Contact (UK)

This film is awesome. 3 commentary tracks too, all great. Jodie Foster is awesome too. This is my number 1 DVD. The film is much better than I expected. I also had to see it twice before I really appreciated the strugle going on between science and religion throughout the film. What a well written story. Zemeckis is a great director too, producing a near flawless film. You get an extra music only audio track on region 2 disc !

A rather appealing little film. The revelation is a bit disappointing, but it`s one of the most original sci-fi of recent years

A smashing film I must say. Real thought provoking stuff.

The film reveals piece by piece the actual meaning of the message received from outer space. Jodie Foster was great in portraying that role.

Bit of a flat, disappointing end though, expected more, but saying that it could lead well into `Contact 2` maybe !

A beautiful, beautiful movie.
I missed it while it was playing in theaters and managed to watch it only on TV. It was then, that I decided that I must get it on DVD.
This movie is a well balanced mixture of a sci-fi movie and drama-documentary one. This mixture makes it almost magical.
The video transfer is very good. There are no compression signs to be seen and the amount of detail is incredible. Without giving away too much information, let me just say, that towards the end of the movie, the visuals kick in heavily and they are absolutely beautiful. The numerous CG effects vary from very subtle to full scale ones.
The DD 5.1 soundtrack is very good. The surrounds are very nicely utilized during the action scenes and the dialog is well centered. The musical score is very nice and the disk also contains it on a separate track (in DD 5.1, of course).
The menus are still and silent.
The extras include 3 (!!!) commentaries (my favorite being the one with the special effects team, who share even the tiniest details with the viewer), a short featurette about the CG effects and some production notes. The amount of information in the extra features is very good.
Bottom line - a great movie, an intriguing story and a beautiful disk. Highly recommended.

In Contact, one of the telling moments was when scientist Ellie (Jodie Foster) is asked by her god-fearing lover/nemesis (Matthew McConaughey) whether she is spiritual. He thought that if she did not worship a god-figure, that she lacked spirit. Ellie has spirit. She is a believer, but she believes in the universe, in the sun and the stars, and the rotation of the earth, and the unknown, and all the wonderful, mystical possibilities of creation (small c). He later admits he asked his question out of fear of unknown dangers.
Ellie is inspired by her love of the questions and the lure of answers undreamed of, from her beginnings as a child at her ham radio, through her years of patiently listening to the stars, to her final meeting of an unearthly mind.

Contact is a brilliant realisation by experienced science fiction professionals, the novel is by Carl Sagan, script by Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, the direction by Robert Zemeckis, these are people who have asked the questions before, and have fun speculating about the possibilities. In Contact they theorise that the first official contact with a non-earthly race will excite politicians to muscle their way to the spotlight, warriors to arms their missiles and the populace to scream joyous greetings or paranoiac demands for destruction. The great clash is between those who need the unknown wrapped up in a father-figure at once murderous (Noah`s arc etc) and full of promise (limited death). Their comfort zone is crumbling from the outside and the only recourse is violence.

This is not the cartoon science fiction universe of Men in Black, or the Space Opera universe of Star Wars, it is the science fiction universe of scientists and humanists, people who use sf to explore the possibilities of our universe and ourselves.

A really wonderful film, completely original, filled with great performances (particularly from Jodie Foster), and not one of those usual Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters. The picture and audio are both excellent. And we're also treated to some wonderful extras - no less than 3 commentaries, production notes, trailers, and a very interesting documentary on the special effects.

This is the first DVD that I ever bought, and it's still one of my favourites, particularly as it really set the standard for what DVD could offer in terms of extra features. Considering its 4 years old now, it's a pretty outstanding DVD.

Available for £8.99 from Play.com, this is a must-own disc for any DVD collection.

Introduction
I`ve blown hot and cold over Carl Sagan over the years.

I first came across him when he did the 1977/78 RI Christmas Lectures series all about Mars. It was really well done, and I enjoyed the series of 5 or so he did. They were well written, interesting and very accessible.

Then he did the Cosmos series - which tagged as a "personal voyage" I found very self indulgent, short on facts, high on meaningless props and I`m not sure I struggled on to the end of the series.

I then saw he`d written a book, Contact. I avoided it for a while, such was the let down for me of Cosmos, but eventually it either turned up at a book sale or some other tempting offer came up.

I read the book, and once more I was back in the Pro-Sagan camp. I found it a great story, with some deep questions hidden in it, plus some real shocking ideas. The last chapters with the bit about PI in it (which didn`t make it to the film) were great.

As always, with a favourite book, the film adaption is mixture of hope and despair. Will they do justive to it, or will it be another Hollywood tragedy?

This one is a success, thankfully!

The Plot
The story is of one scientist search for contact with Aliens. She devotes most of her life to the search, through funding cuts and political issues. Until one day, out of the blue so to speak, she picks up a contact on the radio telescope network she has managed to get use of. Of course now its the biggest story around, and there is no shortage of people wanting to muscle in on the act, including the military.

However these are not little green men, this is just a radio signal, and it has to be decoded. There is no chance of two way communications as a round trip for the signal is 60 years.

The message is instructions to build a machine. What should the world do, and who should go into the machine. There are many questions - is this a message from God? Who should be the ambassador. Its also a signal for all the weirdoes around to focus in on.
There is a lot in this film, about how religion and science mix. I have to admire the Ellie character for he scientific truthfulness, and honesty.
Carl Sagan even came up with a new concept in theoretical physics (sub-space wormholes) to help the plot line - a subject that is now main stream physics research.

Jodie Foster plays the part of Ellie really well. I think she possibly comes over better than in the book. The other roles come over well, although not always following the book exactly.

The Video/Audio
The visuals are great, and some of the commentary goes into details on how the shots were done. From the first great solar system pullback, to changing the presidents clothes, its prett scary when you see what can be achieved.
Audio is pretty good too.

The Extras
We get three commentaries on the film, Jodie, the director and the special effects people.
A short piece on how the special effects were done, which is quite fascinating. The only slight downside, a colleague had the region-1 version, and there is some more details on the special effects on that one.

Summary
Overall, its one of the most realistic alien contact films I`ve come across. Its all very believable, and very well produced. Not suprised it got a Hugo award.