fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4070 ]

[ SECRET POST #4070 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4070 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Futurama]

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[Cheers]

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[Classic Hollywood cinema]

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[Xena: Warrior Princess]

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[Altered Carbon, Kristin Ortega]

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[Game of Thrones/ASOIAF (OP's note: more for the books, but the art was too pretty not to use)]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #583.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Today we are discussing Arrival!

Here are some questions to start us off.

1. What was your initial reaction when the movie started? How did that change by the end of the movie?

2. Who was your favorite character in the movie? Your least favorite character? Why?

3. What was your favorite scenes? Your least favorite? Why?

4. What did you think of the soundtrack and/or score?

5. What did you think of the production (cinematography, editing, costuming, etc.)?

Feel free to talk about anything else as well!

1. This is the second time I have watched the movie but it was recently enough that I remember everything I felt about it. I found the opening a bit boring until Colonel Weber shows up in Louise's office. I thought it was AMAZING. This was just one of the best movies I have ever seen. I regret not seeing it in theaters.

2. I feel like the favorite and least favorite characters are obvious. Louise was such an amazing, smart, and powerful character. I was just blown away by Amy Adams's acting. My least favorite was the leader of the assholes who blew up the ship. I knew he was going to do something stupid from like the second scene we saw him.

3. Ugh! I can't decide what my favorite scene is. I don't really have a least favorite. Some of my favorite scenes. The first time they enter the ship and shift....gravity. Or it might be the first time we see the heptapods for the first time. OR when Louise starts communicating with them. Or the climatic ending where she has learned to travel/manipulate time and is able to save them all by talking the Chinese general. Or perhaps is the opening scene/monologue that you don't really get until you watch the movie again.

4. It was phenomenal. Just...phenomenal. I listened to the OST for a month after watching the movie. I cannot think of a movie where the music embodied the movie more than this. It is such a shame that Jóhann Jóhannsson died so suddenly.

5. Everything about this movie was beautiful. The design for the ship is awesome (it was apparently based on a comet). The design of the heptapods is just so amazingly...alien. I loved every scene of this film. How they filmed the scene where she is in the heptapod's 'room' gave is such an ethereal quality was perfect.

Other thoughts: I love that both Louise and Ian got a time to shine. I love, love, love that Louise decides to have her daughter even though she knows what will happen to her. And I don't at all blame Ian for being upset when Louise tells him what will happen.

I regret not seeing it in theaters

Me too! It had very good special effects - not OTT but more effective for all that. A big screen would've made the most of it, and of the wide empty landscapes.

I don't at all blame Ian for being upset when Louise tells him what will happen.

Me neither. :( But I think I need to see it again, to get everything in the right order.

The sound would have also been so much better with some of that Dolby surround sound.

Yeah, I really felt like I got more from the movie the second go around. Especially with the opening scene and monologue!

I've now re=ordered it from the library! Hopefully I'll have a bit more brain this time around.

/house-moving anon

I hope you enjoy it again! I feel like movies like that are better watched a second time because the second time you don't have to worry about "the twist".

I hadn't thought of it like that, but yeah, "the twist" is something that hasto happen and it gets tiring after a while!

I have to praise the sound - and sometimes the lack there of. But I guess there was a sound, but it was like an atmospheric thing. The sound of the chatter of the humans dying away as the pressure was on when they went into the ships.

I really enjoyed so much of this, but the bit with people trying to parse the language of the aliens with the circles in the lab was really interesting.

the bit with people trying to parse the language of the aliens with the circles in the lab was really interesting.ttes, but

I liked that too! It showed how far they'd come. I'd've liked a bit more on how they did it, though it was a very effective shortcut as it was. Perhaps the process was dealt with in the featurettes, but I'm always wary of destroying the magic.

/anon below you

I loved all the language stuff. I wonder how much of a language they actually made. I should probably research that. There isn't a whole lot of Behind the Scenes videos I could find.

It's been a couple of weeks since I saw it, and I've moved house since then. So my recollections are a bit hazy. But I made some notes, so here goes.

1. Initial reactions. Wasn't sure what to make of it – was she going to disappear into The System, or what? Once I got a handle on what was going on, I relaxed a bit.

2. Favourite character. I suppose Louise – she was the protag and I think we were supposed to see her as sympathetic. And I was sympathetic, right up to the point at which I realised that she'd decided to have her daughter despite knowing all that she would suffer. Who'd do that to an innocent child??

3. I liked the gravity shift – that was weird and dislocating, and worked very well indeed. And the scene in which “Ian walks” - that was unexpectedly funny, and just great. Also the scene where they were going through their heptapod “dictionary” - it showed how far they'd come.

4. I thought the soundtrack was trying a bit too hard? The whole scenario is weird enough anyway.

5. I know nothing of cinematography but it worked for me! I liked the big, empty landscape and the sculptural quality of the alien ship.

There was a lot of stuff I didn't get as well. Like, why so few women, and why was the one woman we get to see a lot of so greatly defined by her role as a mother? Are we going for maximum gender stereotyping here?

It made no sense to me to have a colonel in charge who was so rigid and inflexible. You want someone who's a bit more open to ideas for a position like that. Likewise, General Shang was oddly aggressive until the end. Why would you be so aggressive towards people who have FTL travel? You'd have no chance against them. But both Halpern and Shang mellowed considerably at the end, and I liked that.

Also, why so little co-operation between the humans at the various landing-sites? And why only one Mandarin speaker at “our” site? It all seems very disorganised to me.

I was left with lots of intriguing questions about causality and foreknowledge. So it's a movie to get one thinking, for sure - and that's what I like most about it.

I'd think that most people that high in the military would be pretty rigid. But I felt he was also pretty open to Louise's ideas. He let her continue to keep her suit off and didn't throw her out on her ass when she did that. He also seemed to genuinely listen to the things he told her.

In regards to aggression, that just seems like a human condition? Humans are a pretty violent species towards things they consider 'other' (including humans with different skin colors).

We also have historical proof of how secretive countries can be towards each other. Just look at the space race. Countries will always fuck over each other if it means protecting themselves.

For the lack of women, there were really only three main characters. Ian, Louise, and Weber. I never really thought of Louise as defined by her motherhood, I saw her as defined by her language skills. That is how she likely saves the world.

It was the unnamed woman, talking to her SO on the project from off-site, who really got me annoyed about the number of women. She was such a stereotype, with all her "I'm so worried" and "you must protect me". It was scriptwriting from the 1950s! But there's no reason why there shouldn't have been female techies (or squaddies) on that site, it's the 21st century after all. So that got a definite "hmph" from me.

To be fair, her husband (boyfriend) is in the military AND working on site with one of the alien ships.

1. Huh and at the end sort of uhhh.

2. I'm not sure I have a favourite. I disliked Louise after the big reveal, and I related more to Ian's negative reaction than her own actions. I didn't like her that much to begin with though. I found her arrogant.

3. I like looking at all the pretty language blobs. I felt a bit uncomfortable with all the bits like China gets the translation wrong and all these other countries like Russia and other places we are obviously superior to are reacting stupidly. Buuuut it's a very common theme in American movies.

4. I can't say I took much notice? I probably would have if I knew it was going to be in the quiz. So it was probably neither terrible nor mind-blowing.

5. Decent looking production. I think the parts where they kept things simpler worked well.

I don't really understand if seeing the language means that you can't change the decisions you will make that will lead to that outcome. I also don't understand if their exposure to the aliens and ship which at one point makes Louise look pretty messed up contributed to whatever the hell is going to be wrong with the kid.

I think I was supposed to find Louise a lot more sympathetic than I did.

I didn't think the squid look was very alien.

I probably won't watch it again but parts of it were somewhat enjoyable. I would be a terrible movie reviewer. Wow.

Crikey, I hadn't thought of that. :(

Honestly....I am not so sure they can change time? I read up a bit on how the time travel was supposed to work. It isn't so much that she time travels, it is more that she perceives time non-linearly. But I don't have a big enough brain to figure out how that works.

I always assumed her daughter got cancer but they are not really clear about it. I wonder if the book has more info about that. I know the author really liked the movie.

I always notice the music because I love OSTs!

Yeah, the time perception thing isn't completely explained. I just thought because she has this awareness of future events in the present, but she's also still making decisions in real time, so it does seem like she deliberately made the choice not to tell Ian. If she chose that, she could have chosen to do it differently? Unless she can't because she's seeing her own future and once she's seen it she can't change it??

I felt like I was being led by the film to see that she chose that even knowing that her daughter will die, and Ian will leave, but it was supposed to be noble or something. I don't see it that way though, at all.

I'd be curious to know if the book explores that further. I didn't know there was a book.

I think watching it on my laptop made the soundtrack kind of flat. It's probably best experienced in a proper theatre. With snacks.

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[ SECRET POST #4070 ]

Movie Club Discussion!

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spoilers I guess.

Re: spoilers I guess.

Re: spoilers I guess.

Re: spoilers I guess.