h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A brilliant but flawed version of a brilliant Carl Sagan book, some moments in Contact make me fill up...

The young Ellie Arroway trying to talk to her dead father by radio

'If it is just us, seems like an awful waste of space'- the SETI argument neatly summed up, but you can also apply it to a need for a
God figure in a strange and frightening universe.

The moment on the beach when the aliens appear to Ellie as her father.. Jodie Foster's tears of joy and disbelief...

And the final frame, which just says 'For Carl'

no WAY!!!! Contact SUCKED!!! Do you know why? Because it was the book minus 70% of the book. They cut out all the passion and turned it into a soppy love story. They cut out all the drama and turned it into a soppy love story. I read the book hanging off his every word. I was disgusted at the movie.

Somehow, that reaction feels almost inevitable - especially dealing with Hollywood....A strong woman-scientist character who's smart? A science fiction idea that's presented reasonably intelligently? Most of this would have escaped the mind of a Studio Executive....amazing that the film got made at all.....

In order to fit the macrocosm and the microcosm into a film of this nature would have taken a great deal longer than the usual mentality of 'get the maximum number of people through in the shortest span of time' will allow; a thinking audience is the anethema of Hollywood. When a wonderfully intelligent movie escapes the asylum, it should be cheered - sadly, few do: Brazil, Roger Rabbit, Contact (yes, for what it was, it was intelligent).

Remember, too, that Contact came out amidst a flurry of total crap: 'Deep Impact', 'Dante's Peak', 'Asteroid' (or whatever that movie was with a group of oil-riggers taking over a Nasa Space shuttle and saving everything).

I had problems with the film, too - check the listing on 'Contact'. I still liked it more than the usual dreck, though.

Fruitbat

Couldn't agree more, in sentiment at least The problem I had with 'Contact' was that the plot soon got mired in the non-argument about whether one could be a scientist and still believe in God. I'm of the former but not of the latter persuasion, but I still don't see how the two need be exclusive. Too much time given over to rather simplistic, trite and superficial examination of complex (and not necessarily overlapping) issues undermined this film's lofty intentions. Watch '2001' if you want awe and inspiration.

Never said the movie was perfect, and I agree that the book is far far better, but I don't agree it was the sell-out other posters seem to think. And sentimental fool that I am, I was touched by the 'small' sentiments of the film, even if the 'big' ideas weren't as fully explored as in the book, or more to the point, the fact that the message of the film is different to the book. But hey, life would be very dull if all liked the same things.