Based on the acclaimed novella, The Story Of Your Life by Clarion Institute alumni and award winning Author, Ted Chiang, Arrival asks the viewer whether or not understanding another language can fundlementally effect how one thinks and perceives the world around them. In this case the viewer is challenged by the plight of a linguist (played by Amy Adams), who is recruited by the government to communicate with an extraterrestrial intelligence that has landed 12 ships in what seems to be a random pattern, but there is nothing random about the Hectapods, whose spoken language and written language do not necessarily comment upon the same thing and whose perception of time is nonlinear.
The nature of perception has always interested me and has been a running theme in all of my creative work whether it is dealing with a main character who is recruited by a group of dissidents because he has a unique form of synesthesia in my first novel, The Final Arbiter or in part asking Saint Thomas Aquinas' question "If God created the universe, did he have a choice?" and exploring larger a tapestry of a woman's life as her journey across the United States is as much an inner journey as it is an outer journey as illustrated in my new book, First Mover. First Maker. Arrival challenges the viewer's perception in profound ways and collectively deserves every Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards nomination, which include, but is not limited to Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adopted Screenplay too.
Paramount Home Entertainment's Blu-ray Disc edition of Arrival presents the film in a gorgeous widescreen 1080p full HD resolution with a haunting and atmospheric English DTS-HD MA 7.1 Surround Soundtrack and features both French and Spanish Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Dubbed Soundtracks and an English Audio Discriptive Track for the visually impaired. English Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired as well as English, French and Spanish Language Subtitles are encoded as options.
The Blu-ray Disc interactive menus are simple, but elegant and there are no trailers for other films included, which I am glad Paramount did not because an advertisement for another film would have cheapened the Blu-ray Disc presentation of what is arguably the best science fiction film theatrical released in America by a major studio in 2016.
There are some fantastic featurettes included, which is noted on the back cover to be over 80 minutes of extra value materials. These are detailed as Xenolinguustics: Understanding Arrival (30:03), Acoustic Signatures: The Sound Design (13:59), Eternal Recurrence: The Score featuring Johan Johanson (11:24), Non Linear Thinking: The Editorial Process (11:20) and Principles of Time, Memory & Language (15:24). All of these featurettes are very detailed and quite interesting.
An insert containing a limited time redeemable code for either an iTunes Digital Copy or an Ultraviolet Digital Copy is included within the BD case. Arrival will debut on Blu-ray Disc as well as 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at retailers on and offline courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment.
(C) Copyright 2017 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
