Arrival: The Enigma Of Alien-Human Communication

This video contains major SPOILERS!!!! Today we’re deep-diving into the first contact sci-fi movie, Arrival, unravelling how it intertwines the art of linguistics with the enigma of alien-human communication.
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#scifi #arrival #language
0:00 - Intro
1:19 - Arrival: Deep Dive
4:00 - Linguistics in Arrival
6:07 - A Fresh Perspective on First Contact
7:34 - The Power of Language
8:53 - Ethical and Philosophical Considerations
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DELPHINE DESCENDS
After her family is killed and her homeworld occupied, young Kathreen Martin is sent to the distant world of Furoris for re-education. She will live the rest of her life as a serf - to be bought and sold as a commodity of the Imperial Network.
When her only chance of escape is ruined, a chance mistaken identity offers her a new life as the orphaned daughter of a First-Citizen Senator and heiress to a vast fortune.
She vows to claw her way into power to sit among the worlds’ elite. Then, with her own hands, she will reap bloody vengeance on them all.
But to beat them, she must play their game. And she must play it better than them all.
BLACK MILK
Prometheus has the chance to bring his wife back from the dead, but doing so will mean the destruction of Earth.
Spanning time, planets and dimensions, Black Milk draws to a climactic point in a post-apocalyptic future, where humanity, stranded with no planet to call home, fights to survive against a post-human digital entity that pursues them through the depths of space.
Five lives separated by aeons are inextricably linked by Prometheus’s actions:
Ystil.3 is an AI unit sent back in time from the distant future to investigate Prometheus’s discovery...
The mysterious Lydia has devoted her life to finding a planet that the last remaining humans can call home…
Tom Jones (he’s a HUGE fan!) is an AI trapped inside a digital subspace, lost and desperate to find his way back to his beloved in real-time…
Dr Norma Stanwyck is a neuroscientist from 24th Century Earth whose personal choices ripple throughout time...
Prometheus must learn the necessity of death or the entire universe will be swallowed by his grief.
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IMAGE USE
The images in my videos are mostly licensed stock photos. However, occasionally I will use images found online. I always seek to properly credit artists and offer a link back to their amazing work but sometimes it's hard to find the original source of the work. If I've used an image you own and I haven't credited you, please feel free to get in touch as I am always more than happy to do so.

[@preacherno]

Speaking six languages quite effortlessly without having to translate in my mind has shown me not only how I think differently but also how my personality slightly moves when changing language. Why wouldn’t perception change too, if the language were different enough? This movie put Denis Villeneuve on my radar for the first time. I’m waiting for his second instalment of Dune on March 1st.

[@olliverklozov2789]

The original short 'Stories of Your Life and Others' by Ted Chiang was also good, but was not as fleshed out. It was much more of a cliffhanger and did not include any of the politics or international intrigue. Denis Villeneuve gave us a fantastic extrapolation with great casting and stunning visuals without losing the heart of the story. Maybe the best sci-fi of the past 20 years.

[@davidunderwood326]

I agree - the story was interesting but the film really ran with the idea and built on it

[@yw1971]

However, Villeneuve neglected the main theme of Chiang's story - Loss and how to live with it. In the story the linguistics & aliens only serve to illustrate how loss is processed.

[@priscillamontoya]

To quote Forrest Gump - you always explain things in a way that I can understand them. This movie almost broke my brain.

[@euchiron]

I learned Japanese on a student exchange after high school and it was transformative. It did alter the way I think in so many ways, if for no other reason than being my first glimpse of the world outside what I grew up in. I loved this movie for so many reasons. This is my favourite kind of sci-fi, the kind that expands horizons and perspectives.

[@bhaka4521]

Thoughts on Ted Chiang and Stories of Your Life and Others?

[@macgyvershe]

I really enjoyed Arrival, as it open the discussion of what first contact might consist of. Not laser beams and little green men; but other intelligence beings trying to bridge the communication gap.

[@2jacko5]

Arrival, my all-time favorite scifi film

[@stphnmrrs3982]

If you're interested in alien linguistic sci-fi, I highly recommend Embassytown by China Meiville.

[@asmaloney]

Yes! I was going to comment on it as well. I just re-read it recently. Love it.

[@fabrisseterbrugghe8567]

Charles V said "one who speaks another language possesses another soul."

[@greyareaRK1]

Its timing couldn't have been better with a world divided by the internet, - the technology meant to bring us together. Incessant idiotic culture wars rage while real world calamities bear down on us all. Douglas Adams predicted something like this with the Babel Fish. I'm reminded of research that revealed how languages increase perception in areas like colour, or of the culture that uses compass headings exclusively to describe direction. I'm fond of all those German words used to express complex situations we often pretend don't happen, like schadenfreude.

[@johnthefinn]

Learning non-European languages (such as Finnish and Tagalog) has changed the way I see the world, but not in any revolutionary way. My identity was enriched but not transformed.

[@anticorncob6]

Sorry if this is dumb, but how is Finnish not a European language, when Finland is part of Europe?

[@johnthefinn]

@@anticorncob6 It's not part of the Indo-European family to which the majority of European languages belong. It has some surprising features in common with East Asian languages.

[@LaurindaBellinger]

I really enjoyed this movie and loved the premise. It was a very fresh take on a first-contact story.

[@Sci-FiOdyssey]

I totally agree!

[@PoeLemic]

Wow, you really gave an incredible review. What can I say? It's fabulous. I liked that movie, but I think I watched it on a poor streaming on a phone. I couldn't get to theater and was traveling, so I don't think I had the best viewing of the movie because I watched it when I was tired and very late at night -- just something to help me kill time or get me to sleep. Thus, I missed a few scenes in it, I think. Yet, after watching your "better than" Siskel and Ebert review, I will now rewatch the movie and spend more time paying attention to it. Then, I might come back (when I remember) to rewatch your review and see what your expose has examined, developed, and explained more. In honesty, one of best reviews I've ever seen on KZbin.

[@rodneymckay8860]

If I understood the language of mathematics better, my perception of the universe would be god-like.

[@APM1585]

Thank you for another insightful commentary. I always love your reviews. I just happen to have started reading a new book yesterday, The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. The main character is a linguist who leads a mission for first contact. The idea of how we would communicate with intelligent extra terrestrial life is an interesting one.

[@John-tc9gp]

Was Arrival based on a novel? It certainly feels like it. Unusually imaginative for a Hollywood script, if not.

[@cotidiemorior]

On Ted Chiang's short story "Story of Your Life". Which in my opinion is amazing, and the movie was mediocre.

[@ttrpg_nthusiast8709]

It was based on the 1998 novella, 'Story of Your Life' by Ted Chiang. Someday I will get to reading it and another heartstrings-pulling science-fiction story, 'The Dandelion Girl' by Robert F Young.

[@Flux799]

Loved Arrival. Have you seen The Signal? You might enjoy that film.

[@Sci-FiOdyssey]

I’ll check it out! Thanks

[@tsaageotrimm]

fantastic movie!

[@josuegentilcunhaneto780]

The movie is better than the short story, by Ted Chiang. But the book has an interesting plot device: half of it is written in second person, You, and we only discover thd reason why in the end.

[@jasperdoornbos8989]

I remember Newspeak from 1984 (Orwell) that was designed to limit thought processes. Oops, in a later section you mention this. I was too soon! Sorry!

[@shawntipton5078]

Contact by Carl Sagan is probably the most realistic contact novel and film yet, the way it's done in the book and film via a message is likely how it would happen, it explores the harmonious interconnected nature of both faith and science, Ellie starts as an atheist but is a believer in the probability of God by the final chapter, as was Sagan himself, he loved the idea of a universal divine creator, he was a believing agnostic though.

[@waverlyking6045]

I want to see a sequel in which the humans and heptapods have to cooperate 3000 years from now.

[@Sci-FiOdyssey]

That would be very interesting!

[@davidlong1786]

If our future was set in stone then humanity wouldn't even bother to do much or try new ideas or think that change was possible. All creatures, no matter the size or intelligence have free will and THAT will determine our future.

[@ttrpg_nthusiast8709]

If our future is set in stone, then of course we continue on as we always have. Whether will is free or not has always been completely inconsequential.

[@davidlong1786]

@@ttrpg_nthusiast8709 But our future isn't set in stone but if you tend to believe it is then you are doomed to do nothing to try and bring about change, which is foolish. I really didn't like this movie. Aliens that make communication almost impossible and drawn out. Giving flawed humans the ability to relive the past at will would only push many to just sit and daydream about their past glories and good times and let the rest of their life rot.

[@thomasrdiehl]

Well, they just need to think they have free will. If they actually do have it is a different question altogether (and one that likely cannot be answered if true and we are unwilling to answer truthfully if false).

[@Troy-ol5fk]

I don't know if it sounds like plot hole but how does Louise see the future before she even met the heptapods?

[@danishfauna3398]

Time is not linear in Arrival - that should help with the apparent plot hole. ;-)

[@thomasrdiehl]

The problem with Arrival is that it's not actually about language learning. It uses language learning as a sort of magic solution to break physics. Which is fine because that serves the actual topic of the story (free will), but is nontheless annoying from the viewpoint of a linguist because it perpetuates the outdated pseudo-science that is strong Sapir-Whorf (as if people forgetting that Newspeak in 1984 is fictitious wasn't bad enough in that department).

[@marrs1013]

I accept that learning a new language changes your thinking. And you start to speak like a native, when you start to think like them. You need to understand the culture, the references, the worldview, where they coming from... What is funny, what is offensive, and why? But my problem with the movie, is how the new language was presented to humanity. It's a 'bit like I'm sending an email to my dog, explaining to him in that email that he has to get a computer, access the internet, access his email account what is already there, learn to read and write to answer, otherwise I kill him. Amongst billions of dogs one might get it, then they are safe. If not, they all dead. It's all in the email... A species this advanced could have explained the whole thing in a few sentences in any human language, not just causing humanity to panic and feel pushed to the corner, triggering the basic fight or flight reflex. Very poor approach, I hope the leader of the expedition is dismissed and never allowed to lead a first contact again.

[@jasperdoornbos8989]

What’s with the hair, my friend? Please change it back 😅

[@PoeLemic]

No, I think it looks great. I think he looks more handsome and smashing with that haircut. In my opinion, keep it. Seriously, keep it, because it looks incredibly dashing.