The film Annihilation is adapted from the original novel. However, I don't know if it is fortunate or regrettable. I haven't read this famous work by Jeff Van der Meer beforehand. As far as a science fiction movie is concerned, I think it is just like its name, annihilating all the routines of similar movies, and it really has an impact on the viewers.
The hostess Lena is a professor of genetic biology and has a military background for seven years. Her husband Kane is also a soldier. However, since the last time he performed the task, the husband has not heard from him. It was not until a year later that he suddenly appeared at home, but his temperament changed drastically, his expression was trance, and he was seriously ill and he vomited blood. It turned out that his unit was involved in an on-site investigation of "Zone X", an ever-expanding circular position area formed by the fall of an asteroid. No one knows what happened inside, and among all those who stepped in, he was the only one who returned successfully. Expecting to find a way to save her husband, the heroine resolutely participated in a survey team composed of four other female scientists, determined to re-enter the area to find out.
If you also have a considerable biological background and try to use your professional knowledge to keep up with the rhythm of this film, then you will only keep the four words "how possible" in your mind. When you see the last climax, the thought of "what the hell is this" will come to your mind. This is a film that needs to jump out of narrow expertise and watch from the broad pattern of possibilities. If you can't give up your stubbornness to modern genetic biology, then this film is not for you, because it will seriously affect your mood and delay the progress of your thesis.
For those of you who have already watched this film, it is largely an interstellar-like film. The understanding of the plot may be different for everyone; for some of the plots, perhaps everyone has more or less doubts. Here I only express my personal opinion, the analysis of the ending, and the discussion of the idea of the whole film. Some of the paragraphs may contain some basic biological knowledge, if you are not interested, you can skip to the conclusion directly.
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1. Why must the hostess personally enter the quarantine area instead of staying in the laboratory?
When the heroine first arrived in Zone X on the normal timeline, the psychologist leader told her that her husband’s current symptoms were systemic multi-organ bleeding. Generally speaking, as a professor in a medical school, the heroine's idea must be: an infection caused by an unknown pathogen (Pathogen). The symptoms of nose and mouth bleeding, I believe that the first reaction of all relevant personnel is the notorious (hemorrhagic fever virus) Ebola virus. However, they exchanged body fluids (kissing) and breathed together, so the path of transmission of the pathogen is probably neither body fluids nor air or droplets. Area X does not isolate air and water sources from interacting with the outside world, so it is either food or other organisms, such as insect vectors. Then the female protagonist obviously needs to get this sample, she has to take a trip in person, not to mention that it may be caused by other unknown reasons . This is why she said, "It doesn't make sense to me to stay here."
2. Why did the team lose memory when they first entered?
In the current mainstream scientific cognition, the part of the brain that controls memory is a gyrus-shaped area in the limbic cortex, called the hippocampus. Because the formation of memory is completed by a series of electrical-chemical signals that occur in this area, a large number of electrical signals are generated and received between synapses to manipulate the entire body, and gene mutations and modifications can easily change these signals and regulation A link in the mechanism that prevents the memory from being formed correctly. This position in the play is called shimmer. I understand that it may be a special wave or signal that can consciously interfere with and compile the genes of the organism to cause mutations. In short, the brain is one of the most active areas of nerves. Obviously, the brain is the first to be disturbed or affected by this mysterious signal, and mutations occur, which affects the memory area. This also explains why when the heroine loses consciousness, she always flashes back fragments of the past in her memory.
In addition, although some are unwilling, people's personality, emotions and even self-cognition are largely the result of brain tissue electrical signal activity. A well-known example is that Phineas Gage was pierced by an iron pipe in his head in an explosion accident in 1848, causing most of the prefrontal cortex to be damaged. After surviving, his temperament changed completely, as if he had become another person. Under the influence of this wave, the genes of related brain cells or proteins have changed, which also explains why the team members have symptoms such as self-harm and hysteria.
3. About the morphological mutation of the species.
In the film, we saw alligators with shark teeth, the same plants with flowers of different shapes and colors, mutant deer with flowers on their horns, soldiers turned into fungi, people turned into flowering plants, and so on. Is all this possible? Why does it exist? In fact, a large number of genes in organisms are actually code sets produced by the combination of several chemical structures. Its main function is to help the body produce protein in the correct order. The protein itself is like the reinforced concrete of building materials. What kind of house is built, whether tall buildings are square, red or blue depends on the design drawings, and the mechanism is not fully understood at present. But a very important part of it is the HOX gene mentioned in the play-the homeotic gene. 'This determines that our five fingers are on the hands, the nose is on the face instead of on the waist, and there is no unusually shaped head that can pop out in the mouth. When it mutates, the appearance of the species also changes.
In the natural mutation process, one theory is that genes may usually produce harmful mutations, sense mutations or neutral mutations, and core genes are usually backed up to prevent harmful mutations from being passed on to offspring, resulting in irreversible consequences. However, this above description is based on the cellular level. In higher organisms, mutations that acquire new functions are usually harmful and will eventually lead to the destruction of the individual. Cancer cells are a good example. When the proto-oncogene is activated, a series of sense mutations allow cancer cells to continuously acquire new capabilities, which can bypass the immune system to clean up, generate blood vessels to provide nourishment, and metastasize to other sites. .
Therefore, I think the mutations in the play are not naturally occurring, or purely indiscriminate and blind mutations induced by radiation or chemistry. It is more like a kind of controlled gene editing and modification, which is caused by man. It is mentioned in the play that all the photoelectric waves in the X area cannot be transmitted, so assuming that all this is intentional, it makes sense . The crashed asteroid contained some kind of extraterrestrial intelligence, which used light waves of specific wavelengths, chemical composition, and special radiation as tools to artificially modify target genes.
Humans’ current technology cannot modify differentiated cells in the living body and express them in the individual without conflict. However, it does not mean that alien technology cannot do it. In theory, it is not impossible to induce differentiated somatic cells to produce induced stem cells (IPSCs) through specific means, and then to direct differentiation into other types of cells through genetic modification. This mysterious "extraterrestrial ray" does not have a manufacturing species out of nothing, but is spliced and recombined from the gene bank in its coverage, just like a child with Lego bricks. This is why there is no giant plesiosaur monster with seven hundred and sixty legs waving tentacles with a sickle in the play, because there is no gene for this creature under the coverage of area X.
4. Why does the mutant bear make the cry of the dead female team member?
Some people think this is because the mutant bear has mastered human language. I don't agree with this view. The bear did not acquire this ability to learn human speech before killing the female team member. If it has a mutation afterwards and its brain has mutated to obtain the human brain structure, then its performance and behavior should not be like a beast. . We know that the center of human brain in charge of language is mainly Broca's and Wernicke's, which are responsible for language expression and receiving and comprehension. These two areas do not exist in animal brains. In other words, be it a parrot or an obedient puppy, they don’t really understand your language or use it to respond. This is just an illusion caused by conditioning and emotional understanding. Therefore, the mutant bear should not use language to try to communicate with other teammates.
But why can it imitate the words and voices of dead players? This is the first clue that I think reveals the theme of the film. The physicist team member (the one who later became a plant) said in the play that the reason for the inability to communicate with the outside world is that this barrier confines all electromagnetic waves, light waves, and DNA in the area. Some people often say, where does the soul go after death? According to the mainstream scientific perspective, the human soul is nothing more than a series of electrical signals generated by brain nerve activity. So is it possible that after death, the soul, as a series of final electrical signals of brain activity, is emitted in the form of waves and is imprisoned in this area again? Generally speaking, it will fly into the universe at the speed of light and continue to die and decay. However, it seems that it will not suffer the same fate in this special environment, so it still exists here. When the bear receives this special wave, it can make this final cry, but only because its throat bone structure is different from that of humans, it cannot be as clear as humans.
5. Copy people and annihilation.
The hostess came to the lighthouse and found the female leader who was annihilated into a group of energy bodies after drilling into the hole. A drop of her blood dripped into it, causing the energy body to become the same as hers. Combining all the previous discussions, this seemingly extremely stream of consciousness scene can be explained. The energy body, or the mass of matter, originally contained enough energy to express an adult. After obtaining the heroine's gene sequence from the blood cells, the energy quickly replicated a clone of the heroine. As for the husband of the heroine who walked out of Zone X before, the information obtained through the video can be very clear, and it is not the main body. Annihilation, the original meaning also has the meaning of completely destroying something and completely releasing energy, which also corresponds to the complete destruction of the female captain in this scene and transforming it into an energy body.
As for the fact that blood cells cannot divide and proliferate in the blood, but should proliferate in the bone marrow, it is considered to have induced the blood cells to return to pluripotency. After all, the cell shape is not a normal blood cell.
6. The ending.
As I said at the beginning, this film destroyed all the routines of similar stories. The stories I'm talking about are actually the subject of alien invasion. We are always thinking about the form of alien life, how many heads, eyes, or what they look like; what their technology and civilization are, if they come to invade the earth, what will be our weapons? resistance. In fact, as a tiny grain of sand in the universe, many times humans have too narrow understanding of life forms. We are always looking for planets with water and atmosphere, looking for the so-called golden orbits with suitable temperature. In fact, perhaps extraterrestrial life forms simply don't need these things, and they may not even need physical bodies.
In the play, the asteroid falling from the outer planet does not contain any life matter in a narrow sense. There are no amino acids, no proteins or nucleotides and all the chemical components needed for life. However, this does not mean that it is not intelligent life. On the contrary, I think it describes the process of a kind of energy body life colonizing the earth. With the fall origin lighthouse as the center, it first established an energy field to collect biological, chemical energy and electromagnetic waves. At the same time, it uses the area as its own genetic engineering laboratory, collecting the genes of local organisms, and artificially mutating them, trying to create a vector suitable for itself.
With more and more biological genetic information, it can gradually manipulate the growth and regulation of advanced life. After obtaining the human genome, it judges that this is the most advanced and suitable organism, and hopes to use it as a The blueprint creates its own carrier. As an energy creature, I think it may be connected with the thoughts of all creatures in the area and form an information network, just like the Zerg in StarCraft. This can also explain why the heroine encountered two deer that acted exactly the same. When this living entity first copied the carrier, it was the male lead, and tried to go to the outside world, maybe because of imperfect technology or insufficient information, the individual could not fully adapt to the external environment. But the arrival of the hostess and a group of people gave it another chance, and finally obtained enough information to perfect the carrier.
The film takes the form of flashbacks, in which everything is the words of the heroine's family, so in the end it is difficult to say whether the heroine or the replica is alive. But there is a detail that all the previous actions of the heroine can be perfectly imitated by the copy, and only when facing offensive actions, its reaction will be faster than that of the heroine. This shows that as an energy body creature, the heroine's brain waves are also within its control or perception range, and it has the ability to predict her next action. In this case, there is no reason for the replica to be pulled off the incendiary bomb by the heroine at the last minute and then run away. Even if it does not know that the bomb is harmful, at least letting the heroine run away is unlikely to happen. . When the creature has completely perfected the carrier, the laboratory in the X area is naturally meaningless. So it took the initiative to remove the barrier and walked out as the heroine. Because it is linked by the unified brain wave, when the barrier is removed, all waves are no longer blocked, and it immediately has the opportunity to remotely repair the defects of the male protagonist's replica, so the male protagonist's replica also survives.
In the dialogue between the last two of the film, the heroine asks: You are not Kane. The answer: No. Then he asked: You are not Lena. Silence, a meaningful look at each other, and an unspoken embrace. This ending is already obvious. The invasion has been successful. The era of earth-origin species is about to be annihilated, and they will be the Adam and Eve of the new world.
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The concept of this film feels very novel, and it is also the first science fiction film that I am interested in this year. After actually watching it, I felt that the final scene was a little bit of consciousness. The whole set was silent, and the audience could not disperse for a long time after it ended. In the description of the main line of exploration, the film also repeatedly inserted memory clips of the feelings of the male and female masters, allowing the audience to gradually understand the history and reasons of the gap in the lives of the two. And betrayal can also lead to the annihilation of a relationship. But compared to the stories of my life, these emotional descriptions are not essential, and may make some viewers feel dull and procrastinated.
After the show, I walked out along the path of the parking lot. The summer here had already faded at the end of February, and there was a little coolness in the evening breeze that faded away from the heat. Take a deep breath, thinking that not only the vegetation and rivers around here, but also the sky and the universe are just right to allow us to thrive. I don't know if it is pure luck or there is a more advanced civilization that arranges everything in secret. As biologists, genes that we think are extremely important may actually be just like children's toys in the hands of other civilizations. With the development of science and technology, we can send a living person to the moon, but we cannot regulate a cell freely. The smallness of mankind and the vastness of the universe, we are indeed overconfident in our own technology. If this movie is going to annihilate anything, I hope it can annihilate the blind arrogance of all scientific workers.
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