The first trailer for Arrival is here! And it delivered on last week’s teaser’s promise to make first contact with the alien heptapods, by showing not only their bodies but their intricate, baffling, enthralling language. Amy Adams’ linguist Louise Banks looks badass, as the kind of human who will abandon her hazmat suit in order to give the heptapods “a proper introduction”… and as someone who knows that there can be no room for miscommunication. “We need to make sure that they understand the difference between a weapon and a tool,” she says. “Language is messy, and sometimes one can be both.”
Based on Ted Chiang’s novella Story of Your Life, Arrival looks to be expanding the themes of global mistrust, as each of the dozen or so nations underneath a heptapod ship has a different way of communicating with the aliens. Banks’ efforts to understand their semagrams (more on the alien language here) contrasts with other countries’ impatience and terror, which leads to murder, cover-ups, and the potential for thrusting humans into war with the heptapods. I’ve already watched this trailer twice and feel about as exhilarated as Banks does. Check it out for yourself:
There’s also an international trailer, which shows more of Banks in her natural habitat before she becomes the de facto alien translator:
Here’s the official synopsis:
When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team—led by expert linguist Louise Banks—is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers—and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity.
Arrival makes first contact with our movie theaters on November 11.
