Trying to understand aliens, in Arrival (2016), coming to movie theaters this week.

There was another film called The Arrival in 1996. The Arrival had similar premise to Arrival, but turned out there was a twist.

The Arrival starred Charlie Sheen in scientist mode. Arrival has Amy Adams in scientist mode.

Arrival’s premise is straightforward. The military recruit a linguist to interpret alien signals or communications during an “arrival” of aliens.

Underneath the surface, it pretty much taps into the whole dialogue with your neighbor, attempting to understand them.

The aliens are like any foreign group people may have to communicate with—metaphorically speaking.

I suppose peace, love and understanding will come into mix, but I would like to have a look at this film to see what it does with the premise and any themes that go along with it.

The possibility of communicating with aliens seems remote, but talking with other people is real.

However, I think Arrival taps into extraterrestrial curiosity out there. What is it? Who? Why come? Why even exist?

Friendly or unfriendly

The interest in aliens in movies goes back quite a while. The 1950’s had those aliens from Mars movies. The aliens weren’t friendly, but that wasn’t the end of that. In 1997, Mars Attacks did it again. These movies are a lot of fun.

In the 1970’s, Close Encounters of the Third Kind almost reinvented the alien genre by giving us friendly aliens in a more serious and thoughtful film. However that distinction might have been The Day the Earth Stood Still. Movies had already given us a peace loving alien in 1951 with that film.

Friendly aliens are not par for the course. But some films have shown another story with friendly ones, telling us that there could be friendly aliens “out there” rather than violent ones.

Whatever the aliens in Arrival are has to be seen. What we do know is that those in power reach out to these foreign forms of life before making a call on them. And that’s par for the course.