Hands up.

No, it meant that if one of them would get scared, they wouldn't mess up the course or anything.

They died. "Hands Up" No fear, think Rollercoaster. Or, a sign of surrender. For Janek and the pilots, they were surrendering their lives for the greater good. Janek as a Captain offered them their way out, but he was going down with the ship. Naval tradition to raise the hands. I'm pretty sure this has been covered on the site.

i take it its so that as everything starts to shake, rattle and roll hands are safely away from controls?

@Freeze! - Oh... thanks for clearing that up :) @caenorhabhditis - what I meant kinda like but you wrote it better :D

just a guess

bye the bye why am i seeing smileys as tiny yellow dots is it my laptop settings?

Thanks for this question. As a reader I have not heard this subject brought up..as a question. I didn't know about the navel tradition in the moment of going down with the ship hands are raised. The hands raised was nod to the rollercoaster ride not shoping fear.

To me this was some kind of nod to Ridely's Thelma and Louise ending.

Janek actually gave the instruction "Hands off", not "Hands up". That is, the controls are set. Make no further changes.

yes, the idea is that you put your hands up/off when you are about to ram something -or anything along those lines, so you dont accidentally bump the controls at the last second rendering your sacrifice useless. im sure that is the primary intent of this in the film, although i have read some other posts about symbolism etc that are interesting and possibly also correct.

I have wondered why all three raised their hands too. Are you saying for sure that it is a navel tradition when going down with the ship to raise hands Freeze!? That just doesn't sound right to me. If anyone has heard of this 'tradition' please let me know.

I don't know about it being any kind of naval tradition, but "hands off" is a phrase that's been used in aeronautics since 1932 to describe automatic control of aircraft. Janek's command makes a lot of sense. If anyone with their hands on the controls got twitchy for any reason, it could have ruined their objective. By showing all hands, this risk is reduced.

The 'Hands Off' orfer came after a number of quick actions by Janek to tske down the Juggernaut./ His two man crew were sort of going along with Janeks orders/decisions as a good crew member should do. I do wonder if they sort of agreed to the Hands Off request without thinking It makes for great storytelling of the Captain and crew going down with the ship as they are wiping out an evil villian. But the suddeness of Janek decision to sacrifice his life with out any options seem to me to be a writers choice rather than a best depiction of the scene. The hands off order came at the end of other orders that had his crew almost automatically(even robotlike) agreeing with the boss.

There are various points throughout the movie where you see the emotion played out on Janek's face when he realises what is going on the pyramid. And although it's not stated in the theatrical release, we know he has experience of WMD installations from his military background, and the import of what this means. When he's faced with the Juggernaut lifting off, and Shaw begging him to do something to stop it, his mind is in complete turmoil. You can see the inner torment on his face while Shaw is speaking. But he's smart, quick and... honourable, so he does the right thing. I wouldn't say it's sudden. In his racing mind, it must have been an agonizing decision. I imagine that the "hands off" protocol is something that was part of all their pilot training, as it seemed to be an automatic action.

"..emotion played out on Janek's face .." This is especially true when Vickers says 'My Room 10 Minutes'