Skip to main content

Arrival: Seven Things to Know About Paramount's Critically Acclaimed Sci-Fi Film

Paramount Pictures/Jan Thijs

Amy Adams

Arrival proves that you can have an uplifting sci-fi movie that is about more than aliens and humans killing each other off, and that one of the keys to a successful close encounter is communication.

Based on Ted Chiang’s short story Story of Your LifeArrival begins when 12 alien spacecrafts enter earth's atmosphere in various places around the globe. Each of the countries so contacted, conduct its own investigation. Here in the United States, the team assembled to assess why the aliens are here is led by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams), who works daily in the spaceship hovering over Montana, to learn the aliens' -- who loosely resemble octopuses -- language, so communication is possible. had the opportunity to speak with the filmmakers -- producers Aaron Ryder, Dan Levine and David Linde, as well as screenwriter Eric Heisserer -- to get the answer to seven burning questions about the film from Paramount Pictures. Check out what the filmmakers had to say before seeing Arrival.

Tell us about the design of the spacecraft?

Dan Levine: [Director] Denis [Villeneuve] always wanted the movie to feel like a documentary: What if they really landed? So we did a ton of work on grounding it and having the audience be in the position of: What would I feel if I were going into an alien craft for the first time. That shot where they board for the first time is one of my favorite shots in the movie. I hoped people would notice it.

Something that has traveled billions of miles … there's the mystery of: What is it made of? We had a great production designer Patrice Vermette. A great decision was made to make the interview room [where the humans and the aliens converse] practical. That was built. There was a white wall,  there was the black interior, there was the long hallway, we had the scissor lifts, and we had the bottom of the ship built, I think when you do that, it's so beneficial. Not just for the look, but for the actors because they're there.

How did you come up with the 12 places the spaceships arrive?

Eric Heisserer: At one point, Denis came to me and said, "Eric, we must have something in this movie that even we don't understand. The aliens are even too alien for us." I was, "All right. Sure." So we got really random with these 12 locations. We made sure we weren't overtly political with it, and it was as confusing to us on the creative side as it would be to humanity asking: Why here?

How did you get the idea for the alien written language?

Eric Heisserer: I knew I wanted to communicate a non-linear orthography by having it all be circle-based. When I went looking for inspiration, I found Elvish. People had done inscriptions in Elvish in a full circle and sketched them onto a ring. I was like, "That's pretty close." I started with that as a template and mutated it and made blobs and other kind of things around the circle. Then I got the idea that the little crooks, and whirls, and loops would signify different types of relationships, or possibly, even a question.

(scroll to keep reading)

Related Stories

I did a dozen of those and I was super proud of myself when I discovered [my script program] Final Draft didn't take graphics. I had to put a bunch of spaces in the script pages and convert it to PDF and manually insert those graphics on all the pages every time. After about 50, I was, "What have I done?"

And for the sounds that the aliens make when they speak?

Aaron Ryder: The design of the creatures was a company we found in New Zealand that really came up with those sounds. It was an augmentation of almost whale sounds. We liked the idea of these creatures having a bit of depth to them and wisdom to them. And what has that immensity to it? We went to the blue whale. That sound is unusual and it doesn't feel like you could translate it either, right? So it feels like it serves something.

Can you talk about your decision to cast Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, who plays scientist Ian Donnelly?

David Linde: Amy seemed obvious, I think, because of the breadth of what she can accomplish as an actress. The character of Louise was somebody who is a mother, a mother-to-be, a linguist, and somebody who ultimately has to convince people that the world needs saving. Those are four different emotions and actor perspectives and Amy seemed perfect from the get-go. I don't even recall conversations thinking about another actress.

Then in casting the other roles, Jeremy … what is great about it is Amy and Jeremy are close friends, which I think was a real advantage. In Jeremy's character, you wanted someone who the audience would believe assumes this kind of responsibility. That in and of itself is a big decision to make in a character, so you wanted somebody who you believed would take on that kind of responsibility, would match up with Amy in terms of you would believe that they would have an  intellectual attraction to each other, and also somebody who is really, really smart. We debated a lot of different actors, but Jeremy, fortunately, was the only actor we had to make an offer to. He incorporated all those things.

The music sets the tone of the movie perfectly. Whose idea was it to hire Jóhann Jóhannssón?

David Linde: The music was all Denis. He has a history with the composer. He wanted the score to match the visual texture of the movie, but he wanted it to feel quite propulsive at the same time. I think everybody is saying that this is a distinct movie, but in making a movie likes this, the score has to match that ambition. It can't feel like it is working against the movie. It has to feel as if it is just as original as this movie is.

Why is Arrival a timely movie?

Aaron Ryder: I feel like it is a very timely movie for right now -- a movie about communication and miscommunication, and misinterpretation. Any good science fiction has to reflect upon the society it's being told to, and I think this movie very much does that. Not just this society, but the world as a whole. I think we live in a complicated time right now. It is weird this movie comes out two days after the election, or maybe that is very fortunate. We didn't plan it that way, but the movie gods are helping us out I guess.

Arrival is in theaters nationwide today.