The 'Arrival' Trailer Imagines How We'd Actually React to Aliens

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Aliens touch down in your backyard. You:

A. Grab a shotgun, put on your best "get off my lawn!" face, and blast away at their technologically superior spaceship.
B. Step outside making Spock's Vulcan hand gesture, because the only time you've ever considered the possibility of extraterrestrial life was that one time you caught Star Trek on cable.
C. Drop to the ground and bow to your new overlords.
D. Wait it out.

Trick question: there's no right answer! Unless you're a savvy, compassionate linguist who can decipher the curlicue glyphs of intergalactic squids. Then you go make contact.

Hopefully, when the time comes, we have someone like Amy Adams' character in Arrival. From Sicario and Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve, Arrival follows a group of scientists investigating Earth's first alien encounter. According to the movie's official boilerplate, Adams' linguist character and a team of antsy military officers "race against time for answers – and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity."

The first trailer for the movie looks gorgeous and ponderous, a refreshing alternative to this summer's explosive blockbusters. There are hints that the aliens may be temperamental and prone to DESTRUCTION, but if Adams' character can use her words, there may be a way to talk it out. Finally, a movie where the hero's vocabulary saves the planet! Take that, everyone in Independence Day: Resurgence. 

Arrivals arrivals on November 11, 2016.

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Matt Patches is Thrillist’s Entertainment Editor. He previously wrote for Grantland, Esquire.com,and Vulture. Find him on Twitter @misterpatches.