A major scene from ‘Arrival‘ starring Amy Adams had to be cut about half way through the film to not give away the surprise ending. There is a big twist coming for those who have yet to see the film and with a strong first week showing and garnering positive reviews it seems like they made the right choice in cutting it out. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer who was one of the driving forces in bringing the short story ‘Story of Your Life’ to being a feature length film and when asked about it explained a bit about the scene which was cut.
I’m warning you right now there is a HUGE spoiler about the film’s ending and if you haven’t seen it yet you’ll want to avoid this. It really is one of those big twists that is worth seeing play out on screen and not have ruined for you by reading a quick blurb online.
Still with me? You either don’t care or have seen the movie so either way, we’ll go on now.
One of the key takeaways from the film is that Adam’s Louise is able to learn the Heptapod language and once she masters it realizes that it gives the ability to see someone’s life long timeline. That’s right if you know the language you can see how someone will live their life from birth to death. It puts things in quite a different perspective and explains so much about how she is able to remember moments which haven’t happened yet and the scene that was cut would have spoiled early on that she can read her daughter’s future.
According to Heisserer:
“There’s a scene that used to be in the middle of the film, that was another moment between Louise and Hannah, a teenage Hannah, actually. It was an extension of the scene, if you remember [from] the very beginning, with teen Hannah, there’s a debate where she goes ‘I hate you,’ because it’s the ‘I love you / I hate you’ double beat. That was a scene in which Hannah was supposed to have done her homework, and she didn’t, and she’s going to go out to hang with the kids, her friends, that night. And Louise grounds her. So Hannah just has a fit, and said something that’s very typical of a teen, which is, ‘Why don’t you just let me live my life?’ And the reaction from Amy Adams was so powerful, that question and the fact that it’s exactly what Louise is doing, was just amazing. We realized though, as powerful and evocative as it was, and you know, with the performance of Amy behind it, it kind of broke the movie a little bit. So we had to pull that out. We realized, ‘OK, we can’t drop this heavy bomb here, right in the middle of the movie, in hour one.’ … It was like, ‘Amy, you’re too good. You’re too good, Amy. This is not good.'”
The thought was that the story could come apart if too much was revealed too soon and the pacing was honestly perfect for what was delivered. While a subtle scene it would have been major as it would have given away the climax far too soon in the movie for those paying attention. It was a scene that kind of sounds good but also clearly wasn’t needed and I don’t think would have helped the film.
Did you enjoy ‘Arrival’? Are you glad this scene was cut before the film was released? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Cinema Blend
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
