Contact:The Ending

Carl Sagan's movie, 'Contact' was great, and the book that inspired it was amazing. What irks me about this movie is the ending *spoiler alert in case you've just woken from a 12-year coma*.

Ok, so Ellie Arroway hears a signal from the Vega system. It's indepently-verified by countries around the world as a series of prime numbers ending in 101 as the Universal language of math which any decently-advanced human civilization should understand as an intelligent-response signal.

The signal is discovered to contain images, sound, and oh yeah, blueprints for a machine which humans decide to build at a cost of a third of a trillion dollars (and they build two). After the first one is blown up by a religious fucktard (no surprise there), Ellie is selected as the occupant who will ride the second one to wherever it goes.

Then, the ball drops through, and when Ellie seemingly doesn't 'go' anywhere, the people who invested gargantuan amounts of money and who have no idea how this machine works (yet understand how big space is) simple don't believe Ellie's account, and she's basically put on trial.

Ok look numbnuts, it's not like I walked into the woods and came back with a story. We heard a signal, from Vega. That's fucking crazy. It counted through prime numbers which we all verified. Unprecedented. Then, we find structure and plans for a machine. Rich nations of the world and skilled scientists and teams of contractors build this thing for a cost greater than the GNP of many countries. Ok, done. The thing works. Fuckin-A, remember this came from a signal from outer space. We start the thing up and it creates enough energy to shake nearby buildings. Oh wait, did we learn how to build this from a signal that came from outer space? Yes.

We send a human through and she lives and has stores to tell about her experience, and NOW we're all god-damned skeptics!!! Here's a tip, be skeptical BEFORE you spend 2/3rds of a trillion!

I love the movie Contact, one of my favorites of all time, but trying to compare Ellie Arroway's experience to 'mere faith' is a category error. Faith is based on 'all things hoped for' or some drivel, but in contact, humans had verified the Vega-signal all around the world. Humans purportedly found repeated broadcasts, like the 'pong' to our 'ping' and the blueprints designated some kind of working structure that clearly humans wouldn't understand (after all we're not exactly space-faring yet) and...the humans who built it clearly agreed it was worth spending a third of a trillion dollars on....twice.

All of this and Ellie comes back alive. I think in real life, someone would have discovered the 18 hours of footage before Ellie was put on trial, and who would think some electronic gizmo is gonna transmit her voice from freakin' Vega anyway, not to mention modifying the plans sent from interstellar space and putting a seat in, as if a caveman is gonna improve on the Corvette.

In the end, Ellie is exonerated by the 18 hours, but long before that the evidence was crystal mother-scratchin' clear that aliens were talking to them.

I think 'Contact' movie-makers felt they had to treat 'faith' with kid gloves lest all the sensitive Christians piss themselves in anger, but come on, faith is not on par with anything where there's the slightest bit of evidence, because let's face it, in the world of faith anything goes.

That said, 'Contact' is a beautiful movie, and the way they treated the alien-contact made so much sense. Jodie Foster is so believable...perfect choice for the role. It's just too bad they had to make a big deal about Ellie's experience being on par with mere 'faith', because last I checked, nobody's god was sending any kind of signals from anywhere.


-dB-