If anyone was confused with the ending of the movie Arrival then you should likely watch this video and pay close attention as it boils the entire thing down in one very classic manner that we’ve been hearing ever since the essence of time was discovered and was first used to describe why things are the way they are. Time is apparently nonlinear within this film, which means that a person can go forward or backward in time but cannot branch off as you would with linear time. Now, the reason why this is so important is that as humans we believe that we have choices, that each of those choices creates a fork in the metaphysical road that allows time to be seen as linear and not bound by the predetermined course that will continue to take us in the same direction. To the human mind that understands little about time save what is taught in schools and what we observe with our own eyes time is very linear but is not bound by the choices we make. It goes on and on no matter what we do and only the landscape around us changes depending our situation or decisions.
In Arrival the discovery is made by Louise that time is in fact nonlinear as she finds that she can go back and forth in time thanks to the aliens and has come to the realization that no matter what she does time is going to continue rolling forward as it does no matter what she wants since everything happens is meant to happen. That’s kind of a grim fate if you really think about it, that our thoughts and actions are set to be a certain way and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, no way to break out of that circle no matter how hard we try. This would imply that everything that’s ever been has a set expiration date, a set course, and will never deviate from its course. And even if it did then it would be because it was predetermined that it would be so. Perhaps I’m understanding this incorrectly but then I do hope that would mean that my thoughts deviate from the perception that time is nonlinear and take their own course away from something that could possibly be one of the most confounding and condemning beliefs of all.
As a movie theory it is something that tends to confound a lot of viewers and confuse them to no end since the metaphysical nature of it goes into the kind of depth that average moviegoer doesn’t really want to hear. They want to know that they’re going to be entertained for the next two hours when they sit down, not that they’re going to be given a lesson in something that’s not real. While some people enjoyed Arrival a lot of others were greatly confused by the fact that movie seemed to have no real point to give them at the end. It could be that they missed it, or they could have seen it and not cared because it wasn’t given with the right kind of punch to the gut they expect from an alien movie.
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