ARRIVAL
why are they here?
‘ARRIVAL’
is a science fiction movie that Linguistics professor Louise Banks
leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down
in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war,
Dr. Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way
to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors.
Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance
that could threaten her life and
quite possibly all of mankind.
A good movie will come along with good actors and well-cast design. The heroine (Protagonist) and also the main character in Arrival is Louise Banks, definitely a cool character which acted by Amy Adams. In Arrival, Louise Banks is a Linguistics Professor, which is the professional in all the languages studies around the world (earth), this character really make me admire and consumed with curiosity. What can a Linguistic Professor do with 12 huge mysterious spacecraft? Think about it. From this story, Doctor Banks is a very brave and mature woman. The first time when she met with the aliens, her face still calm although her heart is full of scare, she is really a strong woman. Beside this, Doctor Banks is also a very intelligent woman. In the starting of the movie, she use a very smart way to persuade Colonel Weber to recruit her for this interesting journey. Then, Doctor Banks also show her passion towards her profession. What we can see in the whole story is she is acting patiently in communicating with Abbott and Costello (the aliens), she did it in details for every step when understanding the new language and teaching them our human language, I am really surprised with the Power of Language that show by her in the movie.
Memory is a strange thing. - Dr. Louise Banks, Arrival.
Beside the strong and wise woman, there is also a man support beside Dr. Banks. He is the Protagonist Romance character, his name is Ian Donnelly, which played by Jeremy Renner (best buddies of James Bond). He is not so handsome in looking, but a nature kind man. This man play an important role, he is a Mathematician which responsible to study about the heptapods (aliens scientific name) with Dr. Banks. At the first, he is not that confidence with Dr. Banks profession skills, but he change his mind slowly as the story goes. Ian really support Dr. Banks a lot, no matter physically or mentally, example: he coordinate well with Dr. Banks when working at the site and also in the space craft, he also support her mentally by talking to her after work, always accompany by her side to reduce her stress and always take his eye on her to ensure her safety while working. All these example show his love towards Dr. Banks, love of a man to a woman, warm and romantic in humanity. I think that is the reason why Dr. Banks still choose him although she know their future may goes hard, it’s the Power of Love.
You know I’ve my head tilted up to the stars for as long as I can remember. You know what surprised me the most, its wasn’t meeting them. It was meeting you. - Ian Donnelly, Arrival.
The following character that I want to mention is Colonel Weber, an experience army from U.S forces, acted by Forest Whitaker. A tall, dark and strong guy, fully commit to all the colonel/army characteristic. He help Dr. Banks a lot for the journey, he is the communicating bridge between Dr. Banks and the leaders around the world. From what he did for Dr. Banks, we can see that he trust her a lot. As a team leader, he discuss with his team ( Dr. Banks and Ian) everytime before he move his next step. He takes a lot of time to continue his job according to Dr. Banks’s way (which need longer time) although he need to face a lot of hardship and stress from the people all around the world. Everyone is scare, Colonel Weber is firm and steady.
- Colonel Weber, Arrival.
Now come to the Antagonist of the movie, Agent Halpern which played by Michael Stulhlbarg. Agent Halpern is an impatient and irritable character in Arrival, he is not an evil but what he did is not wise and he want everyone to follow his order. As a teammate, he didn’t show his trust to his team like what Colonel Weber has done perfectly. The others country show their selfishness when China decided to start a war with the aliens, same goes with Agent Halpern in that moment. It’s not a good value but its shows the true identity of humanity. Selfish isn’t wrong but if people always considerate about each other’s, the bonding between human will become stronger, the world will become better.
-Agent Halpern, Arrival.
Another Antagonist in the movie is a Chinese man, General Shang, which acted by Tzi Ma. General Shang is an important person which twist the ending of the story in urgent. He played a typical China man character (not racist just describing) which always strict and straight when doing his job. His role in the story really reflect well about China people character and the way that they speak, act even handle political issue in same way. Yes, strict and straight.
-General Shang, Arrival.
There are few mirror characters in this movie. The most attractive should be Abbott and Costello, which is the two Heptapods inside the mysterious spacecraft. Firstly they look weird (of course I know its aliens), secondly they have few supports (legs), slightly look like octopus, and when they open their supports, its look like palm with star fish shape. Their scientific name Heptapods should came from their out-looking. The special case in this alien movie is the aliens is showing positive humanity towards human. They aren’t doing anything bad, they sharing their valuable ‘Weapon’ which is their language to us which live in the earth. It’s really sad when human doesn’t showing positive humanity but the aliens do.
-Abbott, Arrival.
Next one is Hannah, Hannah is the daughter of Dr. Banks and Ian. In the movie, there is a lot of pop out scene which show the life of Dr. Banks and Hannah. This pop out scene is all the future which Dr. Banks can see, this is the gift from the aliens, and it’s a super power or skill about time in science and language. This character is played by Abigail Pniowsky, Julia Scarlet Dan and Jadyn Malone in Hannah different age. In the story, Hannah is quite alike with her mother Dr. Banks. She is having interested in language and also some scene that Dr. Banks is interacting with Hannah by teaching her some words. One of the interesting about this character is her name Hannah. According to Dr. Banks explanation, she said that Hannah is a Polygram words, H-A-N-N-A-H, it will have same spelling and pronunciation although it reverse the word.
In my opinion,
the cast design and the character breakdown is well,
every character have a purposes and well explored.
The scene of the movie also explain a lot about the character breakdown in detail,
which is clear and easy to see about the characters.
Even for the minors character, like normal army,
there also having few scenes which show they miss their family,
but cant go back home because of responsibility,
and also the scene where their family cry in phone because of worrying the army.
Its really good to enjoy the science fiction story in a detail way.
