For the first time since ETV began, Renan and Bill examine a film that is actually in theaters at the time of recording: Denis Villeneuve's ARRIVAL, starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker. It is not every day that Hollywood releases a sci-fi movie aimed at adults, let alone one that messes with your head like this one does, and it's certainly rare for a film to be built around linguistic theory. Also in this episode: other big budget "puzzle" films and how they get made; examining the work of the Nolan brothers, Twin Peaks and Westworld in particular; the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Fermat's principle of least time; the short stories of Ted Chiang (and George Saunders, for good measure); and Bill has a bit of a cold, so bear with us here.

Film links:

• Arrival at IMDb
• Arrival at Wikipedia
• Story of Your Life at Wikipedia
• LA Times on alien language development
• The Verge on Arrival's plot twist
• Eric Heisserer on writing Arrival
• THR on Arrival's journey to screen
• Wired on Ted Chiang
• The Ringer on Arrival as a puzzle
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis at Wikipedia
• Fermat's principle of least time at Wikipedia
• Emily Rome on Arrival and linguistics
• Evan Narcisse on the necessity of Arrival
• Arrival and the US election by Jia Tolentino
• Rod Dreher on religious aspects of Arrival

Show links:

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