The Movie Thread Reloaded

[Wrath of God]

I'm quite sure he had MPD in comics but he was more in control with personalities cooperating and so on. At least that's what I remember - though my only comic contact really was Ultimate Moon Knight who was just MPD Vigilante without any magical mythological element to him (still cool).

I expect this is sort of origin story - he starts in the dark, he gonna become full Moon Knight in the end (Spector personality clearly is already on board with it).

[Pat]

Finally got around to watching the Eternals. Feels more like the Cliff's or Spark's notes of several movies, than a real movie. They set up a lot (a lot) of emotional moments, but none of them connected because they didn't spend the time setting up the characters and background. In many cases, we don't even learn about the background until after. Which, to make an aside, is a perfect example of why I've begun to hate the excessive use of flashbacks in so many movies and TV shows. If you add a flashback to introduce context to an event that just happened, that means the emotional response created by that context is just an afterimage. And even if you jam in a context-setting flashback right before an event, it just feels cheap and manipulative. The only way it works is to develop characters, over time. And they just had too many characters and events, so none of them really mattered. Didn't help that the main protagonist and supposed emotional heart of the movie, Sersei, didn't have have any character and her actor had the emotional range of a turnip. It also didn't help that the movie spent far too much time telling not showing, huge chunks of the plot and many character actions made no sense even by the standards of a super hero move, and there wasn't a lot of action. If they stripped out about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the characters and focused on a few key events, it could have been a good movie.

On the positive side, I liked the first third or so of the movie, because I don't mind slow builds and languid pacing. The problem is it felt like it never stopped. At some point, a movie needs to shift from the scrolling text and background setting scenes, and start the main story, but the Eternals never felt like it made that transition. Also, the circle things gave the Eternal/Celestial tech a distinctive feel, and the fingers were fun. And while some of the people involved in the film jumped on social media to announce their horrible racism and sexism, and the results of their bigotry are apparent in the blatant by-the-numbers tokenization of the cast, it's purely skin deeep. The nu-Nazism of Woke progressivism isn't part of the story. What I find disappointing is they didn't even try to explain the diversity. They're alien constructs created to defend and presumably blend into humanity, so having them created in the image of humanity from different places and being given different assignments could make sense, but they just showed up everywhere as a group, and then went where ever they wanted on their own.

The biggest disappointment is most of the characters do sound interesting, with compelling character traits and backgrounds, and in the broad outline their character arcs are strong. It feels like there are all the components needed for an epic tale of love, tragedy, betrayal, and the exploration of their inner natures. But it remained just an outline. For instance, Sprite is one of the most developed characters, but her inner conflict about her permanently arrested development and her resultant inability to live a full life, combined with unrequited love, and the external conflict hinted at by the playful but nasty teasing by the other Eternals, is barely explored. Kro is another example; he becomes sapient, mentions a few very deep issues and is apparently set up as a great antagonist who can really highlight the different competing philosophies, and then vanishes and only shows up again as a disconnected tertiary fight.

And it's not really a comment on the movie itself, but Pip the Troll from the after-credits scene was far far into the uncanny valley of creepy CGI effects.

[Wrath of God]

I think Eternals... just like No Way Home should be miniseries for them to really delve deep into concepts and make interesting narratives.
Then I could even forgive flashbacks to certain degree - like we meet Eternals in 2023, and we have no idea what they are and then flashbacks in first 3-4 episodes explain to us their relations and nature and so on. I have mixed feelings about Eternals being changed from genetically engineered offshot of mankind to some robots but dunno if it would work better (though now it's even weirder as they announced Eros as both Eternal and brother of Thanos in MCU).

But what Eternals really mess is history - and why I can get some woke elements, other elements are just... DUMB. Big D Dumb. Real Aliens on Discovery Channel Dumb.

I wrote a note on FB after watching it, I'm gonna try and translate it:

"So I watched those whole "Eternals". As usually in case of capeshit it was mix of vaguely interesting ideas marinated in colourless marvelositis.

But the most funny thing was their relation to history.

Everlastings, whose duty is to defend intelligent life from Deviants (basically Edge of Tommorow's Mimics) arrive on Earth about 7000 BC, you know about 200 000 years after Homo sapiens came to be, and somehow survived and managed to spread across all Earth.

So they land somewhere on Mesopotamia coast, and help some wanna-be-fishermen, and then helpy them to do civilisation, and we jump to Babylon. At 575 BC (you know, 1,5 k years since Babylon was city state, fuck all Sumerians and Sargon of Akkad), and Babylon is shown as city-fortress against Deviants where poor hillbillies of Middle East gathers to escape Deviants. Everlastings are ruling there as basically god-kings, Hammurabi and Asyria were unheard about, and our heroes are just now slightly nervous that first conflicts start to ignite between men.

Then we have second major timejump to Teotihuacan, where poor Aztec nibbas are genocided by powerful, superiorly armed Spanish Army destroying everything in their way. So one of Everlasting, with power of mind control (for me best character in move, why the hell this Chinese boob main heroine really.) takes all Spanish and all Aztecs, and walks away, and after 500 years we realise they walked away TO AMAZON RAINFOREST where he rules as telepathic Marlon Brando over their comune/paraguayan reduction. So not only writers lack knowledge about humanity timeline, but also about... distance.

We also have crying negro-gey-Hephaestos, who after Hiroshima bombing, literally in a middle of FUCKING A-bomb ruins, because apparently by accident he was... around, and he cries that he should not give mankind ploughs because they advanced too much, and that's his fault.

And about plough he shows it as new fancy technology development in Babylon. 575 BC. Only 3000 years after neolithic farmers in Czech Republic. Black guys as usually, three millenia behind freaking krtek, ah-yoy!"

What I find disappointing is they didn't even try to explain the diversity. They're alien constructs created to defend and presumably blend into humanity, so having them created in the image of humanity from different places and being given different assignments could make sense, but they just showed up everywhere as a group, and then went where ever they wanted on their own.

Considering their origin it would really the best if they were shapeshifter. That could lead to interesting developments (I mean if it was miniseries with time for it) where they slowly drift from faceless gods, to embracing more specific identities and therefore humanise themselves.

The biggest disappointment is most of the characters do sound interesting, with compelling character traits and backgrounds, and in the broad outline their character arcs are strong. It feels like there are all the components needed for an epic tale of love, tragedy, betrayal, and the exploration of their inner natures. But it remained just an outline. For instance, Sprite is one of the most developed characters, but her inner conflict about her permanently arrested development and her resultant inability to live a full life, combined with unrequited love, and the external conflict hinted at by the playful but nasty teasing by the other Eternals, is barely explored. Kro is another example; he becomes sapient, mentions a few very deep issues and is apparently set up as a great antagonist who can really highlight the different competing philosophies, and then vanishes and only shows up again as a disconnected tertiary fight.

As I said in my terribly translated quasi-review - marvelositis shall kill all interesting concepts.
I totally agree. Or if not miniseries - due Eternals 1 where they fight with Kro and evolution of Deviants is shown and deliberated upon, and then Eternals 2 - where Secret Fate of All Humanoid Alien Robots is unfold. Alas we got what we got. And that's clearly problem with MCU - more crowded movies, not enough time to do all things that should be done.

[Pat]

I think a mini-series would lose some of potential for epic cinematic stuff, but maybe not. CGI (except for that damn troll) has gotten a lot better. And a mini-series could certainly handle the character background and emotional development better.

Alternatively, just trim the cast brutally. For the main themes of the story, you need Ajax, Ikarus, and Sersei. That's it. Focus on them. It's okay to introduce the other Eternals, or even a whole horde (like in the comics, and would make the Uni-Mind more plausible), but make them background characters, who don't have significant arcs on their own, and who are primarily there to develop the main characters. Same with Kro. His rise to sapience can foreshadow a future conflict, but leave that thread hanging instead of abruptly cutting it off. Then recast the protagonists, because Ikarus and Sersei have the personality and chemistry of two cement blocks, and follow their love story through history. Then create some sense of urgency by giving the Emergence a specific time frame and have them rush to do something more than lackadaisically getting the band back together.

Especially if the concept of a wider Terran Eternal community is introduced, this could be a great setup for a TV series. After the cosmic threat of the Emergence threat is resolved, it would be time to explore the background characters, giving them time to do justice to Phaesto's regret, Kingo's many lives, Sprite's desire to be a real girl, Druig's utopian experiments, Gilgamesh and Thena's damaged warrior vibe, whatever the hell Makkari was up to (she's the most underutilized character of all), Jon Snow's ancestry and family relations, and so on. Kro would make a great recurrent villain.

[Pat]

Watched Moon Knight. Feels more like a suspense thriller than a comic book story, except for the final scene. The Moon Knights I'm familiar were mentally unstable, but didn't have DID. However, the character has been reinvented a bunch of times and I'm not sure where the comics are the moment, so I'm willing to give it a chance. I like the mummy wrappings look.

Is it me, or is DID way overrepresented in comic book movies and TV? Split, Legion, Doom Patrol, and now (perhaps?) Moon Knight. That's huge number for an extremely rare condition.

[Omega]

I'm quite sure he had MPD in comics but he was more in control with personalities cooperating and so on. At least that's what I remember - though my only comic contact really was Ultimate Moon Knight who was just MPD Vigilante without any magical mythological element to him (still cool).

I expect this is sort of origin story - he starts in the dark, he gonna become full Moon Knight in the end (Spector personality clearly is already on board with it).

Not in the original run. All the way to the end he was just running disguises. I do not recall any signs of it in the 89 Marc Spector series either. I am not sure about Fist of Konshu or later iterations where he was actually being possessed by Khonshu for a time and got a redesign of sorts.

Obviously that changed at some point. But it must have been much later or after some fucked up 'reboot'.

[oggsmash]

Watched Moon Knight. Feels more like a suspense thriller than a comic book story, except for the final scene. The Moon Knights I'm familiar were mentally unstable, but didn't have DID. However, the character has been reinvented a bunch of times and I'm not sure where the comics are the moment, so I'm willing to give it a chance. I like the mummy wrappings look.

Is it me, or is DID way overrepresented in comic book movies and TV? Split, Legion, Doom Patrol, and now (perhaps?) Moon Knight. That's huge number for an extremely rare condition.

  All sorts of mental conditions are over represented in hollywood produced material.  I suspect the reason being people with those rare conditions are way over represented in Hollywood.

[Pat]

Watched Moon Knight. Feels more like a suspense thriller than a comic book story, except for the final scene. The Moon Knights I'm familiar were mentally unstable, but didn't have DID. However, the character has been reinvented a bunch of times and I'm not sure where the comics are the moment, so I'm willing to give it a chance. I like the mummy wrappings look.

Is it me, or is DID way overrepresented in comic book movies and TV? Split, Legion, Doom Patrol, and now (perhaps?) Moon Knight. That's huge number for an extremely rare condition.

  All sorts of mental conditions are over represented in hollywood produced material.  I suspect the reason being people with those rare conditions are way over represented in Hollywood.

That might make sense with bipolar or depression or any of the litany of common mental illnesses, but DID is just too rare. I think it's just a fascination with extreme mental conditions.

[HappyDaze]

Watched Moon Knight. Feels more like a suspense thriller than a comic book story, except for the final scene. The Moon Knights I'm familiar were mentally unstable, but didn't have DID. However, the character has been reinvented a bunch of times and I'm not sure where the comics are the moment, so I'm willing to give it a chance. I like the mummy wrappings look.

Is it me, or is DID way overrepresented in comic book movies and TV? Split, Legion, Doom Patrol, and now (perhaps?) Moon Knight. That's huge number for an extremely rare condition.

  All sorts of mental conditions are over represented in hollywood produced material.  I suspect the reason being people with those rare conditions are way over represented in Hollywood.

That might make sense with bipolar or depression or any of the litany of common mental illnesses, but DID is just too rare. I think it's just a fascination with extreme mental conditions.

It's an easy way to make a character "damaged" that doesn't require special effects or props for a non-disabled actor to pull off. Black Bolt's muteness in the (pretty terrible) Inhumans series was along the same lines. Beyond that, most people don't know enough about the actual mental condition to tell them they're doing it wrong, unlike with blindness, deafness, or a variety of more familiar disabilities that might get them the stink eye from those actually having the disability.

[oggsmash]

Watched Moon Knight. Feels more like a suspense thriller than a comic book story, except for the final scene. The Moon Knights I'm familiar were mentally unstable, but didn't have DID. However, the character has been reinvented a bunch of times and I'm not sure where the comics are the moment, so I'm willing to give it a chance. I like the mummy wrappings look.

Is it me, or is DID way overrepresented in comic book movies and TV? Split, Legion, Doom Patrol, and now (perhaps?) Moon Knight. That's huge number for an extremely rare condition.

  All sorts of mental conditions are over represented in hollywood produced material.  I suspect the reason being people with those rare conditions are way over represented in Hollywood.

That might make sense with bipolar or depression or any of the litany of common mental illnesses, but DID is just too rare. I think it's just a fascination with extreme mental conditions.

  I think they are simply trying to write characters that are more goofed than they are, and since they are pretty forked up, they have to go rare.

[Wrath of God]

I think a mini-series would lose some of potential for epic cinematic stuff, but maybe not. CGI (except for that damn troll) has gotten a lot better. And a mini-series could certainly handle the character background and emotional development better.

I must say honestly aside of Celestial rising - which was also kinda fucked up geographically,like he already emerged partially, he's not nearly big enough to explode all Earth, though all countries around Indian Ocean would be fucked - there was not that much of turbo good CGI. Energetic weapons had neat design, but energetic weapons are also like probably lowest level of CGI ever.

Alternatively, just trim the cast brutally. For the main themes of the story, you need Ajax, Ikarus, and Sersei. That's it. Focus on them. It's okay to introduce the other Eternals, or even a whole horde (like in the comics, and would make the Uni-Mind more plausible), but make them background characters, who don't have significant arcs on their own, and who are primarily there to develop the main characters. Same with Kro. His rise to sapience can foreshadow a future conflict, but leave that thread hanging instead of abruptly cutting it off. Then recast the protagonists, because Ikarus and Sersei have the personality and chemistry of two cement blocks, and follow their love story through history. Then create some sense of urgency by giving the Emergence a specific time frame and have them rush to do something more than lackadaisically getting the band back together.

I think Robb Stark made decent repeat of his PTSD soldier from "Bodyguard" miniseries, but yeah Sersei is bland as fuck those two together simply won't work.
Make Druig and Makkari main characters and it would be way better.

Is it me, or is DID way overrepresented in comic book movies and TV? Split, Legion, Doom Patrol, and now (perhaps?) Moon Knight. That's huge number for an extremely rare condition.

Comic books were always about weird shit and DID is weird.
But that's like two DID heroes for Marvel and one for DC... not that lot.

Now Wikipedia states:

"The son of a rabbi, Marc Spector served as a Marine and briefly as a CIA operative before becoming a mercenary alongside his friend Jean-Paul "Frenchie" DuChamp. During a job in Sudan, Spector is appalled when fellow ruthless mercenary Raoul Bushman attacks and kills archeologist Dr. Alraune in front of the man's daughter and colleague, Marlene Alraune. After fighting Bushman and being left for dead, a mortally wounded Spector reaches Alraune's recently unearthed tomb and is placed before a statue of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. Spector dies, then suddenly revives, fully healed. He claims Khonshu wants him to be the "moon's knight", the left "Fist of Khonshu", redeeming his life of violence by now protecting and avenging the innocent. While early stories imply Spector is merely insane, it is later revealed Khonshu is real, one of several entities from the Othervoid (a dimension outside normal time and space) once worshipped by ancient Earth people. On his return to the United States, Spector invests his mercenary profits into becoming the crimefighter "Moon Knight", aided by Frenchie and Marlene Alraune, who becomes his lover and eventually the mother of his daughter. Along with his costumed alter ego, he primarily uses three other identities to gain information from different social circles: billionaire businessman Steven Grant, taxicab driver Jake Lockley, and suited consultant Mr. Knight.

It is later revealed Moon Knight has dissociative identity disorder (incorrectly referred to as schizophrenia in some stories) and that the alter known as Grant and Lockley originally manifested during his childhood. Other subsequent identities who do not assume the Moon Knight identity have emerged at other points during his adulthood, including a red-haired little girl known as the Inner Child, a werewolf-fighting astronaut, and a Khonshu impersonator. It is debated in different stories whether Spector has genuine DID due to childhood trauma or if his similar symptoms are the result of "brain damage" caused by his psychic connection to Khonshu, a connection compelling his personality to shift between the four major aspects of the moon god's multi-faceted nature ("the traveler", "the pathfinder", "the embracer", and "the defender of those who travel at night"). Khonshu claims he created a psychic connection with Spector/Grant when the latter were young, decades before they became Moon Knight.[2]"

So yeah it seems DID was retcon of Moon Knight. When I was introduced to MK - he was already clearly multi-man.

[Omega]

Watched Moon Knight. Feels more like a suspense thriller than a comic book story, except for the final scene. The Moon Knights I'm familiar were mentally unstable, but didn't have DID. However, the character has been reinvented a bunch of times and I'm not sure where the comics are the moment, so I'm willing to give it a chance. I like the mummy wrappings look.

Is it me, or is DID way overrepresented in comic book movies and TV? Split, Legion, Doom Patrol, and now (perhaps?) Moon Knight. That's huge number for an extremely rare condition.

  All sorts of mental conditions are over represented in hollywood produced material.  I suspect the reason being people with those rare conditions are way over represented in Hollywood.

That might make sense with bipolar or depression or any of the litany of common mental illnesses, but DID is just too rare. I think it's just a fascination with extreme mental conditions.

It doesnt pop up as often as you'd think. And alot of characters dont start that way. See below.
Ones I can think of. Aurora from Alpha Flight, Green Goblin, technically the Hulk and the Lizard and more than a few other characters who transform and take on new personalities. Though thats more a Hyde type thing.

BUT

What does happen all too often is you will have a character who maintains one or more secret identities suddenly ret-conned into being muiltiple personalities, or DID as the new magic word is now. Blindness is another one that characters oft get afflicted with, usually temporary. For possibly all of his 80s run Moon Knight and Spector was perfectly normal. He had disguises and maintained them. But he in no way suffered from multiple personalities. Thats a new thing thats been inflicted on more than a few characters. Batman has been hit with it more than a few times by writers who apparently cant think their way out of a paper bag.

It shows a complete lack of thought on the writers side. As if anyone method acting or in deep cover MUST be insane and really have some sort of split personality. Its also a lazy way of turning a character "bad" or even evil. Not counting any temporary personality flips due to brainwashing, magic, bumps on the head, possession by entities and so on that are one and done.

Hollywood is hollywood and the execs and marketing can be expected to thing of things only in the most simplistic, and allways overblown, terms.

[Wrath of God]

I agree it can get out of hand, though for me it was fitting to this whole "not really willing" pawn of not exactly sane Egyptian demon-god.
Would be harder to get if it was just normal super-spy.

But then if I was observing character from 80s I could get different feel.

[Omega]

I agree it can get out of hand, though for me it was fitting to this whole "not really willing" pawn of not exactly sane Egyptian demon-god.
Would be harder to get if it was just normal super-spy.

But then if I was observing character from 80s I could get different feel.

That is another problem. Changing who Khonshu is.

They changed so much you could have changed the costume and called it Captain Anubis and his Amazing Split Personalities and no one would know the source.

[Pat]

I really like the look of Khonshu and they made him menacing at the start, but then they did their best to present him as a joke, and gave him a flippant modern one-liner. That killed the gravitas they'd been building.

I do like the different aspects having different costumes, though. They even seem to fit in logically. The nebbish becomes Gentleman Moon Knight, while the merc seeking redemption becomes a superhero. The outfits reflect their aspirations.

They seem to be attempting to play a bit of an is-it-real? game with the monsters no one else can see, but they undercut that by having the costume visible, and the glass trick.

Some okay ideas, but it's not really gelling.