this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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I was expecting a generic alien invasion movie, and I was pleasantly surprised

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 26 minutes ago

I had no idea what I was watching when I sat down in the theater. My friend had bought the ticket and I just showed up. I didn't know ANYTHING.

One of the best experiences of my life and it turned me into a Denis Villeneuve super fan.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Same. I'm skeptical of most newer movies given all the rehashes and sequels. The presentation of the aliens had me shaking a little bit!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Could you be also recommend a few generic alien invasion movies?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

you can watch skyline if you want to watch nothing new or interesting.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 hours ago

Loved the movie! Such a great concept and so elegantly made. But the tagged on love story kind of took me out of it. Could almost hear the producers pushing that love story for wider audience appeal.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 hours ago

The best sound design team. I also love the ability of the visual design team to give a true feeling of scale and weight to things.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

The thing I remember about this movie was that India got mad one of the fictional aliens from this movie decided to land in Pakistan instead of India.

The other thing I remember was that they for some reason decided to show the location on the map as "Punjab, Pakistan" which is even more generic because it's a province not a city.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

The other thing I remember was that they for some reason decided to show the location on the map as "Punjab, Pakistan" which is even more generic because it's a province not a city.

I could see India being upset over that because it's disputed territory.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago

This was a good one. Definitely recommend

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I need to give this a rewatch

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Read the short story before re-watching. Definitely gives you a better perspective.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The aliens reminded me of the Tralfamadorians from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

That was a mouthful. Is it worth a watch?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

It's a book. Then again I don't watch much tv, so who knows, it may have been adapted by now. The book is worth reading though, it's very good.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago

There's a film of it, but I've only ever read the book. It is a really good book by a WWII veteran who really gets a lot of points about the war and what happened across.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Ah okay! I'll add it to my ever growing list haha.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

I too have an ever growing list. if you've never read Vonnegut before, he is really worth moving up the list.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 15 hours ago

I watched it for the first time last year without knowing anything about it and, as someone who loves to nerd out about anything linguistics related (am translator, for context), I cannot describe how gleeful I was that such subjects had center focus in a big blockbuster like that. Obviously the other aspects of the movie were amazing as well and the story got me very emotional by the end, but I will never shut up about how interesting and important that translation/communication aspect of the movie was.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

Don't remember much of this movie , but what I did see wasz very beautiful

[–] [email protected] 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah its one of my favorite movies

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Definitely a top 20 in my book, one of my wife's top 5. I also love the book, it's very short story, you can probably read it in the time it'd take to watch the movie (I'm a slow reader and did it in a few hours), it doesn't add too much, but it's a bit of interesting mathematical philosophy which I found quite endearing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago

Watched it last week for the first time. Really enjoyed it

[–] [email protected] 54 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

This movie absolutely destroyed me emotionally for like a week. I was wholly unprepared for what this movie was really about. I was expecting an alien invasion movie and got a brickload of emotions dumped on my heart.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 15 hours ago

Same. Saw it a few months before my first child was born and it opened up something in me that I didn’t know was there. I’ve never watched a movie that made me weep until this one. Full on sobbing. Watched it again a week later, wasn’t a fluke - sobbed again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Sapir-Whorf always fascinated me when I first read about it in philosophy class

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I read this stuff casually and I was generally familiar with the theories in both Arrival and Interstellar, but I couldn't make heads or tails of either when I watched the movies. I completely missed what they were pointing at in Interstellar and thought they butchered the idea that Amy Adams was caught in her own frame of how she understood her experience of time.

I am sure that's my problem, but I truly wonder how anyone was supposed to appreciate the movies without internalizing the critical theories

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Interstellar was terrible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Very happy to see my notion shared on this platform.

"But the science"

Miss me with that bullshit, you don't get to tote how "scientifically accurate" something is in the first half (it wasn't) and then get time travel/self recurrence in the second half.

It was just a bad movie with high production value, if I want that I'll watch moonfall.

[–] [email protected] 169 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (17 children)

It's based on a short story called "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. He's published only eighteen stories in his career (starting in 1990), nothing longer than a novella and mostly short stories. Despite that they've won him four Hugos, four Nebulas, and six Locus Awards. He's worth reading, is what I'm trying to say.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 17 hours ago

The short story was OK but this is one of the few cases where the movie did it better, added flavor to it that wasn’t in the book but carries the emotional hit farther.

The short stories in that book felt very β€œwoah dude” to me, in the end I finished it but didn’t like it all that much. I’ve been downvoted for this opinion before, but oh well.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 22 hours ago

Still one of my favourite movies ever

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

For anyone wondering, the music that just destroys you in the movie is by the amazing Max Richter. The song is On The Nature of Daylight.

PS: He recently released a piano arrangement of the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jPkbJWAQss

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

I'd like to watch this and Annihilation again. I've only seen each of them once, both around the same time, and my memories of them are pretty fuzzy at this stage.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago

Two of my absolute favorite movies. They are both amazing examinations of contact with life that functions completely differently than us, albeit in very different ways

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

FYI Annihilation novel has the same premise and setup as the movie, but is quite different plot-wise. It's more emotional, introspective, and has very vivid imagery. Much different from what I usually read, but I loved it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

that fucking bear πŸ’€

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago

Was fuzzy, indeed.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 day ago (3 children)

One of favorite movies of all time. I watch it at least once a year.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

The world is shocked to discover that Terry’s Chocolate Oranges are actually seed pods for intelligent extra terrestrial life.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

It's not Terry's, it's Extraterrestrials.

[–] lobut 15 points 21 hours ago

Amy Adams wrecked me with two movies back-to-back. Nocturnal Animals and Arrivals really did a number on me.

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