MovieChat Forums > Eternals (2021) Discussion > Reasons Chloe Zhao was a very poor choic...

Reasons Chloe Zhao was a very poor choice of director


1.) She had never directed superhero movie in her life. She has mostly done documentaries that are very boring, drab, and often they used filming skills that any idiot with a hand-held camera could do.

2.) She knew nothing about the Marvel Universe, much less about obscure superheroes like the Eternals. It's pretty obvious with how they are portrayed in the film. She doesn't seem to understand Celestials either.

3.) She was a diversity hire, checking off the "Woman," "Asian," "Person of Color/Non-White," and "Pandering to China," boxes, except big surprise! China hates her! They don't like her because she has spoken out against the CCP, and that's a big no-no when you're a greedy movie studio trying to get your movie shown in Chinese cinemas. (It was banned there, by the way). She didn't even film the action sequences. A more competent director did that. She just did the drama parts. (It's a dirty little secret someone leaked from Marvel Studios just a few years ago, and explains why many of their films have become so shitty--diversity hires at the expense of talent and experience).

4.) She was also chosen because she was an "Oscar Winner," which in this day and age makes her about as noteworthy as the people who cleaned up the sets of "La-La Land" and "Moonlight." We all know the Oscars are boring, worthless, and rigged in favor of whoever sucked up to the Academy the most, and who ticked off the most diversity boxes in that chosen year.

5.) She really can't write a script to save her life. It had plot holes the size of quantum singularities, a ton of logic fails and inconsistencies, no character development at all, the abortion metaphor was extremely obvious and transparent, the acting was terrible, what little romance that was there was weaksauce, and making one of the main characters a turncoat bad guy was just icing on this already shitty, pockmarked cake.

6.) People really did not like how drab and brown much of the movie was. Marvel movies are usually very colorful, and designed to get people's attention. Chloe apparently thinks she is contractually obligated to make all her movies as drab and devoid of color as possible, which is not the best idea for a Marvel movie.

7.) 75% of the film was introspection, basically people standing around, talking, or sitting around and talking, and what little action there was was in the very last act. Not a very good formula for a Marvel film, considering they are supposed to be full of action.

8.) Using the same rules your average Indian porn film uses for the one sex scene in the film. You can hardly see anything, and it's very dark...just like an Indian porn film. I don't watch them, but someone told me about their dabbling into it years ago, and why they quit with that particular genre of adult entertainment. Indians suck at doing sex films like Chloe Zhao sucks at doing love scenes.

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SO...YOU'RE A DUDE,RIGHT?

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I think it is less to with do with she is a woman, more to do with she is Asian.

Also the movie is fundamentally anti-religion (people are created by Celestials, not the one true God), that is a first for Marvel movies. I mean even Marvel universe was full of aliens, Captain America was shown as deeply religious, so that balanced it out somewhat, but the Capt is dead now.

I think it could influence an entire generation, I mean it is a Marvel superhero movie, kids are going to watch it. It might even shake the foundation of churches to some degree, that could explain the low IMDB score from the beginning.

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1. What's that got to do with anything? Ironman was Jon Favreau's first superhero movie, Thor: Ragnarok was Taika Waititi's first superhero movie. Clearly, a lack of making one specific genre in movies doesn't mean they can't make a good movie in that genre?

2. She's a huge Marvel fan.

3. I don't think she does the casting, the whole diversity thing is what marvel is aiming for.

4. She directed this movie before she won her oscar. And she was the one approaching the studio about this movie.

5. No, the movie is on par with the rest of the Marvel movies. If you think highly of the other, then you should too with this one.

6. That's a matter of preference for you, I guess.

7. The same with points 5 and 6

8. Wut?

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I Mean yeah, most of the OPs points were technically wrong. But she WAS a poor choice of director. It's no coincidence that all 3 of the worst MCU movies are directed by women, who were not qualified to direct them.

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It's not about their gender, honey. The fact was they were crappy directors that just wanted fame and fortune, rather than actually studying their craft better.

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The fact that they got hired is about their gender. I didn't say they were crappy directors either. I said they weren't qualified to direct MCU movies. It requires a specific skill set. Cate Portland initially rejected the offer to direct Black Widow, because she didn't think she would be able to direct a movie like that. And she was right. But she got the job because Scarjo wanted her to direct.

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And yet people in hollywood blame misogyny for these movies not doing well, and instead refuse to admit that hiring someone on the basis of their gender or skintone is not a good indicator of their skills.

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You ever think that the CEO's are purposely hiring the worst women because they know they will direct crappy movies and turn the public against them?

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Movie directors still need to know how to do the genre before ever attempting a big-budget film. John Favreau had done a number of other lesser known works that showed he had the potential to make good fantasy/sci-fi films. Chloe had almost nothing under her belt to indicate she knew how to make fantasy/sci-fi films before getting into Marvel.

Any idiot can be a Marvel fan, but she got stuck with a very obscure set of heroes because all the famous ones had already been taken, and her take on them indicates she knew nothing about the Eternals and wasn't happy having to tell their story.

You really misunderstood what I wrote. If she had been a white male director, Kevin Feige wouldn't have given her the time of day. They don't actually hire directors with talent anymore. They "cast" POC's to be directors to pretend they're the ones making the film, but often they don't know jack shit about how to do the action scenes at all, nor are they good at getting the actors to really go to their full potential.

Citation please. We do know this movie was made before the scamdemic, and its release was delayed, but I heard she did Nomadland before making "The Eternals."

Wow, you really have been asleep if you think this film stacks up with the better Marvel movies. Ever since Feige started directing and producing Marvel films in the mid-2010s, their quality has gone downhill. (To be fair, movies in general have gone to shit since 2016). Many fans and viewers attest that the last half-decent Marvel film was "Infinity War," or "Endgame," and the other films that have come after are either half-assed or weapons-grade dogshit. I guarantee you that people will be forgetting this dumpster fire of a film in less than a year, while still watching the older, better Marvel films over and over again.

I guess you love boring, drab films. I pity you.

The love scene was very half-assed, was in the dark, and had Icarus and Circe on a rock on the beach, naked, but you could barely see anything.

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I'm just pointing out some of your false points (in my opinion)

Again, it's not that she was assigned to do this movie. She was the one who approached the studio to do this movie. For what reason she chooses this I don't know. But I bet the studio was thrilled to have a hero ensemble movie that can be a diverse group.

The filming of this movie starts in July 2019, from Wikipedia. She filmed Nomadland before this, but the film was released in 2020. And she won the oscar in April 2021.

You misunderstood me. When I compared this movie to other Marvel movies, I was talking about it in general. I'm not really a fan of MCU. There are some exceptions like the first Ironman and the first and second Captain America. The other movies? Meh, nothing really special, but still entertaining (I'm not gonna go as far as calling it dogshit). This is what I think of this movie.

The movie is long, but the pacing is good. For the duration of the movie I've never been too excited, but it also never bored me, so it's a decent movie in my opinion.

The sex scene really doesn't matter to me. It's not that kind of movie, it's just an add-on.

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I pity you, I really do.

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That's a weird segway.

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The proper spelling is "segue", not "segway".

(though given today's anti-education system controlled by Leftists, I wouldn't doubt if they change the spelling the way they changed the definition of "vaccine".)

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Thanks.

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First of all, Zhao had two critically acclaimed films under her belt, one of which won an Oscar. That's still a big damn deal in the movie business because it gets you noticed and gets you more work. You make it sound like she's some newbie with no experience at all. Also, barely 2% of directors in Hollywood are woman or people of color----meaning 98% of directors in Hollywood are still white men---the majority. You really don't know what the hell you're talking about, and you clearly don't know how Hollywood works----it's still mostly white male-dominated. And your claim that POC directors don't know how to direct is pretty ignorant and just plain fkg stupid. POCs and female directors have always had to work a hell of a lot harder that white men to get work in Hollywood, precisely because they're not white men, and because Hollywood is still racist and sexist as hell. Black Panther and Black Widow were directed by Ryan Coogler, a black director, and Cate Shortland, a female director. Both of them already had films under their belts, but neither one had directed a Marvel film before. Black Panther became the world 's biggest box office hit, and Black Widow was one of this summer's biggest hits, too. Directing a film dosen't have s*** to do with your gender or color----you either can direct a film, or you can't. And Eternals has also been a huge box office hit, too. So, what you think dosen't even matter because the film was successful as hell. I'm tired of you racists on here always bitching and whining about the fact that more directors of color and female directors are coming up and making more films now. So shut the hell up whining about it. White men have dominated Hollywood long enough, like damn near since it started nearly a hundred years ago---it's past time for a change. I saw Eternals, and I liked it, and I'm not a big Marvel fan or anything like that. It was just nice to see a superhero film that dealt with deeper adult themes.

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"She has mostly done documentaries"

She's directed 4 features and 4 shorts. None of them are documentaries.

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And how come nobody has heard of any of those?

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More like you haven't heard of or know anything about her films, but nice attempt at deflecting.

How else could you make such an uninformed comment like "she has mostly done docs" when she's never done a doc? Did someone "working on set" tell you that too -- or was it Mom again?

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AmeriGirl26:

Zhao's second film, an indie film called The Rider, got a lot of critical attention and good reviews. Just because you didn't hear of it, that dosen't mean everybody else didn't. Nomadland got her even more critical attention and good reviews, and an Oscar. So Kevin Feig obviously knew who she was when he gave her the chance to direct Eternals. It's already made well over $175 million worldwide, here and overseas So all your claims about why you think she wasn't right to direct Eternals don't mean s***, because the movie is still killing it at the box office. Bottom line, you obviously didn't bother to look up Zhao's previous work, or you would have already known she's a critically acclaimed director, and has been for the past couple of years. Woman directors have rarely ever gotten to direct superhero films, and her approach to this one was unique. And since it's been succesfull as hell, she'll probably direct the sequel, too. That just pisses your racist, sexist ass off, dosen't it? Ha ha ha!

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You replied to me by mistake. I haven't seen Eternals, and I'm not a devotee of Marvel, but I knew Zhao, and The Rider is one of my favorite films. AmeriGirl26's post is just a tantrum made of Swiss cheese logic.

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I put AmeriGirl26's name in my post to address it to her/him. You're right, she/he dosen't know what the hell they're talking about. I mean, the white male director who did the first Deadpool film had never ever directed a Marvel film or a film before, period---all he'd ever done was some videos. Funny how AmeriGirl26 never has anything to say about that. White men get handed movies right and left, because Hollywood is still run by white men. This idea that Zhao and other directors of color just get handed films with no experience is just pure fantasy and bull****. She co-wrote the film with two others, and brought the property to Kevin Feig to et it developed, period. So she did know about it forehand.

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Yeah, the thing about needing to direct a movie like that before you're allowed to direct a movie like that might be the dumbest of all. Using her logic, no first films of any genre should ever have been made due to lack of experience.

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Totally agree with OP , this movie will be soon forgotten

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Which movie?

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Eternals

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Ah, I remember now. That was a Marvel movie, wasn't it?

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AN ETERNITY AGO.

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There's a nice video from the Insider here about how Marvel movies are made:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgvgi3ShcmY
Basically, they are first made on a computer years ahead of the actual films, and when the actual shooting starts, the director and actors have almost no creative input - they can't modify, change or improvise scenes, just film exactly everything that was given to them...
For this movie Zhao was just a director-for-hire and if they would have signed up another director, he would have done pretty much the same job.

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That sounds like nonsense. The films are too different from one another, and too tied to each director's personality and style for them to be mapped out ahead of time by some central planning committee. Beyond that, no director would agree to that, especially not an Oscar winner like Zhao.

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If the movies are different it's because that's how the comics are. Sometimes they get directors with a similar style to make the movies seem more serious and prestigious. Also, plenty of highly respected directors do these kind of jobs for quick and easy money, where they don't have much creative input, they just do exactly what the producers want.

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You're joking! :O That's not a very good process on how to make a film. It sounds too inflexible and factory-like.

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Totally agree with every point except writing a script. She was hired as the director not as a writer.

Also usually you can get by not knowing the content inside out if you surround yourself with the right people who know the subject matter intimately.

But the Direction and Camera shots…🤣😂🤣 LOL
The marriage scene had me roaring with laughter. The group shot of the wedding party looked like Da Vinci’s painting, The Last Supper. It was SO corny 🤣🤣🤣

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She wrote the script, and I even heard recently that an earlier draft of it was going to have the story end where the MCU was destroyed with the birth of the new Celestial, rather than having the Eternals stop it. How nice of her to show her true feelings about the MCU in her script.

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