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A community focused on discussions on movies. Besides usual movie news, the following threads are welcome
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2024 discussion threads
I was expecting a generic alien invasion movie, and I was pleasantly surprised
It's based on a short story called "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. He's published only eighteen stories in his career (starting in 1990), nothing longer than a novella and mostly short stories. Despite that they've won him four Hugos, four Nebulas, and six Locus Awards. He's worth reading, is what I'm trying to say.
I put him up there with Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, easily.
Well that's got me interested then
That's exactly what I was going to say. His prose is breathtaking.
I will say I read the short story and it made me love the movie even more. It rare for me to say the movie was better than they book and the books was great as well.
Ya know I have to say I feel nearly the same about Dune. I haven't gotten to the the later books but the first 2 have made me love the movies more. Not that I love the the books any less though. There is very little nuance lost in the movies and the changes that are made I can understand from a film making point of view. I guess what I mean to say is I appreciate the differences and it makes me like both more rather thank either any less.
I couldn’t agree more. I read them quite some time ago, and still find myself having philosophical discussions about them somewhat often today. Most are really thought provoking in a non-judgmental way.
If you haven't read The Merchant and the Alchemists Gate by Ted Chiang I can't recommend it enough. Here's a PDF Link
It's lesser known than his big hits like Exhalation, but I think it's phenomenal.
The short story was OK but this is one of the few cases where the movie did it better, added flavor to it that wasn’t in the book but carries the emotional hit farther.
The short stories in that book felt very “woah dude” to me, in the end I finished it but didn’t like it all that much. I’ve been downvoted for this opinion before, but oh well.
I wonder if Ted Chiang was inspired by Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
He's written some "Notes" on the story when it was printed in his first short story collection and said that it has the same theme but that he wasn't inspired by it directly. The roots were Paul Linke's play "Time Flies When You’re Alive" and the principle of least time in optics -- if you treat light as a ray, it has to know its future destination in order to know the path with the shortest time it will take to get there (though not if it's a wave). Then there's a bunch of diagrams and discussions about the principle's implications for free will that will stretch your brain. It's pretty fun.
One of favorite movies of all time. I watch it at least once a year.
What are you talking about, it only came out last year ... Uh, right?
Well according to the movie what you're saying can make perfect sense.
This movie absolutely destroyed me emotionally for like a week. I was wholly unprepared for what this movie was really about. I was expecting an alien invasion movie and got a brickload of emotions dumped on my heart.
Same. Saw it a few months before my first child was born and it opened up something in me that I didn’t know was there. I’ve never watched a movie that made me weep until this one. Full on sobbing. Watched it again a week later, wasn’t a fluke - sobbed again.
For anyone wondering, the music that just destroys you in the movie is by the amazing Max Richter. The song is On The Nature of Daylight.
PS: He recently released a piano arrangement of the song.
“When I first started drinking warm water for my prostate..”
Fuck YouTube so much…
Either way… His short stories are the bees knees…
I'd like to watch this and Annihilation again. I've only seen each of them once, both around the same time, and my memories of them are pretty fuzzy at this stage.
that fucking bear 💀
Was fuzzy, indeed.
Still one of my favourite movies ever
I watched it for the first time last year without knowing anything about it and, as someone who loves to nerd out about anything linguistics related (am translator, for context), I cannot describe how gleeful I was that such subjects had center focus in a big blockbuster like that. Obviously the other aspects of the movie were amazing as well and the story got me very emotional by the end, but I will never shut up about how interesting and important that translation/communication aspect of the movie was.
Yeah, genuinely one of my favourite original sci-fi movies I've watched in the last decade. I did a linguistics course in high school so just really loved that side of it. It also really felt like they did a great job building the tension and making it feel like there were high stakes to her work.
The world is shocked to discover that Terry’s Chocolate Oranges are actually seed pods for intelligent extra terrestrial life.
I had no idea what I was watching when I sat down in the theater. My friend had bought the ticket and I just showed up. I didn't know ANYTHING.
One of the best experiences of my life and it turned me into a Denis Villeneuve super fan.
Amy Adams wrecked me with two movies back-to-back. Nocturnal Animals and Arrivals really did a number on me.
I didn’t know how it was going to end, at any point during the movie.
That’s a good thing
Alien Linguistics. Love this movie
The best sound design team. I also love the ability of the visual design team to give a true feeling of scale and weight to things.
Loved the movie! Such a great concept and so elegantly made. But the tagged on love story kind of took me out of it. Could almost hear the producers pushing that love story for wider audience appeal.
spoiler
I didn't care for it at all, I felt the memory as time travel thing to be weaksacue, and I felt ripped off at the end of watching it, plus I don't like her very much at all
As someone with differing opinions from the zeitgeist on a variety of topics, I appreciate your sincere and well-reasoned dissention
Spoiler
Of course its totally fine to not like a movie, but I wanted to clarify the memory as time travel thing.
I can't remember where I first heard this, it wasn't this movie, but suppose humans are oddly fixated on the flow of time. To us the flow of time is immutable we exist in the present and remember the past. What if other races could "remember" things that haven't happened yet as easily as we remember things from the past.
The movie kinda proposes that learning human languages traps us into this linear / temporal mode of thinking. As in, as children we learn to parse things start to finish and that's it... we just never do it the other way future to now.
Turns out I've done a shit job at explaining this.
As I said, it's fine to hate the movie. I just thought I'd try to explain this part because I felt like I understood it, although I'm not sure anymore.
Same, tbh. I can't say I felt ripped off, but it was definitely a disappointment.
Now you need to watch the 1996 classic "The Arrival"!
Reading this made my knees hurt.
Same. I'm skeptical of most newer movies given all the rehashes and sequels. The presentation of the aliens had me shaking a little bit!
The aliens reminded me of the Tralfamadorians from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.
So good. I think I listed it as my favorite movie for a while.