Let's put obligatory time paradox discussions aside...

Let's put obligatory time paradox discussions aside, I'm sick and tired of those whenever a movie involving time rears it's head.

What I want to know is why were the aliens so cryptic in sending their message. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel as if the movie portrays it as something that people have to figure out for themselves. Probably with the implication that they just wouldn't get it otherwise or that they would put it to nefarious use. That's a bit cheesy and clunky in itself, but as it turns out, nobody even learns the language except for Louise. And when she does, aliens leave in smug self-satisfaction. Taught 'em good!

So what was the point in separating the language into multiple parts? Did it bring humanity together or did it just give Louse a ton of stress?

Why the fuck did the aliens not just broadcast a message (in human language) that they have a cool gift of language that will solve a lot of problems? Take it or leave it boys, but trust us, it's the shit. Sounds a lot more rational and productive to me.

I guess this is what happens when you just have to do Contact all over again but you don't really think things through.

>What I want to know is why were the aliens so cryptic in sending their message.
They're not, they just don't think the same way we do. Humans perceive time as linear with causality behaving normally.
The heptapods, and those who learn their language, perceive time as happening simultaneously. Like Billy Pilgrim becoming unstuck in time in Slaughterhouse 5.
They can't just communicate directly, because the different language is predicated on an entirely different frame of reference.
Trying to describe what blue looks like to a blind person would be an easier task because at least there is common cultural and evolutionary factors you can lean on.

you're wrong

I know. And that's exactly why they could have approached it differently. They know how it's gonna turn out and they're clearly clever squids. Since (in their own minds) they already experienced the entire encounter with humans, they could have reverse-engineered human language and devised at least a primitive of making their intentions more clear. Especially since they will apparently need human help. At the very least, they could have found a way to make sure that humans understand that their mission is benevolent.

Instead, their best effort seems to be to just appear and roll with it. They even willingly let one of their own get killed - but I won't point that out as a flaw because maybe they just don't care about dying.

OP dont think too much. This story is essentially nietzschean in theme and focus. (maybe with a bit of Derrida and Saussure thrown in there) It's about eternal return, its about grief, it's about communication and empathy. Don't rationalize it too much. Over rationalization is just a kind of symptom of modern neuroticism

I feel like the tagline was made up by the studio and quite frankly it's awful. the alien stuff was just to get people to see the movie.

>devised at least a primitive of making their intentions more clear

Primitive way*

>"make sure"
but user do you even stop for a second and think ?
"making sure" implies anticipating the future
heptapods don't have to do that because they can see it
idk why they chose this method in particular, probably to make it an interesting movie
now wether or not it would work is none of their concern since they already knew it works/worked/will work

I'm smarter than you OP, so I'll explain things for you.

The aliens handled it that way because they needed humanity to work together so that in 3000 years they would be able to help the heptapods. If mankind were simply been given the "tool" they would never have achieved global unison, and presumably, peace. A peace that guarantees humanity's survival and/or prosperity into the future.

If you're implying that the message should trump the way the message is delivered, well I disagree. Maybe not in principle, but definitely in this instance. I think the confused delivery hurts the message.

Kinda funny that that's the exact problem the squids have.

So you're saying that by the nature of their worldview, they don't really have free will and they simply act things through because that's just how it is?

If that's how it is, I don't understand how they ever do anything or how it came to be that they ended up on earth in the first place. If they know they will need help, this implies that they are looking for a solution. By your interpretation, looking for a solution is nothing that would occur as an option to them because they don't really operate with options in mind.

Well for one, it's quite clear that every event in the universe of Arrival is deterministic.

I'm not sure if you're sarcastic. How did you say anything here that I didn't already?

>The aliens handled it that way because they needed humanity to work together so that in 3000 years they would be able to help the heptapods.

I know this. The movie spells it out quite literally. I thought there's a catch with "3000 years" and that it's the key to understanding their actions, what with their non-linear experience of time, but I don't see it if there is one.

>If mankind were simply been given the "tool" they would never have achieved global unison, and presumably, peace. A peace that guarantees humanity's survival and/or prosperity into the future.

That's the entire point of my post. Louise learns the language on her own, but the rest of humanity doesn't - it's just spoonfed to them by Louise. So how is this different than being spoonfed by the squids directly?

>If that's how it is, I don't understand how they ever do anything or how it came to be that they ended up on earth in the first place.
user, the problem of determinism vs free will predates fucking science itself. It's literally introduction to philosophy 101.

>"So you're saying that by the nature of their worldview, they don't really have free will and they simply act things through because that's just how it is?"

pretty much, and that's also what I understand by the dialogue between Louise and Ian when she asks him if he would change anything if he could see his whole life in advance
From the very moment when she meets the aliens, Louise knows that she will have a child with Ian, and that the same child will die from cancer before reaching adulthood. Yet she still gives birth (which is what ruined their marriage from what I understood)
Overall the movie deals more about fate than anything else in my opinion

How in the fuck are you trying to rationalise the thought process of a being that perceives time as non-linear?

Perhaps because of that, it's impossible to even write something so complicated unless youre Stephen fucking Hawking but honestly no matter what argument you put forward you're all going to be wrong or you're all going to be right.

>Why did god give Moses the 10 commandments when he could have just given everyone in the world stone tablets?
You're 14.

>"So how is this different than being spoonfed by the squids directly?"

I guess it's because she has a phd in linguistics. Picture this :
The world the heptapods come from is probably very different, and there is a huge chance that their "language" is the only one they know and use. So teaching a language is not something they can do, as opposed to humans. Louise teaches herself their language.

...they don't care about it dying because it was always meant to die at that very moment.

This is the reason why I avoid Arrival threads on Sup Forums. When you change the perception of time by innately altering dimensional experience, literally everything moral and cultural gets thrown out of the window. The film becomes deterministic, and the individuality of all of the characters is (de)constructed into some hyper-communist, hivemind fantasy.

The aliens bestow the weapon and state that they'll need humanity's help in return a thousand years later. Villeneuve also shows the chinaman talking to her at the book party, representing the new resulting age of information communication: human collaboration at levels never before seen. That means the collaboration, a direct derivative of the incited evolution, is a function, with a very specific purpose, from organisms that already know/knew its effects.

Tl;dr-- the next frontier of humanity is a form of globalism; one interconnected hivemind of collaboration that will allow us the technological prowess to actually offer something to the amazing space-faring race brilliant enough to do all of the shit in arrival.

This. She literally spells it out when she starts diagramming the sentence for forest whittaker.

The whole movie is completely retarded and unnecessarily tense.

Apparently before recruiting Adams they had people what? Stand in the room with aliens not attempting anything? Even basic communication? She's the first to put pen to paper and attempt to convey simple words? C'mon.

Then there's again just tension for the sake of tension. The aliens could've immediately started shitting out symbols and humans would eventually decypher them since they're OBVIOUSLY a language so give them enough data and they're crunch it.
Instead everything is drawn out and they only give us the entire alphabet when one of them croaks. Again, everything could've been avoided easily.

Hell, why even go through the highly complicated meet-ups in the ship. Why not just give us all the symbols printed out. No reason at all than to have the cool "gravity switch" moment in the ship, again to milk the movie for time.

And then the whole "I'll whisper what the chinese leader's dead wife said on her deathbed to him over the phone" which is somehow going to defuse a global war crisis.

It's not particularly clear why other countries would get militarized immediately or try to attack the ships. Obviously if they're so advanced to pop up and handle gravity drives they shouldn't be messed with impulsively.

And why did the aliens hips land where they did? Apparently one landed in Greenland? Yeah that makes sense if they aim to convey their language to us, right? Again, just to build up tension for no reason.

You're saying nothing.

But as I said, this brings up a problem with the aliens looking for help. Somebody must have come to a decision at a certain point to look for help. In fact, the sheer act of identifying a problem as a problem is an act of free will rather than accepting things as they are.

So perhaps they do have a degree of free will, but they're simply incredibly lazy and they just rolled with the first solution that they thought of that they know would work. Then they just rolled with it because w/e. This also implies that they don't really care about the death process too much.

Yeah, yeah, they needed Louise as a filter of their knowledge to the rest of the world. But if that's your argument, surely you realize there are better ways of reaching out to Louise than this whole circus they came up with.

Same as above.

>That's the entire point of my post. Louise learns the language on her own

No she doesn't. Up to a certain point, they were still exchanging information with other countries that facilitated their learning of the language. In the exposition video halfway through the movie, it's even stated that the scientists in Afghanistan (?) made some great discovery about the language. The chinese also clearly understood enough to interpret the heptapod's word for tool/weapon.

>it's just spoonfed to them by Louise

Even if what you're saying is true, this comes after the fact that China and other countries decided to work together again on the verge of a nuclear holocaust. Moreover, they are only able to learn the entirety of the language ("fluency") by joining all 12 pieces of the "map". Just because we can understand a couple of glyphs of ancient egyptian doesn't mean anyone alive today can speak the language.

>Apparently before recruiting Adams they had people what? Stand in the room with aliens not attempting anything?
Did you even watch the movie? The tape she is given in the very beginning is them trying to communicate with the aliens. Withing 24-48 hours they have the worlds greatest linguist and a physicist on a plane to the site who sees the original project leader being lead out on a medivac because he couldn't handle it mentally.
Put your phone down next time you watch a movie.

You know what I don't get? Do countries not already have a plan if we are visited by alien life forms?

I mean, we have official government plans for a fucking zombie attack so why not aliens? It's better to think beforehand than to be completely unprepared

>But if that's your argument
That's not my argument, that's what happened in the fucking movie. You're the one having a hard time with a movie that literally spoon feeds this information to you.

>"whole circus"

Alright. The Aliens reach out to Louise privately. In most cases, she goes crazy and probably ends up in an asylum. Now let's imagine she doesn't. She learns the language, then what ? "Yeah I met with space squids who taught me to see the future xD now listen to me I'll teach you !!"
the circus as you call it was necessary for everyone on earth to realize that shit was going down. Also, the aliens didn't even chose Louise, they were lucky enough to have her understand their point, because the 11 other ships got dumbasses apparently

In addition,
>inb4 hurr aliens are our government yadda-yadda

a zombie attack is incomparable to an alien invasion

It's called the Brooking's Report, user. The brooking institute, a government think tank, wrote up a document in the 60's about what to do in the event of confirmed extraterrestrial life.

What was the relevance of the daughter?

But my point is that we have official plans for something only seen in fiction.
The chances of zombies are just as equal as aliens existing.

Hell, in my opinion we're more likely to get visited by aliens than a zombie outbreak.

Get checked for autism OP, seriously. I'm hoping it's that as opposed to you being a worthless fuck that pettily criticizes a movie just to feel "smart".

I'm not talking about the confirmation of extraterrestrial life.

I'm talking in the sense where they literally plant space ships on our land.

read

> nobody even learns the language except for Louise

I think the chinese general or their people also learned the aliens language. At least nor in the movie nor in the book is clearly stated that only the american lady was the only one that learned the language

how could you possibly prepare for shit like this
I think the way the "invasion" is depicted in the movie is pretty realistic
Governements trying to tell as little as possible
Plebs going ape shit
checks out

Nigga pls.
The entire sequence was beyond retarded.

She comes in and does the entire "rebel" taking off clunky enviro-suit and takes a pad and paper and starts going me tarzan you jane routine and everyone, including the brass, looks all dumbfounded like she's making some insane breakthrough.

I guess that up until that point they just sat there doing nothing buy recording, yet when she shows up they already have one "specialist" being carried out and they already have a whole protocol about going into the alien ship and room.

Maybe you should stop making excuses for shit movies.

>The chances of zombies are just as equal as aliens existing.
user is experiencing the autism process

>how could you possibly prepare for shit like this
Gee I don't know. A team full of experts can't come up with something?
How so? They are both pretty realistic and i'm not talking about zombie ants. I meant human zombies.

they aren't surprised by her method, they're surprised by her ignoring every possible risk that implies taking off the suit and getting closer to the glass
>"up until that point"
haha yeah man I mean how many hours did they manage to waste amirite ? Guys wtf the aliens arrived 1 DAY AGO and you still dont know why theyre here ? step up ur fucking game soldiers

You identified more problems than I did, all decent points, but:

>Apparently before recruiting Adams they had people what? Stand in the room with aliens not attempting anything? Even basic communication? She's the first to put pen to paper and attempt to convey simple words? C'mon.

It's actually very important to consider who gets to talk with aliens. It's perfectly rational that it should be an expert. You risk saying something wrong otherwise.

But it's true that it's somewhat implausible that they didn't bring her (or somebody like her) along for the first visit to the ship. Only somewhat though, because you have to keep in mind that it all happened very quickly and they knew that other parts of the world are probably on it already so they need to keep up.

>And then the whole "I'll whisper what the chinese leader's dead wife said on her deathbed to him over the phone" which is somehow going to defuse a global war crisis.

Of all things to say, that's not the worst. It sends a clear message that something magical and larger-than-life is going on, plus the message itself (what his wife said) is a clear message of peace.

>No she doesn't. Up to a certain point, they were still exchanging information with other countries that facilitated their learning of the language. In the exposition video halfway through the movie, it's even stated that the scientists in Afghanistan (?) made some great discovery about the language. The chinese also clearly understood enough to interpret the heptapod's word for tool/weapon.
Good point, but that's still not the entire world. A bunch of linguists coming together and becoming enlightened does not enlighten the billions of masses. Most of the world is still just spoonfed this language. If the language itself is enough for enlightenment, as I said, the squids could have spoonfed it themselves.

>the verge of a nuclear holocaust
Not really, the Chinese are not preparing to fight the world, only the aliens.

>literally non zero chance of some form of life existing in the vast infinite reaches of space
>ayy dead rise from the grave lmao!

>ayy dead rise from the grave lmao!
Stop watching zombie flicks and maybe you can think for once.

>"the squids could have spoonfed it themselves."
how can you be so sure of that ?
>

What in the fuck do you come up with?

Assuming aliens travel here, they are vastly more superior to us in some way, that is a fact, either -

Biologically - Somehow it's possible that they were able to travel here using their own biology, nothing we have ever encountered or could have imagined, plans mean shit all.

Technologically - This means both higher intelligence and better technology, plans mean shit all.

We would be preparing for something impossible to prepare for.

why did the daughter draw the bird in a cage?

yeah I know what your point is

I just mean that it's much easier to come up with a plan for what to do in case of a zombie outbreak

zombies are just human corpses, regardless of whatever specific rules they'd operate under if they ever did happen to come into being. That's the kind of thing that would actually benefit from government preparation, humanity could theoretically overcome a zombie outbreak

however, the chances of all the preparation in the world being completely pointless are much higher in the case of an alien invasion

wanted to quote this my bad

probably some symbolism bullcrap lets be honest
I mean it' something every kid has drawn at some point

I'm not having much trouble with anything. If you got over your juvenile, cringy tuff guy bullshit here, you'd realize I'm understanding the premise just fine.

>Alright. The Aliens reach out to Louise privately. In most cases, she goes crazy and probably ends up in an asylum

There's plenty of ways of assuring her that the shit is for real. In fact, they could have reached out to a number of people and brought them together to work on it.

>She learns the language, then what ? "Yeah I met with space squids who taught me to see the future xD now listen to me I'll teach you !!"
Then the aliens appear and she can come in prepared to explain what's going on.

The whole notion that humanity is enlightened and ready to come together just because something big happened is wrong in the first place.

>everyone, including the brass, looks all dumbfounded like she's making some insane breakthrough.

>mfw the old, meanie-weenies CIA/military trope.

At least we know for a fact that Villeneuve knows better. Still psyched for Blade Runner 2049.

i guess, but why was the bird in the sessions in the first place? Am i retarded for thinking theres some connection between Abbott dying and the bird and the daughter?

Does this movie portray determinism or compatibilism?

Apparently, determinism, otherwise Louise would've seen a different timeline where she refused to have a babby with Ian.

The alien's "gift" is actually a curse, which explains why their word is also synonymous with "weapon" and "tool".

>why was the bird in the sessions in the first place
Canary in the coal mine. If the air was bad, the bird would be the first thing to die.

The aliens didn't have a reason to do things the way they did except for that they had already done it, they just did what they already knew.

oh yeah lol duh. and i guess the mom told her the story

"BLACKED.com" The Post.

>"Arrival" is about a situation where a number of discreet, unexpected events must necessarily coalesce into a beneficial sequence in order to attain a desired outcome in a future scenario
>Trump confirmed to be a heptapod

Just dropping by to say.
I loved that movie.

way better then those rating websites score it.

The bad:
bobably ridiculously hard to translate.

>That's a bit cheesy and clunky in itself, but as it turns out, nobody even learns the language except for Louise

Didnt the chinese general also learn it? How else was he able to give her what to say from their future encounter?

He learned it later on, after the whole thing is over. It's implied many people learned it at that point. If he had learned it during the crisis, he wouldn't need Louise to send him the message.

It is pretty evident that during the crisis (while the aliens are still on earth), Louise is the only one who grasps the language enough to put it's time-melting properties to full use.

Not really. The movie explains that the more you learn the language, the more you unlock it's magical time melting properties. So while learning it, you could probably sort of subconsciously draw from your future knowledge of the language to more intuitively grasp it.

I know this, but I think that premise is somewhat bullshit, because, well: and the whole discussion after and before that.

OP i cant tell if you are trolling or legitimately an idiot.

Same goes for you.

Nope. Countries aren't hiveminds, user. Every country has its own interests and those interests change over time. Any contingency plan made would be obsolete in 10 years. The literally best thing any country can do is just simply cooperate with each other when whatever the fuck lands at our doorstep

Or just make sure they meet the right preordained translator jesus professor woman like they already knew they were going to.

I don't understand why they didn't try conveying some math to the heptapods.

They had the physicist there, and he was asking the questions to the boss, stuff like the fibonacci sequence, and I remember a conversation with the UK guy I think about algebra.

But aside from that, absolutely nothing about math. I would have thought that math would be the absolute easiest way to make progress and relations with the aliens, but I suppose it would be a little boring.

other city teams were trying math based approaches, each team concentrated on whatever their team was best suited for perhaps

>I don't understand why they didn't try conveying some math to the heptapods.
They fucking did. Again, you weren't paying attention to the movie. They say the heptapods are confused by basic math and algebra, but intuitively grasp higher dimensional math.

aliens come to earth to tell one single woman that she can see the future and then they disappear and absolutely nothing positive comes from this.

this movie had a fucking retarded plot worse than tumblrina fanfiction. Great audio direction and visual effects/shot composure. Thats it though.

almost wrote in different thread that death processed

its physically impossible for there to be zombies, the classic definition of course, not the 28 days rabies humans.

even if they were possible, they would be blind deaf and dumb and not much of a threat.

I mentioned that, read my post. The UK guy or the Aussie guy said that.

Why didn't the US try it? They had a physicist there, who was asking all the questions at the start, FTL travel, Fibonacci sequence, etc., but they didn't show it, or expand on it.

Cont.
Renner was useless inside the ship when Louise was trying to teach them English, aside from being a prop to explain walking and being a man.

Of everything they showed inside the ship, Renner did absolutely nothing.

Maybe Renner was asking all those mathematical questions off screen, but I really wished they showed it.

> In fact, they could have reached out to a number of people and brought them together to work on it.

is that not what they did?

>Why didn't the US try it?
Who says they didn't? But why would you want to spend a movie watching hawkeye not move the plot forward?

Please convince me wrong and that I might have overlooked something. Is this not literally exactly the plot concisely summarized and is it not dumb?

The aliums offered no tech or collective information. They told miss mary sue that she could see the future, that they'd need help in 3000 years, then evaporated. No extra knowledge that could have benefit the human race in totality, or even imply that all or any other humans could see the future - so devoid of useful info that mary sues daughter dies of cancer like 10 years after the alien encounter.

Does the story merely try to imply that a greater good could or would result from the encounter without any exposition at all? that maybe a hundred years down the line the full aliums language is decyphered to have objective meaning for technology?

This is seems like a poorly written script.

The message of Arrival is an exposition on the dangers of liberal propaganda and how the only danger in the world is chaos between communities instigated by fabrications and fictions, and that we virtually have never been closer to utopia than we are today - only to be surpassed by tomorrow.

i dont recall one scene where they showed Amy Adams as being anything other than a linguist who just happened to understand the aliens first

there is not one "you go girl, you go show them dumb boyz" scene

I mentioned that as well in my first post
Are you just here to repeat everything I'm saying instead of adding to it or debating it?

Its more like she is the only person capable of seeing the future and the only apparent reason the aliums even existed was to tell her that she could see the future since there is no other exposition on any benefits the encounter had. Its not girl empowerment, its self-insert power fantasy.

I'm just wondering what your complaint is, that its not a completely different movie? Do you have actual autism?

>its self-insert power fantasy.

i feel like time and focus are the main reasons why the movie doesn't follow 5-10 different characters journey understanding the aliens language.

I think Ted Chiang, the author of the original story, merely wrote while suffering fever dreams.

There is a more generalized lightly touched idea that she only gained the ability to see the future because she was learning their language, potentially meaning anyone who learns the language could see the future as well. But neither the story or film make any effort to put substantial implications or meaning behind this knowledge beyond her daughter's passing - more or less ultimately ending on her dead daughter. It's actually pointlessly depressing and left me feeling intellectually malnourished.

I hope the director goes on to make more sci fi films cause the dude has got the eye for everything in terms of shot structure and special effects, but Ted can bugger off.

he is doing the new Blade Runner

They knew Louise would figure it out. Because they see all time together. I guess like maybe if you were physically looking at the back of a CD/DVD -- all the data the same time and could somehow interpret it.
They don't really show it doing anything for the world but I thought that's what that big award ceremony was supposed to be portraying.
Anyways, I liked it. Saw it today actually so I'm pretty happy I found this thread.

Sup Forums in death process

really fucking stupid movie. Zero payoff and bait and switch

>it's true
Well that is certainly encouraging.

I don't anticipate he could mess it up even in the slightest. That'll be a great movie.

so far Denis Villeneuve has not made a bad film in Hollywood

he has to have one of the most Sup Forums approved track records, no if that is a good or bad thing is up to you

Something about being engrossed in learning a new language that causes you to perceive the world differently or some trite garbage such as that.

Might be the only person in the entire thread to actually understand it. Its the way it is because its a story that we're supposed to get feelings out of.

this was the most reddit movie fucking ever

>left me feeling intellectually malnourished.

its impossible to take you seriously when you write like such a faggot

Feel free to murder your family and friends before suicide, champ.

Not him, but I have to say, the guy makes a great point!

>The whole notion that humanity is enlightened and ready to come together just because something big happened is wrong in the first place.

The proof of existence of other life in the universe is practically the staple of Sci-Fis' making a united government.
Mass Effect, Halo, etc.

>Over rationalization is just a kind of symptom of modern neuroticism

Is there a precedent for this in film? I mean, for not over-rationalizing stuff? Like, are there some highly acclaimed directors where attempts to rationalize and define their work fall apart? To me this feels like a cop-out. I mean, Arrival is basically just throwing a bunch of ideas together and hoping that they stick. To me that feels incredibly shallow and pointless when compared to any work that actually tries to make a coherent point.

so how exactly is language made up of circles supposed to help you see the future?

was it the aliens making her see the future?

what did seeing future dead kiddo have to do with all the people of earth suddenly disregarding thousands of years of war and conflict so we can all sit around and sing kumbaya, and be ready to help the aliens 3,000 years later?

>"oh yeah, I knew the future the whole time and our kid will die a slow, painful death"
>"did I forget to tell you that"
>I would have left her too

The point is
>the movie itself depicts an irrationally antagonizing and uncooperative china and russia going gung ho and sending everyone into a panic
Need i remind you that this was literally the democrat platform running up to the recent presidential election? Muh evil russians will start world war 3 and hack us and life is literally a tom clancy book and the cold war never ended, yada yada garbage trying to take advantage of people by inventing chaotic situations.

The film does a great job of parodying liberal fiction (the film itself representing fiction), and the problems associated with it, including the absolute lack of empathy expressed by liberals - represented by Louise's acceptance of her daughter's fate depicted in foresight before the child was ever conceived. The movie ends poorly and abruptly lacking coherent reasoning, also much like an argument presented by a liberal.

why else would the movie exist