spoilers ahead I felt like the character conflict arcs were contrived and ultimately the idea of learning a language makes you a pre-cog fell flat for me. In science fiction, the big idea goes ‘woo!’ or the characters go ‘woo!’ but in the case of Arrival, nothing really went ‘woo!’
But maybe I’m wrong - what was I missing about Arrival?
Arrival presents some good philosophical questions, and does so in an interesting setting. The top questions are:
- How does language affect our perception?
- If you knew your fate, would you still do things the same way?
As such it’s qualitatively a good Sci-Fi film. Should it be ranked as one of the best? I don’t know, and honestly I don’t care, because such rankings are always subjective.
How does language affect our perception?
Philip K. Dick is famous for saying ‘reality is that in which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away.’ Languages, perceptions, are still materially beliefs and changing beliefs doesn’t change reality. I wanted to see HOW the language allowed you to perceive time and it never got there.
I don’t think some pseudo science jargon about tachyons in her delta waves would have enhanced the story. The how isn’t important, what matters is the way it changes her life and how she deals with it. It’s an exploration of the Sapir-Worf hypothesis but given more of an emotional tinge. I also loved the design of the aliens and the way they living outside linear time affected their culture and personalities.
I don’t think some pseudo science jargon about tachyons in her delta waves would have enhanced the story.
Its not. It doesnt try to give a hard science explanation, it gives an explanation of perspective that offers actual insight. Ted Chiang doesn’t write hard science fiction, but it’s very well thought out science fiction, imo.
I wanted to see HOW the language allowed you to perceive time and it never got there.
Interestingly enough the short story on which Arrival is based on, Story of Your Life, goes a bit into this. I’m not going to spoil it because it’s super cool.
It’s not about perception changing reality it’s the other way around. The movie is a meditation on the Sapir Worf hypothesis, that the structure of language literary changes how you perceive the world.
So, I think if there’s an issue with Arrival, it’s the whiplash of using a hard[ish] sci-fi structure to address the first question, then zoom straight into the second. We’re given a pretty solid, small story about how we might plausibly handle first contact, and specifically the linguistic aspect of it, but the truth that comes out of it is that it was language itself which is the key to transcending space and time, and all so we can ruminate on the philosophical equivalent of “Should we love our pets when we know they live shorter, smaller lives than us?”
It’s quite the flex for the movie we were watching, and feels a little unearned. There was definitely a little bit of “I’m stoned and this is deep”. As a dog owner, I at least appreciate that the answer was “yes,” LOL.
I do still think it’s good and it was very well done. Many movies wouldn’t even be worth this discussion.
I think it’s a good Sci-Fi film, but we’re more interested in a good sci-fi movie.
Ya know?it’s a linguistic drama with a sci-fi coat of paint.
The Importance of being Earnest with aliens.
I love Arrival, it’s one of my favorites. The scene where she meets with the Chinese general at the gala was chilling, I love how she herself is confused for most of the movie and formulates her plan in that moment, in collaboration with him. I also love that the reason for first contact is that the aliens will need help centuries in the future, that’s a pretty unique spin on the usual story.
The piece about her daughter is interesting I think but it’s not the strongest part of the movie. I was disappointed that they shoehorn the romance at the end and have her and Ian fall in love. Honestly I would have been fine never knowing who her husband was, because the poignancy of the story was her own personal choices about having a child.
Also it’s not that it makes you a pre-cog, it’s more that it makes you unstuck in time, Billy Pilgrim style. She was perceiving her life nonlinearly.
I’d suggest reading the original short story, Story of Your Life, by Ted Chiang. It makes the underlying premise much clearer.
Learning the heptapod language doesn’t make you precognitive. It unlocks time as a dimension, allowing you to navigate forward and backward through time the same way you do through space. It causes you to “remember” things that you will experience in the future and apply those memories to your present experience. You start experiencing all of time at once, instead of in a regimented sequence.
The overall effect is the realization that the arrow of time is an illusion, with questions about what that means for free will, fate, predestination.
The movie itself is good, but it’s a great adaptation of the source material, which is incredibly difficult to translate to film. Just the way it starts by fooling you into thinking the main character is at a later stage of her own life than she really is while later revealing what she’s actually experiencing was really handled well in the script.
I thought that the reveal of the heptapods being much larger creatures, and our earlier understanding of them to be based on the characters limited perception, to be a really neet allusion to the overall premise of the story as well.
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Off topic, but this here really hit home for me (not a linguist student but someone plenty interested).
this is amazing
That was one of my favorite episodes of TNG.
Sapir Worf : the feature film
When the walls fell!
I loved Arrival, and personally I found both the ideas and the characters compelling - but if the ‘language changing perception’ part didn’t land for you, I can see why you wouldn’t care for it.
If you haven’t already read it, it might be worth trying the short story that it’s based on (‘Story of Your Life’ by Ted Chiang, in the collection Stories of Your Life and Others), instead. I found the story a bit drier than the film, but perhaps you’ll prefer it.
(ETA: And in the time I was thinking about and typing this up, I see others have beaten me to suggesting the short story!)
While rankings can be subjective I truly believe this is wrong. It was an okay movie, period. There are hundreds of Sci-Fi moves that I believe tank above it so calling it one of the greatest is a huge stretch for me.
Subjective indeed. I seriously doubt you could find 100 sci-fi movies I’d rate above Arrival. I don’t think it’s the best sci-fi film of the century or anything, but top 20 almost certainly.
I thought Arrival was a good spin on time-travel. The information travels backward in time, but it is resolved - a consistent timeline results (as far as we witness it, at least). Good sequel could be to fast forward whatever it was . . . 3 millennia and see the intelligent cockroaches from Earth arriving to save the hecapods after the knowledge the hecapods bequeathed led the humans to promptly self-annihilate, opening the path for cockroach evolution.
Haha awesome take!
yeah I was pretty meh on it too, wish I could find more scifi movies as good as Contact was
In Arrival, the ‘woo’ is basically in the last few minutes of the movie, when it’s revealed that the mission only lasted moments but the audio recorder captured hours. If you blinked, you missed it.
For me, personally, Arrival ranked up there with Interstellar.
I’m of the opinion that you have to give older movies (pre-2000’s) some latitude. Writing, continuity, and character development all evolved substantially after Arrival came out.
I think you might be talking about Contact, not Arrival? Contact was the one where there was a mission through a wormhole machine at the end that had a discrepancy in how long it lasted based on how much static the audio recorder collected. Arrival was the one with the linguist trying to figure out how the language of the visiting aliens worked.
You’re absolutely right. Got my one-word-scifi-movies mixed up. Thanks for the correction. I went ahead and deleted my comment. Apologies for the confusion.
Oh phew, I was super confused, lol.
Arrival is different as its much more drama then action. And sci-fi is usually straight up action.
Hmm, I think to deserve the label of “one of the best” you need to appeal to a very large audience. For me it was certainly one of the best, if not the actual best - I struggle to think of a scifi film that I thought was better. Scifi has so many subgenres…Serenity has a huge amount of nostalgia attached to it but it really wasn’t as good as Firefly. The Dark Knight was also incredible, but here it’s apples and oranges.
Anyway.
I adored the “first contact” scenes…and I loved that the point of the first contact was, in a sense, to force an intra-species first contact of sorts. What if the most unknown sapient beings in the universe to us live on the same planet as ourselves? kinda deal. I would go with octopi in that premise, but having it be countries we’re not allied with is an even cooler take.
As for the daughter plot - ehh, it was fine. Made the story more personal. I thought the romance was fine, because it gave some clues so you could figure out who the father was and what is going on with the timeline. “Ask your father, he’s the scientist,” etc.
But if you’re going with “one of the best scifi movies” I think you have to qualify it as like, “one of the best intellectual scifi moves.” Because “scifi” has really come more to mean either (a) superheroes or (b) space opera when it comes to movies, imo. If I hear “scifi” with zero qualifications I’m expecting Marvel or Star Trek/Wars.
Does the best mean you need to appeal to a very large audience?
For me best & most popular are two very different concepts. By your metric, modern pop music is obviously the best music?
It’s an interesting question, and part of what makes it interesting is the historical rating we give to things. e.g. operas & classical music from 300 years ago have stood the test of time in a really shockingly impressive manner. Most of modern pop music will be forgotten completely in 50 years just as we’ve forgotten the majority of what music was popular 50 years ago.
So maybe instead you can ask:
- Have a lot of people seen it & did they like it?
- Hypothetically, were a lot of people to see it, would they like it?
And the thing is, for Arrival, I think the answer is no…it would be too boring and perhaps a bit too confusing. But within its niche absolutely the answer to (probably both) questions is yes.
Also, I’ve now remembered. My favorite scifi movie of the century is probably Primer.
As a communications student (at the time when it was released), I was stoked that they explored the idea of language shaping the culture/way of thinking of a species. It was amazing to see such a concept applied to sci-fi, especially since it’s not really a science-y topic.
Aside from that, I just didn’t expect that the story would unfold the way it did, since I wasn’t aware of the short story it was based on when I first watched it.
