The film's figurative restoration of the "low-light world" can be said to be beautiful without losing its literary tone.
Author Jeff VanderMeer won the 2014 Nebula Award for his novel, beating The Three-Body Problem.
The director of the film , Alex Garland , was excited to make a movie just after reading the first part of the novel.
The author advised him, can't you wait for me to finish writing the rest of the film before shooting?
Garland responded domineeringly, it's enough to start with you, and I make up the rest myself.
[annihilation] is about: three years ago, aliens landed on a lighthouse by the sea, and through some kind of light pulse, a "shimmer" was produced.
Low light is like a prism, refracting light, radio signals, and even the DNA of animals and plants within range.
All the groups who entered the site for inspection went back and forth, except for the husband "Kane" played by Oscar Isaac.
In order to find a way to save him , Natalie Portman's wife "Lena" is determined to enter the "shimmering world" to find out.
The film's figurative restoration of the "low-light world" can be said to be beautiful without losing its literary tone.
Next year's Oscar for best visual effects, [annihilation] has already occupied the seat.
01
low light
where did it come from
The biggest difference between [annihilation] and the original novel is the depiction of "glow".
In the original book, "Shimmer" can distort time and space, and is transparent.
In the film, Garland transformed "shimmer" into "soap bubbles" in order to highlight the visual effect.
Speaking of "soap bubbles", it's still very knowledgeable in design.
The script given to VFX supervisor Andrew Hirst reads:
"The 'shimmer' is like a cloud of thermal fog, with a prismatic effect that distorts the background, and the edges have a surface quality that makes a noticeable change visible when a person passes through it."
I guess most of them are the same as me. After reading this description, there are only three words in my mind, "what the hell".
But the visual effects team quickly established three reference directions.
1, draw
The "shimmer" itself is a three-dimensional cloud of "fog," but its edges appear flat on the screen.
Paintings can best reflect the "planar aesthetics".
So, the visual effects team began to look through a large number of paintings for inspiration, and when they turned to William Turner's painting, the inspiration came.
"Turner painted the sky in a very special way, using a lot of strong colours , which I think could be used in the 'shimmer' design," says Andrew.
2. Rainbow
"Twilight" can refract the light in nature, it is not a rainbow.
So, the general image of the "shimmer" has been solved, "paint Turner's sky in the colors of the rainbow".
3. Gasoline
"Glimmer" also has a special quality, its surface has a certain quality, and when people enter it, it will fluctuate.
Simply put, the surface is fluid.
Andrew slapped his forehead, "It's like a layer of gasoline floating on the water."
At this point, the design of the "shimmer" is done.
It doesn't feel difficult.
02
brain hole
open wider
If it is said that the design of "Shimmer" is a well-behaved and logical reasoning , then in the world of Shimmer, the design of animals and plants depends entirely on imagination.
Plants in "low light" need to conform to the principle of "DNA is refracted" and change in appearance.
For example, what would a deer look like if it had plant DNA in its body.
A tree, with human DNA, will look like.
The big BOSS bear in the film is also designed based on this principle.
When Garland was writing the script, he told Andrew, "I think this thing should be a combination of a bear and a water bear."
Andrew laughed at the first time, "what a piece of shit".
But Andrew thought about it immediately, it really should be a bear.
Because other large creatures in the forest, tigers, wild boars, and bears that can stand on their hind legs, do not have human-like locomotion, the characteristics are closer to humans.
In terms of design, the easiest way is to piece together the bear skull model and the human skull model to achieve the effect of DNA mixing.
But after watching the effect, Andrew said, "It's too scary, we're not shooting monsters."
So the crew came up with a compromise, combining the bear's skull with the baboon's skull.
"I thought it must be sick, so the muscles in its face were designed to atrophy, leaving only a layer of skin over the skull ," Andrew said .
Andrew also specifically explained why the bear's chin has intact fur, "so that after it hurts, the blood can drip down the fur, which is more visually impactful."
The extraterrestrial clone of "Lena" at the end of the credits is inspired by the female sculptures of the Cyclades.
The colors maintain the concept of "soap bubbles", and the lines focus on simple and primitive aesthetics.
After all, it is a "new born" alien.
03
future
Bad luck
The story setting of [annihilation] is very similar to [Stalker] in 1979 .
Both movies have a mysterious "different dimension" caused by a meteorite , and various people with ulterior motives form an expedition to decipher it.
[annihilation] is closer to last year's [advent] in terms of rhythm and visual effects .
Neither movie has a huge fight scene, and the rhythm is also explained, step by step into the core secret.
Even in the setting of "Glimmer", it is inevitable that people will think of the "inverse world" in " Stranger Things".
But [annihilation] can be said to have created a beautiful "alien world" in addition to continuing the advantages of the above works , and raised the ultimate topic of science fiction films - what is a human being.
Kane, after being baptized in "Shimmer", said to the camera, "If I'm not Kane, who am I? Am I you? Are you me?"
Hundreds of years ago, this sentence could force Ji Wuming to commit suicide by slapping his forehead. Hundreds of years later, this is still an unsolved mystery for mankind.
So, when Lena finally returned to the base, whether she was the original "Lina" or an alien clone , the director didn't give an answer.
At the beginning of the film, the place where alien life landed is precisely a very symbolic beacon.
Garland's meaning couldn't be more obvious, "The direction of human evolution has changed."
In [Ex Machina], Garland thinks about the impact of artificial intelligence on human beings, and in [annihilation], the object of thinking is changed to alien life.
The same is, there is no answer.
If I'm really lucky enough to see the future in Garland's mind, the only thing I can say for sure is that I'll miss this—
Neither hunting mammoths, nor fighting robots, nor dodging the boring age of aliens.
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Text: Han Gege
The article comes from WeChat public account: Movie Detoxification
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