This trailer is now making the rounds, which previews the upcoming science-fiction, first contact thriller Arrival. Based on the short story, “Story of your Life” by Ted Chiang, this film tells the tale of aliens coming to Earth, and the arduous process that follows as we try to figure out their intentions, communicate with them, and not provoke a “War of the Worlds” scenario.
In the lead roles are Amy Adams (famous for her role as Lois Lane in Man of Steel), Jeremy Renner (of Avengers and Bourne Legacy fame) and Forest Whitaker, who just finished up working on Rogue One. Adams plays Dr. Louise Banks, the world’s foremost linguist who is called in to find a way to communicate with the aliens. Renner plays Ian Donnelly, a mathematician, who’s present because math is considered the only universal language. And Whitaker plays Colonel Weber, the requisite military man who’s there to disagree with the scientists and emphasize security.
As you can see from the trailer and gauge from the description, the story is one that has been told many times, but never gets old! In many ways, the plot, themes and aesthetics call to mind such movies as War of the Worlds, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Contact, Sphere, and even more recent ones like Prometheus. And from what I saw, I am desperately hoping they choose to take the more complex and nuanced approach, and avoid any Independence Day messiness with this one! If there’s one thing that’s been done to death, its the idea of scary aliens coming to kill us all. If anything, I am hoping they take a more Childhood’s End approach with this one.
After all, if we found another intelligent species which we could make contact with, and our level of technology was more sophisticated than theirs, would we kick in the door and just decide to conquer willy-nilly? Or would we take a slow approach, try to get to know them first, and go to war once we screwed all that up? Exactly!
The movie comes out this November 11th, 2016, on Remembrance Day (also Veterans Day and Armistice Day, depending on where you live). One has to wonder if there’s some subtle message there, eh? Enjoy the trailer:
Stories by Williams 