History Headscratchers / Annihilation2018

** It's stated in-universe that it's yet another combination they are trying out for new group composition, this time it being all-female, all-civilian group. The "all-civilian" is a stretch, but the point is to send anyone else than soldiers on active duty.

*** Their radio communications get refracted in the shimmer. I'd assume that would disrupt the signals needed to keep the drone operating and see camera footage from it remotely.

* A meteorite big enough to have a visible tail during daylight crashes into a lighthouse, in close distance to a small community. Somehow, nobody noticed. How is this even possible? How it didn't cause any noticable seismic pattern? And how the hell the lighthouse didn't simply collapse after being hit by something so big, instead having a hole cut right through it?

* The Humanoid seems to be better off as is than trying to mimic a human being. Considering it is extremely tough, strong, no need for food or water since it has no mouth, can teleport AND no sense of self harm before wanting to mimic a human. Yet when "Kane" came back to Lena's house, it retained the teleporting aspect but, "he" started bleeding out from the mouth and dying. Why bother with choosing a more flawed organism to copy? Why not try to EVOLVE said organism and THEN try to copy it? I liked the movie by the way.
** The movie implies (and the characters come to this conclusion as well) that the being doesn't want anything and it may not even be intelligent. It act and it mirrors, but it doesn't seem to do so with any particular design or intent, which is evidenced by all the mutations throughout the shimmer; things just mash together. Sometimes they're beautiful and sometimes they're arguably better hunters or what have you but just as often they're worse off or just generally out there. They even explicitly say it in the movie: things aren't necessarily getting better or worse, they're just becoming different. Also, at the end, the alien Kane doesn't seem to have a motivation or a mission. He's just there. So I don't think the alien presence thought either way about being better off as is or not. All it could do was what it did, and its ambiguous whether or not it was even doing it on purpose.

** There is another explaination. Since whatever that was in that meteor works like a prism, it reflects everything. Including images. So it "saw" humans standing in those spots when it hit the lighthouse and then just created the image of that. So think about those human-shaped plants as if they were some sort of still image or a snapshot of the moment the thing from meteor "saw" them.
*** Or maybe they're all people from previous missions who, like Josie, gave up the will to live. It is implied she'd rather take her life rather than fall victim to the Shimmer, before she wanders off and disappears into the garden of people.

** The suits that the doctors were wearing while talking to Lena require an air supply; either a hose connected to an external tank, or a scuba-like tank, which would limit any exploration to the shimmer to a few hours / limited number of feet from an air supply. Even things that don't require an air supply (MOPP gear such as chemical-impermeable clothing and a gas mask) still is not meant for round the clock use over the course of two weeks, the planned duration of the mission.

*** I'm guessing that it happened the one time they were all asleep at once? They seemed dedicated to keeping a watch after that...
** I think this is actually the film's intended reason for the crews not making it out of the shimmer. But, this is one time where something like a daily journal with handwritten notes would have been incredibly useful.

** Paving roads with concrete signs in areas known to be consumed by the shimmer, or making immobile landmarks;

*** There is also the fact the preparation for each group amounts to nothing. They aren't even handled paper maps of the terrain nor are debriefed about it, ''while everyone is aware'' electronics are expected to be unreliable or stop working inside. And to bring it further, nobody apparently entered the Shimmer with the simple mission of "get 10 meters inside, set up equipment, get back".

** The "bear" is shown as clearly more intelligent, more aggressive and just plain weird when compared with any species of bear. A normal bear, as long as doesn't make grunting noises nor calls, can effectively sneak or at least get very close. This one is "hunting", so it first sneaks, then mimics the voice and gets a drop on Anya the moment she gets out of the building. It is never made clear if the "bear" is calling for help, because it understands what does it mean, or simply because that's what Shepard was screaming while being torn apart. So if it helps, try to imagine it [[NightmareRetardant repeating random words in high-pitched voice of a valley girl talking about hot boys]].

* What was the significance of Lena arriving at a building (inside the shimmer) that is an exact replica of her house ([[https://www.thisisbarry.com/wp-content/uploads/Annihilation/house.jpg this one]].)?

** It may not even be "screaming" from its own perspective, just vocalizing the same way a normal bear grunts or chuffs to itself every so often. It's not the ''bear's'' fault, or willful choice, if its vocal cords have been mutated to resemble a human it'd eaten, is it? As for its stealth, real bears can get alarmingly close to people without being detected.

** It may not even be "screaming", just vocalizing the same way a normal bear grunts or chuffs to itself once in a while. It's not the ''bear's'' fault, or willful choice, that its vocal cords have been mutated to those of a human.

*** The various writers quickly began suffering from dementia and the like, much like in the film, and would record gibberish or otherwise unreliable accounts. This is a big part of the book in fact, we're not even sure how reliable the narrator is

* Why is the last expedition sent inside the Shimmer an all-female team?

** That now even Lena’s mind is being reflected and refracted by the bizarre power of the Shimmer. Even her thoughts aren’t safe.

* What was the significance of Lena arriving at a building (inside the shimmer) that is an exact replica of her house ([[https://www.thisisbarry.com/wp-content/uploads/Annihilation/house.jpg this one]].)?

** Follow up: maybe the Shimmer clone tried to "bond" with other people, but for some reason or another, it didn't work. Like Lena said, Ventress never planned on coming back, but Lena did. So maybe that mentality somehow distorted the clone's ability to fully function as a copy.

** If what happened to the rest of the weird phenomena at the end is anything to go by, they probably got incinerated by the mass-refracted White Phosphorous grenade just like everything else. Going on the assumption that they were sufficiently mutated by the Shimmer to be "connected" to it through the [[BuffySpeak multicoloured vampiric techno-nebula-humanoid-thingy]] in the lighthouse.

* What do you suppose happened to the mutated life forms after the Shimmer was destroyed?