Oooooooh

This and Dune are both big science fiction epics out the same month, but one just wrapped and the other only started filming. Granted this is probably gonna be less VFX-heavy.

Outside of general trust in Marvel Studios, Kirby love, being excited for the unknown, or wanting to see Celestials, anybody have any more specific reasons why you're excited for this movie?

I was going to look into an Eternals book to read, but then these character descriptions seem pretty distant from what was in the comics. These characters seem unrelatable and a bit dull so far. I'm still looking for something to pull me in the way a talking tree, cyborg raccoon, most deadly assassin in the universe, or even the more common alien whose entire family was murdered.

I really want to see some costumes.

Lately, as much as I love superheroes, I have been preoccupied with their thematic framework (both as expressions of capitalistic corporate values and potentially a very narrow conception of antisocial individualism implied by vigilantism).

And it struck me that in Kirby's messy way, the Eternals are a pretty broad rejection of both (the former only to the extent that you can reject the corporate framework from within it).

The Eternals are not individualists. They are decidedly communal, either in their conflict against Deviants or their efforts to serve (and sometimes resist) the Celestials who created them. The ultimate expression of that communal nature is the Uni-Mind: literally all Eternals combining together into a single consciousness that is far more powerful than any individual Eternal.

And I think this is part of why I didn't care for Gaiman's revamp. He tried to emphasize the individual Eternal through their own desires and drives (and amnesia), but what makes them special is that (near) unity of purpose. The X-Men sort of have that as they pursue the MLX Dream, but they are always balancing their individuality against that team spirit. The Eternals were built for this. And Feige's / Zhao's take on them (in being so aggressively diverse) suggests that there may be some kernal of that in the movie adaptation. Having them reflect as wide a swathe of humanity as possible to send the direct message that they (and we) are all one people and we're stronger together than apart. I think we kind of need that message hammered home right now.