Arrival (2016)

Jordan: And for the listeners, you have to watch this and pay attention. Do not be scrolling on your phone because you won't know what the hell's happening. No.

Darius: This is, you know, one thing we should try to do is figure out when the cutoff was from like when they started making movies assuming you're not paying attention. Yeah, I agree.

Jordan: Hey everybody, welcome to the Out the Trunk Pod with Jordan and Darius. My name is Jordan. You can find me on all socials at Jordy B Writing.

Darius: And I'm Darius. That's Steve's. I love me area on all socials.

Jordan: And today we're going to be reviewing Arrival. This movie came out in 2016, starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stahlberg, and Zi Ma. This movie is about when 12 mysterious spacecraft land around the world. Linguistics professor Louise Banks is recruited by the military to communicate with the visitors. As she begins to decode their complex circular language, she experiences vivid flashbacks that hold the key to understanding the alien's true purpose and the nature of time itself. I'm going to toss it to you for act one.

Darius: Act one is the first encounter. The world goes into a collective panic as the shells hover over random locations. Louise and physicist Ian Donnelly are brought to the Montana site to answer the ultimate question. What is your purpose on Earth? Ian Donnelly played by Jeremy Renner, Jeremy Renner, Jeremy, what's his name? Yeah, Renner, yeah. I thought that was one of the Kardashian people. And then Louise played by Amy Adams. Let me just say, I remember seeing this in the theater in 2016, but I just don't, I remember seeing it, but this is probably the best movie I've watched like on my soundbar. Like the just the noise that the aliens made when they tap the glass. I felt that in my living room. And I normally don't give my soundbar a good workout. Just like this was like, it's a good home viewing movie as far if your sound system is right. So that's off the rip. What you got for act one?

Jordan: It's funny, talk about the sound. That's one of the first things I wrote is the score of this movie is incredible. Like it just hits you emotionally. Even like this is my first time seeing this movie. And literally when I heard the score, like I felt something I had no idea what the movie was about at the time, you know? So actually it was used in a few previous movies. But I'd heard it, I feel like I'd heard it somewhere, maybe like some sort of YouTube video or some compilation or some **** like that, whatever. But I mean, it's not that the score was incredible. It's interesting that you touched on the sound because it does feel like you're right there. Like when the aliens like touch the wall and **** you're like, oh ****.

Darius: And like the visuals of it, how they're like, you can, it's hard to make out what they are. Like I have no idea. They could have been 5 feet tall, they could have been 50 feet tall, and you just really couldn't tell. And I just thought that was like, they did that really, really well. As far as just making you feel like you were in that heptapod with them, Yeah,

Jordan: because you almost were like backing away from the screen because you didn't want to be too close to some random foreign object.

Darius: Yeah, it's, you know, I'm not a score person in general, but like this one stood out to me as a non-score person. So absolutely. Well, what else you got for Act 1?

Jordan: I like that the aliens look like whatever you may think aliens look like, I don't know if they're really not. I mean, I think there's probably some other life form out there. I mean, it's plausible. And I saw this quote once. They said someone said like, everyone's afraid of like what's up there in space. But to me, like the **** that's in the deep of the sea looks like aliens to me, And I kind of think that like, if you looked at an, if you saw an octopus in space, you would call that an alien. And these look kind of like octopuses, which I thought was octopi octopuses. I don't know. And I thought that was kind of cool.

Darius: Oh, you say plausible. I'd say it's likely. I would.

Jordan: Yeah, for sure.

Darius: I would be more surprised if we were the only intelligent life in the universe. Like that strikes me as statistically impossible. I, it's just to be fair, the set of conditions that made life on Earth possible are pretty unique. But the fact that it's never been replicated anywhere or the fact that life needs the things that we need to, like the atmospheric conditions, the level of water required, it just strikes me as, and also just like the amount of alien appearances in our fiction and our writing and how that's continuous across millions of years of human evolution. It's like, you know, the AI thing, right? How many movies have we seen about like AI robots taking over the world? Right. And like, we're seeing that technology.

Jordan: And we have robot vacuum cleaners.

Darius: Correct. And it's like, Correct. And the odds that we're just wrong on this one, that we've been creating, we as a species have been creating alien fiction for millions of years. You know, it just strikes me as impossible.

Jordan: I agree. Yeah, I think there's, I don't even know if you call them aliens, but I guess that just means a foreign life form. So I do believe they exist. I don't know what they look like, obviously. Who knows, maybe they all just look like mammals that are just in, on whatever perspective planet or orbit or star, whatever is out there.

Darius: Or maybe it's something we, I forget, I remember which friend told me, he was like, explain our existence to a rabbit and see how much he comprehends it. You know, maybe it's something we don't even understand. You know, like it's just maybe they're around us and we just don't get it because again, How much do rabbits know about our life? Our intelligence and how we study them.

Jordan: They know when they see them to run away.

Darius: Study them. They know like how do they know any of that? So it's like maybe it's beyond our comprehension. So that's true. If alien pods hit Earth, would you want to be privy to the government negotiations or would you want to just ignorance is bliss it? But you get what I mean.

Jordan: Yeah, I want to know. I'm a curious person. Yeah, I want to know for sure. I want to see what they look like. You know, what have we had any communication with them? Are they what are they? I mean, like the move. What are they here for? You know, are they lost? Do they want to get back home? You know? Yeah, I want to know for sure. Why not?

Darius: I mean, sure, I'd want to know. I thought we would be privy to. I mean, you'd be privy to it.

Jordan: Yeah, I don't think they tell us.

Darius: No, I mean, with good reason, though, like the average People don't, I mean, you know how people handle complex things. Right. And just like, if it's at any degree of complexity, they just chalk it up to a conspiracy theory. And so, you know, I would want to know, but I would understand why they would keep it under wraps if they're not already doing so.

Jordan: it makes me, ironically, this movie made me think of that, the one scene from Men in Black where the first one where they're on the park bench and he first learned about aliens and ****. And he's like, well, I think people can handle it and know that they're aliens, whatever, you know. And he's like, no, they can't. He's like, a person is smart. People are dumb, stupid, and scary. And you know it. Yeah. And this movie just did an excellent job of illustrating that.

Darius: I mean, just imagine if CNN tonight just broke the news that like we have linguists talking to hepatods and They're communicating in a non-linear language format that might be, you know, they're communicating whole stories in a circle. And like you think.

Jordan: And you know, can see the future.

Darius: It's still people who don't who think the 2020 election was rigged and they've seen every piece of evidence, you know, right? Yeah, that's true. Vaccines cause, you know, autism, all kinds of ****. So like, no, I don't. I don't. A person is smart, but people are stupid. I would not argue in the contrary. Yeah, that's valid.

Jordan: We saw, we reacted to the, actually no, yeah, they wouldn't tell us because the way people reacted over things like the pandemic when they just bought all the toilet paper for no reason, or the way they acted over the Popeyes chicken sandwich, we could never, they'd never tell us about aliens.

Darius: That OG chicken sandwich was the truth though.

Jordan: Oh, it was. Oh, I still get it all the time.

Darius: Well, it ain't like it. It was like the OG run. But no, I mean, listen, yeah, the Cleveland collective action, you know, it's doesn't really work that well. So I, I would understand why, especially when you have to coordinate with all of the world's governments like, you know. Right. I have a call back to something later that I want to spoil, but like. Yeah, it's hard. So you got anything else for that one?

Jordan: Yeah, I got two more observations. Well, actually, I guess three more. So one, the idea of Jeremy Renner playing a theoretical physicist is hilarious because he don't even know what to do. He just, I'm sure he's a smart guy, but he just doesn't look like he's smart enough to play. theoretical physicist.

Darius: Well, to be fair, in the movie, he was just kind of like guy, guy #2.

Jordan: Yeah, that's true.

Darius: He was just kind of standing next to her doing nothing. They didn't really give him a lot to work with.

Jordan: That's true.

Darius: They just needed to stand in for the big reveal later.

Jordan: Right.

Darius: So, you know, he got a good check out of it, but. I think he was just tired of being a Hawkeye for a little bit. This was peak MCU. So he's like, hey, man, I get to be a, I get to just talk to Amy Adams for, that's all he did was just talk to Amy Adams.

Jordan: Just talk to Amy Adams, which is not a bad way to make a living.

Darius: No, man, you know, Amy Adams wasn't, was she even, I don't think she was even nominated for it.

Jordan: She wasn't nominated. That's the crazy part.

Darius: She was incredible in this movie.

Jordan: No, she did. Her and them CGI aliens.

Darius: Forest Whitaker held it down.

Jordan: Forest Whitaker was good too. He's always great.

Darius: One of the great character actors of our time.

Jordan: Correct. He's kind of like the black Walter Goggins. What else was I going to say? Yeah, so shout out to Dennis Villeneuve, I believe is how you say his name. He's French-Canadian director. He directed this movie. He also directed the Dune series. I'm excited for what's called Doomsday, December 18th, where Doomsday Avengers movie and then Dune 3 come out the same day. I think I'm just going to spend 8 hours on a movie. It's going to be the best day ever.

Darius: There's no chance those two movies come out on the same weekend.

Jordan: No, they are. Yeah, that's it. It's like Barmenheimer 2.0.

Darius: I will believe it when I see it. There's not enough IMAX theaters to go around.

Jordan: The release dates are set.

Darius: I'll believe it when I see it. Before the more the reason then like, why would you step on the dope like that? Like you need that. It's just like those. Well, first of all, like, I don't know which theater you go to, but mine has one IMAX theater. So like, what are they going to do, like, fighting theater? Like, you know, like, who's going to go to? It's just, I'll believe it when I see it. I know this is what they say. I'll believe it when I see it.

Jordan: I hear you. If they do go through with it, I will be there. And then I also wanted to say, like, I love the We talk a lot about storytelling when we do our movie reviews. And this movie is, first of all, a masterclass in storytelling. The epitome of like excellent nonlinear storytelling as well. But also, I love the way they showed like the loss of her child without making it Yeah, it's presented as flashbacks. They don't make it a gimmick. They don't make it, you know, her whole personality, but they show just the way that grief, quote unquote, as what we know in act one to be what it is. I thought that was really awesome. I thought it was like super intelligent.

Darius: And they, you know, they didn't, there was no narrator to tell you, like, it just happened. You didn't really know You had to watch the movie. This is a reoccurring theme on the spot, but like movies, you can tell when a movie was made before ubiquitous smartphones, because they don't, there's no unnecessary exposition. She's not coming to work and being like, I'm sad because I can't work today. That's what would happen. I promise you, once you see it, you can't unsee it. When you watch a movie today, people walk in a room and just explain the plot to you. They do. They're like, we don't get this object, the whole world's gonna fall apart. It's like, my God, I'm so tired because I didn't get any sleep because my daughter died. Okay. Endless exorcist.

Jordan: I'm in grief.

Darius: We're going to go get a grief. Then they'll do **** like, let's go get a grief tattoo. Like it was sitting

Jordan: on the whole scene where she gets a tattoo

Darius: that says I'm grieving. It's like, oh my God. You could find a more subtle way to do this. Right.

Jordan: Yeah. Or they're in like an Alcoholics Anonymous for grieving people. I don't know what you're called. Like group therapy, I guess.

Darius: Yeah, And they use that scene for the character to get up and tell the story. I, what's your name? Hi, I'm so. And then this is why I'm grieving. And it's like, yeah, just such lazy storytelling.

Jordan: Correct.

Darius: Anything else for act one?

Jordan: No, that was all I had for act one.

Darius: Moving into act two, Luis makes a breakthrough with the heptopods, realizing that their language isn't linear like ours. It's circular. As she immerses herself in their symbols, her perception of her own life begins to fracture and shift. Was I the one who thought that was Joaquin Phoenix for a minute?

Jordan: Where?

Darius: The white guy in the I forget his name, but like, I was a soldier. No, no, it's like. Maybe it was just me, but there's one guy in the movie. I was like, did they give Joaquin Phoenix for a non-name random character actor role? But baby is just.

Jordan: I think I know what you're talking about. I didn't think that was him though. If that's, if I'm thinking of who I think you're thinking of.

Darius: It was like, I thought it was him for like a half a second before I thought. No, he's just like, he's on the base and he's talking to him and he's got, he's like the straight guy. He's not a military person. He's just a white guy

Jordan: in a bloody shirt. And I was just, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, with the long hair.

Darius: Yeah. And I'm just like, Joaquin Phoenix would be on the ******* poster if he was in this movie. So no, but I thought it was for a second.

Jordan: That's funny. But yeah, that was, that's, I can see that's what you got back to. Yes, I wanted to ask you, they have the bird in the cage and they're talking to the aliens.

Darius: Yeah.

Jordan: What did you think was the purpose of that?

Darius: I don't know. I had nothing. I mean, like the second that got a little dry.

Jordan: It did.

Darius: You could tell. So this was based off of a short story. And you could just tell it kind of stretched. It was under two hours, but they needed, you know, you can't have a 90 minute movie, but this was based off.

Jordan: I think the novella was like 70, 80 pages, something like that.

Darius: Yeah, it's like a novel's like 300 pages. And this is the part where you could tell they were kind of like, all right, let's get to the, because the ending's so great. We just got to put some steps.

Jordan: Yeah, the ending is the payoff is huge and it is worth it. But yeah, I agree. Because I was like, is the bird, is that supposed to be some sort of like, comparative metric to the to the to the way they communicate almost like a metronome or something like that. I didn't really understand what that what that was.

Darius: Yeah, they kind of lost me for a little bit that way. But I will say it does illustrate, though, how an underrated technological invention and the reason why we're ahead of the food chain is just language. You know, we Being able to communicate to your fellow caveman, hey, around that corner is a giant bear, don't do that, is an advantage that we have over other species who just can't communicate as effectively. They have communication, right? But we can, the dexterity and the level of nuance within our conversation is just so beyond, you know, our main predators, you know, wolves or whatever, like they can't coordinate the same way we can coordinate. And you combine that with tools and fire and eventually guns. We dominate, we wreck ****. So I do love how the film emphasizes just how you take it for granted, especially, you know, being an English speaking person, because even when we travel places, outside of the country. Most of those countries have English in their curriculum and it's, it makes it things easier.

Jordan: But forget that that's not normal.

Darius: But if you've ever been to a place where everyone spoke a language and you didn't, you realize quickly just how alienating and how frustrating that can be. So yeah, I do love how they, you know, use basic things like human food, dog love and just trying to decode it that way. I thought that was brilliant how they handled me too. So

Jordan: Yeah, I really like the way that scene where she broke down the sentence of, what is your purpose here on Earth? And she kind of was like, well, they have to know what Earth is. They have to know what Y is, so on and so forth. And then also, we communicate in linear, in one sentence, the beginning, middle, end. Whereas again, like I said, it's a circle. They're communicating. She said it was like two ends who know where each other's, you have to know where the beginning and the middle end. beginning and the end are so they can meet in the middle. But to know that you have to know what the middle is, right? I thought that was a really cool way of breaking that down. It almost that scene kind of reminded me of like it's almost like that's why that movie Memento didn't work. Yeah, because it didn't properly illustrate that the beginning and the middle and the end were all the same.

Darius: Yeah, I yeah, Memento was yeah, Mento didn't give you enough and it was. Yeah. Like you said, it was nonlinear and you can do that, but you have to, it was disorienting and it can't be disorienting. You can be nonlinear, but you can't be like confusing. And like, you know, Pulp Fiction, one of the greatest movies of all time is nonlinear, but you don't feel completely lost. You like when you're in a scene. That scene makes sense. It's just out of order with what else is going on. But like I was watching Memento and I'm like, I just can't follow this. I don't know where this person, like it's just confused. I was not a fan of that movie. I think it got a two star for me.

Jordan: So yeah, it outsmarted itself. What was I going to say? I did love the the chess metaphor that she used when she was talking to, I think, for when there was a character where she was saying that the other country, I think it was maybe Venezuela or China, was they were playing games to communicate with the aliens. And she was like, that's not good because that's a that's a binary result, win or lose competition, life, death. And you don't want that because If they miss, if they accept a loss as defeat, they're going to want to, dominate you. And we're already at a loss because you got these 12 pods around the world. These 2 aliens are ******* 50 feet tall. What are you going to do when they send the rest of them?

Darius: When you don't have a shared mode of communication, you just no way to understand how they're going to take disappointment. Like, you know, you beat a toddler at chess and they think literally the world might end. You know, it's like, how do you know that they understand? that it's a ******* board game. It doesn't really matter that you lose. We can just put the pieces back on the board and do it again. Yeah. So yeah, I agree. You know, language is the tie that binds. And until you. They have to, now they've fixed it. Like my boy just was in South Korea and he's just like, I just use AI translators and I just talk in English and they just talk back in their language or in Korean and it just instantly translates. Like you don't even have to type it anymore.

Jordan: That's cool.

Darius: You know, I was like, that's pretty dope. Which, you know, it's, you know, as someone who aspires to do some international travel, that would make things a lot easier. So, yeah. Anything else for I too?

Jordan: No, that's all I got for act two.

Darius: All right, act two, the dry middle. We're gonna call that three. Now, the non-zero sum game, global tensions reach a breaking point as nations prepare to attack the ships. Louise must take a massive leap of faith using her new understanding of time to prevent a global war and fulfill a destiny she's only just beginning to understand. So hear me out. It almost felt a little like Game of Thrones where like the Heptapods were the White Walkers and all of the politics of Earth was just kind of like the biggest thing in the world to them. But like there's this existential threat that if you don't coordinate and deal with, doesn't matter who's on the throne. It doesn't matter if it's Daenerys or Cersei or whatever.

Jordan: Right.

Darius: You know, it's so like the third act when we're beefing with China, we're beefing with this. And I just kept thinking the White Walkers are here. Y'all need to figure this **** out because winter is coming. And you know, that was a great parallel. Yeah, like that was the core premise of George R. Martin's whole book was like the White Walkers represented like was meant, but he didn't finish it, but it was meant to make all the politics of Westeros feel so small. when they finally, and then the TV show botched it, but that was the point.

Jordan: Right.

Darius: So yeah, I was like, this is really, this feels like White Walkers. So, yeah, that's my, it's my corollary, whatever you want to call it. So, what did you got for act three?

Jordan: That's a great point. I like that. I agree. I think that's a great point. I also think that the, to me, well, there's several messages of the film. One of the films is that we're trying to communicate with these aliens, but the truth is, we can't communicate with the aliens because we can't communicate with each other. We are foreign life forms to each other. Different races, different countries, different genders, different sexualities, all that come into play. I mean, we're supposed to be correlating with each other. We don't know what the hell the aliens are saying. And then they're like, oh, let's just stop talking to each other. What the **** does that make?

Darius: And then you find out, like you said, Venezuela's communicating in a way that you disagree with because. Right. Whatever. And I'm sure they would disagree with the way she's doing it or, you know, yeah, it's hard. You know, this planet is big and people have entrenched beliefs and tribalism and, you know, these things are hard. It's hard to coordinate. It's hard to collaborate. And you have to do it at such a scale at global scale. the only thing humans have been good at is war, And so, we've been fighting over pieces of land for affinity. So the idea that you would think that an alien invasion would tighten us up and get us to a coordinate, but you saw in this movie, like when the damn things are on the ground, we're still bickering. So.

Jordan: Correct. Yep. It's almost like, you know, if there's a Deadly virus is going on. It's killing lots of people that we don't know what it is. And four other governments couldn't coordinate and, you know, get themselves together. Sounds like 2020 to me.

Darius: Yeah. I mean, the thing is, that if another one hits, God only knows how less cooperative people will be then. And, you know, and I get it in the sense that like I was sick of being in the house too. I'm not going to act like I strictly adhere to all COVID policies during that summer. But, you know, these things are hard and everyone has their own interests and everyone wants to do what's best for them and you want to do what's best for you without being taken advantage of and if you are the you feel like if you're sacrificing and the other side isn't or your country is doing this and that country is doing it the wrong way it's just then you're like what's the point what's the point we might as well just do it for ourselves and you know it just becomes you know it's just easier to look out for your own so I correct.

Jordan: Yeah What else? just the scene where they kind of cracked the code of basically the purpose of the, not purpose, but just the communication style of the aliens where he had that like that simulator show like the distance between the languages or sentences, if you will. Where it's like, you know, it's one, it was some crazy number of things like the fraction is 1 out of 12, you know, meaning that they all need to communicate, they're all communicating with each other. So we need to communicate with each other so we can figure out what these each individual pod is doing and what they what they want from us. I thought that was really cool. And it showed like, you know, it's always easier to it's just easier to go, you know what they say, further together, faster by yourself, further together. And you know, it's easy for them aliens to coordinate because they were on one chord. If they were going to destroy us, they would have won because they were working together. We weren't and we were already at war with ourselves, with each other rather. And you know, the fact that they were gonna kill her for trying to crack the code. Yeah, that's the problem.

Darius: Yeah, I mean, well, for all we know that the aliens were a monoculture, though, like it's easier to coordinate when it's just you and your people versus, you know, 10 countries with, you know, different cultures and different motivations and different languages and different da da da da. So I mean, it really was a testament to like one side was On one accord and one side was abandoned on every and all every member was on a different key. So yeah. we should tell the people the big reveal or you about say yes. So then we can actually talk to you. Big reveal is that the flashbacks were not flashbacks. They were flash forwards and she ended up marrying and having a child in Jeremy Renner's character and the child ended up dying of I don't know what specific cancer but young childhood cancer. And Jeremy Renner ends up leaving her because she knew it was going to happen and she went forward with it, and so it's like a and told him, told him that she knew it was going to happen. And it's just one of those things like having the love was worth it, even if it was only for a short period of time. And so she knew telling it, I mean, she knew everything. She knew the kid was going to die. She knew he was going to leave her because he knew or he was going to leave her because she knew and she knew. She wrote a book about it. Probably made some M's. So I'm sure the book sold a lot of copies, right?

Jordan: Yeah. I talked to aliens and.

Darius: Yeah, you know, I'd buy the book. **** it.

Jordan: Hell, yeah.

Darius: Great book. Not even science fiction. Just science. Real science fact. Yeah, big facts. Star Wars, but real.

Jordan: Hashtag really do. Yeah. Yeah, I love the. That's my favorite part of thing about the movie is the message at the end where basically it's not just choose love, but choose love over fear, you know, because she could have she could have just not gotten together with him and lived the rest of her life without her soulmate. But she chose to go into it knowing she was had to gain everything to basically lose everything. because, you know, that's ultimately what life is at the end of the day. And I thought that was really beautiful message. I guess you could you could perceive it as being selfish because they both lost. But I think at the end of the day, as sad as he was about losing the child, I think he'd rather have grieved her than never had her.

Darius: Yeah, I mean, selfish is strong, but I see I see how that goes. But like, you know, what was she supposed to do? Not marry the love of her life and not have a child and, not experience that joy. And, however short-lived it was, I'm sure, it was worth it. I mean, clearly it was worth a pretty shot to go through with it.

Jordan: Right. Darius [0