Arrival - Review Thread

Because it introduced a second unrelated sci-fi-ism. It looked at science fiction like a genre that needs a finale fit for itself. Some seem to feel that if an action movie needs a big building blowing up at the end, and a comedy needs a major funny set piece with many characters in confrontation, then a sci-fi film about It just depends if you can buy these two things existing at the same time in what was basically our universe. It doesn't seem to be bothering some.

Looper kind of does the same thing. We don't have time travel or telekinesis in our world. It's weird and off-putting.

Perhaps on a re-watch.

However, if it was well integrated, they wouldn't have intentionally deceived us with

Exactly! When did she start having these flashbacks, how did she start learning about time travel? When did she start learning and how did she compose the time traveling, with her just learning words and language? 

None of this is explained in the movie.

I feel like, the only reason "Shaymalan Twist" effect was put in for the wow effect, but no thought process was made possible by the movie. Maybe I'm wrong... But that's what I got from the film.

Jibbs already broke down the stupidity of time travel. The real question is how the daughter and aliens were connected. One had nothing to do with the other. The end was just... what? Was there a point to all this? How did we go from communication to whatever the fuck that ending was supposed to be.

Yeah, the whole movie is a Christopher Nolan style non-linear nonsense.

I understand the logic of the flashes, but you can't deny there is an early one set right near a concerned phone call from her mother that puts the idea in our head that this has already happened. And it's still before she met them. She can't think like a Cephalopod, yet. (And don't tell me she can retroactively because of the power she WILL get, because that's a can of worms.)

We just don't get it because we're 3 dimensional beings.

We get it. We just don't like it.

See: Interstellar

Who's denying it? If those things were crap, I wouldn't care what happened at the end.

The flashbacks/flashforwards were distracting in general. The movie starts with her daughter and you think it's just character building stuff. Then her daughter kept coming back and you realize there's more to it. My attention was divided between getting invested in the main story and waiting for a twist to happen. If the daughter had vanished till the end, you're right, you can forgive the silly twist. But since they've kept preparing the audience for it, the entire ending felt like a major disappointment and kinda ruined the movie.

Interstellar, flawed as it may have been, at least had a built up to the ending. You weren't distracted by the anticipation for the twist. You were just going along the journey.

Christopher Nolan > Denis French Canadian

Batman > Blade Runner 2029

9/10

I like movies that make me engage my brain once in a while. The little tidbits, the in-your-face foreshadowing on the helicopter ride at the beginning that makes sense once you realize how time works, etc., was all very well-crafted. Best film of the year thusfar, for me.