I think if this director has written his OWN Roadside Picnic/Annihilation style story with his OWN world and such it would work better for me, but he really did just basically take the set dressing from this book and change all the underlying meaning which is what makes it such a bad interpretation.

okay so, like 3 mins into the annihilation ep and Mikey has called soap "bubble sauce" which. excellent. however Paige is convinced it's an "allegory for cancer" so I feel like this movie is either wildly different from the book or we are going to have wildly different and potentially incompatible opinions on this

also the hosts keep asking worldbuilding questions that are ANSWERED LATER IN THE BOOK SERIES!!!! THOSE ARE THEIR PLOT HANGUPS!!!!

LIKE AAAAHHHHHH DIRECTOR DUDE WHY DID YOU SCORN THE REST OF THE SERIES FOR YOUR FLIMSY BLAND-ASS METAPHOR????

okay so, like 3 mins into the annihilation ep and Mikey has called soap "bubble sauce" which. excellent. however Paige is convinced it's an "allegory for cancer" so I feel like this movie is either wildly different from the book or we are going to have wildly different and potentially incompatible opinions on this

also instead of Area X they call it "the shimmer" which is just SO STUPID!!

WHY EVEN CHANGE THAT!!!

okay so, like 3 mins into the annihilation ep and Mikey has called soap "bubble sauce" which. excellent. however Paige is convinced it's an "allegory for cancer" so I feel like this movie is either wildly different from the book or we are going to have wildly different and potentially incompatible opinions on this

also they gave everyone names in the movie which is annoying bc it just feels like they thought their audience was stupid? but also like a BIG thing in the book is that not only is Area X struggling to communicate with humanity, but that it's first attempts are so cosmic-horror bad that all technology and identifying information are removed from people so it CAN'T communicate, plus Southern Reach has started dehumanizing it's expedition members to try and make them easier to control/have more success on the mission because they view themselves purely as a function (biologist, anthropologist etc) and not a person (does this work? probably not but that's their IDEA if ANYONE BOTHERED TO READ THE WHOLE SERIES!!).

Anyway this feels like interesting details that were cut to feed the directors cancer metaphor--I'M NOT BITTER ABOUT THE CANCER METAPHOR REALLY!!!

okay so, like 3 mins into the annihilation ep and Mikey has called soap "bubble sauce" which. excellent. however Paige is convinced it's an "allegory for cancer" so I feel like this movie is either wildly different from the book or we are going to have wildly different and potentially incompatible opinions on this

oh apparently the DIRECTOR decided it's an allegory for cancer.

HM.

okay so, like 3 mins into the annihilation ep and Mikey has called soap "bubble sauce" which. excellent. however Paige is convinced it's an "allegory for cancer" so I feel like this movie is either wildly different from the book or we are going to have wildly different and potentially incompatible opinions on this

okay so, like 3 mins into the annihilation ep and Mikey has called soap "bubble sauce" which. excellent. however Paige is convinced it's an "allegory for cancer" so I feel like this movie is either wildly different from the book or we are going to have wildly different and potentially incompatible opinions on this

anyway SPOILERS for the southern Reach trilogy but I just. I cannot.

:readmore:

I cannot get over the thought that this was not some malevolent force but just an oblivious alien construct perchance colliding with a meteor and getting broken up and perchance a piece falling to earth and perchance coming into contact with Saul and perchance not understanding humans as intelligent beings and not "toxic," and therefore destroying a large swath of Florida (?) in an attempt to re-terraform earth and not understanding human communication and therefore any attempts to communicate with humans come across as sheer and utter horror and of course humans being humans we assume this is a threat and take away any technology it can use to communicate back (ie why any newer tech is not allowed)

like the sheer chance of it all combined with the theme of the written word never being enough, our perspectives all being limited because none of use are omniscient...the idea that the Crawler is basically a program set to terraform a world as soon as it comes into contact with the correct conditions (which seems to be a lifeform that is capable of being possessed and transformed by it), but while it will not cease it's functioning it still has (probably from Saul, who it absorbed) the sense that something is deeply wrong. it tries to communicate but all attempts fail because it doesn't understand how to do that effectively. it makes a phone that doesn't work and sends it back with the director. it sends back clones but they aren't human enough to be able to communicate properly. it scrawls Saul's sermons endlessly on the walls but they're just nonsense.

like AAAAAAAHHHHHH such a good take on the question of "if we ever encountered aliens would we be able to understand them at all?"

and in authority we see echoes of this within the SR too - their organization is breaking down, and central is breaking down, because everyone has their own agenda and no one is willing to share. could the mystery of Area X have been solved sooner if they all put their heads together and Lowry got down off his high horse? maybe. could it be Lowry was also corrupted by Area X and thrives on this confusion and the pointless expeditions because for some reason Area X wants him to keep sending emissaries???

And also there are MULTIPLE Area X's, somehow connected?? With creatures from each world intermingling??? Amazing

anyway BEDTIME NOW. these books are a trip

EDIT also and the Crawler taking that form because it scanned Saul's memories and, completely misunderstanding them, decided he would serve best in tower, always climbing or descending, scrawling his sermons on the walls eternally. like it took a look at his brain and said "round with stairs? words?? ooookay man sure thing".

At least by the time it transformed the biologist it had a better handle on reading minds and finding what people wanted. It knew that to be a leviathan that could travel land and sea and observe constantly from a thousand eyes would please her (though one wonders if it doesn't upset her that her leviathan body is so big it crushes huge swathes of the land...she seems the type to be upset about destroying ecosystems like that).

now onto more important things: Horror Virgin did Annihilation this week and I've been avoiding that movie bc a) I love that book series so, so much, b) the director of this movie apparently outright refused the rights to the 2nd and 3rd books because he wanted to take book 1 and do what he wanted with it (bad sign), and c) I saw somewhere that the author really does not like the movie and I feel like it's going to be a cheap horror show of slapped together vibey imagery and whatnot and lose everything I loved about the books.

but also....the hosts have really talked up the movie and I want to see (or at least hear) what's up with it.

work headphones have entered the esteemed "gorilla glue" phase of life.

this gave me a good chuckle

cannot tell you the psychic damage this sudden cold spell + snow is doing to me

Sydney Smith (Canadian, b. Caledonia, Nova Scotia, based Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) - Kitty in the Window, 2022, Paintings

idk if y'all already knew this but our beautiful boy is on sale in our merch store rn, he's usually $50 and he's currently $24.95. There's also a bundle option where you get Garyl and a copy of the Petals to the Metal graphic novel for $34.95

is there tumblr drama? i would be invested in that.

like people arguing in text would be SO funny

Are you new here

okay I heard Sabrina Carpenter was the "slutty evil Olivia Rodrigo" but no one told me she was funny af

okay it's REALLY snowing this is deeply depressing