How Marvel’s ‘Eternals’ illustrates the danger of abandoning truth

When it came to viewing Marvel’s latest film, Eternals, I initially had no interest in going to see it. I was aware that it was the first MCU film to blatantly portray an active homosexual relationship in a positive light. That, and the fact that it didn’t appear to have any direct link to the Avengers storyline, deterred much of my interest in another fast-paced action flick. Upon a friend’s invitation, however, I gave in.

Before addressing one of the main points I think the film illustrates well (that being the danger of divorcing the truth), I’d like to draw attention to some of the pros and cons a Catholic might be made aware of before seeing the movie. That said, be warned there are spoilers ahead.

Aesthetic Standards: A Mixed Bag

By the end of Eternals, I left the theater with a more or less bland and glazed impression. Here was another action/adventure superhero film that used special effects and brilliant, engaging colors as its aesthetic foundation and employed current cultural positions as regular points of reference.

Personally, either via the way in which the plot plays out or how the characters are introduced, the grouping of the Eternals seems disjointed. It’s not just because they all have wills and opinions of their own, but the mash-up feels off. When all said and done, one wonders how much the viewer was really able to enter into the mindset of the prominent characters.

The saving grace detectable in the film is some much-appreciated humor delivered predominantly by Kumail Nanjiani, who is a professional comedian, and co-star Ma Dong-seok. Many of their fellow cast members also do a great job acting, but the general pace of the plot remains rushed.

While some critics attempted to defend the creative merits of Chloe Zhao’s Eternals, quite a few prominent outlets provided ill-favored appraisals of the movie. A review from Vanity Fair calls it “clumsy and interminable exposition” as well as “a drag to look at.” Wendy Ide, writing for The Guardian, sums up her review melancholily with: “…the storytelling, with its forced flashbacks and synthetic sentiment, lets the whole thing down.”

For both the viewers and the critics, Eternals offered a politically-charged (not to mention politically correct) dialogue that resulted in wildly differing opinions about the film as such.

The Problems a Christian Viewer Will Face

For many Christians, Catholic and Protestant alike, one of the biggest problems we’re going to come up against is the promotional tone of positively presenting a homosexual family unit and pro-gay milieu within the home. By the 21^st century, Phastos – a member of the Eternals – has settled down with “his husband,” or partner, and enjoys a relatively quiet life. No one person bats an eye or looks twice at two gay men raising a young boy as their own.

In this way, Eternals functions as a mainstream piece of pro-homosexual propaganda, going so far as to feature a same-sex kissing scene. For the Christian, this is noticeably problematic – not because it merely portrays the cultivation of homosexual feelings and that lifestyle but because it sells this sort of relationship as simply another social norm when, in all reality, it undermines true familial relationships. It is anything but normal or natural.

My friend who invited me to see it begrudgingly noted that it was only a matter of time before Marvel was going to do this anyway. Indeed, there was already a subtle nod to the acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle in the MCU’s Avengers: Endgame.

Apart from the blatant pro-gay slant that pops up for a brief time in the plot, the movie brings some other problematic matters to the table. The Eternals adhere to a servitude that is vaguely reminiscent of monotheistic spirituality. This team of super-humanoids is dedicated to serving the will of Arishem, one of the powerful entities known as Celestials (Ego from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was another Celestial, for comparison).

When it comes time for the character Sersi to commune with Arishem, she is advised to cultivate silence, thereby making it possible for her to speak with Arishem. As it turns out, Arishem, who is considered a deity by the Eternals, desires to annihilate all life on Earth for the purpose of sustaining the birth of a new entity comparable to himself. Unrelenting, his plan would entail the destruction of every human life on the planet. Hence, for some of the Eternals – and principally Sersi – Arishem becomes viewed as an enemy.

Saints, mystics, and modern theologians alike have relied on silence as the medium in which we can begin to hear God and understand what He wants of us. We, as Christians, know that it is proper to place our trust in God. Similarly, the Eternals sought their maker in silence and chose, at first, to trust in him.

Do you see what’s going on here? A viewer might pick up on a sense in which distrust in a deity is more proper, perhaps even that God is an evil God or that a deity does not truly exist. The Eternals lose faith in Arishem – and with due cause. But the premise is too eerily similar to a monotheistic faith, a faith proven futile in this case. In this way, Eternals may be seen as portraying an untrustworthy “God,” (represented by Arishem) in whom faith is utterly unfounded. This undermines faith.

Lastly, in the credits of the film, there was imagery which, as a Catholic, made me livid. The Eternals have interacted with a variety of human cultures for some 7,000 years of history and, as a result, much of the ancients’ myths were engendered by real events that involved the Eternals. Thus, numerous figures from different pagan tales and world religions are merely attributed as synonymous with team members from the Eternals.

In the credits, an image of St. Michael the Archangel (prince of the Heavenly Host, guardian of souls, and victor over Satan and the demons) appears and is given a likeness to the Eternal named Ikaris. Among the powers sported by Ikaris are flight and the ability to shoot lasers from his eyes. St. Michael, being an angel, is traditionally pictured with wings, having the ability to fly. What is more, this image of St. Michael begins to show a faint glowing emanating from the eyes; this feature suggests that the idea of Michael the Archangel springs from some incident of Ikaris fighting a merely mortal beast. To boot, Ikaris is a deeply flawed character.

Granted, the whole MCU is fictional. But this subtle imagery found in the credits specifically undermines – even within the fictional world Marvel posits to us – a beautiful element of our Catholic faith. It reduces St. Michael’s role, as well as the struggle between good and evil, to only a physiological and/or mythological notion.

When Truth Is Abandoned

Moving on to the meat of this analysis of Eternals, let’s examine the problematic division that occurs within the titular group of super-humanoids.

After mingling with the affairs of humanity for several thousand years, the team of Eternals is shaken following the mental collapse of Thena and the discord stirred up by Druig, who desires to manipulate people’s free will in order to prevent war and bloodshed.

It’s at this point that the designated head of the Eternals, Ajak, rearranges the inner dynamic of their group. Paraphrasing her words, Ajak pretty much tells her fellow Eternals: “You must each find your own way now.” As a result of this, they each follow separate paths, no longer conjoined under the guidance of a single will and commonality. Druig outright defies the will of Arishem. Gilgamesh keeps an eye on Thena, who occasionally goes berserk. Some years down the road, Ikaris and Sersi have a falling out. Some go into hiding. Some melt into the surrounding culture. And this is what happens when truth is abandoned.

Ajak’s message to the rest of the Eternals smacks of a modernist mentality in favor of subjectivity, a rejection of objective truth. This is a message which, when interpreted too loosely, undermines authentic truth. To be sure, the will of Arishem is warped, having no regard for innocent life. But it is just as fair to point out the obvious: Once each of the Eternals is “at liberty” to choose whatever path he/she deems to be right in his/her own eyes, then all hell seems to break loose.

One of the Eternal’s actions lead to the development of the atomic bomb and subsequently the annihilation of Hiroshima. One chooses to actively engage in a homosexual lifestyle. One kills Ajak due to conflicting beliefs on how to respond to Arishem’s ultimatum of human genocide. Some are riddled with crippling pessimism, others with passive existentialism. The Deviants run rampant. Order crumbles. And long-held allegiances quickly dissolve.

This observation follows after Ajak dismantled the team by leaving the choices that the Eternals make up to their sole discretion, not informed by any objective morality. The Eternals are guided rather by feelings, something comparable to a Jedi’s interaction with the Force in Star Wars. Without objective truth as the foundation, one’s moral compass is a bit choppy.

The series of events that ensues after Ajak’s dismissal culminates in an all-out civil war between the different Eternals who are of opposing opinions. By the film’s climax, the abandoning of truth, courage, and morality has been the undoing of the Eternals.

This is unsurprising. As devastating and troubling a movie as this was to watch, Eternals can point us toward something better: the Truth. The brokenness of each of the Eternals accentuates the need for something beyond themselves, beyond subjectivity, beyond Arishem.

For Christians, the answer should be clear. When we are broken, when we are threatened by division, we are called by our Lord to turn to Him – to Jesus Christ Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The message of redemption, the story of salvation, the Good News is, as St. Paul writes, “the word of the truth” (Colossians 1:5). And as Jesus, the Word of God Himself, tells us, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Luke 21:33). Jesus’s words are everlasting. The Lord’s law remains eternally applicable.

By Christ revealing Himself as Truth and saying that His words “will not pass away,” He reminds each of us that only God is constant, certain, and unchanging and that, if we strive for peace, order, and happiness in our lives, God must be our foundation.

If there’s something good that may come from Marvel’s Eternals, it’s a point which the director and producers did not intend. By the dysfunctional conduct of the protagonists and in their divorce of objective truth, their failure to maintain peace shows us the depravity of our creaturely condition. It reminds us of our total dependence on a loving God who has a plan for each of our lives.