Annihilation ENDING EXPLAINED - Details You Missed!
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- čas přidán 17. 05. 2024
- Annihilation (2018) movie explained! What does the ending of Annihilation mean? What is the Shimmer, and what happened in the lighthouse scene? What is the film's alternate ending, and how does the story differ from the book? Erik Voss breaks down the final sequence of Annihilation and explains the deeper meaning of the movie's extended metaphor. How does director Alex Garland build on the sci-fi concepts he laid out in Ex Machina (2014)? Is Natalie Portman's character a secret imposter?
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Friend: You like liked this movie?
Me: i don't know
Friend: did you understand this movie?
Me: i don't know
Nautybilal nice one xD
Ho so funny😂
*Takes a sip of water*
then what do you know?
@@therishavjha I don't know
the shimmer is when gasoline was mix with rain on the road.
😂
What you see there is indeed refraction. So yes, it's the same concept.
I literally said the same thing yo my family as we were watching the movie! 😂
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 This comment
or the shimmer is what soap and water looks like in bubbles
This movie feels just like you’re waking up from a dream that you can’t describe and you try to recall everything you still know
Exactly how I'm feeling - after watching it just now. Wow..
Definitely not a pleasant dream though.
More like one of those dreams, which takes a day to shake off.
A dream which digs so deep into the subconscious, it's impossible to describe with words.
I finished reading the book and immediately watched the movie. The book is written in a way that feels dreamy as well. I found myself unable to even describe it. The book is also quite a bit different than the movie.
Most of the times , a conceptual movie is based on brief on a dream which is later arranged in a structure. I had 3 dreams like this :
1. Humans travelling to different galaxies and i saw how humans spend their lives on the spaceship.
2. A time travel movie which lead to various errors in the multiverse and shattered the grand time paradox.
3.( I can't remember properly) it was a dream based on human mutating into superheroes or zombies. I had to fight against them.
Its kinda funny but also relevant to discuss that these type of various abstract ideas do sometimes come out of a dream.
The metaphorical ending to the movie is the literal ending. We are not the same people we were yesterday. We adapt, mutate, and absorb our surroundings. We are the shimmer, we are the alien and we are all one person, but billions of individuals.
wtf?
You are just like this movie, pretentious and trying to see a deeper ocean of meaning in a rain drop. Stop trying to give and amswear life questions that haven’t even been formulated. Stop being false and making a void into something with apparent worth and meaning.
@@Felahliir lol it makes sense though...
Like the Ship of Theseus who are we but the real time reflection of our environment, which is in constant change
Xavier Jones
If you put anyrhing it’ll make sense since there are do many plot holes you can fill them with whatever. You could say a rotten sandwich got so bad it became sentient.
*ENDING EXPLAINED* doesn't explain the ending
This was the shittiest ending explained I've ever seen
It kinda does: apart from our self-destructive impulses, the ending (and the film) is a metaphor for personal evolution and change. The dead Lena and Kane remaining in the lighthouse at the end represent both of them having to change and shed parts of themselves for the sake of their relationship (which is not necessarily a good thing, but often inevitable)- to the point that they become unrecognizable versions of their earlier selves
Y’all were looking to get spoonfed with no utensils.
@@JokermanUno it's the heading of the video. Are you into bait and switch or something? It's reasonable that we're frustrated when someone says they'll do something and don't
"I don't know"
My only question is how the hell the battery on the camera lasted that long?
it lasted more than a year, WOW! *plotholes... move along, nothing to see here*
lol, that is a good one
Maybe it has something to do with the camera's DNA. Wait...
U could debate it was a plot hole. Or u could debate that all the energy , including the electrical energy of the battery is all contained within the shimmer as its a prism and could potentially pull energy to charge itself from the mutated air around it. Idk im just guessing. Maybe thats the mystery to the film. But seriously. Alien crash. Mutated shimmer. Flower people. Mirroring alien and the CAMERAS what u question?
_HootHoot_ As usual, full up the plot holes by woodoo black magic. It's getting pretentious
Right after they kill the mutated aligator they immediately get on boats to cross the river..
I mean there can't be any more of them right..? It was probably the safest option.. X-D
thought that too haha, big ass creatures , and than " hy why don't we make a boatride?"
Thank you, my thought exactly!
bruuuuhhhhhh.....
My first thought, too. I also wondered if they would get attacked by other mutated creatures or mutated clones of previous soldiers or or people that may have lurked in the shimmer. But I guess that would be a whole other movie..
I thought the same thing, like, you just barely killed a giant mutated alligator and you decide to take a paddle boat into their home?
The deer is with its doppleganer
Nah it's just its cousin Riley from Alabama he's always looked that messed up.
Ohhhhh thanks
I dunno why no one has pointed this out but the deer is a total rip of pokemon, so much so that I believe Nintendo can sue them
@@John-qq3wp I also felt The Last Of Us vibes.
John Smith LMFAO
They were clones from the moment they “awoke and couldn’t remember how long they had been there” but their camp site seemed to have been used for a long while. Basically the shimmer keeps cloning them over and over and each clone, like a photo copy, is less and less like the original adding influences from the environment inside the shimmer. So the Lena we meet inside the shimmer is say Lena clone 1.... then we see the creation of Lena clone 2, each clone is more susceptible to changing/transforming. The original humans probably died pretty early after entering the shimmer.
Al Price I really like this theory and it makes a lot of sense. 👍
That's the best theory I've read so far.
Hands down best theory
This literally makes the most sense to me
Holy shit ma nigga. :o
I don’t know if I was the only one, but the Bear absolutely terrified me. I don’t scare easily, but wow, this movie became a horror film at that point.
Me toooooooo.
I have never been actually scared during any horror film, (and i have seen pretty much all of them😂) but the bear was just so disturbing and terrifying😨
I thought that bear was a boar-cow-ape monster, but not definitely a bear ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The bear screaming was horrifying
BRUH. Once that bear came about (a little bit before that too) i was just WHAT KIND OF MOVIE IS THIS?!?!!? Absolutely TERRIFYING !!!
the comments are more informative than the video 😅
LOL...., So true😂😂
That's because the video doesn't create fan-fiction but tries to interpret this nonsense as metaphor/deeper meaning.
Tell me about it seriously 😆😆
@jelica I am so confused of this movie rn I wanna kill ma self
lmfaoooooo
The water in the glass wasn't mutating, cause water doesn't have DNA. That's just what happens to water on glass
Right? I didn't see anything going on with the water in the glass
I just noticed that Kane's doppelgänger took a sip of water the same way that Lena did earlier in Lena's kitchen, like he didn't even want it
But it's interesting that the shimmer doesn't seem to be just about DNA. It mimics elements themselves. With the flash grenade, it mimics the chemistry inherit with an explosive. It seems much more like a virus but for all materials, not just cells. Its only fault is that it has no preconceived knowledge of what it is mimicking or coping and, therefore, does not know the difference between the flash grenade and a person, so mixes them.
Water refracts light. The shimmer refracts DNA
Exactly what I thought,when you drink water it does that it takes the place of all the space it sees.
Why does no one mention than the tattoo on Portman's arm is actually from the right arm of Rodriguez's character? Portman's character does not have a tat in the beginning.
I noticed that too, so strange🤔
And it also was on the soldier who died in the pool, the one they cut to see the bowels moving inside of him, I guess the tattoo is a hint they use to tell us if they were either affected by the shimmering or maybe even already cloned.
@@GutAValoiS not sure what it means. ink has no genetic component. These clones grew cloths too. That also makes no sense. i think it was creative BS-ery, ignoring science in trade for added convolution.
I would have thought that ink and fabric was made from organic material and was supposed to atleast have genetic quantities
I picked up on this and couldn't quite figure out its meaning.
What baffles me the most is that they had a perfect watch tower, yet decide to place the look-out on ground level. Imagine instead standing just outside the room where the others were sleeping and looking down with the night vision Googles. They would have all the time in the world to arm up and shoot the bear if it decided to escalate the watch Tower’s narrow passages.
Movie logic :)
exactly my thoughts too when i saw Vistress guarding on the ground,...it made me go "whuuuuuuut??"
I even thought if wireless signals dont work . Why not take a wired transmitter with you instead . Something better than nothing
They’re women. Hence the no explanations, constant strife, and putting down of the packs.
Also having a bright ass light ruining their nightvision and giving away their position. A lookout is not supposed to be seen.
In the flash grenade video at the lighthouse, the Kane that killed himself all the sudden had a Southern twang in his dialect. That was the oddest thing about everything lol.
That was another soilder. Not Kane.
@@aliciasapienza uh no it was Kane.
Yea that was odd
TheVerucAssault it was explained that Cain had gotten the accent from one of the other soldiers, as a result of the mixing and mashing from the shimmer...he didn’t know who he was anymore or what part of him was really him and that’s why he killed himself-he lost his mind :/
Yeah, I didn't think it was Kane for a while because it confused it me so much. What I've gathered is that the memories of the other soldiers started to mesh with him, and he knew he was Kane but didn't feel like it. So he started talking differently and acting differently, and then decided to kill himself since if he couldn't be Kane he didn't know what to do. But yeah, that really confused me.
Why didn't they just skydived to the light house?
lmao. Good point.
The light refract.
that would be a 5min movie lol
Or just fly there on the backs of giant eagles.
Same reason Frodo didn't ride the eagles into Mordor. It's all about the journey m8
Natalie Portmans true doppelganger is Keira Knightley.
Underrated comment about the movie lmao
not....really .i can tell them apart now
when i was younger i thought tyra banks and beyonce were the same person
So much so that Keira plays Natalies decoy in Star Wars Episode 1
also Winona Ryder
Movie rating : I DON'T KNOW
My own interpretation is the alien life wanted to have both a male mutant and a female one on earth in order to reproduce and insist their civilisation, that’s why when Lina’s clone got out of the light house the shimmer started the self distruction because their mission is accomplished
Damn that's actually a great theory
That might be true
Very true. They did make it a point to address that they were intentionally going to send an all types of intellect team of women instead of brawn military dudes early in the movie. The shimmer needed both I suppose
You actually just blew my mind. So far the best interpretation I've seen yet...
I ACTUALLY LIKE THIS THEORY! BEST ONE YET!
One of them turned into a plant....
My theory on why every burns at the end is that the core of the shimmer was always changing it's form, which is why it was mimicking Lena and assumed her appearance. When the WP grenade ignites, it takes the form of the chemical reaction, which it doesn't understand so it just kept burning without knowing it was killing itself.
I hadn't considered that about the grenade. I thought it was strange and silly that the psychologist lady exploded like that, but I guess it happened because the mutation was mimicking the explosion from Kanes grenade.
Dope input.
the real kane killed himself, the duplicate survived and exited the shimmer.
The shimmer disappeared because the initial breach of the planet was successfully completed... the lifeform had mutated into the world’s most evolved species, which is all it could do to ensure its survival.
The film was mostly meh, with a few decent shocks... but “deeply intellectual”? ...nah.
I prefer to think that Lena's duplicate held the grenade when it assumed Lena's form because it inherited her self-destructive tendencies, and thus, destroyed itself.
Another, perhaps co-existing theory, is that when the duplicate assumed Lena's form, it inherited all her self-hatred and internal turmoil, and decided it did not want to become human, and accepted death. I prefer that one, actually
Dr. Ventress doesn't have any eyes at first when she's in the heart of the shimmer, in the clone incubator thing, right? I didn't imagine that? So is it a Ventress clone that hasn't quite completed itself?
vollsticks yes
warrencr86 What?
True. I too think thats the case.
Exactly
good catch i wasnt quite sure about it. It makes perfectly sense tho and they could have made it obvious my showing the original ventress´ body somewhere
one question everyone keeps forgetting. how did kanes clone end up in lenas house??
QuattroSolo exactly! That’s what I wanna know! Lol
Kanes clone was faulty he was fucked. Chinese clone.
maybe he teleported like Lena's clone teleported out of the hole room. "I was outside the room with the bed."
This was not explained in the film...
I thought that since the clone absorbed parts of Kane, that the clone would have Kane's thoughts and memories...
The entire time I was watching the movie I kept thinking: Everything in the shimmer is cancer.
This is what makes the most sense to me, as we constantly saw fast rates of mitosis throughout the film. I don't understand how refraction of "everything" and mitosis can go hand in hand though. It felt like there were two definitions of the film the whole time I was watching it. Is the shimmer cancer/mitosis or refraction of everything, including DNA? Or is it both? Not sure, and I believe this with a mix of plotholes in the movie create such an open ended question about the meaning of the shimmer. It feels like the movie is trying to prove 1 = 2.
My question is why didn't these expert 'scientists' wear (or advise that others wear) hazmat suits, when they entered the shimmer? Other scientists are seen wearing hazmat suits just to examine them outside of the shimmer, but NOT when they enter this unknown alien bubble, where people are mysteriously disappearing? WTF?
Also, I understand that they couldn't just send in drones because of static interference, but couldn't they have just passed through the first layer of the shimmer, and then sent drones up to investigate what lay ahead? The lack of proper preparing is the most frustrating part for me. Movie logic, I suppose.
Very strange I was confused they didn't even bother using gloves either. Definitely movie logic, but I shared your frustration. Seemed like they needed a much better plan to get information out of the shimmer. Plan A shouldn't be get to the lighthouse just to see what's going on.
Because the stars wouldn't look as good in hazmat suits *eye roll*
Or just drive into the shimmer. Why do we have to hike there. Maybe i missed the part where they said engines don't work in there, but flashlights do?
I'd like to know why they had to find boats to travel with when they knew they were headed into a swamp? They could have at least packed a rubber raft or something.
And if the lighthouse was against the ocean, why didn't the Navy just station a damn air craft carrier and have massive teams infilatrate over the water? Or send small rafts equipped with mortars and RPGs to bomb the shut out of the light house.
I thought the shimmer is a metaphor for a negative state of mind. The team that got sent in had their own battles to fight and were entering a negative state of emotion (i.e. entering the shimmer). They chose their own way of giving up to these negative emotions: for example Anya gave in to fear (consumed by the bear), Josie gave up on herself (turning into a plant herself) and the doctor succumbing to her illness (the cancerous tumour consuming her) etc. Kane was searching for self-destruction, but couldn't let his wife go, so he decided to end his life and send a different version of himself to her. Lena (Natalie Portman) couldn't accept the person that she had become after cheating on her husband, so instead of succumbing to it, she battled herself and destroyed the shimmer, i.e. walked out of the state of mind that she is in. Bearing in mind that she had started mutating while in the shimmer, she had emerged from this experience a changed person, signifying that all those who win against psychological traumas emerge as a different person, though with traces of such experiences present in them, as did Lena and Kane. Not very sure, but what I thought about after watching the movie.
WOW!!!!!!!!!!! That is ...deep and beautiful! Really puts everything in defferent perspective...
That was my take as well. It is the fear that destroys us or we seek transformation.
Very much possible, well explained
Good theory! It explains why they put in that scene where the anthropologist and Lena are in the boat and everyone's personal battles (aka they've nothing to lose) are explained to Lena... I had been kinda wondering about the point of that scene...
I think this is the best answer in this whole thread
Then I thought Arrival was confusing.
Arrival had the one of the worst endings to a film I've seen in a long time... I got it, it was just shite!
You can’t really compare the 2
arrival was BS. annihilation is way better. yes you can compare them because they are both alien related movies
deep hazarika other than being “alien- related” that’s about all the comparisons they have 😂😂
arrival ha d a clear plot with sentient extra terrestrials, here it's not explained and imho not even relevant
Couldnt they go just like 1 meter into the shimmer and take some tests of the ground and plants and then go back?
They did and woke up in the Camp several days after
This wasn't the first expedition smartypants...
@@ngastakvakis4425 yes every other person never came out
XtremeStevie they could’ve tied a rope round one persons waist and yanked them back out after 1 min to see what happened to them lol
Lis C They could also use a stick to get some plantparts out of it..
They could also nuke the whole thing ...
The human plant in the swimming pool was eerie as hell.
True. But the screaming bear was even more...
It was just a giant butt hole like the entire movie.
Ketunloikka looked like a booty hole. 🤷🏻♀️
Ketunloikka hell ya
Are you talking about that whole village of the people who turned into plants?
Florida. Ofcourse it has to be Florida.
Lawllllllll
I live in Florida, and you have no idea how freaky it is here.
@@starbrand3726 We see the News about Florida mans Adventures
Amazing geography and nice people?
Star Brand Florida aka ground zero for the zombie apocalypse
Another detail missed - in a flashback, lena is reading "the immortal life of henrietta lacks" which is a book about the HeLa cells originally extracted from henrietta lacks cancerous cervix. the HeLa cells are still around today, the first human cells to ever live completely on its own outside of a human. There was a connection to this in the beginning when lena and kane are talking in bed about how god fucked up by having cells age and die and shit. just the dopest connection
narko You missed the point. You are using the word “life”/“live” differently.
That's awesome, that story is both inspiring and horrifying with how they treated Henrietta Lacks.
I think this film isn't supposed to be taken literslly. See Folding Idea's video. He presents the idea that it is all a metaphor for loss, death and grief, and how we all react to it. I love that meaning
Rosie Puplett I love metaphors but I don’t really like that idea.
Adam and Eve messed up
yes and there was something about if the cells don't age, then you won't die and would be immortal .... perhaps cloned Kane and Lena are now immortal.
I felt like the movie was f-ing my brain
Yup
I Even feel dumb
Averiana _heart_Of_Flames
You don’t, you feel like a fool because the movie tricks you into thinking it’s a smart and deep movie, but it’s shallowest that virgin Mary’s puss
Wanna shoot some kids up?
I was WTFing every second
Dormamu, I've come to bargain
I’m grown and that “bear” scene has scarred me for life lol
I don't think it was her doppelganger at the end. The actual Lena was being changed throughout the movie, showing shimmering cells in her own blood.
Now to see if Kane and Lena live forever.
Yep I agree... now they will breed alien babies and distroy the world 😂
Kinda reminded me of The Last of Us
But if the doppelgänger won, what was the point of allowing itself to burn etc? I mean it could have still gone back to the base and pretended to be real Lena while the rest of this shimmer continued to grow. Makes no sense.
@@TheNewSchoolGamer same
Friend: so what happened in the lighthouse?
Me: yes
The Ouroboros tattoo is important and was not covered here. Also, the Shimmer appearing on earth via a meteorite might not be an "attack", but a random occurrence. Maybe that is how life on earth evolved in the first place?
damn! i had a similar thought
Russbel Perez me too!
Yeah you are correct son!! Btw I created the shimmer and my name is god...
That is not an ouroboros tattoo. In the book they are they 8th expedition to enter the shimmer. They have it tattooed on them as a way for others to keep track of them if they enter the shimmer and find them or if they get out of the shimmer. Also, something not addressed in the movie but addressed in the book is that the strange boundary is the result of the fact that time inside the shimmer is dramatically sped up and what they are actually seeing is the boundary between normal time and this sped up time. This is why it appears to the teams that everything has evolved so fast and why all the towns and buildings are in such advanced states of decay.
Maybe. There are many conjecture theories regarding this, one known as "the panspermia theory" which states that life on earth from the outer universe.
Definitely not a weapon or alien invasion in the traditional sense. The "alien" was simply doing what it was born/progranmed to do. It happened to land here and was growing and reproducing. The goal of any living organism is to thrive. It wasn't malicious, it simply was.
That’s pretty much the definition of a virus.
And we don't like virus. Especially not that kind of virus...evil or not. Bear scene says it all.
Actually, the scene when they first discuss the flowers say it all, it looks like different organisms, but it is all from the same root. The Bear, shimmer and anything that went into the shimmer became part of it. The blood tests proved that later in the movie. Space Cancer - the movie, i liked it...
Mike Mc that's pretty much what we humans do. So I guess we are a virus too
Dabid Arriola yep
Did anyone else notice the 'bruise' scene in the boat just after the gator attack? Lena complains about a bruise on her left arm - the arm which we'd just seen in one of the interrogation scenes as having an infinity snake tattoo. We see her inspect the bruise and there seems to be no sign of the tattoo. She says something like 'must have got it when the gator attacked' the camera cuts to a close-up of Shepherd (sat behind her) saying 'Yeah...' but her expression suggests she knows something...
Yea
Yeah..
That's true, and what was that eye shining in last scene, this movie just blew my mind
Does the tattoo signify the person is a clone?
One of the other girls had that same tattoo the one that went crazy and tied them up had that tattoo
Who feels like a whole different person after watching the film? 😳🤯
I don't know
Subhendu Parida 😳
I don't know *sips water*
I am LOL, I'm thinking I need to start taking care of my body so nothing bad happens to it! Be and become as healthy as much as I can LOL
Starts the video with "I'm gonna explaine all the questions", explains nothing and asks at the end what the spectators think about it instead. Well done sir..
How is there any debate if the clone died or Lena died ? The clone when caught on fire turned back into the green being obviously real Lena could not do that.... so clearly the clone died.... and the real Lena escaped.... super clear!!!
I think the real thing here is that it doesn't matter if the person is a doppelganger or not, they are basically the same thing. The people that went into the shimmer became the shimmer, and the shimmer became the people. Doesn't matter if it's a clone or not, it's literally the same. Same composition, etc.
It's nice to see our own life like that. All our cells pretty much die and get replaced over a few years (5 or something), so we are essencially copies of our past selves, continuing on... and that doesn't make us less real or less "original". We are what we are... constantly mutating bunch of cells, with our little self-destructions.
I'm not a biologist, but the macro idea of evolution and natural selection is that destruction is what makes us better. We are programmed to die so we can give room to a newer generation with different aspects and probably better chances of surviving the environment, with specific mutations. That also fits in our own lives. We are slowly destroyed and rebuilt so we can adapt to circumstances.
Papa Dragon I’m not sure clone is the right word. They mutate as it goes on. They could be different beings but I wouldn’t describe them as clones. They were refracted and mixed with everything else.
@European Colonist that's makes sense except for the fact that they were all wearing the same clothes as their respective clones. But I like the idea
We're not programmed to die. There's a just a flaw in our DNA that makes cell replication faultier over time.
@European Colonist clone is not the right word,even right now your cells are not the same with the ones you had before one year ,are you a clone?
@@RebornLegacy We NEED to die, otherwise we'd run out of resources on earth to sustain our massive population.
Lena can’t be the clone because she has memories while the Kane clone did not but Lena is already infected anyway so it didn’t matter if she was th clone or not
exactly. this video is shit
I totally agree with your theory Drew.
evolving.... genes could deliver informations like memories
In the book the "biologist" that comes back is not the original. It's the doppleganger that returns
Dashing Dreww (
I am a DIEHARD horror fan. NOTHING Truly frightens me in a horror film, (I am more interested in the evocation of one of the most pure and primordial emotions , fear, and its effect on human psyche) , BUT.... this bear scene I had to back up and watch three times I was so fascinated and disturbed. So very original and deeply unsettling. Honestly it invokes a sort of primal panic and terror, as I imagine a deer would feel being stalked by something. Predators mimicking distress calls to lure prey is a true occurrence in nature, so to hear a predatory version of this adapted for human prey was so utterly compelling and sickly deeply entrancing/terrifying to watch. Gave me a great horrifying twisting punch in the gut...Good call screen writers....I'm impressed.
I agree
love hearing this stuff from a deep horror fan thanks for the insight !
It reminded me of the wendigo episode in Supernatural. The mimic of human cries is terrifying...
They did this in the hunger games books! I think producers must have thought it was too gruesome to put in the movies. But a lot of the creepy creatures in the games were supposed to be like the dead contestants recycled into mutant beasts to mess with the minds of the living contestants, the concept just messes me up so much..
Totally agree..I dont scares much but this was on a whole other level. It was genius and one of the most original best scenes that I have seen in a long time!
According to the author of the source material, the shimmer is a metaphors for “conserving the earth”. Essentially, the others original vision was something along the lines of that even if humans try to destroy earth, earth will annihilate humans in the end to save itself.
And that’s directly from the mouth of the author Jeff Vandermeer.
And life will continue, not the same, but it will continue. Hmm.
So basically the same idea for nearly every film about humans destroying the environment
I always assume it's some environmental message like "mother earth cleansing herself." Typical Hollywood.
This answered no damn questions
Bigzero such a confusing movie
Biologist soldier fights with some alien clones to save the world. That's what I got from this one
Hahaha agreed I’m like I don’t really understand more now than I did before this...in fact now I have even more damn alien mutating questions...F!
"no goddamn* questions"
This is just as bad as the movie.
The bear was brilliantly creepy and unique 👍👍
when i realized what the scream was.... omg.
Yeah that's def the scariest monster in many movies. Makes Alien look simple.
The bear was the only good thing about this movie.
Justin de la Garza loved how it just ripped the girls jaw off
Agreed
I switched to "Inception" because it was easier to understand than this!
Anyone else notice that the infinity tattoo ends up on the soldier in the pool, Anya, and then Lena?
YES! I think the ones with the tattoos are clones.
If you read the book the tattoo is put their because they are the 8th expedition to enter the shimmer. This allows future expeditions to identify them should they find their remains as well as outsiders to identify them if they ever exit the shimmer.
@@ylnx250 But Kane had it too, right? (In the movie)
Why didn't they just use a speedboat and enter from the sea... seeing as the lighthouse was on the beach...
That's a good point!
They did, but no one returned anyway...
There is only one way to enter what is called Area X in the book. There is a "border" surrounding the whole area and only one way to get in.
In the movie, they say they have tried by land, sea and air (and even with drones) but nothing worked...
BABA JANG there where many dumb plot holes like this.
The Lighthouse scene is horrifying. The idea that this metallic form isn’t really on the offence (except for hitting her back once) yet is inescapable because of Lena’s own nature. Freaky. This whole movie is half nightmare, half beautiful dream. I love it
When I drink from a glass, that same thing happens with my water or drink after I put my glass down . So I guess I'm a clone from the shimmer. Come on people! Be smarter than that!
So we aren't gonna talk about the tattoo? The fact Anya had one, Kane did, and so did Lena after the lighthouse. so many unanswered questions
jgelanyi yea right! I thought the same thing..
If you read the books, the tattoo was an 8 because they were the 8th expedition to enter. It was a way for the team members to be identified.
@@ylnx250 wouldnt the women going in be the 9th expedition then? Or if they're the 8th, Kane and their crew would have been the 7th.
@@jgelanyi well the way the book explains it they actually sent in dozens and dozens of expeditions amounting to 1000s of people, the number is kept vague but it is huge, however, the
Southern reach's Head, which you learn in book2 was the psychologist, didn't want expeditions to know how many people they had lost to Area X, and so they just stopped at 8. Thats why Kane had an 8 too. As was shown in the movie they almost exclusively hired expeditions from outside the facility, so none of the teams had any clue how many people had gone in. There are several people in the Southern Reach that had entered Area X and returned without a doppleganger. The only one included in the film that had done that was actually the psychologist who had successfully been into and out of Area X twice before.
@@ylnx250 Thats really cool! Thank you for your insight/knowledge, I haven't read the books and maybe should LOL is the movie far off from the books would you say?
Yeah I think when she drank the water, it was just the water settling that had splashed on the side of the glass when she took a drink. The scene where she drank the water was meant to make the audience believe she was not a copy because when her copy husband took a drink of water out of the glass at the beginning blood ran down the sides of the glass. The audience itself wasn't visually hinted until the hint that she may not be herself any longer when her eyes glowed at the end.
Exactly!
cause the shimmer was destroyed
Exactly, I don’t think water can mutate since it’s made up of only molecules not cells. But this movie was the trippiest thing I’ve seen in awhile and a breathe of fresh air. Not all alien invasions consists of bugs ships and explosions sometimes its biological. Not a bad movie caused a lot of discussion.
@@LosingControl31 weird cause the husband didnt though
@@LosingControl31 You're absolutely right about the water! A mutation is a change in a nucleotide sequence. Water itself is obviously just H20 and can therefore not be mutated. It was weird of him to say (and keep) that in the video.
I agree with the sentiment about there being some interesting concepts here, but I'm not sure it was a good movie. The visuals were wonderful though.
I think the point was that once inside everythings dna starts to mutate/combine with each other, hence the other persons tattoo that grew on 3 peoples arm; like the inverse of shooting light into a prism (or a kaleidoscope), everythings dna began to reflect on everything else. So the end it was the real Lena, except her body was already mutated with what ever was inside, so what came out of the shimmer was neither lena or the alien, but both (and probably some of the other crew).
This is correct
Getting a tattoo does not alter your DNA, it is a physical modification which is not transfered via DNA... There is something about the tattoo tho because Lena did not have it before entering the shimmer! I guess I'm gonna have to rewatch to get some awnsers! (Maybe read the book too?)
Zack Silver
God wtf
@@unorthodoxname5012 there's a book?!?! This is why I read comments xD
Out of all the very good theories on Lena I agree with this one the most so far.
Dormamu, I've come to bargain
Best ragequit ever
😅😅😅😅😅😅
U will get ur Bargain when u fix this DAMN Door
@@mohammedubed7000 spidey
I think it's more like a thrilling psychological movie wrapped in sci-fi plot
The shot of her reading a book about Henrietta Lacks is a pretty clear association to cancer and immortal cells. Perhaps her tattoo in the shape of the infinity symbol also alludes to this. Constant mutation but immortal. Not dying but changing constantly.
YES I noticed that as well pretty deep when we consider Mrs. Lacks story
Deadpool Origins
Here's how the shimmer was destroyed at the end. Lena's clone absorbed not only her physicality but also her psychology. Thus, the clone became intelligent and self-destructive--like Lena herself. That's why when the clone's arms were on fire, it did not chase her out of the tower...instead it walked to the wall of the tower, touching it with intent, then walking into the hole, causing the destruction of tower and the shimmer. It was the real Lena who came back out of the shimmer. Her eyes glowed at the end because she was still infected.
i am persuadable. there is clearly intent evident in that burning of the lighthouse that has been overlooked in all of the explanations I have heard
Agreed. It also didn't need the shimmer anymore because it's DNA became fused with Lena and Kane which was the whole reason the clone of Kane showed up in the first place. It can evolve another way now. But I think it also fused with her self destructive DNA whether intentionally or not when they fully merged.
Also, Lena and Kane are a breeding pair. Both a male and female have been infected. Cue Lena's early speech about 1 cell becomes 2, 2 becomes 4...
The ‘Clone’ also touched the head of the burned remains of Kane. I assume that was a nod to say there was some of her in the clone, and that was the final goodbye.
brilliant answer - it can create in a different way now.
I think the most profound idea in this movie is that the shimmer doesn`t has to be a weapon or tool. It could be just a phenomenon, mechanically acting without intention. As everything else in biology, if you think about it for a moment.
Another intriguing idea that was tackled in the movie but not developed further is that the shimmer could be a a prism of information, not matter or energy, reorganizing things under slightly different physical rules than of what we know.
In the books "the shimmer" is actually a tool/weapon.
And it was send with a purpose. People in the movie/books and people who read/saw it try to see a deeper meaning behind it... but there is non, its just a tool/weapon.
The shimmer is a landmine set in a war that ended long time ago, and the earth was unfortunate enough to step on it.
That alien at the lighthouse thing was crazy it gave me chills!
Take note Hollywood. Movie was pretty good with an all female cast. No agenda was being pushed. There were character arcs, the character themselves were flawed, a story was being told, and the movie was compelling and thought provoking.
The human characters were the weakest part of the film - the protagonist's marriage life was dragged into a place it really had no business being at all and the other characters had only minimal development before the alien force overwhelmed them.
I said in a previous comment, but the reason for an all female team is the Southern Reach trying different variables to get different reactions from Area X.
Some people decided to just jump on the Ghostbusters comparison sadly.
If that's true, then the film didn't make that clear - and furthermore, no one in charge of planning such a mission has *any* idea what kind of reaction the phenomenon in question is getting from the teams it sends in there as they disappear and have no communication with home base once inside.
Really, this wasn't very well thought out...
aaaaand hollywood throws it to Netflix
I agree that it tried to be those things, but all it actually ended up being was a film packed with clichés and poorly executed ideas. As is mentioned below, the characters felt shoe horned and unrealistic, they certainly didn't have believable or enjoyable arcs. Comparisons to Ghostbusters are well justified, at least in the movie...
The book may be better, but if the film anything to go by, its clearly influenced by Colour Out Of Space... Though the book may not suffer from some of the movies gaping holes, like in a very vase level the team itself for example. I would hope the hook deals with that better.
Yet another movie that tries to be clever and fails quite horribly while doing so...
Why does nobody bring up the tattoo?
Same reason everyone forgetts that the movie explicitly states that The Shimmer has no intent of any kind and it may not be intelligent at all.
It's not that big a deal, it is an example of how the shimmer refracts everything. One of the soldiers of Kane's expedition had it, and the shimmer refleted it back to everyone
Yes I wondered this too, but having a tattoo does change someones DNA ... we are not born with tattoos? This when I realised this was not actual science... but 'refraction' and I relaxed and enjoyed the ride. The fact I am still thinking about this movie days later means it certainly qualifies as truly intelligent Sci-Fi. BRAVO
That's what confused me the most. Where the hell did that tattoo come from? The bruise from the gator turned into a tattoo?
KuraMad2000 perhaps the person who was previously eaten by the croc had that tattoo which then became part of the croc's dna
Forget the movie. This comment section is damn funny!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣
When you realize that Annihilation and Frozen are the same story, both based on The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson.
It seems that it is still the "original" Lena, but its made clear every real human that entered the shimmer was affected by the shimmer in one way or another. Original Lena made it out, but she has been changed, and the changes may be continuing. Nobody leaves the shimmer intact.
The alien was a higher tiered presence that skewed energy patterns within its range. It wasn't alive in the traditional sense and had no agenda beyond the influence of the biological beings it encountered. Its response to each of the humans it encountered directly manifested itself in the being subsequently created. The husband's love for his wife was why the clone sought her out, with no agenda. The protagonist was able to convey to her doppelganger a desire to destroy herself, which it did. Survival instincts are unique to social creatures, because this utility contributes to success. Projecting this "humanity" onto other beings who's survival wasn't predicated on this need (Such as Super AI) yields an inability to draw accurate conclusions about behavior.
Great explanation
I have to wonder how long copy Kane was out of the Shimmer before finding Lena.
Did the Shimmer create a copy of Lena and Kane’s house in the shimmer to teleport copy Kane directly to the real house.
The Doppelgängers seem to be able to teleport from one room to another.
Love it.
Survival instincts are definitely not only in social creatures, but altruistic variants certainly are. The whole "family comes first" thing in humans is completely instinctive, nothing more than programming. Something like a solitary wood wasp can't even comprehend the idea of pack protection and family. Yet- it still has the programming to run/fly away from things that scare it, I.E- self preservation.
very very well said
The film was absolutely stunning. It left me thinking about so much.
In all honesty I want to see a film (short or full length) that delves more into the universe of Annihilation. The concept of it and the lore that could be made for the film could deepen our understanding of what the alien race is and whether or not Lena is still herself or has merged with the shimmer to create a different kind of world destroyer.
It wouldn’t crossover well with the mainstream audience , but I agree ... this movie reminded me a little bit of cronenberg’s style .
Did not like the ending the theory about the clone surving and changing the story is a good one but that doesn't explain how the shimmer got destroyed in the first place wouldn't it have still been there? And when she passed out the clone hadn't even morphed into her yet the only theory that can explain the ending was the original Lena survived like we saw but she's kept mutations from the shimmer because she was there for so long that's the only theory i feel like is the most valid
The Lena doppelganger made it out and was telling the story. In her version of events the original Lena destroyed the shimmer. Lena doppelganger made it out, destroyed the shimmer and the life inside because the mission was fulfilled - she was created as the ultimate mate for the Kane doppelganger.
DJMAUS thats still a good theory but the one that makes the most sense to me atleast is the real lena destroyed the shimmer like we saw but because she was in the shimmer for so long she still had the side effects and mutations from it
Doni Billie 👀 yo i can definitely get next to this i just don't know what their child would mean for humanity would damn near be unstoppable
I feel like either the clone changed the story to lie and perhaps the shimmer did still catch on fire, but the clone was the one who made it out and the original Lena burnt to death. Or, Lena is infected by the shimmer and is just slowly turning into someone else. Either way we will probably never know
Anne Smith and that right there is what i didn't like not knowing what actually happened i don't think they should make a sequel but a miniseries to explain where the shimmer came from and to explain what actually happened to lena and also showing what her and her husband are planning to do with earth i doubt things would be peaceful once they mate and have a child
I walked out of this movie with a lack of trust. For everything
Benjamin Oyarzabal it's almost as if the details look strange in the corner of your eye. =P
Especially bears!
Here's how book and movie are similar: Characters, place called area x... The end
The movie isn't trying to be the book. That would be stupid.
The shiimmer is an alien that goes to planet to planet to survive by changing it
but in all honesty.. its been a while since a movie entertained me and people actually got a discussion going for once instead of just talking about DC vs Marvel.. I thought it was a fascinating film, i give it an A.. Very well directed film as well, from the first frame i feel everything is being told with intent, but i do get why some people wont like it.
agree
mike kenneth Exactly. Its like every movie nowadays are marvel
I thought the movie was a metaphor for self-reflection. The characters all end up the way they view themselves. Lena feels like she owes Kane because of the affair. The reflection she fights is the guilt she feels at her own selfish actions. Ventress is consumed by her desire to face death, quite literally. Anya is destroyed by her paranoia. She questions everything she sees because of her past as an addict. Josie chooses not to fight & embrace the changes. She wipes away her scars & becomes one with nature.
So much to think about in regards to this film. Great job presenting your interpretations of this movie. Your videos are ALWAYS entertaining and fun to watch!
How is there any debate if the clone died or Lena died ? The clone when caught on fire turned back into the green being obviously real Lena could not do that.... so clearly the clone died.... and the real Lena escaped.... super clear!!!
2:04 there is literally a face in the shimmer "wall"
jesus in the toast
Pareidolia
I thought the movie was about the nature of all bio-logical life - Always mutating and never content in a static stable environment. Similar to the French proverb, 'The fate of the glass is to break', the 'fate of all biologic life is to self-destruct'. All human characters in the film seem to fit that profile. I saw the Shimmer as a pinnacle state of a biological being that is capable of mutating life around it. But even it seemed to follow an illogical path that lead to a catastrophic change.
That's so true. Self-destruction is a theme that's brought up repeatedly both on the cellular level and the psychological/behavioral level (think: Anya's alcoholism). And even the advanced, Alien life-form self-destructed too (in an explosion of flames nonetheless).
It seems no matter what form a living organism takes, the only constant is death.
Also known as The Fall
he was a double, she was the real one, just infected, that's why their eyes simmered slightly differently...
the only thing I don't get is that tattoo... getting a tattoo doesn't change your dna...
Good point, it's ink and not a birthmark or something.
It refracted everything, not just DNA
For me it seemed like the shimmer/alien was just a metaphor for nature. It always mutates und changes. It has no specific goal, it just wants to learn the best way to stay alive. It didn‘t attack Lena, Lena herself attacked it even though it didn‘t do anything bad. ( a lil reference to humans destroying the world)
For me personaly I felt bad for the alien/form of live because it just wanted to learn, live and be.
The alien survived. The "real" Lena that destroyed the "alien" was the alien I think. I haven't watches the movie yet
The Shimmer seems like a nice nod to Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space. In the novel, the colour itself (it's basically described as what we see inn the film, the light refraction, all of the visible colours to the human eye, etc) is the entity/alien. So it would make sense that the entirety of the Shimmer was the being itself. The epicenter of the meteor impact being the core of said being. Just my thoughts.
YES. The moment I saw the Shimmer I wondered if the movie was inspired by The Colour out of Space (I didn't know about the book at the time). That prepped me to experience a movie about things that strike at the heart of our assumptions and that we "know" how things work. The alien twists how earth biology works, but it itself is mind-shatteringly unlike earth biology or even material. It doesn't even seem to operate by earth physics.
I found it weird how the crocodile dragged the girl from so high up
they where in the house then
then they got in lil canoes not worrying about many other crocodiles? ugh
Scott M I'm pretty sure that crocodile ate all the other crocodiles....
Ikr
same
There's also a point where Lena is reading "the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks", a book about cancer cells that are immortal, able to divide outside the body and that are in constant mutation. These cells, called HeLa, are still used nowadays by biologists after the donor (Henrietta Lacks) died 60 years ago
There is a Lena anagram in there that I'm too tired on a Sunday night to look at..
Thanks for the extra work on the review. I like the way you explore the metaphorical dimension of this film, which is clearly one of the main dimensions of it. Like Tarkovsky's Stalker, in that regard. It seems like the poetical ambitions of Annihilation do indeed owe a lot to Stalker. Haven't come across much writing about that, yet. But the two films do form a zone. An expanding zone.
The book 'Stalker' is based upon is the excellent 'Roadside Picnic' by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The book goes into much deeper detail regarding the 'Zones'. Another book/movie echoed in this story is 'Solaris' by Stanislav Lem. Again, the book goes far deeper into the alien encounter. Of the two film versions, again I suggest Tarkovsky's. Brilliant stuff.
Imagine a sequel type of this story in Africa or Siberia, where locals in the area see the shimmer and explore into it, but discover something different than the high tech western type investigation. Maybe the story could go deeper with people from different places, and times in history. That would be cool, like the visitor fungi comes every century or millennia.
the scene with the bear were he smells and looks around is not so simple, the bear wants them to scream to feed on the screams. he didn't eat sheppard only mutilated her.
And Im not talking only about people who died of cancer. Im talking about all the ones, who died while suffering. Another example could be depression ending with a suicide. True annihilaiton. And these people will also be remembered as "the ones who took their lives", "the ones with mental problems" etc... Just like the bear "remembered" and resembled only the last moments of Cass.
And the bear is something that all the members of the expedition team fear. Being remembered badly after death is something that everyone fears. Another gret metaphor.
Fun fact: If you replace one letter in the word bear, you get fear hahaha
Protegit - and if you replace the "a" with an "e" you get beer. So what.
Protegit or beer
Regarding the ending, my friend thought the same of a possible switcheroo. I still think it's the real Lena. I told him I don't think the mutation just abruptly ends after being affected. Remember Kane (Isaac)? He told the doppelgänger he can see his fingertips and skin moving, then seconds later offed himself. I believe it's her and not the clone. The process had started, and will continue to change and affect her.
Really? 3?! Thanks Imma check 'em out
Speedy Gunz yes
Yeah exactly. The thought of Lena's clone being the one at the end is just way too corny for the type of movie this is. The fact it's even being debated is sad lol. Original Lena is transformed by the experience and turning into something else. End of story! And a good film.
Speedy Gunz No its the alien..it was looking to take a form a shape as it was formless...when it found out the higher level of consciouness in the main character it took its form...
@edvinchandra no, with due respect that's too Hollywood a reading for the director's predisposition to a deeper read.
I may be blind, but what does everybody mean by "The water in the end is mutating, after Lena drinks it"? I don't get it
Just another indictment of American education system
Reminds me of the aliens from Prey. They were not evil, their aggression was not the result of hostility. The game clearly states that they don't have mirror neurons. It means they have no empathy. They don't see anything wrong with what they're doing. They just multiply by taking over other species.
The scene with the clone is practically non-aggressive. The only blow comes in self-defense.
Life on Earth came from a meteor. That "alien meteor" brings just another form of evolution. In the end, Lena is not a clone. She's a different person. She's like a soldier that returned from war. Not herself anymore. It's happened to all of us.
We don't know what started life on Earth, panspermia or transpermia is conjecture.
And how did life get onto that meteor?
Your picture though...
U fucked my mind lmfao
Black Phillip I accuse thee of witchcraft and thou art the witch of the Black Woods, “ Clickity-Clickity-Clack” 😂😂
why is nobody pointing out that the Lena's clone at the end is not exactly mirroring her movements. In fact when she tries to run out the clone goes after her (that ain't mirroring). Or why they never bother to finish watching those video tapes? They're are on a mission to collect data right?
Or why they weren't taking notes the first few days inside the shimmer? They are soldier and experiencing memory loss, so, maybe start a journal with your actions and position? But then all of a sudden the memory loss disappear?
Lots of plot holes in this thing......
If we go with the cancer metaphor, then maybe the lack of 100% synchronous movement represents the struggle with cancer... In the initial fight against cancer, you could "beat" it before it fully duplicates or "annihilates" you.
Yeah you're right: in the book there are notebooks and they're essential to the plot.
Making a campsite secure wasn't really a priority either. And the one on guard was away from the others with a light on, that's not a guard, that's bait
For film it might have been better to leave a little unexplained.... part of truly good horror is an aspect of the unknown. It's a staple of primal fear.
Maybe it starts as mirroring for the clone, but then it becomes smarter/better than you and either predicts your movements or makes the better one. Or perhaps it gained a conscience by coming into contact with Lena.
In the books, there's no doubt (once you've read all three): It's a weapon. And that meteor-like strike isn't compatible with a pretty big theme - how it got here - in them: That's another tie in with the refraction-theme.
Its more a tool rather than a weapon.
It teraforms the planet slowly.
Like a mower : for us its a tool, for everything that lives in the gras its a monster killing and destroying everything in his path, but thats not what it was build for. It just happens to be the outcome of us wanting a nice and clean garden to live on...
When the teacher wants you to write a 3 page interpretation of some book:
3? That's it? How old are you lmao?
@@ParistonHxH over 30. I'm fully aware that in academia you drag out your interpretation over hundreds of pages, but that doesn't make it better. After the first page you're just doing the thinking for the reader or give more context.
Annihilation and Arrival are my top picks for sci-fi E.T. So far
Both amazing, concentrating on the human behaviour and our destruction habits
I think the Lena that made it out was the original Lena. The reason her eyes changed to me was that she had some of the alien’s DNA shared in her.
The reason Lena burned the dopple ganger was because she saw the video when Kane killed himself with the same type of grenade.
In a way Lena mirrored what Kane did in the end. Just with opposite outcomes. Trippy...
a hug is hardly a marriage back together lol
I don't think there's a difference, wether it was the original or the clone they were both assimilated by the organism.
Why have I never seen this video. I’ve rewatched that movie too many times trying to fully understand it
This is your best video. You tried decaf. Nice work.
it was _the_ most beautiful sci-fi film I've. _ever!_ seen.
what's going on with the punctuation here? lolol
dark city is also good, not beautiful tho but poetically
Don't you think that a lo of it was beauty for beauties sake...? If you haven't tried LSD, you really, really should!
*Do your research first though (actual science, not sensationalist journalism)! Stay safe!
Sprokie Meisie watch Solaris and Stalker
Sci_fi not sci-fa
What if they were their clones from the very beginning when they couldn't remember what day it was or how long they've been there?
Pineal Gland that’s actually what I thougt too. It is definitely a possibility!
the shimmer seemed more like a natural force of nature, rather than sentient, like the dr describes at the end that it may not even have a want or desire, it seems more like it just is, terrifying as it is beautiful, like an angel
How does water mutate 🤦♂️
@Karina Belenoff u also stupid?
Its sarcasm kid
Go to school.
@divinefeminine
whoosh...