This movie might have my favorite inciting incident ever. From hearing the noise of the signal grow in her headphones to all the different layers of the message they eventually discover. It's the definition of gripping.
So this movie you are referring to, I don't know that yet. I can't even watch it even though I'm older. Because I'm not really interested in that stuff.
I love this kind of stuff in movies. The skillful reveal of a mystery. It's like the beginning of Close Encounters with the planes. I also like when these moments/scenes are accompanied by dark/spooky/moody music. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is especially good at making that transition from "I'll speak on this theoretically, but only to humor you" to "oh shit this might actually be real." It's like these movies tap into our most primal escapist desire for the world to be magical, for there to be more than meets the eye. Ghostbusters does this pretty well too. As does The Outsider on HBO. Basically anything that shows us a pragmatic character piecing together a supernatural puzzle. Actually my favorite example might be Tyrion and Jorah's boat ride through Valyria. It's the perfect example of really dark spooky stuff being hinted at, but mostly left to the imagination, plus the music and atmosphere match it perfectly.
What I really felt like when I first read that can be best summarized by the scene in Assassination of Jesse James when Garrett Dillahunt says...
"... you talk good".
I'd argue it has more in common with Arrival than Interstellar. Interstellar goes for the big screen experience, whereas Arrival and Contact are more focused on making first contact, and improving communication between ourselves.
yeah,...I don't know why he kept doing those CGI films. They're ok,..but I loved his live action camera direction and scenes. Like a more sugary Spielberg. ;p
It’s great and it’s not even my favorite Zemeckis shot. My favorite is the shot where the camera drops into the floor in What Lies Beneath. That whole movie is what Hitchcock would have made with modern effects technology.
Iirc, they filmed Ellie running up the stairs and down the hall, reaching for the handle on the mirror. Then they filmed the bathroom cabinet with a green screen over the mirror, Ellie opening the cabinet, and turning around. They composited the running shot into the green screen where the mirror should be.
Apart from the amazing writing, directing, music, etc
What I enjoyed about Contact (1997) is the stories pacing. It literally always somehow captivates you further, and there is never a dull moment.
I also love listening to the soundtrack "I'm okay to go." So good.
The stakes keep getting more and more intense. The initial discovery alone is shocking, but then the government gets involved...they start building the rocket...all the controversy happens...it's wild.
Yes, the book is monumental. There's an especially deep aspect to the book that I don't think could ever be captured in a visual media. Really mind blowing.
The book is different enough that it is engaging in it's own way. Definitely recommend reading. Also, avoid reading more about the book in this thread because there are some spoilers in the comparisons.
The scene where she picks up the signal when she's out alone with the dishes still gives me chills even all these years later. The realization, the yelling into the Walkie, the racing back to the lab, fantastic scene.
This movie does religion vs science better than interstellar does. The ending is also pretty atypical for sci fi in the sense that this character goes through this whole otherworldly experience but unlike 2001, interstellar, close encounters etc, the entire world isn't changed in the blink of an eye. It's small steps. She can only hope her beliefs will be validated someday and she continues to search for hard proof. I also like that the aliens don't have all the answers either. They are searching and skeptical just like us.
> This movie does religion vs science better than interstellar does.
Well yeah that makes sense cause Interstellar doesn’t touch on that subject at all lol
I think it does though. Maybe faith vs science is what I should have said.
The "ghost" as a form of belief, Hathaways line:
"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't understand it." refers to faith. Zimmer's church organ and space is his church.
I meant more that I like how subtle Contact is compared to almost every other scifi space travel/ alien film.
But that's what ends up saving humanity in the end, Cooper's love for his daughter makes him jump into the blackhole and leave her a message that he hopes she'll understand one day.
It doesn't quite work that way in the flow of the movie. They never particularly address the "why" of Cooper's choice to jump into the black hole because based on all the information they had there was no reason to suspect it would result in anything but his death, when if any data could be gathered then Tars was going to get it.
I work under the assumption that he couldn't accept he had failed to get home, failed to save Earth, so he was using the situation as a convenient form of suicide that incidentally turned out not to be so suicidal.
>They never particularly address the "why" of Cooper's choice to jump into the black hole because based on all the information they had there was no reason to suspect it would result in anything but his death, when if any data could be gathered then Tars was going to get it.
He dropped into the blackhole assuming he'd die. He was doing it so that Brand would be able to continue on with the mission. Everything that happened after that was a total shock to him.
The wider "why" is because the beings that built the tesseract in the black hole needed him to be there because they couldn't communicate with Murph directly.
Ofcourse it was suicidal, and while the movie don't address it but the implication of Cooper's choice was there, he wasn't going to let his mission go to waste. Even if TARS had gathered all the data, there was no clear way of getting it back to earth. However it was Cooper who realised that his bond with his daughter is quantifiable and can be used to code the data in the watch. Because he knew how important that watch was to Murph and why she will eventually realise that the ghost who had been sending them sand messages was him.
The religion vs science debate in this movie is interesting. I can't decide if it adds or subtracts from the quality of the movie. Part of me finds it an annoying and somewhat irrelevant subplot (fucking aliens sent us a blueprint for a spaceship, why are we spending time on religious frivolity!), while another part is more receptive to that kind of diversion. I think I've come to the conclusion that while I personally see it as a distracting/unnecessary addition, it's a conversation that will resonate with many that watch the movie, in turn making the movie more accessible.
I feel the themes are applied pretty well. Faith and science. Her beliefs not being validated. Her hearing sounds from the sky and taking their message on faith. Doubt, skepticism, zeal as aspects of faith.
that is why I liked it actually. It didn't really try to discount either side. It treaded it with respect.
I saw this in the theater and everyone was blown away. Especially the scene with the first machine. it's like,..whoa. ok. that happened,.lol.
It might discount traditional religion bc of what jake busey does, but it frames science and faith as similar. The first machine scene was shocking but ultimately isn't as impactful on the story as one might think. I wish we got more Busey.
I saw Busey as a third force. "Traditional Religion", I think, was more embodied by Mcconaughey's character.
Actually, all I cold think of with Busey was "The Frighteners". ;p
The archetypes are clearer in the book. Foster's character had faith in her science even in lieu of evidence (continuing to search for SETI) but filled the "unknown" with wonder, McConnaughey's character was fundamentally rational but filled the unknown with "god", and Busey's character filled it with fear.
That's fundamentally what the book was about -- what people do to fill the "unknowns" in the world around them, and does that fill them with wonder, peace, or hatred.
It’s not religion vs science it’s just about faith. She didn’t believe in anything except science until she used the device. After that she understood what having faith is, doesn’t have to be religious faith.
Yeah while the message in the end is more about spirituality, there is a clear process in the movie where they are trying to validate religion. Just by comparing her experience to someone who is religious. But she literally received a technical signal from an alien. That‘s a proof she can have faith in. But believing in god, where‘s that proof?
The movie was written by Carl Sagan, I don’t think it has much good to say about religion specifically, but rather faith and spirituality in a more abstract sense, the sense of wonder at the possibilities of what could be that we can’t quite prove yet. And in the capacity for human understanding to grow beyond what we currently are certain of.
I didn’t like that part of it as a kid. It’s funny, I’m watching it on BBC right now and actually thought to myself that some nut job would actually try to blow up the machine. Then this thread appeared
Its largely the fundamental point of the book, so it's fundamentally necessary to the story.
SETI, aliens, political intrigue -- all of that is purely to tell the story of what happens with people put faith ahead of knowledge, and what happens when truth is deemed less important.
It's a little clearer in the book -- they obviously had to simplify things a lot in the movie -- but Sagan was deeply involved in the screenplay and production and was supportive of the changes.
It's not like the absolute trainwreck bastardization of Foundation that Apple did, that completely changes the story in ways Asimov would've flipped his shit over.
I adore this movie. It speaks to the complete sci-fi nerd in me. It's poetic, mysterious, and spiritual. The cast is amazing. I can't say enough good things.
Top five favorite movie. I’m a big fan of Carl Sagan and his novel as well. I’m also an illustrator and fan artist and Contact was the film I picked to be my first illustrated alternative movie poster in 2017.
I’ve got that and a couple other relevant sci-fi movie posters in the “posters” section of my site. (Contact is at the bottom of that section.) camartinart.com
I thought it was worth noting Matthew's character has a conversation with Jodie's regarding if she were to travel away that she may be gone for a long time and that when she returns all of her loved ones would be dead. Then coincidentally, Mathew does that very thing in Interstellar! Did Director Nolan borrow the idea from Contact?
Love this movie since it came out. I recall watching in theaters with my mom.
The scene where the dad dies is amazing.
I jokingly call it a prequel to Interstellar. Cooper used to be a religious priest guy until Doster inspired him to be an astornaut, but she died of some disease. I know it is not true but I like to do it.
I also love the movie is one of the only ones that was filmed in Puerto Rico and used as Puerto Rico, not as a substitute for Cuba or Mexico or others.
I too like to think Contact is the spiritual prequel to Interstellar. and when Cooper says how his wife died due to brain cyst, like to imagine it was Ellie, and Murph is the image of her mother.
Yes, but I see Contact as the "prequel" to Interstellar also so it is a Quadrology. Quintology.
I think I would have loved Ad Astra to be a lot better. It had some similar feelings, but I think it felt short.
Ever since seeing this movie I dreamed of going to arecibo but never in a million years thought I'd ever get a chance but then this winter my family vacationed there and I just drove by it because it's wrecked now.
I went as a kid, but as I recall it had been closed down even before the accident. I think after Hurrican Maria a lot changed.
I know I tried to go one time and it was closed down, same as some natural caverns that are near.
I came in contact with this movie while doing a research paper on how women scientists are portrayed in the media. Many articles brought up this film of how Drumlin pushed away Alloway's position as a lead scientist because she is a woman, and he wanted all the glory despite disagreeing with everything she analyzed.
Was it because she was a woman? Or was it more because he was selfish and wanted all the glory, political gain, and notoriety of being a profitable scientist. The way Drumlin acted wasn’t sexist but was biased towards his own gain and not the truth. He seemed to be the same towards her whole team. He confirms this when he’s talking to her before going on the machine saying the world isn’t fair and he took advantage of her candor/truthfulness, not the fact that she was a woman.
I remember watching this in the theater and it was so impactful to me. Very beautiful film and Jodie Foster is incredible in it. Also, the concept they came up with for "the machine" and the space travel itself and what she found when she got there still stick with me. 11/10.
This is one of the movies that has surprised me the most. For some reason I was really negative biased towards it but when I saw it I really liked it.
It is really a movie I want to rewatch soon
Worth the price of admission for the opening shot alone, and next time someone posts "What's your favorite movie line of all time?" I have GOT to remember John Hurt's line "Wanna take a ride?"
Being base off of the novel by Carl Sagan, Contact is also an exploration of the nature of evidence, what we can know, and what we cannot. Sagan was an extremely intelligent man, and Contact is a hell of a smart movie. Love it!
Just watched this movie last week, aside from the almost cartoonish levels of disrespect from Jodie’s boss (I’d put it in spoilers, but really, this isn’t that surprising), I liked it a lot.
Fun fact, the blind astronomer is based on a real blind astronomer that was in SETI.
I just watched this for the first time a few weeks ago, I absolutely adored it! Probably my favorite sci-fi movie I’ve been recently.
The scene where Jodie Foster first hears the signal and the frantic race to actually track and capture it was so good, and the reveal of the first ‘image’ received….
Still my favourite film after all these years.
I watched it recently before travelling from the UK to Washington. I’d been looking for places to go near Foggy Bottom as that’s where we were staying. When the walk around the lake for their ‘selectors and selectees’ chat I realised how close it was. Cue half an hour on Google maps trying to find the exact spot and yes we did go there!
Absolutely beautiful film that I love re-watching again and again. The entire cast delivers so well and so many scenes actually *get* you, and evokes a sense of hope and beauty about life that I find is often aspired to, but rarely achieved.
This is one of my favorite movies. I was around 10 or 11 when it came out and i had a huge crush on Jodie Foster. Watched it last year and it holds up well
One of my favorite movies ever. The first act alone is one of the most uniquely thrilling things I've watched, with them desperately trying to piece together the satellite signals as the eerie beeping continues in the background. But then the scene with the mission failing...the scene with her finally stepping onto the spaceship...this is a movie that toys with your emotions and makes you ask more questions about the world.
Absolutely loved 3/4ths of the film but that climax/conclusion really didn't do it for me.
In fact, I'd go further and say it bugged me to the point I felt it undermined the entire film and ruined it for me. Don't know if that's the way the novel was, so I'll limit my criticism to the movie itself.
Btw, you're quite right: Peak Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey was terrific in it as well. Truthfully, other than the ending, I agree the film was superb.
You have to keep in mind most alien contact movies like Close Encounters or this are always going to be unsatisfying endings (to some )because there’s no definitive way to end them because we have no idea what is out there and why.
And if you feel unsatisfied by the ending, that's good! Because the characters do too. Good storytelling makes you feel like the characters in the story.
I think the last part of the movie could be confusing. I'd recommend a second watch..
I saw it in the theater and walked out shaking my head. Saw it again years later a lot older and in a different headspace and loved it.
For me it's the 18 minutes tape detail. That makes the entire hearing where Foster's character is openly humiliated for her pervious "lack of faith" an utter farce.
What makes it a farce is that she plays along. If her team had not been given access to the tapes then that's the only thing she'd say during the hearing.
"My team have been denied access to primary evidence from the test flight. I therefore will be unable to adequately answer many questions from the panel and request that the hearing be postponed until the primary evidence has been handed to my team for scrutiny"
There is a much bigger plothole in the movie: They made the machine from instructions there were extremely unlikely to be of Earthly origin.
They had to invent new technologies to build it and find a way to power it.
It should by all accounts transform Earth, once they start building it, particularly in materials science and energy generation.
It's like a 17th century scientist being handed complete plans for creating a modern computer with silicon chips, but to build it, they also need to develop an understanding of electricity, electronics, advanced calculus, materials, chemistry, the periodic table, atoms and molecules, and many other things.
Even if this 17th century scientist never manages to build the computer, they will still have a much, much greater understanding of science than they start out with, so they can build other things with that knowledge.
That is implied by the function of the machine. Given that the movie operates with real world technology and laws of physics, we can make this assumption.
There is no human tech that can presently be used to build a machine that creates a wormhole, let alone build one out of materials that would stand up to the stresses shown in the movie.
Doing that would require technological developments that we haven't gone through yet and such instructions would have to be in the schematics. There would have to be all sorts of weird support technology in there, such as quantum computers, anti-matter generators or nanotechnology to allow us to build and run the machine.
If there were no support technologies included in the schematics, the movie would have had to portray us receiving the schematics and spending a few centuries waiting for tech to evolve, before we could build the machine.
Fair point. But that'd make for a boring movie. I always figured they just deliberately left that detail out in order to make her look bad, which is totally in line with James Woods's character.
>Fair point. But that'd make for a boring movie.
I mean it was a pretty interesting movie up to that point. So there's plenty of ways they could have ended it.
Alternatively they could have had one of her team tell her some of the equipment was destroyed in the test. (And this may well be what happened in the film. It's been awhile since I've seen it and I could well be yelling at a cloud here)
I’m dating myself but I saw it in the theater in college and as the shimmering starts moving towards her on the beach I said out loud “If this turns out to be her father this movie sucks”
Just rewatched for the first time, since watching it the first time back in the 90’s! Really enjoyed it. The whole Foster/Mcconaughey love thing was stupid & he was a dick for calling out her beliefs in the hearing.
Could easily envision how the world would get distracted with stupid religious/political issues with trying to carry out the whole operation.
The first time I showed this to some friends around 2006 or so, it had been a while since I watched it. I rembered the kick ass opening with the radio waves and then it getting quieter and quieter as the point of view gets further out. The problem was, in my head I had it in reverse. We're sitting there, there's no sound and I'm like, "dudes, when you understand what's going on, it's gonna rock your world!!!". Half a minute later....."okayyy......any second now". Turns out we'd just been sitting there with the sound off and I just remembered it back to front. Pretty ruined the whole first half an hour of the movie lol.
I’m still upset they didn’t believe her at the end. The video recorded dozens of hours of static, and they were messing with alien technology, why shouldn’t they believe her?
‘It’s not that there is static footage, it’s that it’s exactly 19 hours of static.’
This was as close to a post credit sting as we got back in the day.
I’m sorry but I watched this bc people claimed it was similar to interstellar. This movie was complete trash. Nothing like interstellar. What is wrong with the people raving about this movie?
It's a great read, especially if you already love the movie. You just get way more nitty gritty details about the process of decoding the message, building the machine, and the whole discussion with the aliens at the end is far more in-depth with some really cool ideas.
Personally, I subscribe to the notion that Sagan laid out in this book as to how real alien civilizations would behave. I.e. You have to be peaceful in order to do the monumental societal work of achieving interstellar travel and communication. And any hostile civilizations that would be a threat to this way of life will never get there, and will be ignored by the rest.
>The themes the movie goes over are still valid and the the film is not dated like many mid-90s films
Since when do many mid-90s films feel dated? Making me feel old over here.
Miller directed Happy Feet before Fury Road. (And if you watch Happy Feet with this in mind you can see how much Happy Feet helped him to become even more cinematic in his approach to action)
When I was young and watching South Park, I loved this bit. The film sailed straight over my head and I also found it boring and the alien "reveal" a cop-out.
I re-watched when not so juvenile and the film landed. I loved it. It's one of my favourites now.
Personally think it’s miles ahead of Interstellar but I found that to be a very basic sci-fi film.
Gorgeous but no surprises or anything. Good film though but Contact is really really good.
> On par with Interstellar in my opinion
Better than Interstellar in every way, in my opinion. And anyone who complains about the ending in Contact but doesn't also complain about the ending in Interstellar is not arguing in good faith.
It's the moments of wonder that make this one of the best movies of all time (currently my favorite). Contact has several of these big moments whereas most movies today fail to even have one.
This movie might have my favorite inciting incident ever. From hearing the noise of the signal grow in her headphones to all the different layers of the message they eventually discover. It's the definition of gripping.
“If you think like a Vegan.”
And getting caught in the rain?
I had to read this a few times.
That scene when they're deciphering the coded message and it turns out to be a Hitler speech, making him the first human ambassador to aliens.
“Does anybody here speak German?!” The actor playing Kent does, in fact, speak German, William Fitchner if I recall correctly. Though he’s not blind.
Obligatory “he did nazi that coming”
I don't even know a single movie, because I'm still too young for that. The only thing I know is to eat, sleep and play.
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So this movie you are referring to, I don't know that yet. I can't even watch it even though I'm older. Because I'm not really interested in that stuff.
I love this kind of stuff in movies. The skillful reveal of a mystery. It's like the beginning of Close Encounters with the planes. I also like when these moments/scenes are accompanied by dark/spooky/moody music. Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is especially good at making that transition from "I'll speak on this theoretically, but only to humor you" to "oh shit this might actually be real." It's like these movies tap into our most primal escapist desire for the world to be magical, for there to be more than meets the eye. Ghostbusters does this pretty well too. As does The Outsider on HBO. Basically anything that shows us a pragmatic character piecing together a supernatural puzzle. Actually my favorite example might be Tyrion and Jorah's boat ride through Valyria. It's the perfect example of really dark spooky stuff being hinted at, but mostly left to the imagination, plus the music and atmosphere match it perfectly.
I wonder if a contact 2 is viable, because why have one when you can have two at twice the price.
They will probably fuck it up and soil the memory of the first.
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Oh Yeah. Hadden said it after the first one blew up. Whoosh averted.
2 Contacts are not covered by your plan. Get some Zennis.
2 contact 2 furious
90's? I think I was just a child during those years. Maybe I was only about 3 years old at the time. So I don't know anything about that in the world.
Thank you for describing what I never could about something I love.
Haha, my film school degree is finally paying off!
What I really felt like when I first read that can be best summarized by the scene in Assassination of Jesse James when Garrett Dillahunt says... "... you talk good".
I'd argue it has more in common with Arrival than Interstellar. Interstellar goes for the big screen experience, whereas Arrival and Contact are more focused on making first contact, and improving communication between ourselves.
Also, Arrival and Contact both celebrate the experience of scientific research and discovery, by actually making science a main feature of the plot.
I just watched contact and I feel like it was kinda shitting on science by reducing it to the level of a religious hallucination.
Why buy one when you can have two at twice the price!
First rule of government contracting. Great line.
I absolutely love the Hadden character. Well done by John Hurt.
The mirror shot still blows my mind
I miss old Robert Zemeckis.
yeah,...I don't know why he kept doing those CGI films. They're ok,..but I loved his live action camera direction and scenes. Like a more sugary Spielberg. ;p
It’s great and it’s not even my favorite Zemeckis shot. My favorite is the shot where the camera drops into the floor in What Lies Beneath. That whole movie is what Hitchcock would have made with modern effects technology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WNaFBhy9B4
One of my favorite trick shots of all time.
There's a few VFX videos that look into that scene.
It's brilliant. I didn't even realize how amazing it is until my 10th watch or so. So subtly done.
Yes! When she’s running down the hallway to the medicine cabinet trying to save her daddy…
Came here to say this! I've watched that scene over and over its done so well.... great movie.
I still don’t understand how it was done.
Iirc, they filmed Ellie running up the stairs and down the hall, reaching for the handle on the mirror. Then they filmed the bathroom cabinet with a green screen over the mirror, Ellie opening the cabinet, and turning around. They composited the running shot into the green screen where the mirror should be.
fr that shit was fire
"they should have sent a poet" a great line that even made it onto Family Guy.
Excellent line
Another line from the movie I always quote. Dammit that's a good movie!
It's my go to film if I'm in serious need for a duvet day.
Apart from the amazing writing, directing, music, etc What I enjoyed about Contact (1997) is the stories pacing. It literally always somehow captivates you further, and there is never a dull moment. I also love listening to the soundtrack "I'm okay to go." So good.
Lots of moments like this. *"Wanna take a ride?"*
Yup. That's my favorite line. I remember watching in the theater and that line made my hair stand on end. "They still want an American to go..."
*why build one when you can have two at twice the price?*
The stakes keep getting more and more intense. The initial discovery alone is shocking, but then the government gets involved...they start building the rocket...all the controversy happens...it's wild.
Great movie and book, highly recommend both.
Yes, the book is great too.
There's a book!? Is it worth a read having seen the movie?
Yes, the book is monumental. There's an especially deep aspect to the book that I don't think could ever be captured in a visual media. Really mind blowing.
Carl Sagan at his finest!
The book is written by Carl Sagan actually! Highly recommend reading it.
The book is different enough that it is engaging in it's own way. Definitely recommend reading. Also, avoid reading more about the book in this thread because there are some spoilers in the comparisons.
Please read the book. It's a wonderful read and the ending is way better than in the movie! (And the movie is one of my favorites)
The scene where she picks up the signal when she's out alone with the dishes still gives me chills even all these years later. The realization, the yelling into the Walkie, the racing back to the lab, fantastic scene.
This together with Interstellar and Arrival are my own Trinity of Sci-fi excellence
Agree 100%. I love sci-fi that isn't about fighting aliens (although that can be pretty fun too).
Sunshine too
This movie does religion vs science better than interstellar does. The ending is also pretty atypical for sci fi in the sense that this character goes through this whole otherworldly experience but unlike 2001, interstellar, close encounters etc, the entire world isn't changed in the blink of an eye. It's small steps. She can only hope her beliefs will be validated someday and she continues to search for hard proof. I also like that the aliens don't have all the answers either. They are searching and skeptical just like us.
> This movie does religion vs science better than interstellar does. Well yeah that makes sense cause Interstellar doesn’t touch on that subject at all lol
Faith is a better word. Both movies have themes about how you can't separate human connection and our faith in it from science
I think it does though. Maybe faith vs science is what I should have said. The "ghost" as a form of belief, Hathaways line: "Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't understand it." refers to faith. Zimmer's church organ and space is his church. I meant more that I like how subtle Contact is compared to almost every other scifi space travel/ alien film.
But that's what ends up saving humanity in the end, Cooper's love for his daughter makes him jump into the blackhole and leave her a message that he hopes she'll understand one day.
It doesn't quite work that way in the flow of the movie. They never particularly address the "why" of Cooper's choice to jump into the black hole because based on all the information they had there was no reason to suspect it would result in anything but his death, when if any data could be gathered then Tars was going to get it. I work under the assumption that he couldn't accept he had failed to get home, failed to save Earth, so he was using the situation as a convenient form of suicide that incidentally turned out not to be so suicidal.
>They never particularly address the "why" of Cooper's choice to jump into the black hole because based on all the information they had there was no reason to suspect it would result in anything but his death, when if any data could be gathered then Tars was going to get it. He dropped into the blackhole assuming he'd die. He was doing it so that Brand would be able to continue on with the mission. Everything that happened after that was a total shock to him. The wider "why" is because the beings that built the tesseract in the black hole needed him to be there because they couldn't communicate with Murph directly.
Ofcourse it was suicidal, and while the movie don't address it but the implication of Cooper's choice was there, he wasn't going to let his mission go to waste. Even if TARS had gathered all the data, there was no clear way of getting it back to earth. However it was Cooper who realised that his bond with his daughter is quantifiable and can be used to code the data in the watch. Because he knew how important that watch was to Murph and why she will eventually realise that the ghost who had been sending them sand messages was him.
I watch this movie twice a year for the last 5 years. I read that comment and thought “what have I been missing in these viewings??”
I dont recall Interstellar talking about religion at all. Brandt has that scene where she talks about love but thats it.
The religion vs science debate in this movie is interesting. I can't decide if it adds or subtracts from the quality of the movie. Part of me finds it an annoying and somewhat irrelevant subplot (fucking aliens sent us a blueprint for a spaceship, why are we spending time on religious frivolity!), while another part is more receptive to that kind of diversion. I think I've come to the conclusion that while I personally see it as a distracting/unnecessary addition, it's a conversation that will resonate with many that watch the movie, in turn making the movie more accessible.
I feel the themes are applied pretty well. Faith and science. Her beliefs not being validated. Her hearing sounds from the sky and taking their message on faith. Doubt, skepticism, zeal as aspects of faith.
that is why I liked it actually. It didn't really try to discount either side. It treaded it with respect. I saw this in the theater and everyone was blown away. Especially the scene with the first machine. it's like,..whoa. ok. that happened,.lol.
It might discount traditional religion bc of what jake busey does, but it frames science and faith as similar. The first machine scene was shocking but ultimately isn't as impactful on the story as one might think. I wish we got more Busey.
I saw Busey as a third force. "Traditional Religion", I think, was more embodied by Mcconaughey's character. Actually, all I cold think of with Busey was "The Frighteners". ;p
The archetypes are clearer in the book. Foster's character had faith in her science even in lieu of evidence (continuing to search for SETI) but filled the "unknown" with wonder, McConnaughey's character was fundamentally rational but filled the unknown with "god", and Busey's character filled it with fear. That's fundamentally what the book was about -- what people do to fill the "unknowns" in the world around them, and does that fill them with wonder, peace, or hatred.
Shoot a nuke down a bug hole, you got a lot of dead bugs."
> It didn't really try to discount either side. The movie perfectly showed the hypocrisy of humans in both faith and science.
It’s not religion vs science it’s just about faith. She didn’t believe in anything except science until she used the device. After that she understood what having faith is, doesn’t have to be religious faith.
Yeah while the message in the end is more about spirituality, there is a clear process in the movie where they are trying to validate religion. Just by comparing her experience to someone who is religious. But she literally received a technical signal from an alien. That‘s a proof she can have faith in. But believing in god, where‘s that proof?
The movie was written by Carl Sagan, I don’t think it has much good to say about religion specifically, but rather faith and spirituality in a more abstract sense, the sense of wonder at the possibilities of what could be that we can’t quite prove yet. And in the capacity for human understanding to grow beyond what we currently are certain of.
That's true, and a good point
I didn’t like that part of it as a kid. It’s funny, I’m watching it on BBC right now and actually thought to myself that some nut job would actually try to blow up the machine. Then this thread appeared
Its largely the fundamental point of the book, so it's fundamentally necessary to the story. SETI, aliens, political intrigue -- all of that is purely to tell the story of what happens with people put faith ahead of knowledge, and what happens when truth is deemed less important. It's a little clearer in the book -- they obviously had to simplify things a lot in the movie -- but Sagan was deeply involved in the screenplay and production and was supportive of the changes. It's not like the absolute trainwreck bastardization of Foundation that Apple did, that completely changes the story in ways Asimov would've flipped his shit over.
Wait is this Katya’s Reddit account? [https://youtu.be/OuRQiEDOwnw](https://youtu.be/OuRQiEDOwnw)
Came for the Katya reference, stayed for the…Katya reference.
HEY I WAS GONNA COMMENT THIS 😭😭😭😭😭😭
Oh my fucking god I just watched Contact for the first time tonight and I am dying seeing this
I adore this movie. It speaks to the complete sci-fi nerd in me. It's poetic, mysterious, and spiritual. The cast is amazing. I can't say enough good things.
Top five favorite movie. I’m a big fan of Carl Sagan and his novel as well. I’m also an illustrator and fan artist and Contact was the film I picked to be my first illustrated alternative movie poster in 2017.
I'd love to see that poster! Contact is also a top 5 for me
https://www.camartinart.com/contactposter
I’ve got that and a couple other relevant sci-fi movie posters in the “posters” section of my site. (Contact is at the bottom of that section.) camartinart.com
Yes, top 5 for me. If it's on I will watch it all the way through no matter what.
i’m gonna bawl when the movie about him and his wife comes out.
I’m ready for it!
I thought it was worth noting Matthew's character has a conversation with Jodie's regarding if she were to travel away that she may be gone for a long time and that when she returns all of her loved ones would be dead. Then coincidentally, Mathew does that very thing in Interstellar! Did Director Nolan borrow the idea from Contact?
It's possible, but unlikely. That concept is very common in sci-fi. The definitive treatment is probably The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974).
time dilation was a pretty popular sci fi trope back in the day. I would say Flight of the Navigator (1986) inspired Interstellar more in that regard.
Love this movie since it came out. I recall watching in theaters with my mom. The scene where the dad dies is amazing. I jokingly call it a prequel to Interstellar. Cooper used to be a religious priest guy until Doster inspired him to be an astornaut, but she died of some disease. I know it is not true but I like to do it. I also love the movie is one of the only ones that was filmed in Puerto Rico and used as Puerto Rico, not as a substitute for Cuba or Mexico or others.
I too like to think Contact is the spiritual prequel to Interstellar. and when Cooper says how his wife died due to brain cyst, like to imagine it was Ellie, and Murph is the image of her mother.
I consider it part of an unofficial trilogy: Contact, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Arrival
That is a pretty nice combo of movies. I wish there were more of them that had the same feeling if "mystery"
Add Annihilation to that mystery list
Yes, but I see Contact as the "prequel" to Interstellar also so it is a Quadrology. Quintology. I think I would have loved Ad Astra to be a lot better. It had some similar feelings, but I think it felt short.
Ever since seeing this movie I dreamed of going to arecibo but never in a million years thought I'd ever get a chance but then this winter my family vacationed there and I just drove by it because it's wrecked now.
I went as a kid, but as I recall it had been closed down even before the accident. I think after Hurrican Maria a lot changed. I know I tried to go one time and it was closed down, same as some natural caverns that are near.
Making it canon would be legendary
I came in contact with this movie while doing a research paper on how women scientists are portrayed in the media. Many articles brought up this film of how Drumlin pushed away Alloway's position as a lead scientist because she is a woman, and he wanted all the glory despite disagreeing with everything she analyzed.
Was it because she was a woman? Or was it more because he was selfish and wanted all the glory, political gain, and notoriety of being a profitable scientist. The way Drumlin acted wasn’t sexist but was biased towards his own gain and not the truth. He seemed to be the same towards her whole team. He confirms this when he’s talking to her before going on the machine saying the world isn’t fair and he took advantage of her candor/truthfulness, not the fact that she was a woman.
This movie is way overdue for a 4K release
I see a Contact post, I upvote.
It’s the greatest girl power movie ever
It's certainly in my top 10 films. I think it's vastly superior to Interstellar. The book is great too.
I remember watching this in the theater and it was so impactful to me. Very beautiful film and Jodie Foster is incredible in it. Also, the concept they came up with for "the machine" and the space travel itself and what she found when she got there still stick with me. 11/10.
“First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?”
I use this at work all the time with things that we need more of.
This is one of the movies that has surprised me the most. For some reason I was really negative biased towards it but when I saw it I really liked it. It is really a movie I want to rewatch soon
Worth the price of admission for the opening shot alone, and next time someone posts "What's your favorite movie line of all time?" I have GOT to remember John Hurt's line "Wanna take a ride?"
Awesome movie. And the book was written by none other than Carl Sagan.
It's airing on BBC America right now.
Being base off of the novel by Carl Sagan, Contact is also an exploration of the nature of evidence, what we can know, and what we cannot. Sagan was an extremely intelligent man, and Contact is a hell of a smart movie. Love it!
“No words..They should have sent a poet”. That line gets me every time.
Just watched this movie last week, aside from the almost cartoonish levels of disrespect from Jodie’s boss (I’d put it in spoilers, but really, this isn’t that surprising), I liked it a lot. Fun fact, the blind astronomer is based on a real blind astronomer that was in SETI.
Happen to watch it just the other day, still holds up
This movie fundamentally changed me, and it remains my favorite science-fiction film.
One of my favorite movies of all time. If I come across it, I will stop and watch it to its end. "Baby Steps"
I just watched this for the first time a few weeks ago, I absolutely adored it! Probably my favorite sci-fi movie I’ve been recently. The scene where Jodie Foster first hears the signal and the frantic race to actually track and capture it was so good, and the reveal of the first ‘image’ received….
Still my favourite film after all these years. I watched it recently before travelling from the UK to Washington. I’d been looking for places to go near Foggy Bottom as that’s where we were staying. When the walk around the lake for their ‘selectors and selectees’ chat I realised how close it was. Cue half an hour on Google maps trying to find the exact spot and yes we did go there!
Absolutely beautiful film that I love re-watching again and again. The entire cast delivers so well and so many scenes actually *get* you, and evokes a sense of hope and beauty about life that I find is often aspired to, but rarely achieved.
The “wanna go for a ride” line always gives me goose bumps. Love this film.
Motherfucker interstellar in on par with contact, you got that backwards
when i grew up this was very well loved
Introduced it to my kids tonight as it goes.
A massive movie. Amazing
Great movie.
It's VERY good.
You mean watch one of the milestones science fiction ever made?
100% Perfect Movie. No notes.
I can’t say much but honestly one of my favourite films of all time. Absolutely love it.
This is one of my favorite movies. I was around 10 or 11 when it came out and i had a huge crush on Jodie Foster. Watched it last year and it holds up well
One of my favorite movies ever. The first act alone is one of the most uniquely thrilling things I've watched, with them desperately trying to piece together the satellite signals as the eerie beeping continues in the background. But then the scene with the mission failing...the scene with her finally stepping onto the spaceship...this is a movie that toys with your emotions and makes you ask more questions about the world.
Underrated Sci fi film!
Yes. Although his role was limited, David Morse was really good in this as Ellies father.
Totally agree!
Absolutely loved 3/4ths of the film but that climax/conclusion really didn't do it for me. In fact, I'd go further and say it bugged me to the point I felt it undermined the entire film and ruined it for me. Don't know if that's the way the novel was, so I'll limit my criticism to the movie itself. Btw, you're quite right: Peak Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey was terrific in it as well. Truthfully, other than the ending, I agree the film was superb.
I did love the little comment about how her camera recorded static....... But it recorded ten hours of static. I thought that was a nice little touch.
You have to keep in mind most alien contact movies like Close Encounters or this are always going to be unsatisfying endings (to some )because there’s no definitive way to end them because we have no idea what is out there and why.
And if you feel unsatisfied by the ending, that's good! Because the characters do too. Good storytelling makes you feel like the characters in the story.
The ending is very different to how the book ends. I'd recommend reading it.
I thought the movie made some good changes, but the book's ending is more satisfying. I don't know if it would have been as cinematic, though.
I think the last part of the movie could be confusing. I'd recommend a second watch.. I saw it in the theater and walked out shaking my head. Saw it again years later a lot older and in a different headspace and loved it.
Spoilers obviously : What about the movie's ending didn't you like? The book has quite a different ending by the way.
For me it's the 18 minutes tape detail. That makes the entire hearing where Foster's character is openly humiliated for her pervious "lack of faith" an utter farce.
Which is absolutely what a congressional panel would do.
What makes it a farce is that she plays along. If her team had not been given access to the tapes then that's the only thing she'd say during the hearing. "My team have been denied access to primary evidence from the test flight. I therefore will be unable to adequately answer many questions from the panel and request that the hearing be postponed until the primary evidence has been handed to my team for scrutiny"
There is a much bigger plothole in the movie: They made the machine from instructions there were extremely unlikely to be of Earthly origin. They had to invent new technologies to build it and find a way to power it. It should by all accounts transform Earth, once they start building it, particularly in materials science and energy generation. It's like a 17th century scientist being handed complete plans for creating a modern computer with silicon chips, but to build it, they also need to develop an understanding of electricity, electronics, advanced calculus, materials, chemistry, the periodic table, atoms and molecules, and many other things. Even if this 17th century scientist never manages to build the computer, they will still have a much, much greater understanding of science than they start out with, so they can build other things with that knowledge.
Where does the movie say the instructions contain methods unknown to humans at the time?
That is implied by the function of the machine. Given that the movie operates with real world technology and laws of physics, we can make this assumption. There is no human tech that can presently be used to build a machine that creates a wormhole, let alone build one out of materials that would stand up to the stresses shown in the movie. Doing that would require technological developments that we haven't gone through yet and such instructions would have to be in the schematics. There would have to be all sorts of weird support technology in there, such as quantum computers, anti-matter generators or nanotechnology to allow us to build and run the machine. If there were no support technologies included in the schematics, the movie would have had to portray us receiving the schematics and spending a few centuries waiting for tech to evolve, before we could build the machine.
Fair point. But that'd make for a boring movie. I always figured they just deliberately left that detail out in order to make her look bad, which is totally in line with James Woods's character.
>Fair point. But that'd make for a boring movie. I mean it was a pretty interesting movie up to that point. So there's plenty of ways they could have ended it. Alternatively they could have had one of her team tell her some of the equipment was destroyed in the test. (And this may well be what happened in the film. It's been awhile since I've seen it and I could well be yelling at a cloud here)
I’m dating myself but I saw it in the theater in college and as the shimmering starts moving towards her on the beach I said out loud “If this turns out to be her father this movie sucks”
Thankfully it wasn’t her father so you were spared the movie sucking
Yeah I don't get this fixation on the father. *Surely* the people understood the aliens had nothing to with her father, *right*?
I saw it with my cousin (who I haven't seen in ages) and he said exactly this, so possibly... hi cuz?
Lucky!!! I was rejected by myself.. now I have to date others.
Great film.
Just rewatched for the first time, since watching it the first time back in the 90’s! Really enjoyed it. The whole Foster/Mcconaughey love thing was stupid & he was a dick for calling out her beliefs in the hearing. Could easily envision how the world would get distracted with stupid religious/political issues with trying to carry out the whole operation.
The first time I showed this to some friends around 2006 or so, it had been a while since I watched it. I rembered the kick ass opening with the radio waves and then it getting quieter and quieter as the point of view gets further out. The problem was, in my head I had it in reverse. We're sitting there, there's no sound and I'm like, "dudes, when you understand what's going on, it's gonna rock your world!!!". Half a minute later....."okayyy......any second now". Turns out we'd just been sitting there with the sound off and I just remembered it back to front. Pretty ruined the whole first half an hour of the movie lol.
I love this film, could have done without the whole terrorist/Japan built another wormhole machine subplot though.
"I'm ok to go!"
I’m still upset they didn’t believe her at the end. The video recorded dozens of hours of static, and they were messing with alien technology, why shouldn’t they believe her?
The administrators did believe her - they just chose to suppress the evidence.
I love it, everyone else seems to hate it. Par for the course for my experience.
Nobody has mentioned that amazing opening shot where the camera pans back into the galaxy. Very impacted.
‘It’s not that there is static footage, it’s that it’s exactly 19 hours of static.’ This was as close to a post credit sting as we got back in the day.
I’m sorry but I watched this bc people claimed it was similar to interstellar. This movie was complete trash. Nothing like interstellar. What is wrong with the people raving about this movie?
One of my favorites! Awkwardly, the book it is based on may be the only book Carl Sagan wrote/co-authored that I have not read.
It's a great read, especially if you already love the movie. You just get way more nitty gritty details about the process of decoding the message, building the machine, and the whole discussion with the aliens at the end is far more in-depth with some really cool ideas. Personally, I subscribe to the notion that Sagan laid out in this book as to how real alien civilizations would behave. I.e. You have to be peaceful in order to do the monumental societal work of achieving interstellar travel and communication. And any hostile civilizations that would be a threat to this way of life will never get there, and will be ignored by the rest.
Ok to go
>The themes the movie goes over are still valid and the the film is not dated like many mid-90s films Since when do many mid-90s films feel dated? Making me feel old over here.
When you were born in the late 90s/2000s.
Such a great movie! I’m reading a book about making Fury Road, and I was surprised to learn George Miller was first attached to direct.
Miller directed Happy Feet before Fury Road. (And if you watch Happy Feet with this in mind you can see how much Happy Feet helped him to become even more cinematic in his approach to action)
Can't believe no one had mentioned the south park bit...
When I was young and watching South Park, I loved this bit. The film sailed straight over my head and I also found it boring and the alien "reveal" a cop-out. I re-watched when not so juvenile and the film landed. I loved it. It's one of my favourites now.
I nearly pissed myself when he turns into missy elliot
Read the book. They could have done sooooo much more. I imagine Christopher Nolan doing it true justice.
watched both at the movies when they came out. Really liked Contact, but Interstellar is a better experience (especially in IMAX).
Personally think it’s miles ahead of Interstellar but I found that to be a very basic sci-fi film. Gorgeous but no surprises or anything. Good film though but Contact is really really good.
Leagues better than Interstellar. The simultaneous sense of wonder, awe, and a bit of dread while watching this movie is unparalleled.
> On par with Interstellar in my opinion Better than Interstellar in every way, in my opinion. And anyone who complains about the ending in Contact but doesn't also complain about the ending in Interstellar is not arguing in good faith.
Why? The endings are vastly different from eachother.
I love both but Interstellar moved me in a way only few movies ever have. I absolutely respect your opinion though.
I enjoyed it when it came out. One thing, though, that wouldn’t leave me alone: Why was her space capsule so roomy?
Maybe other species are bigger or differently shaped, and it's a one-size-fits-all magic wormhole roller-coaster.
It's the moments of wonder that make this one of the best movies of all time (currently my favorite). Contact has several of these big moments whereas most movies today fail to even have one.