A drop of Lena's blood flies into the cloud, and The Shimmer creates a clone of her body. The doppelganger is able to move in ways that Lena is not: It appears above ground before Lena can scramble out of the hole, and then mimics her movements.
Within the cavern, The Shimmer dissolves beings and creates new refractions of whatever's DNA is in the space, including humans. Viewers see a duplicate of both Kane and Lena in the lighthouse. Lena's refraction was created by the broken-down atoms of Ventress' body and a drop of her blood.
Eventually, Lena finds a way around the alien: She coaxes it into taking a grenade, destroying her own mimic in order to survive. But the end of the film suggests that she's been fundamentally altered by the experience (her eyes glow as she returns to the real world).
In essence, the clone physically destroys what Lena has already theoretically killed: her relationship and the home she built with Kane. The Shimmer's obsessive need to self-destruct forces it to destroy itself, in exchange for Lena's life.
The film portrays self-destruction as a literal and metaphysical concept, relating it to the destructive nature of cancer and how it changes individuals and relationships.
The bear exists as a sickly doppelganger of Sheppard'a own self. While not looking like her in the slightest, parts of her continue to live on through the bear. By killing her, it consumed her, forever trapping her dying screams within its own vocal mechanism.
Why did Lena cheat on her husband in Annihilation?
Lena cheats on Kane with Daniel, a married colleague, which Daniel attributes to Kane's absence and inability to connect with Lena on an intellectual level.
Why did Lena have a tattoo at the end of Annihilation?
The tattoo in Annihilation seems to be a mark of the Shimmer. The team determines that the Shimmer is refracting DNA, combining all living things and changing them simultaneously. Maybe someone in the Shimmer had it, and now the tattoo is being refracted onto other people, or it's a mark of the entity itself.
The VFX supervisor of Annihilation previously worked on Paddington and decided to dub the mutant bear Homerton, after an East London station. The bear itself is an extremely unsettling design, from its exposed skull to the eerie shrieks of the dying Cass emanating from it.
Pair production is the opposite of annihilation. Mysteriously, particles can appear from nowhere. Matter is created from an energetic photon (gamma ray). In the pair production process, a photon is absorbed and a particle and its anti-particle appear, such as an electron and a positron pair.
Lena eventually fights a doppelgänger that reflects her every move, and she escapes the Shimmer and returns to her husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), the last person to find a way out of the area.
Moments later the planet's core is breached, causing it to explode. The film concludes with a shot of pieces of what was once Earth floating through space, followed by a blank screen reading simply, Extinction.
A doppelganger as it is portrayed in the Annihilation movie. Doppelgangers are duplicates of expedition members, created by Area X through "necromantic doubling" for unknown purposes.
We are led to believe that is, in fact, the doubles of both Kane and Lena that have made it back outside the compound: their eyes shift in color in the final moment; Double-Kane himself states that he doesn't think he's the real Kane.
We learn from Lena's narration with fellow scientists after the fact that she came to the conclusion that the Shimmer does not wish to “destroy” or even truly annihilate Earth; it wants to change it. However, as Dr. Ventress told Lena, it is an entirely human phenomenon to seek, intentionally or not, self-destruction.
The Shimmer arrived on Earth via meteorite, crashing into a lighthouse by the sea next to a park. The Shimmer began projecting an electromagnetic field around its new home, mutating the plants and animals by mixing their DNA with that of others.
Why was the bear saying "help me in annihilation"?
However, the bear was the source of the calls which he heralded with an ever so familiar bellow. While it circled around the bound trio, it seemed to constantly fill the air with bellows and the dying cries of Cass screaming "help me!" as to instigate a reaction from the trio.
Lena gives pursuit and finds a clearing filled with human-shaped bodies of plant life and flowers. Josie is nowhere to be seen, but it's implied that she gave in to the influence of the Shimmer and became one with its nature, becoming one of the plant figures.
A studio conflict and lack of confidence. Paramount was quick to sign up to make "Annihilation" with Alex Garland in 2014, but at the time, the studio was run by Brad Grey and Rob Moore. In the years between the deal being made and the film's release, a regime change happened.
The idea began in 1947 to warn humanity of the dangers of nuclear war. The hands of the clock are moved closer to or further away from midnight based on the scientists' reading of existential threats at a particular time. Midnight marks the theoretical point of annihilation.
“Our bodies and our bodies will be fragmented into their smallest parts, until not one part remains. Annihilation.” Then Ventress screams. Shimmering light shoots out of her mouth, then her entire body disintegrates into light.
It's a process that's constantly in flux, making DNA a sort of shifting sand, as represented in various moments like characters claiming their fingerprints are moving, or seeing that one soldier's inner organs writhing like snakes.
Why Annihilation 2 Still Hasn't Happened. Considering the broader context of the Southern Reach trilogy, the fact that Annihilation 2 never happened is somewhat surprising. The story – thanks in no small part to the source material – seemed perfectly set up for a sequel.
The mutant bear returns and lures Anya away by emitting a cry for help in Cassie's voice. The bear kills Anya, while Josie frees herself and shoots the bear. Ventress leaves the group and heads for the lighthouse, the center of the Shimmer.
