KarmaPolice
Footballguy
IMO the Renner voiceover 1/2 way through the movie that made it seem like we were watching a BBC documentary for a few minutes really felt out of place and was something I didn't dig.
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"Arrival" the movie (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter TripItUp
- Start date
EYLive
Footballguy
jamny
Footballguy
shader
Footballguy
I'm 100% with you. Contact is one of my all-time faves. I thought the acting was pretty average at best in this latest flick.
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KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Not for completely unselfish reasons though:So the heptapods' purpose was to give humans the "tool" to communicate and be unified peacefully?
They said they needed our help in 3000 years
Zegras11
Footballguy
Saw it last Friday and have the same reaction. It was OK, and have not thought about it since.
EYLive
Footballguy
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
It was said somewhere in the movie that as you learn a language, your brain rewires a little and you start to think a different way because of it - even dreaming in the new language,etc.. So since the alien language is the way it is, you started to think like they did as you learn it (I guess in a multi-dimensional way where time is not linear, hence they know they will need our help in 3000 years), so she started dreaming in the language and the future was bleeding into the present for her.
ghostguy123
Footballguy
Saw two movies recently. Arrival, and the new Independence Day.
Two, um, different kinds of alien movies. Gotta give this one the nod pretty handily. ID2 was horrible. Arrival was excellent.
A lot of things were open to at least a little bit of interpretation. Really, really good movie.
Two, um, different kinds of alien movies. Gotta give this one the nod pretty handily. ID2 was horrible. Arrival was excellent.
A lot of things were open to at least a little bit of interpretation. Really, really good movie.
Have heard critics say that Adams is selfish for going through with the pregnancy. Not only to the daughter but to Renner. Don't want to argue that. Just want clarification on something. Isn't Adams still experiencing her relationship with her daughter? Isn't the daughter still alive in Adams' past? I was under the impression the past and future are all as "alive" as the present.
I believe so. But don't think she was experiencing them at that point. Think the audience was just privy to the flashbacks.
Ignoratio Elenchi
Footballguy
I thought it was very good. Not as amazing as reviews had me hoping, but still very enjoyable.
My main gripe with it is there are some major plot holes / handwaving. Like one minute she meets the aliens, says "human" and they draw a funny looking circle. Then "yadda yadda yadda" she's basically fluent in their language. How did that happen? Would've liked more detail rather than just that oddly placed voiceover in the middle. And how long did that take exactly? Not sure if I missed it but was it days? Weeks? Months?
bigbottom
Footballguy
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bigbottom
Footballguy
Good point. But I took it that the flash forwards felt like memories. And we all have those regarding the past. As for the selfishness, it's unclear to me whether there is really a choice. But assuming it's a choice, I think the question of whether she made the right choice is an interesting discussion.
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KarmaPolice
Footballguy
shader
Footballguy
PatsWillWin
Footballguy
My god was an exhausting turd this movie was. It wasn't even funny/good bad - it was just ####### boring.
Workhorse
Footballguy
Nah, Contact was undone by the silly romance subplot between Foster and McConnaughey, who had ZERO chemistry on screen. Also, Contact lost all momentum when they finally got the machine to work - The third act was an utter mess. Arrival was solidly written from start to finish and is a far better movie IMO.
flapgreen
Footballguy
bigbottom
Footballguy
An excerpt from a good article discussing how the source material (Chiang's short story) informs the theme of the movie:
In the story, there is no military tension, no setting up of China or Russia as aggressors, and no misguided American soldiers sabotaging the spaceship that landed in America. Story of Your Life is entirely focused on Louise’s rewired perception of her own life, and her pivotal choice to have a daughter despite the pain she knows it will cause. The reveal — that Louise has seen her daughter’s future — is not a surprise sci-fi twist, but a slow and steady realization. Even Chiang’s title has an obvious double meaning almost from the get-go, the pronoun “your” belonging both to Louise’s daughter and the idea that we as humans are made of our memories and defined by our choices.
This message exists in Arrival, but it’s hidden under broader plot movements, big drama, and more visible Hollywood layers. Chiang limits the scope of Story of Your Life to a reflection on personal choice. He says foreseeing a choice and then making it is not the cruelty of fate in action, but a powerful exercise in free will.
Viewers are already theorizing about the film’s plot, and whether it means that humans who learn the heptapod language can alter their own futures. Whether Louise can change anything is besides the point. In Arrival’s deterministic universe, free will exists in the form of following through on a choice you already know you’ll make. In effect, by choosing not to alter the future, you’re creating it, and actively affirming it.
“The heptapods are neither free nor bound as we understand those concepts; they don’t act according to their will, nor are they helpless automatons,” Louise says in Chiang’s story. “What distinguishes the heptapods’ mode of awareness is not just that their actions coincide with history’s events; it is also that their motives coincide with history’s purposes. They act to create the future, to enact chronology.”
Underneath the technical complexity of the explanation is a profound truth Chiang is communicating — and one Arrival similarly hammers home. “What if the experience of knowing the future changed a person?” Louise ponders. “What if it evoked a sense of urgency, a sense of obligation to act precisely as she knew she would?” And it is precisely because Louise understands what it will be like to lose her daughter that she chooses to bring her into the world nonetheless.
Readers aren’t necessarily supposed to agree with Louise’s choice. (Some of our own writers don’t.) But Arrival isn’t about time travel. It’s also not a commentary on gene-modification, abortion, or any other hot-button topic about using our foresight into the future to force our present path to diverge. It’s about acceptance, understanding our life’s choices, and living as if any one moment were as valuable or meaningful as the next.
The film suggests that knowing what will happen in the future doesn’t diminish the meaning behind a choice you’ll make today. On the contrary, it says every choice you do make can be made knowing it will actively shape what’s to come. As Emerson once wrote, life's a journey, not a destination. In the circular, non-linear minds of Arrival’s aliens and Louise Banks, the destination doesn’t even exist.
Instead of treating that message like a superpower to acquire, the film delivers it as a subtle worldview. Hidden under Arrival’s more palatable themes about overcoming cultural differences and uniting as one species is Chiang’s more direct message about learning how to appreciate life’s moments, to live outside the bounds of time.
If we could see our lives laid out before us, would we change anything? Story of Your Life — and by extension Arrival — is telling us to live as if the answer is, and always will be, a resolute no.
This message exists in Arrival, but it’s hidden under broader plot movements, big drama, and more visible Hollywood layers. Chiang limits the scope of Story of Your Life to a reflection on personal choice. He says foreseeing a choice and then making it is not the cruelty of fate in action, but a powerful exercise in free will.
Viewers are already theorizing about the film’s plot, and whether it means that humans who learn the heptapod language can alter their own futures. Whether Louise can change anything is besides the point. In Arrival’s deterministic universe, free will exists in the form of following through on a choice you already know you’ll make. In effect, by choosing not to alter the future, you’re creating it, and actively affirming it.
“The heptapods are neither free nor bound as we understand those concepts; they don’t act according to their will, nor are they helpless automatons,” Louise says in Chiang’s story. “What distinguishes the heptapods’ mode of awareness is not just that their actions coincide with history’s events; it is also that their motives coincide with history’s purposes. They act to create the future, to enact chronology.”
Underneath the technical complexity of the explanation is a profound truth Chiang is communicating — and one Arrival similarly hammers home. “What if the experience of knowing the future changed a person?” Louise ponders. “What if it evoked a sense of urgency, a sense of obligation to act precisely as she knew she would?” And it is precisely because Louise understands what it will be like to lose her daughter that she chooses to bring her into the world nonetheless.
Readers aren’t necessarily supposed to agree with Louise’s choice. (Some of our own writers don’t.) But Arrival isn’t about time travel. It’s also not a commentary on gene-modification, abortion, or any other hot-button topic about using our foresight into the future to force our present path to diverge. It’s about acceptance, understanding our life’s choices, and living as if any one moment were as valuable or meaningful as the next.
The film suggests that knowing what will happen in the future doesn’t diminish the meaning behind a choice you’ll make today. On the contrary, it says every choice you do make can be made knowing it will actively shape what’s to come. As Emerson once wrote, life's a journey, not a destination. In the circular, non-linear minds of Arrival’s aliens and Louise Banks, the destination doesn’t even exist.
Instead of treating that message like a superpower to acquire, the film delivers it as a subtle worldview. Hidden under Arrival’s more palatable themes about overcoming cultural differences and uniting as one species is Chiang’s more direct message about learning how to appreciate life’s moments, to live outside the bounds of time.
If we could see our lives laid out before us, would we change anything? Story of Your Life — and by extension Arrival — is telling us to live as if the answer is, and always will be, a resolute no.
EYLive
Footballguy
higgins
Footballguy
It was the "canary in a coalmine" serving to let the humans know that air was breathable, etc..
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flapgreen
Footballguy
bigbottom
Footballguy
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
The sci-fi part is almost irrelevant to the story. It is more centered around ethics, language, philosophy, politics.
joffer
Footballguy
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Just not the type that usually wins awards. They will probably just throw a sound editing nod at it or something.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
ghostguy123
Footballguy
Seems like a very strange things for "critics" to bag on.
Also, is anyone reading this far into a thread about a movie and not actually seen the movie?? If so, you deserve to read spoilers.
bigbottom
Footballguy
Ignoratio Elenchi
Footballguy
Critics a poor choice of words on my part. Better said those debating the moral implications of Adams choice to still have her daughter. A large % of those in the discussion seemed to think Adams was being selfish. That surprised me.
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