Are Marvel's 'Eternals' More Powerful, Less Sassy Versions of the Guardians of the Galaxy?

The next Phase 4 film slated to premiere has a stellar cast of stars, but what is Marvel's Eternals actually about? The main gist of the film features a group of beings that are clearly more powerful than the Avengers teaming up against a dark entity. Eternals was directed by Academy Award-winning director Chloe Zhao.

An official trailer for Eternals had Kit Harington's Eternals character Dane Whitman asking why the Eternals didn't interfere when Thanos snapped away half of the universe. According to the same trailer, the Eternals came to Earth 7,000 years ago in order to protect humans from Deviants.

Based on the information from the teaser trailer and the final trailer, the Eternals appear to be a more powerful, less-snarky version of the Guardians of the Galaxy. (Keep in mind, many Marvel fans who aren't religious comic book readers hadn't heard of the Guardians of the Galaxy either until the 2014 film was released.) Salma Hayek's Eternals character, Ajak, foretells what the film is likely about in the final trailer.

"But the people of this planet brought everyone back with the snap of a finger," she said. "The sudden return of the population provided the necessary energy for the emergence to begin." What the emergence is though exactly, is unknown. Haven't the people of Earth been through enough at this point? Thankfully, the Eternals have humanity's back with this new threat.

It appears that the Eternals had separated over the centuries, and the looming threat of the divergence forces them to come together once more. Who is the big bad of Eternals? If we follow the rule set up in the trailer that the Eternals can't interfere in Earthly affairs unless it has to do with Deviants, then the villain must be the guiding force behind the Deviants. A grey figure does threaten Angelina Jolie's character Thena in the trailer, declaring, "You can't protect any of them."

Could the conflict of Eternals factor into the overarching multiverse issue that Marvel seems to have been setting up so far? It's a bit too soon to tell, but the threat against Earth must be significant if the Eternals are getting involved. If it's still difficult to fathom why these Deviants are so dangerous look at it this way — Thanos was a Deviant/Eternal hybrid in the Marvel comics.

Disney released an official statement with a list of their films that would have an exclusive theater-only release for the remainder of 2021. Eternals was one of the films listed. Disney also noted in the statement that all of the films listed would be available exclusively in theaters for a minimum of 45 days.

There has been no confirmation yet as to when Eternals will be available to stream on Disney Plus. If the film will be initially released exclusively in theaters, that likely means that Disney Plus subscribers won't have to pay an extra free for premium access to Eternals when it does hit the streaming platform. However, that has yet to be officially confirmed.

Eternals hits theaters on November 5. Rounding out the rest of the aforementioned cast is Richard Madden as Ikaris, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Gemma Chan as Sersi, Lia McHugh as Sprite, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, and Barry Keoghan as Druig.