After the trailer broke viewing records for the pandemic era, its clear that fans are excited for the upcoming Eternals movie. With beautiful costumes, a phenomenal cast, an epic storyline and months before its actual release, it seems hard to critique the movie at this stage. Yet where Eternals already falls short is in how close it gets to a troubling and pervasive racist theory.

Eternals focuses on the eponymous Eternals, a race of beings who split off from humans early in the evolutionary process due to the Celestials' experimentation. With significantly greater power and longevity than mere humans, these beings have interceded in the history of humanity only lightly, with the trailer claiming that they watch, guide and help humanity "progress." The main drama of the movie seems to center around a moment where the Eternals must intervene in a much more involved way.

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The problem with the plot as promised by the trailer is how worryingly close it gets to the racist theories about ancient alien interventions. Popularized by the TV show Ancient Aliens, these theories claim that the technological innovations required for massive ancient architecture like the Egyptian pyramids were beyond the reach of indigenous cultures and must have instead been handed down from alien interlopers. In the Eternals trailer, this idea is echoed in the implication that the Eternals "guided" humanity to their cultural achievements.

Eternals Ishtar Gate

The obvious issue with these theories is that they deny predominately non-Western cultures of their ability and accomplishments. Those who believe these theories, particularly white scholars and viewers, look at the works of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Inca, Shona and other peoples and claim that these groups couldn't have done great things so aliens must have been involved. It's inherently racist and adds to the long history of western denialism that has had a damaging and traumatic impact on the telling of histories. By inserting the Eternals into this narrative, it not only further popularizes these theories, but continues the destructive history of wresting culture away from other people.

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Weirdly, the Eternals themselves may not explicitly be aliens. The trailer depicts them as an un-aging alien race, but the comics describe them as an off-shoot of human evolution on Earth. Regardless of whether they are truly "alien," the story of Eternals still engages in the narrative of denying historical cultural achievements by crediting interlopers with influence and inspiration. If the iconic moment in the trailer where multiple Eternals gather in front of a vibrant blue gate clearly patterned off of the Ishtar Gate of Babylon is any indication, these interventions will primarily focus on non-Western cultures.

It's possible that the Eternals movie itself will find a way to side-step the racism of the ancient aliens theory or, ideally, address it head on in an informed way. But given the connections between the source material and the ancient aliens theories, it seems likely that the movie will do what the trailer promises and find a new way to repackage this racist idea, probably in an incredibly visually stunning and effective way.

Directed by Chloé Zhao from a screenplay by Matthew and Ryan Firpo, Eternals stars Gemma Chan as Sersi, Richard Madden as Ikaris, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lia McHugh as Sprite, Don Lee as Gilgamesh, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Barry Keoghan as Druig and Kit Harington as Dane Whitman/Black Knight. The film arrives in theaters Nov. 5.

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