With all the Internet technology saturating Earth, why don’t the Heptapods buy smart phones and use Google decryption software to communicate with us? A lot of human culture has concepts like past, present, and future, they could pick up on our relationship with time with not so great effort on their part.
2) Why do they look like squids? No offense, but are we to imagine them living underwater? Do they want to come and inhabit our oceans? Does that explain why they want our help?
3) Why do they send two emissaries rather than a team? Do Abbot and Costello have genders that match their names? What if they’re both female?
4) What exactly is going to happen in three thousand years? Why are they confident that we could help them? Do we have the option of declining their invitation to help? What happens if we say “No?”
5) How do flash forwards function in the film? Why don’t we ever see Louise’s mother helping her take care of Hannah?
6) In the first timeline visualized in the flash forward, Ian abandons his family after being told about Hannah’s cancer, why would he do such a terrible thing? Is it better that Louise keeps that information from him the second time around? Doesn’t he have the right to know and make an informed consent?
7) If you were put in charge of the first contact committee, what type of team would you assemble? Would you include yourself? What about me?
8) Where do the Heptapods come from? The initial assumption is that they come from our universe, but that’s not entirely clear; what if they come from another Universe with different physical laws? How might the concept of a multi-verse help explain their unique relationship to time?
9) What do you think might actually happen if a first contact scenario such as that outlined in the film happened tomorrow? What would be the response of the Trump administration?
10) In all the excitement and confusion about first contact with an alien species, who cares if Louise has a baby? Not to be too cruel about it, but that story seems wedged into a significantly larger issue like a distraction.