This article contains majorArrivalspoilers.
Their marriage, their daughters birth, and the death-to-come that will tear them apart.
In fact, as of this scene, its already happened.
Or, at least it already happened for Louise.
Its all in the present, future, and past, concurrently.
So wait, how did this happen, again?!
Well, lets take a step back.
The kind that actually have a go at solve problems instead of punching or shooting them.
Sapir-Whorf is mentioned briefly in the film when Louise first starts having her breakdowns.
These sort of debates about the merits of language go back to the dawn of philosophical discourse.
Thus their basic understanding of life varied greatly from our world.
We repeatedly witness Louise interact with events in the future and the present by being simultaneously aware of both.
That there is no free will.
It is the old time is a circle adage of science fiction.
And for the record,Interstellaris very susceptible to this reading.
However,Arrivalis not.
Time is not immutable, hence why the aliens presence on Earth is still high stakes for them.
He responds with a wishy-washy answer about how he isnt sure right now.
Whether this means she could consciously (re)live her life forever in a loop is unclear.
That is one potential program for the gifted-weapon.
And it seems we have 3,000 years to figure out how to use it well.
This film certainly did.
This article was previously published on Nov. 15, 2016.
