Other mistake: When Amy Adams leaves the spacecraft for the final time she is met by Jeremy Renner who throws a blanket around her shoulders. As he does so, the blanket gets caught on something out of view top-of-frame (presumably a boom mic) and he has to tug at it to free it. This was part of one long take in fading light and given the amount of background action going on it was presumably too difficult or time consuming to re-shoot. (01:32:55)
Arrival (2016)
2 reviews
Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Forest Whitaker, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Michael Stuhlbarg
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Average rating
(7 votes)
9. 6/10. A pretty good sci fi movie here. Amy Adams performance blew me away as she showed an ability to go beyond the likes of Enchanted and American Hustle. This I mean as in being the lead in a more serious movie and not a supporting cast member. Her figuring out the alien language was pretty intriguing as she showed herself as a believable scientist. I'd fully recommend this to any fans of hers who wish to see her tackle a more challenging role.
Arrival stars Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker in a movie about first contact with alien visitors whose sense of language and time are vastly different from our own. This is not an action movie but an exploration into communication, conflict resolution, hope vs fear and the possibility of meeting someone or something incredibly foreign in so many aspects as to cause change to perceptions themselves, like an epiphany. Amy Adams provides a compelling portrait of a Linguistics Professor who tries to bridge the vast divide between the aliens and humans via deciphering their unusual semi-circular symbols before tensions threaten to end contact and start a war between the species. While this film is not for everyone, it's a thought-provoking science fiction drama that challenges the viewer to consider the difficulties and dangers of language interpretation, the concept of non-linear time, intuition and premonition, and even the joy and pain of parenting.
More mistakes in Arrival
Dr. Louise Banks: You can understand communication and still end up single.
Question: Why is it that the aliens, who obviously possess technology and intellect far beyond humans, didn't think to use their pictographs to communicate right out the gate? We had to wait for Amy Adams and her dry erase board?
Answer: The aliens don't see time in a linear fashion but all of time at once, meaning they can see the future, which is why their writing is like it is. They therefore knew Louise (played by Adams) would be the one to figure out their language and had to wait for her, or simply chose to wait for her.
Answer: This question was never answered in the movie. Any response would be speculation. One guess: the aliens waited for humans to make the first attempt to communicate in order to assess how to respond.
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Answer: The Heptapods' "present" encompassed about 6000 years of our human past, present and future. So, they perceived 3000 years of our past and 3000 years of our future simultaneously. It's a confounding idea to humans, but the Heptapods already knew, 3000 years in advance, that Louise was the critical contact for the evolution of communication between our species. For the Heptapods, there was no coincidence or impatience or blind luck; they already knew exactly when and how to start communicating with her.
Charles Austin Miller