Denis Villeneuve 'Arrival'

[TheGodling]

White girl magic...

That's the only explanation yall need.

And another thing that annoyed me was the whole premise that humans would need to figure out how to communicate with advanced beings.. Wouldn't the advanced beings be able to figure out our primitive language faster than we would theirs? They should have been able to write and speak english the first day they touched down... or at least communicate beyond some grunts and shyt.

Spoiler

Because the goal was to make the humans understand the alien language. The whole reason they came here was to make sure we learned it, there would literally be no point in them learning our language first so they could then teach us theirs. The point of them teaching us was to unite humanity as they were forcing us to cooperate as one in order to be able to understand it.

Also, the movie made it very clear that the sounds they made weren't a form of communication, at least not one in line with the language they used to communicate to us.

 

[David_TheMan]

Spoiler

Because the goal was to make the humans understand the alien language. The whole reason they came here was to make sure we learned it, there would literally be no point in them learning our language first so they could then teach us theirs. The point of them teaching us was to unite humanity as they were forcing us to cooperate as one in order to be able to understand it.

Also, the movie made it very clear that the sounds they made weren't a form of communication, at least not one in line with the language they used to communicate to us.

Actuallly learning our language to better communicate understanding their language would make the most sense.

 

[TheGodling]

Actuallly learning our language to better communicate understanding their language would make the most sense.

No, because again:

Spoiler

the point isn't communication between the two species, the point is us learning their language. That's the only point in fact. Not to speak with them, but because this language will unite us, which is necessary for humanity to assist the aliens 3000 years from now. Them learning English to explain it to us doesn't work because humanity had to learn to work together, so humanity had to decypher their language on their own, by learning to work together. That's why they came in twelve ships, each a single piece of the larger puzzle (one out of twelve) that revealed the true secret/power behind their language. It's not that fukking difficult, breh.

 

[David_TheMan]

No, because again:

Spoiler

the point isn't communication between the two species, the point is us learning their language. That's the only point in fact. Not to speak with them, but because this language will unite us, which is necessary for humanity to assist the aliens 3000 years from now. Them learning English to explain it to us doesn't work because humanity had to learn to work together, so humanity had to decypher their language on their own, by learning to work together. That's why they came in twelve ships, each a single piece of the larger puzzle (one out of twelve) that revealed the true secret/power behind their language. It's not that fukking difficult, breh.

language is a form of communication, so learning a language means what? You have to communicate.
The easiest way to teach and learn is if you can communicate.

So you are simply wrong in trying to claim not having a shared language, whatever it was, would not aid in what they were attempting to accomplish.

 

[FlyRy]

Zootopia, by a mile. Best animated film since Up.
But the other 8 on my top 10 list are total blah compared to lists in the past. I hope the Oscar-bait movies will save this terrible year.

The oscar season should be good

We still have :

Moonlight(not out here yet)
Manchester by the Sea
La La Land
Fences
Jackie
Nocturnal Animals
A Monster Calls
Live by Night
Allied
Passengers (:smugnolan: )
Rogue one (:smugnolan: )

 

[Tasha And]

White girl magic...

That's the only explanation yall need.

And another thing that annoyed me was the whole premise that humans would need to figure out how to communicate with advanced beings.. Wouldn't the advanced beings be able to figure out our primitive language faster than we would theirs? They should have been able to write and speak english the first day they touched down... or at least communicate beyond some grunts and shyt.

EDIT: I forgot to put this in spoilers

Spoiler

I'm lost on why you think this is a good point. The most compelling aspect of the movie is the idea that the communication barrier is the most difficult obstacle to hurdle. Not creating technology but being able to express a simple idea from one species to another, or hell even one group of people to another. We're the same species but if you put someone that spoke German, a blind man that spoke a Chinese language, someone that spoke an Sudanese dialect, and someone that was deaf and could only sigh in a room together and forced them to work on a project, it would be an extremely difficult endeavor, even for one of them to ask the other three something simple like "Do you have children?" or "Where were you born?"

It's exponentially more difficult even if you put two primates together and forced them to communicate, like a human and a bonobo. What happens if it's a human and a squid? Does us being advanced and capable of space travel mean we can understand their communication?

On another note, what's so cool to me about this story was the aliens were so far advanced in their idea of communication that they did have to reverse engineer their thinking so they could comprehend our comparatively stupid and inefficient language. They are used to non-linear communication so for them to understand our grunts and squiggly lines they had to go against all intuition and follow our way of communicating with them, before they could tell us what they wanted.

You had some countries teaching them games. Some used their written language on chalk boards. Some tried to find a communication bond by doing algebra. The point was that there were countless ways of communicating, but each of them had weaknesses or potential for errors in translation. And the aliens were forced to learn those error-riddled forms of communication in order to give us a more efficient one.

They came to earth with a very simple idea. All they wanted to tell humans was "I want to teach you a language", but without first knowing what "I" and "want" and "teach" and "your" and "our" and "language" meant to humans, communicating that idea was impossible. They learned the inefficient forms of communication from humans, and even then their response came out as "use weapon", which is true to how communication works throughout history.

 

[Tasha And]

Spoiler

Because the goal was to make the humans understand the alien language. The whole reason they came here was to make sure we learned it, there would literally be no point in them learning our language first so they could then teach us theirs. The point of them teaching us was to unite humanity as they were forcing us to cooperate as one in order to be able to understand it.

Also, the movie made it very clear that the sounds they made weren't a form of communication, at least not one in line with the language they used to communicate to us.

Spoiler

That was their goal, but they had to learn our language first before they could communicate with us. Like, costella (I think it was) had to learn that her name was "Louise" before he could tell her "Louise has weapon".

 

[Silver Surfer]

Name?

The story of your life

 

[TheGodling]

language is a form of communication, so learning a language means what? You have to communicate.
The easiest way to teach and learn is if you can communicate.

So you are simply wrong in trying to claim not having a shared language, whatever it was, would not aid in what they were attempting to accomplish.

You're still missing the point:

Spoiler

they weren't just trying to teach us their language, they were forcing us to work together in order to do so. Cooperation was their goal. I mean, following your logic you can ask why the aliens didn't just come in one ship with a big-ass dictionary and first grade word book of their language. Because it wasn't enough that we'd learn to understand it. We had to discover it by, again and again and again, working together and being united as one.

 

[storyteller]

I loved this ish, I was getting the threads all along but didn't put them together until that "I know why my husband left me" line brought everything full circle (wordplay fam). It's a complicated concept and far outside the box to the point that I can see a lot of people not buying into the conceits of the plot. But for me, everything comes together perfectly and just accept that they knew exactly what the main device was and constructed the story around it. Bout to get pretentious now because I'm an English major who loves overanalyzing and discussing concepts...

Spoiler

Random thoughts:
. I can't wait to go back and rewatch the first act. When you realize that she's actively living in every moment and none of them, it's on some trippy ish. The writers took Slaughter House Five and made a deep sci-fi think piece flick out of the concept. If you want to explore the idea of living outside of time further, I'd point to that book instantly.

. I need to revisit her opening monologue and how she tells that first story. At the heart of this, it's a story about communication but there's also an underlying theme of inevitability. Her husband leaves her because he thinks she "made the wrong choice" but there was no choice once she leaped outside of time. She's jumping to future conversations and then back but she has to just accept that things are going to happen the way they're meant to be. I think there's a lot of meat to discussing whether she ever had a chance to change things like the death of her daughter or when she tells her husband (and daughter...how much more poignant is the rapid fire moment her daughter yells "I hate you" when you realize what provoked it). Just to go further down the "choice is an illusion in this universe" idea; the aliens don't stop the bomb attack and one of them dies in spite of their knowledge and they're so far outside of time that they know humanity will help their species 3000 years into the future.

. Speaking of the bombing scene, THAT was my biggest complaint. Heads are obsessing over whether language can or cannot accomplish what it did in this film; but either you buy it or you don't...What I don't buy is that three rogue soldiers would be able to sneak onto a space ship that the US government isn't sure about being hostile or not; plant a bomb on the ship and also have weaponry set aside to defend the bomb. It's the only moment I really didn't like, though it was necessary to drive the plot forward.

. Another quote I want to revisit is Amy Adams' quote about language as the pillar of society or whatever. The scientist disagrees and says that science is (kinda reminds me of the cats who refuse to accept that language could unlock humanity from time). Looking back, that seems like it's probably the thesis for the key concept of the movie.

. Explaining the dangers of using games to communicate was on some "wow that makes sense" ish...just a cool bit I wanted to mention.

. If I got that power, I'd win the lottery and invest like a genius. I wonder what rules within the universe keep that from occurring if there are any; my guess is something extra pretentious like "once they are outside of time, they just accept the order of things and don't need to win the lottery" like the whole "so it goes" thing...but me...I'd be living that Bilzerian life with the swiftness.

 

[David_TheMan]

You're still missing the point:

Spoiler

they weren't just trying to teach us their language, they were forcing us to work together in order to do so. Cooperation was their goal. I mean, following your logic you can ask why the aliens didn't just come in one ship with a big-ass dictionary and first grade word book of their language. Because it wasn't enough that we'd learn to understand it. We had to discover it by, again and again and again, working together and being united as one.

its a deus ex machina, the language existed only as a means for plot point.

 

[Tasha And]

You're still missing the point:

Spoiler

they weren't just trying to teach us their language, they were forcing us to work together in order to do so. Cooperation was their goal. I mean, following your logic you can ask why the aliens didn't just come in one ship with a big-ass dictionary and first grade word book of their language. Because it wasn't enough that we'd learn to understand it. We had to discover it by, again and again and again, working together and being united as one.

Spoiler

Yeah and my favorite visual emphasis of this idea was when they showed all 12 screens for the countries and they all had the word "disconnected" on them.

 

[OG_StankBrefs]

Saw it dis past weekend. Great film.

 

[FlyRy]

@Sensitive Blake Griffin Did you fall asleep when you went with your parents?

Where is your review!?

 

[OG_StankBrefs]

Quick question, brehs.

Spoiler

So is she only able to see da future up till her daughter's death?