Premier contact (II) (2016)

Amy Adams: Louise Banks

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Quotes 

• Louise Banks : But now I'm not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings. There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived.

• Louise Banks : If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?

  Ian Donnelly : Maybe I'd say what I felt more often. I-I don't know.

• Ian Donnelly : If you immerse yourself into a foreign language, then you can actually rewire your brain.

  Louise Banks : Yeah, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. It's the theory that the language you speak determines how you think and...

  Ian Donnelly : Yeah, it affects how you see everything.

• Louise Banks : [narrating]  So, Hannah... This is where your story begins. The day they departed. Despite knowing the journey... and where it leads... I embrace it. And I welcome every moment of it.

• Louise Banks : If all I ever gave you was a hammer...

  Colonel Weber : Everything's a nail...

• Louise Banks : Trust me, you can, uh, understand communication and still end up single.

• Colonel Weber : Mornin'.

  Louise Banks : Colonel.

  Colonel Weber : [answering a previous question about the Sanskrit word for war and it's meaning]  Gravisti. He says it means an argument. What do you say it means?

  Louise Banks : A desire for more cows.

• Louise Banks : "Non-zero sum game."

• Louise Banks : Let's say that I taught them Chess instead of English. 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...

  Colonel Weber : Everything's a nail.

• Louise Banks : I forgot how good it felt to be held by you.

• Ian Donnelly : As I watch you steer us around these communication traps that I didn't even know existed, it's like, "what?" I guess that's why I'm single.

  Louise Banks : Trust me, you can understand communication and still end up single.

• Louise Banks : And "purpose" requires an understanding of intent. We need to find out, do they make conscious choices or is their motivation so instinctive that they don't understand a "why" question at all. And-And biggest of all, we need to have enough vocabulary with them that we understand their answer.

• Ian Donnelly : [upon first meeting]  Priority one: What do they want and where are they from? And beyond that, how did they get here? Are they capable of faster-than-light travel? I've prepared a list of questions to go over, starting with a series of "handshake" binary sequences...

  Louise Banks : How about we just talk to them before we start throwing math problems at them?

  Colonel Weber : This is why you're both here. I'll bring the coffee...

  Ian Donnelly : Coffee with some aliens...

• Agent Halpern : We have to consider the idea that our visitors are prodding us to fight among ourselves until only one faction prevails.

  Louise Banks : There's no evidence of that.

  Agent Halpern : Sure there is. Just grab a history book. The British with India, the Germans with Rwanda... they even got a name for it in Hungary.

• [last lines] 

  Louise Banks : If you could see your whole life from start to finish, would you change things?

  Ian Donnelly : Maybe I'd say what I feel more often. But I... I don't know. 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.

  [they hug] 

  Louise Banks : I forgot how good it felt to be held by you.

  Ian Donnelly : You wanna make a baby?

  Louise Banks : Yes. Yeah.

• Louise Banks : [narrating]  Memory is a strange thing.

• Louise Banks : The weapon is their language. They gave it all to us. Do you understand what that means?

  Colonel Weber : So we can learn heptapod. If we survive.

  Louise Banks : 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.

• Louise Banks : I don't know Mom, I'm watching the same news coverage you are. Mom, please don't bother with that channel, how many times do I have to tell you those people are idiots.

• Louise Banks : [narrating]  We're so bounded by time, by its order. But now I am not so sure I believe in beginnings and endings. There are days that define your story beyond your life. Like the day they arrived.

• Louise Banks : [after confronting the aliens for the first time]  Am I fired?

  Colonel Weber : You're better than the last guy.

  Louise Banks : That doesn't make me feel any better.

• Louise Banks : We don't know if they understand the difference between a weapon and a tool.

• Louise Banks : Now that's a proper introduction.

• Louise Banks : Come back to me.

• Louise Banks : Who is this child?

• Louise Banks : [facing the aliens]  So, what are we gonna call them?

  Ian Donnelly : I don't know. I was thinking Abbott and Costello.

• [first lines] 

  Louise Banks : [narrating]  I used to think this was the beginning of your story. Memory is a strange thing. It doesn't work like I thought it did. We are so bound by time, by its order.

  Louise Banks : [coddling her baby girl]  Okay. Okay. Come back to me. Come back to me. Come back to me.

  Louise Banks : [later playing with her in the yard]  Stick 'em up! Are you the sheriff in this here town? These are my tickle guns, and I'm gonna getcha!

  6-Year-Old-Hannah : No!

  Louise Banks : You want me to chase you? You better run!

• General Shang : Eighteen months ago, you did something remarkable. Something not even my superior has done.

  Louise Banks : And what was that?

  General Shang : You changed my mind. You're the reason for this, unification. All because you reached out to me on my private number.

  Louise Banks : Your private number? General, I'm- I don't know your private number.

  General Shang : [Holds out his private phone for Louise to see]  Now you know.