"Eternals" is one of Marvel Studios' most ambitious films.
It's an origin story for almost a dozen characters,
and introduces a ton of intergalactic lore. With so much setup, it's no surprise there are some
things left unanswered. These are the biggest questions we have at the end of "Eternals."
The movie's climax sees the Eternals joining powers and stopping the Celestial Tiamut
from destroying the Earth. After some infighting and trepidation,
they all work together and petrify him just as he's emerging from the sea.
It's a happy ending for humanity -- not so much for the Eternals,
who now have to answer for sabotaging their own mission, but certainly for humanity. Right?
Well, happy, yes. An ending? Not so much. When the Eternals discussed their plan,
it was clear that they were only planning on freezing the Celestial. It doesn't seem like
that plan changed, and the fact that his body is still undamaged certainly implies he could
still be alive. Will the Eternals be there when he breaks free? Will they find a way to extract
him without severely damaging the planet? Time will hopefully tell -- especially if
humanity isn't deemed worthy enough once Arishem examines the Eternals' memories.
Even if he's dead, though, there's still a frozen Celestial emerging from the planet's core.
If nothing else, that's going to ruin more than a few days somewhere in the world.
Dane Whitman only has a handful of scenes in "Eternals," a small
surprise given that he's portrayed by an actor as prominent as Kit Harington.
Even so, his scenes are of great narrative and emotional importance.
In his final scene before the credits,
Dane starts telling Sersi that his family history was more complicated than he
thought -- only to be so rudely interrupted by Arishem literally stealing his girl.
The post-credits scene, however, teases Dane's future. We see him approach a sword,
only to be asked by an unseen voice if he wants to do that.
Comics fans will at least partly see where this is going: Dane Whitman is the Black Knight,
a superhero who wields a powerful and mystical sword. He's often portrayed as a descendant of
the original Black Knight, who appeared in various adventure comics from Marvel
pre-Stan Lee. He's also the nephew of another, villainous Black Knight -- and if the movies stay
true to the comics, that's likely the uncle with whom Sersi said Dane had a strained relationship.
"Introducing the Eternals,"
"You hear that, Sprite? Family reunion."
"It's about time."
Ikaris is among the most thoroughly developed members of the Eternals, and in the ensemble,
he's arguably one of the two or three main characters. Partly because of this,
his future is pregnant with more possibilities than anyone else on the team.
"Who do you think's gonna lead the Avengers?"
"I could lead them."
Originally hellbent on releasing the latent Celestial from earth's crust,
his love of Sersi wins out and he rethinks his mission.
When we last see him, he's flying far away from Earth, into a star.
The obvious question is: what next? We didn't see him when Arishem came back to Earth, and we didn't
see him on the ship in the post-credits scene. He's almost certainly still out there, but where?
The two most likely possibilities are that he informed Arishem himself of what happened,
likely seeking some kind of atonement, or that he went into hiding from Arishem entirely.
Either way, we'll almost certainly see him again and find out what happens next.
Early in the movie, Dane asks Sersi the question we've all had since "Eternals" was announced: why
did they stay out of various human conflicts, up to and including the one with Thanos? The answer:
the Eternals were explicitly instructed not to get involved with any human affairs that
didn't involve the Deviants. Okay, fair enough. That raises another question:
what about all that other interfering they definitely did?
As an example, we see the Eternals protect the residents of Babylon from the Deviants,
and it can be inferred that the Walls of Babylon were meant to protect humans from Deviants.
But the Eternals were far more than mere protection for the Babylonians -- they
were the most important and influential beings there. They provided leadership,
guidance, and entertainment for the comparatively primitive culture.
We do eventually find out that the Eternals fight off the Deviants entirely so
their planet will develop the requisite amount of intelligent life to incubate a Celestial.
This explains some of it, like how Phastos developed farming equipment.
But Phastos didn't know about the true purpose of the mission until much later.
If nothing else, surely they would have realized over the course of centuries that
finite resources often lead to conflict. Either way,
they sure interfered a lot for people who weren't supposed to interfere.
Sersi's exact powers are a bit nebulous, but one thing that's clear is that she's able to
manipulate and transform inanimate matter. This mostly takes the form of changing something's
density or turning one form of matter into another. Halfway through the movie,
she surprises herself with a new power: she somehow turns a Deviant into a tree. This is
a major turning point in the movie, one that sets up the climactic attempt to freeze the Celestial.
It's also never explained how she got that power.
At one point, she's asked point blank when it happened. She responds that she doesn't know,
in a tone that shows she's clearly baffled herself.
At no point in the film's runtime is it ever explained exactly how she developed this power
or how long she's had it. It's possible that becoming the leader of the Eternals
after Ajak's death contributed to it, but that's never mentioned nor
explored. The power is plot critical, but the reason she has that power remains a mystery.
Much to the chagrin of many moviegoers and Marvel's PR department, the "Eternals" post
credits scene was leaked by a few members of the west coast press:
Harry Styles has joined the MCU as Eros, Thanos' handsome and charismatic brother.
Marvel tried very hard to hide this, going so far as to cut both post credits scenes and
the credits themselves from screenings outside of the Los Angeles premiere.
Eros, also known as Starfox, is far less brutal than his brother in the
comics. That's not to say he's a good guy, he's just not a universe-conquering titan,
and can alternate between hero or villain depending on the story.
Eros' main power, besides the requisite ability to shoot various beams, is that
of emotional manipulation: he can form psychic connections with people and change how they feel.
There are several questions here, but they all amount to the same thing:
what's he going to do in the MCU? Will he be the next big villain? Will the upcoming "She-Hulk" on
Disney+ adapt the storyline in which he goes on trial for manipulating women's feelings?
Perhaps most importantly, will he sing? Please let him sing.
For half of "Eternals," we're led to believe that the Deviants are an
evil alien force that indiscriminately attacks life on various planets.
We're given no reason to doubt that and see the Eternals -- who were supposedly created by the
Celestials to stop the Deviants -- fight them off over the course of countless generations.
Then, about halfway into the movie, we're thrown a curveball: the Celestials created
the Deviants first, as a way to control environments with no natural apex predators.
They only became bloodthirsty after a flaw in their design saw them evolve out of control.
At least one Deviant learns to talk,
and confirms this story to the Eternals. But that raises the question: what was the flaw?
This is admittedly getting into the weeds a bit, but "Eternals" is a movie packed to the gills
with detailed lore. Will we ever learn about the Deviants' true design, or what went wrong?
Are the Deviants themselves aware of this flaw? Can it be corrected? Given that we haven't seen
the last of the Deviants on Earth and have barely seen them on any other planets at all,
we might find out one day. Or it'll never be brought up again. Place your bets.
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