Why Arrival may be more important than you realize . . .

. . . if you have an interest in movies, that is.

The Blu Ray edition  of Arrival just came out and of course, since this film blew me away when I saw it in the theater, I preordered it, and just saw it again.

I'm still in awe of it. Seeing it the second time around makes it even more profound. I'm watching the special features now, and when I'm done with that I'll probably watch the whole thing again.

Some people I know who are familiar with the tropes and conventions of science fiction did not care for this movie, and I think I understand why, and this is why I think it'll be so important down the road.

When you think "science fiction," or that abominable term "scifi," you probably think of Star Wars and/ or Star Trek--pointed eared aliens, space ships zipping through space shooting beams at each other, planets exploding, that sort of thing. When you hear "aliens arriving on earth" you probably think Independence Day.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with any of that, and there is a time and place for those movies, and I absolutely loved Independence Day when it first came out--it was a rocking good time. Arrival, though, doesn't really have any of that. It's most definitely not an action/adventure film.

Instead, it's a character study that at first does not appear to be a character study. The concept it's based on, neurolinguistics, is not something that's easy to explain or understand. One of the few faults with the movie is it sort of makes it a bit too much like magic in the end, though that was essential to tell the story it wanted to tell. It's a complicated but fascinating concept introduced in a way that would probably correspond pretty closely to how something like that would happen in real life. There's not a great deal of action, no battles in space, nothing like that. Instead, it's people talking to each other, and attempting to figure out how to talk to an alien life form that has appeared in our midst with no explanation and no clue as to what they want.

Here's the important part: the film made money. People went to see it. It's getting buzz from the Academy for Oscar nominations--though Amy Adams not getting nominated for her role is a travesty, I think. In short, I'm expecting to see more movies like this one--intellectually interesting, with a lot of heart, a lot of soul, but not a lot of action.

That excites me tremendously. That's what I want to see. More like this, please, Hollywood. Apparently I'm not the only person who feels this way.

If you haven't seen it yet I urge you to do so.