Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
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Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
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Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
#2Please don't post spoilers. I haven't seen the movie yet.
Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
#3Please don't post spoilers. I haven't seen the movie yet.
A valid concern. The very first line: This post is about the movie Arrival; there are no movie spoilers here.
Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
#4"Quick"?
Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
#5Oh, but the polygonal "analysis" overlayed on that circular splotch with the drip marks as an alien's "handwriting" example is corny beyond words.
Correlating an arbitrary set of points on splashy drippy smears, and eureka! It's a symbol for the global landing sites across seven continents?
Yeah right. That leap in counter-intuitive conceptualization is on the level of bat shark repellant, or Roland Emerich's super computer viruses for alien spaceships, as used by Wil Smith and Jeff Goldblum.
Those ink spatters look like droplets sprayed by an airbrush, with no control exerted, leaving a disorganized sprawl of drip marks. Why the clustered focus of points in one area over another?
Cognitive dissonance and hand wavey science. But movies are movies.
Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
#6Interesting post. But I wonder if the focus on how we would communicate with aliens makes sense. In the case of this movie, they arrived here, apparently. If they're that much more technologically advanced than we are, wouldn't they be taking the lead on communicating with us? They'd probably have a substantial set of templates for how to communicate with primitive civilizations developed already.
Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
#7Oh, but the polygonal "analysis" overlayed on that circular splotch with the drip marks as an alien's "handwriting" example is corny beyond words. Correlating an arbitrary set of points on splashy drippy smears, and eureka! It's a symbol for the global landing sites across seven continents? Yeah right. That leap in counter-intuitive conceptualization is on the level of bat shark repellant, or Roland Emerich's super c…
To me, the intent in the movie was pretty obvious: specific polygonal clusters attached to the circle act something like radicals in kanji, but with even more components that can be built into a single 'word'.
Your complaint strikes me like complaining that kanji calligraphy (for example: https://i.imgur.com/wHdqJIF.jpg) obviously can't mean anything because it's just splashy ink marks.
Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
#8If anyone hasn't read the short story that Arrival is based on, definitely check it out, it's called "Story of Your Life". Ted Chiang is a fantastic SciFi writer and I was very excited (worried?) that this particular story was chosen for a film adaption, as it doesn't seem to lend itself well to the medium. But based on early feedback I'm optimistic.
Not sure how closely the movie follows the short story's plot, but obviously spoilers could be involved, so fair warning. Here is a PDF version of the story: http://cfile203.uf.daum.net/attach/254E884754DC52CB277F4F
Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
#9"Quick"?
"Unfortunately there wasn’t much time—and in the end I basically had just one evening to invent how interstellar space travel might work." And he comes up with two completely different theories each of which is not impossible.
Re: Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?
#10Interesting post. But I wonder if the focus on how we would communicate with aliens makes sense. In the case of this movie, they arrived here, apparently. If they're that much more technologically advanced than we are, wouldn't they be taking the lead on communicating with us? They'd probably have a substantial set of templates for how to communicate with primitive civilizations developed already.
I haven't watched the movie, but there are some possible explanations for the discrepancy you mention:
1. Perhaps all the other civilizations they've met so far communicate in a certain way (e.g. telepathy), and humans are the first intelligent species they've encountered that has the pesky requirement of audiovisual clues. They're just as busy trying to figure out how to talk to us as we are, but they're much more patient.
2. Perhaps their preferred method of space exploration and conquest is to wait until the indigenous species figures out how to communicate with them. Only then will they accept the indigenous species as worthy of participating in the Galactic Republic or whatever. If they wait a certain amount of time and we still can't talk to them, they'll either abandon us, exterminate us, or try again in another million years.
3. Perhaps their ship is in distress and stranded on Earth, with their Universal Translator broken and the aliens all cooped up in one room that still contains their atmosphere.