Arrival Trivia Quiz

Answer: Beginnings and endings

The film opens in Louise's lake house at dusk. "I used to think this was the beginning of your story," we hear her say, as if she were speaking to her daughter. "Memory is a strange thing. It doesn't work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, by its order." The film cuts to images of Louise with her daughter, Hannah. We see Louise in a hospital bed, cradling the newborn Hannah. Someone - out of focus - picks her up but she cries and fusses. "Okay, come back to me," Louise says with a smile. "Come back to me." Next, we see Hannah as a child, dressed as a cowgirl and playing with Louise in the yard. "I remember moments in the middle," Louise narrates, as we see Hannah whispering "I love you" to her mother as she tucks her into bed. The film then cuts to Hannah as a teenager shouting "I hate you," before showing a sequence of quick scenes: the teenaged Hannah sitting in a hospital bed, Hannah being examined by a doctor, the doctor outside in the hall talking to Louise, who breaks down in tears. "And this was the end," Louise narrates. We see her leaning over a now bald Hannah in her hospital bed and sobbing as she says, "Come back to me. Come back to me." The scene fades to black as we see Louise walking slowly down the hospital hallway, alone. "But now I'm not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings," Louise continues narrating. "There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived."

Answer: "Gavisti"; an argument

After 12 alien vessels mysteriously appear over random locations all over the world, Colonel Weber from U.S. Army Intelligence appears in Louise's office to seek her assistance in communicating with the aliens. Louise is a linguist who carried out Farsi translations of insurgent videos for the U.S. army two years ago, and therefore still has top secret clearance. "That's why I'm in your office, and not at Berkeley," Weber explains. He plays her a recording of the aliens' spoken language, which is guttural and inhuman. "How would you approach translating this?" Weber asks. "Do you hear any words? Phrases?" Louise is hesitant, but Weber pushes her for an answer. "I can tell you that it's impossible to translate from an audio file," she says finally. "I would need to be there to interact with them." Weber refuses to bring Louise to the alien landing site in Montana and turns to leave, but he is stopped by Louise. "You mentioned Berkeley. Are you going to ask Danvers next?" she asks. "Maybe," Weber replies. "Before you commit to him, ask him the Sanskrit word for 'war' and its translation," she says.

Later, Louise is lying in bed when she is startled by a rumbling noise and a brilliant flash of light moving across her bedroom walls. A helicopter is landing on her lawn. She goes downstairs and opens her front door to find Weber standing outside. "'Gavisti'. He says it means 'an argument'. What do you say it means?" Weber tells Louise. "A desire for more cows," she replies. "Pack your bags," Weber tells Louise. "We take off in 10."

Answer: She explores their written communication.

Her first encounter with the heptapods is uneventful, and Louise is concerned that she will be fired. She plays back the recordings of the heptapods' verbal language, but she makes little progress deciphering them. Because the door at the bottom of the alien shell only opens once every 18 hours, she has some time to formulate a new plan. The next time Louise exits the clean tent, she is holding a small dry-erase board. Weber notices, and asks her why she needs it. "A visual aid," Louise replies. "Look, I'm never going to be able to speak their words if they are talking, but they might have some sort of written language or basis for visual communication."

Inside the shell, Louise writes a single word on the board and shows it to the heptapods. "Human," she reads out. When nothing happens, Louise approaches the glass-like barrier that separates the heptapods' portion of the chamber from theirs. "Human. I'm human. What are you?" she says. With a low growling sound, one of the heptapods raises a tentacle and releases black, inky globules from its end, which coalesce to form a logogram on the surface of the barrier. Louise smiles, and says "Human" again, pointing at herself. Both heptapods begin writing on the barrier. Louise laughs out loud. Now this is something she can work with.

Answer: Abbott and Costello

Weber is eager for them to get to the big question - "What is your purpose on Earth?", but Louise convinces him that they need to establish enough written vocabulary with the heptapods to avoid any misunderstanding. He approves her list of grade school words as they head back into the shell. Louise begins by writing her name on the board and holding it up to the heptapods. "Louise," she says emphatically. "I am Louise." The heptapods don't seem to understand, as they respond with a similar logogram that they wrote in response to "Human". Weber pushes Louise to move on to the next word, but she is pre-occupied with the caged canary that accompanies them for every session. Louise realizes that her hazmat suits may be impeding communication so she begins to take it off, despite the pleas from the rest of the team that she should reconsider. "They need to see me," she explains, as she removes the last piece of her suit and walks right up to the barrier. With no suit between her and the heptapods, she places her hand on the barrier. A second later, the first heptapod does the same with one of its tentacles. "Now that's a proper introduction," Louise says. She holds up the board again, and says, "Louise. I am Louise." Ian Donnelly, the theoretical physicist she is working with, follows suit. The first heptapod writes a new logogram on the barrier, followed by the second heptapod, who writes a different logogram. "I think those are their names," Louise says in awe. "So what are we gonna call them?" Ian asks. When Louise says she doesn't know, Ian says, "I was thinking Abbott and Costello." Louise breaks into a wide smile. "Yeah, I like it," she says.

Abbot and Costello were a popular comedy team from the '40s and '50s who may be best known for their "Who's on First?" routine, which relies on plays on words for much of its humor, perhaps foreshadowing the misunderstandings in communication that occur later in the film.

Answer: It can rewire your brain.

Louise and Ian have been working with the heptapods for over a month, and the relentless schedule is starting to take its toll. One day, Ian and Louise are commiserating about their sleep deprivation, when Ian brings up an interesting theory. "I was doing some reading about this idea that if you immerse yourself into a foreign language, that you can actually rewire your brain," he tells Louise. "Yeah, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. It's the theory that the language you speak determines how you think," she replies. "Yeah, it affects how you see everything," Ian says. "I'm curious. Are you dreaming in their language?" Louise shakes her head, unable to answer, and suddenly we hear the sound of a canary chirping. "I may have had a few dreams," she says defensively, "But I don't think that that makes me unfit to do this job."

Louise has actually been having disorienting flashbacks and hearing strange sounds, and doesn't really know what to make of them. It started soon after she removed her hazmat suit to introduce herself to the heptapods, when she saw herself standing with her daughter, Hannah, when she was outside the decontamination tent. The flashbacks start to come regularly after that - while working, she has visions of Hannah playing with a caterpillar or flipping over a stone by the edge of the lake, and on another occasion she hears the sound of pages turning and has visions of Hannah reading a children's book, and showing her a drawing she did of a made-up TV show named "Mommy and Daddy Talk to Animals". "I'm not sure it's something I can explain," she tells Ian when he expresses concern about her well-being, but dismisses these events as being due to fatigue.

Answer: Mahjong

Weber allows Louise to listen to a satellite recording of General Shang, Chairman of the People's Liberation Army, speaking to someone in Mandarin. Louise interprets the audio for Weber. "He's saying that each of the 12 is offering advanced technology," she translates. "Our science team is attempting to decode the, um, sets. Sets - I don't know what that means. Something about advantage, suits, honor, and flowers." Louise doesn't know what to make of what she just heard. "I don't know what it means either," Weber says. "An hour ago, China mobilized forces, and now Russia is following suit. Shang's about to start something." Louise thinks about what Weber just said, and the penny drops.

She points out to Weber that Shang is referring to tile sets in Mahjong. "God, are they using a game to converse with their heptapods?" she wonders. Weber doesn't understand why Louise seems so alarmed. "Well, let's say that I taught them chess instead of English," she explains. "Every conversation would be a game, every idea expressed through opposition, victory, defeat. You see the problem? If all I ever gave you was a hammer..." Weber gets it now. "Everything's a nail," he says. Louise nods silently.

Answer: "Offer weapon"

Weber is concerned about the escalation in China. "We need to ask the big question, ready or not," he tells the team. Ian and Louise go back into the shell and set up a monitor so that they can display their question. "Heptapod... purpose... Earth. What is your purpose?" Louise mutters to herself as she selects the appropriate symbols on her tablet. Once the logogram appears on the screen, Costello responds by writing on the barrier. Louise hesitates and looks at Ian. "What does it say?" Weber asks. "Offer weapon," Louise replies.

Back in the operations tent, the team argue over the meaning of what they just witnessed. "But you saw what they wrote," says Captain Marks, a member of the escort unit. "Using a word they don't fully understand," Louise points out. "We don't know if they understand the difference between a weapon and a tool. Our language, like our culture, is messy, and sometimes one can be both." Ian agrees with Louise. "I think it's quite possible that they're asking us to offer them something, not the other way around, like the first part of a trade," he adds. Louise believes that they need to go back into the shell to clarify the message, but Halpern, the ranking CIA Agent on site, disagrees. "We need to sit on this information till we know what it means, so we aren't sharing it with our enemies," he says. "We have to consider the idea that our visitors are prodding us to fight among ourselves until only one faction prevails." A short while later, they learn that China and Russia have cut off all communications and are no longer sharing any information with the other landing sites. The implication is that they have received a similar message from their heptapods, and have also assumed the worst. With China and Russia off the grid, Halpern receives orders to do the same. Despite Louise's protests, the Montana site goes radio silent. One by one, each of the video screens showing the remaining nine sites also go blank. Now none of the 12 sites are talking to each other.

Answer: Set off a bomb

Louise is worried as they have never re-entered a session before, but Ian assures her that it will be fine. When they get to the shell, they find Captain Marks and two other members of the escort group disembarking from the scissor lift, having just exited the shell. "Dr. Banks, the session is finished," Captain Marks says when he realizes why they are here. "You can't go back in. It's dangerous." Ian promises that they won't be long, and one of the other soldiers convinces Marks to let them go ahead.

Inside the shell, Louise uses the display to clarify the earlier message. "Offer weapon?" she types. "Are you offering us something?" Abbott writes out a logogram, which the computer translates. "Technology. Apparatus. Weapon," Ian reads off the screen. Louise types something else using her tablet. "Give. Technology. Now," she types. Instead of writing a response, Abbott raises a tentacle and begins banging on the barrier. Ian and Louise don't know what to make of it. Louise approaches the barrier, thinking that Abbott wants her to write on it. Louise raises her hand to the barrier and Abbott raises a tentacle, releasing a small amount of ink on his side of the glass. Together, Louise and Abbott compose a single logogram in one sweeping motion, as Ian looks on in awe. Then, Costello and Abbott both begin writing with all of their tentacles, creating hundreds upon hundreds of overlapping logograms that form a huge, three-dimensional tapestry. Just then, Ian and Louise hear gunfire coming from outside the shell, as Abbott suddenly places a tentacle on the barrier, altering the gravity in the chamber and sending Ian and Louise flying outwards into the connecting tunnel. As the door to the chamber rolls shut, Ian and Louise can just make out the fireball created by the detonation of the bomb that the rogue soldiers had placed in the chamber 10 minutes earlier. Abbott's quick action has saved Ian and Louise's lives.

Answer: That the 12 landing sites need to work together

Louise wakes up in the medical tent, having suffered a concussion when Abbott saved her from the explosion. The Americans fear that the Montana site is no longer secure, as the heptapods could retaliate for what was essentially an unprovoked attack. In the meantime, China has issued an ultimatum to their shell to leave Shanghai or face destruction, and are urging other landing sites to do the same. Louise and Ian have to race against the clock to interpret the tapestry before they are ordered to evacuate.

After working without much success, Louise awakens from a nap to find Ian taking quiet delight in a breakthrough he has made. "Take a look at this section," he says, as he zooms in on a portion of the tapestry on his computer. "There are too many gaps. Nothing's complete. Then it dawned on me. Come here." Ian crosses the room to another monitor displaying a three-dimensional model of the tapestry. "Stop focusing on the ones, look at the zeroes," he explains. "How much of this is data? How much of it is negative space? So, I measured it. 0.0833 recurring. Perhaps you'd like that as a fraction? One of 12."

In the operations tent, Louise and Ian brief Weber and Halpern on their discovery. "What they're saying right here is that this is one of 12. We are part of a larger whole," Louise explains. "We need to talk to the other sites. We need to help them with what they've gotten from the other heptapods." Halpern isn't convinced that all of the data from the 12 landing sites are meant to fit together. "Why hand it out to us in pieces? Why not just give it all over?" he asks. "Well, what better way to force us to work together for once?" Louise replies.

Answer: A non-zero-sum game

The concept of a non-zero-sum game can be contrasted with the earlier discussion between Louise and Weber about the Chinese using Mahjong to communicate with their heptapods. The difference is between a situation where one person's gain necessarily means another person's loss, versus a scenario where the parties' gains and losses don't need to add up to zero, allowing for a true win-win outcome.

While Louise works to decipher the tapestry, she has a flashback to the time when a teenaged Hannah has trouble recalling something. "What's this term here?" Hannah asks. "Like a technical term? Where we make a deal and we both get something out of it?" Louise thinks for a second. "Uh, compromise," she says. "No. Like, it's a competition, but both sides end up happy," Hannah replies. "Like a win-win?" Louise asks. "More science-y than that," Hannah responds, and rolls her eyes a little. "If you want science, call your father," Louise replies impatiently. Hannah starts heading up the stairs.

The answer to Hannah's question is provided later in the film by Ian, when he and Louise try to convince Halpern that the 12 sites need to work together. "Why hand it out to us in pieces? Why not just give it all over?" Halpern asks. "Well, what better way to force us to work together for once?" Louise replies. "Even if I did believe you, how in the world are you gonna get anybody else to play along or give up their data?" Halpern asks, softening a little. "We offer ours in return," Ian suggests. "What, trade?" Halpern asks. To Ian, this is a no-brainer. "It's a non-zero-sum game," he says emphatically. Louise's eyes widen as she hears this. In a flashback to the same scene with Louise and Hannah, Louise calls out to her daughter as she heads up the stairs. "Non-zero-sum game," she says. Hannah pauses on the landing. "That's it. Yeah, thanks," she replies.

Back in Montana, Louise is distracted and a little confused by her flashback. It seems almost as if her answer to Hannah was prompted by what Ian had just said to Halpern. But how can that be, if Louise is recalling a memory of something that has already occurred in the past?

Answer: Visions of her future

Louise needs to get the message to the other sites to stand down and work together to decipher the 'weapon', but that seems impossible given the communications blackout. She realizes that the shells can probably communicate with each other, so she sneaks out of the operations tent while the others are arguing, and makes her way back to the shell one last time. Inside, she meets with Costello, who informs her that Abbott perished in the explosion. Louise expresses her remorse and urges Costello to send a message to the other landing sites, but Costello just informs Louise to "use weapon". "I don't understand," Louise replies. "What is your purpose here?" Costello replies with a series of logograms: "We help humanity. In 3,000 years, we need humanity help," he writes. "How can you know the future?" Louise asks, confused. Costello emits a strange vibration, and Louise suddenly visualizes an eight-year-old Hannah, playing happily by the lake. "I don't understand," she finally says. "Who is this child?"

In quick succession, the film revisits the scene of the previous 'flashback' in which Hannah tells her mother about the TV show she made up called "Mommy and Daddy Talk to Animals". We see Hannah making animal figures out of Play-Doh to accompany her drawing, and one of the figures look remarkably like a heptapod. For the first time, we also see the full details of her drawing. Below the figures of Mommy and Daddy, Hannah has drawn a canary in a cage.

Back in the shell, Costello tells Louise, "Louise sees future. Weapon opens time," and floats away. The audience realizes that the 'flashbacks' Louise has been having are really flash-forwards, or visions of her future.

Answer: "I told him something that he wasn't ready to hear."

Louise has been deposited in the field under the shell, and her mind is still reeling from her conversation with Costello. Ian and Weber arrive in a truck, and Louise collapses into Ian's arms. Louise has another vision of Hannah standing by the edge of the lake. She needs help putting on her boots, but Louise is distracted. "Are you gonna leave me like Daddy did?" Hannah asks. "Oh, Hannah, honey, your daddy didn't leave you. You're gonna see him this weekend," Louise tells her. "He doesn't look at me the same way anymore," Hannah remarks. "That's my fault," Louise replies tenderly. "I told him something that he wasn't ready to hear." When Hannah asks what she told him, Louise replies, "Well, believe it or not, I know something that's going to happen. I can't explain how I know, I just do. And when I told your daddy, he got really mad. And he said I made the wrong choice." Hannah listens to this with rapt attention. "What's going to happen?" she asks. "It has to do with a really rare disease," Louise replies. "And it's unstoppable. Kind of like you are, with your swimming, and your poetry, and all the other amazing things that you share with the world." Hannah's face breaks into a wide smile. "I am unstoppable?" she asks in disbelief. "Yeah," Louise replies, as she pulls Hannah into a tight embrace.

Back in Montana, Ian is still holding Louise. "I just realized why my husband left me," she says matter-of-factly. "You were married?" Ian replies, puzzled.

Answer: A gala

Back in Montana, the base camp is a hive of activity, with everyone preparing to evacuate. Louise makes her way to her section, and calls up the tapestry on a computer. We then flash-forward to Louise in her university office, opening a shipment of books with a box cutter. She removes one of the books - "The Universal Language", authored by her. She flips to the dedication page - it reads "To Hannah" - and then to the title page, which shows the heptapods' logogram for "time" printed above the title of the book. Next, she sees herself giving a presentation to a packed lecture hall about the heptapod language.

Back, in the tent, Louise scans quickly through the tapestry, then turns to Ian. "I can read it. I know what it is," she says to him. "It's not a weapon. It's a gift." They go outside and locate Weber. "The 'weapon' is their language. They gave it to us. Do you understand what that means?" she says to Weber. "If you learn it, when you really learn it, you begin to perceive time the way that they do, so you can see what's to come. But time, it isn't the same for them. It's non-linear." Weber appears unmoved. "Look. We did our best, but it wasn't enough," he says to Ian and Louise, and bids them goodbye. Louise stands in the field, dejected, when she begins to have another vision.

It is 18 months later, and Louise is dressed to the nines at a gala celebration. The room is decorated with banners on which logograms have been printed. A voice calls out to her: "Dr. Banks. A pleasure." She turns to see General Shang walking towards her. "The pleasure is mine, really," she says. "Your President said he was honored to host me at the celebration," he continues, "But I confess, the only reason why I'm here is to meet you in person." Louise is genuinely surprised. "Me? Well, I'm flattered. Thank you," she says. "Now, 18 months ago, you did something remarkable, something not even my superior has done," General Shang tells Louise. "You changed my mind."

Answer: His wife's dying words

Back in the gala, General Shang has just told Louise that she changed his mind 18 months ago. "You're the reason for this unification," he says. "All because you reached out to me on my private number." Louise smiles, but finds it hard to conceal her puzzlement. "Your private number? General, I don't know your private number," she says. Shang holds out his phone and shows Louise the display. "Now you know," he says. "I do not claim to know how your mind works, but I believe it was important for you to see that." Realization flashes across Louise's face. "I called you, didn't I?" she asks.

Back in Montana, Louise springs to action. She returns to the operations tent, locates a sat phone, and uses it to dial Shang's number. "Come on," she mutters to herself. "What'd I say?" Back at the gala, Shang responds to Louise's question. "I will never forget what you said," he tells her, as he leans in and whispers in Louise's ear. "You told me my wife's dying words." Back in the tent, Louise reaches Shang on his phone and begins to speak to him in Mandarin. She tells him his wife's dying words, at the same time that Shang whispers them to Louise in the flash-forward. When he is done, Shang thanks a stunned Louise in Mandarin and leaves.

The film omitted subtitles for the line that Shang whispers to Louise, but screenwriter Eric Heisserer, who adapted the script from Ted Chiang's short story, has revealed the translation of the Chinese phrase that he had written as: "In war there are no winners, only widows."

Answer: "You wanna make a baby?"

The film is bookended by Louise's narration to her daughter. We see Ian and Louise in Montana, as a helicopter readies to take off. "So, Hannah. This is where your story begins. The day they departed," Louise says in a voiceover, as Ian places his hand on her shoulder and asks if she's all right. "Despite knowing the journey and where it leads, I embrace it, and I welcome every moment of it," Louise continues narrating. Like the heptapods, Louise now experiences time in a non-linear fashion, moving effortlessly backwards and forwards in the timeline of her life. We see Louise at the lake house, looking out the window at Ian standing in the yard. We see Louise holding Hannah as a newborn, lifting her high above her head. We see Louise teaching Hannah how to spell her name. Back in Montana, Louise asks Ian, "If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?" Ian thinks for a moment before answering. "Maybe I'd say what I feel more often," he says. "You know I've had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as I can remember. You know what surprised me the most? It wasn't meeting them. It was meeting you."

Back in the lake house, Louise dances playfully with Ian, as we cut to Louise pulling Ian into a warm embrace in Montana, and then back to the lake house where she does the same thing. "You wanna make a baby?" Ian asks Louise. We see a series of shots of Hannah running towards the lake, playing in the woods, and finally at home. "Yes," Louise says in response to Ian's question. She is choosing love, even though she knows how it will all end. The film concludes on a close-up of Louise in Montana as she pulls Ian closer, her face overcome with a wave of different emotions - joy, sorrow, pain, but also hope.