As a kid I was an avid sci-fi reader. And a theme that kept recurring over and again was the one with aliens landing on Earth. For better or for worse. Close encounters of any number of kinds. Though not many of the Third Kind. Like this one.
Back then I kept thinking that it was only a matter of time before one or another alien species really did land. Or, at the very least, there would be evidence of their existence. And then once SETI was up and running I figured it was only a matter of time.
I don’t think that way anymore. In fact, I suspect I will go to the grave as ignorant as all the folks before me regarding whether or not “we are alone” in this vast, vast universe.
Instead we still have to “go to the movies” in order the imagine what it might be like.
What’s crucial though is that, should they ever land here, it will be one of those momentous experiences in which everything becomes understood in terms of “before” and “after”.
But more to the point is how each of us, situated in our own sense of reality, will react to it from any number of conflicting perspectives.
Above all, look for some rather fascinating ruminations on, among other things, language, time and memory. It’s one of those films that is less [far less] about the “action” and the “special effects” and more about the scientific and philosophical imponderables that face all of us who inhabit whatever the universe/multiverse actually is.
Especially in this day and age. After all, if extra-terrestrials ever did land, almost everyone would know it in an instant. Imagine the reaction on “social-media”. Everyone would have a political ax to grind. And the wackos would come crawling out of the woodwork.
As for what it all “means”, here is one take on it: screenrant.com/arrival-movie-201 … explained/
IMDb
[b]Director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Eric Heisserer created a fully functioning, visual, alien language. Heisserer, Villeneuve and their teams managed to create a “logogram bible,” which included over a hundred different completely operative logo-grams, seventy-one of which are actually featured in the movie.
Director Denis Villeneuve and the writing team took extensive efforts to ensure the movie’s scientific ideology was accurate. Renowned scientist and tech innovator Stephen Wolfram and his son Christopher Wolfram were consulted to ensure all terminology, graphics and depictions were sound.
In writing the story, Ted Chiang had in mind the following quote of the great physicist Albert Einstein: “The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”[/b]
trivia at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt2543164/tri … =ttqu_sa_1
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film
traler: youtu.be/tFMo3UJ4B4g
ARRIVAL [2016]
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
[b]Louise [voiceover]: I used to think this was the beginning of your story. Memory is a strange thing. It doesn’t work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, by its order…But now I’m not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings. There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived.
…
Student: Dr. banks, can you turn the TV to a news channel?
…
Louise [on the phone]: Mom, please don’t bother with that channel. How many times do I have to tell you? Those people are idiots.
…
Reporter [on TV]: After Tuesday’s extraordinary events, the president this morning has declared a state of emergency, with as many as 5,000 national guard being deployed to the state of Montana alone. Borders are closed and flights have been grounded, stranding millions of travelers. Panic buying of gas, water and food continues to escalate, and federal authorities have temporarily lifted all caps on overtime for law enforcement. The atf has put a temporary ban on new gun licenses, forcing many independent suppliers of hunting equipment and firearms to close their doors to the public.
…
Louise [after hearting the elien spoken language on an audio file]: Did they have mouths…
Colonel Weber: How would you approach translating this? Do you hear any words? Phrases?
Louise: I don’t…I don’t know.
Weber: So what can you tell me?
Lousie: I can tell you that it’s impossible to translate from an audio file. I would need to be there, to interact with them.
Weber: You didn’t need that with the Farsi translations.
Lousie: I didn’t need it because I already knew the language, but this…this is…
…
Weber: Mornin’.
Louise: Colonel.
Weber [answering a previous question about the Sanskrit word for war and it’s meaning]: Gravisti. He says it means “an argument.” What do you say it means?
Louise: “A desire for more cows.”
Weber: Pack your bags.
…
Ian: [reading from a book by Louise] “Language is the foundation of civilization. It is the glue that holds a people together. It is the first weapon drawn in a conflict.”
Louise: That’s quite a greeting.
Ian: Yeah, well, you wrote it.
Louise: Yeah. It’s the kind of thing you write as a preface. Dazzle them with the basics. Ian: Yeah, it’s great. Even if it’s wrong.
Louise: It’s wrong?
Ian: Well, the cornerstone of civilization isn’t language, it’s science.
Weber: Ian is a theoretical physicist from los Alamos.
…
Ian: Priority one: What do they want and where are they from? And beyond that, how did they get here? Are they capable of faster-than-light travel? I’ve prepared a list of questions to go over, starting with a series of “handshake” binary sequences…
Louise: How about we just talk to them before we start throwing math problems at them? Weber: This is why you’re both here.
…
Louise [inside the “ship”]: So, what happens now?
Weber: They arrive.
…
Weber [looking at Louise’s equivalent of an electronic chalkboard]: What’s that for?
Louise: A visual aid. Look, I’m never gonna be able to speak their words, if they are talking, but they might have some sort of written language or basis for visual communication.
…
Weber: Everything you do in there, I have to explain to a room full of men whose first and last question is… “How can this be used against us?” So you’re gonna have to give me more than that.
Louise: Kangaroo.
Weber: What is that?
Louise: In 1770, captain James Cook’s ship ran aground off the coast of Australia, and he led a party into the country, and they met the aboriginal people. One of the sailors pointed at the animals that hop around and put their babies in their pouch, and he asked what they were, and the aborigine said, “kangaroo.”
Weber: And the point is?
Lousie: It wasn’t till later that they learned that “kangaroo” means “I don’t understand.” So, I need this so that we don’t misinterpret things in there. Otherwise, this is gonna take 10 times as long.
Weber: I can sell that for now. But I need you to submit your vocabulary words before the next session. Fair. And remember what happened to the aborigines. A more advanced race nearly wiped them out.
[Weber leaves]
Ian: It’s a good story.
Lousise: Thanks. It’s not true. But it proves my point.
…
Weber [looking at Louise’s list of words for the aliens]: These are all grade-school words: Eat, walk. Help me understand.
[Louise writes “What is your purpose on Earth” on chalkboard]
Louise: Tghis is where you want us to get to right?
Weber: That is the question.
Louise: Okay. So, first, we need to make sure that they understand what a question is. Okay, the nature of a request for information along with a response. Then, we need to clarify the difference between a specific “you” and a collective “you,” because we don’t wanna know why Joe alien is here, we want to know why they all landed. And purpose requires an understanding of intent. We need to find out: Do they make conscious choices? Or is their motivation so instinctive that they don’t understand a “why” question at all? And…and biggest of all we need to have enough vocabulary with them that we understand their answer.
…
Louise: They have names. So, what are we gonna call them?
Ian: I don’t know. I was thinking Abbott and Costello.
…
Ian [voiceover]: Here are some of the many things we don’t know about heptapods. Greek. Hepta, “seven.” Pod, “foot.” Seven feet. Heptapod. Who are they? Trying to answer this in any meaningful way is hampered by the fact that, outside being able to see them and hear them, the heptapods leave absolutely no footprint. The chemical composition of their spaceship is unknown. The shell emits no waste, no gas, no radiation. Assuming that the shells communicate with each other, they do so without detection. The air between the shells is untroubled by Sonic emission or light wave. Are they scientists? Or tourists? If they’re scientists, they don’t seem to ask a lot of questions. Why did they park where they did? The world’s most decorated experts can’t crack that one.
…
Ian [voiceover]: How do they communicate? Here, Louise is putting us all to shame. The first breakthrough was to discover that there’s no correlation between what a heptapod says and what a heptapod writes. Unlike all written human languages, their writing is semasiographic. It conveys meaning. It doesn’t represent sound. Perhaps they view our form of writing as a wasted opportunity, passing up a second communications channel. We have our friends in Pakistan to thank for their study of how heptapods write, because unlike speech, a logogram is free of time. Like their ship or their bodies, their written language has no forward or backward direction. Linguists call this non-linear orthography, which raises the question, “is this how they think?” Imagine you wanted to write a sentence using two hands, starting from either side. You would have to know each word you wanted to use, as well as how much space they would occupy. A heptapod can write a complex sentence in two seconds, effortlessly. It’s taken us a month to make the simplest reply. Next, expanding vocabulary. Louise thinks it could easily take another month to be ready for that.
…
Louise [to Ian]: Trust me, you can understand communication and still end up single.
…
Talk radio host: First contact with whoever it is that is inside that thing, and who’s running the show? The government. That’s right, folks, the same government who ruined our healthcare and bankrupted our military. Look at these people! Most of them don’t even have guns! We could be facing a full-scale invasion. Our president’s willing to sit back and let them waltz in and take our country. We are falling asleep at the wheel, people! You know what I’m talking about. I know you do. What if the smartest thing we could do right now would be to give them a show of force? I’m talking about a shot across the bow. What do you think?
…
Ian: I was doing some reading. If you immerse yourself into a foreign language, then you can actually rewire your brain.
Louise: Yeah, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It’s the theory that the language you speak determines how you think and…
Ian: Yeah, it affects how you see everything.
…
Louise: Following suit. Suits. Suits, honor, flowers. Colonel, those are all tile sets in mah-jongg. God, are they… Are the Chinese using a game to converse with their heptapods?
Weber: Maybe. Why?
Louise: Well, let’s say that I taught them chess instead of English. Every conversation would be a game. Every idea expressed through opposition, victory, defeat. You see the problem? If all I ever gave you was a hammer…
Weber: Everything’s a nail…We need to ask the big question. Ready or not.
…
Louise: Heptapods’ purpose. Heptapod purpose earth. What is your purpose?
Ian: Okay. There you are. What does it say?
Louise: Offer weapon.
Soldier: You saw what they wrote!
Louise: Using a word they don’t fully understand.
Ian: Could be a request.
Soldier: A warning.
Weber: Enough! Louise?
Louise: We don’t know if they understand the difference between a weapon and a tool. Our language, like our culture, is messy, and sometimes, one can be both.
Ian: And it’s quite possible that they’re asking us to offer them something, not the other way around. It’s like the first part of a trade.
Weber: So, how do we clarify their intentions beyond those two words?
Louise: Well, I go back in.
…
Louise: I can read it. I know what it is.
Ian: What?
Louise: It’s not a weapon. It’s a gift. The weapon is their language. They gave it to us. Do you know what that means?
Weber: So we can learn heptapod. If we survive.
Louside: If you learn it, when you really learn it, you begin to perceive time the way that they do, so you can see what’s to come. But time, it isn’t the same for them. It’s non-linear.
…
Zhang [to Louise in a surreal time loop]: I will never forget what you said. You told me my wife’s dying words.
…
Louise [voiceover]: So, Hannah, this is where your story begins. The day they departed. You all right? Despite knowing the journey and where it leads, I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it.
…
Louise: If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?
Ian: Maybe I’d say what I felt more often. I-I don’t know.
…
Ian: You know, I’ve had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as i can remember. You know what surprised me the most? It wasn’t meeting them. It was meeting you.
Louise: I forgot how good it felt to be held by you.
Ian: You wanna make a baby?
Louise: Yes. Yeah. [/b]