History Film / Contact

** Ellie Arroway spends the first quarter of the film demonstrating firm belief in the existence of Alien life, even at the detriment of her career, despite the fact there is no empirical proof, the exact thing she stated when she later admits that is the reason she ''doesn't'' believe in there being a God. Her later objections to the inclusion of a safety chair in the sphere is that that they should trust the Aliens would keep the traveller safe, which is an act of ''faith''. Her empassioned speeches on scientific principles often approach a fervour one would expect from an evangelical preacher, which her spouting Occam's Razor as though it were dogma.

* CrowningMomentOfFunny: Subjective, but there was a scene when the heroine passes through a crowd of all manner of loonies, from tinfoil-hat neohippies to "Jesus was an alien" cults to a Chevrolet Vega fanclub.
** The ElvisImpersonator chanting "Viva Las Vega" was kinda awesome, too.
** Everyone's "{{oh crap}}" look when the deciphered signal turns out to be a [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi]] broadcast.

* FridgeLogic: Due to the parallax effect and doppler effect it would have been impossible to fake a signal from Vega, thus rendering the YouImaginedIt ruse laughably bad writing to this troper.
** One wonders how they got it past Sagan's widow. It certainly wasn't in the book.
** Well, Ellie does say it's impossible. Kitz insists it could happen, but then, he ''is'' a [[SleazyPolitician politician]].
*** He believes that Haddon had the resources to pull such an "elaborate hoax".
** Another example (from the movie): why can't they just run the machine again and send another trustworthy person? The machine in Japan was undamaged, the pod was undamaged, they know it's (relatively) safe... it just needed refueling. Hell, it would have been cheaper than the international tribunal they end up with!
*** It's explained at least in the book that the aliens were closing the wormhole link for a while, so they can't send someone else for some time. Inevitably they'll keep researching into it and eventually make another trip; that part is just not in the story.

* IronicEcho: Elle brings up Occam's Razor (All things being equal, the simplist explanation is usually the correct one) to Palmer as an explanation of her skepticism. In the senate hearing at the end, Occam's Razor is brought up to Elle regarding the most likely explanation regarding her claims.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: There's a certain amount of alarm when the signal turns out to be a retransmitted television broadcast of AdolfHitler giving a speech. Kitz even suggests it comes from ScaryDogmaticAliens who find his views appealing. Cooler heads point out that aliens wouldn't understand the context of the transmission -- the speech is Hitler opening the 1936 Olympics, which would have been the first strong [[AliensStealCable TV signal sent into space]]. Sending it back is simply their way of showing the message was received.
** That doesn't stop the Neo-Nazis from believing that "Hitler lives".

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: The Vegans, arguably. [[spoiler:"It's been done this way for billions of years."]]
** [[spoiler: Although it's heavily implied, all throughout the film, that they know what they're doing and are benevolent.]]
*** Not so much in the book; they not only send the humans back to Earth in zero time and prevent them from returning, but ''turn off The Message at the exact same time with FTL precognition'', leaving them without even the benefit of the movie's [[spoiler:eighteen hours of static]]. However, they also point out '''[[spoiler:a coherent message in the infinitely repeating decimals of Pi as scientific proof of the existence of God.]]''' Presumably global scientific research receives an inconceivable shot in the arm. Basically, "Here's a hint. [[FigureItOutYourself Figure out the rest yourself.]] See you soon!"
* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: In the book, the President is neither named nor described. But she's a woman, seen by Ellie as one of the better presidents of the late twentieth century, and supports the sciences.
** She is named in the book, in Chapter 15:
-->An unlikely political alliance coalesced behind the reelection of President Lasker...
** Subverted in the movie, which used actual footage of then-President Clinton giving a televised statement.
** Rachael Constantine, White House Chief of Staff, was given some of the female president's lines.
* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions / ScienceIsBad: The former view is held by Ellie, the latter by her LoveInterest theologist Palmer Joss.
** Film's Palmer is rather into ScienceIsWrong, but there's a genuinely ScienceIsBad [[TheFundamentalist religious fanatic]].

* PrecisionFStrike: In the novel, Ellie tends to say "Holy [[UnusualEuphemism Toledo!]]" when other people are around. After receiving the signal, she retreats briefly to her office, closes the door, and whispers "Holy shit!"

* StrawmanHasAPoint[=/=]WrongGenreSavvy: Kitz is a total jerkass, but when you think of it, his fears aren't that stupid as they sound [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism in context]].
** At one point he even asks Ellie directly about why she thinks the aliens ''must'' be benign.
** Near the end of the book, Ellie starts to wonder if she has been selling him short. Given that personal experience vs. objective evidence is a major theme of the book this portrayal may be deliberate.

** The book is even more explicit; the journey is to an artificial world where the aliens are researching physical constants looking for messages written into reality itself -- ''[[ThatsNoMoon a church the size of a planet]]''. And once they return, the main character is able to find one of these messages herself. Thus, Sufficiently Advanced Science is indistinguishable from '''religion'''.

* TheyShouldHaveSentAPoet (TropeNamer): As well as the awe-inspiring sequence that contains the page quote -- a staggering symphony of visual effects and music built around Jodie Foster's note-perfect performance -- the movie opens with a BeyondTheImpossible [[EpicTrackingShot pullback]] that, starting from Earth orbit, proceeds to give you the faintest hint of just how INCREDIBLY HUGE the universe is, complete with a kind of audio time-travel, backwards through the history of broadcasting. Sadly for hardcore geeks, the audio and video are not accurately synchronized, although for anyone else this surely counts as an AcceptableBreakFromReality.

* YouImaginedIt: or Ellie's led to believe.

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: [[spoiler:The Vegan takes the form of Arroway's dead father, and the meeting takes place on a Floridean beach.]]

->-- Dr. Arroway at the apex of her trip.

Since there's already a page for a different {{Contact}}, this page also has those tropes that appeared only in the book.

** A [[{{Understatement}} slight]] case of AdaptationDecay. In the movie, [[KnightTemplar after spending years trying to shut down any and all SETI projects]], insisting that the entire concept was a pointless waste of money and time, ''shutting Ellie down hours too late to miss The Message'', he then [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections puts all his efforts towards kicking her off the research team]] and eventually ''steals Ellie's seat on the machine'' by proclaiming himself a staunch Catholic in opposition to Ellie's atheism. Then he says he's sorry, ''[[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown but that that's how the world works]]'' - implying that [[ThisLoserIsYou the public prefers dishonest "believers" to honest atheists]]. Of course, YourMileageMayVary on how to interpret that.
*** The [[DeathByIrony irony of his death]] is stunning: [[spoiler: the person who blew up the machine (and Drumlin) thought he was doing God's will, and Drumlin died instead of Ellie due to his professed belief in God]].

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(film) Contact]] is a movie [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] astronomer CarlSagan's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel) novel of the same name]], although in an odd case, Sagan wrote it first for the screen, then turned it into a book after it ended up in DevelopmentHell. Unlike most Hollywood science fiction adaptations, this attempted to stay true to the original and get the science right. Sagan died before the film was finished, so we don't know what he would have thought of it.

* ChewbaccaDefense: When Ellie and Palmer are arguing over the existence of God:
-->'''Ellie:''' ... not without some sort of proof.
-->'''Palmer:''' Did you love your father?
-->'''Ellie:''' Yes, very much.
-->'''Palmer:''' Prove it.

** Another example: why can't they just run the machine again and send someone else? The machine in Japan was undamaged, the pod was undamaged, they know it's (relatively) safe... it just needed refueling. Hell, it would have been cheaper than the international tribunal they end up with!

* CrowningMomentOfFunny: Subjective, but there was a scene when heroine passes through a crowd of all manner of loonies, from tinfoil-hat neohippies to "Jesus was an alien" cults to Chevrolet Vega fanclub.

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(film) Contact]] is a movie [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] astronomer Carl Sagan's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel) novel of the same name]], although in an odd case, Sagan wrote it first for the screen, then turned it into a book after it ended up in DevelopmentHell. Unlike most Hollywood science fiction adaptations, this attempted to stay true to the original and get the science right. Sagan died before the film was finished, so we don't know what he would have thought of it.

** To be fair, they did get it right that in the 1990's, some radio broadcasts from the 1930's could be heard in the vicinity of Uranus and Pluto, and the first Morse Code transmissions just outside Sol's boundaries. Radio doesn't travel too terribly fast, considering. The fact that the Hitler broadcast reached Vega was that in addition to being one of the first powerful television broadcasts, it was much more powerful than the standard radio traffic we heard in the intro.

-->To be fair, they did get it right that in the 1990's, some radio broadcasts from the 1930's could be heard in the vicinity of Uranus and Pluto, and the first Morse Code transmissions just outside Sol's boundaries. Radio doesn't travel too terribly fast, considering.

** Which [[SoutPark pisses off Mr. Garrison severely]].

** At one point he even asks Ellie directly about why she thinks the aliens ''must'' be benign.

*** The {{Irony}} of his DeathByIrony is stunning: [[spoiler: the person who blew up the machine (and Drumlin) thought he was doing God's will, and Drumlin died instead of Ellie due to his professed belief in God]].