I’m so glad we got to revisit this project! Ever since I first read the book, ANNIHILATION lodged itself into my brain like a blast of spores to the face 🍄
The Southern Reach trilogy is (IMO) top-notch fiction. I also really like the movie. I understand how the movie HAS to do a different thing than the books because HOW in the crap would you pull off a visual representation of the books. What's really sexy to me is that the movie is like a refraction of the story. The book is an experience with nuance and shades, but if you look at it directly it may solidify as a story that looks like the movie. Kinda like the movie is a version of a telling of the book that only has a physical form because it was forced to be a movie. I hope that made any sense at all.
Totally, I think that touches on one of the main reasons we've always loved Annihilation, because it's a story where the nature of adaptation is fundamental to its message--and that's our favorite topic!
I didn't think the movie was weird enough and found the book more interesting. That climactic doppleganger scene with The Amazing Iridescent Duct Tape Man just looked like something out of a mid-90's Tool video. So, when Benedict Wong asked Lena, "Can you describe its form" and she said, "No," that didn't land for me. You really couldn't say there was a featureless humanoid figure dancing around with you at the base of a lighthouse? Not being able to describe the crawler I could understand. Except there was no crawler. I also didn't need these other themes / subplots about self destruction or Lena cheating on her husband because we've already gotten enough things like that from other films. It just felt like Alex Garland already wanted to write that movie and just used the Southern Reach trilogy as a vehicle for those ideas. Whereas the biologist's story and the tower / crawler were both fresh and would've been fun to explore in cinema. The biologist comes off as a true introvert, perhaps even on the spectrum, which could have been interesting to flesh out on screen, especially when cutting back and forth between mundane reality and Area X. We get that from Longlegs, for example, with Lee Harker. I do like that the screaming bear was a loose update from the moaning creature. That was pretty good. But that should not have been the darkest / weirdest visual piece of this film.
Omg, I just finished the book a few months ago! I got the trilogy in one big hardcover because it was cheaper than the three individual paperbacks. I went ahead and liked this video but I had to save it for later when I have time to watch it. So excited!! Can’t wait for your analysis. 🤓
@@WhytheBookWins I only finished Annihilation so far! I should have worded my comment better, lol! But I know I've got them when I'm ready to read them... one thing I hate is finishing a book in a series when I'm super into it and can't run out and get the next one. I live in a smaller area and our borders went out of business years ago... I have gotten books at Walmart before if I can't wait for Amazon. We did get a small one in our mall but it's been awhile since I've been there. If I could've done most series I've read in a format like this (3 books in one hardback) I would've in a heartbeat! Which they probably have them now... (im thinking of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo series, Twilight, Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse, Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake & Merry Gentry). I would lose it if you did anything on those last two... I know they don't have films, but I have hoped for years they'd do a tv series or films. I appreciate the news about the 4th one though... I hadn't expected that but, yayyyyy!!! 🤓😁
There's a really interesting analysis of the movie by Folding Ideas here on UA-cam. He talks about how the shimmer represents trauma, something they all carry and are consumed or changed by in various ways. From that perspective, I actually find the whole thing much less bleak and kinda hopeful even. When they ask each other in the end, "Are you Lena?" etc, they acknowledge that they're different but also not, the same people but changed by their trauma, but that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Just like the beautiful nature and animals in the shimmer, this perhaps violent and unasked-for change can still produce something wonderful. So I take their embrace in the end as being at peace with it - something bad happened, it changed them, but it's okay and they'll figure it out together. Maybe it even brought them closer and saved their marriage. Anyway, this was a fun discussion and I definitely need to read the series, sounds amazing!
I love how you're wearing the shimmer. This is one of my favorite movies, and I'm not a horror fan at all. I think it was really well done and I like how the ending was left ambiguous.
I really enjoyed listening to your discussion! I have only seen the movie, but what I got from it is that it’s more of an allegory than meant to be taken at face value. To exist/love is to change, to change is to destroy your old self, etc. But also, it gives off the feeling that there was some executive meddling somewhere along production to try to make it more of an outright horror movie. And that’s where some of the scenes clashed for me. I did enjoy the movie, especially the design aspects of it. But from what you guys said it sounds like the book would be even more interesting 👀 Oh! Also, I love your “shimmer” shirt for the occasion
Very well said! And yeah, there is so much with the book and is definitely worth check out. And thank you! I bought the shirt specifically for this book/movie 😀
Just wanted to say I’m really enjoying your channel! Really appreciate the depths you go to detailing things and thinking things through. It’s so great getting a perspective of both the book and film from one source
thanks! And I have looked into that one and I have heard great things. I am always more hesitant to do tv shows though since they take up so much time. James and Luke covered it though on Ink to Film so if you head to their channel you can hear their thoughts on it!
What an intelligent and interesting discussion. Like all three of you, I prefer the book, but the movie has a lot to admire. I just want to note that I think the Tower is an inverted form of the lighthouse: a changed/transformed version. And if you look at the words on the wall closely, they tell (abstractly) what Area X is doing to the people that enter it's zone. VanderMeer borrowed the idea from the Strugatsky brothers story, "Roadside Picnec" and from many of the great Weird Fiction writers like Machen and Lovecraft. He is at the forefront of what people are calling the "New Weird". In fact, he and his wife published a collection of New Weird stories, so he knows the sub-genre very well. Thanks again for putting this great discussion on YT.
Laura I am so excited to have read an "adult" novel you are covering! Ha ha!! Ever since becoming a parent, I just haven't been getting to movies as much so I never saw the movie! (my husband did and he told me it's disturbing, so I have kind of been afraid to watch it!) But anyway, I loved this book it was one of my favorite books I read last year...in my 2023 top ten! I thoroughly enjoyed your video! Thank you!
I thought both were fantastic. The book is pretty simplistic, but a quick good read. The movie is a visual feast thanks to Alex Garland and his SFX team for making the Shimmer feel like a real place you could visit. Plus the cast is so good especially Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh though Tessa Thompson also has some shiny moments sprinkled in
I wish they could have Incorporated the writing into the movie, I know you guys talked about how it's kind of like babbling nonsense; I actually suspect that there is a lot of intentionality behind it. Truly captivating. As a poetic writer myself, I know that I will often use words and phrases that are referencing other pieces of media, though I can't say anyone reading my work would be able to readily identify them unless they happen to have the same particular media diet as mine. The begining section about "the strangling fruit" I think it is communicating something specific but in such a heady and artful way that it could be interpreted any number of ways by potential readers. Which I think is very powerful. What I'm suggesting is that Jeff Vandermeer has an idea of what he means, but his writing doesn't need you to know what he means for it to still be affecting. I haven't looked into it though, that's just my take away
That's a great point! I absolutely think Vandermeer has an idea of what it means. Reading over it again, I think there are hints that it is talking about the very nature of the force behind area X, or "the strangling fruit" that comes from "the hand of the sinner" and changes the world and everyone in it with "the seeds of the dead" and fruit that reveal the "the fatal softness in the earth." To me, that implies the inherent, yet often unrecognized fragility of life as we know it on Earth. That said, he made sure to obscure the meaning with layers of metaphor and a challenging run-on structure that our mind worries at that meaning rather than uncovering it. Brilliant stuff
Of course the origin of these words is unknowable, since the crawler is itself (SPOILER WARNING) is a hybrid of some kind between the lighthouse keeper and the entity or entities who are integral to Area X. So whatever meaning can be discerned is impossible to attribute to a wholly inhuman source within the narrative
Yeah the other night on Reddit I saw a thread all about this passage and the meaning behind it! So I would take back what I said in it making no sense at all because if you tag into it enough I'm sure there is meaning.
i loved the movie when it releases & i *finally!* got back into reading fiction for the first time in over 15 years - partly bc i wanted to read Borne. i started & completed Annihilation last nite (during a midnite thunderstorm & power outage none the less!). knowing the plot of the film was kinda fascinating, because i found myself thinking of things in the book that must've made the director & co. go the way they did. it also defied the attempt to (what ya'll struggled with here) compare the two - they're so wildly different that they don't demand an exact comparison & they both are wonderful stand alone pieces informing one another. i will say, as much as i adored the film's "encounter" the biologist had, soundtrack & all, i found i loved her encounter with the Crawler even more, the frantic writing mirrored the experience & the imagination & lovecraftian experience was something more akin to what would have been experienced - "undefinable" - more than it being directly shown. strangely, enough i was reminded more of the film "the lighthouse" while reading the book more than the annihilation adaptation. not just for on the nose namesake; just the surreal element of something "other" always lurking & changing - the supernatural biological "somethings," the shaky grasp on reality, this feeling of a presence that had been there long before you, both lighthouse keepers, brilliant (in a literal way) in their own right. i had watched this when you released it first, but rewatching today in honor of having completed the first novel.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I keep meaning to watch The Lighthouse nite so haven't, so you mentioning it has me even more curious! And yeah, that scene with the crawler was insane and so well written. Do you plan to read the rest of the series?
@@WhytheBookWins You should definitely make time for a The Lighthouse nite! I actually did just finish Acceptance two days ago! I had a really hard time with Authority because I despised Control's character & the jarring change of the POV. Acceptance made me appreciate Authority so much more in hindsight - I've noticed a lot of people who have Authority as their favorite of the trilogy, but Acceptance was my favorite with the storytelling style shifting (Old Jim scene?!) though I enjoyed all three. I'm very much looking forward to Absolution.
You’re shirts awesome it’s got a Jem and the holograms vibe. I’m glad you chose this the duality of the husband and wife just felt so disjointed to me in the film. Figured it was more fleshed out in the novel. It’s extremely fitting that the novel is primarily set in Area X I felt the anchors or bookends of reality in the film were an editorial descision and couldn’t have been something from the book.
@@WhytheBookWins figured the husband was more than the macguffin. In the film they almost keep reaffirming his importance to the character but it’s so minimalistic figured the life form would have a difficulty understanding the concept of emotion both positive or negative and how the human interpersonal dynamics of love or any emotion experienced within Area X would be difficult to comprehend and something benign almost considered a threat like apathy or affection etc a la the spores being a physical manifestation warping reality into something incomprehensible. Always thought the story to be more indicative to LOVECRAFT because of that there were many notions just not really delved into. In the film there is no passion or chemistry to the cast or production regrettably a lot just seem to be filling contractual obligations and what not.
From what I hear they are just very different than the first, so I expect readers looking for something more in line with ANNIHILATION might have a strong dislike for the different experience. But I haven't read them (yet), so take that all with a grain of salt!
You should definitely read the books. I've read them twice and saw the movie on opening night. I won't spoil anything, but my opinion of the film is that it should've just been called Southern Reach and not Annihilation because the film and the book are two very different stories. Where the trilogy goes after Annihilation is rather unpredictable and (I think) very interesting. Authority explores a different side of Area X (again, won't spoil it), but it's hard to see that coming if you're fixated on the events from the first book. Acceptance is both kind of like an epilogue and an origin story at the same time. So, as long as you're prepared for this, I think you'll enjoy the books. The first time I read them, I found those transitions jarring. But then realized after finishing the trilogy that I really like the books themselves, even if I expected the story to go somewhere else. That's a me problem. So, I went back and read them again later and was much happier the second time around.
5:04.... all ai image generators use Stable Diffusion, which contains a database of majority stolen artwork and photography. if you didn't know before, now you know. hope to not see any more ai stuff on your channel cause i like your work. if you keep using it tho, i'm probably gonna unsub. i just cant support people who support that.
I’m so glad we got to revisit this project! Ever since I first read the book, ANNIHILATION lodged itself into my brain like a blast of spores to the face 🍄
Seriously! Definitely a book that stays with you. Glad you guys joined me for this trip into Area X!
The Southern Reach trilogy is (IMO) top-notch fiction. I also really like the movie. I understand how the movie HAS to do a different thing than the books because HOW in the crap would you pull off a visual representation of the books. What's really sexy to me is that the movie is like a refraction of the story. The book is an experience with nuance and shades, but if you look at it directly it may solidify as a story that looks like the movie. Kinda like the movie is a version of a telling of the book that only has a physical form because it was forced to be a movie. I hope that made any sense at all.
Totally, I think that touches on one of the main reasons we've always loved Annihilation, because it's a story where the nature of adaptation is fundamental to its message--and that's our favorite topic!
I didn't think the movie was weird enough and found the book more interesting. That climactic doppleganger scene with The Amazing Iridescent Duct Tape Man just looked like something out of a mid-90's Tool video. So, when Benedict Wong asked Lena, "Can you describe its form" and she said, "No," that didn't land for me. You really couldn't say there was a featureless humanoid figure dancing around with you at the base of a lighthouse? Not being able to describe the crawler I could understand. Except there was no crawler. I also didn't need these other themes / subplots about self destruction or Lena cheating on her husband because we've already gotten enough things like that from other films. It just felt like Alex Garland already wanted to write that movie and just used the Southern Reach trilogy as a vehicle for those ideas. Whereas the biologist's story and the tower / crawler were both fresh and would've been fun to explore in cinema. The biologist comes off as a true introvert, perhaps even on the spectrum, which could have been interesting to flesh out on screen, especially when cutting back and forth between mundane reality and Area X. We get that from Longlegs, for example, with Lee Harker. I do like that the screaming bear was a loose update from the moaning creature. That was pretty good. But that should not have been the darkest / weirdest visual piece of this film.
“90s Tool video” ok that’s legit 😂 I think the form it took before absorbing her blood was more indescribable, but I get your point! Insightful take
Omg, I just finished the book a few months ago! I got the trilogy in one big hardcover because it was cheaper than the three individual paperbacks. I went ahead and liked this video but I had to save it for later when I have time to watch it. So excited!! Can’t wait for your analysis. 🤓
The books are so good! And a fourth one is coming out later this year 😁
@@WhytheBookWins I only finished Annihilation so far! I should have worded my comment better, lol! But I know I've got them when I'm ready to read them... one thing I hate is finishing a book in a series when I'm super into it and can't run out and get the next one. I live in a smaller area and our borders went out of business years ago... I have gotten books at Walmart before if I can't wait for Amazon. We did get a small one in our mall but it's been awhile since I've been there. If I could've done most series I've read in a format like this (3 books in one hardback) I would've in a heartbeat! Which they probably have them now... (im thinking of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo series, Twilight, Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse, Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake & Merry Gentry). I would lose it if you did anything on those last two... I know they don't have films, but I have hoped for years they'd do a tv series or films. I appreciate the news about the 4th one though... I hadn't expected that but, yayyyyy!!! 🤓😁
There's a really interesting analysis of the movie by Folding Ideas here on UA-cam. He talks about how the shimmer represents trauma, something they all carry and are consumed or changed by in various ways. From that perspective, I actually find the whole thing much less bleak and kinda hopeful even. When they ask each other in the end, "Are you Lena?" etc, they acknowledge that they're different but also not, the same people but changed by their trauma, but that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. Just like the beautiful nature and animals in the shimmer, this perhaps violent and unasked-for change can still produce something wonderful. So I take their embrace in the end as being at peace with it - something bad happened, it changed them, but it's okay and they'll figure it out together. Maybe it even brought them closer and saved their marriage.
Anyway, this was a fun discussion and I definitely need to read the series, sounds amazing!
I love that interpretation! Thanks for sharing and I'm glad you enjoyed our conversation 😊
Love Folding Ideas! I'll have to check that one out
I love how you're wearing the shimmer.
This is one of my favorite movies, and I'm not a horror fan at all. I think it was really well done and I like how the ending was left ambiguous.
Thanks 😊
Glad you like the movie, despite our critiques it is still really good!
I really enjoyed listening to your discussion!
I have only seen the movie, but what I got from it is that it’s more of an allegory than meant to be taken at face value.
To exist/love is to change, to change is to destroy your old self, etc. But also, it gives off the feeling that there was some executive meddling somewhere along production to try to make it more of an outright horror movie. And that’s where some of the scenes clashed for me.
I did enjoy the movie, especially the design aspects of it. But from what you guys said it sounds like the book would be even more interesting 👀
Oh! Also, I love your “shimmer” shirt for the occasion
Very well said! And yeah, there is so much with the book and is definitely worth check out.
And thank you! I bought the shirt specifically for this book/movie 😀
You should absolutely give the book a try :)
Just wanted to say I’m really enjoying your channel!
Really appreciate the depths you go to detailing things and thinking things through. It’s so great getting a perspective of both the book and film from one source
Thank you so much! I'm glad you like the content ☺️
omg!!! one of my favorite books and movies🎉
Both are SO GOOD!
great video! and channel! Have you considered doing Station 11? I think this is the perfect channel for that story :)
thanks! And I have looked into that one and I have heard great things. I am always more hesitant to do tv shows though since they take up so much time.
James and Luke covered it though on Ink to Film so if you head to their channel you can hear their thoughts on it!
@@WhytheBookWins Thanks for the mention! We'd also love to hear your take on Station Eleven :)
What an intelligent and interesting discussion. Like all three of you, I prefer the book, but the movie has a lot to admire. I just want to note that I think the Tower is an inverted form of the lighthouse: a changed/transformed version. And if you look at the words on the wall closely, they tell (abstractly) what Area X is doing to the people that enter it's zone. VanderMeer borrowed the idea from the Strugatsky brothers story, "Roadside Picnec" and from many of the great Weird Fiction writers like Machen and Lovecraft. He is at the forefront of what people are calling the "New Weird". In fact, he and his wife published a collection of New Weird stories, so he knows the sub-genre very well. Thanks again for putting this great discussion on YT.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked our conversation.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! There is always something new to catch when reading a Vandermeer book.
I was looking forward this one!
Hope you liked our conversation!
@@WhytheBookWins Absolutely.
Thanks for watching!
Laura I am so excited to have read an "adult" novel you are covering! Ha ha!! Ever since becoming a parent, I just haven't been getting to movies as much so I never saw the movie! (my husband did and he told me it's disturbing, so I have kind of been afraid to watch it!) But anyway, I loved this book it was one of my favorite books I read last year...in my 2023 top ten! I thoroughly enjoyed your video! Thank you!
That's cool you've tag this one! It's so amazing! Glad you liked the video 😁
Thanks for watching! And "disturbing" is a fair assessment 😅
I thought both were fantastic. The book is pretty simplistic, but a quick good read. The movie is a visual feast thanks to Alex Garland and his SFX team for making the Shimmer feel like a real place you could visit. Plus the cast is so good especially Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh though Tessa Thompson also has some shiny moments sprinkled in
I wish they could have Incorporated the writing into the movie, I know you guys talked about how it's kind of like babbling nonsense; I actually suspect that there is a lot of intentionality behind it. Truly captivating.
As a poetic writer myself, I know that I will often use words and phrases that are referencing other pieces of media, though I can't say anyone reading my work would be able to readily identify them unless they happen to have the same particular media diet as mine. The begining section about "the strangling fruit" I think it is communicating something specific but in such a heady and artful way that it could be interpreted any number of ways by potential readers.
Which I think is very powerful.
What I'm suggesting is that Jeff Vandermeer has an idea of what he means, but his writing doesn't need you to know what he means for it to still be affecting.
I haven't looked into it though, that's just my take away
That's a great point! I absolutely think Vandermeer has an idea of what it means. Reading over it again, I think there are hints that it is talking about the very nature of the force behind area X, or "the strangling fruit" that comes from "the hand of the sinner" and changes the world and everyone in it with "the seeds of the dead" and fruit that reveal the "the fatal softness in the earth." To me, that implies the inherent, yet often unrecognized fragility of life as we know it on Earth.
That said, he made sure to obscure the meaning with layers of metaphor and a challenging run-on structure that our mind worries at that meaning rather than uncovering it. Brilliant stuff
Of course the origin of these words is unknowable, since the crawler is itself (SPOILER WARNING) is a hybrid of some kind between the lighthouse keeper and the entity or entities who are integral to Area X. So whatever meaning can be discerned is impossible to attribute to a wholly inhuman source within the narrative
Yeah the other night on Reddit I saw a thread all about this passage and the meaning behind it! So I would take back what I said in it making no sense at all because if you tag into it enough I'm sure there is meaning.
i loved the movie when it releases & i *finally!* got back into reading fiction for the first time in over 15 years - partly bc i wanted to read Borne. i started & completed Annihilation last nite (during a midnite thunderstorm & power outage none the less!).
knowing the plot of the film was kinda fascinating, because i found myself thinking of things in the book that must've made the director & co. go the way they did. it also defied the attempt to (what ya'll struggled with here) compare the two - they're so wildly different that they don't demand an exact comparison & they both are wonderful stand alone pieces informing one another.
i will say, as much as i adored the film's "encounter" the biologist had, soundtrack & all, i found i loved her encounter with the Crawler even more, the frantic writing mirrored the experience & the imagination & lovecraftian experience was something more akin to what would have been experienced - "undefinable" - more than it being directly shown.
strangely, enough i was reminded more of the film "the lighthouse" while reading the book more than the annihilation adaptation. not just for on the nose namesake; just the surreal element of something "other" always lurking & changing - the supernatural biological "somethings," the shaky grasp on reality, this feeling of a presence that had been there long before you, both lighthouse keepers, brilliant (in a literal way) in their own right.
i had watched this when you released it first, but rewatching today in honor of having completed the first novel.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I keep meaning to watch The Lighthouse nite so haven't, so you mentioning it has me even more curious!
And yeah, that scene with the crawler was insane and so well written.
Do you plan to read the rest of the series?
@@WhytheBookWins You should definitely make time for a The Lighthouse nite! I actually did just finish Acceptance two days ago! I had a really hard time with Authority because I despised Control's character & the jarring change of the POV. Acceptance made me appreciate Authority so much more in hindsight - I've noticed a lot of people who have Authority as their favorite of the trilogy, but Acceptance was my favorite with the storytelling style shifting (Old Jim scene?!) though I enjoyed all three. I'm very much looking forward to Absolution.
You’re shirts awesome it’s got a Jem and the holograms vibe. I’m glad you chose this the duality of the husband and wife just felt so disjointed to me in the film. Figured it was more fleshed out in the novel. It’s extremely fitting that the novel is primarily set in Area X I felt the anchors or bookends of reality in the film were an editorial descision and couldn’t have been something from the book.
Thanks! And yeah, I love that we are in area x the whole time in the book and the relationship with her husband was also so much better in the book.
@@WhytheBookWins figured the husband was more than the macguffin. In the film they almost keep reaffirming his importance to the character but it’s so minimalistic figured the life form would have a difficulty understanding the concept of emotion both positive or negative and how the human interpersonal dynamics of love or any emotion experienced within Area X would be difficult to comprehend and something benign almost considered a threat like apathy or affection etc a la the spores being a physical manifestation warping reality into something incomprehensible. Always thought the story to be more indicative to LOVECRAFT because of that there were many notions just not really delved into. In the film there is no passion or chemistry to the cast or production regrettably a lot just seem to be filling contractual obligations and what not.
I considered reading the book after seeing the movie. The many negative comments online about the rest of the series made me decide against it.
I've read the other books in the series and they're excellent!
From what I hear they are just very different than the first, so I expect readers looking for something more in line with ANNIHILATION might have a strong dislike for the different experience. But I haven't read them (yet), so take that all with a grain of salt!
You should definitely read the books. I've read them twice and saw the movie on opening night. I won't spoil anything, but my opinion of the film is that it should've just been called Southern Reach and not Annihilation because the film and the book are two very different stories. Where the trilogy goes after Annihilation is rather unpredictable and (I think) very interesting. Authority explores a different side of Area X (again, won't spoil it), but it's hard to see that coming if you're fixated on the events from the first book. Acceptance is both kind of like an epilogue and an origin story at the same time. So, as long as you're prepared for this, I think you'll enjoy the books. The first time I read them, I found those transitions jarring. But then realized after finishing the trilogy that I really like the books themselves, even if I expected the story to go somewhere else. That's a me problem. So, I went back and read them again later and was much happier the second time around.
5:04.... all ai image generators use Stable Diffusion, which contains a database of majority stolen artwork and photography. if you didn't know before, now you know. hope to not see any more ai stuff on your channel cause i like your work. if you keep using it tho, i'm probably gonna unsub. i just cant support people who support that.
Thanks for mentioning this - I also noticed and I'm glad I'm not the only person bothered by it 👍