spoilers ahead I felt like the character conflict arcs were contrived and ultimately the idea of learning a language makes you a pre-cog fell flat for me. In science fiction, the big idea goes ‘woo!’ or the characters go ‘woo!’ but in the case of Arrival, nothing really went ‘woo!’
But maybe I’m wrong - what was I missing about Arrival?
So, I think if there’s an issue with Arrival, it’s the whiplash of using a hard[ish] sci-fi structure to address the first question, then zoom straight into the second. We’re given a pretty solid, small story about how we might plausibly handle first contact, and specifically the linguistic aspect of it, but the truth that comes out of it is that it was language itself which is the key to transcending space and time, and all so we can ruminate on the philosophical equivalent of “Should we love our pets when we know they live shorter, smaller lives than us?”
It’s quite the flex for the movie we were watching, and feels a little unearned. There was definitely a little bit of “I’m stoned and this is deep”. As a dog owner, I at least appreciate that the answer was “yes,” LOL.
I do still think it’s good and it was very well done. Many movies wouldn’t even be worth this discussion.