- Time
- (Edited)
- Post link
A pleasantly straightforward edit from Feb ’23 that was one of the first edits/tweaks from the MCU, that I may also upload soon too, depending on how reception to these edits of this franchise/genre goes.
.
.
.
As I stated in my publish text for my ‘Book of Boba Fett’ edit, I always thought ‘The Eternals’ had a very particular problem for the same kind of reason as TBBF. It seemed to not really work as well as it could, because it felt like it was trying to tell two stories at once in the past and present to basically make up for lost time and use the former to fill gaps in the latter. This often came across like the time jumps being jarring and disruptive to the pacing, rather than smooth and serving the story well. Lastly; a film where you’re trying to get the band back together – when you’ve never had a film actually seeing them together properly in the first place – rarely feels like it actually works, it might have for ‘The Blues Brothers’ in the 80’s, but not this.
To this end, I devised a chronological run of the story and split it in two: a half-hour ‘short story’ from 7,000BC Mesopotamia to 1945AD Hiroshima - and a single present-day only story from Sersi in London, to the Clash of The Eternals in Socotra, Yemen. I’ve always felt like a dedicated film (or even miniseries) detailing The Eternals’ history and guiding the human race over millennia would have been better – with a second story/dedicated film focussing just on The Emergence might be better and more straightforward also.
.
.
.
Eternals I: Shepherds of Humanity, 30 Mins.
.
The portions of history and nothing else, as there are no deleted scenes of the film that relate to any of the sections set before the 21st century.
.
The full sequence is 7000BC Mesopotamia -> 575BC Babylon with 400AD Gupta Empire -> 1521AD Tenochtitlan -> 1945AD Hiroshima -> small credits and ending title card. I implemented the short credits from the film that shows the murals of their impact on history because it feels much more appropriate here than having it in the second film here – from cave paintings to ancient civilisation sculptures to more recent cultural phenomena, like Harry Houdini posters from the turn of the 20th century.
.
.
.
Eternals II: The Emergence, 2hrs 13mins.
.
The main bulk of the film from the 21st century with deleted scenes reinserted because I feel they do add something good to the story at large or to the characters themselves/the dynamics between members of the group.
.
The first deleted scene is around 4 minutes in, “Small Talk”, where it cuts from Sersi giving her Apex Predator class to Sprite talking to Dane Whitman about Deviants – a conversation alluded to in the theatrical release but never shown. It gives an insight into TE’s impacts on history, on and off the Deviants’ side of things, and gives Dane a bit more screentime since he always felt very underutilised and underdeveloped (I get they probably planned to fix that in the next theatrical TE story by properly making him Black Knight and such, but still).
.
After meeting up with Ikaris, Kingo and Gilgamesh & Thena, the second deleted scene comes in around the 43 minute mark on the Amazon river: “Movies”. It’s very short, but it adds to the group dynamics and contrasts between the respective lives and lifestyles between Kingo and Gilgamesh.
.
At the 1hr 13min mark, after recruiting Druig in the Amazon and meeting up with Makari again at the Domo with her library of lost historical artifacts, the deleted scene “Nostalgia” comes in. This was great to include because Sprite talking to Makari about their life in Babylon all those centuries ago creates a good link to the past/other film and gives the team development with the city that used to be their real home on Earth. There’s a debate on whether or not humanity is worth saving after everything they’ve done to themselves and each other, with some points on both sides. And Thanos and Endgame are mentioned, which openly ties it into the rest of the universe.
.
At the 91 minute mark, the deleted scene “Gravity” plays. This gives good development for Phastos as a father and the result of the life he chose to make for himself compared to the others. Also it plays into the scene in the theatrical release where he suddenly comes to Sersi with the “Uni-Mind” idea much more smoothly.
.
From there, it’s the normal chain of events as the theatrical release except the short credits put into the first film. Here, Sersi gets abducted by Arishem in front of Dane, there’s a small snippet of the short credits to give the film its name (with custom title again) and then we meet Starfox & Pip the Troll and it’s the normal credits afterwards.
.
.
.
.
It’s a Mega link like everything else.
Footnote: I am in no capacity a professional editor or VFX artist, so some areas are visibly mostly good as I have to be realistic with the footage in front of me and what I can do with it. If you do have any particular notes and feedback, feel free to give me your thoughts, but please be constructive and don’t be an ass about it.