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Poll

Louise Banks (Amy Adams) in Arrival:

had no choice.
9 (69.2%)
is a selfish shit.
4 (30.8%)

Total Members Voted: 13

Author Topic: Arrival  (Read 20941 times)

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #90 on: December 09, 2016, 01:06:35 PM »
The cause and effect is ruined by the non-linear time.  I wonder at the scene with the general, because what caused what?  I think it is too difficult to determine and is often a problem in time-travel films.  I believe there is a cause-and-effect in a non-linear time understanding, but that it is so complicated to be almost impossible to determine.

I believe this is an instance of the movie not understanding the rules of physics it wants to give itself or not committing to them. In a non-linear time universe there would have to be a moment of inception for the things that happen because they must happen. The other, more glaring, example is how Adams learns the language. She remembers already knowing it and later she knows it because she future-remembered it in her past. But she never actually learns it so there is no reason for her future knowledge. The general situation is similar. Villeneuve is having his cake and past-eating it too.
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Corndog

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #91 on: December 09, 2016, 01:20:45 PM »
You've brought up a few times about her learning the language from knowing it in the future. I don't remember that about it at all. It's a process to learn it, and we get a nice little montage essentially that shows us all of the hard work and determination of one of the world's renown linguistics minds is doing in order to learn it, having multiple sessions with Abbott and Costello. She is slowly having more and more "flashbacks" over this time because she is slowly learning the language, which gives her the "flashback" power. The bit with General Shang, yes, she is remembering what to say based on her having said it in the future, which falls under your argument of flawed logic, but I don't recall that being the case with the language at all.

What does everyone else remember?
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Sandy

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #92 on: December 09, 2016, 01:24:45 PM »
...Adams has her for motives that are even more selfish than usual: she wants to get to have those moments of splendour, her daughter's suffering be damned - and, incidentally, hers too.

I give up. My language skills are insufficient. :(

verbALs

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #93 on: December 09, 2016, 02:03:38 PM »
Yes, having children is a selfish act. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it though.  ;D
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #94 on: December 09, 2016, 02:28:13 PM »
...Adams has her for motives that are even more selfish than usual: she wants to get to have those moments of splendour, her daughter's suffering be damned - and, incidentally, hers too.

I give up. My language skills are insufficient. :(

Your argument relies on a reading of the movie whereby the kid has already suffered and Adams could not do anything to change that future. She can only change the future she will experience in actuality, and deciding not to have her would be a sort of abandonment. It comes down to multiple timelines, or at least that is what I understood you said. My opinion is based on different physical (physic ?) assumptions and can therefore not be used to contradict yours. I still disagree with you though.  ;D

Yes, having children is a selfish act. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it though.  ;D

The same reasoning works for murder.

You've brought up a few times about her learning the language from knowing it in the future. I don't remember that about it at all. It's a process to learn it, and we get a nice little montage essentially that shows us all of the hard work and determination of one of the world's renown linguistics minds is doing in order to learn it, having multiple sessions with Abbott and Costello. She is slowly having more and more "flashbacks" over this time because she is slowly learning the language, which gives her the "flashback" power. The bit with General Shang, yes, she is remembering what to say based on her having said it in the future, which falls under your argument of flawed logic, but I don't recall that being the case with the language at all.

What does everyone else remember?

The montage is of her learning the basics of the language. At the end of it she is able to make rudimentary phrases and spends days ruminating on interpretations of the answers. A day later she goes from English 101 to making wordplay with the subjunctive. That jump is only due to her future-remembering the book she will write, not to the actual study of the language.
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Corndog

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #95 on: December 09, 2016, 03:19:28 PM »
A day later...

The film takes place over several months.
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

don s.

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #96 on: December 09, 2016, 09:34:47 PM »
The cause and effect is ruined by the non-linear time.  I wonder at the scene with the general, because what caused what?  I think it is too difficult to determine and is often a problem in time-travel films.  I believe there is a cause-and-effect in a non-linear time understanding, but that it is so complicated to be almost impossible to determine.

Even so, Louise's decision isn't exactly causing Hannah to exist.  Or maybe it is.  But if it is, then the decision was already done by the time we see her "make" the decision.

Linear time is an illusion. Somehow, humans evolved to perceive time this way, which turned out to be a boon, since it allowed our primitive brains to understand cycles, which allowed us to invent agriculture and animal husbandry, which in turn allowed us to invent civilization. But it screws up our ability to understand this movie.

I keep seeing references to Louise's "choice." That's another illusion. Her daughter happened/happens/will happen. There's no changing it. Louise experiences it, and as a result of decoding the heptapods' language, she's versed in nonlinear time, and she understands that her experience is immutable.

The heptapods evolved differently. They experience time not linearly, but as something akin to a continuum. They can move back in forth in their own individual times, like we move through space. But they (and we) can't alter their time any more than we can warp the fabric of space. It's here. It's there. It was, is, and will be.

Does that help?
« Last Edit: December 09, 2016, 09:38:31 PM by don s. »
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oldkid

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #97 on: December 09, 2016, 10:37:28 PM »
I agree with slowpogo, you said it quite well. DH, I don't think less of you, or feel you're not "getting it". Some things bother people while they don't others, and vice versa for that matter.

I could just as easily say that Arrival's components of greatness will be labeled as discombobulated elements and that it's fictional depths will be criticized.

I'm part of the minority who didn't really care for Arrival, and I haven't said anything about it on the forum yet. I'm going to cloak it all in spoiler tags just in case.


I loved parts of Arrival, I really did. It it beautiful and touching and well-directed. The time travel stuff is so...real. It makes you think about what you would do in Louise's situation and that's very effective.

But the part I can't get over (weeks later, I'm still super bothered by it) is the ease with which Louise picked up the alien language that has nothing to do with human language. All they had to do to make me happy was show a little more of the PROCESS of Louise figuring out the language. OK, so you showed the heptapods your name written in the English alphabet and hit your chest, so now they know what that means? Show time progressing for a few months/years, instead of a few days/weeks. I've expressed this opinion to many people, and they all tell me to just "suspend disbelief" and "accept the world of the movie". But the world of the movie is present-day America. So, nah. It just stuck out like a sore thumb.

The fiance is very bothered by the political implications of the movie. An unknown alien race shows up, and the military experts of the world who are used to dealing with nuclear powers would intentionally cut off contact with every other nation on earth because they were nervous? It all happened so quickly and suddenly the whole world is blacked out. Until Louise whispers the dying words of Japan's leader's wife? Which we don't even hear? I just have so many problems with the internal logic of the core events of the movie, it distracts me from the good parts.

Also, my dad left the theater without even understanding that Ian was the father of Louise's child. I think I saw something in the spoiler chat too about the uselessness of Jeremy Renner's character. It could have been anyone. Science didn't even come up.


Ugh, feels good to get that off my chest! Excuse any typos, I went into a fugue of anger about the movie while writing that.
I realize now that this should go on the spoiler thread, but y'all are on a completely different subject about which I don't want to argue.


Well, there are a couple things you said that kind of bothered me, so I'll post my agreement with them.

The language learning should have taken longer.  Caveat #1-- This process did take months  Caveat #2-- She had a team of people working with her, figuring it out.  Possible Caveat #3-- The scenes with the aliens were probably representational of much longer sessions.  But still.  To learn a language of a people that don't even breathe the same atmosphere we do is exceedingly complex and would take longer.  But given the caveats, this issue didn't bother me all that much.

The politics were weird.  Whatever China did, Russia and some other country would just follow?  That's crazy. A single phone call changed nuclear war into peace?  But, again, I explained it to myself as movie short cuts.  This isn't Fail Safe.

And I don't think anyone should be able to tell you or me or DH or anyone else what "should" or shouldn't bother you about a film.  We aren't trying to be bothered by a plot point.  And we aren't trying to ignore a plot point.  It just happens.  We go to movies so we can enjoy them.  For people to tell us how to react to a movie don't really understand how movies work. 
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slowpogo

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #98 on: December 09, 2016, 11:28:44 PM »
I've heard several people complain that the translation process was unreasonably quick. I think people are missing a line of dialogue, which might have been part of Jeremy Renner's voice-over segment, where it's said aloud that it will take a few months to get where they need to be. This is after they've already been working on it for a week or two, it seemed. When action resumes, I was assuming that a few months had, indeed, passed.

I wouldn't have minded if they showed more of the linguistics stuff, because they made it interesting to watch, which is a feat unto itself. But I think there was enough of it to get the point across, and no more. Arrival is a lean movie that way. It takes its time easing us into the situation and onto the ship, but even that initial chunk feels purposeful and focused.

pixote

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Re: Arrival
« Reply #99 on: December 09, 2016, 11:37:02 PM »
I'm pretty sure that, at one point, we're told that more than a month has passed ... and then, a few shots later, one of the monitors reads, "Day 27." That's what non-linear time gets you, I guess.

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