Contact
November 18, 2008
The movie contact almost gets it right which is surprising because the Palmer guy makes a correct statement earlier in the movie in which he states that if she traveled everyone she knew and loved would be dead. The movie gets it backwards. Elly would have been gone for 18 hours in Earth time and to everyone she would have appeared to stop or perhaps just vanish and reappear 18 hours later. She would have felt only a second or less of time passing.
What should have happened is that the passenger pod should have disappeared, or perhaps faded into disappearance, and remained gone for several years. The government, having hopefully prepared, would leave a small dispatch of rescue-scientists to recover her upon rearrival. The trip to her would have been only several hours or perhaps just a few minutes to her where she learned enough to continue to evolution of Earthican technology or at least learned what to do next. People she knew should be visibly older but only by a little bit and features like hair and accessories should vary. Her love interest should furthermore be equally as dreamy as he was in the past. However this ending would make the whole “you made it up” argument at the end a little less appropriate.
Perhaps an alternative last hump in the movie would have her be gone for a much longer period, like 50 years and having her come to terms with her new life in the future with everyone she knows dead.
One Response to “Contact”
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December 2nd, 2008 at 9:41 pm
You’re correct that one way to “fix” the movie is to reverse the timescales and simply make the trip appear to take longer to the people on Earth. However, as you point out, this creates problems for one of the main themes of the movie – the distinction between things we take on faith and things we only accept when we see the facts. It’s hard to reconcile both themes consistently.