Civil War has a similar conceit at its center. What happens when a family—in this case, the Avengers—is faced with a major decision, only to discover that they fall on opposite sides of an ideological split?
In the lead up to Civil War, many fans (including this one) got excited to see the MCU grapple with the complex themes presented in the comics source material. In the seven-issue limited series and its loose big-screen adaptation, the U.S. government passes a Superhero Registration Act that will effectively place super-powered individuals under official regulation. The superhero community is divided in the storyline that explores the tension between freedom and security, and the film adaptation was poised to pick up the thematic threads left lingering at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
However, while Civil War presents a similar premise, with Captain America and Iron Man falling on different sides of the political argument, the film eventually pulls its ideological punches in the third act, dumbing down the conflict to an interpersonal dispute over Bucky, who killed Tony’s parents when he was the Winter Soldier. It works on an emotional level, as the MCU has spent many films developing these characters and their relationships, but it fails in its main thematic aspirations.
Eternals doesn’t have the benefit of many films of character development to support its emotional stakes, and audiences are divided on whether the movie succeeds in making us care about these characters and their drama. However, when it comes to its thematic aspirations, Eternals succeeds where Civil War could not, with members of the Eternals family brutally fighting in the film’s third act, driven by their opposing ideological beliefs.
Sersi and Ikaris
On one side, we have Sersi, the Eternal who has always loved humanity. When we first meet her present-day incarnation, she is immersed in human culture—both past, in her love of antiquities, and present, in her passion for teaching kids and in her love of Dane. She spends her evenings at the pubs, and seems happy in her mundane, human existence.
On the other side of the ideological spectrum is Ikaris, the Eternal who has removed himself from humanity in recent centuries. Unlike Sersi, he has never sought to be amongst the people, but rather to stand apart from them. In the present-day narrative, he has spent hundreds of years making peace with the idea that humanity must die so that other life in the universe can develop.