Movie Review SSJ

I like science fiction movies very much, I have no resistance to science fiction movies, not to mention this is claimed to be the best science fiction movie of 2018 — Annihilation.Both “Annihilation” and “The Three-Body Problem” are excellent works, but let’s just say the judges preferred the quirky and scary “Annihilation.”

The novel of Annihilation belongs to the Cthullu mythological novel system. In a nutshell, the characters of this kind of story, Metropolis, go into death and madness by exploring or studying the unknown.

In addition, the style of Cthulhu mythology is mainly suspense, thriller and horror atmosphere, so that the audience’s interest is satisfied and the protagonist and the audience can simultaneously solve the puzzle.

Today we’re talking about Annihilation. I read the original book a few years ago and thought the movie version was pretty good.

The film eliminated the complex psychological activities and side stories of the characters in the novel, combined with the latter two “the authorities” and “acceptance”, the novel “Annihilation” did not explain the mystery, in the film concrete expression, coupled with the visual art presentation, it can be said is beautiful, but also without losing the artistic tone.For next year’s Best Visual Effects Oscar, Annihilation is up for grabs.

A lot of people say that last year’s Arrival and Oblivion are similar. Technically, the pacing and visuals are similar. There are no big fight scenes in either film, and the pacing is very gradual, and the core secrets are embedded in the film.

But Arrival and Oblivion go in very different directions in terms of story metaphors and imagination.

“Arrival” is an exploration of the diversity of ways of thinking. “Oblivion” delves into the diversity of life’s reflections.

The story of Panacea begins with an unknown object crashing into a lighthouse on the coast of the United States, creating a world of colorful bubbles that humans have sent waves of human beings but have never returned. The bubbles are getting bigger and bigger and threatening humanity.

After that, a team of five women go into the bubble world to decode the mysteries inside.

The movie appeal lies not in the intensity of the action, but in the imagination of the audience and the main characters to explore together, and the core mystery is revealed.

Let me break down some of the most thoughtful and terrifying moments in the movie.

1. Tattooed with an oboserpent

Careful viewers may have found that the female lead biology doctor Lena, before entering the bubble world, the arm is not tattooed, but after entering, and then out, has a tattoo.

A lot of people thought it was a sign of whether or not Lena was the real Lena, but it wasn’t.

After Lena entered the bubble world, she started to bruise her arm while rowing, a sign that the tattoo was growing. Besides, Lena isn’t the only one with this tattoo. The soldier who mutated and died in the pool also has the same tattoo on his arm. One of the team, Anna, also got a tattoo on her arm halfway through the trip.

So the question is, what does this tattoo of the oboa stand for? !

Oroserpent is an ancient Greek symbol, roughly the image of an Oroserpent swallowing its own tail, representing the meaning of “infinity”, infinity, and circulation in mathematics.

The Oroserpent is a common religious and mythological symbol, especially in alchemy, so it is associated with the aforementioned Cthulhu myth.

Plato explained that Ouroboros was a primitive cosmic creature whose head ate its own tail, an immortality with a perfect biological structure.

The appearance of Ouroboros’ tattoo in Annipulation is exactly the embodiment of the concept of cosmic circulation, representing the “rebirth” of another form, the reciprocation of construction and destruction, the reincarnation of life and death, which also means an eternal cycle.

The film borrows Ouroboros’ tattoo, which confirms a concept of physics.

Yes, there is a place in physics for the Oroserpent, which reflects a cosmic meaning, symbolizing the relationship between quantum physics (micro) and the universe (macro).

The study of quantum physics, in which matter can be broken down into molecules, atoms and even quanta, is now helping us understand the mysteries of the universe.

While Oroboros’ tattoo doesn’t explain much in AnniAnniation, physicist Joshi uses a humanoid plant to explain the physics of the bubble world.

And that is that in the bubble world, the DNA of all living organisms is reflected in a thin layer of colorful bubbles that cause cloning, mutation, deconstruction and rebirth between species.

Just like the colorful flowers and plants we saw at the beginning, it’s the DNA refraction disorder between plants that causes it. The crocodile that attacked them, which had shark teeth, was also the result of DNA refraction. Twin fish, a talking skeleton bear, and twin white deer in the river are all the result of DNA refraction. Therefore, human beings are also included in the refraction. Everyone’s variation in the bubble world is different because of the differences in their bodies. For example, the soldier finally turned into a beautiful mural, while the physicist became a veritable vegetable. These physical phenomena well confirm the meaning of the tattoo of the Orosnake on the arm, all organic life is being destroyed, but they are all being reborn.

In the bubble world, who says that people die is really dead, death is just a representation, maybe your original body, and plants, animals, or even time and space, melt together.

2. The cancer cells

The law of division of cancer cells is mentioned many times in the movie, and when Lena starts her class, the movie describes the division of a single cell, which is technically called a HeLa cell.

HeLa cells were derived in the 1950s from a woman named Hela, who had cervical cancer.

HeLa cells are not dead, can be infinite division, and rapid reproduction, the research of modern medical cancer is very helpful, specific scientific explanation, especially lengthy, big cong will not launch.

The movie borrowed HeLa cell division, side interpretation of the bubble world regeneration and replication of the principle.

As mentioned above, organic organisms in the bubble realm can interbreed without obstacles, constantly fission, so that the “aliens” themselves do not know what the purpose of life evolution.

From another perspective, the bubble world of Annihilation is actually a microscopic cell world. Animals and plants, including humans, used to belong to normal cells, but one day an invader, namely HeLa cells, suddenly arrives, causing the mutation of the entire cell world (bubble world).

Extraterrestrial life forms, like HeLa cells, are deathless, mutate and multiply rapidly, causing a lot of strange things to happen.

In the end, the “HeLa cells” representing the alien life successfully fused with the most advanced cell “human” to achieve a perfect replication of the mutation, just like the two couples at the end of the movie, which is the result of the mutation.

An annihilating shift begins.

3. Refraction of metaphor

In order to express that everything is mixed and fused, the movie has made many metaphorical expressions, the most obvious one is the refraction of the water cup.

At the beginning of the movie, Lena’s husband comes home quietly. The refraction of the water in the glass in the kitchen indicates that the husband at this time is a refracted life body, not the original husband.

During Lena’s interrogation, a glass of water was also placed next to her, and the refraction of the water in the glass also indicated that Lena was not the original Lena.

Moreover, in the bubble world, there are also some reflections of the real world. For example, in the beginning, the alien husband comes home and takes a look at the picture on the wall as he goes upstairs. The same movement happened when Lina’s team entered the house and she glanced at the pictures on the wall from the same Angle. Why did Lena take a look at the picture on the wall? It was so familiar that it might be a reflection of the family picture.

When her alien husband returned home, he was in a state of learning, not mature enough (which explains why he vomited blood), and was so curious about everything that he took a look at the pictures on the wall as he went upstairs. The impression left by the alien husband’s view of the photo is reflected in the bubble world as Lena enters the house. So, the house that Lena and her family live in, if you look closely, the interior decoration is very similar to Lena’s house, and one of the cabinets in Lena’s house is a mirror of their closet in the bubble world. Cupboard handles, one inside out, they’re not one-to-one clones, they’re refracted and twisted like a mirror.

The chairs and curtains in their room were just like Lena’s home. It also suggests that the alien husband is learning how to change the bubble world as he enters the real world.

In addition, the director is careful not only that, when Lena and his family are in the canteen, the layout of the canteen, there are a lot of repeating elements, such as a pair of identical chairs on the table, two American flags placed next to each other.

You can say this is the phenomenon of refraction, or can say that the director to strengthen the refraction clues deliberately set up.

4. Dr. Ventress

Dr. Ventress is the first person on her team to enter the lighthouse, and by the time Lena arrives, the original Dr. Ventress is already dead, because the film shows Dr. Ventress sitting in a sort of religious altar seat, before her eyes have evolved. So Ventress, by that time, was already a mutant copy. So why did she annihilate so quickly and become a radiant particle?

There are two explanations. The first explanation is that Dr Ventress himself has cancer and is therefore an imperfect organic being. Alien life after the test automatically deleted her, so as to absorb the new arrival of Lena. And alien life follows the rule that every time a new life arrives, it annihilates the previous one and reabsorbs a new one.

So Ventress returns to the lair and quickly transforms into the alien life form itself to “suck” Lena.

Many people think that the blood from Lena’s wound accidentally fell into the outer nebula, but in the novel, the blood comes from Lena’s ear. Therefore, we can also conclude that the Outer Nebula is deliberately sucking up Lena’s blood DNA.

5. true or false Lena

At the end, true or false Lena, there are two inferences.

According to Lena’s own account, the audience saw Lena kill the aliens and then tell the story to outside scientists.

But the part where Lena must have burned her husband to death, she didn’t tell anyone else, because otherwise the researchers wouldn’t have let an alien husband go.

But Lena may have lied to the audience, too. So the first assumption is that Lena is lying.

The main reason for my inference is that the wildfire bomb. It is supposed that the aliens were still trying to prevent Lena from getting out of the lighthouse, but at the moment of the bomb, the aliens stood in a stupidly confused circle, which is very weird and illogical. And alien life on fire shouldn’t be so stupid as to go back to its nest and burn it down.

So the logical explanation would be:

Lena, like her husband, also chooses to spontaneously ignite in a wildfire, and in one scene the flaming Lena touches her charred husband in an apparent act of love.

That is to say, the burning alien, in fact, is the real Lena, she knew that she was going to die, so she said goodbye to her dead husband at the end, and then went into the alien lair, want to die with the alien lair, to save mankind.

So it made sense that Lena and her alien husband would finally meet, and that they were an alien couple officially “invading” Earth.

According to this reasoning, the reason why the alien husband is healed is not because the alien nest was burned down, but because of the completion of Lena’s replication.

In other words, whether the alien nest is burned or not, the alien life form has reached its final maturity, allowing the alien husband to heal.

This can be explained from a religious point of view, because after the alien life gets the husband, it just has a male human body, and there are many imperfections, and the alien life needs to find a woman who is closely related to the husband.

So when the alien gets Lena’s DNA, the sex ratio is balanced, because in reality, Lena and her husband must have done something they loved.

Their DNA and feelings, there is a physical and spiritual connection, alien life after absorbing Lena, naturally also perfect the alien husband.

Then there’s the inference that everything Lena says is true, that she did kill the alien life forms and make her own escape.

But because she spent so much time in the bubble world, her own DNA has been refracted, so her eyes have a new color by the end of the film.

At this time, Lena is not the previous Lena, but after the baptism of alien life Lena.

Just as she has a tattoo on her arm, she becomes a carrier of alien life.

The theory is the same as the previous one. Burned or not, the alien nest has acquired Lena and her husband’s DNA, and has mutated and matured, thus beginning to “invade” Earth in other ways.

6. The annihilation of humanity

I always make fun of some domestic and foreign movie titles are not good, but this time the name “Annihilation” is very literary, very in line with the image style of film expression.

The Anniacation film’s surface event is an attack by an alien species that causes the entire Earth to mutate, deconstruct, and regenerate.

From a physical point of view, alien invasions are annihilating to species.

From the deep level of human nature, it is also annihilating. The five female characters in the movie, if we trace back to their backgrounds, we can find the reason.

The heroine, Lena, appears to be in a stable marriage, but in fact Lena has an affair with another professor, and her husband has already known about it. On the surface their marriage was peaceful, but inside they were annihilated.

Dr. Ventress, the leader of the team, had no friends, no family, and had cancer herself, so her life was also annihilating.

Josh, the physicist, we can see that she has a lot of scratches on her arm, suggesting that she is self-masochistic, and deep down, she is also very hurt.

Medical worker Anna, a former drug addict, also has a broken life.

Geomorphologist Cass, the death of his daughter, is also a great annihilation in life.

Therefore, these five women are more or less annihilated and damaged in their own life experiences, which is a side expression of the imperfection of life. However, the alien invasion ironically solves this problem.

At the end of the movie, Lina and her husband embrace, like a pair of reborn lovers, the structure of the two rings tightly locked.

In addition, the choice of extraterrestrial life falling on a lighthouse in the film also has ulterior motives. Many literary works use lighthouses to compare the direction of life, spirit and revolution.

In the movie alien life forms fall into a lighthouse, which indicates that the direction of human evolution has changed since then.

To sum up, “Annihilation” the imagination and the meaning of the film, big cong like very much, such exquisite works, very worthy of recommendation, hope that such works can have a sequel.