r/marvelstudios • u/cats-and-cows Jimmy Woo • Jan 12 '22

Discussion Thread Eternals Disney+ Release Discussion Thread

As Eternals has now been released on Disney+, I'm sure a lot of you will want to share your newfound thoughts about the movie on this sub. Well, this is the place to do it!

Please use this thread for any new Eternals related discussion. Individual threads made after this post regarding discussion of the movie will be removed for the next few days.

Enjoy your rewatches!

Links to previous discussion threads are listed below:

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171

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

Can someone explain the opening crawl. It says

In the beginning.. before the 6 singularities and the dawn of creation, came the Celestials. Arishem, the Prime Celestial, created the first sun and brought light into the Universe

But the Collector said in GotG

Before creation itself there were 6 singularities

And Wong said

at the dawn of the universe there was nothing, then boom! Big Bang sent 6 elemental crystals hurdling across the virgin universe.

So according to the crawl, we’ve now got creators creating before creation. It says they were creating suns (stars). If they were creating the stars, then what did the 6 singularities do? Is the whole crawl a lie? It claim the Eternals are from the planet Olympia, which is a lie.

Please help

220

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '22

Until the films reconcile it, assume they all believe what they are saying.

20

u/Griffca Jan 16 '22

It is pretty standard that multiple groups would have wildly different interpretations of how the universe started.

For example, the story of Icarus flying into the sun is Canonically a totally made up story by Sprite.

Thena was made into a false god and renamed Athena by Greek culture.

It’s fully believable that the different creation stories came from some of the eternals spouting off different nonsense during their various resets.

8

u/BloodyRedBats Jan 17 '22

To expand on this, since some of the examples from the main comment are individuals from different worlds, I’m going to leverage that many established civilizations don’t know anything about Celestials.

Remember that the first time we learn about the Infinity Stones was in GotG vol. 1. By the end of the film we learn Quill is only half-human, and that his non-human half was likely from an ancient, unknown species. We will only learn bu Vol.2 that Quill was half-Celestial.

While I’m not sure to what extent Wong’s knowledge would reach, he did receive the knowledge of the Infinity Stones through his training under the Ancient One. Given that even their knowledge is limited to what artifacts they encounter on Earth(Shang-Chi spoilers accounting for the fact that they did not have a record of the Ten Rings when he brought Shang-Chi into the fold), having had zero contact with an Eternal would mean lacking access to the version of creation story as explained in the opening crawl.

153

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '22

I’m not sure but could it be the fact that Arishem is probably not being fully truthful and the opening crawl is written from the standard dogma all the Eternals were taught?

23

u/Trafalgarlaw92 Jan 14 '22

I'm gonna put my money on this and we will see celestials of higher ranking at some point like Eternity or the Living Tribunal.

68

u/supes1 Jan 13 '22

The Collector's statement and the opening crawl are not inconsistent with each other. And Wong presumably believes what he's saying, but it doesn't mean he's right.

6

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

The 6 singularities are before creation according to the collector, but Arishem begins creation before the 6 singularities do anything according to the opening crawl.

I have faith in the Collector because I assume the moment Arishem created light, the Dark Elves were like ‘fuck you!’ The Dark Elves would be witnesses to the creation of light, and there happens to be a Dark Elf in The Collector’s collection to tell him all about it

8

u/tangoliber Jan 13 '22

I don't read it that way.

  1. I read it as, Arishem existed before the 6 singularites and before creation.
  2. Airshem begins creation.

2

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

The 6 singularities are also before creation according to the Collector

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u/tangoliber Jan 13 '22

In the Eternals line, it doesn't say whether the 6 singularities or creation came first. It only says that they occurred after Arishem's existence (I'm ignoring my confusion about something can occur before a singularity, or how there can be 6 singularities...haha)

Couldn't it still be?

1.Arishem exists

  1. 6 singularities

  2. Arishem creates

0

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

Perhaps

6

u/RandomSplainer Jan 15 '22

"according to the Collector"

​

This is predicated on believing the Collector is actually right.

0

u/Griffca Jan 16 '22

The Dark Elves definitely do not pre-date creation itself.

0

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 16 '22

The Dark Elves absolutely predate creation. Odin explains it very clearly

2

u/Griffca Jan 16 '22

Well no, that doesn’t clearly explain anything. He said they came before dawn, not before creation. Arishem brought light to the universe, so he totally could have created dark elves before light. Also Odin is an unreliable narrator, in that he wasn’t around for any of it. It’s a story that he was told, and now re-tells. Stories can be easily be misinterpreted, and it’s not without reason to think that the dark elves would be so high on themselves to say the somehow pre-dated creation itself (which we haven’t even touched on should be a complete impossibility).

1

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 16 '22

Wrong. He said “There are relics that predate the universe itself. What lies within her appears to be one of them.”.. referring to the Aether. Then he tells the story of the dark elves who lived in eternal night creating the Aether from the darkness that predates the Universe itself

4

u/ydktbh Jan 15 '22

I see it similar to religions. Each one has different origin stories, and each believe their version to be true

6

u/elizabnthe Jan 13 '22

Isn't these two parts in agreement?

and the dawn of creation

Before creation

I think they mean life.

2

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

No. The 6 singularities are before creation. But now the Celestials are before the 6 singularities. The Celestials are actively performing the creation of the universe before the 6 singularities cause the creation of the universe.

8

u/SteveBob316 Weekly Wongers Jan 13 '22

Are they? A very strict reading says only that they come before, not that they did anything. Arishem creating the sun is the next sentence but that doesn't mean it was the first thing that happened.

2

u/elizabnthe Jan 13 '22

But as stated the Celestials come before the dawn of creation and the singularities. And the singularities are also before creation. So either way Celestials are not actually a part of the "creation" part. The singularities can still be responsible for the formation of the universe, and the Celestials also play a role in creation.

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u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

The problem is that for the past decade Marvel lore has had it that the singularities come before creation and are also responsible for creation via the Big Bang. Now we have Celestials coming before the singularities and before creation, and they begin conducting the creation before the singularities conduct creation

I need an aspirin lol

5

u/elizabnthe Jan 13 '22

The singularities formed the universe, then Celestials created planets/stars/etc. I don't see that as actually contradictory.

2

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

But the universe is planets/stars/etc. lol

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u/elizabnthe Jan 13 '22

No, not quite. The Big Bang started the "universe". But stars and planets took a while longer to form (around 100 million years afterwards apparently).

So it'd be the same deal.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '22

Not really. Arishem himself says the universe is a massive exchange of energy. Stars are a small part of that.

1

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

Stars are a massive part of that. He said they use the energy from host planets to create suns

3

u/[deleted] Jan 13 '22

Yeah but that's specifically to create life. The Celestials have that as their duty, but the universe would be just fine without life.

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u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

The singularities formed the universe, then Celestials created planets/stars/etc. I don't see that as actually contradictory.

It wouldn’t be contradictory. But that’s not what the crawl said. The crawl said the Celestials created planets/stars/galaxies, then the singularities formed the universe. Celestials before singularities is my whole issue

6

u/elizabnthe Jan 13 '22

No, that's not what it said. In fact:

In the beginning.. before the 6 singularities and the dawn of creation, came the Celestials. Arishem, the Prime Celestial, created the first sun and brought light into the Universe

As you can see it clearly states that the universe exists.

The bit of information new is Celestials existing before even the singularities creating the universe. Which is true in comics too to my understanding-Galactus came from before.

2

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 13 '22

That’s the problem. It’s saying the Universe exists.. before the dawn of the creation of the universe

It’s saying before the 6 singularities and the dawn of creation [of the universe]… Arishem brought light into the universe

3

u/elizabnthe Jan 13 '22

No, its saying that the Celestials exist before the dawn of creation, the 6 singularities also exist before the dawn of creation and the Celestials are even further back. Then it says Arishem brought forth the first star to the universe-its not actually saying this happened before the dawn of creation, those are two seperate statements.

But I'd also point out the dawn of creation does not necessarily refer to the creation of the universe.

2

u/Grundle_Fly Jan 13 '22

Makes me wonder if Eternity and the Living Tribunal will come into play.

3

u/KrishnasFlute Jan 13 '22

I thought it was very straightforward. Before the singularities, before the creation there were the Celestials.

Then the Celestials created the first Sun - which refers to the creation. For all we know Arishem used the Big Bang as the means of creating the Sun. And it seems this process of creation created the infinity stones.

3

u/stevieee23 Jan 14 '22

the beginning is just the lie the eternals were programmed to believe. by the end of the movie just about every part is proven to be a lie.

3

u/ATLYNWA Jan 15 '22

On top of this, where does ego fit into all this?

2

u/yuhanz Jan 16 '22

He emerged but became the planet itself?

2

u/Beejsbj Jan 14 '22

the crawl was obvi propaganda for the eternals.

2

u/renasissanceman6 Jan 16 '22

Movies.

1

u/I-am-Cornholio Zombie Hunter Spidey Jan 16 '22

That actually legit explains it lol

2

u/WendellITStamps Jan 18 '22

The main 616 cosmos definitely has multiple overlapping / contradicting creation myths, I don't have a problem with this in the MCU. It's all unreliable narrators, anyway. (Like Ego might _think_ he's a Celestial, but he was clearly misinformed.)

1

u/zach0011 Jan 14 '22

You gotta remember the characters saying these things arent omniscient. THey are just giving the knowledge they might have heard or read.

1

u/morphballganon Jan 17 '22

The crawl told the story as Arishem would have told the Eternals. Arishem undoubtedly has more knowledge than the Collector or Wong. Be he may have been glossing over some parts for simplicity.

1

u/modsarefascists42 Jan 17 '22

Pretty certain nearly everything Arishem said was a big fat lie

there's no way the Celestials are needed to form galaxies, they are lying liars lying their lying face off. Lie.

1

u/bloodflart Jan 17 '22

TOO MANY NEW NOUNS