Arrival Ending Explained
Arrival is a thoughtful science fiction movie from 2016 that stars Amy Adams as Louise Banks, a college professor who speaks many languages. The story starts when huge alien spaceships appear all over Earth. No one knows why they are here, and world leaders get scared. The US government asks Louise to help talk to the aliens inside one ship in Montana. She teams up with physicist Ian Donnelly, played by Jeremy Renner.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)
The aliens look like giant squids with seven legs, so people call them heptapods. They do not speak with words or sounds. Instead, they spray out black ink in circles full of strange writing. Louise calls this writing logograms. Each circle means a whole idea at once, not like our left-to-right sentences.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)
Right away, movie watchers see flashbacks of Louise with her young daughter Hannah. The girl plays happily but later gets very sick and dies. Louise’s marriage falls apart after that. These scenes make you feel sad for her. But as the movie goes on, you learn they are not flashbacks at all.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giCRXrIbLqg
Tensions rise fast. Other countries like China and Russia hear different messages from their own ships. China thinks the aliens say “come and fight.” Russia hears “there is no time,” which sounds like a warning to them. Leaders want to attack. Soldiers at the Montana site panic and some even plant a bomb inside the alien ship.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giCRXrIbLqg
The bomb goes off just as Louise and Ian get a new message from the heptapods. One alien, named Abbott, gets hurt badly. The other, Costello, saves the humans by pushing them out. Later, Costello tells Louise the truth. The aliens came to Earth to teach humans their language. They need our help in 3,000 years, but only if we learn it now.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)
Here is the big twist. The heptapod language does not just let you talk. It changes how your brain sees time. Humans normally think of time as a straight line, past to future. But heptapod writing shows all time at once, past and future mixed together. When Louise learns it well, she starts seeing the future like memories. Those “flashbacks” of her daughter are actually glimpses ahead. Hannah has not been born yet.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giCRXrIbLqg
Louise uses her new power to stop the war. She sees a future meeting at the United Nations where everyone celebrates peace. There, China’s leader General Shang thanks her. In that vision, she knows his secret phone number and his wife’s last words. Back in the present, as armies prepare to fight, Louise steals a phone. She calls Shang and repeats those exact words. He stops his attack, and other countries follow.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giCRXrIbLqg
In the end, Ian tells Louise he loves her. They talk about life. She knows they will have Hannah together. She also knows Hannah will die young from a disease no one can cure. Ian will leave when Louise admits she saw it coming. Even with this pain ahead, Louise chooses to go forward. She picks love and her daughter anyway. The aliens leave, but humanity has the gift of their language forever.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giCRXrIbLqghttps://www.youtube.com/shorts/pgujFX-EjZo
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giCRXrIbLqg
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pgujFX-EjZo
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/news/
