Eternals is fast approaching its January 12 release on Disney+, allowing even more viewers worldwide to watch the sci-fi epic. New information has suggested that the film could even be seeing an extended cut, which would make Eternals the first Marvel Studios release to receive one. In anticipation of the streaming debut, the cast and crew have spoken a bit more about the film's production as well.
Director Chloé Zhao revealed that the film was originally intended to feature a much darker ending, which would have seen the Eternals simply continue on to bring about the Emergence on another planet.
Several deleted scenes have also been detailed, including a moment with Kingo and Gilgamesh connecting over movies and another featuring Sprite and Dane in the museum. The latter sequence has been teased by Sprite actress Lia McHugh, with the star posting a brief glimpse at the scene on social media.
Now, a visual effects supervisor on Eternals has revealed another beautiful moment that was cut from the final film.
Eternals VFX Supervisor Reveals Scrapped Scene
Speaking with Befores & Afters, Scanline visual effects supervisor Jelmer Boskma, who worked on Marvel Studios' Eternals, described a scrapped scene involving the Celestial Arishem.
The scene itself involved Arishem creating life on a planet, which Boskma states would have been an expanded version of the "big bang moment" from the film. Rather than stopping at the planet dying off, the sequence would flown down to the surface below and shown "life flourishing:"
"Earlier on, there was a much longer version of the big bang moment starting with a close up on Arishem’s hand as he’s creating a sun and a supernova. Then, eventually, we end up on a dying sun and a planet, an Earth-like kind of planet, turning ice cold and dying off. The idea used to be that the camera actually kept flying into this alien planet, Centuri-Six, and we see it being built up as a time lapse, not unlike that incredible timelapse shot in Darren Aronofsky’s Noah. We plunge into the water. We see the landscape grow around us. Then we come out, and we see creatures and life flourishing, and it’s all a giant alien planet. We storyboarded that. Previs’d a large part of it and did a bunch of keyframe paintings, but the idea changed."
Boskma also revealed that the planet would have been Centuri-Six, a planet where the Eternals were previously sent to on a mission. In the film, Thena begins to recall her memories of the planet, sparking her Mah'd Wyry which causes her to attack the other Eternals.
The change of the scene was quite peculiar, as Boskma reveals that this "usually happens much earlier on" in the process:
"It does happen from time to time, but it usually happens much earlier on in tandem with the script being refined. The art department and the visdev group at Marvel are the ones that tend to explore wilder ideas. Usually, that stuff is sorted by the time we step in."
Eternals' Beautiful Cut Sequence
Eternals' central message was about showing the beauty of life and humanity, and the importance of fighting for it. This sequence would have further reinforced this idea, demonstrating the wonder that the Celestials were bringing into the universe only to destroy them to fill their ranks.
The film already displays this relatively thoroughly to the audience through the Eternals' interactions with humanity, showing the good as well as the bad sides of the human race throughout history. Including this planetary sequence might have made for an impressive setpiece, but would have simply been conveying a message that the film already expresses in other places.
Could this moment make a return on the rumored extended cut? Or perhaps it could be repurposed in the Eternals' argument with Arishem in a future film, as they try to convince the Celestial why life is worth preserving.
Eternals makes its Disney+ debut on January 12.
