Arrival (2016) MOVIE REACTION! FIRST TIME WATCHING!

[@IndySidhu88]

The General's wife’s last words are “In war there are no winners, only widows.”

[@PeloquinDavid]

Multiple viewings reveal just how complex and multi-dimensionally ambiguous the themes of this film are. Some (scienc-y) types point out that if you can see the future, it's because the future is preordained and Louise could never have made any other choice than what she ended up doing. It's only a moral dilemma if she actually has a choice (which most of us want to believe we have...) My favourite part of the film is the little bit of messaging that hiding in plain sight - and is even momentarily the focus of a scene: on the white board - in big letters - is the question "What is your purpose here on Earth?" - which Louise promptly and expertly disects as the question they want to get the aliens to answer. But no one notices (on first viewing, at least) that this is THE big question Villeneuve is putting to the audience: like Louise, we are meant to ask ourselves what, indeed, is OUR purpose here on Earth and what we should do with whatever free will we may or may not have...

[@christinemclaurin2631]

Great reaction! The weapon was giving her the ability to understand and perceive time in their non-linear way.

[@Dalehenrickson]

Louise chose to have that child for two reasons. It helped her understand the weapon the way she did never feed it out. And the mother and daughter bond was already made.

[@Cee_H]

Louise realised that her daughter played a role in helping her communicate with the heptapods at key moments e.g remembering the non sum game from Ian to then tell her daughter in the flash forward or when she remembered the heptapod play dough her daughter made. The opening line of the film was also Louise talking during a scene of her childs birth, saying 'I used to think your story started here..' Foreshadowing and Implying she later realised her daughters story started during the arrival of the aliens and realising the role her daughter played in creating the universal language. It then becomes a paradox whether she could have actually chosen against being with Ian at the end of the film and having her a child, as Louise would then have no reference or memories to 'use weapon' Great reaction 🔥

[@elbruces]

General Shang is initially coded as a "bad guy" but let's face it, the moment he heard "offer weapon," instead of looking for an advantage over other countries he was like "fuck you aliens, get the hell off our planet, you can't turn humanity against ourselves."

[@nickh8551]

That's not intelligence. That's ignorance. If he truly cared during that exact time, cutting off communications wasn't the way to go about it.

[@chris...9497]

"Arrival" does not reference the aliens showing up; it references the 'arrival' of the heptapod language in its full grasp in Louise's consciousness. Language determines perception & consciousness; it determines the logic & reality of the world you live in and respond to. The heptapod language moves even human minds past the linearity that we normally perceive as the state of time. Heptapods experience all of their individual existence in whole; they can move along the 'timeline' to exist anywhere at any point. That's why when they travel, they move their consciousness to 'being where they've been'/'going to be'; it's why they seemed to just dissolve when they left. Louise has a moment of reverie at one point, when she waves Ian to pause to let her alone in it. During that momentary reverie, she sees the book she writes, the classes/lectures she gives on the heptapod language. She grasps it all, all the understanding and the perception & experience of it. That's the moment when the weapon/tool/gift 'arrives'. The language 'arrives', fully in force, and she can then move to any part of her existence and occupy it. Weapon is actually a very good term for the language and the abilities it bestows. There's a reason the aliens broke it up into pieces. Imagine if they had given this to just one group of humans, one nationality or political group. The ability to see the future, to know what resources or resolve your adversaries have, what your own resources are or how they will be exhausted or increased. THAT is a powerful weapon that would ensure victory. If the aliens hope to have humanity's help in 3,000yrs, the way to ensure humanity exists or exists in a form that will not see the heptapods as a threat is to spread the parts among all the groups. This film argues time is fixed and humans fight it through a denial of it being fixed. We tie our happiness to wishing, praying, planning, resisting, fighting, and trying to change what is coming. It's like we understand we all die, but we deny it will happen. We don't know when we will die, but it will come in due course. And we fight it; we pretend it won't happen. We fight the death of the things we love, the experiences we enjoy. It's loss that teaches us values and appreciation. Louise sees the value in a child not yet conceived and doomed to a short life, but Ian (who never learned the language) sees the loss as something that should never have been allowed to happen; so, he misses out on experiencing his beautiful child. I say 'time is fixed' due to several things in the film: "There is no time" Abbott had to know the bomb would lead to 'entering death process'; his failed attempts to notify Louise & Ian of the bomb is just what always happens/happened. There is never any failed 'potential future scenarios' shown; everything is What Will Happen, not abandoned timelines. There is no 'choice' demonstrated, just fixed events. I have to question whether 'choice' actually is an option. I think it is what it always is; your only real choice is to really be present in the moment or detach from it. That may be the only choice we ever have. Beautiful, beautiful film.

[@lucianaromulus1408]

There's obviously choice because they can interact with their life at any point ,thus changing it

[@fjgiie]

. . . or Hannah's arrival

[@Bunny99s]

@@lucianaromulus1408 Not really. The movie wouldn't make any sense at all if you actually could make any choices. "Interaction" does not result in decisions. The future is set in stone and if you at a certain point in time gain the ability to see / perceive time non-linearly, then this ability is just part of your future. So every "decision" is simply based on what you already know at that time. However the timeline is already predefined. As I said any other interpretation would simply not work. Chaos theory and the butterfly effect are the main reasons why it wouldn't work if we had something like free will. Even the slightest change in the past would have catastrophic changes for a potential future, especially for the distant future. So we could "choose" what we do, what future would you actually "see"? The moment you gain information about the future it would automatically change how you would behave and would immediately result in a completely different future. The only thing that makes sense is if the future you see is the result that was all the time predetermined.

[@discovader9460]

Both 'Prisoners' and 'Enemy' feature Gyllenhaal and are worth the watch. If you don't mind subtitles 'Incendies' will give you a punch in the gut. This director's track record is unmatched...

[@elbruces]

If we're talking about under-rated Jake Gyllenhaal sci-fi movies, we've got to add "Source Code." That was a great one.

[@rg3388]

This film reminded me that Martin Luther said that if he knew with certainty that the world would end tomorrow he'd still plant his apple tree.

[@Dalehenrickson]

Life has value. And Louise demonstrated that by having her child.

[@Dalehenrickson]

A part of how the weapon works is she was in the present and in the future at the same time coexisting

[@ignaciaandreavallevivar9442]

I know this is an old video but I just wanted to point out the dream scene actually has some significance, it's said that you are REALLY getting into a language when you start dreaming in it :D

[@Zach_Bliss]

One of my favorite movies of all time!🔥

[@Bunny99s]

She actually didn't change the future. It just played out the way it supposed to. The movie only makes sense with determinism in mind. The language she learned lets her "perceive" time non-linearly but everything she does, including seeing the future is already fixed. Every "decision" made is already set in stone. Any other kind of view doesn't make any sense due to chaos theory and the butterfly effect. The slighest change in the past would result in a complete different future. If you could see a potential future and actually change any decision or action based on that, would immediately change the future completely. So you could never actually see the future because in this case there would be infinite possibilities.

[@wes8129]

The movie is also a form of palindrome, you could re-edit the scenes backwards and it would give you a movie where you get the gut punch at the end. oh and the soundtrack, that sounds amazing backwards too

[@petrjasinski8659]

Yes. An also one of the songs of the sound track was deliberately made as musical palindrome a plays the same in both directions.

[@ragnarlothbrok936]

You’ll have to watch the “The Big Short“ at one point

[@jcs1025]

Laughable to think that we would pose any threat to the aliens.

[@animemangalover94]

Love hearing your thoughts on this movie, I think the movie also left it open to interpretation whether she had agency over her daughter's existence, like even if she didn't date Jeremy renners character, unless she never has sex with anyone again, she can't really guarantee this won't happen. Was she holding out hope for her daughter's happiness at the end or was she just so unmoored in time by that point that to her it was something that was inevitable/already happened?

[@elbruces]

If she'd had a baby with someone else, that would be a different baby. She had the baby she knew she'd have, because she knew she'd have her, even knowing how it would end. Knowing your future doesn't give you more choices. At least not in the version of future-vision that this movie presents.

[@animemangalover94]

@@elbruces knowing something is not the same as it being true, I agree that she started a relationship with Jeremy renners character knowing what would happen to their daughter, the question is whether she did it because she thought it was worth it to bring the child into existence, even if only for a short time, or whether she didn't feel like she had any control of the matter. You seem to think it was the latter, I think the movie leaves this ambiguous, because Jeremy renners character seems to resent her for doing it, but she seems to appreciate having her daughter for even that short amount of time. I agree that the movies version of understanding time makes it feel like knowing the future makes it impossible to prevent, but it never gives the impression to me that a person is forced to go along with what happens in their future visions, which leaves open how a person is supposed to react to that knowledge once they have it. Amy Adams character still exists in every moment of her life, even though they are no longer in chronological order, she still gets to make decisions, she's just making them with different information than any normal person. To me the movie shows that she's not just a zombie by having her be more than a passive observer when her daughter asks her questions, and she has to think to come up with a helpful and thoughtful reply. The part where she describes telling Jeremy renners character the truth even tho she knows he will leave and hurt their daughters feelings by doing so I think is also possibly from the point where she is still trying to process what she can and can't change about the future.

[@elbruces]

@@animemangalover94 As a parent myself, I think I'd choose to meet my child. As opposed to never have her exist.

[@lucianaromulus1408]

@@elbruces eh I think the whole point is that you can change the future, but I think only certain things can be changed, not everything. That's how she interacts between time, she's literally changing it. She CHOSE to have the child because she was already attached to that future and it helped her save humanity as is.

[@mupicap7927]

Next PRISONERS for sure