Discuss Arrival
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Two ideas [spoilers]
posted by BenedictSTAFFMOD on May 15, 2017 at 6:47 PM
1) at the end, when she says, "if you could see your whole life laid out before you, what would you do?" and he replies, "I would probably express how I feel more." Almost immediately afterwards, he says his whole life looking at the stars and it wasn't them that he found, but her. What if, throughout the film, we're seeing her perspective, we're seeing her revelations, but he is also experiencing the same future laid about before him. He is seeing the same outcomes. The difference is, he can't cope with his daughters death, so he lives that life up to the point when he knows her cancer is imminent, then he leaves.
2) there was a brief moment when I wondered if an alternative ending had been envisioned: they play back the tape of the Russian scientist trying to communicate and then being executed - fast forward 30 minutes in the film and it is Amy Adams character on the phone trying to communicate with all the Americans pointing guns at her as she tries to share information with China (like the Russian was doing with the US). For an instant I wondered how it might have been if they had shot her, and the scene had changed to China where they were saying the US just shot one of their own agents.
BONUS thought -- anyone else notice how China shaped the progress of the whole film? China set the agenda every step of the way, from disconnecting, to making a press announcement about war, to making another announcement about sharing their data, to giving Amy Adams character his personal number and the one message which would determine the outcomes of the whole film... not sure if it's worth reading much into that, it's just unusual.
Reply by psl
on June 8, 2018 at 12:17 AM
One of the best sci-fi movies I've seen in a long time. Refreshing original - but clearly not for every one.
Reply by Patrick E. Abe
on May 11, 2019 at 6:17 PM
I have one pet peeve with this movie (and some TV shows) and that is... Darkness! A lot of the (non) action was "drowned in shadows" or "underlit scenes." The "creative people" may call all this muddy, hard-to-see-anything footage "dramatic darkness illustrating the stumble in the dark for meaning/understanding." To which I say: BULLS**T! If I wanted to "experience blindness" while the latest movie is playing, I'll just turn my back to the screen and try to figure out what's going on by audio clues. TURN UP THE LIGHTS! If these "creative people" were in film school, they would be kicked out for incompetence/inability to light a scene. It's bad enough that I sometimes have to turn on "closed captioning" to figure out what the actors are saying, but there's no such "brightness" control available. It is a thought-provoking movie, though with an almost Buddhist view of space and time. (If I could only see what was going on half the time.)
Reply by JustinJackFlash
on May 12, 2019 at 8:25 AM
I can't say it looked dark to me. And I can't say I had any problem seeing what was going on. It wasn't lit like a romantic comedy, no. It was more somewhere in between. And that felt perfectly right for the mood of the film.