# Arrival (seen it - open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 10, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366 "2016-11-10T16:27:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2017, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/141 "2017-03-25T23:29:26Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Even if she could, she already knows and loves her daughter. People are not interchangeable. One child can’t just be swapped out painlessly for another. She chooses Hannah even knowing that Hannah herself will eventually suffer for that choice. The aliens are also done well. I wish all Sci-fi was this good. ---
**Author:** ![Graymalkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@Graymalkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Graymalkin)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/142 "2017-03-26T04:01:57Z")
I just rented this movie today and two-thirds of the way through it my irritation with not having been able to understand a single thing Forrest Whittaker uttered–I wondered maybe he wasn’t speaking English–forced me to stop watching–especially as the linguistics part was pretty thin. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/143 "2017-03-26T04:19:57Z")
> [@Graymalkin](#): > > I just rented this movie today and two-thirds of the way through it my irritation with not having been able to understand a single thing Forrest Whittaker uttered–I wondered maybe he wasn’t speaking English–forced me to stop watching–especially as the linguistics part was pretty thin. That’s what closed captions are for. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/144 "2017-03-26T04:42:40Z")
> [@Graymalkin](#): > > I just rented this movie today and two-thirds of the way through it my irritation with not having been able to understand a single thing Forrest Whittaker uttered–I wondered maybe he wasn’t speaking English–forced me to stop watching–especially as the linguistics part was pretty thin. His accent was… whimsical. Apparently it’s supposed to be from one of New York City’s boroughs but I thought he was doing a South African accent. As they’d say in Boston, feckin’ weird. Other than that I loved the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/145 "2017-03-26T14:19:47Z")
I honestly didn’t notice anything unusual for him. Somewhat well-traveled Texan here. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2017, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/146 "2017-03-26T19:09:27Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > I honestly didn’t notice anything unusual for him. Somewhat well-traveled Texan here. I’m not American so his accent didn’t bother me, though it took me some time to be sure it was definitely him despite his distinctive looks, he seems to have lost a lot of weight since the last film I saw him in. ---
**Author:** ![Mavic\_Chen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mavic\_Chen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mavic_Chen)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2017, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/147 "2017-04-12T12:27:25Z")
> [@tullsterx](#): > > I didn’t expect Independence day, but I did expect an interesting sci-fi movie. . . however I did not get that. > > I really didn’t find the story thought-provoking. I didn’t care about the characters. I thought the way the “international stuff” was handled was almost cartoonish and not very believable. I really hated it. > > But, I don’t like it when astounding discoveries are the topic and the story ends up focusing on relatively minor personal relationships. I don’t give a damn about the woman and her daughter. . . aliens just landed and handed us a language that transcends time! I find that the trouble with most movies, you always get a rather narrow “small person story” version of big events. Films like this should act like films and show you literally unimaginable stuff not just straightforward and rather obvious and boring tales. Just watched it on Bluray, was rather disappointed at the non-scientific way the treatment was handled. Let’s get a college teacher to go in unprepared and do stuff on a hunch. What about the scientific and mathematical approach? What was that scientist even doing in the film, he literally did nothing - apart from the off screen copulation that led to the daughter. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/148 "2017-04-13T01:27:46Z")
I wasn’t impressed. The fact that she still chose to have that child was appalling. Not because _she_ only got to have her daughter a short time, but because she was choosing an extremely short life that ended in agony for that child. When people have a kid that turns out to die of a fatal disease that they develop after birth, they rarely know that is the likely outcome before hand - unless they’ve already lost other kid/s to the same disease, got genetic testing, and learned the odds are horrifically high additional children would get it too - so they’re not directly responsible for the child’s sad fate. But here she was. That’s pretty frickin’ selfish, bordering on evil. ---
**Author:** ![Shawn1767](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shawn1767](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shawn1767)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/149 "2017-04-13T01:58:38Z")
How do you know she was able to “choose?” Perhaps she just wasn’t down that part of the river yet, but yet, the river exists ahead anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/150 "2017-04-13T01:59:24Z")
I’ve seen this movie twice now, and I think it’s terrific (and it was interesting the second time through to watch with an understanding of where it was headed). I’m also really glad that this kind of genre movie got a Best Picture nomination. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/151 "2017-04-13T06:47:38Z")
> [@Shawn1767](#): > > How do you know she was able to “choose?” Perhaps she just wasn’t down that part of the river yet, but yet, the river exists ahead anyway. Because the movie presents her as the protagonist, and gives clues that her decision is the central moral issue of the film. When Jeremy Renner says “You want to make a baby?” it’s literally the film asking this character to make a choice. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/152 "2017-04-13T09:25:41Z")
> [@Shawn1767](#): > > How do you know she was able to “choose?” Perhaps she just wasn’t down that part of the river yet, but yet, the river exists ahead anyway. If learning the language just put her in a state where she was distinctly aware of being in a deterministic universe yet completely unable to change anything, that sounds like a horror movie. But that doesn’t seem like what they were portraying, what with the phone call to the Chinese general that wouldn’t have been possible without some clairvoyant hanky-panky. And I still maintain that the situation in the short story, as described upthread, is even far more unimaginable (assuming, again, that she \*could \*act to change things if she wanted to). The idea that she would just let her daughter go on the mountain hike knowing for a fact it would lead to her death…well, I have my doubts whether the author had ever had children when he wrote that, and I can certainly understand why they changed it when adapting the screenplay: as in, “you can get this daughter with the inevitable disease and death, or not get her at all”. Which, despite **elfkin477’s** complaint, strikes me as a far tougher call. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/153 "2017-04-13T11:05:06Z")
Knowledge of how a decision turns out doesn’t imply that either you can change it, or it’s not free. You know that yesterday, you chose pizza for lunch; that knowledge, however, does neither mean that you can change what you chose for pizza, nor does it mean that, if you can’t change it, your choosing pizza was not a free choice. Of course, under a linear conception of time, that’s just because it’s in the past, and knowledge about the outcome of the decision became available afterwards; but in the movie, time isn’t linear in that way (that’s just an impression we get through our language and consequently, our cognitive habits). So it doesn’t make any fundamental sense to say what knowledge is available ‘after’ or ‘before’ an event; but then, knowing about the fate of her daughter neither means she could avoid it, nor that she didn’t chose freely to have her. The concept of choice we use depends on a linear cause-and-effect understanding of time—what I choose now has consequences later. But that’s not how time works in the movie; so it’s in effect a category error to apply that concept of choice to the movie, and then complain that it doesn’t make sense. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/154 "2017-04-13T11:32:46Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Knowledge of how a decision turns out doesn’t imply that either you can change it, or it’s not free. You know that yesterday, you chose pizza for lunch; that knowledge, however, does neither mean that you can change what you chose for pizza, nor does it mean that, if you can’t change it, your choosing pizza was not a free choice. > > Of course, under a linear conception of time, that’s just because it’s in the past, and knowledge about the outcome of the decision became available afterwards; but in the movie, time isn’t linear in that way (that’s just an impression we get through our language and consequently, our cognitive habits). So it doesn’t make any fundamental sense to say what knowledge is available ‘after’ or ‘before’ an event; but then, knowing about the fate of her daughter neither means she could avoid it, nor that she didn’t chose freely to have her. > > The concept of choice we use depends on a linear cause-and-effect understanding of time—what I choose now has consequences later. But that’s not how time works in the movie; so it’s in effect a category error to apply that concept of choice to the movie, and then complain that it doesn’t make sense. I accounted for this interpretation when I said straight out of the gate: “If learning the language just put her in a state where she was distinctly aware of being in a deterministic universe yet completely unable to change anything, that sounds like a horror movie.” But I also pointed out that this interpretation doesn’t square with the way she called the Chinese general. That was using her clairvoyance to change the future that was previously written, in order to avert a catastrophe. If you have a way to explain why she could change that, but not anything else about the future, go for it. ETA: Not to mention that all of this involves taking as given the notion that learning a language could even remotely plausibly have this effect, something I find extremely pseudoscientific, and more in the realm of “woo”. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/155 "2017-04-13T11:52:53Z")
My first husband had major health issues and was in pain a lot. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t prevent him from being born. I see the two scenarios as equivalent. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/156 "2017-04-13T12:03:35Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > My first husband had major health issues and was in pain a lot. If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t prevent him from being born. I see the two scenarios as equivalent. Yeah, good point. But what about in the Ted Chiang short story? Did you read it or look at what was hidden in the spoiler tags? ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/157 "2017-04-13T12:31:50Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I accounted for this interpretation when I said straight out of the gate: “If learning the language just put her in a state where she was distinctly aware of being in a deterministic universe yet completely unable to change anything, that sounds like a horror movie.” No, that’s not what I’m saying. It’s not like she’s imprisoned within a sort of deterministic cage, railing against its boundaries, but ultimately, unable to change anything (indeed, this is contradictory, requiring both the freedom to be aware of the constraints, and yet being somehow constrained to act against them—but if you’re thoroughly determined, you don’t even have that freedom). Rather, every choice is like having pizza yesterday: perfectly free, yet impossible to change now. If this sounds like a contradiction, then it’s just because of the way language constrains expression, at least within the movie-universe; so within that universe, it’s consistent, which is really all I think you can expect. > [@](#): > > But I also pointed out that this interpretation doesn’t square with the way she called the Chinese general. That was using her clairvoyance to change the future that was previously written, in order to avert a catastrophe. If you have a way to explain why she could change that, but not anything else about the future, go for it. I have to admit I don’t recall precisely how things went down there—did she see some alternate future she then prevented? If so, yes, that would be inconsistent; but merely using future information to make a certain future happen would be perfectly consistent. > [@](#): > > ETA: Not to mention that all of this involves taking as given the notion that learning a language could even remotely plausibly have this effect, something I find extremely pseudoscientific, and more in the realm of “woo”. Yes, but that’s just the central dramatic conceit of the movie. Of course, you’re free to buy into that or not, but I think science fiction is always at its best when exploring the consequences of some speculative idea, as long as it does so consistently. Nobody’s claiming that this is the way the world might actually work, but that doesn’t mean it’s pointless to ask ‘what if’. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/158 "2017-04-13T13:15:10Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Knowledge of how a decision turns out doesn’t imply that either you can change it, or it’s not free. You know that yesterday, you chose pizza for lunch; that knowledge, however, does neither mean that you can change what you chose for pizza, nor does it mean that, if you can’t change it, your choosing pizza was not a free choice. > > Of course, under a linear conception of time, that’s just because it’s in the past, and knowledge about the outcome of the decision became available afterwards; but in the movie, time isn’t linear in that way (that’s just an impression we get through our language and consequently, our cognitive habits). So it doesn’t make any fundamental sense to say what knowledge is available ‘after’ or ‘before’ an event; but then, knowing about the fate of her daughter neither means she could avoid it, nor that she didn’t chose freely to have her. > > The concept of choice we use depends on a linear cause-and-effect understanding of time—what I choose now has consequences later. But that’s not how time works in the movie… Well said. The aliens’ minds are… well, alien. Very different. By learning the alien language, Dr. Louise Banks has her brain rewired and, like the aliens, perceives time differently. Our own approach to the universe incl. our sense of morality stems, in part, from not knowing the future. Dr. Banks can see virtually everything that is to come until her death, 50-some years in the future. As it is for the aliens, this is not a curse. It does not render _Arrival_ a horror movie. It is just a profound mental shift that makes her a different person - almost an alien herself. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/159 "2017-04-13T13:19:19Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > No, that’s not what I’m saying. It’s not like she’s imprisoned within a sort of deterministic cage, railing against its boundaries, but ultimately, unable to change anything (indeed, this is contradictory, requiring both the freedom to be aware of the constraints, and yet being somehow constrained to act against them—but if you’re thoroughly determined, you don’t even have that freedom). Rather, every choice is like having pizza yesterday: perfectly free, yet impossible to change now. I don’t think \*you \*understand what \*I _was saying. (Though as you hinted at, neither of us can ultimately explain exactly what we mean in words.) I meant more that it would essentially be like your life was over, and you could only haunt your past existence_, spinning around on the “tracks” of the “record” your existence had made. (Or contemplate them all at once? That’s not what it looked like though.) You suddenly fast-forward, in a sense, to being dead; and then you might as well be in a tomb, or a far off space probe, where you can endlessly revisit everything you did but change nothing. That still sounds like a horror movie to me. I think we need at least the \*illusion \*of free will, and most importantly the ignorance of how part of our life will unfold, for life to be worth living. That’s even aside from whether a family tragedy is on the menu. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I have to admit I don’t recall precisely how things went down there—did she see some alternate future she then prevented? If so, yes, that would be inconsistent; but merely using future information to make a certain future happen would be perfectly consistent. I can imagine how you might try to apply that last caveat to what happened, but I think it’s a reach. And if we really buy into it, then there is actually no dramatic tension to the film, at least not once she gets this language that makes her clairvoyant (or makes her “no longer see time as linear”, if you prefer). Then what’s going to happen, per your interpretation (which I’m still not convinced is what the filmmakers intended) is going to happen, and that’s it. No chance it won’t happen. Woo hoo, how exciting. :dubious: Anyway, here’s how Wikipedia describes that section of the plot–decide for yourself if it fits: > [@](#): > > China’s General Shang issues an ultimatum to the aliens, demanding they leave Chinese territory within 24 hours, and prepares to attack. Russia, Pakistan and Sudan follow China’s lead. [snip] > Louise returns as the camp is being evacuated. She has a vision of herself at a future United Nations event, being thanked by Shang for making him change his mind about attacking the aliens. He tells her that she called his private telephone number and shows it to her. In the present, Louise steals a satellite phone and calls him, but does not know what to say at first. Her vision continues, with Shang explaining that she convinced him by repeating his wife’s dying words in Mandarin, which he tells Louise. In the present, Louise recites those words to Shang. The Chinese hold an emergency press conference to announce they are releasing their twelfth of the message. Russia does the same. The twelve spacecraft then disappear from Earth. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Yes, but that’s just the central dramatic conceit of the movie. Of course, you’re free to buy into that or not, but I think science fiction is always at its best when exploring the consequences of some speculative idea, as long as it does so consistently. Nobody’s claiming that this is the way the world might actually work, but that doesn’t mean it’s pointless to ask ‘what if’. I would say that is the central dramatic conceit of the _twist ending_. Not the central dramatic conceit of the movie I thought I was watching earlier. When they made that slow ascent into the ship (too slow for some, but I could have basked in even more of it), I was all in. When they experimented with ways to communicate, I was still very much into it. (The only thing I wasn’t enjoying during the early stages of the movie were the “flashbacks” that weren’t actually flashbacks, but I endured them.) The “time is a flat circle” stuff, or whatever you want to call it, was thrown in late; and I would argue that just as a movie studio took _World War Z_ in pretty much finished form, decided they didn’t like the ending, and hired new writers to create a completely different second half of that film, you could totally do that here (at least if I were a studio chief overseeing this project) by taking the parts of this movie that I liked so much and writing a completely different ending that had nothing to do with precognition or non-linear time. Whereas if that really were the “central conceit” of the entire film, that would be impossible. \*If we were meant to understand that she could see \*all \*of the future, even beyond her death, and not just things that her brain and body experienced but anything that will ever happen in the universe, this was not portrayed at all–and it’s an even more gargantuan pile of nonsense as we are now talking about total omniscience, from _learning a language_. ETA: > [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > As it is for the aliens, this is not a curse. It does not render _Arrival_ a horror movie. It is just a profound mental shift that makes her a different person - almost an alien herself. Isn’t this pretty much exactly what people said in _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ after becoming one of the aliens? “It’s better this way, you’ll see.” Show of hands: assuming this most extreme version of how the language rewires your brain–that you can change nothing, that you won’t even feel like you have free will any more–who would sign up for the language class? Anyone? Okay, now another show of hands: who would prefer to stick with French or Spanish for their language credit? Okay, that’s what I thought. Horror movie it is! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366/160 "2017-04-13T16:02:05Z")
Banks is not absorbed into a hive mind and does not lose her sense of individuality; she just sees everything in a different way - a way that some people, including you, are appalled by or rebel against. Of course it goes against a lifetime of experience and a deeply-rooted view of how the world is and how time passes. I acknowledge that, and again can only suggest you read the original Ted Chiang short story. It puts it better than I can. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arrival-seen-it-open-spoilers/771366.md?page=9)