I DON'T GET THE ENDING

I believe the feeling it was trying to get across was the same as if a powerful and intelligent alien race arrived on Earth. We would like to think that should that happen war between nations over territory or religion would seem petty and futile.

It's a perspective shift, the Spanish arrive and both tribes are looking outward now towards these invaders, who are obviously more powerful with their large ships.

The Spanish empire was just the next empire that would replace the Mayan one, have its time of power and prosperity, then end up collapsing under its own corruption for reasons simialar to the previous fallen empire.

The idea of the ending is simply to show that cycle.

Throughout history there have been countless once great and powerful empires that collapsed under their own arrogance, moral and economic decay and all around bad decisions. They all think it "couldn't happen to us" and consider themselves superior to previous fallen empires (listen to the dialogue by the Mayan high priest atop the temple to hit this point home), then find out the hard way that they're not as indestructible as they thought.

There's been a Greek empire, a Roman empire, a German empire, a Mayan empire, a Spanish empire...and if this were to happen in modern times, the next empire to collapse under its own corruption would be America.

That ever-going cycle is what the film and the ending were trying to convey to the audience.

Learn from the mistakes of past fallen empires, don't consider yourself too good to repeat them.

I think anyone that viewed the Spanish ships at the end to be being presented as saviors missed the point, but the point wasn't that they were going to be 'even worse,' just that they weren't immune to making mistakes simialar to their predecessors.

A corrupt, selfish government manipulating a blind, ignorant public into supporting disgusting atrocities, the few leeching off the many, poorly mis-using resources so that the rich can become richer while the rest of the society is dying around them...
These are pretty universal themes that have happened in countless cultures throughout the world, all seen during the scenes at the Mayan capitol, and most or all of them can be seen in American society today.


+++by His wounds we are healed. - Isaiah 53:5+++

I think the movie was a classic "always a bigger fish" kind of concept.

We begin with a single animal (tapir) being hunted to immediately establish this theme. We are introduced to this concept of the strong hunting the weak. The hunters triumph and then go about their business after killing the tapir.

We switch focus to the village. Then, the village suddenly becomes the prey. They are prey to the significantly larger and better equipped civilization of the Mayans. They are taken to be sacrificed, however, our hero escapes.

The hero continues to be the hunted prey through the woods just like the tapir was in the first seen.

However, Mel Gibson has an interesting moment with the waterfall scene. It is what you might call the "midpoint" in storytelling. It is where the hero switches from being reactive to proactive. Jaguar Paw chooses he will no longer be the hunted. He calls out his enemies and the rest of the movie, Jaguar Paw is aggressively trying to take out his opponents one by one just like a predator in his own right.

Finally, Jaguar Paw defeats the chief with the same style of trap the tapir was further establishing that Jaguar Paw has now truly become the hunter. He has become the bigger fish.

The Spanish arrival at the end is the magnum opus of this theme really. There is always something larger and more powerful than you. There is always a predator and prey no matter how powerful a force may be. Even the mighty Mayans, who look all but invincible from Jaguar Paw's perspective, will soon be brutalized and exterminated by a greater power; a bigger fish.

This is a story about one man's struggle to avoid dying at the hands of his predators. In order to do it he needed to become the hunter himself and therein lies his salvation. Many other motifs exist to drive this point home even more. The jaguar in the movie represents Jaguar Paw (hence his name is no mistake). Keep in mind the jaguar was defending its cub; just as Jaguar Paw is trying to save his family. Of how about some of the religious undertones? The Mayan civilization cowers in fear of the eclipse. Perhaps Gibson presenting that "god" is the biggest fish of all. Look at what gods made the mayans do to each other with human sacrifice? Look at what is held aloft in front of the Spanish? The cross.

This is why Jaguar Paw is morally safe and a truly "good" character because he never asked for this struggle. Just like the jaguar defending its cub it is "good". He was a victim who decided to defend himself. He was not seeking the destruction of his enemies, only the saving of his family's life. The Mayans attacked unprovoked and hence are "evil" or villainous.

Therefore, the Spanish at the end are symbolic of the ultimate predator which is neither good or evil. They symbolize death. It hunts us all. Jaguar Paw at the end says to his wife that they should not wait for them. They should turn away and move into the jungle and safety. The two Mayans who were chasing him remain on the beach signifying that their impending doom.

CHEERS

I don't know why A is hard to swallow, that's exactly what it meant. Like has been elsewhere stated, the conquistadors represent yet another part of the cycle of empires coming to power and then collapsing. It was just their turn. The whole point of the movie is to first absorb the cruelty of the Mayans and their absolute control over everything and everyone around them, then root for the victims during their many trials and tribulations fighting for autonomy and peace...only to find the next inevitable step in the process. Their innocence in seeing the next phase and what it will entail for them all in the future is heartbreaking considering what they just went through.



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-:¦:-Oooh, sparkly!

I think the answer to your question lies in this quote, which appears on screen at the beginning of the film: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." ~ W. Durant

In the middle of the film, when the captives are being led through the city, everything they see around them indicates a decadent civilization in decline. Their crops are rotting and being eaten by bugs, there's a plague ravaging the outlying areas, people are starving on the outskirts of the city while the spoiled, overdressed gentry sit around in the streets looking bored and disgusted with everything when they're not bartering for slaves, and the people are putting their trust in a corrupt king and a shifty priest who claim they can fix everything (and cause solar eclipses) by tearing people's hearts out and rolling their severed heads down the temple steps. The implication seems to be "Yeah, Europeans arriving was bad for the natives, but the natives had let themselves become pretty corrupt and evil by that point anyway." How fair or accurate that might be is a question for more learned men than me, but that seems to be what they're getting at.

Whatever the film's message (implied or otherwise) might be, it's really just background noise to the main story. The real focus is Jaguar Paw and his quest to get home and save his wife and kids. It's a similar situation to Neil Marshall's Centurion - that film shows evidence of both warring sides (Roman and Pict, in that case) being absolutely awful, which leads some people to argue about which side they're supposed to be rooting for. The answer is, of course, neither. You're supposed to root for the small group of characters stuck in the middle of it all. If you don't mind a spoiler, the film ends with a Roman man and a Pict woman, both exiles from their own people, settling down in the woods and finding happiness with each other. Apocalypto ends with Jaguar Paw and his family going off into the jungle to "seek a new beginning", basically turning their backs on the decadent Maya and the soon-to-be-conquering Spanish as they go.

The ending reminded me of something I read in Alistair Cook's "America" back in the 70's. One of the Incan or Aztec chiefs was about to be executed and was given the "Last Rites" by a Spanish Priest and the chief stated he did not want to go to Heaven because he feared he would encounter more Christians. Kinda sums up how they were treated by "Christians".

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