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willyolio Since: Jan, 2001
#1: Mar 10th 2018 at 4:08:50 PM

Anyone else seen this yet? I feel like it's yet another amazing film that is very confusing in a good way, and will turn off plenty of audiences. It's a shame, because movies that make me think for hours afterwards are great.

I think it's better than Arrival. A little more confusing as well but slightly more even-toned in terms of sci-fi hardness, and also more open ended. More straightforward than Ex Machina in some ways, more twisted in others.

I've got a lot of ideas and interpretations, and I'm not sure if I'm digging too deep and overanalyzing, or if the film really is that deep. Hard to say. Which makes the film great.

edited 10th Mar '18 4:10:56 PM by willyolio

Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#2: Mar 10th 2018 at 5:10:43 PM

I saw it. It was riveting and uncomfortable and mesmerizing at times. It was incredible, but difficult to watch.

Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#3: Mar 10th 2018 at 7:08:26 PM

It was okay, but I was disappointed at how far it fell short of the book. At least a third of it was a tedious, conventional love story between the protagonist and her husband. As I remember it, in the book her husband was part of her motivation for going on the expedition, but fascination with the area's biology was also part of it. Also, she was an ecological researcher rather than a medical one (which made her more suited to the expedition's needs) and rather more detached from the world - even before her husband disappeared - than the movie showed.

Also, she had already started to figure out that the man who returned from Area X wasn't her husband before she even entered Area X.

The parts of the movie that were inside Area X were excellent, but there was far, far too much filler, and the backstory/filler was far too mundane. I'd give the movie a B.

edited 10th Mar '18 7:08:56 PM by Galadriel

willyolio Since: Jan, 2001
#4: Mar 10th 2018 at 9:31:08 PM

[up]i think it's not accurate to rate a film by how closely it follows the book. They're meant to be different stories told in different ways.

I think the film is great. And Natalie Portman's character doesn't need to have curiosity as half a motivator. I don't see how it would improve her character. She would just be a different character, not an improved one. She would be lacking focus, and audiences would be left wondering how much she really cared about her husband if half of her just wanted to go inside anyway.

googlebot Herald of Endless Research. from The misty Albion Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: I'm just high on the world
Herald of Endless Research.
#5: Mar 11th 2018 at 10:00:01 AM

I remember seeing a trailer in the movie theater a while ago. It is out now?

“You can’t be an important and life-changing presence for some people without also being a joke and embarrassment to others.” -Mark Manson.
Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#6: Mar 11th 2018 at 10:29:04 AM

I'm not exactly rating it based on how closely it followed the book. (They changed a lot of things inside Area X as well, and I disn't mind because they kept it interesting and weird.). I found the parts of the story outside Area X to be boring, and thought they toook up too much time.

edited 11th Mar '18 10:29:25 AM by Galadriel

BZL8 Yes. from Somewhere Since: Apr, 2017 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Yes.
#7: Mar 11th 2018 at 1:48:56 PM

[up][up] In theaters currently in the U.S and Canada, Netflix elsewhere on March 12th.

[up] The movie I feel is more about exploring personal change and the connections between the human nature of how we live and the idea of self-destruction. The parts outside Area X I feel ties those themes together.

edited 11th Mar '18 1:49:12 PM by BZL8

Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#8: Mar 11th 2018 at 5:50:04 PM

It’s sad that it’s Netflix only because like it or hate it, it’s a big screen movie. Tons of tiny details in the visuals.

But I got to see it in the theatre here. Interestingly, the theatre was mostly full on a Tuesday at 1:10.

edited 11th Mar '18 5:50:34 PM by Zendervai

SgtRicko Since: Jul, 2009
#9: Mar 12th 2018 at 4:16:23 PM

How is this film not generating more discussion on this forum...? Man, I don't wanna call out TVT's tastes or anything, but I thought the community would've been more lively. Oh well. :/

Anyways, I was actually interested in seeing this film much earlier, but for some reason the film was delayed for an unusually long time here on Guam and just showed up the week prior. Sucks too, I really wanted to have a buddy to discuss this film with. And there's a reason for it: apparently, some folks believe the film to be a metaphor for cancer, yet I can't really see the connection. I understand that Dr. Ventress is terminally ill, hence why she chose to enter the shimmer, but it doesn't hold up well towards the others. In fact I'd say the film is more akin to accepting death and depression, because pretty much everybody that enters the shimmer seems to have some drama in their backstory. After all, what kind of person would sign up for a almost certain suicide mission, where no previous team has returned? Or perhaps, that's what they meant; an individual suffering from cancer will almost certainly encounter depression at some point of the illness.

But the lighthouse "alien mimic..." Man, that scene was reaaally trippy, maybe a bit too much. I'm able to interpret that morphing cloud/aura thing as being part actual physical entity, part mental hallucination that eventually took a vaguely humanoid form via Natalie's blood, but just why the heck did Dr. Ventress start breathing fire and literally collapse in on herself?!?

The one major complaint would be about the romance/ affair subplot. It was easily the weakest part of the film, so much to the point that I took it as a point to run out for a quick piss break before something else more interesting happened. Maybe I missed something beyond Natalie Portman's back having some weird muscle movements and slight nudity, but was anything of note discussed during that scene? Just curious if I missed something.

vicarious vicarious from NC, USA Since: Feb, 2013
vicarious
#10: Mar 12th 2018 at 6:56:32 PM

Probably could have been cut

But yeah, this was a very interesting film and I’m glad I saw it

HamburgerTime Since: Apr, 2010
#11: Mar 12th 2018 at 7:02:04 PM

I thought it was gorgeous and thought provoking. Like Lena herself seemingly was at the end, I found myself asking whether destroying the Shimmer and the creatures within it was really the right thing - it wasn't actually destroying anything, after all, and destroying it wiped out all the creatures it created, even harmless ones like the flower-deer. Hit home for me as an animal lover.

Eldritcho Since: Nov, 2016
#12: Mar 12th 2018 at 10:24:57 PM

[up] But they didn't destroy it. It just evolved.

artfulscruff Since: Apr, 2010
#13: Mar 13th 2018 at 4:34:54 PM

[up][up] I think the point of the affair was to establish motivation for Kane to enter the Shimmer, and then Lena to follow. But yeah, it was the weakest part of the whole thing, though it was just a small part. The good stuff was still good. I like a bit of ambiguity in my movies, most notably here was it really Kane who came back, or a doppelganger? I find it interesting that the Kane who commited suicide had a different accent to the one we saw both before and after Lena' expedition.

I have a beef with one of the tropes on the page though: was Anya really an Asshole Victim? Yeah, she tied up the other members of the group and threatened Lena with disembowelment, but she also saved them from the bear-thing, in the same scene, at the cost of her own life. I also think she was probably acting more out of desperation than just being horrible.

vicarious vicarious from NC, USA Since: Feb, 2013
vicarious
#14: Mar 13th 2018 at 6:51:40 PM

Yes she is

Desperate, with deteriorating sanity, was perfectly willing to kill them if said bear did not show

SgtRicko Since: Jul, 2009
#15: Mar 13th 2018 at 10:23:03 PM

Is there another Trope for the scenario described? Because while I can understand that labeling Anya an asshole might be a bit too much, especially given the extraordinary circumstances, the fact is she was just about to start mutilating her own squad and had lost her mind. That's pretty far gone, if you ask me.

Corvidae It's a bird. from Somewhere Else Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
It's a bird.
#16: Mar 15th 2018 at 4:41:49 PM

Just watched this. It felt vaguely Cosmic Horror-ish and got really trippy at times, but never quite to the point of not making sense. I liked it.

Have to admit that I chuckled a bit when the alien(?) started speaking in dubstep noices though. Weird artistic choice there.

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.
LDragon2 Since: Dec, 2011
#17: Mar 17th 2018 at 3:59:56 AM

Did anyone else get a bit of an Event Horizon feel from this film?

Corvidae It's a bird. from Somewhere Else Since: Nov, 2014 Relationship Status: Non-Canon
It's a bird.
#18: Mar 17th 2018 at 4:31:54 AM

[up] Still haven't gotten around to watching that yet, but based on what I've heard I could see why you'd say that, yes.

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.
artfulscruff Since: Apr, 2010
#19: Mar 17th 2018 at 4:42:48 AM

No. I didn't feel that there was anything overly malicious trying to draw them into the Shimmer, in the same way that the characters were actively being trapped or killed in Event Horizon. As was noted in the film, they don't know what the Shimmer wants, or even if it wants. It's just a weird phenomena that has potential negative effects on lifeforms.

Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#20: Mar 17th 2018 at 5:25:36 AM

I agree with artfulscruff. I didn't get the sense of anything evil from the Shimmer, just something inexplicable and dangerous. My sense is that there is some kind of consciousness in the Shimmer, and (among other things) it's trying to figure out humanity by imitation (first the human-shaped plants, and then the mirroring-people).

Also, pretty sure that both them main character and her husband are mirror-people at the end, which would mean the Shimmer has disappeared because it's found a new way to investigate the world.

In Event Horizon, people are destroyed by something evil. In Annihilation, they're destroyed by something that's simply outside their ability to conprehend. In a way, Annihilation is probably the closest thing I've seen to a Lovecraftian film (but without the, you know, horrific racism).

edited 17th Mar '18 5:30:51 AM by Galadriel

Eldritcho Since: Nov, 2016
#21: Mar 17th 2018 at 7:41:30 AM

I think you have that backwards: in Lovecraft's work, while the entities are often outside of human comprehension, Lovecraft made it very clear that they, at least under his own view of morality, were outright malicious towards humanity; it's only under modern readings that the "neutrality" has been read.

Lovecraft legitimately saw an angler fish using its lure to catch prey as active maliciousness on the anglers part, so take any sense of "neutrality" from his cosmic beings with a grain of salt.

Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#22: Mar 17th 2018 at 8:22:13 AM

Okay, not Lovecraftian then.

artfulscruff Since: Apr, 2010
#23: Mar 17th 2018 at 9:36:51 AM

[up][up][up] I don't think it's clear at the end whether Lena and Kane are doppelgangers or have simply been changed by the Shimmer. I also don't think there's any practical difference.

HamburgerTime Since: Apr, 2010
#24: Mar 17th 2018 at 9:40:05 AM

My interpretation was they haven't been replaced by aliens, but some traits of their late comrades have been refracted into them, like what happened with Cass and the bear.

artfulscruff Since: Apr, 2010
#25: Mar 19th 2018 at 9:47:56 AM

That could be the case where they're doppelgangers or not :P


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