OutRun2

Great film!

I'm curious though,

What do you speculate happened at the end, when those white men showed up on their boats?

And what was going through Jaguar Paw's mind as he watched this?

Why do you think Jaguar Paw told his wife it's better they go back to the forest and start over, instead of meeting their new guests?

Do you think the white people did any harm to the Mayans once they arrived?

Also why were the Incas and the Aztecs missing in this film?

Giggles

What happened at the end? As you mentioned Jaguar Paw and his family moved back into the forest not to meet white people. Guess his instincts were telling him this encounter will do him no good. So that was a wise decision. Only I'm not sure for how long Paw's family could live calmly afterwards, 'cos it's known Europeans slaughtered tha majority of native Americans.
Regarding Incas and Aztecs - all those tribes lived in different places of Southern and Central America, it's just not possible to show them all in one film.

DonnachaOne

I felt that JP had dealt with one set of conquerors enough to know when another set was coming, and knew he had to defend his family first and foremost. By retreating to the forests, he and others like him ensure dthe Mayan people would not vanish.

This has far surpassed the quota for deep thought allowed in analysing Apocalypto, just so you know.

The Infidel

I think the arrival of the white men was more symbolic than anything. The end of one era, and the beginning of a new one. I don't think we're meant to think too deeply about Jaguar Paw's reaction to it.

PopcornTreeCt

I must admit I didn't see the ending coming even though looking back it's so obvious. I was under the impression there was some mystical force that would cause the Apocalypto. Good movie.

Jon2

Pretty much what Gibson said the title was about. The end of a civilization.

Recognition that the world he lived in was going to change. Drastically.

IMHO, in today's world, the closest scenario one could imagine themselves in would be to be a witness at the landing of an alien spacecraft. The world's going to change. Good or bad, it may not directly impact you right away, but everything is going to be different.

JP wasn't stupid. He realized that change isn't necessarily good. Better to wait and see what happens.

History shows that they did and, despite what some may think, it wasn't all due to deliberate intent. Occasionally yes, but it was mostly unknown (to native Americans at any rate) diseases that were the primary culprit. A lot of diseases that were fairly innocuous to Europeans were deadly to native Americans.

Parcher

This movie ROCKS.

OutRun2

Excellent answers Jon, thanks.

Dr Mabuse

Apocalypse doesn't actually mean what it is now perceived to mean... something along the lines of 'all hell breaking loose and God's judgement'... or 'the final battle of good and evil that destroys the world as we know it'...

it means 'a revealing' or maybe better transliterated 'a great change in knowledge from a revealing'... which both of the above are, technically, i guess... but if you say 'apocalypse' today it almost always conjures the idea you are speaking of the biblical 'end times', of global destruction, and not a 'great change'... in fact check a dictionary and you will see 'God's final Judgement' in many cases... or 'devastation of the earth'... but that word has been morphed into that meaning...

the latin word Apocalypsis, form the greek, means 'a revealing' or maybe more accurately 'a lifting of the veil'... a revealing... a great change in what is understood...

that is why the book of 'Revelations' is called 'The Apocalypse of John on Patmos'... it was a great revealing, of great change... the veil being lifted... but the contents of that book changed the meaning of the word to be the contents of the book, God's judgement and the like, and NOT 'a revealing' or 'a lifting of the veil'...

that was the entire meaning of the film to me... 'a revealing' or 'a great change in what is known'... a 'lifting of the veil' from the world Jaguar Paw knew in that village... the way things had always been...

from the 'small' change of them meeting the other in the forest who were fleeing... and those first considerations of 'something strange' and 'something ominous', a change in Jaguar Paw's view of the world, revealing to him there was more out there than his little village... a sense of something beyond the world he knew... it was well done... those people were fleeing 'something'...

then the events of the attack... destruction of the village... death of those he knew... then his exposure to the city that was beyond his belief... revealing so many things in so many ways at a blistering pace... drastic change... the world changing so fast in every way... changing the world as he knew it till it was beyond recognition for him... a new world... a revelation...

the ending had great depth i think...

as those boats represented 'a revealing' or 'a great change' on a scale that dwarfed even the scope of Jaguar Paw's experiences in the film... a revealing on a grand scale of a world, an entire reality, even beyond that incredible city... a real 'lifting of the veil'... in fact the entire history of mankind doesn't have many 'revealings' on the scale of the 'modern' spanish coming to Central America... there aren't many examples of an 'Apocalypsis' on that scale...

ultimately it was the boats that were the 'Apocalypse'... right there at the end...

i really liked that film... it followed that theme so intelligently... and was a great, entertaining, fast paced movie for the audience that wasn't paying attention to the subtleties... which was probably most of the US audience... lol...