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Has anybody read Story of Your Life and then seen Arrival? I'm curious to know how close it is to the book before I shell out the dough to see it in the theate

by Yhippa 10y ago

Has anybody read Story of Your Life and then seen Arrival? I'm curious to know how close it is to the book before I shell out the dough to see it in the theaters.

cesarbs 10y ago
I have. The movie changes things a bit, but it captures the spirit of the short story very well. I recommend both reading it and watching the movie.
jraedisch 10y ago
The movie sacrifices some of the logical soundness of the short story to make it more accessible and dramatic. That said, I found it equally enjoyable.
Osmium 10y ago
I have. I would definitely recommend watching the film first, before reading the story. The film is great. It adds a little side-plot to make it work better as a film, but it doesn't properly explain the core physical idea behind the short story (honestly, I can't imagine how it could, the story almost assumes its readers have some physics background, though it does try to explain). Having read the story first, I almost found the film a little boring, which is such a shame because it's a truly beautifully shot, well-executed film. I suspect I'll enjoy it a lot more watching it a second time...
jemfinch 10y ago
It's not very close at all. I found it disappointing, to be honest. Very little on the mystery of deciphering Heptapod B, nothing about the breakthrough in communications based on Fermat's Principle, and honestly very little of interest. The story was fantastic, and I'll probably re-read it before the end of the year. The movie was utterly forgettable.
jessriedel 10y ago
To expand on what others have said (spoilers): The movie basically cuts physics completely out of the story (no principle of least action, no diffraction), which makes the continuing presence of Ian awkward since he doesn't have much to do. I thought this was disappointing but inevitable; general audiences don't want a 20 minute physics lesson at the theater. Less understandable for me was that the film also eliminated any of the functional interaction for how Louise (or any linguist) would go about learning a previously unknown language by interacting with a native speaker. All of the guess-and-check, experimental structure that goes into this lingual interaction is gone from the film. The humans and aliens talk/grunt to each other, look confused, and then Louise just periodically declares out loud that she's figured things out. In the book, laymen can at least get a hint of how a linguist (and physicist!) thinks and solves problems, but the audience learns nothing like this in the film. Finally, the film has unambiguous communication backwards in time, violating the known laws of physics. I've talked to people say they saw this in the original short story, but I think a careful reading shows that, though the narrator adopts a framing of fatalism/predestination, none of the real-world events described by the narrator actually require retro-causation. In the film (spoiler!), Louise literally use memories of the future to figure out what telephone number to dial. Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren't as bad as they could be, but still distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully one-dimensional rude hawkish general who inexplicably wants to attack the enemy in every situation?
- Yhippa 10y ago
  > the film also eliminated any of the functional interaction for how Louise (or any linguist) would go about learning a previously unknown language by interacting with a native speaker. All of the guess-and-check, experimental structure that goes into this lingual interaction is gone from the film Yikes, this was one of the more interesting parts of the story for me. Thanks for pointing this out.
- curtis 10y ago
  Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren't as bad as they could be, but still distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully one-dimensional rude hawkish general who inexplicably wants to attack the enemy in every situation? It's been a long time since I've read the short story, but to me the alien contact part of the story wasn't really the primary point, it was primarily a tool to tell the actual story. However, in the movie adaptation, the alien contact story has been elevated in importance to be co-equal with the, umm, other part of the story. I think that's a reasonable thing for the movie adaptation to do. The downside of the alien contact plot in the movie, is, as you say pretty trope-y, but if you think of it as a plot device to get to the real meat of the story, then maybe that's not such a big deal.
- skybrian 10y ago
  The way I put it is that most of the complexity of the story was removed, but there are still some gestures in the direction of complexity. (For example the anecdote about "kangaroo".) I assume it's at least partially because the movie is intended for a global audience, like most blockbusters these days. Some things get lost in translation :-)
- internaut 10y ago
  > Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren't as bad as they could be, but still distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully one-dimensional rude hawkish general who inexplicably wants to attack the enemy in every situation? There were many good things about the film but as you said the Hollywood tropes are out of control. It turns me off from visiting the cinema. I enjoyed Machina Ex, I think I didn't sense them as much. The 'military is composed of boneheads' is annoying (and wrong) but the thing that irritated me the most was the emotional take Hollywood injects into everything. Why is Hollywood so emotional? Are Americans more emotional than Europeans? Maybe in L.A? It doesn't match human experience at all. Take a funeral scene. I don't know how it is in the United States, but having everybody wearing black (okay everybody wears dark colours, but the Hollywood scene is as if they went and bought uniforms), women with hat-veil things, many people sobbing and being tearful. That doesn't describe any funeral I've been to. And we have very large funerals, with many hundreds of people. The occasional person emits a sob but nothing like the water feature I see on the screen. This breaks immersion. It's too heavy handed. I'm beginning to suspect the reason why somebody would 'act out' in the scenarios Hollywood is known for, is because they are conditioned by Hollywood. With rant complete, my favorite part was the sense of immersion with the 'things'. Reminded me of Half Life. tldr; Give the prizes to the things. People are just bags of salt water.
arrrg 10y ago
Why is that a relevant measuring stick? Doesn’t it only matter if the film is worthwhile (however you may define that)? And why would that be defined by its closeness to the short story? That should be wholly irrelevant. If you know something that is adapted in a movie then you might want certain ideas/words/characters/etc. to make it into the movie because you thought them to be quite worthwhile … but if you don’t know it? I’m strongly in favor of viewing adaptions wholly independently from the source material. (Even if you like ideas/words/characters/etc. in the source material and those didn’t make it to the adaption. Oh well, then you can only hope for something else to pick those up. But that in itself is not a reason to dislike the adaption. The lone exception to this I can see is incoherent adaption, but incoherentness is usually something negative irrespective of whether something is adapted or not.) That said, the central idea of the short story, the crux of the story, was very successfully adapted with this movie. I think that was excellently pulled off.
panglott 10y ago
There are some differences: a significant death is changed from an accident to cancer (probably a good change). The movie adds some extra international conflict plot, which perhaps raises the stakes somewhat but seems like weak plotting, and the movie is more explicit about the aliens' motivations. The movie also drops some of the math/physics exposition, which would have enriched the film and given Jeremy Renner's character more to talk about. The story has a really good depiction of linguistic fieldwork and linguist elicitation sessions, while in the movie the linguists are too busy freaking out about the aliens to give a good show of the research methodology. I think the story is more successful, especially at jumping between the process of science and the grief-filled flashbacks; the film has to show the character's reaction to the flashbacks, which complicates the unfolding of the story. But I enjoyed the movie a great deal as well.
knz 10y ago
> I'm curious to know how close it is to the book before I shell out the dough to see it in the theaters. It's worth seeing just for the cinematography (and support of Sci-Fi movies!). I was not familiar with the story before seeing the movie and thought that the sequence leading up to "first contact" was very well done - I had no idea of whether the interaction was going to be like a scene from Contact or from Aliens. It was tense, atmospheric, and caused an audible reaction from the audience at times.
- internaut 10y ago
  I agree, hats off to the cinematographers (and the 'things').
curtis 10y ago
> I'm curious to know how close it is to the book before I shell out the dough to see it in the theaters. I think the movie did a very good job capturing the essence of the short story, but it's enough different that I think it's worth watching in its own right. It's not as special-effects dependent as your typical science fiction blockbuster, but I'm glad I saw it in the theater rather than waiting to watch it on video.
harryh 10y ago
I'm going to disagree with some of the other responses and say that the movie is almost completely unlike the short story. I greatly enjoyed both, but other than the fact that they are both about a linguist learning a very unusual alien language there are very few similarities. [SMALL SPOILERS AHEAD] The short story is a very cerebral take on how language can (theoretically) change one's perception of the world and how learning a new language can make someone see the world differently. By the end of the short story Chiang has you, just a little bit, thinking in Heptapod B. Or at least trying to think about what that might be like. The movie, illogically in my view, treats learning Heptapod B like acquiring a superpower that lets you see the future. Having acquired this super power Louise (the main character) makes a difficult choice(1) in her personal life knowing full well both the positive and negative consequences of that choice. As a newish parent I found this deeply moving and it had me thinking a lot. The experience and cinematography of the move are also great and it's enjoyable for that alone if you're into movies as a sensory experience. (1) Some will say that it wasn't really a choice but this is my interpretation of the movie as different from the short story.

by Yhippa 10y ago

Has anybody read Story of Your Life and then seen Arrival? I'm curious to know how close it is to the book before I shell out the dough to see it in the theaters.

cesarbs 10y ago

I have. The movie changes things a bit, but it captures the spirit of the short story very well. I recommend both reading it and watching the movie.

jraedisch 10y ago

The movie sacrifices some of the logical soundness of the short story to make it more accessible and dramatic. That said, I found it equally enjoyable.

Osmium 10y ago

I have. I would definitely recommend watching the film first, before reading the story. The film is great. It adds a little side-plot to make it work better as a film, but it doesn't properly explain the core physical idea behind the short story (honestly, I can't imagine how it could, the story almost assumes its readers have some physics background, though it does try to explain). Having read the story first, I almost found the film a little boring, which is such a shame because it's a truly beautifully shot, well-executed film. I suspect I'll enjoy it a lot more watching it a second time...

jemfinch 10y ago

It's not very close at all. I found it disappointing, to be honest. Very little on the mystery of deciphering Heptapod B, nothing about the breakthrough in communications based on Fermat's Principle, and honestly very little of interest. The story was fantastic, and I'll probably re-read it before the end of the year. The movie was utterly forgettable.

jessriedel 10y ago

To expand on what others have said (spoilers): The movie basically cuts physics completely out of the story (no principle of least action, no diffraction), which makes the continuing presence of Ian awkward since he doesn't have much to do. I thought this was disappointing but inevitable; general audiences don't want a 20 minute physics lesson at the theater. Less understandable for me was that the film also eliminated any of the functional interaction for how Louise (or any linguist) would go about learning a previously unknown language by interacting with a native speaker. All of the guess-and-check, experimental structure that goes into this lingual interaction is gone from the film. The humans and aliens talk/grunt to each other, look confused, and then Louise just periodically declares out loud that she's figured things out. In the book, laymen can at least get a hint of how a linguist (and physicist!) thinks and solves problems, but the audience learns nothing like this in the film. Finally, the film has unambiguous communication backwards in time, violating the known laws of physics. I've talked to people say they saw this in the original short story, but I think a careful reading shows that, though the narrator adopts a framing of fatalism/predestination, none of the real-world events described by the narrator actually require retro-causation. In the film (spoiler!), Louise literally use memories of the future to figure out what telephone number to dial. Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren't as bad as they could be, but still distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully one-dimensional rude hawkish general who inexplicably wants to attack the enemy in every situation?

Yhippa 10y ago
> the film also eliminated any of the functional interaction for how Louise (or any linguist) would go about learning a previously unknown language by interacting with a native speaker. All of the guess-and-check, experimental structure that goes into this lingual interaction is gone from the film Yikes, this was one of the more interesting parts of the story for me. Thanks for pointing this out.
curtis 10y ago
Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren't as bad as they could be, but still distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully one-dimensional rude hawkish general who inexplicably wants to attack the enemy in every situation? It's been a long time since I've read the short story, but to me the alien contact part of the story wasn't really the primary point, it was primarily a tool to tell the actual story. However, in the movie adaptation, the alien contact story has been elevated in importance to be co-equal with the, umm, other part of the story. I think that's a reasonable thing for the movie adaptation to do. The downside of the alien contact plot in the movie, is, as you say pretty trope-y, but if you think of it as a plot device to get to the real meat of the story, then maybe that's not such a big deal.
skybrian 10y ago
The way I put it is that most of the complexity of the story was removed, but there are still some gestures in the direction of complexity. (For example the anecdote about "kangaroo".) I assume it's at least partially because the movie is intended for a global audience, like most blockbusters these days. Some things get lost in translation :-)
internaut 10y ago
> Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren't as bad as they could be, but still distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully one-dimensional rude hawkish general who inexplicably wants to attack the enemy in every situation? There were many good things about the film but as you said the Hollywood tropes are out of control. It turns me off from visiting the cinema. I enjoyed Machina Ex, I think I didn't sense them as much. The 'military is composed of boneheads' is annoying (and wrong) but the thing that irritated me the most was the emotional take Hollywood injects into everything. Why is Hollywood so emotional? Are Americans more emotional than Europeans? Maybe in L.A? It doesn't match human experience at all. Take a funeral scene. I don't know how it is in the United States, but having everybody wearing black (okay everybody wears dark colours, but the Hollywood scene is as if they went and bought uniforms), women with hat-veil things, many people sobbing and being tearful. That doesn't describe any funeral I've been to. And we have very large funerals, with many hundreds of people. The occasional person emits a sob but nothing like the water feature I see on the screen. This breaks immersion. It's too heavy handed. I'm beginning to suspect the reason why somebody would 'act out' in the scenarios Hollywood is known for, is because they are conditioned by Hollywood. With rant complete, my favorite part was the sense of immersion with the 'things'. Reminded me of Half Life. tldr; Give the prizes to the things. People are just bags of salt water.

arrrg 10y ago

Why is that a relevant measuring stick? Doesn’t it only matter if the film is worthwhile (however you may define that)? And why would that be defined by its closeness to the short story? That should be wholly irrelevant. If you know something that is adapted in a movie then you might want certain ideas/words/characters/etc. to make it into the movie because you thought them to be quite worthwhile … but if you don’t know it? I’m strongly in favor of viewing adaptions wholly independently from the source material. (Even if you like ideas/words/characters/etc. in the source material and those didn’t make it to the adaption. Oh well, then you can only hope for something else to pick those up. But that in itself is not a reason to dislike the adaption. The lone exception to this I can see is incoherent adaption, but incoherentness is usually something negative irrespective of whether something is adapted or not.) That said, the central idea of the short story, the crux of the story, was very successfully adapted with this movie. I think that was excellently pulled off.

panglott 10y ago

There are some differences: a significant death is changed from an accident to cancer (probably a good change). The movie adds some extra international conflict plot, which perhaps raises the stakes somewhat but seems like weak plotting, and the movie is more explicit about the aliens' motivations. The movie also drops some of the math/physics exposition, which would have enriched the film and given Jeremy Renner's character more to talk about. The story has a really good depiction of linguistic fieldwork and linguist elicitation sessions, while in the movie the linguists are too busy freaking out about the aliens to give a good show of the research methodology. I think the story is more successful, especially at jumping between the process of science and the grief-filled flashbacks; the film has to show the character's reaction to the flashbacks, which complicates the unfolding of the story. But I enjoyed the movie a great deal as well.

knz 10y ago

> I'm curious to know how close it is to the book before I shell out the dough to see it in the theaters. It's worth seeing just for the cinematography (and support of Sci-Fi movies!). I was not familiar with the story before seeing the movie and thought that the sequence leading up to "first contact" was very well done - I had no idea of whether the interaction was going to be like a scene from Contact or from Aliens. It was tense, atmospheric, and caused an audible reaction from the audience at times.

internaut 10y ago
I agree, hats off to the cinematographers (and the 'things').

curtis 10y ago

> I'm curious to know how close it is to the book before I shell out the dough to see it in the theaters. I think the movie did a very good job capturing the essence of the short story, but it's enough different that I think it's worth watching in its own right. It's not as special-effects dependent as your typical science fiction blockbuster, but I'm glad I saw it in the theater rather than waiting to watch it on video.

harryh 10y ago

I'm going to disagree with some of the other responses and say that the movie is almost completely unlike the short story. I greatly enjoyed both, but other than the fact that they are both about a linguist learning a very unusual alien language there are very few similarities. [SMALL SPOILERS AHEAD] The short story is a very cerebral take on how language can (theoretically) change one's perception of the world and how learning a new language can make someone see the world differently. By the end of the short story Chiang has you, just a little bit, thinking in Heptapod B. Or at least trying to think about what that might be like. The movie, illogically in my view, treats learning Heptapod B like acquiring a superpower that lets you see the future. Having acquired this super power Louise (the main character) makes a difficult choice(1) in her personal life knowing full well both the positive and negative consequences of that choice. As a newish parent I found this deeply moving and it had me thinking a lot. The experience and cinematography of the move are also great and it's enjoyable for that alone if you're into movies as a sensory experience. (1) Some will say that it wasn't really a choice but this is my interpretation of the movie as different from the short story.