Arrival

What's the deal with this movie? All critics and people in my group of friends said it was good but when I went to see it I thought it was a convoluted mediocre film with a plot that made no sense.

Discuss

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blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/11/quick-how-might-the-alien-spacecraft-work/
youtube.com/watch?v=G8U21reHexg
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You couldn't understand the plot when it was just "let's just try to talk to the aliens?"

You're not that bright, are you?

>convoluted
>made no sense

How? Discuss.

this movie was a total let down. Made me scare about Blade Runner 2049. Hope the script is not that bad

fucking Lois Lane was a fucking bitch, she knew if she hooked up with Hawkeye she would have a cancer kid who would live a miserable life because of cancer and Hawkeye would hate her and she went and did it anyway. Fuxk lois Lane

what in tarnation

But she already did it.
That's like, the entire point of the movie

OOOH nevermind fuck I seriously don't watch any capeshit and forgot those actors played Lois and Hawkeye

It's a decent movie, but as others have said it's the kind of movie that basically states that it's deep and gets the general audience to believe they're smarter for seeing it when it isn't actually that deep.

ABBOTT IS DEATH PROCESS.

I enjoyed it quite a bit because I have a boner for timetravelish stuff but I agree that it's not super great or anything. But lol @ not being able to follow it. Sorry about ur brain.

Where is their face?

They don't have one because a face would imply a direction

What evolutionary conditions would create a creature like that?

thick fluid with no "surface" above it to retreat to ?

Because they jet off like squids, they're probably in a dense atmosphere world and have gas bladders. Basically gas squids.

Gas Giant dwellers

thats stupid they still have anatomy

>Hyper advances technology
>Space ship is basically a river stone
Who started this meme, Stargate?

Its "deep"

every civilization has its apple equivalent

This movie is a lot like 2001 a space odyssey.
People like the imagery but that's about it. The stories are laughably bad. They're both extremely pretentious Sci fi films about aliens with superpowers and humans evolving.
So, what, you learn the language of the aliens and you gain super powers? How? Why? That's not how language, anatomy, or anything works. It's just space magic.

This is also why their floor is all dimpled and rough. They probably don't put a whole lot of weight on their "legs" when walking because they are buoyant so the ground needs to be rough to increase friction.

Maybe it's shaped like that for a reason, maybe so it acts like a river stone so to speak, when it has landed on their planet. If they are from a dense gaseous atmosphere with potentially devastating winds, the shape of the craft might be designed to remain stuck to the ground while the atmosphere flows over it.

The shape perhaps, but it has become this meme where hyper advanced technology looks like simple geometric shapes or is earthen in appearance. Things like computers basically being made of crystals and shit.

I'd say maybe superman started it forever ago but it's just become this thing the pops up all the time.

>trusting critics in 2017

the same critics who gave wonder woman spider man 9/10 for sjw pandering? kys my man.

I feel like it's because we always compare it to how our technology is evolving. Smart phones are just a generic shape.

It's a film about grief and embracing death/life in general, the ayy lmaos and the science are just the setting where the actual narrative takes place in.
And so what, lets imagine that there is a clear logical explanation to everything happening on screen, does that alone make the movie into a masterpiece? Ofcourse not.

Sci-fi has always been "a vessel" to explore the human condition, from 2001 to Blade Runner, the science is just the setting where it takes place in.

minimalism is one end of the design pendulum that all societies swing between. it's not that weird imo

Don't compare this movie to 2001. At least 2001 was good.

It's sappy garbage like the "power of love" bullshit they used in interstellar. I thought it was trash. All of the cinematic bullshit and build up for such a stupid plot. The movie should have been a 20 minute skit.

>"power of love" bullshit they used in interstellar
dam son u still gettin triggered by that huh

But why use science fiction then if you're just going to ignore the science aspect? Can't you get your faggy point across without turning your movie into absolute gibberish?

This movie was basically the same. She learned the language and then it turned into some story about her daughter and her.

The time travel bs ruined this movie for me. I haven't the faintest idea why they needed to throw that in there, and so late in the film.

>2001
>good
Once upon a time there was space and space did the space things, then HAL suddenly has a tantrum and kills people, suddenly flashing lights and a space baby. The end. What a great movie.

The first contact scene was easily one of the best executed first contact scenes in cinema history, hands down.

It was an actual experience watching it in cinema, Villeneuve knows how to create tension.

sorry but i don't agree that movies where the protagonist loves someone are an automatic write-off. in neither movie does love become a magical force to save the day so literally what's the big deal

Because the aliens had no business there beyond giving humanity the language. They needed a way to show its applications.

It would have been better if we actually saw the daughter more and had an emotional attachment to her but that would ruin the "twist".
Honestly the imagery in this movie is the best thing about it.

>in neither movie does love become a magical force to save the day

Why were the characters chosen? Both movies it is because of the connection of the parent and the child. There's no reason muph had to be the one to communicate that information to his daughter through a watch aside from the "love" connection between the characters they wrote some bullshit for.

I think what ruined the movie for me was the fact that you actually see the aliens. When I saw the trailer for this movie I thought the idea was that the aliens didn't have physical bodies and they communicated through symbols. That would have been way more interesting.

so because both convoluted schemes involved characters that love each other as one of many factors

still don't see any woowoo magic bullshit anywhere. love is a real thing and it really motivates real people in real life

Because it's science FICTION. People make science fiction to explore the human condition through other worldy surroundings, not to make hard science documentaries.
The non linear time perspective was fiction, everything else was science. All the programming, mathematics and codes you saw were done by Stephen Wolfram and his team. Everything you see on screen is an actual real world calculation, here's an actually interesting read by Wolfram himself blog.stephenwolfram.com/2016/11/quick-how-might-the-alien-spacecraft-work/

Interstellar was like the movie Contact. Quit defending it.

In this movie it isn't exactly terrible, it's more like "Well I have the ability to perceive nonlinear time and know my daughter will die but what the hell life is life"

In interstellar you have an adult woman educated in multiple fields of science telling a guy she believes love is a fundamental force drawing her to the last planet because she had a thing with an astronaut who's there who was specifically chosen for a suicide mission because he supposedly had nothing left to lose.

Beyond her being "right" in that third planet was the best planet, the entire scene is never explored or humored in any sense. Love didn't save the day, humans from the future utilizing the power of a block hole and a guy operating from within by sending gravity anomalies through to his daughter did.

Honestly, Nolan fucked up more.

Immediately you're wrong. People write science fiction because they want fiction in science. What's the point of having science fiction if your science is just magic? At that point it's just fiction in space.

It's thrown at you from the first frame onwards constantly, how the fuck did you not get it until the very end?

Also there is no actual time travel in the movie, only her perspective on time changes where she sees the future just like we see the past in the form of memories. She never leaves the current narrative.

>Hahaha dude let's simplify a thing to make it look stupid. I'm intelligent :^)

It's still dumb space magic that comes completely out of nowhere.

you're kind of proving my point about interstellar though. if you take out that speech, literally nothing about the events of the movie change. love didn't deus ex machina anything. i agree that speech was a bad scene but why some people dwell on it so much i just don't understand

Yeah okay then 2001 is also a shit film because it has a giant floating space baby and Blade Runner is also utter dogshit because Deckard is not a believable enough replicant, sure thing buddy.

She would have to because she shifts into time after they're celebrating her book and she has a conversation with the Chinese general. She is unsure of what the hell he is talking about because at that point her mind would clearly be operating from the past.

I linked the wrong person, that was meant for the person you were replying to.

Despite all the shit talking I still thing Arrival is a solid movie. Interstellar was just consistently bad.

While I've never seen blade runner, 2001 didn't have fucking space magic.

It doesn't come out of nowhere, it's thrown at you right from the start. Every flashback, every turn of the narrative. There is even some on screen exposition on her daughters drawings with the bird in a cage, mommy and daddy etc.
You're acting like they pulled the ending out of their ass while it's the center of the whole movie and everything is made around that from the start.

he's clearly a brainlet

>you see, this flashback is actually FORWARD in time! What a twist!

ok ? anyone's opinion on the idea doesn't change that it isn't an asspull at the end of the movie like the post was claiming

then explain why it's considered a 'gift'

what utility is there in an ability that lets you see the future yet you're unable to change it

Sure, a 15 minute colorful kaleidoscope visualisation and an old man laying in some renaissance space bedroom staring at a monolith followed by a big blue floating space baby, those are all real world approved science situations.

I'm not saying those plot points are bad in the film, I'm just making fun of your rationale of science fiction in general.

I thought it was good for several reasons:
1. Very little action in an alien movie - as I walked out of the theater, I overheard one person comment, 'Well, I just wasted 2 hours of my life.' I love action movies, but I'm glad this wasn't, and I could just imagine that fuck squirming as they waited for Vin Diesel to show up to run over the aliens.

2. The saphir-whorf hypothesis was namedropped. A lot of linguists have considered this to be totally debunked, but personally, I believe it has merit, and I was glad to see it referenced in a film at all.

3. It was a bit hard to understand, but only by a very, very, low threshold. If you didn't get this movie... just come back when you're older or something.

4. Solid acting, appropriate thrills...
Now, is it the greatest movie ever? Yes, it is.

I agree with this even if I think the movie is only ok overall. The first contact was very well done.

99% of the movie was a hunt for potential alien life with an AI that goes rogue. That is very much believable. The ending with the space baby is supposed to be SYMBOLIC of the evolution of man. Dave isn't literally turning into a space baby (unless you're reading the book).

Because by knowing your whole life from start to finish you would find beauty and joy from the smallest bits of moments in a day which you may take now for granted (hence her daughter)

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Villeneuve to maybe clear things up for you:
>"The idea is that the heptapods see life like a [scripted] play. They know what will happen, so they have the choice — either they do it bored to death, or they embrace it and try to be at their best, like an actor on a stage."

So it's about embracing death (instead of denying it like we do) as an essential part of life and appreciating every waking moment of it.

>Unable to change it
user did you miss the entire paradox of how she knew the Chinese general's wife's dying words?
She told him in the past when she learned it in the future precisely because she had told him in the past.

It's an infinite loop where she never learned those words from any source other than the general himself in the future.

That's probably why those squids are so damn advanced, they can always make the right decisions.

She has a daughter not by destiny but by choice.

Not that user but that does make sense actually. Thanks for helping me appreciate the movie more.

But you don't ask how the big floating space baby got there. You don't ask how did Dave end up old in that Lynch like bedroom.
And you don't ask those questions for a reason because they don't matter or change anything at all. Sure, Kubrick could've made some insert shots explaining what exactly happened between all that, but that just takes away precious screentime from the real narrative.

I'd always been on the fence about this idea that existing at all points in time simultaneously would cause one to embrace horrific tragedy, but this scripted play analogy kind of sells it for me.

It was the first decent movie in months when it came out; we weren't thinking straight.

What happens if you have a shitty life like working in south african diamond mines until you're raped and beaten to death

I would definitely appreciate this scene more if the aliens didn't look so stupid.
You have these beings that are borderline gods and they're just squids?

you enjoy the glistening of the diamonds and shit nigga

while i appreciate that we actually got to see the aliens AND they weren't just a lazy humanoid design, i agree them being so squidlike was underwhelming. but still leagues better than blue humans.

No, it's all predetermined, she can't change anything. It's not like she views her future like a youtube video and then continues with her life normally.
There is no other choice available, she never could've changed her decisions because all of the past, present and future decisions are interconnected and experienced at the same time. That's why it's non linear. What you are implying is linear.

Also it's pretty much confirmed by Villeneuve also here

Because the Heptapods said they would need the humans' help in 3000 years, and teaching them their language will presumably aid in that you stupid fucking nigger

But that's the problem with movies like Arrival and interstellar. They try to explain the fantastical parts with science thus making it pure gibberish. There's a huge difference between wanting your symbolism to also be literal and having absolute psuedo-science gibberish for your plot.

there is actually some good directing this though. When first are acquainted with the aliens the camera focuses on their trunk, like you're looking at an octopus.

When they do the full reveal the camera swaps between the trunk and the "head" like nipple at the top. Neither you or the main girl are ever given an idea where its equivalent to a face is.

If it's mouth and eyes are at the bottom well it biologically is like a squid. If it's face is at the top well how does it feed itself? It could have eyes at a top and a mouth at the boom.

You don't even see them in the first contact scene, you just hear them and see maybe some blurry tentacle outline and it cuts to the decontamination chamber. That’s why it's great.

Sound design was something else. Well deserved oscar for Sound Editing

Alright, ignoring the screenplay being tryhard mediocre drivel, can we all agree that the technical aspects of this film were 10/10? Shit was worth finishing for the visuals alone imo.

I didn't imply it was like a youtube video. The problem is that when she's talking to the general she isn't aware that she's ever spoken to him before yet in her situation she's in a chronological position where she would have already spoken to him.

So the perception alterations are affecting time from the perspective of normal humans. Time is thus being altered.

definitely not 10/10 visuals because of the cranked-up depth of field effects making a lot of shots retardedly blurry

Bradford Young really knows how to frame and compose a shot. The editing was top notch also.
Didn’t quite like the color grading on the interior/night scenes though, everyone was kind of blurry and blue.

yeah

Because critics and your friends are faggots

Movie sucks and is plebbit garbage

it made sense, it was just a shit movie.

youtube.com/watch?v=G8U21reHexg

It was a hamfisted nolanflick that makes people think they're SMAAART for watching it.

see this retard

What's there's to like about the "imagary" of Arrival? It's looks like garbage compared to the average nolan flicks never mind 2001. You're talking fucking nonsense.
>pretentious
Stop projecting faggot.

She already made the choice though, the point was to understand why..

That's exactly how language works, it's the operating program of the mind. How would you think if not in words? Nobody knows...so not a giant leap to believe that learning a language could program the mind to think entirely different.

so, that that user might sound like a ponce, but you sound like someone who has a problem with thinking. are you acting anti-intellectual to troll, or are you really that turned off by thoughts and ideas? either way, if one of you is a retard, it isn't the user with the enumerated list. he's probably a prissy asshole, though.

there are people that don't know a language. not only do they function effectively, but they problem-solve and can interact intelligently.

Citation needed...what people don't have a language? Mind you not necessarily a WRITTEN one.

So, they have velcro on the bottom of their tentacles that connects them to a velcro ground?

Everyone has ten seconds to either:

>Explain why is shit
>Explain why is not

Or your mom will die in her sleep

The movie might have been ok if it wast for Amy Adams.

>wasn't*
IM ACTING

The story was retarded.
>slowly learns alien language
>OMG I CAN SEE THE FUTURE
It doesn't get any better than this folks. Looking forward to Blade Runner 2049.

It's got for like 2/3s then it shits the bed

Also the end is a cop-out like this woman is not a horrible fucking lady for drinking the determinist universe kool-aid. you have foresight bitch.