Movie Gadget Friday: The Machine from Contact
posted April 15th 2005 6:56PM
Directed by Robert "Forest Gump" Zemeckis, and based on the novel by Carl Sagan, Contact was released in 1997. Jodie Foster plays her usual non-conformist, independent and free-spirited character, this time occupied as a radio astronomer obsessed with finding proof of alien life. With the help of 27 massive radio telescopes in Socorro, New Mexico (the aptly named Very Large Array), she discovers a broadcast from deep space. The seriousness of the film rackets up a notch as we go into Capital Letters.
The Message turns out to be a spec manual for an enormous and expensive Machine. Unfortunately the instructions for the Machines use, it’s purpose, and the consequences of actually using it, are entirely vague outside of the technical detail. Still, the billions needed for the mysterious alien project turn up and a couple of the machines are built. Personally, I have problems just getting to IKEA and back with Storage Solutions that actually fit in the car.
The machine turns out to be an intergalactic transportation device, consisting of three distinctive parts: a central sphere composed of giant whirling metal rings; the actual vehicle, which is a small, single passenger sized pod; and a sky-scraper tall gantry for dropping the pod from a tremendous height through the moving rings.
In the film the rings are whirling for a reason – their acceleration creates a wormhole so that the pod can be dropped through to an otherwise impossibly distant point in space. Although I’m sure Engadget readers can think of plenty of people they’d like to nominate for a free ride whether it actually worked or not.
You guys just ruined the movie for me. thanks a lot. spoiler alerts please
I really must ask--what the HELL is the point of this column?
Calihafan - 6 or 7? The movie is only 8 year old how old are you now? What are you doing on the internet? get back to your homework.
The point of this column seems to be so that members of the Engadget community can engage in (sometimes) tech related conversation about films. Check out the previous comments lists. Some of us actually have other interests/a life.
So if you have seen the film (which i'm sure most have), this column provides no additonal information. If you haven't seen the film, this column is hardly exciting. Sorry, but I was hoping for just a glimmer of something interesting beyond what was in the film...
Thanks #5,
I saw the movie in my early teens and it really left me wandering about just that issue. The religeuos curiousity of the aliens cleans that up nicely. thanksfor he closure.
I thought Contact was GREAT right up until the near end when you're waiting and waiting to see the aliens....and it's her DAD! The dude from ER!!!!
I understand the the ending is meant to challenge your faith...whether or not to believe she went or just had a delusion from the accident....
...but her dad???!!!! Come on!!!!
Larry....the movie is ancient....
You only have so long to call out spoiler alerts! :D
Here's another spoiler....
...Charlie wins and Wonka gives him the chocolate factory! :D
"their acceleration creates a wormhole"
I seem to remember the rings spinning at a fairly steady rate - i.e. Acceleration = 0
and even when they were speeding up, it was rather pedestrian..
Pedestrians cause wormholes.?. ;-)
The film is total crap. Why, oh why, people in Hollywood have to destroy perfecly good idea from the book with their completely unphysical ring crap?!?!? For example, those rings are spinning *really* fast and they are big, right? Now, it doesn't take much to figure out that the pod accelerated only by gravity would be too slow to drop between the rings. I mean, this screams and ruins the film, among all the other things they changed.
Contact is my favorite movie; despite reading quite a bit, I never got around to reading the book. As a result I can't compare the book to the movie.
The central message of the movie to me is summed up in the conversation between Jodie Foster and Tom Skeritt after he is named to go in the pod. I can't quote it exactly, but TS says something like, "I wish the world were a place where ideals and idealistic people win out." JF says, "Funny, I thought the world is what we make of it."
For me, the movie explores change and conflict and how these things bring out the best in some and the worst in others. In a similar fashion, any institution (government, the church, the scientific community, etc.) can do the same.
All that said, I don't really care about the speed of the rings spinning. It is an advanced gizmo designed by aliens -- we aren't meant to understand it.
The real issue for me in the movie was base 10 primes being used as the "universal language" that anyone would understand. It sounds like the book addresses this topic more completely. I guess I really need to go get the book!
"I thought Contact was GREAT right up until the near end when you're waiting and waiting to see the aliens....and it's her DAD! The dude from ER!!!!"
(The dude from St. Elsewhere ; )
"Jodie Foster plays her usual non-conformist, independent and free-spirited character"
huh? Is that how you see her?
A Very Long Engagement
Nell
Sommersby
The Silence of the Lambs
The Accused
Not exactly carefree, or non-formist, or indendepent... even when she is those things she's usually playing someone who is essentially frightened, trapped, longing for something she doesn't have... a la
this movie, Contact,
Stealing Home
Five Corners
etc...
I think the machine is spinning because it'll be boring to watch if there is no moving parts, and (*spoiler*) disaster won't be so spectacular.
@tf: Oh, I dunno about that...
Nell: plays a woman living completely alone in the wild, safely falling into the categories non-conformist and independent.
Silence of the Lambs: her character Clarice departs from typical detective protocol and engages in a personal connection with the witness/informant, and succeeds in solving the case, in that non-conformist kind of way
Stealing Home: Plays travelling beatnik ex-babysitter who once deflowered her young ward. Hence, free-spirited.
The Accused: Agrees to press charges after emotionally scarring gang rape despite little chance of legal success.
Contact: mule-headedly continues pursuit of project despite loss of funding and support. Shacks up with Matthew McConaughey and runs off the morning after in a gender role reversal of the typical love scene. Volunteers to take journey into unknown dimensions with no knowledge or guarantee of anything but death. Sounds like independent non-conformism to me! ;)
the book is way better. carl sagan is like some kind of prophet. as well as clarke and baxter. just to name a few. READ 'the light of other days' you must.
"Contact" was a very good rendition from the book. The screenplay took out the 4 other travelers and net-net they did a very good job - though I have two problems with the movie vis-?is the book. Zemeckis, in what appears to be some kind of "anti-religious" pique (this comment coming from a good old-fashion atheist, mind you)...
First he extra-slimes-up the Rob Lowe character into the worst kind of religious televangelist "preacher" plus he made the bomber (Jake Busey) of the 1st machine a religious nut (there was almost no “thoughtful” religious opposition – though Palmer Joss character was good – but he was a “good” religious type – drinks, sleeps with Ellie etc
And worst of all and Director-Bob misses a MAJOR point of the story (and the whole motivation of the aliens) - that would have taken 1 minute of Ellie and Ted’s (dad) conversation on the beach... in the book, the REASON the aliens want to make contact with humans is that, they realized that whomever built the "transportation system" was likely the creators of the universe (it wasn’t them) - and because of the pattern put into the number Pi (all irrational universal constants like e in the book have patterns)
These super-advanced beings are in "awe" of (what Ellie wanted to ask them – what do you find “numinous”) whatever put the pattern in Pi. Humans use base 10, and the pattern is most recognized in base-10 so the aliens want to get closer to the creators of the universe by studying humans who MAY have some special role to play to "the creator" - that's why they wanted a visit from us Earthlings - to do a brain scan - to see our dreams... The motivation wasn't just "hi, how's you doin' time to go back now" - they want to know "God" and they thought our race has some special connection so they want to examine us to find out. They “have faith” in a greater being, and after the trip, so does Ellie (her major character arch in the book – from not believing in God because He took her Dad away from her when she was young to “if these super advanced aliens believe in something greater than themselves, what am I doing not believing”)
All Dad would have to have done in the movie - like in chapt 21 of the book - was explain this curiosity of theirs and then there's a point for the Machine; A point for Ellie’s transformation in belief; a point for Ellie using the supercomputers back on Earth to look for the pattern (a circle) in Pi..
But I guess Director-Bob couldn’t spare literally 60seconds of screen time to explain the whole point of the movie... because it would be admitting that this super-advanced race of aliens believe in a creator and a nice modern "Hollywood" sci-fi movie shouldn't open that Pandora's box.
***Rant off*** :)
++Bill
I really liked it! I saw it when I was like 6 or 7 and it was really cool. Kinda creepy.
Um, #5? Rob Lowe was not in the movie.
Alan, Rob Lowe was in the movie. He played Richard Rank
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000507/
rob lowe is my favorite actor in contact
Yes he is. Rob Lowe plays Richard Rank. IMDB it.
I agree with #5. The removal of the spiritual from most sci-fi is ridiculous. I don't know who they think they are trying to protect. Also, as an atheist I find it a little ridiculous that every sci-fi story that gets the hollywood treatment is compelled to remove those facets of sci-fi most important to the stories (who am I? why am I here? Who is or is not in charge of this mess?). It's rather insulting.
#6, you saw it when you were 6 or 7? Christ I read it when I was in my 20's. you're making me feel old now just shut your young damn mouth. what's wrong with kids these days going around talking about how young they are? :)
CostumeGuy --
Good analysis and recap of the book. I think analysing "Contact" becomes further confounded by an understanding of Carl Sagan's death. He continued to claim his need for the proof of God's existence even as he laid on his death bed. Pleas from his family to accept God's salvation were answered repeatedly by Carl's need for proof... Unfortunately the proof that Sagan writes of in Contact never appeared in his own life...
Reading that explanation above only convinced me of why it was not in the movie. I understand it, but I just can't see how it could be explained in the movie without everybody (including the kid to whom it's being directly explained) going "huh?"
I think in this case, people who read the book first kind of missed the point of the *movie*. Movies based on books don't always have to make the exact same point - in fact, because of the inherent differences in the two mediums, plots often *should* be significantly changed. I always use Stanley Kubrick's The Shining as an example of this - that book was about a guy being haunted by ghosts, Kubrick's film was about a guy going nuts from isolation. Completely different. The later TV remake of the book - which was laughably literal in most cases - only proved why films often *must* deviate significantly from the original source material by showing how horrible the results can be when you don't account for the differences in print vs. film.
The point of the movie version of Contact was about *humans'* exploration and faith. The book may have taken a more cosmic view but in film you really have to focus and make things personal. The motives of the aliens were really immaterial to the plot of the film; the point was our reaction to finding out that we're not alone.
btw, with all this talk of Jodie Foster's past films, how can nobody have mentioned Taxi Driver? I'm quite sure that's where her reputation as a non-conformist came from - maybe some of you only know her later films but for me, whenever I think of Jodie Foster, I think of a 12 year old prostitute in platform heels and hot pants.
I loved this movie. One of my favs and I watch it at least once a year. It proves that even with scientists who think they have all the answers, still don't. The fact Ellie can't explain why it looked like she did not go anywhere and could not truely explain the function of the machine was awesomem
I agree with #5-- though movies don't need to make the same point that the book version did, I think that much of the meaning of the whole story is lost when the aliens just contact humans to see if they can. So the movie version was about "*humans'* exploration and faith"-- I can understand that but it damages the point of such a sci-fi story. And yes, Sagan is disquietingly prophetic on many facts, and I think that should be respected (though their accuracy may not have been as obvious in 1997?).
In any case, what I find most suprising about this article is the lack of substance and, as some might say, the appalling use of apostrophes. Is it really that difficult to use them preceding the "s" for a singular possessive adjective, after the "s" for a plural (ending in s) possessive, and only in "it's" if the true meaning is "it is"?
Look at this sentence: "Unfortunately the instructions for the Machines use, it’s purpose, and the consequences of actually using it, are entirely vague outside of the technical detail." Who are these people being hired by Engadget? Someone please get Ms. Fraser to learn basic English skills before she posts another (hopefully less fluffy and meaningless) "Movie Gadget Friday" article.
I thought that in the book, the (first) message in pi that Elle finds at the end of the story shows up in base 11 (or some other non-base-10 domain). But I do remember something in the book about a special significance of base-10...it's been a few years.
I really missed the "signature of the maker" part of the book as well, but I agreed with Zemeckis in that it couldn't have been given the play it deserved within the scope of the movie. In general I found it one of the best book-to-film adaptations made.
Also, #2: though the book did not have spinning rings (and I definitely think you're right about the ooh-ahh aspect of making the machine whirl), it did describe plenty of motion like concentric shells or spheres or something. It would have sucked if it were some solid-state monolith that just sat there and hummed.
my favorite part of the movie was that the audio signal sounded *exactly* like the sound you get running a feedback loop through an audio pitch shifter. the best (at the time... still?) hardware pitch shifter was the Eventide H4000. when they discovered the audio signal and amped it up to play in the room... they actually reach over and fiddle with a knob on... you guessed it... an Eventide H4000. every time i see that scene i'm like 'the sound isn't coming from space!! re-patch your harmonizer! you have it plugged in alllll wrong! you're getting feedback! not an alien signal!'