Annihilation. They annihilated the Southern Reach trilogy.

Last night I noticed a new movie on Hulu. Sometimes you can find nearly brand-new movies on that streaming service. The movie was called Annihilation and it starred Natalie Portman.

I had heard of this movie earlier this year but I was not really thinking about the fact that the first book in the Southern Reach Trilogy is called Annihilation.

Imdb

As it so happens, The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer is one of my favorite series of books.

Hell yes I thought to myself. This is going to be great. What a fantastic find.

It had a high 6 rating on IMDb which is actually pretty good too. Therefore, I saw no reason for this to be a let down in any way shape or form.

Unfortunately, right away I knew something was wrong with the movie when they named the characters. In the book no character has a name.

They are called Professor, psychologist, and names like that. Everyone is simply called by their profession because they are trying to make sure everything is anonymous.

Why they decided to completely disregard this fact is beyond my understanding.

Most of the first book is concerned with an upside-down Tower. They find this Tower, which has all kinds of creatures and disturbing things inside it. There is a sort of fuzz on the wall of this Tower. Also, this Tower goes down and not up. It is basically a descending staircase.

They managed to not include this Tower in the movie at all despite the fact that the actual book called Annihilation is almost completely involved with this Tower. The movie called Annihilation now has nothing to do with it.

Additionally, most of the characters in the book are cold and unsympathetic. However, every single character in the movie was extremely dramatic and emotional. This is not at all in line with the way the characters act with the book. It kind of made me wonder if the person that directed the movie had actually read the book at all.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the actual book is about Area X but it is really about the interactions between the human characters.

Even Area X is very much concerned with the Lighthouse Keeper. The Lighthouse Keeper does not even factor into this movie at all. He does not exist. No character's background is looked into. No character is developed in any way at all. No one is a human puzzle and that is a truly dramatic error in this movie.

If you have never read the Southern Reach Trilogy then you might find Annihilation to be it worthwhile watch. However, if you are really excited by the idea of the movie giving insight into something that the book could not....then all I can say is that it will give a completely different insight because it will disregard everything.

I'm not saying that you won't enjoy the movie. I actually did enjoy it. However I was also kind of repulsed by the fact that it changed a lot of things and kind of trashed a lot of things.

Annihilation the movie really annihilates the Southern Reach Trilogy.