The film is adapted from the Nebula Award work of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. The book is the first in VanderMeer's "Forgotten South" trilogy.
The core concept of the film, that is, the mysterious "flying hole outside the sky" was indeed filmed. The original work itself is an anti-type work explored in the gap between science fiction and fantasy, and does not give a complete picture of the changes in the ecological environment ( sci-fi oriented). Therefore, the film's visual presentation of the complex ecological environment in the X area and the theory that "alien creatures fall into the lighthouse to generate the X area with gene refraction function" can convince most of the audience.
It's a pity that the characters are too symbolic and the plot is too routine. For example, the first shark and crocodile attack is completely predictable (composition: the character stands alone in front of the dark door); as the first small difficulty in the official expedition after half an hour of chatter, so that the danger can be read out a few seconds in advance The set and composition of the scene makes this scene too boring.
The "mutism" of Latino female players is also very problematic. There are enough grounds for her mutiny, but the reasons for her mutiny are still very nonsensical. One is that after seeing the video of the broken stomach in the first DV, she directly concluded that "they are crazy" and was extremely resistant to other people's opinions. When the group came to observe the video, she was in the camera The farthest person kept a distance from the person in the foreground and the middle ground, and asked "What is it?", which obviously intensified her sense of distance from the team; the second was to observe the four people during the dispute on the second morning of the rat-bear attack. Only she wore a single white vest, the others were mainly army green, and the contrast in color was used to create a sense of conflict between the characters; third, Shepard who was kidnapped was discovered later on the same day, She proposed to follow Natalie to have a look. In the single medium shot after she was rejected, she showed a meaningful look, and she used it directly when Natalie returned without success and the group continued to move forward. The sentence "Fuck away from me" lit up the red light above the character's head, as if the director said off the screen: There is a lot of drama ahead, don't go away.
The biggest problem with this character is the night mutiny. She is talking about "theories" and "liars" in a lot of lines by herself. They are all coherent but illogical nonsense, trying to justify her mutiny. The most ridiculous thing is that she was going to cut open Natalie's belly (and others) before the mouse bear came to see if the internal organs were moving - isn't this the same as the video she desperately denied at the beginning? What is the plot logic for this? On the one hand, she is sober and realizes that the people in the video may be crazy, and her "Theory 2" also shows that she still insists on this point; on the other hand, she is confused, just because she sees the palm print , she tried to imitate the video and cut open other people's stomachs to verify-obviously she did not think she was crazy, but wanted to "verify the conjecture" and "punish the liar". The character itself is full of contradictions. Maybe Garland didn't know how to finish the character, so he invited a rat bear to clean up her. mouth covered.
Maybe it was because he realized that there was not enough time for the filming, the director sent the psychologist away, completely abandoning the first rule of "don't act alone", the first rule of adventure theme; the African American school girl quickly turned into a tree, so Natalie was alone alone. When I came to the lighthouse, it was obvious that the psychologist had become a sacrifice, and Natalie decided to practice learning immediately after watching her husband's teaching video. Although the 30-minute scene also has many problems (such as how did the husband reach a consensus with the replicator, and why did Natalie fight the generated replicator - and can't achieve some kind of consensus like her husband? Husband and Natalie Why didn't Tully think of bombing this hole with phosphorus bombs at first? Neither did the previous exploration team?) But at least the visual impact is very strong, and the concept of the strange hole quickly replicating a person is also very attractive.
The ending is of course the dark "Replicants successfully invaded". This kind of ending can't help but remind me of "Alien Awakening". "The idea of set money.
Another sentence: It took 30 minutes to enter the X area at the beginning, and the memory line was constantly inserted (doesn't care about interrupting the nervousness during the expedition) In the end, it was just a bad routine of "My wife cheated and I went to seek death". People are too angry, and the affectionate confession of the isolated and unique protagonist in the original book and her husband's species is not at the same level - such a bad routine has absolutely no tune with the sci-fi core of your film, I don't think it's a shame to adapt like this thing?
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Okay, the spray is almost done, let’s talk about the advantages and feelings about the original book and this version of the adaptation.
In terms of the dimension of the film, the biggest advantage of this film lies in this powerful high concept. Science fiction films with a surrealistic view of species mixing and matching are indeed not very common. The genre is subdivided and belongs to (in the words of my friend Yue'er) "Scientific Examination Girlfriends to Kill Group", the last relatively influential film of the same type was "Dark Invasion" (2005).
In the original work (Part 1), the ecological changes in the X area are not simply attributed to a "gene refraction" theory, but are very careful not to make any pre-judgments to prevent interference with the process of observing the natural environment and collecting information. Even so, the theory and replicator technology in the film has produced enough surprises. If the idea of three-body photos is taken, at least 20 films can be made in 3 books, Lao Mei is really good at saving ideas (not a compliment / why did I start to ridicule again).
The original work is limited by the medium and cannot present a visual ecological wonder. The wonders shown in the movie are: various flowers, sharks and crocodiles, colorful plaques on the walls, wall sculptures of human corpses coexisting with plaques, mouse bears, tree people, (a glimpse) double "true" Sika deer, ice crystal tree, annihilated fireball, replicators... In fact, the original book did not describe the biological mutation in particular, and the idea of the mutation is also different from the one in this film. If the director is more daring and imaginative One point, don't treat mutant creatures as level bosses, but the whole ecosystem can be organically combined and the team interacts repeatedly. Only then can this film achieve its true fit with the high concept it wants to express - now it's just a high-level graphic display And just a show of spectacle.
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As for director Alex Garland, I've seen his predecessor, Ex Machina, as well as Danny Ball's 28 Days Later, The Sun and The Beach (the last one). It is not a science fiction film), and I have some understanding of its screenwriting level and director level. This person is a relatively pure science fiction fan, and is not particularly commendable at the overall screenwriting level. For example, "28 Days of Shock" was once accused of being particularly average in the protagonist's ability in the first half, but suddenly opened up in the second half, and people had conflicts. "Ex Machina" has a lot of discussions about the motives of Kanmei's escape. It is difficult to confine to a specific explanation. If the blame is forcibly divided, this layer of controversy is also the lack of effective psychological analysis of artificial intelligence in the play. caused. From the core of its story, "Sun Catastrophe" is actually a film in which the side of mankind seeking self-destruction works, just like this film. What is particularly interesting is that this Latin girl with a particularly strong "desire to survive" in this film, the character design inexplicably coincides with the super afraid of death captain of the previous spaceship in "The Sun Catastrophe", it seems that there is a fear of death in the death squad. Yes, this is Garland's bad taste. (Whee)
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Finally, let's look forward to "Halo" a little... adapt the game to see what level Garland can achieve.
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