Arrival - movie

[PakledHostage]

So I have heard a couple of film critics whom I respect speaking highly of "Arrival", after they had a chance to see it this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. I understand that it won't be released in theaters until November but I am intrigued. In the film, dare I say it, a cunning linguist attempts to learn to communicate with aliens that arrive on Earth with unknown intentions. Katherine Monk said that she found herself still thinking about the film hours later.  I wonder if the trailer below is a good reflection of what to expect? I remember the trailers for Europa Report were such that I wasn't going to bother seeing it, but I was really impressed when I finally took a chance on it. Anyone here looking forward to seeing Arrival in November?

 

[KerbMav]

I usually try to watch anything space/scifi, but often I dont get around to it until it is on netflix or similar.

This reading as if it did not require a big screen I will most likely delay it deliberately.

[Alshain]

It will be interesting to see Amy Adams in this kind of role.  It seems a bit out of her usual element.  Though that doesn't mean she isn't capable, she is very talented.

35 minutes ago, KerbMav said:

I usually try to watch anything space/scifi, but often I dont get around to it until it is on netflix or similar.

This reading as if it did not require a big screen I will most likely delay it deliberately.

I agree, this seems less sci-fi more thriller (i.e. Alien).  I don't really like thriller.  However, that could just be bad trailer marketing.  That music sets the tone of a thriller, but the content seems to suggest something closer to Contact or Independence Day.

Edited September 12, 2016 by Alshain

[PakledHostage]

9 hours ago, Alshain said:

I agree, this seems less sci-fi more thriller (i.e. Alien).  I don't really like thriller.  However, that could just be bad trailer marketing.  That music sets the tone of a thriller, but the content seems to suggest something closer to Contact or Independence Day.

Yeah, that was what I was trying to get across with the comparison to the Europa Report trailers. Those had me believing that Europa Report was some cheesy thriller, when in reality it wasn't really that at all. The fact that at least one reputable reviewer (at least one that I regard as such) is saying that Arrival made them think suggests that it might be quite good. I am hoping that it will be along the lines of Ex Machina, in finding a balance between "thriller" and "sci-fi" , and thought provoking in its implications.

Edited September 13, 2016 by PakledHostage

[Robotengineer]

I would also recommend the book Arrival is based on, Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Robotengineer

[Bill Phil]

Sounds like we need Michael Smith... We must grok the aliens.

[kerbiloid]

This motif with a mysterious monolith landing somewhere on the Earth and staying still looks like somebody came into a forest, sat down onto an ant heap and mysteriously stays frozen.
If you have something to say - why to depict a stone, if not - why to sat onto an ant heap.

 

3 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

We must grok the aliens.

... before they grok us first.

[PakledHostage]

Has anyone else seen it yet? I just saw it. It reminds me in some ways of Contact.

Edit: Thinking about it some more, I can see elements of Interstellar, Gravity and Contact in it. One reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes described it as a "chic flick wrapped in Sci-fi"... Although that is an interesting observation, I am not sure I'd be that harsh. Even so, I wouldn't recommend it to those who expect their sci-fi to have action sequences and 'splosions!.

Edited November 13, 2016 by PakledHostage

[Robotengineer]

6 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

Has anyone else seen it yet? I just saw it. It reminds me in some ways of Contact.

Edit: Thinking about it some more, I can see elements of Interstellar, Gravity and Contact in it. One reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes described it as a "chic flick wrapped in Sci-fi"... Although that is an interesting observation, I am not sure I'd be that harsh. Even so, I wouldn't recommend it to those who expect their sci-fi to have action sequences and 'splosions!.

Haven't seen it yet, but read 'Story of Your Life,' the story it was based on. Hopefully going to see it tomorrow. I would still recommend it to people who like their sci-fi to have action and explosions because they need to broaden their horizons. 

[Stargate525]

Hadn't read the story.

But the ending was HORRIBLE. I did not sign up for the wibbly-wobbly lunacy that it devolved into.

[monstah]

30 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

I did not sign up for the wibbly-wobbly lunacy that it devolved into.

Pay for science fiction, get The Power of Love instead. Again. Ugh.

The whole thing is just so... why didn't they bother to learn human languages instead? The part with the telephone and the wife's last words was so heavy-handed it felt like someone forgot to wrap most of the script and just threw the resolution in a single scene. And the whole daughter plot line seems completely disconnected to me. It never fleshes out the daughter character, we are given no reason to care for her at all; it doesn't help flesh out Amy's character either.

And why did they send a physicist? Actually, what did he even do?

[kerbiloid]

18 minutes ago, monstah said:

And why did they send a physicist?

1. They don't like him.
2. They have another one. Rather than a hair-dresser.

 

18 minutes ago, monstah said:

Actually, what did he even do?

Indeed
 

Spoiler

 

 

18 minutes ago, monstah said:

why didn't they bother to learn human languages instead?

This was their 50th attempt to establish contact with unterm junior civilization. They stopped learning languages after the 35th,
 

Edited December 1, 2016 by kerbiloid

[Stargate525]

As far as the physicist thing, I assumed that the army had watched Contact. He and the Aussie one-liner do mention trying binary, primes, and Fibonacci sequences to try and establish communication, as well as trying to teach them algebra.

And the later part of the movie shows they DO understand spoken English, at least, and presumably the writing as that's how they were gathering their lexicon. I imagine that the writing issue is a biological limitation on their part, being unable to form the shapes.

 

7 hours ago, monstah said:

The whole thing is just so... why didn't they bother to learn human languages instead? The part with the telephone and the wife's last words was so heavy-handed it felt like someone forgot to wrap most of the script and just threw the resolution in a single scene. And the whole daughter plot line seems completely disconnected to me. It never fleshes out the daughter character, we are given no reason to care for her at all; it doesn't help flesh out Amy's character either.

"What do you mean it's not as long as Contact..."

"We need to cut FORTY FIVE MINUTES?!"

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

trying binary, primes, and Fibonacci sequences to try and establish communication, as well as trying to teach them algebra.

A totally bad idea at all.

Spoiler

A subversion: one who has played Civilization, remember idiotic situations like "Babylonian aircraft carrier enters your capital haven and demands to teach them writing".

If all terrestrial cities, satellites, aviation and industry is not enough for them to ensure in the human intelligence, no algebra-schmalgebra could remedy this.

6 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

And the later part of the movie shows they DO understand spoken English

And it would be really strange if after crossing a galaxy they wouldn't just watch TV with basic language lessons to study what they would contact with.

[Stargate525]

10 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

A totally bad idea at all.

  Reveal hidden contents

A subversion: one who has played Civilization, remember idiotic situations like "Babylonian aircraft carrier enters your capital haven and demands to teach them writing".

If all terrestrial cities, satellites, aviation and industry is not enough for them to ensure in the human intelligence, no algebra-schmalgebra could remedy this.

It's not to prove that we're intelligent; there is a theory that mathematics would be an easier shared 'language' between disparate species, as they're both supposedly describing the same universal concepts.

[kerbiloid]

34 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

It's not to prove that we're intelligent; there is a theory that mathematics would be an easier shared 'language' between disparate species, as they're both supposedly describing the same universal concepts.

If a city road traffic doesn't prove for them that we know mathematics, it would be hard to prove that we really know these theoremes rather than draw them instinctively.

Edited December 2, 2016 by kerbiloid

[monstah]

He's not talking about proving us intelligent, he's talking about having a common base for communicating with them.

[kerbiloid]

5 minutes ago, monstah said:

He's not talking about proving us intelligent, he's talking about having a common base for communicating with them.

Ok, and as we can see on the picture, this doesn't work much even between humans.

By unknown reason authors of the contact methodics thinks that a ball is on their side, and they must think out some way to communicate with childish, retarded extraterrestrials to interest them like a baby-sitter.

That's their starship, by the way, they spent much more time inventing communication methodics for low-level civilizations like ours, and they definitely have flown here by a reason, having a clear aim.
These geometry drawings would look for them like if a caveman draws a mammoth with a finger and wants them to smile with him, looking for them like an moron.

Much better just to worthily come in, make a curtsey, then just silently stand straight and wait for them.
As they have come here and let the cavemen enter, sure they won't be looking like morons making them to wait all day long.
Also sure that they haven't cross the galaxy to discuss school books with theoremes. They have an aim and will tell us what they want.
They have intellect, too. No reason to speak with their mouth treating them like brainless muppets.

[monstah]

Which is why I asked, why didn't they bother to learn human languages instead?

Now, taken for a fact that they didn't (because the author has brain damage, or something), the best we can do is try to think out some way to communicate with childish, retarded extraterrestrials to interest them like a baby-sitter.

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, monstah said:

Now, taken for a fact that they didn't (because the author has brain damage, or something), the best we can do is try to think out some way to communicate with childish, retarded extraterrestrials to interest them like a baby-sitter.

_{They will kill us when see our movies about contact...}

[Stargate525]

12 minutes ago, monstah said:

Which is why I asked, why didn't they bother to learn human languages instead?

Now, taken for a fact that they didn't (because the author has brain damage, or something), the best we can do is try to think out some way to communicate with childish, retarded extraterrestrials to interest them like a baby-sitter.

Oh for the love of...

DID YOU WATCH THE MOVIE?! At the end, She is SPEAKING to them, and they are replying with their circlebits. THEY UNDERSTAND THE LANGUAGE. What they lack is bloody VOCAL CORDS TO REPLICATE IT...

And have you learned a different language? It starts with 'childish' words and concepts, because that's the base everything else is built on. When trying to communicate with a completely different species, from a completely different BIOSPHERE, even those base concepts could be RADICALLY different. How do you explain the concept of 'red' to them if they see only in shades of grey? Or in UV? What about the difference between happiness and sadness, if they don't have the same emotional range? What about the concept of war and anger, if they're a prey species and have only a flight response?

[monstah]

2 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

DID YOU WATCH THE MOVIE?! At the end, She is SPEAKING to them, and they are replying with their circlebits. THEY UNDERSTAND THE LANGUAGE. What they lack is bloody VOCAL CORDS TO REPLICATE IT...

I meant before the whole thing. If they can see 3000 years (or much more) into the future, they can came here and say "hey" in any language they'd like, not hang around for months playing 20 questions. Vocal cords or not, they can write just fine.

 

2 minutes ago, Stargate525 said:

And have you learned a different language? It starts with 'childish' words and concepts, because that's the base everything else is built on.

...MATH. We've been discussing just that.

Edited December 2, 2016 by monstah

[PakledHostage]

10 hours ago, monstah said:

I meant before the whole thing. If they can see 3000 years (or much more) into the future, they can came here and say "hey" in any language they'd like, not hang around for months playing 20 questions. Vocal cords or not, they can write just fine.

But teaching the humans their language was the whole point of the plot...

 

[kerbiloid]

12 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

And have you learned a different language?

Mmm... Otherwise the forum would be twice smaller.

12 hours ago, monstah said:

If they can see 3000 years (or much more) into the future, they can came here and say "hey" in any language they'd like, not hang around for months playing 20 questions.

3000 is not necessary. A learning DVD for 5$ is enough for basics,
Vocal cords is not a problem. Deaf people don't use them. There are different ways to communicate, For example, I have heard nobody from this forum, I just read you.

12 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

And have you learned a different language? It starts with 'childish' words and concepts

When you begin to study it in school, it starts with adult words and concepts. My first English words were "a pen", "take a pen", "pencil" and so on.

12 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

How do you explain the concept of 'red' to them if they see only in shades of grey?

When they get a schoolbook, different color circles have captions with names. Looking at three similar gray circles, they will analyze their photo in alien photoshop and realize that people distinguish 50 3 shades of grey.

12 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

What about the difference between happiness and sadness, if they don't have the same emotional range?

They anyway understand "profit". Basically, "happiness" - when you gain, "sadness" - when you lose. Well enough for the first contact approximation.

12 hours ago, Stargate525 said:

What about the concept of war and anger, if they're a prey species and have only a flight response?

(Unlikely they could reach such tech level in this case, btw).
Are they had obsered the Earth before landing (at least to choose a landing place), they definitely have seen several of them - and will ask "what the fake?"
And human delegation answers: "Good people are going to win a victory over bad people. And they are trying to decide who of them is good."

Btw, all this means that the only kind of UFO kidnapping reports is where a school pupil is late for an hour because UFO kidnapped him and robbed his school diary with marks and classes schedule.
This looks very conclusive.
They had seen a place where human youngsters study learn spend time, Stopped one of them, robbed his books, and it took an hour to scan them.
The purpose of diary was not clear, as it has no pictures, so they left it on the starship for investigations.
Then an hour later they returned the pupil back, with books but without diary.

Edited December 3, 2016 by kerbiloid

[monstah]

8 hours ago, PakledHostage said:

But teaching the humans their language was the whole point of the plot...

 

You can probably tell I didn't like the movie very much...