MCU's THE ETERNALS (11/6/20) 8 8

[kav]

On 1/20/2022 at 5:21 PM, Buzzetta said:

And now... a series of movies that certain people are guaranteed to like... 

Let's see...

 

I'll play:

[Buzzetta]

Another under-appreciated cinematic classic that only a movie connoisseur could appreciate with a genius application of intellect... all because Marvel made it. 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Buzzetta

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

[Bird]

watched first 90 minutes just now

I am enjoying it mostly (I hate a few things, the deviants and eye beams mostly...what is the energy exactly?) but wifey is all wtf? why do we care? (we just got to arishem explaining things) I had a hard time telling her anything other than Jack Kirby was King of Comics, he came back to Marvel (eye rolls from her, get to the point why did they make this?)...because Kirby.

we gonna sleep on it and watch second half tomorrow. she'll never make it another hour with eyes open! We are in our 50s! 9-10 pm is the witching hour!

[kav]

On 1/20/2022 at 6:00 PM, Bird said:

watched first 90 minutes just now

I am enjoying it mostly (I hate a few things, the deviants and eye beams mostly...what is the energy exactly?) but wifey is all wtf? why do we care? (we just got to arishem explaining things) I had a hard time telling her anything other than Jack Kirby was King of Comics, he came back to Marvel (eye rolls from her, get to the point why did they make this?)...because Kirby.

we gonna sleep on it and watch second half tomorrow. she'll never make it another hour with eyes open! We are in our 50s! 9-10 pm is the witching hour!

you realize you have just added one more household to the total 

[Finhead]

On 1/20/2022 at 3:22 PM, piper said:

It's hardly the first time that @thehumantorchfell asleep in a film.  Just sayin...

Leave the old fella alone, he needs his naps.

[kav]

For the mental gymnastics used trying to make eternals good I give a score of 10!

[Joshua33]

Absolute bummer of a movie... That being said, it wasn't as bad as critics make it out to be, but it was bad for a Marvel movie. Most of theirs have really missed the mark lately... Black Widow, Shang Chi, and now Eternals. Not what we are used to getting out of this juggernaut studio. I fear we have more stinkers on the horizon with Disney forcing Marvel division to focus on 'woke culture' more than making decent superhero films. 

[kav]

On 1/20/2022 at 7:38 PM, Joshua33 said:

Absolute bummer of a movie... That being said, it wasn't as bad as critics make it out to be, but it was bad for a Marvel movie. Most of theirs have really missed the mark lately... Black Widow, Shang Chi, and now Eternals. Not what we are used to getting out of this juggernaut studio. I fear we have more stinkers on the horizon with Disney forcing Marvel division to focus on 'woke culture' more than making decent superhero films. 

Didnt you notice the metaphors?????  

[Joshua33]

On 1/20/2022 at 7:40 PM, kav said:

Didnt you notice the metaphors?????  

Apparently I'm not WOKE enough. 

[kav]

On 1/20/2022 at 7:41 PM, Joshua33 said:

Apparently I'm not WOKE enough. 

maybe try coffee? 

[Hamlet]

On 1/20/2022 at 9:38 PM, Joshua33 said:

Absolute bummer of a movie... That being said, it wasn't as bad as critics make it out to be, but it was bad for a Marvel movie. Most of theirs have really missed the mark lately... Black Widow, Shang Chi, and now Eternals. Not what we are used to getting out of this juggernaut studio. I fear we have more stinkers on the horizon with Disney forcing Marvel division to focus on 'woke culture' more than making decent superhero films. 

I think people are too focused on the “woke” aspect.  This movie isn’t bad because it is woke.  It is bad because it doesn’t have any interesting characters, themes, or action sequences ( I’m only talking about the 1st hour, because I haven’t made it thru the whole thing. Maybe the last hour is better? ). It is incredibly slow and bogged down in endless exposition.  The highlight of the movie for me so far is the valet. That isn’t a good sign.
 

Black Panther is woke, but it also has interesting themes about dealing with our fathers’ sins and what a wealthy country owes the world, a great villian, good action, humor that works, interesting characters, etc.  It gets a little bogged down in the CGI-fest at the end that we’ve all seen a dozen times now, but overall I enjoyed it.  
 

I think it’s less a problem of being woke and more a problem of being out of ideas that we haven’t seen before. Black Widow and Shang-Chi are okay movies, but they don’t really have anything new or fresh in them.  I think the well may be running dry.  

[kav]

On 1/20/2022 at 8:06 PM, Hamlet said:

I think people are too focused on the “woke” aspect.  This movie isn’t bad because it is woke.  It is bad because it doesn’t have any interesting characters, themes, or action sequences ( I’m only talking about the 1st hour, because I haven’t made it thru the whole thing. Maybe the last hour is better? ). It is incredibly slow and bogged down in endless exposition.  The highlight of the movie for me so far is the valet. That isn’t a good sign.
 

Black Panther is woke, but it also has interesting themes about dealing with our fathers’ sins and what a wealthy country owes the world, a great villian, good action, humor that works, interesting characters, etc.  It gets a little bogged down in the CGI-fest at the end that we’ve all seen a dozen times now, but overall I enjoyed it.  
 

I think it’s less a problem of being woke and more a problem of being out of ideas that we haven’t seen before. Black Widow and Shang-Chi are okay movies, but they don’t really have anything new or fresh in them.  I think the well may be running dry.  

true.  its bad, and the wokeness is just the icing on the bad cake.  but black panther is at least watchable.  

[kav]

On 1/19/2022 at 7:41 PM, @therealsilvermane said:

When I said "stupid screenplay books", that was just a use of an expression for effect. I didn't mean to say screenplay books are actually stupid. Some are quite good. Some are actually stupid.

So tell me which books you find good.  Second request.

[Randall Dowling]

On 1/20/2022 at 10:06 PM, Hamlet said:

I think people are too focused on the “woke” aspect.  This movie isn’t bad because it is woke.  It is bad because it doesn’t have any interesting characters, themes, or action sequences ( I’m only talking about the 1st hour, because I haven’t made it thru the whole thing. Maybe the last hour is better? ). It is incredibly slow and bogged down in endless exposition.  The highlight of the movie for me so far is the valet. That isn’t a good sign.
 

Black Panther is woke, but it also has interesting themes about dealing with our fathers’ sins and what a wealthy country owes the world, a great villian, good action, humor that works, interesting characters, etc.  It gets a little bogged down in the CGI-fest at the end that we’ve all seen a dozen times now, but overall I enjoyed it.  
 

I think it’s less a problem of being woke and more a problem of being out of ideas that we haven’t seen before. Black Widow and Shang-Chi are okay movies, but they don’t really have anything new or fresh in them.  I think the well may be running dry.  

At the very foundation of filmmaking, is the most important aspect- story.  You have to have a good story to tell.  And there are lots of good stories and themes that can be applied.  Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of filmmakers and screenwriters are not very good at this most fundamental component lately.  There are many, many movies that are all flash, or spectacle, and no substance.  To me, these are just bad movies.  Because spectacle is no substitute for story.  

I don't care about wokeness, either way.  I care about a good story with a moral reason.  Something that communicates wisdom about life.  It may sound like a tall order but it's been done many times before.  So, it's not only possible, it's reasonably achievable.  It just takes talent and an understanding of how to tell a story.  Tell the right stories.  Tell stories about compassion and decency.  Tell stories about sacrifice and fighting for something bigger than oneself.  

Tell stories that inspire people to be better than they are and the audience will wake up by themselves and ask for more.  That's a far better thing than preaching righteousness to an audience that came looking for a story.  

Edited January 21, 2022 by Randall Dowling
grammar problems...

[kav]

On 1/20/2022 at 8:32 PM, Randall Dowling said:

At the very foundation of filmmaking, is the most important aspect- story.  You have to have a good story to tell.  And there are lots of good stories and themes that can be applied.  Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of filmmakers and screenwriters are not very good at this most fundamental component lately.  There are many, many movies that are all flash, or spectacle, and no substance.  To me, these are just bad movies.  Because spectacle is no substitute for story.  

I don't care about wokeness, either way.  I care about a good story with a moral reason.  Something that communicates wisdom about life.  It may sound like a tall order but it's been done many times before.  So, it's not only possible, it's reasonably achievable.  It just takes talent and an understanding of how to tell a story.  Tell the right stories.  Tell stories about compassion and decency.  Tell stories about sacrifice and fighting for something bigger than oneself.  

Tell stories that inspire people to be better than they are and the audience will wake up by themselves and ask for more.  That's a far better thing than preaching righteousness to an audience that came looking for a story.  

exactly.  It all boils down to script.  all.  I keep saying this.  no amount of metaphors, diversity or jellyfish can take the place of that.  Just doesnt sink in for some people.  Saying a movie is about 'humanity' doesnt mean squat.  

[skypinkblu]

I don't know, I never read a comic book (and I've read a lot of them) that I expected to be the Grapes of Wrath...and I never went to a comic book movie, that I expected to be  Gone with the Wind...although I was hoping for Wonder Woman...

I read comics to be entertained and distracted, I watch comic book movies for the same reason.

I spent a little too much time with the Eternals trying to figure out how often Angelina Jolie gets her lips injected and if it hurt...and why the guy with the eye beams didn't ever run out of power...then at the end, I was trying to figure out why the woman who was stabbed didn't have a hole in her costume.

Otherwise...the scenery was OK, and the colors were nice...and my husband said I missed about 15 minutes in the middle...but the couch was too comfortable and I had been up at the crack of dawn...so maybe it was not the movie.

As I said before, I didn't hate it...but I liked Daredevil and a few others people hated, I think...but I'm not sure ...that I liked this better than the the Black Widow, or it was close.

[godzilla43]

On 1/21/2022 at 12:07 AM, Buzzetta said:

I think that the 2 million views are not accurate numbers as to the popularity of anything right now. 

The only movie that would get me out of the house was Spider-man.   This is New York we are talking about.  The movie attendance is still not there.  So?  What do you do?  You watch what you got.  

I was not paying to see Eternals.  I did not pay to see Dune, Black Widow, Jungle Cruise... any of them.

Eternals was not given a green light and casted and filmed and licensed out for merch opportunities for Disney+.  It was meant to be seen in theaters.    Watching Eternals on Disney+ was a matter of convenience and because there was not anything else on.  It debuted in January when many networks are still on a mid season hiatus from their regular programming.  I mean I have to be honest.  If Eternals was running against the final season premier of, "This is Us" I am watching NBC on a Tuesday at 9 to see why Toby and Kate broke up. 

Marvel does not currently have the hype and sense of urgency that they had after Nick Fury showed up at the end of Iron Man in a tag scene to ask him about the Avenger Initiative.  To paraphrase the legendary Pat Patterson, "The crowd went banana."  From there, we saw in Hulk that there was mention of a WWII Super Solider program that they were trying to duplicate and Tony Stark appears at the end to talk to Ross.  References to Cap?  OMG OMG OMG. They are doing it they are doing it.  We get to Iron Man 2 and we are introduced to Black Widow, then Hawkeye and Thor in Thor... then Cap wakes up.... 

OMG They are doing this... we will see this culminate in Avengers.  There was genuine interest and investment because something like this had never really been done before.  We get to Avengers and then we see Thanos in the end.  Suddenly we had phases and movies and we knew where this was leading.  EVERY MARVEL MOVIE WAS SPECIAL AND AMAZING AND IT WAS ONE THING LEADING TO THE GRAND FINALE!!! 

We don't have that anymore.  We can pick and choose.   The excitement and NEED to see each and every Marvel movie no longer exists with the urgency that it once did.  

Eternals probably did better on Disney+ than it would have in the theater.  Take away Covid, and I do not believe that Eternals does well at all.   People watched it because it was 'there'.

 

It was also a different time.  DC was still releasing Nolans Batman movies. These good big superhero movies created this thing that people who like to participate in "events" found the superhero movies. Superhero movies were part of offices water cooler talk.

[Cat]

On 1/21/2022 at 2:49 PM, skypinkblu said:

I don't know, I never read a comic book 

Anyone else just read this bit and gasp?