The author said that his concept for the shimmer was based on animals in nature using mimicry to camouflage. But then expanded it to an alien ecosystem.
I sort of took it along similar lines, but more that everything we encounter becomes part of us, so that whether she is original or a copy is arbitrary; to my reading, she isn't the copy from the lighthouse, but her victory over it is hollow because she is not fundamentally different from it, and it wouldn't have known any differently if it had been the Lena to walk out.
SPOILERS FOR THE BOOKS Thats almost exactly what happened. They only focused on the first (of 3) book for the film and squished some stuff together, as well as the ending of the film being an incredibly watered down version of what actually happens. But yeah. If you like the film you should 100% read the Southern Reach. Its like a mix of Stephan King and Clive Barker.
@@KingfisherMCfor the sake of brevity, what ends up happening with her husband? is he completely gone and replaced with the alien copy? do they continue to coexist together? I really liked their plotline
@@litneyloxan Obviously spoilers here It was a while ago since i read the books but iirc you never see or meet the real husband. Hes already gone through the shimmer and what came back out is basically what happens to her when she goes down the stairs. Its somewhat implied he could be a creature moving through some swampy area (not in the movie at all, replaced by the bear) that sounds human but is some mutated wild boar thing. Thats only hinted at in her thoughts though and its never actually confirmed. She never meets her husband again in human form in any case, hes already mutated by the time the story begins. Fun fact though, she does end up meeting herself... ;) now go read the books
Regarding the "Ouroboros" Tattoo: I have the feeling that you forget is that Time and memories also get refracted in the shimmer. if Lenas literal house can get refracted and created inside of the shimmer, then there is no reason why the original tattoo can't get refracted through time to appear on someone else ...thats the point of the shimmer, I think. all that exists can and will be influenced and refracted on everything that exists. that's what makes it so extremely dangerous and beautiful at the same time.
@@PharadayCage THIS IS WHAT MOST PEOPLE MISS! Yes. It's "remixing" reality itself. It isn't limited to genetics, it's reading and rewriting patterns of information.
this movie is one of the rare times where the adaptaion made me read the book as opposed to the other way around, but the southern reach trillogy went hard, the middle book is mostly a bridge and quite hard to get through but provides the much needed context to finish the third book. great stuff
Annihilation has always been one of my favorite movies. I've seen it multiple times and I always feel I find something new to it. Also for the body horror stuff I find it both fascinating but equally terrifying because to some level I've lived through some more real aspects of it last year. After I had a valve transplant (bovine valve) I had a stroke a few months after. Ironically my husband spotted the symptoms of the stroke after seeing the movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly all about a guy who had a stroke and became paralyzed and trapped in his own body. Though I've since recovered due to getting treatment quickly, the feeling of being unable to control your own limbs is extremely terrifying. I can't really describe how frightening it all was realizing my own body was against me and feeling deeply changed emotionally. Such a great analysis of an amazing movie! I may need to give it another rewatch!
Whoa! I can see how that would be terrifying. It's honestly easy to forget how scary real life can be while analyzing fiction. I've been very lucky to never have experienced anything like that. Thank you for the kind words!
Great commentary! I had a stroke in february and you explained it perfectly how it feels both being unable to control certain parts of your body, but also losing trust in how your body is supposed to support you but cannot do so. I think what most people have in common is the idea that we're in control of ourselves and our circumstances, but stuff like this gives you a really terrifying lesson how little control we have(i.e. our health) And a movie like Annihilation goes crazy with the concept of rapidly experiencing a change in your body without you wanting it to happen. (which is kinda lovecraftian in itself) Its also nice to read you recovered from it! hope you stay healthy
@@criticalcoffeeAll of the ugliest, most terrifying monsters and devils humanity has ever created are still us putting an easy to look at mask on our fears. Being stuck in a room with a bear is somehow less scary to us than being in the dark and hearing a low, snorting growl.
When I was little I experienced type of seizure that was different than a grand mal (can’t recall what kind it was). I couldn’t open my right hand, it could only form a fist, I couldn’t remember who my mom was, my speech was jumbled and incoherent. I felt like I was in a strange dream like state. Nothing made sense, and my own body felt foreign. The seizure lasted hours. I’m replying to your comment with this because I both relate to your experience and relate to the feeling of foreignness and change present in this film. The shimmer literally looked like the sky during my seizure. Feeling like your body is betraying your commands and even feeling like your body doesn’t know what a command is is… absolutely horrifying. I can’t believe this film managed to capture it.
Annihilation reminds me a lot of Lovecrafts The Color Out of Space literally about a unknown alien life form that landed on a región on earth and started mutating the environment
That’s exactly how I felt as well. The motivations of the alien is meaningless. It’s basically bringing madness and is beyond comprehension like any lovecraftian abomination.
Annihilation is one of my all time favourite movies, and the books are among my favourites also. It's a real shame there were so many creative differences between Vandermeer and Garland, to the point that not that long ago Vandermeer did an entire livewatch to dump on the movie, that at least in my mind adapted the themes in a way that translated to the screen better than the original books would have. With that said, I cannot WAIT for the 4th volume coming out in October. But it's this video, more than the upcoming book itself, that's made me want to go back and rewatch and reread all of it all over again. Excellent work, subscribed.
Oh wow, I had no idea there was animosity between them. All the interviews I read didn't give this impression. The Google Talks interview with Garland for example has him admit that he did a very loose adaptation and that VanderMeer was cool with it. IIRC VanderMeer said something similar in an interview as well. Oh well, shame to hear this, I genuinely love both stories and story-tellers. I'll definitely read Absolution as soon as it comes out. Thank you for the kind words and the sub!
20:57 This particular melody is so iconic that I've picked it out from random videos on multiple occasions. It perfectly captures the core horror of the story. Familiar yet strange, the timbre has echoes of a brass instrument, but heavily distorted almost beyond recognition, like it's merging with something else. The descending, ascending, descending notes is like a question. Hey, who are you? Repeated again and again until you don't know the answer anymore.
I will never get tired of people exploring the ideas of this film. I take the ending, of her asking the new Kane if he is Kane, and him saying he doesn't think so, and asking if she's Lena, to get only hesitation, to be less of an indication that she's not Lena, and more of posing the question as to what it means to be anyone at all; even without the refraction and reflection of herself and everything around her, at what point do your experiences leave you as an entirely different person to the one you started as - much as in Lord of the Rings, Frodo never settles back into the Shire; he's still Frodo, but with everything he has been through, "Frodo" means someone different now to who it meant at the beginning of the story. Another element which I think affects Lena's and (both) Kanes' senses of identity is the time distortion; Lena lost time, at least several days, as soon as she entered the shimmer, and so on reflection, the only way she knows that she is her is that she can remember being her; the Kane at the end knows almost explicitly that he is not the original, but on the other hand, he remembers being Kane, and the Kane who self-destructs presumably is as unclear as Lena as to whether he is the original, except by his memories, so no version can be entirely sure that they aren't the 'real' one, because the very idea of a true version becomes arbitrary.
This tatoo appearing on people who didn't originally have it reminds me a lot of how GPTs borrow from images they had consumed in training, when making it's own creations
This is such a good essay. It isnt a summary with themes explained like so many other "video essays". This is a straight to the core analysis and gives insight that I didnt see while watching. Thank you for that.
Thank you thank you thank you. This film (based on the books) seem often misunderstood and I think it was perfectly executed. It IS cosmic horror, like Solaris before it. Glad to see people dissecting it years later. Perception IS reality.
@@FaunoAtelie I respectfully disagree. It IS executed perfectly. I’m not referring comparatively to the novel/s. Just on its own, it’s perfect. The ambiguity of the extraterrestrials “intent” is perfectly executed. Is it to be feared, is it beautiful…does it matter? Is it a malevolent force, or simply a “virus” manipulating genes with benevolence? Is it reacting to our reactions, our emotions? Some met beautiful ends, some seemingly met terrifying ends. The ambiguity is what it was all about. People have a preconceived notion about what an alien invasion would look like. This film shatters those preconceptions and confounds the intellect. Like Solaris, in the end, the viewer is questioning was this person real, was that person real or are they clones? It doesn’t matter, perception IS reality. If you don’t know definitively whether you’re a clone, like in Solaris, does it even matter? If this life force spreads throughout the globe, who’s to say the world is any more “hostile” then it is in its current state? It will have reached its own homeostasis. Like Ex-Machina, which was also perfectly executed but panned by some silly people, it takes the viewer on a completely surrealistic ride, that leaves them exactly where the director intended. Perfectly. So, with due respect to your opinion, I disagree adamantly on this one. Maybe you just didn’t like it?
Regarding the odd form of the movie alien, the fractal patterns used are likely a representation of what a higher dimensional being would look like from our lower dimensional perception. When it forms the humanoid avatar, this is not the entirety of the alien. It is an avatar of the alien created to interact with this world. Think of our world as a fish tank and the alien reaching a hand into it. To the fish, the hand is the complete alien creature from an unknown reality and the fish are completely unaware of the Lovecraftian to them being on the other side of the hand and would go mad if they could comprehend it.
imo the most inspired moment of sci fi, and maybe movie history! I am in awe of that moment with the music blaring interrupting the silence that proceeded it, so alien from any natural instruments, truly great scene!
The Annihilation book is one of my favourite books ever. I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time. If you haven’t read it please do. It goes much deeper on the angle of the changing environment, Vandermeer is excellent at capturing this pristine wilderness, that is both beautiful and terrifying. The cosmic elements go even harder than in the film, and really fuck with your head. It’s just excellent.
Creation is inherently tied to the destruction of what came before. I think Lena in her final interview understands the shimmer from a perspective outside humanity. There was nothing horrible or wrong in mutation, no one is even really killed- if you remove the moral superiority of humanity in your head.
There was also Flora to Flora mutation with the bush covered in different flowers together, and Flora to what I think is supposed to be Glass for the trees near the lighthouse, but I think that's the only man-made material refraction we see.. You could also say it was Person to Big Kaboom mutation that then turned to Person?? to Fungi mutation. 😅 Which isn't a plant! We share a common ancestor with Fungi from 1.1 billion years ago after it branched off from plants, so they are more like animals than plants! Also Lichen (said as like-en) is the combination of algae and a fungus, they are crazy cool~
I would like to look at the idea of this being gendered horror as well- As a woman I have given birth - i have had a parasite living in me- taking over my body and changing it in ways I didn't agree to- I think women have a psychologically easier time with this idea than men because our bodies do this - and then in menopause our bodies change again in ways we can't control or consent to- When I read the books (I read all 3 before seeing the film) I found it interesting that the group of men seemed to have a much more traumatic time inside the shimmer compared to the women- I have not seen an exploration of this idea out there but I find it fascinating
i just want to say i'm only 3 minutes in and already love the use of the SIGNALIS soundtrack. it's an excellent choice not just for the topic of cosmic horror but for the move/books themselves
Clicked on the video and I stopped about a minute in, watch the movie, started watching your video again and realized that I had some reading to do later lol! I can’t wait to start this series of books!
The book series is literally one of the best things I have ever read. I was never a big reader but decided to try the first book after watching the movie and loving it and now I recommend it to everyone I meet. You were spot on regarding the levels of horror. The movies shocked me and made me think but the books turned my brain inside out and shook it.
This movie opened my eyes to metaphorical storytelling in such a profound way. I saw another video on here explaining the ‘mechanics’ of the shimmer and it was the first time I had a strong reaction of “that’s not the point at all!” You did a great job examining the sci-fi & horror from both angles and tying it all together. I think the shimmer is all one big metaphor for grief and your analysis on the self destruction theme is a great parallel to that. The Shimmer [grief] is inhuman, otherworldly, immensely powerful, and unknown. People are afraid to go near it; people who go willingly don’t come back the same. It seduces and amplifies our self-destructive tendencies. Many people give into those tendencies and are lost to the shimmer - for some, it is the peace they want; for others, they fight it to the last. Some return, if they can embrace and accept their grief [their reflection in the shimmer] as a part of themselves. What a great film!
The "personified alien" wasn't doing anything, it was just a focused aspect of the shimmer. The entire shimmer is alien, it's an area where laws of nature, chemistry, and even physics interact differently, act according to a totally alien directive.
One of my favourite cosmic horror films! One suggestion/thought I had was the inclusion of the names of which audios are being used. I really found that so satisfying in your Sunshine video, I’ve heard one of those SIGNALIS songs in the back of videos for so long, not knowing what it was. Of course I could have done more legwork myself 😅.
Good point! I almost added them here as well, but the project timeline got a bit stuffed so it became really difficult. I'll try to do this in the future 👍
As a fan of cosmic horror and sci-fi, I’m ecstatic to see this film getting the love and appreciation it deserves. I haven’t read the novels, but I plan to. The concept of the Shimmer is fascinating and horrifying. And the notion that the alien being’s mere *presence* is what caused all the mutations, and it might not understand itself (therefore it has no regard for the other beings or environments it encounters)…That’s pure cosmic horror.
26:54 I like the idea that in the end neither of them are their true selves because it is masterfully horrific to imagine a scenario where her memory of who she was and where she came from had changed after she passed out. The entity had duped and juked her very consciousness in some disgusting trick to obtain some form of compliance from her. The same is more obvious in her husband. "I thought I was a man- I had a life- People called me Kane- And now I'm not so sure. If I wasn't Kane what was I- Was I you? Were you me? My flesh moves like liquid- my mind is- just cut loose- I can't bear- I can't bear- I can't bear it. You ever seen a phosphorous grenade go off? If you ever get out of here, you find Lena." Look me in my brown eye and tell me that Alien son of a bitch Annihilated itself this way. Even in cases of greatest tenacity, you are deceived and violently obliterated. Its use of these tenacious subjects is, I expect, its only means of spreading beyond the shimmer. It is a violation of life and an abomination. Its destruction is a number one priority by all capable of seeing its nature. Even if its nature is only seen through human eyes.
@5:23 "...molting: a long trail of skin like debris, husks, and sloughings." Just as an FYI, in this context it's not pronounced "slaowings", but "sluffings" (or, as I like to say, "sloffings"). As in, "the cast-off skin of a snake", "a mass of dead tissue separating from an ulcer", and "something that may be shed or cast off". The "slaow" pronunciation refers to bodies of water. So, that's the noun "slough". The verb variant of the word means the process of producing the noun in the same way that "run" can be a verb or a noun. "I went for a run", "I run". Sloughings, as mentioned in the book, is "sluffings", as it is referring to the sheddings of creatures - typically reptiles/snakes and whatnot. Just a little FYI for ya! Thanks for the video. I realize now that my two girls should probably see this film too, if only for its iridescence and trippiness. My older girl is a non-stop character/world visioneer, realizing her imagination on paper, in digital art, and Roblox constructions that are modeled in Blender and imported and hand-animated. I think that Annihilation might-could be some more inspiration (like House of Leaves has been). My youngest girl will probably just be thrilled by the visuals and action thriller happenings - even though she's a bit of a Kubrick, which came entirely out of left field for me as her father. She's bossy and has story-telling vision. I'd link her RU-vid but I got bit posting a link in a RU-vid comment once before and I don't make that mistake anymore. I guess you can just search for "I Got Your Hat Bro", her channel is named Charlotte - but with unicode characters around it that nobody can type to find her channel. She busted that little video out in less than an hour, bossed me around a bit to shoot it, after 4th of July celebs. I'm like wtf, kid, get on it and make something awesome if you can bust something like that out off the top of your head. Anyway, SLOFFINGZ!!!!!
The first time I read sections about the crawler and its writings, I couldn’t wrap my head around it, and had to reread it over and over again. Can’t recommend the book highly enough.
Awesome video. I finished reading this trilogy earlier and I was very pleased. I also watched the movie before and after doing so. While they are very different, there's still a lot to appreciate in both things on their own. Im surprised to find things I didn't notice before, like the tattoo being present in Lena's arm! I don't think I've seen anyone mention that in other video analysis. Thank you for putting this out there! It was a great watch.
I loved the film and book of Annihilation, but I didn't make it very far into Authority. It just wasn't holding my interest. In your opinion, as someone who finished the trilogy and was "very pleased", should I try again with more perseverance? Does it get better after the first few chapters?
@@Dorian_sapiens I definitely recommend it. It provides some interesting insight on events from Annhilation. It's quite a different point of view for sure, and it DOES take a bit to get into the pace of things. BUT its enjoyable in my opinion.
When grief truly impacts you, bone shattering grief, it makes you into something else. You are not the same ever again. You are created new, something different and alien to what you were before the grief. After I lost several people in close succession and survived the trauma myself, I changed. My personality is different. My outlook is different. Nothing can be the same.
I remember Critical Drinker's review of this movie and he was yapping on about how the alien didn't make sense and there was no logic to it. And I'm surprised that he was overlooking the blatantly obvious. It's an ALIEN. It's not supposed to make sense. The fact that nobody can get a grasp on what it is, what it's doing, or what it wants is the whole point of it's existence.
“Annihilation” and the game “still wakes the deep” were just IT when it comes to cosmic horror for me….dealing with something you just can’t fathom even if u want too is just utterly terrifying and extremely unsettling for me.
“the alien” part of the soundtrack hits such a nerve with me, it makes me feels genuinely afraid and on edge when i hear it even as a stand-alone from the film and it’s context. i can’t even tell what it is about it that effects me so strongly but no other piece of music in horror has come even close to it
Can't speak highly enough about the Southern Reach Trilogy. It's so fascinating. Did you use the Majula music from Dark Souls 2 as background music? If so, well done!
Brother, keep at it! You did a great job on the Firewatch video, I hope that this brings you the popularity you deserve, your videos are amazing. You're a great video essayist
The book is one of my most favorite reads of all time. Seriously a physical experience of the seemingly indiscribable. And I really enjoy rewatching Garland‘s film over and over.
Reading the Southern Reach trilogy was, to me, akin to what The Biologist went through. I was never quite sure if I was understanding what I was reading, I didn't know if what I saw in my mind was accurate, or if I was just trying to fill in gaps I didn't comprehend. It was a hell of a read.
The fingerprints changing and the tattoo appearing on all members of the crew, and even the bear to some extend, it reminded me of how Dementia erodes your identity until only a few fractured memories and characteristics remain. The loss of self is about the only thing i fear when thinking about growing older.
I always think of it like death. On the surface it looks like we're destroyed when we die, but everything that makes us will remain. Our bodies breaking down, resurfacing as the dirt where plants go, the plants eaten by the deer, the deer eaten but the bear, and the bear... well I have eaten bear meat so I am part of that bear, that deer, that plant, that dirt, and that person that died long ago.
What some people don't get is that at the end the Alien and Lena are one. There's no difference between them, it doesn't matter who survived because THEY BOTH are Lena.
I don’t know why more people don’t talk about this film among the greats of sci-fi horror. Barely any of my friends have even seen it (despite my unrelenting recommendations). Superb film, highly underrated
For those who like the novel , look up :Roadside Picnic'' It's the novel Vandermeer inspired for making this series ( Some say 'stole the plot ' from ;)
It should be mentioned that VanderMeer himself denies this. Haven't read Roadside Picnic so can't comment further than that. Garland and DP Rob Hardy have been open about the Stalker influence.
@@criticalcoffee Yes I remember that now. I forgot he said that back then, so I guess doubted it a bit . but who knows ? It feels rather similar, but it's possible.
When Lena said "It doesn't want" I interpreted it that this being doesn't have the emotional drives we humans contain, but instead something akin to cognitive. Why did it change the terrain? Was it curious at the complex structures of DNA in the living organisms around it, and how they produced different results in the organisms, such as the flower colours and types from what was once the same breed of bush. Does it want to play with DNA? Get extremes or unique forms that it can't find or wants to see? Such as the croc with shark-like teeth. Or is it testing, researching, analysing the contents of our planet? Such as the bear, with its given enhanced hearing and impressive vocal cords indistinct from a human. Or, even worse. Is it researching humans? Analysing their responses to all this chaos and entropy? Who knows? Humans sure won't
I hate to be that guy, but the book is very very good. I don’t want to say better because I think the film is an incredible take on the book but PLEASE read the book.
Writing this comment within the first 10 seconds of clicking on this video just to say I can't believe how many people who are specifically into cosmic horror sleep on annihilation so I commend you good sir for doing your part.
I adore both this movie and the book. I latch onto anything that keeps me up at night thinking as much as they did. I have Authority on my shelf and still need to read it. I had heard it's detached from Annihilation, so I've been putting it off. The video is great, thank you. I'm hoping this is the push I needed to pick it up and continue the story.
I loved this movie so much! After watching it with my mom I went on this, like, hour long diatribe about the themes and concepts. When I was tired out my mom simply looked at me and said, "I didn't get it. It was just weird." I was so surprised by her comment. How could you NOT have thoughts and opinions on it!? One of the things I said was something along the lines of, "the alien is simply doing what it evolved to do. It's just surviving, like everything alive is doing. Do you get angry at the bacteria that is making you sick? Can you BLAME the bacteria for doing what it does? You might not like being sick, but the bacteria doesn't know or care about your feelings..." This movie is so great to watch with a critical eye.
10:30 correct me if im wrong but, considering honey doesn’t go bad, describing the smell as ‘rotting honey’ is brilliant for a story abt the incomprehensible
Im not sure if anyone mentioned it yet but there's a scene in the movie when Lena sees deer with flowers branching from their antlers. It's beautiful and magical and maybe evidence of animal to flora mutation?
2:07 - _DON'T DO IT!_ It's terrible!! The book.. My god, it's awful. Significantly different to the movie, but it was not a fun or pleasant read. The movie is one of my all time favourites. The scene with the "bear" was one of the most unsettling things I've ever came across, as a concept.
Or maybe she knew the guy before he went in, and they had matching tattoos, As Natilie's character is only there because she also knew a prior expedition member.
An aside. Given the actor playing Lena's interrogator here also does the voice work for Alex Yu in the underrated cosmic horror video game Prey, it's my head canon that Prey is sequel to the Anihilation film where Alex and his brother foolishly try to do research on Shimmer related phenomena and it gets out of hand. :) Seriously though, if you haven't played Prey, do so. Solid cosmic horror with the ending twist being a unique approach to how to deal with an enroaching cosmic horror.
Oh I love Prey. Doesn't scratch the cosmic horror itch for me specifically, but I love the immersive sim design. Shame that Microsoft shut down Arkane Austin, would seem like we're not getting a sequel.
@@criticalcoffee Not sure the narrative lends to a direct sequel but a spiritual sequel would be nice. Maybe let them remake System Shock 2 this time? :)
@@criticalcoffee On a serious note there are actually three founders of cosmic horror and three thematic formulas. Lovecraft's version is the most common and the default for most people, where people are helpless against cosmic evils. His creative peer Robert E. Howard contributed a lot to the genre's creation and his take was to violently oppose the horrors even if the fight is unwinnable in the end. Howard's original Conan series is the epitome of this with Conan fighting ancient evils and sorcerers from cosmic horror backgrounds but not understanding what they are. He just kills them with swords. Prey and many other action cosmic horror games take on the Howard motif of challenging the horrors rather than fleeing from them as a Lovecraftian protagonist would. As for the third, that's Clark Ashton Smith who is the decadent artist who created the artistic style Giger later popularized. He wrote cosmic horror that went into really, really adult themes and absolute nihilism and are not ones I recommend unless you're really into some bleak stuff.
My postulation about the man with living intestines, not to distinct in affect or ethics/environment to the nightmare-bear, the opposite is a Man-conscience that would purpetuate the same circular reasoning as natural or intelligent, to possibly hunt a Bear for "thrills" or eat a Snake if it's not truly objective or simple/symmetrical horror.
i think they way she killed the alien was quite genius. it was coppying everything about her so then she set off white phosphorus on it and then it tried to copy that and ended up spreading it.
Love this flick I can’t be the only one who thought of the doppelgänger puzzle from the first Tomb Raider when the alien mirrors Natalie Portman? That, or the scene with Graucho and Harpo in Duck Soup? Granted, that’s a very specific cross pollination of influences to someone of a particular age range and taste
@@thejustinsteffan Obviously you're only capable of envisioning its execution being dumb because you have zero vision or graphics programming experience. You haven't even seen a glimpse of what's actually possible. You probably think all VR games are limited to looking like N64. I wouldn't be surprised if you've never even experienced proper VR. I don't think I could make a prism render run well on the mobile/Quest headsets (then it WOULD look like N64), but I think I could get it to run fast enough with a PC GPU churning through the diffractive iridescent raymarching operations.
I absolutely love this movie, but what I don’t understand is why didn’t they just tie a harness to the soldiers, send them a few feet in, and pull them back out. Or a hardwired robot with a cable attached (since RF signals couldn’t get through).
i do understand why a lot of stuff from the books never made it into the movie (the creeper, etc...). but why did they have to make the final confrontation the exact opposite of the one in the books? the whole point was that you can't just throw a grenade and all problems are solved. uh, well... :/
And it would have been even better if Garland had kept the author's original ideas and didn't go off into a "2001" wonder-tangent at the end of the film.
I love the book, and I reaaaaally wanted to love the film. I love the concept of the film, but to me it's executed so poorly that even though I watched it three times, I couldn't bring myself to enjoy it. Amazing video! Keep it up!
Good cosmic horror reminds me a lot of hallucinogenic loops you get on lsd etc etc when one minute passes but feels like an hour, but without the d*ugs
The shimmer seems to transform and create new things. It came to our planet by any or no specific reason at all, but it seems to do what it does and wants to assimilate and learn new things. As you said it, the group represents many forms of loss but mostly of self destruction, and destruction is something that the shimmer doesn't understand... that is, until Lena comes. Yes, by changing something you destroy a part of it, but you still leave a resemblance of it. Now, the real and total anihilation of something comes when it learns from Lena the meaning of self-destruction and is what it does. It self destructs and ceases to exist. I don't think that it is livingin Lena as a virus or a parasite. I think it changed her and vanished leving behind nothing but its "creations".