-Sol
2014, the first part of "Lost Southland" "Annihilation" was published and won the Nebula Award, becoming the representative work of the new monster; in
2018, the film adapted accordingly was released.
The first shot of the movie is the trail of a dazzling meteor passing by and hitting the lighthouse. From this moment on, the truth of the whole story was exposed, which also marked a huge divergence between the narrative rhythms of the film and the novel. In the original novel, it is not the lighthouse that the mysterious fragment hits, but it is cast into the lens glass of the lighthouse by accident. And this key information wasn't until the third volume, and it was revealed to the readers in a vague manner.
Then the movie introduced the heroine Lena, a cell biologist. When I saw Trailer, I always wondered how suitable Natalie Portman is to play the ghost bird. In the original book, the biologist is called the ghost bird, and her research field is ecosystems. So concerned about this, so indifferent to the family and the outside world. In other words, the relationship between Lena and her husband Kane is not close, but very distant, "I love him, but I don't need him, I think it's normal." The ghost bird's heart, like the X area in the south, is closed and cannot be touched. What changed all of this was precisely the death of Kane's return as a member of the eleventh exploration team, which completely opened the boundaries of her heart.
The movie thus leads to Kane's disappearance. At this time, Kane took a weird and stiff step and walked up the stairs, as the original book said, "like an empty shell." The two hugged and kissed, Kane was indifferent and passive throughout. They were sitting in the living room, and the glass of whiskey on the table became a magnifying glass, clearly showing Lena's fingers touching Kane's stiff fingers-thus contributing one of my favorite shots in the entire film. When Lane pulled her finger away, she already understood that her husband was no longer his own.
The blood stained slowly, and immediately Kane was intercepted by the South Border Bureau in the ambulance. In the original work, Kane suffered from inoperable systemic cancer and died six months later, before the ghost bird entered the X area. What the film does not show is that not only Kane, but the rest of the exploration team members also returned home and all died of cancer. As for the truth of cancer, it was not revealed until the second part.
So Lena was also detained in the South Border Bureau. This is the second heroine psychologist Dr. Ventress of the story. From the beginning to the end of the film, what is not mentioned is that the psychologist is neither an ordinary prospecting member, nor is it the first time he has entered the X area. Another identity of the psychologist is the current director of the South Border Bureau; and before the eleventh exploration team set off, she and another South Border Bureau scientist secretly sneaked into the X area. The reason why she is so interested in area X is because she is an aboriginal in area X. When the X area broke out, she was still a little girl, and her friend, the lighthouse keeper Thor, eventually became the initiator of the X area. After that, she always thought of Sol's phrase "Don't forget me! Take care of yourself!" when the two said goodbye.
The next development of the story was logical, and the biologist learned of the opportunity for the twelfth period of exploration, so he asked to go. The twelfth period of exploration team members are all women, while the eleventh period of exploration team members are all men. This is the "controlled variable method" deliberately carried out by the Southern Border Bureau in order to find the response mode of the X area.
The film greatly omitted the process of the exploration team entering the X area. The five people seemed to have walked into the X area from the Southern Border Bureau before strolling in the courtyard. In the original work, the exploration team entered the martial law zone controlled by the military from the Southern Border Bureau, and then passed through a special opening before entering the X area. In other words, the movie ignores a very important information. The X area is definitely not free to enter and exit, just like giant soap bubbles. "The boundary extends inland to about 70 miles from the lighthouse, about 40 miles wide along the east and west sides of the coast. The air reaches directly below the stratosphere, and the underground reaches above the asthenosphere." It was two feet wide and twelve feet high.” And at the moment the border appeared, everything that was close to or touching the line disappeared mysteriously. The boundary itself cannot be crossed.
When the exploratory team crossed the border, Lena found that she had lost her memory. The original work emphasized the uncertainty of the time flow in area X and its huge impact on human psychology. The hypnosis that the exploration team finally used to help the team members adapt to the X area.
As the prospecting team began to survey, the narrative of the film almost entered a completely original, except that the team members died one by one. They saw the struggle before the death of the twelfth period and the tragic situation after their death in the stadium-seeing this, I couldn't help but suspect that the director was deeply influenced by The Last of US and liked everyone to become a mushroom. The original book is much more silent and profound, except for a large part of the environment description, almost no trace of the twelfth period players can be found. They just disappeared, disappeared in the X area, and with deeper and deeper doubts, disappeared in the darkness.
The treatment here is the same as in a traditional B-level film. The team members are dragged away by beasts and killed; they are transformed into humanoid plants; spores are ejected and turned into a halo until the panic heroine Lena remains. The few bright spots are that the team members find that the heroine is hiding her relationship with Kane's husband and wife; it is the strange beast that can make the last scream of the victim; it is the helplessness of the branches and leaves gradually growing. In silence, the novel took the prospecting team to the "underground tower" and suddenly accelerated the rhythm.
The lack of the underground tower, in my opinion, is a huge failure in the adaptation of the movie's plot. The underground tower in the original book is one of the two sides of the lighthouse. The monster turned into by the lighthouse keeper Thor, it is in the spiral staircase of the underground tower that it is repeated day and night to copy the Bible, "... the fruit in the black water under the midnight sun will mature and the golden fruit in the darkness will split. Revealing the deadly softness in the soil..."; and the lighthouse on the ground is the beginning of the whole story, the hiding place of the mysterious fragments, the working place of Sol during his lifetime, and the end of the first part of the novel, the ghost bird discovering part The place of truth. The two towers have become unshakable images of the trilogy. Just as "Water Well" is to "Star Color" and "Mountain" to "Crazy Mountains", one of the representative methods of Cthulhu mythology is to repeatedly strengthen an image until it is distorted and has a strong scary meaning.
In the original work, the ghost bird is infected by the mysterious spores in the underground tower, and is gradually assimilated by the X area, feeling an increasing sense of light in the body. This kind of lightness is the reason why halo close-ups appear many times in the movie. Whether it is a shooting star in the opening film or a light cluster formed by a psychologist, the lightness reappears and becomes another symbol of the X area. After the ghost bird was infected, the entire exploration team also fell apart, and everyone killed each other.
The movie advances to this point, and finally sees the poor dagger-the real Kane has already set a ring on self-immolation, and what he entrusted is his own copy. The plot deduced from this novel is even more horrifying: so it is impossible for anyone who enters the X area to return. The psychologist, or the director, suffered from cancer when he entered area X for the first time-area X could not recognize this new feature. The result of blind copying was that all the clones of the eleventh exploration team members had cancer; The former director of the South Border Bureau, Lowry, the only survivor of the first phase of the exploration team, is also a clone, and the reason why he can return is that he is actually a spy sent by area X; the psychologist is also with Lowry Use each other to promote exploration again and again.
After laying the groundwork for a full 100 minutes, the most exciting part of the film finally appeared. The soundtrack here has to be mentioned, like string music dragged by heavy furniture, perfectly emphasizing the strange and unpredictable atmosphere. Lena finally understood that the bronze-colored weird human form was nothing but a copy of herself. As the pull ring of the second incendiary bomb came out, the entire lighthouse echoed with the opening, once again emitting a brilliant white light.
As soon as the camera turned, the interrogator of the Southern Border Bureau blurted out, "What is the purpose of the aliens?"-this is the second biggest failure in the adaptation of the movie's plot. As mentioned above, the mysterious fragments in the original work were hidden in the lens, and then infected Thor. Thor mutated, and the alienation caused the X area; and the above mystery was not revealed until the third part of the novel. In the first part of the novel, the vague speculations, the cover-up of the truth by the Southern Border Bureau, and the large sections of the scriptures written by Sol in the underground tower make the novel more like a Cthulhu fantasy novel. In other words, just like the name of the "Science Seance", the organization behind the release of the mysterious fragments in the novel, the novel is a blend of science fiction and fantasy, with both science and seduction. Instead, the movie destroys itself, turning the story into a pure science fiction story, even a vulgar alien invasion story.
At the end of the movie, the two embraced, their eyes intertwined, and the twinkling light of the pupils suggested that they were both clones. The end of the original book is even more memorable. In my opinion, Annihilation is a love novel-ghost bird, which finally opened up the inner world. She is very clearly aware of her love for her husband, even after her husband disappeared. ; Or in other words, it is this emotion that you only understand after losing that makes the novel even more touching.
Rating: 7.5/10
Plot: 6/10
Music: 9/10
Picture: 8/10
Natalie Portman is beautiful
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