UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - Eternals -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[Lord Dalek]

You spelled Waterworld wrong.

Waterworld wasn't the immediate follow up to a best picture winner though.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Waterworld wasn't the immediate follow up to a best picture winner though.

Fair, but Eternals also isn't as much of an example of egregious arrogance and hubris as either Heaven's Gate or Waterworld.

 

[SamT]

Eternals is a great advertisement for why Imax enhanced presentations may be a bad idea for home viewing.

Why?

 

[John Dirk]

I presume that Marvel completists will need a copy.

I'm of that general belief but will make an exception in this case.

I had the chance to watch this on a flight and still couldn't last past the first 30 minutes or so.

 

[Edwin-S]

Okay for diversity and inclusiveness, but that doesn't answer the logical question--how can a deaf robot exist.

He expended his budget and had to make a choice between going over or dropping an option? He chose dropping an option and figured hearing was the least impactful on a super robot?

Edit: impactful, not impact full.

 

[John Dirk]

Watched "The Eternals" last night. Oy. Vat a mess!
Am I crazy, or is there no logical reason for one of The Eternals to be deaf? They're some sort of hybrid robot--why would The Celestials create a deaf warrior? And if the Eternal was defective (deaf), why was it not destroyed and a robot that was perfect substituted? Because they're not robots in the comics, a deaf Eternal might occur. But they've changed it for the film, so how could it happen? Why would it happen? Someone help me understand what the film makers were doing.

Normally I might suggest a Spoiler tag but in this case I think we're good.

 

[Jeff Cooper]

why would The Celestials create a deaf warrior?

So the movie can happen!

 

[Stephen_J_H]

Watched "The Eternals" last night. Oy. Vat a mess!
Am I crazy, or is there no logical reason for one of The Eternals to be deaf? They're some sort of hybrid robot--why would The Celestials create a deaf warrior? And if the Eternal was defective (deaf), why was it not destroyed and a robot that was perfect substituted? Because they're not robots in the comics, a deaf Eternal might occur. But they've changed it for the film, so how could it happen? Why would it happen? Someone help me understand what the film makers were doing.

I watched the first 2 hours of Eternals and will watch the remaining running time later, but it strikes me that if you're going to make Eternals an "inclusive" production, this was not the way to do it. I'm not going to make it expressly political, but the bones of the story scream "white saviour narrative." If you really wanted to update this while acknowledging the historicity of the comic, it would make more sense to lean into the narrative as it stands and then upend the expectations of the audience in one way or another. I'm not going to go into specifics on this, as there are a lot of ways to do this. So much of the film strikes me as inclusion for inclusion's sake. Making them artificial makes even less sense in the inclusivity context, and the end result effectively turns the

Spoiler

film into warmed over Eloi vs. Morlocks from The Time Machine

.

I don't expect anyone to agree with me on this. Just my 2 cents.

 

[zoetmb]

Chloe Zhao set out to make the Ben-Hur of comic book movies and ended up producing Heaven's Gate instead.

No, he wound up making the 2016 Ben-Hur of comic book movies.

I never thought that Heaven's Gate was that bad a film. I even bought and watched the Blu-ray (although I doubt I'd ever watch it again).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I maintain a running list of movies with variable aspect ratio on another site, and I try not to update it until I find confirmation of the aspect ratio from someone who has the disc in hand. You mentioned that you preordered the 3D disc for Eternals

Just got the shipping notice from Amazon.jp/DHL - should have an answer for you next week!

 

[Bryan^H]

I hope the reception for this film doesn't scare Marvel from making other lesser known "team" movies.

I would be elated to see a big screen version of Alpha Flight

 

[dpippel]

No, he wound up making the 2016 Ben-Hur of comic book movies.

Chloe Zhao is female.

 

[Kent K H]

I hope the reception for this film doesn't scare Marvel from making other lesser known "team" movies.

I would be elated to see a big screen version of Alpha Flight

The idea of someone like Matthew Vaughn or Lord & Miller doing a Nextwave movie keeps me believing in the impossible.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Just got the shipping notice from Amazon.jp/DHL - should have an answer for you next week!

Re: Eternals Japan

Sadly the disc breaks precedent and is presented in fixed 2.40:1 for the entire film, discarding the IMAX variable ratio that frankly, in my view, was the most entertaining thing about the film.

As with the other Japanese 3D discs, forced English subtitles are not included. You must either watch the film with the included English SDH subtitles throughout, or try a DIY project to merge them with forced subs from the domestic release.

Very disappointing.

 

[JoshZ]

Re: Eternals Japan

Sadly the disc breaks precedent and is presented in fixed 2.40:1 for the entire film, discarding the IMAX variable ratio that frankly, in my view, was the most entertaining thing about the film.

As with the other Japanese 3D discs, forced English subtitles are not included. You must either watch the film with the included English SDH subtitles throughout, or try a DIY project to merge them with forced subs from the domestic release.

Very disappointing.

Thanks for the confirmation. It seems that the VAR version is only viewable through Disney+ now.

 

[Capt D McMars]

Somehow, my interpretation of “Pass” on this one is slightly different.

To me it seemed that it is following in the formulaic footsteps of DCs Batman vs Superman. Where they're spending alot of time on character intros, updates and setting you up for the next movie.

I felt that during this film, although I'm not familure with the comic book series, I did appreciate the flashbacks for context. But it seemed a little over done, for me. Everything was pulling you not for any solid conclusion, but to prime you for the second movie. Leaving you either hungery for more or just pissed off that you spent the past 3 hours being set up for the next movie, LOL!!!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Just watched the BD and 4K discs and agree that the 4K is crazy stupid dark - unwatchably dark, IMO.

Rare case where I prefer the BD. At least I can tell what's happening!

I also like the movie quite a lot. Don't really get the complaints that it's too slow or whatnot.

It moves at a good pace and covers a LOT of ground in a concise manner.

It's tough to introduce 10 new main characters - plus others - and a new scenario, even with 156 minutes.

Zhao does a great job in all these regards.

It's not the best MCU movie, but it's closer to the top than to the bottom.

 

[jayembee]

I clicked "agree" for the comments about the movie itself. I didn't find the 4K excessively dark.

 

[sbjork]

Just watched the BD and 4K discs and agree that the 4K is crazy stupid dark - unwatchably dark, IMO.

Rare case where I prefer the BD. At least I can tell what's happening!

I also like the movie quite a lot. Don't really get the complaints that it's too slow or whatnot.

It moves at a good pace and covers a LOT of ground in a concise manner.

It's tough to introduce 10 new main characters - plus others - and a new scenario, even with 156 minutes.

Zhao does a great job in all these regards.

It's not the best MCU movie, but it's closer to the top than to the bottom.

I loved it, but I completely understand why some people don't. When my review of it went live, I got a little bit of flack on social media for the fact that I enjoyed it, which is something that I've never understood. Why on earth would you give someone a hard time for liking anything, regardless of how you may feel about it personally? I'm happy when anyone is a fan of anything, regardless of my own opinions. I'm not a fan of the Star Wars prequels, but if someone wants to make a spirited defense of Attack of the Clones, more power to them, and I'm not going to rain on their parade. Why does it make some people unhappy that other people are happy? I just don't get that.

This was my favorite comment;

"An A-? Says more about his taste than the movie."

That might not be the silliest thing ever said, but it's up there. Any rating, of any kind, for any movie, is a matter of taste. The fact that this person apparently didn't like it says more about his taste than the movie. Anyone's opinion says nothing but about their own taste. I'm not sure where people got the idea in their head that their opinions are objective. There's no such thing as an "objective opinion." Funny thing is, of course, that they always seem to think that their own opinions are objective, while that of others is subjective. That's absurdly solipsistic.

Sorry for the rant. Pet peeve of mine. I loved Eternals, but I'm perfectly okay with the fact that RAH and others didn't. I loathed Halloween Kills, but I'm delighted that other people enjoyed it, even if I didn't. We need to stop demanding uniformity to our own feelings. Vive la différence.

 

[jayembee]

Why does it make some people unhappy that other people are happy? I just don't get that.

In the realm of comic book films, this manifests mostly as the "DC vs Marvel" nonsense. When Batman v Superman got slammed by critics (and many, many viewers), the people that liked it claimed that it was because the Marvel fans who hated everything DC were on the warpath. Because they thought it was a terrific movie, no one in their right mind could possibly not like it, so the dismissal of it had to be the result of some "agenda" that had nothing to do with the value of the film itself. To the point where they were (literally!) accusing Disney of bribing critics to badmouth the DC films in order to make the Marvel ones look better.

The fact that the DC and Marvel films never directly competed with each other at the box office seemed lost on them. It was more likely that a Marvel Studios film would be competing with a "Marvel film" from another studio. In fact, BvS was gone from theaters by the time Civil War came out, while Civil War was still in theaters when Fox's X-Men: Apocalypse was released.

I suspect that, like so many things in life, some people see it as a zero-sum game. If you and they have a different opinion, both of you can't be "right". So they see you advancing a different opinion as essentially saying that theirs is "wrong", which they take personally. Opinions aren't supposed to be right or wrong, but as we see time and time again, a lot of people seem to confuse opinions with facts.