Annihilation (I) (2018)
Natalie Portman: Lena
Photos
Quotes
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Lena : Why did my husband volunteer for a suicide mission?
Dr Ventress : Is that what you think we're doing? Committing suicide?
Lena : You must have profiled him. You must have assessed him. He must have said something.
Dr Ventress : So you're asking me as a psychologist?
Lena : Yeah.
Dr Ventress : Then, as a psychologist, I think you're confusing suicide with self-destruction. Almost none of us commit suicide, and almost all of us self-destruct. In some way, in some part of our lives. We drink, or we smoke, we destabilize the good job... and a happy marriage. But these aren't decisions, they're... they're impulses. In fact, you're probably better equipped to explain this than I am.
Lena : What does that mean?
Dr Ventress : You're a biologist. Isn't the self-destruction coded into us? Programmed into each cell?
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Lena : The mutations were subtle at 1st; more extreme as we got closer to the lighthouse. Corruptions of form. Duplicates of form.
Lomax : Duplicates?
Lena : [She looks at the tattoo on her arm & lifts her arm up] Echoes.
Lomax : Is it possible these were hallucinations?
Lena : I wondered that myself... but they were shared among all of us. It was dreamlike.
Lomax : Nightmarish?
Lena : Not always. Sometimes it was beautiful.
[the movie then cuts back in time to show beautiful translucent single-tailed wormfish swimming alongside double-tailed duplicates. Lena is in a canoe on a swamp located quite near to a corpse that bears the same tattoo as Lena]
Lena : Oww. Ow.
[She clutches her arm - there is no tattoo yet. However, a dark blue mark has appeared at the same place on her arm]
Cass Sheppard : You're hurt?
Lena : It's just a bruise. I must have gotten that from the gator.
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Dr Ventress : [from trailer] It's destroying everything.
Lena : It's not destroying. It's making something new.
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[first lines]
Lomax : What did you eat? You had rations for two weeks. You were inside for nearly four months.
Lena : I don't remember eating.
Lomax : How long did you think you were inside?
Lena : Days. Maybe weeks.
Lomax : What happened to Josie Radek?
Lena : ...I don't know.
Lomax : What about Sheppard? Thorensen?
Lena : Dead.
Lomax : Ventress?
Lena : ...I don't know.
Lomax : Then what do you know?
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Lena : [as she examines multi-coloured flowers] These are very strange.
Dr Ventress : Why?
Lena : Well, they're all so different. To look at them you wouldn't say that they are the same species... but they're growing from the same branch structure... so it *has* to be the same species. It's the same plant! It's like they're stuck in a continuous mutation.
Dr Ventress : A pathology?
Lena : Well... you'd sure as hell call it a pathology if you saw this in a human.
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Kane : I was just looking at the moon. It's always so weird seeing it like that in the daylight.
Lena : Like God made a mistake. Left the hall lights on.
Kane : God doesn't make mistakes. That's... somewhat key to the whole "being a god" thing.
Lena : Pretty sure he does.
Kane : You know he's listening right now, don't you?
Lena : You take a cell, circumvent the Hayflick limit, you can prevent senescence.
Kane : I was about to make the exact same point.
Lena : It means the cell doesn't grow old, it becomes immortal. Keeps dividing, doesn't die. They say aging is a natural process, but it's actually a fault in our genes.
Kane : I get really turned on when you patronize me. It's really hot.
Lena : Without it, I could keep looking like this forever.
Kane : Oh, okay. Well, that could constitute a mistake.
[kisses her]
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[the team kill an alligator & examine it's mouth]
Lena : Lena: Whoa. It's exactly the same as the flowers. Look at the teeth. Concentric rows. Something here is making giant waves in the gene pool.
[the paramedic, Anya, holds the alligator's mouth open. She has no tattoo on her arm]
Cass Sheppard : Sharks have teeth like that, don't they?
Dr Ventress : Do you think it's a crossbreed?
Lena : You can't crossbreed between different species.
Anya Thorensen : Lena, this is getting heavy.
[Later in the movie, Anya has acquired the tattoo]
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Lomax : Can you describe its form?
Lena : No.
Lomax : Was it carbon based?
Lena : I don't know.
Lomax : What did it want?
Lena : I don't think it wanted anything.
Lomax : But it attacked you.
Lena : It mirrored me. I attacked it. I'm not even sure if it knew I was there.
Lomax : It came here for a reason. It mutated our environment, it was destroying everything.
Lena : It wasn't destroying. It was changing everything. It was making something new.
Lomax : Making what?
Lena : ...I don't know.
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Josie Radek : At first I thought the radio waves were blocked by the shimmer and that's why no one inside could communicate with base or GPS but the light waves aren't blocked, they're refracted and...
Josie Radek : [takes her walkie talkie out of her bag and turns it on] It's the same with the radios. Signals aren't gone, they're scrambled. That leaf in your hand, do you know what you'd get if you sequenced it?
Lena : What?
Josie Radek : Human Hox genes.
Anya Thorensen : Hox? What does "Hox" mean?
Lena : They're the genes that define the body plan, the physical structure.
Josie Radek : And the plants have human body plan. Arms attached to shoulders, legs to hips.
Lena : It's literally not possible.
Josie Radek : It's literally what's happening. The Shimmer is a prism, but it refracts everything. Not just light and radio waves... animal DNA, plant DNA, all DNA.
Anya Thorensen : What you mean "all DNA"?
Dr Ventress : She's talking about our DNA. She's talking about us.
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Dr Ventress : It's the last phase. Vanished into havoc. Unfathomable mind. Now beacon, now sea.
Lena : Dr. Ventress?
Dr Ventress : Lena? We spoke, what was it we said? That I needed to know what was inside the lighthouse. That moment's passed. It's inside me now.
Lena : What's inside you?
Dr Ventress : [Whispered] It's not like us, it's unlike us.
[Normal volume]
Dr Ventress : I don't know what it wants, or if it wants, but it will grow until it encompasses everything. Our bodies and our minds will be fragmented into their smallest parts, until not one part remains... Annihilation.
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Lena : You said nothing comes back. But something has...