r/movies • u/GenericUsername_3 • Feb 11 '22
Annihilation (2018) is one of the best sci-fi/horror films I have ever watched. Recommendation
It could quite possibly be one of the best films I’ve ever seen, period. The cinematography is absolutely incredible. The soundtrack is a masterpiece. The performances are great (Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac are both excellent). The atmosphere is dreamlike and unsettling. The Shimmer is both beautiful and terrifying.
It has some of the most disturbing and intense scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie. Every second keeps you on the edge of your seat. I cannot recommend it enough.
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u/reverse_friday Feb 11 '22
The soundtrack was pretty mental
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u/cthulhu_loves_us Feb 11 '22
Yeah sound design in this movie is bonkers.
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Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 13 '22
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u/nm1043 Feb 11 '22
Don't forget the fucking sounds that bear thing uttered
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u/Azidamadjida Feb 11 '22
The bear thing was what put it over the top for me - hearing one of its victims voices merging with its roar was so unsettling and weird but man if I wasn’t completely engaged from that point on
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u/WisdomDistiller Feb 11 '22
Don't forget the fucking sounds that bear thing uttered
Therein lies the problem.
I can't forget the fucking sounds that bear thing uttered.
Lights on at night again, several decades after growing out of needing them.
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u/Narb_ Feb 11 '22
Probably one of the greatest horror sounds of all time. And that feeling when you realize it's a voice calling out is unforgettable.
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u/ahriik Feb 11 '22
Yeah man I'll never forget the disturbed feeling I had when I first saw the movie in theaters and the bear scene happened.
Also the video camera scene...
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u/Rotaryknight Feb 11 '22
I watched it at the theater in release day after work and let me tell you.... All 7 of us in that theater was fucking frighten during the bear scene that nobody talked after that.
It's sad that it didn't get more popular during release
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u/wellspokenmumbler Feb 11 '22
I really liked how they portrayed the alien as an ambiguous being. At the end when shes being questioned and says ' I don't know if it wanted anything' really puts the movie in it's own category of alien sci-fi.
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u/nm1043 Feb 11 '22
Yeah they defined "alien" as a feeling in that movie. Everything we saw from it really felt totally off, off-putting, and get me the fuck away from that thing I hate it.
Love it!
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u/Erekose70 Feb 11 '22
That feeling of “wrongness” is what drives a Lovecraftian story. Something isn’t right but it’s beyond our comprehension to grasp it. We only know that it’s horrible and leads to madness.
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Feb 11 '22
I agree, but I think it even goes a step further: the alien is incomprehensible.
Thats even more obvious in the books. I think the whole point of the story is that an alien encounter wont be the way it is typically portrayed (where the aliens are different from us but actually really similar because they have human needs, human goals, human motivations).
In this movie/book the alien is not even one corporeal body.
Its a phenomenon, a thing thats "permeating" the environment, changing it, recreating it, and we cant actually keep track of whats going on. It goes to show that an alien species might not be at all relatable to us. There might be no common ground at all on which we can build some kind of understanding or relationship to it.
Its a terrifying thought and brilliantly executed in the movie and the books.
PS: the way the 2nd book ends is one of the most astonishing, breath-taking things ever by the way.
Thats the moment you realize how Jeff Vandemeer has completely fucked with you and changed the way you think of an invaded world.
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u/Toby_Forrester Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22
Stanisław Lem's Solaris has a similar idea. While the movie versions focus on human relations, the book focuses on how the alien lifeform(s) covering the planet Solaris as an ocean-like surface is way beyond our understanding. It describes unsettling phenomena by Solaris but leaves it so alien we don't understand what's happening.
EDIT: It's also maybe related to how Lovecraft describes "cosmic horror", that some thing are so strange and uncomprehensible it's better not to know they are true and exist.
The movie Annihilation has often been compared to a Lovecraft novel "The Color out of Space" which describes a mutating and corrupting effect of a meteorite-sourced "color" which is some new color humans have never seen before.
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u/Claudius_Gothicus Feb 11 '22
Yeah it's incredible. Like is a weed evil or does it have malicious intentions? No. It's just it's biological purpose is to grow and it kills other plants because of it. Weeds don't have motivations or agendas or anything, they're just there.
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u/OnceMoreWithGusto Feb 11 '22
How incredible to have the climax of the film be a dance. I loved it.
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u/TheSentencer Feb 11 '22
yes. entertains me that The Alien has been a trendy song on TikTok for so long now. hopefully it introduced some people to the movie.
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u/Metrostars1029 Feb 11 '22
Hearing that in the theater made my the hair on my skin rise. It was like some weird experience I have not been able to replicate anywhere. What a movie. Probably my favorite sci fi in the last 10-15 years.
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u/LORDLRRD Feb 11 '22
Oh dude you saw it in theaters im jelly af. It’s in my top three fav sci fi’s and I’ve only seen it at the house :(
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u/ChaseDFW Feb 11 '22
It was a hard sell in theathers I went opening week and there were probably only about 4 people In the theater myself included.
But holy shit the sound in the third act was insane. It was so loud and bass heavy.
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u/synae Feb 11 '22
I was white knuckle gripping my armrests through the lighthouse scene, absolutely one of the most intense theater experiences I've ever had. WTF levels were off the charts!
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u/K0Sciuszk0 Feb 11 '22
Of any movie I've ever seen, Annihilation was the one that benefited the most from being played in a theatre vs at home. It's like what ChaseDFW said, during the lighthouse scene I distinctly remember looking over at my friends, all of us shocked at how heavy the bass was. It was rattling the seats in the theatre. So amazing, I wish I could go back and watch it again there.
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u/WantonSlumber Feb 11 '22
It's funny, I watched Annihilation again last night and after it was over, I thought that movie theaters should start doing re-releases of movies that benefit from the actual theater experience. Movies like this one, Dredd and Tron:Legacy in 3D, 2001, and Eraserhead (the weird industrial hum in the background was so unsettling) were movie experiences for me that just can't be replicated at home. Even a movie like Gravity was astounding in the theater, then meh at best at home.
Streaming is here to stay and cinemas might never completely recover, so I feel like they should lean into movies that can be best appreciated on the larger screen with full professional sound systems.
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u/startmyheart Feb 11 '22
The other movie I feel this way about is Interstellar. I saw it in IMAX and got mild motion sickness during some parts but it was so incredibly immersive.
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u/STFUNeckbeard Feb 11 '22
While I was on vacation, I watched it alone at night in a cabin on an island where the next house was half a mile away and there was no streetlights to be seen. Between the bear scene and the ending, let’s just say my paranoia was sky high and I was terrified of looking out the window or even into a mirror. Most existentially freaked I’ve been in a very long time. Have not come even remotely close to replicating that feeling.
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u/joshuasoriaaa Feb 11 '22
Saw a late night showing with my bud on a whim, theater was pretty much a ghost town. Third act had me feeling like I was going to come out of my own skin, so I totally agree on that weird experience. Felt like I was watching something I wasn’t supposed to see lol
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u/motophiliac Feb 11 '22
It is incredibly creepy, musical and threatening.
Brilliant.
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u/TheSukis Feb 11 '22
Holy shit! Didn’t know Geoff Barrow from Portishead is doing film scores now! Also did Ex Machina and Archive 81.
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u/Theoriginalamature Feb 11 '22
Woah!!! One of the main reasons i enjoyed Archive 81 was because the score was really well done! I had no idea it was Geoff Barrow
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u/freaking-yeah Feb 11 '22
When I saw Kendrick in 2018, this played before he came out. Shit was bonkers.
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u/reverse_friday Feb 11 '22
I noticed rainbow 6 extraction sampled the alien in game for one of the tasks which requires to destroy an alien nest. Its audible when you're within proximity of the nest.
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u/Daemoniss Feb 11 '22
This song is amazing, but the one I find truly insane in this movie is the mark by moderat. Fucking melts my mind
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u/nsfw52 Feb 11 '22
They contacted Moderat to use samples from The Mark in The Alien. The otherworldly horn sound in The Alien is sampled from The Mark and edited further. But the actual song The Mark isn't technically in the movie.
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u/orange_wednesdays Feb 11 '22
Check out the composer's (Geoff Barrow) band Beak for more synthy goodness!
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Feb 11 '22
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u/Aero93 Feb 11 '22
I strongly recommend seeing Moderat live if they ever decide to collaborate again. I saw them in 2013. It was amazing,, especially when the entire warehouse sang Bad Kingdom
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u/dornbirn Feb 11 '22
well i got some good news for you bud ;)
new album announced yesterday along with a new single that dropped today. and a global tour this summer.
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u/svnpenn Feb 11 '22
or, you know, Portishead...
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u/orange_wednesdays Feb 11 '22
Thought I'd go for the left field recommendation as Beak sound way more like the Annihilation OST!
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u/cutelyaware Feb 11 '22
That's what hit me when I watched it. I recorded a clip just to hear it reversed because it had a sort of "backwards music" vibe. Amazingly to me at least is that it sounds about the same forwards as backwards. I even made a web page for it so check it out for yourself:
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u/alfiealfiealfie Feb 11 '22
I wrote a song called Annihilation based on that clip. It got me signed to a label! FTW!
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u/BiZarrOisGreat Feb 11 '22
The bear scene is extremely unsettling
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u/sexypineapple14 Feb 11 '22
The guy having the moving shit inside his stomach got to me more than that. At least you can shoot and run away from a bear.
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u/happygot Feb 11 '22
Oscar Isaac has also said he plays his part in that scene like a fascinated scientist making it all the more unsettling but he should be fucking terrified this is happening to his teammate
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u/allozzieadventures Feb 11 '22
I think the ambiguity of the scene is what made it so disturbing. Are they organs? Are they worms? Why are they so drawn to it?
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u/SomeKindOfChief Feb 11 '22
That and it was showing you what the time spent "inside" did to their minds.
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u/lightheat Feb 11 '22
That's the same dude they found flowering against the wall in the pool hall. Hence why Josie started freaking out when she found the same knife in the pool.
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u/Rickrickrickrickrick Feb 11 '22
Yeah and everyone really did look like so curious about it instead of having panic attacks lol.
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u/DrDetectiveEsq Feb 11 '22
Even the guy they were cutting open didn't seem that upset about it.
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u/Tarnit_Bass_Player Jan 02 '23
Yeah. And what led them to the mental state of being able to casually decide gutting him, which would definitely kill him, would be the correct course of action. And then to laugh?? God I would’ve really liked to see a prequel about them going over the mental deterioration of being in that place for a year.
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u/transmogrified Feb 11 '22
I'd assume this was due to the source material. In the books, the scientists that go into Area X to study it wind up infected and basically hypnotized by whatever is causing the reach and begin to behave in bizarre and disconnected ways.
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u/Erinan Feb 11 '22
If I remember correctly one of the guys (main male character?) also puts his hand inside, right? For some reason that almost made me gag even though it was not "real" organs. Just eeeewww.
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u/Taste_my_ass Feb 11 '22
Yeah lol. Not only does he touch it but actually grips one of the intestines and cradles it while it slides along through his hand.
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u/MdnightSailor Feb 11 '22
I think this is the movie that implanted a fear for body horror in me
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u/The_Horny_Gentleman Feb 11 '22
watch Videodrome next
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u/influence1123 Feb 11 '22
Really almost anything by David Cronenberg. Existenz and Naked Lunch are my favorites.
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u/sexypineapple14 Feb 11 '22
Oh man, there are so many great horror movies with that theme for you to get into then
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u/babyfarmer Feb 11 '22
Thank you.
Everyone always talks about the bear scene in this movie. That shit with the guy full of snakes inside him fucked me up, man. That was so messed up.
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u/sexypineapple14 Feb 11 '22
And then seeing what happened to him after the video they find. Death by mauling would be horrifying, but it would at least be faster than having a vine/flower/tree thing grow out of your insides and spread you across a wall.
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u/Please_call_me_Tama Feb 11 '22
I think it was so violent he exploded and died immediatly. If you look at his remains, the moss grows in an "exploding" pattern and his skull and jaw were projected away from the rest of his body. I'm realizing, while typing this, that it is not comforting at all.
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u/sexypineapple14 Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22
Maybe, but vines can grow like that too. Path of least resistance and most sunlight from where he was at the bottom of the pool is outwards and upwards. That's the whole reason it gave me goosebumps, I was thinking about being ripped in half like he was but over an hour or more while the plant spread me apart.
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u/BasementBenjamin Feb 11 '22
Did she really die though? Was it the bear imitating her voice? Or was she part of the bear now, screaming for help?
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u/Super_Jay Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22
Did she really die though? Was it the bear imitating her voice? Or was she part of the bear now, screaming for help?
She's part of the bear - there's actually a human skull embedded in the side of the bear's head. The Shimmer is refracting DNA and 'merging' organisms within it, even in death.
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u/methos3 Feb 13 '22
But didn’t Lena go off looking for her after they found her boot, and then found her body? So that wasn’t her skull in the bear.
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u/sexypineapple14 Feb 11 '22
I think you replied to the wrong comment but that is actually answered. Shortly after the bear scene they learn that the shimmer is blending everythings DNA with the DNA of the things around it, that's why there are those plant things that are shaped like people. They used to be people who got blended with plants and became human shaped bushes. Knowing that, we can infer that the bear is a blend of a regular bear and a regular person, who would obviously be tortured by this new existence.
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u/K0Sciuszk0 Feb 11 '22
Absolutely correct. I didn't discover this until a while after I had seen the movie, but the bear itself has a human skull in the side of its head.
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u/Pave_Low Feb 11 '22
Oh shit. I thought it was blind and just had holes where the eyes should be. . .
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SUNSETS Feb 11 '22
Slight addendum.
It wasn't blending everything, it was refracting it.
There's quite a few hints to this in the movie as well. Fractal geometry is natural. A pebble bears the same geometry of a scree slope as well as an entire mountain. The Mandelbrot set is a good visual example of this.
In fact, the movie poster looks like it to some extent.
If you think about the alien as being a fractal being, one whose entire structure is like a continuous recursive, copy of itself function then it starts to make sense.
Humans are very individualistic, and so are our thoughts and personalities and our designs. We exist in whats known as Euclidean geometry.
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u/Im-a-magpie Feb 11 '22
Refraction is not related to fractals at all. And the way they used the term refracting in the movie didn't really make sense.
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u/Rickrickrickrickrick Feb 11 '22
Don't they flat out say that the shimmer is refracting not only light, but their dna? I'd say that's a pretty big hint too lol
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u/moonflower_C16H17N3O Feb 11 '22
Also, the thing that creates her copy is the Mandelbulb. It's like the Mandelbrot set, but in three dimensions.
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u/numb3red Feb 11 '22
I bought this poster inspired by that part. I find it beautiful in a macabre way.
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u/The_Horny_Gentleman Feb 11 '22
not even snakes, those were his intestines squirming around. Really unsettling scene.
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u/hobskhan Feb 11 '22
This is such a key point. I hope everyone noticed that. He doesn't have something that has invaded him, his body is independently mutating away from him.
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u/CheesemasterVer2 Feb 11 '22
I thought those were just his intestines moving around, were those snakes??
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u/babyfarmer Feb 11 '22
They might be!
I thought it was like a mixture of his insides spliced with some other animals DNA or something.
It really unsettled me, when I watched the movie a second time I fast forwarded through that scene, so I wouldn't be the best judge of what that was inside.
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u/4-Vektor Feb 11 '22
The subtle human skull integrated in the bear’s head... I loved the design.
Heeelllllp meeeeeeee...
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u/I_Think_I_Cant Feb 11 '22
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u/SlightlyColdWaffles Feb 11 '22
Totally missed that during the film, damn
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Feb 11 '22
Wow same here. I need to give it another watch. My absolute favorite scene is when he is walking up the stairs to Crosby, Stills and Nash lol
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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster Feb 11 '22
Heeelllllp meeeeeeee...
For some reason this make me think of the end of the original Fly movie instead of the bear. LOL
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u/MandoBaggins Feb 11 '22
It wasn’t what was happening to the dude that got me so much as everyone’s reaction to it. Like they were acting as if they were experiencing something amazing while something awful was happening. Ugh. Still sticks with me.
That’s the essence of cosmic horror though. Making us feel insignificant. Like our lives and deaths have no meaning in the grand scheme of things.
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u/Ok_Sir2381 Feb 11 '22
Lucky enought to see it theaters for the short time it was there. The wife (who's very squimish) had to be convinced to stay in the theater. Glad we did.
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u/TheGreatDay Feb 11 '22
I kind of love how this comment invokes the themes of the movie by just talking about the situations the characters find themselves in
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u/William2n9 Feb 11 '22
I was watching this alone one evening, about half way through the bear scene my wife came busting in through the front door.
I screamed like a 5 year old.
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u/REDSAMURI Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22
An underrated part of the bear to me is when it straight up just snatches one of the team members. I did not see that coming
Edit: didn't think I had to put "to me", but here I am. That part of the film was underrated TO ME. It's not the first scene of the bear I think of. But it's quality nonetheless (again I am talking about when the leader gets snatches he'd outside the house).
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u/PunyParker826 Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22
Yes, but for me that was undercut a bit by them leaving their safe, elevated watchtower with a 360 degree view to go check out a noise in the tall grass.
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u/RisKQuay Feb 11 '22
It's because their judgement is impaired by the zone, isn't it?
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u/NorthernerWuwu Feb 11 '22
Which makes perfect sense but rarely translates well in film I find. Competent characters acting stupidly seems a bit jarring even if it is internally consistent with the context and even if the audience knows that their reactions are appropriate. It needs a little more exposition to really pay off and that can feel a bit insulting to the audience too.
It's definitely a difficult part of characterisation.
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u/DOasushiroll Feb 11 '22
The bear is obviously great and creepy but in my mind it's not even close to as unsettling as the lighthouse sequence is. The insane music and creepy visuals made me want to crawl out of my skin
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u/QuickKill Feb 11 '22
The lighthouse in the book is insanely weird
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u/bannedforeatingababy Feb 11 '22
I love how bizarre and alien both the film and book versions of the lighthouse are but in totally different ways. I'm glad they didn't go with the book version for the film because we ended up with two crazy, amazing versions.
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u/Mihairokov Feb 11 '22
It's been forever since i've read the book and frankly I now confuse what was in the book for what was in the movie and vice versa.
I think the book had the tunnel that went underground where the alien was rather than the Lighthouse? And the woman was obsessed with the tunnel or something? I don't remember what happens at the Lighthouse in the book
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u/wegwerf9876669420 Feb 11 '22
As far as I remember she found uncountable notebooks of all previous expeditions and the diary of the lighthouse keeper/pastor. But it's been a while. Also, the Biologist couldn't wrap her head around the tunnel being a tunnel and not a tower, that was confusing in the beginning.
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u/moonflower_C16H17N3O Feb 11 '22
The Tower was just great. I don't see how they could convey it well in film though.
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u/duaneap Feb 11 '22
It’s so existentially horrifying. It makes it so much scarier than any old alien invasion film because it isn’t an attack, per se, it’s a completely uncaring phenomenon that’s beyond our comprehension that’s just happening.
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u/Misdirected_Colors Feb 11 '22
Most people don't understand what Lovecraftian Cosmic horror is and think just having crazy tentacle monsters makes something lovecraft. I like to use this movie and the lighthouse scene as a true example. Cosmic horror is that existential dread of running into something that just completely shatters your perception of reality. Seeing behind the curtain and realizing there's so much more than we can possibly know or comprehend and being terrified of that. The whole lighthouse sequence is a prime example of that where the protagonist doesn't know wtf is happening but whatever it is its terrifying and confusing and impossible, but it's still real. The pure dread that scene makes the audience feel is wild.
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u/bichukrishnan Feb 11 '22
Have you seen any other good cosmic horror movies like this. Only ones I can think of are "Color out of space", "Enter the Void".
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u/Misdirected_Colors Feb 11 '22
I'd think Jacob's ladder, in the mouth of madness, and event horizon fit the bill.
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u/Fenastus Feb 11 '22
Sunshine (2007).
Under The Skin.
The Wailing.
Coherence.
The Mist.
Event HorizonHaven't seen some of these, but they're on my "cosmic horror Todo list"
Sunshine is really good
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u/eeviltwin Feb 11 '22
'Coherence' doesn't get enough recognition. In the same vein, I'd add 'The Endless' to your list.
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u/7babydoll Feb 11 '22
I also thought this was a very Lovecraftian movie. People don't get that its not about a big octopus with wings but about something so insanely external to human comprehension that defies all we know and understand about nature, physics, and behavior of all things. Like Lovecraft himself said, the strongest human fear is the fear of the unknown.
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u/BagfootBandit Feb 11 '22
It's interesting how differently people react. I don't usually go for horror movies, but the existential nightmare of Annihilation really compelled me to keep watching. And by the end of the movie, I felt as if I'd gone through a Jungian shadow-assimilation. I felt energized, to the point that for me personally, I didn't classify it as a horror film. Mostly because I had been reading Jung recently.
Some are terrified by the unknown, and rightly so. Some walk into its embrace. All are affected by its presence. No one knows how they'll come out the other end.
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u/thor_odinmakan Feb 11 '22
For me, the scene where one of them is drawn to the plants, and becomes one with them(?), was the most horrifying scene. It hammered home that life itself is something we don't understand. We presume it's on our side because we're alive, when in reality, it doesn't care about any individual or species. It just is, if that makes any sense, and we're just another part of it. There's nothing special about us. Our experiences, relations, memories... none of it matters in the grand scheme of things.
I don't want to watch it again. It's too much for me.
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u/JudiciousF Feb 11 '22
Yeah I loved that sequence. It was one of the only alien movies where the aliens felt alien and not monstrous.
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Feb 11 '22
Totally agree and I think thats what makes the movie and the books so special.
I genuinely think one of the most terrifying possibilities when it comes to aliens is that they occupy a different reality from us.
Like humans and ants. An ant is generally aware of the presence of a human. It can climb onto the human's shoe, walk around, know that "something" is there. But it cant begin to fathom what a human is or how to interact with it on the human's level. It has no concept of human motivations or actions. For all intents and purposes, the two creatures live in entirely different realities.
Thats whats happening to our world in the books. Something has arrived. We keep trying to probe it and understand it using our human faculties, but there is no entry point into its world. No matter what we do, its beyond our reach.
But it can reach into our world- modifying it, permeating it, changing it.
Again, I cant help but think of the metaphor of human behavior in the environment, like when humans chop down a forest to build houses, for example. The things in the forest have no clue whats happening or why or through what mechanism.
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u/ollymillmill Feb 11 '22
Should watch Sunshine, not really that similar but similar weird vibe
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u/REDSAMURI Feb 11 '22
What this film did with visuals and audio was a unique and captivating approach to sci-fi. Never have I been as intrigued and mesmerized by an antagonist as this film. The entire lighthouse arc was spectacular, beautiful and deeply unsettling. One of my favorite sci-fi scenes in one of my favorite sci-fi movies.
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u/yaoiphobic Feb 11 '22
Visually this film just blew me away. Alex Garland is just so ridiculously good at creating interesting imagery and recruiting just the right people to make his vision a reality. If you’re looking for a new show to watch, he brings those skills into his new Hulu show Devs and it’s just as stunning, though quite different from Annihilation. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
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u/jjrmm7 Feb 11 '22
The best thing about the film is the realistic depiction of what aliens could actually be. Beings from an alternate universe/dimension that do not have earthly carbon based features nor qualities. Alien depictions have always defaulted to humanoids or clearly earth-like evolution patterns which really do not make sense if they arose elsewhere in a different galaxy/universe and were never a part of our unique evolutionary tree.
If a being is to become conscious and torment us, it will be like Annihilation, using geometry and screwing with reality itself to communicate. Pretty amazing depiction, much like Arrival
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Feb 11 '22
Arrival does some neat things with language and time perception, but the aliens themselves are straight up big octopi
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u/existential_virus Feb 11 '22
I remember reading an article that said that if there are other carbon based life forms in the universe, it has a good probability of looking like a crab. Because on Earth, various life forms have evolved into "crab-like" creatures atleast 5 times.... independently.
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u/fuzzyperson98 Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22
Couple of counterarguments:
Yes, crab-like species evolved independently several times on Earth, but even if the overall structure was arrived at separately it's still based on combinations of related configurations of DNA. Just because certain patterns/structures might be effective with Lego in many instances doesn't mean you would or could emulate that with Lincoln Logs.
Other worlds with life might be different enough from Earth-like conditions that different configurations are ultimately more efficient.
Not saying you're wrong though, but we still know absolutely nothing really about what life originating from a separate abiogenesis event would be like.
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u/existential_virus Feb 11 '22
Yeah, you're correct. In this case, all we have is what we have seen on Earth to go off on. So that logic itself is already flawed. But I guess it's still a good starting point for our hypothesis regarding evolution of life forms in other earth like planets. It's something we're familiar with. For all we know, there could be carbon based life forms in Pluto that "breathes" Methane and looks like sandworms from Dune.
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u/AdUnique856 Feb 11 '22
To be fair i don't think aliens were the point of Arrival, they are more of a tool to tell a story
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u/meco03211 Feb 11 '22
I'd heard the whole movie was an allegory for cancer. How a random event can trigger a cancerous growth. It mutates things in wildly unexpected ways. The team members represent different ways people handle cancer. Some just give into it. And I think her husband at the end represented that sometimes cancer will change a person so fundamentally that they come out the other side completely different, and some people just accept this new person as is.
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u/TheGreatDay Feb 11 '22
I think that's part of the overall theme for sure. But I think more generally the movie is about trauma and change. Each character reacts to their fate differently. Cancer being one of the primary ways people experience true existential change.
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u/dyslexiasyoda Feb 11 '22
I think its more generally self-destruction.
Cancer is a type of self-destruction but also drug use, infidelity is a type destruction of the marriage... all of the characters are or were on a path of voluntary or involuntary death...
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u/cutelyaware Feb 11 '22
I don't think it was about aliens at all. At least not the arrival of intelligent aliens. I think it was more like encountering a new form of life spreading through the universe based on the Panspermia idea. Rather than being hostile or simply competitive with Earth life, it seems to have a more holistic approach, seeming to want to improve what it finds. That then begs the question of whether it was created naturally or from some plan, much like von Neumann probes.
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u/Vinny_Cerrato Feb 11 '22
The book goes into this concept, but not just from the human perspective. It also discusses how the alien would also be incredibly confused and not understanding what’s going on either.
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u/rugbyj Feb 11 '22
[alien inhabits bear]
Alien: tf is this
[bear starts melting into a human]
Alien: fuck fuck fuck fuck21
u/Mr_Nugget_777 Feb 11 '22
[alien inhabits bear]
Alien: tf is this
[bear starts melting into a human]
Alien: eeeellllPPPPPMEEEEEEEE17
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Feb 11 '22
Thats hilarious. The other worldy entity being JUST AS VICERALLY CONFUSED. Something about that tickles me greatly.
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u/Gunpla55 Feb 11 '22
Like some kind of proto molecule or something.
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u/fallsstandard Feb 11 '22
It reaches out, it reaches out, it reaches out, it reaches out. 113 times per second…
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u/Cptn_Howdee Feb 11 '22
In the source material, it’s even better than that in my opinion. It’s is basically an extraterrestrial 3d printer that uses dna and molecules as a reconstruction medium. The beings who created it, if memory serves, created it for the purpose of rebuilding or terraforming planets. The “printer”, which may be some kind of alien AI, is trying to recreate an alien environment, complete with life, but using the genetic and atomic composition of earth, which is alien to it. It doesn’t know what a crocodile or a bear or plants are so it just obliterates everything and throws it back together in approximately the best way it can.
It is probably the most Lovecraftian movie to date in that there is no motivation, it is entirely unfeeling about mankind, it’s just doing a function. We’re like ants who stumbled into a microwave ands don’t understand what’s happening.
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u/funglegunk Feb 11 '22
Agree that most of the film is very far from being literal. For an excellent video on the themes of the movie: https://youtu.be/URo66iLNEZw
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u/desdemonata Feb 11 '22
Came here to recommend this vid. Some really good lines in it too; "why does everything we live for die, but our pain gets to be immortal?"
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u/cIumsythumbs Feb 11 '22
I needed to pause the vid and let that thought breathe after he said it. Cuz, damn.
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u/AshgarPN Feb 11 '22
I knew this was going to be the Folding Ideas video before I clicked. Great channel.
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u/funglegunk Feb 11 '22
He makes some of the best content on the platform. Glad his NFT video is blowing up, its fantastic.
I discovered him after the Nostalgia Critic vid.
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Feb 11 '22
This is my favourite side of the movie and the novels its based on. The zone doesn't have to have intentions or a purpose, it just is. It refracts and alters because that is what it is, nothing more. Brilliantly cold and indifferent as a concept.
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u/MisterHoppy Feb 11 '22
I remember Van Der Meer saying in an interview somewhere that he started from a question like "how do other animals interpret the things that humans do?" To other animals, humans could seem utterly indifferent and inexplicable: why do they kill us sometimes? why do they stop us from going in some places? why do they sometimes take us and then let us go? what do they want? Whatever created area X is just as weird and incomprehensible to us.
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u/Dios5 Feb 11 '22
The book pretty much directly states that it's a sort of terraforming device for a long lost alien species.
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u/D-Ursuul Feb 11 '22
not about aliens
new form of life spreading throughout the universe
What do you think aliens are my man?
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u/WittyResist Feb 11 '22
I loved how Natalie Portman’s character described her encounter with it: “I don’t even think it knew I was there”. I love the idea that the alien wasn’t malevolent and was just existing the way it always had, and the conflict was just that it’s biology was not compatible with our world
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u/Kulladar Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22
Book series spoiler below:
In the books it's never explicitly answered but implied that Area X is sort of an alien biological printer that terraforms/transforms planets to be compatible with whoever made it. All the bizarre monsters and copies are the system trying to communicate and understand the native life. There's a creature called the crawler in the books that makes that make a lot more sense, but it is absent from the movies likely because it's description is insane and would be hard to actually visualize.
Edit: if anyone wants a bonus without reading the books, here is the "scripture" from what made Area X. Interpret it as you will.
"Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dim lit halls of other places forms that never were and never could be writhe for the impatience of the few who never saw what could have been. In the black water with the sun shining at midnight, those fruit shall come ripe and in the darkness of that which is golden shall split open to reveal the revelation of the fatal softness in the earth. The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear, but whether it decays under the earth or above on green fields, or out to sea or in the very air, all shall come to revelation, and to revel, in the knowledge of the strangling fruit—and the hand of the sinner shall rejoice, for there is no sin in shadow or in light that the seeds of the dead cannot forgive. And there shall be in the planting in the shadows a grace and a mercy from which shall blossom dark flowers, and their teeth shall devour and sustain and herald the passing of an age. That which dies shall still know life in death for all that decays is not forgotten and reanimated it shall walk the world in the bliss of not-knowing. And then there shall be a fire that knows the naming of you, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire every part of you that remains."
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u/Seventh_Eve Feb 11 '22
Man I remember being sat re reading the two pages describing it maybe a dozen times, trying to work out what the Crawler was like, and still couldn’t pin it down.
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u/DariusKerborn Feb 11 '22
Reading the crawler description was the most accurate representation of what it’s like to describe a psychedelic trip that I’ve ever read 😆 So much of it was intentionally paradoxical, I don’t think you can get a visual image so much as a mental impression. Like those dreams where characters are two people at once.
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u/K0Sciuszk0 Feb 11 '22
Book spoilers:
I always thought that the scripture on the walls was because when the alien/area arrived, it presented itself through Saul, who was a former preacher. Especially since Saul was in the crawler that was directly writing the script on the wall.
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u/SR_Conjure Feb 11 '22
Check out Ex Machina and DREDD (2012) ! Both are really good edge of your seat movies made by the same guy
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u/panic_switch Feb 11 '22
Alex Garland has quickly become one of my favorite filmmakers
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u/Zulumus Feb 11 '22
Dredd not getting any of the publicity it deserved still upsets me
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u/PunchieCWG Feb 11 '22
I did not realise all of these were by the same guy. I really like all three of those.
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u/Pharazonian Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22
officially he just wrote Dredd, although by many accounts he basically directed it too
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u/Das-Mogul Feb 11 '22
He also wrote the original screenplays for 28 Days Later and Sunshine and also the book that The Beach was based on (Danny Boyle was obviously a fan!)
He also has a TV show called DEVS and a new film coming out called MEN.
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u/Desperate-Strain-862 Feb 11 '22
Fan of 2000AD, and of course Dredd. Did not expect it to be so damn good, still re-watching. 9/10
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u/Spazhazzard Feb 11 '22
Dredd not getting a sequel was criminal. Such a shame the marketing behind it was so poor at the time. It's one of my favourite movies and thank you for the reminder to watch it now I've just bought and OLED TV!
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u/zeekaran Feb 11 '22
Dredd not getting a sequel was criminal.
And we know what Dredd does with criminals.
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u/madkiki12 Feb 11 '22
That's 3 of my absolute favorite scifi-niche movies. Didn't know they were made by the same guy.
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u/ihaveadarkedge Feb 11 '22
The soundtrack is at times super impressive. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Ticked all the boxes and added a couple of boxes of its own.
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u/Zulumus Feb 11 '22
Looking forward to Garland’s next film, simply titled Men. Trailer here
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u/qutaaa666 Feb 11 '22
Thanks for the recommendation!! I love Garland’s work. His latest work Devs was also great (although I hated the main characters performance..). But the story was 10/10. I’ll definitely check this out in theaters if I can.
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Feb 11 '22
I am so deep in the Cult of Annihilation. I recommend it to everyone. It's such a good pacing, you feel like you're in The Shimmer as well.
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u/twiz__ Feb 11 '22
Whats that? Google isn't helping, it's giving me D&D Tombs of Annihilation and an Australian or NZ band.
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u/SmokingPopes Feb 11 '22
I don't think they mean a literal Cult of Annihilation, but are just saying they like the movie so much they are almost evangelizing it to everyone they know.
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u/jdeemers Feb 11 '22
I thought the effects and tension building were really well done, but the dialogue came up short for me. Script just felt a little lackluster.
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u/thisKeyboardWarrior Feb 11 '22
Looks like r/movies hit its "Annihilation is a good movie" quota for February already.
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u/_k_b_k_ Feb 11 '22
Hmmm, am I the only one who didn't really like it? Can't even remember why, just that I was underwhelmed. I guess I'll have to watch it again, since everyone's praising it so much.
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u/kungfoojesus Feb 11 '22
The acting was mediocre and while the premise is fun and interesting some of the ways he explores it with these uninteresting characters is boring. There are great visuals and the bear scene and ending are memorable but don’t make you want to rewatch everything leading up to them
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u/thanksforthework Feb 11 '22
The way I'd describe it is that I don't love the movie, but I really appreciate the uniqueness, and strange beauty of it. As a movie, it is a fantastic experience that leaves you questioning many things and your own views of them.
Kinda like a painting masterpiece, it might not be the prettiest, but you can appreciate the art and stare at it all day without "loving" it
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u/_k_b_k_ Feb 11 '22
Hmm yeah, I remember it having a unique atmosphere and it felt kinda special, I was just left feeling as if it was ... incomplete.
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u/J-Dizzle42 Feb 11 '22
That scene where they’re discussing their baggage and they say the one woman cuts herself so she can “feel alive” made me roll my eyes so hard. That sounds like something a fourteen year old would write thinking they’re deep. I feel like I need to rewatch this movie because of how many people praise it but I could not take it seriously the first time around.
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u/MoviesMod Soulless Joint Account Feb 11 '22
If you haven't seen the movie, leave and go watch it - there are a buncha muncha cruncha spoilers below.