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Comment by ericol | Hacker News Reader

I watched the movie first, found out who wrote it, and read the book it was in.

I did love a lot the short story, and kind of got mad at "Arrival" for some of the changes it makes to the story. But. After several (SEVERAL) re watches of the movie, I got to "understand" what Villeneuve was about, and I fell in love with the movie as well.

It currently sits in probably my top 5 preferred movies to re watch (Being the others both Blade Runners, About Time & Notting Hill in no preferred order)

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I do wish to add that while Villenueve was great, to me, the key man in this adaption was Eric Heisserer, who wrote the screenplay.

There's a really good interview of the changes he made, how the script came to be, and how he got Villenueve on board: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDXlaa9JpuI

The anecdote about the most important line in the film is also really funny in that the line seems so deep and philosophical, but it came about almost entirely through improvisation at the last minute.

The whole thing is one of those rare cases where I consider the original story by Ted Chiang, the script by Eric Heisserer, and the film by Denis Villeneuve to all be complimentary.

Thanks for the link. I'll definitely watch it this weekend.

As much as I enjoy the original Blade Runner, it really does not feel like a masterpiece the way 2049 does.

Note the usage of quotes from Nabokov's Pale Fire during the baseline test. A few I liked:

  Do you feel that there's a part of you that's missing? Interlinked.
  Did you buy a present for the person you love? Within cells interlinked.

* spoiler alert *

Joe (aka "K") has to pass the baseline test to demonstrate his lack of emotional state.

There's a scene early on in the film where K will be giving a present to his hologram love, Joi. She's the opposite of K - full of emotion, joy, sadness. Joe just had a rough day, comes home, and she tries to cheer him up

  Joi : Would you read to me?
  [gets up, crosses to table, 'picks up' Nabokov's Pale Fire] 
  Joi : It'll make you feel better.
  'K' : You hate that book.

Yes, of course she hates that book. She is a glowing ball of emotion and doesn't want to ever give that up. She's the most emotional character in the whole film.

It's clear the film is a true labor of love from Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. They put their entire being into this work.

I barely remember 2049. I remember so much of the original. Ridley Scott and team created the world from scratch and mastered the atmosphere. 2049 is very good, but it's basically a requel.

Crazy to me that people think 2049 was a masterpiece. That film was full of the most generic sci-fi story tropes possible and entirely missed the chaotic, visual genius of the original. It’s a forgettable sci-fi action movie that no one would have looked twice at if it weren’t named Blade Runner.

Previous discussions on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37963935

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21960584

I read a post some time ago that explained how that test came to be - It was created by Ryan Gosling of all people - and it's an incredible story inside an incredible story.

Not sure if this [1] is the post I read back in the day, so I hope it does explain the story correctly (Haven't read this one in particular, just googled for it). Then I thought "May be I picked that from Hacker news" [2] and [3] (May be you should go at these in reverse order)

[1] https://cohost.org/mcc/post/178201-the-baseline-scene [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35813595 [3] https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/blade-runner-2049-how-a-key...

I think Villeneuve - out of the current cream-of-the-crop directors - best understands how to /adapt/ for film. Chiang has a masterful grasp of the short story format, in turn. Both the short story and film delighted me, and both seem suited well to their medium.

Arrival and Dune Part 1 are both really good, 10/10, adaptations.

Dune 2 to me shows that even with an amazingly talented adapter/director, that there are some limits to what can be conveyed from literature to film.

The limit in Dune 2 comes down to the fact that much of the “action” in the novel takes place via internal monologue. To convey that in film ends up being very, very hard and with Dune you can’t escape it.

In my viewing of Dune 2 I thought they weren’t able to really show the vastness of Paul’s internal journey, his visions of Jihad, struggling with his place in the universe as his mind is transforming. I didn’t feel that was in the film and made a lot of other actions and motivations more confusing.

I’m glad we have so many ways to tell stories, and I’m wholeheartedly for adaptations, but the fact that some types of ideas and stories are best expressed via one medium over another is something to embrace as well.

Certainly true! Expressing internal conflict and ideas in external, comprehensible ways is maybe the single most difficult challenge for the filmmaker. It's very hard to get right. 'The medium is the message' still rings true.

I guess I should re-watch it since I read the story first, then watched the movie and I had a hard time with what I perceived was unnecessary monkeying with the story of the daughter that I felt made the movie story less rich and complex. But it's probably time to revisit both mediums.

I’m a book person, not a movie person. But I have so much love for the movie About Time.

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