Why do the aliens of Arrival choose to be coy with communication?

Question

For the record, I absolutely adored Arrival (2016). I found it to be rich in substance as well as concept, all of which only bolstered by fine visuals and fine acting. It was a brilliant piece of filmmaking, as the story slowly burned to its conclusion, throwing out bigger and bigger ideas and concepts, making it a very, very imaginatively rewarding, intellectually stimulating story.

Also, I find that 99.9% of the questions and points raised are addressed in return, making for each concept to be complete and come (excuse me) full circle.

One thing that stood out to me as potentially problematic or at least slightly convenient as far as bridging the gap between the mystery of the aliens’ desires, to finding their desire to communicate, was the revelation of written communication.

I concede that there were alternative methods experimented with- the film remarks that the visitors potentially communicate via sound, and it seems apparent that they do as recordings from within the lens shaped craft offer interesting-sounding assumedly-communicative sounds, however to discern patterns and inflections from what they obtained would be a fruitless exercise. The scientists even pointed out that they tried playing aloud recordings of what they assumed would result in an attempt at communication, but the aliens chose to play recordings of the humans back, in an attempt to mimic their attempts of communication. This in itself proves that the visitors had an interest in bridging the language barrier and were attempting similar ideas, or at least were attempting ideas that they knew humans were familiar with, as we had tried the same. As well, they were visibly patient and had their intent been anything other than communication, I believe they would have already executed their plans for domination, trade, etc, on their own terms. The aliens in this film seemed to in fact allow themselves to be a blank canvas for the humans to hypothesise over, lowering their expectations of humanity to zero, allowing humans to work at their own pace. Unfortunately, the film proves that ‘our own pace’ is actually a fractured pace as we compete within our own species to solve the puzzle.

Alas, I may have digressed, but my question is- why, when the visitors can view our world and that symbolic, written language is widely used and understood, would they not attempt an exchange of written language from the beginning? As well, if they know future events, why not create a reference point, or a Rosetta Stone type portion of language for humans to use to decipher their questions/intent? I realise there was a sort-of test at play, but the humans were on the brink of an attack, so why not prevent this and allow us to continue amicably?

Also, I’m aware this is a fiction and the story is built to create tension and suspense, but the rest of the film really works- this is the only small snag which I can find with the plot, though it ruins nothing.

Answer 1

The way I see it - The aliens' written language is basically the sole purpose of their visit to planet Earth. They wanted to pass this "tool" (which was first addressed by Louise as "weapon", which is in my opinion a flaw in the script - such an intelligent person as Louise, should have understood the outcome of saying the word "weapon", especially when their intentions were absolutely unclear at this point; I think it would have been a lot more reasonable if she had said "tool" anyway, regardless of the obviously overwhelming feelings she'd experienced during this specific encounter/meeting) to humanity, in order to push our civilization to a un-natural fast-paced progress - due to the fact that they basically know that this is going to be pretty useful to them, during some crisis they're going to face in 3,000 years. As Ian described, studying a language to a certain depth may result a "re-wire" process of one's brain/mind. This "evolution" was the tool the aliens came to pass to our civilization.

To my opinion, they knew that in order to really comprehend and understand their language in a relatively short time period, one must have extraordinary learning abilities and a specific "set of mind" which will allow him to truly take the process seriously as possible and make this language a part of one's self. This person turned out to be Louise, which have literally took this experiment so seriously, that she actually made this language a part of her - Ian even asked her, in one point, if she dreams in the newly acquired alien language. That was approximately the point in time when Louise started to to see those "visions" of the future (which she obviously couldn't understand and categorizes by "dreams" / "strange daydreams").

I think that the aliens probably had extremely low expectations from humanity, and that's why they've been so patient - they've waited for the" right" person for the task to reveal himself. They probably didn't want just to "pass" the symbols to all the scientists which arrived to the "meetings" with them, due to the fact that they could have just learned this language in a very superficial manner - which wouldn't get them any closer to revealing the "weapon"/" tool" behind it. If you think about it - it's not such a "long shot" to hope that one of the scientists would start communicating with them using written symbols / language.

Louis turned to be the person they were hoping to find (in another probable scenario, they couldn't find a worthy candidate on Earth - and just moved to the next planet). Maybe it's some sort of alien "pride" - after all, it's a hell of a weapon they've invented.

Also, it's pretty probable that they wanted to test humanity - they wanted humanity to prove that they can acquire and comprehend the extremely advanced tools that the alien language offers. Maybe, least advanced civilizations have proven to be "unworthy" or physically incapable (in a specific point of their evolution, not in general) to hold and use this tool.

Again, this is just my interpretation of the plot.

Answer 2

Part of the aliens' goal was to make humans work together and communicate with each other. Since they can see forward in time, they already knew that Louise would take the right steps to say the right thing to the Chinese general to reopen communication and prevent an attack.

This is foreshadowed when the aliens allow the bomb on their ship to count down until there are seconds left before ejecting Louise and Ian and shutting the blast door -- they know when the bomb is going to go off, they know how much time it will take to protect their guests, and they know how to shield their ship from damage.

It's the same with the Chinese attacking them: they know that it won't happen because of what they're teaching Louise and what she will do. Letting different countries cut off communications among each other, and letting Louise be the one to open communications again, teaches humans to work together. The aliens knew this ahead of time, and just let the humans go through the steps they needed to in order to learn to cooperate.