(They also liked his love letter to parenthood, “Hours,” which he eventually directed with Paul Walker.) He showed them Ted Chiang’s 2002 short story “Story of Your Life,” about a linguist trying to communicate with aliens. “I have to believe that people are more than the sum of their IMDb page,” Levy told me in an interview.Īt the end of a general meeting five years ago with screenwriter Eric Heisserer, who had always wanted to write sci-fi but got stuck in the horror realm (“The Thing,” “Lights Out”), 21 Laps asked him what he was reading. Levy and his 21 Laps production executives Dan Levine and Dan Cohen like to look for talent in unexpected places.
Arrival linguist series#
“Arrival” was initially developed at Twentieth Century Fox, where director-producer Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment has sustained a rich first-look production deal for 10 years that stretches back to the first “Night at the Museum.” Levy, who studied English and Theater at Yale, has continued to direct family movies like “Cheaper By the Dozen” and DreamWorks’ “Real Steel ” meanwhile, 21 Laps also produced “Date Night,” the $2-million Sundance A24 hit “The Spectacular Now” (developed from the bestseller), and discovery Matt and Ross Duffer’s breakout sci-fi Netflix series “Stranger Things.” Available at.Look under the hood and many of the Hollywood studios’ best movies are independently financed, like Paramount Pictures’ “ Arrival.” The studio won the brainy sci-fi thriller in a Cannes 2014 bidding war, plunking down a record $20 million for North America and other territories - but only after it was already financed and packaged with Oscar-nominated Denis Villeneuve, Amy Adams, and Jeremy Renner. For linguists, the new sci-fi film Arrival can’t come soon enough. Arrival ending meaning: language, time, the future Sapir-Whorf. How Arrival Turned Linguistics Into One of the Most Gripping Dramas of the Year. How the alien language in ‘Arrival’ works according to linguist. Communication Trainee, DG TRAD – Terminology Coordination Unit
Arrival linguist movie#
In the end, the movie raises open and cognitive questions such as how we face what we know about ourselves and how would we confront life if we had a deeper understanding of language itself.Ĭontent Editor. It is argued that language is the basis of civilization as we understand it, and as it was already mentioned, it could profoundly alter our experience of time to the degree that we can experience the future similarly to how we experience the past.Īs the enigmatic plot unfurls, there are some paradoxical twists that finally lead to an emotional ending and with the application of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Arrival invites the audience to give it a thought about how we interpret our existence in life and to give it a glimpse from the linguistic vantage point. In Arrival, however, this theory may go far beyond. We speak and hear with the bodies, inputs and outputs we have, and we use language in the context of our society. In fact, language is both embedded in a physical and social level. Scientists do agree that depending on what language we speak, our cognition and the way we see the world can alter. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as linguistic relativity, focuses on the idea that language determines thought, so that it can alter our worldview and have a strong influence in our minds and decisions. The founding scientific principle is complicated, besides, our understanding of time is rather static.
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It is set in a world where you can remember the future – thinking of it just as we know past and present – by breaking down cognitive barriers that shape our life experience, and the tool that enables human beings to do so, is no other than language. The plot has also very much to do with a renowned linguistic theory: the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It soon turns out that only she could save humanity if she manages to figure out what they are trying to tell. With a linguistics professor as the main character, the plot focuses mainly on how she works on making sense of their strange – but not unintelligible – language, whose written version constructs entire sentences as complex circles without a set word order. As it is perceived, linguistics is a very misunderstood science, and therefore, watching this masterful movie is received as a rewarding payback.Īrrival is a movie based on the short story “ Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, and focused on how humans try to communicate at the worldwide appearance of alien species, called heptapods. – who are genuinely satisfied and proud to see that finally, at least one big production gives the real importance to their profession. This has raised the voice of many specialists – students, professors, translators, linguists, etc. It is not very common to see in the cinemas a science fiction blockbuster focused on linguistics and translation.