i wanted to like arrival more but i feel like they wasted so much time on the dumb ‘military guys are dumb brute dipshits and don’t care’ storyline, like we know! i just want to see her solving the language for the full runtime
Here are more recommendations if you crave “people figuring out weird crap”:
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Cohesion. It’s fun to see them try to make sense of what is happening and I enjoy some of the group thinking albeit chaotic
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Circle. The ‘opinion’ stuff in the movie feels forced, and at times feels like one of those YouTube eliminatoon games, but I love when they just figure out what is happening.
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Exam. This is pretty heavy on figuring out what to do rather than monologues. The answer isn’t quite satisfying but the journey to get there is interesting.
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Cube. This comes so close to the perfect figuring weird crap out. No real complaints here.
TV:
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Star Trek TNG: Darmok. Feel free to watch this episode if you haven’t seen the show. Its a clever solution to an alien language that their universal translators couldn’t understand.
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Adventure Time Hall of Egress: this is free on YouTube. Holy crap this felt like a whole movie crammed in 11 minutes i was so sucked in to understanding what the heck was going on. Combined with using symbolism instead of exposition there is no wasted space in the figuring out part.
Games:
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Return of the Obra Dinn. Its such a great mix of WTF is happening and “let’s stop and think this out methodically”. You can only experience this game once.
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Outer Wilds. This is perfect. The endorphins that get released when you suddenly realize how things work is like discovering penecillin The DLC in particular is the greatest experience I ever had learning about an alien race.
1899 comes to my mind. My ultimate favourite “wtf is happening here” series. So sad that Netflix dropped it after season 1. It still kinda works though, but someone really should continue the story.
Please tell me you’ve watched Dark (from the same creators as 1899)!
Of course! Also great, but I liked the wtf-feeling of 1899 even more.
Yeah, 1899 certainly had a lot more spectacle to it, also. And that feeling of absolute dread in the first two episodes really was something else. I think Dark is the better show, personally (and not only because it got an ending, although obviously that helps), but I was definitely upset when it came out that 1899 had been cancelled.
I can’t wait to find out what their next project is!
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There’s even a github repo for the language used on the film. Fascinating stuff
Very cool read. Thanks
There is also a much more in depth blogpost by Stephen Wolfram about his work for this movie. I don’t think it goes much more in depth on the language aspect but he tells a lot more about the process and questions he got from the movie creators.
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2016/11/quick-how-might-the-alien-spacecraft-work/
This is great. I love it when movie makers actually try to adhere to real world rules.
If you like this movie, you should check out the original short story by Ted Chiang called Story of Your Life.
