up, catching: thanksgiving, arrival
Nov. 27th, 2016 03:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twoelevenmy usual every-other-year economic analysis thanksgiving dinner attendance has been derailed. as a result of the improving economy and/or my own lateness, we couldn't get reservations to the fancy buffet we've been going to for many years.
we did get a regular sit-down dinner at the same place (for a vastly higher price) and the buffet seemed pretty busy when we walked past. our dinner seemed pretty well attended as well.
we saw arrival, an OK first-contact movie. it's adapted from ted chiang's "the story of your life", which we both reread after seeing the movie. arrival is an adaptation of "the story of your life" (tSoYL) in about the same way blade runner is an adaptation of do androids dream of electric sheep is: there's clear similarities between the two -- and even a couple of things that are identical -- but the stories aren't entirely the same.
it's not an adaptation the same way that 2001 is an adaptation of "the sentinel". the problem is that it seems to want to be.
tSoYL is a gadget story. there's a mcguffin -- an unusual one, an alien language -- and its effects on the human condition -- or one human's condition -- are explored. it's a pretty good story. not one of my favorites, but it's an ok tale pretty well told.
arrival takes that straightforward gadget story and pastes on a lot of plot complications in order to make a feature-length movie. the plot complications don't quite work; in one scene, the plot is hurried along in a ham-handed way very much like one character asking "why do we need to hurry?" and another character handing them a plot coupon offering a buy-one get-one-for-free deal on crises.
tSoYL has only two characters: Our Heroine, a linguist, and her interlocutor, a physicist. his job is pretty simple: hand her domain knowledge that explains parts of the story and give her somebody to talk to. arrival struggles with the first part. it seems the writers really didn't know how to write science, even though a key scientific point in tSoYL is really easy to present. so, he seems to be reduced to the love interest.
in tSoYL, The Government was distantly represented by the state department; in arrival, it's the military. the big, bad "be ready to kill them first if they so much as look at us funny" military. i find that sort of stereotypical representation tiring.
however, the introduction to the army camp that's hastily built at the first contact site is really well done. the camp comes across at least as alien as the aliens themselves. yay! somebody thought about subcultures (civvie vs military) and how they look to each other. yay!
the aliens are really well done. it's a shame arrival is a stand-alone story, because i really like the heptapods. much better than the typical low-budget latex foreheadians movies and TV shows like (i'm glaring at you, star drek wars) or the refugees from horror movies like the things from the alien movies.
not only do they have suitably odd biology, their technology and its application is simply inexplicable. yay! forget indistinguishable from magic; try indistinguishable from a strange dream. i'm especially fond of the way their ships just disappear in puffs of mist at the end of the movie. most excellent: i have some some actual sense of wonder about how they do that.
on balance, i don't think arrival is worth the price of admission, even for a cheap show. it's probably worth seeing on DVD/streaming tho. or you may like reading tSoYL better. i'm going to oppose the consensus opinion on them and say read tSoYL first. it's a novella, so it's a quick read. if you like it, rent some visuals to go with it.
we did get a regular sit-down dinner at the same place (for a vastly higher price) and the buffet seemed pretty busy when we walked past. our dinner seemed pretty well attended as well.
we saw arrival, an OK first-contact movie. it's adapted from ted chiang's "the story of your life", which we both reread after seeing the movie. arrival is an adaptation of "the story of your life" (tSoYL) in about the same way blade runner is an adaptation of do androids dream of electric sheep is: there's clear similarities between the two -- and even a couple of things that are identical -- but the stories aren't entirely the same.
it's not an adaptation the same way that 2001 is an adaptation of "the sentinel". the problem is that it seems to want to be.
tSoYL is a gadget story. there's a mcguffin -- an unusual one, an alien language -- and its effects on the human condition -- or one human's condition -- are explored. it's a pretty good story. not one of my favorites, but it's an ok tale pretty well told.
arrival takes that straightforward gadget story and pastes on a lot of plot complications in order to make a feature-length movie. the plot complications don't quite work; in one scene, the plot is hurried along in a ham-handed way very much like one character asking "why do we need to hurry?" and another character handing them a plot coupon offering a buy-one get-one-for-free deal on crises.
tSoYL has only two characters: Our Heroine, a linguist, and her interlocutor, a physicist. his job is pretty simple: hand her domain knowledge that explains parts of the story and give her somebody to talk to. arrival struggles with the first part. it seems the writers really didn't know how to write science, even though a key scientific point in tSoYL is really easy to present. so, he seems to be reduced to the love interest.
in tSoYL, The Government was distantly represented by the state department; in arrival, it's the military. the big, bad "be ready to kill them first if they so much as look at us funny" military. i find that sort of stereotypical representation tiring.
however, the introduction to the army camp that's hastily built at the first contact site is really well done. the camp comes across at least as alien as the aliens themselves. yay! somebody thought about subcultures (civvie vs military) and how they look to each other. yay!
the aliens are really well done. it's a shame arrival is a stand-alone story, because i really like the heptapods. much better than the typical low-budget latex foreheadians movies and TV shows like (i'm glaring at you, star drek wars) or the refugees from horror movies like the things from the alien movies.
not only do they have suitably odd biology, their technology and its application is simply inexplicable. yay! forget indistinguishable from magic; try indistinguishable from a strange dream. i'm especially fond of the way their ships just disappear in puffs of mist at the end of the movie. most excellent: i have some some actual sense of wonder about how they do that.
on balance, i don't think arrival is worth the price of admission, even for a cheap show. it's probably worth seeing on DVD/streaming tho. or you may like reading tSoYL better. i'm going to oppose the consensus opinion on them and say read tSoYL first. it's a novella, so it's a quick read. if you like it, rent some visuals to go with it.