There is grandeur in this view of life

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2016)

Arrival is one of those epic movies that makes you dazed and teary-eyed, in a good way. Even after watching the movie, just thinking about its elegant premise gives one shivers down the spine.
I read the short story that it's based on as part of Ted Chiang's 'Stories of your life and others' in 2014. And I remember thinking to myself, this is one of the greatest, most creative stories ever written. I'm so glad the movie version didn't disappoint like so many other screen adaptations that fall short of doing the book justice.
Arrival combines two of my favorite themes, first contact and linguistics. I have a couple of other favorite movies that come to mind that have similar thematic structures: Independence Day (1996), Contact (1997), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) and Interstellar (2014). Many recent sci-fi stories suffer from overused tropes and predictable clichés, not Arrival. It's got one of the most creative and daring sci-fi plots in recent years. I would absolutely love to see more film adaptation of Ted Chiang's books. The best candidate in my opinion would be one of his lesser known short-stories, 'The Evolution of Human Science'.