Another case of treating aliens as stupid beings.
It really scares me just how superior humans think they are above anything.
shareRead the short story. You might have a different opinion !
share
MovieChat Forums > Arrival (2016) Discussion > Another case of treating aliens as stupi...
It really scares me just how superior humans think they are above anything.
Oh don't worry, your thread proves how stupid humanity can be. Did you read the short story before writing this well thought out thread? share
Last time I checked, this wasn't a message board about the short story. It's about the movie, which is what the OP is criticizing.
shareHonestly, what is your post based on?
Obviously not the short story, where the humans couldn't even figure out why the aliens were actually here.
By default, any aliens that can travel across the universe are much more intelligent than humans are.
So what from the trailer or story makes you hold your opinion?
So just because aliens don't tell the humans why they are here, it makes them intelligent? That's a weak argument.
In the trailer, that condescending female lead says "They might not even know the different between a weapon and a tool." Gee, really, so you have to be a human to figure that out?
Jeeeeeesus.
Yes, actually, you do have to be a human to figure out what man-made items are used for. It doesn't make the aliens stupid, it makes you look stupid for thinking that way.
Lets say you have a dog. Your dog will look at you and communicate thru body language what it wants. A certain look might mean go outside. Another might mean he's hungry. Another may mean DANGER.. You know what your dog is trying to communicate because you've raised him and know the signs of what he wants, even though you have no common language or body type. It takes time to learn communication. But the dog will learn your spoken and body language to. If were to hold a gun in your hand, and the dog has never seen a gun before, he would have no idea if it is a tool, or a gun, or a toy. If you beat him with it, he'd learn pretty quick to run whenever you picked it up, or attack you.
In Arrival , the aliens have a completely different look, language, culture, science. What we consider weapons might be of no consequence to them at all. They might consider a weapon and a tool the same thing, like a hammer. They wouldn't know the difference between a gun and any other object, until we can learn to communicate with each other first.
it rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again
Ah yes, another brilliant human who thinks they know all about aliens. Just hilarious.
shareExcellent retort (Polite golf clap)
it rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again
Any aliens we can't communicate basically has the smarts of a dog, brilliant, why would I even bother to ponder the possibility that these aliens have been traveling in space for millions of years and have come in contact with thousands of civilizations, so of course, we humans are suppose to know better than them, yeah!
Idiot.
I'd love to take your university course. Where do you teach?
it rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again
I'm afraid you'll fail the entrance exam due to your close-minded human superiority complex.
shareStill wondering where you teach Anthropology, Professor.
it rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again
In my opinion James is correct. Our own history tells of encounters with indigent people and advanced civilizations. Indigent didn't know or understand the civilized tech. And the Civilized tech didn't right away understand the indigent means.
shareYou two are both wrong on an account that you two are both assuming very arrogantly that aliens haven't seen any more of this world than the humans have when the fact is it's the aliens that have space travel, and that fact alone should tell you that you two are incredibly naive in your assessment.
shareJames is arguing that the aliens are intelligent, not that they aren't.
shareYou don't know how old they are, are what experiences these aliens have had, it seems your incapable of abstract thought. The whole point of the movie is that language is the barrier to thought, which in this case, is quite ironic.
shareThe point was about communication between beings without a common language or culture, claiming nothing about aliens per se. That's what the film with the "condensing female" is about....
shareYou seem really angry. Are you okay?
You completely ignore the second part of my post. They traveled at least intergalacticly. It is hard to imagine any civilization being able to do that as being dumb.
My point, which was fairly obvious, is that if humans can't even figure out what they want, the humans can't be vastly more intelligent than the aliens. At least in the short story the humans were trying to learn every little thing they could from the aliens. Once again, showing that the aliens knew much more than humans.
You get caught up in the line with them learning the difference between a weapon and a tool? That should not be surprising that it'd need to be something that the aliens would need to learn.
Hypothetically, lets say they are a completely peaceful civilization, they might not even have a concept of things such as "weapons". That doesn't make them dumb.
Or if their body structure is extremely different than humans, they'll need an explanation on how a gun works and the difference between the point of the weapon facing downwards vs. being pointed at them. That doesn't make them dumb, just different.
I still don't see how anything from the trailer would lead you to believe that humans were somehow more intelligent than aliens. I guess other than, humans seem to know more about humans than the aliens do. But I'd guess that the aliens know much more about being aliens than the humans do. So that comes out as a bit of a wash. And they obviously trump the human's technology levels. Soooo, seems pretty clear that they are more intelligent.
Hypothetically, lets say they are a completely peaceful civilization, they might not even have a concept of things such as "weapons". That doesn't make them dumb.
Or basically, let' say that they see something like an axe and a pickaxe. One is used as a weapon and the other is a tool, but can be used as a weapon too.
We understand all that completely because we're familiar with those objects. The aliens haven't seen something like that so they can't know what its function is unless they learn about it. share
Here's the thing, it doesn't matter what WE think a certain tool is whether a weapon or not to us or to the aliens, because it's all about how the tool is interpreted within the context. Let's go through examples as to why the definition or description of a tool or a weapon is literally pointless.
1. Humans know that a tool not meant to be a weapon can be a weapon, oh oops, did I just blew your genius argument? I sure did. So to expect aliens to distinguish one from another is quite ridiculous in the first place.
2. An atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in WW2, so what exactly is the weapon? The bomb itself, or the bomber, or a pen of a president that approved such an action? Yes at this point I'm making your head spin. Now, you want to explain that to the aliens? Really? Good luck.
3. What if an alien space ship deployed a magical light ray all over the planet Earth and from that came death of all humans on Earth, so that would be considered a weapon right? But what if the aliens were simply cleaning our planet because of artificial pollution that humans have created? Is that still a weapon to the aliens? Oh my, I know your brain is having a seizure right about now.
What I want to say here is, you poor stupid people are asking the wrong questions.
End of lesson.
Don't try to be a teacher.
shareJame & Drew,
Don't let the haters annoy you. Let them pass their own final judgment (at their loss) to boycott the film.
It's amusing how people form such strong opinions based on a 1-2 minute preview - without doing any other research on the subject. Almost every movie you also see trivial arguments regarding how lousy a new release is if it doesn't receive an R rating from the MPAA, with complete disregard to knowing the actual content of the story. Many posters think they have the entire plot figured out, and then proceed to make arrogant comments that don't really apply to the film. That's when the arrogance abruptly shifts to ignorance (completely blind to the poster). What a site this IMDB is. I sometimes wish there was a small annual fee - even something as small as $3 a year could possibly weed out the meaningless crap.
It's often the younger posters (those in their late teens or early 20's), who think they have greater intelligence than the writer & director of this film combined. How much effort does it take to criticize something after investing 2 long minutes versus the endless hours it takes to craft, shape, and create an intellectual story like this? Without even realizing the original story is from a very well-regarded sci-fi author who actually WON the science fiction Nebula and Hugo awards, isn't that correct? It would be quite an eye-opener to see some of these haters attempt to write something even half as brilliant as this.
Anyway, I just wanted to compliment both of you for writing insightful posts without giving away any spoilers. I especially liked Jame's handling of describing how special and unique the aliens were presented without relinquishing any details - knowing how fun it is for the audience to experience that for themselves. I also liked the description of an early screening the audience was so quiet you could "hear a pin drop".
November can't come soon enough! I'll be grabbing some tickets opening night. Hopefully there will be a new Fast & Furious or Transformers film opening the same weekend to take some of the fodder away. I find the movie-going experience is best when the auditorium is filled with a like-minded audience who can appreciate a degree of patience.
:-)
You are just a joke who can't even think with reason.
So you think I never thought about aliens before I watched this stupid trailer? You don't even know where I come from when I make my statements. You are incredibly ignorant.
And so an author is a good fictional writer, that means he's better than me? How is that even remotely sensible? George Lucas created an incredible fictional world called Star Wars, but does that mean he has the most logic and common sense when it comes to aliens? Every person on the planet will laugh in your face with such claims.
People like you actually give aliens and UFO enthusiasts a bad name, because all you want to see and read and hear is what you believe.
Open your eyes, or your mind, or get a brain transplant.
I am not an alien nor UFO enthusiast, but I do enjoy quality sci-fi films. Also, while I enjoy most of the Star Wars series, it is far from what I would consider quality science fiction. I have never claimed Lucas was "the man" when it comes to understanding aliens. I do think he was a technical genuis during his prime, but I would certainly not say he is a great writer. His ideas & concepts were VERY cool. His dialogue... cringingly awful at times.
I can't speak for Arrival because I haven't seen it yet, but it has been receiving consistent stellar feedback from critics and film festival patrons alike. My recommendation is to not judge a book by its cover. Don't allow a 120 second glimpse sway you too much. It's just a marketing device to grab the attention of movie-goers in efforts to maximize profits. Previews tend to show too much of the best scenes anyway (again, in hopes to captivate potential ticket buyers), so I try not to stare too much - even though it's hard to look away.
If you decide to give Arrival a chance, I suggest you try to go with a clear open mind. If you go into the theater with a preconceived negative attitude, you will likely focus on its flaws rather than its beauty. Let's keep this discussion civilized, Kiv. It has been my experience that people who harshly criticize other people's creative efforts do not have what it takes to create themselves. It's a lot harder to create than it is to critique something.
Peace Out.
You don't have to preach to the choir because you are the one mixing in the personal jabs into your little posts.
But you sure are a hypocrite to suggest anyone who criticizes something are not creative themselves, yet turns around and mocks one of the most well-known creators of film industry. I guess you are what you accuse others of then.
I suppose you haven't been around the block when it comes to alien stuff, but getting any sort of real enlightenment out of a freaking Hollywood movie is beyond stupid and deserves to get ridiculed because they obviously haven't put any conscientious effort in even remotely trying to inform themselves in the first place to even think that way.
There's no truth in sci-fi movies, it's all made up by drug-sniffing artsy writers from Santa Monica for their own little amusement, get a clue.
Whether I see the movie or not, there's nothing to draw a conclusion about in regards to the subject of aliens, it'll only be judged as a movie and nothing else, you shouldn't mistake the two.
But seriously, the movie just seems so lame to me already, Hollywood simply can't make highly cerebral movies because it's about entertainment and making money, not education.
"But seriously, the movie just seems so lame to me already, Hollywood simply can't make highly cerebral movies because it's about entertainment and making money, not education."
Hence my point! You have already been the judge, jury, and conviction on this film solely based on a 2 minute trailer. Yes, Hollywood is about making money (often a detriment to the art). But given the director's track record and the Nebula & Hugo award-winning novelette which this is based I'm placing my chips the film *IS* cerebral and thoughtfully written. Ted Chiang isn't from Berkeley nor Santa Monica, but he has won additional awards on other works of his. Does that mean he had some "creative help"? Who knows? Denis Villeneuve hasn't made a bad movie yet - some of them are superb films!
People who were fortunate enough to already see this film have stated it isn't an action movie, yet keeps you on the edge of your seat. It also is stated to have an emotional impact - something that is extremely rare in sci-fi films. The current Rotten Tomato score is at 100% with 36 critic reviews. Granted, this number should decrease once it hits wide release here in the states but as it currently stands the stats are quite impressive. The uniform consensus is that Arrival may not be a "perfect" movie, but is surely worth believing the hype.
Denis Villenueve is also finishing the long-awaited sequel to Blade Runner that comes out next year. The first Blade Runner was released 30 some odd years ago, and was hailed by critics & audience as one of the finest sci-fi films - not only in its generation but ever made. No doubt he has his hands full with an uphill battle to climb in order to not disappoint. Arrival will be a nice "beta test" to see how he does with science fiction before Blade Runner's release next year.
The uniform consensus is that Arrival may not be a "perfect" movie, but is surely worth believing the hype.
I wonder why people even write suff like "it's not a perfect movie". Of course it isn't, no movie is. share
I bet you are one of those who loved Ex Machina.
So typical.
Not as dumb as audiences paying to see this crap.