I was expecting a generic alien invasion movie, and I was pleasantly surprised
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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It's based on a short story called "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. He's published only eighteen stories in his career (starting in 1990), nothing longer than a novella and mostly short stories. Despite that they've won him four Hugos, four Nebulas, and six Locus Awards. He's worth reading, is what I'm trying to say.
The short story was OK but this is one of the few cases where the movie did it better, added flavor to it that wasn’t in the book but carries the emotional hit farther.
The short stories in that book felt very “woah dude” to me, in the end I finished it but didn’t like it all that much. I’ve been downvoted for this opinion before, but oh well.
I put him up there with Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, easily.
Well that's got me interested then
That's exactly what I was going to say. His prose is breathtaking.
I will say I read the short story and it made me love the movie even more. It rare for me to say the movie was better than they book and the books was great as well.
Ya know I have to say I feel nearly the same about Dune. I haven't gotten to the the later books but the first 2 have made me love the movies more. Not that I love the the books any less though. There is very little nuance lost in the movies and the changes that are made I can understand from a film making point of view. I guess what I mean to say is I appreciate the differences and it makes me like both more rather thank either any less.
Yeah Denis Villeneuve is a wonderful story teller. The book gives great context to what the characters are thinking and that was where Lynch failed trying to put that on screen when it wasn't needed for the medium.
Don't bother with the rest of the books unless you're into heavy philosophy. The new movies are pleasantly close to the books which made me love them as well
If you haven't read The Merchant and the Alchemists Gate by Ted Chiang I can't recommend it enough. Here's a PDF Link
It's lesser known than his big hits like Exhalation, but I think it's phenomenal.
It's also featured on a two-part episode of LeVar Burton Reads.
Oh, I've read all of his stuff! It's a red letter day for me when a new story is published. None since 2019, though.
My odd choice of his would be Seventy-Two Letters. I find him most interesting when he follows through in the consequences of an old disproven scientific theory or theological explanation of the universe, and he manages to fit two of them in here.
I read the story and found it very entertaining. I'm not sure what impact it had on me, but it made me marvel at the idea of the inevitability of fate and how often our suffering and regrets of the past are the reason we're regarded so highly by others.
How did it strike you?
I couldn’t agree more. I read them quite some time ago, and still find myself having philosophical discussions about them somewhat often today. Most are really thought provoking in a non-judgmental way.
Link to Story
I wonder if Ted Chiang was inspired by Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
He's written some "Notes" on the story when it was printed in his first short story collection and said that it has the same theme but that he wasn't inspired by it directly. The roots were Paul Linke's play "Time Flies When You’re Alive" and the principle of least time in optics -- if you treat light as a ray, it has to know its future destination in order to know the path with the shortest time it will take to get there (though not if it's a wave). Then there's a bunch of diagrams and discussions about the principle's implications for free will that will stretch your brain. It's pretty fun.
Thanks for the reading recommendation!