ANNIHILATION Theories: Is (SPOILER) Human or Not?

In my review of the new science-fiction film Annihilation, based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer, I said one of the positives of the film was that the ending of the movie was ambiguous. There are spoilers after this paragraph, so if you haven't seen the movie yet, don't keep reading. In fact, I'll plug in an image of the movie poster below so you don't see anything by accident.

In the climax of the film, biologist and military veteran Lena (Natalie Portman) finds a burned corpse in a lighthouse that's the epicenter of "Area X," a region of rural Florida that's being warped by an alien presence known as "the Shimmer." There's a camcorder set up in front of the corpse and when Lena begins watching the video, she sees her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) commit suicide on-camera after telling someone else to "find Lena." That someone else is revealed to be another Kane. That means (or could mean) the being that showed up at her home and soon became sick and had to be transported to the hospital wasn't actually her husband, but some kind of alien clone.

Soon afterward, Lena encounters the alien force at the heart of the Shimmer that transforms into a double of her that she's able to trick into committing suicide. When she returns to the military base built to watch Area X, she finds that her dying husband has returned to full health, but when she asks if he's Kane, he says that he doesn't think so. The two embrace and both their eyes do this weird iridescent thing, implying that neither of them is human, at least fully.

I said that the ending was ambiguous, and here's why. A case can be made that the being who came home a year after her husband left was an alien creature masquerading as her husband, but a case can also be made that it really is Kane, just seriously messed up by his experiences within the Shimmer. Here goes...

Alien

*This is the most straightforward explanation. Kane lost his mind in the Shimmer and committed suicide, but not before establishing some kind of rapport with his alien doppelganger. There's still enough of him left to want Lena to not be left alone, so he tells the doppelganger (which has enough of his memories that it could conceivably play the part) to find his wife before he ignites himself.

*One of the podcasts I listen is The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy and in the episode dedicated to Annihilation, they say that when Kane returns home, he's looking at the pictures on the wall (I can't remember what they were, but they might've been him and Lena, their unit back when they were in the military, etc). He doesn't know what they are, implying that he's some other being wearing Kane's face.

*When Lena asks Kane if he's Kane, his response is that he doesn't think so.

*The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy crew thought that the way Kane embraced Lena at the end seemed more like someone needing reassurance. If Kane is an alien intelligence of some kind, he's the last of his kind on Earth and he's in the hands of people who could very easily kill him. His only possible ally is Lena.

Human

*When Lena burns her double, the flames spread through the lighthouse and all the various alien growths begin catching fire, even alien structures well beyond the lighthouse. When Lena is being debriefed after returning from Area X, the scientist interrogating her reports that an expedition has been to the lighthouse and there's no trace of the Shimmer left. We then learn that Kane, who was dying when she went into Area X, has recovered.

If Kane isn't actually human, he would have died along with the Shimmer. Instead, he recovers from the brink of death as soon as the lighthouse goes up. That would imply that he might have been in the process of mutating and dying (like the other soldier whose belly he cut open to reveal writhing, eel-like intestines), but Lena's destruction of the Shimmer aborted whatever was being done to him before it was terminal. Lena herself experienced a similar process--she samples her own blood and sees her cells are mutating--but it's her who came back from the Shimmer, not the alien doppelganger. Although the eye-thing indicates neither of them is fully human anymore, neither of them isn't human either.

*The man that commits suicide with the phosphorous grenade speaks in a very thick Southern accent. In the flashback scenes with Lena and Kane before Kane leaves on his secret mission, Kane doesn't have a Southern accent. Although it's possible that one of his teammates who DOES have a Southern accent was being "refracted" into him, we don't see interpersonal "refraction" among Lena and her team--Josie (Tessa Thompson) begins sprouting leaves from her scars like a plant is being "refracted" into her and the alligator that attacks Josie earlier in the film has a shark-like mouth, but it's not like the women suddenly adopted each other's personality traits, accents, etc.

*I'm not the only one who has reached a similar conclusion. In the WMG page of the TVTropes for the film, someone else suggested that the man who kills himself is an alien doppelganger who absorbed a lot of Kane's memories, but since may be the first time it has fully mimicked a human being (the members of the other investigatory teams might've been killed by wildlife or mutated to death before reaching the lighthouse), it went insane.

*Kane doesn't recognize the photos in his house because he's suffering amnesia as a result of his exposure to the Shimmer and the mutations his body is undergoing.

*Kane says that he doesn't think he's Kane, but the Shimmer may well have done a number on his mind. To make a Star Wars analogy, from the moment Darth Vader arises from the operating table after being burned on Mustafar and rebuilt as a cyborg, Palpatine is trying to cultivate "Darth Vader" as a distinctive personality from Anakin Skywalker. In Darth Vader #1, Palpatine tells him that Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber belonged to "someone else, a Jedi" and in one of the old Expanded Universe comics, when Vader confronts Palpatine about the Empire practicing slavery, Palpatine says that "Anakin Skywalker" and "his mother" had been slaves. The trauma of the events of the previous expedition and his near-death might have caused something similar to happen.

I admit I prefer the second option because despite the horrifyingly cynical things I say sometimes I'm a hopeless romantic. Furthermore, as a Christian I believe in the sanctity of marriage--I'd like to believe that despite Kane being amnesiac and possibly experiencing an identity crisis, Lena having cheated on him due to his long military absences and the growing intellectual distance between them, and them both now being partly alien, their relationship can still be fixed. However, sometimes there are downer endings and I recognize there is such a thing as Confirmation Bias. However, a strong case can be made that Kane is still human and the other stuff is a bunch of red herrings.

What do you all think? Feel free to comment, discuss with each other, etc. below.

Movie Review: ANNIHILATION (2018)

As those who know me in real life know, I sometimes criticize Hollywood for its lack of originality and propensity for remakes. So when Hollywood makes something original--okay, this is an adaptation of the science fiction novel by Jeff VanderMeer rather than a purely original work--it's important to support it in order to encourage more of them.

So last week I saw the film Annihilation, starring Natalie Portman. How was it? Find out...

The Plot

College professor Lena (Natalie Portman) is grieving for her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), who has been sent on a covert military operation and has gone missing. Her grief is soon interrupted by his sudden reappearance at their home. He can't remember very much and soon begins suffering from a mysterious illness. On the way to the hospital, their ambulance is ambushed by some Men In Black types, who take Lena and Kane to a mysterious base.

It turns out Kane had volunteered for a mission into a mysterious "Area X" in western Florida where an alien presence from a fallen meteor has spread throughout the nearby land--and is threatening to spread into inhabited areas. Nobody who has been sent to explore the afflicted area has ever returned--except for Kane, and nobody is sure how. Another team, consisting of Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson), and Cass Sheppard (Tuva Novotny), is being prepped to enter Area X, and Lena persuades them to allow her to accompany them, citing her experiences in the military and as a biologist. The clock is ticking with Kane apparently dying, and Lena wants answers.

They pass through the mysterious "Shimmer" bounding the area to find a place where time flows differently and where the plants and animals are being mutated by alien forces. It's a place of beauty and horror and as the women go deeper, things get weirder and the body count rises.

The Good

*The movie is never boring. There were a couple moments where I was tempted to look at my watch, but I never did so. That's pretty rare these days. It moves along at a quick clip and between the beauty and the creepy (I'll get to both of these later), there's always something to grab and hold your attention.

*There's a lot of well-done subtext, including depicting two characters' fraying romance by showing their reading choices--one is reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and the other is reading a magazine.

*The acting, particularly by Portman and Rodriguez, is really good. Although everybody in the group goes into Area X armed, Portman, playing an actual veteran, shows that she knows what she's doing with her weapon. There's a sexual scene partway through the film where she does a good job conveying her conflict and feelings--or lack thereof--as well. I have never heard myself or anybody else discussing acting during a sex scene of all things. And as they go deeper into Area X, Rodriguez gets convincingly scarier.

*Hollywood's depiction of women is so hit-and-miss that the Bechdel Test was invented to analyze it. The film's main cast is almost entirely female, several of them are scientists, and they go into Area X on a scientific mission, so it passes the test with flying colors.

*The film is visually beautiful. The realm within the shimmer is full of color and strange life, all of which is very well-done. It gets downright psychedelic at times. The "Shimmer" has engulfed formerly inhabited areas--someone's small house by the lake and an old military base--and seeing what happens when nature reclaims human works is pretty interesting in and of itself.

*The visuals of the film convey grossness and horror as readily as beauty. I'm not going to be specific to avoid ruining anything for anybody, but there're some truly squicky bits in the videos left by previous expeditions that the women find, as well as when they find the previous expedition's members. One of the mutated creatures of Area X is quite scary, and when it opens its mouth and starts making noise, it sounds disturbing.

Seriously, the art director, cinematographer, and special effects people need to earn some awards for this.

*The ending is rather ambiguous. I'm not going to go any farther for reasons of spoilers, but it's something that can certainly generate conversation.

The Bad

*There are some moments of weak dialogue that's too on-the-nose and doesn't sound like how people actually talk. For example, a character is cheating with another and one of them asks if the other's spouse, "knows of our affair." It'd be more realistic if the character asks if the wrong spouse knows "about us" or if they "know." That bit was so poorly written that I was all, "Huh?" right in the middle of the movie.

*Sometimes the sound is too loud. The music, though it's important in making the film as trippy and mind-bending as it is, is sometimes overpowering.

*During the climax, some of the more energetic manifestations of the Shimmer look a little too obviously CGI.

The Verdict

I doubt I'll see it a second time, at least anytime soon, but it's a very weird and well-done movie. I strongly recommend seeing it, not only because it's good but because it'll encourage more book adaptations and original material from the Powers That be. 9.0 out of 10.

Movie Review: "Thor" (spoilers)

I saw the new move Thorlast night, in 3D no less.  Here's my review...

The Good

It was an action-packed, enjoyable movie that was rarely dull.  The creators of the film did a good job developing the motivations of the main divine (alien?) characters (Odin, Thor, Loki).  Both Thor and Loki desire to emulate and/or impress their father, driving Thor to behave in a belligerent manner toward the Frost Giants and Loki toward treachery.

I liked Tom Hiddleston's performance as Loki and his gambit, which involves betraying Asgard to the Frost Giants and later betraying the Frost Giants himself.  His deception of Thor when he is in exile on Earth was also clever.  I also liked how he attempted to claim the hammer himself when visiting the SHIELD base.

As far as mortals are concerned, Stellan Skarsgård's portrayal of Dr. Erik Selvig, mentor of astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) was quite humorous, both when he gets Thor out of SHIELD custody and later when he and Thor engage in a drinking contest.

The battle in which the Lady Sif and the Warriors Three face off against the Destroyer was tactically well-planned.  It makes sense for the Warriors Three, who are men and in the case of Volstagg (Ray Stevenson) fairly physically substantial, to bear the brunt of the robot's attacks while the physically weaker (but I assume quicker) Sif sneaks around and takes the Destroyer by surprise.

The arrival of Sif and the Warriors Three on Earth, in their attention-grabbing Asgardian outfits, was really funny.  The townsfolk look at them like they're freaks and the SHIELD agents watching Foster and her team openly wonder if the Renaissance Faire has come to town.

The Asgardians being extraterrestrials with advanced technology who were mistaken for gods by primitive humans makes more sense than them actually *being* the Norse pantheon, as I believe the case was in the comics.  I also liked the scientific jargon Foster used to describe how they traveled between worlds, as well as Thor's astrophysical explanation for the World Tree being a constellation of some kind containing the different Norse realms (planets rather than planes of existence).

I liked the mythology references, like when Odin arrives at Jotunheim to retrieve Thor and his friends and he's riding an eight-legged horse--Odin's horse in Norse myths, Sleipnir, had eight legs.

I also liked how Heimdall told Thor that Foster was searching for him and we then see Foster using her gadgets linked to SHIELD technology to search space for Asgard's star.  That was done well.  Sif's facial expressions indicating she's interested in Thor romantically are also a nice touch, considering both she and Foster were love interests for Thor in the comics.

Finally, the scene where the locals find Thor's fallen hammer and establish a carnival/barbecue around the site while they try to pull it out of the ground (even using a pickup truck and chains at one point) was downright hilarious.  Usually when there's an alien landing or something like that, the government arrives immediately and takes control of the site.  Having the local rednecks find it first and what they try to do with it was one of the more original elements of the film.

The Bad

Foster developing feelings for Thor like she does seemed rather quick.  It is foreshadowed--when Thor sets off toward his hammer's landing site by herself and the others abandon him, she is the last to do so and keeps looking at him--but it's not clear what the basis for it is.

Is it just physical attraction (which I can buy--at a female friend's birthday party in which I was one of the few males, the girls went on at length about actor Chris Hemsworth's musculature), the fact he represents proof of her theories (which Portman said in an interview were viewed as crazy by most of Foster's scientific peers), respect for his willingness to sacrifice himself for the others that he develops later, or some combination thereof?

Selvig does describe her late father as being a man who never listened and Thor admits he is like this as well.  Is there some Electra complex going on here?

The above musings do represent a good basis, but I think the whole thing was done a bit quickly.  It didn't harm the film much.

Also, SHIELD releases Thor, who has invaded their complex and beaten the hell out of a lot of their soldiers, into Selvig's custody despite Selvig's explanation for what happened being clearly nonsense and them knowing the ID Selvig supplied for Thor being fake.  Agent Phil Coulson, the SHIELD man in charge, does tell his minions to follow Selvig and the others--is his goal to somehow find evidence to justify arresting Foster and her intern, since they don't have trespassing and multiple counts of assault and battery (Thor) and forgery (Selvig) to justify that?

We later see SHIELD agents in the town, indicating that the orders are at least being carried out.  It might have been better to have them eavesdropping on Thor's conversation with Foster and relaying what was being said to SHIELD.  Maybe some SHIELD subordinate objects to Thor being freed and Coulson points out that he wasn't very talkative--then when they're recording his conversation with Foster, Coulson can look at his subordinate and be all, "See?"

Developing the characters of the Warriors Three would have been better.  The only one who seems to get much development is Volstagg, a glutton and general party animal.

Finally, an explanation for why Bifrost simply could not be rebuilt might have made Thor's sacrificing his future with Foster to prevent the destruction of Jotunheim more obvious.  I'm assuming the Asgardians built their city themselves, although their human appearance suggests they might be humans who've learned alien technology rather than being aliens.

Having Loki scream "WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO REBUILD IT!" just before he screams that Thor will never see Foster again would make this clearer.

The Verdict

Nine out of 10.  This was a fun movie.