Arrival (2016) on Netflix
After twelve spacecraft appear above sites around the Earth, the army brings in linguist Louise Banks. She joins physicist Ian Donnelly, and the pair set out to talk with the visitors.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.9/10879,981 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
When twelve spacecraft take up positions above sites around the world, Colonel Weber brings Louise Banks, a linguistics professor, to a camp in Montana. There she joins Ian Donnelly, a physicist, and the two go up into one of the vessels. Inside, they meet the occupants, seven-limbed creatures ringed in mist that Ian nicknames Abbott and Costello, and Louise begins building a shared vocabulary, writing words on a board and recording the circular symbols the creatures produce in reply. She removes her protective suit and presses her palm against the barrier between them. Rioting and panic spread as no one knows what the visitors intend.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Arrival (2016)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jóhann Jóhannsson's score was ruled ineligible for the Academy Award for Best Original Score because Max Richter's preexisting piece "On the Nature of Daylight", used in the opening and closing scenes and also heard in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, loomed too large.
- Screenwriter Eric Heisserer spent years pitching his adaptation of Ted Chiang's novella "Story of Your Life", was rejected by studios that found it "too smart" and nearly gave up, until Dan Levine and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps Entertainment expressed interest.
SPOILER
Earlier drafts had the heptapods leaving "blueprints to an interstellar ship, like an ark of sorts"; after Interstellar was released in 2014, Eric Heisserer and Denis Villeneuve changed their gift to the power of their language.- Paramount promotional posters showed a UFO over the Hong Kong skyline with Shanghai's Oriental Pearl Tower included; the error angered Hong Kong social media users, the posters were withdrawn and a third-party vendor was blamed.
- The heptapod written language used a script designed by artist Martine Bertrand from Eric Heisserer's concept, and computer scientists Stephen and Christopher Wolfram analyzed it to provide the basis for Louise Banks's work.
- Filming was done mainly in and around Montreal, with Saint-Fabien standing in for Montana; producers spent time finding a landing site that was neither mountainous, which would dwarf the ship, nor barren, which they thought clichéd.
