I was expecting a generic alien invasion movie, and I was pleasantly surprised
Really is a good view.
For anyone wondering, the music that just destroys you in the movie is by the amazing Max Richter. The song is On The Nature of Daylight.
PS: He recently released a piano arrangement of the song.
“When I first started drinking warm water for my prostate…”
Fuck YouTube so much…
Either way… His short stories are the bees knees…
I don’t remember much about the movie, but isn’t it one of the movies where time gets wacky?
Almost
Spoiler
Memories are what get wacky. The main character (as well as the aliens who “arrive”) can remember the future as well as the past due to learning the alien language. It’s based on the possibly-not-linguistically-sound Sapir-Wharf hypothesis that says the language you speak influences the way you think. The aliens use a circular rather than linear writing system so they think of time in a non-linear way
It’s based on a short story called “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. He’s published only eighteen stories in his career (starting in 1990), nothing longer than a novella and mostly short stories. Despite that they’ve won him four Hugos, four Nebulas, and six Locus Awards. He’s worth reading, is what I’m trying to say.
I couldn’t agree more. I read them quite some time ago, and still find myself having philosophical discussions about them somewhat often today. Most are really thought provoking in a non-judgmental way.
If you haven’t read The Merchant and the Alchemists Gate by Ted Chiang I can’t recommend it enough. Here’s a PDF Link
It’s lesser known than his big hits like Exhalation, but I think it’s phenomenal.
It’s also featured on a two-part episode of LeVar Burton Reads.
The short story was OK but this is one of the few cases where the movie did it better, added flavor to it that wasn’t in the book but carries the emotional hit farther.
The short stories in that book felt very “woah dude” to me, in the end I finished it but didn’t like it all that much. I’ve been downvoted for this opinion before, but oh well.
I will say I read the short story and it made me love the movie even more. It rare for me to say the movie was better than they book and the books was great as well.
Ya know I have to say I feel nearly the same about Dune. I haven’t gotten to the the later books but the first 2 have made me love the movies more. Not that I love the the books any less though. There is very little nuance lost in the movies and the changes that are made I can understand from a film making point of view. I guess what I mean to say is I appreciate the differences and it makes me like both more rather thank either any less.
Don’t bother with the rest of the books unless you’re into heavy philosophy. The new movies are pleasantly close to the books which made me love them as well
Yeah Denis Villeneuve is a wonderful story teller. The book gives great context to what the characters are thinking and that was where Lynch failed trying to put that on screen when it wasn’t needed for the medium.
Thanks for the reading recommendation!
I put him up there with Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, easily.
That’s exactly what I was going to say. His prose is breathtaking.
Well that’s got me interested then
I wonder if Ted Chiang was inspired by Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five
He’s written some “Notes” on the story when it was printed in his first short story collection and said that it has the same theme but that he wasn’t inspired by it directly. The roots were Paul Linke’s play “Time Flies When You’re Alive” and the principle of least time in optics – if you treat light as a ray, it has to know its future destination in order to know the path with the shortest time it will take to get there (though not if it’s a wave). Then there’s a bunch of diagrams and discussions about the principle’s implications for free will that will stretch your brain. It’s pretty fun.
Now you have to watch it again. Seriously
I just did it.
the short story/novel its derived from is also pretty good
Pretty good? It destroyed me
Yup. I couldn’t shake the feeling of sorrow after watching this movie. Like it just clung to me…
Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life won a Nebula for best novella and a Theodore Sturgeon award, and was nominated for a Hugo for best novella.
Yeah, it’s pretty good.
spoiler
I didn’t care for it at all, I felt the memory as time travel thing to be weaksacue, and I felt ripped off at the end of watching it, plus I don’t like her very much at all
Spoiler
Of course its totally fine to not like a movie, but I wanted to clarify the memory as time travel thing.
I can’t remember where I first heard this, it wasn’t this movie, but suppose humans are oddly fixated on the flow of time. To us the flow of time is immutable we exist in the present and remember the past. What if other races could “remember” things that haven’t happened yet as easily as we remember things from the past.
The movie kinda proposes that learning human languages traps us into this linear / temporal mode of thinking. As in, as children we learn to parse things start to finish and that’s it… we just never do it the other way future to now.
Turns out I’ve done a shit job at explaining this.
As I said, it’s fine to hate the movie. I just thought I’d try to explain this part because I felt like I understood it, although I’m not sure anymore.
I think you explained it quite well. I just read the story and was a bit confused by the ending but this clarified it for me.
Major spoilers ahead! (struggling with the spoiler tag!)
!spoiler The story reads like she’s in the present and you assume her memories of her daughter are in the past. Then looking back at the language used, she’s describing memories of her daughter with language that indicates it’s in the future, not the past. So it stands to reason that the encounters with the heptapods are in the present and learning their language gives her the ability to ‘see’ the future I assume Gary is her daughter’s father. Just like she mentions of the readers of the Book of Ages, she won’t do anything to change the future even if she knows what’s coming, even if it means a future where her daughter dies young.
spoiler
Yes, Gary is the father. He’s ended up leaving her (in the future) because he found out she had the future knowledge of their daughter’s early death but went ahead with having her anyway.
!spoiler Ah? I didn’t catch that, I thought they divorced when the daughter was still alive given the parts about dating someone else? Where in the story did you catch that bit?
That part of the story was heavily hollywoodized. I highly recommend reading the original story.
As someone with differing opinions from the zeitgeist on a variety of topics, I appreciate your sincere and well-reason dissention
I’m in the same boat. I enjoyed the short story more, but mostly because it didn’t feel as over the top. The wacky alien mechanic works better in print IMO.
Same, tbh. I can’t say I felt ripped off, but it was definitely a disappointment.
Me when I realize that they’re just glossing over the fucking symbols and rug pulling the plot while blowing “time travel glitter” into you’re eyes and whispering “you’re welcome” at you:
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
I get into Sci Fi, time travel and obscure concepts, and I have to agree with you mainly. It ended and I kinda felt like, “yeah OK”. Another person here has said that it should be watched again. Like what, did I miss something ? Anyway, it’s entertainment and each to their own. Maybe I should watch it again one day, but it will be a while.
It depends. What were you expecting and what was your takeaway after watching? Because to me, it didn’t have anything to do with the time travel or scifi aspects at all.
The main point of the film is summed up with the line “If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?”. It was about free will and the main character’s decision to let things play out knowing her daughter will die at an early age, because if she didn’t have her, she wouldn’t have experienced the life she had with her daughter at all. It’s a philosophical story wrapped in a scifi film.
I think the impact, if any, that it has on the viewer depends on their answer to that question. I enjoyed the movie, but thought the characters acted like emotionally rife teenagers, and that the decisions they made were wrong. I’ve never felt like rewatching it. I’d make a bet that all of the others in the comments who absolutely loved the movie agreed with the characters’ ultimate decisions.
One of favorite movies of all time. I watch it at least once a year.
What are you talking about, it only came out last year … Uh, right?
Sure feels like it.
Well according to the movie what you’re saying can make perfect sense.
I watched it because Lingthusiasm has a podcast episode about it and loved it too!
Alien Linguistics. Love this movie
B E A N
space bean
I’d like to watch this and Annihilation again. I’ve only seen each of them once, both around the same time, and my memories of them are pretty fuzzy at this stage.
that fucking bear 💀
Was fuzzy, indeed.
I’m pretty sure I saw it in a Dolby theater and it kept me up that night.
Two of my absolute favorite movies. They are both amazing examinations of contact with life that functions completely differently than us, albeit in very different ways
So good. I think I listed it as my favorite movie for a while.
Now you need to watch the 1996 classic “The Arrival”!
Reading this made my knees hurt.
Still one of my favourite movies ever
