| In the Book |
In the Movie |
|
Louise's daughter is not named. |
Her daughter's name is Hannah. |
|
Louise's daughter died in an accident. |
Hannah died from an illness.
|
|
The alien craft are called looking glasses. There are 9 of them in the USA with 112 throughout the world. There are other spaceships in orbit around the Earth. |
They are called Shells. There are 12 of them in various places throughout the world. |
|
The Looking Glasses are about ten by twenty feet and rest on the ground inside of a large tent the military erected around it. |
The Shells are hundreds of feet high with a door on the bottom that opens every 18 hours to allow visitors to enter. The persons entering wear protective gear in case the aliens do not provide a proper atmosphere for humans.
|
|
The Looking Glasses transmit an image to the humans when the heptapods activate it. The humans are not afraid of them. |
The heptapods are actually inside the shell and appear to float/swim/stand in a liquid. The humans entering the Shell are frightened at first but eventually calm down. |
|
After Louise sets up a video screen to display English words to communicate with the heptapods, they do the same. |
The aliens draw symbols on the barrier in the shell with an inky substance that shoots forth from their limbs.
|
|
Louise nicknames the two heptapods Flapper and Raspberry. |
She names them Abbot and Costello. |
|
The humans studying the hetapods were trying to learn and teach language and physics. |
They are only trying to learn to communicate verbally and in writing.
|
|
The exchange of information regarding physics was eased when Fermat's Principle was communicated back and forth between the humans and the aliens. |
Nothing about Fermat's Principle. |
|
Gary and Louise are able to get away from the military camp into town occasionally for breaks. |
They are kept in the military camp next to the Shell at all times.
|
|
Hossner, a State Department representative shows up to brief the scientists about establishing trade with the heptapods. |
This does not happen. |
|
The humans and the heptapods exchange gifts; the humans receive information on organic chemistry and the aliens receive images of the Lascaux Cave paintings. The heptapods also gave a xenobiology lecture which indicated that they were more similar to humans than other species they had interacted with on other worlds. |
The heptapods give humans the gift of their language.
|
|
The final gift from the aliens was a description of a new class of superconducting materials, but was something the Japanese had just developed. |
This does not happen. |
|
This does not happen. |
The arrival of the alien crafts causes panic throughout the world.
|
|
This does not happen. |
The message (info about a weapon) from the hetpapods is interpreted differently by other countries which causes them to cut off communication between the teams. |
|
No violent action is ever planned by anyone towards the aliens. |
Some of the soldiers that support the scientist's work in the shell are driven by fear and provoked by various news reports and commentary to take violent action against the aliens by planting a bomb in the shell. The bomb explodes, but Louise and Ian are pushed out by Abbott before they can be seriously injured.
|
|
Does not happen in the book. |
After the bomb explodes the Shell goes to a higher altitude. It later sends a small vessel down to the ground where it retrieves Louise. Costello communicates with her one last time. She learns Abbott is dying. |
|
By learning to how to communicate in the heptapod's language, Louise is able to see her future. |
Costello tells Louise that her knowledge of their language enables her to see her future, her visions are of her future, not flashbacks.
|
|
This does not happen. |
The Chinese are planning on attacking the Shell in their country. Louise is able to convince General Shang to halt the attack after she tells him his dying wife's final words to him. |
|
Louise has past tense recollections of her life with her daughter and husband throughout the book. |
Louise has visions of her (future) daughter while she is learning the heptapods language.
|
|
The Heptapods depart Earth right after the final gift is exchanged. The Looking Glasses turned out to be inert sheets of fused silica. Earth never learns why the heptapods visited. |
The final message given to the humans before the bomb explodes says the heptapods will need humanity's help in three thousand years. This is why they came to Earth. Sharing their language is the weapon (tool) they offered. |