Eternals VFX Boss Reveals How Massive Celestials Really Are

By Adam Barnhardt

While Celestials have been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the beginning moments of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the massive cosmic beings took the center stage in Chloe Zhao's Eternals. Throughout their various MCU appearances—from the first Guardians to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and now in Eternals—they've largely appeared in different shapes and sizes, from living planets to humanoid giants. No matter the case, however, they've always appeared as massive beings. In fact, newborn Celestials are quite an astonishing size as well.

As Weta Digital VFX supervisor Matt Aitken tells us, Tiamut—the Celestial born from the Earth's core in Eternals—is a whopping 300 miles tall from head to his feet. He was so massive, Aitken and his team thought for quite a long time about how they could still make it possible to show on film.

"And the big thing that came to bear for us was about his immense scale. It's a hundred kilometers from his hand to his head. I think it's 500 kilometers, about 300 miles, from his head to his toes, so he's pretty big," Aitken recalls.

He adds, "I think if we had tried to be too literal about that scale, you probably wouldn't have been able to see him through the haze. When he was coming out of the ocean, the spray would've been ridiculous. And it's just we had to really find a language around that scale that helped explain that he was huge and big, but he could still play visually in the scenes where we needed him to look. I think he actually, figuratively, he sort of changes scale depending on what the needs are for a given sequence."

Eternals is now in theaters while Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is streaming on Disney+.

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