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The "Annihilation" of Paramount Pictures


Andrew Reid
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7 hours ago, Damphousse said:

Also there were no heroes in the movie.  Just a bunch of sad people running around.  The soldier was the only sympathetic person.  There were other sympathetic characters but of the big main characters he was the only one.  He got f-cked over and then he committed suicide.  I thought the woman was a piece of shit so I couldn't really get emotionally invested in whatever was going on with her.  And the end was even weirder than the entire movie.  Were we supposed to be happy she was going to spend the rest of her life f-cking ET?  I mean I was happy the world wasn't going to get destroyed... presumably.  Unless the alien was just doing the Trojan horse thing.  It was weird.  I didn't care about the main relationship that the whole movie revolved around.  I felt bad for the soldier but that was about it.

I actually liked the casting in the movie. I generally dont like women actors in action movies but it really worked here for me.

And I think you misunderstood the ending. SPOILER ALERT. We can be pretty sure that Kane (Cain, first son of Adam and Eve) is not the real Kane (in fact we see it in the movie). We can also be pretty sure that at the end of the movie, Lena is not the real Lena but her doppelganger. We can see that in the 'inverted' view of her seen in the glass of water at the end. And rather more obviously in her 'glowing eyes' at the end.

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Apart from the very interesting discussion about whether this is a good film or a pretentious film (usually the mark of a 'classic' or even something considered a masterpiece as time goes by): I noticed that on Netflix the SDR version is poorly graded. Lights clip and shadows are crushed. The majority sees very bad image quality. If you liked the film and want to see it a second time, go and buy an HDR DV TV. There are even bright mother-of-pearl / rainbow reflections in the sky and the water that you almost miss in SDR. It's a mystery and a shame that they did such a lousy job. I recently re-watched The Martian (bought on iTunes, HD automatically becomes 4k HDR if available), and the SDR version, though less impressive, is perfectly watchable.

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I thought it was good, but was well aware that Annihilation is Part 1 of a trilogy of books - so I always thought it might stick out like a sore thumb and feel a bit unfinished. It definitely fits into that space of other recent Science Fiction films (Arrival & Blade Runner 2049), which have abandoned the Space Opera blockbuster template for a more classic/traditional Science Fiction narrative. I thought the original Blade Runner was a terrible disgrace of an adaptation (not a bad film, just not the novel by a country mile) & the new BR film to be much more in line with the source material. I did really like the ending, which feels very non-american - no closure or happy ending (thank fuck for that!), just lots more questions.

I thought the marketing aspect of only releasing it in N.America & China to be a strange one - if anyone isn't going to get the film, it's the Americans. The China release is more in line with the film, since they have produced some of the truely great Sci-Fi novels of recent times, which are completely out there & quite heavy going. Star Wars it ain't & thank you very much for not treating us like dumb adrenaline junkies.

I wonder if he'll get to make/adapt the next 2 books - come on Netflix, finish the story! Or not............

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On 3/17/2018 at 11:08 AM, Axel said:

The majority sees very bad image quality. If you liked the film and want to see it a second time, go and buy an HDR DV TV. There are even bright mother-of-pearl / rainbow reflections in the sky and the water that you almost miss in SDR. It's a mystery and a shame that they did such a lousy job.

I disagree. I don't have an HDR TV, nor is it 4K, and while I wasn't watching for clipping and crushing, I did notice and marvel at those reflections. In fact, a lot of the time, I was watching that instead of the people wading through the water. Sure if you do have an HDR TV it'll be better, everything would be, but you definitely don't need one to enjoy those subtleties.

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