S03E01 — Annihilation

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for Annihilation.

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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

Welcome to season three, baby listeners — and we’re diving straight into the weird with Annihilation. Think body horror, shimmer rainbows, and an alien bear that screams like your dead teammate (yep, nightmare fuel). In true Book Is Better fashion, we break down how VanderMeer’s trippy, nameless expedition turned into Hollywood’s neon fever dream, complete with Oscar Isaac flashbacks and a finale that left us all wondering if anyone’s really themselves.

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

The book Annihilation is all eerie journals, nameless scientists, and a creepy tower that’s alive — while the movie throws in rainbow shimmer, shark-gator hybrids, and Natalie Portman duking it out with her own doppelgänger. Basically: same title, same vibe, totally different DNA.

Donna: The book was better.
– Book Score: 6/10
– Movie Score: 2.5/10

Rebekah: The movie was better.
– Book Score: 7.5/10
– Movie Score: 8.5/10

Josiah: The book was better.
– Book Score: 7.5/10
– Movie Score 6.5/10

Tim: The book was better.
– Book Score: 7/10
– Movie Score 6/10

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Rebekah: Hello Shimmer, my old friend. I’ll let you merge with me again. And while the others are still sleeping, the screaming aliens are creeping and the planted in my still remain within.

[00:00:50] Rebekah: That is so disturbing. I guess that’s good. I was gonna use 

[00:00:54] Donnna: unhinged, but I like it disturbing better.[00:01:00] 

[00:01:15] Rebekah: Hey, welcome to the book is Better, season three. Woo. Yay. Uh, we are a family of four, a mom and dad, a brother and a sister reviewing book to film adaptations. And today’s episode is our kickoff to season three, in which we are covering the book and film Annihilation 

[00:01:36] Josiah: really cheery start to the season. Yeah, just we really wanted 

[00:01:39] Rebekah: to start on a positive, happy, lighthearted note.

[00:01:43] Rebekah: Um, so I think we accomplished it probably. Uh, did you 

[00:01:46] Josiah: know that 90% of podcasts don’t get past episode three? Oh my, wow. That is amazing. Yeah. And 90% of those remaining don’t make it past. 20. So we’re, we were in the 1% a while ago back in episode [00:02:00] 21, but does that make us, like, 

[00:02:03] Rebekah: does that make us like 0.1 percenters?

[00:02:05] Rebekah: Does that, what does that mean? It definitely puts us into 

[00:02:07] Josiah: the next tax bracket. No, please. I’ll let you 

[00:02:11] Rebekah: know once we make a dollar from this podcast if it was Woo hoo. Well, uh, spoiler alert and content warnings for today’s episode. Like I said, we’re covering Annihilation. Um, oh, also, I have to remember that we’re on video, so I have to like pay attention to that today.

[00:02:28] Rebekah: Yeah, we’re doing some season three. Here’s stuff. Happy, happy video podcast season, everyone. Uh, anyway, we are covering Annihilation. Obviously that means we’re gonna be spoiling it and we will spoil the book, which is significantly different from the film. So if you are thinking of reading the book, which I thought was interesting, and you’ll find out what everybody else thinks through the, the episode, um, then maybe read the book before you watch or listen to this episode.

[00:02:55] Rebekah: Although I will say the book is incredibly short so you can read it. Yeah. In a matter [00:03:00] of not that long, I’m just saying. Yeah, that’s a good 

[00:03:02] Donnna: one. Um, on 1.3, it was about, mm, less than four hours. 

[00:03:06] Rebekah: I just read the physical book. It took me, oh. Say Richie or, anyway, uh, I will also give a mild content warning. I like to give that for parents.

[00:03:16] Rebekah: We are gonna talk about some like body horror stuff and some pretty violent things. So this episode is probably not gonna be appropriate for kiddos. Mm-hmm. And the film, uh, is def, is it rated R? Okay. You can say yes 

[00:03:31] know, we can see you back. 

[00:03:32] Rebekah: Mom said it has rated our hand, but we’re still releasing audio versions of this, so we wanna make sure that we still answer questions.

[00:03:39] Rebekah: Yes. Anyway, 

[00:03:40] Donnna: SelfControl, I’m, I’m, I’m pre practicing self-control. 

[00:03:44] Rebekah: We did all wake up and get normal dressed this morning in preparation for this. I’m very proud of us. Um, but as opposed to videoing asleep, laying a bitch, well, we normally look like we literally rolled out of bed. Oh. Oh, this is new. 

[00:03:56] Josiah: Dad always looks put together, but I, [00:04:00] yeah, dad puts himself together.

[00:04:00] Josiah: Dad has pride in himself. 

[00:04:02] Rebekah: I usually look like a homeless rat, so, 

[00:04:07] Josiah: um, let’s go for pitching. 

[00:04:08] Rebekah: Well, you know, whatever. Anyway, the book Annihilation is also like full of body horror and stuff like that. The movie also has some sexual content. I would call it mild. It doesn’t have any nudity, but just for those of you who watch out for things like that in your films.

[00:04:27] Rebekah: So we’d like to introduce ourselves with a little fun fact related to the work that we are covering. So, uh, today’s fun fact question, whoever wrote this, mom is trying to torture all of us. Um, have you ever seen anything that no one else saw? My name is Rebecca. I am the daughter slash sister of the podcast, and I also have a book, Instagram book Talk.

[00:04:51] Rebekah: You should follow me. I’m Becca’s book Nook. Okay, bye. Um, so anyway, I once was, I think I was in third grade maybe when we were living in [00:05:00] Steubenville. And I remember we were in, um, a Sunday church service and I looked up at my dad preaching. I guess it doesn’t fit that no one else saw, but there was a girl sitting beside me that saw the same thing and it was weird ’cause then we talked about it, but we both looked up and we saw an angel standing behind my dad.

[00:05:22] Rebekah: She saw, I think she said that she saw like a full figure or whatever. Funny enough, related to this episode, what I saw was kind of a shimmer of the figure of an angel that looked like this whole area, ex border thing. So 

[00:05:38] Donnna: do it. That what you will. Uh, I’m Donna, I’m the wife and mom of our expedition.

[00:05:46] Donnna: Expedition. Mm-hmm. Aha. Good job. Uh. Well, this is something no one else saw when I was a kid, like elementary school age. I think it stopped [00:06:00] once I was a teenager, I think. I don’t think I, uh, it continued, but I had a recurring dream slash nightmare that two men broke into my house and I hid behind the dresser and I saw him shoot my parents.

[00:06:17] Donnna: Oh, we’ve never, we never been robbed. That’s not at all. We never robbed. We’d never been robbed. We’d never had anybody try to break into our house. I’d never seen anybody shoot anybody else. We shot cans off a fence in target practice. That’s the closest I got so related to this fun slash, you know, creepy movie book where I thought that fit.

[00:06:42] Donnna: Nobody else saw it. And I had it over and over and it was the same dream over and over, and it was awful. 

[00:06:48] Rebekah: It’s so interesting that you say that because I have never had a recurring dream. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream that repeated, and people talk about that all the time. I’m like, how do you have the same dream twice?

[00:06:58] Rebekah: I would love to figure that out and then [00:07:00] have the same dream twice, but no one will tell me how to do. It 

[00:07:03] Donnna: wasn’t a dream, but one that was a dream that I just described, but this was not okay. Yeah, I thought so. I didn’t think the parents actually got 

[00:07:10] Rebekah: shot 

[00:07:10] Donnna: multiple times, so that’s good. Yeah. No, they did not.

[00:07:12] Donnna: Over and over and over. 

[00:07:14] Josiah: I’m Josiah. Mm-hmm. I’m the brother slash son. 

[00:07:20] Rebekah: The way you deck the camera is really good. Me in a way that none of us ever do.

[00:07:30] Josiah: Hi, I’m Josiah. I’m the brother son of this expedition.

[00:07:38] Josiah: The thing that I’ve seen, you’re crazy that no one’s ever seen before. I don’t know, like when I’m home alone, there’s a bug sometimes. I dunno what I’m supposed to say.

[00:07:53] Tim: You can think about it. 

[00:07:57] My, I 

[00:07:58] Tim: could go, I, 

[00:07:59] [00:08:00] there’s a bug sometimes. 

[00:08:01] Rebekah: That’s, 

[00:08:02] Josiah: that’s my favorite. Sometimes it’s a big bug. 

[00:08:05] Rebekah: That’s my favorite part. Dad goes, you can think about it, and I can go and sit. That was good. But I kind of like it that way. I don’t think I have, have had 

[00:08:14] Josiah: like a big premonition and, um, the other people, and I have had dreams before.

[00:08:20] Josiah: I’ve had recurring dreams. A recurring dream, uh, I suppose is me being in like a Walmart and I’m completely, uh, unclothed and I’m in the Walmart clothing department. I’m like hiding in the racks of clothes, but I can never like, take the clothes off of the rack. 

[00:08:42] Rebekah: Okay. 

[00:08:42] Josiah: In a similar way, I had recurring dreams where I was in a car.

[00:08:46] Josiah: And I just couldn’t stop hitting the acceleration pedal and the brake pedal doesn’t work. 

[00:08:52] Tim: Okay. Wow. My name is Tim. I am the husband and dad of our expedition. And one [00:09:00] thing I’ve seen, probably several, but one thing that comes to mind that I’ve seen that no one else saw, um, is a UFO. Um, when I was a teenager and I followed, followed, I saw a 

[00:09:11] Rebekah: ufo, 

[00:09:12] Tim: I followed, followed it through the sky.

[00:09:13] Tim: Oh my gosh. No. Only dad has, I followed it in the, watching it in the sky, uh, until it basically merged with a whole lot of other lights in the sky that you could tell were planes and, and things like that. So, 

[00:09:25] Rebekah: so does someone want to tell us what this book is about? Yeah. Um, 

[00:09:30] Donnna: I could tell you what I think it’s about.

[00:09:32] Rebekah: Oh, 

[00:09:32] Donnna: don’t 

[00:09:33] Rebekah: know. 

[00:09:33] Donnna: Okay. How about, and if somebody else has an alternate thought, they can throw it in, that’s fine. I’m not gonna be offended. I don’t know. A guy wrote a book series and then, okay, that’s a star. Another guy read the first book in the series. Then that second guy wanted to make a film using the book’s name, but he didn’t really give a flying fig about the story or the plot [00:10:00] lines of the book.

[00:10:00] Mm-hmm. 

[00:10:01] Donnna: So then to hide the fact, in my mind, at least, that he was in probably incredibly high when he read the book, he said the film was actually based on his memory or experience of reading the book again, he was probably hopped up on crack. 

[00:10:21] Rebekah: Okay. Well that’s really, that’s 

[00:10:21] Tim: an interesting take on the 

[00:10:22] Rebekah: plot.

[00:10:23] Rebekah: That doesn’t really tell us what the book and film are about, although I say it’s kind of 

[00:10:28] Donnna: a plot of the happening, the events that happened around the creation of this, maybe. Oh, yes. That, that’s better. 

[00:10:35] Rebekah: I will say this one might, because there’s so little in common between the two, it might win the award for shortest description of the story using only elements present in both the book and film, which is how we write these.

[00:10:48] Rebekah: So I’m gonna say, 

[00:10:49] Josiah: well, I, I wish I were smart enough to remember. I, I feel like there’s one other episode that was, that’s giving it a run for its money. Which one? Which episode was it? Yeah, there. [00:11:00] I don’t 

[00:11:00] Rebekah: remember off the top of my head. I’d have to look at the list. Darn. But yes, 

[00:11:03] Josiah: look. Well, it could be Artemis Fowl tell you, 

[00:11:05] Tim: you know, 

[00:11:06] Josiah: that’s up there for sure.

[00:11:08] Josiah: You know Biologist Lena unnamed in the book, this is like the real plot summary. Biologists joins a mission. To uncover the truth of Area X, or at least an area that is a mysterious phenomenon, expanding across the American coastline. Once inside the expedition discovers a world of mutated land, scapes and creatures, as dangerous as it is beautiful, that threatens both their lives and their sanity.

[00:11:44] Tim: Wow. And that is about all that they have in common. 

[00:11:47] Josiah: And it’s funny that saying biologists, Lena and Area X are both not shared across both media. 

[00:11:56] Rebekah: The names are different. Area X is, area X is in the book [00:12:00] area X 

[00:12:01] Josiah: in the film. Film, they refer to it. I don’t know. Do they define Area X in the film? They just have a title card and then they change the title card to the shimmer once they’re inside the shimmer.

[00:12:12] Josiah: So I wonder if Area X is where you’re not allowed to go within sight of the shimmer perhaps. I don’t think they defined it. The restricted area better than that. Like area 51. Yeah. 

[00:12:22] Rebekah: Yeah. Um, so I was looking at the previous episodes and I would say the one that seems to give it the most run for its money lengthwise for the description, is planted of the apes, which Oh, that’s right.

[00:12:33] Rebekah: Quite divergent. Yes. However, it is longer, the description is longer planted of the apes. So, uh, alright, well for those of you who, let’s say, are tuning in for the first time and are wondering who these lunatics are, I hope you’re having fun. Uh, we like to talk about the differences in books to film in three different sections.

[00:12:53] Rebekah: One, characterization, two setting, and the third changes to the plot slash timeline. So we are gonna [00:13:00] do them in that order for this particular episode. So, dad, do you wanna kick us off with that? Sure. 

[00:13:05] Tim: Well, in the book, the narrator not only chooses not to name herself, but also refuses to name any of the other characters in the book.

[00:13:15] Tim: She goes into Area X as the mission’s biologist, accompanied by an anthropologist, a surveyor, and a psychologist. The narrator acknowledges that they had planned to bring a linguist, but she dropped out before departing. In the film, there are five women on the expedition rather than four, as Lena was a last minute edition.

[00:13:35] Tim: And their named Lena, the main character, Anya Thoreson Cas Shepherd, a linguist added only for the film, Josie Raddick and Dr. Ventres, the psychologist who appears to be the leader, um, of the group. Yeah. 

[00:13:51] Rebekah: I thought from the perspective of the book, I thought it was really interesting that they were only named by their jobs.

[00:13:58] Rebekah: Um, and it was like a [00:14:00] whole defining factor of the expedition that they weren’t really supposed to share about themselves. Yeah. And they were, it was part of their 

[00:14:05] Tim: training to, to not use their names. So only use their, their titles all kind of like an interchangeable, Hey, if we get a new biologist, they’re still the biologist, or, you know, whatever.

[00:14:16] Rebekah: But I do think it’s interesting ’cause like not every expedition has the same list of titles. Correct. Like different numbers of people have gone and all those things. And so I think it could have been really interesting in the film to try it, but I guess, I don’t know, I think it, maybe it would’ve just been way too hard to make that work on screen.

[00:14:34] Josiah: Well, Lena, you wanna know about the main character guys? You wanna know about her? The main character? She’s changed quite a bit, uh, quite a bit from the, the film. In the book. She is a biologist specializing in transitional ecosystems. Interesting. That, that’s a wow, what a major, that’s a specialization before the shimmer comes.

[00:14:58] Josiah: Uh, she was a child fascinated [00:15:00] by the tiny microcosm in her backyard, which I did find, oh, this is a real 

[00:15:05] Rebekah: thing. I genuinely didn’t know if they made that thing, if he made it up for the book. 

[00:15:10] Josiah: So I found it, uh, I found it fascinating. You know, I, I had a few parts of the book that I was more interested in than others, and I kind of liked her backstory.

[00:15:19] Josiah: Interested in her mm-hmm. In the pool backyard thing and, and Oh yeah. As an adult, she’s painfully introverted. She has very few friends, tends to take on interesting work, only to leave at the first sign of discomfort. The film paints her as more confident. She’s put together adding a military background to her past, showing her as a biology professor, John Johns Hopkins.

[00:15:49] Josiah: Uh, you know, she’s teaching medical students about cellular biology. She opens the film talking about tumors, which comes back full circle. Yeah. She also [00:16:00] seems to grieve the loss of her husband more in the film than she recounts in the book. Mm-hmm. Of course, there’s more mystery in the film than the book.

[00:16:09] Rebekah: She’s very disconnected in the book. I think, like that’s the idea I got, is that she does her best to be disconnected from caring too much, loving too much, like those kinds of things. And in the film they just threw that out the window and were like, no, we wanna make her more, I dunno if relatable is the right word.

[00:16:26] Rebekah: Exactly, but like more empathetic or sympathetic depending on your experiences. 

[00:16:31] Josiah: Yeah. I think that the fact that the entire expedition was made up of female expeditioners, there was a lot made of that in the limited press for the film. We’ll talk later about how. The production company didn’t really have a lot of faith in the film, so they didn’t put a lot of marketing into it.

[00:16:54] Josiah: Yeah. But the little bit of marketing that I found was every [00:17:00] single beat was, you’re gonna be so empowered if you’re a woman, you’re gonna think that these women are kick butt. Oh, you’re gonna love that. These are all women doing this and that. I’m like, well, okay. It’s, it’s okay. That’s nice. But like you mentioning, it is cringe.

[00:17:15] Rebekah: It also is in the book that way, like it’s mentioned that for this mission, the first, it was part of the complex way that they chose all of the people, yada yada. Mm-hmm. Was that they had to all be women for this particular one. 

[00:17:26] Josiah: Now I have a, I have a controversial question. Do you remember if any of the women in the book were explicitly lesbians?

[00:17:36] Tim: That was not 

[00:17:37] Josiah: that I could remember. 

[00:17:39] Donnna: Okay. I don’t think they really addressed it. 

[00:17:40] Rebekah: That was clear in the movie, supposed to, they weren’t supposed to share their personal stuff. 

[00:17:46] Josiah: So there was one lesbian in the movie, and my first thought of, if you’re trying to like psychologically put together a team that will not turn on one another or something, I’m like, okay, it’s all women.

[00:17:59] Josiah: [00:18:00] Is that because. Like maybe men with higher testosterone levels, they just react worse to the effects of the shimmer. And like maybe you wanted a group of people who were not romantically attracted to one another. 

[00:18:14] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[00:18:14] Josiah: I feel like to 

[00:18:15] Rebekah: create, ’cause that could create drama and emotions and Yeah. And, you know, 

[00:18:19] Josiah: heightened issues, it encourages neutrality sort of thing.

[00:18:22] Josiah: So I wonder if that addition to the film was kind of against what he was going for in the book. I don’t know. But another small note from the books is later books do describe Lena, the biologist as Asian. It’s not in the first book, but Yeah. Uh, and, and the books had not been released at the time of filming.

[00:18:44] Josiah: Mm-hmm. But there was a small bit of controversy, not huge, but uh, over the casting of Alina as Natalie Portman a Caucasian, when the author seems to have decided leader was supposed to be Asian. [00:19:00] 

[00:19:00] Rebekah: Yeah, that’s hard. ’cause it’s like the, he hadn’t released any of the books that mentioned her, like describing her eyes in the way that, you know, that she’s of Asian descent, so.

[00:19:09] Tim: Mm-hmm. Well, you wonder, I feel like 

[00:19:11] Rebekah: it’s such a small like thing, but, but you wonder 

[00:19:14] Tim: if he decided, I’m going to make sure that they understand what I had in my mind. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so he makes a big deal out of it in later books, so, 

[00:19:24] Donnna: I dunno. Sure. Well, uh, on that, on that small note that you, you talked about there, um, well before the note you had the question for us about there, that one was lesbian in the film and you wondered because they didn’t really specifically talk about that in the book.

[00:19:42] Donnna: And, and that on that note, uh, another expedition that we’re gonna cover later this year that I’m so excited about, um, in Project Hail Mary, well, it’ll be later in next year, but, well, it’s, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well [00:20:00] in, in 2026, right? Mm-hmm. Um, but I bring it, I thought it was interesting that you mentioned that because they specifically thought about who they chose for their expedition.

[00:20:12] Donnna: One of the big criteria was we, they’re gonna be alone together for a long time, so we need, what can we do to ensure that? Romantic entanglements don’t happen. And I think that’s Yeah. Interesting that you, they actually address that issue and um, this is different. It’s not as long they didn’t expect it to be as long a Sure.

[00:20:32] Donnna: A mission and all that. But, 

[00:20:34] Rebekah: but it seems like they do address it in the book because literally they say, we are making all of these women intentionally as part of our selection process. Yes. And like Hail Mary does the thing where it’s like she wanted to do only women. It wasn’t a big enough pool. And Yes.

[00:20:47] Rebekah: Then they had to, yeah, there was a lot going into that. But I think there’s a lot of stuff in films that we see where for the sake of ensuring a more diverse cast, I think sometimes, yeah. Like the way that logic is laid [00:21:00] out in books, which I think sometimes is really good. Um, I think sometimes filmmakers are like, well, we need it to be more diverse and though, and therefore we will like do this differently.

[00:21:10] Rebekah: But then it kind of makes it seem like it doesn’t work as well. But again, that’s, it’s all perception. Well, we’ve 

[00:21:15] Tim: got these actors or actresses that are bringing in bucks because they’re popular right now, so we have to use them. Let’s get them into Well, but they don’t look like, yeah. But I think they could do it.

[00:21:27] Tim: It’ll, it’ll help the film. It is 

[00:21:29] Rebekah: after all 

[00:21:30] Tim: a 

[00:21:30] Rebekah: business 

[00:21:31] Tim: about the money 

[00:21:32] Donnna: niche. So we’ll move on to Kane. Uh, this is the main character’s husband. He’s generally unchanged from book to film. I mean, I, I think that’s, that’s accurate. He’s a military guy. He’s, he’s good looking. He is charming. He has a great sense of humor.

[00:21:53] Donnna: Um, his main feature is being confused by his wife’s introversion. [00:22:00] Um, and he, he gives her the, the nickname Ghost Bird, which they don’t use in the movie, which I understand why they didn’t use in the movie because they completely rewrote their relationship. Yeah. We’re not there yet. However, we see a lot more of him in the film through various flashbacks.

[00:22:18] Donnna: Um, whereas he died in the book before the main character entered Area X. He’s still alive at the end of the film and his strange illness. Has cleared up after the, uh, the barrier around the lighthouse and Area X are destroyed. Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:38] Tim: Spoiler alert, the way the movie ends is drastically different, um, the way a 

[00:22:43] Donnna: movie ends.

[00:22:45] Donnna: Yeah. Well, is that the only thing? 

[00:22:46] Tim: No, I, I found his character in the, in the film, uh, less interesting when she described him, the narrator describes him in the book. Um, he seems like he’s always trying to get her to open up about [00:23:00] herself and get to know her more. None of that’s in the film. Um, you know, they’re distant, he’s distant, she’s distant, they’re distant together.

[00:23:11] Tim: Yet 

[00:23:13] Donnna: I, I can only assume that they made their relationship in the film more loving. I, I, the only reason I could come up with that they would do that is that it was more, be more pleasing to a wider audience. Because I thought part of the interesting line of the book was that even though she was a very introverted person, she did, she was very, just an odd, she just had an odd personality.

[00:23:46] Donnna: She still had respect for him, and she still tried to. Keep in mind. I mean, she did marry him, but at the same time he had a respect for who she was and they could deal with that even in [00:24:00] the midst of her weird personality. And I don’t know, I just, I, that was part of the book I liked. And then when they put them together here and it was, you know, sure.

[00:24:11] Donnna: It seemed like they had a fun relationship. Okay, they’re good. Two good looking people, and they laugh together. It, it took away a little bit of interest for me, but you know, 

[00:24:22] Rebekah: sure. 

[00:24:22] Donnna: I get that. 

[00:24:22] Tim: Did they laugh in the film just together? Yeah. 

[00:24:27] Rebekah: It kind of seems like you see them. I, this part I feel like was actually not that different from the book in some ways.

[00:24:32] Rebekah: ’cause it’s like they had. A jovial kind of joking relationship in some ways, even though he was confused about why she wasn’t more extroverted like him. Yeah. But, um, by the time he told her that she, he was leaving, which does happen very differently, which we’ll talk about by the time he mentioned that they started like falling, like their relationship kind of like separated and fell apart and wasn’t good anymore.

[00:24:56] Rebekah: And then once he basically went missing, she was just [00:25:00] sad and like missed him and felt bad for the way she treated him before. So I think that some of the flashbacks actually did feel more. Book related in that way. Like it felt like, yeah. You know, depending on, yeah, I could see some of that. At what point in that process you were, they were having fun or fighting or whatever, you know.

[00:25:17] Rebekah: Okay. So let’s talk about Dr. Ventre. The psychologist in the book’s mission was very mysterious, often made to be very seedy. Um, in the book she used hypnosis to control the expedition members, and that was initially kind of something they did consent to. Like they knew they were being hypnotized to be sent through the border of Area X.

[00:25:38] Rebekah: Um, but then during the rest of the book, you find that she. To be using the hypnosis for some, I don’t know. It’s like, it’s hard ’cause they never figure out if stuff she’s bad or if she’s just doing what they already kind of knew they, she would do. I don’t know. Um, she’s 

[00:25:54] Tim: controlling them. 

[00:25:55] Rebekah: Yes, she does control them, but it’s like in some ways it seems like they can send it to that in [00:26:00] advance in the film, she’s not really as mysterious or seedy in the same way.

[00:26:06] Rebekah: She seems like a person who is very filled with sorrow. She’s the one who has interviewed and chosen a bunch of people to go onto these missions for the Southern reach. Um, and as far as she knows all of them, but one have died now. We’ll talk about that later. That’s not actually in the book either. Um, but she feels the guilt for that.

[00:26:24] Rebekah: We also learn during Lena’s post-trip interview, uh, that venous actually was dying of cancer when she agreed to go on the mission. And so she didn’t ever think that she’d be coming back. And so it was fine, you know, with her. So they, she’s a completely different character in the book. She is one of the only people I would say that’s a villain character, like that’s an actual antagonist.

[00:26:48] Rebekah: Um, even though even mm-hmm. Like even though the main character that’s writing the book doesn’t even really know if she’s bad or not, you know? 

[00:26:57] Donnna: Right. Which is fine. That works in, [00:27:00] in that I just felt like she, in the movie, I felt like she was, um. 

[00:27:06] Josiah: I think the actor did a weird job. 

[00:27:07] Donnna: It, yeah. I couldn’t re, I couldn’t get a read on her.

[00:27:13] Donnna: I could, she was kind of emo 

[00:27:16] Tim: It was also strange, but she was 

[00:27:17] Donnna: also a little creepy. Like she had something else going on behind the scenes, you know, just something that you didn’t know. And I kept thinking, is that gonna come out? So yeah, I, I would agree. 

[00:27:29] Tim: Yeah. It seemed a little bit strange though that, that, um, Lena was not part of the mission and suddenly she’s part of the mission and Yeah, that’s okay.

[00:27:38] Tim: No big deal. We’ve planned this and, you know, plan planned all the expeditions and everything’s planned down to all the psychological types that can go, but sure. There’s a last minute edition, no big deal. Mm-hmm. In the book. 

[00:27:50] Rebekah: It wasn’t like that, which we’ll talk about. Right. So 

[00:27:53] Josiah: yeah, I thought the movie made it feel very small.

[00:27:56] Josiah: The most people you ever see at once is [00:28:00] probably the flash forward when Lena comes back. Correct. And it’s like, where were all of those people on the lead up to the expedition to make it feel like, yeah, we have a whole team of top secret people. It just felt so small and unimportant in the film that she was just added.

[00:28:21] Josiah: She just kind of appeared semi illegally, kind of unplanned. She was detained illegally and then. They just let their prisoner join the expedition and ventures kinda let it happen. 

[00:28:35] Tim: Yeah, it just seems strange ’cause uh, the ventures of the book controlled things, ventures in the film just kind of didn’t care.

[00:28:44] Tim: Yeah. Yep. Well, there are some other characters that we see, Anya and Josie. Uh, they’re given varying degrees of more personality and backstory in the film, uh, including Anya’s same sex attraction and Josie’s [00:29:00] having lost her daughter to cancer before they get into the shimmer into Area X. Um, in the book, both of these characters were given zero background.

[00:29:10] Tim: They’re just named by their, by their occupation, by the position they hold. Uh, the narrator acknowledges that she doesn’t share their names because for one, they were told not to use names and for another, they would all be dead in the span of a few days. Um. That’s, I don’t remember, I don’t remember the dead part in the book, um, that they expected them to be dead anyway.

[00:29:38] Tim: But, uh, I think in the book it was clear that the part of the reason that they didn’t, they didn’t use names, was so that it would, they could be interchangeable basically. And they wouldn’t have any personal attachment. Uh, their training leading up to the mission seemed to mostly [00:30:00] be about learning the hypnotism, you know, how to, how to allow themselves to be hypnotized and, um, didn’t, because there wasn’t a lot of information that they could see.

[00:30:13] Josiah: There’s mention of a lighthouse keeper in the book that’s removed from the film. ’cause in the film the lighthouse is a lot more, I mean, it’s the central location. It’s 

[00:30:27] Tim: integral to the plot. Yeah. 

[00:30:30] Josiah: But the light, there’s a lighthouse keeper in the book. The lighthouse isn’t necessarily as integral as it in the film, as it is in the film.

[00:30:38] Josiah: They, uh, so there’s this lighthouse keeper thing is, is changed as well. We do, um, you know, we read about Lena feeling some sort of connection with the lighthouse keeper, then seeing his face in the crawler later. The end of the novel. More on that later. [00:31:00] 

[00:31:00] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:31:00] Rebekah: Yeah. So there, we’ve talked about all of them, but there are obviously quite a few significant character changes, although because it’s a small cast, um.

[00:31:09] Rebekah: We’ve covered them all. I will just as a clarifier for those type A people, like I am, uh, throughout the rest of our notes, I did refer to Lena as Lena and the other like members of the expedition by their movie names, just for simplicity’s sake. So we weren’t going back and forth between the anthropologist and Lena and whatever.

[00:31:28] Rebekah: So, um, I know that we don’t name them in the book, but we will say things about what Lena does in the book, just to clarify for the rest of you. So 

[00:31:35] Tim: there’s also, there’s also the addition of a, of a character. The, the doctor or researcher at the end that is interviewing Lena. That’s not Oh, true. That’s not in the book.

[00:31:46] Tim: He’s not in the book, no. But he is, he’s fairly significant in the film. So, 

[00:31:51] Rebekah: yeah. Josiah, do you wanna get us started with some of the, uh, setting changes, 

[00:31:55] Josiah: the border of Area X? In the book, I [00:32:00] contend that it is called the Shimmer in the movie. Yes. And that area X is the place around it, but the shimmer area X border is visible to the people at the Southern Reach in the film from their base.

[00:32:14] Josiah: But Lena specifically does not remember in the book and doesn’t know what the border of Area X looks like at all. Now the book starts inside the shimmer area X. Right. But she does have a lot of flashbacks and memories. Correct. The psychologist in the book was told to guide them through the border using hypnosis that they agreed to.

[00:32:36] Josiah: And there is some suggestion that encountering the border would cause some sort of problem for the other members of the team. Yeah. You have no, none of us have read the other books. Like Rebecca, you’re the most likely to. No, I 

[00:32:49] Rebekah: own them, but I just have they, there are my TBR and I own them. I 

[00:32:53] Josiah: wonder like there were some mysteries in this book that did catch my attention and I really wanted an answer to, and [00:33:00] that was one of them.

[00:33:00] Josiah: ’cause it sets my imagine off. It’s like at the border, is it a bunch of people who weren’t hypnotized and they immediately. Killed each other or themselves at the psychosis of what was happening. 

[00:33:15] Tim: I get the impression that every one of the expeditions has been an experiment. Mm-hmm. How will the, could this change?

[00:33:23] Tim: It, could this, could this work? Make it work? Um, okay. We sent in men and then we sent in a mixed group and we, this time we’re going to send in all women, so there’s none of, you know, none of the other problem. And then we’re going to hypnotize them as they go through. Maybe it’s the passing through that is the problem.

[00:33:42] Tim: I think that’s the kind of mysteries that it opens up, you know, the, yeah. Every one of these expeditions has been an experiment and they’re trying to find one where someone comes back. 

[00:33:54] Rebekah: Yeah. So, although again, in the book, 

[00:33:57] Tim: a lot of them in come back, they do come back. So it’s 

[00:33:59] Rebekah: like, [00:34:00] yeah, I know. I, but I know what you mean.

[00:34:01] Rebekah: Yeah. I think that makes sense. I will clarify setting stuff too, when it comes to that border, the book does not seem to have any description that there is any like visual anomaly that you can see where the border is. Do they not call it 

[00:34:16] Tim: the shimmer in the book at all? 

[00:34:18] Rebekah: No. That’s a completely movie only thing like the shimmer in general.

[00:34:22] Rebekah: So anyway, point out, remember he was a 

[00:34:25] Donnna: drug, he, we think he was taking drug. I think he was taking drugs, mom. So that’s why it’s just film only. Yeah. 

[00:34:31] Tim: Yeah, man. What a book. Um, 

[00:34:34] Donnna: so in the book, uh, another setting change, the, the narrator clarifies multiple times that all forms of modern technology are strictly forbidden, including watches.

[00:34:46] Donnna: They’re not even allowed to wear watches. Yeah. The, yeah. Right. That’s too new. Nothing technical. And she seems to remember being told they, they wouldn’t work anyway, so why take them? Uh, but the [00:35:00] film shows their compass not functioning, mentions their comms don’t work to the outside. And the team has modern firearms contrasted against the 30-year-old guns in the book.

[00:35:13] Donnna: Um, and Cass uses a camera to attempt to capture their expedition. So, 

[00:35:20] Tim: and we see that they had used a camera in a previous expedition. 

[00:35:24] Donnna: I get, I, I, I could deal with this change. Um, I did think it was interesting. I thought it was an interesting part of the book, that it was like, no techno, we can’t take it in.

[00:35:34] Donnna: And I almost wondered, was there another fear of taking it in, like another fear of the outcome? But, 

[00:35:43] Tim: Hmm. I thought that the reason they couldn’t use the tech was because in area X, in the shimmer, whatever we’re calling it, um, all of the technology went crazy. It didn’t act like it was supposed to act perhaps the first, the first [00:36:00] time they took it and yeah, the guns seized up because they were computer.

[00:36:04] Tim: Yeah. You know, had some computer parts to them or whatever. Yeah, that’s what 

[00:36:06] Donnna: I meant. Like, kinda like it would be like, it would be a, a bad thing if they had them in there and they acted differently and it would actually hurt them. Yeah. So 

[00:36:16] Rebekah: I think my theory is different in the book, in the film. So in the book, I don’t know ’cause I haven’t read further.

[00:36:22] Rebekah: So this is me just kind of guessing what might happen in the future books. ’cause I do plan to read the rest of them. Um, I think that in the book it’s part of her realizing that the Southern Reach organization has basically hidden things from expedition members. Like they didn’t tell them that there had obviously been more expeditions, which we’ll talk about the evidence for that happens later.

[00:36:46] Rebekah: Um, and then when they’re talking about the guns in particular, I think it’s the anthropologist, but I’m not sure. It might be one of the other people. I don’t remember which person, when they’re talking about the guns, another one of the members says something about, did you notice they gave us like [00:37:00] 30-year-old garbage?

[00:37:01] Rebekah: Or something like that. Like she points out that it’s almost like they set them up to fail. Um, and so in the book, if I’m not mistaken, I wanna guess that in the future you find out more of what the Southern reach is like hiding and more of the kind of mystery surrounding all of that in the film. They, I think that they try to, I think they try to describe that using the Prism thing.

[00:37:27] Rebekah: Um, so I think like that is more, they’re trying to use it as like the sheen of the, the shimmer makes it so that stuff reflects back and that’s why things don’t work. Um, and I also thought it made sense, like the camera scenes and some of that. I think that if you’re not doing a series of films because he just seemed to wanna do this one off, it makes sense not to try and then set up like, oh, why were we kept from using like higher level technology?

[00:37:57] Rebekah: So I think that it wouldn’t have made sense to set it up the other way. [00:38:00] So 

[00:38:01] Tim: I get that. 

[00:38:01] Rebekah: And to answer one question, I think we’ve had, this is just again, my opinion, so I don’t know if this is accurate, but when it comes to area X, I think that what area X is. Is the space where all of the biological like weird stuff is happening and the shimmer is what they, to describe not only the like domed border around area X, they also use the shimmer to describe the bizarre biological changes that happen.

[00:38:28] Rebekah: Like not the area itself, but what’s happening within it where you see the cells separating and stuff. So that’s my opinion. And the 

[00:38:34] Donnna: shimmer seems to be the thing that’s like expanding Yeah. The And coming closer that to their, to their civilization. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. 

[00:38:44] Tim: Well, both the book and film use a very bizarre setting within Area X.

[00:38:50] Tim: The film takes quite a few additional liberties with the visuals that aren’t mentioned in the book, and it leaves out others. Uh, this includes the vining [00:39:00] flowers, the alligator, the bearlike creature, and the flower people. In many ways, the movie tries to capture the same vibe of the book, but it also uses a viscous, iridescent sheen to further emphasize the otherness of the location.

[00:39:17] Josiah: Scent, even 

[00:39:19] Tim: scent. 

[00:39:20] Rebekah: Yeah. It’s very like the lighting as well in the film is also Josh. So Josh and I really liked this film. We saw it in theaters and I’ve seen it. We own it obviously, and we’ve seen it several times, but. We really like this movie. And I, hi. One of his favorite things about, about it from a cinematography angle, mom, stop shaking your head at me, uh, from a cinematography angle is that he really likes the way that they use like lens flare and that opalescent sheen in a lot of different things in the lighting as well.

[00:39:52] Josiah: It’s like how the matrix is used, that green filter. Yes. And you don’t really notice it unless you’re thinking about it. 

[00:39:58] Rebekah: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Exactly. [00:40:00] So I thought 

[00:40:00] Tim: it was visually stunning. Yeah. I thought the, the movie uses a lot of great visuals and if you’re going for strange and I think the book was supposed to be strange.

[00:40:13] Tim: Yes. Everything’s strange. I think the film captured that part. Yes. That it’s strange. So, 

[00:40:21] Rebekah: and thank you for just being so sweet to not make a big deal about your opinion about that yet. I do wanna hear your opinion, but, so the most major difference to annihilation setting from book to film is the lack in the film of the tower slash tunnel.

[00:40:38] Rebekah: That was a central location and feature in the book. It’s introduced in like the second page of the book. 

[00:40:44] And we keep going back, we’ll talk, 

[00:40:45] Rebekah: right. And so we’ll talk more about what happens there as we discuss plot changes ’cause it, they go in several times. But this underground structure occupies most of the book’s visual attention and is completely eliminated for the film.

[00:40:57] Rebekah: Um. In the film, most of the [00:41:00] setting is them like traversing through area X and like finding different places and things. There is a mention of Lena in the book, like going to the little town that used to be there. And then obviously she does visit the lighthouse and then they have a little camp. But other than those three like settings which aren’t as often, Lee, uh, as often visited the tower underground is where she’s at most of the time.

[00:41:22] Rebekah: Um, the film does add a small, weird, like underground ish area within that lighthouse where some odd transformations occur. And so I think this was the closest thing in the film to what we saw in the book, but it was not the same at all because they eliminated that entire plot line. So, 

[00:41:42] Donnna: right. Little shout out, uh, to my grand dog that’s there behind the mm-hmm.

[00:41:47] Donnna: Molly, she’s such a good girl. Getting comfy back there behind her mom. Yeah. 

[00:41:51] Josiah: Video privileges. Yeah. Audio only listeners. Molly is a black, great Dane. 

[00:41:57] Rebekah: Look at her. She’s a good girl. She’s the [00:42:00] best. 

[00:42:01] Josiah: Well, did you know that there’s, speaking of Molly, the dog, there is a base of operations we see in the film within Area X, where several disturbing scenes occur, said to be the former location of the Southern reach before the barrier expanded beyond it.

[00:42:21] Josiah: This is also a film only addition. This is where Natalie Portman’s expedition camps for a couple nights and several important things happened there. It’s also where Natalie Portman’s husband, officer Isaac, had camped, uh, you know, almost a year prior, and they took a lot of records of what they did there, whether in marking the board on who takes watch or videotaping their insides, 

[00:42:54] Donnna: Jesus help us.

[00:42:55] Donnna: Yep. Now that’s part of it. That was, uh, yeah, that was a really, um, that’s 

[00:42:58] Rebekah: part of it. It was an, it was, it [00:43:00] was, it was a really interesting, so, 

[00:43:03] Donnna: well to close out some setting changes. The film has discussion of this prism like effect, um, in area X that’s supposed to explain the bizarre, the bizarre growth there in the changes, plus the reasons that the comms don’t work.

[00:43:22] Donnna: This isn’t included in the book at all either. I didn’t mind this. Like, I, I thought the, the difference in the places that they went and what was happening, I will give it that it, that was an interesting part of it. And, uh, yes, visually. A lot of this was, was really cool. 

[00:43:40] Tim: I think it gives the audience a way, a way to explain the strangeness when they say, oh, well they’re, you know, our DNA is getting mixed up with the plants and the animals, and yeah, we’re all becoming the same kind of mixed up things, but it’s because it’s all reflected back [00:44:00] in here and it’s like we’re sending out waves, hate and hate.

[00:44:02] Tim: They’re coming back, getting mixed up. Yeah. That gives an explanation. The audience can grab hold of the book. Doesn’t really give any kind of an explanation. It’s 

[00:44:12] Rebekah: all of that’s filled out in later books. 

[00:44:14] Tim: Yeah, it’s strange. And it’s strange because it’s strange. 

[00:44:18] Rebekah: Um, do you wanna move us on into the plot and timeline changes, Mr.

[00:44:22] Rebekah: Josiah? 

[00:44:24] Josiah: Yeah. I think that the first plot and timeline change I really think of is that the film opens naturally. That’s the first thing I think of with a very strange comet from space hitting the lighthouse, which seems to be, oh, you don’t say, which seems to be the origin of every X’s strange phenomena.

[00:44:51] Josiah: The book has no such scene, and the film adding it actually speaks to the ending of the movie, which totally diverges from the book [00:45:00] plot. Do you want to know an original ending? An early draft of the script did not end with the potential doppelgangers hugging. It ended with a shot from space of multiple of these comets then coming down.

[00:45:19] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. Whoa, interesting. 

[00:45:21] Tim: I’m gonna cover the whole planet. 

[00:45:23] Rebekah: It’s kind of cool. Yep. 

[00:45:24] Tim: Well, yeah. In the book, the unnamed main character is supposedly writing her observations and experiences in a journal provided to all members of the expedition to record their time in Area X. She does use some flashbacks to very broadly describe other experiences in the past.

[00:45:44] Tim: The movie in contrast shows Lena being interviewed by the Southern Reach Organization to describe the events that occurred within the dome after she returns alive, whereas she is still in Area X by the end of the book. [00:46:00] There are also a large number of flashback sequences in the film showing Lena’s life before her husband left, before the Expeditioning began, et cetera.

[00:46:09] Tim: So. 

[00:46:10] Rebekah: It is a major thing at the end of the book that she decides not to leave area X and wants to know more about what happened to her husband, which is interestingly contrasted to how she felt earlier in the book itself. So like the actual ending of the book where she decides to stay is so like, it is part of her character development arc.

[00:46:31] Rebekah: So I do think it’s interesting that they were like, Nope, we’re just, she’s coming back out. She lives, she’s the second person to ever live. So 

[00:46:38] Donnna: Kane returns from the expedition as part of a flashback in the book, as well as in the film. However, in the book, Lena Recounts that they had this night of passion before she called the Southern reach to come and get him, uh, worried about his strange apathetic demeanor.

[00:46:58] Donnna: Six months later, [00:47:00] he died from a cancer that he was diagnosed with just after he, he returned in the film. He also comes back about a year after departing and has this same weird demeanor, which. Parentheses, Oscar Isaac killed this. I thought, I thought I enjoyed, I thought he did a great job. Mm-hmm. 

[00:47:19] Mm-hmm.

[00:47:21] Donnna: Uh, but almost immediately he begins to experience like major organ failure, forcing Lena to call for an ambulance. Uh, they’re both captured on the way to the hospital by the southern reach, where they remain for the duration of the film in one place or another. 

[00:47:39] Tim: Yeah. I have, have a question. 

[00:47:40] Donnna: Mm-hmm. 

[00:47:41] Tim: Did, in the book, did she call the Southern Reach to come and get him?

[00:47:46] Tim: Or was that Yes, yes. Did she felt guilty about 

[00:47:48] Rebekah: it? 

[00:47:49] Tim: Oh wow. I was thinking that I must have missed that. I was thinking that it was a surprise. Similar, yeah. To the way the film dealt with it. 

[00:47:57] Rebekah: I think it was like he came home and then the next day she [00:48:00] just realized something was very, very wrong and she was like, as you know, I didn’t really want to, but I called them because she again, was like, aware of it, like where he was gone and, and all of that stuff.

[00:48:12] Rebekah: So I do also want to say, ’cause I thought that this was kind of funny, uh, the character played by Benedict Wong that interviews her at the Southern Reach. 

[00:48:24] Josiah: Mm-hmm. 

[00:48:24] Rebekah: Do you know his name in the movie? 

[00:48:26] Josiah: No. Is is it Dr. Wong? 

[00:48:30] Rebekah: No. His name and his cast name is Lomax. So that was, I don’t know why, but I, I just found that really interesting.

[00:48:41] Rebekah: I re remind, I remember Lomax last name. Yeah, just Lomax. There you go. So the film shows the Southern Reach as an organization that Lena has never heard of. They point out several times that she didn’t know where Kane was off to the military on last trip. The book makes no mystery of it. Lena and Cain argue [00:49:00] at length about him volunteering to go into Area X, which by the way, I think Area X even is known by the public to at least some extent.

[00:49:08] Rebekah: It’s not hidden in the same way in the film. Uh, Lena herself later chooses to volunteer. She says in the book that she waited so that she could be sure that she wasn’t doing it in a vain attempt to understand what happened to change her husband. Um, and that’s what I mentioned in the book. By the end, her deciding to stay in Area X because she found his journal and realized she was missing a lot, like it is part of her character development.

[00:49:32] Rebekah: ’cause it wasn’t something she originally cared about as much. Um, in the movie, Lena Volunteers for the Mission and she’s their last minute fifth person, but only after the psychologist basically says that she’s trapped within the Southern reach and won’t be allowed to leave. And the film makes it very clear that her motivation for volunteering is to save her dying husband.

[00:49:55] Rebekah: So, um, he’s obviously dead in the book and so [00:50:00] we know that already. But in the film, she like seemed like she was trying to save his life. 

[00:50:05] Josiah: And midway through the movie, when the infidelity is more explicit, it kind of explains why she was like, I, I owe him this. You know, it’s Yeah, true 

[00:50:19] Rebekah: that you, that it’s an 

[00:50:20] Josiah: extra, she doesn’t just feel in love with him, but she also feels guilty.

[00:50:26] Josiah: Like she needs to repay an awful debt to him. Hmm. Well, you know, part of paying back that debt is surviving horrible, horrible attacks. There are several of these on the team in the film that are not in the book. Very film action visual, medium. There’s a non-fatal attack by a crocodile with shark teeth.

[00:50:49] Josiah: Yes, baby. Oh, CRO. There’s also a fatal attack, maybe even two by a bearlike creature. Oh yeah. ’cause um, early [00:51:00] on it claims, I want say Josie first. Josie is first. Yes. And then Anya is later. 

[00:51:08] Rebekah: That’s when Josie’s captured, when they’re in like the facility that used to be the Southern Rees facility and there’s the dark, um, and that’s in the dark.

[00:51:15] Rebekah: And then Anya’s in the house. 

[00:51:18] Josiah: The house that mimics, uh, Lena’s house 

[00:51:22] Rebekah: does it. 

[00:51:23] Josiah: Visually? Yes. Yeah. It’s like the same staircase. 

[00:51:27] Rebekah: That’s hilarious. I didn’t pick up on that at all. They used the same set 

[00:51:29] Josiah: piece. 

[00:51:31] Tim: Yeah. If I’m not crazy. I think you’re right. It has to be, 

[00:51:34] Rebekah: it has to 

[00:51:35] Tim: be very creepy. In 

[00:51:36] Rebekah: the only house area that I knew of in the book was just, they had a little town that she visited, but I don’t think there was any illusion to that kind of thing.

[00:51:43] Rebekah: So, 

[00:51:44] Josiah: you know, the terrifying bear, I loved that it was able to use Josie’s voice, uh, from when Josie died, uh, it was able to mm-hmm. Mimic her voice, or, or merged, not even mimic, yeah. Merged with her voice [00:52:00] and that confused Anya and claimed her life. Uh, did you know what the Bear’s name was on set? No. Yogi.

[00:52:09] Josiah: Homerton an allusion to Paddington. The bear being named after a train station. Oh, was a train station. Homerton train station. 

[00:52:19] Tim: Well, in the movie only operations base inside the shimmer, the five women watch a recording of the 11th expedition. Uh, its members including Kane, as they expose the bizarrely shifting intestines of one of his team members.

[00:52:37] Tim: Uh, they later find his body in the building, uh, assumedly where the video was filmed, where he seems now to have merged with area X’s Strange Biology and even the building. 

[00:52:51] Rebekah: Did you notice how I said that in so non graphic away? Are you proud of me? 

[00:52:56] Tim: Yes. It was so gross. It doesn’t describe how [00:53:00] graphic that whole scene was, though.

[00:53:03] Tim: It’s true. Ooh. But this is a clean podcast. 

[00:53:08] Josiah: It was really cool. 

[00:53:09] Tim: Family 

[00:53:10] Josiah: friendly. It was 

[00:53:10] Tim: so cool. It 

[00:53:11] Donnna: was well done and very like, it was as realistic as I thought it could be. So I mean, totally nod to the effect. 

[00:53:20] Tim: Yeah. There again, visually I think they, the visual effects did an amazingly beautiful job. The problem for me is that we, it, they conveyed strangeness, but.

[00:53:34] Tim: It just mm-hmm. Wasn’t cohesive. Yeah. For me. So, 

[00:53:38] Donnna: moving on to another change in this strange part of the film, stranger part, something, you know, uh, Anya becomes paranoid in the film after realizing that Kane was connected to Lena, but that the biologist never mentioned that fact. Uh, she ties up the other [00:54:00] three because Josie’s already gone at this point.

[00:54:03] Donnna: She’s dead and threatens them at gunpoint. The entire scene is only in the film. And I, I, it was an interesting part of the, of the horror of the whole thing and how people were just becoming unhinged and, you know, uh, I, I didn’t mind this scene as much as some of the other things that really just troubled me.

[00:54:26] Donnna: I, I think, honestly, the reason they troubled me was it was such a divergence from the book. I kept looking at your dad over and over going, is this in the book? Did I miss this part? When I was listening to, I, I felt like I was like a tennis match going, what is going on right now? I 

[00:54:44] Rebekah: literally forgot how different they were because I’ve watched the movie and read the book multiple times, but so far apart that it didn’t, yeah, I, we, we got into and we, it had been a little while and I was, I looked at Josh and I was like, is there, is [00:55:00] there like an underground.

[00:55:01] Rebekah: Like a tunnel thing. And he was like, yeah, well, he was just talking about the thing in the lighthouse at the very, very, because he’s never read the book at the very end. And so I, the whole time I was like, do they, should she go? Does that happen? I had like completely forgotten that it was that different.

[00:55:14] Rebekah: So 

[00:55:15] Tim: crazy. Well, I think scenes like the, like the one we were just talking about, um, ramped up, the attention ramped up. Mm-hmm. The, the, um, anxiety level for the viewer. Um, and, and I think that’s something that the book probably didn’t do as much, I honestly mm-hmm. If you wanted a wider audience to see this and to enjoy it or, you know, to be affected by it.

[00:55:43] Tim: Yeah. Um, the book, the book may have been, I wouldn’t exactly call it boring, but the book may have been too strange to, for an audience to see [00:56:00] and, and to say, okay, when will this part be over? Oh, she’s doing this again. Why are we doing this again? And it’s, you know, 

[00:56:06] Rebekah: let me tell you one thing. The, uh, the reviews that I saw, and we, we will obviously maybe talk about this a little bit more, but I think that the, like.

[00:56:17] Rebekah: The reviews all kind of seemed to think that the film did a better job than the book probably because when people were reviewing it at the time it was released, the second book wasn’t even out. And so you had tons of like, just open confusion, you know? 

[00:56:31] Mm-hmm. 

[00:56:32] Rebekah: Um, but I do think it’s interesting. So that, that ended up being the case.

[00:56:37] Mm-hmm. 

[00:56:38] Josiah: Well, as a part of the flashbacks of the film, we learned that Lena had an affair with a colleague, Daniel. Oh, well, Kane was gone. Not in the book. We’ve kind of alluded to this throughout. It’s unclear whether or not she believed Kane to be [00:57:00] dead by this time, but is very aware. Of Daniel’s marriage.

[00:57:05] Rebekah: Okay. So as we watch the party, like deal with what they’re dealing with on their expedition in the book, they separate super fast. Like I think they’re together like less than two days in book time, if I’m not mistaken. Takes a lot longer in the film or at least there’s a lot more that happens in the film during this period.

[00:57:23] Rebekah: Uh, the final moment, uh, that they’re together is basically Josie’s died. Anya has died, cast the linguist that’s only in the film. Decide what she wants. She kind of goes through this like thing where she realizes she’ll have to like fight her way out or something weird. Um, but then she turns into one of the flower people and venous the psychologist.

[00:57:46] Rebekah: Yeah, it’s unclear ’cause you don’t actually, you can’t tell like which one she would be, but she does disappear. And then venous, the psychologist has already left the others by this point. We do see her again at the end of the movie, but I just wanted to point this out because [00:58:00] in the film, uh, it takes long in the book.

[00:58:03] Rebekah: It’s pretty like quick. And then Lena spends quite a lot of time on her own and then discovers what other people, what’s happened to other people. Mm-hmm. 

[00:58:13] Josiah: I feel like the book is split up into five very long chapters and maybe the first chapter is them together. The second chapter is them getting separated.

[00:58:25] Josiah: And then the remaining three chapters. Mm-hmm. It’s like a lot of the biologists by herself. Mm-hmm. 

[00:58:30] Yeah. 

[00:58:30] Josiah: I, I feel like that’s what I remember. 

[00:58:33] Tim: The, um, the book and film, especially the film makes sure that, you know, that they’re not sure how much time has passed. Um mm-hmm. They, they’re in the camp and it’s like, mm-hmm.

[00:58:47] Tim: Okay. We set this up and now we’re counting looking at the food, taking inventory and we’ve been here for days. 

[00:58:55] Yeah. 

[00:58:55] Tim: But nobody remembers that. And 

[00:58:58] Yeah, 

[00:58:58] Tim: they didn’t remember how long it [00:59:00] took to get inside or whatever either. So, 

[00:59:03] Josiah: and I thought in the movie, although I did see this movie when it first came out, I’ve forgotten a lot about it.

[00:59:09] Josiah: I assumed that, that in the movie, them losing days at the beginning was a setup for the psychologist, hypnotizing them. Mm. But it was, but they didn’t do anything with that. You left outta the movie. 

[00:59:24] Rebekah: I did think that they were gonna add the hypnotism like through, I was like, wait, it’s gonna happen. Oh no, it’s not.

[00:59:29] Rebekah: It’s not. Oh no. So I think you’re right. It kind of felt like a setup and then not 

[00:59:33] Tim: in the book book, it was a pretty important part, but mm-hmm. It really cool 

[00:59:36] Josiah: part. 

[00:59:37] Tim: Yeah. Well, uh, Lena uses a microscope to investigate the materials that she sampled throughout both the book and film. In the book, she sees cells in things that aren’t right, human cells and things that clearly aren’t human mostly, but in the film she sees cells including those from her own body [01:00:00] separating two one, mostly normal, the other covered in the same shimmering sheen that makes up the border of area X or the shimmer or whatever they wanna call it.

[01:00:09] Tim: So she’s able to investigate. 

[01:00:12] Rebekah: Do you think that this was like something that was maybe happening in the book, but they just described it differently in the film? Or do you feel like this is a total divergence from what we know? 

[01:00:22] Tim: I think some of it was happening in the book. I felt like she was doing some of, uh, did she say she brought her own microscope or something to Yeah.

[01:00:30] Tim: The ’cause the microscope got busted up in the, the other girl somebody destroyed equipment 

[01:00:35] Rebekah: Yeah. At the base, like destroyed her bigger microscope, but the smaller one she had with her would be fine or something like that. 

[01:00:41] Josiah: The mitosis that we see a lot in the film. I think it’s all to set up the payoff of her doppelganger and Kane’s doppelganger, which is not really in the book.

[01:00:55] Josiah: Yeah. And if it is, it’s not as important to the, the cl [01:01:00] climax. 

[01:01:00] Rebekah: It’s not, if it is, it’s not clear at all. 

[01:01:02] Josiah: Right. Yeah. If, if it’s, yeah, exactly. So I think that the film definitely emphasizes the asexual reproduction with the identical daughter cell, if you know what I mean. Mm-hmm. 

[01:01:16] Donnna: I did think these scenes where you saw, ’cause this kind of went throughout the movie here and there, they used it where the cells separate.

[01:01:24] Donnna: I did think that was a part where if, if a, if a viewer was like, struggling to figure out where they were, I kinda almost thought that kind of brought back what’s happening. That you understand this, this presence, whatever kind of alien it is Yeah. Is, is invading, it’s invading them internally. It’s invading their world.

[01:01:48] Donnna: It’s, you know, it’s not just coming onto the planet, it’s actually coming and transforming and, and changing. I kind of thought that was a, oh. And [01:02:00] maybe this is just my weird thinking, it was kind of an in your face reminder, this is what’s happening. And then she sees it happening in different ways and mm-hmm.

[01:02:09] Donnna: Then realizes it’s in her and that kind of thing. So 

[01:02:12] Tim: Josiah’s point that he makes often is that, in that, that particular thing that you’re talking about, the, the movie director is trying to make sure you understand what they’re doing. You know, it’s kind of in your face, this is what’s happening. If you haven’t caught it, this is what’s happening.

[01:02:31] Donnna: Yeah. Yes. The unobservant reader, uh, the Unobservant viewer and, well, and heck, it can happen in books too, but the Unobservant viewer can catch on. Oh, yeah. Uh, one major book only factor in Lena is Lena’s Discovery of the former Expeditioners Journals. Within the lighthouse, she finds a trapper door that leads to an area with like hundreds of these journals, [01:03:00] including Kane’s own journal, suggesting there may have been far more than just 12 expeditions to this point.

[01:03:07] Donnna: So, 

[01:03:07] Josiah: cool. 

[01:03:09] Rebekah: I, this was like one of the parts of the book that I was like, I’m so in. Mm-hmm. Like, I got, I was interested in what was going on. ’cause it’s weird and fun and wonderful. Yeah. And horrible, whatever. But it was that, it was this that I was like, there was a mystery. Yeah. Like, I was excited about it. 

[01:03:24] Tim: I liked the fact that there was, there was the implication that there had been so many more expeditions than we knew of.

[01:03:32] Tim: Mm-hmm. And all of that. It, it was strange that she was kind of trying to destroy the evidence of that. Um, the, the psychologist. Psychologist or, well, the, the group leader. Yeah. I guess psych psychologist. The h the one that does hypnosis on them, right. Yeah. So 

[01:03:48] Rebekah: I don’t know that it was particularly strange because I think they’re setting it up that the southern reach is hiding things and that like, they weren’t honest during the trainings and that she was the leader.

[01:03:58] Rebekah: I think that she was in [01:04:00] charge of keeping people out of the lighthouse, discovering that specific spot intentionally. That’s what it seemed like to me. Hmm. Um, so the word annihilation means two different things from book to film, which I think is really interesting. 

[01:04:13] What does it mean? 

[01:04:14] Rebekah: So in the novel, the psychologist used it as her secret keyword to have a teammate kill themselves.

[01:04:20] Rebekah: So it was like a suicide trigger. Um, and she uses it at one point, uh, unsuccessfully on someone that you will hear about later. Um, in the film, it’s what the Mold Aliens Invasion is leading to. So we don’t know if it’s malicious or natural slash neutral. Um, it is obviously kind of a big deal because it’s the title.

[01:04:43] Rebekah: Um, it, you know, so it, it’s, they use it in completely different ways. ’cause they eliminated the, the hypnosis plot, so they had to use it something for something different. So 

[01:04:55] Donnna: it’s kind of similar to silo where the, where they use [01:05:00] wool and everything. There was so many different thoughts about what wool was in the, the, as far as the name of the book and why and all that.

[01:05:08] Donnna: You know, it’s kind of similar thing where you had to twist it according to who’s interpreting or filmed a book and all that 

[01:05:15] Rebekah: because you can pull the wool over your eyes and that one. But it also was like the wool that they used to clean the cameras. Mm-hmm. And yeah. 

[01:05:21] Josiah: And also an acronym that is a spoiler.

[01:05:25] Rebekah: Oh yeah. Is it, 

[01:05:27] Josiah: wait, what is the acronym? L is, L is 50. Oh, if that helps you out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Woo. 

[01:05:32] Rebekah: Does 50. It does help me out. Woo. 50. Yeah, that’s what it means. 

[01:05:36] Josiah: Woo. Woo. 50 50. You know Lottie Lottie. Look, who’s 40? Well, when you turn 50, we say, whoa. Yeah, right. We’re old and probably not dead. 

[01:05:50] Rebekah: Should probably get us back on track.

[01:05:52] Rebekah: Yeah, yeah. 

[01:05:53] Josiah: Oh, you know, I was actually thinking about how the film mentions that previous expeditions were mostly [01:06:00] military into the shimmer. That is followed up with the idea that Cain, the husband, is actually the only former expedition member to ever return. However, in the book, it is not specifically stated that most of the former team members were military, and there had been many returned expedition members.

[01:06:23] Josiah: They were simply not the same. Those returned members with notebooks are how they had well-defined maps and other information about area X and the shimmer. The narrator makes a significant point about the fact that they knew to target the lighthouse, but that the tower slash tunnel was specifically not shown on their maps 

[01:06:49] Tim: to hide it, or because it had become, it had come in after the last expedition.

[01:06:55] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. 

[01:06:56] Tim: That’s kind of a question still. Right. 

[01:06:58] Rebekah: Uh, [01:07:00] yes. Because they were like, there’s no way that all these people coming back that we wouldn’t already know that this existed. But then right. They were like mm-hmm. Not sure what was happening. So, 

[01:07:09] yeah. 

[01:07:10] Donnna: And to my, to be fair, to my distress of the film, I liked the fact that Kane was the first one to come back.

[01:07:16] Donnna: ’cause that, I felt like that was a piece of, oh, we’ve gotten somewhere at, at least somebody’s come back out of it and Yeah. You know, so 

[01:07:27] Josiah: interesting. I liked that. If nothing else, them making their prisoner, Natalie Portman into an expedition member made a little more sense because she was literally a military background scientist.

[01:07:43] Josiah: She was everything that they would’ve needed for someone to go on the expedition. Someone who could be military, someone who could be scientist. Mm-hmm. That’s Natalie Portman. But, uh, other than that, I think the movie took away a lot of the world building of [01:08:00] past expeditions, I think to the detriment.

[01:08:05] Josiah: Well, the film was not about Area X, it was about Natalie Portman’s journey through self-destruction and discovery or something. So they took out the fun world building. Yeah. They thought it was necessary. Whatever. 

[01:08:20] Tim: So funny. Okay, so let’s get to the book Climax, uh, the tower slash tunnel. The expedition members of the book quickly come upon a structure that is not on their maps.

[01:08:35] Tim: We’ve mentioned the other three describe it as a tunnel, but Lena can’t stop thinking of it as a tower, although it is underground. They walk the hundreds of layers down, spiraling steps through the structure, and there are at least three separate times the expedition members traverse it together, or in Lena’s case alone.

[01:08:57] Tim: Um, and [01:09:00] the, the writing, the strange writing and stuff on it. And, um, it, it has, it has a creepy what’s around the next bend or in this case, what’s down the next level. 

[01:09:16] Rebekah: Yep. 

[01:09:16] Tim: So, 

[01:09:18] Rebekah: such, I loved this. Like I just, I know we’re gonna talk about the specifics of it. Mm-hmm. But like. One of the things I like about this book, and actually the film in different reasons, is that it feels like something I’ve never read.

[01:09:29] Rebekah: It feels like something I’ve never heard of. Sure. And that is not something that is like said often because all, a lot of times, you know, you’re talking about stuff that’s just kind of retold stories. So I really like this and I love the biological organism. I love that it wrote words. It was just, the whole thing was just so like creepy and bizarre and all that.

[01:09:50] Rebekah: So really thought that was neat. 

[01:09:53] Donnna: Yeah. The creepy part, they, they did capture it for sure. I mean, I can’t, I can’t disagree with that. Right. [01:10:00] The team members realized that the tower is filled with a living organism and that the narrator dubs the crawler crawler. Dun huh. It creates words formed out of biological material all the way down one side of the tower’s walls.

[01:10:18] Donnna: And we’ve mentioned that a couple times, just how that’s how effective that was has been, or that was for us. The words are sort of nonsensical though. They do start to seem to vaguely reference events. The narrator recounts, 

[01:10:34] Tim: they also seem to reference biblical or pseudo biblical 

[01:10:40] mm-hmm. 

[01:10:41] Tim: Type, yeah. Yeah.

[01:10:42] Tim: Statements. So I, I have a question. Did they see the crawler in, in the book? Did they see the crawler? Writing these things and then walking away, or did they No, they, they like 

[01:10:56] Rebekah: put it together that that’s what was happening. Okay. 

[01:10:58] Tim: They, did they see the [01:11:00] crawler or just kind of the back of him when he was going out of sight or something?

[01:11:05] Tim: Because I don’t remember. I think he was the only one him saw the 

[01:11:08] Rebekah: crawler, but they like knew that he was right in front of them in some like, it was like implied, but it’s only later that she sees him, which we talk about in just a second. 

[01:11:18] Josiah: Okay. Well, yes, in just a second. What about right now after first entering the tower?

[01:11:25] Josiah: Sure. The crawler spits out some sort of fungal spores into Lena’s face. No. 

[01:11:35] Rebekah: I love that you and I both cast. 

[01:11:37] Josiah: Mm-hmm. 

[01:11:37] Rebekah: Sorry. 

[01:11:40] Josiah: She hides from the rest of the team, but it seems that these spores in the face allow the biologist to resist the psychologist’s attempts to hypnotize her. One of my favorite parts of the book.

[01:11:56] Josiah: Yeah. 

[01:11:57] Mm-hmm. Maybe, 

[01:11:58] Josiah: honestly, [01:12:00] it didn’t have as big of a payoff as I wanted it to have, but it was really cool when you first read it. 

[01:12:05] Rebekah: Yeah. Okay. So this structure is also the site of the psychologist’s supposed murder of the anthropologist, or at least she lets the anthropologist die as attempt as she makes her attempt to take samples.

[01:12:17] Rebekah: And this is the best lie I can kind of piece together. So after their first brief foray into the tower, I’m gonna call it the tower, ’cause that’s what Lena wants to call it. The team chooses to go back in later. It’s like late in the day or something. They wake up the next day, the anthropologist is gone.

[01:12:34] Rebekah: Lena goes back into the tower with the, what’s the other thing? The other person, non lingua. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Anthrop, uh, she goes, anthrop goes One anthropologist. No, the anthropologist is missing. Selena, the biologist goes, surveyor goes back in with the surveyor. Torn to shreds, they find the anthropologist and somehow melding into that living organism of the tower.

[01:12:56] Rebekah: And that’s when they put together, like something is going off with the psychologist. [01:13:00] And this is kind of when the, the, um, the hypnosis stuff kind of takes off because you then realize like that the psychologist is. Controlling them to an insane degree. And like Lena has already realized, like she’s not subject to it, but it starts to just like, take off so much and then the an or the surveyor starts to like doubt Lena and think that she it.

[01:13:20] Rebekah: So it just, it gets a little crazy 

[01:13:23] Tim: visually. I think this instance where she finds the anthropologist or or the surveyor torn, which is, which is that that’s been killed. Which one has been killed? That’s the anthropologist. The anthropologist. Mm-hmm. When she finds the anthropologist and they’re melding with the living into living organism of the tower, I think that’s visually what we see in the film when they’re in the former headquarters of the Southern reach and they discover the person who was part of the previous expedition.[01:14:00] 

[01:14:00] Tim: I think visually this is that interpretation that those are kind of connected visually. I think, um, especially since the director said he wasn’t writing basically a. Scene for scene kind of thing at all. Right. Well, the climax of the novel occurs as part of the tower when Lena has a bizarre and fever, dream fueled experience of traversing through the place and encounters the actual crawler of being made of light and sound.

[01:14:37] Tim: That’s very difficult to describe. This is when she notes that she sees the lighthouse keeper’s face in the crawler. The encounter causes her intense pain and disorientation for a time, like it was probing into her brain, but then the second time she sees it on her way back up, she doesn’t have the same painful experience.

[01:14:58] Tim: Um, kind of [01:15:00] like it’s learning her language or learning how to communicate with her. The first time was, was painful and invasive, and then later it knew what it could and couldn’t do. I don’t know. But part of it is, you know what happens, you know where the lighthouse keeper is in the book? That’s very, very important.

[01:15:19] Yes. In the 

[01:15:19] Tim: film you don’t get any real lighthouse indication about the lighthouse keeper, right? Yeah. All that, none of that. She doesn’t find, you know, there’s no tunnel, no tower, um, all of those things. So that part of the plot is missing in the film. 

[01:15:36] Donnna: Hmm. So let’s contrast the books Climax to the films climax.

[01:15:41] Donnna: Okay. In great contrast. Great. Uh, makes the whole thing this strange alien encounter. So that’s kind of the focus. Lena runs into the lighthouse alone to find a video recording of her husband [01:16:00] killing himself with a plasma grenade tear. 

[01:16:06] Rebekah: Or was a phosphorus, I thought he said plasma, but it could be something else.

[01:16:11] Rebekah: Yeah. Some 

[01:16:11] Josiah: P word. 

[01:16:12] Donnna: Um, then another one of him walking out from behind the camera thought that was pretty cool. Mm-hmm. Uh, this is when she realizes the husband who came back might not really be cane at all. And I was going, oh, really? Then, sorry. Then in the underground area beneath the lighthouse, Lena encounters interest in her final moments merging with and dying to the alien structure there.

[01:16:43] Tim: Hmm. As a note interest of the book actually dies by jumping from the lighthouse, and Lena encounters her briefly to hear her saying, annihilation in an attempt to trigger the biologist’s death as well. Um, that’s, that’s missing in the film. 

[01:16:59] Rebekah: Yeah. [01:17:00] Yeah. ’cause obviously as we talked about, they all changed the meaning of that.

[01:17:03] Rebekah: Yeah, yeah. After running from the alien that forms from Venter’s death, Lena is caught by that alien in the main lighthouse area. She discovers it will quote unquote mirror her like it mirrors her movements and actions. And she uses this to lead it to its own death at the hands of another grenade left behind in Kane’s bag.

[01:17:24] Rebekah: So Lena is managing to escape area X as we watch the fire from the grenade burn. Not only the alien but all of the biological matter, like the extra connected stuff that seemed to all be part of the same organism somehow. Um, and it like burst, it burns down the old, the odd glass like trees right outside of the lighthouse, like on the ocean and the shimmering barrier itself.

[01:17:50] Rebekah: ’cause when she gets back to the southern reach thing, uh, one of the things that that is said is that they had sent some people in and so now more people can go in and out. There’s not [01:18:00] like the same barrier issue. And they found that the lighthouse and everything around it was like burned down and all this stuff.

[01:18:05] Rebekah: So it now is like not a barrier there, which I feel like is kind of a, again, it’s, it’s not a bow, but it like kind of closes off. This is what has happened. It is the end of the movie basically. So did 

[01:18:18] Tim: everything that was part of the shimmer, the, the flower people, plants, the strange, the chains bean was all of that different.

[01:18:28] Tim: I dunno, that’s, did all of that go away? 

[01:18:29] Rebekah: No, I don’t know. Like they don’t show you and they kind of imply maybe, but it’s hard to tell. So I think some of that is still like an open question. 

[01:18:39] Josiah: But also as the movie comes to a close, we learn that Kane’s illness has abated immediately upon the barrier coming down.

[01:18:48] Josiah: So what does that mean? ’cause he’s basically definitely the doppelganger, 

[01:18:55] Rebekah: basically. Definitely. And 

[01:18:57] Josiah: there is a potential that the [01:19:00] real cane was behind the camera and his memory changes were due to the shimmer, not ’cause he’s a doppelganger, and that the one who exploded himself could be the doppelganger.

[01:19:09] Josiah: It just doesn’t seem as narratively likely. Yeah. So the fact that he survives means that not everything that came from the shimmer died, but also the fact that he immediately became less ill. 

[01:19:26] Mm-hmm. 

[01:19:26] Tim: Well, he was maybe as far as we know, he was dying and then suddenly he’s not, 

[01:19:34] Josiah: you know? Yeah. So what does, what does that mean as far as the shimmer being burnt up?

[01:19:44] Josiah: Anyway, there’s an encounter between him and Lena that suggests they may not be the real versions of those humans after all. Or even if Lena is not an alien clone of mold, Lena. She is [01:20:00] forever changed on the inside, whether it be the shimmers refraction of her DNA or something that’s inside of her, or even just the friends we made along the way.

[01:20:14] Rebekah: She has been 

[01:20:15] Tim: changed somehow. 

[01:20:17] Rebekah: It, it’s hard because like, I, I am sure that part of the reason that the director did it this way was to leave a question mark in some ways, but she like, looks at him and says, you’re not really Cain. And then does she say like, I’m not, maybe I’m not really Lena, or like something, and then their eyes do the shimmer thing.

[01:20:37] Rebekah: But again, we’ve kind of been built up in the whole thing where it’s not exactly that they’re not themselves. It’s that they merge with something else. And so I just didn’t know if I was supposed to take away from that, that like, oh, the aliens have come to take over the planet. Or if it was just like the aliens have enough of themselves in these two left.

[01:20:56] Rebekah: I don’t know. So I wasn’t 

[01:20:57] Tim: sure about that. It’s difficult when a movie ends [01:21:00] with a question that is ver that you can’t answer no matter how many times you watch it. Um, inception ended with the same kind of question. Don’t you think 

[01:21:12] Josiah: Inception did it correctly? 

[01:21:15] Tim: Well, mm-hmm. And what I, what I mean by that is, you know, I decided in my own brain that it meant that, you know, yes, he was back with his family, but.

[01:21:27] Tim: A lot of other people looked at the end of inception and said, oh, he’s still in a dream. That’s mm-hmm. That’s why it hasn’t fallen. Well, you can’t tell if it fell or not. So that’s a question. I get that. Mm-hmm. And you walk away and you have a question. This one just leaves you with a question, and I’m not sure you can come up with a, an answer that satisfies 

[01:21:49] Rebekah: For those of you who are new to the podcast, uh, the next couple of things we’re gonna do, we’re gonna cover some trivia so mom will share a little bit about how the film performed, when things are released, et cetera, [01:22:00] and then a couple of fun little facts that we find.

[01:22:02] Rebekah: Uh, so mom, would you like to tell us more? And then our final 

[01:22:05] Josiah: verdict will follow that. 

[01:22:07] Rebekah: Well, we do have a short, we have a couple reader or a couple listener questions today too, but Yes. Oh, listener 

[01:22:12] Josiah: questions. But I know what you’re all waiting for, the listener questions. And then second after that, the final verdict, right?

[01:22:20] Josiah: And tied for first and second is the trivia. 

[01:22:25] Donnna: Shameless plug, baby listeners, we love it when you ask us questions through our discord. Rebecca will give you some other, uh, ways to contact us if you are not familiar with those. But we love it when you talk with us and chat and, and, uh, question us. We just think that’s fantastic.

[01:22:43] Rebekah: We love it when you question us and when you tell us that we were wrong and all the, oh, 

[01:22:48] Donnna: yeah, that’s how we learn. We learn, we grow. Alright. Anyway, continue on to some, uh, some numbers trivia. The book release of [01:23:00] Annihilation, the beginning of the Southern Reach series was February 4th, 2014, the movie release.

[01:23:10] Donnna: And according to a movie phone.com article in February of 2018, a film loosely based on the novel Hmm, was released by Paramount in Feb on February 13th, 2018 at the Regency Village Theater in la. That was its premier. 

[01:23:29] Tim: That’s just four years after the book. 

[01:23:31] Donnna: Yes. And then on February 23rd, 2018 across the US and Canada, and then finally in the UK on March 12th, 2018.

[01:23:42] Rebekah: That, uh, March or the February date does make sense because I believe we saw it in 2018 when we were vacationing in Miami for my birthday a couple weeks after that. 

[01:23:51] Donnna: Uhhuh. Yeah. Pretty cool. Uh, book rating on Goodreads was 3.79 out of five, uh, [01:24:00] rotten Tomatoes gave this an 88% critics rating. Jesus. Hmm. Oh my, uh.

[01:24:09] Rebekah: I know you guys complain a lot. Hey, 

[01:24:12] Donnna: I thought we were allowed to say, we really thought are I stuff complain about some movies? So it’s, I’d like some, there’s been some good stuff. There has been True. True. I’m DB gave it a 6.8 out of 10. Flicker Flixter audience score was 67. I mean, it’s still fresh but low.

[01:24:33] Donnna: Not, not what the critics thought. Uh, the production cost of the film, 40 million the opening weekend. And it did come out with at the same time as, uh, like I know Game Night and um, oh, I should have written down. There was one other notable One Game Night came out the same time, 

[01:24:51] Tim: which I think was a sleeper film.

[01:24:53] Tim: I think it’s one of those they released at that time. 

[01:24:56] Donnna: Yeah. 

[01:24:57] Tim: And unexpectedly did so well. I think there was [01:25:00] another one several years before that that stayed at the theater for a long time. 

[01:25:04] Yeah. 

[01:25:04] Tim: And they, it was in that time period they did another one. They didn’t expect to do anything, but it did really well.

[01:25:10] Donnna: Mm-hmm. Um, then, uh, production costs 40 million opening weekend, 11 million. Then the USA Canada gross overall 32.7 million. The international gross 10.3 million bringing us to an international box office. Take a 43 million. So somehow critics liked it. The audience that rated it liked it, maybe a little less, but still liked it, but it only made $3 million more than its production cost.

[01:25:48] Donnna: I, I, I don’t get this, which is, 

[01:25:50] Rebekah: it’s not a problem with the quality of the movie. And I mean, I obviously, it’s kind a polarizing movie as we’re discovering, but it’s not a problem with the quality of the movie. It’s a problem with the [01:26:00] quality of the marketing Josiah has made. Yeah. Multiple points about that.

[01:26:04] Rebekah: I think it’s true. 

[01:26:05] Mm-hmm. 

[01:26:06] Josiah: I do think that the studio might have had an okay point about the movie, this movie and pre screenings. It’s quite a depressing, cynical movie. It doesn’t make you, there’s not a lot to feel good about at the end of the movie, which coming from me, I mean, do I care that much? It was just such an existentially, dreadful movie.

[01:26:28] Josiah: I, I would see this and it was like, oh, it’s so weird. But I don’t necessarily want my friends and family to also experience the strange existential dread 

[01:26:39] Donnna: Yeah. 

[01:26:39] Josiah: Comes from it. So I don’t know about the word of mouth. 

[01:26:42] Donnna: Yeah. Um, it was rated r and i we had, we had mentioned that before they filmed in South Forest, Windsor Great Park near Surrey and Berkshire in England and Holcomb Pines, which is a village or a, it’s civil [01:27:00] parish in Norfolk County, England.

[01:27:02] Donnna: So I could see that with the, with the, that, those areas of England. I could see that in the. The landscape of the film is pretty, it was beautiful, honestly. Mm-hmm. 

[01:27:14] Tim: Oh, I think it should have, should have won some awards for visual effects, I think. Oh yeah. I think some of the visual effects were absolutely amazing.

[01:27:21] Tim: So it’s not that they didn’t put any effort into the movie. Um, yeah, by far now I have, I have something to admit here since, you know, we’ve, well, we’ve read the book. We’ve, we’ve watched the movie and I recently watched the movie, but when we first put this on, I thought this was the Amy Adams film Arrival, arrival.

[01:27:45] Tim: Um, I looked it up to see which one it was, because it’s a sim it has some similarities. Oh, they feel similar. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it’s also based on 

[01:27:53] Rebekah: a book. 

[01:27:53] Tim: Yeah. And leading woman thought in sci-fi. I thought that was it. Um, and so when Natalie Portman was in the movie, I’m [01:28:00] like, wait a minute, this is not what I thought it was.

[01:28:02] Tim: So the whole time I was listening to the book, I was v visualizing Amy Adams as the, the role. That’s so funny. So yeah. So 

[01:28:11] Donnna: podcast trivia. What movie did Rebecca confuse with? Fargo? Rebecca can’t answer. Oh, 

[01:28:20] Rebekah: I will 

[01:28:21] Josiah: not answer. That makes sense. 

[01:28:25] Tim: Margo, one of the ones we did recently. I remember. 

[01:28:28] Rebekah: It was not recent.

[01:28:29] Rebekah: It was very early. Was it? Were a little, little upset with me because, no, we covered it on the podcast. We covered 

[01:28:35] Donnna: it on the podcast. The 

[01:28:38] Josiah: Shining. Shining. 

[01:28:40] Donnna: Yeah. That was, and then 

[01:28:42] Josiah: Charlotte didn’t know that Fargo was a comedy like a week ago. We were talking about it. Oh, wow. It’s a dark comedy, but it’s, well, 

[01:28:50] Donnna: Rebecca got the similar genres.

[01:28:52] Donnna: Right. At least, you know. Yeah. That’s, that’s something. 

[01:28:55] Tim: Well, I did, I did connect it to Aliens, female lead, you know? [01:29:00] Yeah, yeah. Story happenings. 

[01:29:03] Josiah: The funny thing about Fargo, I, I think of Fargo as the, one of the first brazen examples of the filmmakers just saying, this is a true story, and it’s totally not.

[01:29:17] Josiah: Yeah. It just says at the beginning of the film. Yeah. This is based on true events. The names have been changed. 

[01:29:22] Rebekah: Why do you have to say that? Names have 

[01:29:24] Tim: been changed to protect the innocent dragnet. 

[01:29:27] Josiah: Yes. And the idea for that was ’cause the happenings in the plot are so absurd. 

[01:29:34] Mm-hmm. 

[01:29:34] Josiah: The writers wanted to make the audience believe that they really happened because life is stranger than fiction, and they could get away with some crazy stuff happening.

[01:29:44] Josiah: Yeah. Unrealistically true. But, uh, also, arrival might’ve been my favorite movie that year, I think 2014. That was an amazing 2016. Mm-hmm. 

[01:29:54] Tim: I just looked it up. 

[01:29:55] Josiah: Oh. Mm-hmm. 

[01:29:58] Rebekah: Huh. 

[01:29:58] Josiah: I didn’t, I didn’t remember it [01:30:00] being, 

[01:30:00] Rebekah: oh, he’s good at trivia like that, so he normally isn’t wrong. I was like, that’s true. 

[01:30:04] Tim: I just happened to look it up.

[01:30:07] Rebekah: It 

[01:30:07] Tim: was funny. Wow. I’m not usually the one that’s looking things up. 20, 

[01:30:11] Josiah: I was about to say. ’cause 2014 I loved Birdman, which won the Oscar. Yeah. 2016 Arrival might’ve been my favorite movie that year. Great movie. Hey, Rebecca, wouldn’t there? What kinda trivia you were coming up with you and mom? Oh yeah. 

[01:30:27] Rebekah: So I did find one thing, the book Annihilation is also mentioned in at least a P one peer review viewed article.

[01:30:32] Rebekah: The one I found was in 2022, about how sci-fi can be used to communicate about topics like climate change. Two readers who prefer reading fiction and might not read nonfiction, um, about them. So I honestly, like, I don’t know that I would’ve ever picked up on that because I, well, I tend to read things for their face value.

[01:30:51] Rebekah: I’m not like a big, oh, look at the themes, although I’m trying to get better at that. Um, well in the book, 

[01:30:57] Tim: it was in the book though. It’s, it’s unclear [01:31:00] what caused it. So I could see VanderMeer may have wanted it to be less clear. The movie makes it very clear there’s an asteroid or something that hits the earth and everything happens from there.

[01:31:12] Rebekah: Yeah. And in, in terms of the actual climate change topic, um, he has, so I have the 10th anniversary ones. Dad got them, dad and mom got them for me for Christmas. They’re these really cool, if you haven’t seen these in like Barnes and Noble, you need to, ’cause I don’t know if you can tell, but the shimmery part on the animal’s really cool.

[01:31:28] Rebekah: Beautiful, um, beautiful. But there is a new forward, or what do they call it? Uh. Introduction Breakfast. Oh. Uh, by Karen Joy Fowler. I don’t know who that is, but this was written for the 10th anniversary edition. She mentions like the impact of the series and she talks about how it was written by VanderMeer as a commentary on climate change or something.

[01:31:50] Rebekah: So they like, I think that they wanted to emphasize that more as they continued the series or like as they did the 10th anniversary stuff. Yeah. It’s the best guess so. 

[01:31:59] Tim: Well, in February [01:32:00] of 2018, director Garland said in a Google Talks discussion is in this adaptation instance. It was like an adaptation of the atmosphere in a cnet, uh, podcast.

[01:32:14] Tim: Garland posited that it was a memory of the book rather than book referenced screenwriting. Uh, he was drawing the adaptation more from his experience of reading the novel, uh, than he was trying to create a faithful adaptation. 

[01:32:32] Rebekah: That’s so interesting. I don’t know how much involvement VanderMeer had with it, but can you imagine being an author and somebody being like, I wanna make a movie outta your stuff, and then you being expected to like sign on the dotted line when they tell you, I don’t really care about what it was about what you said.

[01:32:46] Rebekah: It was about, I’m just gonna do my best to just remember what I felt reading it. 

[01:32:50] Tim: Yeah. I got a feeling and I wanna create a movie about that feeling. 

[01:32:53] Donnna: I’m telling it’s strange choice. 

[01:32:57] Tim: Yes, definitely. My theory 

[01:32:58] Donnna: is becoming more and more believable, [01:33:00] just saying, just saying. 

[01:33:03] Josiah: There was some production drama, I think all along the same vein that after a test screening produced less than Great Results, Hollywood Reporter stated that Skydance producer David Ellison, was concerned that the film would be too intellectual, too complicated.

[01:33:24] Josiah: Ellison wanted changes. These including, uh, Portman’s main character being written to be more sympathetic. Uh, a rewrite of the ending. But, uh, the producer, Scott Rudin having the final say So over changes sided with Director Garland. The result, a deal was struck with Netflix to stream the film worldwide, starting March 12th in 2018, just one month after the theatrical release.

[01:33:58] Josiah: I mean, [01:34:00] barely one month. That’s cra uh, the theatrical release in the UK was like that same week. It was the same day. Uh, Garland said in a, uh, complex media article that he was disappointed with the decision, uh, to stream on Netflix a month after, ’cause the film was made for the cinema. You know, you should have worked with Tom Cruise.

[01:34:23] Josiah: Mm-hmm. Perhaps, or Scarlet O Hanson even. Yeah. 

[01:34:26] Rebekah: Yeah. Man, that’s such an interesting thing, especially pre COVID. Like thinking about the reasons that things would’ve gone straight to streaming. My thing is, I guess it’s like the performance at the box office was so abysmal that they decided to do that.

[01:34:39] Rebekah: Right. But like, 

[01:34:40] Josiah: how much? But this was before, this was before it released. 

[01:34:44] Tim: But see, years they agreed, but years and years before this event, it was the death nail of a movie. If they said, well, we’re gonna release it as a made for TV movie, even if it Yeah. Wasn’t initially made [01:35:00] for tv, we think it will probably do better on tv.

[01:35:04] Tim: ’cause it won’t hold an audience. Mm-hmm. At the theater doesn’t have the expectations of the cinema. Yeah. 

[01:35:10] Donnna: And this, this isn’t the first film where there’s been conflicts before, before things were released about what, what direction are we gonna go or what do we think this is gonna do? Uh, even back to um, uh, oh, it was just in, I just had it.

[01:35:29] Donnna: Um, well, one of the, we just finished the Chronicles of Narnia and at least one of those films, they were looking at it, saying, uh, are we gonna do this with it? How’s this doing? Mm-hmm. And then, but with that, ultimately. The rights to the, to the film that, or the rights to the novels that while the media had expired.

[01:35:50] Donnna: So it kind of forced the decision. But I think I, I recall several discussions we’ve had where one faction and it all had, it all [01:36:00] goes back to money, right? One faction that had some interest in it said, oh, we think this, and, and, and then they make, make decisions and some of them pay off and others don’t.

[01:36:11] Josiah: I was just gonna say about the changes that they wanted to make. I don’t know if Natalie Portman needed to be more sympathetic. She begins the movie thinking she’s lost her husband, and then she seems to be willing to do anything to save her husband’s life. So I think that she’s good on Save the Cat.

[01:36:29] Josiah: Likability, relatability. Um, the ending might have changed, uh, to benefit the movie. Here’s my question. So we want characters to succeed at their goals, and maybe they succeed in a surprising way, or maybe they fail in a surprising way, but still learn a lesson. 

[01:36:50] Mm-hmm. 

[01:36:51] Josiah: The ending of the film. What did Natalie Portman gain?

[01:36:56] Tim: Well, if she was the doppelganger, she [01:37:00] gained her husband, and it’s okay that he’s a doppelganger. Um, and if she’s 

[01:37:04] Josiah: not a doppelganger, sh her doppelganger husband was saved, and maybe she has to decide. Whether or not to live with the husband she thought she wanted. Yeah. 

[01:37:16] Tim: Mm-hmm. Does. But if, you know, the other, the other part is if, if she’s now the, the alien, the doppelganger, then the goal has been to invade the planet and now they have that and nobody knows.

[01:37:36] Josiah: Yeah. 

[01:37:38] Donnna: Interesting. That’s, 

[01:37:40] Tim: that’s depressing. Yeah. Yes, it is. There are other movies I’ve seen throughout time, especially science fiction has a tendency to do this. Um, I would consider this more hard science fiction. Um, some of the, some of the superhero movies, movies, we’ve watched some of the spacey kind of movies, uh, that’s science [01:38:00] fiction, but hard science fiction asks difficult questions and kinda leaves them up in the air.

[01:38:08] Tim: And the thing that for VanderMeer the book, uh, had to do with climate change for him, that that would be common for, for, uh, hard science fiction. Mm-hmm. To ask big questions and then just kind of leave it wide open and let you decide. So, 

[01:38:24] Donnna: uh, I had a couple of, of questions for the crew. Just a little, um, alter, like cream mini game, mini game.

[01:38:35] Donnna: Mm-hmm. Uh. Part one. Does anyone know the film that Oscar Isaac was filming at the same time? He was on the set for Annihilation? He actually had the same trailer. Isaac, don’t you Google that answer? Not movie trailer. Same dressing trailer. He was in his, his trailer? Yeah. His dressing trailer was the [01:39:00] same for both films.

[01:39:01] Donnna: They were filming on lots beside each other and sometimes he ended up shooting scenes for both works on the same day. So just looking at the, the day, here’s what I know about Oscar 

[01:39:11] Rebekah: Isaac. He was in Annihilation and he was in Dune. 

[01:39:15] Donnna: He was, he was been a few others. 

[01:39:18] Rebekah: That’s literally what I know. That’s the 

[01:39:19] Josiah: entire, the Star Wars.

[01:39:21] Josiah: He sequel, trilogy 

[01:39:22] Donnna: War. Okay. He was 

[01:39:23] Josiah: also apocalypse in that horrible X-Men movie. I’m gonna guess it was the Apocalypse movie. 

[01:39:30] Donnna: Okay. Any other guesses? Mm. 

[01:39:34] Tim: It’s too early for Dune, isn’t it? 

[01:39:36] Donnna: Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

[01:39:37] Rebekah: Was it, wait, hold on. You said using a Star Wars one, was it that? No, that was different timing. 

[01:39:44] Donnna: Uh, you’re all around.

[01:39:45] Donnna: It was Star Wars eight the Last Jedi. 

[01:39:49] Josiah: Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. I guess that came out. In 2017, the year before Annihilation. Yeah. But only like five or six months before Annihilation. 

[01:39:59] Donnna: Yeah. I thought it [01:40:00] was, I did think it was interesting that he had to go back and forth. Uh, I mean, good use of his time, I guess.

[01:40:06] Donnna: Alright. Part two, three stars of Annihilation were in other, uh, a, in the alien realm of the MCU, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, and Benedict Wong. Can you name the roles that they played in which films? Yes. 

[01:40:24] Rebekah: Oh, okay. I actually know the answer to at least one of these. 

[01:40:28] Josiah: Which one? You know? 

[01:40:29] Rebekah: Yeah. What’s the one?

[01:40:29] Rebekah: I know two of them. So Tessa Thompson. 

[01:40:33] Josiah: That’s the one you is in? 

[01:40:34] Rebekah: No, that’s funny. Ragnar Rock. I, well, I recognized her when I was watching the movie last night. Wow. That’s 

[01:40:39] Tim: the one I don’t know. 

[01:40:40] Rebekah: Yeah, she was, she’s Anya in Annihilation. So she is the, I don’t know her name, but she’s in Thor Ragner Rock as the hardcore person that like the Hulk has become friends with.

[01:40:50] Rebekah: She’s one of the Valkyrie. Oh, she’s one of the Valkyries? Yeah. My sub name. It might be 

[01:40:53] Josiah: Valkyrie. 

[01:40:54] Rebekah: She must, must literally be named Valkyrie. And then my sub name was Benedict Wong. 

[01:40:58] Donnna: Yeah. 

[01:40:59] Rebekah: Oh, 

[01:40:59] Josiah: oh. 

[01:40:59] Rebekah: [01:41:00] And then Benedict Wong. I’ll say this one. ’cause I never know movie trivia, so I’m just gonna take advantage of this situation.

[01:41:06] Rebekah: Uh, Benedict Wong is in, uh, doc Dr. Strange. Yes. And he’s one of the guys that teaches him magic, right? 

[01:41:16] Mm-hmm. 

[01:41:17] Rebekah: He’s one of the other magician’s, keepers or whatever. Yeah. Grease. He’s in the like main organization. 

[01:41:22] Josiah: Yeah. Natalie Portman is in Thor one, two and four. One, two and five. Oh yeah, because she’s, 

[01:41:31] Rebekah: he was in love with her or something.

[01:41:32] Rebekah: Oh yeah. Yes. 

[01:41:33] Josiah: In the first two and she, she becomes the fifth one, she becomes Thor. Thor, not she. Thor. 

[01:41:39] Rebekah: That’s a different 

[01:41:40] Donnna: thing I guess. Thor, she’s 

[01:41:41] Josiah: just Thor. 

[01:41:43] Donnna: Yeah. 

[01:41:43] Josiah: Other Thor. Excellent. 

[01:41:45] Donnna: That’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you guys and our first video on, uh, recording and you get the questions. 

[01:41:52] Rebekah: Yay. I actually knew a movie thing.

[01:41:54] Rebekah: I saw Fantastic Thor this weekend and I thought it was really, or. Uh, on Thursday, and I thought it [01:42:00] was actually not bad. Like, I don’t dunno if you’ve seen it. I really liked, 

[01:42:02] Josiah: I really liked it. It, 

[01:42:03] Rebekah: it made me want to go back and watch the Marvel movies again for the first time in a while. Like most of the newer ones make me go, Ugh.

[01:42:10] Rebekah: I missed 

[01:42:11] Tim: one they’ve made in a little while. 

[01:42:13] Rebekah: Very 

[01:42:13] Josiah: true. It made me wanna re in Credibles. 

[01:42:15] Rebekah: Oh, the Psar film. I, I keep wanting to call him Mr. Incredible. And I’m like, no, that’s a different thing. So yeah. Um, we did have a couple of reader questions that I thought or not reader. Sorry. Listen, our questions, who they are, 

[01:42:29] they 

[01:42:29] Rebekah: are readers, but we don’t Oh, yes, yes.

[01:42:31] Rebekah: You know, they read in that way. I guess they can read. All right, so the first one is from Deborah, one of our incredibly loyal fans. I love her. I bet she’s really pretty. I’m sure she is. Uh, what is something you all did or said individually in your young years that as a family, you now good naturedly never let each other live down.

[01:42:53] Rebekah: For instance, Omaha. And she says, I know for instance, when I was a kid, I thought feta cheese was cheddar cheese and [01:43:00] honeysuckle was honey suckers. My mom once got mad at my brothers when we were travel because they forgot to bring socks and she went running into the room his saying, you forgot your socks.

[01:43:11] Rebekah: So those are adorable. Um, mine is definitely Omaha. Like I thought that Omaha was a state, the state in my defense because of Omaha State Mutual. Why would you say Omaha State if Omaha’s not a state? I just didn’t understand how that works. That’s mine. Yeah. 

[01:43:27] Tim: Well, um, both of you, both of you were allowed to say boetti for a lot longer than you should have.

[01:43:36] Tim: Um, because we s skis, uh, because we, you know, we were very, we were very picky with you in language. We wanted to make sure that you spoke correctly, uh, very early. And so there were a few things that we said, eh, let’s let that one go because it was 

[01:43:52] Rebekah: cute. 

[01:43:53] Tim: Yeah. 

[01:43:54] Rebekah: Well, a proud mom. What about, yeah, what 

[01:43:55] Tim: about you?

[01:43:56] Tim: Me specifically? Yeah. Um, what do 

[01:43:59] Rebekah: we make fun of you [01:44:00] for? Breaking everything. Leaving, 

[01:44:01] Tim: leaving my 5-year-old son at the gas station. Um, he wasn’t five yet. 

[01:44:08] Donnna: He was four and a half. Four 

[01:44:09] Tim: and a half. Okay. We’ve done the mass. It’s 

[01:44:11] Donnna: burned into the memory. Yeah. I’m sorry that you 

[01:44:13] Tim: guys never let me forget. 

[01:44:14] Donnna: So mine would be this.

[01:44:16] Donnna: Um, I mean, I don’t know that, I mean, I guess you pick on me for things here and there or whatever, but what first came to my mind was my dad, as long as I even into way into adulthood, my dad had a couple of nicknames for me and one was jabber walkie because I might like to talk a little bit and because my brother and mother were hermits, they hardly ever talked.

[01:44:47] Donnna: So somebody had to fill space. Right. Uh, he called me Jabber walkie and puddles. I didn’t know until I was an adult. Adult [01:45:00] why he called me puddles. And he said it was because when I was a little kid and I was out playing, this is before I was in school, so just don’t, don’t judge me. Okay. But if, if I had to, if I had to go pee, I’d just stand in the yard and just pee.

[01:45:23] Donnna: And he actually called me and I never knew it until I was an adult. I never knew why he called me that. And I didn’t remember that ’cause I was a little toddler. 

[01:45:32] Josiah: Goodness. Okay, baby listeners, if it makes it any better. She did live in West Virginia, which I feel like is a sort of thing you might expect my nickname Virginia to do.

[01:45:43] Donnna: We were all unhinged. Just that’s, I don’t know what else to say about it. If we have any listeners 

[01:45:47] Tim: in West Virginia, that’s not an indictment on people from West Virginia, so, or 

[01:45:54] Josiah: it’s just an indictment on us. Yeah. All the three of us were born in West Virginia. 

[01:45:58] Donnna: I really don’t want this cut [01:46:00] from the video even.

[01:46:00] Donnna: It may, even though it makes me seem like a complete, uh, insane lunatic. No, but yeah. Uh, my dad. Yeah, but you did 

[01:46:08] Josiah: that when you were four. Yeah. You’re an insane lunatic. 

[01:46:12] Donnna: But I will say, oh, I, I’m not embarrassed by it. I can’t change it. 

[01:46:15] Josiah: Well, it’s Travis who most often roasts me for this, but I. He rightly makes fun of me because I do not add tomato to my McChicken since I started paying for McChickens myself.

[01:46:33] Josiah: And he says, what is it, 30 cents? And I said, it’s 40 cents now. Which is so much worse. So yeah. 

[01:46:43] Tim: Travis and your sister have always been on you about that. Oh, I’m, yeah. I 

[01:46:47] Rebekah: am judging you. I’m not, yes. That you’re trying to pretend I’m not. Rebecca 

[01:46:50] Tim: has called at times and said, tell your son that it’s okay to spend the extra money for the tomato.

[01:46:58] Tim: There’s no reason that he [01:47:00] can’t spend the extra money for the tomato. It saves money. And 

[01:47:03] Donnna: what’s my answer? He’s the only one of us that has a savings account. 

[01:47:08] Rebekah: Let’s just 

[01:47:08] Donnna: get 

[01:47:09] Rebekah: real. Some saved money finally. Oh, good. Congratulations. In the last year. Good. Congratulations. 

[01:47:16] Josiah: Do you have any in retirement? 

[01:47:19] Rebekah: What?

[01:47:19] Josiah: Do you have retirement? 

[01:47:21] Rebekah: No, I own a house and that will be my retirement savings. 

[01:47:25] Josiah: Oh, okay. And I’ll make lots 

[01:47:26] Rebekah: of money. I’m trying to make more and more money every year. Josiah. Okay. Yes. All of, and you’ll keep making 

[01:47:31] Josiah: money when you’re retired. I have enough money in my retirement to live for a year. 

[01:47:36] Rebekah: I’m working on creating businesses that create wealth for me long after I have to stop working at those businesses.

[01:47:41] Josiah: Yes. Awesome. So I am working on that. You’ll still hold wealth in them, 

[01:47:44] Donnna: correct? Mm-hmm. And all the financial advisors just had breakdowns over what we’re saying right now. Okie. Do get 

[01:47:49] Rebekah: over. I spend all of that extra cash I make on books. 

[01:47:53] Tim: Speaking of financial things and food, the food that it buys, uh, what’s a weird food [01:48:00] combo that you enjoy that no one understands for our reader?

[01:48:05] Tim: Listener? Uh, it is cottage cheese and pizza. 

[01:48:09] Rebekah: And this was a question that from Chris. That’s, that’s Chris Un username. The untapped? Yes. I think, uh, I’m trying to remember what his thing is on Instagram. He does have a book Instagram account that I’m happy to link to in the Awesome, in the little episode description.

[01:48:22] Rebekah: Yeah. Food. 

[01:48:23] Donnna: Food combo is the cottage cheese and pizza. Yes. Chris’s. Yeah. 

[01:48:26] Rebekah: Okay. I think that we all have the exact same one. So I’m gonna count to three. And then after three when we would normally clap, we should say it together to see if it is the same thing. I still don’t know what mine is. It’s the one thing Josh makes fun of us.

[01:48:41] Rebekah: ’cause all of us like it and everyone else thinks that we’re lunatics. Hmm, 

[01:48:45] Tim: that’s true. So this is plan. I wouldn’t have said it, but I understand. 

[01:48:48] Rebekah: Josiah, do you know what I’m talking about? 

[01:48:51] Josiah: I, I will say an idea that I have. 

[01:48:53] Rebekah: Okay. That’s fine. All right. After 3, 1 2, 3. Liver [01:49:00] pud sandwich. Okay. Seriously. 

[01:49:03] Tim: That’s hilarious what you guys all 

[01:49:05] Rebekah: said.

[01:49:05] Rebekah: Liver mush, which I also love. Did and Josh also hates 

[01:49:08] Josiah: that. Yeah. What did you say? Banana liver mush. I 

[01:49:10] Rebekah: mayonnaise sandwich. Oh, I was thinking that. Yeah. 

[01:49:13] Josiah: Liver mush mayonnaise, banana mayonnaise. That’s delicious. 

[01:49:15] Rebekah: Yeah, both of those things are delicious and everyone else thinks we’re nuts and I don’t care what they think because they’re stupid and they don’t get it.

[01:49:21] Tim: I have, I have two, other than other than that I guess, but, you know, cottage cheese and, and bacon bits. That for me, I like that that actually does kind of, I feel like that 

[01:49:31] Rebekah: sounds good. Yeah. And then, I don’t know, we were all, and then 

[01:49:34] Tim: I do, I do something that my grandfather did with, with eggs and grits. I take a, an over medium egg and bacon or sausage and chop it up in grits and eat it all together.

[01:49:47] Tim: My wife thinks it looks like slop. Are you doing? 

[01:49:50] Rebekah: Oh, she doesn’t like it. I was like, what is that cover in her mouth for? 

[01:49:53] Josiah: Wait, like an over medium egg and grits. I had that for breakfast yesterday with, it’s delicious. With the meat [01:50:00] sausage or all mix mixed together, like aall mixed 

[01:50:01] Rebekah: soup on a plate. Oh my gosh.

[01:50:03] Rebekah: In a bowl, when you describe it like that, it’s so much worse. 

[01:50:08] Josiah: I don’t, I also add a slice of Swiss cheese and some bacon biscuit. Yes. Often. Cheese. 

[01:50:13] Donnna: Cheese. I’ve seen his grandfather, his, his mother’s dad. I saw his grandfather eat it in with, uh, he put jelly in it and I, I, everything was on the table. He just threw on the plate and I was like.

[01:50:27] Donnna: I’m gonna have a nervous break game right now, 

[01:50:29] Tim: so I don’t remember seeing the jelly, but that’s okay. 

[01:50:31] Rebekah: Okay. Last one. And this person also has a, uh, bookstagram account I’m happy to link to in the mm-hmm. In the 

[01:50:38] Donnna: episode description. Yeah. This is another one that, that, uh, like our, one of our former guest hosts Nathan, I kind of think of as kind of another grandson.

[01:50:48] Donnna: So, 

[01:50:49] Rebekah: yeah. This is not Who asked the question though? 

[01:50:51] Donnna: Seth? 

[01:50:52] Rebekah: Seth asked the question. Not 

[01:50:53] Donnna: Nathan. That’s who I’m talking about. I said, but like Nathan, another one wife. 

[01:50:56] Rebekah: Oh, 

[01:50:57] Donnna: Seth, I’m sorry. I 

[01:50:58] Rebekah: thought you were saying you thought Seth and Nathan were the [01:51:00] same person. I was like, oh, 

[01:51:02] Donnna: I know. They, they’re different.

[01:51:03] Donnna: Sorry. I’m sure 

[01:51:04] Josiah: they would both be complimented by that. Mm-hmm. 

[01:51:07] Donnna: I hope so. 

[01:51:07] Josiah: Or at least Nathan. 

[01:51:08] Rebekah: That’s probably true. One of, no, I mean that both of them will be complimented is true. Yes. Yes. 

[01:51:14] Donnna: So, reader, uh, our reader. Question last one is, have you guys done a, a recording on the worst movie you’ve ever seen yet?

[01:51:28] Donnna: Let me start. Probably the worst movie I’ve ever seen is an animated film and there’s no book made after it. And I’m so thankful because Jesus help us, uh, dole that that was marketed to be this weird animated Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings. Adventure thing. And it wa it was so horrific. And I would say an honorable mention would be, we have 

[01:51:58] Josiah: to watch it again though.

[01:51:59] Donnna: We do not have to [01:52:00] watch it again. No, we don’t. I would say an honorable mention would be the first avatar. So, 

[01:52:07] Rebekah: and that’s not based on a book, so unfortunately we haven’t covered that. I guess Boohoo, I think that it’s funny that you guys have all seen Dole and I haven’t ’cause you watched it after I’d gone off to college.

[01:52:18] Rebekah: Yeah. The three of you have seen, I don’t know anything about Dole. Don’t, um, I am trying to think of what is the worst movie I’ve ever seen. I would say Fog by the one with Tom. What’s his face was really bad. Like I, it was on our first date that we went to see that. Um, but I don’t think it’s based on a book.

[01:52:36] Rebekah: It might be the Fog anyway. Uh, but I will say we recently covered Artemis Foul and that definitely was up there for the worst garbage movie I’ve ever seen. So we did cover that. It was hard. 

[01:52:46] Donnna: Yeah, it was hard. You have an honorable mention too. Gone girl. 

[01:52:52] Rebekah: That wasn’t a bad movie. I really liked the movie.

[01:52:55] Rebekah: The book. It was, the book was so distressing. Feel gross. [01:53:00] Gotcha. 

[01:53:00] Tim: Well, for me, you know, if it, especially if it’s something that, that we likely would cover or whatever. Mm-hmm. Um, Artemis Fowl is, is certainly way up there because I loved the book. Mm-hmm. And I read the series and all of that. Um, but. It was a very bad, uh, adaptation.

[01:53:23] Tim: Um, I’ve seen worse movies than Artemis Fowl. Um, things that you leave the theater and you’re like, what was that? I don’t know. So they’re not always based on books, but, uh, yeah, that’s, that’s probably where I am. 

[01:53:43] Josiah: Last. Airbender mom, I assume when you say the first avatar film you meant the last Airbender?

[01:53:48] Josiah: Uh, 

[01:53:48] Donnna: no, I meant James. Oh, the Blue avatar. James Cameron. Yeah. What, well, 

[01:53:52] Josiah: avatar the last Airbender is probably what? 

[01:53:55] Rebekah: Okay. I can’t Go ahead. Whatever. Go ahead. 

[01:53:59] Josiah: It’s very [01:54:00] silly. And the last Airbender probably the most offensively bad movie of all time for me. Just because the source material, which is not a book, but it is, uh, adapted from source material is one of the most enduring, uh, TV shows of all time, especially in like animated children’s shows.

[01:54:20] Josiah: Probably the best ever Avatar last Airbender. But it’s not a book. One of the wor, I mean, Artemis Fowls definitely up there. I think The Hobbit trilogy has gotta be one of the worst ever book to movie adaptations. And we have covered that. 

[01:54:34] Yeah, 

[01:54:35] Donnna: that’s true. Uh, and an honorable mention for you would be the 2001.

[01:54:42] Donnna: They kinda said it was a movie, planet of the Apes. With Mark Wahlberg. Oh 

[01:54:49] Josiah: gosh. Is that even a movie? That was, you 

[01:54:51] Rebekah: said it was not. 

[01:54:52] Josiah: So, 

[01:54:53] Donnna: yeah, I guess maybe that, that’s why it wasn’t in your memory, because you didn’t consider Yeah. Um, baby Listener. If, [01:55:00] if I will say Planet of the Apes for that reason, is one of our most engaging episodes because poor Josiah just comes unhinged every time we mention that.

[01:55:12] Donnna: Uh mm-hmm. Kind of adaptation. He some, something different. He refused, refused to call it a movie, which was the funniest part. Mm-hmm. Gotcha. 

[01:55:21] Rebekah: All right. Well, uh, we should probably go over final verdicts. It has been the longest episode in history. Uh, I hope you’re having fun. So I say that all to say let’s keep our verdicts short, but I believe in you.

[01:55:35] Donnna: Uh, I’ll be, I’ll be very short. I was okay with the book. I didn’t mind the book. I thought similar to, similar to the way Narnia books, the three that we covered, similar to the way that they were short, but they covered a lot of, they had a lot of interesting things in them. I kind of felt the same way about this different topic and genre and all that, but I felt [01:56:00] like I, I liked what happened.

[01:56:02] Donnna: I thought it was interesting, their personality differences and how they dealt with each other, and the things that happened inside and the way, you know, it all came out. But I, I just had a very. Just, I just did not, the movie Distress Me. It didn’t the first time we saw it. Maybe it was because it was so different from the book and I was expecting that I was, because it’s been a while since we’ve seen it.

[01:56:28] Donnna: I, I don’t even know what to say, but I can just tell you, Lord, have mercy. I, I, I just complained to your dad all night and I felt bad because he didn’t dislike it. But, you know, it wasn’t his favorite movie, but I was just, but so I’m gonna say book. I would give the book a, a six, six and a half. Um, I might listen to it again if I decided just to, to read through the series to see what it, see where it played out.

[01:56:55] Donnna: Like where it goes. Yeah, see where it goes. Uh, the movie, I mean, [01:57:00] I liked Oscar Isaac. I’ll give it a 2.5, I guess. I don’t know. Um, so there you go. 

[01:57:09] Tim: I can go next. Um, I will give the, the book, uh, seven. It was not my favorite kind of book, but I, but it was interesting. It was strange. I’ll give the movie a six because although the movie was strange and was not really like the book, there were some visual things in it that were amazing and wonderful for the filmmaker.

[01:57:31] Tim: So that’s my, my verdict. 

[01:57:36] Josiah: I’m on a similar wavelength. I’m on a similar refracted radio wave perhaps to dad. To Dad, Tim. I think, uh, books book seven, movie six, somewhere around that. For me, the movie had me in the middle. I like the expedition better. Staying longer with the other people and seeing the little ways they might [01:58:00] go insane this way or that way work, try and work together than they work against one another.

[01:58:05] Josiah: And like the creepy bear and the creepy crocodile, I thought that those completely, um, worked with the themes of the book. They didn’t take away, they were additions that were not only visually exciting, but also they contributed to the world and the themes. So the, I don’t wanna say beginning, but like Natalie Portman in the Southern Reach, I think it’s called Before the Expedition.

[01:58:33] Josiah: It’s kinda weird to me. It feels small. It feels unimportant. Mm-hmm. It feels sudden. Uh, and then the ending is, is a little cynical. I like that she outsmarts the alien and burns, I, I heard someone compare it to the Alien. Mold Invaders are all about duplication and refraction, whereas as humans are more [01:59:00] about self-destruction.

[01:59:01] Josiah: Which is very laid out explicitly in the movie. Interesting venous mentions, we all sell most of us self-destruct or something like that. And so it was satisfying, especially with that, uh, angle, how Natalie Portman defeated the alien by teaching it to duplicate humans self-destruction. I thought that that was really interesting.

[01:59:25] Josiah: But then, like the ending of her coming back and hugging the, I’m just not sure what it means. I don’t think the film exactly set up its, uh, ending scene enough and it really hurt the film for me. So, uh, I, I enjoyed the atmosphere of the book. There were some cool mo moments. I liked being in her head. I mean, I liked Natalie Portman, but I liked the narrator, kind of this introverted, uh, I don’t know, I, I, I related to her, the introverted part of me really related to the narrator from the book.

[01:59:59] Josiah: So I think [02:00:00] the, the book just barely squeaks it out for me, even though the movie visually Beautiful. 

[02:00:05] Rebekah: Cool. My final verdict is I, I really enjoyed both of these. So for me, I would probably give the book like, like a seven and a half. I, it wasn’t like on my top, top list or whatever. And I would say the movie like an eight and a half.

[02:00:20] Rebekah: This is like something that we put back on, like we find it really cool. I love alien stuff. I love rainbows. And there was a lot of opalescent, rainbow ish light. Which, which fun? Is there a unicorn anywhere? There was not a unicorn there, there was a 

[02:00:33] Tim: deer, a double deer. There wasn’t, 

[02:00:34] Rebekah: there was a double deer.

[02:00:35] Rebekah: That was really cool. Josh goes, how cool would those heads be on our wall? And I was like, uh, 

[02:00:41] Tim: okay. I spoken like a hunter. 

[02:00:43] Rebekah: So anyway, but I really liked both, um, works. I think that they, in the same way as some of the other movies we’ve covered, I think, I think that they are different stories, but I like both of them.

[02:00:55] Rebekah: Like, oh, reminds me of Ready Player One. I like the movie. I like the book. They are [02:01:00] not the same. Like they’re different stories. Yeah. And they’re so different that I don’t even care. ’cause I’m not like, oh, but you didn’t adapt to the book. I liked the way that I, I just liked both of them. Um, so I would say the movie probably was a little better.

[02:01:14] Rebekah: Mostly because the book is not because of the way, it’s not a standalone, but it almost feels like it was written originally to be like, maybe he did plan the series. But it’s unclear. And so I think maybe once I read the series, I would like the series better than the movie or something. But like, I think that the book doesn’t quite get there in terms of.

[02:01:35] Rebekah: Making me feel like I understand enough about the story. Yeah. So that’s probably where I went with it. 

[02:01:41] Josiah: Cool. Well, oh, I didn’t have anywhere to mention this, but I think the tone of the movie being kind of like zombies in the Swamp Land and all the mold and cordyceps going everywhere. Mm-hmm. I wonder how much of an influence the last of us game had [02:02:00] on it.

[02:02:00] Josiah: Ooh. ’cause any, any of the pre alien fight scene music would fit right in, in the last of us video game. Interesting. Which is about zombie, like mold zombies basically. Oh, 

[02:02:12] Rebekah: interesting. The original one was released in 2013 before he finished the book. So that’s interesting. Could have been cool. Well, thanks for listening.

[02:02:24] Rebekah: If you had fun, we would love a five star rating or review. Spotify lets you give, uh, star ratings. We’re at a five star there, which is great. And then on, uh, Amazon Audible. You can leave us a five star review with full rating and review, as well as on the, um, apple Podcast app. Uh, we are live on Patreon and have some fun bonus content potentially planned.

[02:02:48] Rebekah: You can join that as a free tier in order just to get email updates on when we release new episodes. Uh, you can also join a paid tier for some additional bonuses. We’ve got some, uh, merch that we’ve been designing, so, uh, honestly, by the time [02:03:00] this releases, we may have already been able to start getting those in production.

[02:03:03] Rebekah: So you can also find us on social media. At book is Better Pod. You can go to our website, book is better pod.com and see a list of all of our previous episodes as well as player links and embedded players for every single one. That’s how I listen. 

[02:03:17] Josiah: Um, 

[02:03:17] Rebekah: yeah, and if you wanna send us feedback, ask us questions, et cetera, et cetera, we have a Discord.

[02:03:23] Rebekah: You do not have to be a Patreon subscriber to be in the Discord. There is a link to it in the episode description, and I would love to see you there. That’s how we got our user questions. Oh, yes. Yay. Uh, we’ve got some book talk stuff going on. You can find me at Becca’s book, nook. The, there’s underscores between the words and then, uh, I think it’s.

[02:03:41] Rebekah: Author t Josiah Haynes at t Josiah Haynes, uh, Josiah releases a lot of really cool author content for mm-hmm. Helping you write books. Gooder. Yeah. This rap giving you gooder. So I hope you had fun and until next time, uh, stay weird baby listener. Yeah, thanks. Bye. [02:04:00] Welcome to season three.

[02:04:19] Woo hoo 

[02:04:20] Josiah: hoo. Appropriate. I don’t know the theme song by heart, but it’s something like that and I can’t whistle. 

[02:04:26] Rebekah: Sure. The theme song of what 

[02:04:29] Josiah: Hours? The podcast. 

[02:04:30] I’ve been listening to it. He’s been listening.