Eternals : Full Preview and Breakdown

    Welcome back to HLS Entertainment! Today we are going to be breaking down absolutely  everything you need to know before watching Marvel Studios newest film Eternals releasing November 5th. This movie is going to surpass the Guardians of the Galaxy for pure unknown territory for non comic readers and comic fans alike. I do believe this movie will be the same huge shock success that GotG was and this movie is directed by Oscar winning director Chloe Zhao, so this movie is in amazing hands. 

    Eternals "experts" are very few and far between and I am not pretending to be one. Something I will pretend to be is a pretty solid expert on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here are the breakdowns I did previewing the films Black Widow and Shang-Chi as well as the Disney+ shows WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki. I have a very solid track record that speaks for itself.

    I want to get out ahead of this now, this is a SPOILER FILLED preview. This is not based on any leaks or anything (have there been any?) but based off my own research and knowledge of the MCU and Marvel comics. In this breakdown we will go over locations and people to know, introducing characters and locations, as well and doing a FULL theorized plot breakdown as to how I see the movie playing out based on trailers and interviews. Then we will go over some insane theories I have for this movie at the bottom.

    Once again, last warning, I do not want people to complain if I "spoil" something for them with my educated guesswork, so here is your final spoiler warning.

Locations to Know:

    This movie will span thousands of years and many locations. But here are some specific locations to know ahead of time!

Ancient Babylon

    Specifically the Ishtar Gates and the hanging gardens of Babylon (center far back) one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Pataliputra 

    City in ancient India near the Ganges River, I have also seen people say this is Kumbhalgarh but I think they are wrong based off the official Eternals Monopoly board using Pataliputra. This is one of the first known cities in the world to have a successful and highly efficient form of local self governance. 

Aztec Empire

    Specifically during the time period of Cortes attempts at conquering it in the 15-16th century, we see at least Druig and Makkari lived here in trailers. 

Lemuria / Atlantis

    Just remember to have these in your head for the movie, we have nothing but speculation to put them in this movie but that is enough. Lemuria was an ancient Deviant city/empire where they kept human slaves. These two cities/civilizations were sent to the bottom of the ocean after the Great Cataclysm (The Great Flood)

Characters to Know:

    

    Okay even before we get into this I feel like I need to lay out some terms/phrases

Celestials - Giant space gods that go around the universe creating and experimenting with life. Like the Knowhere head in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 or Ego the living planet was also a different kind of Celestial in Vol. 2 which was a change from the comics.

    

Eternals - Beings created by the Celestials and came from a planet called Olympia to protect the Earth from the Deviants and help push humanity along in its development and evolution. All Eternals have some sort of cosmic power, it just manifests differently in different Eternals. They each have a specialty and skills through this cosmic power that they can use to help push humanity forward or to defend it. 

Deviants - In the comics they were also created by the Celestials, they are a war mongering race who come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They all have the ability to shapeshift and change their form from more humanoid to much more beastlike. In the movie we have been told they are a parasitic group of aliens who go from planet to planet and kill intelligent life. This is according to producer Nate Moore in a recently released interview. 

     They have not made it clear for this movie if the Deviants are still a creation of the Celestials or not. In the comics they are, and so are humans. Humans were an experiment by the Celestials. These three different races, Human, Eternal and Deviant were originally all kin to one another and were supposed to work together. But the original Eternals went to the highest points on Earth to study life and the universe meanwhile the Deviants enslaved early Humans. This is when the Great Cataclysm happens, and the Deviants that survived all go into hiding for the most part after their numbers were greatly reduced by the Celestials returning to eat or destroy them.

Ikaris - Richard Madden

    Ikaris is generally the leader or captain of the Eternals. He has been described as the perfectionist of the group always wanting to do things the right way. His powers include super strength, flight, and shooting energy beams from his eyes. I have loved Richard Madden's acting since I first watched Game of Thrones, and for a lot of people he has been a fan cast for Cyclops for the MCU's X-Men. I for one wanted him to play Batman but I am so happy to get him as Ikaris.

Ajak - Salma Hayek

    Ajak is the spiritual leader and mother of the group supervising them keeping them inline with their mission from the Celestials. She holds a special power because she is the only one who can communicate with the Celestials. Salma Hayek is such a wonderful actress I am so happy to see her and so many others on this list in the MCU.

Thena - Angelina Jolie

    Thena has typically been the military commander of the Eternals and their defender as she can create weapons from thin air using her cosmic powers. We recently found out she is going to be suffering from Mahd Wy'ry, a disease similar to dementia that effects Eternals because of their unlimited lifespan but limited memory. Getting Angelina Jolie in the MCU is a huge deal, she definitely has an argument for being the biggest name the MCU has gotten thus far.

Sersi - Gemma Chan

    Sersi is a "maker", her incredible power is she can transmute matter changing it into whatever she wants. This is best explained by seeing her in the trailer changing the bus into rose pedals, as I imagine that will be a realization for another character in that moment. She has been portrayed as much more eccentric and out there personality wise in the comics, but she seems to have a much calmer demeanor in the movie. Gemma Chan is now going to be the biggest example of an actor having a "minor role" in a previous MCU movie only to come back to have a major one as a different character, she was first in Captain Marvel playing the Kree Minn-Erva.

Druig - Barry Keoghan

    Druig has always been more of a loner Eternal, a lot of the times he is pit against Ikaris in a battle of brains versus brawn. His powers include mind control and manipulation, we see this in the trailer as it looks like he has his own little cult on his compound in Peru. You might know him from some of the incredible work he has done in The Green Knight, Chernobyl, Dunkirk, or The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

Sprite - Lia McHugh

    Forever young Sprite is eternally a child, but with an old soul. Her powers include illusions as she can make duplicates of herself and others or make them completely invisible, or even conjure a firework like light show as shown in the trailer.

Phastos - Brian Tyree Henry

    Phastos is the intelligent builder of the group. He might be easily the smartest of the group as well as one of the smartest beings in the entire universe. His incredible inventions have pushed humanity forward for both the better and sometimes the worse. In this movie he seems to be the only Eternal to truly have moved on and is living life as he is shown to have a loving family.

Kingo - Kumail Nanjiani

    Kingo has been described as very vain, wanting to be the center of attention always trying to make people laugh. Speaking of moving on and enjoying life Kingo has become a huge Bollywood star in modern day. Which sounds like a problem for future Kingo since he does not age. Kingo can use his cosmic power to form energy blasts and fire them from his hands.

Makkari - Lauren Ridoff

    Makkari is the scout or "teller" of the group. Her special power is she is the fastest person in the entire universe. Easily creating and using sonic booms as weapons. We recently found out that she has been hiding out on the ship, in the trailer we see she has a vast collection of ancient artifacts and some newer ones.

Gilgamesh - Ma Dong-Seok

    Gilgamesh is one that seems to have been changed the most from what I have read. He is the physically strongest Eternal, which is the same, but he has been described as the kindest as well, which is new, as he has been taking care of Thena as she is going through the Mahd Wr'ry. He uses his cosmic energy to make an exoskeleton of power to enhance his strength

Karun - Harish Patel

    Kingo's assistant/agent/videographer, I just had to put him right here I feel like he will be a hit in this movie.

Dane Whitman aka the Black Knight - Kit Harrington

    Dane Whitman is a character that is romantically involved with Sersi in modern day, as we set up our love triangle as Ikaris and Sersi had been together for potentially thousands of years. Dane is a character that finds the Ebony Blade and becomes the Black Knight in Marvel comics, but we have been told (remember phase 4 deception) that he will not become the Black Knight in this film. There have been two versions of the Ebony Blade, one is a literal black sword and the other is a laser sword similar to a yellow lightsaber. 

Kro - Dan Stevens

    Dan Stevens has not been confirmed for the role, no one has, but he has been teasing it in interviews recently saying "Kro comment". Kro is a warlord of the Deviants, and has previously in the comics had a forbidden love affair with Thena. Director Chloe Zhao said "he is an accident in evolution and there is great debate around the right for someone like him to exist". This sounds like most deviants are just unintelligent beasts but Kro and others like him are intelligent and deserve to live, which would be an excellent twist on this.

Celestial possibly Arishem Leader of the Fourth Host

    We already talked about Celestials purpose is to seed and grow life throughout the universe and the Eternals were made to protect life, but meanwhile we could think about the Deviants being made to cull life or "trim the hedges". But now it seems the Celestials are either returning or one is awakening from inside the Earth. We do not really have anything confirming each of the Celestials names but they are distinctly a certain color in the comics so we can guess:

Red - Arishem the Judge

Yellow/Green - Hargen the Measurer

Green - Jemiah the Analyzer 

Blue - Nezzar the Calculator

    Now only Arishem and Jemiah have been shown in the trailers, Nezzar and Hargen were only shown in concept art for the film and could not show up at all.

Plot Breakdown

    Movie opens with the Eternals ship traveling through space on the way to Earth very mysteriously and pays homage to Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey a few times. The giant ship cloaks itself before landing on Earth, then is revealed to the Stone Age people in about 5000 bc. This is where we see the Eternals "activation" on the ship and they get their mission to hunt down and destroy the Deviants from Ajak because she is the one who can communicate with the Celestials. They suit up and take one giant leap for mankind.

    We see the Eternals come down onto Earth and save the small village of people from the Deviants coming from the ocean. After a fight showing off all of their respective powers the Eternals teach/arm the villagers and help their society grow. This includes agriculturally, as we see them vastly improve (maybe invent for them) their farming.

    This is where we could get jumps through time seeing them through the ages fighting off Deviants for two thousand years until they believe they have destroyed or locked away them all. Protecting humans across the globe from Ancient Babylon, Ancient Pataliputra, the Aztec Empire, to closer to modern day. Including milestones for the Eternals such as Ikaris and Sersi's marriage. I think this could be shown as a happy montage that grows darker and darker as humanity grows and shows the horrors that we have done to each other. Slowly the Eternals splinter off and leave the group.

    I initially thought maybe certain members of the Eternals are victims of the Snap, including Ikaris and that is why the movie taking place right after Endgame is important. Ikaris returns to find Sersi has moved on and is now with Dane Whitman. I thought possibly he either finds out from Ajak or he goes to her for comfort after finding out. This is where I believe she reveals to Ikaris that the Emergence is happening in seven days. I am not completely sold on them being victims of the snap, feels like something they would have come together for if some of them died.

    The Emergence is the big event of this movie, the countdown to doomsday. I do not believe we have enough information to accurately say "this is what it is for sure, 100%". What we do have is speculation. I believe the Emergence is the activation of the sleeping Celestial. The sleeping Celestial is one of the giant space gods that was previously on earth but had a falling out with the other Celestials and they beat them and imprisoned the Celestial in the Earth. I believe this is going to mash up a few Eternals comic runs, mainly the incredible Neil Gaiman run in which an Eternal (Makkari) was tricked into activating the sleeping Celestial by the Deviants. Or possibly the sleeping Celestial is waking up to judge them on how they are doing protecting Earth. The Emergence could also simply be the return of the Deviants suddenly, which is hinted at in the promo for the film but I think that is too simple to be it.

     If it was simply the Deviants return then would they not just put the gang together and go hunting again, why the need for a seven days countdown? Another idea is the Emergence is the return of the Horde to come cleanse the Earths energy but that might be a little too far fetched. Though that storyline does include the sleeping Celestial being the one who calls the Horde to Earth and has a Grinch heart growing moment as it grows a conscience after watching life on Earth and has this conversation with Uatu the Watcher that was just introduced in What if. But alas we have to remember this movie was supposed to come out before What If.

    Either way the gang has to get back together. Ikaris is the one leading the charge on this gathering Eternals, but a question has to be asked where is Ajak? After we see the pair talk together she is not in any present day clips in any trailer. Some people are theorizing Ikaris kills her but I believe she tells him she is not going to help him stop the Emergence, because it is the will of the Celestials. So she stays out of the foray. So now for Ikaris to gather the rest of the Eternals, here is how I see that rundown:

Ikaris to Ajak but she does not join

Ikaris gets Sersi and Sprite from London

    This is where we have our first modern day Deviant attack

    Maybe Dane joins them but has been edited out of the trailers, there are a few empty spots where he could be

Ikaris, Sersi and Sprite get Kingo he lets them use his private plane too globe trot and collect Eternals

Ikaris, Sersi, Sprite and Kingo go to the Australian outback to get Gilgamesh and Thena

    This is when we find out about Thena suffering from Mahd Wy'ry

    This is where we get that family dinner scene in the trailer

    Nobody knows where Makkari is, they said last time they saw her she was searching for something

Ikaris, Sersi, Sprite, Kingo, Gilgamesh and Thena go to Peru to get Druig at his compound

   This is where the group has a little tension between Druig and Ikaris possibly and where we get another Deviant attack. I do not think Druig is going to be too antagonistic towards Ikaris in this movie because I feel like they will want to avoid Thor/Loki comparisons.

    More importantly this is where it is revealed that Sersi has been thinking she is suffering from Mahd Wy'ry as well, but has actually been communicating with a Celestial as she walks "through" the barn on the compound and into a giant Celestial building (the giant green room we see her in during the trailers). This will be a new revelation for everyone as they thought only Ajak could do this. Previously when this has happened in the comics Ajak has become very jealous, even killing Makkari when they were imbued with this power.

A group of them including Ikaris Sersi and Thena go to get Phastos, maybe Ikaris and Sersi try earlier but he rejects them because he is done interfering after his inventions were used to make nuclear weapons by humans. But seeing Thena struggle might give him a change of heart and he joins.

So now the eight of them travel to where their ship has long been buried and Phastos unearths it. It looks like an archaeological team might have been trying to unearth it themselves thinking it was a lost ancient city. Once inside they find Makkari and find out that she has been living there a long time and collecting items and doing research. 

    This will be when Makkari reveals she has been searching for this "egg" that we find out is the sleeping Celestial and tells them it is buried beneath a volcano, but the Deviants have been hunting it down as well.

    Once again this is where we enter uncharted territory for the story, as they have done an excellent job hiding the story in the trailers.

    I believe they make their way there in their ship but are attacked by Kro and his horde of Deviants. A group of Eternals go to the ground to try to stop the Celestial from waking up using the Uni-Mind while others fight from the air. The Uni-Mind is when Eternals combine their minds and powers together usually takes at least three Eternals to do this, but they can do great wonders when combined I believe we are shown this at the beginning of the movie when they first arrive. 

    This will be our big third act set piece Eternals v Deviants. Kro and his fellow Deviants will be fighting to get to a group of the Eternals forming a Uni-Mind while the others defend them from Deviant attacks and the volcano's eruption. I believe we see Thena fighting Kro inside the Volcano and she might make a sacrifice to try to stop Kro from causing the Emergence. This could be a time where Ajak rejoins the fight and might try to stop the Eternals and cause the Emergence from happening.

    Why is Kro trying to cause the Emergence? Well in the comics Deviants worshipped the sleeping Celestial because they believed the Celestial that was imprisoned fought for them and now want to wake it up so they can take over the world.

    They fight, they survive, they go their separate ways, credits roll. Until the first post credit scene shows Dane Whitman igniting the Ebony Blade in all its yellow laser sword goodness. The second post credit scene I imagine HAS to be setting up Doctor Strange Multiverse of Madness, would be cool to see an Eternal interact with Doctor Strange similarly to how Thor did setting up Ragnarok. Maybe it is going to be following Shang-Chi's lead and setting up a further Avengers level event.

Theories:

I have a few theories for this movie that do not quite fit into my plot breakdown so I will try to explain better here.

     The Celestial Arishem (not the one above that is Jemiah) could be the sleeping Celestial there to judge the Eternals as failures and that is what the Emergence is. They failed to protect the Earth and the universe from the Eternal/Deviant Thanos, but maybe the people of Earth's fight back to restore that balance is the saving grace for Earth but could be the end of the Eternals. They failed, humanity did not. This could be Ajak's point and why she is against fighting.

    Ajak is actually the "bad" Eternal, she is being set up as the loving mother but in reality she is just so tuned into worshipping the Celestials she either can not see the forest through the trees and their coming death and destruction or she is okay with it and wants it to happen because it s the Celestials will.

    We are told the deviants are a parasitic group of aliens that kill life on planets, but what if we are just told that by Ajak. Ajak in the comics HAS done things that are messed up out of being jealous that someone else is communing with a Celestial (specifically the sleeping one) including slaughtering fellow Eternals out of spite. What if she is trying to make life better by ridding the universe of the Deviants and we find out that was never their goal, that the Deviants are the victims in this. This would fall in line with Phase Four being about misdirection. Deviants are not going to be just evil monsters they are the cursed mistake of the Celestials, will be humanized for us to feel bad for them as they are fodder for the Celestials

    Was Ego a Uni-Mind? In the comics there was a group of the original Eternals that left Earth in a Uni-Mind and were essentially a brain floating through space. Maybe once in the Uni-Mind for so long a group of Eternals millions of years ago forgot themselves and became Ego. I do want to make a note about Ego's ship is basically an updated version of the Celestials ship from the second Eternals comic. Both being giant egg shaped ships. This would fit his twisted motive of wanting to spread his life and influence throughout the galaxy.

    If we find out the Celestials are actually responsible for humans as well in this movie, then I imagine we HAVE to get a tease toward the potential of an X-Gene in human genetics. As well as seeing the Eternals throughout time, if we end up in Ancient Egypt keep a giant ear out for the name's Rama-Tut (Kang) and En Sabah Nur (Apocalypse) the world's first mutant. What if the Eternals playing god created Apocalypse? Another name to keep an ear out for is the moon god Khonshu as we are coming up on the Moon Knight show soon.

    The Celestials are responsible for creating life but does that me there must be one responsible for destroying life? AKA Galactus. What if they succeed in stopping the Emergence but the call was still put out.. and Galactus is coming for the Earth. Would be a jaw dropping post credit scene. Maybe Dan Steven's has been playing us, his involvement was leaked but he is actually voicing and mo-capping Galactus as he has great experience doing that.

    Thank you so much for reading this! If you enjoyed it please share with your friends and on your social media! Remember this is not any leak just fun speculation and a very healthy dose of research. For more of this type of blogs for the MCU and DCEU going forward be sure to subscribe and follow me on Twitter @HaroldLStokes so you do not miss out! As well as be sure to follow so you do not miss my recap and theories blog after the movie! Like these I did for Shang-Chi and Black Widow!