Social Issues in Arrival - Movie Review Essay Example

The movie, Arrival, is based on a short story titled, Story of My Life. The plot illustrates a dilemma all over the world as twelve spaceships touchdown in different locations. The various countries, including the United States then each embark on finding out what the aliens want. There is tension everywhere as the states are in fear of being attacked. Despite this being based on Science fiction and presence of extraterrestrial beings, this movie tests the social issues that face human beings daily. Based on the plots, there are questions on humanity, because any of the decisions made were to affect the society in many ways.

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There is an issue with language which is the means by which communication is made possible. It is often that human beings have been subjected to discourse and discrimination based on the language they speak but at least, the form of communication through word of mouth is universal (Reisigl, 2017, 45). In this case, different languages may not be understood by non-speakers, but they are translatable. In the case of the Movie, Arrival, the aliens are attempting to communicate, but there is an enormous difficulty because there are no standard means. The aliens use a rudimental system by which they broadcast messages in the form of vaporized shapes. They have their speaking, and then their writing is difficult. It is then that the humans confuse their intentions (Matthews, 2016). As Dr. Banks finds a way of communication and translates the word "weapon," the U.S army decides that they were exposing themselves to an attack and hence decided that they should wage war against the aliens. In this case, there could have been misinterpretation because the heptapods were offering a tool to help the humans.

There is an issue of disunity among nations. In this case, this is a practical aspect as it is common for competing countries to hide information from each other. The fact that each of the sites in which the aliens landed was in different parts of the world implies that the humans had to work together. At some point, the Chinese had decided to wage war after deciphering what the aliens had brought to them to ensure no other country made contact. In the end, Dr. Banks discovers that the aliens were able to travel through time and hence they had come to warn human beings. She realizes that she also had the gift of seeing into the future and thus knows that she would have a daughter with Donelly, her partner. In the end, war is stopped when Dr. Banks understands that all the countries had to work together to combine the knowledge they had gotten. Even currently and for the past two years, there have been poor relations between the US and China (Steinberg & OHanlon, 2015).

Another major social issue is that of love. Dr. Bank's love for her future daughter ensures that she works hard to decipher the message to ensure her offspring would live. The Chinese General Shang was able to call off the attack due to love for his wife after talking with Dr. Banks about her on the phone. Donnelly also stuck with Dr. Banks all through because he loved her. In the case of the movie, it is possible to conclude that all the decisions were affected by love, unity, and ability to communicate. It is also evident that in crisis, there are questions on humanity because any of the decisions made were to affect the society in many ways. Conclusively, when the social issues are addressed, then the societies can live harmoniously.

Work Cited

Matthews, Joshua. "Language of Arrival." (2016).

Reisigl, Martin. "The discourse-historical approach." The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies. Routledge, 2017. 44-59.

Steinberg, James, and OHanlon, Michael E.. Strategic reassurance and resolve: US-China relations in the twenty-first century. Princeton University Press, 2015.