Arrival - Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Destiny prologue

This movie made me realize that knowing the future would be the most horrific thing ever.

that’s pretty good insight for the cost of a movie ticket!

They don’t “see” into the future, they just experience time non-linear, there is a difference.

This movie made me realize that experiencing time in a non-linear fashion while not actually seeing into the future would be the most horrific thing ever!

It was pretty good insight for the cost of a movie ticket!

hahah, but then it must have sucked to have it analyzed and pedantically poked at by all the peeps!

well the movie kinda makes the opposite point, afterall the lead character is appreciating her time with the daughter MORE due to this ability. It has also some interesting implications how death would be perceived because if you experience time non-linear there isn’t really an “end”. We even get a hint towards that because after the bomb incident one of the aliens said the other one is in the “death process”, curious choice of words.

If I had learned Heptawhatever I could have realized this in advance, but not really in advance after all.

Leinad, yeah, she was cool with it. I would hate it.

Perhaps they will use the Earth as like a rest stop on the highway. Or maybe they will comeback as their future projections allow them to know that humans are a very healthy and tasty delicacy they plan on enjoying in three millennium.

The latter answer would make for a better sequel.

I thought the aliens mentioned that they came because in three thousand years they would need humanity’s help?

Overall I think I really loved this movie and Villeneuve is now a director I will show up for every time. Sicario stunned me and I felt like I was watching a director who knew exactly what he was doing. I feel that here as well. And like any good sci fi, Arrival is about humanity and the things we face. But you only realize how and what human concepts the film is dealing with as you go on. Also Amy Adams does a great job carrying this movie.

I really liked this. And surprisingly enough, so did everyone else in my group. There were two people were I kinda suspected that a certain plot element or the general story arc would annoy them - nope, they loved it.

[spoiler]Unlike Tom, I didn’t consider the way the plot was resolved a jarring change of narrative or story focus. It’s been set up through the faux flashbacks, the non-zero-sum game bit, and the characters bringing up Sapir-Whorf among other things. I’d argue that the final act of Sicario was a more drastic change in terms of narration. (For the record: I love Sicario.)

The basic setup made me immediately think of Interstellar and Contact, with the close relationship to a loved one (all three movies), time (Interstellar) and fringe nuts using a bomb to sabotage the effort to establish communication (Contact). Enjoyed this way more than Interstellar.

Great sound design, and although I liked the visuals, I wish Deakins was on board for every Villeneuve movie. Simply because I love his work so much.

I guess the only part that got on my nerves was this once again being down to a race between science and some oh-so trigger-happy military factions. I know that mankind has its self-destructive tendencies (e.g. denial of climate change), but would anyone really fire the first shots at a species that has mastered interstellar travel? Sheesh. I also thought the plot part of the soldier plotting the bomb attack because of evil talk radio felt a bit forced to advance the plot and introduce a casualty (Abott). Also, the CGI hair was so distracting that it took me out of the movie briefly.[/spoiler]

So, just like in Interstellar, love ‘conquers’ all, transcends time etc. Meh, boring.

What happened to sci fi lately? We either get full CGI brainless action or ‘deep’ human drammas woven around sci fi elements. Other than Distrinct 9 and Edge of Tomorrow I recall few interesting films in this genre in the past 10 years.

Er… no.

Moon? Europa Report? Ex Machina? Under The Skin? Rise of the Planet of the Apes? Upstream Colour? Children of Men?

The Arrival is one of the good ones.

But you apparently found District 9 interesting, so clearly we have very different tastes.

Yeah, love conquers all is definitely not The Arrival at all. Also I think you could argue that one kind of good sci fi is the kind that uses its science fiction elements to highlight and or spark some thought about the human condition, or some element of humanity. I thought Arrival did this in spades without punching me in the face (I liked that it was teased out and then fully came to bear near the end).

Book/Movie comment…

It’s far worse in the written story, where her daughter doesn’t have an incurable disease but (story spoiler!) dies from a fall in a hiking accident. In the book, all she’d have to do is ensure her daughter doesn’t go hiking. To me, that’s far more gut-wrenching: she has foreknowledge but no choice with the disease; here she has to accept the inevitable when she could utter a single sentence to try to stop it.

Sheesh. Is there an explanation for that behavior? Maybe I just need to read it, but I hope it’s not one of those kooky time conundrum things that forces her to behave that way.

Good heavens, that’s just pathetic. Guess I won’t read the book.

It’s just a short story. And they explain why in the story.

Saw this last night and really enjoyed it but there was some bits that really didn’t sit well with me:

@Nightgaunt: remarkably I didn’t notice Forest Whitaker’s accent, but my girlfriend did! She’s really picky with accents. (She wasn’t keen on the family’s differing accents in The Witch, particularly the kids.) Both of us however, remember how excruciating Forest’s accent was in The Crying Game. God damn, that’s easily the worst I can think of.

Anyway, I thought his character was so damn dopey in this. He was like a kid. I’m no linguist but it was bloody obvious what Banks was trying to get at. I just wanted to whack him upside the head.

Spoilers from here on out! I concur with @JD about the soldiers trying to C4 the alien craft. Their online whackjob indoctrination was heavy handed and dumb enough, particularly given their insight into the whole thing. I mean, they were literally in the same chamber as the scientists and the aliens and were still more inclined to believe some internet quack. I just didn’t buy it. But then they decided that some explosives would work against these significantly more advanced beings. This applies to Shang and all the other military factions across the globe too. It was absurd. The whole antagonistic Russia, China, Sudan et al. set up just seemed like a distraction to me as well. When they introduced Shang I thought “Oh great, this is going to become a race against the clock”. I preferred the more meditative and procedural stuff to the accelerated ‘dooms day’ scenario.

The bit that ruffled my feathers the most though was how Banks had to tell Shang in the future that she didn’t know his phone number or what she said to convince him. How did that future exist without her knowing the number in the first place? Am I just being thick here? It’s a paradox and if there’s one way to lose me fast it’s with time paradoxes.

My friend and I both winced at Renner’s clunker of a line near the end too. It was something like “I’ve spent most of my life looking up at the stars and the biggest surprise in all this… [Oh no, he’s going to say it!] has been meeting you.”

Beautifully shot, excellent music and, for the most part, really compelling. I just wasn’t wild about the direction the film took after the twist. I do like the idea of a plot point changing flashbacks to flashforwards though. That’s pretty cool, I’ve got to say. The film reminded me of Contact but I can’t help but be reminded of Sunshine’s switch, where it goes from this gritty sci-fi film exploring some terrifying but utterly gripping scenario but then takes a bizarre turn. Interstellar had it to some degree (as well as the same sort of time paradox) but I’ve got to say I enjoyed that more, as unwieldy as it was, mostly because it was just brimming with remarkable scenes and sequences.

Now I’m intrigued to read the story though.