2021 proved to be quite a year for Marvel, simultaneously delivering a disappointing ensemble film through Eternals while breaking box office records left and right via No Way Home. Even then, what the Eternals offered its audience was an ethereal story about gods and celestials who exist beyond the parameters of what we know about. It wasn’t a contribution to the MCU’s narrative in a momentous way, other than perhaps the Black Knight’s introduction, a character that could go on to have major consequences in the future of the MCU.
Also read: Eternals Review: Unlike Anything Else In The MCU
As the film now reaches its 1-year anniversary mark, fans look back at the accomplishments and relive the potential of a visionary project that had some of the best VFX work from the Marvel Studios’ crew post-Endgame.
Eternals Brings Back Mixed Emotions For Marvel Fans
On the one hand, the 25th live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe film delivered an eventful narrative, filled with some of the most wonderful stars of Hollywood who came together to tell a crafted story about gods and morality, and the greater good. The potential possibilities of what could have been or should have been was soon outweighed by a poorly executed script. In the end, the film felt choppy with just enough action and erratically located emotions thrown into the mix to concoct a somewhat linear narrative.
The disappointment then surges higher when Richard Madden‘s villainous turn becomes a predictable twist rather than a cathartic impetus that drives the story to its climactic conclusion. Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek deliver arcs with so much more to tell that they need a spin-off of their own. But apart from the fleeting ambition that the project sometimes let slip, Eternals was in the end just another Marvel movie with a strong cast, and a plot about heroes rising to protect Earth at all costs, encountering a roadblock, and coming together to defeat the world-ending threat.
Fans Recognize the Oscar-Worthy Visual Effects of Eternals
Despite the brimming negativity thrown at the MCU film, the faction of the fandom that still appreciates Eternals for its wonderfully executed visually dynamic frames is remorseful of the lost Oscar nomination. Granted the story failed to live up to the grandeur of its predecessors — Infinity War and Endgame — it was still a much better plot in its standalone narrative, focusing solely on the celestial evolution rather than bringing humans, technology, superheroes, and aliens into the mix.
To mark its first anniversary, fans all over Twitter have been harkening to its VFX accomplishment and insist it was worthy of an Oscar nomination at least on that front.
Happy one year to the most underrated MCU movie ever made The Eternals!!!
They can never make me hate this movie🔥 pic.twitter.com/fWpJrNxZVh
— EternalsTalks (⊃∪ ∩⪽) (@EternalsTalks) November 5, 2022
This scene alone clears many superhero movies. #Eternals pic.twitter.com/belh5t5gSu
— Ajak’s son | Eternals defender (@eternalwhitman) November 5, 2022
idc what anyone says i love Eternals pic.twitter.com/j1F4ZnziXo
— Ty ➃ (@ClobberinTyme) November 4, 2022
eternals definitely deserved the oscar nom for best visual effects over nwh pic.twitter.com/TzK3W3Zc3h
— ً (@minasfenty) November 5, 2022
Overhated
— serenity for soren (@s1utttyyycvnt) November 5, 2022
Massive W 🔥
— Zachary Smith (@zacpatsmith) November 5, 2022
Also read: Eternals 2: Writers Hint That It Could Be An Intergalactic Rescue Mission
Despite the 2 hours and 37 minutes runtime, the narrative of the film seeks to establish storytelling that spans over millennia and brings each of its individual characters and their formidable personalities to the forefront even as the story keeps building on the chaos. The audience is inherently presented with innocence, corruption, tragedy, and the inevitable doom, and in the underrated grand scheme of things, Eternals has the potential to be a classic unrecognized in its own time.
Source: Twitter
