[Aptorian]

A trailer hit for a new film called Annihilation. It looks like this:



Looks cool and creepy and weird. Like The Arrival and Heart of Darkness went on a sex vacation on the Island of Dr. Moreau.

So, based on the reference in the trailer, I looked up the book.

Turns out it's a part of a trilogy of books called The Southern Reach Trilogy. First book Annihilation, then Authority, then Acceptance.

I found a blurb for the first book that looks like this:

Quote

Annihilation is the first volume in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Authority is the second, and Acceptance is the third.

Area X-a remote and lush terrain-has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.

This is the twelfth expedition.

Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers-they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding-but it's the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.

Anybody read any of these? Are they worth looking into? Gotta say I love me some reality distorting timey wimey existential hard sci-fi horror.

The fact that it's a finished series makes it doubly interesting.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 27 September 2017 - 06:07 PM

[Puck]

Well, just going by the trailer, the film and book have little in common beside the basic premise of four women going on a mission into Area X. The area looks nothing like what it's described as in the book, they umped up the sci-fi elements, made the Asian main character white, made the half Native American character white, shoved in a love story where there is explicitly none in the book (the trilogy goes out of its way to explain why there is no love story to be found), I highly suspect that they changed the personality of the biologist (the main character in book 1) to be easier palatable to a general audience, and from what it looks an important element of her story has been scrapped.

I'm not saying the film shouldn't be changing anything, that'd be silly, but basically, it looks like a different story with a similar premise riding on the same name. It makes sense for a visual medium to have all the weirdness be presented visually, where the books manage to make you feel the weird stuff without much of it being explicitly as present as in the trailer (say, that huge tentacle-y thing growing from the tower in the trailer). I should mention I've been following the film development since reading the books, which are really good and worth reading, though personally I was left wanting by the revelations in book 3.

I'm looking forward to the film, though mostly just so I can rage about how different it is and how annoyed I am about whitewashing the main cast. I mean, sure, they have the two characters of uncertain ethnicity in book be played by non-white actresses, but guess who dies in the book first?

[polishgenius]

A few of us have read them. It's Jeff VanderMeer so that's always a plus. And it is very, very weird. I don't think the film is even going to be capable of getting across the full strangeness- not that it won't be good, but parts of the books work off a style of description and narrative choices that simply aren't translatable to screen. So it's defo worth reading the books before this hits.

They're not long either, so not a huge time commitment.

[Aptorian]

I like what you're saying. I did notice that there is an Area X compilation book, which is only around 600 pages in hard back. Assuming the made the font extra small, I guess the three books can't be more than 300 pages each. Something I've come to appreciate recently.

The fact that the books are actually deeper, more nuanced and weirder than the trailer/film sounds like a big plus to me. I've gone ahead and made a reservation at my library. I guess it should arrive some time in 2018 going by the amount of reservations on the first book.

[Mentalist]

I read them, they're weird. Mostly good weird.

I don't see them doing "authority" right without over-doing it. There's that one scene in it that almost made me put the book down with how creepy it was with just words.

[polishgenius]

@ Puck, where are you seeing a love story that isn't in the book? And what story element are you suspecting has been excised?


In spoilers pls obviously.

[QuickTidal]

It should also be noted that Garland keeps claiming that this can and is a standalone film and that any sequels will be incidental based off the receipts and box office of this one...which baffles me. I don't know how you do ANNIHILATION and then not the rest of the Area X trilogy. I mean hell, the "answers" don't come till the end of the 3rd book, and even then they are contained in a single "blink and you miss it" paragraph and are vague-ish.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 27 September 2017 - 06:34 PM

[Puck]

polishgenius, on 27 September 2017 - 06:20 PM, said:

@ Puck, where are you seeing a love story that isn't in the book? And what story element are you suspecting has been excised?


In spoilers pls obviously.

Spoiler

It may of course just be the trailer, but it looks like the film's making more of the love story between the biologist and her husband. She tried to keep the fact that they were even married secret in the book, with only the psychologist knowing, iirc, which is a plot point. She's only on the expedition as an experiment, because she'd have been judged too anti-social otherwise. Here, the Southern Rach offial obvioulsy knows. Also, in the trailer she goes to see her husband what looks like after returning from Area X, which Ghost Bird wouldn't do, and they make the relationship looks much more passionate than in the book.

As to the story element, it looks to me like they're omitting the clones. The bilogist in the trailer, after returning from Area X, doesn't behave like Ghost Bird. She still has her memories, though apparently they're fragmented. If they're omitting the clones, it means this can only be a one-shot, no continuation with Authority or material from it, unless they go somewhere completely different.

Again, might just be what it looks like because of the trailer.

QuickTidal, on 27 September 2017 - 06:33 PM, said:

It should also be noted that Garland keeps claiming that this can and is a standalone film and that any sequels will be incidental based off the receipts and box office of this one...which baffles me. I don't know how you do ANNIHILATION and then not the rest of the Area X trilogy. I mean hell, the "answers" don't come till the end of the 3rd book, and even then they are contained in a single "blink and you miss it" paragraph and are vague-ish.

This, pretty much. So either he's made up his own answers or there aren't any. As I've already said in the spoiler tag I looks like there's a crucial story element missing, meaning no continuation would work as written in the books. Which is a pity, I thought it was great.

This post has been edited by Puck: 27 September 2017 - 06:42 PM

[polishgenius]

Spoiler

I don't see any reason from that trailer to believe that they're not doing the clones? The only shots we see of her that are definitely post-X are in the white scrubs, and she doesn't act in any way that especially disproves the idea there?
In any case, she couldn't possibly go see her husband after returning from Area X because he's dead before she ever leaves, so that seems unlikely. I think you might be referring to what is almost certainly a flashback.

I mean, even if he is writing it to work as a standalone I can't see why he'd ommit the clones (not that I think this is a problem- 1 works well enough as a standalone with a shock end anyway. You don't need to give answers and as y'all point out even with the whole series you barely get any.

[Baco Xtath]

Oh, hell yeah. While the Southern Reach isn't my favorite of Vandermeer's works, it's great nonetheless and there's no way they could do the Ambergris books. Love that he's getting a movie.

[Puck]

polishgenius, on 27 September 2017 - 06:56 PM, said:

Spoiler

I don't see any reason from that trailer to believe that they're not doing the clones? The only shots we see of her that are definitely post-X are in the white scrubs, and she doesn't act in any way that especially disproves the idea there?
In any case, she couldn't possibly go see her husband after returning from Area X because he's dead before she ever leaves, so that seems unlikely. I think you might be referring to what is almost certainly a flashback.

I mean, even if he is writing it to work as a standalone I can't see why he'd ommit the clones (not that I think this is a problem- 1 works well enough as a standalone with a shock end anyway. You don't need to give answers and as y'all point out even with the whole series you barely get any.

Spoiler

As I said, she seems to still have her memories (if vague, but she says 'It reacted to me' when asked, obviously post returning from Area X), which isn't the case in the book, where the clones have no memories and Ghost Bird in particular only keeps saying 'I don't know know' or 'I can't remember'. She also looks like she's in shock or something, while that would make no sense if she had no memories, and Ghost Bird, again, does not act like that in the book.
Which leads me to the suspicion that they changed that and her husband still lives when she returns in the film. At the very least, the way they make it look in the trailer is that she is injured and has a black eye when she goes to see him, and what reason wuld she have to look like that before entering Area X? It looks like this happens after her return. Again, just going off the trailer here, they may just be making it look like that because it's a trailer and they need to pull in people and a love story apparently does that, or it wouldn't be in every film regardless of source material.

I also can't see a reason to omit the clones. Again, just stating what it looks like to me, and for me the clones are an integral part of the story without which it falls apart and/or becomes a different story with the smae name slapped on for promotion's sake. But that where opinions differ.

[amphibian]

Where are the rabbits?

[Puck]

amphibian, on 28 September 2017 - 09:58 PM, said:

Where are the rabbits?

That is, indeed, the important question.

[amphibian]

The gators better not have et them all.