Why Arrival Is The Best Sci-Fi Movie Of All Time

Science fiction movies are as old as cinema itself. A cinephile can opt for the whiz-bang action and humor of a space opera like Star Wars, or enjoy something boundary-pushing and cerebral like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Not into either of those? Not to worry: Sci-fi cinema has produced hundreds of classics over the course of the last century. We're here to champion one of the genre's more recent masterpieces as the greatest-ever sci-fi film: 2016's Arrival. 

Based on an award-winning story by one of the most acclaimed sci-fi writers of the past three decades, Arrival opens with the appearance of massive alien spacecrafts over a dozen locations around the world. The film then zeroes in on efforts to establish contact with the aliens by a lonely linguist named Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and a physicist named Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). As she begins to decipher the aliens' language, Louise realizes two things: These beings experience all of time — past, present and future — at once, and her own brain is being reprogrammed to do the same.

Arrival takes the basic template of a "first contact with aliens" story and turns it into an exciting and unique visual spectacle, as well as a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be human. Arrival examines how we process time, memory, existence, and loss — even when it hasn't happened yet. For those reasons, and more, we nominate Arrival as the best sci-fi movie of all time.

The definition of a novella is fuzzy, but basically, it's longer than a short story and yet not as long as a novel. "Story of Your Life," collected in Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others, is around 54 pages. Often, when filmmakers attempt to adapt either a short story or a novel, they face one of two problems: Trying to stretch a short story into a feature-length film can add a lot of unnecessary padding that takes away from the main story, while attempting to compress a novel into a two-hour movie can lead to a lot of material either being removed completely or robbed of its depth and complexity.

In contrast, the novella seems to be a perfect format for movies. There's just enough material in "Story of Your Life" — a pretty dense piece of writing, even at its relatively short length — to fill out a two-hour movie, without adding or subtracting too much of what makes the story so rich and powerful in the first place. Arrival, as a result, feels like a complete, satisfying story — something we can't always say about other adaptations of sci-fi literature.

Science fiction — especially the cinematic kind — doesn't necessarily have to be based on hard, provable science. But when it is, it adds a verisimilitude and plausibility that makes the story even more compelling. Much of the plot of Arrival, like the story it's based on, hinges on real science — in this case, both linguistics and physics, as well as philosophical topics like free will and determinism. It may admittedly be a little hard to follow, but the underpinnings of the story are the real deal.

Author Ted Chiang spent five years researching and familiarizing himself in the field of linguistics before attempting to write "Story of Your Life," the novella from which Arrival is adapted. "I wanted to write a story about the step that, in a lot of science fiction stories, they always skip over," Chiang detailed on the Arrival Blu-ray, "about the process of learning an alien language ... that has no basis in any human language." The research that informed his tale, along with the filmmakers' consultations with linguistics specialists on formulating how the alien language would work, gives Arrival an aspect of realism and accuracy that is the hallmark of great sci-fi.

Too much of the time in sci-fi movies, the people are the last thing that anyone making the movie thinks about. Complex, three-dimensional characters have often been shoved aside in the pursuit of dazzling special effects and spectacular action sequences. But in Arrival, the lead characters are fully developed human beings whose lives are inextricably tied to the events of the narrative. The richness of these characters and their dynamics, and how they are affected by the events of the story, makes Arrival not just better as science fiction, but better as a human drama.

"The film is really grounded in the emotions of the characters and the emotional journey of the characters," Forest Whitaker, who plays Colonel G.T. Weber, head of the military response to the alien's landing on Earth, remarked on the Blu-ray. "Particularly, obviously, Amy's character, as she's going through this inner change. And then it's a question of us together and the relationships between us. I think that makes it human, and not as removed as some science fiction projects can possibly be."

Our first meeting with alien visitors has been portrayed in many different ways on screen, ranging from the total destruction of human civilization to little boys bonding with beings from another world. But Arrival is one of very few movies to paint a truly realistic picture of how our first interaction with emissaries from a non-human civilization might impact our species and culture. It isn't always pretty. "It's a massive existential crisis for any religious people that think we are the center of the world," pondered Denis Villeneuve. "We are afraid of things that are different, things that are out of our consciousness or our imagination."

Very few actual studies have been done to determine how humanity might respond to contact with extraterrestrial life, but Arrival postulates a mix of military and scientific observation, followed by genuine efforts to establish contact. As the intent of these aliens seems to take on a sinister cast, humans respond predictably, with terrorism, looting, threats of military engagement, and ultimately, each nation deciding to fend for itself. Luckily, no one drops an atomic bomb on the alien spacecraft, as they did on the truly hostile invaders of The War of the Worlds or Independence Day, and there is a degree of restraint on the part of major governments. That's probably the best we could hope for, and Arrival is dead-on in its depiction of that possibility.

"There are hard sci-fi stories that translate well to film," screenwriter Eric Heisserer remarked. "Usually [it's] when the movie is a study of human behavior, a snapshot of what's going on in our society or our culture or our politics." At its best, science fiction challenges the way we look at ourselves through these means. Arrival does just that with sublime skill. It's a credit to both the clarity of Ted Chiang's story and the talent of the filmmakers involved that the movie places complex ideas about time, perception, and memory inside a story about people striving to connect, as people always have.

 Arrival takes humanity on a mysterious, and, at times, frightening journey, but ends on an optimistic note. By the end of the film, the world has unified following the appearance of the aliens, having realized that humanity is part of a much larger universe. But more importantly, the human race — in the form of Louise Banks — has taken an important step forward in its own evolution. By deciphering the aliens' language, Louise has changed her own perception of time, and knows that terrible tragedy lies ahead in her own life. She chooses to accept this loss, acknowledging that it's better to embrace the experiences of her life rather than struggle against them. That is the gift that the heptapods leave to humanity. It's a profound, moving one, and it elevates Arrival to the top echelon of science fiction cinema.