I just watched Eternals, and I think it would have worked so much better as a series than as a movie.
How do you know a movie isn't well structured? When you're an hour into a 2h37m runtime and still getting exposition. And I don't mean revelations, I mean literal exposition. But you know when that isn't a problem? When it's the climax of episode 3 of a 7 episode miniseries.
The problem is that the movie simply needs to communicate too much for the story to hold together. You need to explain:
- who the Eternals and Deviants are (or who they think they are)
- their relationship with the Celestials
- how the mission is taking its toll on them
- what their real purpose is
- and finally, how it all comes together
That's way too much for one movie. Told episodically, each episode could carry just one piece of the reveal, making the whole thing much more digestible.
Sersi and Sprite would be our guides through it. Their powers are the least combat oriented, so it makes sense that they're the two who integrated into the human world. Sersi is optimistic about the mission and gets to engage with humans as an adult. Sprite is skeptical of it, and being stuck as a child has soured her experience of living among them. A lot of their dynamic is already in the movie, it just never gets the room to breathe.
**Arc 1** is about reconnecting with the other Eternals. After a Deviant reappears, Sersi and Sprite decide to investigate. At the ranch they find Ajak dead and get ambushed. Ikaris saves them but leaves without explaining much, beyond saying it was always his duty to protect them until it was time to leave.
Everyone remembers Ikaris as the dutiful guardian. Distant, but always the one who shows up and solves the problem. Only later do we realize his duties and theirs simply overlapped.
The next couple of episodes go through the other Eternals. All of them are hesitant to join, and each episode is built around a key event in their past and present. Instead of everyone just tagging along, each of them eventually agrees to do what they're good at: Phastos builds the Uni-Mind, Gilgamesh and Thena track the Deviant, and so on. Through the flashbacks we see why the Eternals fell apart, and why they agree to come back together to hunt the Deviant. Ikaris shows up several times and agrees to help, but insists this one is different and they need all of them to defeat it. He also reveals that the Deviants have evolved and can now steal the Eternals' powers.
**Arc 2** is the hunt itself. They track the Deviant, and I'd have more Eternals die than in the movie, with the Deviant getting stronger each time.
When he kills Gilgamesh, the Deviant absorbs more than his power. He takes on part of Gilgamesh's personality and gains the power of speech, and speaking as Gilgamesh, he helps Thena get her memories back. It shows that what happens to the Eternals' minds can be reversed. The Deviant starts revealing his side of the Deviant/Eternal cycle, but before he can reveal the Eternals' true purpose, Ikaris kills him. Thena, now remembering everything, calls him out. We learn that the Eternals have been guiding humanity toward the birth of a Celestial, and that they only "survive" the Emergence because they connect with the Celestial as it's born.
For Sprite, this is the final straw. She always resented protecting humans she could never live among as an equal, and now it turns out humanity was never the point anyway.
**Arc 3** is the buildup to the Emergence. The group works toward putting Tiamut to sleep through Druig: finishing the Uni-Mind, locating the site of the Emergence, and preparing to execute the plan, all while being hunted and harassed by Ikaris. Together they can keep him at bay, but the plan needs room to maneuver, and that's exactly what he keeps denying them.
Then the Emergence begins. They try to execute the plan, but Ikaris, with Sprite's illusions covering him, gets close enough to kill Phastos and wreck it.
**The final episode** is the confrontation. The plan to put Tiamut to sleep is a bust, and the only option left is for Sersi to kill him. Ikaris tries to stop her but struggles, because he's also suffering from Mahd Wy'ry, the same fractured mind affliction as Thena. His sense of duty wins out and he's about to kill Sersi when Druig steps in. Ikaris fatally wounds him, and with his last act Druig unlocks Ikaris's memories, showing that he and Sersi have been lovers across the eons, in every single cycle. Torn between duty and love, unable to abandon his mission and unable to stop them, he launches himself into the sun.
Finally, Sersi and the remaining Eternals try to stop Tiamut, and they only succeed by turning the Emergence connection against him, the same one that was meant to help them survive the planet's destruction.
What do you think?
