Arrival

[Darth Biscuit]

Is there no thread on this?  Weird.

 

Saw it Saturday night.  Decent flick.  I like Amy Adams and love SciFi so...

 

It's really the movie that Interstellar wanted to be imo.

 

Spoilers below, so...

 

 

Couple of nitpicks I had.

 

If the alien's language is the gift they're giving, why didn't they start out drawing it out (since they obviously communicate in that manner anyway) before Louise started using the white board?

Also, didn't Louise have "flashbacks/forwards" whatever BEFORE she started learning their language?

 

Movies that deal with this kind of "time" plotline are hard to make, I get that... but it some of the stuff seemed a bit obvious.

 

I did enjoy the movie though.

[d-dave]

I really loved this movie.  I saw it with my father.  We have a history of checking out thought provoking sci-fi films.  What got us thinking was the way time was addressed.  The flashbacks/forwards were great.  They were confusing because they were shot in a "memory filter" compared to the rest of the "normal" timeline.  I thought they were effective because the whole idea is that time becomes a circular loop, especially when you can experience all of it at once.  Though our time does in fact end when we die.  How does that work I wonder?

What got me was how they addressed the definition of time.  Much of our science is predicated on the constant of time.  Time is something can't escape.  Time is something that affects us very directly.  To have aliens who don't experience linear time is fascinating.  Could we even exist in the same dimension?  I play with that over and over in my mind.

We can't really "define" time, but we can calculate it in our own way.  Imagine if we lived on Mars.  Would that change how we perceived time?  How would that change our perception of time?  Acceleration?  Distance is fairly concrete, but time is far more mutable than we want to think about.

I love the film.  I love the idea of establishing a baseline of communication with the humans, letting them lead the way and building rapport on each end.  While I've read a linguist kind of poo poo some of the practices, it's a step for people to appreciate the science of linguistics.  Totally fascinating process in the film, even if flawed.

I can't wait to get the blu ray, sit down with some beer and watch it again with my dad.  More good conversations!

[d-dave]

22 hours ago, Promethean Forerunner said:

as if I've lived (or felt like I've seen that moment coming years in advance) a certain moment in the 'present' several times

It's just a glitch in the Matrix...

On this issue, Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman did an entire episode on if Time even exists....I was kind of angry, how could time not exist?  When you have something you hold so dear, like time, almost taken away from you, it's hard to accept.

I do think it's possible to completely ignore time though.  Hydrogen gets consumed, stars expand, collapse, and explode.  I think it's just how we perceive time, and how our biology moves so quickly compared to the vast expanses of space.

[Ivan The Awesome]

I'm gonna watch it tonight. I think 123 movies has it. 

[Ounce]

On 11/30/2016 at 3:30 PM, Promethean Forerunner said:

I constantly feel as if I've lived (or felt like I've seen that moment coming years in advance) a certain moment in the 'present' several times. Could it be that other dimensions during different periods or stages are intersecting at one certain point simultaneously?

It really makes you think about what we as humans are truly aware of in the end...

This has happened to many times, and when it does its very eerie but fascinating.  I would describe it much like living moment in your life you already lived before, or like seeing a dream you had before become reality. I like your explanation for it, that definitely captures the feeling of something just "clicking" momentarily...Perhaps this is all out there for us but we're just not advanced enough yet to truly perceive and digest it.

 

 

Regarding the movie, not much more to say other than what has already been written, an excellent sci-fi drama which delivers its message with great pacing and subtlety.  Different and great.

 

 

[cookinwithgas]

For those of you with a layman's interest in these things like me, check out a show called "How the Universe Works" - things like this are covered along with a lot of other physics/astronomy stuff and it's all fascinating.