Several Eternals Costumes Were Entirely CGI

Welcome to your (probably daily) reminder that technology is absolutely wild and the future is here (whether you like it or not). In the year of our lord 2021, we're used to seeing a good smattering of CGI when it comes to those big, bombastic superhero and action movies. Hell, CGI is so commonplace now that it becomes actual news when films use practical effects instead. However, it seems like Chloé Zhao's "Eternals" really upped the ante when it comes to creatively using CGI. These aren't just your Michael Bay 500 explosion effects, this is something else entirely.

In an interview with Collider, visual effects supervisor Matt Aitken dropped some surprising tidbits about VFX used in "Eternals." According to Aitken, a few characters had to be wrapped into fully CGI costumes due to the fact that their signature looks were still actively changing during post-production. Thena, who is played by Angelina Jolie and can create sick looking weapons right out of thin air, was one of those characters. As Aitken succinctly explained: "When she's [Thena] in her superhero suit, it's always entirely CG ... she's a CG from the neck down because the suit design changed in post-production."

Aitken goes onto explain that even though Jolie's suit was fully CGI, the VFX team worked very hard to make sure everything felt naturally like Jolie. From the way she moves, to the way her (very real) face meshes with her (significantly less real) CGI suit:

"Getting her body performance so that it had that iconic aspect to it, they've cast Angelina Jolie for a reason. And part of that is that she has a way of moving that's almost like a dancer. Making sure that we honored that with the digital component of the performance, but the capturing of her face particularly is what I'm getting around to here, getting that authenticity so that we can do a mid-shot as a digi-double and it's not going to be jarring for anybody. It's not going to pop them out of it. They're just going to think, 'Oh, this is another Thena fight beat.'"

And the CGI costume madness didn't stop there. In an after credits scene, we meet Eros, AKA Starfox, AKA brother of Thanos, AKA Harry Styles. Styles' last-minute appearance in the movie was kept a secret until the very last second, which meant that he too received a sweet CGI costume. Moreover, Eros's costume was still being tweaked during shooting.

It really makes you wonder, are we careening toward a future where every costume is CGI and film fashion pushes past our current understanding of how clothes look and move and fundamentally work? Maybe! And honestly, it sounds like fun. Give me a "Sex and the City" but with insane CGI Manolos. Give me a "Devil Wears Prada" filled with Chanel suits that defy gravity. Let's go all in.