Any species engaged in that kind of endeavor would have probably a completely different mindset than the ones that we are familiar with.'įrom reading the story, included in the anthology Stories of Your Life and Others, and from watching Arrival, it's obvious Chiang spent years studying linguists before assembling his story. 'A lot of us like to imagine that it's the same sort of thing as sailing from Europe to the New World, but it is radically different.

'I think it's safe to say that any species capable of interstellar travel would necessarily have a different perspective on things than we would because the scale of distances involved is nothing like crossing the ocean to another continent,' Chiang says. The challenge is formidable because the aliens (dubbed 'Abbot and Costello' in the movie and 'Raspberry and Flapper' in the story) don't have throats or even the same concept of time and distance that we do. government to determine how to communicate with space aliens who have landed across the globe. It stars Amy Adams as linguist Louise Banks, who has been tasked by the U.S. The film has also been nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars, and Villeneuve has been nominated for Best Director.

I don't know how you'd adapt that.'įor the sake of Chiang and filmgoers who want science fiction stories that have more to offer than explosions and CGI monsters, it may be a blessing that screenwriter Eric Heisserer ( Lights Out) and Canadian director Denis Villeneuve ( Prisoners, Sicario) disagreed about the cinematic potential of Chiang's story.Īrrival has been a box-office hit, and it's still playing theatrically in some markets despite the fact that it has been on Blu-ray since Tuesday.

Most of what is happening in those stories is happening in someone's head. 'This is just two people sitting in a room talking,' Chiang says from his home in Bellevue, Wash.

One of those nominations went to Eric Heisserer, who adapted Chiang's story for the screen. 'I would have probably said the story was unfilmable,' Ted Chiang says.Ĭhiang is talking about his short story 'Story of Your Life,' which, despite Chiang's skepticism, became the Oscar-nominated movie Arrival.

Arrival short story ted chiang