Arrival (2016)

[Stewart Hotston]

This is, quite simply, the best sci fi I have seen since Primer. It is spectacular, emotional and the hard science is superb. Go see it. I won't say anything else because the film relies on you not knowing anything about it before you've seen it. Stay spoiler free, people.

 

[Stewart Hotston]

So a question then - what do you think is the best hard sci fi movie of the LAST 10 YEARS? (Primer was 2004, so is excluded...)

 

[Stewart Hotston]

other than Arrival, obvs.

 

[Rodders]

This is on my list of movies to see. Looks very good.

 

[Phyrebrat]

It's a great movie. You know when all the studio intros at the beginning are obscure and indie, that you're in for a treat.

Some of the allegory and metaphors were a bit heavy handed but it's definitely the best in class for me this year so far, and definitely there are prescient moments that reflect what is going on in the world today.

@Stewart Hotston - did you like Upstream Colour, as well?

pH

 

[Stewart Hotston]

It's on my to be seen list but not seen it yet.

 

[J Riff]

Hmm. Err...... well it's not a see-it-twice film. Nice Cthulhu ETs though.

 

[RX-79G]

2007's Sunshine was a very good sci-fi film. The Martian was arguably the best in decade. Edge of Tomorrow was also really good.


Arrival illustrates why complex novels do not become sci fi movies. The movie is a short story with a simple punchline, but being a movie we get to experience something much richer.

 

[AlexH]

I saw this on the same day I was reading a short story by Ted Chiang (who I don't think I'd heard of before). It was only when I Googled him after enjoying the story, and also looked into what Arrival was based on, that I realised he was the inspiration behind Arrival too.

I thought it was a good, rather than great, film.

*SPOILER* My friend thought Amy Adam's character had a choice in whether to have a child or not, but I disagreed with him, as it had already happened in her timeline. What do other people think? I'm yet to read the short story.

 

[RX-79G]

*SPOILER* My friend thought Amy Adam's character had a choice in whether to have a child or not, but I disagreed with him, as it had already happened in her timeline. What do other people think? I'm yet to read the short story.

My take on that: Viewed externally, she had foreknowledge and a choice. From her viewpoint it would have been killing a person that already exists if she changed the future.

And her daughter's life, though shorter than others, is as much of a closed loop as any other, so it has the same value. She sees her husband's desire to avoid a future pain to be irrational, because his daughter already exists to Amy's character.

That said, he is also likely mad that she ruined his experience of his daughter's life for him with foreknowledge that he can't process like she does. That is the other choice she makes - telling him what is going to happen.


All of this fits in nicely with the central idea of seeing time and choice as opposites instead of the same thing from two perspectives. Predestination and free will are not at odds when you no longer see time linearly.

 

[J Riff]

Yech! Hating it more as I get away from it. No offence.. but this is a stupid, stupid fantasy hack at 'SF". are we to believe this is what would happen? Outrageous nonsense... there's no people who deal with this kind of stuff?, no ET people since oh, I dunno, the 50s? No, it's one gal, 'selected' by 'the united states' to talk to big squonkers who show up all speechless with some handy time travel to make a happy ending? Detestable reinvention, someone's idea of what might happen.... panic in the streets! Only watsername can figure it out! Then, time bloody travel, yet again!
Bloody cheapo time travel out, again. Next.
The last 15 min. of this movie, well I blanked out, walked out of the room, came back and it was still on, as they talked about a positive message for humanity, etcetc. I deem this a fantasy in disguise, not the worst fantasy around, but still a waste of time travel. * )

 

[RX-79G]

Yech! Hating it more as I get away from it. No offence.. but this is a stupid, stupid fantasy hack at 'SF". are we to believe this is what would happen? Outrageous nonsense... there's no people who deal with this kind of stuff?, no ET people since oh, I dunno, the 50s? No, it's one gal, 'selected' by 'the united states' to talk to big squonkers who show up all speechless with some handy time travel to make a happy ending? Detestable reinvention, someone's idea of what might happen.... panic in the streets! Only watsername can figure it out! Then, time bloody travel, yet again!
Bloody cheapo time travel out, again. Next.
The last 15 min. of this movie, well I blanked out, walked out of the room, came back and it was still on, as they talked about a positive message for humanity, etcetc. I deem this a fantasy in disguise, not the worst fantasy around, but still a waste of time travel. * )

The film is whatever, but calling it fantasy is off base. The examination of how language influences reasoning has been the subject of scientific study for a very long time. The suggestion that the only person who might be capable of acquiring the ability to understand time differently is a gifted linguist would appear to follow that paradigm.

The nature of time being different than what we perceive is also a long standing avenue of interest to physicists, regardless of whether the depiction of time in Arrival bears any similarity to reality.

Also, her character is not the only one that learned to speak to the aliens. She was just the only one (or first one) to make the cognitive leap to what the structure of the language actually signified.

Any criticism about how convincing all of that is portrayed is fair, but it is most definitely SF in its exploration of current scientific theories.

 

[J Riff]

I'll be the Arrival hater, no problem. Back in 6 months to try it again, but maybe MST can do a version.... hehHEeh!! No really, there actually are intelligent people, teams even, in the world, alllll ready for ETs, should they show up. What a negative world-view these people have... ETs! Run, panic, like idiot children.

 

[RX-79G]

I'll be the Arrival hater, no problem. Back in 6 months to try it again, but maybe MST can do a version.... hehHEeh!! No really, there actually are intelligent people, teams even, in the world, alllll ready for ETs, should they show up. What a negative world-view these people have... ETs! Run, panic, like idiot children.

Do you have any references to these teams?

 

[JunkMonkey]

Saw it in the cinema with my 14 year old daughter and we both loved it. She being smarter than I worked out the 'secret' (if you want to call it that) before I did but I thought it was a credible, well worked through piece.

And the sound was terrific!

are we to believe this is what would happen? Outrageous nonsense... there's no people who deal with this kind of stuff?, no ET people since oh, I dunno, the 50s? No, it's one gal, 'selected' by 'the united states' to talk to big squonkers who show up all speechless with some handy time travel to make a happy ending?

It's a movie. Fiction. We have to be allowed access - if you made a realistic film about what might actually happen then it would be very long (months?) and just endless shots of committee rooms full of people having endless conversations.

Spoiler

And it wasn't time travel. It was a different way of perceiving time. She didn't travel to the future she was in the future and the now and the past. She didn't learn how to travel in time but see it.

 

[AlexH]

My take on that: Viewed externally, she had foreknowledge and a choice. From her viewpoint it would have been killing a person that already exists if she changed the future.

And her daughter's life, though shorter than others, is as much of a closed loop as any other, so it has the same value. She sees her husband's desire to avoid a future pain to be irrational, because his daughter already exists to Amy's character.

That said, he is also likely mad that she ruined his experience of his daughter's life for him with foreknowledge that he can't process like she does. That is the other choice she makes - telling him what is going to happen.


All of this fits in nicely with the central idea of seeing time and choice as opposites instead of the same thing from two perspectives. Predestination and free will are not at odds when you no longer see time linearly.

SPOILERS
I forgot about her telling him - that's a strange one if she already knows what going to happen. From what I remember, we saw her future life without him in the film?

It seems your view of a choice was what the screenwriter intended: moviesonline.ca/2016/11/eric-heisserer-interview-the-arrival/

Q: There’s a theme in the film of is it better to have lived your life in a certain way even if you already knew the outcome and how it would play out. Was that already in the short story?

HEISSERER: The short story was far more rigid about determinism. Ted’s message within the short story was to embrace the inevitable. It didn’t give Louise a choice in the matter and it just let her be at home with that. I got very rebellious and said, “Well Ted, that’s not going to work for me in the film. Sorry. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to change the core of this.” He’s been game. If he secretly hates me on some form like, “I can’t believe he changed this,” then so be it. But, I wanted to make it a profound statement that she still chose to have Hannah, despite knowing what was going to happen in her life. It’s a very small moment in the film, but it means so much to me. It’s when she talks about how Hannah is unstoppable because of her poetry and her swimming trophies and all of that. She’s talking about Hannah’s contribution to the world and how that affects other people, and the fact that if she chooses not to have Hannah, will the world be a lesser place? How many people will she not have been able to affect. It’s not a selfish thing. It’s very much she needs to make sure that this contribution exists.

 

[RX-79G]

From what I remember, we saw her future life without him in the film?

Because the film is visual, the only way to preserve the mystery of her flashbacks being actually flashforwards is to not show who the husband is and to have her at the same house. That way the audience is fooled enought to be able to live through her experience of remembering the future in a natural way - like the way she experiences it.

This is one of the nicest pieces of the filmmaking - a kind of Sixth Sense trick is played on us that keeps us open to what is evolving in her mind.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Because the film is visual, the only way to preserve the mystery of her flashbacks being actually flashforwards is to not show who the husband is and to have her at the same house. That way the audience is fooled enought to be able to live through her experience of remembering the future in a natural way - like the way she experiences it.

This is one of the nicest pieces of the filmmaking - a kind of Sixth Sense trick is played on us that keeps us open to what is evolving in her mind.

Spoiler

And leads to that great moment where they kiss for the first time and she says something along the lines of, "I had forgotten what it was like!"

 

[clovis-man]

One of the best SF films of the year. No ray guns, No space battles. A deal breaker for some, but not for me. I like to be challenged to think a little bit.

 

[Fried Egg]

I can't wait to see this film, after only just finding out it even existed. I first read the short story it was based on about ten years ago and loved it then. Sound like they've done a good job of adapting it.