John Ridley Boldly Proclaims His Scrapped Marvel TV Show Was 'Eternals But Good'
John Ridley Boldly Proclaims His Scrapped Marvel TV Show Was 'Eternals But Good'
We've seen what mid-2010s ABC Marvel looked like, John. You are promising a lot here!
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It's funny ... for me The Eternals for me was the moment I knew the MCU was dead to me ... because unlike everyone else ... I liked it.
At the time, looking on all of the comic and MCU fans criticising it, I couldn't help but notice that there was a kinda lack of appreciation of the film as a film and that most criticism came from some relatively undefined (or unspoken) expectation of epicness and big-arc tie-in momentum. And at the time, I personally predicted that the MCU was going to "fail" because its fans didn't quite know what they wanted except for some massive hype dopamine hit to cheer along to in the cinema.
Which is great, except that the MCU had clearly bottomed out with its ability to do that in Infinity War (clearly better than Endgame IMO) and was trying to spread its wings and create films and characters with different vibes and energies ... all within the same universe. I was there for it and rather enjoyed Eternals. Many said it wasn't an MCU film ... and I was like yea ... that's why I enjoyed it. It seemed pretty clear to me that the MCU and its fans were in a mutually dependent downward spiral. And if you look at what's come out since then, it sure looks like that's come to pass.
If MCU fans (and producers) had understood that you gotta enjoy different palettes and vibes to enrich the universe and make the big moments hit hard ... the MCU could have been an rather interesting film phenomenon by leveraging comic's ability/tradition to fuse sci-fi and fantasy at multiple scales. Instead, what we've gotten since Inifinity War is a fusion that's taken all the worse parts, IMO.
I didn't hate Eternals, but I had some complaints. Mainly, I think it needed to be a series. Not enough time was given to each of the characters to grow and breathe. They're trying to set these characters up as critical to the future of the Cosmic Universe, AND explain why they haven't interfered before now, AND explain why they are going to suddenly abandon all of their foundational beliefs to save the Earth, AND introduce an ancient evil that nobody's noticed until now, AND one has a severely traumatic past, another is deeply in love with the traumatized one, another is a benign mind control cult leader, another wants to be human, another lives a life of fame, another is an empath dating the Black Knight, and I haven't even mentioned the first deaf and first gay superheroes in the MCU.
It was overly ambitious, and should have been a series. Honestly, I think they scrapped the series because they didn't want to draw comparisons to Inhumans.
A short six part series would have given me time to care about the characters or any of it really.
Exactly, but it would need to be good. And I suppose that's the point of the article.
Thank you. The hate for The Eternals has always seemed overblown to me. I like the characters, and the story and premise are interesting - and by that I mean the good kind of “interesting”, not the version of “interesting” that you use as an adjective when you’re trying not to hurt someone’s feelings.
I’ve watched it several times. It’s not flawless, or my favorite Marvel film, but it’s certainly better than average. It’s a nice change of pace, and for me, a welcome addition to the MCU.
Something that saddened me was that there wasn't anyone geeking about the (sometimes subtle) hints they gave about how myths were inspired or seeded by the eternals.
My favourite, which is definitely a bit niche, is the fight Gilgamesh has in Babylon with the horned deviant outside of the city ... which is a direct reference to the actual myth of Gilgamesh who fights a celestial half-bull half human creature outside of the city walls. The film doesn't stress this at all ... it's just there ... and instead of getting geeky about things other than the comics (maybe this is also part of the comics I'm not sure), that side of things was just kinda ignored..
I liked that those references weren’t explored. I think just mentioning them was enough. Explaining why they’re cool would have detracted from them.
Oh for sure. I'm talking about how people didn't seem to register these moments or be interested in talking and geeking out about them.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, they were definitely under appreciated.
I completely agree with everything you said.
Interesting! I suspect it's one of those things that's a reasonably good divider or litmus test.
Like there are two kinds of MCU fans ... those that hated Eternals and those who liked or appreciated it.
And, not to be snobby or anything ... but maybe finding a way to make both types of fans happy was the key, and instead the MCU has probably tried to listen a bit too much to the haters.
The thing is, having scores of haters means you’re doing something worth hating and if you have something to say, they’ll probably be right there to hate on it regardless. However, if you do your best to cave to every criticism and say nothing at all, even your haters will move on along and so will most others. The haters will absolutely say “told you so” on the way out, though.
But definitely listen to the people who want a 3rd act that wasn’t built 2 years before the script was released. Musicals, Kevin. Fight scenes are like songs in musicals.
Fight scenes are like songs in musicals.
Had not thought about it that way ... but yes! ... makes complete sense!
Is there anything you can point to that talks about this?
I want to say Nando V. Movies or Sideways (man I miss Sideways) on YouTube has something on it, MAYBE breadsword, but I couldn’t find any recommendations on where it’s mentioned as it wasn’t a headlining aspect of any of their videos. There’s a 0.5% chance that that’s my own extrapolation from watching them for years.
Basically. In a musical, if the emotions are too much for talk, sing, and use that song to really reveal what you’re doing and what you’re all about. In a hero movie, if there’s too much personal beef to talk, hero up and/or fight, and use that heroicism to tell the story OF that personal conflict and of that self actualization.
Black widow comes to mind most with this:
Alexi has a character arc of having fought Captain America, but he confronts someone trained on Cap (taskmaster) without ever actually really fighting “Cap” or acknowledging the possibility. Nando has a video on this that seems to only still work on Nebula. The YouTube version is there, but doesn’t load. It also doesn’t mention anything about musicals.
https://nebula.tv/videos/nando-red-guardians-rematch-one-small-change-to-black-widow/
The character has this I-fought-Cap thing as part of his character, possibly part of his character arc, if it were a musical, he’d have gotten a few major lines in joint I-want or conflict song, then he steps up to that moment and no one wrote a “song” for him or even honored an earlier number with a leitmotif. The “music” was already written and the actualization for one of your primary support characters is acted out, but given no real attention or connection to the character arc. They forgot the earlier part was written because the climax of the story was already in place without any connective tissue to the rest of the “music”.
Oh yea, I had basically extrapolated from Sideways too the moment I read your comment!
And yea, miss them too. I was unaware of their fight with Neely until I noticed that I missed them and looked them up. While I suspect they’re overreacting a bit and could handle the whole thing better and more effectively, I’m inclined to side with them just because I like them (and would prefer them to Neely’s more obviously “I’m an ambitious influencer” vibe.
And though I’ve not seen black widow, I can imagine what you’re talking about. Thanks!
Ah, sad day. I didn’t know that about Sideways and Neely. I like both of their content a lot.
Right. Yea they’ve been at it for a while, it’s the main reason sideways stopped posting.
He did make a video about the whole thing recently, but it’s unlisted last I checked.
This is the best analysis I’ve seen on this and couldn’t agree more. I also felt the same after The Last Jedi. I left the theater extremely happy that they were trying something different only to go online and see that so many people hated it. And the Star Wars fandom has only degraded from there. “Mutually dependent downward spiral” is a great way to put it.
I was pleased with it as well but despite trying to avoid spoilers I had heard the casino scene was a good time for piss break. I took it and that may have influenced my view.
It was never going to be a good trilogy with the lack of cohesion Disney allowed but it was interesting at the time. I haven't watched it since release though.
Nice addition. I have the same feelings about last Jedi. And look what happened to that trilogy once they tried to appease the fans!
It's a metaphor for abortion and how important it is sometimes. That's my read.
I don't know is, that a lame take on the movie? It wasn't an amazing movie, but it had a very interesting message I thought.
Yea maybe. I hadn't picked up that it was intended as a massively direct metaphor, though it's definitely there. But it was definitely touching on the whole cosmic scale cycle of life thing and how there can be hard realities you gotta sometimes face.
I mean, that's what I took away as well.
But.... Isn't that also abortion in general?
Oh for sure.