Arrival : Why do Humans revert to barbarians in these movies?

I really liked the movie, and it is my favourite genre. But one thing bothers me about many of these movies Why do humans always resort to taking a stance of aggression with these alien visitors?

Obviously movies like ID4 are for funneling popcorn down your throat. But in these more cerebral films, I just have a hard time believing the collective governments of the world are this myopic. And more than that, completely oblivious to the fact there is nothing we could possibly do to any alien race who has the technology to visit other habitable worlds.

There's a lot to love about this movie. But that sort of narrative where we're sending tanks to possibly engage a 1500 ft(or m?) space ship, or jumping to conclusions after we've only been communicating with a seemingly benign and completely alien species for 3 months is just totally absurd.

It's a good question. A very good question.

let's start with this damn election we just had. It seems that a good portion of the country took a stance while the same amount took the complete opposite stance and then there were those who decided to stay out of it completely, but for our discussion let's just stick to the 2 sides.

Seems to me that one side would be more open to finding a friendly way to converse, while the other side might take a more protective, safer approach to the same solution. Whether the ladder be actually 'safer' would yet to be seen, but their belief is to eliminate the enemy to protect the earth.

Keep in mind in the film it was China, Russia and some other country who took a more protective stance, while most other countries seemed more open to find a friendly solution, so while your argument holds for those more aggressive countries there were others who were certainly being less aggressive. Of course, at the same time, there were elements inside of each country contrary to the stance their governments each were taking.

I think the bottom line here is a good film can really only function if there is some kind of 'bad' element a foot, otherwise everyone is just singing Kumbya and the film grows weary quite fast. I will admit that a film like Close Encounters was able to stay more away from the 'bad' element and still be extremely successful, but that certainly is the exception to the rule.

Hope that helps, although I'm sure to get flamed from all sides.

Sorry I don't get your post. There is no comparison between international politics, and Aliens making first contact while we subsequently start pointing guns at them. Not to me anyway.

Sure you need some sort of dramatic element to make a film compelling. But if we're making a cerebral film, lets make it believable. And that's the point I made. Having our collective governments act like a bunch of fanatics burning witches in the 1700's is absurd.

My point there was, and it's not international politics, it's just American politics, is that people dealt a choice will make different decisions. I thought that would have been clear. Of course their choices are built from different angles. For example rich snobs wanted Trump in because he said he was going to lower taxes for the rich. But rich, generous people, rich people who care about others not so fortunate might have voted for Clinton, not caring so much about their taxes, but hoping to help other people out.

So in this film, each country had a choice, and it seemed like the more aggressive countries, like China and Russia, looked to be more aggressive towards our new guests, while other countries took a more relaxed view and hoped to communicate with them. As soon as China heard the word 'weapon' they panicked, which Louise kept her cool.

The parallels between the film's approach of dividing countries and the divide within the US are really very obvious.

I actually wrote this on Facebook BEFORE seeing this film a few days ago

Idea for a Democratic Space Movie:

Space travelers from another far off world comes to Earth. We greet them and they show the world how to sustain life and fix many of the world's biggest issues. A special cocktail reception at the White House in honor of our new neighbors follows. They take many of our people from around the world back to their world to learn more about their ways. The End.

Idea for a Republican Space Movie:

Aliens comes to Earth and before we can communicate with them we blow up their spacecrafts just to be safe. A special cocktail reception at the White House in celebration follows. The End.

You get my point now?

I get that you have a political bias and a myopic view of the world, and somehow think the dichotomy of republics/democrats is comparable to an event which would shake the very foundation and beliefs of our entire planet.

Lets not forget that the greatest scientific minds of the planet would be spearheading this project. And they aren't idiots. Again I say

We do not have the technology to dream of hurting these aliens. Nor would our greatest minds jump to such hasty conclusions after 3 months of communicating with a species that think in an entirely alien way.

I'm sorry but your answer is absurd.

There's absolutely nothing in this movie that is an analog for the election, and there was nothing overtly political about it. Those were military decisions.

Secondly, the characters in the movie specifically pointed out why some governments and/or military leaders were taking militaristic approaches to the aliens it's because they were scared, they did not understand the aliens or their intentions, and they were keenly aware of stories from human history when an indigenous culture is visited by a technologically superior culture.

One of the characters even spells it out when he mentions several examples of first contact between indigenous tribes and more advanced explorers/colonialists.

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For example rich snobs wanted Trump in because he said he was going to lower taxes for the rich. But rich, generous people, rich people who care about others not so fortunate might have voted for Clinton, not caring so much about their taxes, but hoping to help other people out.

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And this is a painfully simplistic and flat-out wrong reading of what happened on Tuesday.

Trump ran as a populist. He gained support with a simple pitch to working-class and middle-class Americans: That he would reverse the economic malaise, improve things for them financially, and make decisions in the best interests of Americans, as opposed to making decisions because of political correctness or worries over how our actions are interpreted.

Whether or not you agree with his pitch is not the point.

What IS the point is that Trump could not have won by convincing a handful of wealthy people to vote for him. Trump's campaign was clearly designed to appeal to huge numbers of working- and middle-class voters, and those are the people who turned out in large numbers to vote for him.

The fact that people like you cast votes without understanding basic facts scares the hell out of me.

It does amaze me how much I have to explain this parallel? wtf?

It is not a direct comparison. The election has nothing to do with film and vise versa.

It is simply a way to show how different people think.

The question was why do humans revert to barbarians and I gave an example of how that works, with some becoming barbarians and others not.

And back to Trump. Rich white Republicans did not have to be swayed to vote for Trump. He had their vote. It is Trump, Trump had to get the moron vote, the one's who would believe anything he said, as long as it sounded like they would improve and that is exactly what he did.

Trump's plan is to use trickle down, so again, the Rich will profit and that included me (thank you very much) and the morons who put him in office will continue to suffer.

You really don't believe Trump will bring back work to those working class slobs, do you? lol All of Trump's businesses are overseas paying slave wages around the world. He's the last person who will help working class slobs.

LMFAO!!!

Wake up!

I'm sorry - I realize this is not the best place to be arguing politics but since you brought it up, I just can't ignore it. I didn't vote for Trump, but I'm getting really fed up with the inconsistencies and ignorance shown by the party or "liberal" group I supposedly or once thought I identified with. One minute Trump supporters are "racist, sexist, uneducated redneck folks from the Midwest", now all of a sudden they're "rich snobs who want lower taxes"? You can't even get your narrative straight. If you really want to know what went wrong with the election and why Hillary lost, learn to empathize more and enlighten yourself of other people'a situations. You can start by reading this article http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

Ah yes, resorting to name calling with anyone who doesn't agree with you. A real show of mental maturity there! Good job demonstrating exactly what people have been saying about "liberals". I'm embarrassed for you.

A moron is a moron is a moron and that usually does not change. Trump called 100's of people 100's of names during his campaign so you can blame him now for the rise of such occurrences.

Is that really all you got? Completely overlook the response? Completely makes sense because a moron

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I really liked the movie, and it is my favourite genre. But one thing bothers me about many of these movies Why do humans always resort to taking a stance of aggression with these alien visitors?

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It's not so much prophecy as warning, I think. A cautionary tale to highlight that aggression can be a bad idea.

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And more than that, completely oblivious to the fact there is nothing we could possibly do to any alien race who has the technology to visit other habitable worlds.

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Well, maybe. Remember Captain Cook was killed by Hawaiian natives who were centuries behind him in technology. And yeah, the Royal Navy could have gone there in force and wiped out the entire population of the islands in retaliation - but they didn't.

Ignoring the specific time-related scenario of the movie and just taking a generic first contact scenario, it's entirely possible that we'd be able to blow away a bunch of ships like that, and possible that the aliens would just go "well that sucks, but what can you expect from these primitives. Not going back there for a while."

Just because the aliens might be able to push a button on a ship orbiting Barnard's Star and cause our sun to explode, doesn't mean that they actually would want to.

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But that sort of narrative where we're sending tanks to possibly engage a 1500 ft(or m?) space ship

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I can buy that the world governments wouldn't react with hostility to an alien presence that just appeared one day. But you can absolutely bet your ass that those ships would be surrounded with a large military force the instant it could be assembled. And yeah, everything from guys with rifles to tanks to ICBMs being targeted on them. It would be done if for no other reason than to reassure the public that they were safe from attack.



If I could stop a rapist from raping a child I would. That's the difference between me and god.

How is a pioneer visiting Hawaii and getting killed by tribesmen the same as our collective governments waging war against an immensely superior force for highly ambiguous reasons? talk about a straw man.

And whatever weapons we have are not going to dent a spaceship built by a race with the technology to bend space, and build such monolothic sized spacecraft. Nobody with any credentials would think we have the capability to do any harm to these aliens.

And that's why jumping to conclusions after 3 months of communication, and then pointing guns at them is ridiculously absurd.

Really? The parallels seem incredibly obvious.

An advanced society with vastly more powerful weapons, and the ability to cross gigantic distances.

A primitive society, with primitive weapons and limited to their own immediate neighbourhood.

A representative from the advanced society visits the primitive society.

Diplomatic relations break down, even though neither side had a particularly aggressive agenda.

The primitives attack the representative, and are able to kill him despite the massive disparity in technology - because this particular guy didn't have enough force with him at that particular time.

Despite the fact that the advanced society could destroy the less advanced one, it chooses not to. The incident is just too unimportant to those in power or to the average people, too far away, so is largely just written off as a hazard of exploration.

You really can't see the parallel with an advanced alien spacecraft landing on Earth, a miscommunication occurring, the aliens being attacked and overwhelmed by the primitive humans - and yet the aliens ultimately doing little to nothing about it?

If you want to deny it feel free, but the parallels are large and obvious.



If I could stop a rapist from raping a child I would. That's the difference between me and god.

You have a very black and white view of the world if you think those are relevant comparisons. I guess cultural and scientific achievement has no impact on a humans sensibilities in your mind.

There's some tribes in the Amazon that are cannibals. So in the sequel if we start having heptapod steak are you going to draw parallels and say it makess sense because primitive culture A did it to more advanced culture B in our history?

Think outside the box a bit.

Like I said, if you want to pretend they aren't direct parallels then that's your right.



If I could stop a rapist from raping a child I would. That's the difference between me and god.

Looks at whats happening in the south china sea, or georgia and crimea/Ukraine. Look at syria. Russia and china have governments that are aggressive. Its notca stretch they would react to violence when dealing with the unknown.

Are there space ships in the south china sea?

Yes they are but the government is hiding them. Bwa ha ha!!!

WTF are you looking for dude?!

Obviously the only way to discuss this is to make comparisons. Explain to me the last time YOU, PERSONALLY, met an advanced alien race and made the determination that they "Came In Peace." I'm gonna bet it hasn't happened. And I personally would be mortally terrified if a top ranking commander in my nations' military wasn't at least a little defensive.

And of course you understand why a nation would get defensive anyway; you're just trying to start sh!t. It's human facking nature. Ever heard of xenophobia? Give a rational explanation as to why you think we wouldn't apply the same sentiment to an alien race. Our history is washed with tales of advanced civilizations bringing the hammer down on lesser civilizations. That's what we do; of course we're gonna think an alien race is capable of the same thing.

This is your life, and it's ending one IMDb post at a time.

I completely agree. I was enjoying the movie until the humans started being stupid. Like what possibly could a bit of C4 the soldiers planted do to a massive spaceship, other than just piss off the aliens? And then China and Russia apparently go nuts over the aliens saying "offer weapon". If they had wanted to destroy the planet they probably wouldn't have shown up and hung around for 3 months. And indeed, what possibly could they do against a spaceship they have no knowledge of or what its weaknesses are. The priority in these situations by any half-intelligent government would surely be to avoid indicating any kind of hostile intent, at least until the situation can be analysed and a feasible attack plan devised. I understand the need for a 'conflict' to arise in the story but for all the comments regarding the film's intelligence and accuracy this whole plotline seems to be completely overlooked.

Fear causes many people to be fools. Just look at Brexit and Donald Trump. Two countries lost their minds over fears of what they can't really control.

They didn't revert to barbarians. Some did.

That was a large part of the point. The Heptopods needed us overcome this and learn to work together.

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