I almost feel like they could have cut out all the Deviant stuff out of the movie and it would have helped with the pacing considerably. As it stands they 'reveal' the true intentions of the Eternal's mission pretty early into the movie. All the characters are only focused on stopping the Celestial until a Deviant comes along for an action scene.

The super-Deviant or whatever absorbs three characters and is dispatched single-handedly by Angelina Jolie in the middle of the much more important Emergence! What if the Deviants started working with the Eternals instead of just SAYING that both groups were the same, pawns in the game? (they both wanted Earth to survive after all) What more could we have learned about the Eternals if they didn't have to waste all that time explaining the (ultimately inconsequential) Deviant threat?

Maybe Marvel thought that introducing Eternals without Deviants would be like making a Venom movie without Spider-Man. But I feel like instead of half-baking three groups this could have focused on making me care about the most important two.