Eternals of Chloe zhao has established itself as a particularly original feature film in the spans of the MCU. In a cinematographic object with a hybrid imprint between author’s film and big Blockbuster, Zhao told the story of Eternals, a gang of superheroes designed to protect Earth from a threat called the “Deviant”. What is certain in any case is that the feature film strongly divided viewers. With only 52% positive reviews on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Eternals is the first film that gets a rating “Rotten” (rotten). On the box office side, Eternals cumulates an honorable $ 370 million in revenue, to be put into perspective, however, given the huge budget for the blockbuster ($ 200 million in revenue).
If the promotion campaign remained rather vague on the content of the story, the film left no room for doubt: very quickly, the Eternals must have rebelled against their leader Arishem, who planned to prepare the planet Earth at the birth of a Celestial, resulting in the death of the little blue planet. This misunderstanding resulted in two drastically different visions: Ikaris (Richard Madden) remained loyal to Arishem, even if it means alienating others Eternals. At the end of the film, the group manages to stop the birth of the Celestial and neutralize Ikaris.
The Superman of MCU, realizing that he was not very nice and no longer feeling legitimate with his fellows, decides to commit suicide by rushing straight towards the sun. Nevertheless, Ikaris had a prominent place in the film of Chloe zhao, so much so that many viewers have wondered if the character will be returning to the MCU in the future.
Near CBR, screenwriter Kaz Firpo seemed very definitive on the future Ikaris, and we should obviously no longer hear from him in the rest of the Marvel cinematic universe :
“When is the time when an Eternal begins to melt? How long would it take for a robot alien like him to melt? For what it’s worth, we’ve always thought of the scene that way. He realizes that he cannot stand what he has done to his family and the crimes he has committed. I don’t think he thought it was the wrong thing to do and that he was wrong. I think he just has a lot of regrets, and he’s sorry it got to this point. Sorry to see the way he lived on our planet as it was a heavy burden to carry. So this is an act of acceptance, where he tells himself that he made a big mistake, that he cannot look his family members in the eye, and that he cannot no longer live. It all started for him with an exile, and had to end in a definitive, radical way. It was the fruit of an observation in which he understood that if he could no longer serve the Celestials and no longer be with his family, the only way he had left was oblivion. So yes, he killed himself. He is dead. “