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Arrival

Since I never go to movie theaters anymore, I didn't watch the highly acclaimed science-fiction drama Arrival until last night, after I rented it from one of those supermarket vending machines.

It's a good movie, with strong performances and a compelling storyline – though I thought the method selected for establishing communication with the aliens was a bit disappointing, given the enormous technology that presumably would be marshaled for the task. Some of the story elements work better than others, and there are probably plot holes if you think about it really hard, but that's true of most movies.

Arrival-final-trailer-and-new-poster-arrival

I mention Arrival here because it provides an interesting angle on the whole Flatland idea that we sometimes explore on this blog – the idea that our current perception of reality is dimensionally limited, and that, from a higher-dimensional perspective, our experience would be radically different. Not that the movie ever mentions Flatland or extra-dimensionality as such, but you can read those ideas into it.

The appearance of this film, along with Interstellar, virtual reality technology, and the popularizing of the holographic universe notion, may suggest that a new paradigm is slowly forming in the public mind.

Or maybe not. Anyway, I liked the movie enough to sit through it twice last night. It made me curious to see the director's earlier effort, Sicario.

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  1. Bruce Siegel Avatar
    Bruce Siegel

    Thanks for this, Michael! Sounds like something I might enjoy, and I’ll rent it soon.

    Reply
  2. Greg Avatar
    Greg

    Sicario is excellent, though very different (and much darker). Also the director is signed on to do the sequel to Bladerunner, and a Dune movie.

    Reply
  3. Art Avatar
    Art

    Arrival is in our Netflix queue. We’ll get it after it comes out on Netflix? I think it comes out on Netflix like a month after it is available on disc? We see almost everything, just a few months after everybody else. {grin} I’m looking forward to it. I tried to add Blade Runner 2049 to our Netflix queue and it’s not available on Netflix yet.

    Reply
  4. Rabbitdawg Avatar
    Rabbitdawg

    I’d been waiting for Arrival to come out on Amazon streaming video ever since Greg reviewed it on The Daily Grail last Fall. I took his admonition and didn’t go past the first paragraph of his review, where he advises the reader not to read any further and just go see the movie without preconceptions. I didn’t even peek at the trailer.
    On my first viewing, I was somewhat disappointed, probably because I was expecting more whiz-bang CGI. My second attempt was delightful though. I ‘got’ it. Sorta. I think it bruised my brain a little bit. That’s a recurring problem with movies that actually have plots requiring the viewer to pay attention. 🙂

    Reply
  5. Douglas Avatar
    Douglas

    There’s never be another sci fi movie to beat Bladerunner!
    It transcends the genre.

    Reply
  6. Michael Prescott Avatar
    Michael Prescott

    “I tried to add Blade Runner 2049 to our Netflix queue and it’s not available on Netflix yet.”
    I don’t think that movie has even been made yet.
    I watched “Sicario,” which is available for streaming on Amazon (free for Prime members). It’s a powerful film but very, very grim. It gives you a sense of utter hopelessness. Since this is what the filmmakers were aiming for, I can’t criticize them for pulling it off, and it is very well done.
    My one story-related caveat is that Emily Blunt’s character doesn’t do much of anything in the movie. She is mainly there to observe and react (ineffectually). Her story arc might have been more interesting if she’d played more of a role in events. Still, a strong movie, worthy of the hype. Just don’t go in expecting “entertainment’ in the usual sense.
    Blunt was also good in “Edge of Tomorrow,” an underrated Tom Cruise SF thriller with a fascinating premise. That movie bombed, but it deserved to do better.

    Reply
  7. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    *Spoilers*
    I was pleasantly surprised by “Arrival.” It’s refreshing to get an alien invasion film where the aliens are actually benevolent, and not out to kill us all. The idea that they see both the past, present, and future happening all at once was especially intriguing, and the revelation that the main charachter’s flashbacks to her dying daughter were actually flash-forwards, seeing an even that was going to happen instead of one that had already taken place. I’m still trying to wrap my head around if anyone could live like that (knowing how a loved one would die, and that there was nothing you could do to change it). Also made me realize that if we do have a plan, contract, or guide of how our lives are going to unfold before coming earth, maybe it’s a good thing we don’t remember it.

    Reply
  8. Roger Knights Avatar
    Roger Knights

    On Coast to Coast AM radio tonight at 11:10 PM Pacific time:

    IS OUR UNIVERSE A COMPUTER SIMULATION?
    Linda Moulton Howe is an investigative reporter and author who goes directly to the people at the forefront of science and environmental challenges, and to firsthand eyewitnesses of high strangeness. She’ll present an in-depth report on whether the universe could be a computer simulation.

    Reply
  9. Matt Rouge Avatar
    Matt Rouge

    I also saw “Sicario.” Michael wrote:
    ||My one story-related caveat is that Emily Blunt’s character doesn’t do much of anything in the movie. She is mainly there to observe and react (ineffectually).||
    Right. It ends just when I’m thinking something was about to happen and she was going to do something. Nope. Actually, there is no character driving the action, except maybe Del Toro’s. I didn’t really like the movie for this reason.

    Reply
  10. Michael Prescott Avatar
    Michael Prescott

    “Actually, there is no character driving the action, except maybe Del Toro’s. I didn’t really like the movie for this reason.”
    Maybe Josh Brolin’s character also, although he is not really developed.
    I liked the film for its intensity, and I suppose Blunt’s impotence is part of the theme – that idealistic people are irrelevant and helpless in the face of the brutal realities of narco-syndicalism. But while this makes sense intellectually, it is not too satisfying dramatically.
    Del Toro is phenomenal, though. And there are many exciting set-pieces. Overall, I liked it, or at least respected it.

    Reply
  11. Art Avatar
    Art

    \\”Also made me realize that if we do have a plan, contract, or guide of how our lives are going to unfold before coming earth, maybe it’s a good thing we don’t remember it.” – Ian//
    ——————–
    If this Earth life is a school and experiencing emotion is essential to remembering the lessons we learned – and if we knew absolutely for certain what was going to happen and that at the end we were going to be reunited with everyone and everything we have loved and lost in this life – the lessons we experience and learn in this life would cease to be the powerful lessons in what it means and how it feels to be separate, unique individual, what time and space looked and felt like, what it felt like to be in a body and the parameters of that body, and make memories of what it was like to live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time Universe.
    http://www.webmd.com/balance/news/20050131/emotions-make-memory-last
    Personally I don’t think we will ever be allowed to know 100% absolutely for certain that there is life after death because it would negate “why we are here.” This life would have no purpose if we knew “why we were here.” It is in the emotion that is evoked while experiencing duality and separation, loss, what it is like to be in a body, and control that body, and the parameters of the body, and time and space, that the soul learns the things it came here to learn that help us to remember the lessons we experience. The more emotional the experience the more powerful and long lasting the memory it creates.
    Our memories are the only thing we get to take with us to the other side after our physical body dies.

    Reply
  12. Roger Knights Avatar
    Roger Knights

    Here are four links to Linda Moulton Howe’s reports on the universe as a hologram:
    https://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=2502&category=Science
    https://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=2503&category=Science
    https://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=2504&category=Science
    https://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=2505&category=Science

    Reply
  13. Roger Knights Avatar
    Roger Knights

    Here are two other reports on the hologram hypothesis from Linda MH:
    https://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=2489&cateegory=Environment
    https://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=2490&category=Environment

    Reply
  14. Art Avatar
    Art

    Thanks Roger for those links about the holographic universe theory. I had never seen them before and some of that was new stuff to me. It’s not just one thing that convinces me that it is most likely true, it’s a whole host of things that all seem to point in that direction.
    The way I got introduced to the theory was when I started studying near death experiences and there was a link on a site I was following about the holographic universe theory. I wondered “what does this have to do with near death experiences?”
    I found out that Dr. Ken Ring had written some about the parallels or corroboration between NDEs and the holographic universe theory, that quite a few people who have NDEs say things that sound very holographic. I found that very weird. They describe where they were like it had the properties of holographic film, which is quite different from the physical properties we experience here.
    Anyway, thanks again for those links. They are another piece of the puzzle, just some more “consilience” to convince me that it is most likely true.

    Reply
  15. SPatel Avatar
    SPatel

    To me the idea that someone can see Time as an object from some higher vantage point is just nonsensical.
    Consciousness is fundamentally tied to Time, since experience happens in Time.
    I suppose there could be time streams moving at different rates and precognition could center on the most probably incoming futures….but that isn’t the same thing as actually perceiving a block universe where all events have occurred.

    Reply
  16. Juan Avatar
    Juan

    “To me the idea that someone can see Time as an object from some higher vantage point is just nonsensical.
    Consciousness is fundamentally tied to Time, since experience happens in Time.”
    I agree. Maybe you are interested in contributing in an earlier post:
    http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2017/02/world-without-end-amen.html

    Reply
  17. chel Avatar
    chel

    BTW, Michael might want to know Sceptics writing fiction involving said beliefs can be just as annoying as when they make their statements as fact, as I found with one horror writer. No, your narrator character obviously doesn’t really want to believe in God, or he could refrain from insulting people who do for more than a sentence at a time, and why are we supposed to be so sure that his seeing a lack of God through the McGuffin is correct when he knew everyone else was seeing what they believed they would see?

    Reply
  18. Pin Avatar
    Pin

    Hi Michael,
    First of all, thanks a lot for this wonderful blog. I read all of the postings related to afterlife. And btw, I am from Indonesia.
    Anyway, since you discuss about a movie, Arrival; I wonder if you have heard about the new Robert Redford movie, “Discovery”? It tells about what happens when a scientist finally can prove 100% the existence of afterlife. And the ramifications are not all positive, as millions of people choose to end their lives to reach the more beautiful afterlife.
    You ucan check the synopsis and trailer here:
    http://deadline.com/2017/02/the-discovery-trailer-irobert-redford-rooney-mara-jason-segel-afterlife-robert-redford-netflix-1201940331/
    Unfortunately, this is a Netflix movie, so I couldn’t watch it on screen in Indonesia (and we don’t have Netflix here).
    I wonder if anyone here has watched the movie, and what your comments about it?

    Reply

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