Critics tend to be arty-farty types who prefer mysterious confusing plots that don't actually make any sense - like the
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iceblink1 — 9 years ago(December 11, 2016 10:34 AM)
I don't find it particularly feminist (and I am usually pretty good at spotting cheap-shots against men), a female protagonist is simply necessary to tell the story. The film does make a point of men being naturally more aggressive then women though..and we are. (interpretation of the Sanskrit word for 'war' being one of the points driven home).
Exactly, the movie isn't feminist, it's too stupid for that, it's unreasonably misandrist, but misandry does not imply feminism, it just implies stupidity, just like unreasonable misogyny does.
The question about the Sanskrit word for war made me cringe so badly - like that is how you would distinguish the abilities of a world-renowned and well-published expert from a recently qualified post-graduate (At the time of a worldwide alien invasion). It's insulting to the academic community and indicative of the stupidity of the writer.
Anyway, I've probably said enough here about this movie, even if it was unfairly censored, check my public ratings and recommended viewing for other movies I like or not. I don't usually get so riled, but this piece of shhhtii did annoy me after all the underserved praise showered on it.
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dhs-07302 — 9 years ago(January 15, 2017 12:49 PM)
She wasn't chosen by aliens, she was contacted by Colonel Weber because of her past success with helping the military. It wasn't until later on that the aliens realized she had a gift when she had contact with them. Her gift was that she could see the future. She did not realize this right away either, however, it was first evident in her visions of her future daughter. Throughout the movie we were led to believe that her dreams were of a daughter she lost in the the past and her memories teaching her daughter life's lessons helped her to figure out clues in her interactions with the aliens, but in reality she was tapping into the future to gain those clues. This ultimately manifests itself in a sequence of visions of herself in the future one including teaching college classes of the alien language, so it would seem likely that once she realized this she became aware that she knew their language and also the scene with the Chinese general The aliens told her that her gift was seeing the future, which caused an awakening of sorts for her, with the vision of her daughter playing with the playdough alien figure. Which we find out in a later scene, was made by her future husband Ian. She then figured out how to access her visions in order to find a way to appeal to the Chinese general's emotions in order to save humankind from war by telling him what his wife's dying words were to gain credibility with the general. The future vision of her talking with the general and the way the general spoke that he felt he needed to show her his private number and whisper in her ear what to say was explained in earlier parts with the aliens, as time not being linear. At the very end of the movie they reaffirmed all of this in the last dialogue with Ian. At this time she knew she would have a daughter who would die and she asked Ian, "if he could see his whole life from start to finish, would he change things?", to which he replied, "maybe I would say how I feel more often". Which I think also reaffirmed the idea of time not being linear in the sense that they could change things and that it doesn't have to end with them separating. I believe the aliens also knowing the future made this initial "arrival" to save the human race from themselves, so that 3,000 years in the future the human race would return the favor. We can assume by then that humans would be very advanced technologically and perhaps capable of extraordinary things and we do not know the circumstances under which the aliens may need help from humans.
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BrainGremlin — 9 years ago(February 10, 2017 06:03 PM)
What that other guy said is totally accurate: you are bringing your own baggage here. The protagonist is female. She's
supposed
to be the reasonable one, being what the viewers connect with. You might have had a case if there were several women consistently outwitting several men (and ditto about statistics if the movie had several linguists all of whom were women, but we've got just the one; hardly a statistical anomaly of any sort), but as it stands there's barely even another woman in the film.
I don't wish to pass judgment, but I guess I will anyway: you could probably afford spending some time on introspection.
Sad story. You got a smoke? -
Berbil — 9 years ago(November 25, 2016 01:24 PM)
The aliens came because they had to find some human(s), not matter who, which had the potential to understand their language. If it hadn't been Louise, it would have been someone else, and the movie would have been about them instead.
Who it was is irrelevant, the only thing that mattered was that they met someone who would eventually do understand.
She is the only one with the ability because she is the first to learn the language. Of all the linguists in the world, only a small handful had access to the information.
Only when she starts to learn the language does she get the ability. All the other flash forwards disguised as flashbacks are just a trick the director is using to make the audience believe she is thinking about the past.
When they leave, she goes back to her life, marries, have a baby, and she writes a book and educates others to that eventually the whole humanity knows the language. -
iceblink1 — 9 years ago(November 26, 2016 07:25 AM)
She is the only one with the ability because she is the first to learn the language. Of all the linguists in the world, only a small handful had access to the information.
But she is shown in a "future vision" while still a young woman, with the published "Universal Language" book. So after only a few years millions of people must be able to see their future memories - which would make a big change to how the world works you would think.
Look, I was really hoping for this movie to be great, I had high hopes, and I like the two lead actors, but I can't abide all the sloppiness and the scientific ignorance abundant in the circle of movie critics (well in the circle of all arts critics really) . Obfuscation does not for a good story make, and dumb depictions of how scientists work is damaging to society.
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Ford_Chase — 9 years ago(November 26, 2016 07:37 AM)
Yeah, I don't know why so many people are confused. The OP seems to think Louise has the ability and that's why she can talk to the aliens. He obviously missed the scene where they talked about how learning another culture's language can rewire the brain. Louise studied her ass off to learn the language, and thus rewired her own brain. We then see her teaching the language in a classroom at the end of the movie. So we can logically assume that as others learn the language their brains are rewired, and eventually all of humanity has unlocked the ability to experience time the way Louise and the aliens do. The OP also says the movie requires the viewer to believe in magic. Well, duh, it's a sci-fi movie so we have to open our minds to the fictional parts of the science that is presented. The movie was presented as a mystery, but it wasn't that difficult to figure out at the end.
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iceblink1 — 9 years ago(November 26, 2016 08:51 AM)
If the science is wrong then the Aliens might as well have presented Louise with a magic crystal ball - why all the pretentiousness about language and "rewiring" the brain which can't possibly enable the ability to see the future by any known laws of physics. Oh I know why, all that pretentiousness is hugely appealing to scientifically ignorant arty types. You see, sci-fi doesn't just assume anything goes unless it's fantasy like Star Wars, and we're not in the Marvel world where no pretense of honest science is claimed.
Movie needed a science consultant who could have helped make it consistent, and a second writer to rewrite the aftermath of the Alien visit and its impact more believably.
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duffasaurus — 9 years ago(November 26, 2016 09:18 PM)
When children are young they have no object permanence, they don't understand that just because they can't see something doesn't mean it's not there. As they get older the neurons in their brain form more complex neural connections and they see the world differently. This has to happen through experience, children need to understand language in order to learn. Neglected children who do not learn language and converse with other humans do not magically gain these abilities over time, it is a learned behavior. Suspend disbelief just a bit and it's not implausible to assume the aliens have done something similar to Louise's brain. She realizes just because she can't see the future doesn't mean it's not already there. Just because she hasn't experienced it yet doesn't mean she doesn't have knowledge of what the future holds. This is based on an actual hypothesis in quantum mechanics. People far smarter than your or I fully believe that our entire existence is happening at once, but humans are only capable of experiencing it linearly.
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iceblink1 — 9 years ago(November 27, 2016 07:35 AM)
Just because she hasn't experienced it yet doesn't mean she doesn't have knowledge of what the future holds. This is based on an actual hypothesis in quantum mechanics.This is based on an actual hypothesis in quantum mechanics
This statement and the rest of the stuff you posted is exactly what I'm criticizing - very flaky scientific thinking, that sounds cool to other scientifically illiterate people and is used as the basis for a nonsensical plot.
There is no hypothesis in quantum mechanics which enables one to see or predict the future, in fact the opposite is the case, in quantum mechanics the future is impossible to predict until it is observed/measured because it is fundamentally probabilistic.
Basing the plot around a pretentious interpretation of language and obfuscating in an attempt to allow basic laws of physics to be broken is too sloppy and unacceptable to make for a serious movie, maybe a children's movie, where the level of science understanding is about ok for the arty critics, and sloppiness is ok too.
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Farshnoshket — 9 years ago(November 27, 2016 07:50 AM)
Basing the plot around a pretentious interpretation of language and obfuscating in an attempt to allow basic laws of physics to be broken is too sloppy and unacceptable to make for a serious movie, maybe a children's movie, where the level of science understanding is about ok for the arty critics, and sloppiness is ok too.
You really have no idea how pretentious that sounds.
You sit on your high hill and look down at everyone and feel free to criticize people because they don't have the advanced scientific knowledge you have and believe films are not allowed to be made that question that knowledge.
You do that. The rest of us will just enjoy the ride. Sorry your super powers spoil films like this. Real shame.
The fact that you can't perceive that 99% of the public won't be viewing this film from your angle is your biggest issue.
If a science fiction film says some aliens use a circular type of language that we humans have never contemplated and whatever surrounds that language gives users to think differently giving them some abilities that we do not understand because it is an unknown most people will simply go with it because it's fiction and if we fail then we'd have to start questioning a lot more films fictional subject manner.
If it makes you happy call it science fantasy. Just because it looks like a duck and walks like a duck it doesn't have to be a duck.
Until some alien spacecraft appears out of nowhere in the world we know is real it's all just fiction.
No one here should have to argue quantum physics with you and if you feel otherwise, again your problem. -
kenny-164 — 9 years ago(November 28, 2016 09:26 AM)
"No one here should have to argue quantum physics with you and if you feel otherwise, again your problem."
Excellent point in a spot on post, but I would go one step further. The way the concept of non-linear Time is presented as coming from an alien and advanced species raises the question whether the way WE understand the world quantum mechanics operates according to its "rules" might be limited. Limited in the sense that they way those rules describe the relation of Time and existence might not take the total reality into complete account. In effect we are asked to consider thinking outside the box, not as the OP suggests to ignore that the box is there and has meaning and purpose.
Ultimately the objection made to the film reflects a conservative mindset (not in the political sense of conservative, although in individual cases there might well be such overlap) that amounts to saying "I don't like thinking outside the box, and you shouldn't, either!"
I mean really -
StarkerMann — 9 years ago(February 12, 2017 02:13 PM)
When children are young they have no object permanence, they don't understand that just because they can't see something doesn't mean it's not there. As they get older the neurons in their brain form more complex neural connections and they see the world differently. This has to happen through experience, children need to understand language in order to learn. Neglected children who do not learn language and converse with other humans do not magically gain these abilities over time, it is a learned behavior. Suspend disbelief just a bit and it's not implausible to assume the aliens have done something similar to Louise's brain. She realizes just because she can't see the future doesn't mean it's not already there. Just because she hasn't experienced it yet doesn't mean she doesn't have knowledge of what the future holds. This is based on an actual hypothesis in quantum mechanics. People far smarter than your or I fully believe that our entire existence is happening at once, but humans are only capable of experiencing it linearly.
^ This! Thank you! It's so frustrating reading remarks from some who claim the film is "stupid" or "requires too much suspension of disbelief."
"Arrival" is based on Ted Chiang's award winning short story "Story of Your Life". A brilliant piece which the film adaptation changed a bit by adding a Cold War era conflict and the ending regarding humanity helping the sentient beings in 3000 years. Chiang beautifully wove complex, well-regarded scientific and linguistic concepts and principles into a linear story regarding time and language as non-linear functions. Google "Flatlands" and watch the episode from Sagans' series explaining how our physical limitations and concepts of moving beyond four+ dimensions in "String Field Theory" and "Quantum Mechanics". Sagan was excellent in expressing complex theories as he knew exactly how to break down variables and concepts into tangible, physical expression.
The protagonist (Amy Adams' character) tells the story from her perspective using linear written language yet at the conclusion realizes their written and spoken communication are very different from not just ours but amongst themselves. Written language doesn't follow a linear process that we use but rather a "multidimensional" and layered symbolic structure that assumes (or knows) the beginning and end of thoughts and events. This suggests that they must have some knowledge of future events. They think, act, and communicate on numerous levels simultaneously as though past, present, and future coexist, interwoven and happening at the same time. At the end of the story, the protagonist (Adams) begins to think as they do, first dreaming in a symbolic/visual language (much as we do when learning a new auditory language) and then begins to view events that will come to pass. The gift given to humanity was that knowledge and perspective. The concept that multilayered and highly efficient communication(s) can alter how we perceive the world and our lives was very well done. The story presents itself in linear form yet is turned around once we realize the flashbacks aren't flashbacks but Adams' character sharing her "story of her and her daughter" as she received it, i.e. knowing her future. The true mental "gut punch" is her decision to have a child even though she knows she'll die in a tragic accident at 25 years of age. Did she decide to have a child because of her contact with another species and their language or was it fated or both? In essence, whether she had "free will" didn't matter as she knew the time and love with her daughter transcends our fears and suffering in death (we all die, yet we don't know how, when, etc and still have children, hoping they'll outlive us and if not we still bring children into the world knowing they'll die whether we're alive or not).
I was especially intrigued in the concept of what comes first: language to form thoughts or thoughts that form language? We all have first person (inner) thoughts/experiences, imagine thinking without using a verbal language. It's the "chicken or the egg" conundrum using language instead of "being". This revelation hit me harder than philosophizing on the origins of life as it had to happen relatively close to our "blip" on this planet. "Parietal Art" is the only currently known earliest form of communication between Homo Sapiens[Sapiens]. Did that come first?
There are so many concepts and "real world" historical examples of human evolution packed into a brilliant examination of possible futures scenario's into a short story that I'm impressed with how well Chiang wove this complex tale. -
bruce-129 — 9 years ago(November 25, 2016 09:00 PM)
Artsy has little to do with it in Hollywood it is all about money, like anywhere else.
When it comes to Science Fiction, Hollywood has always been pretty bad and unimaginative.
The good movies are few and far between because most people do not think the public cares
about realism, message, morality they think it is all about effects and violence.
One of the best Science Fictions movies to me is probably the simplest movie ever made
called "The Man From Earth" which is good because it makes you think and it's kind of fun.
This movie is one of those movies that crawls up its own posterior there is no point to it
once you realize the plot doesn't really make sense. -
Farshnoshket — 9 years ago(November 26, 2016 08:02 AM)
You're funny!
You're blaming the critics because they (most) understood the film and the possibility that in a sci-fi film things can happen which are not explainable in the world we know.
If guess by your thinking films like Star Trek, Star Wars, Avatar, Doctor Strange, Cloverfield, AI, Alien, Superman, Guardians of the Galaxy and on and on because things happen that cannot be explained.
Just because this sci-fi didn't go over the top like most of the films I just listed doesn't mean it can't bend time because it's still a science FICTION story.
And in this film no one saw into the future, but it certainly looks like you're not the type of person who can expand on the laws you already know as fact.
A suspension of belief is always essential when watching abut you already know that, don't you? -
iceblink1 — 9 years ago(November 26, 2016 08:59 AM)
If guess by your thinking films like Star Trek, Star Wars, Avatar, Doctor Strange, Cloverfield, AI, Alien, Superman, Guardians of the Galaxy and on and on because things happen that cannot be explained.
WTF?!! er, YEAH! Except for AI, Alien and Cloverfield which are all feasible by the laws of physics, and maybe Star Trek and Avatar too. But Star Wars, Doctor Strange, Superman and Guardians of the Galaxy are not Sci-Fi.
Don't you understand the difference between Science Fiction and Science Fantasy? The former attempts to play by the known laws of physics, the later allows anything really, just like in magic movies like Harry potter.
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Farshnoshket — 9 years ago(November 27, 2016 06:21 AM)
Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas."
By the laws of physics is time travel possible? -
iceblink1 — 9 years ago(November 27, 2016 07:56 AM)
By the laws of physics is time travel possible?
yes, but only with exotic high energy constructs like traversable wormholes or tachyons.
You can't just have the biological brain thinking differently and then see the future - it's a silly extrapolation of some sensible ideas about the structure of language wrt the direction of time, just to sound clever and appeal to pretentious arty types. Learning a new language "rewires" the brain, fine, but no biological process can see into the future without the help of magic.
The writers were clearly so up themselves with language theory and wanting to shoehorn it into their big alien story that they didn't bother checking with a proper scientist whether it made any sense.
In any case, as I said above, even if it did, the consequences are depicted very poorly and I can't understand how anyone could call this a great movie - the age of non-experts has arrived.
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Farshnoshket — 9 years ago(November 27, 2016 08:26 AM)
You have obviously built a wall and refuse to see over it.
That's fine, but don't expect anyone else to join you.
We prefer the arts and their ability to make us think outside that wall. The imagination is a wonderful thing and I invite anyone to encourage mine anytime.