Annihilation (2018)

Woodsman

The Living Force
Hi everybody! So.., I saw the new sci-fi film, “Annihilation” (2018).

Scripted and directed by Alex Garland, the same fellow who brought us “Ex-Machina”. -Based on a book by Jeff Vandermeer, (I’d not heard of him or read his work).

My quick take-away:

“The New Ghostbusters vs 4th Density Bleed Through and Genetic Contagion!”

Spoilers and Triggers and No Hugs lie ahead! (Well, just the spoilers actually, and barely any of those. I just feel compelled to point out the similarities between Spoiler Alerts and Safe Spaces and be a bit of a contentious ass about it now and again.)

Anyway...

“Annihilation”.

I get the feeling that the writers were working on a wavelength suitable for channeling concepts from beyond, but didn’t have the necessary knowledge to understand how to interpret what was coming through and thus their film suffered from a garbled kind of signal loss. It was like a dream projection of higher reality/Wave issues.

The film featured such elements as a comet impact, (right into a lighthouse which served as the center of the phenomenon), lost time, high strangeness in zones of altered reality, and alien pathogens squishing DNA around according the state of consciousness of the afflicted; the idea that DNA and consciousness are energetic expressions which can be refracted and bent.

It was all quite engaging, actually. The Dream Interpreter in me was fascinated.

The all-female cast of adventurers was very convincing to me, too. The way they carried their energy and interacted with each other... I thought, “Yeah. That’s actually a lot like how I see women function in groups and in command structures. And none of them seem to hate men. How refreshing!”

Mind you, the script failed them; it was loaded with, “Oh, Come On! That’s stupid!” moments. "Nobody would do that!" -The writers lacked insight into certain aspects of how the Real World works.

So.., a comet strikes Earth along the American coast, and a bizarre and very obvious spectral phenomenon (observable from orbit) emerges and swallows everyone who enters. And it’s growing!

Okay. But apparently the world powers are very chill about it all, (if involved at all; it’s hard to tell). -From what we are offered as viewers, apparently the combined might of 4 black SUVs, one helicopter and a concrete ‘science’ bunker are sufficient deployment when dealing with a genuine Threat From Beyond -which has already swallowed a town, a military base and is projected to End The World if left unchecked.

To be fair, it was said that there was a water approach made as well, and the satellites were mentioned, but still... The response seemed heavily medicated and lacking muster.

A single military psychiatrist is, (for some never-explained reason) in charge of the entire operation.

She, (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is responsible for figuring out what the heck is going on, and over a three year period achieves a big fat nothing. “Nothing which has gone in comes out” and that it’s really weird, seem to be the only information they’ve managed to obtain. -Only a couple of previous teams have even been sent to investigate.

The sci-fi geek in me was wearily asking a variety of questions throughout the film, including...

“Did you trying throwing in a camera on a rope? Or one of those bomb disposal robots?”

“Maybe instead of ambitious multi-week missions to reach the center of the phenomenon, you could start small by say, jumping in to look around and take some samples while everybody on this side of the energy barrier can still see you, and then jumping out again, you know fast-like? That way instead of 3 years of No Clue, you would at least know about the DNA weirdness. Christ, I’ve seen high school science projects which use more basic sense.”

"Oh! Did you try pushing a plastic tunnel through the barrier? Maybe send a monkey or something in first?"

“Hazmat suits and gas masks in the lab, but none for your contact teams? Really?”

“For your final Hail Mary, you sent in scientists, all of whom were mentally and emotionally unfit for the job, without a top-notch military escort?” (Well, they were clearly given a week or two of survival training, but they obviously weren’t very good at it. They did a lot of stupid things and people died because of it. Good job!)

And finally...

“Why does everybody in senior management talk as though hired from the Twin Peeks sheriff's department? What is the MATTER with you people?? Do people in Alex Garland’s world actually all talk like that?”

And yet, in spite of all of that, I still wound up really quite enjoying the film, and I’d recommend it to others. -Especially if you liked, “Arrival”. It had the same tone and it encouraged viewers to stretch their minds in useful ways.

A note on the writers: Despite all of the logical issues evident in the film, they seemed to me at least trying to run their narrative thought experiment in an intelligent manner. That matters. -I don’t know quite how to describe it, but there was an earnestness about it all. -Like, if you had pointed out some rational concerns during the scripting phase, you would have been listened to seriously. -Not at all like the sense I get from other productions, where egos would likely flare and people would roll their eyes at you and tell you to lighten up, and ask, “Why can’t you just be entertained?”.

So I ended up enjoying the film.

I thought the lighthouse being hit by a comet was perhaps a sidelong reference to SOTT.

Like I said, it was a feast for the metaphor savvy, if sloppy around the edges.
 
Way to overthink it! lol No, you make a lot of valid points. Actually, I was pretty entertained until they reached the lighthouse. Then they had to go all Interstellar on us! At that point they were over thinking it! IMO :rolleyes:
 
Just watched the trailer and look like more as an horror movie than a sci-fi one to me.
 
Sending in a team unfit for the job reminds me of "Stargate"... that 'military' team was so low grade... and a suicidal commander? ;D
Otherwise, it's a nice film... classic in many aspects of encountering other peoples... military mindset is so out of place though.... and your analysis of this one seems similar, especially since this isn't a new phenomena... but they always protray it as if is is... ignore all of history.... "It's different this time". ;)
 
I've watched the movie on netflix a couple of days ago, there are a couple of ideas that i liked, for example i liked very much how it started, the whole thing made me think of the coming/arriving of the Wave and it's effects on life on Earth including people, but, unfortunately the screenwriter, director and so on had a limited imagination and understanding of our reality and as a consequence they haven't been able to deliver to the audience anything original, extraordinary, like other exceptional movies like The Matrix, Interstellar and so on. But this is just my opinion. :cool2:

P.S.

If i may, i'd recommend watching Cloverfield Paradox, now that is really a great sci-fi movie.

Edit: Added P.S. remark
 
Andre' said:
P.S.
If i may, i'd recommend watching Cloverfield Paradox, now that is really a great sci-fi movie.
Reviews weren't good all round on C Paradox... why did you think otherwise?
 
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