|
Movie was awesome. Once everything was revealed I had a huge "A-ha!" moment. Loved the performances and the message of this film.
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2016 17:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 04:57 |
|
|
Incredible film, great performances, score, cinematography, very well paced too. The way information is doled out to you is really clever. Loved this one.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2016 20:46
|
|
|
I really liked how 'main academic character with a dead daughter' felt really yawn-worthy at the start only for it to be completely turned on its head. Quite a moment when that penny dropped.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2016 22:45
|
|
|
I initially thought The daughter would be a mental projection the aliens placed in her mind to communicate with her and the twist would be that she never had a daughter but I liked how it played out in the movie too.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2016 23:47
|
|
|
Ratios and Tendency posted:What if..what if aliens are just made out of like gas man, and they speak in colours and exist in all 20 dimensions. They'd be totally beyond our understanding and poo poo, makes you think. i was thinking more like the aliens in blindsight which don't have self awareness (and thus "communicate" through a chinese room and think the media we're sending out is some kind of weapon as it ties up neural processes) but are smarter than humans.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 01:05
|
|
|
I read up on the general plot of the source story beforehand so I knew where it was going, but it was still very interesting. I do think you'll get more out of it if you don't have that foreknowledge, so try not to spoil yourself if at all possible, be it through looking up the story or reading spoiler tagged stuff/spoilers online. I can see why it's getting a lot of critical praise, and why a lot of people won't like it. You certainly have to put your thinking cap on, but by the end I was really digging the mental state it put me in.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 03:39
|
|
|
Yeah it's a really calming and contemplative movie that's still quite accessible to the mainstream, which is a rarity.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 03:47
|
|
|
It gets a strong recommendation from me, it's basically a movie with an Inception-level high concept idea, only with FAR less action than Inception and the discovery and exploration of that idea, alongside the planet's reaction to alien contact, being the focus. The visuals and soundtrack/audio are great too while not being as in your face as Inception was with its "Lets put everyone on a staircase" and "spinning hallway" and "BWAAAAM" sound effect. Don't get me wrong, I really liked Inception, but Arrival is far subtler with its style choices while still having a nice style. Its high concept idea isn't any more complex than Inception's either (in my view anyway, your tastes may vary), so don't worry about not "getting it," it's made very clear what's going on in the last act of the movie, and I think I would have understood well before then if I hadn't read up on the story ahead of time. I also have to praise it for not needing great visual effects. It's a plenty pretty movie, but the same idea could have been presented very well with even Jurassic Park level visual effects, and I liked that it didn't need to lean on modern effects to be an interesting movie. I enjoyed Dr. Strange, for example, but without it's top-tier CGI it would have been a very bland movie, whereas downgrading the effects here would have just taken it from an A+ to an A-.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 04:07
|
|
|
This was a great adaptation of the Chiang story. It slightly simplifies the core conceit but retains most of the major plot elements. Unfortunately, knowing the conceit inherently destroys the experience of the movie. Specific minor nitpicks: 1. The mathematician's role is sidelined unnecessarily. Donnelly never has the revelation about the aliens communicating Fermat's principle of least time. They include a couple lines about the aliens understanding calculus but not algebra, but never develop it past that point, which makes me think the rest of it was cut last-minute. As it is, those lines just dangle and add nothing to the movie. 2. They added a minor subplot about self-radicalized young male soldiers bombing those dirty ALIENS at the behest of an Alex Jones analog on YouTube. In total, it takes up about 5 minutes which could have been spent fleshing out (1) instead. Thank you for reminding me about the election in the middle of my beautiful meditative sci-fi flick, dickheads. 3. The CGI was cringe-inducing in places where they could easily have substituted practical effects. I'm thinking of two scenes in particular, both involving very badly animated characters with the actors' faces floating roughly where the heads ought to be. I am not a director, but I'm pretty sure that when a scene demands replacing an actor's hair with AMD TressFX you should rethink that scene.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 05:03
|
|
|
Loved this movie, amazing. Such a dreamy quality to it. And yeah if you've been reading spoilers before hand and judging it based on that before watching (like all of the last page of this thread) you e probably ruined the experience. If not, go watch.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 05:35
|
|
|
at the date posted:This was a great adaptation of the Chiang story. It slightly simplifies the core conceit but retains most of the major plot elements. Unfortunately, knowing the conceit inherently destroys the experience of the movie. This is true to an extent, in that it's a movie I would definitely avoid spoilers for if you haven't read the short story, but having read it, the movie's end still provoked the same reaction the short story's end did, despite me obviously knowing what was going on. I don't really know if that's clear, but the movie is gorgeous and you should see it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 06:41
|
|
|
I don't think I've seen a move recently that triggered so much introspection in me. Wonderful film, needless to say and will probably be (not very hard unfortunately) my film of the year. Don't spoil yourself, just go and experience it for yourself.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 16:53
|
|
|
Gluten Freeman posted:This is true to an extent, in that it's a movie I would definitely avoid spoilers for if you haven't read the short story, but having read it, the movie's end still provoked the same reaction the short story's end did, despite me obviously knowing what was going on. I don't really know if that's clear, but the movie is gorgeous and you should see it. That's basically where I'm at as well, it still packs an emotional punch and a sense of wonder for me despite knowing the plot of the short story ahead of time. I'm a big Marvel fan so Civil War is my best movie of the year and Deadpool's crazy development saga and getting to see a script I'd read years ago get polished a fair bit and finally made with Ryan Reynold's puts it in the #2 spot for me, but Arrival is a strong #3 for this year. No movie is perfect and I can find flaws, but those flaws are basically just that I wanted more of X or Y, and that's a good place for any movie to be. I hope Arrival picks up an Oscar or two, if nothing else it ought to be a lock for Best Adapted Screenplay. The next Oscars aren't for quite awhile, but it's hard to picture someone pulling off a better adaptation than this, and to me it's extra impressive because rather than adapting a novel they adapted a short story and made the most out of material that was less substantial length-wise but also WAY denser and intellectual than average. It also just seems like the type of movie that Oscar voters love, it's getting tons of critical acclaim, and it has a strong pedigree with big name actors and a big deal Director and Cinematographer. Oddly enough, the writer of the screenplay has mostly low-tier horror credits (from the writer of Final Destination 5 and The Thing we bring you Arrival), so this may be a case where the other people involved in the movie put the writing on their backs and carried it, but in such a competitive Oscar field the only person to be acknowledged could well be the writer. It's hard to tell at a glance who is responsible for what in a movie of course since it's such a collaborative effort, so who knows if this is the case or not. But yeah, very good movie, go see it!
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 17:57
|
|
|
Great movie, this really does feel like Villeneuve making a less bombastic take on a Nolan film. The CGI was very obvious in places, but I was fine with it because it was when characters were experiencing things no human has experienced before. The unsettling disconnect from obvious CG therefore seemed sort of fitting. If you know the specific techniques being used I can see it being a downside though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 18:02
|
|
|
NowonSA posted:Oddly enough, the writer of the screenplay has mostly low-tier horror credits (from the writer of Final Destination 5 and The Thing we bring you Arrival), so this may be a case where the other people involved in the movie put the writing on their backs and carried it, but in such a competitive Oscar field the only person to be acknowledged could well be the writer. It's hard to tell at a glance who is responsible for what in a movie of course since it's such a collaborative effort, so who knows if this is the case or not.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 20:04
|
|
|
bawfuls posted:You should read about how this movie got made. The writer read Chiang's short story and fell in love with it. He wrote the screenplay on spec and spent years trying to convince various people in Hollywood to get this movie made while keeping true to the original source material instead of watering it down into a bullshit sci-fi action movie. He deserves all the screenplay praise and if he wins the Oscar for it, it will be well-earned. Ah, I didn't know all that. Well that's very good and the type of situation I was hoping for, so good for him. I was hoping this was a passion project for him that could act as his breakout script, and it sounds like that's the case. I definitely hopes he gets the Oscar then!
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 20:18
|
|
|
banned from Starbucks posted:How the hell does a system of writing let you see the future? Christ this movie sounds dumb. They make reference to the concept that the language you speak affects the structure of your brain and the manner in which you think. You can not conceptualize complex thoughts without the structure of language to express them, so the limitations and capabilities of the language directly affects your ability to perceive and think about things.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 20:21
|
|
|
banned from Starbucks posted:How the hell does a system of writing let you see the future? Christ this movie sounds dumb. I'll chime in on this too, also drawing just from the movie. Bawful's nailed it, so if you want the short and sweet version he's got it, but I'll try to expand on what he said and give my take on it in more detail. Don't read this stuff unless you've seen the movie, and I apologize for rambling on. You can't have a complex thought without language. You might instinctively want to head to somewhere warm instead of somewhere cold, but that's the sort of simple thought process that animals of all sorts employ. Some animals take it a step further and put a more complex idea into action: I want to keep my eggs safe, so I will build a nest in a tree. I want to always have a warm place, so I will make a burrow in the ground. Beavers take this up another echelon, building dams to create ponds in rivers, and then building their homes in the ponds they created. Squirrels have the foresight to gather nuts in advance of immediate need. Many monkeys can learn pattern recognition or use simple tools. Despite this, we don't consider any other animal we know of to be sentient because they have no language we can understand, and language is the true cornerstone of complex thought and sentience. One reason that dolphins and whales get so much study is that they communicate using something closer to language than other animals and act with empathy towards both their own species and others. There are multiple accounts, in both distant human history and more recent documented scientific cases, of dolphins displaying what appears to be altruism by putting themselves at risk to help other species, ranging from whales to humans. I remember reading one particular case where a diver among dolphins had an equipment malfunction that other divers couldn't detect, but the dolphin noticed her panicked state and gripped one of her limbs in its mouth, forcefully pulling her back up to the surface. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that there are a wide variety of animal brains that are capable of performing wildly different tasks with sometimes incredible precision, but since they do not demonstrate thought as we do we perceive them all as far beneath us, and that our understanding of time and reality is inherently superior to theirs. From there, it's not a stretch for me to believe that an alien race could have a written language that expresses ideas, thoughts and words in a way that even understanding its meaning requires a different perception of the process of time, just like understanding English requires knowing the alphabet. There is a vast gulf between the thought process/communication of animals and humans. It is our superiority in those areas that have led to countless innovations and philosophies, some of which have allowed us to influence other animals to act like us (monkeys) or to be trained to suit our needs (everything from domesticated dogs and cats to horses to beekeeping). Arrival is this type of process with us on the lower end of a vast gulf of thought process and technology for the first time (in the film's setting, obviously we've encountered "superior" alien races tons of times in various media), trying to learn one very important trick (their written language) because it suits their purposes for us to learn it, much like we have trained bloodhounds through the centuries to pick up and track a scent, horses to accept a rider, etc., and for the same reason: to be of use to the superior being instructing us.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 21:23
|
|
|
Having watched enough time travel movies, I understood most of the plot, but it lost me at the end. How the hell is Hawkeye the father? They obviously just met a chunk of time ago. There's a bit where Adams talks about something unstoppable that made the father leave (the death of the child, I imagine), but Hawkeye didn't say a goddamned thing when they "first met" to imply they knew each other, practically the opposite. The more I try and figure it out, the more I get annoyed cuz it reeks of "It's wibbly wobbly timey wimey, and there's one property that I'll buy into that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 23:07
|
|
|
MisterBibs posted:Having watched enough time travel movies, I understood most of the plot, but it lost me at the end. Reply: They didn't hook up till the aliens left. The kid and their relationship was after all of that. The father left because she told him the future and he couldn't handle it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 23:18
|
|
|
w00tazn posted:Reply: They didn't hook up till the aliens left. The kid and their relationship was after all of that. The father left because she told him the future and he couldn't handle it. So Adams was having LOST style flashforwards when she was 'remembering' stuff about her child, and never acted surprised that she was talking to a child she hadn't had, yet? So the point of Adams's mom calling to do the standard Ask If She's Alright call was just random? And that Hawkeye, who just dealt with an alien project and understands that Adams is now kinda a Time Lord, will leave when he's told that their daughter will die someday?
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 23:38
|
|
|
MisterBibs posted:So Adams was having LOST style flashforwards when she was 'remembering' stuff about her child, and never acted surprised that she was talking to a child she hadn't had, yet? So the point of Adams's mom calling to do the standard Ask If She's Alright call was just random?
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 23:48
|
|
|
Oh, I didn't notice that last bit. I disagree on the first bit; I got a low-affect still dealing with the loss of a child reaction more than blatant confusion. But I guess if they did that, the second bit wouldn't be a shock.
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2016 23:53
|
|
|
MisterBibs posted:So Adams was having LOST style flashforwards when she was 'remembering' stuff about her child, and never acted surprised that she was talking to a child she hadn't had, yet? So the point of Adams's mom calling to do the standard Ask If She's Alright call was just random? I think its strongly implied that Hawkeye left because Amy Adams chose to have a child despite knowing that the kid would die of cancer.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 00:05
|
|
|
MisterBibs posted:Oh, I didn't notice that last bit. I disagree on the first bit; I got a low-affect still dealing with the loss of a child reaction more than blatant confusion. But I guess if they did that, the second bit wouldn't be a shock. On that note, There was a point early on where it shows her alone at home after the death of her child, and I remember thinking "they did a good job making her look a bit more middle-aged in this shot." But then when the primary events of the movie happen, she doesn't look as old. At first that seemed odd but of course once you see the whole picture at once it makes perfect sense. Paragon8 posted:I think its strongly implied that Hawkeye left because Amy Adams chose to have a child despite knowing that the kid would die of cancer. bawfuls fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Nov 12, 2016 |
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 00:13
|
|
|
God, this was phenomenal. This is easily as good as 2001 and Solaris, with the bonus of not being of bladder-exploding length. I loved the message of human togetherness, and the inclusion of the incendiary soldiers going gung-ho thanks to some neo-fascist dipshit with a youtube channel felt painfully timely. I loved the use of linguistic concepts - my first thought when she brought up how language changes the way you think is how ancient Greeks didn't have a word for blue, which is why Homer described the sky as "bronze", and the sea as "wine". Do you see blue if you don't have a word for it? If, in your language, a concept doesn't exist, can you understand it? I also loved the bittersweet elements of the ending. It's a perfectly lateral way to approach how we live our life knowing that we die at the end of it. My main gripe with Interstellar was that McConaughey escaped the time tube - he should've been a sacrifice to it, saving humanity by being trapped in the bookcase of his life forever. Amy Adams being able to see the future is double-edged, but she accepts it. It's an unpleasant thought that our entire life might be mapped, somehow, struck to a flat circle - how do you move forward in that state? I appreciated that they weren't afraid to bring in that undercurrent of sadness. It was beautiful. The cinematography was phenomenal. In the last few months I've experienced degrading eyesight, which I've expected (both my parents went from middle-ground vision to extremely nearsighted around my age), so when my glasses are off I live in a world of shallow focus. The use of that same effect in the film's cinematography was incredibly touching. Seeing things that are just in front of you, with the future blurred had an amazing emotional and thematic resonance - you are here, a sliver of experience on a timeline. You move forward into what becomes clarity. Paragon8 posted:I think its strongly implied that Hawkeye left because Amy Adams chose to have a child despite knowing that the kid would die of cancer. She literally tells her kid that he left because she told him something about a disease that can't be stopped, so yes, that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 01:18
|
|
|
it's the sapir–whorf hypothesis and language does not really change the way you think in a fundamental sense (the strong version of the hypothesis). the greeks did that because it's just how they described things - the sea was bronze because it reflected light. colors are weird because for instance in russian dark blue and light blue are two separate colors and not just shades. there's some tribe in africa where they consider brown and pink the same color. the thing is when you show them the colors side by side they can tell they aren't the same - it's only shown one at a time that they give them the same name.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 01:37
|
|
|
I'm aware of that, but the poetic use of it was striking.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 01:58
|
|
|
This is my favorite movie of the year. The camera work and music made the story so much better. Amy adams, hawkeye and black guy from the shield delivered the goods as well.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 02:37
|
|
|
I really like how in this movie, there was adversity but nothing stupidly obstructive. I'm speaking vaguely but, spoilers now. Like how Forest Whitaker and even that rear end in a top hat government dude were cooperative and understanding even at their worst. It wasn't traditional movie stuff where there are just antagonist characters who do stuff for no reason - their motivations and behavior were very believable. That and I like how the Heptapods were the good guys, and that it was very possible that we would turn out to be the bad guys, but in the end, we turned out to be good guys too. RIP Abbott  The revelation at the end how the Heptapods see time simultaneously makes Abbott's death go from what you initially think is a death as the result of an attack - to a sacrifice. Abbott spent his whole life knowing that it would culminate at this moment. That, if what Costello said was true and that in 3k years, they would need Humanity's help, then Abbott spent his entire life knowing he would, in that moment, save his own species and uplift humanity too. I also think they were being very literal in saying that their language was a 'gift/weapon/technology.' Notice, when Abbott makes his sacrifice, he sprays ink which causes the gravity to push the team out. And at the end, when they leave, you see their ink making their symbols trailing the ships as they disappear.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 04:45
|
|
|
I loved how, no matter the evolution or distance between species, there's a rather common tap on the window to get the person behind you to look behind you motion. Even if it's depressing because it comes with the equally common "Dude, what are you pounding on the screen for?" response. Man, I need to rewatch this movie, post haste. I completely forgot the Abbot and Costello joke from before when it was used straight earlier in the film.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 05:13
|
|
|
After the movie, my girl and I had a conversation about how she thought it was selfish of the main character to still have the child knowing what would happen. I said I thought it would be selfish of her to NOT, and deny her child life and deny her husband the love of a child because of her own knowledge. Regardless of who is right, the fact that this film made us ask that question and have a philosophical conversation about it without rubbing our noses in it is indicative of the thought behind the movie, imo. Best movie I've seen this year, and honestly probably in my top 5 now.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 05:25
|
|
|
Yeah the central dilemma of that is whether or not you think someone having all those happy moments is worth having all the sad/painful/wretched ones too. Answering this ends up not being a reflection on the character so much as it is on yourself. Would it have been better for her to say "honey, maybe we should just adopt"?
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 05:41
|
|
|
Well, she kinda has to have the kid, as having the kid and living with her for however long she's alive is the source of the knowledge that helps the world / the aliens survive in the past.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 06:34
|
|
|
Isn't part of the point that she CAN'T decide not to have the child? The Heptapod's language implies a deterministic universe where free will is an illusion. Louise must know the whole sentence already to write it down, and she must read & conceptualize it all at once. Similarly, she knows her whole life at once but lives it as it is anyway. As was discussed in the context of the short story earlier in the thread, it's similar in some ways to Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen. Sentience to the Heptapods and those with their language, is knowing the full scope of your existence and savoring it anyway. This is in a way symbolic of human awareness of our own mortality. We know how the story ends but we play it out anyway.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 07:24
|
|
|
I had an interesting experience watching this movie because I got spoiled beforehand, so I got to be like Louise Banks and enjoyed it thoroughly despite knowing how it ends. Holy poo poo this movie was good.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 07:35
|
|
|
Steve Yun posted:I had an interesting experience watching this movie because I got spoiled beforehand, so I got to be like Louise Banks and enjoyed it thoroughly despite knowing how it ends.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 07:40
|
|
|
Hey people noted the depth of focus was really short at times. Did it start out short and then grow longer as the movie went on? Like her ability to see through time grew in parallel with the camera's ability to see?
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 09:41
|
|
|
Steve Yun posted:Hey people noted the depth of focus was really short at times. Did it start out short and then grow longer as the movie went on? Like her ability to see through time grew in parallel with the camera's ability to see? I didn't notice any depth of focus stuff, but I was watching it on a pretty small mall screen and I'm pretty bad at picking up on that stuff. I actually talked to the theater's owner last week when I went to see Dr. Strange and straight up asked him to put it into the one new super-dope big screen theater they just finished building, but that's quite a longshot as that's pretty much always occupied by the "big movie" of the moment (Dr. Strange now, Fantastic Beats soon, Rogue One when it comes out, etc.). One thing that really got shown well, and that I didn't expect going in, was the major mental and physical toll that viewing your life in this manner takes on you. Louise is basically in varying amounts of mental and physical anguish throughout the movie, but you also get glimpses of her just teaching Heptapod in a classroom and having fun playing with her daughter despite knowing what is in store for her. It's clear that she takes on a tremendous burden and puts her health, happiness and perhaps even life (depending on how deterministic time really is, and whether she could have actually been shot near the end) on the line, and I was expecting her to be a bit freaked out but not to the point of just desperately grasping at whatever she can to get a little sleep, get through another heptapod visit, deal with a future vision, etc. . NowonSA fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Nov 12, 2016 |
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 13:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 04:57 |
|
|
I was really pessimistic about how they'd do this one because I liked the story a lot (even assigned it in class a few years ago). You guys have reassured me and I'm now really looking forward to it!
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2016 14:53
|
|
