1 Eternals Cut Scene Would’ve Rescued Kingo's Story
Eternals introduced a whole new team, and as such, it struggled to explore the stories of each member, and one deleted scene could have rescued Kingo’s story. With the Infinity Saga now over and the original Avengers team no longer active, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 4 is introducing new events, concepts, and characters, and it has already introduced a new superhero team in Chloé Zhao’s Eternals.
The Eternals are a group of synthetic beings created by the Celestial Arishem the Judge and sent to Earth to protect it from the Deviants, the Eternals’ evil counterparts. The Eternals stayed on Earth after the Deviants were defeated in order to help humanity evolve, but they weren’t allowed to interfere in their conflicts. The Eternals ended up parting ways due to their different views on humanity and other factors, and re-teamed many decades later after the death of their leader, Ajak (Salma Hayek), the return of the Deviants, and the fast approach of an apocalyptic event called “The Emergence”. The Eternals ended up learning the truth about their origin and mission on Earth, which was all about helping the Celestial Tiamut to be born as its seed had been planted inside Earth, but its birth meant the destruction of the planet.
Eternals is unlike previous MCU movies as it had a more serious and even philosophical approach, and it also introduced a bunch of characters all at once. The team is formed by Sersi (Gemma Chan), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Druig (Barry Keoghan), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), Thena (Angelina Jolie), and Gilgamesh (Don Lee), but as time is limited, not all of them got enough screen time nor were they given the chance for the audience to really get to know them, and in some cases, that ended up hurting the character. Such is the case of Kingo, whose story felt superficial and wasn’t properly explored, but a deleted scene from Eternals could have fixed this as it expanded more on how Kingo was before the team split and how much he had changed.
Speaking to Buzzfeed in 2021, Eternals writers Ryan and Kaz Firpo opened up about the process of bringing these characters to life as well as some behind-the-scenes secrets. Ryan and Kaz revealed they shot an extended India sequence set in the Gupta Empire in 400 AD and that this scene expanded on Kingo’s character. Ryan Firpo explained that this deleted sequence set up the contrast between who Kingo was in the past and how he’s in the present “a little bit more strongly”, but didn’t share any more details nor did he or Kaz explain why the scene was cut. With so many new characters and not enough time with just one movie, Eternals was bound to fail many of its main characters, and two of them – Ajak and Gilgamesh – didn’t even make it to the climactic battle at the end of the movie. Eternals focused more on Sersi and Ikaris, and while Sprite and Kingo can be seen as secondary protagonists, their backstories and more were left a mystery and the audience only met them at a superficial level.
Of course, one scene wouldn’t have been enough to tell the whole story of Kingo, but that deleted scene would have definitely added more layers to the character and allowed the audience to know him a bit better, while also showing how much he has changed since the team separated. This could have also explained better why Kingo sided with Ikaris without thinking it twice and didn’t care about saving a planet that had given him so much. A sequel to Eternals hasn’t been announced yet, but if it happens, the writers have a lot to fix and tell about the rest of the team in order to make them more relatable and get the audience to truly care about them.
Source: Screenrant
Post a Comment