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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Is the prose any good? it'sss it's been a few years but I'd call it better than workmanlike, the books are dreamy and strange and iirc the first one at least has little actual dialogue and is more in the style of these hazy journals they're extremely slow and there is not one laugh to be heard, they're bleak, but bleak like nature is bleak, quiet, they're mostly not interested in human misery certainly if you feel stimulated by the ambiguities of the movie you will find them much more thoroughly explored and also more mysterious in the novels, or if you like cosmic horror of a more abstract bent than even Ligotti can provide, but they'll leave you feeling hollow and confused most likely--I've never read a take by someone who felt like they fully understood them the read I subscribe to is that they're sort of about the death of language, people don't have names and there's a gloriously deranged prose-poem that keeps coming up and a bonkers linguist and a god-monster with graphomania there's some good gay poo poo in there too which also got cut, typical, weirdly it's like the only human connection in the entire trilogy that I can remember Darth Walrus posted:Mind you, the second book is all about how the distinction between Area X and the Southern Reach facility is not as meaningful as people think, so that ambiguity isn’t exactly off-message. also fair I was really just trying to be mean to smg for being a raving maniac, they didn't know about that part SuperMechagodzilla posted:The “Area X” title card, and therefore the name of the facility, was deliberately changed from the script, where the title card reads PART ONE - THE SOUTHERN REACH. The specific building is still referred to as Southern Reach in dialogue, but it’s clear that Area X refers to everything inside (and including) the massive border wall. it is of considerable meaning that a house on the borderlands is by definition not over the border the nature of the doppelgangers is never fully elucidated but they are super important, there's all this Stuff that the film sort of references but doesn't treat with if I remember correctly the biologist's theory is that Area X operates on a principle of camouflage, and that the weird blendings are a result of its imperfectly mimicing its environment, the implication being that its doppelgangers are also some kind of intrusion into the outside world that are meant to be, but fail to be, inconspicuous there's no reason to think that's not the case in the film, they include the doppelganger element with no additional explanation, and the death of the area (inconsistent with the events of the novels) makes even stronger the implication that somehow the doppelgangers are some kind of seed or spawn of the zone adapted to a terrestrial environment if you were gross you could get all heterosexual about it and point out that now there's a breeding pair but let's keep things clean and gay crawlkill fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Apr 2, 2018 |
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Apr 2, 2018 19:49
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Not taking the movie in light of the books would be like not taking the movie in light of parsifal.
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Apr 2, 2018 20:02
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there's also a kaiju in the novels but it's like a fnord kaiju you can't really see, it's weird and good
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Apr 2, 2018 20:05
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The Annihilation book doesn't actually matter to the Annihilation movie. The movie isn't an explainer for the book or vice versa. It's interesting to compare them because it gives you an insight into the writer's decision making process and the exigencies of film production, but you don't (and shouldn't) need one to understand the other.
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Apr 2, 2018 21:14
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crawlkill posted:it'sss This is a lot of words trying to excuse the book for apparently having workmanlike prose.
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Apr 2, 2018 21:15
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porfiria posted:Not taking the movie in light of the books would be like not taking the movie in light of parsifal. The issue is that Crawkill is using the books as a source of franchise canon to pave over the ‘plot holes’ of the simulated universe, rather than comparing and contrasting two different works. The book is used to override and delete the deliberate omissions of the film, the same way the film can be used to overrides the book’s. The unnamed biologist now, canonically, has a name: Lena. The script further reveals that her last name is Kerans (a detail removed from the final version because it would create a genuine plot hole - Lena’s husband would be Sgt. Kerans, and the women would know the connection immediately). So, retroactively, the unnamed protagonist of the book becomes Lena Kerans, ex-marine. It’s the same as using Roadside Picnic and the videogame of Stalker to explain that there are mutated space pigs in Tarkovsky’s film... They’re just not on the screen right now.... The fundamental problem is that what I’ve written is true; the film is undeniably extremely similar to Parsifal. That is why, instead of simply saying that I am wrong (because the film is fundamentally unlike Parsifal, or I’ve misread Parsifal, or whatever) we have a variety of extremely bizarre claims. Like Crawkills’s claim is that what I’ve written is not allowed to be true because I haven’t the authority. And at the same time, what I’ve written cannot be true because it would tear apart his universe and drive him insane. Others insist that there is no such thing as language, so literacy is impossible. These are really bizarre reactions. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Apr 3, 2018 |
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Apr 2, 2018 23:39
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You know one thing that struck me weird--how many Johns Hopkins Med School (Army Veteran?!) Professors are married to psycho blacker-than-black Tier One Operators? Those seem like pretty different demographics to me.
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Apr 3, 2018 01:24
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A majority of the brain surgeons-in-training I know are dating military guys. I do not know how they meet, but anecdotally it's not a particularly weird match.
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Apr 3, 2018 01:48
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From my very limited exposure I know a professor (from JHU, home of the Predator Drone) dating a military guy but he's a colonel not a "7000 confirmed kills" Delta Sergeant.
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Apr 3, 2018 01:58
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Tbh the movie does have more in common with Parsifal than it does with the book, so its def a fair reference for examining the film. Also, can we not poo poo up this thread by trying to own SMG. You guys have the Blockbuster forum specifically so you dont have to ever read or respond to one of his posts again.
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Apr 3, 2018 02:36
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large hands posted:INT. DANK TORTURE BASEMENT – NIGHT It's a little weird to have SMG lock up Koos, when Koos was the one with a fixation on SMG. Unless the chains are a metaphor for obsession? After all, this was a poster not satisfied with a normal amount of Koos.
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Apr 3, 2018 09:57
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crawlkill posted:imagine thinking that every piece of media you'd ever consumed contained references to every other piece of media you'd ever consumed The path this leads to is biblical literalism. After all, how can we read the Biblical flood story and the similar flood story of the Hopi as intertextual "in the absence of direct reference or authorial explanation." The only possible explanation for all these flood stories is that every culture on Earth descends from the survivors of a single, world-covering flood, and the stories are all direct references to this single event. And only the Author can tell us what that means; fortunately He has. Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Apr 3, 2018 |
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Apr 3, 2018 10:04
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https://twitter.com/simpsonsfilms/status/973228479541112834' https://twitter.com/simpsonsfilms/status/973265389110087682
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Apr 3, 2018 12:14
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Owlbear Camus posted:https://twitter.com/simpsonsfilms/status/973228479541112834' I don’t recognize the episode in the lower right quadrant of the first one. I have shamed myself.
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Apr 3, 2018 13:20
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Watched this movie last night while feeling ill. It gave me some very interesting fever dreams...
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Apr 3, 2018 13:28
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Hodgepodge posted:The path this leads to is biblical literalism. After all, how can we read the Biblical flood story and the similar flood story of the Hopi as intertextual "in the absence of direct reference or authorial explanation." The only possible explanation for all these flood stories is that every culture on Earth descends from the survivors of a single, world-covering flood, and the stories are all direct references to this single event. And only the Author can tell us what that means; fortunately He has. drat.
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Apr 3, 2018 15:41
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Hodgepodge posted:The path this leads to is biblical literalism. After all, how can we read the Biblical flood story and the similar flood story of the Hopi as intertextual "in the absence of direct reference or authorial explanation." The only possible explanation for all these flood stories is that every culture on Earth descends from the survivors of a single, world-covering flood, and the stories are all direct references to this single event. And only the Author can tell us what that means; fortunately He has. Lol that’s ferocious Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:Tbh the movie does have more in common with Parsifal than it does with the book, so its def a fair reference for examining the film. Imagine being so befuddled by a straightforward comparison that you have a meltdown and insist the movie you just watched is incomprehensible without an instruction manual
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Apr 3, 2018 16:39
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In fairness to Crawkill, his deference to authority actually goes far beyond mere literalism. Where a biblical literalist simply believes that the bible is a (proto-)scientific document co-authored by an inerrant God, Crawkill effectively believes that the bible is a work of fiction that is nonetheless co-authored by an inerrant God. So when I say the alien torus is an obvious reference to the wizard Klingsor, I am hubristically wielding the power of God; only omniscient God can perceive all the infinite ‘links’ that make up a fictional story. The recourse to canon and author intention serves as a ‘floodgate control’ that literally prevents Crawkill from receiving too much information, overwhelming his mind. By reading only what he is supposed to, he remains sane. The ultimate point is that what I’ve written is true, but that this truth is dangerous and must be suppressed. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Apr 3, 2018 |
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Apr 3, 2018 16:45
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Hodgepodge posted:It's a little weird to have SMG lock up Koos, when Koos was the one with a fixation on SMG. The best part about SMG getting the fyad friend treatment that one time was all the fyad hangers-on getting all frothy and excited about owning him and then probating him once they realized they weren't nearly as clever in their attempts as they thought they were.
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Apr 3, 2018 17:06
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Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:The best part about SMG getting the fyad friend treatment that one time was all the fyad hangers-on getting all frothy and excited about owning him and then probating him once they realized they weren't nearly as clever in their attempts as they thought they were. My dad, Supermechagodzilla...
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Apr 3, 2018 18:14
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Watched this movie tonight. Completely hosed me up. gently caress the bear sequence so much.
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Apr 9, 2018 06:56
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crawlkill posted:while this is not true it is at least your first fairly-argued point, I assume, I don't remember when the title cards flashed It's probably been pointed out, but this is wrong on both counts. The film clearly situates Southern Reach within Area X, and the Shimmer within Area X. If it bothers you so much, imagine 'Area X' as a designated exclusion zone surrounding The Shimmer. However, the books make it explicit that Southern Reach is also within Area X.
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Apr 9, 2018 15:34
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Capntastic posted:While that picture of nested concentricity is structurally pleasing I do not agree that what Area X represents can be reduced to such a simple diagram. Area X demands that we ask what any given object means when the barriers of context are magnified or stripped away completely. Bu yea, I think this is the stronger reading for both the book and the movie. Area X is a Deleuzian holey-space (per Thousand Plateau's and more specifically Negarestani's Cyclonopedia): Negarestani's Cyclonopedia posted:... the periphery on the zone of excitations does not necessarily start from visible surfaces on the crust: Active surfaces emerge from everywhere, from the surface-crust mode of periphery to innermost recesses. The ()hole complex carves ultra-active surfaces from solidus when it digs holes, unleashes delirious itinerant lines and constructs its nematical machines, installing peripheral agitations on the surfaces it cuts from internal solid matrices. Everywhere a hole moves, a surface is invented. When the despotic necrocratic regime of periphery-core, for which everything should be concluded and grounded by the gravity of the core, is deteriorated.
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Apr 9, 2018 15:46
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Now I really just want to see Parsifal again (it and flying dutchman are my favorite Wagners, because I love male singing in opera) Garland had like 5-6 really great shots, too bad about the rest of the movie being so stilted
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Apr 12, 2018 03:34
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finally watched this and drat what they did to Jane the Virgin was loving brutal
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Apr 30, 2018 05:35
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I liked the part with the bear. Only one of the parts though.
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May 1, 2018 03:28
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Well the books must have done something right because I went out and impulse-purchased To The Lighthouse. Please don’t tell my high school lit teacher.
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May 3, 2018 02:01
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Jewmanji posted:Well the books must have done something right because I went out and impulse-purchased To The Lighthouse. Please don’t tell my high school lit teacher. That book rips, even if I like Orlando and Mrs. Dalloway more.
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May 3, 2018 06:32
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in one of the books didn't area x also include townships that were being lived in by staff that had been evacuated or were evacuated as the zone expands?
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May 4, 2018 21:34
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Doorknob Slobber posted:in one of the books didn't area x also include townships that were being lived in by staff that had been evacuated or were evacuated as the zone expands? Area X consumed a few small villages but IIRC this was when it first appeared, before the Southern Reach existed. The impression I got from the book trilogy was that its border had been stable for decades afterward, since it's guarded by fixed defenses. It's not steadily growing like it is in the movie
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May 5, 2018 00:21
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Whenever I read posts in this thread with people trying to explain the mechanics of the DNA mutations in the Shimmer, I can't help but think of Gremlins 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xhy17V_nko
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May 27, 2018 05:01
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I watched this movie the other day and I've been thinking it over since then. I haven't read the books so I don't really have any attachments to the source material but I thought this movie was pretty good. I liked the weird filter they put on stuff inside the shimmer, it reminded me of the fever-dream feel that I got from Prometheus. I got pulled out of it each time they brought in the interrogation framing device, which I thought sucked. Most of the stuff that happens pre-shimmer takes too long for me. I say get us into the weird poo poo as soon as possible. Each scientist's "deal" could have been explored on the inside through action. If anything, the whole movie is just too talky, they want to explain too much. Comparisons to Stalker were a bit unwarranted for that reason. All my problems kinda disappeared in the last twenty or so minutes, from Radek vanishing on to the credits. The sequence with the humanoid and Lena was fantastic and the alien presence at the bottom of the hole was visually fascinating. It reminded me of the "bad" CGI hologram from the Thing prequel: alien and weird by virtue of looking like nonsense, but posed in such a way as to infer meaning and importance. It is hard to create something mildly alien and I feel like this film finally pulled that off in that scene.
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May 27, 2018 19:19
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I thought it was okay
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Jun 3, 2018 19:59
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A bit late to the party with watching this, what are the bones in front of the lighthouse about? 4 ribcages all draped with a differently coloured napkin, 10 skulls and a bunch of arm/leg bones. 4 ribcages = the other 4 people in here are dead? 10 skulls = actually everybody who went in is dead, protagonist of either expedition included? other bones = ??? or alien intelligence picked up the idea that corpses go in graveyards and hasn't quite managed to grasp the concept of coffins and graves yet but did manage to improvise some headstones out of the ribcages? As for the tactical realism angle, I'm pretty sure I saw a tank in the background. Well, tank shaped topiary at least.
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Jul 27, 2018 23:07
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Asehujiko posted:A bit late to the party with watching this, what are the bones in front of the lighthouse about? 4 ribcages all draped with a differently coloured napkin, 10 skulls and a bunch of arm/leg bones. Given what else is going on in that lighthouse, I wonder if at least some of them are failed (or just, uh, divergent, because failure implies purpose) human-replica births.
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Jul 27, 2018 23:19
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I watched Annihilation a few days ago, and there's some questions I have. That ending scene in the lighthouse was loving bonkers. Was the thing sentient? Did it know what it was doing? Or did it just mimic Natalie Portman, trying to learn?
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Aug 6, 2018 14:27
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Leavemywife posted:I watched Annihilation a few days ago, and there's some questions I have. That ending scene in the lighthouse was loving bonkers. Was the thing sentient? Did it know what it was doing? Or did it just mimic Natalie Portman, trying to learn? I think judging by her husband's doppelganger's behavior, it does seem like the things eventually gain some form of sentience. It's a confused sentience, it obviously is still trying to figure out its surroundings, but sentience nonetheless.. Annihilation gets better every time I watch it, it's one of those movies that got under my skin and I find myself wanting to go back to reexamine it even after three viewings. That lighthouse scene really has to be one of the most interesting pieces of science fiction in recent film history. There's just so much to unpack there and I feel like I could watch it 100 times and find new ideas in it. It's also amazingly creepy and off-putting, in general I wouldn't argue if someone wanted to say that Annihilation is a horror movie. I love Jennifer Jason-Leigh's line delivery at the end there too, her monologue is great.
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Aug 6, 2018 14:46
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I wonder about it because during Lena's first escape attempt, it pins her to the door, and that scene is very suggestive of sexual assault. I don't think the being did that on purpose; I don't think it would really understand sex, since I don't think it reproduces that way, considering how it was born. Was it just mimicking her action, as it has been, or was there part of Ventress in there, and it recognized this as something human beings do, from whatever consciousness was in there? The whole being at the end is a wonderful bit of fuckery. It's such an alien thing, and we can't even begin to guess its thought patterns, motivation, anything about it.
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Aug 6, 2018 16:21
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Leavemywife posted:I wonder about it because during Lena's first escape attempt, it pins her to the door, and that scene is very suggestive of sexual assault. I don't think the being did that on purpose; I don't think it would really understand sex, since I don't think it reproduces that way, considering how it was born. Was it just mimicking her action, as it has been, or was there part of Ventress in there, and it recognized this as something human beings do, from whatever consciousness was in there? No, it was not trying to have sex with her.
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Aug 6, 2018 16:45
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The Human Crouton posted:No, it was not trying to have sex with her. They were merely exchanging long protein strings.
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Aug 7, 2018 18:18
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