Alright people, by now you must have seen the movie “Arrival” (not to be confused with the other movie “The Arrival” where Charlie Sheen is chasing after some aliens that look like a satyr but not quite). There are several articles out there talking about the role of the linguists in the movie, or of the fact that we have a sci-fi movie showing how aliens and humans could communicate via language and not just numbers or sounds (anyone remember the mashed potato mountain of… the third kind?:P). I have…
Tag: film arrival
Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Arrival’: When Aliens and Linguists
Uri Klein Nov 26, 2016 2:51 AM Offering a different take on the aliens-invade-Earth theme in sci-fi movies, this film considers the power of language to transform reality and suggests that we reconsider our conception of time. Twelve spacecraft land randomly in 12 different countries, including Russia, China, Pakistan and the United States. These are not broad-winged metallic vessels of the type we’ve become used to in science fiction movies. They are tall, black, sealed and elliptical, and they hover slightly above the ground. Similarly, the pair of aliens that emerge…
‘Arrival’: word of warcraft
By Sudhir Srinivasan Cinema is beautiful for how it allows us to safely experience the dangerous lives of many. In that sense, Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival has provided me with perhaps the best vicarious experience I’ve had in a movie theatre for a long time now. It shows exactly how an average person will likely react to an UFO in the neighbourhood, how they will feel when approaching an alien. As Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams in a sensationally understated and effective portrayal of a linguist) stands dwarfed by the towering egg-shaped…
Arrival contemplates language in light of eternity
BY C.S. MORRISSEY In Arrival, Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) learns not just how to read and write the language of alien visitors to Earth. She also finds herself thinking, and even dreaming, in that same extraterrestrial language. I love this story because it captures the excitement of learning an unfamiliar and mysterious language. I like to explore the thought-worlds of ancient Greek, Latin, and Chinese. Learning a language changes the way you think, as new pathways are opened up to you. Louise herself comes to learn what the film…
How ‘Arrival’s’ “Cerebral” Script Made Its Long Journey to the Screen
“I got a lot of blank looks,” says Eric Heisserer, who spent years pitching producers his screenplay about language, free will and destiny. Arrival is an apt title for a film that has journeyed long and far to get to the big screen. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer spent years wrestling to turn a brainy, emotional science fiction story, Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” (from the 2002 book Stories of Your Life and Others), into a cinematic thriller. He spent more years unsuccessfully pitching it to producers and studio executives who…