- Joined
- Feb 27, 2004
- Posts
- 3,226
Watched Annihilation. As y'all said, it's really good. It's similar to Arrival in a lot of ways, both superficially and thematically, but it sort of reaches the opposite conclusion. They're both about a college professor who ends up helping the military in a first contact situation. But while the aliens in Arrival are ultimately benevolent and bringing a gift, the aliens in Annihilation are essentially cancerous. Arrival is about a woman who saves mankind by becoming a better version of herself, Annihilation is about a woman who saves mankind by teaching the aliens how to self-destruct like a human. And in both movies the protagonist destroys their relationship. In Arrival she does it because she already loves the child she knows will be terminally ill and decides not to tell the father, who would've chosen not to have the doomed child. In Annihilation she has an affair, which is why she believes her husband signed up for a suicide mission to begin with. One wrecks her relationship out of a selfless love, the other out of selfishness and self-loathing.
how about some spoiler tags?