MovieChat Forums > Arrival (2016) Discussion > Couple of questions I'll likely have fig...

Couple of questions I'll likely have figured out on my own within 10 min


1) Why'd they throw a tiny box of C4 into the room?

2) Why'd one of the aliens die?

3) Why can Louise see into the future?

4) So did Louise know the aliens were going to come and basically everything that's going to happen in her life from when she was born to when she dies?

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1) It was a rogue group of soldiers trying to destroy the spaceship.

2) Because of 1)

3 & 4) Louise started getting glimpses of the future as she started understanding more of the alien language. As Ian said earlier in the film 'learning a new language can alter the way you think'. The aliens don't experience time linearly like humans and now she knows the long neither does she.

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4) No, she didn't know the aliens were going to come - she only started getting glimpses of her future once she started communicating with them.

Question of my own - if you thought you could have figured out the answers within 10 min, why did you bother asking the questions?

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Question of my own - if you thought you could have figured out the answers within 10 min, why did you bother asking the questions?

Now that is the real question here! I think the answer is pretty obvious but it was still worth noting.

Still Shooting With Film!

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didn't ian ask her " you were married b/4 ? and she said yes , unless i missed that , they were getting into the car near the end of the movie , who was she married to? i assumed the child was from that marriage ?

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The child was from her marriage to him (Ian). When she said yes to his question about being married before she was talking about being married to him in the future. Only he didn't know at that point that they would be together, get married and have a child. So she was referring to her future with him and how her marriage to him fell apart after she had her daughter knowing what her daughter's fate would be.

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"When she said yes to his question about being married before she was talking about being married to him in the future."

i don't understand that answer I'm sorry , she could have said not yet , but yes if it was true makes no sense , if he had asked her does she have kids the answer also would have been yes even if she didn't have any? , I'm sorry I'm just confused

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She said "yes" because to her it doesn't matter if it was in the future, because it already happened to her, you see?
It would still happen, but at the same time it was happening and also already happened. She could see all of it.

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so if he asked her do you have a child ? what is her answer ?

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Are you intentionally being slow?

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not intentionally , i just don't get how she can say she was previously married when the guy she ultimately married was the guy who asked the question ?

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A simpler answer? Past, present and future do not exist for her.
That`s it.

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True. Time wasn't linear anymore to her. Everything is present for her, right? People who didn't understand the alien language kept with the linear time simply by the fact that they didn't know the language. She was immersed in the alien language, so she started thinking the same way they did.

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You can't really say that everything is present for her.. you have to think deeper. There is no such thing as present, past or future when time is not linear..

Veni, Vidi, Vodka.

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Your clearly missing the entire point this film is making about time. Thats your problem. Your looking at this film using regular linear time as we normally perceive it everyday and you just can't do that once you get to the end of this film as she is no longer percieving time linearly. The ending to this film will make absolutely zero sense if you cant come to terms with the fact that she is percieving time in a non linear fashion at the ending. That means she has memories of marrying Ian and having a child with Ian and her child passing away and her marriage being broken as a result of her deciding to go ahead with having a child knowing what she knew even tho none of it has come to pass for Ian yet.

Thats why she says "I forgot how good it felt to be held by you" the very first time we see them hug at the end of the film. Even tho that is Ians first time hugging her, she already has memories of all the years they spent together.

Still Shooting With Film!

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Actually it's a valid question.

You can simultaneously perceive past, present, future. You don't have a kid at this moment, and not in the past. You will have one in the future but will die so you will again not have one.

What's your answer to "do you have kids?".

Plus: the question was "were you married" which implies the past. Answering yes is not right if it happened in the future. I took her answer as a confused answer, she was not aware anymore what was future and what was past, since she had no experience of the phenomenon before.

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What's your answer to "do you have kids?"


"I'm sure I do."

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but if she is communicating with someone who she knows experiences linear time she is knowingly giving him a false answer.

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I'm guessing you either a) didn't bother reading the responses above or b) didn't understand their explanations of time concepts or c) are a master troll.

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This is nice , well put.

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Agreed. If you knew the answers to your questions, why did you ask them, PIG *beep*!?

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Easy there, Sparky---it's a confusing film. OP, you're fine.

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I was just quoting The Master - just a joke.

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Then why was she and her husband separated? Its because of her same ability to see future right? That mean she had this ability from her marriage itself, right?

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No, it was becasue of a single choice she made even tho she could see the future. They got separated becasue Ian knew she went ahead and had a child knowing full well she would wind up dying of that awful disease. Ian disagreed with that decision, so much so that it caused them to split up.

Still Shooting With Film!

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