3000.
"Arrival" directed by Denis Villeneuve
- Thread starter cultcross
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I'm surprised there isn't a lot more discussion on this movie. I found it be a strong and enjoyable movie, one of the better sci-fi movies I've seen in a while. Well, maybe in a year. Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner were both really good in their roles and the "twist" of the ending for me was really a surprise that made me have to really rethink the events in the movie and to even go back and see it again to see if it made sense and how it held up in the context of its own premise.
Only thing I'm not *100%* on is the ending's suggestion that learning their language was enough to completely change the dimensional thinking of human beings. I get that was hinted at in the a scene between Renner and Adams but it just seemed like... "a stretch" to me. But the ending was stunning and fascinating enough that I'm able to ignore how little sense it makes. Seeing the interaction between the humans and the "heptapods" was actually very interesting, particularly the "simple" way they had to learn then language starting with the basics like names, "Ian walks," etc.
One "nitpick" for me is when Whitaker's character shows up at Adam's office, plays her a few seconds of audio, and somehow expects her to be able to translate it because she was able to translate message in Farsi a few years ago. Because knowing an earth-based language is the same thing as knowing a language you've never heard before and has no discernible vocabulary, let alone that could be grasped in a few seconds of audio. And then they get angsty with her wanting to teach them small and simple words instead of getting to the "bigger" questions. They do know this is a completely alien language and it's going to take time to figure it out, right?
It also seemed "easy" for the rogue officers to acquire explosives and place them in the ship.
But, still, a fantastic movie.
Only thing I'm not *100%* on is the ending's suggestion that learning their language was enough to completely change the dimensional thinking of human beings. I get that was hinted at in the a scene between Renner and Adams but it just seemed like... "a stretch" to me. But the ending was stunning and fascinating enough that I'm able to ignore how little sense it makes. Seeing the interaction between the humans and the "heptapods" was actually very interesting, particularly the "simple" way they had to learn then language starting with the basics like names, "Ian walks," etc.
One "nitpick" for me is when Whitaker's character shows up at Adam's office, plays her a few seconds of audio, and somehow expects her to be able to translate it because she was able to translate message in Farsi a few years ago. Because knowing an earth-based language is the same thing as knowing a language you've never heard before and has no discernible vocabulary, let alone that could be grasped in a few seconds of audio. And then they get angsty with her wanting to teach them small and simple words instead of getting to the "bigger" questions. They do know this is a completely alien language and it's going to take time to figure it out, right?
It also seemed "easy" for the rogue officers to acquire explosives and place them in the ship.
But, still, a fantastic movie.
Agreed, but it caught my interest and made the movie.
It's an extrapolation of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which posits that your cognition and world view are shaped by the language that you speak. I have no idea how it would make the brain be able to access future memories -- retune it as a Feynman radio that is able to detect advanced EM waves? In the block universe interpretation of Special Relativity, the future is fixed so perhaps the brain can be trained to access future states within the block as well as past states.
Given how much effort the film went into to try to get the audience to understand that language is not simply words we say/write, but how the same words have different emotive meanings (i.e. how the Chinese reacted to the first big message) and then how you view the world, the manner in which the Aliens communicated felt like a rather natural extension of that theory in the SF realm.
It was always going to be a tough angle to sell for the film makers because walking that tight-rope of "massive info dump" vs "casual throw-away line to sound scientific" is hard to cross with modern audiences. In this instance, the theories discussed etc never felt like I was being lectured at to sound impressive (ahem, Interstellar), nor were they so fleeting that I missed them and couldn't understand the ending. They were integral to the plot and I think on repeat viewings, both the structure of the story and the theories behind the Alien Communiction will be that more evident.
This was very elegant, high end film making. Along with the likes of Midnight Special, Ex Machina and Looper, this film engaged and excited me a whole lot more than any other SF films in the past 10-odd years. I hope more film makers realise how flexible the SF model is and one needn't spend $200m to make great lasting SF stories.
8/10
Hugo - If you could see your whole life laid out in front of you, would you change things?
It was always going to be a tough angle to sell for the film makers because walking that tight-rope of "massive info dump" vs "casual throw-away line to sound scientific" is hard to cross with modern audiences. In this instance, the theories discussed etc never felt like I was being lectured at to sound impressive (ahem, Interstellar), nor were they so fleeting that I missed them and couldn't understand the ending. They were integral to the plot and I think on repeat viewings, both the structure of the story and the theories behind the Alien Communiction will be that more evident.
This was very elegant, high end film making. Along with the likes of Midnight Special, Ex Machina and Looper, this film engaged and excited me a whole lot more than any other SF films in the past 10-odd years. I hope more film makers realise how flexible the SF model is and one needn't spend $200m to make great lasting SF stories.
8/10
Hugo - If you could see your whole life laid out in front of you, would you change things?
Superb film. I was sat there for a while thinking it was ok, interesting yes but a bit slow and then...crikey! Guess anyone who's seen it will know the moment 
from then on I thought it was utterly magnificent. Very timely film however as well given it's about communication and cooperation.
I like a good space battle as much as the next guy/gal but we really need more films like this.
from then on I thought it was utterly magnificent. Very timely film however as well given it's about communication and cooperation.I like a good space battle as much as the next guy/gal but we really need more films like this.
Other Ted Chiang stories are similarly engaging and might translate well to the cinematic medium without requiring huge budgets.
ETA: I'm thinking particularly of his steampunk story where the industrial revolution was driven by golem technology -- "Seventy-two Letters".
ETA: I'm thinking particularly of his steampunk story where the industrial revolution was driven by golem technology -- "Seventy-two Letters".
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Superb film. I was sat there for a while thinking it was ok, interesting yes but a bit slow and then...crikey! Guess anyone who's seen it will know the moment
I like a good space battle as much as the next guy/gal but we really need more films like this.
Agreed, the movie was going along and I was really digging it but nothing was blowing me away or anything and when it became a thing of "what's going to happen next?" after the bomb went off inside the viewing chamber, then the "plot bomb" dropped and my mind was blown and that's what made the movie really click and come home.
I've sort of been equating it to The Sixth Sense, though the thing that sells that movie with a mind-blowing twist came at the very end, on how much the "reveal" makes you question and re-think the movie and how you've seen things. The whole movie you think she's a woman depressed and mourning her dead daughter. But then when that reveal comes it's shocking and it's like, "Okay. She's just kind of a downer person in general I guess."
I wonder how "fluid" her understanding of the future is. In the "flash-forward" to meeting with the Chinese military leader she seems unaware of her having contacted him suggesting some-kind-of discontinuity between the "past" and the "present." So I wonder if maybe she'd be able to make the choice to not tell Renner's character what she knows in order to preserve their relationship?
And I'm still not entirely "clear" on what the "gift" was. It's seems to be their language which allows people to think outside linear time which, somehow, we will be useful to the aliens in 3000 years? The aliens are sou out-of-linear time can they see 3000 years into the future, or know what's going to happen then? Are they that long-lived a species or do they have a vastly more fluid connection with the future to see beyond their own perspective?
Ugh, I've gone cross-eyed.
Anyway, I saw this again last-night with my parents as I figured it'd be a movie they'd really like and they both came out of it really liking it. My dad agreed with me when I said how much like "Close Encounters..." it was. But, yeah, just a great movie.
The Universe in both the short story and movie is intrinsically deterministic and driven along an optimal path between two endpoints. Although it might be possible to change future events, not doing so is an expression of free will in the world view of the aliens. Changing the future away from the "optimal path" is perceived as negating free will. It isn't made clear what the effects are of changing future events or to where the optimal path leads (omega point universal mind, perhaps?) She tells Ian because she does. To do otherwise deviates from the path.
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"Hell is the Absence of God" would be very affordable. I don't know how it would go over, but I would love to see it.
^So would I but the religious right would go nuts.
So, who's setting up the CrowdFunding page for this then?
Hugo - some SF fans just want to watch the world burn
Just saw it at the movie theater today. I'd rate it higher than Ex-Machina, although that movie did not have a feel-good ending that modern audiences are beginning to accept more and more. Like many others, I had to review the entire movie in my head once the reveal happened. The focus was kept tight on Adam's and Renner's characters as we see no proper plot line as to why the weapons and the explosives appeared, just a vague notion of "the people are scared because the aliens are gonna blow us away". I'd like to think that in real life people in general aren't quite so prejudicial about aliens. There were no aggressive moves really, so common sense would state not to panic unnecessarily. "Use weapon" is still innocuous in the absence of any kind of weaponry visible on the ships. I did find the scene in the beginning to be a bit silly, where the colonel expects the professor to come up with a translation or evince confidence that she could translate on the basis of a recording of alien sounds.
Having said the above, I still think this is one of the best sci-fi movies of the year, probably in the top 10 of all time. Enjoyed the way the puzzle fits together. Aliens need humanity's help in the future, so give them the power to see into their own futures in order that they may help themselves unite and prevent internecine destruction. It's clear that though it didn't play out exactly the way the aliens would have wanted, the end result was far better than if various countries in Asia had not gotten militant frenzy. Because they thought there was a threat to humanity, a united stand was called for to oppose the threat. It just turned out that unification is what the aliens wanted anyway, even if it was achieved through opposition. If there was no threat and no call for unity, each country would have been obliged to simply learn more and try to take advantage of the situation by learning the language and using those gifts to gain political advantage.
I would want to re-watch this one and it is definitely worth owning a copy of.
Having said the above, I still think this is one of the best sci-fi movies of the year, probably in the top 10 of all time. Enjoyed the way the puzzle fits together. Aliens need humanity's help in the future, so give them the power to see into their own futures in order that they may help themselves unite and prevent internecine destruction. It's clear that though it didn't play out exactly the way the aliens would have wanted, the end result was far better than if various countries in Asia had not gotten militant frenzy. Because they thought there was a threat to humanity, a united stand was called for to oppose the threat. It just turned out that unification is what the aliens wanted anyway, even if it was achieved through opposition. If there was no threat and no call for unity, each country would have been obliged to simply learn more and try to take advantage of the situation by learning the language and using those gifts to gain political advantage.
I would want to re-watch this one and it is definitely worth owning a copy of.
Which, for me, is a big reason to make a film from "Hell is the Absence."
The ending has to be one of the most haunting things I've ever read.
Perhaps Netflix could acquire the rights for an episode of "Black Mirror"?
In regards to the aliens been non-linear, when DS9 did it with the Prophets I can buy that concept as they inhabit another... what even was it, dimension, plane of existence etc? Whereas these aliens just live in our dimension, so not quite sure how they could. Is it just something you have to go with for the story, or accept it as beyond our comprehension, etc?
I did keep thinking about Emissary a lot during the last part though. I kept expecting Amy Adams to say this
I did keep thinking about Emissary a lot during the last part though. I kept expecting Amy Adams to say this
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^The short story explains more about how the aliens perceive time -- it's akin to Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen. However, of course, this explanation might not apply to the movie adaptation.
I wonder how the heptapod language works that it would enable a human brain to sense time differently and gives humans memories of things that haven't happened yet.
