Contact (film vs. novel)

[Wolverine]

The other night I finally sat down and watched Contact for the first time... and to be perfectly honest, I didn't care for it at all. After viewing, I consulted Phil's review (http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/movies/contact.html). He notes at the bottom:

If you liked the movie, or even if you didn't, you really should read the book. It's a lot better than the movie, and has many concepts only hinted at in the movie.

I'm just curious how many here who've been through the book agree.

(BTW: I skimmed through previous discussions here on the board[s] and it seems they wandered significantly off-topic, so thought I'd post anew rather than bump the old.)

[Alasdhair]

The book is much better.

[soylentgreen]

Let me say that I love the movie...but, absolutely, the book is truly much better.

I can imagine that what you didn't like in the film can probably be chalked up to the usual tinkering(or outright trashing) that Hollywood studios traditionally dilute book translations with. Something even this film couldn't avoid.

I would have loved to hear Carl Sagan's thoughts on the finished film. It is always interesting to hear the author's take on a book-to-film project. Usually, it's not a happy tale. David Brin on THE POSTMAN and Harry Harrison on SOYLENT GREEN are two very unsual exceptions.(...and what on Earth would Heinlein have thought of STARSHIP TROOPERS?)

[peter eldergill]

I enjoyed both very much. I really liked how he discussed spirituality and science. The book I have read a couple of times and I like to watch the movie when it comes on TV.

I showed the movie to my g12 physics class a couple of years back over 2 classes. They weren't much interested (talkative) for the first hour or so and I stopped the film right before the signal came through. When I showed the rest of it, there was not a peep to be heard, especially when the signal came.

Maybe I'll pick the book up again soon

BTW I actually enjoy Starship Troopers movie better than the book. I like they bugs and how they were animated. I ignore the bad astronomy (ahem) and enjoy the eye candy. I guess I'm not interested enough in Civics to really appreciate Heinlan's book

Later

Pete

[The Shade]

and what on Earth would Heinlein have thought of STARSHIP TROOPERS?

RAH has been rolling in his grave since 1997. :D

[hhEb09'1]

I would have loved to hear Carl Sagan's thoughts on the finished film. Didn't he have a lot to say about it? He and Ann Druyan were some of the co-producers.

[Tinaa]

The book was better hands down.

I prefered the cartoon series of Starship Troopers.

[Inferno]

Saw the movie first and enjoyed, but didn't love it. Then read the book which I thought when much deeper into the issues. Especially the relationships of the main characters and the whole belief v proof issues.

After enjoying the book, decided to give the movie another go and this time enjoyed it even more than the book! One aspect, the movie definitely makes an improvement in is by only focusing on Jodie Foster in the spaceship bubble, whereas the book has 4-5 people in there.

Note, the movie has some of the greatest special effects I've ever seen. It wasn't until I saw the dvd special features that I hit my head and said "Of course that's just cgi, it can't be real." I just didn't even think about it while watching the film.

[AGN Fuel]

I enjoyed them both, although the final scene in the movie where Arroway is talking to the kids was a cop out (and that's completely ignoring the whole ludicrous concept of a scientist of her stature acting as a school group tourguide....!)

But, I've said it before & I'll say it again.... Jodie Foster and Radio Telescopes. I mean - people, come on!! What's not to like?

[Inferno]

I didn't like though in the movie the whole "they recorded 18 hours of static" thing. It descended an otherwise great film into your bog standard government cover up. Didn't ruin it, but conspiracy theories just bore me.

[Halcyon Dayz]

The point of the story is that they did record 18 hours of static.
It makes the experience of the trip as unprovable as a spiritual experience.

That the recorders were actually running for 18 hours while Arroway
had only been gone for an undetectably short time people prefered to ignore.

[pumpkinpie]

Just like everyone else has said, yes you do need to read the book! I read it just before it came out in the theaters, and I'm glad I read it first. I'm the type of person who tends to prefer the version of something I experience first. But I also don't let what changes Hollywood makes bother me. Contact in and of itself was an enjoyable movie, and I was happy that it was so mainstream that a lot of non-space-lovers as we are saw it! But the book was so much better. Especially the part at the end, which deals with transcendental numbers. (I don't think that's spoiling anything.) The movie understandably doesn't get into that at all. You just have to read it to see for yourself!

[ngc3314]

... although the final scene in the movie where Arroway is talking to the kids was a cop out (and that's completely ignoring the whole ludicrous concept of a scientist of her stature acting as a school group tourguide....!)


That is as realistic as most other scenes - for the last few years, there has been a push motivated by both education and politics to involve more scientists in the EPO (Education and Public Outreach) enterprise. Just ask The Bad Astronomer! I have mixed feelings about this, if only because the increasing professionalization of the activity makes it harder for J. Random Astronomer to be involved no the front lines. (Those JRAs who have any business talking with the public, anyway...).

One scene that always seemed unrealistic to me was when Ellie discovers that her power-hungry politically-connected manipulative former thesis advisor was talking in a town down the road after cutting her funding "for the good of her career". She jumps in a jeep and careens through the dissected terrain around Arecibo until she sees him in the street. And she does what? Stomps on the brakes? I think not!

[soylentgreen]

Note, the movie has some of the greatest special effects I've ever seen. It wasn't until I saw the dvd special features that I hit my head and said "Of course that's just cgi, it can't be real." I just didn't even think about it while watching the film.
I felt the exact same way when I saw it in the theatres...even now, it stands head-and-shoulders above the garbage put in recent fx blockbusters with supposedly cutting edge technical abilities. In CONTACT, employing the fx in the subtle and matter-of-fact ways that it did, contributed greatly to that end, I think.

...the increasing professionalization of the activity makes it harder for J. Random Astronomer to be involved no the front lines. (Those JRAs who have any business talking with the public, anyway...)
J. Random Astronomer :D
That's fabulous. Goes to the top of the list above TV Batman's wealthy socialite caricature, J. Pauline Spaghetti

[soylentgreen]

Didn't he have a lot to say about it? He and Ann Druyan were some of the co-producers.
Sagan passed away about half a year before the film was put out. So considering the amount of fx work involved, as well as scoring and fine tuning, he was probably only able to see what had been done in a pretty rough fashion. In most cases, not even the stars of films have any idea of what something is actually like until they see it at the premiere or even later.

Between his failing health and that lousy pasta-munching lunatic F.F. Coppola threating to bring suit over the property(which he did...a week after Carl died!), it seems fair to say that it was a rough time to try to appreciate the work in progress.

He spoke very enthusiastically about the film and it's pretty clear the filmmakers took his(and his wife's) input quite seriously.

It's very sad that Sagan didn't live to see the finished work. I'd like to think he would have been very impressed with the effort to avoid as much "Hollywoodism" as they accomplished. I think it would have been interesting to hear what he thought of it as a complete film. And, maybe more significantly, what he thought of the publics response to it.

[Tobin Dax]

Read the book. It's an excellent read. The concepts and such that Sagan gets into are wonderful, and, as was said earlier, those that appear in the movie are only hinted at.

[BlackStar]

I thought the book was boring, personally. Don't understand what the fuss is all about? Is it because our revered SAINT CARL SAGAN wrote it, perhaps?

[pumpkinpie]

I thought the book was boring, personally. Don't understand what the fuss is all about? Is it because our revered SAINT CARL SAGAN wrote it, perhaps?
No. I had never read or seen or studied any of Carl Sagan's works before I read the book. I knew who he was, but that was all. I read it when some friends told me it was a good book. And I thouhg it was. If I had read it without knowing who the author was, I would have felt the same.
Actually, I found some of it to be boring and hard to read; Sagan can be quite wordy and techy at times. But that didn't detract much from the story for me.