No human being, let alone a scientist, would react that way
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Arrival
nardog — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 10:26 AM)
"Holy beep. I have no free will. Nothing, absolutely nothing I do will affect anything in any way whatsoever. I always knew that was a possibility, and a very likely one, but there's an unfathomable difference between knowing that as a theory and as a flat-out fact, the absolute answer. All of a sudden, I'm just a soul trapped inside a moving corpse with absolutely no autonomy, much like Malcolm McDowell forced to watch some footage set to Beethoven, except forever. I might as well kill myself, but I can't. Because I know I won't. beep beep beep. My life's literally a living nightmare. I cannot wait to die."A sane person's reaction.
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bikesloth — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 12:50 PM)
That's one of the deepest philosophical parts of this movie and one that hardly ever gets mentioned.
Our humanity is all about our individuality, our freedom of expression and freedom of choice. Think of the implications of the Heptapods language on humanity. If all of humanity learns the language, we (humanity) lose everything that make us human. We exist knowing every strand of time within our lives and all of the events in that timeline. You would think only a few select humans would be allowed to learn the language and only the smartest could probably understand it. In contrast, if only a few select humans learn the language to pass the legacy along, how can we be certain that those in power adhere to the changes that must occur in order to help the Heptapods in 3000 years? -
In_The_Year_8837 — 9 years ago(November 21, 2016 01:36 PM)
Great post. While reading, it suddenly dawned on me how we humans end up helping the aliens in 3000 years time. We learn their language which seems like a gift at first but actually turns out to be our worst nightmare, driving humanity into oblivion.
After 3000 years without humans, the Earth essentially returns to its pristine, pre-human, unpolluted state, just in time for the aliens' mother ship to arrive, carrying millions of their kind. (Because of its immense size, it can't travel in the same manner as the ones shown in the movie)
No need to exterminate the humans with messy wars and likely radiation contamination to deal with. Just a beautiful
Arrival
to a new home planet. Brilliant.