Chloé Zhao's Eternals may not have had the best reception, but ever since it hit Disney+, it has been performing surprisingly well. Scores of people heard the discussion surrounding the MCU project and decided to wait until it hit streaming to give it a chance. With the film now out, many more people worldwide are getting to experience the cosmic epic that introduced over a dozen new characters into the MCU.
One of the biggest introductions was Harry Styles' Eros, whose arrival on the scene didn't happen until after the credits rolled. He wasn't alone, as he was accompanied by Patton Oswalt's Pip the Troll.
The scene saw the two teleporting into the Domo to recruit the remaining Eternals for their mission to help them find their lost brothers and sisters. But how exactly did the two teleport in the first place?
Viewers probably noticed that there was no golden Doctor Strange portal—or one of any specific color. Instead, more of a color mirage appeared as the two landed at their destination. So why did the creatives behind the film settle on that effect?
No Doctor Strange Portal for Eros
Marvel Studios' Eternals has recently been released on digital platforms, and with it came an audio commentary of the movie. During the post-credits scene involving Harry Styles' Eros, VFX supervisor Stephane Cerreti shared that another MCU portal influenced the design of Starfox's entrance.
He revealed that he "had worked on Doctor Strange and [has done] many portals in [his] life," so he wanted to do something different for the new character; so he took inspiration from disco:
"The portal? Oh, it was just like... That was another portal where we were like, 'I'm not going to do a circular portal. I'm fed up with...' Cause I had worked on Doctor Strange and I've done many portals in my life as a visual effects supervisor, and was like, 'Let's not do something we've done before.' And so we looked around and I thought about things, and I wanted something colorful using kind of mirrors and, not Mirror Dimension style, but playing around with the idea that he was coming out from a bit of a disco place. But I thought it was appropriate for Eros."
The film's director Chloé Zhao chimed in, saying: "Eros is the God of Love, so everything about this, you want to feel much more colorful and fun."
Redefining the Eros Style
It makes sense that Doctor Strange factored into how the creatives behind Eternals went about creating the portals that Eros used, which will likely be used in the future. Oddly, Cerreti quotes his time on Benedict Cumberbatch's MCU solo film as the reason for wanting to switch everything up.
In reality, while that surely played into it all, Marvel Studios would not have wanted to use the same look and feel as Strange's portal simply because Eros wouldn't be using the same magic to jump around. Consistency is key, and if it's not upheld, continuity and logic start to weaken and break.
The same thought process goes behind the strict color usage of various effects throughout the MCU. Wanda's red Chaos Magic, Loki's green illusionary abilities, Strange's golden sorcery—Marvel even made sure the blue that Wenwu's Ten Rings exuded in Shang-Chi wasn't the same as the Tesseract's blue.
With Eros' teleporting needing to be different, it does beg the question: how exactly is he doing it? The only two forms of teleportation so far are seen through Space Stone and the Sling Ring portals—which, when used, isn't technically teleporting.
Hopefully, Eternals 2 is announced, and Marvel will get the time to explore all of these concepts further.
Eternals is now streaming on Disney+.
