Just got back from this. I think this is legitimately one of the greatest movies of this decade, maybe the best sci-fi movie I've seen in a long time. It reminds me of The Abyss, it's an interesting exploration of language, unity, non-linear storytelling and fantastic shot composition. It's eerie, it's touching, it's mysterious and interesting.

 

It is certainly one of the best movies of the year, I'm hesitant to call it the best science fiction movie of the decade, but it's close. It's everything that good science fiction should be, it had mystery, and it was thought provoking. Overall it was an excellent film.

 

I'm not sure if I'd go as far as best sci-fi of the decade either, but the more I think about it the only other recent sci-fi as good as this that comes to mind is Her, and to a lesser extent Ex Machina. I'd also add that the score for the film was brilliant and Amy Adams was great, should be an easy Oscar nom for her.

 

Everything you said: I also say.

 

I too am trying to come up with a better sci-fi movie this decade, and I am not sure there is one. This could just be recency bias from me though. I do love me some Interstellar/Inception though. I think this movie's final arc is executed better than Interstellar's.

I am still thinking about this movie two days later, so it must have had an impact on me.

 

That was genuinely one of the best sci-fi films I've ever seen. The third act is a masterpiece!

 

The only negative I can come up with is the hokey way they telegraphed the 'solution' - not the 'solution' itself.

I should also add that I hate it when people talk in cinemas. Nothing you have to say is important enough that it can't wait until after the movie...

That being said...

Spoiler

When she asked 'Who is that girl?' I literally uttered 'What. The. Fuck?!' (then promptly sunk in my chair and looked around in embarrassment...)

I can't remember the last time a plot twist caught me so off guard. I was so engrossed with what was going on in the movie that that revelation just slapped me in the face.

I normally see that kind of shit coming from a mile away.

Oh, and fuck that concept in the butthole. You keep your seer language to yourself kthnx.

 

I really enjoyed it especially since it reminded me of some of the debates my two roommates from college (one a linguist the other a cognitive science major) used to get up to in the dorm. I also really dug the soundtrack.

Spoiler

She probably needs to popularize heptapodian so that humanity can aide the heptapods during the calamity 3,000 years from now. And, if you'll allow me to infer something, anything that rewires a brain toward non-linear time would also rewire risk/reward against short-term gain/long-term loss. I.e., if everyone can linguistically time travel then there's no short cut since everyone can already do it.

 

Arrival is certainly more on par with Ex Machina and Moon, in that it is a more intimate form of Science Fiction, Although I think I'd like to compare it to the 2002 version of Solaris, that movie while not without problems(although it did have an amazing soundtrack) it carried air of mystery and was rather poignant in regards to memory and how we see people. Interstellar had its emotional moments too, think about about how terrible it would be to learn that the extra time you spent on a planet meant you missed years of your child's life.

 

Looks like it's time for me to go against the grain. Might

Let me start off by saying that I really did love the movie. I'd give it at least a 7.5/10 rounded up to an 8/10.

But there were a few things that I didn't like in the movie.

I'm not all that into politics so I may be completely out of base here but how everyone reacted to China was a bit weird in my opinion. First of all, China shuts down communications so America does the same? China goes on a war footing witht he aliens so America does the same I'm trying to find the logic here but am so far failing.

And the competency of the military in general really. I would think that for an endeavour like First Contact with aliens there would be some kind of psyhological screening to make sure people like Marks don't go anywhere near the ships.

Also, the fact that the military expected Louis to decipher a completelylien language based on one ten second audio clip. No, just no. The fact that she didn't translate it on the spot (Some bullshit like "There's a pause here so that shows hesitation") is a credit to the movie.

Let's not forget that the military dude, Weber, had no idea how language works and apparently neither did his superiors. It made logical sense for her to start with small words and it would obviously take months, if not years to achieve coherent communication.

I mean, I know movies like showing the military as incompetent but it's getting a bit old at this point.

As for the plot twist: Nice, but most of us here at work saw it coming a mile away. Then again, I'm a big Sixth Sense fan and always expect something like this (Despite it never actually happening).

 

I believe because China shut down communications, Russia and two other countries decided to do so too (Which in total was 5 sites IIRC). The rest of the sites also started shutting down, and the Americans decided to shut down because they felt non-reciprocation from half the sites means there is no point in communicating with the rest.

As someone who has been in the military (admittedly no the US military) this is pretty much exactly how it works. The higher ups do not care about the nuances of HOW something works, they just want it done.

Everyone has a commander they report to, and that commander has a commander who has a commander who has a commander, and with rank they get more impatient and exert larger force and urgency.

He doesn't care how long it takes to decipher a language (and I'd argue he showed LOTS of restraint and leeway to Louise and her methods, and was pretty understanding), he just needs it done because there are a million pressing issues with an Alien invasion, the least of which is for them to feel comfortable and unthreatened (in his mind).

He didn't know anything about languages, true, but she explained it to him and he understood her and relented to her method. Unsure how you can say that is incompetent of him.

Regarding the screening process; Dude, the President of the United States doesn't go through a psych eval. So every random security guard in the Military needs one now? Please.

 

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure America was the second site to shut down. They also seemed to be in a rush to shut down. Was there really any issue with just leaving the communications up?

 

There were at least three sites shut down before America. I would agree that that plot strand seemed a little forced, but more so because it's so familiar than because it was bad. Other than that...well, there was one line I didn't like near the end. Absolutely superb film. A lot has been said about it, but I'd like to add that an opening montage hasn't hit me that hard since 'Up'.

 

I'm 99% sure I got it right. Russia, two others followed China and only then did the US shut down.

 

They foreshadowed it earlier in the movie, when General Shi was first introduced. Saying something along the lines of "four nations will follow his lead", it felt kind of shoehorned in unless I misheard it.

 

I saw this last week, and enjoyed it immensely. I saw the plot twist coming just before it happened, so it wasn't as shocking, but it still pretty much had me.

I enjoy the fact that SciFi has been taking a hard turn towards realism lately. This did with a softer 'how would we solve this problem' approach, but others like the show Expanse did with the realistic dynamics of intra-system space travel.

 

Saw it and enjoyed it. Especially the somehow lovecraftian feel of the ship and the aliens - plus the music in it, was just wonderful.

The twist wasn't such a big deal for me, because I read a review that mentioned the lovecraftian atmosphere of the movie and that it evoked The Shadow out of Time - and when mentioneds were made about time I knew what was comming.

 

I'd recommend reading the short story it's based off, too.

Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. Some of his other works are great, like Tower of Babylon. Some of it really makes you question your definition of Sci-Fi.

His stuff is easy enough to find.

 

So this finally came out here in Germany, giving me an opportunity to watch it. And like everybody else I really liked it and found it to be one of the best SciFi movies in recent memory, certainly the best first contact scenario one by far.

That said I have one big issue with the movie and that is its ending, or more specific handling of time and the repercussions of it. Either they went with an idea that totally removes free will from our actions (everything you do is predestined) which I find highly problematic from an philosophical and ethical viewpoint or the mother willingly and knowingly doomed her child (and the whole family as well) to a painful and early death for no reason that I can discern which I find even more distasteful and problematic.