Even if all the current governments agreed on everything-however ridiculous that sounds- at this point and time in history, 10 years from now they will start disagreeing on some issues, fights, and wars will break up, and new revolutions will be waged, making that whole original deal worth less than the used toilet paper. Even if the whole world was literary one government, that could last for a little bit of time, but certainly not for 1000 years. This idea is beyond laughable, and it could hardly be entertained in a fantasy Disney flick, let alone a serious drama, that is supposedly trying to be deep and insightful.

Unless.... it was their plan. To divide the world this way. So, after 3000 years, when they return, we have completely annihilated the human race ourselves. And they don't even have to make their hand dirty...

I think the idea of the "world unity" thing, was to make the Chinese happy. That market is increasingly important to Hollywood.

Why would that have to be their point?? Aliens do not need to come down and divide people, people are already divided, and have been so since Sumeria. They cant get enough of killing and conducting a global scale genocides. If that is what aliens want, all they need to do is grab themselves good seats to watch humans destroy other humans, until they finally destroy all of humanity. The movie was pretty clear in that aspect, and aliens were some benevolent good guys, trying to bring the world community together-BUNK- vomit inducing really. Global leaders cant see further away from their own noses, but somehow they are going to cooperate on a 1000 year long peace and love fest?!?! Oh yeah Israel is going to sign on on that, and China cant wait to embrace Taiwan, Russia will kindly leave Ukraine alone, Indians and Pakistanis will no longer find Kashmir interesting at all. Big corporations will stop raping workers, and White racist will totally embrace black people..... pure gibberish! There was no need for that to make the movie work at all, and it actually made the movie collapse on its own weight.

You're missing the biggest part of the equation. The aliens provided mankind with the tool (weapon) they would need to accomplish bringing worldwide peace, and that tool WAS the alien language. Once humans received the other 11 parts of the language (the first part being given to Louise) they would have the complete language.

Now remember the conversation between Ian and Louise where they talked about the theory (sorry can't remember the name of it) where if you used a language long enough it would become "you" and you would even dream in it. That's the key, mankind now has this alien language to learn and eventually it becomes all mankinds language. Then they would be able to see the future and know what must be done.

So in 3000 years they would go on the help save the aliens (we don't know exactly how) that helped them not annihilate themselves.

At least that's what I got out of it all.

The premise didn't make sense to me, even if the heptapods were trying to teach humans about this new language why make it so hard? what was the point in just standing there reacting to humans? why not be actively envolved in teaching? What was the point of all of it... Just because of this I think aliens were just a pointless plot device. The journey of Dr. Banks was interesting but the movie failed in being plausible, maybe it can work like an episode of the twilight zone but as a feature film it wasn't good in my opinion.

@DaniHerceg said:

I loved the movie, but that point was ridiculous. So you are going to get all the governments to agree on something, and for the next 1000 years, they will not break that agreement!!! They did not need that point in the movie to make it work, and it ended up cheapening the movie, and making it more of a Hollywood popcorn drama. Even if all the current governments agreed on everything-however ridiculous that sounds- at this point and time in history, 10 years from now they will start disagreeing on some issues, fights, and wars will break up, and new revolutions will be waged, making that whole original deal worth less than the used toilet paper. Even if the whole world was literary one government, that could last for a little bit of time, but certainly not for 1000 years. This idea is beyond laughable, and it could hardly be entertained in a fantasy Disney flick, let alone a serious drama, that is supposedly trying to be deep and insightful. Other than that, i loved the movie, and it was really an amazing experience.

Actually it might take the peoples of Earth a good deal of those 3000 years to fill the gaps in their precise understanding of details of this unifying agreement; giving humankind the alien language was just a starting point that kicks off the process towards convergence.

Consider this: the modern (mathematical) concept of "zero" also took around 3000 years to develop, as it wasn't invented and universally accepted overnight. It was first thought out (= "given to humanity") in rudimentary form somewhere on the planet and then gradually, over the course of thousands of years, cultures around the globe adopted and sharpened the notion of "zero", and learned how to (and how not to) work with it. But I don't see this mathematical concept easily being disrupted or made obsolete in the next 3000 years by wars or other things that may divide nations.

In fact, the point of the movie was that this alien language was a valuable tool in reaching agreement across nations and peoples - not just their governments. It means that revolutions would not need to occur anymore. This "agreement" was not referring to some formal treaty that was signed by governments who promise to honor it; instead, it is a mode of understanding that would be naturally shared by all people on Earth (in the same way that everyone on Earth naturally understands that "up" is up, "down" is down, and if you drop something, it falls towards the ground).

@yurenchu Yet the concept of zero did not prevent genocides, famines, wars, holocausts, and infinite other human degeneracies to be the guiding influence of human interaction during those same centuries that humans were perfecting the concept of zero. Sure, there would be some isolated communities of intellectuals, scientists, philosophers, etc. that would be working on that imaginary language, but world governments are not run by the enlightened people, but rather bullies and thugs that wear suits and ties. It is beyond laughable to even imagine the type of scenario that you are proposing, it is so foreign to human reasoning that it surprises me that you can even contemplate such an absurd thought. If anything, different groups would be trying to find the way to use that language so that they can manipulate other humans into exploiting them-business as usual in the affairs of human mammal, just as they have been exploiting one another since recorded memory goes. So to just imagine that somehow the language itself will change the nature of humanity, uplift the human being from an animal to an angel, is such a colossal leap of faith that the movie cannot handle on its own merit-hence it collapses on its own wait. Once again, they did not need that point at all to make the movie work. They should have stick to the personal story of Amy Adams and her partner-which worked so damn well, and was so inspiring-and let us draw our own conclusions what implications the whole awakening could have for humanity as a whole. But it was stomach turning, and literally vomit inducing seeing the governments presented as good-natured, working together to benefit humanity, when we have a track record of 6000 years of exact opposite happening, as we are now living in a state of almost near collapse of the entire civilization, with the rise of primitivism, racism, and chauvinism of the worst kind.

The two main characters got married and then split up. So in a way you're right, they didn't get along after a time as well. The bigger point of the movie was to make the effort and choice perhaps.

Not a good idea imho.

@Needy's Boy said:

I think the idea of the "world unity" thing, was to make the Chinese happy. That market is increasingly important to Hollywood.

THIS

Good point.

Actually a lot of Hollywood deals and plot in movies have involved a lot of Chinese. Like some plot for transformers 4 was changed to set in Shanghai and not some other country,

@Needy's Boy said:

I think the idea of the "world unity" thing, was to make the Chinese happy. That market is increasingly important to Hollywood.

hahaha. good point

i don't know if i enjoyed the movie and it definitely wasn't what i was expecting. However i found the whole premise a bit silly.