If you’ve already seen the teaser trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, you’ll surely recognize some key images that appear in the just released first full trailer – namely the silver egg-like alien spaceships that descend on Earth and couch themselves in conveniently exquisite settings, as well as their stunning minimalist interiors. Though we didn’t know what these aliens were or did, we knew they had a knack for tasteful modern design. And after the full trailer, we pretty much know the same, except now we also know that their language comes in the form of a bunch of blotchy circles and swirls. And the crux of the film, it seems, is that no one else knows what they are or do, either, and that the only way to figure it out is to decode said blotches.
Enter Amy Adams as linguist Louise Banks, who happens to be good enough at her job to also be able to potentially understand alien communication. In the trailer, she’s helped by Forest Whitaker as US Army Colonel Weber and Jeremy Renner as mathematician Ian Donnelly, as they attempt to stop a potential major crisis — namely, world destruction by aliens. (It’s like ‘War of the Worlds,’ if the war could have been stopped by an alien grammar lesson.)
This is all based on Ted Chiang’s short story, “Story of Your Life,” so if you’re looking for something a bit less cryptic than either trailer (though the new one certainly shows a lot of silvery eggs in a lot of places), that’d be a good place to start.
Arrival will be premiering at the Venice International Film Festival and then TIFF, before opening in theaters on November 11. Villeneuve is known for dramas like Incendies and Sicario, but he seems intent on making a big mark on sci-fi: apart from Arrival, he’s also directing the Blade Runner sequel.
Watch the trailer:
[h/t The Verge]