re: Annihilation is awful

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Come on, dude. I understand it on a basic level, but I still don’t know of what to make of this movie. It was well written, directed, and acted, but I still don’t know what the frick I just watched. The movie is simply bizarre to be honest.

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And that’s kind of my point above regarding film opinions and having a poor one if you think this is a bad movie.


It’s trippy as hell, and not everyone’s cup of tea. To say it’s absurd to think it’s a bad movie is not even an instance of snobbery where you have to like the movie or you “don’t have refined enough tastes”

*nose in the air*


The technicials of the movie are sound. And the superficially disjointed events have a thematic undercurrent that ties it all together.

Every scene has some significance, even the repeated random flashbacks to the same affair event.

And the best part is the director is only nudging you along a thematic line. There is no “right” answer to arrive at.


Why is it that people can’t seem to separate “I don’t like this” from “this is a very bad film?”

Arrival was 1000X better than this steaming pile

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but I still don’t know what the frick I just watched. The movie is simply bizarre to be honest.

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Honestly, I'm lost on why people claim this movie doesnt make sense. This isnt a Lynch film nor is it art house. It's all every much there.

I would love to hear where some of the confusion comes from.


The shimmer is space cancer. Like cancer, it has no agenda, it manipulates all other living things around it. Things further from the lighthouse (the tumor) are midly affected just like how human bodies are. The closer you get to the spot of the cancer, the more degraded and manipulated things become just like the center of a tumor. That is the basis of the shimmer.

The characters all represent self destructive tendencies in ourselves, from grief, guilt, inadequacies, etc.

Did the entire film confuse you or was it just the lighthouse stuff?

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I understand they were supposed represent different aspects of humanity, but I thought it was sort of flat.

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Agreed, I don’t know if the intent of what was to mirror the book’s somewhat flat angle (even the main character doesn’t even get a name), if it’s a symptom of the Shimmer’s early neurological stages (deadpan personality that can pop up in neurological disorders sometimes), or if the director wanted to try to keep a spotlight within the craziness on Lena.

Only seen it once, my only evidence for the second one is I thought I noticed a change in tone from all characters except Lena and the shrink.

Which opens up an interesting side possibility here: an individual’s will influences the internal changes.

Physicist character gave up, and explicitly wanted to become a plant. Within hours, the physical manifestations of it took root (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Ditto to an extent the other characters. They all had a weak grasp of their old lives.

Only Lena and the shrink made the journey relatively untouched. Curiously enough, after making an express point to meation her goal was the center in multiple places, upon reaching it, she undergoes sudden and massive physical and mental chances.

Only Lena had a goal to come back with something to help Kane, and therefore only she came back with relatively minor impacts.

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The issue I had with this, and where I think the story faultered, is how I never saw the expedition as a vehicle to carry this point.

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I thought it was weak as well. I’ll need to see it again though to decide if it was weak in of itself, or if it was just the parts shown in the film a hopeless errand of guilt ridden Lena trying to salvage what she destroyed.

I have to give props regardless to the movie for illustrating the importance of making sure you stay on the same life path as your spouse. Love and chemistry alone aren’t enough. You don’t have to have the same careers, but your lives have to intersect somewhere outside of the bedroom.

I thought the scene of them reading in companionable silence, her reading a dense scientific non fiction on cancer cell testing and him reading a generic magazine was very stage setting for this point without focusing on it too heavily.

In alot of ways, Annihilation was everything i had wanted the last two Alien movies to be, but werent.

I dont really see where people are having problems understanding this movie. Its not anywhere close to Primer or Stalker levels of inaccessibility.

I think this movie is stuck between being an action/horror flick and a deep, philosophical sci fi film. Those expecting it to be either are gonna get alittle bit of each.

Which was exactly what i wanted, but may not be for everyone.

just watched, excellent on a different level. the visuals were were great, the plot was thought provoking. not for everyone

Legit sci-fi horror. There were a few things in there that are nigthtmare fuel.

Real question regarding the all-female principles: Was it explained beyond “The last teams we sent in were all military?”.

Or did they just try to check boxes?

Because one is honest art and the other isn’t.

It seems like they may have mentioned that everyone that went in before was male and military. Maybe it was implied. It just struck me as they were taking a totally different approach to see if they could get information/answers. The gender stuff didn't bother me at all. I didn't take it like Ghostbusters.

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I don’t think it was an explicit decision to take an all female, non-military group in

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In the books it definitely was.

But not for any “girlpower” reason.

They were trying ever different possible combination.

In the books, although they were told they were mission #12, there had actually been like 16 mission #11s, 12 mission #10s and so on. I don’t know if that was made clear in the movie.