My impression was that it was due to experiencing time like the heptapods. She chose to have the child, because from her perspective even after death she can still spend time with her daughter. It does seem like a dick move to pull on her husband though, so long as he doesn't learn heptapod. Trying to think about whether the kid would want to live knowing she would die is something I can't quite wrap my head around.

 

How is it a dick move? I mean every single child brought into this world is going to die anyway, so should parents not have them? Sure, some die more violent or uncomfortable deaths than others, at earlier time points, but still. She didn't "knowingly doom" anybody to anything.

 

This would still make it an insanely selfish move since in effect she is willing to accept the early and painful death of her child for the sake of her own happiness.

There is massive difference between taking the relatively small risk of having your child die early/painfully etc. and the absolute certainty of it happening.

Is your opinion really that there is nothing wrong with having a child when you know, 100%, that it will suffer immensely and die an early death? That it will never have an opportunity to actually fully experience life,grow old have kids, travel etc.? Because to me that is an extremely unethical decision and she doesn't have any possible excuse to make it. And she doesn't only "harm" the child but also the rest of the family (most prominently the father) as well as any friends the child makes.

 

By that measure you're also saying, "This child is going to experience and cause pain in its life through no fault of its own, and so it should never live."

 

So it's better for them to never live? How about you ask anyone who's ever had a kid that died before 10 (or any random young age) if they regretted having them. I don't even know what you're arguing, was the plot point 'unrealistic'? You don't understand the characters motivations? If you think her having a kid was mean, then you didn't understand the movie at all.

 

Yes? Because nobody would be harmed by the child not existing (or at least not as nearly as much as it would be the case if she would exist)? And any RL example falls flat since they had no possibility of predicting that their child would die that early/painfully (barring certain medical procedures that would derail this discussion). Because I would hope that parents would decide against having a child if they knew with absolute certainty that it would die that early.

And I have stated my problem with that scene multiple times - I either find the portrayal of time in the movie problematic - since it effectively removes freewill or, if that isn't the case, find the decision and justification of having the child highly problematic.

 

I saw this one earlier this week, and it is legitimately great. The fantastic plot, philosophical elements (I like how people are now discussing determinism and it's ethical implications in this thread), and excellent visuals all combine for a wonderful experience. My only problem with the film is the director loves long meandering shots and inception type noises way too much. Those got a bit annoying by the end of the experience.

For what it's worth, I don't think there is free will in the traditional sense in this movie. The idea of people viewing time non linearly, such that they get visions of their future indicates a pretty hard determinism. If you think she was selfish for having the child, then her selfishness was necessary, because without the child, she wouldn't have had some of the visions that led her to deciphering the language and saving the potential for a human/alien alliance.

I don't think it's selfish either. 20 years of life as a happy child is better than no years of life as anything.

 

I think the movie addressed the topic, because Louise chose to have Hannah and waited a few years to tell Ian what she knew. Ian leaving Louise and growing distant from Hannah seems representative of someone who would not have wanted to bring a child into the world he knew would live a short and painful life. Or maybe he just felt betrayed and being around Hannah hurt too much.