The Ringer-Verse - ‘Eternals’ Deep-Dive Analysis | House of R

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

Mal and Joanna sit down to discuss Marvel’s much-anticipated ‘Eternals’ (04:14). They discuss the divisive nature of its Rotten Tomatoes score and what they thought worked and didn’t work in the MCU’s latest epic. Later they are joined by Jomi to answer your mailbag questions (1:47:25). After that, Joanna sits down with the film’s screenwriters Kaz and Ryan Firpo to discuss bringing their ideas to the big screen (1:59:06). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Guest: Kaz and Ryan Firpo Producers: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: TD St. Matthew-Daniel and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringers Charles Holmes and co-host Grace Spellman present the most notorious new podcast in the industry, the Ringer Music Show. Every Tuesday, they'll bring you the latest news, the hottest takes, and the deepest reporting about the wild world of music and the chaotic industry that creates it. Check out the Ringer Music Show exclusively on Spotify. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tremfaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiator Radio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech.

Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today.

You like the costume? We need to talk. Tell the director, I have some notes for him. We need to talk to you in private. Oh, Karan, he's worked with me for 50 years. I trust him completely. Actually, when we first met, he thought I was a vampire, and he tried to stake me through the heart. I have apologized so many times.

Not quite enough times. Very close, though. I'll let you know. Oh, I have to get ready for the next scene. Come to my tent. We'll talk there. And welcome into the Ringerverse here on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin.

And this is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only into the World Forge. Let's join us on the Ringers Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. joining me today, as always. But today to chat about Marvel's Eternals, now that she's explained her very involved home brewing process, each colonel chewed with her own teeth. It is my house of our working title.

Co-host, Ringer-seener staff writer, Joanna Robinson. How dare you? How dare you throw me under the Brit? Like, I couldn't be basing. Making a beautiful pie. No, I had to be, you know. It's a delicious beverage.

Chew brewing. I hate to chew and brew. Yeah, delighted to be here. I'm really excited for this conversation. I feel like we're going to heal a rift in this world. There is. Wow. No pressure.

I think there's this enormous, like, golden hand shoving itself up through the crust of the Marvel fandom. And I'm here to turn that hand into a beautiful, I don't know, tourist attraction. I don't know what's going to become of that thing. But we're going to talk about Eternals and I feel like we're all going to feel less divided over it by the end. Does that make sense? That is beautiful. And dare I say aspirational. I love it.

I'm here for it. Quite literally, I am here for it. Just a few quick programming reminders before we dive in. This Friday, three quarters of the House of Mee. Midnight crew will be assembling, folks. I will be out for a long-awaited family visit, but the Midnight Boys, Van and Charles, Poo-Pew, are teaming up with Joanna

to react to all of the goodness from Disney Plus Day. And even though I won't be there with you, Joe, I promise to send you a lot of text messages and maybe voice memos where I just shout, Good night. Hello there. Just do that over and over again. Amazing.

Follow along by following the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And of course, by following our social feeds, the ringer versus on Twitter, the ringer versus on Instagram, the ringer versus on Facebook. And of course, bear in mind our friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Today, as already noted, we are chatting about the newest MCU film, Eternals. And so today's podcast will feature detailed plot points from Eternals as well as the wider Marvel canon. That's MCU canon to date, comics canon, all of it. Okay. Later today, after our deep dive, Joanna has a very special chat.

Joe, who'd you talk to? Oh, only the screenwriters, Ryan and Kaz Furpo. So we will be hearing from the cousins, Ryan and Kazz, about their, process, they're pitched for an Eternals TV show, all kinds of stuff. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're really thrilled that they're here. I love TV shows. Can't wait to listen to that. Wonderful. Are we ready to dive in? We ready to talk Eternals? Well, it's surprising that I brought up Lost. No? Okay, cool. I love a lost mention, particularly a Lost mention from you. Thanks.

Cheers. Cheers. One of my favorite things. All right, we're here to talk about Eternals directed by Chloe written by Chloe, Patrick Burley, Ryan and Cass Furpo, story by Ryan and Kaz, produced by Kevin Feigy and Nate Moore, based of course on the Marvel Comics canon. The Eternals were created by Jack Kirby. This movie is two hours and 37 minutes long, putting it right in that sweet spot of a typical House of our podcast. released a November 5th, theatrical release only. No Disney Plus streaming for this one. Scored Joe by our guy, Rameen. Joadi. And what a cast. What an incredible cast in this film.

Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kit Harrington. Of course, we'll be chatting about some of those Thrones moments later. How could we not? Selma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keown, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Leah McHugh, Bill Scarsguard, loaded, jam-packed cast, so many amazing actors, so many new characters. So we have a ton to get to today. We're going to talk a lot about the plot of the film, how it connects to the MCU at large, what it might mean for a phase four moving forward. Of course, we're going to get into those stingers, both of

them at length. We're going to get to some of your mailbag questions later. We're going to talk about what we really enjoyed about the movie. We're going to talk about what we didn't think worked quite as well. But let's just begin with the initial response to the film and some of the conversation around the movie. Van and Charles talked about this on their instant reaction pot as well. So check that out if you haven't. Also, Joanna joined Sean Fentasy over on the big picture. And that was a really wonderful, no surprise conversation that tapped into a lot of. of the industry angles and, you know, Marvel. It's a movie machine.

So there's that to consider as well. It's a business, baby. They're here to make money. Let's start with the money. Let's just quickly talk about the box office. Opening weekend. What do we got? All right.

So Eternals makes $71 million domestically, $90.7 million internationally for $161.7 million globally. That's per box office mojo. For context, Black Widow, which was, as we all recall, both in theaters and on Disney Plus, $80 million domestic opening. So Black Widow opened a little higher. Shang Chi opened 75.3 million, so also a little higher. But not like, you know, not by a wide margin.

This certainly wasn't like a financial flop by any sort of the imagination. Fourth best domestic opening of the pandemic, I think it performed just slightly below projections. But, you know, like, box office numbers, you can sort of weave whatever narrative you want around it. We really found that out with Dune opening, you know, a couple weeks ago in that some people were crafting those numbers and saying, this is a massive success. And some people were crafting those numbers and saying, looking at the same numbers and saying this is a flop. So you can really, you know, you can weave your narrative however you want. But, you know, made a decent amount of money right around the same ballpark as the other Marvel

films. Not much bigger. But there we are. But there we are. But the main conversation, because I mean, I don't think any of us, even those of us who didn't like the film as much as we hoped we would thought this was going to not perform at the box office. I think the only unknown for the box office perspective was the same that's been unknown for every other movie the last couple years, which is the pandemic factor for theater going and how that continues to impact the ultimate audience draw. I always think second weekend box office is as interesting, if not more so, than first weekend. It tells you a lot about sort of how word of mouth is doing, stuff like that.

And that brings us to the other thing we want to talk about here, which is the reception of the film and this perceived divide. So, like, what do you want to say about this initially, Mel? So I think there are a couple things that are probably worth highlighting and hitting on in, like, a big picture sense here in terms of the conversation around the film before we actually dive into our own conversation about the film. A lot of talk, of course, about rotten tomatoes. Now, I think we both agree, as do many of our colleagues, that rotten tomatoes, despite how often it's cited, is a deeply flawed and imperfect metric and is not not only not the be-all end-all

in terms of reflecting the success of a movie, but is often skewed by certain factors and doesn't necessarily present the complete accurate picture a film success. I think the other thing that is probably undeniable, though, is that because of the foothold Rotten Tomatoes has in the discussion around movies, it does play a role in terms of shaping or guiding perception. So the movie currently has a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes among critics, 81% among audience members. That's a data point that we didn't have a couple, a couple days go right for the first round of pods because, of course, the critic replies come in from screenings

and audiences have only gotten a chance to watch the movie since it came out, of course, right? So that's at a point how the masses are enjoying it is a new one. And of course, there's a chasm between those two scores. So, you know, we had a couple weeks as reviews were coming out where the conversation was, man, this movie has the lowest Rotten Tomato score of any MCU film to date. Previously, Thor the Dark World was the lowest at 66%. Now Eternal's is. So,

I will say, and we're going to get into another aspect of the overall review, like metric generation and how a lot of misleading that can be in a minute, just with Rotten Tomatoes specifically. You and I've been talking about this for like a couple weeks now since we first screened it.

I'm honestly shocked. by this. Like, is E. Eternals the best Marvel movie ever? No. But a 48% feels really extreme to me. I'm surprised by this. And I think it's a little bit of a shame that that score has taken up so much oxygen in the conversation around the movie. So listen, I'm going to get on my like Rotten Tomatoes soapbox with a caveat that I have like pals who work over there. So this isn't really like a knock on the fine people who do great work of Rotten Tomatoes. It's just, an issue with the idea of turning something that I think is an art, which is film criticism, into a number.

And so, and, and I'm, I'm aware that probably this is fruitless. I can't even get my sister to stop, like, just citing a Rotten Tomatoes number, so I probably can't get other people to do this. But let me just say that, like, the way that I feel film criticism should work is that you should pick one or a few critics that you really think have like interesting takes on things. Maybe they always align with you or maybe you always disagree with them. That's its own metric. Growing up, there was a critic in the San Francisco Chronicle that my sister and I read every week. We disagree with everything he said. So if he pans something, we would go see it. Like, that's just like how it was.

But there's so much nuance in a review. There's so much. And so I read a bunch of these Eternals reviews, like a lot of them that are rated rotten, non-wrought tomatoes. And there's, you know, they're highlighting the things they like. They're not saying. There's still a lot of nuance. None of these reviews are like, this is a garbage fire, and I hate that it exists, and Marvel should is bad and should feel bad. But for the casual, like, filmgoer who's just looking at the number, they're thinking, oh, these critics are just, like, shitting on this movie.

And, you know, 48% worse than a failing, you know, like, that's a bad failing grade. You know what I mean? So if you just have that number to go by and are not reading the actual reviews. And also, by the way, there's been this longstanding push and pull with rotten tomatoes where some critics will have their review marked as rotten and or fresh. And they're like, that's not how I would mark it. You know what I mean? Like, Rotten Tomato's editorial is one who decides looking at these things what's rotten and what's fresh. So there's all sorts of like problems in the mix here.

And then, of course, there are also like certain expectations that are at play here. The take that I like the least is the fandom take, for some sort of. I hate any critic versus fandom because that implies that critics can't be fans or fans can't be critical. And I really hate that conversation in general. But I think something that people who spend their life's work doing watching movies, critics, might have different calibrated expectations when it comes like what it means to watch a Chloe Jao movie or what it means to watch the first movie off of a Best Director Oscar win or what it mean. Like all that sort of stuff, those expectations might be in the mix. all that sort of stuff, the larger Marvel narrative in Hollywood.

There's a lot of, like, expectation stuff at play here that wasn't hanging over Alan Taylor directing Thor at the Dark World. You know what I mean? Like, that wasn't there. So, like, I mean, I'm not going to speak for you. I will say, I didn't love this movie. But every person I've talked to who said they really liked it, and usually they come to me with an apology, which stresses me out.

Don't apologize if you liked a movie. It is fine if you liked a movie that I didn't like. But everyone who comes to me, they're like, I really loved it. I really liked it. It had these nine issues, and those are usually my same nine issues that I had with the movie. They're like, but I loved. In conclusion, though, I loved it. And I'm like, okay, we're not that different, you and I.

Do you know what I mean? And so I think that if you just look at it by the number of 48 versus 81, it does seem like a huge chasm. But in talking to people and in listening to people who liked the movie, I'm like, okay, there was enough here. You saw the things that I saw. There's too much movie in this movie. There's all this other stuff. Like, you know, so I don't know. I agree with you. It has taken up way too much oxygen in the room. I just spent however precious minutes of our podcast talking about it. But I think that it's like an important thing. And I really wish that people, you know, wouldn't fall so quickly. The last thing I'll say is this, in defense of my pals, the film critics,

there are humans who don't usually have like some sort of evil agenda or ever have an evil agenda. So the take that I like the least is that I've seen like on Twitter a bit, which is people or these film critics are just rooting for Marvel to fail or they're just like want to take Marvel down a peg or they want this or they want that. And I'm like, I think it's really dangerous on both sides to ascribe any kind of motivation to somebody's response. to something. Film critics are not sitting at home, like, rubbing their hands with glee, I'll have to take down Marvel with this, you know, review, you know, nor are fans out there, like mindlessly consuming things. Like, I think we're all loving things and being critical of things and measures. So I don't know. Let's look at along. It's what I think. What do you think, Val? One more point we wanted to make, though, and something we wanted to just work for a minute

to clarify and draw attention to regarding some of the reviews. bombing and like internet trolling that is happening on other corners of the internet because this is a really noxious, toxic thing. And this is, this is separate from the critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. And I think a lot of people are, um, are, are conflating the two and, and they're different things. Yeah, that's another thing that really bothers me. And wildly, I saw it from like some industry professionals. So the troll bombing, we should say, like, that's when, like, a score comes out before people could even have physically seen the movie.

So, like, the IMDB score and stuff like that. And when it gets sort of, like, carpet bombed with, like, negative reviews and the reviews, and there are some examples of these that you can find if you, like, switch around on Twitter or whatever. And the reviews all have to do with, like, the diversity of the film, which I consider, I personally consider a positive. and most critics that I know consider are positive. But then I see this like double bad takes where people are like, well, the critics are responding poorly to this film because it has a diverse cast or was directed by a woman or was directed by a woman of color or something like that.

I'm like, I don't think that's the issue. That's the issue of this other thing. But I don't think that's what's going on with the critics, at least not the critics I know and I know a lot of them. So like, I don't know. It all, the narrative all got muddled. It reminded me a lot of the Last Jedi and the mess that happened around that film, too. But like, it's just, it's really murky. But I want to say that, like, I think you and I would agree that, like, you know, whatever our issues are with this movie, like, the diverse cast in the filmmaking team, the fact that we get, like, our first gay superhero, all the sort of stuff like that.

To me, that's a net positive. Absolutely. But it can't be the only thing you're, you know, like, I'm not going to then ignore. story issue, just because I'm totally stoked that there is like a gay superhero or, you know, an international cast and stuff like that, which I am. So does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, I obviously think it's wonderful that this movie is so diverse and that, you know, as you mentioned, Chloe is the first woman of color to direct a Marvel movie and the cast is diverse in terms of race. The cast is diverse in terms of gender.

You know, you mentioned Brian Tyree Henry's Fasostos is the first gay superhero in a Marvel movie, and he has a husband and a child, and we actually see that relationship and that family dynamic. Lauren Ridloffs McCarrie is the MCU's first deaf superhero. These are wonderful things that I think are important to celebrate, and I think it's, like, really shameful that those aspects of the story are the reasons that some of these internet trolls and review bombers are targeting the film because they don't want those things to be celebrated. Like that's just, that's horrible.

And to say, again, no one elected me like champion film critics, but it's just to like say that the same people who like lauded Black Panther or like, like, Shang Chi or like Black Widow would against diversity in a film seems really counter-rituitive to me. But yeah, I'm defensive of this film in terms of like I want more things like this, including more sort of big creative swings. I just wish this swing had hung together a bit better. So we'll get into all of that. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business.

Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum. business, they keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas.

Let's talk a little bit more about what worked for us in the movie and what didn't work for us as well. Maybe it has some contacts before we dive into the movie a little bit more. What was your relationship to Eternals canon, like to this storyline, to these characters heading into the film? And what was your hype for the movie? You know, we talked about this back on our fall hype meter, fall roadmap pod. But for anybody who maybe didn't hear that, let's just give it like a quick refresher on how much we were looking forward to this and what our existing relationship to the canon was before the movie. Well, I just think it was interesting because I think you and I had talked about, like it was sort of, of low for, not low, but like four or something like that on our top 10, something like that.

And we talked about like, why is this movie so low when it has all these things going for it? But there was just something in the air where we were like, well. It's top four low of all the things going out in the fly. I don't know. It's all relative. Anyway, point being, I had read the Neil Gaiman Eternals run. And I read a little bit of the Jack Kirby, but not as much. And like this is sort of, there's elements here, but none of this is like really super Eternals canon.

I mean, they hired two guys, and we'll get into this when we do the interview, but like, they hired two guys who weren't really marble guys to initially do this story. And I think they weren't looking to do directly an adaptation of anything in that way. And they changed a lot of things. I'm personally fine with all the changes. But that's sort of where I was. How about you? hype and familiarity.

Hype, very high. You know, I love a Marvel movie. I know you do. I know you do. And so, of course, I was excited to get a Marvel movie, but also I just was really excited for the continued widening of the MCU storytelling tapestry and universe, this whole new, not only cast of characters, but this injection of new lore and new mythology. We'll be returning to both of those points, the number of new characters and the introduction of all this mythology in a few minutes here.

That was part of what I was really looking forward to, you know, the most. I think we've talked a lot, you know, on this pod and many others in recent months about how much of the beginning of phase four has sort of functioned as this interesting like bridge between the Infinity saga and where we are now, where we are, of course, introducing new characters and new lore. Shang Chi, even inside of Black Widow, Yelina has entered the story, et cetera, et cetera, right? The multiverse coming into play in Loki, meeting Kang, et cetera, on and on the list goes. But also how much of the beginning of phase four has been backward looking in some capacity so that we can through those connections and that reflection move forward to what is to come. Now, like I adore the Infinity Saga, right? It's like literally one of the most important things in my life. And so it's not that I ever want to be done with that or stop talking about it. I'll talk about Tony and Steve until the day I die.

You know, and I'll do so gladly. I'll do so right here with you, Joe. Yeah. Let's podcast together until we die. A blood packed. I love it. I'm in. But I really am looking forward to the Fantastic Four coming in to the MCU eventually and inevitably

the X-Men coming into the X-Men coming into the, the MCU. I was so excited for Shang Chia, so excited for the Eternals. And so that was just all kind of fueling the hype, both specifically for the story and more broadly for the widening in phase four. I would say that my comics familiarity with Eternals heading in was pretty, like, limited compared to my other comics expertise. I also read the Game and Run and some Kirby. It sounds like similar to what you were saying. I really enjoy the game in line. But I can't, I can't say that like Eternals, comics canon is the thing I am most familiar with of all like Marvel lore. And so I think in, in that respect, I was probably pretty like open and receptive to whatever direction this took,

not necessarily like super attached to or bound by loyalty, fierce literary loyalty. That's not how I'm to any particular Eternals line. And so I was just really, I was just really honestly just excited and eager. And I have seen that. the movie twice now. How many times have you seen it? One of the things I'm curious to ask you, because we actually have not talked about this. This will be a in the moment reveal for us on the pod is whether seeing it a second time changed how you felt about it at all. And if so, how. So give us your check-ins from the first and second viewings on how you felt about it. Yeah. So I saw it at the critic screening in San Francisco. And for big movies like this,

it is always my preference to go to the critic screening because I need to sort of like be able to prepare our coverage and stuff like that. And then go see it again opening weekend because I like to see it with the people. And I like to, I mean, this is more of a pre-prent pandemic vibe. But like, you know, just to like get those reactions, get swept up in the excitement and stuff like that. Because film critics screenings, I mean, you went to a pretty full one, but like the cervical ones are always usually pretty dry and tepid. Though I took a friend of mine to the critic screening and he's like, he's a Marvel fan.

And he knows way more about comic books than I do in general. And he usually just likes things more than I do. And he really didn't like it. So then I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. So I was to say, I saw it again on Sunday. I enjoyed myself more being around people who are hyped up for it. I still walked away seeing the same flaws that I saw, but I enjoyed myself more. How about you, Mel?

Yeah, I've also seen it twice, first time. at a screening that was, as you noted, packed. And so interestingly, I thought it replicated some of the general audience crowd experience in a way that screenings don't always. You know, there were gasps and laughs and cheers and just, you know, shrieks of glee when Harry Stiles walked out, for example. Or when the, or when Dane Whitman, you know, unveiled the epony blade. I saw it again.

And, well, sorry, let me, let me say what I thought of the movie the first time. Yeah. I was processing my response to the movie. I liked it. And I had a lot of like thinking face emoji questions about it as well. And I think that my broad feeling was like that was a lot to process and I definitely need to see it again. And I think unsurprisingly, you know, this is often my experience with movies, even ones

that aren't, you know, two hours and 37 minutes and introducing like a dozen new characters. and Eternals plus, you know, Dane Arisham, et cetera. I liked it quite a bit more the second time around because I knew what the story was going to be. I knew who I was going to meet. I knew what I was going to learn about them. I knew what the twists were going to be and when they were going to come.

I knew when we were going to weave in and out and across time. And I was able to, I think, just focus a little bit more on the parts of it that I really loved. like the middle stretch, you know, the getting the family back together aspects. And was just not as like, oh, wow, podcast brain kicking in in real time. Like, I hope I remember everything that Arisham is telling Circe in this exposition sequence. Anxiety, like, wasn't as palpable for me the second time around, right?

So I could just like watch it and sort of enjoy it a little bit more. You know, it's not my favorite Marvel movie, but I certainly don't dislike the movie. I think it has, it's, it has some challenges and it struggles in certain respects, but I also think it's like incredibly ambitious and I admire and ultimately, I think where I come down is I'm ultimately really glad that it was such a big swing because even the things that don't work about it as well as the things that that do work or could have worked in a certain rendering, you know, I don't like want every, and I think you feel this way too. Like, I don't want every Marvel movie to be the same. You know, I don't want every Marvel movie to feel the same. I don't want it to move in the same way. I don't want every Marvel movie to be predictable. I don't want everything to feel cookie cutter. And I think that ultimately one of the keys to the MCU's success and longevity,

and Kevin Feige has talked about this many, many, many times over the years, is that variance, whether it's something like genre variance or variance in tone or vibe or intention or anything else. And this movie is trying to do something bold, and distinct. And even if it didn't nail every single aspect of that ambition,

I'm glad that the ambition was there in the first place. Yeah. And I often find myself admiring something more than I like something. Do you know what I mean? Like that often happens to me where I'm like, I admire that this exists. But it doesn't mean that it like plucked my heartstrings. And like that's, to me, I mean, if we can get into some specific of like, at least what didn't work for me.

Like, I think a big question and something that I saw a lot of people say and something that you and I had talked about is like, and funny, we asked the same question about Dune. Should this have been a TV show? If this had been a six-part Disney Plus show with an episode maybe focusing on each eternal and sort of giving us, you know, introducing them to us, giving us a flashback, you know, related specifically to their character that helps us understand who they are, much like a beloved ABC prestige genre drama. You know, that could have worked.

But this is like, as you mentioned, 10 plus characters, the screenwriters told me they were originally 12. They cut it to 10. They should have cut it to 6. That's what I think. I think there should have been 6 max. Because if you want to talk about like Guardians, right, as like a comparison, like guardians, like guardians, you're tracking

five guardians and one of them's a tree. So, you know, it's like, it's not as much of a heavy lit there. Do you know what I mean? But to try to track all of these Eternals. And then what happens? Because you have so much and then they get scattered to the wind, some of my favorite Eternals are not on screen for a lot of the movie. I was so impatient for them to return.

So that's sort of, I think, too much movie in your movie. is my overall main criticism of this film. Mine too. There's a lot in the movie. And I think that the, like, secret sauce and alchemy often of the most successful movies inside of the MCU are that the, like, time spent in any given plot line feels like it could have never gone any other way. And even if you wouldn't have expected to be.

like so into a given character pairing. You know, I always think about this with Infinity War, which admittedly is like not a fair comparison, right? I mean, Infinity War is, obviously, endgame is the culmination, but one of the culminating points of dozens and dozens of films. Still, no matter how many times I rewatch that movie, I'm always like blown away and struck by the fact that putting Thor with the Guardians, that's always the example I like to cite,

just feels like magical and it crackles with such energy and surprise. prising possibility that even though I'm like get me to bearded Steve Rogers as quickly as possible, I always am happy to be with the character bundles that I'm with. That's a really, really, really, really difficult task to be able to pull off immediately because that's the thing. This is ultimately like an Avengers size cast, like a team-up crossover event. size cast of characters in an origin story. So the reason that that math can work in Avengers or Infinity War or whatever the case may be is because we know who all those characters are already.

We know who they are. We know their origins. But here we are learning about them for the first time. I think that the Guardians comp is an interesting one in another way too, which is one of the areas in which they're similar. obviously they're different stories, but like, of course,

cosmic stories. And similar in the sense that neither Guardians nor Eternal's comics canon is like Spider-Man, right, in terms of the bankability of it from comics readership loyalty

heading in. And so that was one of the reasons that like Guardian's success was such a surprise, right? But I think that because again of like what you're saying about the math and just having a slightly smaller group of characters

to focus on in Guardians and that kind of found family aspect where they're all coming together is like the thrust and the propulsive force. Here we sort of have to accept right away that these characters are like that and have that bond with each other. And then in parallel interweaving fashion,

watch them break apart and come back together. And I think that like that's the, you know, those are the other things that are tied into the too many characters challenge is you're not just meeting new people. You're downloading so much new mythology and so much new lore about the eternals, about the deviance, about the celestials, about the world forge, what everybody's power set is. You know, and I would say like comparing to Shang Chi, which obviously is also a phase four a movie and an origin story. Now, of course, it's not 10 Eternals in Shang Chi, right? It's just

not as many characters. But we are meeting a new hero, meeting new characters, and learning about this whole new realm of magic. And it's more focused and contained. And so it's ultimately just like a little bit more, I think, seamless to absorb it. It's interesting. Most of the people that I've talked to, and this is self-selecting for like, but, but like I'm like, I'll put out ass on Twitter or whatever, like just to get what I, just to see what people are feeling, right? And like, most people that I've talked to, their favorite characters were Drig, McCari, Thina, Fasos, Fasos, and that's about it. Maybe Gilgamesh.

I was not seeing a lot of Icarus, Sersi, Dane, Sparrow. Bright love. And those, Dane, you know, Dane exits pretty quickly. But like that love triangle, right? And then the story of Sprite. Oh, and Kingo, obviously a lot of people love Kumal. Should go without saying. Love Kamil.

That Sprite love quadrangle, I guess, is so central to the film. And to me, fundamentally does not work. For a couple reasons. One, I really, I do never like enjoy bagging on a younger performer, but I think Leah McHugh as Sprite, it just didn't work for me. There's a very similar plot line in interview with the vampire that Chris and Dunst, baby Kirsten Dunn's absolutely smashes to pieces. So like, it's a high bar that that Leah had to clear. And then also, like, for Richard Madden, an actor I usually find. extremely compelling.

You know, and Sean and I talked about this in the big picture, but we can get more specific to have to hide his motivations and what's going on with him and stuff like that. For 85% of the movie, I think does a real disservice to him as an actor. We don't know he's working at cross purposes here. We don't know what's going on. And so then he just, to me, came off super stiff. So the movie is really preoccupied with these characters. they're not working for me.

There are fringe characters that really do work for me. I love your Infinity War comparison because every time you, every movie after, you just have to go back and admire Infinity War more and more for the crazy magic that they pulled off there. And I just think that this movie leaves some of its most interesting characters on the periphery for so much of the movie.

So that really enhanced my whole, like, you've got too many characters and the ones I like, you're not interested in. But I'm interested in them. So, yeah. You know, that's a really interesting point because I think I found Richard Madden Charming in the role. Honestly, I just always find Richard Madden Charming. I will say now, before we talk about, you know, the end of the movie in more detail later,

the moment when Fasto's like pins down Icarus with his tech and his inventions, I could not help but hear Chris Ryan's bodyguard impression in my mind as I was watching that because just visually it reminded me of bodyguard and I was waiting for Ikers to shout, Vicki, it's a dead man switch. It's a dead man switch. Damn it. I will preserve the emergence. Already the ringer slack inside joke I've seen the most is Vicki's a dead man switch.

Oh my gosh. Oh, my God. I'm not telling. I think Madden's great in that final fight because he finally gets to, like, be who the character is. Do you know what he means? Yeah. And, you know, the other thing I was going to say on the heels of that comment is, like, I don't think it's necessarily unusual in films, on a television show, in a book,

any medium, really, for the nominal main characters to not be as compelling to us. as some of the less central figures, right? But I think one of the aspects in Eternals that compounds what you're describing where, oh, it's like, wow, I'm so interested in Druig and Druig and Macari, for example, or God, Kingo is like such a riot. By the way, if you haven't listened

to the Midnight Boys interview with Kamel, it is hysterical. So check that out. It is such a riot. The time jumps. The movie is not only navigating so many different characters, but so many different, so many different moments in time. Of course, we knew that this was going to be the case just from the premise, right?

Which is embedded into that is that the Eternals have been here for 7,000 years. Just kind of kicking it. Something like the Icarus twist could have, in theory in a different structure of the film been known to us. You and Sean talked about this as viewers earlier, even if it was going to be revealed to the characters over time. I didn't necessarily mind, I guess, when we got the Icarus reveal.

But in general, I did find the time jumps like pulled me out of moments where the film felt it was really gaining momentum. Not that it wasn't interesting to see the Eternals across time, though, you know, both you and Sean and Van and Charles talked about it, and I think we would be remiss not to mention it here, too. The inverse of, oh, let's show the audience what it means that the Eternals were here all along, is that some of those choices were, I think, incredibly fraud and misguided, specifically

the Hiroshima. moment. That was not good. In general, you're getting the band back together. You're getting the family back together. We're getting these moments around the dinner table, chatting on the plane, learning not only about who they are, but crucially, of course, about their dynamic with each other. And, you know, this may sound counterintuitive, but I think that there are ways to, like, absorb their history with each other without literally seeing their history with each other in that kind of intercut fashion. And so, like, right in the kind of second act when I felt like, oh, you know what?

I'm actually, like, really digging this. Basically, like, I think my favorite stretch was when they went to Kingo's set to recruit him. I thought that and the ensuing scenes were just really wonderful. And I just, like, didn't want to then leave that again to go back in time. I think it just felt disruptive. Yeah. I mean, the time hopping, I think, yeah, just is an added challenge. I'm also, I was also wondering, like, I was trying to, like, it's Monday, so literally,

like, Monday morning quarterback this movie, which is always easier than making the movie itself. But I'm like, why did it take so long for them to get a hold of everyone? Like, shouldn't there be, like, an Eternals text message of, like, send a text, our leader's dead, like, you know, and then, like, you can, you can. still dig into the drama from there because it's like kind of a detective story, all that sort of stuff. But like, have everyone together and squabbling and all the sort of stuff as you do to just like slowly pick up one character here and there. I don't know. But maybe I would be arguing the

reverse if the reverse were true. But like the pacing of it, and again, I like that we're doing something different. Chloe has cited Terrence Malick, the screenwriters cited 2001 of Space Odyssey. Chloe also cited Zach Snyder's Man of Steel as something that she was like really interested in doing all this and all of those are a very like deliberately paced sort of thing in 2001 is a film that

jarringly hops their time you know all this sort of stuff and they're great films in there and there are not so great films in there if you're talking about the entire body of work of Terence Malik etc. But but the flow of the story

the momentum of the... As you say, Guardians is just like a flat-out foot race from beginning to end towards our goal, right? Whereas this is just like, what are we chasing? Who's our bad guy here? The villain problem, I think, in this film is huge. You know, and what are we fighting for? And it's a very philosophical question,

what are we fighting for? And that, I think, is potentially one of the most interesting things about this movie. But I think it all just gets kind of, for me, gets all muddled. Well, I'm curious to hear more of your thoughts specifically about that last point about the villains, because that's obviously deeply entwined with understanding sort of what the goal is. I think, again, maybe that's part of why I enjoyed it so much more the second time around,

understanding those dynamics. But for what it's worth, like, I didn't find the deviance compelling in either viewing. Well, my question is, do we need the deviance at all in this movie other than to have something CGI to punch it? Do you know what he mean? Like, I think you can take that, like, Crow especially is so confusing because given the way that he talks and evolved, this is the deviant voice by Bill Sarsgaard, like, given the way that he goes through his whole process of like, who am I and who are you and all this sort of stuff like that, didn't you expect for him to fight on the side of our Eternals in the end? But then he just joins, like, there's no movement or turn for him. There's nothing interesting there. He just grows more sentient, but is still fighting our guys in the end.

I don't know. It just, what was that? Yeah. Well, you know, obviously, like, I guess one of the, one of the reasons the deviants are there is I think because that's what everyone would expect in an Eternals movie, you know, because the Eternals and the deviants are the two like offshoots of humanity created by the Celestials across Marvel lore. that's not necessarily like a good answer,

but I think that's probably just part of it, right? I think some of it is the kind of false, like the red herring, who or what is the real threat here, building toward the ultimate Icarus reveal, right? And the, you know, the threat from within the ranks. To your point about like whether they were the line, I was thinking about that while watching it too,

because ultimately both the deviance and some of, though, of course, crucially not all of the Eternals are rebelling against Earshum and his grand design. But, you know, Crow has that, like, line about how, well, and there's even the moment where when the Eternals are fighting Icarus down on the beach, it's like, wait, why are we helping Icarus? So there's the question on both sides, really, of, like, how the alliances should work. but, you know, cross that line that in essence amounts to you destroyed like my kind,

so now you have to pay. And I think that that is an example of one of the elements of the story that maybe if there were more time in a Disney Plus show, as you noted earlier, for example, or if some of this like origin story lore had been parceled out,

maybe even divided over, you know, more than one film perhaps, where that's, just could have been more fully realized and like the deviant eternal divide is so central to Eternal's canon, but it does ultimately just feel like a like a sideshow here. So that part's not very fulfilling. I think that Erosham and the role of the Celestials might play moving forward in the MCU is certainly more interesting.

There's more to chew on there coming out of the movie, I think, then however the deviance might manifest again. I think we'll get into some of that later when we're talking about what the future might hold. But we had obviously seen Celestials in the MCU in the past.

You know, where is the severed head of a celestial. He's on the searcher and the power zone we'd gotten a glimpse of before. Obviously, you know, our guy, ego is ego the living planet.

You know, Celestial, that's, you know, a tweak and adjustment of his pre-MCU canon. And I think the more we see celestial's now, the more we're looking back at that and maybe trying to understand exactly how that all connects. But, you know, the thing that ultimately unites the deviants

and the eternals is the fact that they're pawns, you know, they're pawns of Arishams, their pawns of the Celestials. They don't understand until some of them do, but they don't all understand or know their true purpose or even their true nature. And, you know, I think that that's that maybe that's that's how we can transition here into some of the stuff that we liked and thought worked better about the movie. You want to you want to hit something else here first? Well, I have a comment that we'll bridge us to that, I think, which is that my buddy Dave Gonzalez, who, you know, I'm writing this Marvel book with knows so much about Marvel. He really liked this movie. And he was like, he was like, well, Joanna, you know I love a let's kill God or God is an asshole movie.

And I was like, or story. And I was like, yeah, I know you do. And that's why maybe like, you know, if the deviance and the Eternals were both like, hey, God is to blame here, let's work together to fight him. Like, that is an interesting story. This idea of superheroes as gods in general, this idea of non-interventioner, how much power is too much power. The Druig, I think, story is the most interesting part of that. this whole idea that he has, he's like, I can stop all violence everywhere. Easy.

I could do it. So to not do it is the most maddening thing to live in this world and not be able to, like, fix everything. You think about Superman who, like, how could he ever have coffee with Lois when surely there is someone falling off a skyscraper at any given moment around the world? Do you know what I mean? You can't save everyone all the time always, can you? or can you?

I don't know. These are really rich questions about superhero dumb and goddom and all this sort of stuff like that. What do you? But like, did, and so if that is what the film is principally preoccupied with, it's not. It's also how trying to convince us that humans are the most special critters that have ever existed in the galaxy. But like, I don't know.

That's interesting. It is interesting. Again, this is where I admire the film versus like it. I admire that that's something it's interested in. I don't know. What do you think, though? Yeah, so perhaps unsurprisingly, this is what I really enjoyed most about the movie. These themes and these like areas of interest, I think that it connects to our discussion

from the last few minutes, though, in the sense that it maybe could have been even more central. And some of these themes could have been even more fully realized. if not for the necessities of navigating all of the characters and time jumps, etc. But I do find those themes and those questions quite compelling, you know, that superhero as God's ideas that you mentioned, like that central impetus behind Jack Kirby creating the Eternals in the first place. And of course, so much of Kirby's work across not only Marvel, but, you know, DC2,

I think is to me like endlessly fascinating. I really like to think about things like that. And like I like what the movie does here where you take something like the way, the mythology that we, people growing up in the world, hear about and learn about and read about. And that mythology, those questions, in part, inspires Jack Kirby

to create the Eternals in the first place. And then in the movie, the Eternals are positioned as the characters who inspire those myths that Jack Kirby had even growing up in this world, would have heard and then created the Eternals. Like I really like that. I just think that's really interesting.

I would have loved to have even more scenes that focused in on that and grappled with that. Follow up question for you. And I was going to ask you this no matter what. Were you like a Greek mythology kid? Like did you love reading about Greek mythology? Were you like an Egyptology kid at all? Like where you went to Egyptology? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was big into Greek mythology. Definitely at one point thought I was going to be an Egyptologist. That's what I definitely thought my career was going to be at one point. Oh my God, incredible. All this sort of stuff, all this is to say, like, Sprite may not have worked for me as a character, but the idea of, like, Sprite telling the epic of Gilgamesh, like, based off of Gilgamesh.

And this idea that, like, Athena or Icarus or all these characters are based on these, like, hot space robots is delightful. I love that. I would have loved more of that. But, again, there isn't room for more of that in this already stuff movie. But like in my Disney Plus show that I have created in my head, each episode could open with Sprite telling the story of like, you know. Like that sounds so fun. That storytelling aspect is really, really interesting to me.

And yeah, I wish we could have had more of that. I think that it also would be, it's a really great way to, again, show what it means that the Eternals have been here for 7,000 years without just like, moving from moment in history to moment in history because then you understand how their presence has shaped our world and our understanding. I think like... And what's more important than story? Thank you, Terrian. That's just so nice to have you here on the pod.

But, you know, like we got Superman and Batman references in this movie, which is an incredible, like, fracturing of the cinematic. divide, great stuff. Of course, I like Star Wars references too, but that's, you know, much more, much more common, obviously, inside of the MCU, shouts to Ned and his Lego Death Star because, of course, Marvel and Star Wars Earth Disney. Yeah. But, you know, the idea of, I think that's interesting because, of course, like Superman is one of the most emblematic figures in terms of the idea of this, like, God complex and superheroes. And I think there's, like, an interesting meta-commentary aspect at play here, too. Not that's super present in the movie, to be clear, but that's one of

thing that I think interesting to talk about. Like, superheroes are like gods in modern day pop culture and the role that superhero stories play in our society today. And I think so all of this is just like a very rich text. You know, I didn't actually answer like what I like to be a Disney Plus series. I think it's, I mean, my answer to that is kind of almost always yes, because like, as you know, I just love to linger in those six to eight episodes. It's wonderful.

This movie is so visually grand and cinematic. that it's almost hard to imagine it anywhere other than two and a half hours on the big screen, but I would really love to spend more time with the characters. And hopefully that helps to clarify that again, it's like actually was quite

taken with many of the characters and much of the lore and wish we had more time to like navigate and explore it. I love your idea of opening episodes with a new myth. Here she is. Thina, Protector of Athens.

I mean, it reminds me of like, did you ever watch the Jim Henson Storytellor Series with John Hurt? Magical series. Check it out. It's got like myths and folklore and hens and Muppets and it's very like, if you're a labyrinth, dark crystal person,

you haven't watched the storyteller, you should. Great series. But everyone, every episode starts with John Hurt by the fire, sort of murmuring, all avanderish sweet, Sweet nothing's into your air. But the,

a problem with being too deep into thinking about Marvel is you also will see the storytelling seems in this larger idea of non-interventionists, right? Because, and this was true of Captain Marvel, too. Like, the reason Captain Marvel had to be set in the 90s and Carol's, you know, fucks off to space is because we had to have, like, a reason why Carol wasn't around all these other movies, right?

And so, and as everyone pointed out, when the first Eternals trailer drop, where were these assholes when Thanos was here, et cetera? And then the second trailer was basically designed to answer that question specifically. So much so that they shove kit into the second trailer,

like all that sort of stuff. So it feels like it's thematic and interesting, but also feels like a device to explain to us why we haven't seen these. Did that feel like a satisfying answer to you specifically in terms of where they've been across the MCU? Do you think there was a different way to do it?

But obviously in the game and comics run, they don't remember who they are. They have to kind of awaken. I wonder if that would have played better here than, yeah, you know, we had to let the humans be humans. But except when we didn't. Right. I wonder if they couldn't do that because they did that already for Captain Marvel. Do you know what I mean? Like, no, it didn't fully satisfy me, is my answer.

But they tried. Well, it's just, it's just a tough thing because it inherently is going to, and, you know, I think obviously, like, again, it's incorporated into the text of the film with Dane asking Sarsi about it. Like, it is addressed and acknowledged by the characters themselves, but as viewers, we're going to say, wait, where were you when X? Now, this is a thing across comics and across comic movies, but often the answer is like, you know, asterisk in the bottom right hand corner of my page. reminder, this character was off fighting this villain and this issue of this run, not, well, we weren't supposed to. So we didn't. Like, that can just be a tougher sell, I think, for certain audience members in terms of

investing in these people as, like, worthy heroes. I think that the, that connects to that other point about, like, the appeal of being human and the focus in the film on what it means to be human. obviously this comes into play with another one of the twists in the film and this is an update and an evolution of existing Eternal's canon that they are not like offshoots of humanity but are in essence as they say so we're like robots like space robots

robots from space you know they are like synthetic creations that Arisham made in the World Forge and he stores their memories and he reboots them and they don't have the full Ajax does and then eventually Circe learns and of course part of the Icarus reveal is that we learn he knew but the bulk of the Eternals do not know this and so I again like I'm a little bit of a I'm a little bit of a sap with this stuff so perhaps predictably and on brand I really like this part of it like the questions about what it means to be human and why the character would think that earth and the inhabitants of earth are worth saving, or those moments of doubt

when they feel that they are not worth saving, and then what can pull them out of that doubt and out of that lack of faith, how their faith is restored, and their purpose is restored. And the purpose ultimately stems not from any mission that Arisham programmed into them for his grand design, their purpose ultimately stems from the connections that they build with each other and with other people, whether that's Fasthos and Ben and Jack or Dane and Searcy or Kingo and Karin, our favorite duo in the whole film. You know, on and on the list goes, right? But those are the bonds that make the battle actually worth waging. Sensience-free, will evolution choice, there's no distinction ultimately between the hot space robots and the

people there because the ability to choose and tap into that free will is what makes all the characters, even the hot space robots, human, right? No. Again, I don't want to turn this into like, Mal loved it, Joanna hated it. Because that's not exactly what's happening here. We love a healthy discussion. But that's Avengers Infinity War slash endgame shit. That's when you're like, Tony is fighting for this because of, you know, because of the life he wants to build with Pepper or because of his daughter or like whatever.

You know what I mean? Like, Peter and his aunt, like all these connections of humanity and super, you know, that takes a while for us to care about. And I don't feel like this Reader's Digest version I got really got me where the film needed me to be. And I think especially with that Icarus twist, wouldn't that be a much better. turn in like the third film or something like that where like, you know, say we learn to love Richard Maddenness sort of like a Steve Rogers-esque figure. And then we find out that he killed everyone's mom. You know what I mean? Like that's, that investment is something Marvel has been so, that patient investment is something that Marvel has been just so good at. So for them to just

slam bang this on us. Maybe they feel like we as viewers have spent a decade sort of marinating in their world. So we're ready for advanced calculus. But like, I still need remedial, like emotional trigonometry in order to feel and care, you know? It's a really good question. Let me, let me offer up a counterpoint and see if I can convince you. Not that I need to. Not that I need to convince you. It doesn't have to, it didn't necessarily have to be that exact manifestation of that exact plot point with Icarus. But if some members of the Eternals are not interested in different things and fighting for different things for different reasons, then it's impossible for us to tap into those other

universal themes of agency and choice and humanity and connection because they would just feel like a programmed horde. So the fact that he is so staunch. in his conviction. And the person that he loves, despite inheriting the mantle of leadership from that glowing golden throat orb, refuses to carry out that grand design.

And the only thing, he does not say, okay, well, I love you, so that's good enough. He says, I wish it hadn't been you,

right? And eventually, he still is going to succumb to his shame to his shame, and his guilt. We'll have a mailbag question coming later today on the literal flight into the sun. We'll save our thoughts on that for the mailbag. But I actually think that was like pretty important.

Much like the debates, you know, maybe this is where we transition into some of the characters and storylines we like the most because I think like Drewig is top of the list for both of us there. Well, that's what I'm saying, that example, that smaller rebellion earlier, not like, I'm going to kill mom rebellion, but like we have a fundamental disagreement. on how to run this here, that was a really great and meaty part of the film, I thought. And, like, I think that if we had gotten the Eternals in their time on Earth,

before this big event, a baby's God is going to pop out of the, you know, the central of the earth. Like, like, knowing them and knowing, I agree, you need conflict. in order to have drama, like, obviously. But like, but I don't even mean conflict. I mean, like, point of view.

Because otherwise, how are we supposed to believe that they have any humanity inside of them? Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I just, uh, I just don't think the icarus of it all worked for me on that front. But when they did a similar thing with Druig, it did work for me. So I thought that was really compelling. I agree.

I loved Druig. I thought, first of all, what a wonderful performance. from our guy Barry. My dad's name is Barry. I always love when there's another Barry out there, crushing it. I thought that Drewig was the most intriguing character, and certainly one I wish we had gotten more time with. I, like you, loved, loved, loved, loved, loved the Druig-McCari relationship. They had such natural chemistry with each other. I really badly wish that we had gotten more time with them. The thing that I was so intrigued by with Drewig is that, you know, it taps into that larger question, right, of, as we were discussing earlier, like this non-interventionist

approach other than with deviant affairs, and is that right? What I found so compelling about Drewig is that he has this real sense of purpose and moral clarity. And I think we and many viewers were probably quite compelled by the questions that he was asking his fellow eternals about whether it is it is right to not help and not save and not protect and not guide if they have the ability to fend off this violence and this destruction and this despair. But it's not that simple, right? And that's why his character is interesting. That's why his point of view is interesting.

Because is it right to just take control of all of these beings with free will to rob them of that free will because you think you know what is best? No, of course not, right? And that ties back in two to that God complex aspect and how it can manifest. Intention, you know, this is a recurring theme across our superhero story discussions and really are like fantasy story discussions in general. Intention is always the distinction more so often even than the act itself. And he is coming, we can see from the desire and the genuine desire. to protect and nurture. He doesn't want to do harm.

That doesn't mean what he's doing is right. Absolutely not. That's like a massive Perius curse, you know? Yeah, his little mind control village, a little like red fare that he had built for himself was interesting. No, the Macari-Druig chemistry, which was born out of just those actors having natural chemistry, reminds me of my favorites Jerry and Roman on Succession,

where the actors were just, I guess, flirting with each other. And Chloe was like, let's put it in. I loved that. And I'm just saying that like when people see this movie and they're like, it's about love and connection and relationships and what matters. And I'm like, I hear you. I just didn't feel it. I'm going to say I felt it from Durega McCari.

And if that had been the central story, the, you know, the separation of these two, these two on the opposite sides of an ideology, I think I would have been much more keyed in because, like, character and emotion is paramount to me in order for me to understand, get invested in a story. And, like, you know, Circe and Icarus worked for plenty of people. It just didn't work for me. Can I go with someone, a character that I really loved? Please.

Yes. And Thina. All right, Angelia Jolese, a goddamn movie star. A movie star. literally one of the most famous people alive. A movie star, and every time she was on, like, the Mad Weary, first of all,

it's not spelled how you think, if you've never read a comic. It's not how spelled all you think. Though I just love those two words together, Madwary. Like, when have we not been Madweary these past two years? But do I think space dementia

is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life? No, but did I love watching Angelina Jolie and her balletic, beautiful fighting that apparently Angelina took ballet lessons in order to, like, get more graceful in her fighting scenes. Yes, I just loved Thina in that regard. And the fact that, like, Thina's kind of super scary also, like, in the end when she's sort of scaring children.

So I was really, really into Thina. I really liked her. I certainly enjoyed the orange stabbing. That was great. Plus, she had a face slice. I was going to say, I quite enjoyed the slicing crow's face. I love what a face is sliced and then slides off. That never fails to delight me.

It's disgusting. I love it. Anyway, Tina. One of the things that I enjoyed, well, I really liked the, I mean, Gill was just a delight. You know, I'd love to have a meal with Gill. Love to sample the spit-colonled brew. love to sample the pie before it had cascated out of the cast iron onto the ground. When for for Thina, though, there's that moment with Icarus when he says, like, you've never had to fight me.

And I'm paraphrasing, but she says, you know, but I've always wanted to. And there's a moment with Fasstos where he tells Icarus, like, I've always wanted to clip those wings. And those moments I thought were important because they help us understand that some of his, his fellow Eternals have actually doubted him a little bit or had reason to, like, not be super fond of him over the years. Maybe that's just because he was a, you know. All the stuff around Icarus is so interesting to me because, like, I feel like this bright thing doesn't kind of nowhere, but at all. The seeds are there. But it's just sort of like, it feels like a weird rush in the end, this like her, her blinkered, like, adoration for him, you know?

And then similarly, Kingo, Kumail's relationship with Icarus, he's like, you're my God. It felt like there are scenes missing of the Kingo Icarus connection because all we get is that like first fight scene with them. And Camille, in a recent interview that I was listening to, not our very own great interview,

but another interview was talking about like how much of his story was cut, how many scenes he shot that were in the movie, like scenes with Salma and stuff like that. So I think that there is just, like, again, that connective tissue work, that relationship work, that they were like, we can yada, yada over this. And I'm like, I missed the yada yada. Do you know what I mean? But it is helpful to know that Kingo was making a movie about Icarus.

True. True. That's a lot. One way to show his adoration and his affection. Yeah, Kingo was definitely one of my favorite parts of the movie. one of the highlights that thought Camille was great. I really enjoyed the humor. And his scenes made me laugh.

I thought that you and Sean had an interesting discussion about the tonal shifts across the film and whether it always felt like it, like, knitted together into one movie. I'm curious to, you know, to hear more about that from you now here on this podcast. But I really liked it because I don't mind the, other parts of the movie that were much more like serious and introspective in tone. But I thought that

those like bursts of levity often self-referential in terms of like who the internals are and how they conduct themselves was like a, this is really like needed little burst of energy. And I just, I thought he was great and I loved as I know you did. His valet. Karun. What an. I was. I was, Absolutely. Huge fan. Huge fan. Jim of a character. Loved him.

Yeah, real guy in the chair energy from Karun. No, I loved Karun. And, like, Karun, I think, served the purpose that Dane is meant to. It just didn't really. Well, it's complicated, right? Because, like, Dane is supposed to be our sort of every man audience surrogate asking the questions for us. But does that really work when, in the end? we find out that like he has this huge magical legacy that is part of his family and a secret

sword and all this sort of stuff like that. So I like that he's asking her like right off the bat like are you a wizard or whatever? You know what I mean? He's not like what is this crazy random? Sounds amazing. He's not like what is this crazy random happenstance. Right? Because the people of Earth have been through a lot at this point. So hopefully they're not surprised when they see magic or aliens or what have you. At the same time, I do. At the same time, I do. just think there is, he is too inherently magical himself in his, his, in his family's legacy, and we'll get into that to really be the everyman, whereas Karun, provided he's not secretly something else, I loved, I loved Karun in this movie. I thought he was really, really much needed.

And, um, yeah, loved him. It's interesting. I did, I did actually think that the Dane, everyman stuff worked because while we know, that he's going to become the Black Knight, he doesn't know that in those moments. And so it felt very, like, earnest when he's asking Circe if she's a wizard. He knows that there's magic stuff in his family, as he tells her at the end of the movie.

But I got the sense that that was something he discovered because she, like, guided him toward reconciliation with his uncle, who, of course, is the prior Black Knight in the comics. You think this is something Dane figured out about his family. I mean, I don't know. I don't think it's clear,

but I think that's a possible interpretation. You know, she, now I think there's plenty of points to the contrary, like the fact that she gives him that ring, and he says, is this from the Middle Ages and it's got the, you know, the Raven Crest.

Like, obviously, it's a sense that his family traces back, you know, to this mighty lineage, whether he knows that it traces back to Sir Percival and a blade forged by Merlin before he ultimately makes his way to the box and the stinger.

I don't know. You know, I think that if he's in the movies, he's ultimately going to have inherited Nathan's castle, or maybe if he went there to make amends on her suggestion, then maybe he would have discovered this there, but also maybe the reason that they don't get along is because he knows who he is. That would also be possible.

I know that there's a lot of theories that that's where he's in, that he's in the castle at the end. To me, it just looked like he was in the museum. But I think, like the, I think the Garrett Castle sort of functions as a museum too. You thought he was literally at the Natural History Museum? I don't know why he would be

in a different spot. That just seems like a lot but anyway, we have a lot more to learn about that character and that's, and that's a tough thing

because, again, this, it's like similar to my issue with Ultron, which is trying to launch a bit too much. You know what I mean?

So like, you know that Marvel thing that they do where they're like, we need a character. We need a hot guy with a sense of history who might date Searcy.

Well, why not make it Dane Whitman? And then we can launch a Black Night at the same time. Do you know what you mean? Like, that's the thing they do all the time. But I'm just like, I don't know. For me, it didn't work in here. And for me, I mean, like, I will admit that generally Kit Harrington doesn't work as well on me as he does on other people.

So that's just, I'm just an easy mark for Kit. We're just going to disagree. I just loved all of the meta game of Thrones moments. Hit me, hit me. Hit me with your, with your, uh, your taste. choice of Thrones moments. Obviously, just seeing John and Rob walk toward each other so that Dane and Icarus could introduce themselves, wonderful, a long-awaited reunion, delightful, even though it was obviously

very fleeting and probably left many people wanting more. I was like, ah, just a little wink there for us as viewers, loved it. Both Dane and Icarus, John and Rob, saying out loud some version of, I love you, Circe, even though this Circe is spelled differently than Circey Lanster. Got a real chuckle, real kick out of that one. Obviously, just in general, Dane, talking about his secret ancestry, you can't not think about John Snow or Deeragon. And of course, our dude once again has a magical sword, you know, from Longclaw to the Ebony Blade. It's just a delight.

I loved it. Miles, like, I see another sword that I can buy myself. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be curious to see what the Ebony Blade merch looks like. I don't know if I want a cursed blade in my home. We'll see. How about Fasos, another character who we both loved?

Just wonderful energy. I loved his family. I loved seeing that family so much. Give Jack a spin-off. I think Brian Tyree Henry is just great in everything. He's just gone for so long. And that is a bummer. What I will say is I loved the scenes of him making things.

Real Robert Johnny Jr. With the like sort of hands on the air, minority report magical stuff. And I will say that like the visuals of their powers

these like beautiful delicate gold glinting ways in which their weapons and everything else manifest themselves. I loved that. I thought that was

absolutely gorgeous. Part of this like you know, you can't fall other than some of the CG you can't really fault this film for its visuals

in a lot of respect. Like like the enormity of, of the Celestials or the delicacy of these gold filigree power subsets. Like, I just, I think all that stuff is really beautiful. And we got another Chloe trip to the Dakotas. That beautiful Dakota sky. Honestly, gorgeous.

Just can't stay away. Just can't stay away. I loved it. Yeah, I thought the film was beautiful to look at. I saw it in IMAX the first time on a regular movie screen the second time. but, you know, like you said, kind of, CGI notes, perpetual CGI notes aside,

I thought that it looked great. Honestly, the only CGI that I personally thought was like distractingly weird was PIPP. He looked like strange to me. But other than that, actually, I didn't mind any of the visuals in the film and thought most of the film was quite beautiful to look at. On the CGI front, though, I want to say,

you know, typically like we always, everyone always talks about the Marvel final act, problem and the CGI battle that everything is mounting toward. And obviously, we certainly have a, you know, a big CGI fight at the end with the effort to, uh, a halt team. It's emergence. But kill, kill a baby god. The beginning of this movie actually had a lot of CGI battles and CGI fights with the deviance and across, you know, across timelines. or I should say spans of time, I guess timelines, if we're in the multiverse, indicates something else. And I think that was part of why on first viewing I found it a little harder to get into right away because, again, that middle stretch where everyone's hanging around having dinner or catching up on the jet and talking about where they've been in their lives and we

learn about the divides between them. Like those were the parts that I loved. And, you know, I'm always like a sucker for the. mule near lift attempt scene in Ultron or the Shorma scene at the Stinger at the end of Avengers. I love the moments where we get to see the heroes just like kind of be people and kick it with each other. And so I really, really enjoyed the middle stretch and those more like those quieter human moments. Those were really my favorite parts of the film.

This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Rip are back in a new series, Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Cole has a return. And this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dutton Ranch starring Colehouser, Kelly Riley, Annette Benning and Ed Harris now streaming on Paramount Plus. This episode is brought to you by Sweetgreen.

The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually. satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you. Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken. Garlic aoli. Crumbled bacon. Corn salsa. 40 grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order.com. Any other faves or things that you wanted to highlight before we move into some of the phase four connections? I think the last thing I wanted to ask you on this front is like whether you think that the estimation of the film will

will change over time because that's obviously always something with, and this is maybe this is a good on ramp actually, into some of the how this connects to the MCU at large and phase four at large questions, because we don't always know really how to assess a movie the first time we see it. So much stems in hindsight from how these various plot threads ultimately play out and how those stakes manifest,

how these characters are deployed across the MCU. Do you think that we'll be looking back at Eternals in five years talking about it in a completely different way or not necessarily? Obviously, that's impossible to say. I'm just curious for your read on it. I do. I don't know about completely different. I definitely think that like repeat viewings will soften some people. Repeat viewings might also highlight flaws or other people.

You know, like it'll come and go. What I have found is interesting talking to like Sean in the big picture and hearing Chris and Andy talk about it. I'm on the watch is the narrative. I was thinking about this, the narrative around Captain Marvel, which I feel like at the time, people were really being really delicate about that movie because it was like the first female-led movie, you know, co-directed by a woman and stuff like that. I think people were really nervous to say exactly what they thought about it because they didn't want to like, you know, the stakes were really high for representation on that movie.

I feel like increasingly people feel freer and freer. to talk about what they didn't like about that movie. Like Chris and Andy and Sean we're all talking about, they thought it was flat out bad. And I've heard that more and more from people. When I remember at the time, people being much more careful about the way that they were couching it. And I think a little bit of distance from the like charged atmosphere here

will allow people to have a clear-eyed assessment of the film. Because I think just as much as some people on the critical side are maybe couching their criticism as more negative than they actually feel. I think some people on the positive side are responding defensively are like, no, I like this or I love this because I feel defensive and protective of the Marvel universe. All of that is understandable, I think. But I think with a little bit more time and distance from this like 48% 81% perceived divide, I do think that people can just like take it a little bit on its own merit.

you'll think about which movies do you want to rewatch when you decide to rewatch Marvel movies. Is this on the top of the list? Will your overall rankings change? I often come out really high on a film like Shang Chi or Black Widow. I'm like, oh, top 10, top five, you know, whatever Marvel for me. And then like a couple of years out, it'll shake out. And I'll be like, well, I don't really revisit that one.

I don't really think about it that much, et cetera. So I don't know. That's sort of how I feel about it. When we're three sequels in with Lauren Ridloff and Barry in their, in their Macari-Druig, and Thina obviously is with them on the domo. And so is, so is Eros. So is PIP. When we're a couple movies in with that team, who knows how we'll look back here.

They put all my faves on a ship together. And I was like, I will follow you. I was like, like the movie's wrapping up. I'm like, I'm done with this. I don't want to watch Eternals anymore. and then they put all my same faves on a ship and then added Harry Styles. Okay.

All right. Godfather three. Pull me back in me. Just when I thought I was out. Yep. Well, that gets us nicely into discussing the connections to the MCU at large and what we might see in the future.

Before we talk a little bit more about the stingers and prognosticate a bit, question for you. Yeah. The movie doesn't have a multiversal connection. Were you? surprised by this in any way. Okay, here's where I have to admit that the entire plot of this film leaked out in February

and I read it. So I've known what the entire plot of this movie was for like a really long time, which which I don't think is like a dis, I often exist in this space. Being quote unquote spoiled on something does not hamper by enjoyment of it because like I, it just actually allowed, like you know how you talked about the second time you saw it and you were able to focus more because you knew, like, what was going on. That's how I felt like the whole time because I knew the Richard Madden Twist. And so then I was, like, watching him the whole time, I felt like better able to focus when I

know what the plot is going to be. That's how I approach things. Other people feel differently. That's fine. So I was not surprised there was no multiversal connection. I think to the larger point is, like, when does this take place in all of that? You know what I mean? Like, when does this take place post blip?

But I think it's possible that this could be, along with Falcon and Winter Soldier, a pre-multiverse fraction time. Do you know? Right. Do you disagree? Well, I guess it's one of the things that I'll be interested to see in No Way Home, which obviously is going to be a multiversal movie. You can, you know, how the movie is being marketed.

Sony characters are coming in. That's very clear. how that connects to the introduction of the multiverse in Loki, the Disney Plus TV show and then everything that we've witnessed. And what if and how all of those things come together? I'm very curious to see how that's all handled. I was waiting for some sort of multiversal connection and I think maybe was also like a little distracted by that anticipation,

my first viewing. So that was one of the reasons on the list the second time around that I was like just able to kind of soak it all in a little. little bit more. But the multiverse is kind of, I think, just one example of any number of ways in which this movie could have connected to the wider Marvel story or maybe didn't need to. And I think that's interesting in terms of looking backward, but also looking ahead because this is going to make me sound like an absolute maniac. But if you'll allow it for a moment. I'm ready. I'm ready.

As we're learning about the emergence and the threat to Earth, you know, and we literally see in this expositional sequence, Earth just shattering as T.M. it emerges. I had a moment, Joanna. I am perhaps ashamed to admit, but I had a moment where I was like, do it. End this Earth and then tell us it wasn't our Earth. and that's how they could have connected this to the multiverse. Just because we heard all of these references to, you know, Thor and Odin and Captain Rogers and Tony Stark and who can lead the Avengers now and obviously Thanos and the snap and the blip and all this other stuff doesn't mean that that couldn't have happened in another timeline in the multiverse.

But just even though I had that kind of pull, oh, where's the multiverse? oh, when are we going to get these explanations about X, Y, and Z? I had a push-pull, like, a inside this internal dissonance, where I longed for that, but also was very much like, what if this movie didn't worry about the Infinity Saga at all? What if none of those characters were ever mentioned? The blip was not present here. And the Eternals were completely and totally a standalone story. I would be totally okay with that

and I think actually could have freed the film from some of these necessities like answering the where were you during Thanos question and I raised that not as like a critique or a thing I liked

but more something that I'm really interested in continuing to track across phase four what is going to be the compulsion inside of each new story to connect all of these tales and all of these characters to each other I think that we can move from that into the stingers.

Quickly, before we zoom to the stingers, and I know we're running along, but I just need to say, I cannot let it go unremarked upon. It's slack you for yourself as Darth Mal. Great, great joke. But when you just now, talking about blowing the earth, went, do it. It was full palpitine. You went, do it, do it good, good. A hundred percent palpatine.

So I just wanted you to know that about yourself. I'll be honest distressing. I loved it for you. I loved it. I loved it. Stinger time? Yeah, let's talk about the Stingers. Because obviously,

the Stingers do connect the movie in many ways to other aspects of the MCU and give us a lot of exciting possibilities for how those connections could unspool in the future. I thought both of these Stingers were awesome. I loved them. They were so fun. They're sparking so much theorizing.

We got the mid credits, which was air. Aros, Star Fox, Harry Stiles, and of course, PIP Patrol, entering the MCU. And then we got the post credits. Dane Whitman pulling the Ebony Blade and hearing, off-screen, Blade, Mahershula, has entered the MCU to ask Mr. Whitman, if he's sure he's ready for that. Let's just take these in order. This is we're both amazing. What are you thinking about future MCU connections and how the Eros Stinger might impact the MCU?

moving forward. Okay, thrilled that Harry Stiles is here. Big Harry Stiles fan. Not even so much as for his music as just like who he is as a person. I'm a big fan.

I think he's perfect as this very charming everyone's in love with him. Character, as you mentioned, Pip, voiced by Patton Oswald. Did not look great,

but I'm sure they will redesign him as need be. Aeros is a rival here though. We should mention sent us into a little bit of a tailspin. Didn't it, Mal? Because, okay, so Ayrus shows up.

He looks like Carrie Stiles, and he's like, my fellow eternal. Right? Right? So he's an eternal, they're eternals. And then he says, then he's introduced as brother of Thanos, right? As he is canonically in the comics. And in the comics, he's an eternal. And Thanos is like something of it is a deviant.

That's why Thanos and Eros look different. but they are brothers. Thanos is also an eternal, but has the deviant strain. Devian strain, all of that sort of stuff. Yes. Howevskis,

if the eternals are actually hot robots from space, is a, Harry Stiles a robot, probably fine with that. And also a robot. That's our question. That is the question. More people should be asked themselves.

is Thanos a GD robot? And how does that make us feel about everything that we've just watched? Does it make you feel about it? I have so many questions. It makes me feel like I have so many questions. You know, as you know it did, the canon, like I think the fact that, okay, so for a long time, I think MCU fans had accepted that Thanos was not a deviant in the MCU as he is in the comics. and that the even just,

even before we saw the movie, just the trailer giving us the duel, well, we only get involved when deviants are involved and we didn't get involved with Thanos. Confirmed that Thanos is not a devian in the MCU. QED, yeah. He is still here,

we know, inside of the MCU, canonically, Eros's brother, and Eros is, as he is in the comics, canonically here, and Eternal, because he says, as you know, my fellow eternal,

so that would lead us to believe that there's still the, the children of Lars, who is an eternal and that Thanos is also an eternal. So then I have like multiple questions. The robot one, as you asked, as you noted, is a huge one. Is Thanos a robot? What does that mean? How does this, if this is the case, how does it make us rethink like what he did? Because if he would, if the, if the, if the, if Arisham and the Celestials need to basically harvest life and energy to hatch new baby Celestials, then what Thanos was doing would have been a cataclysmic threat to Arisham's grand design.

So wouldn't that have been a time to actually say, hey, ye old Eternals, need you to do something about this Thanos guy. He's the threat. Your Erishol impression, hang on, first of all. Secondly, the follow-up implication of that was, is, was Thanos actually saving the world by snapping half the population away? Everyone's always looking to say Thanos has a point. Thanos is right.

That's right. But also, like, if Thanos is an eternal, then does the whole, like, again, he could still not be a deviant in the MCU, but does the whole, like, well, that basically wasn't our domain logic hold then? I guess the argument there would be, well, our eternals just didn't know that because look at how much else they didn't know either, you know, about, again, outside of, like, Ajax and Icarus and then eventually Circe, like, do they, they don't, what would they, what do it, do they not know. There's a lot that they don't know.

You can't, you can't be hot and smart. It's just not, you know, and someone that just a little too. Anyway, yeah, it's a lot of questions. We'll see if they have ready answers for the question that they've raised. I'm so excited to get the answers. And also, like, Arrows had the, he had one of the golden spheres, right, that is in Ajax and then eventually in Circe and the one that Fasthus uses to forge the bracelets that helped them tap into the uni mind. I believe canonically you called them throat balls. Yes. Golden throat balls.

It was like glowing and had a beacon-like effect and I couldn't help but wonder, is there any chance that that connects to the beacon in the 10 rings in Shang Chi? A great question. Another question about Eros and Harry Stiles is like, are they going to tease him here and then make us away? I mean, it reminded me at the end of Guardians 2. Remember how Guardians 2 teases like Sylvester Salone and Michelle, It's like a whatever. And like, are we ever going to see that?

I don't know. Are we ever going to see Harry Styles? If they don't, they're probably going to make more Eternals. But if they didn't, are we going to see Harry Styles again? There's a theory going around that he's going to show up in Guardians 3 because Aros and Adam Warlock who's in Guardians 3 or connected the comics and like that so that we might see Harry there. And if so, when does that take place?

After this, before this? Has he just strolled in from Guardians 3? How much timeline am I supposed to keep straight in my mind when I'm watching all of this? I don't know. I have a lot of questions. Hopefully James Gunn has some answers. But then that brings us to Kit and his sword and the injection of horror into the Marvel. The Marvel universe.

What do you want to say? What do you want to say? I love a magical sword. I'm delighted that the Epony Blade is here. forged by Merlin, Sir, Sir Percy from an old meteorite. This is a... Can you tell me about your pronunciation of the Wizard Merlin? I think I just...

It's just my Baltimore accent coming out. I love it. Okay. The blade, you know, when Dane moves his finger toward it, he translates the Latin that's very ominous and foreboding. And then as he moves his finger toward it, we can see the, blade come to life. So like a couple just like quick, quick, quick, quick nuggets on the blade. This is a cursed blade. It is a magical blade, but it is a cursed blade and it craves and seeks blood and darkness. And it also preys in the darkness within Joanna. So that's alarming for our

guy, Dane Whitman. It's a symbiotic sword. It's a symbiotic relationship between the sword and the wielder. There are, you know, we got a moment with Excalibur on the Domo. El elsewhere in the film, and there are a lot of parallels with, like, worthiness. Are you worthy to wield the blade? Not everybody who would seek or Dane to be the Black Knight is, but Dane, you know, in the comics, is, and he wields the blade and becomes the Black Knight. And a lot of things happen from there to our guy. The connection from the Ebony Blade to Blade, the Daywalker, is a fascinating one, though. And I'm curious to know how you think that is going to manifest, and where these characters might next be.

Obviously, we know that a Blade movie is coming to the MCU, but also before The Stinger, Dane is kind of at the center of the end of the movie before either Stinger. Like, he's watching Arisham summon Searcy away from him. Obviously, he also calls up Fastos and Kingo. There's a lot of emphasis on Dane at the very end here. Where are we going to see him next?

I mean, time will tell. Kid Harrington claims to not know, but that's what they always say, isn't it? I will say that, well, first of all, when you called it as symbiotic relationship with the sword, I'm like, should they get Tom Hardy to voice the sword? But also, it's possible, Blade has been rumored to be in the Oscar Isaac Disney Plus series Moon Knight as like maybe that's where they're going to launch him from. And could Dane also show up there? Black Knight, Moon Night, don't know what to tell you. But this idea of like increasing horror representation in Marvel is really interesting.

We haven't discussed yet, I think officially you and I, the fact that they're doing this like Warwolf by Night Disney Plus Halloween special with Gail Garcia Bernal. That Agon Harkness is getting her own show. So they're like putting a bunch of like cool, occult, dark stuff in the mix here. And that's where Dane belongs, which I will just say this. I'm going to say one more thing. about Mr. Kit Harrington. Other than his great head of hair, I actually think Kit is most talented as a comedian.

Seven Days in Hell. He was very funny in this movie. The tennis documentary Seven Days in Hell does a lot for me. So when Kit has to like brood monosyllabically, that's not my favorite. So if there's a way for Dane to continue some of the fun vibes,

but amp it up even more than I might get even more excited about what we'll see from him next in the MCU. How about you? Do you have any thoughts or theories or hopes or dreams? I think what you called out about the Marvel horror is astute. You know, Sean and I did a Ring Reverse episode off of the What If Zombies episode. And we talked a little bit in that. This was obviously well before, you know, the Stinger, but about the future of Marvel

horror and what might unfold there. I'm really excited for the Black Knight. I'm incredibly excited for Blade. I rewatch Blade 2 with my husband after seeing Eternals just on the high of the stinger and the voice. Really fun. So I can't, I just can't wait for all that. And I think the, you know, the stingers are, again, so intriguing. I think there's also plenty from the movie itself that sets up really interesting possibilities for the future of not only Eternals canon, but where the characters and storylines might manifest elsewhere. And I was curious for your take on that before we get to the mailbag. Like, how many of the threads that opened here do you think we'll play out in future Eternals installments? And we can, you know, mention some of the data points we have there

about what the future of the Eternals might be. We get the, the card, you know, on the screen. And and the Eternals will return. But Nate Moore has also said he had an interview with the Toronto Sun recently, and he said, quote, it's not something that is a must have. Obviously, we have ideas of where we could go, but there isn't a hard and fast rule where we have to have three of these things, and this is the first. Are we going to get more Eternals movies?

And whether or not we will, where might some of these storylines go? Because as you noted, with something like the Guardian's Eros possibility, of course those characters on the ship looking for other Eternals off on this quest to awaken their fellow eternals and help them see the horrors of this grand design could be the plot of another movie.

They also now know that their fellows back on Earth are in peril because they haven't heard from them. So they could just immediately all team up again. We know that Eresham, Erisham, the judge, is pursuing his judgment of Earth. tells Circe and Fasus and Kingo that he's going to basically review their memories. I'll spare them for now, but like, you know, put a pin in it.

We'll see. I'm also interested in whether there's a possibility of the celestial war afoot. Because, you know, we learn that one of the reasons that Circe is able to, you know, her powers like transfiguring matter, but she doesn't think that she's going to be able to do this thing at the end, like turning the deviant into the tree during one of the battles is this shock. It's this new development. And part of the reason that she is able to do this is this newfound belief in herself and the ability that she has, but also because they all tap into this cosmic energy, including Tiament, including the celestial.

And I was wondering, like, is that just happening because that is how the connection works? And so the energy is there and they're harvesting it? Or was it some sort of choice the Tiamet made to join their cause that I think it's open to interpretation. And like there's comics precedent for not only just celestial in general warring with each other, but Arisham and Teumann in particular being on opposing sides of a course of action. So are we about to get a celestial, universal conflict? That would be big. That would be big. And we do know that at a certain point, Marvel talked about this phase of the MCU being a cosmic phase.

That was before a lot of other things happened. But do you remember back in the day, like James Gunn said that, I think before he was fired and then rehired by Disney, that it was all going cosmic. And I think this is something that's on their list to do.

And you'll hear in the interview that we have with screenwriters that they kind of talked about as like a divided thing. They were like, on Earth, we've got the multiverse thing going on. And then we're headed out into space

and sky's the limit. We're pushing into the stars. I think Bob Eiger said something similar, actually, when I talked to him for the BF cover story we did. He was like, we're pushing out into the stars. That was like this whole thing that they were thinking about, like, many years ago. So, like, yeah, it could be that we're just headed into bigger and bigger, like, celestial. But out in the stars, my dude, the watchers, just talking about the multiverse. I know, I can't.

I don't understand how the multiverse could be contained to Earth. That doesn't make any sense to me. But, like, that's something they said. I'm just saying what they said. I don't really understand it, but it could be that multiverse is one strain of a storyline they're following and cosmic is another. I personally, unless there is, and it doesn't have to be human, it can be a hot space robot, but like a humanoid connection that I can latch on to, I'm worried that I won't be very

interested in a big cosmic war of giant robot gods. Do you know what I mean? Right. But listen, they put all my faves on a ship. So odds are, you know, I will be invested. But I think that's so important to, yes, I want Marvel to do bigger and bigger swings and do really interesting things. But I think that they cannot forget the thing that made them so successful for so long, which isn't like the formula and the humor necessarily.

That's all part of it. But it's that human heart character. connection. And what's interesting about this film is, is, I mean, it kind of feels to me like Chloe wanted to make a DC film, given that she's, like, largely inspired by Man of Steel, really into Zach Snyder's idea of, like, superhero, and like the idea of superheroes is gods and stuff like that, like, that feels like more DC territory than does Marvel territory. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I'm just saying, like, those DC movies can sometimes make me feel, leave me feeling cold because I don't feel that human warmth connection.

So that's just like what I would love to make sure I have no control over this. I would love for Marvel to make sure that that is something that they hold on to for the future. Anything else before we hit the mailbag? You have a fun little prompt. I have a new segment that I would like us to just do for every Marvel property from here and to eternity, which is Secret Scroll Watch 2021. You know, we should be on the lookout. for scrolls hiding in plain sight.

Always. And if they're smart, they will have been seeding these scrolls in for already, for a while now. So I just want to ask you if there is a scroll, secretly a scroll in this movie posing as something else. Who is your secret scroll candidate? So I have two nominees. I think there's the clear leading contender and our shared pick, and that is our guy. Karoon. Has to be the number one draft pick here.

Just has to be. But I'll also throw out the dude from the bar and Danes Barty, who Sprite was chatting with in one of her illusion forms. Maybe that guy's a scroll. What about you? I don't have a much, there's not a lot of humans or humanoid non-space robots in this movie. So I don't have a lot of other options. don't want anyone in Fastness's family to be a scroll. So we can just roll onto the mailbag.

I'm satisfied with Karun. But I would love to hear from people if they have a secret scroll that they would like to nominate. You can think about the Disney Plus shows we've already seen if we have a secret scroll. It's a good recurring segment. We should be monitoring this in full. I love it. Mailback time.

Jomea Denneran joining us as always. You know, I'm just really happy to be here. I'm really glad that I didn't get sucked up to the sky to an immortal, you know, deity. It's really great that I'm still here on the ground and able to pod with you guys today. All right. Our first question comes from Zonimo. Straightforward. What did you think of the first Marvel sex scene? Can I just take you through my reactions? I was like, is this? Are they going to, they're, oh, they're doing sex in the MCU? And then I turned to my friend, like, very quietly, very quietly, I promise. And I was like, it's a

the first sex scene in the MCU. And then, like, after the movie, I was like, I was like, there's implied sex with Tony Stark, obviously an Ironman, but this is like, yeah, looked uncomfortable. As my friend pointed out, if Circe's powers that she can change anything into anything, let's change some of that rock into a nice pillow top mattress, folks. Yeah, yeah. No, rocky sandy sex. This is your one power, Circe.

I had the same exact thought. Didn't look super comfortable. But other than that, you know, hey, look, sex in the MCU, I'm for it. I just want to say that everybody was annihilating Charles on the Midnight Boys for saying that we need more sex in the MCU. And I am, I am with him on this. I'm Team Charles. My goodness. We need more sex in the MCU.

Oh, man. It's fine, everybody. Sex is a part of life. It can be in the movies. Continuing one of our new segments here, right? Yeah. House of our. house of reshoots if we could go back

for your title and add a sex scene to any MCU movie. This could be something that you know happen based on real canon or your head canon. What are you adding? I'm going to leave the first thing that I put here for you to talk about because it's definitely ripped off from a conversation you and Jason had. So I will submit for the Midnight Society. Thor Ragnarock there has long been a theory that the reason Loki

you know, sort of made it as far as he did in that film is that he became very close friends with the Grandmaster. So the Grandmaster and Loki the Ragnarok. That's my... That's my... That's my pick. Good stuff.

me. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm into it. Loki would definitely sleep his way to the top. Oh yeah. Of course.

Classic. Of course. Classic. My pick is of course. Yeah. Of course. Stephen Nat. On the drive to Camp Lehigh.

Pull over. Climb it to the backseat of the car. We all know what happened. Let's see it. I thought the theory was that they did it in Sam's house. And then again it's and then again it's Sam's. In the shower. After.

It did it. I'm not here to relitigate, bitch, but it didn't happen. I'm on the record, so I'll stick with it here. He friends holds her in the car. While we're at it,

one day, should we ever be blessed with the director's cut of Avengers Endgame? I hope it ends with like a 90-minute Peggy Steve sex scene after that dance.

Let's see the real dance. You know what I mean? If you're giving 90 minutes, it has to be. 45 minutes of a tender goodbye between Bucky and Steve one last night and then he goes back in time

and then it's my favorite thruple. I'm pro everyone having sex with Steve. This podcast has gone off the rails. We've lost what's next in the mailbag? Our next question comes from at NutX.

Besides the name Icarus and the Greek mythology connection, Can anyone explain why Icarus flew to the sun at the end of the movie? It was never explained. I hated this. This was really on the nose. No, a friend of mine who saw the movie was like, after she got out, she texted me, she's like, wait, this is a movie where the bad ex boyfriend literally hurls himself into the sun and people don't like it.

She's like, it's great. You know, when they say Icarus flew too close to the sun, what they mean is that he flew directly into it, Joanna, in his. shame. Okay, allow me to rewrite this movie one more time and say, I would like, if we had seen Sprite tell the story of Icarus and like him process like that story and what its themes might mean to him and stuff like that. And then he's like, I'm just going to do what the story. Like I would have liked that a little bit more than just like Icarus flies into the sun at the end. It does, it does feel like a very like self-centered ego maniacal Icarus move to just be like, I'll do the thing that they always say I do. You know, they always talk about me. This was like reading his own press.

This reminded me a little bit of just him leaving, like in, as his, his true intentions have revealed themselves at last. I found myself thinking a little bit of, of Omneman departing, but obviously this, to be clear, didn't work as well and wasn't as impactful as the Omneman sequence. I think to the question of do we think he's dead, I'll say no for a couple different reasons. One, I think comics canon just, you know, it's just basically

indestructible. I mean, the ways that they won't spoil all the specifics, but the things that are done to Icarus to try to destroy him in the game and run, we learn a lot about what he is able to ultimately withstand. Also, more broadly,

and not to be insensitive here, because obviously this version of Icarus potentially or Ajax or Gil could be dead but because of what we learn about how the eternals are created in theory

any of them could still come back in the story. Another body from the World Forge. Memories are all there in the old memory bank so they could even potentially rediscover a sense of their past life all of which is to say I think we could see every single one of these characters again. I don't think anyone's

really out of the story. And I want to say I really dislike that because Because when you have deaths that don't matter, like because the characters can come back, then, like, what does that do to the stakes of the story? What does it do to this huge sin that Icarus creates that he kills Ajax? What does it do to this huge sacrifice that Gilgamesh makes when he dies? What does it do to Icarus's ending if he's just going to be remade? So, like, a fake out, it's not a fake out death, but kind of a fake out death is, like, one of my number one narrative sins. So, you know, like, even as much as I live Paul Bettney, I still have like a little bit of an issue around vision coming back.

Did you feel this way about, I mean, we don't have, you know, three hours for an Infinity War chat, though. I'd love to do that one day. But did you feel that way about everything that happened in Infinity War and end game with the snap and the return? No, no, because that was always like you knew they were going to come back. That's how I felt about the end of Infinity War. I'm like, they're dust for now. You know what I mean? Yeah.

No, it's an interesting point. Obviously, I think like in comic storytelling. there are always these ways for characters to be rebooted or revived in return. I think it's also going to be one of the things in the multiverse, right? Where even a lot of the characters who we've said, no, this person's really gone. Like it was very painful for me and I had to come to terms of it. And now, like, you know, Tony, how many versions of Tony did we see and what if? Now they, again, we said spoilers at the top.

They all died. But we met a lot of different Tonys, you know. So no one, no one's ever really gone. All right, what's our next question? Next question comes from Kobe Beheim, aka at Kobe Juan Shinobi. Great username. Based on where we left Sprite

at the end of the movie, do you think Sprite will appear as a member of the Young Avengers? Interesting. So we know that Sprite is no longer immortal. Sprite is human now. So presumably Sprite no longer has powers, right? And I think supporting evidence for that

is that Sprite does not ascend along with the other than Earthbound. Eternals to receive Eresham's judgment, right? I think it was really smart of them to side-step this issue of like, how do we keep this character who's supposed to have looked young for millennia, but actors grow in age. Like, there was no way they could keep Sprite, like, forever young in all of this. It also enters, like, you know, gives the possibility that if Sprite didn't work for people

the way she didn't work for me, she might just not be back at all. she might just be living her immortal life. You know what I mean? No, of course, like we should say, just because Sprite doesn't have the cosmic energy powers of an eternal and the illusion casting power anymore doesn't mean Sprite couldn't be in the Young Avengers.

Obviously, not every member of the Young Avengers or the Avengers or the West Coast Avengers or any avenging team always has actual powers, plenty of ways that Sprite could still choose to join the fight. So who knows? We'll see. What's our final question, Jomey? Our final question comes from Tyler Mark Wright.

If you could pick one Avenger and one Eternal for a buddy cop style team-up movie, who would you pick? Love this one. What's your pick, Joe? I'm going with Faces and Smart Hulk because I love this. I just, I remember at the beginning of the MCU when we got, you know, our Bruce and Tony Scienceboro energy. And then just kind of like, you know, Hulk went away. kind of went away and I'm just like really missed the science bro team up. So I want these, these two creators, these two brilliant men to solve something, maybe sure you can come to

and like solve something with their creativity and their ingenuity. How about you? No, what do you got? I'm going with the Kingo and Thor because we got that delicious little intriguing nugget about how Thor used to follow Kingo around. And now that he's a famous Vendor never returns Kingo's phone call. So I want to see I want to see those two hang out. I think the energy of that pairing,

the acting pairing would be wonderful to behold. Honestly, I would love to see Kingo with really any, really any as guardian or guardian. So if we do it as guardians of the galaxy thing and put Kingo into it, I think that would be an absolute delight. Jomey, do you have a pick here?

I would honestly, want to see, I want to bring like actual like Hulk with Gilgamesh and just have them box and see who's got who's got real hands. Just some bruisers. I love it. Just some bruisers, you know. Let's go out there, you know.

They fight each other to stay warm, but then when it comes down and you know, kick a butt taking names, they're all out of names. You know what I'm saying? And they're just punching their way through the multiverse. I want to see it. I want to see it. God. Yeah, so let's go now to my interview with Ryan and Casperpo. It's really interesting to talk to them as like non-Marvel

fans and they're sort of, I'm always interested in process. You know me. So I ask them about their pitching process and all kinds of stuff. So we'll get into all of that with our chat with them now. So delighted to talk to you about your your journey through this whole process. The Marvel machine is is big and intimidating. So I just want to start at the beginning with your pitch process. I know that you had blacklist title. I know from talking to some other screenwriters work from Marvel that like they're always to have their eye on the blacklist.

So how did your appearance of the blacklist relate to your pitch process and what was that pitching process like? Yeah. I mean, Ryan and I are both filmmakers who write. That's really our story. Ryan is a documentary director. I made a feature length documentary about the rise and fall online poker.

I was shooting documentaries for UNICEF and nonprofits in Southern Mexico and as cousins and filmmakers, we said, like, let's write a movie that we can make. That was really where the journey began. We didn't have agents. We didn't have managers. We didn't have the uncle in Hollywood that we could call up and be like, get me the internship. So we really went to a cabin in the woods. I mean, it's like a true story. Went to a cabin in the woods and wrote this script that was sort of inspired by a lot of the stories we grew up hearing our dads, our French on that side, and our family came to America during the war. You know, during the war.

basically because of World War II. So we wrote this story called Ruin, which said in World War II, it's drama. And that script found its way to Hollywood through a friend's sister's fiancee. That's actually the tenuous Hollywood connection. It's truly that specific. And that script ended up topping the blacklist that year.

Thanks, Franklin Leonard. And then from there, the phone rang. And it was Nate Moore. What do you remember from that initial chat with Nate or any chats with him or anyone else about Phase 4? What do you remember that you can divulge? Yeah, what are we allowed to talk about with that? The guy across the street with the Marvel shirt being like, don't do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll end you. No, but what, you know, what were these sort of like vague, big picture plans? I mean, right from the beginning, this was really a story. The conversation was pretty simple. We said, what if there were superheroes at the dawn of man? You know, we've been telling these same kinds of stories for at least 2,000 years of recorded human history about people and gods and legends who are more larger than life, you know, shooting lightning out of your fingertips,

we call it Chris Hemsworth, you know, but back then it was Thor and then back then it was Zeus. You know, we've had these stories about gods forever. And this is, the MCU is that logical conclusion that brings all this human mythology together. For Eternals, and I was a classics minor, I studied that in college. I worked in an archaeological dig in Egypt for four months. And the study of the ancient world, it's really the study of how we got here today, how we got here today, got to where we are. And with Eternals, that was the question we set out to answer. How did the MCU get here? How did we get to this place? And who were the first heroes? You know, who are the people that inspired all of us? So that was really the conversation. And from that point, that first

talk, that's the guiding North Star of the project. We always said, like, let's take people places they have never seen before, show them things that they've never seen on screen, you know, and really show us characters, you know, and a dysfunctional family that we've never seen before. And just speaking about phase four more generally, those early conversations were, that was kind of pre-end game. And I think they hadn't even started shooting endgame at that point, but they kind of knew where it was going to go. And so they had an idea of like, there's going to be a conclusion, you know, to all this stuff. And there's going to be a new world to explore both in characters, but also in style. And one of the things that Nate really kind of stressed is like they had developed a formula.

It was very successful. but what they're really interested in doing in phase four is kind of is branching out and growing from that formula and exploring different types of movies and different genres and just kind of doing things that they hadn't done before. And I think that's what you'll really see with Eternals. You know, it's a very different Marvel movie and that all comes from a place of a desire to just grow and evolve, which is something that's really exciting about Marvel is that they're always looking to improve. Whether it's on a just singular project or whether it's as a company as a whole, they're always looking to try to get better and better and better. I'm curious about tone because, you know, you've got this sort of grand-squip, epic tone to it as well.

But then you've got someone like Camille, who's hilarious and like everything he does. So what was your approach to balancing the humor with sort of that grandeur that is also part of the story? I think real life is funny, you know? I think that tragedy is funny, and I think that you always need to smile and laugh at even when you're in the darkest times. And so for us, this is a film that it's absolutely an epic. We looked at David Lienes, Dr. Javago, Lawrence of Arabia, the English patient. You know, those are where we aren't jumping off points. Those are films that I personally love.

And from that, you know, we want to explore the structure of this family, this immortal family, just struggling to deal with their responsibility, their duty, the love between them. And in all that, you know, heavy sounding epic storytelling, families joke. They have inside jokes. They make fun of each other. They're rude to each other. There's little rivalries that rear their heads and fries and fall. And so that was always really important.

I personally think Ryan's the funniest writer that I know. So, you know, we had a lot of fun with that process of just saying like, look, these are gods. They're immorals, but they're also people, you know. They love different. They feel different things and they are, you know, they're people. Yeah, and I think that, you know, I personally think that great drama always needs to have laughter and tears and the deeper the laughs, the deeper the tears and vice versa. And then also the thing I guess to think about, too, is, you know, just because someone's telling a joke doesn't mean that he's happy inside, that he's like, that that's the intention of what he's doing. People express their emotions in a lot of different ways.

And so I think a broad character like Kingo, who is, you know, was one of my favorite characters to write, he's hilarious and he's funny. and Kumail just absolutely kills it. But it's also he's, it comes from a place of vulnerability, you know, and it comes from a place of insecurity. And there's a lot of layers to his jokes that are that go beyond just the pure laugh. But the net result is that we all got to get a nice joke out of it and get a nice laugh. But there's still a drama beneath the surface. It's true.

I think I'm making the most jokes when I'm the most uncomfortable because I'm trying to like get people. I'm similar. Yeah, I'm similar. Yeah. We use it as a defense mechanism. Absolutely. That's why this conversation is so serious. We feel so comfortable with each other. We don't have to like to crack wise or anything like that. You, you know, you talked about your relationship with Nate. Nate is the, you know, sort of consulting or the, you know, every Marvel project has like a producer attached to it. Nate's your guy for this one. But how did, how did the process work in terms of like hearing from Victoria or Louie or Kevin or whatever when you're working on this? Are you talking directly to Nate at all times? Are you. you ever meeting with with those three like what is that process like for you yeah i mean the marvel

parliament i mean there there's like the bosses and then there's the parliament really it's just it's all the people that love these stories and are responsible for 36 of them coming to the big screen you know it's those those are the story minds and in the beginning yeah we were sitting with lou with kevin with nate with zony naggle hood is one of the executives you know who's now running falcon and winter soldier you know it's it's a family there and that was really what it felt like being a part of this film family. And so, you know, Victoria used to ride her scooter around the offices to give us, like, notes and meetings. And this is a true story. The first time I ran into it, she was like, okay, I'll see you later. And then she wrote off on her razor scooter. Amazing.

Which I tell, I tell that story all the time. It just sums up her personality perfectly. And then once that process of, okay, this is what we're doing. This is the story. You start to get more pointed, more granular. You know, that we're staying in the room. It's just Nate and us. Then, you know, we wrote three, four drafts of the movie. And then Chloe came on board. we did another three, four drafts of Chloe, and then they go and make the movie. And so for us, you know, Nate is that conduit.

He's taking 20 voices and he's fumbling it down to like, here's five pages of notes. We have a week to do them. Yeah, it's like, I remember at some point we, were talking to Nate and we're just like, oh man, this is like, this movie's going to like cost probably more than all the movies we ever plan to write combined, you know?

And then the same with Chloe, you know, like she's come from like low budget filmmaking to doing like this big epic movie and he was kind of like well you know anytime you make a movie or anytime you read a script you're you're walking a tightrope you know and when you're doing something lower budget maybe that tightrope's only like three feet off the ground and then when you're doing this maybe it's like 100 feet off the ground you know but as long as you don't look down and as long as you keep walking that rope then you're going to be okay and my job is to basically keep you from looking down you know and so that's what Nate really did for us. And for Chloe, too,

it's just basically insulated you from all like the big mechanisms and all like the big marketing machine, like all the crazy stuff that comes with any Marvel production and just keeps you focused on your task, which is to tell the best story that you can. This is going to go up after opening a weekend.

So I'm not going to get like too spoilery about anything, obviously, and we know that we can't talk about specifically much. But I'm curious with that caveat, knowing that most people have listened to this will have already seen the film. Of course. Is there a moment from your draft that you were were most excited to see on the screen

that you were like, this was our thing that we were so excited to do and we go to the premiere or an early screening or whatever and we get to see it, what was that moment for you? Yeah, for me, I'll probably say that, you know,

when we conceived of the character of Kingo and wanted to make him be this Bollywood star in the present day, like, we really were just kind of adamant. We're like, it has to be Camel. It has to be Camel Nangiani. You know, like, we were just, there was nobody else in our minds.

And so the fact, that that all came together and to see him kind of like realize that role in the way that that we imagined and the way and that it serves the function that we that we kind of imagined dreamed or hope that it would that was really exciting for me and um that's my moment that's a sweet moment i feel like camille's got really getting kick out of that one um for me you know this is what i what i would say this is a 10 year overnight success right and i've been making movies our whole lives since we were like little kids in his backyard with them green screen, literally we used a sheet as a green screen 20 years ago. So this has been a journey

that's been a long time coming. And for us, there were, every moment in the movie practically is one of those moments. I remember sitting writing the outline on my porch with Ryan. We were, it was a beautiful sunny day. And I, I'd spent a lot of time in India and in Mumbai and in the Canary Islands and Egypt and all, so many places that the film goes, I've had the great pleasure of visiting as a journalist or a filmmaker. And that moment when the bus turns into flowers. I mean, I remember even saying, I'm like, this is a trailer moment. I'm like, they're going to use this in the trailer. I guarantee it. It's such a good moment. And low and behold, you know, three years later, I'm sitting literally in like sweatpants and not wearing a shirt

on my porch. And this little idea you have where you're like, well, that's, that would be cool. And it just goes to show that the creative process is that magical. It's that ineffable. And for all the people who are writers or directors or who are listening to this, it's like, great ideas. They come and like, don't let them go. You know, just keep chasing them down. It can be hard to get it to that logical conclusion where it's on a screen with a billion people. Everything that happens in the third act, those are choices that we made early on just based on like Jack Kirby visuals and dreams that we'd had and all these incredible visions. And most importantly, my dad lives in the Canary Islands. I visited him.

I spent, you know, 10 days out there and this incredible volcanic island. And I said, what a great location. This is such a crazy place. came back and that conversation of saying, this is a cool place I visited, became the third act of the film, which you'll see when you see the movie, but it is, you know,

volcanoes, which that's not a spoiler because that's in the trailer. Volcanoes have been chasing us all over the world since. I mean, the Canary Islands erupted two weeks ago, practically. It's just like life imitates art imitates life, but there's so many things that I hope will inspire people. You know, we don't get the chance to do everything all the way, learn, spend all that time

wherever you'd like to because it's a movie. But I do think that there's a lot of inspiration, a lot of visions, and sort of things you just haven't seen before that I hope make you a little more curious. Well, let me ask you. I think we can talk about this in a non-spoiler way

to say, like, after a volcano, et cetera, the third act, this is a film that very much ends with a pitch towards the future. And so I'm curious in the process at what point, when you're thinking about where to end this, at what point was it, was the idea, let's pitch it towards an obvious continuation going forward in this world.

This is a chance to go into the cosmos. You know, I think that the Guardians has touched on so much, so many amazing stories out there in the galaxy. And the eternals, while we've been around forever and ever, we might even be eternal, you know. And I think that the stories that we can tell on the different planets and the opportunity to really open up the Marvel Cosmic Universe, that's one of the great gifts of this series, you know, what we really get to do. I think we're really seeing an incredible turn of events in phase four. The multiverse is coming, which we've said this before, but the multiverse is just the logical conclusion of the comic medium.

You have different artists coming to put their spin on the same characters. I mean, I even look at what Rob is doing with Batman, the Batman right now, Matt Reeves, and those guys, like, I love almost every Batman movie that's come out in my lifetime. And there's been like almost a dozen of them. But I'm so excited to see what these artists do in their multiverse. And that's the same thing, you know, and really for us, as the multiverse kicks off on Earth in Phase 4, or 616, 613, 624, we're going to go out into stars.

You know, and we have a lot of conversations to have with the creators of the universe. The celestials really are this living metaphor for creation, for the gods, for the things that are greater than us. And so for us to be able to confront those, you know, I'm not going to say that we're going to go talk to the living planets or ego is going to come back or Galactus. But there's a huge universe out there that we know of the, opportunity to explore. And that ending, you know, where the eternals are split,

they're scattered, but they're forced to come together. That's always been something that's been there. We've always been looking forward and out into the stars for what comes next. Speaking of, you mentioned that there were, you know, maybe some things you didn't get a chance to explore, because after all, this is a film that we're seeing in a movie theater, and there's only so long we can wait before our bathroom break. But I'm curious, you know, in this.

age of Disney plus was there ever a part of you that was like, this should be a mini series? I mean, look, I'll just be honest. Yeah, when we very first talked about it with Nate, I was kind of like... It could also be. Yeah, it could also be. Yeah, I'll say not it should. It could also be a show because, yeah, there is a lot of story and the opportunity

to go back and forth through time. It's just such a rich and unique story device, narrative device, that you can only explore up to a certain point in a movie, especially when you have a kind of like fast-moving present-day plot that you're marrying it with. So yeah, I mean, but like you said, in the world of Disney Plus, who knows, maybe it could be a series one day.

Like, you never know how this might evolve. But yes, definitely those were conversations, but they were very clear from the beginning that this should be a movie. Yeah, this is an epic, you know, and we wanted to make sure that people, on the biggest possible screen. It was always meant to be an experience. And we have a lot of love for television.

I love all the Disney Plus shows that are coming out, and Marvel shows are great. And I think that there's even a chance to explore. Let's fantasize here about our next jobs. I really think that there's going to be an incredible opportunity for the Black Knight story for Eternals 2 and 3. And more importantly, I would love to see the Eternals prequel set on Earth that runs for five seasons on Disney Plus that goes and looks at the

real historical events, you know, with these maybe a different family of Eternals that's come, and they've also been stationed. And they're going to Egypt and they're hanging out with King Arthur and they're going to go and you get to see a superhero story where each episode goes back in time, you know, and takes place in a different era with a different set of Eternal. I think that's an incredible story. And it may be the most interesting way I know that you could do a historical fiction, epic, Game of Thrones style Disney Plus show. I love that you're pitching in this podcast. Always be pitching. Always be pitching. Also, I just, as you're talking about, I'm like, I like to see that show. I just realized I would totally subscribe for that, you know.

My brain's a little cooked because I just did like a massive rewatch of lost, but, um. So you're really cooked. Well, yeah, I'm pretty cooked, but like I have to say that like I can definitely see, you know, like the Kingo episode or the Thena episode or whatever where you get like their certain jump back in time and all that. I mean, like, if you did a Kingo episode where it's literally an hour of like premium Disney Plus and he's just literally in 1890s India. Like that's a crazy episode like a super year. And he's like, and then maybe Sprite shows up for like 20 minutes and they get in their big fight and that explain.

I mean, if you've seen the movie, that explains some stuff about Sprite and them and that that relationship, you know? Always be pitching. I really do love this. I guess my last question, you mentioned the Black Knight. Let's talk about Kit and Dane and that character because again, that is another instance of planting a seed for something, right? Like, we don't have to get into specifics,

but when you're given a character like that who has so much comic book lore attached to him and you're asked to put him in your film, I presume more you come up with the idea to put him in your film, whatever. And he served there as an audience surrogate, partially to be like, what's all this then?

All this or so, you know. Nice accent. Thank you. I've been working on my kid impression. But, like, how much to use him, how little to use him, how much to tease about what's to come. Like, what are, whatever some of the conversations

you had around that character specifically? I mean, we've done a lot of different iterations of what that audience surrogate was. I mean, that's a word that we, like, hate to use because it shows a little bit how the sausage is made, but certainly he's a character

you can spend time with that you like. And in this case, he at least has a dual function because he creates a kind of a love triangle between Circe, Icarus, and himself. So it creates some inemotional tensions. And the two different kings of the north. Let us not forget that.

Yeah, exactly. We can't just meta enough. You know, we've always, we love Kit Harrington, we love Richard Madden, we've always been advocates of them from the beginning. We remember talking about Kit in the outline stage. You know, we didn't know what he should be. We just knew he should be there. You know, he feels like a timeless character.

He's a timeless person. He has that quality. That all said, you know, for us, Dane Whitman, there are so many amazing versions of him in the comics. I mean, there's even a version of Dane goes back through the multiverse because he's been broken up with and jilted by Cersie. and he kills every Searcy and every multiverse, because he's literally the crazy ex-boyfriend.

So there have been a lot of really interesting takes on Dane Whitman. Ours is maybe not as off the wall, but it is certainly, I think he's the heart and soul in the film. He's really like, he's the man, you know, he's the steady, sturdy, reliable boyfriend that you really, you don't want to leave behind. And so I think that he really, no one could have done it better than Ken Harrington. And ultimately, what comes next is sort of up to the audience.

You know, I think that as far as the Black Knight aspect of Dane's character, that's something that we're still kind of wrapping our heads around about how, where to go with that. But like I said before, it's all about creating many paths to victory and setting up those chess pieces so that we can have that endgame. Oh, I just tied it back. Oh, beautiful. What I would just say, for those who are going to see this movie, and this comes out afterwards, so we're fine, listen closely. Listen very, very closely to that final post credits coda scene. Whose voice is that? It's definitely someone's voice.

I'm going to give you my theories after we stop recording. Yeah, of course. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for the chat. I really appreciate it. Absolutely, Joanne. Thank you for talking, you and asking great questions and being interested in this crazy, epic love story of Immortal Aaliener.

And I'll let you know if I'm green lighting your pitch for a Disney policy. Can you please? Fingers crossed. Yeah. What a wonderful conversation. Joe, that was a delight. And it's been a delight to chat with you today about this movie. Love to agree to disagree with you, Mo.

It is actually fun. I have to say, I do enjoy, I do enjoy when we don't totally agree on everything. It's interesting. I like it. I really do. Here's to six weeks of agreeing about every single thing in Hawkeye. But for now, Pip is knocking. So it's time to wrap.

Thank you, as always, to our Eternals. Steve Allman for producing this episode, Arjuna Ramgapal and T.D. St. Matthew Daniel for their additional production work on this episode. And Jomi Adaneron for his work on the social for this episode. Remember to follow the ringerverse on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the ring of verse across our social feeds

and head back into the ringerverse this Friday for House of Midnight, Disney Day goodness. Until then. Pass the Twinkies. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But Real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source. Like real California milk from California farm families,

it's real dairy delivering high quality, complete protein, with all nine essential amino acids to help build muscle, give you energy, and keep you satisfied longer. So keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk.