*** ARRIVAL *** (Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, dir. Denis Villeneuve)

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TCTTS
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AG
Finally, a first-look at one of my most anticipated movies of the year, Denis Villeneuve's Arrival, based on the short story, Story of Your life, by Ted Chaing (which you can read here).

The premise:
quote:
When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team is put together to investigate including language expert Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and mathematician Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). Mankind teeters on the verge of global war as everyone scrambles for answers and to find them, Banks and Donnelly will take a chance that could threaten their life, and quite possibly humanity.

That said, this is NOT an action movie by any means. From USA Today:
quote:
Renner promises that they're "not goofy creatures with guns who are going to kill us." In fact, Adams adds, their look is "different than what you would have thought."Arrival feels like "if you blended a (Stanley) Kubrick and a (Steven) Spielberg movie," Renner says, and instead of a "big Michael Bay alien movie," the new film is more along the lines of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Contact. "If you're a parent, it's going to wreck you," he adds. "It's big and there are thriller elements and tension, but it's going to lean much more into a thinking person's film."

Villeneuve is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors working today, having helmed Prisoners, Enemy, and Sicario over the past three years, and is currently shooting the untitled Blade Runner sequel in Toronto. Talk about a prolific, meteoric rise.

As for the footage below, it's basically a teaser trailer unto itself, but is actually an extended tease for a longer trailer, set to debut next Tuesday (the 16th), which I'll of course post once its released.

Finally, for those who really want the deep dive, I've uploaded the script itself here, one of the best I've read in a long while. Personally, I wish I was going into this one fresh, but either way, it's going to be something special.

Arrival hits theaters on November 11.



8/16 update: the full trailer...
LeonardSkinner
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It's a cookbook
GiveEmHellBill
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AG
Alien Visitor: "On my world, this is a symbol of hope."

Amy Adams: "Well, here....it's an 'S'."
Btron
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AG
quote:
It's a cookbook


Great reference and classic TZ.
jabberwalkie09
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I'm interested. Thought her being so nervous that her hand was shaking was a nice touch.

I just hope that they don't blow it by showing the actual aliens/visitors in a trailer.
spanky
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As for going in fresh, the few early reviews I've seen from screenings said reading the short story helped with understanding some of the language stuff. Of course, any twists or surprises will definitely be gone.
TCTTS
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There's a narrative device throughout the film that you'd probably be better off not knowing. If I had to pick between not knowing that and not completely understand the language stuff, I'd definitely pick the later. The script at least wasn't hard to follow at all, so hearing that comes as a bit of a surprise.
FNG
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This is good.

I can never find any movies starring Amy Adams so now I'll be able to see one!
hunter2012
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Nice, I might go into this one blind. I made the mistake of reading the Interstellar script and it spoiled the final act for me. I'll watch the first full trailer, if that's good then I'll be sold to see it in theaters.
Aggie_Journalist
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Just started reading the script during lunch and next thing I knew, lunch went long.

Y'all are going to enjoy this. I'll post thoughts in spoiler tags later this week for anyone else who reads the script. Thanks for sharing, TC.
TCTTS
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Awesome to hear, and no problem.
p-townag
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Love the premise and love the idea of a big time Sci fi film that is mostly brains instead of dumb action. Plus, the director has been nails. Can't wait!

I will say that the final line of the trailer was incredibly cheesy. "What happens next?" "They arrive." Get it, the title of the movie is Arrival?!
TCTTS
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In their defense, it wasn't officially titled Arrival until a couple months back. All throughout filming it was going to be called "Story of Your Life," even as late as the first footage that debuted in early summer for theater owners.
p-townag
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Based on those interviews it'll be really interesting to see the design of the aliens. Let's see if they can actually pull off something truly unique and groundbreaking.
Swarely
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quote:
quote:
It's a cookbook


Great reference and classic TZ.


Brian Earl Spilner
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Well, I'm in.
Brian Earl Spilner
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quote:
Alien Visitor: "On my world, this is a symbol of hope."

Amy Adams: "Well, here....it's an 'S'."


Underrated.
Duncan Idaho
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She fine
Malachi Constant
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Amy Adams in American Hustle.
Aggie_Journalist
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Thoughts after reading the script. Massive spoilers. This won't make sense if you haven't read the script or seen the movie, so don't read unless you've done either or you'll just be spoiled and confused.

At first I really liked the script, but the more time I've had to dwell on it the less I've thought of it.

On the aliens' front, there's a very lazy ending to solving their problem of not knowing how to break fate in that one random alien dies and they suddenly declare "He decided to step away from his fate. Now we learned what we need to know! That's unbelievable." Why that alien? Why then? Why didn't the aliens at the other sites learn this? When did the humans show them anything that would teach them the concept of choice when future appears preordained?

Instead, shouldn't a human show them how to break fate by being told "This is what's coming for you," and then acting differently?

Also, given the aliens' struggles with breaking fate, how would they even have any concept of the idea of "choice?" They show up to tell the humans "You have two choices to make, A or B" and yet their entire society views history on a continuum. This should be conceptually impossible to them.

And then the big lesson Amg Adams takes away from this is to accept her preordained fate and not try to change it??? Shouldn't her lesson be to do things that will save the marriage or at the very least try different treatments to save her daughter? (Just as the aliens apparently learned how to save their species?) Also, if the aliens are learning the concept of choice from humans, why is every single human apparently on a preordained path that results in the daughter's death? That would suggest humans are every bit as bound to fate as the aliens, we just aren't aware of it. So how can aliens learn how to break fate from humans when we're as glued to the rails as they are?

What's the lesson of this movie anyway? "Terrible things will happen in life, don't try to avoid them?"

I guess it would all make a lot more sense to me if the aliens showed up as scared of contact as the humans were because their entire history was pre told and preordained to the point they made contact with humanity, and then they couldn't see beyond that point and they didn't know what that meant. (When the meaning was "this is where you learn the concept of choice.") That would result in an entirely different story, but it would make a lot more sense to my mind.

Anyway. Those are my hang ups. I'm sure Arrival will prompt some good discussion once it comes out. It will be interesting to see if the movie evolves away from this script in such away that it addressed any of that.
TCTTS
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I'll be honest, it's been forever since I read the script, and don't remember half of that stuff, but yeah, that's an interesting take, and I'm definitely curious to see how much of it remains in the final product.
spanky
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Have you read the short story the script is based on yet?
Aggie_Journalist
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Nope. I just read the script. Would you suggest the short story? Maybe I'll check out this weekend. It would be interesting to see how it compares to the script.
Ol_Ag_02
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Will watch! Don't want to know anything else about this movie beforehand other then the 1:00 trailer I just saw.
Rick Dalton
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Jeremy Renner as a mathematician? This is a comedy, right?
Bobcat06
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quote:
Arrival feels like "if you blended a (Stanley) Kubrick and a (Steven) Spielberg movie,"
You mean A.I.
Duncan Idaho
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quote:
quote:
Arrival feels like "if you blended a (Stanley) Kubrick and a (Steven) Spielberg movie,"
You mean A.I.


I didn't want to be the one
spanky
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quote:
Jeremy Renner as a mathematician? This is a comedy, right?
I thought his role was a physicist? At least that part was in the short story
TCTTS
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Sign. Me. Up. The full trailer...

MrPlow2010
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spanky
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That trailer looks much truer to the short story than I expected. Who is going to Venice to get us a proper review?

1 September

10:00 pm SALA GRANDE
VENEZIA 73
ARRIVAL by Denis Villeneuve (USA, 116', language: English, Heptapod invented language, s/t Italian, English) cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg
Gigem314
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quote:
Alien Visitor: "On my world, this is a symbol of hope."

Amy Adams: "Well, here....it's an 'S'."
Forrest Whitaker: "What will you do....when they catch you!"
Sapper Redux
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quote:
Sign. Me. Up. The full trailer...




In!
schmendeler
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really hoping that it's a Science Fiction-y as it looks.
TCTTS
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It is. Big time.
 
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