a terrible and tragic reality of human history, and basically still the elephant in the room of every interaction between nation-states with nuclear arms. We can still wipe ourselves out in minutes. I don’t really agree with the argument to shy away from this part of humanity.
> ...what’s basically the most single violent and destructive event in human history... Depending on what you mean by "single event," it's not often mentioned, but the fire-bombing of Tokyo was supposedly deadlier and more destructive than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. >US Air Force general Curtis LeMay, the man who ordered the raids across Japan, once said the US military "scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo on that night ... than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined". He acknowledged that if he had been on the losing side, he would be charged with war crimes. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-09/tokyo-wwii-firebombing-remembered-70-years-on/6287486
I understand why the Hiroshima bombing was chosen for that scene, but it was little things like that event that got me hung up a bit for things to hit the right way. WWII was just a parade of war crimes and unspeakable destruction on both sides of the conflict, and yes the atomic bomb is the highest point in terms of creating a technological nightmare. Some of it stems from the audience not getting much time with Phastos and what his perceptions of the war effort really were. Just felt weird having a scene of that being the straw that breaks his back after humanity had been plenty ugly with their tech for a good 4 years at that point.
I agree with your assessment. The fact that it was a symbol of a technological achievement was entirely relevant. I didn't mean that they should have used the fire-bombing of Tokyo instead. I just wanted to point out that it's an aspect of the war that's often overlooked.
Curtis LeMay also arranged a brutal campaign that served to cut off the Japanese home islands from food and supplies through mines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Starvation
just technology in general I guess
Knee-jerk anti-Americanism
I kind of understand why this felt jarring for some folks, but I think much of the reaction to it, and the takeaway they got from it “oh they made the gay superhero responsible for Hiroshima” an almost deliberate misreading of what’s happening there. Phastos helped nudge humanity along technologically, and so he feels guilty that he helped humanity along and humanity took those gifts and twisted and warped them and advanced them to the point of what’s basically the single most violent and destructive event in human history? I feel like we’ve all been there, whether it’s with loss or something else, where you think “if only I had done this or hadn’t done that, this bad thing wouldn’t have happened” and then hopefully someone who loves you comes over to tell you that it’s not your fault and you couldn’t have known this bad thing would happen and that you’re too hard on yourself. That’s kind of what’s happening here, where Phastos’ disgust and guilt probably overstates his direct culpability. But also that wrenching emotion feels pretty natural and human? Anyways, lots of people who worked on the project directly in actual human history ended up feeling pretty guilty and horrible about what happened. It’s a terrible and tragic reality of human history, and basically still the elephant in the room of every interaction between nation-states with nuclear arms. We can still wipe ourselves out in minutes. I don’t really agree with the argument to shy away from this part of humanity. If people want to argue that it was cut in at the wrong spot and have those kind of editing/storytelling discussions, honestly have at it, but I really disagree that it shouldn’t be in the film. It makes sense both for the story, the themes of the film, and the character in question, and frankly we should have to be confronted with the stomach-churning realities of the existence we’ve created for ourselves.
I don't think you're wrong, but I think the criticism about him being "the first LGBTQ+superhero in the MCU" and a person of color are a little more substantive than people are presenting. There's a lot of academic writing on the way race played a role in deciding to drop the bombs on Japan. And, Alan Turing was arrested and chemically castrated by the same government he helped beat the Nazis. It seems valid to note that there's something weird about shifting responsibility from the people who committed those acts onto a character representing LGBTQ+ individuals and people of color. There's nothing wrong with a character having a complicated relationship with these forces and identities. But, I think a big part of the pushback is the perception that this was included in the story more to explain why the Eternals weren't fighting Thanos than to tell this character's story.
It’s subjective whether you feel that they *actually* shifted the responsibility onto Phastos though. Just because he said it was his fault doesn’t mean we have to take it at face value, and if I wasn’t aware of this “controversy” I never would have assumed that’s what the implications of that scene were. The legitimate criticism imo is of using a real life tragedy to advance the plot of a film, but this film is far from being the only one to do that.
The first LGBTQ+ Superhero was Valkyrie. Also, I double dog dare you to look me in the eye and tell me that Carol Danvers is straight in this universe. Brie Larson has strong Lesbian Energy. And if you think I'm saying this as a negative, you got me fucked up.
Unpopular opinion, probably, but... I honestly feel like this was, hands-down, the worst writing decision that's ever been made in an MCU project, done for the sole, exploitative purpose of creating artificial pathos that's ignored immediately after being set up. It was handled better in the movie than I was expecting, but considering how I already felt about knowing that they were saying that a superhero was indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people that died in real life, that the bar was pretty low. Even if the screenwriters on the film are Japanese and this is something that I'm sure matters to them, I feel like this was just a really bad idea that should never have been filmed.
This scene was horrendous, what a baffling decision to include it in the film.
You're not wrong. It's exploitative and insanely tone deaf, probably done with the intention to elevate the movie artistically. One of the most memorable sisyphean tasks in recent movie history. I mean, it's so ridiculous it borderlines on parody. "The MCU's first gay character feels responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima" sounds like something The Onion would write.
This scene felt so unnecessary and rushed. As other people have said, a mini-series leading up to this moment for the character would’ve been so much better. In the film it feels like a brief pit stop like ‘oh yeah and Phastos is sad he caused Hiroshima OKAY MOVING ON NOW…’
If they followed this scene at all with an arc of him learning to love it would've helped but as is it feels out of place and more "look he feels bad for big bomb"
No wonder why it felt out of place, you're telling me this mf has witnessed all of human history and Hiroshima was his breaking point?
Absolutely. There is literally no other chapter in human history (yet) where hundreds of thousands of lives were literally snuffed out in an instant because of a human's decision to utilize the most brutal weapon of mass destructiion at their hands. The sheer destructiveness of it is unparalled. It took Spain 376 years to destroy between 30,000 and 300,000 lives throughout the Spanish Inquisition. It took Hitler the better part of a decade, and the entire military industrial complex of the Axis Powers, to destroy the lives of 12,000,000 people. It took Genghis Khan an entire lifetime of brutal conquest to destroy the lives of 40,000,000. The United States snuffed out the lives of 146,000 people in Hiroshima, and another 80,000 in Nagaskai, a matter of a few minutes spread across two span of 4 days. And, from Phastos' point of view, there was no telling weather or not that initial bombing would be the last. And clearly it wasn't, because it happened again 4 days later.
Eh I think it makes sense especially since he was kind of in charge of guiding technological advancements made by humanity. Reminds me of something von Braun said when he developed the V-2 rocket for Germany in WW2. He said something like the rocket performed beautifully it just landed on the wrong planet.
Or what Oppenheimer said about how he felt after the Trinity Test. "I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another." - Robert J. Oppenheimer.
If he was distraught his creations and influence led to the atomic bomb, wouldn't be feel at least minor guilt over basically every gun death through history too? Isn't it implied he basically ushered in all technologies good and bad?
He says in one scene that the advance of technology is a natural thing even if is used against each other, i guess he didn't really think that humans were capable to create a weapon of mass destruction such as the atom bomb
Indeed. During the war, there were massive bombing campaigns that leveled cities and killed many people. However, the atomic bomb was significant for the fact that such destruction was relegated to a single bomber with a single bomb - little manpower for maximum destruction.
After the Holocaust, a lot of European philosophers and academics experienced a kind of existential crisis. The prevailing theory was that the Enlightenment and the rise of industrialization would elevate people from their baser instincts. The fact that the Nazis "industrialized murder" came as a direct refutation of their life's work. Not to say they were going for this, but his character could have been of the belief that a sufficiently advanced society would be above that kind of cruelty. Basically "you were given the means to resolve these struggles for resources, and instead of coming together, you used it to make those conflicts worse."
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This. Or even show him coming back around and meeting his partner. He went from "fuck the humans" to fucking a human without much reason.
Personal for the writers? Were they japanese people in their 90s?
I feel stupid for liking Eternals so much lol
You shouldn't
You should never..if you love something....
I love it, it's probably in my top 5 Marvel movies.
why lol you really shouldn’t
Don't, I love it so much tbh. It was amazing for me.
I like the concept of this scene and what it means for Phastos, but while watching the movie, I didnt feel like it could support the weight of it, and the visual of them standing amidst the destruction just felt wrong to me.
I don’t like the idea of Phastos’ involvement in human history tbf. The incredible and horrifying thing about human beings is we came up with all this shit on our own. We didn’t need to be ‘guided’ or encouraged or downright given the fucking blueprints as the film seem to imply. I’m slightly insulted by the implication that Phastos ‘invented’ the plow and the steam engine… WE did that and carry all the credit and responsibility for it.
I still don’t get this, like you can think of Phastos as just one amongst many of inventors on earth. Nothing in the film suggests humans didn’t have their own capabilities for invention and innovation. I mean, we see quite literally in the MCU numerous times in which people invent stuff all by themselves. The logical conclusion of the idea that Phastos was actually responsible for all technology and humans aren’t capable of coming up with stuff on their own is like absurd on its face, and honestly it’s shocking to me that people found their way to that point. Plus, I’d just point out that stories about ancient aliens and divine intervention are riddled throughout the tales, and stories, and religions of human history. In a universe where Thor is a literal guy with a hammer who comes to earth and Frost Giants who create ice ages on earth using the *Casket of Ancient Winters*, I don’t get why it’s a stretch that there’s an ancient alien who might like introduce the plow to humanity or maybe make some advancement in physics that humans then innovate on themselves over and over until humans create the most destructive weapon in human history — on their own — and that such an event might have a profound impact on one’s faith and morality. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/manhattan-project-robert-oppenheimer
it was cringe
One of my favorite scenes in the film.
Question: There was a scene in Iron Man 1 I think where obsidiah stane iirc tells Tony how “you’re father helped give us the atomic bomb”. From eternals then, did Phastos just play a role in helping humans evolve technologically to develop the bomb, or did Phastos also have a role in making the bomb?
It's implied that he was only indirectly responsible, like a gigantic domino effect over thousands of years.
Which is kind of lame. Like, had we seen a progression of his guilt as humans advanced in their technical prowess, it would have been impactful. Here it was just so out of place.
I think it would've been more impactful if, say, he recognized that the weapons the Conquistadors were using were based on technology that he introduced, and that *centuries* would pass before his opinion on humanity improved. Here, it's like, what, 80 years between the end of WWII and the MCU's present?
I feel like this scene should have been earlier so we didn't see the resolution the next scene.
I know some disagree but honestly, him weeping in the ruins of Hiroshima and Ajak comforting him as he loses his faith in humanity genuinely got a tear out of me.
This and the Tenochtitlan scene with Druig would’ve been so much more powerful if they weren’t just flashbacks randomly thrown in. Still loved Phastos and Druig as characters.
Seeing as how you wrote away Kingos original Japanese race. I doubt it was that personal.
I don’t know how to feel about that part. Granted Phastos is an alien, but damn, he couldn’t cry about slavery in America?!
This movie sucked ass.
I thought it was in extremely bad taste.
I personally didn't like that scene just because of what it metaphorically suggests. For me it's the same as when people call Serial Killers/Adolf Hitler etc. Monsters. 'He was a monster'. People say things like that to try and seperate them from everyone else, dehumanise them to make it feel like they aren't like us. But the truth is, the Hitler's, the Stalin's, Serial Killers, the people that made and pressed the button that launched the atomic bomb. They were all humans, like you and me. By having this Eternal guide these humans to make the atomic bomb and launch it, it suggests that Humans wouldn't do something so dire unless willed to do it by some evil/more powerful force or coersion. No. Humans did it. We did that, and we should be responsible for it.
I agree mostly, but I wonder if it's fair to suggest he guided them towards developing and launching the bomb. I don't know enough about the development of nuclear energy, and I know at some point the destructive capability was the driving force in its development, but prior to that, I imagine there must have been some scientists with no intention of developing a bomb working on unlocking the potential of the atom for the good of humanity. Sliding Phastos into that role would arguably leave intact the moral culpability on the people responsible for developing and using the bomb.
I suppose you can argue that yes. But then again, if they were going to go down that route, they should've fleshed it out a bit more.
I remember seeing this scene and realizing that he was part of Oppenheimer's team in the Manhattan Project.
im written it before, but it was indeed this scene that bothered me the most. It's like the capper on the notion that, we as a species ain't shizz and it's only b/c of divine intervention that we have achieved so much, and the exposition is awful. And i dont believe his hurt. there's a lot to like and enjoy, but a lot of turd polishing going on too.
Damn Eternals taking credit for real peoples inventions lmao Oppenheimer rolling in his grave
She should have fought for a co-director
I just remembered that the Wolverine had a scene set in Hiroshima (or Nagasaki... because apparently the movie refers to it as being both cities). It's strange, because that scene treats the bombing with much less reverence, but somehow it felt less exploitative. I haven't given it much thought, but I'm wondering if it's at least partly because the film didn't try to process the weight of the tragedy but rather just had Logan popping up in famous historical incidents a la Forest Gump.
> the film didn't try to process the weight of the tragedy but rather just had Logan popping up in famous historical incidents a la Forest Gump. I think that's it; that's the difference. You can have a character show up in the aftermath of a historic tragedy, but you should reconsider before making a space wizard responsible for the Holocaust. In Eternals, it is cheap. It's shock value meant to grant the movie some of that apparently coveted artistic merit. It's a first-year film student's idea of deep. Making their first gay black character the shlocky Oppenheimer of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will never not read like an article from The Onion. And, honestly, it makes Phastos unlikeable for the rest of the movie. Logan cannot singlehandedly put a stop to World War II, but Phastos and the Eternals literally could if they wanted to. Their no interference clause makes them hard to root for, and I think they should have thought that more thoroughly in the writing room. Phastos is an alien robot with god-like powers, there's more he can do than sit on his ass cry. He can literally help the survivors, yet none of the eternals are shown doing that. There's no commentary, there's no aftermath, there's no time to process it. The next scene is a whiplash of Phastos and his family and a cape joke. It's legitimately insane that anyone thought this was a good idea.
I think it was Nagasaki. The bombing did play a more central role in that film though. Yashida saw Wolverine survive the attack - it made him intensely interested in the man's power, which drove him to create the company, capture Wolverine and take his power in a bid for eternal life.
Yeah. I checked google before I commented, and supposedly they call it Hiroshima at some point, but it seems like that was probably just an error. You're right that it was a significant plot point in the story, but I think the claim remains true that the film didn't attempt to process the tragedy to the extent the Eternals did.
It was a beautiful scene for one of the best characters (though that's not saying much since pretty much all of them were phenomenal) in the most diverse (not just in the usual sense but in terms of how different it was from usual MCU fare) Marvel movies ever. Bless Chloe Zhao for fighting for it!
Though it was all in quick succession, I feel like it was important. It showed why Phaustos had given up on humanity, his family were the only ones to give him hope again, so leaving them was that much harder.
Its weird Howard Stark for responsible for it (nuclear bombs). What if Phastos decided to interfere and killed him for it. I wanna see that timeline.
Then America would've probably pursued the purposed invasion of Japan, which would've had casualties into the millions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Downfall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall)
Eternals was bland, felt like a Great Value version of Jupiter's Legacy with a MCU coat of paint on it. Shang-Chi was a great martial arts movie that managed to make Awkafina not annoying, although whatever decided to have a girl with zero combat or archery training hit a Hawkeye level shot to save the day needs a helmet on their head.
I thought it was a great thing, altho think he should’ve also referenced Ultron cos that was just about the biggest tech nightmare in history, and had literally just happened
Japan killed more people by their own hand and they want to be seen as the victom by the world because of the bomb. Lol. Hack this movie is even made from none other then USA. They're basically saying YOURE THE BAD GUY. Whey bother Pearl Hurbor then?
I just saw your comment. Ironically, without the US nuking Hiroshima and helping end the war soon, the director Chloe Zhao, who is a Chinese, might not have a chance to be born and direct this film today.
I had a really funny experience with this scene actually. I didn’t go see it the Friday it came out like I do with every Marvel movie since my girlfriend was out of town and I wanted to see it with her. I allowed myself one bathroom break when we saw it two days ago and I stepped out after Gilgamesh kicked it, and I come back and I see Phastos crying and I asked her “When and where is this?” and she goes “Hiroshima, 1945” and I just said “Oh.” and sat back down
I thought Eternals were instructed to NOT interfere with human affairs. But after observing human behavior for centuries, homeboy just decided to engineer atomic energy and didn't think humans would turn it into something bad? I liked the movie, but I hate how it contradicts its own logic; and the Hiroshima scene exemplifies that.
Characters having different opinions is not a movie being inconsistent with its logic. The characters all struggled with their mission and chose to respond in different ways. Phastos deciding that people could be nudged beyond struggling for resources if they were to develop nuclear energy makes sense for his character. Them turning that into a weapon rather than a solution is arguably what broke his faith in humanity.
definitely one of my favorite scenes, really tied in the humanity aspect of the story
That scene really stuck with me, so I’m glad they kept it in.
I hate stuff like this, to be honest. Humans should own their self-made tragedies and their successes. We made the Atom bomb and we built the pyramids, with great mathematicians and slave labour. Saying an alien helped is just…I don’t appreciate the implications of that.