Arrival: Considered too smart for American movie viewers
Good. We need smarter movies.
The movie Arrival has come to theaters and the reviews are mixed.
Reviews are so mixed I didn’t even bother to write one. I wrote a preview to talk about the challenges I think the movie industry has failed to address even in this space where diversity is being discussed on every corner.
I decided to skip the review because while the movie was visually attractive, decently acted and had more than one or two really amazing ideas, overall, I found the movie smart but predictable.
Why? Because I was unclear on the concept of the movie without having read the short story it’s based on. I didn’t feel (my own opinion) there was enough information in the movie for it to make complete sense to a viewer who was not:
- Versed in science fiction (lots of tropes were used in the making of this movie — threat of nuclear annihilation by foreign governments, crazed military officers going rogue, alien invasion in general, time travel stories with open or closed or strange temporal loops, etc )
- Interested in linguistics (I love linguistics so I was in hog heaven, but a lot of the theater behind me didn’t seem as enthused.)
- Interested in seeing aliens talking about their feelings rather than displaying homicidal destructive tendencies towards the citizens of Earth.
There were lots of other questions as well. Why were a physicist and an interpreter teamed up? Lots of effort went into into the language element but almost nothing on the physics element. I am certain the reason was lost on the cutting room floor. Too many questions, not enough answers. My solution was to go out to buy Ted Chiang’s collection of short stories in order to have a better understanding of the story. Maybe after I have read the short story I will have a better feel for it. (Several friends say I will. I’ll let you know how that turns out.)
As I was doing some research on the movie I came across the writing of one of the science consultants on this movie, Stephen Wolfram. His perspective on the movie, on the science and the speculations he was asked to consider make the movie much richer in terms of its content and character. Reading his long-form essay helped me appreciate the effort taken on this movie’s behalf and I stand by my opening statement: This movie is too smart for American audiences.
But I am glad someone did. Without further ado, Stephen Wolfram:
So What ARE we talking about?
My topic is the idea that if Arrival is successful, we can expect it to spawn copycats like so many other science fiction movies have done. I would like to think it is time for smarter movies, more challenging and complex ideas to make their way into theatres.
What we don’t need:
Stalwart White male heroes who singlehandedly defeat entire armies of foes in an effort to save the world alone. Nope. Not one more of those need grace my movie-going efforts ever again. Teamwork makes the dream work.
Young White Uberheroes: If I have to watch one more movie with young, (usually white) beautiful people saving the world, a world so complex it came to be in the state it was in and suddenly these young folks are going to magically make it better, mostly through random acts of violence, you may as well cart me off to the asylum.
What I am hopeful for is Hollywood’s executives have begun to tire of recycling movies from earlier eras and are willing to put down roots again. Take risks on new writers, on new ideas, on new ways of thinking. Without the ability to take risks, Hollywood is dead (to me, at any rate).
Arrival is a decent movie. Thoughtful, intelligent, not as smart as I thought it could be, but a definite departure from just shooting aliens for the heck of it. If anyone is interested, I am willing to start that trend of intelligent, new-era science fiction stories around new forms of alien encounters.
I can see a few of those movies right now:
Get ‘er Done! — a comedy about alien invasion, reality television and really bad politics.
- An alien species obsessed with action movies (they pick up by watching television reception beamed to them from the dark side of the moon), comes to Earth to make a documentary on how Humans actually live out their lives. Action movies have given them the impression we are incredible bad-asses which might be bad for the galaxy at large. For one poor government functionary, the United States President, he is volunteered to be the Terran Ambassador.
- To understand how humans think, live and act, the aliens want to know how we DO things. Think the Truman show but truly invasive; from waking to bowel movements, they put nanoscale drone cameras in the very air. The aliens want to know everything about us. EVERYTHING.
- This president is the worst candidate imaginable. Hard drinking, verbally indelicate, psychologically-challenged; fuse Bush the Second with Donald Trump and Ann Colter. With the world recovering from his recent election, he is stumbling into his first term as the mouthpiece for humanity, and nobody likes it.
- Following him to his first day on the job, the hijinks ensue as he tries to be go about his day, answering questions about humanity in which the answers are shared with the world, publicly, in real time, all the time, while trying to keep the aliens from discovering our secret plans to resist them. By the time he’s done, he may not have to wait for the aliens to destroy him, humanity may do him in first…
Iteration — a digital alien invader challenges humanity to its most favored past-time, video games.
- An alien species attacks the Earth with an invasive computerized organism which inhabits and takes over our planetary Internet. In order to understand whether Humans are truly intelligent and not just luckily putting machines together, the aliens challenge humanity to a series of digital games, where citizens play whatever games they can in order to reveal humanity as an intelligent species. By the end of the week, most of humanity that can reach a computer has been deemed failures and locked out of the Internet.
- As the aliens eliminate players, the world’s government gathers its so-called geniuses together to see if they can challenge the alien’s intelligent virus. At the end of a month, the virus deeming 3600 Humans worthy, and invites them into a three-dimensional holodeck environment where the stakes are raised. However, a number of them are not members of the government’s intelligence pool. A philanthropist pays for them to be part of the games anyway.
- The Rules: Win enough of the games against the computer or watch the Earth being destroyed, in real time. But these are not human video games anymore, now they resemble complex psychological exams testing motor skills, psychiatric stability, intellectual curiosity and with no idea of what winning looks like…
- As the government’s geniuses are removed from play, citizens who were invited to demonstrate their genius are begrudgingly allowed to participate, each in their own unusual ways. As the end draws near, a young Black man with autism, whose love of a simple-seeming children’s game reveals a scintillating intellect, reveals he may be the last chance for humanity to reveal its intelligence isn’t an accident. But no one in the room is willing to let him play for stakes they don’t believe he can understand…
The Answer-Man’s Archives are a collection of my articles discussing superheroes and their powers in relationship to their respective universes. We deconstruct characters, memes, profiles and how superheroes relate to real world culture. You can find other Archives on Quora and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Stack Exchange or at The World According to Superheroes.
Thaddeus Howze is a writer, essayist, author and professional storyteller for mysterious beings who exist in non-Euclidean realms beyond our understanding. You can follow him on Twitter or support his writings on Patreon.
