‘Eternals’ addresses Thanos and the Snap in final trailer

Leave it to Jon Snow, er, Kit Harington to ask the question that’s been on everyone’s mind since the first “Eternals” trailer came out in May.

Harington, who plays the human Dane Whitman (a character whom comic book fans are very familiar with), asks the Eternal Sersi (Gemma Chan): “Why didn’t you guys help fight Thanos? Or any war? Or all the other terrible things throughout history?”

Epic scope of ‘Eternals’

As you can see from the trailer, “Eternals” seems unlike any other Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) we have seen so far, particularly when it comes to the epic scope and breathtaking cinematography. We can thank “Eternals” director and co-writer Chloé Zhao for that. Zhao, the Chinese filmmaker who made history by winning the Oscar for Best Director for “Nomadland”, convinced Marvel Studios that it would be better to film on location.

Here’s what Zhao said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

“To fully capture the Earth’s harsh majesty through the years, Zhao pushed Marvel to leave the blue screens in the studio and film on location as much as possible. For one early scene, when the Eternals first arrive on the planet in 5,000 B.C., she and her cast and crew trekked to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, gathering on a rugged ledge overlooking the sea.

“‘It was probably the windiest cliff that I have ever been on,’ Zhao recalls. ‘You’d have to have a helicopter to achieve the wind that we had that day.’

“There, with clouds gathering and waves crashing on the rocks below, Zhao assembled her 10 actors into a triangle arrangement, a nod to one of her favorite Eternals comic covers. As she stepped back, she looked out at her cast — Gemma Chan as Sersi, Richard Madden as Ikaris, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Lia McHugh as Sprite, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Barry Keoghan as Druig, Don Lee as Gilgamesh, Salma Hayek as Ajak, and Angelina Jolie as Thena — 10 heroes that felt simultaneously ancient and brand new.”

The Emergence is here

“Eternals” will deal directly with the consequences of the Snap, which wiped out half of all life in the universe, and the Blip, which brought them back.

“Five years ago, Thanos erased half of the population of the universe. But the people of this planet brought everyone back with the snap of a finger. The sudden return of the population provided the necessary energy for the Emergence to begin,” Ajak (Salma Hayek) tells her fellow Eternal Ikaris (Richard Madden).

“How long do we have?” Ikaris asks.

“Seven days,” she replies.

With all the mind-blowing things shown in this final trailer, it’s almost impossible to grasp how epic this movie will be and how it will do justice to the all-star cast. After all, this is the first time viewers will be encountering all these strange new characters on screen. Even those of us who have read the comic books can’t be certain how things will go in the MCU.

Whatever happens, at least this movie is trying to be different than previous MCU films. In Zhao and in this all-star cast we trust.