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Arrival.

Started by Glebe, August 17, 2016, 01:55:52 AM

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Mark Steels Stockbroker

The only alien invasion film I want to see would be an adaptation of The Genocides by Thomas Disch.

ASFTSN

Quote from: Mark Steels Stockbroker on October 27, 2016, 10:21:20 PM
The only alien invasion film I want to see would be an adaptation of The Genocides by Thomas Disch.

Good book, but is there any way they could make a film of that without it coming across as comically OTT depressing?

Mark Steels Stockbroker

That's the whole point: there's no twist, no happy ending. We're fucked. Wiped out jyst like we wiped out thousands of other species.

Lay it on thick that it's a metaphor for climate change, get the goth/emo kids in as well with a doomrock soundtrack.

Buttress



Just as in the Arrival, the arrival of new Belgian Chocolate Thins ushers in a variety of flavours of compound chocolate pringle for all varieties of peoples. Whatever these 'people' things are anyway.

I don't think the production design similarities are coincidental. These visitors know us all too well. Chocolate pringles? Devastating idea, disappointingly executed. But these guys have gotten it right you see, there's a round-edged corridor that you can float in.

SteveDave

I hate Jeremy Renner more than I hate Marky Mark.

Uncle TechTip

Quote from: Buttress on November 02, 2016, 03:36:54 PM


Just as in the Arrival, the arrival of new Belgian Chocolate Thins ushers in a variety of flavours of compound chocolate pringle for all varieties of peoples. Whatever these 'people' things are anyway.

I don't think the production design similarities are coincidental. These visitors know us all too well. Chocolate pringles? Devastating idea, disappointingly executed. But these guys have gotten it right you see, there's a round-edged corridor that you can float in.

Funny you should say this, the thing in the poster looks exactly like a Terry's chocolate orange.

Serge

Have just got back from seeing this.

What a load of old wank.

Blinder Data

Was thinking of going to see this as it got good write-ups but then I saw it was directed by the guy did Sicario, a very boring thriller with a thin stretched out plot, an achingly obvious 'subversive political message' and a laughable final shot that was supposed to be moving but was just shit. It felt like one of those mediocre French thrillers that get pumped out every year, but with a Hollywood cast.

So I'm not surprised this might be a load of old wank.

mobias

Quote from: Serge on September 23, 2016, 04:32:19 PM
Saw the trailer for this again yesterday, and am quite excited now

Quote from: Serge on November 11, 2016, 04:36:40 PM
Have just got back from seeing this.

What a load of old wank.


The state of modern cinema nicely summed up there Serge. Your second quote there should really be on the film poster.

Glebe

Quote from: Serge on November 11, 2016, 04:36:40 PMHave just got back from seeing this.

What a load of old wank.

The Daily Load of Old Wank review... although this earlier Mail review is actually fairly glowing. Getting a lot of 5/5s, currently 94% on RT.


Serge

Quote from: mobias on November 11, 2016, 06:04:44 PM
The state of modern cinema nicely summed up there Serge. Your second quote there should really be on the film poster.

I'd be happy to allow it.

There were about half a dozen trailers before it, mainly for wall-to-wall CGI-fests like 'Assassin's Creed' which bored me to death in even the short time they were on, and then suddenly the trailer for 'Pulp Fiction' popped up (I presume it's getting a re-release?) and it was the best two minutes of my whole afternoon.


CaledonianGonzo

Quote from: Serge on November 11, 2016, 04:36:40 PM
Have just got back from seeing this.

What a load of old wank.


You know I love you, man, but......nah

It's stunning. A masterpiece.

I need to see it again when there isnt a tonne of wine in the system, but this has just fucking floored me.

Serge

You're the second person today to tell me it's a masterpiece!
Spoiler alert
Two hours of people walking across a field to go and hang out inside a tube.
[close]
I don't get it.

The soundtrack was great, though. Out on vinyl soon! May have to indulge.

chocky909

I had tears in my eyes during the final scenes and credits, accompanied by the guy next to me rating it "2/10".

Glebe

Apparently There's A Real Team The Government Will Call If Aliens Show Up And The Guy Who Wrote Arrival Talked To Them.

QuoteWe had many interviews with some scientific personal, who I can't name for confidentiality reasons, who are actually on a team. There is a binder for first contact scenarios, that a protocol gets activated, and a handful of people get called. ... In real life, that exists. In part of the, it's in the pentagon somewhere, they bring that binder out and they start by calling everybody together. So the nerd version of Avengers assemble in this situation, and there's a good contingent of scientists, and we got to talk to two of them. And [we] got a sense of the amount of steps [that occur] between getting a crew together and making that first contact.

Cripes!

Serge

Quote from: chocky909 on November 12, 2016, 12:34:53 AM
I had tears in my eyes during the final scenes and credits, accompanied by the guy next to me rating it "2/10".

He was being a little over-generous there, etc. The last ten minutes or so were really beating it to death - I was only hanging around to see who the music was by at that point. I'll be honest - I really didn't like it.

mobias

I really want to see this now.

Serge

Heh, I know what you mean. We had a book of the month at work recently that everyone I knew who'd read it was so violently opposed to, I felt I had to read it. Of course, I quite enjoyed it....


B Piper@The Gates Of Dawn

Did anyone catch the answer to the question of what the rival translator said Sanskrit for War was? Her translation was "a desire for more cows" I think.

brat-sampson

I hope the chocolate squids nuke us to fuck after some hard-nut translates 'Yer maw's a fanny' at them.

Seeing this tonight, cautiously excited.

weekender

I saw this earlier today and agree with the positive and negative comments.

I got fairly bored at times but there was just - and only just - about enough momentum to keep me watching to the end, just to see what happened.  Bear in mind that I am someone who sliced part of my right foot's little toe off last night whilst trying to cut the nail.  There was just enough from this film, by which I mean thinking about Amy Adams's tits, to keep me watching instead of worrying about how much damage I had done to my toe.

My toe is just about alright, but on balance I prefer its existence to this film.

6/10.

Mark Steels Stockbroker

Quote from: Serge on November 11, 2016, 10:29:00 PM
You're the second person today to tell me it's a masterpiece!
Spoiler alert
Two hours of people walking across a field to go and hang out inside a tube.
[close]
I don't get it

This is also how I expect an adaptation of Rendezvous With Rama to go.

Mark Steels Stockbroker

If aliens turn up we don't need a team of experts. Just send Michael Gove.

weekender

Quote from: Mark Steels Stockbroker on November 13, 2016, 08:18:16 PM
If aliens turn up we don't need a team of experts. Just send Michael Gove.

Ah but that was a point the film wanted to make if we send one Gove up we might get a Putin.

Christ, this really was quite a dull film, the more I think about it.  Which I'm trying to not do.

Still not entirely sure how the aliens actually helped with anything.

brat-sampson

I loved the atmosphere and the methodical linguistic approach to First Contact. Spoilers for the rest:
Spoiler alert
I didn't clock the twist until it was made obvious and it hit pretty successfully I thought, especially letting you fil in the gaps in their relationship, which was all pretty sad. It's never good to overthink logic in time-travel movies but it does seem a little convenient (though you could just say it was pre-destined so narks to it) that she remembered the future scene with Shang just in the nick of time, and the line about 'if you could see your entire life laid out before you, would you change anything?' seems a bit limp in the face of apparently not being to change a sole thing about it. It liked like they were going fully into 'every decision is pre-written territory, which if you're born with or choose to acquire that knowledge I always thought must make the rest of your life a bit less interesting in a way.
[close]
But overall still a solid worthy movie. 8/10 say.

Pit-Pat

I liked it very much indeed. I found the emotional side to it, in particular, totally convincing and the music at the beginning and the end, in combination with how devastating the first 3 minutes were, completely got me. A big tear rolled down my cheek just before the credits started to roll.

What was also nice was that the cinema was packed full, which I found strangely inspiring given it being a (relatively) intelligent film after the weeks and months we've had.

Definitely in my top 3 films of the year, along with Nocturnal Animals and The Nice Guys.

Bhazor

Looks like the same problem as Gravity. Great tension, beautiful cinematography, ruined by Hollywood. In particular the need to add banter and a punchline to every scene and the inevitable ticking clocks.

Maybe its not. But fuck it I'm not paying cinema prices when I could get the Blu-ray release of Close Encounters for half the price.

CaledonianGonzo

It's nothing like Gravity.

Quote from: brat-sampson on November 13, 2016, 08:54:33 PM
Spoiler alert
it does seem a little convenient (though you could just say it was pre-destined so narks to it) that she remembered the future scene with Shang just in the nick of time
[close]

A second (sober) viewing will no doubt clarify it, but I read that moment as something she proactively went searching for, rather than something she just happened to remember.

WesterlyWinds

I think I'd give this a 6/10 at a push. I liked the first 90% of the film, but it really started to go downhill when
Spoiler alert
you realised that just by 'properly understanding' the language Amy Adams could now see her future. This didn't make sense at least in part because she was having flash forwards long before she even remotely understood their language. Is the insinuation there that just by looking at the symbology that she started to understand and therefore view time differently? If so, why didn't her bum chum also start having visions? Why was she uniquely sensitive to it? If it's a feature of language then surely it's accessible to all who use/understand the language.

It also makes Amy Adams a bit of a dick because she still chooses to bring a child who is doomed to early and presumably painful death into the world, just for the sake of a bit of happiness for her. Another thing that annoyed me was the bit with the General where he was like 'I don't know why I'm doing this but here's my phone number'. That was fucking bullshit, and far too contrived.

By the 'emotional denouement' I felt like I had a good understanding of the Heptapods language as I could perfectly predict every line of the terrible, terrible final few minutes of the film. "I thought meeting the aliens would be the most amazing thing... but actually it was meeting you" I MEAN CHRIST HOW CAN YOU WRITE THAT LINE AND THINK 'yeah this is good, this is fucking ace emotions mate'. I don't even... I know Pit-Pat thinks I am just dead inside, but that's definitely not the case - I'm proper emotional mate - I just hate lazy, mawkish bullshit posing as a 'meaningful emotional ending'.
[close]

On the plus side, I was relatively entertained throughout and it's nice to see sci-fi other than Star Wars/Star Trek attracting a large audience, even if it's not quite as cerebral as it is pretending to be. Apparently Arrrival was based on a short story written by a bloke called Ted Chiang, so I might buy that and his other stories to see if it's any good as I've heard he is quite good. Having said that, if you want to engage with an actual good story about linguistic differences across species, then go read Embassytown by China Mieville.


Pit-Pat

I do think you're
Spoiler alert
dead inside
[close]
, WW.

To deal with your criticisms in spoilers, firstly,
Spoiler alert
it wasn't that she was uniquely sensitive to it, it was that she was the only one who actually understood the language, and her brain had been re-wired as a consequence. When Ian solves the problem that shows that the "Gift" is only a twelfth of the volume that it should be, it suggested to me that he still saw things as a physicist rather than as a linguist.
[close]

Secondly,
Spoiler alert
the film was non-judgmental about her being "a bit of a dick" for choosing to bring a doomed child into the world, but the implication was that she felt enormously guilty about it. The ability to view time selectively rather than moving in a single direction gave her some absolution because it allowed her to re-live the child's life and ultimately give her a measure of immortality. Whether or not she was right to have a child who would die so young, and I agree with you that it was probably a mistake, it  is still the kind of thing people do. Arguably it's better to have a flawed protagonist than an I, Daniel Blake-esque paragon of morality.

The point of the interaction with the Chinese general wasn't that it was contrived, it was that, if you were able to see the future you would similarly be able to shape it, which would allow you to engineer a situation like that, even if you weren't always fully conscious that you were doing it. It made sense within the rules that the film established. My only issue with it, actually, was the tone of that scene, which was a little too Inception-ish for a film that had otherwise had a kind of gloomily-lit, low-fi sci-fi aesthetic.
[close]

Finally,
Spoiler alert
I know you hated the "meeting the aliens..." line but for me it made sense. My feeling about it, and why I felt it had emotional resonance, was that he felt that he finally, properly met her during the communication with the aliens, ie. he saw her properly in her element, doing what she does best, maybe for the first time. In the same way, she had been stripped of all affectation by the death of their daughter which probably gave him a different perspective. It hit home for me, and I really can't see how it could be considered "lazy" or "mawkish" given the amount of time the film spent showing how devastating the death of the daughter had been, and the fact there had been an unseen father indelibly all involved in all of that. It requires you to join the dots a bit, and link all of that emotional devastation to his character, which the film didn't do explicitly, but I certainly can't see it as mawkish or lazy.
[close]

Clearly opinion is entirely subjective of course...