Latest / All The Right Movies / Arrival (2016) | Ep. 51 - Part 1

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Arrival (2016) | Ep. 51 - Part 1 · All The Right Movies

0:04
All the movies. There are days that define your
0:07
story beyond your life. I'm Colonel GT Webber, Army
0:10
Intelligence. Pack your bags.
0:12
Like the day they arrived. War objects have landed around
0:16
the world. We need answers as soon as
0:18
possible. Or we could be facing global
0:20
war. Oh my God.
0:31
I know why they're here. Arrival arrived in cinemas in
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2016 and became one of the most acclaimed science fiction films
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of the century. The tale of a linguist tasked
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with facilitating first contact with an alien species, it set
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director Denis Villeneuve down the path to Hollywood stardom.
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My name is John. And with me our very own Abbott
0:52
and Costello. That's Westie.
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If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you
0:58
change things? And Matt?
1:00
Coffee with some aliens. It's the story of your life and
1:04
you're at the beginning and the end with ATRM, Amy Adams, and
1:07
the aliens. Now that's a proper
1:10
introduction. Hello and welcome to All the
1:33
Right Movies in Non 0 Sum Game, The Cornerstone of Civilization
1:38
and a podcast on classic and hit films.
1:40
That's us curious. This episode, it's a bit of a
1:43
highbrow number, isn't it? Thank God.
1:47
Right up Westie St. It's Amy Adams and all the right
1:51
movies together at last as we talk the 21st century science
1:55
fiction classic that is Denny Veal Nerves Arrival.
1:58
Lovely. Before we get the universal
2:01
translators out though, should we mention ATRM patron?
2:04
We really should. Yep.
2:05
Well, if you're a regular listener to our ATRM Classic
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podcast, you can now support what we do by becoming an ATRM
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Patron. Patron to get access to our
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bonus podcast episodes, double feature and the watch list,
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access to our whole podcast archive full of bonus episodes
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and archived ATRM Classic episodes.
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And get the chance to vote to decide a future episodes and the
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chance to ask questions that will answer on the show as well
2:29
as an invite to the ATRM community.
2:32
There's always some shots going on in there, some nice folk in
2:34
there as well, right? Yes, lovely there is.
2:36
And I mean, there's a load of podcast content in there now.
2:39
Too much, really. Yeah, we're still generous.
2:41
Yeah, it's going to take you a while to get through it, so you
2:42
might as well start now. Yeah, exactly.
2:45
So to find out more, visit patreon.com/all the Right Movies
2:49
or subscribe directly on Apple Podcasts or Spotify now.
2:53
Yeah, so much stuff in there. It's not a weapon, it's a gift.
2:56
It is, it really is something for everybody, absolutely.
2:59
Back to today, though, and it's a rival.
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So why are we talking about this one, Matt?
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I love it when we look at more contemporary films, I think, and
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this one is contemporary film that comes with a big, big
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reputation. It means a lot to people.
3:15
People take a lot from it. It's one of those rare films
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that does get people talking for a long time after it.
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Yeah. I think it's a combination of
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something that's huge in scale, but then it's almost intimate in
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what it does want to talk about. It takes big swings in terms of
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the subject matter. Vaginal nerve, massive name.
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Now, we've never talked about Amy Adams either.
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Just one of the best actresses of a so lotteries and talk about
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this one. Absolutely.
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I mean, my first introduction to Arrival was Story of Your Life
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by Ted Chang. The short story.
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Yeah. And as a piece of writing, it is
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really good. Very much about language to lend
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itself more to the written word than the cinema, probably.
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So when I heard it was being adapted for a film, I was pretty
3:55
surprised. And then when I heard it was
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being directed by the guy who made Sicario and Prisoners, I
4:00
couldn't believe it. But like, cerebral science
4:02
fiction about first contact by a director with reputation for,
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like, grounded, realistic storytelling.
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It was like Christmas to me. And we'll talk about all that,
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that transition from page to screen, how it works or how it
4:15
doesn't. In some ways, maybe, Yeah.
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It is our first time with Amy Adams, one of the most highly
4:19
thought of actresses out there. So we're looking forward to
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talking about her. Yes.
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And in terms of creativity, there's so much to get into.
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Music, cinematography, concept design, visual effects,
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production design, loads of creative talent on the film,
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some great behind the scenes stories.
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So let's get into it. Absolutely.
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And Westie, it took me years to figure out what you were talking
4:39
about, and then when I did, it changed my life.
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So you're the guy I talk arrival with, aren't you?
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No, never a true word spoken. I mean I find it really hard to
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rate this and what I'm going Oh no sorry, that's the end.
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I'm getting confused. Easily done.
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I mean, it's wonderful. It's a film about aliens, which
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ultimately is about humanity and about humans and about where we
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act and what's important. And it, it does take an outside
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force to make us realize how important things really are.
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And it's beautifully melancholic.
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It's got a really strong message.
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It's got a wonderful circular feel to the whole narrative and
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the whole film visually as well as emotionally.
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It kind of comes all around full circle.
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It's very subtle filming, and it's very much, you know, pay
5:19
attention or you're just going to lose track.
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And there's a lot to celebrate. It's beautiful visual
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storytelling. It's really, really confident.
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It's really, really strong. And like Matt said, it does stay
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with you for a very long time once you've seen it.
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So yeah, I'm very excited to talk about this one.
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So Arrival was produced by a Film Nation Entertainment.
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Lava Bear Film was on 21 Lapse Entertainment, distributed by
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Paramount Pictures and released on November the 11th, 2016.
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Filmed on location mainly in and around Montreal, QC and Canada.
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The film was directed by Denis Veal Nerve, written by Eric
5:49
Heiser, based on Ted Shang's novella Story of Your Life, and
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stars Amy Adams as Louise Banks, Jeremy Renard as Ian Donnelly
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and Forest Whitaker as Colonel GT Webber.
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Our first time was all three and Veal Nerve I believe.
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Yes, yes indeed. Let's get ourselves to Montana
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then, should we? Yes, let's do it.
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Right then, we're meeting Doctor Louise Banks as we talked the
6:10
beginning and the end and everything in between of
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arrival. Take off in 5.
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Arrival doesn't hang about in getting things moving, and we're
6:50
with Louise as she first sets eyes on the mysterious
6:52
spacecraft and their inhabitants.
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In the first act, we'll talk about all of that, but before we
6:57
do, we're looking at how the Doc gets involved.
7:01
We are. So, Byron, opening montage or a
7:04
closing montage maybe? We meet Louise and her tragic
7:07
daughter Hannah before it all kicks off, 12 alien ships turn
7:11
around the globe and linguist Louise is recruited by the US
7:14
military to broker first contact with the seven limbed
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extraterrestrials known as heptopods.
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Yes, some fairly significant events to start us off then.
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Matt, how was the opening for you?
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The open montage is very, very Terrence Malik.
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Isn't it very reminiscent a tree of life holding the baby's hand?
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That took us the position of childhood games with near to
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that huge lake in the background.
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And then Louise's opening dialogue.
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It's already established in what a lot of the themes are going to
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be here. Memory time, what she thinks is
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the beginning of Honda's story, sometimes going to be turned on
7:46
its head by the end. But the interesting thing for me
7:48
is the fact that all of this imagery on the face of it is
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happy newborn baby playing games in the garden, but the music is
7:54
so melancholy over the top of it, so you know something's not
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right. You get those little glimpses of
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Louise where she looks very lost in thought.
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She looks very melancholic. And that's before you even save
8:05
at the hospital when she says goodbye to Hannah.
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And it kind of fits together. And I think this part of Adam's
8:10
performance plays really differently on repeat viewings.
8:13
It's a really effective contrast.
8:14
It's a lot like the beginning of Up, except 1000 times more
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upsetting. Yeah, agreed.
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Yeah, I love the opening shot of Louise's huge screen window.
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Yeah, I love the font they use for the title as well.
8:26
It's like some modified version of Gotham or something.
8:28
It looks really good. Yeah, it's great.
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But I think one of the themes of the film is context and how it
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can change our perception of something, and the opening
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montage hits very differently on rewatches than it does on the
8:39
1st watch as we understand the cutaway sequences on flashbacks
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to flash forwards. And Louise playing with Hannah
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is a lot more poignant, I think, second time round as well.
8:47
And I love the transition from the flash forward into the
8:50
present day. Louise's voice over says, like,
8:53
they are days to define your story beyond your life, like the
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day they arrived and boom, put it into the narrative.
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Brilliant. Yeah.
9:00
And once we're into the story, I'm hooked instantly.
9:03
Big fan of the scenes of Louisa University, filmed at the
9:05
University Of Montreal. I like how hardly anyone turns
9:08
up for a lecture and then that students just like, can you put
9:10
the news on so we know something is up?
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Yeah. And then Louise stands right in
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front of the TV so nobody else can see.
9:17
I'll be furious there's aliens on there.
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Especially the one who asked as well.
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Great opening though, sets the like earnest tone the film has.
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Sets the visual tone of beautifully composed shots.
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It's a fantastic first few minutes.
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Yeah. And then after that, she gets a
9:31
visit from Webber, who comes into her office and it's, it's
9:35
very formal. And that guy standing shuts the
9:37
doors if he's not listening to anything.
9:39
I love that guy in the background.
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He's like, nobody's coming in, nobody's going out.
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This is, like, pretty scary. And then whether just just
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pushes this small recorder over and says, I've got something for
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you to translate. Yeah.
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And she's like, well, OK, And then plays it.
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And you just think, what on earth am I supposed to do with
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this? He's like, can you hear any
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words? Definitely not you miss.
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Translate this Are you having a laugh?
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Who do you think I am? Unbelievable.
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But you can see from Adam's performance that she's just
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incredibly intrigued at this moment.
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Like she wants to be involved. She's like, is that?
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That's great. Yeah.
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And he's like, yes, it is. And she wants to be involved.
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She's like, well, I need to be there.
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And it's just a really, really great setup for the character.
10:20
And then she just plays the audience so well because you
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just wanted to have this knowledge.
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You wanted to have this power, and you wanted to have this real
10:27
gravitas over who's talking to her.
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And she turns around and she says, you know, you're going to
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see the other guy. We'll ask him what the Sanskrit
10:33
word for war is. Yeah, it's really good.
10:35
And then we find out later and he says he translated as an
10:37
argument when really it is a desire for more cows.
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So it comes back and shows that she really knows what she's
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talking about. And this sets up her character
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really well for the intelligence and the integrity and the the
10:48
real fire that she's got to find out what's going on.
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Oh yeah, if I have any linguist, I'm going to Louise Banks.
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Absolutely. And many other things, yeah,
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for. Numerous reasons, and really.
10:59
Pint the milk. But I love all the, like,
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deliberate, slow tracking shots. There's a great one when Louise
11:05
walks to a classroom, and they ended up walking across the
11:07
parking lot when the cars are, like, crashing into each other.
11:09
Yeah. And then the opening shot to
11:11
this scene that kind of creeps around the corner into our
11:13
office. Yeah, really good.
11:14
It creates this, like, feeling of calm and serenity that's kind
11:18
of personified by Louise. And then the heptopods when they
11:20
turn up as well. Yeah, it's all circular.
11:22
I mean, from where she's walking through the hospital and she's
11:24
walking around the corner, she's coming around corners and even
11:27
the lecture hall that she's in kind of mirrors the heptopod
11:29
shit. It's got a circular back and
11:31
then a flat front, so everything kind of works towards where
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we're going. Absolutely.
11:35
But the meeting with Webber, that's simplified from what's in
11:38
the original short story. In the book, Ian's part of this
11:40
meeting as well. And here Louise says she needs
11:43
to see the heptapots in person. But in the book she explains
11:47
it's because she doesn't know if make and sounds human is can't
11:50
hear. And she says the need to do a
11:51
spectrograph. Right.
11:53
Yeah, a constant difference between the book and the film is
11:56
that the book is more scientific.
11:58
I mean, the film's pretty scientific as well, but we'll
12:00
have changed the balance to learn more towards artistic in
12:03
the film and in the film, obviously, Louise meets Ian for
12:06
the first time on the helicopter on the way to Montana, where he
12:09
rubbishes that book instantly. Actually, science is a confront
12:12
of civilization. That's the first thing he says
12:15
to us. Unbelievable.
12:16
It's a great move. Now, though.
12:17
I mean, if we're going to go into that scene, it's just
12:19
wonderful because she believes in language and he believes in
12:21
science. She's trying to communicate and
12:23
he can't hear until she uses science to communicate with them
12:26
by putting the headphones on and using the technology.
12:28
So it's like the language and the science coming together so
12:30
they can communicate. Nice, yeah.
12:31
Wonderful stuff. It's all there.
12:33
Colonel Weber is played by Forest Whitaker, of course, one
12:35
of the most acclaimed as of his generation, but very much a
12:38
supporting role here. Yeah.
12:39
What do we think of him in the film?
12:41
I just don't know if there's a more intense actor than Forest
12:44
Whitaker. Like, every.
12:45
All I see him in, he just seems like he's going to explode with
12:47
tension or anger. What I like about Weber, though,
12:50
is he's not stupid or stubborn. He's got his job to do, and
12:53
he'll do it no matter what. But he will also listen to
12:55
Louise, and he trusts and he buys us sometime later on.
12:58
So he does. Yeah.
12:59
I really like Whitaker in this. He looks for reason, doesn't he?
13:01
And everything he. Does.
13:02
Yeah, he does. Yeah.
13:03
And Amy Adams called Forest Whitaker a beautiful soul.
13:07
And she said that after she filmed the first scene with him,
13:08
she broke down in TS. Wow.
13:10
Wow. And apparently, Bradford Young,
13:12
the DP, he did the same thing. Yeah.
13:13
What scene was that? Everyone blubbing on set?
13:16
Yeah. Don't remember that scene.
13:17
Then you said he wanted somebody who could bring a lot of
13:19
gravitas to Weber without having much to work with.
13:22
And Forest Whitaker was the only person he ever wanted to play
13:25
him. He said he's a master, one of
13:26
the best actors living today. And I kind of disagree.
13:29
Yeah. Yeah, I think he absolutely.
13:31
Is. Yeah, definitely.
13:32
That is the opening. Beautiful shots, beautiful
13:35
music, beautiful souls. Arrival has arrived.
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Time for the aliens too as well I think.
13:40
Let's do it. Louise Indian get to Montana,
13:45
one side of 12 around the world where the alien ships have
13:48
appeared and it's straight to business.
13:50
After getting a good look at the craft we head inside with the
13:53
doctors. The first session is strange in
13:55
many ways and the second is where they get to grips with the
13:57
aliens. Ian later names them Abbott and
13:59
Costello and Louise makes a contact breakthrough.
14:02
So how do you find things in the House of the Heptapods, Wesley?
14:07
I think the initial introduction to them is absolutely
14:10
terrifying. Just the pace in which they're
14:12
taking through the medical, the pace in which they're taking to
14:14
the ship and they've got to get straight on.
14:16
Then there's no real time for us to adapt and there's no real
14:18
time for them to adapt. And I think it's wonderful from
14:21
Bradford Young here and from feeling you've had the Do not
14:23
rack focus to the background. Everything is focused on Louise
14:26
and Ian, everything is focused on the foreground and this whole
14:29
film is shot wide open, so we've got very blurred backgrounds.
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But this whole moment when the gravity shifts and up becomes
14:36
forward, down becomes backwards and it's just brilliant because
14:40
then it becomes circular. Fantastic.
14:43
Louise needs that push from Webber, which gets her own on
14:46
board and then she gets used to what's going on and Ian has to
14:49
fend for himself, which again reflects the character.
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And I think what's lovely in this, I don't know if this is
14:53
intentional, but I've got loads of these little tiny Wesley Clip
14:56
theories going through, but Ian is literally carrying a torch
14:59
for Louise. In more ways than one.
15:03
He's literally carrying her torch because she can't do it by
15:05
herself, and I think that's really wonderful.
15:07
There's a real naturalistic look to the whole thing.
15:10
There's a strong alien vibe here.
15:12
I think the way the faces are lit in the suits and they're
15:14
just climbing through and it's got that darkness and that the
15:16
boarding to the score, which we'll get into.
15:18
Very naturalistic. Look at the heptopods as well.
15:20
When they kind of appear, they resemble this like a nature,
15:24
like trees, and they've got, they're just kind of in their
15:27
own atmosphere. Everything's got this real
15:28
cinematic vibe to it and it feels really big.
15:31
But at the same time, like Matt said, feels really intricate and
15:33
really simple. And you just really want to
15:35
continue with this story. And you are.
15:36
If you're not bought in by this point, just turn it off.
15:38
Yeah, this is it. Now we are.
15:40
We are in. Yeah, well, I said before, the
15:42
film's got me hooked from the opening with the beauty of it
15:44
and the premise, obviously, But once we get in there with the
15:47
aliens, it has to deliver, and it absolutely does.
15:50
It does, yeah. The first time we see the ship,
15:52
that wide shot from the helicopter, that is one of the
15:55
most stunning shots you could ever see anywhere.
15:58
That's how you use CG as well. If you're going to use CGI,
16:00
that's how you use it. It looks fantastic.
16:03
Is that real? Yeah, yeah.
16:05
The image of the ship among the misty clouds.
16:06
It's like something from the 10 Commandments.
16:08
Win what? Charles, listen to Turn Up
16:10
Curious. Imagine how he's called dead
16:13
hands there. Right on a white board instead
16:16
of a stone tablet. And the sound mix of the soft,
16:21
like eerie music in the really busy helicopter sound, Yeah,
16:24
it's all like, mesmerizing. I feel like Mowgli when car gets
16:27
all of them, like eyes spinning around in my head and I'm going
16:31
to stick my neck out and say I think the Nevia nerve might like
16:34
Stanley Kubrick a bit. Do you reckon?
16:36
Or just a bit. There's a shot from the base of
16:37
the ship looking right up the craft, identical to the famous
16:40
Monolith shot in 2001. Ian would just handle on the
16:43
whole. Yeah, similar to Hayward doing
16:45
the same thing with the Monolith.
16:46
And once the end of the ship, there's those one point
16:48
perspective shots looking up the corridor.
16:50
Yeah. Kubrick, obviously, Yeah.
16:52
But I mean, hey, you're going to borrow shots.
16:54
You might as well borrow them from 2001.
16:55
Yeah, Brown from the best. Exactly.
16:57
I mean, I was going to mention this later, but when Louise is
16:59
in there by herself model, it's on its side.
17:01
So again, it shows this duality of this circular motion.
17:04
So it's it's really brilliant. I love all the gravity weirdness
17:08
that's not in the book, but it's a great idea, different medium,
17:11
and it's a really cinematic way to enter the kind of heptopods
17:14
world. Yeah.
17:15
Not sure what either you would make of that, but I mean, I
17:17
think it's great. Yeah, he'd love it.
17:21
And first meeting the heptapods. How good's that shot when the
17:23
end of the chamber and from our point of view, they're like
17:25
walking on the ceiling. Oh, I love it.
17:28
Yeah. It's great.
17:29
At that moment, I always feel that kind of mix of excitement
17:31
and fear I think you would feel if you were in that situation.
17:34
Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
17:35
Great film making top to bottom for.
17:37
Me it is. Yeah.
17:37
Visually amazing. The production designer was
17:40
Patrice Fermat, and he'd already worked with Veal Nerve on
17:43
Prisoners Enemy and Sagario, and Veal Nerve told him he wanted
17:47
the inside of the Heptapod ship to be created practically.
17:50
So there was a real 150 foot long corridor created.
17:54
That's the one that takes us into the chamber.
17:56
And the chamber was created as a real room coming off the
17:58
corridor with a huge screen. And the whole thing was built 50
18:01
foot off the ground. So cast and crew had to use the
18:04
scissor lift to get into the set, just like we see the
18:06
characters doing in the film. Blame me.
18:09
Wow, yeah. I don't think the gravity change
18:11
direction wants the way inside, no.
18:12
But shame, who knows? Yeah.
18:14
I mean, I wasn't there. I love that, though.
18:17
Building the set for real must help the actors get into the
18:20
zone, surely? Yeah.
18:21
Yeah, yeah. And in the book, the heptapods
18:23
don't physically come to Earth. There are ships that arrive all
18:26
over the planet, which are described as looking glasses.
18:29
And on these screens, the humans can see the heptapods about
18:31
their own ships, therefore not in the same location.
18:35
Right. Yeah, it's like a Microsoft
18:37
team. It's called basically, and in
18:40
the book they have to display their language on their own
18:42
little screens rather than shooting out the ink circles.
18:45
But all that stuff changed much more cinematically and for the
18:48
best, surely. Oh, yeah, definitely, yeah.
18:50
When they designed the inside of the ship, Patrice Vermeet said
18:53
they took inspiration from an American artist called James
18:55
Turrell. Nice.
18:57
He's part of the light and space movement and is known for making
18:59
spaces where he uses light installations to change our
19:02
perceptions of depth and scale. But Met said he and Phil knew.
19:05
Came across Turrell when they were making Sicario and said to
19:08
each other there. Then when we do a sci-fi movie,
19:10
we'll be looking at this guy's work again.
19:13
And the dead and the dead. Yeah, James Turrell still is
19:16
very minimalist and often uses big light filled screen.
19:19
So when you see it, the influence on arrival is totally
19:21
obvious, right? And the idea of a screen, it
19:24
does seem to follow the ways through the film, doesn't it?
19:26
Yeah, that opening shot that you said, John, I mean, that recurs
19:28
as well, that it does reflect when she's standing in front of
19:31
the screen with the heptopods there and the trees kind of
19:33
mirror that and the heptopods mirror nature and who she is.
19:36
And it's just that recurrence scene that keeps coming back and
19:38
back, which I think is fantastic.
19:39
Big window at home, Massive whiteboard in that class about
19:42
TV's massive as well. Yeah, huge.
19:45
And the ships all float 28 feet above the ground, so never
19:48
actually land on Earth. This isn't the case in the book
19:51
and Vermette said that was a very deliberate choice.
19:53
That ID is the heptapods have travelled thousands of light
19:56
years to get here, but they want humans to make the final move in
19:59
terms of contact. Yeah, nice touch.
20:01
I saw an interview with Eric Heiser, the screenwriter, and he
20:04
said that in the script there was a line at one point where
20:06
Ian says they came all this way, why can't they go into the 20
20:09
feet? Yeah, but he said it was taken
20:11
out because it sounded like Ian was having a go at the
20:13
Heptapods. Lazy.
20:15
Lazy. Yeah, the idea of the aliens
20:18
having 7 limbs and being called hepnopods is taken from the
20:21
book, but there are some differences.
20:23
The book describes the hepnopods as having a body like a barrel
20:26
and says they have 7 lidless eyes.
20:29
They were designed for the film by an artist called Carlos
20:31
Fiante, who then you've hired as he loved the work on Prometheus.
20:35
OK, Yeah, he did some of the design work on that.
20:37
Yeah. And the work on the Hepnopod
20:39
design for months apparently took inspiration from Wales and
20:41
octopuses. And Carlos Wendy did hundreds of
20:44
concepts before we live. Was happy with it.
20:46
I love them, I think they look brilliant.
20:48
They do look great. Yeah.
20:49
There's like knuckles almost to them.
20:51
It does reminds me of Knuckles. Yeah, like trees and like a
20:53
third eye in there somewhere. And it's got all this kind of
20:56
deep, I mean, but I think it's wonderful that you don't
20:58
necessarily see them in all of the glory fully lit.
21:00
I think it's wonderful. Do you also think they look a
21:03
bit like the aliens off The Simpsons Come and call us?
21:08
Imagine those guys coming out from the Mist.
21:10
You shine a light on them. Probably looks like.
21:12
They look like. But I mean, how many science
21:14
fiction films have you seen, even like big budget ones?
21:17
And when the aliens show up, it's like, yeah, nice, but kind
21:20
of seen that before. The Hector part are unique to me
21:22
and that's so important to give the film a really strong
21:24
identity. Yeah.
21:26
Yeah, I want to talk about the next time Louise and Ian go up
21:29
after that initial introduction, because I love any movie scene
21:32
that goes on to become a famous meme, and this one definitely
21:35
has with. Louise in the white board.
21:37
It really has. The amount of times you see this
21:38
on social media now was something written across the top
21:40
of it. But it does make me laugh a
21:42
little bit because we've established Louise as the top
21:44
linguist in the world, and her plan now is to take a
21:47
whiteboard, write human on it in massive letters and then just
21:50
pointed herself for a bit. Like, to be fair, I could have
21:53
come up with that idea. Yeah.
21:55
It's like when you go abroad, you try and order something off
21:57
the menu and you just say it really loudly and slowly.
22:00
That's the way to understand that.
22:02
Just pointed the picture, yeah. Just find the picture.
22:04
Omelet. Omelet.
22:06
Yeah. But I think there is an
22:07
underlying serious point to this, which is that it must be
22:10
so incredibly frustrating because how do you even start
22:12
this task? How do you even begin the
22:14
communication, you know, to be serious about it?
22:17
Yeah. Yes.
22:18
Louise is this incredible English.
22:19
So if she's finding it this difficult to start the
22:22
conversation, that just reiterates what a massive task
22:25
she has in her hands here and humanity in general.
22:28
Yeah, I mean, you're right, Mark.
22:29
The equipment that humans have is a bit lo fi.
22:31
I'd be embarrassed boarding an alien spaceship with a Canary in
22:34
a cage came to the wrong plan. Yeah, but when Louise breaks the
22:38
barrier and does make contact, it is a great moment when we
22:41
first see the heptopods writing and that inky logogram circle,
22:44
it's just a great image and there's some great visual
22:46
storytelling. The point of view shot from
22:48
Louise as she looks up at the logogram so we'll see it from
22:50
below, makes me feel like I'm right there every time I see it.
22:53
And there's a side on kind of wide shot where Louise is like
22:56
dwarfed by the screen of the heptopods.
22:58
I feel kind of overawed by it. I actually think it's quite
23:00
moving when the first, like, make contact with each other.
23:03
And I like having to say the logogram for the first time.
23:06
Louise laughs. She changed to Ian.
23:08
He's smiling as well. Then cut the Weber furious
23:11
muscle. Scowl on his face and get on
23:12
with it. That's why he's there surely.
23:16
But I mean I do like Ian, but why is he in there?
23:19
Good point. After giving you the big licks
23:21
in the helicopter pulling Louise's book apart.
23:23
He doesn't do anything in these sessions.
23:25
It's always just walk calls them.
23:29
Walks, Ian. Walks.
23:30
Yeah, he does a bit of a walk. The pods have two different
23:33
languages, and that's from the book.
23:35
The spoken one is Heptapod A and the written one is Heptapod B.
23:39
The book describes Heptapod B as being like a geometric pattern,
23:42
like a lattice. The idea of it being the
23:44
circular logogram we see in the film was created by Eric Heiser
23:47
when he wrote the screenplay. Yes, a Messiah graphic like they
23:50
say in the film have the pod B. So like it gives meaning but
23:53
doesn't represent sound with our language does.
23:56
And I saw on the video with Heist around when he said that
23:58
he was struggling to describe what the logogram should look
24:00
like in the script without becoming like a novel and really
24:02
long. And his wife said to him, why
24:04
don't you just draw it in the script?
24:06
So that's what he did, right. So the script has logograms
24:08
drawn into it. Oh, wow.
24:09
OK, great. Yeah, must be a right pain in
24:11
the ass to explore that as APDF. I thought he just kind of put
24:15
his coffee on the page and then lifted it up and just how that
24:18
will do. Well, it looks like that.
24:20
As well, Yeah. Well, talking of the final logo
24:22
gram design, of it being the inky circles, we see, they were
24:26
done by Martine Bertrand and she's an artist and the wife of
24:29
Patrice Fermat, the production designer.
24:30
We've just mentioned Family Affair, Family Fendi.
24:33
And she said that they took inspiration from squids firing
24:36
and, as Wesley's just suggested, the kind of rings that coffee
24:39
cups leave on the table. Nice.
24:41
Yeah, and the child wrong as it was seen in the film The Hannah
24:43
Does of Louise Ian in The Heptopods.
24:45
They were done by Martine Bertrand's son.
24:48
Oh wow. All right.
24:49
Huge family affair. Not very flowering to Ian other
24:52
huge orange face looks like David Dickens he.
24:57
Might be a frank crosses like How many fingers does Mrs. Santa
25:00
Claus have here? It's crap.
25:01
I don't want it on the wall. Stephen Wolfram and Christopher
25:07
Wolfram were a father and son team who were experts in
25:09
theoretical physics, and they were scientific consultants on
25:12
arrival. I tell you what, a nice weekend
25:14
over there's will be a fucking laughing.
25:16
Christmas the Wolf Rooms. I know, right?
25:19
They'll be absolutely brilliant. Really funny.
25:21
They created a logogram Bible for the film that had over 100
25:24
words in Heptopod B and 70 of them are used in the movie.
25:27
Yeah, they didn't go quite as far as creating a whole
25:29
language, but I love it when directors involve experts like
25:32
the Wolf Rooms to advise on the aspects.
25:33
They're experts then, so it's all like really authentic.
25:36
Yeah, makes a massive difference.
25:37
Oh, it definitely does. It's around this time in the
25:40
film as well, where Louise writes the big question on the
25:42
whiteboard that Weber wants her to ask.
25:44
What is your purpose on Earth? Amy Adams said that she had
25:48
problems writing that on the board.
25:49
This is really good. She had problems writing that on
25:50
the board and looking away and talking at the same time.
25:52
Midway through the first take, feeling you've shouted, cut it,
25:56
Adams realized you'd written. What is your purpose on Earth?
26:01
Should left that in the great linguist.
26:05
Imagine if they just understood that straight away and it was
26:07
the Tillam's over I. Like that scene, though, Eric
26:12
Heiser, I said that originally written a lot of scenes where
26:14
Louise teaches to have to pod basic English.
26:16
But in the meeting, the studio told him that it was really
26:18
boring. And Heiser, I got up and started
26:20
demonstrating on a board in the room while language has to be
26:23
told step by step. And they said, well, yeah, but
26:25
what you're doing now is a far more interesting way of doing
26:28
that than what you've written. So that's where that scene came
26:30
from. We've got a lot of stuff there,
26:32
and that's just the opening of the film.
26:34
We've met all of our main characters, Human and Heptapod,
26:37
and discussed some of the creative talents on the film.
26:40
Should we get into the guy overseeing all of it?
26:43
Absolutely do it. The director.
26:50
The director of Arrival, as we mentioned, was Denis Villeneuve,
26:54
a Canadian filmmaker whose directorial debut came with 1998
26:58
drama August the 32nd on Earth, a rival with his eighth future
27:02
film overall, his fourth in Hollywood after A Prisoners,
27:05
Enemy and Sicario, and his first foray, but definitely not last,
27:09
into science fiction. Yeah.
27:11
Deney. Deney, Matt.
27:13
How was his work on Arrival as director?
27:16
Very reminiscent to me of Ridley Scott.
27:18
I mean him in general, but particularly this one.
27:20
Apart from Blade Runner, I think this is the most Ridley Scott
27:23
esque film he's made because it's visually stunning.
27:26
There's an epic skill where that feels this very second age to
27:29
him. You get the sense that he isn't
27:31
put off at all by how big this film gets or how big any of his
27:34
films get really. And like Ridley Scott, what I
27:37
think Feeling Love does really well is he makes his films a
27:40
huge canvas for everyone to come and do their best works.
27:43
Or the soundtrack, the effects of the cinematography, the
27:46
acting feeling of has that ability to harness the best
27:49
people around him and make everything coherent to what he
27:52
wants. And he builds worlds really
27:55
effectively, and he builds a human world and an alien world
27:58
here. But as with Ridley Scott, I
28:00
think that there's a bit of a weakness there as well.
28:01
I don't think he's the most natural of storytellers.
28:05
I think there's a couple of moments here that are a bit
28:08
muddled in their execution through a bit contrived.
28:11
Like the group of soldiers who go warg just to advance the
28:14
narrow of the thing. That's a bit bumpy.
28:16
And I think he always seems to have this removed to his films,
28:19
which means it's hard to get a lot of emotion from him.
28:21
I think he's quite a cold film maker, so.
28:23
His work here encapsulates both his best qualities with his
28:27
flaws at the same time as well. Yeah, I saw him An Idea within a
28:30
Real Nerve, where we said that he's wanting to make a science
28:32
fiction film since he was 10 years old.
28:35
So bit of a surprise that he took eight films to get there.
28:37
But he's made-up for it now, hasn't he?
28:40
That's indeed, yeah. And I.
28:41
Think one of his biggest strengths as a science fiction
28:43
director is that background in drama.
28:45
This feels like a fresh take on the 1st contract sub genre and
28:49
as a piece of film making like art.
28:51
A rival stands alone in that sub genre for me.
28:54
I'm obviously a fan of your Nerve when you see behind the
28:56
scenes footage from his films and arrivals no different.
28:59
He seems to always have a very calm, serene set and that shows
29:03
on the screen. It's directed this with a very
29:05
light touch I think and I would say maybe because of that.
29:08
I agree Matt. I'll find him slightly cold as a
29:10
storyteller. He's not a filmmaker whose
29:13
movies have a lot of heart or feeling for me sometimes, but I
29:16
think he does have a lot of soul.
29:18
Like James Brown. His films always have meaning
29:21
and his mastery of the craft is just world class.
29:24
And that said, I would say A Rival is definitely his warmest
29:26
film. I think obviously the subject
29:28
matter of the mother daughter Bond helps.
29:30
Amy Adams helps, and we'll talk about her shortly.
29:32
But I think in any science fiction film, that balance of
29:34
the cold, hard science and the warmth of feeling is one that
29:37
film makers don't always get right.
29:39
But yeah, We Live nails it. And he's changed that balance
29:42
from how he is in the book, so that's impressive.
29:44
I think there's a piece of filmmaking, a rival is an art to
29:47
say his best, and there's a piece of storytelling.
29:49
It makes you think and it makes you feel, as the best science
29:52
fiction usually does. Whether if you know his best
29:55
film would be a pretty lively debate, I think.
29:57
But this is definitely my favorite film is.
30:00
Right. Yeah.
30:00
I mean, it's definitely up there for me.
30:02
You guys have said it all. I mean, he is more of a
30:03
handshake than he is a cuddle, isn't he?
30:05
Yeah. That's kind of how I feel when I
30:08
see his films. It's he's very much like of that
30:10
ilk. It feels like a slow game of
30:12
chess and you know every move and you're watching it and
30:14
you're never bored by the game. It's subtly beautiful and it's
30:18
simplify and the complex. And he does that really well.
30:20
He does that with the June novels.
30:22
He makes June accessible. He made Blade Runner, you know,
30:24
he made that sequel. I don't think anyone else could
30:26
have, and he's not afraid of that pace.
30:28
He's not afraid of that slow pace and taking his time and
30:32
just fixating on certain things. He does have, I would say 70%
30:37
more interest in the visuals than he does in anything else
30:40
because the visuals will tell the story.
30:41
I think his dialogue is always secondary, I think in all of his
30:44
films and everything does have a science fiction feel to it.
30:48
I know you said there, John, it took a made films to get there,
30:50
but Enemy for me feels very science fiction.
30:52
But for me it's just a joy to watch somebody who's just so in
30:55
charge of the craft. And you can tell again that you
30:58
guys have said that everybody on this film is in the same
31:02
bracket. Nobody is is lower down.
31:04
Cinematography is up there with score, with sound design, with
31:07
production design, with art. Everything is just given the
31:09
same amount of respect. I think that's what I get from a
31:12
billionaire film is he respects every single element that goes
31:15
into these films. And that's what makes his film
31:18
so satisfying, so compelling and so perfectly judged.
31:22
I think sometimes and really well polished.
31:24
It might be cold, but I think it needs somebody who's had, who
31:27
has that coldness to go, this is what I'm talking about, and take
31:31
the kind of the emotion out of it a little bit.
31:33
So he's getting the point across of like, look, live your best
31:36
life. You haven't got a lot of time.
31:37
This is what I'm trying to tell you.
31:39
And he's like, your dad's sitting you down, not giving you
31:41
a cuddle, but giving you a lecture.
31:42
And I think that's what you need from this film.
31:45
For the first person attached to a rival is directly I wasn't an
31:47
evil live. Do you know who it was?
31:49
Spielberg, George Lucas. No one anywhere near that well
31:55
known. He was a filmmaker called Nick
31:57
Matt here. Nick Metier, right you.
31:59
Know on your name on me. He was known mostly for
32:02
commercials at the time, apparently.
32:03
And diddly. I directed a Netflix science
32:05
fiction film called Spectral, which is about invisible beings
32:08
killing people. OK, Although still quite a
32:11
bizarre choice to get him in for a rival, I think.
32:13
Yeah. But Dan Levine and Dan Corn from
32:16
21 Laps Entertainment. They wanted to adapt Story of
32:18
Your Life and wanted Veena as director because they'd loved in
32:22
Sandy's and had a meeting with him where he talked about wanted
32:24
to make a science fiction film. So they sent him the novella and
32:28
when he liked it, they sent Incendies to Ted Chang and said
32:31
this is the guy we want to adopt your book.
32:33
Yeah, Incendies is like a post war set film, but it's grounded,
32:37
it's artistic and the story's also nonlinear.
32:39
So they saw all that, I think. Yeah.
32:42
Yeah, wonderful film, that brilliant.
32:44
And Chang said that when he saw that, he realized the 21 laps
32:46
wanted to do it properly, as he put it, and that was a key
32:49
reason he saw the rights to them.
32:50
I think if you're a sci-fi author and they send you
32:52
incendies, you're going to be like, bloody hell, yeah.
32:55
Yeah, that'll do. Eric Heiser was involved in the
32:58
project before Vilniu had written drafts of the
33:00
screenplay. He said the first time he met
33:02
Vilni I was at a breakfast meeting where they talked about
33:04
philosophy, science and religion for two hours.
33:07
They did that every week and after about a month Vilni have
33:10
called Heiser and said to him I've just signed on and direct
33:13
the film and said now we are married.
33:16
Yeah, I'm not sure that's how it works, didn't he, to be honest.
33:20
It does, Pavilion think. Yeah, and we'll tell her a case
33:24
of our story shortly. But Villeneuve said that when
33:26
he's making a film, he's a screenwriter as best friend and
33:28
also their worst enemy. Yeah, which I think is probably
33:31
kind of what you need to be. I guess so, yeah.
33:34
You don't take the easy way out. You want to explore all avenues,
33:37
which I would imagine he's very thorough.
33:38
Oh yeah, you can tell when you watch the film.
33:40
Yeah, definitely. And we've talked about how
33:42
Villeneuve brings crew members from his other films with him,
33:45
and he did it on this as well. And he'd worked with the costume
33:48
designer Renee April three times before as well, and he called
33:51
her a master at creating Character 3 uniforms.
33:54
And it was her idea to dress Louise more colourfully in the
33:57
flash forward scenes and to reflect Louise and Ian's arcs by
34:00
having them go from wearing civilian clothes to gradually
34:03
wearing more militaristic outfits.
34:05
Yeah. I always noticed those military
34:07
boots Louise is wearing when she has the final conversation with
34:10
Costello on the ship. Right.
34:12
OK, pretty striking. That and she's barefoot when
34:14
we're first here at the start, so quite a big difference.
34:17
Yeah. The main thing for me in the
34:18
costume design, though, is those orange hazmat suits.
34:21
Yeah. Yeah.
34:22
The contrast between the bright orange and the kind of black
34:24
interiors on the alien ship, that works brilliantly.
34:27
Yeah, it does really striking. And Villiers said that the
34:29
hazmat suits were the only time he asked for something to be
34:31
changed from how it is in reality.
34:33
He said normally the face of the person in the suit is mostly
34:35
covered, but he had the visor changed so we can see the actors
34:38
full faces and expressions. I think you have to do that,
34:41
surely? Didn't.
34:42
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
34:43
I think the orange as well reflects the flash forwards
34:45
where it's all warmer and they've got the glue of the
34:47
ships and it's like kind of almost predicting the future
34:49
that you have to wear this to get there.
34:50
I think that's a really good touch.
34:52
Yeah, definitely. And have has much suits ever
34:54
looked this good in a film? Nah, never.
34:56
No, maybe I'll break, but apart from that.
34:58
Yeah, yellow in that one, though I'll.
35:01
Be yellow. Yeah, I think so.
35:02
I can't remember. It might just be math study, I
35:04
don't know. Before signing off on the
35:07
Neville Nerve, we have our first ATR M patron question.
35:10
Okay, there are many benefits of being an ATR M patron, so you
35:14
should definitely look into that if you've not yet.
35:16
And one of the most popular is the chance to ask those
35:18
questions that we will answer on the show.
35:20
So we have the first of those now.
35:22
And it is about Denivia nerve. Lovely, cool.
35:24
So Matthew Williams is here. Hello, Matthew.
35:27
Hello, Matthew. Hello, Matthew.
35:28
And he has asked, where do we think Denivia Nerve sits as a
35:31
director alongside all time great science fiction directors
35:35
like Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, James Cameron and Stanley
35:38
Kubrick? So what do you think, Matt?
35:42
You know that bit in Family Guy when Peter Griffin's talking
35:44
about The Godfather? Yes, it insists upon itself.
35:47
Itself, Yeah. That's my general feeling
35:49
towards feeling, if he insists upon himself.
35:51
A little bit. But in terms of sci-fi, I mean
35:54
he makes big sci-fi films. Obviously they get people's
35:56
attention. My favorite veiler film is
35:58
actually Takari. You're not one of his sci-fi
36:00
ones. But when I put him up with the
36:02
other sci-fi greats, this is really good.
36:05
I agree with Wesley. No one else could have even
36:07
attempted to make a Blade, run a sequel and then pull it off with
36:10
as much a plum as he did there. But I mean the minority when I
36:13
said don't particularly care for the Dune films that much.
36:16
So I'm kind of split down the middle on that.
36:18
Not yet. I wouldn't put them up there
36:20
with the all time sci-fi great, but I think he's definitely got
36:23
the potential to get there. Yeah, I mean, for me, when we're
36:26
talking science fiction, The Navial Nerve is already in the
36:29
list of great directors for me. I mean, Arrival, Blade Runner,
36:33
2049, the June films, I'm a fan of all of them.
36:36
They all have brains. They all have a soul like James
36:38
Brown. They're all films that people be
36:40
watching, I think, after we're all gone.
36:42
So already a bit of a science fiction legend alongside Ridley
36:45
Scott, James Cameron and Christopher Nolan.
36:47
For me, outside science fiction, he developed some great films,
36:51
but not enough to put him into the top tier, I don't think.
36:54
Not that he's not good enough. You just need more of them.
36:56
Yeah. Yeah.
36:56
I like seeing director Weston at some point.
36:58
Oh, yeah. So science fiction legend.
37:01
Absolutely. Like, all genre legend.
37:03
Not yet, but I think he's got every chance.
37:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Wesley, where is Veal Nerves
37:08
place in the Hollywood Hall of Fame for you?
37:10
I think what you have to do is look at the other directors who
37:12
Matthews said here. There's Nolan, Scott, Cameron
37:15
and Kubrick. I think Nolan and Cameron are
37:16
right as they're inventors. They're world builders, veal
37:19
nerves. Not in that camp.
37:21
And I think he's he's far more subtle than Ridley Scott and
37:24
Stanley Kubrick. I don't think he's got the
37:25
bombast of them guys where you just kind of who directed this
37:28
and the reason for that and what was said before.
37:30
I think he's just more of a collaborator than he is a
37:32
standalone director. I think he brings everybody in
37:35
as a team. And for that reason, like you
37:38
said there, John, people are going to be watching this long
37:39
after we're gone. So I don't think we're ready for
37:41
him yet, but the kids are going to love him.
37:45
For his work on Arrivals and even though was nominated for
37:47
Best Director at the Oscars and the film was nominated for Best
37:50
Picture. Do you remember the winners that
37:52
year? Matt well.
37:54
Yeah, this was the infamous. Was it Moonlight?
37:57
Was it La La Land? Which one won best play?
37:58
It was that, Yeah. So.
38:00
Damien Chazelle, best director for La La Land and Best Picture,
38:04
went to La La Land. I mean Moonlight, that's a
38:08
Villeneuve and a rival though. No mix UPS yet and some great
38:11
work from him as director. Absolutely.
38:13
Definitely some of his best the. Cast.
38:20
Denis Villeneuve was starting to make a reputation for himself
38:23
for the room to arrival and as such was able to bring in some
38:26
big acting names. We talked a little about Forest
38:29
Whitgar as Colonel Webber already, and above the talk in
38:32
detail about the main supporting turnover, Jeremy Renner as Ian
38:35
Donnelly. We should start with the lead
38:37
though, probably. Yeah.
38:39
So Amy Adams plays Doctor Louise Banks, a university lecturing
38:43
linguist tasked with deciphering the alien language and
38:45
communicating with the visitors. We follow her journey as she
38:48
meets the Heptapods, does learn their language and as a result
38:52
starts to see the future and manages to prevent all out
38:54
global warfare in the process. Yeah, she's a busy lady, Westie.
38:59
She is. How is Amy Adams as Louise?
39:01
Does she even act in this? And I mean that in the nicest
39:03
possible way. This feels like a linguist who's
39:06
brought into a sci-fi film as opposed to an actress who has to
39:09
be a linguist. It is that believable.
39:11
And she's got such a range. She's wonderful in everything
39:14
I've seen her in, most notably like American Hustle, Nocturnal
39:17
Animals, just really, really wonderful actress.
39:21
And like, film you've had, I don't think she's done enough to
39:23
cement a place, really, because I think, again, she's just a
39:26
very subtle actress. She'll just attack whatever the
39:29
project is very, very focused. And she's absolutely perfect for
39:33
this role. She owns the whole film.
39:35
She carries the whole film. Brilliant.
39:36
Yeah. I mean, I could just cry.
39:38
It's certain. It's a bit.
39:39
I could just celebrate. Certain.
39:40
It's just just that emotional vulnerability where she looks so
39:44
lost in certain places. But she has got this ambition,
39:49
this real drive, this real energy she brings to this
39:52
character and intelligence, which I think is so rare for
39:55
female characters, especially in modern day cinema, to take the
39:58
center stage and a commander film of this size, of this
40:01
grandeur. And I have every male character
40:03
asking her for the answers. And it's a joy to watch.
40:06
And I don't really think there's anyone else who I would possibly
40:09
put in this role that she totally makes the film what it
40:12
is. Anyone else in this role, It's a
40:13
different film completely. Only Amy Adams makes this film
40:17
what it is. And that's the highest praise
40:19
that I could possibly give her. She just totally makes the film
40:21
and I wouldn't have anyone else in there.
40:23
And she's fantastic. Yeah, I totally agree.
40:26
Big fan of Amy Adams. Effortless elegance in every
40:29
film that she's in. Yeah, she's like Julie Andrews.
40:33
Not much singing, but always a touch of class.
40:35
Yeah, she's not everything if you'll know before, but just a
40:38
perfect casting choice, I think. You can tell the really trust
40:41
each other in this film. Oh yeah, definitely.
40:43
Really trust the direction. He really trusts her ability.
40:45
Yeah, we said that there's some can sometimes feel a bit cold.
40:48
That's not the case here. And a big part of that is down
40:50
to Amy Adams. Yeah, she's boiling the kettle,
40:52
no problem. Massively, yeah.
40:54
Yeah, she's always likable on screen.
40:56
Louise is likable and when you see behind the scenes footage, a
40:58
lot of it seems to be Amy Adams just charming the entire crew
41:02
and that comes across on the screen as well.
41:04
She's so natural as Louise, it's almost like she's not acting
41:07
like you see a Westie sometimes. Yeah, I know.
41:09
And something else Feeling does deserve credit for, as he
41:11
doesn't shy away from making films with women in the
41:13
forefront of them. Emily Blunt's brilliant in
41:16
Sicario and Amy Adams is brilliant here.
41:18
Carries the whole thing without even blinking.
41:21
It looks easy, she usually is great and this is up there with
41:24
her. Best work for me.
41:25
Yeah, there's a lovely interview with them where they just have
41:27
meet up after 8 years of making arrival and she says you give us
41:30
one of the best pieces of acting advice ever when she just she
41:33
was a bit confused about the character and you have said
41:35
she's yours, you wanna, you do whatever you want with her.
41:37
She is your character. It's just like, wow, that is
41:39
just so important that I can take that character, do what I
41:41
want with it. And that's what I mean about
41:43
that trust between the both of them.
41:44
It really makes the film what it is.
41:46
Completely grey. I mean absolute stand out
41:48
actress while you go with her. I think it's just a sense of
41:51
real intelligence, shippings to everything she's done.
41:54
I don't think she's an actress who's ever done a role just
41:56
because of the way that she looks.
41:58
I think she takes interest in and challenging roles.
42:01
So I think she works with big directors.
42:02
She's very brave as an actress. I think she doesn't seem to take
42:05
roles just for the money. Everything's new for her and a
42:08
challenge, and Louise is the center of the film, and Adams
42:12
just carries that effortlessly. The tension, the worry, the
42:15
drama, the joy of discovery in this film, it's all just written
42:19
across her face and she grounds everything.
42:22
And yeah, to go back that point about being left and strong
42:24
female leads, I like the fact it's never an issue.
42:27
I remarked upon that, Louise, as a woman, but the authority here,
42:30
it's just, yeah, not even an issue.
42:32
Webber never mentioned it, and I think that's for the best.
42:35
That would feel like a false note if someone tried to bring
42:37
that up. So yeah, just impeccable work
42:39
from her. Yeah, there was that massive
42:42
moment where the last person was taken out in a in the medevac.
42:46
It could be like, he's a blow, he couldn't handle it.
42:48
We need a woman's touch. Then they could have played that
42:50
in. But the definite it's just you
42:51
don't know who was there before and she's doing a better job and
42:54
it doesn't matter what sex she is like.
42:55
That's just really, really important.
42:57
Yeah, well, at this point, no episode.
42:59
We normally like to tell the story of which actors were
43:01
almost cast in certain roles. Jennifer, Jason Lee, Tom
43:05
Selleck, all that kind of stuff. Selleck would have been great as
43:08
Louise. Dave was in the Meadowbar,
43:11
wasn't he? Yeah, well, we can't hear
43:15
though, because literally every lead actor in the film was the
43:17
person who we never originally wanted.
43:19
Right, right. Brilliant.
43:20
Yeah. So Tom Selleck didn't turn on
43:22
the part of Ian, unfortunately. No, that's a shame.
43:24
Ian Tash instead of Ian Walks. Yeah, because we love, said
43:28
custom. Arrival was the easiest thing in
43:30
my career because everybody fell in love for the screenplay.
43:33
And as you've said, Adams was just the first choice to play
43:35
Louise, but interestingly should actually been planning to take a
43:38
break from Acton at the time because she wanted to spend time
43:41
with a 5 year old daughter. But Adam said the rival script
43:44
just grabbed it within the 1st 15 pages.
43:46
She loved the fact that Louise was a mother, she was
43:48
intelligent and she accepted the power within a couple of days
43:51
and that breaks she wanted. To take she put that on hold
43:53
till after this was done. Yeah, if you only have said she
43:56
was the first and only choice. No other name was ever even
43:59
mentioned because she accepted so quickly.
44:01
Yeah. Perfect.
44:02
Yeah, if you want someone who can carry the film, come across
44:04
as likable, intelligent and warm, yeah, get Amy Adams.
44:09
If you can, everything to prepare for the part of Louise.
44:13
Adams learned some basic Mandarin and Louise had to speak
44:16
it at the end of the film. And she also spent time with
44:18
real life linguists called Jessica Coon from McGill
44:21
University in Montreal. She helped Adams understand how
44:24
a linguist would think and act in certain situations.
44:27
And Adam said the two months she spent learning didn't even
44:29
scratch the surface of what Jessica Coon, you amazing.
44:32
Yeah, Jessica, I couldn't advise on changing some of Louise's
44:35
dialogue as well and she was consultant and using the
44:37
whiteboards to communicate with the heptapods like when she
44:40
wipes human on it and how the logogram as well that was seen
44:44
in the film. I mean again, we only want the
44:46
authenticity, which I think is all for the best.
44:48
Yeah, and he got it. For her performance as Louise,
44:50
Amy Adams received no recognition of the Oscars.
44:53
Not nominated. Surprised by that?
44:54
Shower of shit. Very surprised.
44:56
Yeah. Emma Stone won that year for La
44:58
La Land. Yeah, yeah.
44:59
Forest, though, sounds like we think Amy Adams is pretty great
45:02
in leading her rival. Absolutely perfect. 100%, yeah.
45:07
The main supporting character in her Rival is Dr. Ian Donnelly,
45:10
played by Jeremy Renner, a theoretical physicist recruited
45:14
to work with Louise. In communicating with the
45:16
Heptapods, Ian Walks comes up with the names for Albert and
45:19
Costello managers to work out The heptapod tapestry is one
45:23
pattern of 12 and we find out is the father of Hannah.
45:27
He thinks the cornerstone of civilization is science, Matt.
45:30
And as far as the film's concerned, he's wrong.
45:33
He is wrong. How's Jeremy Renner though as he
45:35
in? Very dependable.
45:38
Yeah, he's always very dependable.
45:40
Jeremy Ren, I think he's just that archetypal support, an
45:43
actor from Avengers, Mission Impossible, The Town, very
45:46
different films, Tornley and in terms of who he's playing.
45:48
But the common theme is this guy won't let you down.
45:51
This guy will have your back and run.
45:53
It exemplifies art really well. I think his character could be
45:56
given a bit more depth. He is kind of generic, good,
45:59
faithful man for most of it here.
46:00
I don't know that's a decision taking because there's limited
46:03
time to get in depth with these characters.
46:05
But I think that Endon would hit harder if we got no Ian a bit
46:09
more than we do. Particularly when you know,
46:11
Rennet is capable of a lot more noughts than he gets given a,
46:14
you know, if you think of him in The Hurt Locker, for example,
46:16
he'd bring so much depth to that.
46:17
Role. Yeah, he really does. 28 weeks
46:19
later as well. 20 weeks later as well.
46:21
Yeah, so much nuance. So he could be given a bit more
46:23
to do, but it is a good performance.
46:25
I think like, Adams completely sells the intelligence of his
46:27
character. And I just like how he's really
46:30
comfortable supporting Amy Adams in this.
46:32
There's no ego here. There's no sexism.
46:34
He's not trying to steal the limelight.
46:36
He's not trying to make a big discovery like his big moment of
46:39
shine. He knows the test story and he's
46:42
fine with this place in it, and he does that well.
46:45
Yeah, I mean, obviously Ian is a supporting character to the
46:48
leader of Louise, and that's very much how he's written.
46:50
He's like a foil for Louise. And that balance of warmth and
46:53
science the film goes for Ian is the science loves the math
46:56
problem. He does like, yeah, the opposite
46:58
of me. And his character demonstrates
47:03
the important of different disciplines and being able to
47:05
collaborate, something real nervous obviously interested in
47:07
because like was saying, he is a very collaborative director.
47:10
And Ian is a good character, but there's not much to him on the
47:13
page. We know nothing about him.
47:15
He's a plot device essentially. He's basically there for the
47:17
weeks to have a baby with. And that's a shame because it's
47:20
not a long film. The runtime's under 2 hours.
47:23
So there was some room to explore Ian a bit more, maybe.
47:26
Aside from deciphering the tapestry that I mentioned, he
47:28
doesn't actually do anything of any use to anybody.
47:32
So I do find what I do is quite impressive because I do like Ian
47:35
in the film. He needs a bit more to do, but
47:37
it's better for him being there. Mr. Dependable, like you say,
47:40
Matt. Yeah.
47:41
I think the thing that we've got to look at as well is how the
47:44
gender roles are reversed in this film.
47:46
You normally have the male who takes the lead and he's the
47:48
linguist and he knows everything, and you've got the
47:50
female who's the scientist who hangs around in the background.
47:53
That's what's wonderful about this.
47:54
And then you normally have the female character who's just
47:57
there to have the baby. And I think it is a shame that
48:01
Renner doesn't get more to do. But then there is that real risk
48:03
of if he has more to do, you question his characters motives
48:07
and then you question her decision at the end to be with
48:10
him and have the child with him. So you've got to keep him as
48:13
basic as possible because that needs to happen.
48:15
You need to buy into that relationship.
48:17
And I think if he does anything else and questions anything of
48:21
ruffles, any feathers to the audience, then they're going to
48:23
think, well, why did you choose him?
48:24
He did this? So the kind of just keep him
48:26
very, very stable, very much on the page.
48:28
Everything right he's that he's a fairy tale, isn't he's like
48:31
Prince Charming and Rena understands that.
48:33
I think he totally gets that and he runs with it and he's he's
48:36
quite happy to sit in the background and be the person who
48:39
she chooses at the end, because that's what the film's about.
48:42
It's about choice. It's not about his character.
48:44
It's about her character. That's the reason he hasn't got
48:46
much to do. Yeah, and as with Amy Adams as
48:48
Louise, Jeremy Rena was the first person being left.
48:51
Wanted to play Ian. He said that he and Rena had met
48:54
before, and we're talking about working together.
48:56
And I did. It's very unusual to cast Jeremy
48:58
Renner in the role of an intellectual.
49:01
Bit harsh on Renner, yeah? That kind of compliment isn't.
49:05
It thanks I think. Yeah, we only have said that
49:07
when I was more used to playing Born and James Bond type
49:09
characters. So he said that on the set he
49:11
often be jumping around because he needed to release some
49:13
energy. Yeah, sounds like a toddler.
49:19
And like we've said, I mean, Renner said himself that when he
49:21
read the script, he knew there wasn't much in there for him to
49:23
do. I mean, he's not stupid.
49:24
We all know this, but he said he really wanted to work with Amy
49:27
Adams again after working with our on American Hustle.
49:29
He said it was a phenomenal part for Amy and a phenomenal part
49:33
for a woman, and I was interested in supporting her and
49:35
supporting that with Brilliant. Yeah, he knows it and fine.
49:38
Yeah. Selfless man, you're like, born.
49:40
He is. He's like Ian.
49:46
Yeah, I think Renner and Adams are very close as friends in
49:48
real life bar. Yeah, you can tell.
49:49
Yeah. If you know, must have been keen
49:51
again too, because production was scheduled to begin based on
49:53
when Renner was available because he was filming Captain
49:56
America Civil War at the time as Hawkeye.
49:58
Yeah. OK.
49:59
Right. OK, no Oscars for Jeremy Renner
50:01
was in. Imagine nothing for Adams.
50:07
I mean, he is a really good supporting actor, let's be
50:09
honest. Well, best supporting actor went
50:12
to Mahershala Ali for Moonlight, right?
50:14
Yes. Fair enough.
50:15
AB Renner, I think. Yeah.
50:16
Definitely right. Yeah.
50:18
I mean, yeah, you had about 16 more lines than Renner.
50:22
But yeah, very much a support in turn.
50:24
But we like Jeremy Renner. Is he in?
50:25
Yeah, yeah, yes. He's great.
50:27
He does exactly what he needs to do.
50:29
So that's our main 2 cast members.
50:31
We've already mentioned Forest Whitaker and have some
50:33
information on one or two of our cast members to come.
50:36
But it is all about our two leads really.
50:38
And great lead and support performances from Amy Adams and
50:42
Jeremy Renner. Yeah.
50:43
Yes, lovely. All the right movies will be
50:52
back shortly. Thank you for supporting us by
50:54
listening to this episode. Sponsors.
50:59
Thanks for listening to our sponsors.
51:01
Now back to the show. The middle.
51:10
Heading into the middle of Arrival and the sessions between
51:12
Louise, Ian and the Heptapods grow more intense.
51:15
We're going to be talking in the scenes where a group of soldiers
51:18
go rogue and plant a bomb in the alien ship.
51:20
Before that, though, there's some friendlier moments to
51:22
discuss. There are, so having made the
51:25
initial breakthrough with the Heptapods, Louise gets to work
51:28
deciphering the language. We get a little montage when Ian
51:31
explains what the humans have learned so far, but not before
51:34
Louise gets the aliens names out of them.
51:37
That's right. Now that is a proper
51:38
introduction, Matt. It really is.
51:39
How are these sessions for you? I mean it's a great session, but
51:42
what's Webber doing being on their case here?
51:44
Like perhaps we should move on to the next word.
51:46
Like calm down mate. 5 minutes, I know I'll do our job.
51:52
In a time. But I love how there's been this
51:54
pent up frustration from Louise and not being able to make that
51:57
breakthrough and that culminates with her taking the hazmat suit
51:59
off and that feels like such a big moment.
52:02
You can hear the panic in the military voices in the
52:04
background. But again, I just love how it's
52:06
her leading the way here and it's Ian who follows her example
52:10
in a bit. And I think the point is, face
52:12
to face communication is always better.
52:14
Like, the Heptabods might not have a face as we would
52:17
understand it, but all the same, it's just important, you know,
52:20
if you were talking to someone in a mask, you would feel more
52:22
comfortable when that mask comes off.
52:24
And I think that's what she realizes here.
52:26
And that's why this one's important.
52:27
And it just feels like there's a real shift in the balance of
52:30
power here because it's Louise who makes the breakthrough.
52:33
She's now completely justified her presence there.
52:36
And I just love that shot of Louise where she's framed
52:39
between the two heptapods and then placing her hand on the
52:41
barrier, which the heptapod doesn't response.
52:44
Really iconic. But the last thing that strikes
52:47
me about the scene is when Ian takes his suit off and he says
52:49
everybody dies, right? For every prophetic one wants to
52:52
come. Yeah, he only takes half of it
52:54
off as well. I think that's quite important
52:56
for the character. He doesn't fully commit.
52:57
Yeah, yeah, I mean, she's hard as nails, Louise isn't.
53:00
She just strips off great. But again, it's all beautifully
53:03
shot. Again, I find it quite moving
53:04
seeing Louise making this bond with Albert and Costello.
53:07
But and importantly, I think it's around this time that we'll
53:10
get see Louise get her first flash forward when she sees hang
53:13
out with what I think's a horse. It's all in silhouette and we'll
53:16
see her sitting in the long grass and by the leg.
53:18
And obviously we're taking these flashbacks at first.
53:20
One of my favorite things we only have does in the film that
53:23
there's a clear theme of language.
53:24
The whole premise is based around Louise learning the HEPAJ
53:27
language that's there in the writing from the original story.
53:30
But the genius touch of Your Nerve brings is how he reflects
53:32
that by playing around with the language of cinema as well to
53:34
control and then reveal the twist.
53:37
I mean, we know that if we cut from a scene of Louise playing
53:39
with Hannah in the garden to a reaction shot of Louise in a
53:41
different place, that was a flashback.
53:43
It's like the colour shove effect.
53:45
It is a colour shove effect, yeah.
53:46
And we'll have played with it because they're not flashbacks,
53:48
the flash forwards symbol, but brilliant.
53:51
We're doing it. Yeah.
53:52
And it's all there once, you know, on RE watches, it's clear
53:55
as day that Louise doesn't understand what these memories
53:57
are. Yeah, it's really obvious.
53:59
Yeah. But we never even see the first
54:01
time around. And we live adapting a story
54:03
about written language in developing that to include the
54:05
language of cinema. That is brilliant.
54:08
It is. It's great.
54:09
It's Amy Adams performance and how you can take confusion and
54:11
sorrow. And it makes the same kind of
54:13
expression, Yeah, because you don't understand sorrow, really.
54:16
So you can be confused about the pain that you feel.
54:18
And that's works as well. The culture of the fact.
54:20
It's wonderfully, wonderfully done.
54:22
Wonderfully done. Yeah, I mean, it's just a
54:23
master, isn't he? Understands cinema, yeah.
54:26
But in the book Louise names the heptapods, Flapper and
54:29
Raspberry. Rubbish names, terrible names,
54:33
not good at. All at large, you've had my way.
54:37
Well, the inspiration is because of the noises they make with
54:40
their spoken language, right? But obviously in the film, as
54:42
we've said, Ian suggests Abbadon Costello instead and that
54:45
obviously Premieron he doesn't know.
54:47
And they were famous comedy double act Bud Abbott, Lou
54:50
Costello. And their most famous routine is
54:53
who's on 1st, where there's lots of mixed communication between
54:55
them. Yeah.
54:56
Who's on first base? Who's on first base?
54:58
Yeah, he is. Who?
54:59
Yeah, but who's on first base? Yeah, who's on second base?
55:01
No, who's on 1st? All that kind of stuff.
55:04
Massive influence on like Malcolm wise as well.
55:06
I think it's kind of five similar.
55:08
And in the Italian version of the film, they were concerned
55:10
that audiences wouldn't know who Abbott and Costello were.
55:13
So you know what they named the heptopods?
55:14
Malcolm and Wise, Eric and Early.
55:16
No, it was Tom and Jerry. All right, OK, all.
55:21
Right. And the Sheena Easton reference
55:23
where Ian C is, she had hit in the 80s in each of the ship's
55:26
landing sites. Yeah, that's changed for the
55:28
Italians to Pink Floyd. Yeah, not The Three Tenors.
55:32
Right, Right. Massive in Devon Floyd and here
55:37
we go into the moment that I really enjoy this part of the
55:40
film because it comes in at around 52 minutes, so we're
55:43
pretty close to halfway and it feels like a bit of an
55:46
intermission. It feels like a bit of here's
55:49
what we don't know. I love that as a voice over
55:52
that's really good and there's a really lovely shine here is when
55:55
the soundtrack starts to really make itself known.
55:57
It's just been atmospheric up until this point, but then it
55:59
really works together with it and you find out that the
56:02
heptapods are really peaceful. There's no radiation, no gas, no
56:06
waste. What they do with them right
56:07
about now, if I'm completely honest with you, all these great
56:10
questions are the scientists or the tourists.
56:12
Lovely collection of images, a great montage sequence.
56:15
And I just love the way that the dialogue doesn't dial it down.
56:18
You know, the non linear ethography, all that, no sense
56:21
of time, just a wonderful moment where everything starts to kind
56:25
of come together, but in a not in a cheesy way, in an
56:27
absolutely necessary middle of the film montage kind of
56:32
intermission. This Is Us as characters, as
56:34
people in this film see, and this is what we do not
56:37
understand. And I think that's brilliant.
56:39
Yeah, I do enjoy a good montage. I think the phone works great.
56:42
I think it's really good. Yeah.
56:43
And it is nice that Ian gets a moment in the sun doing the
56:46
voice over. Yeah.
56:47
Yeah. And the clips that we see are
56:48
basically all longer scenes from the book condensed in just a few
56:51
seconds. So nice references for the Ted
56:53
Chang fans. Yeah, it's a nice nod for that.
56:55
Yeah, but that YouTube, I will see Richard Riley.
56:57
He's calling the film, played by Marc Camacho, who's like the
57:00
smartest thing we could do right now is give them a show of force
57:03
shutting across the bow. I can't stand that guy.
57:07
Depressingly familiar that now as well.
57:09
It is. And then straight after that,
57:11
there's that scene where Louise and Dean are on the back of the
57:13
truck. Ian just slips in that he's
57:15
single and gets Louise to confirm the cheese as well.
57:18
He's not daft after all, is he? Really scientific.
57:22
That's why are you single then? Communication and you know.
57:27
And actually, the montage wasn't in the script originally, and
57:29
neither was the dream sequence where Louise sees the heptapod
57:33
in her room. That was originally a
57:34
conversation between Louise, Ian and Webber that veal nerve
57:38
removed. But he had to keep it because it
57:39
was the only scene I mentioned. The sappy a Wharf hypothesis,
57:42
which kind of explains how Louise starts to see the future.
57:45
Yeah, we'll explain the hypothesis a little bit later.
57:48
But that shot of the Hepat in the corner, it's like the end of
57:51
Enemy by Veal Live, isn't it? Is.
57:52
Yeah, definitely. Where JJL N sees the massive
57:55
spider. Should have ended with a
57:56
hypnopod in enemy. Imagine that.
57:58
What the hell is that? Cut the black.
58:01
He would have an outside if they'd been designed.
58:03
Only slightly less confusing than the actual end.
58:07
Some nice scenes there, then a nice bonding session than a nice
58:10
montage. Events are about to take a bit
58:13
of a turn though, yeah? Sure are.
58:17
Things are heating up, with nobody close to finding out why
58:20
the heptapods are here. Tensions between the world
58:22
governments grow. Weber has Louise asked the big
58:24
question and when they don't like the answer, China break
58:27
communication followed by Russia and a group of U.S. soldiers
58:31
detonate a bomb in the heptapod ship off our weapon Mart bit
58:36
vague from the heptapods that a little.
58:38
Bit yeah, put some effort in lads they've.
58:40
Just learned English, give them a break.
58:43
How to play out for you? The build up to that next
58:46
session is really excellent. We find out China's escalating
58:49
the situation. Love that conversation we get
58:51
between Louise and Webber after she's listened to the recording
58:54
and she realizes the talking in terms of mahjong.
58:57
And it leads to that great exchange.
58:59
If all I ever gave you was a hammer, evidence, a nail, I
59:02
mean, it just distills the whole situation brilliantly.
59:05
Great. And it just sums up that
59:06
inherent danger of misunderstanding something which
59:09
obviously we get when she goes up there and they say off a
59:12
weapon, which is, you know, the least useful thing they could
59:15
say to be honest in that situation.
59:17
I mean, I think the film takes a bit of a leap that we're at the
59:19
point where they would understand announced which is
59:21
weapon. But I'm so engaged with the
59:23
story at this point. It's fine.
59:24
I'll go with it. And then the leads to know the
59:26
dialogue scene, which really like which is the one with
59:28
helping the CIA agent where they're trying to work out what
59:32
the intention is. And the interesting thing for me
59:33
about this character, he's not a warmongering idiot.
59:36
He knows his history. He mentions the British and
59:38
India, Germans and Rwanda did the same thing.
59:40
And that's what he fears, history repeating itself.
59:43
So you understand his motivation.
59:45
And then I do love that line about we live in a world with no
59:48
single leader. How do you communicate with us?
59:50
I think that's great as well. Yeah.
59:52
Yeah, they've been banging about this big question for the whole
59:54
film, and then when they don't have the answer, everyone goes
59:57
absolutely mental. Yeah.
59:59
And yeah, Agent Halpern, the CIA operator, starts to come into
1:00:02
it. Just there's the pot him Captain
1:00:04
America. Just wants a war, doesn't he?
1:00:06
Yeah, you mentioned the British in your India and the Germans in
1:00:08
Rwanda. I mean, yeah, fine.
1:00:10
But the US are quickly clean. Are there most skeletons?
1:00:12
Yeah. Yeah.
1:00:14
Yeah, Hartman, like, never trust anyone ever.
1:00:18
He's an important character though.
1:00:19
Really ups the conflict in the camp.
1:00:21
I do think it's quite funny when Louise is just like, do I have
1:00:24
to talk to this guy? It's totally think of his crap.
1:00:26
Yeah, Help Her displayed by Michael Stuhlbag and Ville
1:00:30
newcast him after seeing him in their Serious Man by the Coen
1:00:32
brothers. And I always forget that film
1:00:34
exists, to be honest. It's really good.
1:00:36
It's really. Good, brilliant.
1:00:37
And he's brilliant in it. He's wonderful in it, yeah.
1:00:40
And to prepare for the role, Stillbog met with the real CIA
1:00:42
agent, who told him to read a book called Fair Play by an ex
1:00:45
CIA agent called James Olson that explored the kind of moral
1:00:49
dilemmas spies have to face. Yeah, I think he's good in the
1:00:52
film. Michael Stuehlberg.
1:00:53
He's great in the film, yeah. I'm not sure how been suffering
1:00:56
much of A moral dilemma though. It'd be Starship treatments if
1:00:59
it was up to him. Yeah, I mean, talking about kill
1:01:03
them all, here we go. It's kind of the panic, I guess,
1:01:06
that we're seeing on the screens.
1:01:08
And the great thing about this is that throughout this whole
1:01:11
film, the action film, the sci-fi action film has been
1:01:14
happening somewhere else. We are with the scientists and
1:01:17
it's normally the other way around.
1:01:18
We're with the action and we're waiting for the scientists to
1:01:20
figure this out, to give us the code and diffuse it all.
1:01:23
You know, it's the Independence Day is happening somewhere else
1:01:26
and we are now with the people trying to figure it out.
1:01:28
And to be perfectly honest, I prefer this camp.
1:01:30
I'd rather be just talk it through, let's say, you know,
1:01:33
let's just everyone calm down. And that's where these things it
1:01:37
meets and it boils over because they are trained to destroy any
1:01:41
threat. They aren't trained to be
1:01:42
linguists. They aren't trained to be
1:01:43
scientists. Like Matt said, it is a little
1:01:45
bit bumbly. It is a little bit heavy-handed.
1:01:47
But I mean, yeah, this is kind of where it dips for me slightly
1:01:50
in the plot because you would give them a little bit more of a
1:01:52
chance. You wouldn't just hear one word
1:01:54
weapon and then that's it, right?
1:01:55
Everything just down, tools go back in.
1:01:57
What do they mean? For me, it's the way that this
1:01:59
is built, the way the tensions built, and you think, oh, this
1:02:02
is the longest 10 minutes that this bombs ever going to go off,
1:02:04
but it actually takes 5 minutes to go off.
1:02:06
So then you've cuts it in half. It could have actually really
1:02:09
drawn this out, but he does it quite quickly and I love the way
1:02:11
the heptopods are reacting to this.
1:02:13
They're knocking on the glass, they know what's going to
1:02:15
happen. Everything's circular.
1:02:17
They don't say time the same way we do, which means that Abbott
1:02:20
knows that he's going to die and he's known all the way through,
1:02:23
which means that's why he's really quiet in the whole film.
1:02:27
Depressed. He's just he's just at the back
1:02:29
of school. Why the fuck you have to do this
1:02:31
again? Costello.
1:02:33
But he knows he Costello was like, that's why I would pushes
1:02:35
everything forward and shows them everything at once because
1:02:37
he knows what has to happen and he knows he has to sacrifice
1:02:40
himself, which is the same way that Amy Adams has to make that
1:02:44
choice and make that sacrifice to move forward, which I'll get
1:02:46
new later with a little bit of a theory later on.
1:02:48
OK, a lovely. It's just the way that this is
1:02:51
done and the whole desperation of trying to figure this out
1:02:54
without any violence, and the violence is always there and
1:02:56
it's boggling in the background and you cannot escape it.
1:02:58
And that's what Bill New saying is like, no matter how much
1:03:01
intelligence, no matter how much patience you've got, there's
1:03:03
always going to be violence in the world.
1:03:04
And that's what we get from this whole sequence.
1:03:07
And it's just awesomely done. Beautiful countdown.
1:03:09
And I just love the bit when Abbott just hits the glass and
1:03:12
they just fly backwards and there's that push and it's bomb,
1:03:15
bomb goes off, the doors shut. And then we're like, right,
1:03:17
that's it. And this sequence could have
1:03:19
been a lot bigger than it was. It could have been right.
1:03:21
I'm doing this and I'm putting all this action into it.
1:03:23
Doesn't do it. Keeps it grounded, keeps it
1:03:25
level, keeps his head, keeps the film rolling.
1:03:27
Perfect. Yeah, like I would say they're
1:03:29
ticking clock all the way through the scene.
1:03:31
Yeah, the first time I saw the film, I was like, they've not
1:03:33
put a bomb on there, Surely have that.
1:03:35
Yeah. Outrageous behavior from these
1:03:37
mutineers. It's brilliant the way that's
1:03:39
revealed as well. You see the the writing on the
1:03:41
side. It's just, it's illuminated,
1:03:42
it's brilliant. Yeah, it's great.
1:03:43
Yeah, but have no idea at all how they have the possible
1:03:45
reaction. They might blow the whole planet
1:03:47
up. They know.
1:03:48
Yeah, exactly. It is really well judged by
1:03:50
Villeneuve, who I think adds a bit of spectacle in action to
1:03:52
the story without going too crazy with it.
1:03:54
Yeah, I love the moment the heptapods essentially turn off
1:03:58
the kind of fake gravity so Louise and Ian just fall back
1:04:00
down the ship. Yeah.
1:04:02
And the sound designed to cut from silence of the explosion is
1:04:05
brilliant. And again, the context changes
1:04:06
on a rewatch. The hepatopods don't save Louise
1:04:09
out of generosity. It's presumably because they
1:04:11
know the future and that she's the one who ends up deciphering
1:04:13
their language. That's why they save her.
1:04:15
And the flash forward just after this is maybe the key one for
1:04:18
me. It's the non 0 sum game.
1:04:20
Yes, the first time their flashback doesn't make sense
1:04:23
because Louise uses knowledge in the flashback that she doesn't
1:04:25
learn until later. Yeah, I think it's really clever
1:04:27
to be honest. And that phrase Nonzero sum game
1:04:30
forever linked with a rival for me.
1:04:32
Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah.
1:04:33
That means first time I've heard it, probably the last time I've
1:04:35
heard. I'm not going to hear that me
1:04:37
day-to-day travels, am I? It's.
1:04:39
Not catchy is it I? Love that flash forward as well
1:04:41
when she's like you want science, call your father.
1:04:43
Yeah, great. It's on the page, it's right
1:04:44
pretty. Yeah, yes, I said.
1:04:46
I do find it a big contrive to get to this point in terms of
1:04:49
the narrative, but just in terms of the filmmaking though, it's
1:04:52
just incredibly well done. It's extremely tense.
1:04:55
It's really well put together. And we've talked about that
1:04:58
explosion that was created with a blend of practical and digital
1:05:00
effects. So stuntmen were filmed against
1:05:03
a blue screen and harness rigs, and were filmed being yanked
1:05:06
backwards to create the effect of gravity switching off right
1:05:08
with the explosion, then added digitally.
1:05:11
It looks fantastic. It does.
1:05:12
It does. They get a really good blend of
1:05:14
digital and practical effects in this I think.
1:05:16
All the way through the film, yeah.
1:05:17
Yeah, and that is the middle section of Arrival, and the
1:05:19
story has moved on quite a bit. Louise is getting closer to
1:05:22
figuring out what's happening, while the military are getting
1:05:24
closer to starting interstellar warfare.
1:05:27
It's all pretty engaging stuff. Really engaging, Yep.
1:05:30
Yep, and it's all a matter of time.
1:05:31
Oh, there he is. The crew.
1:05:40
The team behind the scenes on Arrival was a mix of long time
1:05:42
denial of collaborators and some first time partnerships.
1:05:46
That's where we're headed now as we talk the music on the film,
1:05:49
the visuals will say on screen and first of all the writing of
1:05:52
the movie. The credited screenwriter on
1:05:55
Arrival, then, is Eric Heiser, adapting Ted Chang's novella
1:05:58
Story of Your Life. Starting his career as a video
1:06:01
game writer, Heister broke into Hollywood in the mid 2000s and
1:06:05
at the time of Arrival had built a name for himself in the horror
1:06:08
genre, mainly writing the Nightmare on Elm Street remake,
1:06:11
Final Destination 5, The Thing reboot and Lights Out.
1:06:15
Right, right. I mean the last two I can get on
1:06:17
board with. Possibly not the guy you'd be
1:06:21
expecting to write a cerebral science fiction script then,
1:06:23
Matt. No, but how was the writing on
1:06:25
arrival? I mean, kudos to him really to
1:06:28
come from that background. And what he does is he takes
1:06:30
that alien contact concept and just goes in a very different
1:06:35
direction with it. This is much more the day the
1:06:37
Earth stood still than it is Independence Day, which I think
1:06:40
we should all be very grateful for.
1:06:42
Absolutely. And because of that approach, it
1:06:44
does take that inherent concept really seriously.
1:06:46
If aliens did land and they can't speak English, how would
1:06:50
we learn to communicate with them?
1:06:52
And how the film tackles that is the part of the writing that I
1:06:54
really, really enjoy. When Louise breaks down the
1:06:57
problems they're facing in terms of communicating, in terms of
1:07:01
how do you even begin to define the most simple of concepts?
1:07:03
Yeah, both in their terms and then from them to us.
1:07:07
That's all really fascinating. You know, I really do love
1:07:09
watching films where it's intelligent people solving
1:07:13
problems intelligently. That's really gripping to me.
1:07:16
And you feel like you're learning something at the same
1:07:17
time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:07:18
You do, but in this you don't feel you being talked down to.
1:07:21
Why you're learning exactly, You know, it does treat you with a
1:07:24
bit of respect and it does try to tackle big themes at the same
1:07:27
time. I've seen this film get called
1:07:29
profound a lot. I don't know if I'd go As for
1:07:31
saying that it's profound. It's kind of message at the end.
1:07:34
Things would be better if we all communicated a bit better.
1:07:36
That's not the deepest message I've ever heard in a film, but
1:07:39
it explored well. So I think the fundamental
1:07:42
problem of the language barrier they've got to overcome, that's
1:07:46
explored really, really well, and that's the highlight of the
1:07:48
writing for me. Yeah, I agree.
1:07:50
There's a lot going on with the writing.
1:07:52
I think it's an original take on the first contact movie, and it
1:07:55
focuses on the part. First contact and movies usually
1:07:57
skip straight past learning how to communicate with an alien
1:08:00
species. It's also a pretty fresh take on
1:08:03
the time travel movie. Louise develops memories of the
1:08:05
future, which is quite interesting, and there's a lot
1:08:08
of themes. There's a theme of language, a
1:08:10
theme of collaboration, a theme of context versus perception.
1:08:13
The theme that interests me most, though, is the exploration
1:08:16
of determinism. The question is, do we have free
1:08:18
will, or is everything that happens inevitable and free will
1:08:21
is just an illusion? The whole idea of Louise having
1:08:23
memories of the future suggests the film is saying yes.
1:08:26
Everything is set in advance, and that's definitely the angle
1:08:29
the book takes. In the book, Louise basically
1:08:31
says once you know what the future is, you would never
1:08:33
conceive of doing anything differently, and she and the
1:08:36
hepatopods kind of play out scenes knowing what's going to
1:08:38
happen. In the film, though, it is more
1:08:41
than he wants, and Louise does demonstrate free will.
1:08:43
She makes the choice to have Hannah even though she knows
1:08:45
she'll be taken by terminal illness.
1:08:47
I mean, that's why he leaves her at the end, isn't it?
1:08:49
Because she made that choice. And that's a more interesting
1:08:52
question to me. Would you have your child, if
1:08:54
you know the pain coming when she dies very young?
1:08:57
These questions are all raised in the film.
1:08:58
But even beyond that, it's still an interesting, relatable story
1:09:01
about human relationships. Or an interesting take on what
1:09:04
first contact might look like. Doing all those things at once
1:09:07
and without being confusing. I think it's science fiction
1:09:09
writing at its best, to be honest.
1:09:11
Yeah, I think it's great that he gives every character their
1:09:14
moment and everyone is quite well-rounded and you know who
1:09:17
everybody is. And there's no cliches in here.
1:09:19
Like I've said before, keeps all the action off screen.
1:09:22
If this was anyone else had that in this novel, it would be.
1:09:24
We've made contact with the aliens and they've mentioned
1:09:27
weapon. Now we're going to get Will
1:09:28
Smith involved and now the film starts.
1:09:30
I think the whole point of this is a very human story and it is
1:09:33
very subtle in its delivery. And the whole point is you've
1:09:36
got no control over your future. And irregardless of free will or
1:09:40
not, would you have that love if you know what's going to end in
1:09:43
sadness, it always is going to end in sadness.
1:09:45
Everything ends, but you just don't know when it's going to
1:09:48
end. So the choices that you make,
1:09:49
are you just going to close yourself away from enjoying life
1:09:52
because of what happens at the end?
1:09:54
Are you going to accept that the love completely outweighs the
1:09:56
pain of the sadness that comes later?
1:09:59
And that's what I get from this film.
1:10:00
It lands you in the moment where you just go actually shit.
1:10:03
Yeah. I really need to start enjoying
1:10:05
where I am and what I've got because it could be gone at any
1:10:07
minute. And if you know that it's going
1:10:09
to be gone, you'd still choose to have it.
1:10:11
You know, it has that message. It's better to have love than
1:10:13
lost. And it never loved at all.
1:10:14
And. It is.
1:10:15
That's classic message and. It addresses that message
1:10:18
really, really well. And what film you've does is he
1:10:20
doesn't sugarcoat that. He doesn't candy cane it, he
1:10:22
doesn't make it schmaltzy, he doesn't make it over the top
1:10:24
romantic. It's a very human story.
1:10:27
It's very subtle and I think all of that is grounded in the
1:10:30
writing and that's what it's trying to say, and that's what
1:10:32
it ultimately delivers on the page as well as on the screen.
1:10:36
So the story of Arrival didn't start with Denis Veal Nerve, it
1:10:39
actually started with Eric Heiser.
1:10:41
We've just told him on linear, like the film.
1:10:44
So he came across another Ted Chang story called Understand,
1:10:47
which is about a guy who develops like superhuman
1:10:49
intelligence. From that he found Story of Your
1:10:52
Life and became kind of obsessed with it.
1:10:54
He then had a meeting with Dan Levine and Dan Corn and 21 Lap
1:10:56
Entertainment because they wanted to work with them.
1:10:59
They pitched him ideas apparently for two hours and he
1:11:01
said no to all of them. So eventually they said, all
1:11:03
right then, well, what do you want to do?
1:11:04
And he basically said, have you read Story of Your Life?
1:11:08
I kind of imagine him pulling it over his sleeve like Ron
1:11:10
Burgundy with that flute. I wasn't prepared.
1:11:13
I wasn't. Prepared.
1:11:14
I really wasn't underneath the toilet, just reading the booth.
1:11:21
So Levine and Cohen then read the book, loved it and said,
1:11:24
Yep, we're in. So the theme got Ted Chang on
1:11:27
board, pitched ID to studios, but nobody was interested.
1:11:30
So Hester said nobody's going to buy it until they read the
1:11:33
script. So he went off and wrote the
1:11:34
film as a spec script. Risky business.
1:11:37
Very risky, but 21 Laps also brought in two other production
1:11:40
companies, Film Nation Entertainment and Lava Bear
1:11:43
Films, to help raise funding. And then when the pitched ID and
1:11:46
scripted the Cannes Film Market in 2014, Five Studio sorted a
1:11:50
bit more, which was then won by Paramount, right?
1:11:53
Yeah, I said. I said that when they did those
1:11:55
initial pictures without a script they got some conditional
1:11:57
offers, but it was stuff like can you change the lead to a
1:12:00
man? You change it completely please.
1:12:04
And one studio apparently said why not change it to an alien
1:12:06
invasion movie and have someone punch the alien in the face.
1:12:09
Really. Welcome to Earth.
1:12:11
Why don't we call it Departure? The film's original title was
1:12:16
Story of Your Life. Like the book, but One Direction
1:12:19
store that. So then Villeneuve thought well,
1:12:22
but when Villeneuve came on board, he didn't like it as he
1:12:24
thought it sounded too much like a ROM com, which is totally fair
1:12:27
enough. So the brainstormed hundreds of
1:12:29
titles and ended up agreeing on the first one that they came up
1:12:31
with, which was Arrival. Yeah, it's much better for a
1:12:34
film, isn't it, Miles? Better snappy, yeah.
1:12:37
Not to be confused with The Arrival from 1996, where Charlie
1:12:41
Sheen discovers an alien signal and finds out aliens have been
1:12:43
here all along. All right.
1:12:44
Yeah, Yeah. Jesus.
1:12:46
Yeah. And the film is a pretty
1:12:48
faithful adaptation of the story of your life.
1:12:51
But there were some changes. Some have mentioned, but there
1:12:53
were others too. So in the book, the scientist is
1:12:56
called Gary Donnelly, which is then changed to Ian Donnelly in
1:12:58
the film. And he does play a large role in
1:13:01
the book in terms of deciphering the Heptapod language.
1:13:04
Colonel Webber, however, plays a large role in the film because
1:13:07
in the book he's only in the scene at the start and then one
1:13:09
at the end. Right.
1:13:11
Yeah, again, IANS a better name, isn't it, Wesley?
1:13:14
Absolutely. Middle names, Gary, is it
1:13:18
really? I was going.
1:13:19
To say I didn't do that, Gary could have gone with Declan
1:13:24
Donnelly, called the have the pods PG and Duncan.
1:13:29
Also in the book it's 112 heptapod ships that turn up
1:13:33
worldwide, not just 12. Heist was said the chances to
1:13:36
reflect the theme of time in the film. 12 hours on the clock, 12
1:13:40
ships. Yes.
1:13:42
Also, 112 is far too many. Yeah.
1:13:44
They'll be turning up everywhere.
1:13:45
Yeah. He won't see you much.
1:13:46
Yeah. The word they look trying to
1:13:48
communicate with us wouldn't go very well there.
1:13:51
Probably is 1 and see him and no one's noticed.
1:13:54
The one from Alien Three, that's the one that's insane.
1:13:57
Still there. Still there.
1:13:58
Yeah, all from the book. The military are not in contact
1:14:01
with China, Russia or anybody else around the world.
1:14:04
It's all just contained within the Montana base.
1:14:06
And there's actually no threat of global war over the event.
1:14:09
Right. Yeah, change for the best,
1:14:11
surely. Definitely yeah.
1:14:13
Although I do like how even in the film it is world changing
1:14:16
event but we only ever see glimpses of the effect around
1:14:18
the world. Yeah right.
1:14:20
It's in the UK, obviously. Obviously, yeah.
1:14:22
Any excuse? They're all in Viva Vendetta
1:14:23
masks. Ridiculous.
1:14:25
Yeah. But you know, it's fairly close,
1:14:27
isn't it? Yeah.
1:14:28
Yeah, exactly. Unfortunately.
1:14:30
But maybe the biggest chainsaw is around Hannah because she's
1:14:33
never named in the book and doesn't die of a terminal
1:14:35
illness as a teenager. Instead, she dies in a rock
1:14:38
climbing accident when she's 25. And one of the reasons to change
1:14:42
Hannah's age is because it would have meant the hard age Amy
1:14:45
Adams in the flash forwards. Oh yeah, that makes sense.
1:14:48
Which would have given away the twist.
1:14:49
Yeah, obviously, yeah. But that is a massive change.
1:14:52
It changes the message of the story because a rock climbing
1:14:54
accident is totally preventable. Just tell her not to go.
1:14:57
Yeah, exactly. But in the book, Louise still
1:14:59
doesn't stop it, even when she knows what's going to happen.
1:15:01
Oh, really? Yeah.
1:15:02
So it's kind of saying we don't have free will, which the film
1:15:04
doesn't say that. Right.
1:15:05
That gets a bit more complicated, doesn't it really,
1:15:07
if you try and put that on the screen?
1:15:08
But then again, they could have told her how to control gravity
1:15:10
and then when she falls you could have just changed it.
1:15:13
That would have been quite good actually.
1:15:17
It would have been great. We mentioned the subtly above
1:15:19
hypothesis earlier, and that is the basis of the idea.
1:15:22
It's a theory that says that language can determine thought
1:15:25
processes. So depending on the language you
1:15:27
speak, it might influence how you perceive things or think
1:15:30
about things. And in the case of the film,
1:15:32
learning Heptopod provides Louise's brain so she's able to
1:15:34
see the future, basically. Yeah, that theory goes back to
1:15:37
the 1920s apparently, Edwards up here in Benjamin Wolf for the
1:15:41
linguists. I don't think it's taking all
1:15:42
that seriously nowadays from what I've read.
1:15:45
But in the short story they talk about like very much principle
1:15:48
of least time as well to explain how the time leaves work.
1:15:50
So Ted Chang is clearly a big science guy and did his
1:15:53
research. The film has a much like a touch
1:15:55
in comparison. No science lectures for me and
1:15:58
thankfully. I kind of buy into that though.
1:16:00
What language you speak kind of does determine how you think
1:16:03
about certain things. It is interesting, yeah.
1:16:05
It is really interesting. Now if you speak George, then
1:16:07
all you see is pasties flying the boat.
1:16:10
And Greg came. From Greg Came from Yeah 12
1:16:13
Greggs popped up first, originally called Carries.
1:16:19
And the narrative was told out of sequence, like we've been
1:16:21
talking about, and the first and the last scenes play one after
1:16:25
the other. So if all the scenes in the film
1:16:27
were played out chronologically, the shot of Louise walking down
1:16:30
the hospital corridor after Hannah dies would be the final
1:16:32
scene in the film. It's followed immediately by
1:16:35
Louise walking into the university, which would be the
1:16:38
first scene. Yes.
1:16:40
Yeah, I love that they basically tell us the whole story in the
1:16:43
1st 5 minutes of the film. We just don't know what it is
1:16:45
we're watching at the time. We have to learn how many
1:16:47
decipher it, which is the same kind of journey Louise goes on
1:16:50
in learning Hefter Pod. Yes, that's fantastic writing
1:16:53
now. Yeah, it's.
1:16:53
Brilliant, yeah. For his work in writing Arrival,
1:16:55
Eric Heiser I was Oscar nominee for Best Adapted Screenplay,
1:16:59
lost out to Barry Jenkins and Moonlight.
1:17:01
Right. Yeah, it's swept, didn't it?
1:17:03
Moonlight that swept the whole board.
1:17:05
And for us, some brilliant writing on arrival.
1:17:07
Yeah. From your first time in the VL
1:17:11
Nerve collaborator and Eric Heisra, we're moving on to ADV
1:17:14
regular in the music. The score for Arrival was
1:17:17
written by Johann Johansson, an Icelandic composer working with
1:17:21
VL Nerve for the third time, having created the scores for
1:17:23
Prisoners and Sicario, DV and JJ together again, Then Matt, How
1:17:28
was the music on Arrival? Definitely more of a score than
1:17:32
a soundtrack, because to me a soundtrack means something that
1:17:35
is themes and motifs that stick in your head and you can hum
1:17:38
them Deus afterwards. Pop from the Max Rick to piece.
1:17:40
This definitely isn't that. I think it's a score designed to
1:17:44
accentuate everything else. Like, it's easy to overlook at
1:17:46
now because of the amount of films about the subject, but
1:17:49
fundamentally, if you think about like, if aliens were to
1:17:51
land on Earth, it would be the single most terrifying moment
1:17:54
ever. Just because these aliens don't
1:17:57
seem intent on harm to begin with doesn't change that.
1:18:00
And the score reflects that totally.
1:18:02
It's very tense. It gets you on edge.
1:18:04
That first trip into the ship that is called like a horror
1:18:07
film. It's like something out of The
1:18:08
Shining, not music there. So it's absolutely the kind of
1:18:12
score the film needs. I think it's a wonderful piece
1:18:13
of work. I think it's a great score and
1:18:16
when you see behind the scenes stuff from how Johansson created
1:18:19
it all, it's pretty impossible to not be impressed with how
1:18:21
creative they were in recording the sound and then mixing them
1:18:24
as well. And I mean, if you only have
1:18:25
directed the film with a very like deaf touch all the way
1:18:28
through. So Johansson has to reflect that
1:18:30
with the music, which he does. It's all soft percussion and
1:18:33
beyond delicate strings. He creates a mood rather than a
1:18:36
melody, which I think is what we need for those shots of the
1:18:39
alien shapes that are meant to be awe inspiring in the awe.
1:18:42
But also, this is a film about aliens, and Johansson reflects
1:18:45
that as well. There's some noises and
1:18:47
arrangements which are just bizarre, like that swell in the
1:18:50
score that you're talking about. Matt and the heptopods first
1:18:52
appear. How good's that?
1:18:54
Perfect. We had, but grounded.
1:18:57
Yeah. Nothing that leaps out
1:18:58
immediately. Maybe the music.
1:19:00
But on re watches, which this film kind of demands, I think it
1:19:03
just gets better every time. It's superb.
1:19:05
Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a sad one for me.
1:19:07
This guy just was taken far too young, I think 48.
1:19:11
That's right, yeah. And I think he had a lot more to
1:19:14
offer and a lot more to give. And I think on reflection of
1:19:17
this film alone, the way he just creates texture and the use of
1:19:21
long notes and the use of voices that he brings into it, and it
1:19:24
just brings this whole palette, totally supports the visuals.
1:19:28
I think he was an incredible talent.
1:19:30
He was a very understated artist and that he was an ideal
1:19:34
collaborator, especially for Valium and that he wasn't John
1:19:37
Williams, he wasn't Han Zimmer. And the brought him and he
1:19:40
started Blade Runner 2049 and the Broad Zimmer to finish it
1:19:43
because they needed something else.
1:19:45
And I think his strengths lie in what you hear in this film.
1:19:47
I think this is his kind of Magnum Orbis, really.
1:19:51
It's a real celebration for me of this guy's art and his
1:19:53
talent. You know, the montage sequence
1:19:55
that I spoke about, that's incredibly emotive, and at the
1:19:58
end credits where it just comes with them voices and you're just
1:20:00
sitting thinking about everything and then the voices
1:20:02
are in your head and it really resonates with me.
1:20:05
That's just so clever and really sets up the texture of the film
1:20:09
in that you can't shoot this over darkness and it still has a
1:20:12
personality and it just ties together beautifully.
1:20:15
It's just the bull on top for me.
1:20:17
And without this score, I don't think it would be anywhere near
1:20:19
as ominous or as haunting or as memorable.
1:20:22
No, definitely. Yeah, he's a reliance, doesn't
1:20:24
he? Yeah, he.
1:20:25
Was, yeah, amazing. And usually, the director puts
1:20:28
together a first cut of the film before he hands it to the
1:20:30
composer to let the musical off the top.
1:20:32
But Johansson said he started writing and recording the score
1:20:35
for Arrival before the movie it even started filming.
1:20:38
And that's how he'd always worked with Feele Nerve.
1:20:40
So Johnson said an iPhone recording of what he was doing a
1:20:43
week before filming started. His proof of concept and feeling
1:20:46
Love replied. Sounds great.
1:20:48
Keep going with that. Yeah, yeah.
1:20:51
Concept art for the ships and the script, which had those
1:20:54
sketches of the logograms in that we talked about.
1:20:56
Yeah. And he kind of reflected that by
1:20:57
using a lot of layering and looping in the music to create
1:21:00
the motifs to reflect like a circular theme.
1:21:02
Yeah. And those soft hummers that we
1:21:04
hear all the way through, those were a piano, but he faded them
1:21:07
up after the initial strike in the key, so we don't hear the
1:21:09
beginning. Yeah.
1:21:10
So he was like playing around with time a bit.
1:21:11
And the film does. Like the reverb of the Nord,
1:21:14
it's like the past or the future.
1:21:15
It's like you don't hear the initial hammer.
1:21:17
Exactly. It's the resonance of what
1:21:18
happens and left behind. That's just genius.
1:21:21
I love that. That's great.
1:21:22
And if you speak to anybody about the score, they're always
1:21:24
going to bring up this theme, which, again, is quite relevant
1:21:27
in other films, it has been used a lot.
1:21:28
But the theme that plays at the start and the end of the film
1:21:30
wasn't actually written by Johann Johansson.
1:21:32
It's called On the Nature of Daylight, and it's a modern
1:21:35
classical composer called Max Richter, who's one of my
1:21:37
favorites. It's from 2003 composition.
1:21:40
It's in the album The Blue Notebooks, if you haven't heard
1:21:42
that. That whole album is amazing.
1:21:44
And it being used so predominantly in the film meant
1:21:47
that Johansson was ineligible for the nomination at the
1:21:49
Oscars, unfortunately. But I mean, it does bookend the
1:21:51
film beautifully. Yeah, we played at the start of
1:21:54
this episode on the audio version, so that music on the
1:21:57
nature of daylight, it's motif, like a run of notes, and then we
1:22:00
hear the same notes again, but reversed.
1:22:02
Yeah, it's palindromic, like parts of the narrative, like
1:22:05
Hannah's name, which is why they used it.
1:22:07
And it's beautiful, so fits in musically and thematically.
1:22:10
It's incredible, it's a beautiful 6 minutes of music and
1:22:13
it's in Shutter Island as well if you think you've heard it
1:22:14
somewhere else. Right.
1:22:16
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, no wonder if you'll let
1:22:18
your hands and go off and do what you like for a few weeks.
1:22:20
Absolutely awesome. Yeah.
1:22:22
It was used primarily as a temp track in a lot of things, right?
1:22:25
And a temp track is what you put in place to give to the editor.
1:22:27
So he gets the pace and then that goes to the composer to
1:22:30
replace that. And a lot of people just
1:22:31
especially Scorsese unveiled you have just went, I'm not
1:22:34
replacing that. How can you?
1:22:35
How can you? It's too good.
1:22:37
And the sound designer was Sylvan Bellamyre, and he'd
1:22:40
worked with Field Nerf on Incendi's before this.
1:22:43
And for the heptapods, he made their sound by combining bird
1:22:46
sing and camels, gurgling and breathing through bagpipes and
1:22:49
Maori instruments. Got the bagpipes in there?
1:22:52
Get. Bagpipes in there straight away
1:22:54
like brave heart. In on the bagpipes.
1:22:58
Ian plays bagpipes while walking the old camel gargle.
1:23:02
I love that camel's gargle doesn't.
1:23:05
I knew the spit, but like I. Didn't know the gargle, No.
1:23:08
And then the sound of the ships moving.
1:23:09
That's a combination of rolling rocks, wind, earthquakes and ice
1:23:13
breaking. Right.
1:23:15
Yeah, the noise the ships make when they move sounds like
1:23:17
cracking Thunder almost. Yeah, you could definitely hear
1:23:19
the ice and that. Yeah, yeah, Johann Johansson
1:23:22
wasn't nominated for an Oscar for his score for a rival as he
1:23:24
wasn't eligible. Like we just mentioned Sylvan
1:23:27
Bellamy, though, he was nominated for and won Best Sound
1:23:29
Editing at the Oscars. Nice.
1:23:32
And great work from both for. US, yeah.
1:23:37
We're moving on to the visuals now on some more first time VLA
1:23:40
of collaborators as we get into the cinematography and director
1:23:43
of photography Bradford Young and the visual effects provided
1:23:46
mainly by Rodeo FX and Oblique FX.
1:23:49
Yeah, the cinematography then Westy, how was Bradford Young's
1:23:53
work? Yeah.
1:23:54
Bradford Young is absolutely fantastic here, a very
1:23:57
naturalistic approach to his work and he's not scared to say
1:23:59
that it's written all over everything he's done from Selma
1:24:02
at first, saw his work in then body sense.
1:24:04
It's just the way that, and I'm going to sound really technical
1:24:08
here and I'm boring. People want to listen to it.
1:24:09
Fine, if you don't, I'll be over in a minute.
1:24:12
All the flash forwards are shot in a 35 mil, which gives it more
1:24:15
or less what the eye sees. It's all handheld, it's all very
1:24:18
loose. It gives the idea of home movies
1:24:20
and it's very warm. And then the alien contact is on
1:24:23
the 28 mil, so it's slightly more wide.
1:24:25
We can see more of the environment.
1:24:26
It's all very static. It's all Dolly shot, it's all
1:24:28
steady cams. It's all very much like you know
1:24:31
where you are in these two different worlds and that's what
1:24:34
he tried to explore with both of them things.
1:24:36
And what I said about shooting wide open, it means he's
1:24:38
shooting on fast lenses. I think these are like a 1.9,
1:24:40
which means that your lens is wide open.
1:24:42
So you're just focused on one thing.
1:24:44
You see the foreground or the background.
1:24:45
You kind of do both what they do here.
1:24:47
Bradford Young's decision as well, and Phil knew, was that we
1:24:50
are not going to pull focus to an effect the aircraft that are
1:24:53
flying over or the spaceship in the background or anything.
1:24:55
It's all very much on the foreground.
1:24:57
It's all very much concentrated on Louise as a character and
1:25:00
follows the characters all the way through.
1:25:03
And it's the integration of the CGI in.
1:25:05
This is Bradford Young's first time doing anything on this
1:25:07
scale, first time doing anything with, like, a blue screen.
1:25:10
But you said that one of his favorite shots and one of my
1:25:12
favorite shots, as well as when Louise is just going out and
1:25:14
she's just trying to get a bit of fresh air and just separate
1:25:16
herself from everything. And she's walking through that
1:25:18
field. Yeah.
1:25:19
A kind of sunset or a dusk, and the ship's just there.
1:25:23
Yeah. In the background, out of focus
1:25:25
because you would just think, well, we're going to pan round,
1:25:27
she's going to be in the foreground, and then we're going
1:25:29
to rock focus. And we're just going to put the
1:25:30
ship in focus. And it's going to to be her
1:25:33
thought process never does that feels very naturalistic is
1:25:37
lighten is very minimal. That uses dark really well, uses
1:25:41
highlights really well. It's just a very accessible
1:25:43
color palette as well that you notice that he's doing.
1:25:45
He's got the Blues and then you've got the warmth of the
1:25:47
flash forwards. Bradford Young, for the want of
1:25:50
a better word, absolutely fucking nails this to the wall.
1:25:53
It's a wonderful, wonderful turn from him, and he took this job
1:25:57
because he had a young family, he was his father, and he wanted
1:26:00
to explore. That was like shooting his wife.
1:26:02
You feel like you're watching somebody else's home movies and
1:26:04
someone else's memories. And that's what I think Bradford
1:26:06
Young does really well. He absolutely nails it.
1:26:10
Absolutely. I mean, you've said OSD.
1:26:11
The cinematography is stunning. Yeah, breathtaking at times.
1:26:15
The composition of stuff is incredible.
1:26:17
We talked about the first white show of the HEP to pod ship and
1:26:19
it is magnificent the way he shoots the interior of the ship,
1:26:23
jaw-dropping. But he gets character as well.
1:26:25
Like you say, Wesley, how many close-ups are there of Louise?
1:26:28
And every one of them is like incredible.
1:26:30
Yeah. I mean, explosive of Amy Adams
1:26:32
is never going to look bad, to be fair.
1:26:33
But Bradford Young just heightens even further.
1:26:36
Yeah, they're like photographic at times.
1:26:37
Those close. Ups the and I think that's the
1:26:39
shadow depth of field as well. It's either on an eyelash or
1:26:42
it's on a bit of hair. The face falls off focus.
1:26:44
Yeah. So we're just on an eye and
1:26:46
we're just really focused on the mindset of the character.
1:26:49
It's really beautifully done. And there's things in the
1:26:52
writing, in the music, and in the visuals as well.
1:26:54
The opening shot which pans the Louise's living room window,
1:26:57
we'll see that kind of like graceful panning all the way
1:27:00
through the film. Fog and clouds I used a lot.
1:27:02
The ships are always wrapped in fog.
1:27:04
They have the pod. Natural habitat seems to be in
1:27:06
those cloud filled chambers. And there's a circular theme.
1:27:09
The logograms are circular. Louisa's classroom is circular.
1:27:12
She walks down in a circular corridor in the hospital.
1:27:14
Like, the lighting is incredible.
1:27:16
The blocking is always brilliant.
1:27:17
It looks stunning from the 1st frame to the last.
1:27:20
It's just outstanding stuff for me.
1:27:22
Yeah. We've waxed lyrically about
1:27:23
quite a few aspects of the film and the cinematography might, I
1:27:26
think, be the best of the lot. Yeah.
1:27:28
Well, having said on that feeling, I've actually wanted to
1:27:30
hire Roger Deakins as DP originally.
1:27:33
Get out young. Get out, not you.
1:27:36
Because of the previously worked together on Prisoners and
1:27:38
Scario. But Deakins was already
1:27:40
scheduled to shoot Hail Caesar for the Quan brothers and says
1:27:43
we just couldn't do it. And Veal Nerve knew he wanted
1:27:46
the film to have a strong sense of reality.
1:27:48
And he described it as this was happening on a bad Tuesday
1:27:51
morning, like when your kid on the school was on a rainy day.
1:27:54
And he'd really like what Bradford Young and done in
1:27:56
dramas like Selma and Almost Fighting.
1:27:59
Yeah. So he hide him instead.
1:28:01
Yeah, I think dirty sci-fi is how Young described the look,
1:28:03
the one that they get. And again, like a drama
1:28:06
background. That was Bradford Young's
1:28:07
background. I think you can see that as well
1:28:09
in that realism. And to see it works is an
1:28:11
understatement. I think if you literally I
1:28:13
called him a genius as well. Yeah, I think that's just little
1:28:16
fire under Bradford Young inside.
1:28:17
We've got you because we couldn't get Diggins and rooms
1:28:19
went right. Well, fucking watch this.
1:28:21
Yeah. Brilliant.
1:28:23
Young later said that he was influenced by a Swedish
1:28:25
photographer called Martina who gland Ivanov.
1:28:28
Especially an exhibition in books you did called Speedway.
1:28:31
That's a series of images of Speedway riders racing at night,
1:28:35
and Young said he was influenced by the lighten.
1:28:37
Yeah, if you've seen that, you can see, I think the light
1:28:40
desaturated tones and the natural feel it has, it's there
1:28:43
kind of an arrival, right? Sure.
1:28:45
They have to put down the track, little of it.
1:28:48
And the whole film was shot digitally rather than on film,
1:28:51
Young said. They did that as they were often
1:28:53
lightening ways you wouldn't normally, so it meant they could
1:28:56
see what they were getting instantly rather than having to
1:28:58
wait for the negatives to come back.
1:29:00
Which makes sense, I think. Yeah.
1:29:01
And he also said that with Switzer lenses, a lot like
1:29:03
you're seeing rescue sometimes within the same scene to create
1:29:06
a sense of like imperfection because different lenses can
1:29:08
have like, different personalities, he said.
1:29:10
Yeah, he uses a lot of like, old house lenses.
1:29:13
He's got his own company called Tribe 7, and they basically
1:29:16
house old lenses into like, new housing, right?
1:29:19
And he's obsessed with like all their kind of vintage glass and
1:29:22
flaring and texture cool. And you can see that in a lot of
1:29:25
his work. And I think different lens
1:29:27
manufacturers would make a 35 mil, which you'll you'll see
1:29:30
exactly the same frame, but the texture is going to be
1:29:32
different. So they could change that up.
1:29:34
Again, it feels like you're watching an artist at work.
1:29:36
Yeah, all the way through. Painting the picture and you're
1:29:38
just watching every stroke of it.
1:29:39
And it's, it's genius, Yeah. It's good enough for the knee,
1:29:42
it's good enough for me. Absolutely.
1:29:45
Yeah. So I'm going to talk about the
1:29:46
effects in this because I think there's a wonderful scale to
1:29:50
them. You know, we've just mentioned
1:29:51
that amazing shot of Louise in the field where she's just
1:29:54
taking some time to self. And as we've said, that ship in
1:29:57
the background, just out of focus and love how you know
1:29:59
that's like the USB of the film should be the ship and it's just
1:30:03
there. But that gives it a reality.
1:30:05
It's become everyday for these people.
1:30:08
The shots where the portrait and you can only see the bottom of
1:30:11
it, but it still takes up the whole of the top of the frame,
1:30:14
which just emphasizes the size. But again, it's just a really
1:30:18
interesting way of not going the kind of cliched money shot with
1:30:21
them all the time. How many times would you see the
1:30:23
ship in the foreground and it would half the frame and it
1:30:26
would be coming down the ship who kind of like craying down
1:30:28
and she would be tiny in the background out of focus walking
1:30:31
towards it. That would just be an obvious
1:30:32
thing to do and it just does not happen.
1:30:34
Yeah, exactly. That's why I love the effects in
1:30:36
here, because the effects just become properly part of the
1:30:39
story. And then one scene we've talked
1:30:41
about, which is where the gravity shifts.
1:30:43
In that scene, the hazmat suits were added to the actors
1:30:46
digitally as they were strapped in the harness wigs at the time,
1:30:48
right? And that was done by Rodeo FX
1:30:50
and Oblique FX did most of the wide trots of the spaceships,
1:30:54
which combined CGI with Matt patents.
1:30:56
Nice. And they're all incredible,
1:30:58
every one of them. Yeah.
1:30:59
There probably is more digital effect in there than most of us
1:31:02
realize. I think.
1:31:03
Definitely. Obviously they have the pods in
1:31:04
the ships are done digitally. But there's a wide shot early on
1:31:06
in Louisa's hall when she's leaving to join the mission.
1:31:09
She's walking towards the helicopter and the house is
1:31:11
behind her. You know, the shot that.
1:31:12
I mean, yeah, that was shot against blue screen.
1:31:14
And the house is all CGI. Yeah.
1:31:16
And the establishing helicopter shot would get the, like, swirls
1:31:18
around the camp, all the trucks in the tents.
1:31:20
They were holding in CGI as well.
1:31:22
But they use it really well. Oh yeah.
1:31:24
That's how you do it. It's the Fincher method, isn't
1:31:26
it? Yeah, it is.
1:31:27
Yeah. Like I mentioned earlier,
1:31:28
originally the alien ships were spherical shaped and made of
1:31:31
glass. During pay production OR
1:31:33
Villeneuve came across an image of a real asteroid called 15
1:31:36
Eunomia in the asteroid belt. He showed that one of the
1:31:38
designers on the film called Aaron Morrison and he developed
1:31:41
in the design of the ships that were seen in the film.
1:31:44
Yeah, they said there's a story about humans, so they wanted the
1:31:46
spaceships to not be distracting or take away from that.
1:31:49
So they made them quite subtle. They still look brilliant
1:31:51
though, really distinct. They.
1:31:52
Look amazing. I think one of the best effects
1:31:54
in the film is when they disappear to turn into clouds.
1:31:56
Oh fucking love. That yeah, it's.
1:31:59
Genius. Well, talking about they have to
1:32:01
pod ships, this is a fitting time for our second EATRM patron
1:32:04
question. All right, this time it comes
1:32:06
from Richard Hooley. Hello, Richard.
1:32:08
Hello, Richard. Hello, Richard.
1:32:10
So Richard asks. In terms of creature design,
1:32:12
ship design, and the way in which the aliens communicate,
1:32:15
Arrival is incredibly original. Which other Alien movies can you
1:32:19
list that come close to this design originality?
1:32:22
So what do you think about? I've gone for two here, 1
1:32:27
relatively modern, one a bit old school, more modern one I've
1:32:31
went for under the skin. Oh nice.
1:32:33
Because you get to the end of that film and you still don't
1:32:36
really know what the alien is supposed to look like.
1:32:38
You don't what the craft looks like.
1:32:40
It's only suggested kind of the beginning it there's the kind of
1:32:43
light flaring in the sky and then the whole dark pool thing.
1:32:47
It's called Johansson takes her victims.
1:32:49
Yeah, really weird. Really.
1:32:50
Weird. A lot of eye imagery, a lot of I
1:32:52
was imagery, but nothing concrete that says this is what
1:32:55
the aliens look like and this is their ship.
1:32:57
It's left so ambiguous and it's one of the most striking takes
1:33:00
on an alien I've ever seen. That one.
1:33:02
And then classic gold skill. I would go for the 50s version
1:33:05
of War of the Worlds. I love how they move away from
1:33:07
the tripods, which he is she Wells uses in the book.
1:33:10
And it's that kind of boomerang shape that they've got with the
1:33:13
eye on the stalk. And I love like the kind of
1:33:15
lasers just on the tips of the wings almost.
1:33:18
They're not like cannons like you usually get with lasers.
1:33:21
So I think that's such an evocative image, that one.
1:33:24
That one's really well designed. Yeah, I love the look at the
1:33:27
heptopods, like I said, and some of that great alien designs.
1:33:31
The thing of course, ET obviously the aliens from Attack
1:33:34
the Block I thought were quite original with like doing white.
1:33:37
Fangs. Yeah.
1:33:38
They're cool, yeah. I thought the prawns in District
1:33:40
9 were. Well, yeah.
1:33:41
I mean, if we're talking Alien designs, nothing tops the Alien.
1:33:44
The Xenomorph designed by HR Giga, Yeah, I mean the
1:33:46
Facebooker as well. Phenomenal design work.
1:33:49
And in terms of spaceship designs, again, arrivals in the
1:33:52
conversation, I think the ships here look fantastic.
1:33:54
The Nostromo, again, from Aliens.
1:33:56
Brilliant Discovery 1 from 2001, maybe the most influential.
1:34:00
I'm a big fan of the Highliner ships from June.
1:34:02
Yeah, yeah, really minimalist, but look really good.
1:34:05
But spaceships wise, I don't think you look too far past Star
1:34:08
Wars. I mean, the Millennium Falcon X
1:34:10
wings, TIE fight as Star Destroyers, all iconic.
1:34:13
And that's just the first film. Crazy design work.
1:34:16
Answer this in the Westie style here.
1:34:18
Like have you got three films? I've got 1600 ships.
1:34:22
And Westie, the best alien in spaceship design, work for you.
1:34:25
I'm. Going to go for the earliest.
1:34:26
For me, that really made an impact.
1:34:28
And one of the first ones that I saw was the 1965 film Doctor Who
1:34:31
and the Daleks with Peter Cushion.
1:34:33
Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:34:34
I love that. One, it's fantastic.
1:34:36
Roy Castle in there. Yeah, yes.
1:34:38
That's right, it's just a wonderful film.
1:34:40
It's just loads of fun. But I remember being absolutely
1:34:42
terrified by the Dalek design, and I love the colors of them
1:34:45
and how they all had, like, a rank order.
1:34:47
Then you find out that there's these things inside of it.
1:34:49
Yeah. Yeah.
1:34:50
Thought, wow, that's just really fucking scary.
1:34:52
And. The Daleks are fantastic.
1:34:54
The Daleks are incredible design for like an alien because you
1:34:57
don't quite know what it is. And they've got all these like
1:35:00
different weapons, and the voices are fantastic.
1:35:02
Wow. If that's what aliens are like,
1:35:04
I'm scared already. And then one that nobody really
1:35:06
mentions, but one that stuck with me for a long time.
1:35:09
This came out in 1985. It's a film called Enemy Mine.
1:35:13
Oh yeah, with Lou Gossett. Louie Gossett junior and Dennis
1:35:16
Quaid don't. Think I've seen it?
1:35:17
No. It's got Dennis Quaid in it, and
1:35:18
basically Dennis Quaid's a starfighter and he's fighting
1:35:20
against this alien race and they both crash land on this planet
1:35:22
and they've got to kind of like coexist and get along with each
1:35:25
other and survive. And it's like this reptilian
1:35:27
design for Louie Gossett Junior, you would not know it's him.
1:35:30
Definitely not. And for me, that's what I've
1:35:32
always thought of like an alien would look like.
1:35:34
It's incredible creature design. He's unrecognizable, like the
1:35:37
shape of his heads, the similar to like the Xenomorph.
1:35:40
It's got like a really original kind of tone to it and his voice
1:35:44
is amazing in it. He's got this really strange
1:35:47
reptilian voice. And I've always from that, I
1:35:49
think I was about 6 when I saw that and I just that really
1:35:52
stuck with me is like that's what aliens would be like
1:35:55
because there would be relatable and have like this reptilian
1:35:58
vibe to them, almost like a dinosaur look to them, but
1:36:01
within a heightened intelligence.
1:36:02
Yeah. So for me that's what I would
1:36:04
say them to really stuck with me.
1:36:06
Reminds me of about V the TV series where they've got green.
1:36:09
They look great as. Well, there's, like, humans and
1:36:11
them working together in V It's a similar kind of vibe.
1:36:14
It's got that kind of energy to it.
1:36:16
Yeah. But the Predator as well.
1:36:17
I mean, you've got to say that, of course.
1:36:18
Yeah. And the Predator ship you only
1:36:19
see for a tiny bit at the start of the film.
1:36:21
That's fucking cool As ice pops. Yeah.
1:36:24
For his work on Arrival, Bradford Young became the first
1:36:26
African American to be nominated at the Oscars for Best
1:36:28
Cinematography. No small achievement.
1:36:30
Wow. The person who beat him that
1:36:31
year was Linus Sandgren for La La Land, right?
1:36:34
OK. And the visual effects team
1:36:35
weren't even nominated, which is surprising.
1:36:37
Eh? That's crazy.
1:36:39
The winners that year were MPC and Wetter Digital for The
1:36:41
Jungle Book. The remake.
1:36:44
I think we seem to agree, though.
1:36:45
Pretty astonishing visuals throughout Arrival.
1:36:47
Yeah. Yeah.
1:36:49
So that's the main crew and the Navy Live clearly had a very
1:36:51
talented team in his disposal. We talked about production
1:36:54
designer Patrice Wermet and costume designer Renee April
1:36:57
earlier, and with Eric Heiser, a screenwriter, Johansson,
1:37:01
composer Bradford Young DP and the various visual effects
1:37:04
studios quite the team worked on bringing your rival to life. 18
1:37:08
No one's getting a baseball back to the back of the head this
1:37:12
time. The end.
1:37:19
The final act of Arrival and everything starts to come
1:37:22
together. The climax of the film where
1:37:24
Louise takes it upon herself to prevent World War 3 will be
1:37:27
discussed. Before that, though, we're
1:37:29
talking in the scenes where Louise starts to piece it all
1:37:31
together. Yeah, we are.
1:37:34
So with China and Russia closing down comms and other nations
1:37:37
following suit, Louise decides enough's enough.
1:37:40
She heads above the Heptapod vessel alone, and after a final
1:37:43
chat with Costello, realizes her visions aren't hallucinations.
1:37:47
She's seeing the future. Yeah, it isn't a weapon, Westy.
1:37:50
It's a gift. It is a gift.
1:37:52
How do these scenes work out for you?
1:37:54
Yeah. I mean, this is where it starts
1:37:56
to kind of wrap up and you start to get your head around it a
1:37:58
little bit on 1st watch, still had no idea what was going on to
1:38:01
be perfectly honest. The clarity does come the more
1:38:03
that you watch it and it's more rewarding I think on RE watches.
1:38:06
Oh. For sure.
1:38:07
Yeah, that's. What they were aiming for, and I
1:38:08
think it's especially what Phil New and Adams were aiming for,
1:38:11
to give the audience the benefit that doubt and not to drown
1:38:14
things out. And she asks about who is this
1:38:16
child and where it's supposed to go.
1:38:18
What are you talking about? Like, that's your idea.
1:38:20
She's just confused. She's obviously in the
1:38:21
atmosphere that plays and when you first watch it and just go,
1:38:24
she doesn't know what she's doing.
1:38:26
She doesn't have any idea. There's no music at the start of
1:38:28
this. It's all just incredible sound
1:38:30
design that just kind of bubbles in the background.
1:38:33
But what I get from this, and like, I don't know if you guys
1:38:36
are going to agree with this theory or whether you don't, but
1:38:38
I think her going into that ship and into that atmosphere herself
1:38:41
effects her body in such a way that basically is what happens
1:38:44
to Hannah that contracts the disease.
1:38:46
That's the radiation that's put inside her body.
1:38:49
So by going up and solving the problem, she creates her own,
1:38:52
much like Abbott had to sacrifice himself knowing that
1:38:54
he's going to die. Abbott's in the death cycle, is
1:38:56
what they say. And so is Hannah at that point,
1:39:00
because it's irreversible. She's unstoppable and it's all
1:39:03
circular. And maybe the point of this film
1:39:06
is we're watching this and that's the start of the disease
1:39:09
within her body that she passes on to Hannah.
1:39:12
So there's things that she does that she faces consequences
1:39:14
within this film of why Hannah would contract that disease.
1:39:18
Circular. It all comes round in one.
1:39:20
And that's what I get from this. And like the third or fourth
1:39:22
time I watched it, I thought she's coughing, She's physically
1:39:25
moved by this atmosphere. She's physically uncomfortable.
1:39:28
And she receives the gift here. And the gift, as we've mentioned
1:39:32
in the whole film, is a weapon. And the weapon, unfortunately,
1:39:35
is inside her body and it's used against her unborn child.
1:39:38
So I get all of that from this one sequence.
1:39:41
And that just makes the film even more intelligent for me
1:39:44
because it's not laid down thick.
1:39:46
And I think if you interpret the film from that point of view, it
1:39:48
just makes it far, far more interesting and gives this whole
1:39:52
sequence far more depth and emotion that I really like that.
1:39:56
I like to buy into that theory because I think that's she needs
1:39:58
to sacrifice something to save everything else.
1:40:01
Yeah, it's an interesting take. I see you could be on to
1:40:03
something I think. Yeah, for once.
1:40:06
As always, brave as a line, Louise.
1:40:10
And she going to board the ship by herself.
1:40:11
It happens. Like, what the hell is she
1:40:13
doing? Piss off saving your ass.
1:40:16
That's what she's doing. Yeah.
1:40:17
Like the final conversation between Louise and Costello
1:40:19
where everything gets revealed. The having a right old chin wag
1:40:22
now. Can't shoot him up.
1:40:23
Costello. Yeah.
1:40:24
Exactly, Yeah. There are some interesting
1:40:26
things come out though, like you say, Wesley Louise says who was
1:40:28
this child about Hannah to spell it out to us these on
1:40:31
flashbacks, Yeah. And then we say Hannah's made a
1:40:33
hep to power a plaster scene. Yeah, great visual way of
1:40:36
letting us. No, that's actually the future.
1:40:37
Also, I find out the hectopods must have a pretty long
1:40:39
lifespan. Costello says we need humanity's
1:40:42
help in 3000 years, and as far as we know, Louise can only see
1:40:45
in the future as far as she's alive.
1:40:47
So Costello must live for over 3000 years in that case.
1:40:50
What on earth we can help them with in 3000 years I've.
1:40:53
No idea, we won't be here in 3000 years.
1:40:56
Look at the state of us nowadays.
1:40:58
Yeah, I mean, it's circular, so it could happen.
1:41:00
Now they might just want to know how to make a pizza or
1:41:02
something. I'm helping with that.
1:41:05
Help with that? I like the wheel or anything
1:41:07
circular that we've invented, basically.
1:41:10
Either way, it looks in good nick.
1:41:11
Well, isn't he 3000 years old? Looks.
1:41:13
Really good. What's a sandwich?
1:41:17
But it's a really good way to reveal everything.
1:41:18
Final conversation between Costello and Louise where the
1:41:21
language in the actual physical barriers no longer exist between
1:41:24
them. Yeah, but has there been a
1:41:25
cellar line anywhere than Costello saying Abbott is death
1:41:28
process? Yeah, death process.
1:41:30
Can't say that. So is Hannah, though.
1:41:32
I think that's the sacrifice that everybody's made.
1:41:34
So she is in death process. It is a process.
1:41:36
It's always a process and it's always happening to everybody
1:41:39
who don't quite know. And then from here you get the
1:41:42
next flash forward, which is where it feels like the film's
1:41:45
starting to twist the knife a bit here with this sense that
1:41:48
something bigger is slowly being revealed.
1:41:51
Here. There's this feeling that pieces
1:41:53
are slowly being moved into shape and you but you're just
1:41:56
not quite sure what they are because Louise has commented
1:41:59
Hannah about her dad leaving that it's her fault.
1:42:01
I told him something he wasn't ready to hear and he said I made
1:42:04
the wrong choice. Which spiral alert.
1:42:05
I'll come back to this. He's 100% correct.
1:42:08
Oh well, just wait the other. This is one of Adam's strongest
1:42:12
scenes, I think on repeat view and knowing what she's
1:42:15
struggling with in that scene by the lake.
1:42:16
And I really like how it transitions from that shot of
1:42:19
her hook and Hannah to her collapse and Ian's arms.
1:42:22
And it's a scene that's got that lovely ironic twist when she
1:42:25
says, I remember now why my husband left me in his response.
1:42:29
I didn't know you were married. Yeah, it's brilliant.
1:42:31
That's great. So yeah, a lot going on in the
1:42:33
scene on repeat viewings. Yeah, I miss my husband as well,
1:42:35
she says. Doesn't she?
1:42:36
Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty heartbreaking,
1:42:38
doesn't it? Louise tell Hannah what's going
1:42:40
to happen without being too explicit, obviously, but the way
1:42:42
we're cutting between Louise and Hannah by the lake and the shots
1:42:45
of the helicopters around the world taking up like strategic
1:42:47
positions against the hectic party ships, that's really well
1:42:50
put together. Every wide shot of the ships
1:42:52
will see is stunning. Only now they've all got guns
1:42:55
trained on them, which they also think that might be how it might
1:42:58
actually play out. If this would have.
1:43:00
Happened. Yeah.
1:43:00
Depressing. Yeah, unfortunately so.
1:43:04
A fairly depressing thought, but luckily Louise isn't done just
1:43:07
yet. No, no, the climactic active
1:43:11
arrival ties everything up. First Louise reveals the twist
1:43:14
to Webber and US before China's military head General Shang,
1:43:18
played by Z Ma, comes into effect.
1:43:20
Using her new found prescience, Louise gets Shang's number,
1:43:23
tells him his wife's dying words and saves everyone's skin.
1:43:27
Or while having threatening to shoot her.
1:43:29
Good guy. Yeah, that was all come together
1:43:32
for you, Matt. I mean, there's a lot going on.
1:43:34
The revelations are coming thick and fast, but I really love the
1:43:38
fact that Louise learning Heptapod to me, that's a really
1:43:41
great well walking first the chicken or the egg scenario.
1:43:44
Does she suddenly learn Heptapod language there and then and it
1:43:47
just clicks? Or is it because she sees
1:43:50
herself in the future writing a book about it, teaching it, so
1:43:52
she realizes, oh, I've known this all along, actually.
1:43:55
Yeah. Like the ambiguity of that.
1:43:57
I mean, don't think about it too much because I think your head
1:43:59
is only going to end up hurting. I'll try to figure it out the
1:44:01
other day. And I just couldn't get there.
1:44:03
I'll be there as well. It's a nightmare.
1:44:05
It's a nightmare. I ended up just thinking on the
1:44:07
front cover of the book. That's just like a yin Yang.
1:44:09
That's fine, I'll leave it there.
1:44:13
And it's the same with the sudden revelation that they
1:44:15
don't see time in a linear fashion.
1:44:17
Again, That's quite a big leak to get to that point.
1:44:20
But by this point, I'm fully on board with Anthony, Louise says,
1:44:23
you know, she's completely more Nelson than I'll ever be, so
1:44:26
that's fine. Adams completely sells it.
1:44:28
But I love how when she's talking Rebel, I love his really
1:44:31
understanded reaction. So we can learn Heptapod if we
1:44:34
survive. Like, that's just his biggest
1:44:37
level of thinking about this. Yeah.
1:44:38
There's bigger things going on for him.
1:44:40
You understand what his focus is.
1:44:42
And I do like, again, he's not a completely cliched character.
1:44:45
There is that sense at the end when he says goodbye to Louise
1:44:47
and. And he does genuinely respect
1:44:48
them for what they've done. And he does appreciate they've
1:44:51
tried their best, but it's just events that are bigger than all
1:44:53
of them here. Yeah.
1:44:55
So the key kind of statement the heptapods give is there is no
1:44:58
time. Use weapon by which they mean
1:45:01
time's not as you think it is. Use the tool we've given you and
1:45:04
you'll see what we mean. Yeah, Louise understands that.
1:45:07
But the military translated like Independence Day, like time's
1:45:10
up. We're going to blow you away.
1:45:13
Too many role network films for helping.
1:45:15
Yeah. But also I do quite enjoy the
1:45:16
moment that Louise does confirm for our benefit mainly exactly
1:45:19
what's going on. She sees to Weber the weapons,
1:45:22
their language. If you really learn it, you
1:45:23
start to perceive time like they do this like mind blowing
1:45:27
revelation. And Weber couldn't give a
1:45:29
monkeys. Just like whatever, see you
1:45:32
later. Get on the helicopter.
1:45:34
But the way it all ties in and get revealed at the end, it
1:45:36
feels important, like the end of good films usually do.
1:45:39
Yeah, I mean, it's all turned on its head.
1:45:41
And we find out from this flash forward moment is a flash
1:45:45
forward, isn't it? Right?
1:45:46
Yeah, it is that Shang has something that he has to say,
1:45:49
Louise, and actually is part of the audience as well.
1:45:52
Now, this scene really has to hit.
1:45:53
This scene really has to work. Otherwise everything falls
1:45:56
apart. Yeah.
1:45:57
I don't know how your mind works, but I know you need to
1:45:59
hear this. And it's just the set design
1:46:01
here. It's circular in the background.
1:46:03
It's the warmth of the tungsten lights that's just leaning
1:46:06
towards the flash forward. But kind of understand where
1:46:08
this is going now. Everything's around as well.
1:46:11
If you know, I was just about to say the jewellery is all
1:46:12
circular. Everything's got a motif here
1:46:15
and it really works. All the flags in the background
1:46:17
are all the countries that have been on the screens.
1:46:20
Everything kind of marries together at CMAR here.
1:46:23
That really sells it, the way that he shows on the number
1:46:26
whispers in her ear. I think it's really important
1:46:28
that we don't know what was said.
1:46:29
There wasn't subtitles on the screen, so we don't know what
1:46:31
the wife's last words were. She was dying.
1:46:34
But the more I think about it and go from a writing point of
1:46:37
view, does that sell the end of the film?
1:46:39
If someone rang you out of the blue and just said this is your
1:46:41
wife's dying words, by the way, I think it would work.
1:46:44
No matter who you are, you would stop what you're doing and go
1:46:47
hold on a second. There's something else here.
1:46:48
I buy it in the film. I totally buy it.
1:46:51
So it needs to land and it does. And again, she's on the phone.
1:46:54
I like the fact that it's, you know, the guy who's been causing
1:46:56
the problems all the way through.
1:46:58
It's his phone. He's left stuff lying around.
1:47:00
Yeah, whose phone's that? It's yours.
1:47:01
It's yours. Yeah.
1:47:02
I love that he said we could find it Great.
1:47:05
And this is the most Ian does in the whole film.
1:47:07
And this sums up his character though, isn't it?
1:47:09
By his 20 seconds. And he just, all he has to do is
1:47:12
put himself between the gun, just puts himself up and
1:47:15
sacrifices himself for the great good.
1:47:17
That's all he can do. This whole final sequence needs
1:47:19
to land. You need to buy it, it needs to
1:47:21
work and it does all of them things.
1:47:24
It absolutely does. Yeah.
1:47:25
General Shang. Not to be confused with General
1:47:28
Chang no the warmonger in Klingon played by Christopher
1:47:30
Plummer in Star Trek 6, The Undiscovered Country.
1:47:33
Oh, God forbid we get those two confused.
1:47:35
I wouldn't worry about that for me.
1:47:38
Love to see him in there quoting Shakespeare.
1:47:40
The habit of pods. And I like that whole sequence
1:47:43
of Louise telling Shang his wife's dying words.
1:47:45
None of that's in the book. Shang isn't in the book at all.
1:47:47
So Eric Heiser had to come up with a satisfying way to end
1:47:50
things that works in the movie, and I think he does.
1:47:52
Yeah. There's a bit of a general
1:47:54
criticism the film gets around this time of China being
1:47:57
presented as the bad guys. I get it, and I don't disagree
1:48:00
with it, but I can get away with it because I don't think the US
1:48:02
are presented as the good guys. I mean, Louise is, but the
1:48:05
military are kind of personified by Halpin.
1:48:07
He's like General Chang. Yeah.
1:48:09
So he is, yeah. And I think, again, it's about
1:48:11
community and language. If the Western world's moving
1:48:14
faster and if America's Got the answers, it's going to be harder
1:48:17
to translate that over. Yeah, definitely.
1:48:20
Yeah. I do feel like the climactic
1:48:21
scenes sag a little bit for me, not quite as streamlined as the
1:48:24
rest of the film. Yeah, same.
1:48:26
But after it's all sorted and we get the final wide shots of the
1:48:28
alien ships all leaving, they disappear in that like Bale of
1:48:31
cloud and smoke. Absolutely beautiful.
1:48:33
Yeah, I love that. Hang them on your wall.
1:48:35
Every time I look at clouds now I think are they're just going
1:48:37
to come down again? Hope they do.
1:48:40
Yeah, so we've mentioned Shang whispers his wife's final words
1:48:44
in the Louise's ear and we don't hear what they are.
1:48:46
But she said there's no subtitles.
1:48:48
So Haisra had never actually wrote what the words were.
1:48:51
But V Lev said room the the most important words in the film.
1:48:54
You have to come up with something Haisra did.
1:48:56
And V Lev wanted to keep it a secret, but Haisra just blabbed
1:48:59
a couple of years later so that. Means great this check out what
1:49:03
I've written SO. What Louise says to Shang is in
1:49:07
war. There were no winners, only
1:49:09
widows. Yeah, that works.
1:49:12
Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, it's a good line.
1:49:14
I mean, it's got to be satisfying what she says.
1:49:16
And it is, I bet if you live with Furious or wanted to take
1:49:19
it to his grave, by the sounds of it.
1:49:21
Yeah. From there, we're into the final
1:49:23
moment of the film, back at the start, where Louise and Ian are
1:49:26
about to conceive Hannah the Danuma.
1:49:30
Oh, it was all going so well. This is the moment where the
1:49:34
film comes off the tracks for me because wow.
1:49:37
OK. I just cannot wrap my head
1:49:39
around Louise's decision here at all.
1:49:42
To sleep with Ian. Well, yeah, come on.
1:49:45
He's. Definitely punching.
1:49:48
Nor to embark on a relationship that she knows will end in
1:49:52
condemning a child to a horrible, painful, lingering
1:49:55
death which will destroy Ian's life in the process.
1:49:58
Particularly because she doesn't even give him a say in this
1:50:01
decision. I just think it completely
1:50:04
undoes her character. It makes her really selfish.
1:50:06
And well, I've had this discussion with other people
1:50:09
because it is divisive. I've seen this discussion online
1:50:12
and we've mentioned the idea of predetermination, but I just
1:50:14
don't think that works here because she has the premonition
1:50:17
about Chang and his wife's dying words, but she still decides to
1:50:22
make that call. She doesn't just go, Oh, well,
1:50:24
that what's happening. She could have decided not to
1:50:27
make that call. She decides to go through this
1:50:29
with Ian and with Hannah. Yeah.
1:50:32
And I just kind of comprehend why you would make that
1:50:34
decision. It destroys so much good wealth
1:50:36
got about the character. It really infuriates me.
1:50:39
Wow. I mean, I can see where that's
1:50:41
coming from, but at the same time, it's the message, isn't
1:50:45
it? It's like you never know what's
1:50:46
going to happen with anything. And if you did know what was
1:50:48
going to happen, would you still want the joy that you had?
1:50:51
Would you still want them to experience the life?
1:50:54
Is it worth just living for a couple of years to experience
1:50:57
that? We aren't wants to play God.
1:50:59
I don't know. I've come to peace with that in
1:51:01
certain ways and not read it as straight down the line as you
1:51:05
have, Matt. I think if you look at it, step
1:51:07
back from it a little bit, there might be something to get from
1:51:09
it. But we'll, we'll get there.
1:51:11
Yeah, OK. It's not just about Louise and
1:51:13
Ian, is it? Especially to Louise, because to
1:51:14
Louise, Hannah isn't something in the future.
1:51:17
She remembers her. She's a real person in her head.
1:51:20
I guess from her point of view, it is kind of like, how can I
1:51:22
deny her the right to live? That's part of it as well, I
1:51:24
think. I think that the last five
1:51:26
minutes this could be appeared on episode all under its own,
1:51:28
could be like 50 minutes just on the last five minutes in
1:51:31
Louise's decision, but I just cannot agree with it at all and
1:51:35
it just ends on such a sour note for me.
1:51:38
Either way, I think the venue Mont brilliant.
1:51:43
Fuck you man. I mean, Veal Nerve basically
1:51:46
plays the opening again in terms of the shot of Louise's huge
1:51:49
window, but then plays the whole thing out.
1:51:50
And now with what we now know, all of it makes sense.
1:51:53
It is the night and I was conceived.
1:51:55
I can't believe they didn't name a habit.
1:51:56
That's outrageous but stunning storytelling for me.
1:52:00
What I love most, though, is definitely Ian's line to Louise.
1:52:04
I've had my head tilted with the stars most of my life.
1:52:07
You know what surprised me the most?
1:52:08
It wasn't meeting them. It was meeting you.
1:52:11
Yeah, I've been waiting for this guy to turn off.
1:52:14
What a line that is. Unbelievable.
1:52:17
That's like I came across time for you, Sir, from the
1:52:19
Terminator. You know Heptapod, but he
1:52:22
doesn't know the language you love.
1:52:24
How could you turn that down? Yeah, definitely.
1:52:26
And I like it when Louise's book has delivered at the end the
1:52:28
universal language about learning Heptapod.
1:52:30
Mainly because it reminds me of George McFly getting a match
1:52:33
made in space. At the end of About the Future,
1:52:35
yeah. And then we end with the title
1:52:37
logo coming on the screen, which looks great, and it's the same
1:52:40
we saw at the start to signify this kind of circle, the
1:52:42
narrative, the film has just a great way to end things.
1:52:45
Yeah, I mean, to take the sting out the tail for Matt.
1:52:48
I know it's if you look at it from that point of view, but the
1:52:50
whole film has been telling you that if you learn a different
1:52:53
language, then it rewires your brain to think completely
1:52:55
differently. So if she chooses to have Hannah
1:52:57
anyway, she has her in a circular narrative, she has her
1:53:00
in a circular time. She never ever dies.
1:53:02
There's no start, there's no end.
1:53:03
She's always going to be with her.
1:53:05
She can visit at any time that she wants to.
1:53:07
She visited Shang when she wanted to.
1:53:09
She can visit Hannah when she wants to.
1:53:10
Hannah always going to be alive to her.
1:53:12
Ian cannot speak the language and he won't be able to have
1:53:15
that, which is why he left. That's what I get from it
1:53:17
anyway. And I see that as a selfish
1:53:19
thing. There's no beginning and there's
1:53:21
no end. It's circular.
1:53:22
So Hannah doesn't necessarily die and that's why she chooses
1:53:25
to do it. Because in this timeline, now
1:53:27
that she can speak Epipod, she doesn't lose Hannah.
1:53:30
She's always there with her. She can see her whenever she
1:53:32
wants to. In other words, Ian's been
1:53:34
screwed right over, hasn't he? Just learn the language, read
1:53:38
the book. Thing that's my issues.
1:53:40
I used to have described it better than the film does
1:53:43
because I'll just take it as yes screw IANS feelings he doesn't
1:53:46
get to say in this. Yeah.
1:53:47
It would take just twisting one line of dialogue to say and I
1:53:50
told you, father and we both decided it would be worth it.
1:53:53
Yeah. But I think it's a better story,
1:53:56
isn't it, the way they do it? It is because it's not a
1:53:58
decision that she's made. Literally she under been the
1:54:01
argument when they first meet. It's a discussion between
1:54:03
language and science and he chooses science and that makes
1:54:05
her selfish. She chooses language and she
1:54:08
understands. If he swallowed his science and
1:54:10
swallowed his pride and learned the language the same way that
1:54:12
she did, he can experience Hannah circularly and not in a
1:54:16
linear fashion and therefore always be with her.
1:54:18
Learn the language, Ian. There you go.
1:54:20
But then Hannah still dies horribly.
1:54:22
You've still got a dead child. In a linear timeline.
1:54:25
Yeah, which is Honda's timeline, yeah.
1:54:26
But who doesn't die horribly? Math.
1:54:29
Who truly lives? Who truly lives here?
1:54:31
Who doesn't die horribly? Do you know what I mean?
1:54:34
It is a choice that you make when you have children.
1:54:36
It is a gamble that you'd make. It is a choice.
1:54:38
Oh, of course, yeah. When you're alive, it's a choice
1:54:40
that you make every day to walk out the front door, turn left,
1:54:42
turn right across the street. It's like, well, if you knew
1:54:45
what was going to happen, would you choose love over pain?
1:54:47
And she chose love over pain because she could have that love
1:54:49
whenever she wanted it until her death.
1:54:52
And if we all lived circularly and didn't think about the
1:54:54
ending, would appreciate where we are now.
1:54:57
Appreciate where you are in your timeline and don't worry about
1:54:59
what's coming at the end because it's all circular anyway.
1:55:02
Again, you've just explained it better than the film managed us
1:55:04
to do, which is the problem for me.
1:55:06
Yeah, I mean, I've watched it like 19 times, I mean.
1:55:09
I think the film that does this kind of ended in a much more
1:55:12
thought provoking me. Eternal Sunshine.
1:55:14
The spotless Mind. Yeah, it's a very similar vibe,
1:55:17
Yeah. Is that completely predetermined
1:55:18
that Joel and Clementine were always destined to be together?
1:55:21
Yeah, it does this to me. Just misses them all completely
1:55:23
and puts a real shadow on Louise's character.
1:55:26
Yeah, I think this is just a lot more subtle and a lot more.
1:55:28
Find your own answers if you really want me.
1:55:30
And I think that's what Phil knew was trying to do with it.
1:55:32
Yeah, it's a shame she won't live, but in the end, who does?
1:55:35
Exactly. In the flash boards towards the
1:55:38
end of the film, Ian calls Hannah star stuff.
1:55:41
This is a reference to Cosmos, the famous documentary about
1:55:44
space by Carl Sagan, where Sagan says the nitrogen in our DNA and
1:55:48
the calcium in our teeth were made in the interiors of
1:55:50
collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff.
1:55:54
He's got all the lines now, yeah, doesn't he?
1:55:55
What? Do you mean by that Dad?
1:55:58
Doesn't matter, don't clean your teeth.
1:56:01
I've worked on you, ma'am. That's all you need to know.
1:56:04
That's not in the book either. So another nice edition from
1:56:06
Haisara. Yeah, that's really nice.
1:56:07
I love that. I'm going to start using that.
1:56:09
In Haisara's original script doesn't actually end with a
1:56:11
heptapods language being their gift, but what they do is they
1:56:14
give humans the technology to create interstellar travel
1:56:17
instead. But around the time the script
1:56:19
was being finalized, Christopher Nolan made obviously
1:56:22
Interstellar and they thought it was just too similar.
1:56:25
So the change to what we see in the film.
1:56:27
Right. Yeah, originally the different
1:56:29
nations were given different gifts. the US got faster than
1:56:32
light travel, like you say, right?
1:56:33
China were given like a really advanced life support machine.
1:56:36
OK, surely it has to be the language, though, doesn't it?
1:56:39
That's what the whole film's been about.
1:56:40
Yeah. Thematically, it sticks.
1:56:41
Yeah, yeah. And with that it's role credits
1:56:44
and arrival is done. All stories wrapped up,
1:56:47
including Louise's personal narrative with the Heptapods and
1:56:50
Humanities Wider 1 and a nice twist.
1:56:53
A satisfying way to finish for me university.
1:56:57
It's a satisfying way to finish for anyone.
1:56:58
If you watch a film 20 times. Reception under wards.
1:57:08
And that is the story of the life of a rival.
1:57:11
Almost. The film was widely released on
1:57:14
November the 11th, 2016. How do they do?
1:57:17
Well, our own theoretical physicist, Matt is.
1:57:20
He had to tell us. So go for it, Matt.
1:57:22
Bold claim that. So Arrival.
1:57:25
It was made for a production budget of $47 million and of
1:57:29
course 100.5 million domestically and $203.4 million
1:57:34
worldwide. So obviously a very, very decent
1:57:37
return for highbrow sci-fi film. Yeah, definitely.
1:57:41
Marketing would have been into that 30 or so, a million, I
1:57:43
guess. So tidy profit.
1:57:46
Critics wise, it's very pretty well too.
1:57:48
Roger. Eva was no longer with us by
1:57:50
2016. He completed the death process
1:57:52
very sadly, but his memory lives on and is still popular website.
1:57:57
So what did Brian Talarico of rogerebert.com give a rival out
1:58:01
of four? I mean, I don't know who
1:58:03
Talarico. Is or what his taste is, which?
1:58:06
Is the problem. I'll say 4 because it was loved
1:58:08
when it came out. 3 1/2. It was three stars out of four,
1:58:12
OK, right? And he said Arrival is more
1:58:14
about grief, time, communication and compassionate than it is
1:58:18
Warp speed. And it's a film that asks
1:58:19
questions. Why is it important to
1:58:21
communicate through language and not action?
1:58:24
A movie that gets too sterile at times, but Adams is always there
1:58:27
to ground it in. One of the most subtle sci-fi
1:58:29
movie performances I've ever seen.
1:58:31
Yeah, agree with Brian. Yeah, I do, yeah.
1:58:34
Yeah, it is the sort of performance from Amy Adams,
1:58:36
isn't it? Yeah.
1:58:37
All right. The Guardian rated Arrival of
1:58:39
the third best film of 2016 and Mark Commode gave the film four
1:58:43
stars out of five, saying a rival is a class act.
1:58:46
From its cool, minimalist opening to its poignant mind
1:58:49
bending finale, it's a Zen sci-fi thriller that's more
1:58:52
about mood and mind than time and space.
1:58:56
It is a touch of class, isn't it?
1:58:57
It is. It's a very classy film.
1:58:59
Via Lev Adams, Bradford Young, Johann Johansson.
1:59:02
Class Acts. Yeah, and it's it just hasn't
1:59:04
aged at all if you watch it now. Probably more relevant this year
1:59:08
considering the message of just. Let's just communicate a bit
1:59:10
better about stuff, eh? It's getting more relevant
1:59:12
every. It is, sadly, yeah.
1:59:16
And Empire magazine gave the film the full whack of five
1:59:19
stars out of five and said Arrival is a beautifully
1:59:22
polished puzzle box. And like all the best sci-fi, it
1:59:25
has something to say about today's world, particularly the
1:59:27
importance of communication and how we need to transcend
1:59:30
cultural divides and misconceptions if we're to
1:59:33
survive as a species. Oh yeah, wise word from empire
1:59:36
there. Yep, Dan Jordan that was.
1:59:38
Very nice. And then today on Rotten
1:59:40
Tomatoes, Arrival has an 82% audience approval rating and a
1:59:45
big old 94% from critics. Well then on IMDb it is 7.9 out
1:59:50
of 10. And then at the Oscars,
1:59:52
nominated for Edwards in total, as we've said, winning only one,
1:59:56
which was Best Sound Editing for Sylvan Bellamere.
1:59:59
A critics darling, not quite so much with audiences.
2:00:02
Is that fairly typical for Via Nerve?
2:00:04
Do you think I. Think so.
2:00:06
I think so, yeah, most of the time.
2:00:08
Something as weighty as this. I think he was going to tick
2:00:10
more boxes for the critics, wasn't it?
2:00:12
Then you started in a crowd. I don't think he ever goes for
2:00:15
ticket sales. He's just not interested in
2:00:17
that. He's interested in leaving
2:00:18
behind the legacy and being incredibly.
2:00:20
Of course. Honest towards that, I think,
2:00:22
and honest towards his craft. So Arrival did well in its
2:00:26
release, especially for a high brow super evil science fiction
2:00:29
film. Big return to the box office,
2:00:30
some award success and still highly thought of today.
2:00:33
Has it been Fred Fairly, do you think?
2:00:35
I think so. I think so, yeah.
2:00:37
Overall, yeah. Yeah, highly thought of.
2:00:42
Sequels and influence. There was never talk of a sequel
2:00:47
to Arrival, unsurprisingly villain who've never had any
2:00:50
intention of making one. I guess there are some places
2:00:52
that could have went. We don't really see the societal
2:00:55
effects of the Heptapods arrival on Earth or Arrival 23000 years
2:00:59
later to see why they need our help.
2:01:01
Would you like a sequel? Yeah, in 3000 years time and I'm
2:01:03
not here to see it. You'll be.
2:01:07
Yeah, Westy. So non linear you remember.
2:01:11
It's non linear. I'll still be around.
2:01:12
I'll be in that life support thing that the Chinese has got.
2:01:17
Like in The Big Lebowski? Yeah, like the I in love just
2:01:22
talking shit and getting fed chow man.
2:01:27
How about the impact the films had though?
2:01:28
What is the influence and legacy of a rival, do we think?
2:01:31
I think it's legacy is that this was V Love's real breakthrough
2:01:35
to the mainstream, as mainstream as this film can get.
2:01:38
To be honest. If he hadn't done this or if
2:01:41
this film was flopped, would he have been given any opportunity
2:01:44
to adapt you, especially in the way he wants to do it?
2:01:47
I wouldn't have thought so at all.
2:01:49
And then I think it just also stands out as one of Amy Adams's
2:01:52
finest performances. I mean, she's got a lot to
2:01:55
choose from, she's that good, but this is absolutely up there
2:01:58
with the very best she's ever done.
2:01:59
So I think those two in particular got the most out of
2:02:02
this film, and I think that's where his legacy lies.
2:02:05
Yeah, for a film that didn't make huge waves on its release
2:02:08
necessarily, I do think Arrivals had a sizable impact.
2:02:11
The influence on veiling of career, like you say, Matt, is
2:02:13
obvious, but also the way it goes about it.
2:02:16
This is artistic, highbrow science fiction.
2:02:19
It explores an event which has every chance of happening at
2:02:21
some point in extraterrestrial first contact, possibly in our
2:02:24
lifetimes, who knows? And it does it with
2:02:26
intelligence. I do wonder if this film would
2:02:28
have been made if not for the influence of Christopher Nolan
2:02:31
this century. I suspect not, but cerebral
2:02:34
science fiction is still a niche which is nowhere near full
2:02:36
enough for me. I get why, because science
2:02:39
fiction by it's nature always costs money because he usually
2:02:41
needs special effects. But Arrival proves if you do it
2:02:44
well, with a talented film maker and talent cast and crew, you
2:02:48
can make something which has autistic mirrors and which makes
2:02:51
money. Hopefully we'll see a lot more
2:02:52
of it from Vile Nerve. And it does.
2:02:54
And hopefully that becomes it's legacy.
2:02:56
I'm not holding my breath, but I hope it does.
2:02:58
No. Yeah, I think this is just going
2:03:00
to keep finding a new audience. Like we've said, this is even
2:03:03
more relevant now than it was when it came out because it has
2:03:06
this timeless message of humanity.
2:03:08
And it boils it down to what is it to be human and what is it to
2:03:11
be important and what is time? And all of them things are in
2:03:13
themselves timeless. It's the message more than the
2:03:16
spectacle, and I think that's always going to land with people
2:03:19
and it's always going to be relevant and it's always going
2:03:22
to find an audience with every new generation.
2:03:24
I think that's what Vilnius has done with his whole career.
2:03:27
He's just waiting and the audience is going to find his
2:03:29
work. He's doing what's honest to him
2:03:31
and that's where it's going to lie.
2:03:32
So I think that's its legacy and its influence.
2:03:35
I mean, there was a fair few science fiction films that came
2:03:38
off the back of it, but nothing that really kind of came close
2:03:41
apart from the likes of High Life, You know, that came out a
2:03:44
couple of years afterwards, which was a pretty good film.
2:03:47
But again, you could see this was written all over that.
2:03:50
Yeah. And again, you know, that trying
2:03:52
to take the message over the spectacle and trying to do
2:03:54
something that has a real visual kind of punch to it.
2:03:57
And I think that's what feeling you have done is like, you know,
2:03:59
you don't need a lot. Goes hand in hand with Nolan to
2:04:01
work for me. Well, we've got our 3rd and
2:04:04
finally, it's your MP. One question now, and I think
2:04:06
the legacy of the film is as good a place for it as any.
2:04:09
Yeah, it comes from George Anderson.
2:04:11
Hello, George. Hello, George.
2:04:12
Hello, George. Now, George has been one of our
2:04:14
patrons for as long as Costello's been alive, so he
2:04:17
knows a thing or two. Yeah, 3000 years.
2:04:20
And he is asking, does ATRM believe aliens exist?
2:04:23
And if so, have any films come close?
2:04:26
Like debating how each of you imagined they would appear to
2:04:28
humans? Right.
2:04:30
The big question, Matt, what do you think?
2:04:33
What's your purpose for this one, Matt?
2:04:35
Oh God. What's my purpose in anything?
2:04:37
So you took a dog chair in there?
2:04:40
We switched roles in this pod. I find it hard to imagine that
2:04:46
in the whole universe out there, there's not some kind of life
2:04:48
existing and thriving somewhere. Is it intelligent life?
2:04:53
Yeah. I don't know.
2:04:54
That's a big reach. I'm not intelligent enough to
2:04:56
try and work that out. But do I think they've been
2:04:59
visiting Earth in spaceships? No, not really.
2:05:01
I just think there'd be some kind of concrete proof one way
2:05:04
or the other. But for the sake of the
2:05:05
question, let's see. I did.
2:05:07
In terms of to their depiction, it's a tricky 1 because I think
2:05:10
that's just been entirely informed by movies and TV.
2:05:13
Anywhere you know, little green men, grey aliens with big black
2:05:17
eyes from The X-Files. Like anything I can think of.
2:05:20
I've got them, yeah. It's only because of popular
2:05:22
culture anywhere I've kind of haven't got this ID in me head
2:05:26
and the films come along go wow, already kind of implanted in my
2:05:29
head from what I've seen. So you know, they would have to
2:05:31
have arms and limbs and opposable films because that's
2:05:34
how you make things. That's how you build things.
2:05:35
So if I had to pick one film, the Order, George's Question, I
2:05:38
would say it is probably close Encounters to me, if they'll
2:05:41
land tomorrow, that's what I think the would look like.
2:05:44
Classic. Yeah, classic.
2:05:45
Yeah, I mean, I could talk about this all night, to be honest.
2:05:48
I have on occasion. Yeah, I know you have.
2:05:51
We've heard it all before. I know.
2:05:53
This time though, don't worry, I was going to start talking about
2:05:55
the Drake equation in the Fermi paradox and start putting
2:05:58
everyone to sleep. Oh, you're not gonna do.
2:06:01
I mean, the short answer is that we don't know if aliens exist.
2:06:04
Obviously I know, but we can't even guess because we don't know
2:06:07
enough about the universe. We don't know if we're like a
2:06:10
miraculous freak of nature on Earth, set here out there with
2:06:13
their huge telescopes looking for signals, and have been for
2:06:16
decades. But apparently if the observable
2:06:19
universe is the size of every ocean on Earth, the amount of
2:06:22
space set that you've searched is like a bathtub.
2:06:24
So next to nothing. Wow.
2:06:26
The answer essentially is either the universe is teeming with
2:06:28
life or we are all alone. That's for George's second
2:06:31
question in which film depicts aliens best.
2:06:34
The film about first contact I think is most interesting is
2:06:37
Contact by Robert Zemeckis. Have you've seen that?
2:06:39
Yeah, there's a lot of that in Arrival as well.
2:06:41
I think there's a lot of I. Think so, Yeah.
2:06:43
Yeah, there is. It's based on a novel by Carl
2:06:45
Sagan, who we mentioned. And at the end of that, Jodie
2:06:47
Foster's character meets aliens, and they appear as their dead
2:06:50
father on a beach. Because they say that's the only
2:06:52
way we can really conceive of what they are.
2:06:54
Yeah. And that's the thing.
2:06:56
We've been around as humans for 300,000 years.
2:06:58
About the universe is 13.7 billion years old.
2:07:03
So like, imagine showing a human from, like, the 1800s, an
2:07:05
iPhone. Yeah.
2:07:06
Don't know what a phone is, don't know what ATV is or what a
2:07:09
computer is. That literally wouldn't be able
2:07:10
to conceive of what we were showing them.
2:07:12
And that's 200 years. An alien species could be 13
2:07:16
billion years ahead of us. So what could that look like?
2:07:18
God knows. So from that point of view,
2:07:20
contact's interesting. And that it could be something
2:07:23
we can't even conceive of. But either way, one of my
2:07:26
favorite ever quote is from Arthur C Clarke, who wrote 2001
2:07:29
with Stanley Kubrick. And he said two possibilities
2:07:32
exist. Either we are alone in the
2:07:33
universe or we are not. Both possibilities are equally
2:07:37
terrifying. Yeah.
2:07:38
That I agree with. Yeah.
2:07:39
Yeah, great. You mentioned contact there,
2:07:41
that mirror shot at the start of contacts.
2:07:42
Absolutely. Your.
2:07:43
Best Brilliant. Of.
2:07:47
Course they exist, man. Fucking everywhere.
2:07:53
I'd love to think that they do, because I love stuff like this
2:07:55
and I would love to have that level of excitement.
2:07:58
It's why do you believe in ghosts?
2:08:00
I'd know, but I'd love to. You must have seen something by
2:08:03
now. It's always just interesting.
2:08:05
That's Area 51 and they're under the ground and they've landed
2:08:07
before and they're keeping them a secret and that's just
2:08:10
exciting, isn't it? And that's again, probably so
2:08:14
childish to any kind of race that comes to this world and
2:08:17
just 'cause they think that we like to hide, not oh God, let's
2:08:21
just leave this place alone. I.
2:08:23
Know, yeah. There's a really good cartoon
2:08:25
where they just say Jesus on the cross and it's like he died for
2:08:28
our sins. People worship and they're just
2:08:29
like, yeah, let's get the fuck out of here.
2:08:31
This one, they do their own people.
2:08:33
It's like maybe if they're observing when they're singing
2:08:36
how batshit we are and they just want no part of it whatsoever.
2:08:39
Maybe that's an element of it because I don't even want to be
2:08:41
here. But for me and keeping that kind
2:08:43
of fantasy alive, the one that really tapped in with me was
2:08:47
They live. Oh yeah, put the shades on and
2:08:50
they're already here. But they're so clever that they
2:08:53
can just manipulate how we think what we do and we are under
2:08:56
control. Maybe they are here and we don't
2:08:58
know about it. And I love that concept that
2:09:00
maybe they are here and they always have been.
2:09:02
The X-Files was a massive influence.
2:09:05
Signs I think was really terrifying.
2:09:07
Like if they landed, would it be that kind of vibe to it?
2:09:11
And Mac and me, obviously. That's kind of what David I say
2:09:16
is Wesley, if you want to get in these theories.
2:09:17
I mean, his theories, I'm not into these theories.
2:09:19
I'm aware of them. Lizard people and all that.
2:09:23
If it does happen, terrifying, like you said, John, if it
2:09:25
doesn't terrify him. But you know, if it's all
2:09:27
circular, at least that's a little bit of a hug.
2:09:29
No sequels to Arrival then I'm sure there won't ever be for the
2:09:32
best most likely. Yes, thank God.
2:09:34
But in being the new Villeneuve's first foray into
2:09:36
science fiction, and progressing his career and improving, there
2:09:39
is a market for thoughtful science fiction.
2:09:42
It does have significance. And aliens?
2:09:45
Who the hell knows? We might find out.
2:09:47
If you're picking up this transmission somewhere side of
2:09:50
the period, all the right movies ranking.
2:09:58
And we have arrived at the end or the beginning.
2:10:01
Hello and welcome to All the Right Movies.
2:10:05
I'm not really sure anymore, but either way, this is the moment
2:10:08
we each give a rival our final scores out of 10.
2:10:11
Yeah. So Westeeta stars off your
2:10:13
summary and score for a rival please.
2:10:15
I mean, I do find this one quite hard to rank, like I said at the
2:10:17
start and the end, but I mean, ultimately I'm not going to
2:10:20
really wax lyrical about it. There is bits where it does get
2:10:23
a bit bumpy and it drops us out, namely the explosion, namely
2:10:26
them bits coming into it. It kind of loses traction.
2:10:28
It gets a little bit thin and it comes back at the end and you
2:10:30
have to really buy it. And that's fantastic and it
2:10:32
works for me, but you can't lose the audience at that point.
2:10:36
It's not as strong consistently all the way through, I will say
2:10:39
that. But it does inspire me
2:10:41
especially to live my life to the best that I can, no matter
2:10:44
what may happen. It shows us the moment, and that
2:10:47
moment will come. No matter how hard you fight, it
2:10:49
is going to happen. So just live the best you can
2:10:52
until you can't. And that's what I get from this
2:10:54
and I walk away from it. And I like that feeling.
2:10:56
And I think the joy you feel when you're alive is far more
2:10:59
important than the loss you feel when it's gone.
2:11:01
And you've just really got to embrace that and enjoy all of
2:11:03
the little things and enjoy all of the love that's around at the
2:11:06
minute. Because when it's gone, it is
2:11:07
gone. So you have to stop for a
2:11:08
second. And this film makes me stop.
2:11:10
And for that, I really appreciate it.
2:11:13
It's always going to be there. It's always going to be
2:11:15
interesting for people to dive into this and pull something
2:11:17
from it. And I think for a film to have
2:11:19
that kind of message and not be cliched and cheesy is really,
2:11:22
really important. And for something to stop people
2:11:24
in the tracks and make them appreciate that they're alive is
2:11:26
incredibly important to do as well.
2:11:28
From a film point of view, yeah, it does dip a bit in the
2:11:30
narrative, so I kind of give it full marks, but I am going to
2:11:32
give it a very, very solid and very, very happy 9 out of 10.
2:11:36
Very nice. Well, like I said at the start,
2:11:38
I was very excited by the prospect of this film when I
2:11:41
first heard it was in development resource material
2:11:43
and directed by a filmmaker who proved in prisoners in Sicario
2:11:46
that he looks for the truth in his films.
2:11:49
But I've been there before. We all have his film fans many
2:11:52
times and been disappointed. Not so with Arrival.
2:11:54
I loved it when I first saw it and on re watches it has got
2:11:58
better. If anything it's got just about
2:12:00
everything I want in a science fiction film.
2:12:02
It's original and that visits a classic sub genre alien first
2:12:05
contact but does it with a fresh angle.
2:12:07
It's highly intelligent and I explores themes around language,
2:12:10
around communication, around perception and more.
2:12:14
It's touching and levels genuine warmth and heartfelt moments
2:12:17
mainly through Amy Adams who is fantastic in the lead.
2:12:21
And it's artistic. The filmmaking craft is
2:12:23
sensational at times. The cinematography from Bradford
2:12:26
Young is non-stop stunning, the music from Johann Johansson and
2:12:29
Max Richter near perfection and the writing from Eric Heiser.
2:12:33
I think it's up there among the greatest adaptations I've seen.
2:12:36
And obviously above all that, Aston E Villeneuve, one of the
2:12:39
great science fiction film makers out there for me, and
2:12:41
this is my favorite of his. Throwing a chat up line for me.
2:12:44
And it still wouldn't have been topped in 3000 years.
2:12:47
And you've got one of my favorite films of the century.
2:12:50
Not quite full marks, and I do think the ending isn't as tight
2:12:53
as I'd like, but it's not far off 9.5 for me.
2:12:56
Nice. And Matt, to take us to the end
2:13:00
of a start. Take your pick Your summary and
2:13:03
score for Arrival please. I'll do them all.
2:13:06
It is frustrating for me, this film because so much of it is
2:13:09
brilliant. The central idea, I love it, the
2:13:11
look of it, the sound of it, the performances, particularly for
2:13:14
Amy Adams. Add all that up in the 1st 2/3
2:13:17
of this film is sealing their way towards being a masterpiece
2:13:20
and the film absolutely takes a big swing, but it just doesn't
2:13:24
quite connect at the end. I hit that home one that I
2:13:26
really wanted to. There are some moments that the
2:13:29
narrative needs, but how they've been put on screen feel a bit
2:13:32
contrived. From top.
2:13:33
Add the explosion and I just think the end of needs a little
2:13:36
bit more clarity as to what's going on, not to be as ambiguous
2:13:40
as it is. But I will just stick to my guns
2:13:42
in that the decision that Louise makes at the end, I can't get on
2:13:46
board with at least me feeling very deflated.
2:13:49
And again, I'll just say it again, I think we've discussed
2:13:51
it in a better way than the film manages to put it on screen,
2:13:54
which is a shame. If we do say so, why not palace
2:14:00
sales on the back? We've had a.
2:14:01
Lot more time. If they did that, it'll be a 2
2:14:03
hour ending. It's magnet because so much of
2:14:05
the film in bits deserves a better score, but taking it all
2:14:08
together, it balances out. I didn't eat it for me.
2:14:11
Right, OK. So we also put this out there to
2:14:15
our ex, formerly Twitter followers, to get their thoughts
2:14:17
on Arrival. So Janine Curran at Janine
2:14:20
Returns said, as a language nerd, I love that Arrival
2:14:23
highlighted one of the most overlooked and interesting
2:14:26
aspects of First Contact. How do two different species
2:14:29
communicate? Nice.
2:14:30
And as a mother, the deeper message of this movie is perhaps
2:14:32
the most beautiful in all of cinema.
2:14:35
Yeah. I mean, that blend of science,
2:14:37
not it's something we've been talking about and something I
2:14:39
think Arrival does do. Well.
2:14:40
Yeah, Hugh Parker at UP 1970 said I hadn't watched this movie
2:14:45
until a month ago and was blown away by Adam's performance.
2:14:49
Hadn't quite figured out the time fractured narrative by the
2:14:51
end of it, but was aware there was something there.
2:14:54
Watched it again the next night and it all fell into place.
2:14:57
Brilliant movie. Yeah.
2:14:59
Wonder if he was still watching it every night.
2:15:01
That's his life now. Just a rival every night and one
2:15:06
of our patrons, Thomas Boyd said.
2:15:08
Love the film and its concept. The idea that language is the
2:15:11
key to how we perceive the universe is fantastic and well
2:15:14
executed. And if I had to remove points I
2:15:16
would only do so because the filming feels a bit too dark to
2:15:19
me. Sorry Westie.
2:15:21
So 9.5 all. Right, fine.
2:15:23
Don't be sorry. Be better.
2:15:28
It's not dark enough for you and imagine it's like smarting.
2:15:31
Right, you see all the faces? And everything so mostly
2:15:33
positive from our followers and patrons.
2:15:35
And all together they rate the film as What Do You think out of
2:15:38
10? I'll see a nine.
2:15:39
I'll go 9.5. It was 8.58.5.
2:15:45
Wow. OK.
2:15:45
Yeah. So in total, like it was a rival
2:15:48
35 out of 40. OK, right.
2:15:50
A good score for cerebral science fiction.
2:15:52
Yes, very good score. And that's that on arrival.
2:15:55
Hopefully you think we did better than the last guy.
2:15:57
I'll let you understood us at least next time out.
2:16:01
Luke, Westie and Matt have got a 2D head start.
2:16:04
You've got friends in every village from yet to the sedan,
2:16:06
speak a dozen languages, know every local custom.
2:16:09
They'll blend in, disappear. You'll never see them again with
2:16:12
any look. They've got the Grail already.
2:16:14
Imagine if after that, not the Last Crusade.
2:16:19
But no, I'll follow us. Chose wisely.
2:16:21
Next time. It is Indiana Jones and the Last
2:16:24
Crusade, Yeah. Anybody here speak English?
2:16:28
Or even ancient Greek, I'm already excited for that one.
2:16:32
You are obviously Westie. I'm over the fucking moon.
2:16:34
I kind of wait for that one, yeah.
2:16:37
Well, in the meantime, to find out more about becoming a
2:16:39
Patreon, supporting what we do, and accessing our archive and
2:16:42
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2:16:46
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2:17:01
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2:17:03
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2:17:23
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2:17:26
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2:17:36
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2:17:46
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2:17:49
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2:17:51
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2:17:53
Yeah. Try and avoid with.
2:17:55
It's going to get. That's more difficult than
2:17:57
getting involved, surely? Turning up in 12 spaceships,
2:18:02
we're all off now to have coffee with some aliens and see if Matt
2:18:05
can teach Westy in me Ian's language of love, which he knows
2:18:08
so well. I'll teach you my language of
2:18:10
love if you want. Surely you don't want to miss
2:18:14
the Last Crusade? Definitely not.
2:18:16
It's going to be hilarious. So come back for that and for
2:18:19
now, thanks for listening. Yes, thank you for listening
2:18:21
guys. Massively appreciate it.
2:18:22
Take care out there.