Overview
Frase comercial:
Get ready to take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history.
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Awards:
Nominated for Oscar.
Another 8 wins
&
15 nominations
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Comentarios de los usuarios:
Different from the book doesn't mean bad.
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Additional Details
También conocida como:
Contacto (Argentina) (Peru) (Venezuela) [es]Contact (Spain) [es]
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Rated PG for some intense action, mild language and a scene of sensuality.
Duración:
153 min
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1
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MOVIEmeter: 
8% since last week
why?
Cosas divertidas
Trivialidades:
The sounds heard during the film's opening shot include: - "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind - "Angry Days" by Lagwagon - "Wannabe" by The Spice Girls - "God Shuffled His Feet" by Crash Test Dummies - "Obviously a major malfunction..." (Challenger Shuttle disaster quote) - The theme to
"Dallas" (1978) - "Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut..." (chocolate bar commercial) - "Funkytown" by Lipps Inc. -
Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook" speech -
Walter Cronkite announcing the assassination of President Kennedy - Neil Armstrong's "One Small Step" speech - "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" by Brian Hyland - "I Have A Dream..." a Martin Luther King Jr. speech - Theme from "The Twilight Zone" - Transition music from "Seinfeld" - "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister - Senator McCarthy's infamous interrogation question ("Are you now or have you ever been...") - Douglas MacArthur's "Old soldiers never die..." quote - Franklin Roosevelt's 8 December 1941 address to Congress ("a date that will live in infamy") - "The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)" by Al Dubin and Harry Warren - Opening speech by Adolf Hitler at the German Olympics, being the first transmission in history that was aired with sufficient power to escape the Earth's atmosphere. - "White Bird" by It's A Beautiful Day - "Nel blu dipinto di blu" also known as "Volare" by Domenico Modugno - "Boogie Oogie Oogie" by Taste of Honey - "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" sung by Judy Garland - Theme to "The Andy Griffith Show" - "Please, Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes
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Goofs:
Plot holes: Nothing in dialogue states that the Machine can only be used once, so why doesn't the Senator (James Woods) or someone else just take a trip through the wormhole as well? A single anecdotal observation isn't enough to be able to make a statistical analysis or claim of scientific truth in any case; one would expect they would make multiple data-gathering trips to confirm Dr. Arroway's assertions.
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Quotes:
[
first lines]
Young Ellie:
CQ, this is W9GFO. CQ, this is W9GFO here. Come back?
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Soundtrack:
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
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I am used to hearing from just about everyone who has read a book that was made into a movie that the book is always better. I tend to agree with this opinion. Contact, however, shows that in the arts the norm is not always the truth; opinion, no matter how often it is backed up with evidence, can never break through the barrier into be a hardened and absolute truth.
I saw this movie first before I read the book. That is partly because I didn't know that there was the book until after the movie. So, a year or so after the viewing, I got the book. Of course, the movie, in general terms, follows the book fairly well. I have to say, the movie can easily stand on its own merits just as the book can also.
The immediate impression of the film after the book is that there is a great emphasis on faith, proof, truth and opinion. These themes are not much brought up in the book - at least not with the same impact nor in the same way as in the film. Of course, the field of Astrophysics, of which Carl Sagan was a practitioner, lends itself very easily to ultimate questions such as God, faith, truth etc. The vastness of space and complexity of reality, viewed through the scrutiny of the scientific eye, is mind-boggling. As was repeated in the movie several times: "if we're all that there is, "its an awful waste of space." Personally, I think that the book relates these notions of vastness and complexity much better than the movie. But, the audience of the book was certainly not necessarily the same audience as the movie.
To be more fair, the vastness which was expressed in the book was demonstrated to an equal degree, but differed in quality, by the "aloneness" of Dr. Arroway as she scuttles across the universe. In the book, Dr. Arroway is not alone but go with a team of scientists, all of whom make their appearance in the movie. There is much more detail given in the book of the trip through the device than in the movie. In fact, there are very deliberate omissions made which eliminate the technological bent of the book. Yet, the focus of the movie does not allow the movie to be diminished by these omissions in the same way that the book would unavoidably be lacking without those details.
One final aspect of the movie which is relevant with respect to the book is time. Of course, in physics, time has its leading role so it must make at least a cameo in a movie which relies on physics. Astrophysics is tied inextricably to relativity which is likewise tied to time. The timelessness of the device design sent via radio signals and the instantaneous trip Dr. Arroway seemed to put relativity into perfect perspective. The book takes a slightly different view by using distance and the experience of each traveler of moving fast distances with no other apparent sensations of motion. It all adds up to different but equal expressions of the science which Carl Sagan had mastered.
Both the book and the movie are simply fantastic, one not outshining the other as regards their scope and vision. Watch the film, it is a beautiful one. Read the book, it is equally beautiful.