Arrival 11/11/2016

coming out on DVD/blu-ray next week or the week after.

 

I wouldn't go that far. I reserve that kind of criticism for Interstellar.

I thought this was a very good movie in very many respects, except for one, which just happens to be the very core of the movie's premise! There were many intelligent aspects to the movie that I liked. How may times these days do you see a scifi movie that's considered and based around scientific analysis - linguistics in this case, and not blowing crap up and fighting the bad-guy alien invaders?

The alien designs were fresh and interesting as was their means of communication, which was suitably enigmatic and original. The narrative structure of flashbacks which weren't was also a nice touch with a very emotional throughline especially at the end.

My problem was the whole non-linear time thing. The notion that these physical creatures can somehow perceive all time at once simply because of the nature of their language and that by teaching humans how to understand this language it would somehow magically rewire our brains so that we too could perceive non-linear time, is complete nonsense! This is based on the idea that human languages shape how we see the world, how we think about and how we interact with it. This a valid observation which has been studied a fair bit. But it only goes so far - it cannot make you exist outside of time, it cannot subvert the laws of physics.

And what does it mean to be see all time/events at once? It means that everything is predetermined and that we have no agency. We are all just puppets acting out a pre-programmed destiny. That implication should have been addressed (other than through the birth & death of the daughter).

There were other minor issues too, but I felt that the totality of the film and it's considered nature in general, outweighed the central conceit to make it well worthwhile. I would welcome more such scifi.

 

Next week:

Arrival [Blu-Ray] (2016)

 

Well blame the author. It's in the short story as well. Perhaps their language is alive something like a virus. Either way, I enjoyed the film.

There's no way to know what, exactly, caused the rewiring. It's outside the purview of the story we are told. I don't think everything needs to be explained in a movie--that's the fun of speculation.

The way I took the story was broader--you see a possible outcome of the future. She chose to commit to it based even though she discovered something unpleasant. It was a choice. Never had the impression it was a fixed course per se but once you go down that road, you can't go back.

 

It has to be fixed because if you can change it, then it would mean seeing the future is meaningless (ie, what you saw didn't happen if you changed it).

The fact is that in the source short story there is no ambiguity about this predestination. It's what the story is about. I guess it was too much for a commercial film, so the screenwriters tried to have it both ways by implying that choice was still possible (but in the process undermining the premise). And the information paradox with the Chinese admiral was another significant problem with the film.

 

Nah, I disagree. You see a possible future or glimpse and you can make the choice to go that route or not. When it was revealed to her, you've given her the option to not chose that path--foreknowledge can eliminate predestination as knowing about the future allows you to not follow the path. As to the Chinese admiral he also saw that, in the future, he might meet her and he was the key to making sure that the creatures aren't destroyed. The gift from these creatures isn't just to know the future but to choose that possible path-even knowing that there will be tragedy mixed with joy-that's the nice thing about art it can have it both ways and you can see it one way while I see that there were suggestions of another. She chose to be with the father of her husband because, even knowing how much pain there would be, there would also be moments of transcendence. It was the next step of evolution for humanity--to see how things might be and still committ to them. I got no sense whatsoever that it was fixed otherwise, why would she have been so desperate to make sure that the creatures aren't attacked and survive. The threat that they face will be humanity in the future in my opinion and teaching humanity that maturity to move on beyond the moment is, ultimately, what might save the aliens. We were the threat all along because we can't see the possible consequences of our actions.

I also didn't see the premise as being undermined because the premise here was used for a much different purpose and not explicitly spelled out compared to,the short story. Even knowing a little bit of the future can allow you to have an impact on outcome.

 

But that's meaningless. If you see future events then they must happen. If they don't, then you've not seen the future at all. It would be like me planning for a future outcome (a holiday) where I can picture myself on a beach but something happens to prevent it from happening (a broken leg). The two scenarios are functionally equivalent and don't involve predestination/future seeing.

Furthermore, thinking that you have a 'choice' of following or not following your flashforward and then 'deciding' to follow it anyway, is a form of predestination with the illusion of free will.

 

For the record, I didn't like Interstellar either, but, now that I've seen Arrival, I find myself looking back on that movie more favorably. While also flawed, Interstellar, at least, did impress me in some of its aspects. Arrival, on the other hand, felt (to me) like a thoroughly uninteresting, plodding, laborious rehash of what came before. I mean, come on, the concept is nothing new to anyone who's read Slaughterhouse-Five, and that's not an obscure work, by any means.

 

Or the DS9 pilot. But I still mostly liked it even if it doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. I didn't feel that way towards Interstellar. Having said that, I didn't love it enough to add it to my video archive either...

 

Both the 4K and BD of this film feature the "theatrical" version of the film, but I'm already hearing rumblings of a "The Martian"-style double dip of this film with extra footage being in the pipeline.

However, I'm wondering if these rumblings have to do with the very short theatrical re-release of the film with "8 minutes of bonus footage", with the thinking being that if next week's release is missing that footage, it is being held for a double dip.

I can't find any firm info, but it sounds like that re-release didn't have any actual new film content, and the eight minutes of footage was "behind the scenes" sort of stuff. So maybe there is no "extended" version of the film to release. I dunno.

 

So there might be an extended cut.. unless there isn't. Got it!

 

The basic idea was to warn about the possibility of a relatively quick "double dip" release (as occurred with "The Martian"), with the caveat being that I suspect those rumors *may* have started with the headlines of "8 minutes of bonus footage" for the theatrical re-release. Some folks don't get free screeners and have to buy this stuff and may be working with some sort of budget, and double dips in the same calendar year are particular frustrating for those buying this stuff.

In other words, I'm not pulling it out of thin air, as if *any* movie may or may not get an extended cut. There are specific rumors about "Arrival", but no firm statement from the director saying he has a bunch of extra footage in his back pocket; and it would make sense for them not to discuss future double dips before the first "dip" happens.

 

got around to watching this and was pretty let down. it's not a bad movie, but i've already seen "signs" and "contact" and this felt like both as if it were directed by christopher nolan.

 

I didn't look at them actually seeing "the future" a possible future -- one way it might turn out if they continued on a given path. I would disagree that it is a form of predestination because what if she hadn't chosen to go that route. Maybe it is the illusion of choice but there would be no way of knowing unless you elected to do everything to prevent that event from happening. She knew what life would be like and she chose to take that path anyway. She could have walked away from her future husband and child but decided that even with the pain, the joy of that future would be worth it. Is she locked into that future? You could argue both ways but you are right about one thing--she would never know if it was fated that she would make that decision. Either way, once she got a glimpse of that future, she decided the joy would be worth the pain.

The only way to know--for sure--would be if there was another character that saw the future and decided to do everything to prevent what they had seen happening. Either way though that wasn't really the focus on the film. It was about choosing the joy that goes with the pain or at least accepting it.

I still think that the langauge was like a virus not langauge as we think of it somehow rewriting our DNA in unexpected ways.

It also depends on whether or not you believe that for every decison you make, there is an alternate universe where you made a different one that exists at the same time.

Either way, it's a very good film.

 

Having read the novel and seen film version of "slaughterhouse-Five", I still found the story interesting, intriguing. I liked the variation that this brought to the same themes. I found that the element of the aliens and their "language" intriguing. I was willing to forgive some of the minor pacing issues and the under developed subplot involving the aliens and the extremists (which had very little set up but was at least set up in a minor way during one scene).

Is it perfect? Nah. I can't think of a flawless science fiction film or drama for that matter. It's imperfections make it just as memorable as the good stuff.

 

Watched it last night. Very good film

 

I think the key line in this film is when Amy Adams asks Jeremy Renner's character "if you can see your whole life from start to finish would you change anything?"

 

That's self contradictory. If you can see all events in your future life, then you shouldn't be able to change them. If you can change them, then you can change them in a multitude of different ways, which means that you weren't seeing the future originally.You might as well be seeing visions through mental illness - it would be just as valid.

That's why the deeper concepts of the film don't stand up to close scrutiny (including the the powers of the magic language and the admiral information paradox).

I know we've gone over this ground before, but I haven't changed my mind at all and so these are still very much big sticking points for me (which weren't mostly present in the short story). But I still enjoyed the movie and respected the way it was made using a more considered overall tone than most big scifi peew-peew type movies.

 

I'm just quoting the film and it's something of a rhetorical question but it points to the "choice" that Amy Adams makes in accepting to her what is given. Given that they experience past, present and future intertwined, I didn't see anything watching it tonight again indicating that we get an answer as to whether or not you can experience possible futures but there is a bit of an issue--if you experience the future at the same time as the present and the past, can you change things if you choose in the "present" to not go down that path? The impression I got was like yours in the limited view we see that it is a closed system. However, the question while rhetorical does answer the state of mind of Amy Adams character-- even if she could choose something different, she wouldn't.

It's an recognition that as much pain as she she will suffer, she accepts the pain along with the joy--the human condition where choice is limited (or nonexistent) but we "choose" the full range of our humanity so that we don't end up forgotten or alone.

 

Yes, I understand the humanistic theme that you outline and I agree it gives the story a strong emotional resonance.

 

Yeah I agree for me though the audacious approach to the material itself--slipping information from the beginning suggesting we were seeing some sort of "past" when she was really seeing her own future made it particularly interesting--it's adapting nonlinear filmmaking to a mainstream film with major Hollywood stars thst is quite different than what most film directors would do. it works for the film and provides an experience much for the viewer that at first is a bit disorientating and withholding the information about her past (I.e., not giving us any history so that we assume she is thinking of the past and not experiencing the future) is a clever ploy thst works for the film. I wouldn't say the narrative is perfect but I'm willing to give it a bit of leeway as the whole communication with the Chinese military leader creates a bit of suspense and puts our hero at risk and also allows it to lead to the resolution.

 

Aside from developing the conspiracy story of the soldiers and, perhaps, providing more clarity around their conversion to thinking that they should take out the aliens, I can't think of much that would enhance the story. I'd also be curious if they

 

I don't think she traveled in time in any way deliberately, I think the idea is that as she immerses herself learning the language of the aliens, it changes her understanding of existence and time (after all, what is time except a way to stop everything that ever happens happening all at once? A quote by someone...), and as that change in her strengthens she doesn't consciously go anywhere in time but rather 'remembers' a future event where she meets said general. Now as this is the future and the general knows it was her that called him and spoke the words of his dying wife, which presumably was private to him only, he has the foresight and even says he thinks it's important he shares it with her, he provides his phone number and the magic words that would make his old self sit up and take notice. Now this falls apart as if this did happen in the future she should have been expecting the conversation......but, does the fact she wasn't expecting the conversation to happen (thus closing the loop) take care of the issue that knowing past/present/future removes free will in that a future conversation can influence and change what has occurred already???? Perhaps free will is still present and the memories just change accordingly.

The idea of seeing all of time as one time track that can be traversed back and forth was raised in Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse Five with the Tralfamadorians, whose view of death was just that that particular individual was just in a not very good state just then, but go back a bit and he's just fine.

 

Just read your posts after I posted mine in a similar vein - very well put.

Not sure about the virus bit, perhaps multidimensional - that usually clears these things up.

 

Interesting analysis from IMDB which I'm reposting here because the discussion section will be going bye bye soon.

Okay so here goes, the message boards are going down in less than a week, and so I decided to document what I thought of this movie for what it's worth. Now it needs to be acknowledged that in the event that you didn't enjoy the movie, there is nothing that I could say that could change the experience you had with it, and so nothing I'm saying here is intended to change your opinion of the movie, so much as I intend to shed some light on a previously stated but not as celebrated logic of this movie, that I enjoyed.

I spent a lot of time going over the fundamental plot of the story and how it all adds up. From surmising that the alien language grants us the power to look into the future to concluding that the movie puts the entire nature of reality into jeapordy such that what transpires works only if all time exists simultaneously; all of past, present and future are now. A lot of the confusion and disbelief lies in that most of us have assumed that Louis is able to look into her future. This puts into question the nature of free will and also the problem of procuring information from the future to use in the present.

The alien language does not cause us to see the future. It causes us to remember it. Now from simple reasoning it can be understood that you cannot remember that which you haven't done. Sure you could dream up certain incidents and thus think that you've maybe had the experience in question, for the human mind is a tricky one, but this only further solidifies the storytelling in the movie.

"Memory is a strange thing" is the first line of the movie. This is our first hint. The second one comes much later when Louis tells Ian that she remembers why her husband left(not leaves) her. We get one more when she says that she forgot how good it felt to hug Ian.
That at the end she asks Ian whether he would change anything if he could see his future is merely her speaking in terms that he would see as metaphorical and that we(as the audience) would see as more easily appreciable.

All of this means that the question of whether she can change her future has little to no leverage. The things we are shown in the movie are not visions of her future, they are memories of it. And as a result it works just like human memory does. She does not remember which dress she'll wear next Saturday just as you and I do not remember what what we wore last Saturday. She does not get to pick a moment in her future and observe it; instead all she has access to is her memory of those monumental things that happen(ed) in her life. As to whether she could have chosen to not have a child; the whole notion gets a "human" quotient in it, when we realise that in those visions Louis is not an apathetic onlooking bystander, observing her future self and daughter; she is instead actively remembering it, feeling it just as we would a very dear memory of old. To have her decide to not have a child is a near impossibility in this circumstance. Yes, were she a strict dispassionate scientist who is perhaps dead on the inside, she could choose to not have a child and that would be potentially paradoxical.

But that I think is a physical impossibility because it's impossible for a person to remember having done something else in the future and do the exact opposite, and as a result such a paradox will not arise. Time is self-correcting.

This alien language gives Louis the ability to remember the monumental things in her life, and when Louis gets to an event or experience that she has previously "remembered", it acts as a slightly stronger sense of Deja Vu; just as you've experienced being in a conversation that seems oddly familiar, where for a few moments everything you say or do seems like something that's already happened, she too has but a stronger sense of the very same.

Also while we're at it, it's important to point out that human memory is erroneous, it's been studied that the more we recall a memory, the more we unwittingly manipulate miniscule peculiarities which overtime can give rise to a memory significantly different from what actually transpired. We tend to highlight a particular emotional aspect of a memory while dampening others to reflect the feeling that we got most from the experience. This helps explain the potential sappiness in Louis' memory of her daughter, which conversely added a great deal of emotional heft to the movie.

Now having discussed the working of this "power" granted by the alien language, and the deeply human and intimate reasons behind Louis' actions, we do have to confront the sequence with the Chinese General.

This sequence with the Chinese General, I have to admit, while more understandable on accepting that she isn't so much being informed by her future self, as she's remembering what the Chinese General told her, is still simply paradoxical. I have concluded that this event in particular was an anomaly in the space-time continuum. It is not a natural event dictated by the logic of the movie; it instead represents an instance when there is a break in actual order of this non-linearity of time, a rare feat which for unknown reasons does take place, and fortunately so, as it averted potential global war. To me this was the only fantastical element to the movie, and it alone might admittedly make or break the movie for some.



Fun drinking game:Take a shot every time you read an italicized word up there.

Now, given that memory is a faulty thing who knows what could happen if she mis remembers what happens in the future or that events tied to me orh are colored by our perspective emotionally at a given moment.