The Last Mimzy part 11:  precocious prodigies

It is fairly clear that the impact The Last Mimzy has on Noah will alter the technology and science of the future, in relation to his contributions both to civil engineering and to entomology.  Yet he and his sister Emma have exhibited several other abilities which are bound to be noted, particularly as government investigators and medical researchers are already aware of these reports.

Noah has demonstrated a heightened sensory ability that enables him to see small objects at unreasonable distances and hear sounds no one else can hear; it has impacted his eyesight such that he no longer needs glasses.  He also has teleported both a can of soda and a golf ball.  His sister Emma uses telekinesis on a bowl of sugar, cyberkinesis to open an electronic lock, and levitation in her bedroom.  She also has heightened hearing, hearing the Mimzy doll not only when it speaks quietly to her but when it does so from another room.  She evidences clairvoyance in saying that she can see the missing spinners under the bed at the beach house, knows Broadman's name as soon as she sees him (mind reading?), apparently sends a message to Larry White's dreams, and makes telepathic contact with Noah, who arguably reciprocates.

Odds are good that these kids will come to someone's attention.  They might be studied; they might be employed.  The abilities they have gained from their brief contact with these future "toys" have made them invaluable.  We have two children imbued with super powers; how can they not seriously change history?

This does not even consider whether the abilities are duplicable.  If we study how they do this, can we train other children to have the same abilities?  Is it heritable?  Will Emma's children be telepaths, Noah's teleporters?  Has something been unlocked in the world that cannot be contained?

Some will argue that the powers were dependent on the toys, that Noah and Emma did not really gain psionic abilities but merely learned to harness technologies advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic.  How much science we wish to import into our mysticism is a point of debate; but Noah did not have any of the toys with him when he teleported the golf ball, and Emma was separated from Mimzy when she knew Broadman's name, telepathically contacted Noah, and unlocked the door.  These are abilities the children themselves have learned or gained.

It then forces us to wonder--perhaps hopefully--whether the abilities will fade once the toys are gone.  It is hard to imagine that either of them will willingly stop using such useful skills.  If their brains have developed in new ways, the theory that they would now atrophy back to normal levels is difficult to defend.  I might get a bit rusty at riding a bicycle, but certainly not if I do so every day.

There is again the genetic concern.  Noah was apparently a genuinely ordinary boy, and although Emma was always bright and talented she is much more than that now.  This has changed their identities drastically.  It will alter their relationships, their schooling, their employment--they will meet (and not meet) an entirely different set of people.  If either of them does not marry whomever he or she would have and instead marries someone who would have married someone else, that shift means that two other people are now taking spouses from other original marriages, which sends two other spouses looking--a ripple (previously considered) through the population that could change the identities of hundreds in the next generation, thousands in the generation after that, and ultimately the entire population.

This harmless collection of toys has probably undone the birth of the scientist who sent them.  Again we potentially have a grandfather paradox, where the cause in the future undoes its own cause in the past.  In that case, as a time travel story the movie fails.  That's regrettable, because it's an interesting and enjoyable story otherwise.  As family films go, you could do worse.

Again, though, it is not impossible that the changed Noah and Emma hide their abilities, perhaps lose them, and return to what their lives would have been absent the Mimzy.  It is not certain that the future would necessarily be undone, despite the high probability.  Since the scientist apparently did receive the Mimzy, he must have been very lucky, not changing anything that mattered despite changing so much.

The film would go well with Flight of the Navigator as a double feature.  The older film is a better time travel story with less mysticism (although some of the science is poorly considered), good for the same audience.