Jen 0:00

Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation is a creepy, deeply existential, swamp gothic masterpiece about the human mind dissolving into an alien ecosystem. Whereas Alex Garland's 2018 film adaptation is essentially a sci-fi acid trip where Natalie Portman battles a mutant bear that screams with a dead girl's voice. It's what happens when you give a philosopher a budget and tell him to make an arthouse monster movie.

Joe 0:46

That's why I'm upset, Jen, that you didn't read the book. Because the book, I I liked the book. It's really weird. Not really weird, but it's but it's just like a weird, it's a weird thing to write about or or perspective to write about. I don't know.

Tom 1:02

I I thought it was a very I mean it it was it was a very in a good way disturbing read. Like it was it was not the head the the the the the the narrator's voice that the story is told in is so alien to my own that uh it it was a it was a discomforting read.

Joe 1:23

Oh well yeah, like the characters there's definitely something and and I guess the fun part is trying to figure out like is it the environment that's making her this way, or is she like like I don't know. There's that's why I wish yeah, Jen. We could have done a whole episode just on the book.

Jen 1:40

Well, this show is about transferring the books to the screen, Joe. So go do a book only podcast and go ahead.

Tom 1:47

I will say there were like probably halfway through uh like the second the second part of it, you know, whatever, like second chapter, whatever. Like, I was like, she's crazy. Like I think she's already crazy.

Joe 2:00

I think she might be a little bit sociopathic. Yeah, and I I I really sense the lack of any much emotion from the character. Like she would talk about having emotions, but you never actually felt them. Yeah, and so it's uh but I don't know if that's because it was written by a guy writing a woman. I don't I was also thinking about that. I was reading this book.

Jen 2:22

Was there a part like in the book where they have like a pillow fight?

Joe 2:26

No, no, with their shirts off?

Jen 2:28

No?

Joe 2:28

Okay, good. Nothing, not nothing really sexual at all in this book happens.

Jen 2:32

Because there were five.

Joe 2:33

She talks about how she has sex with her husband, and that's about it.

Tom 2:37

And it's like the most dispassionate conversation, you know, whatever description of dispassionate sex, but yeah, she's into it.

Joe 2:47

No, no, it's very different. It's is it's it's incredibly like we can skip to the end. This is not a successful adaptation of material. Saying it right out here up front. Go Yankees. By this time, by the release time, will they have already won a couple of games?

Jen 3:05

Yeah, of course they will.

Joe 3:07

Well, they have played a couple of games.

Jen 3:10

I bet my life on it.

Joe 3:12

Oh man.

Jen 3:12

Yeah, they'll have played two games, seven. Well, they'll play one game. I don't think they're playing Sunday. Is it every other?

Joe 3:18

There's already a day off.

Jen 3:20

I think I could be wrong about that, but I thought it was like every other day.

Tom 3:24

It's not every other day. It's not in the ALDS, but there's a couple of days off.

Joe 3:28

Yeah, it's usually traveling days, right? It'll be like two days. Two traveling days. Yeah, it'll be like two two games, break, three games, break, two games.

Tom 3:37

This is very important stuff.

Joe 3:38

Yeah, I am too. This is important. Did they switch to the two two one one one format?

Tom 3:42

Uh yeah, their next game is is uh is Monday.

Joe 3:46

Because they don't want to like have you know, God forbid there should be four.

Jen 3:50

October 3rd, October 5th, October 7th.

Joe 3:53

Well, I guess.

Tom 3:55

The National League has two days in a row, and then it's every other day. And then, well, the the American League play back-to-back, I think, games three and four.

Joe 4:04

This is shelf to screen, the podcast where we discuss sci-fi and fantasy literary adaptations to the big and or small screen. I'm Joe, the surveyor.

Jen 4:13

I'm Dr. Gentris.

Tom 4:16

And I'm Tom Bear.

Joe 4:17

Tom Bear. Oh boy. We're gonna be diving deep into the weird, beautiful, and and deeply unsettling world of Jeff Vandemere's 2014 psychological sci-fi novel Annihilation. Still still trying to figure out how that title fits into any anything, but um maybe we have to read the sequels.

Tom 4:44

I I we could talk about it a little bit if we want. I have some ideas.

Joe 4:48

Well, they say, you know, Jennifer Jason Lee does say annihilation at towards the end of the movie, and I was like, oh, there it is.

Tom 4:54

There it is. It's this it's it's mentioned in the book as well. Like the annihilation is what is happening to them on an existential level.

Jen 5:03

Like the annihilation is the friends we made along the way.

Tom 5:07

Or the lack thereof.

Joe 5:09

Or yeah. There are no friends in this movie uh book at all either. Yeah.

Jen 5:14

Oh, in the book, they're not friends? Yeah, like cool, cool girls hanging out on the deck on the book on the patio, and they call her over.

Tom 5:22

No.

Jen 5:22

No, there's no there's And then Nile Portman says, all women and winks at you watching the movie. Like Well, they're all women in the movie.

Tom 5:32

Yeah, there's no there's no um because the last expedition was no camaraderie.

Joe 5:37

Yeah, that the last expedition was all men, so they're like, let's try all women this time. They're just trying different things. Um, first encounter with the material, Jen?

Jen 5:48

Um, my first encounter was trying to find the book somewhere, not finding it in time, and not reading it. So I watched the movie today. That was my first encounter. Wow. About uh five hours ago.

Joe 6:01

Fresh, Jen. So fresh. Uh Tom, how about you?

Tom 6:06

I saw the movie. I I think I watched it uh at home during the pandemic. Um I definitely watched it at home with with the missus for the first time. Big I'm a big Natalie Portman fan. Uh that movie looked uh interesting, and I had heard uh I heard some good reviews, so we we gave it a shot. And then I read the book uh this past like a week ago.

Joe 6:26

Yeah, this I much in the same boat as you, Tom. I think I saw this maybe maybe before the pandemic, um, shortly before you, just because I had read about it and I saw like the trailer, and I was like, this looks kind of cool and creepy and yeah, cool. Um and I saw the movie and I was like, uh what? I was like, the end was uh the ending is what really just like kind of threw me off. And on this rewatch, I actually think the ending might be the best part of the movie. It's so weird. Total 180 on me on this movie, reverse where I kind of liked the first half of the movie when I first saw it, and then the second half of the movie, or just the end wasn't as good. This time I'm flip-flopping all the way around there. Um and then yeah, uh, I think we I don't even remember how it just popped in my head to put on our list here. Um, because I don't know if I knew it was based off of a book, and I was like, oh, I want to read this book because maybe the book's cooler, or you know, sometimes like in the like in last week's movie, um something that you like descrip you describe in a book is hard to to make.

Jen 7:37

Yeah.

Joe 7:38

Uh I don't know, to have gravitas or some sort of semblance of cohesiveness when you put it on screen, which is a lot like what happens at the end of this book, and I guess in this movie. But I thought, even though the ending is not anywhere near what the ending is in the book, I thought it captured the tone and feeling of the book in the sense of like the weirdness that happens.

Jen 8:00

Yeah, I want to know what happens in the book.

Joe 8:03

Um so I enjoyed the book though. I really I I actually want to read the other two books because this is the first book of a trilogy, and maybe that it's actually it's actually more than a trilogy now, Joe.

Tom 8:12

It was a trilogy at the time uh the movie came out, but it's gonna be five books all told. The fifth book coming out, and the next it might be out by the end of the year.

Joe 8:21

Oh yeah, he wrote all three all three books together and and didn't release them until he finished uh the series. And he wrote it all over like a couple of years. Yeah. And they came out the same year. He they came out like one came out in like I don't know if I have it here, but like one came out in February, the next one in like May, and then the next one in like September or something like that. So people can just buy them all in the same year and read the whole trilogy.

Tom 8:45

Pretty interesting. Yeah, I think if he added two more, and the book is very like I think it has a lot to say about like college, much like the first book that we uh that we did here on this podcast, Dune. Like I think it's inspired a lot by like ecology, ecological disasters, and and like man's impact on and and and and relationship to nature, like filter through a you know, a sci-fi prism. Uh prism.

Joe 9:15

Um but like the answer to what's going on in the movie.

Jen 9:19

Yeah.

Tom 9:20

Right. Whereas, yeah, the the the the movie has the j the same general concept of the book in five scientists slash military explorers go into a bump, yeah. Uh go into a zone, uh, or get assigned to go into some kind of mysterious scientifically impacted zone and it doesn't go well. But like the the actual execution. There's a lighthouse in it. There's a lighthouse, yeah.

Jen 9:47

So there's no um shark alligator and and mutant skull bear?

Joe 9:54

No. Uh there's a mutant pig.

Tom 9:57

Yeah, but it's not even like a mu it's not a mutant pig like this. It's just like a mutant pig. There's a there's a monster in it. Well, there's a there's there's that thing, and then there's the the There's the crawler.

Joe 10:12

Oh, the crawler, the crawler. Okay, well, I mean let's take out a central part of the book. A central part of the book.

Tom 10:19

Yeah, really the whole the whole the whole central mystery of the book. Not yeah.

Joe 10:24

All right, let's go back to the page here and talk a little bit about how this book came about. Let's wind the clock back. Okay, so Annihilation didn't drop out of a vacuum, it was born out of the humid, foreboding wilderness of Florida. Florida. Oh my god.

Tom 10:45

Florida. Florida.

Joe 10:48

Jeff Vandermeer drew heavy inspiration from his frequent hikes through the St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge. If you have ever wanted to write cosmic horror wandering through isolated coastal swamps and cypress wetlands populated by feral hogs, there you go. And unreadable nature is apparently a great place to start. Vandermeer noted that the book taps into uh deep autobiographical elements and broader philosophical questions about humanity's place on a planet dominated by forces we cannot control or comprehend. Yes. Uh, the publication journey was just uh as unique, published by Farrar, Strauss, and Guru in February of 2014. Annihilation was the inaugural volume of the Southern Reach trilogy, followed swiftly by Authority and Acceptance later that same year, as I mentioned before. But here's the kicker. Unusually for a literary speculative fiction debut, film rights were acquired before the book even hit the shelves. I don't know, it doesn't seem as unusual to us because didn't we do a couple of adaptations that were similar to that? I can't think off the top of my head, but I feel like Jurassic Park. Yeah, Jurassic Park was. Um was the prestige.

Tom 12:07

No, another prestige. Obviously, in 2001, it was written in tandem, you know, with the with the the the film made.

Joe 12:14

Are you sure that prestige wasn't one of those?

Tom 12:16

I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

Joe 12:17

Oh, okay. So as I mentioned, uh Vandemere wrote the entire uh initial manuscript for the trilogy, the whole trilogy, um, in secretive isolation, finishing all three books before the first one was even published. Brilliant. I love that. Uh, this strategy maintained complete narrative cohesion across a shifting mythos without editorial interference, altering the trajectory midway through. Um, readers and critics praised the book for its subversive take on traditional sci-fi, replacing standard alien invasive tropes with creeping ecological horror. Creeping this time, John.

Jen 12:53

Creeping.

Joe 12:54

Yeah, and establishing Vandemira's premier voice in the new weird literary movement. It won the Nebula Award for best novel in 2015, turning Slowburn's Psychological Dread into a Critical Darling. Yeah, that sounds good, right?

Tom 13:08

Yeah.

Joe 13:09

I didn't uh I was I I wasn't aware of any of this, though. I'll just say that much. So what was I what were we doing in that around that time, the mid-2010s? Working probably just a lot.

Jen 13:19

Yeah. Yeah.

Joe 13:20

Languishing in our 30s.

Jen 13:23

Languishing.

Joe 13:24

Yeah.

Tom 13:25

Uh not not in touch with the new weird movie.

Joe 13:29

No, definitely not in touch with the new weird sci-fi uh literary movement, that's for sure. Um, so development of this into a movie, right? Paramount pictures and producer Scott Rudin spotted the potential for this early, acquiring the film rights on March 26, 2013. Uh, in October 2014, Alex Garland, riding high on the critical acclaim of ex Machina, was brought on to write and direct. Uh, but development quickly ran into a brick wall of studio panic following a low-scoring test screening. I don't I find that not hard to believe. Uh, Skydance media financier David Ellison expressed deep concern that the film was too intellectual and far too complicated for general audiences, which is kind of funny because I feel like that's the opposite. Well, not the opposite, but I feel like he took Garland took a lot of that out of the book and made made. I feel like he made this movie more broad. Yes. And like stand, I don't want to say standard, but more uh more in a like a cookie cutter Hollywood type movie.

Tom 14:36

Yeah, that's a traditional narrative. Like people have personalities. Uh like yeah, it is. I I feel like first of all, David Ellison's an awful human being, apparently. Uh not not like a pedorist or anything like that, but like uh he's the guy responsible for like the the the Paramount Warner Brothers merger. Um and he's gone on to now be one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. He has no taste and it's just uh an atrocious uh creative force uh that really only cares about business. That being said, all that being said, he was probably right in in his judgment that like this was not going to be a financial success the way it's constructed.

Jen 15:19

So they there wasn't a good screening, but then they didn't change anything?

Tom 15:23

Yeah, so Scott Rudin, uh the producer of the film, like in his contract, I think he has final cut. So he's like, I I believe in Alex Garland. We're gonna go what he what he says.

Jen 15:35

So then why do they even do the screening?

Joe 15:39

Well, because Scott Rudin could have changed stuff if he wanted to, but he didn't agree with what he thought what needed to be changed, I guess. I I don't know the details, but I think it was more of a like, you know, I believe in this guy, I want to go with what he said. You know, we might we might not understand it and it might look strange to us, but we trust him or I trust him. Scott Scott Rudin trusts him and says, I think he's on he he knows what he's doing. Let's let's keep it the way he wants to keep it. I mean, I don't know if Scott Rudin read the book, probably not either, because I think it's funny. This whole part is funny because they're sticking to a story that's not even really much like the original, what the the annotation is based off of. They're like, no, we gotta stick with this. This is too complex. Garland should have gone, you should have read the book. Right.

Tom 16:29

The the so about that, I think it's funny. This is the only thing I knew about the movie the time that I had watched it, is that I had read something, uh, I guess an interview with with with uh Alex Garland um where he said, I read the book once and then I I never looked at it again. And he's like, I wrote the screenplay like just based on my like my impressions of the book from the first read-through. And like it was like a dream of the story.

Jen 16:55

Just just vibes.

Joe 16:56

Yeah. Yeah. And he did play some vibes. And he never read the sequels either, so it wasn't like he even had like some additional context to pull from.

Jen 17:04

But like that's important to read because it's all one story.

Tom 17:08

To be to be to his uh defense, I would say, he wrote the screenplay before any of the books were published. It was done. So like he only accessed the did he did he write it then?

Joe 17:23

Because I know it was bought. It was bought on the initial like uh first draft of the book.

Tom 17:27

He read like a draft copy of the book, not a published copy of the book. And he had finished the the the the script before the second book had come out. So sometime in the yeah.

Jen 17:38

He wrote it in pen, so it couldn't be changed.

Joe 17:41

No. I think I think he's not a long book, he could have gone back and read it, Alex.

Tom 17:46

He had no, yeah, he didn't want to. Like that wasn't like he was making his own movie inspired by the book, and that was it. This was not striving to be a faithful adaptation. Now, I have not read the other books. I I do want to, because I really, as as odd as the book was, and as as discomforting as it was for a read, it was very interesting. I am what happens next. I've never read anything like that, so I the second book reveals a lot more personal details about a couple of the characters that are in the this book. Okay, including including ethnicities which are not matched by the care actors who play them in the film.

Joe 18:23

Yeah, there was a hullabaloo about that where because uh I read somewhere that people were talking about whitewashing it because um the main character, Natalie Portman's character, or the biologist, is implied to be a mixed Asian descent. Now, I don't remember getting that from the first.

Tom 18:39

No, that's it's not in the first book. Okay, okay it's only that's only described in the sequels, which again didn't come out.

Joe 18:46

Scarlin did not write, uh read, I mean, anyway. He didn't read them anyway.

Tom 18:50

So like, yeah, and and the same thing, I think um the the psychologist, uh the Jennifer Jason Leigh part is uh like Native American or part Native American.

Joe 19:02

Um then we got Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson in there, and then we've got uh Sweet in there, Oscar Isaac.

Jen 19:11

Uh so when they talk.

Joe 19:13

Maybe there were too many people of Latino descent in this movie. Maybe that was their problem.

Jen 19:18

Who who what like what person is it in?

Joe 19:21

The biologist is the character's like a first person. She's a narrator. It's her journal. It's her journal. Like she's they all have journals, they're all given journals when they go in and they're supposed to write like regularly in their journals, also because they want to like compare to make sure like that, like when someone says they see something, the other person also says they see it, or describes it in a similar way, or whatever. Um, so the whole thing is just her journal that you're basically reading.

Jen 19:48

She'll say, like, the psychologist said this.

Joe 19:53

It's the psychologist, the surveyor, the anthropologist. She's the biologist. There was there was a linguist who didn't make it across the border. She changed her mind. You don't even meet that character, I don't think. Or maybe there's a flashback or something.

Tom 20:08

But no, you never you never meet them. Because it it takes place, it's all everything present tense is like they're already in the area X.

Joe 20:17

They start, she it starts in Area X, and then there's some flashbacks, like with her husband mainly.

Tom 20:22

Yeah. So like I think she talks that the linguist was like she she mentions a couple of things about the linguist, but it's also I think it's unclear as to whether the linguist like they expected the linguist to be there. Linguist didn't believe it. So like it did the linguist chicken out, or did the linguist not survive however they got in?

Joe 20:42

Like you don't really I thought they I thought she implies that the linguist changed their mind or like decided not to come or changed her mind or the book they don't remember how they even got really got in. Right. And like Yeah, they don't know.

Tom 20:59

She does, but as the book goes on, like she she she finds she's not reliable narrator. She finds out like some of her memories may not be like a hundred percent valid. Oh, yeah.

Joe 21:11

The hypnotism, and that's not even in the movie. That's not in the movie.

Jen 21:14

Um maybe it's just that she's like horrible and she doesn't care to know anybody's names or refer to them as their real names.

Tom 21:22

It's not it's a plot point that like they don't know they they don't know each other's they stopped using names like six months and like uh before the they they went there and like they don't know each other's names.

Joe 21:35

Yeah, they go there, they train, they never learn each other's names, and they always that's just how they they're they're not encouraged, I guess, either to kind of bond, at least from there's no indication that that that that that's a thing. They because nobody really seems to not that they don't like each other, it's just like there's clearly no like affection or camaraderie between any of the characters. So she

Jen 22:00

She doesn't get picked up by the government from an ambulance.

Joe 22:04

No, but her husband does get taken away by the uh by the military. Southern Reach, I guess is what that's what they're called. It's there's not you don't even know, like, there's no mention of countries, there's no mention of towns or cities. She mentions a place called Rock Bay. It's so generic, like that. That's the name of the place. Uh one of the only places I think that ever mentioned it. I'm like, this is just such a generic name.

Tom 22:28

Yeah. The only thing that you can tell is that there's a shore. There's a coast, yeah. There's a coast. And there's a yeah.

Joe 22:36

Like it I mean, it's it's it's based off of Florida, I think, because that's what Jeff, that's what, you know, from Jeff Vandermeer's point of view. So I think it that's what he's called.

Tom 22:45

I don't know if I would have thought Florida if I hadn't seen the movie first. Oh, okay. You know what I mean? Like, because it's like it's like because I'll say this. When I think lighthouses, this is just because of like I think New England. New England. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Yeah. But um they're everywhere. Yeah. There's a Massachusetts. I live not that far away from a lighthouse hill here on Staten Island.

Joe 23:07

But like and lo and behold, there's a lighthouse on it.

Tom 23:10

Yeah, yeah.

Jen 23:11

But it's not like at the water's edge. That's what I picture. Like, yeah, that's like a new game.

Joe 23:17

You're thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or Long Island, even. I mean, yeah, yeah. Out in that way. Um, yeah, uh, you're right, Tom. I didn't, I didn't when I read this, the the research and I said, Oh, Florida, I was like, I wasn't thinking of Florida. I I was thinking more of like maybe middle, like mid-Atlantic. Mid-Atlantic.

Tom 23:35

Mid-Atlantic, yep.

Joe 23:36

That's kind of what I was getting. But I think it's supposed to be very like uh anonymous, for lack of a better term, area. Like there's you don't even know what year it is. You have I mean, there's mention of technology and stuff like that, but it's just it's not grounded in anything except what she's talking about, and really all she's talking about is area X, their experience there, and then her husband, and some some stuff about her childhood.

Tom 24:03

Yeah, it's she says multiple times uh over the course of the book that as much as she would like to have said she went because of her husband, she didn't, but that again, like she's also such an unreliable narrator, it's hard to tell. Like, I she doesn't even really understand herself. Yes, to know whether that's true or not. Yes.

Joe 24:22

Well, I think I think at the very end she does say it, right? She winds up putting it in the thing like maybe I'll find you. And I she did say something like I did really come for you. Yeah, so it's yeah, this book is really more like this is really like a character piece set uh, you know, with a sci-f sci-fi type background. That's it. Uh, but that's what it is. It's really about this this character, really. Um, the biologist. Um where were we anyway? We were talking. Oh, we were talking about, you know, the adaptation of it. Um uh we talked about how Scott Rudin, you know, fought back for uh Alex Garland and said, No, we're not making the changes that you want, David Ellison. I'm kind of curious as to what that would have been like. What were the changes that Ellison was trying? I mean, did he want it more broad, I guess?

Tom 25:09

Yeah, I think he wanted more of like monster. He wanted to make sure yeah, and make her more traditional hero and make the ending less ambiguous.

Joe 25:18

Oh, they wanted to right. He wanted he wanted them to make her more likable. And I I say like this in the in the movie, I don't, and I don't know again if I'm comparing this to the book, but I don't find her really unlikable in the movie.

Jen 25:30

Oh, you want you want to hear one of my notes? Hey, you know who I hate? Lena.

Joe 25:37

Okay, I guess that's I can't. She's just like so that's maybe that's maybe that's then from my because in the book, she's like clearly not a very likable person or character or human being.

Tom 25:48

Yeah.

Joe 25:48

She's just like so, I don't know, it's weird. She's so I feel like maybe she is sociopathic.

Tom 25:55

Yeah. She's borderline. So I think she's a borderline sociopath. She's like, and and she's got issues and she's had she has like some partial childhood reasons that would impact that, but she has like no ability to empathize with anyone else. Right. And no desire to and no desire to try.

Joe 26:13

Well, she tries with her husband, but it's just kind of like she's kind of faking a lot. I mean, she says sometimes she's like, I did enjoy it, I guess, at the time, but maybe really I think she she regrets and she does regret at the end.

Tom 26:25

I think she thinks, like, and she says it in the book, right? That that she's surprised that he has an inner life.

Joe 26:31

Yes, right.

Tom 26:32

Wouldn't he that has an inner life? She thinks like she would, she tried to be to at some at times to be to meet him halfway, not realizing that he was also doing that, and that he was like he had an inner life that was different than his outward appearance. And like that's part of what makes somebody a sociopath, not understanding that people have their own thoughts and processes and feelings.

Jen 26:56

Oh, okay.

Tom 26:57

You know, yeah. Um, but I think she did care for him. Yeah. I don't think she she's completely devoid of that.

Joe 27:04

Yeah. And I mean, there's multiple times in the when you're reading the book where she's like, All right, now I didn't tell you something that happened a little while ago. Like, she'll she'll she'll backtrack and be like, now I might have not been wholly truthful about what this story I told a little while ago, and then tell you more information, or I might have intentionally left this out. And and she even says, which is interesting because maybe not so much of something a sociopath would do, but she she like qualifies it with like a reason. Like, I didn't want to tell you this part yet because I was concerned you wouldn't believe me about all that other stuff I said.

Jen 27:35

I I think now that I'm thinking about the movie, even like there's the whole scene where her and the husband are like in bed joking around, having like the greatest time. Yeah. And then you see that she's cheating on him and her husband knows, and he's like super cold to her. So then I'm like, now I'm thinking, like, was that other part? Did that like even happen? Or is she just like because at the beginning you're like, oh, her husband died. She's like really sick, you know, before you know anything of what's going on, and then you're seeing the memory of that, but then like she's with the other guy and she's just like, and she's also like, I don't want to talk to you, just leave. Like she's cold to him, yeah. And she's cold and the husband, like she it's almost like she's I don't know, like thinking, like making up memories in her head of like things that maybe happen. I don't know.

Joe 28:24

That kind of gets the unreliable narrator kind of flowing for the movie. I I don't know, is it clear and I don't know that her husband knows? Like, first of all, she doesn't cheat on her husband in the book. Um I think they're just this is like a I think this is kind of like a easy way to show to to make people feel a certain way about the character, as opposed to where in the book it's a little bit more subjective and um uh subtle.

Jen 28:49

I think he knows because like when he leaves, he's like, you know, I I I really do love you or I still love you, or whatever. And she's like, I love you too. And then he just leaves and doesn't like he won't kiss her goodbye.

Joe 29:02

Well, I thought that's so I thought that's because he's going to area X and he's pretty sure he's not coming back, or there's a good chance he's not gonna come back.

Jen 29:10

You're not gonna kiss your wife you can't kiss your wife goodbye? Like Um Why wouldn't you do that if you knew you weren't coming back, if everything was fine.

Joe 29:17

Because she doesn't know.

Jen 29:18

Um You still just kiss her goodbye. Like he pulled away from her like he was mad.

Joe 29:23

Maybe he thought maybe he thought if he kissed her he wouldn't go, or if he kissed her, he wouldn't be able like he'd break down and uh tell her everything, tell her like where he was going. Maybe he just couldn't I don't know. I could see it more like if I kiss her, I'm not either gonna be able to leave or I'm gonna break down or whatever.

Tom 29:41

I don't know. H him him going is different in the books, too. He's not military in the in the book.

Joe 29:46

He's like he was ex formery.

Tom 29:49

He's he's ex-navy. That's right.

Joe 29:51

Yeah, she's not military at all.

Tom 29:53

Yeah.

Jen 29:53

Well, they she gotta have some experience with that machine gun.

Joe 29:56

Well, they train, yeah. I guess so. They don't have they don't do the training. Yeah, they don't train.

Jen 30:00

She's have like a week and then they go.

Joe 30:02

Yeah. Uh seven years, too. Like it wasn't even just like, yeah, I did it, you know, I did my three years and now I was in for seven.

Jen 30:10

Yeah. And then I came out now I'm a biologist at Johns Hop. Oh, okay.

Joe 30:15

I'm a biologist who studies cellular uh like cancer cells or something in the city. Yeah, which is not the type of biologist she is in the book. She's a she specializes in transitional ecologies or environments.

Tom 30:30

Transitional environments, yeah.

Jen 30:32

Like when like that's exactly what this is.

Tom 30:34

Yeah, that's why she gets one of the reasons why she gets picked is because she's an expert in like what transitional transitional environments, just to be clear, what that what they what that means, I I don't know what it really means, but what it means in the book is like what happens when the ocean and the land meet, or what happens when a swamp turns into a forest? That that that like what biology happens on the edge of two different ecosystems actually. Right.

Jen 30:58

Um no, and the bo in the movie she she just says she wants to go, right? They don't actually ask her to go. They're just like holding her there because she knows about it.

Joe 31:07

Yes, she's not supposed to go, she's not a part of the expedition, and then she's like, Well, I'm going. And they're like, Okay.

Jen 31:12

Yeah. Oh, good thing you're a biologist and you were in the military for seven years. That'd be helpful. Otherwise, you're not just like some guy's wife who did nothing exciting.

Tom 31:21

Right. Yeah. I've got a degree in liberal arts. Let me go on this mission.

Jen 31:26

I have a communication arts degree. I work at the front desk. Oh, okay, good. I'm going.

Tom 31:33

Yeah.

Joe 31:34

It's a good thing. Otherwise, she would have had to sit there for another six months, like the rest of them.

Jen 31:39

The whole movie would be her looking at the shimmer while waiting for them to come back.

Joe 31:43

The shimmer.

Jen 31:45

That wasn't the shimmer in the book.

Joe 31:46

There's no shimmer in the book. Uh it's not called the shimmer. You never see the border. You don't see the border, you don't see the only thing it starts in area X. It all takes place in Area X, except for like her flashback stories, which take place in the regular world. Um, and that's it. That's it.

Tom 32:04

You don't they don't she looks back and sees something indistinct in the distance. They don't call it the shimmer. And then there's a part where like the border, right? Yeah, the border. And then there's a part like when she's in the tower slash tunnel, like at the bottom, she sees something similar. But again, it's not. It's just I don't know. There's no, there's no like she never describes it.

Joe 32:27

I don't think they remember it, right? Because no, they don't they don't know how they got in. They don't remember how they got in. Like it's they're kind of almost like teleported in.

Jen 32:35

That's uh what happens in the movie, too.

Joe 32:38

Yeah, it's weird though. It's not like three that's so weird in the movie because they're there. She wakes up and it's like, oh yeah, we oh, looks like we've been here for three days. We don't remember any of those days, but we were here because we ate the food.

Jen 32:50

Yeah.

Joe 32:51

Which was a little weird. Like, I don't understand why it had to be like three days. They could have just like woke up there and been like, Yeah, oh, last thing I remember, I was in bed. Yeah, I thought the night before we were supposed to leave.

Jen 33:02

I thought that was gonna be like something happened during that time that you were gonna like find out about.

Joe 33:08

No.

Jen 33:09

No.

Joe 33:09

There wasn't a ice in the to make it more creepy. I don't know.

Tom 33:13

Yeah. In the book, again, like it's they don't remember because they're hypnotized to forget.

Joe 33:17

Oh, that's the other thing, yeah. Right.

Tom 33:19

Like and but like they know that. They know, like you you can't know what you like, you can't understand how like what happens to you when you pass through, so we're gonna hypnotize you so you don't know, and only um only the the the head of the the the psychologist. The psychologist knows, yeah.

Joe 33:35

Um yeah, and then like you find out later on that the there's that the psychologist has put like other hypnotic suggestions in all of them to kind of control them a bit, you learn like later on, which they took out of the movie entirely.

Tom 33:47

Including annihilation, yeah. That's that's in the book, right? That's that's one of the hypnotic suggestions that's it's supposed to get them to kill themselves.

Joe 33:57

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I think it's also on this is annihilation mentioned in the script, the writing, the glowing living script.

Tom 34:06

Yeah, I think there's yeah, which is yeah, yeah.

Joe 34:09

The weird yeah, oh yeah.

Tom 34:12

That's why I'm saying like the main thing of the book.

Joe 34:15

It's so it's like we'd have to spend three episodes just because the movie and the book are so different. I think Tom basically summed it up. Like that overview of what this, you know, it's about a woman who goes into this weird area on an expedition, and her hundred husband had gone on the one. Uh, that's about it. There's the lighthouse, and there's weird kind of ecological shit going on. That's about it. It's all there is that's similar similar.

Tom 34:38

Okay.

Joe 34:39

Yeah. In the in the book, she knows her husband's going into area. She knows what area X is prior. She knows her husband's going there. He decides, he makes the decision that he wants to go on the expedition. It's like their marriage is is already not a great marriage, and I think he's just trying to find something, I guess, maybe. So he decides that he's gonna go on one of these expeditions. It's supposed to be the 11th expedition uh of this type. He just comes back, just like in the movie, he comes back all of a sudden. All of the to be honest with you, all of the people, I think except for one or two who I think died in there, come back to their respective homes, just like out of nowhere, don't really remember much. The government comes and takes them away. Um, right? He she they find out he has cancer. All of the people have cancer and die within like six months.

Tom 35:28

Yeah, yep.

Jen 35:29

Yeah, how does he get home? And what is he saying? So he's um can I just cut right to the end?

Tom 35:37

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Jen 35:38

He's in like an alien. He's like the that's the alien doppelganger, basically.

Joe 35:44

Yes, that would be the doppelganger. And I think in the book it's implied the same thing. Like these people were were potentially cloned, sort of.

Tom 35:53

Yeah. Although it's not what it's not aliens, like there's no space meteor that drops out. Yeah. Oh, okay. There's it it's implied, vaguely implied, that the government was doing some sort of testing, and it might be like an alternate reality or something from like you know, it might be alien kind of, but yeah, it's much more plant-based, everything. Not like mutation.

Joe 36:17

Well, there is mutation.

Tom 36:18

I mean it is there is, but it's it's but the but it's all like yeah, everything's I feel like everything's plant-based and then goes from there. But like at a certain point in the book, you s you get access to you they find the husband's journal while he was there. Oh yeah. And he says, while he's there, he sees the clones of like everybody. Okay. Like him and a few other guys, and then like they're like they're gone before the husband's time in Area X is even over.

Jen 36:46

Yeah, like he he's obviously like losing his mind at the end when he's like on the recording and the movie. And then and then but then he's also like talking to the clone. I guess if if she let her clone continue to live longer, it would have been like a little bit more separated from her, like the way his was, because at the beginning it was just like doing everything she was doing.

Joe 37:08

I d I can't answer that question. I have no idea.

Tom 37:12

Um none of none of that.

Jen 37:14

Okay.

Tom 37:14

That that incidents. Yeah, that the end is completely different.

Joe 37:19

Yeah. So then I think it's like so she doesn't come back, right? In the in the movie, right away, you're like, oh, she's back from she made it out and she's telling her story. She doesn't come back, she decides to stay and go try to f try to find her husband because she's she realizes that, or she hopes. Is it I mean, do you think she knows definitively, or it's more of like a hope that she may be able to find him?

Tom 37:47

I think it's a hope. And I think I think she well, one, okay, whatever. So what like she very early on, like on day one or whatever of her being aware that she's in area X, she inhales some alien shit and starts to slowly like being a little bit more.

Joe 38:05

She then becomes immune to the hypnotism, which is why, which is how she figures it out, because the psychologist goes to use one of her like hypnotic cues, and she notices the surveyor, like all of a sudden, like kind of you know, fall into a hypnotic trance, so then she realizes what's going on and pretends to fall into hypnotic trance. Yeah.

Tom 38:24

Right. But like, so she's getting like so one, she knows like there's no like undoing whatever happened to her because no one even knows what it is. And two, like, his journal ends with he built a boat and he's gonna go up the coast and he's gonna try and find this island that they saw. And so she's like, I'm gonna follow him. And maybe I can find him. I hope that I can, and if I can't, maybe I can at least find out did he make it? Can I find the boat? Can I do anything like that?

Jen 38:49

Is it much bigger? Is the area X much bigger in the book?

Joe 38:53

Because it's they don't really talk about how big it is.

Tom 38:56

In the book, they don't. They they talk about how they knew they walk in and they're told how big it is. They they they they're told it's this big, and they travel for far, far longer inside and don't find the edge. So, one, either the it's different inside, or two, they were lied to.

Joe 39:15

And well, you find out there's a lot that they were lied to about too as well.

Tom 39:18

Yes, yeah, and there's a ton that they were lied about.

Joe 39:20

So, like, um like there was there this is supposed to be the 12th expedition, but she realizes like finds out that there was a lot more than 12 expeditions, and uh there's a whole thing that that's not like this thing with the with the words and the crawler and like the tower. Like she's pretty convinced, yeah, that they even though it's not the movie, pretty convinced. They never mentioned it, but they're she's pretty convinced that they knew about it. Because like that's what it's like. It's like right where their base camp. So one of the one of the big differences, right? This as we said, like they kind of made this movie a little more traditional. This is like a traveling movie where they go to one place and something happens, then they go to the next place, something happens. In Area X, they have a base camp, and there's there's this tower that they explore for a while, and that's only like not it's not that far from the base camp, which is why they they also think, or she also thinks that the government or Southern Reach lied to them about it, because how could none of the other expeditions have seen this and reported about it? Um, and then the the lighthouse, they go to the lighthouse. That's basically it. It's not like they're on like a linear journey, it's more like they're at base camp, they go to the tower, they go back to base camp, they might go somewhere else, go back to base camp. I think there's a village. They go to the light, she goes to the lighthouse, then goes back to base camp. It's just like a lot of fanning out from there.

Jen 40:37

So they know things about what's in there. They know some things, and in the book, they don't. I mean, in the movie, they don't know anything that's happening in there. They just know people are not coming out.

Tom 40:47

Yeah, in the book, in the book, you find out they it starts off with they know stuff. As the the book goes on, you find out a lot of the stuff they know is not true because they've been lied to, and they they cast out on on other things that they may know. Um but yeah, and then you like like uh basically the government the the southern reach is completely untrustable. So whether they whether they know what's actually in there or not is is up for interpretation.

Joe 41:13

Yeah. Uh it's it's so different. Um I wish they would have kept I like that the the characters in the book didn't have names. I thought that was kind of cool. I I wish they would have kept it that way.

Tom 41:24

Um like the bass player.

Joe 41:27

Yeah, just don't even say names. Hey, you no, well you no, you don't even need to do that. You just say the name, and it's a movie, so they know who needs to respond, so you can just say something and that person will respond because that's the way it's written.

Jen 41:40

What if you're talking about somebody else?

Joe 41:42

You would say the psychologist or the biologist, because that's how she they're referred to in the uh in the in the movie in the book. And you know what, Tom, may maybe they do have names and she's just freaking psycho. That's how she just refers to them.

Jen 41:53

Yeah, right. She's don't look from airplane anymore.

Joe 41:56

She refused to give them uh humanity to them.

Tom 41:59

There's one port where they're like their surveyor is like hunting, right? Defending herself or whatever, and is like screams at her like, just tell me your name. Oh, yeah, yeah. She's like, what would that matter? Like, I don't like so um that's right. Yeah, yeah.

Joe 42:16

Yeah. Um, we get so we get a lot of background information in this movie, too. Like, even up front, with uh I guess it's Dr. Ventures who gives up a bunch of information. They like I feel I feel like there's one or two things they give away, like right in the scene or right towards the beginning of the movie, where I'm like, oh well, they could have held on to that one for just a little bit. Um Kane, right? That's the character. It's weird. The names don't fit the actors who are playing them. I just have to figure out about this movie.

Jen 42:44

Is that his last name or his first name?

Joe 42:46

I think it's his first name. Okay. Oh, maybe it's just that's just his name. He's just Kane.

Jen 42:51

Like the r like the Undertaker's brother, Kane?

Joe 42:53

Yes, like the wrestler Kane.

Jen 42:55

Okay, good.

Joe 42:56

Yeah. I think it's like that.

Jen 42:57

Um, no, because she has a first name, so I was like, is she Lena Kane? Is he calling him Kane because like he was like in the army and that's how she referred to him, or like is his first name? I don't know. It was just confusing.

Joe 43:10

I don't know, but I think that he's just Kane, I think. I'm gonna stick with that. And she's just Lena.

Jen 43:15

Yeah. Right.

Joe 43:17

The other actors, the other characters have last names.

Jen 43:19

Yeah. I don't know. I also thought Ventress was like in on it. She was gonna be like an alien. So it's the one where they're on the boats, and the girl says she has no family, no friends, you know, no interests, no this, that, and I'm like, oh, she's a frickin' alien.

Joe 43:38

No, she's dying. That's what it is.

Jen 43:41

So she's has cancer. She's the one person in this movie who has cancer.

Joe 43:45

Yes, she has cancer. But not she had cancer before she went in. It didn't give her a couple of things.

Jen 43:50

Does her cancer have anything to do with the light coming out of her mouth?

Joe 43:53

I have no idea.

Jen 43:54

No idea what that was.

Joe 43:56

There's light in the move in the book, right? The there's that whole scene.

Tom 44:00

When she goes by the crawler and she has the weird light thing going on, and it was yeah, and like the the the like the kind of uh the spores that they breathe in, or the crawler like infects them with like that that that that that moss kind of stuff makes them glow.

Joe 44:15

Yeah, she glows a bit in the book too, or we don't you don't really know if she's really glowing, but the characters are saying she's glowing, and you're like, are they just going crazy?

Tom 44:25

Or well, the only one who sees her glowing is the one who's also infected by it, so who knows if uh regular people could see them glow or not.

Joe 44:32

I thought both Ventress and the surveyor, uh the psychologist and the surveyor both say they saw her.

Tom 44:37

No, I don't know if the surveyor sees her. Maybe I don't remember.

Joe 44:40

Yeah, when she comes back. Oh, well, she says you've changed you've changed, or yeah, you change you're changing or something. Yeah, it is weird. There's weirdness too, because there's a lot of implications in the book that the physical appearance of the biologist, aka Lena, is changing because they talk about her glowing, or and she talks about herself glowing, and like there's reference, there's both the psychologist and the surveyor mention something about her changing or she's different, or something like that.

Tom 45:08

But it's also like they they set up they set up an expectation early on that like your perceptions get distorted when you're in here, which is one of the reasons they all have their own journal to kind of compare things, and like it happens a few times, especially early on in the book, where like someone says, I see something, it's this, and then the other person says, I see it too. It makes me like wonder like it's not like they have a whole thing about like we should have independent observations of things, but they don't do that.

Joe 45:39

Well, they do sometimes because they do sometimes when she when she takes the sample, right, and she looks at the uh other crawler and she looks in the microscope, she writes down what she sees, and then she asks the surveyor to look and write down what she sees just to make sure that she's seeing the same thing, right?

Tom 45:57

Yeah, not true. It's not it's not all it's just yeah, they do, they do, they try, but I just feel like it's you know it's it's odd. Oh well, whatever. It's intentionally odd. Um, yeah.

Joe 46:08

Um, interesting thought about the the characters in the movies uh professions. You have a geothermal thermologist? I don't know what the a geothermologist, uh, a physicist, and I don't even remember what oh a paramedic. Right, Gina Rodriguez is a paramedic. Um, yeah, I'm not sure why I don't know. I have no idea. Not sure about why they did that, but whatever. How do you like the shimmer? You like the name Shimmer, the shimmer?

Jen 46:41

Okay.

Joe 46:43

Did you like the uh the shimmer effect?

Jen 46:46

Sure.

Joe 46:47

The uh the like rainbow lighting. It almost looks like uh a solar flare, or not a solar flare, um lens flare. No, no, like a lens flare on the camera of a sorts. I thought it was okay. I I like that they tried to give it like uh like a an actual visual aspect of being in this place, um making it seem like it's unsettling and strange for them. The the flowers, right? That were there was like different species of flowers all on the same vine, uh which must have been fun to do uh as a part of production design, creating all those flowers and stuff. I have to say, I I really think the production design is pretty cool on this. And there's when I was looking for uh overlay images, background images, I had like three I was like scrolling through a few different ones because there's such a bunch of cool different, like you know, visually appealing shots or or you know clips of of this movie. So kudos to uh the the DP. So yeah. What do you what do you think about the other professor she has an affair with? Dan. What do you think of Dan, Jen?

Jen 47:55

I don't know. There it's hard to uh it's hard to walk away from a Dan. I mean you don't you don't it's somebody you want to stick by, typically. So I can understand her uh connection to him. But no, for serious for real, um when he walked up during the beginning and put his hand on her elbow, I was like, oh, they definitely did it. Well that's like the movies and I'm like that's a that's a that's a like um romantic that's not the word I'm looking for, but an intimate Yeah, like an intimate touch for somebody that's like your work colleague who's married, even though but then I was like, all right, well, she's like in mourning for her husband, maybe it's just like a good friend. And then when I saw it later, I was like, I knew it.

Joe 48:34

Well, it's all right, going back, because I don't I didn't remember about Dan and that she slept with him. So when you find out that they slept together, going back to that scene now again in the beginning of the movie, is it really fucking weird and ballsy of him to invite him over his house with where his wife's gonna be for a party?

Jen 48:53

Yeah, with all the work friends. Yeah.

Joe 48:56

The ball's on that guy, man.

Jen 48:57

He doesn't seem to really care though, because he's like, I love my wife, it doesn't have anything to do with her. Oh, okay.

Joe 49:02

Yeah. Yeah. So let's invite the woman I'm banging on the side over to meet her. That's a really good idea.

Jen 49:10

I don't think they're banging right now. I think he's like trying to get it get it back in.

Joe 49:15

Oh, yeah, yeah. He's definitely trying to get it all the way back in.

Jen 49:21

When they're like when she's like on top of him, why is her back is like so it's like such a weird shot of her back, like writhing.

Joe 49:31

Oh, yeah, maybe I don't know, yeah.

Jen 49:33

I guess I don't know what that what the visual, like what that is.

Joe 49:36

What kind of shot would you what kind of angle would you have preferred, Jen, for this?

Jen 49:40

I don't mind that it's an angle of her back, just the way like her bones are like sticky, like it's just weirdly it's just a weird shot.

Joe 49:47

Natalie Portman's bones.

Jen 49:49

No. Natalie Portman's a beautiful woman. Okay. Obviously, I would prefer a front shot, but I'm just no, I'm just saying uh I don't think they have to be a good one.

Joe 49:58

I don't know.

Jen 49:59

Something about it was was just like weird and off-putting. I don't know. Maybe it's just me.

Joe 50:05

Yeah, I mean, I think it's supposed to be a little bit, I would think. Just because of I mean, I would say that's confirmed with you know how that scene ends. Um with her just being like, I don't I don't care. Right.

Jen 50:18

I was just doing this, and yeah, this doesn't mean anything to me.

Joe 50:22

Yeah. So I get out. Really weird. It's weird though. I feel like it's such a huge transition because in the beginning of the movie, she seems well, at least the earlier shots, she seems pretty normal. And then all the time.

Jen 50:33

She seems normal, but there's nothing she's just like being a teacher. And then like like there there's no like I'm still in like no emotion coming from her, but she's normal. Like that's how a teacher should act. You're not supposed to be like, you know, she's just teaching the class. But it's very like I don't know, very non-emotional. But it doesn't stand out because it's just like that. But then uh something else I was gonna say. I just there's a couple of parts in the movie too where I'm just like, what's the f what like when she goes to look for the girl that got killed by the bear?

Joe 51:08

Oh yeah.

Jen 51:09

And the girl's like, the other one's like, I'll go with you. And she's like, No, I'm going alone. Like, who put you in charge? Like, shut up. Oh, okay, you're going alone. Go ahead. Like, you're not the leader.

Joe 51:21

I don't know, she annoyed me. Balls on that girl. The balls on Lena. Uh yeah, like I said before, I think maybe I'm just comparing her to the book character and thinking she's much more likable in the movie than she is in the book.

Jen 51:33

But then she must be awful and horrendous in the bo in the book. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of people. But why do people write books with these kind of especially because at the end of the book she's like still looking for her husband. Like you're supposed to be rooting for them.

Joe 51:47

Well, it's it's not that she's like uh it's not that she's like awful, awful. Like she's not fucking like sitting there thinking about eating babies and killing people. Well, you know, and doing all these horrible things. She's just it's like she doesn't know how to connect properly with people.

Tom 52:05

Yeah, I would say the the the experience that she goes through over the course of the book allows her for the first time to have empathy for anyone else. And the fact that she she now feels that she now she now wishes that she understood her husband's inner life more than she she well, more than the fact that she never even thought that he might have one. So, like, and she has a desire to to to foster connection with him, one way or the other. So that part's nice.

Jen 52:33

So he doesn't blow himself up with a grenade at the end of the book.

Tom 52:36

No. No. Uh he is not like the last time you hear it's from his journal, he's still alive in in Area X.

Joe 52:46

But but you don't even know, like that the version of him that got out and died of cancer could could really be him, and that journal is just the last thing, you know what I'm saying? He put that journal in the in the lighthouse with all those other journals. And I mean, he could have then been teleported, or on his journey upriver or up coast, that he got somehow got pushed out of Area X and came out. I don't know. You don't know, it's not clear.

Jen 53:13

I mean, in the book, it's in the movie, it's like it's very clear, yeah. You're getting the evil eyes at the end, it's like thriller.

Joe 53:19

He blows himself up and then he walks out from behind the camera.

Jen 53:22

Um, and then like you're like, oh, that's okay. Right. That's not him.

Joe 53:26

Fairly early on, I started thinking that that wasn't really Yeah, because he didn't know.

Jen 53:32

He was like, I just came in here. I just recognized you.

Joe 53:36

Yeah, yeah.

Jen 53:37

And you know, like he could he couldn't, he was just like not a real person.

Joe 53:43

No. And we should probably talk about the rest of the real people in next week's episode. I want to remind everyone to follow us on social media, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, join us over on Discord to get a conversation there. We also post more episodes on YouTube. So be sure to go to our YouTube page, like, subscribe. Rate and review us wherever you listen to the podcast, check out our Patreon page to support us that way. Links to all the applications and information, always do in the show notes for this episode. Thanks everyone for listening and your next video.