Eternals

Eternals is the most ambitious and the most divisive film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is also the first MCU film to fail with both critics and general audiences, earning a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.9 on IMDB - the lowest ratings in the franchise's history. Whether you attribute this to the film's genuine structural problems or to its groundbreaking diversity depends on which audience you belong to. The honest answer is both.

The premise is cosmic: ten immortal beings called Eternals were sent to Earth 7,000 years ago by the Celestial Arishem to protect humanity from predatory creatures called Deviants. After the Deviants were eliminated in 1521, the Eternals scattered, living secretly among humans for 500 years. In the present day, they must reunite when they discover their true purpose: they were not sent to protect Earth but to prepare it for the 'Emergence' of a new Celestial - a planet-sized being gestating inside the Earth whose birth will destroy the planet.

This is a fascinating concept. A superhero team that discovers they are the instruments of humanity's extinction and must choose between their creator's orders and the civilization they have grown to love - that is a premise worthy of serious science fiction. Chloé Zhao, fresh off her Best Director Oscar for Nomadland, was the filmmaker hired to make it serious. She shoots on location, uses natural light, composes frames like landscape paintings, and slows the MCU's typical frenetic pacing to something resembling contemplation.

The problem is that the film tries to do everything. Ten main characters, each with a distinct personality, power set, and emotional arc. 7,000 years of flashbacks. A love story between Sersi and Ikaris that spans millennia. A murder mystery involving their leader Ajak. A planetary apocalypse countdown. Phastos's domestic life with his husband Ben and son Jack. Sprite's unrequited love for Ikaris. Druig's moral crisis over mind-controlling humans. Thena's cosmic PTSD. Gilgamesh's loyal guardianship. Kingo's career as a Bollywood star. Each of these could anchor a film. Together, they create narrative gridlock.

The diversity is undeniable and deliberate. The ensemble includes: a British-Chinese lead (Gemma Chan), a Scottish lead (Richard Madden), a Pakistani-American Bollywood star (Kumail Nanjiani), a Black gay father (Brian Tyree Henry), a Black deaf speedster (Lauren Ridloff), an Irish trickster (Barry Keoghan), a Korean strongman (Don Lee), a Mexican-American matriarch (Salma Hayek), Angelina Jolie as a warrior with PTSD, and a child (Lia McHugh). Kit Harington plays the sole traditional white male hero - a supporting role with minimal screen time who exists to tease a sequel.

Phastos's same-sex relationship is handled with more screen time and emotional weight than Lightyear's. He has a husband (Haaz Sleiman), a young son, and a domestic life that functions as his reason to fight for Earth's survival. They share the MCU's first same-sex kiss. The relationship is not background dressing - it is Phastos's primary motivation. When Phastos says he lost faith in humanity after seeing what his technology created (specifically the atomic bomb at Hiroshima), it was his family that restored his faith. The relationship is narratively integrated, not decorative.

Makkari's deafness is presented without comment or sentimentality. She communicates in sign language. Other Eternals sign back. It is normalized to the point of invisibility, which is either progressive triumph or calculated representation depending on your perspective.

The sex scene between Sersi and Ikaris is the MCU's first. It is brief, tasteful, and lit like a Renaissance painting. It exists because Zhao wanted to show these immortal beings as having full emotional and physical lives. It is not explicit. But its presence in a superhero franchise aimed at all ages was a choice that expanded the MCU's content territory in a direction some families did not welcome.

Ikaris's arc is the film's most traditionally resonant element. He is a man torn between obedience to his god (Arishem) and his love for Sersi and humanity. He ultimately sides with Arishem, murders Ajak to prevent her from stopping the Emergence, and fights his former teammates. When the Emergence is stopped anyway, Ikaris - consumed by guilt - flies into the Sun. This is a genuinely tragic arc: a loyal soldier who chose duty over love and was destroyed by the contradiction. In a different film, it would be devastating. In this film, it is one thread among twelve.

The film's traditional values are present but subordinate. Gilgamesh's selfless protection of Thena - a millennium-long act of devotion that costs him his life - is beautiful. Ajak's decision to defy Arishem and save humanity is a classic sacrifice-for-love arc. The theme of choosing to protect human life over cosmic obligation has traditional resonance. But these elements are outweighed by the film's overriding commitment to representation as a structural principle.

Eternals is not a bad film. It is an overstuffed, gorgeous, ambitious film that tries to be both a Terrence Malick meditation and a Marvel blockbuster and succeeds at neither. Its progressive content is extensive, integrated, and impossible to separate from the viewing experience. Its traditional content is genuine but secondary. The 47% on Rotten Tomatoes reflects structural failure as much as ideological resistance. The 5.9 on IMDB reflects an audience that saw the diversity campaign and decided it was enough to reject.

For VirtueVigil's purposes, the numbers are clear. The diversity is not incidental; it is the design principle. Every major casting choice, every relationship, every character change from the source material was made to maximize representation across as many axes as possible. The traditional elements that survive - Ikaris's tragic loyalty, Gilgamesh's sacrifice, the defense of humanity - are real but insufficient to offset the volume and intentionality of the progressive content.

Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier

🔴 Woke Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Maximum Diversity Ensemble Casting	5	Low	High	5.25
First Openly Gay MCU Superhero	4	High	Moderate	3.36
Source Material Race/Gender Swaps	4	Low	High	4.2
Disability Representation as Normalized	2	High	Low	0.93
MCU's First Sex Scene	3	Moderate	Low	1.4
Female and Non-White Leadership Dominant	3	Moderate	Moderate	2.1
Cosmic Institutional Authority as Villain	3	Moderate	Moderate	2.5
TOTAL WOKE				19.7

🟢 Traditional Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Ikaris's Tragic Obedience	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Gilgamesh's Selfless Devotion	3	High	Low	1.05
Phastos's Family as Motivation to Save Earth	2	High	Moderate	1.4
Choosing to Protect Humanity	2	High	Moderate	1.4
TOTAL TRADITIONAL				6.0

Score Margin: -14 WOKE