History Film / Contact

* WhamShot: Integrated with the WhamLine above, Hadden shows Ellie satellite photos of Hokkaido Island, the Machine systems integration site. Then zooms in far enough to show the secret second Machine.

* YouAreNotReady: When Ellie insists that everyone on Earth should know about what she experienced. The Vegan [[spoiler:who takes the form of her father]] tells her, "Small steps, Sparks. Small steps."

* IronicEcho: Ellie brings up OccamsRazor (All things being equal, the simplest 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 Ellie regarding the most likely explanation regarding her claims.

** The religious fanatic Joseph gives a DeathGlare to Ellie during protests against SETI's machine project. [[spoiler:This is the same glare he delivers to Ellie again while at Kennedy Space Center, just before blowing up the machine]].

* InvisiblePresident: News footage of Bill Clinton was expertly spliced into the film, much to the annoyance of the White House. Averted in the novel, in which the President is a woman, and implied to not be the first.

* HollywoodAtheist: Ellie, ever since her father's death. During his funeral, a priest tries to comfort her by saying it's "God's will". Ellie responds that she could have saved her dad.

* IfJesusThenAliens: Invoked, where among the participators have a cutout of Jesus with a UFO above his head in place of his halo and a banner saying "Jesus is an Alien".

* WhatYearIsThis: After Ellie returned from the wormhole:

'''Director:''' I'm sorry, did you say "what day"?\\

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The religious fanatic Joseph gives a DeathGlare to Ellie during protests against SETI's machine project. [[spoiler:This is the same glare he delivers to Ellie again while at Kennedy Space Center, just before blowing up the machine]].

* YearInsideHourOutside: Dr. Arroway's trip through the PortalNetwork, conversation with an alien, and return home seemingly took about 18 hours. But as it took less than a second as time is reckoned here on Earth, quite a few people ended up strongly doubting that she actually traveled anywhere at all, since no one on Earth saw Arroway's pod disappear and her recording equipment displayed only static. This suggests that what Arroway experienced was AllJustADream, [[spoiler:but unknown to her and the general public it turns out that the camera recorded a full eighteen hours of static. This may be actually [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadowed]] - on her way there we see flashes of Ellie speaking lines she's ''going'' to say in a couple of minutes, which suggests some serious timey-wimey.]]

* AlienSky: The aliens create a beach based on the drawing Ellie drew as a child.

* RefusedTheCall: According to the Vegan who appears as Ellie's father many but not all races they contact choose to respond.

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: There's a certain amount of alarm when the signal turns out to be a retransmitted television broadcast of UsefulNotes/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. But that doesn't stop the Neo-Nazis from believing "Hitler lives".

** "Why build one when you can build ''two''...?", followed in the end with another: "Wanna take a ride?"

* WhatYearIsThis:

** [[NotSoDifferent In some ways]] Ellie Arroway is this herself, except her cause is ForScience. Critically, she has sufficient self-awareness to ''recognize this tendency in herself,'' and acknowledge that she might, in fact, be mistaken: "Is it possible that it didn't happen? Yes. As a scientist, I must concede that, I must volunteer that."

* NotSoDifferent: As is pointed [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien several]] [[TheyShouldHaveSentAPoet times]] below, one of ''Contact'''s themes is that religion and science are NotSoDifferent after all. The film culminates in the heroine describing her experience in ''very'' religiously sounding terms. 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 that there is no empirical proof, the exact thing she stated as the reason she ''doesn't'' believe in 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 traveler safe, which is certainly an act of ''faith''. Her impassioned speeches on scientific principles often approach a fervor one would expect from an evangelical preacher, while she repeatedly treats Occam's Razor as though it were dogma. In the end, with no proof that she didn't just hallucinate, only the Christian minister she'd argued religion with previously believes her, just to drive it home.

* NotSoDifferent: As is pointed [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien several]] [[TheyShouldHaveSentAPoet times]] below, one of ''Contact'''s themes is that religion and science are NotSoDifferent after all. The film culminates in the heroine describing her experience in ''very'' religiously sounding terms. 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 that there is no empirical proof, the exact thing she stated as the reason she ''doesn't'' believe in 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 traveler safe, which is certainly an act of ''faith''. Her impassioned speeches on scientific principles often approach a fervor one would expect from an evangelical preacher, while she repeatedly treats Occam's Razor as though it were dogma. In the end, with no proof that she didn't just hallucinate only the Christian minister she'd argued religion with previously believes her, just to drive it home.

* ParentalAbandonment: Ellie's mother isn't shown or mentioned. Her father died of a heart attack in her childhood.

* AnalogyBackfire: When Kitz asks Ellie why does she think the aliens have to be benign Ellie answers that the human civilization poses no threat to them, and that it would be like us being hell-bent on obliterating some microbes on an anthill in Africa, to which Drumlin replies: "[[LampshadeHanging Interesting analogy]]. And how guilty would we feel after obliterating some microbes on an anthill in Africa?" Which makes this film a reversal of the first ''Film/{{Species}}''.

* AnalogyBackfire: When Kitz asks Ellie why does she think the aliens have to be benign Ellie answers that the human civilization poses no threat to them, and that it would be like us being hell-bent on obliterating some microbes on an anthill in Africa, to which Drumlin replies: "[[LampshadeHanging Interesting analogy]]. And how guilty would we feel after obliterating some microbes on an anthill in Africa?"
** Which makes this film a reversal of the first ''Film/{{Species}}''.

* ArmiesAreEvil: National Security Advisor Michael Kitz comes closest to filling this role.
** [[WordOfGod The director stated he had fun with this character]][[invoked]]. In ''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' he'd be a CardCarryingVillain, in ''Film/IndependenceDay'' he'd be a ReasonableAuthorityFigure. The point being that his viewpoint is ''necessary''.

* BasedOnATrueStory: The workings of SETI are realistically depicted, and the character Eleanor Arroway is loosely based on RealLife SETI director [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EszGIvRdgTE Jill Tarter]]. Of course, everything following the eponymous FirstContact is, obviously, not based on a true story.
** Until we've [[spoiler:calculated sufficiently down into pi]], we won't know.

* {{Fiction 500}}: S.R. Hadden seems almost ridiculously wealthy-toward the end he reveals he bought up ''all'' the companies that got subcontractor deals for the [=FTL=] Machine, in order to build his own backup copy and choose who gets to go.
** In the book, he even builds a duplicate of ancient Babylon in upstate New York and arranges to have prostitution legalized so that he can run an adult theme park.

* InnocentAliens: Elle believes the Vegans are this without question, and gets frustrated when anyone considers otherwise, ignoring [[StrawmanHasAPoint their good points about being cautious or her being too trusting]][[invoked]]. Though she turns out to be right.

** [[NotSoDifferent In some ways]] Ellie Arroway is this herself, except her cause is ForScience. Critically, she has sufficient self-awareness to ''recognise this tendency in herself,'' and acknowledge that she might, in fact, be mistaken: "Is it possible that it didn't happen? Yes. As a scientist, I must concede that, I must volunteer that."

* MeaningfulEcho: Arroway's father used his {{Catchphrase}} "small moves" to call upon her patience when operating the CB radio. During the Alien projection, the phrase is used to call upon the patience of humankind in moving ahead with the contacting:

* NotSoDifferent: As is pointed [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien several]] [[TheyShouldHaveSentAPoet times]] below, one of ''Contact'''s themes is that religion and science are NotSoDifferent after all. The film culminates in the heroine describing her experience in ''very'' religiously sounding terms.
** 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 that there is no empirical proof, the exact thing she stated as the reason she ''doesn't'' believe in 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 traveler safe, which is certainly an act of ''faith''. Her impassioned speeches on scientific principles often approach a fervor one would expect from an evangelical preacher, while she repeatedly treats Occam's Razor as though it were dogma. In the end, with no proof that she didn't just hallucinate only the Christian minister she'd argued religion with previously believes her, just to drive it home.

* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: This is the central conflict of the film. The main character is an atheist and believes in rational explanations for everything, but at the end her journey to the center of the galaxy is revealed to be in every respect a religious experience, where the alien beings are God.

* VillainousValor: Drumlin has his moments. When an angry Arroway barrels down on him with her jeep, Drumlin calmly stands in the middle of the road while everyone else dives for cover. [[spoiler: Foreshadows his death when he tries and fails to stop the suicide bomber.]]

* YearInsideHourOutside: Dr. Arroway's trip through the PortalNetwork, conversation with an alien, and return home seemingly took about 18 hours. But as it took less than a second as time is reckoned here on Earth, quite a few people ended up strongly doubting that she actually traveled anywhere at all, since no one on Earth saw Arroway's pod disappear and her recording equipment displayed only static. This suggests that what Arroway experienced was AllJustADream, [[spoiler:but unknown to her and the general public it turns out that the camera recorded a full eighteen hours of static.]]
** [[spoiler:This may be actually [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadowed]] - on her way there we see flashes of Ellie speaking lines she's ''going'' to say in a couple of minutes, which suggests some serious timey-wimey.]]

* HollywoodAtheist: Ellie, ever since her father's death. During his funeral, a priest tries to comfort her by saying it's "God's will", Ellie's respond is that she could have saved her dad.

* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: After Drumlin is selected over Arroway because her atheism turned off the selection panel (he learned from her mistake and professed a hitherto-unseen belief in God), he tells her that he wishes the world were a place where her honesty were rewarded, not taken advantage of as he did. Arroway has an appropriate answer for that: "Funny. I've always believed that the world is what we make of it." If Drumlin really wants to live in a fairer world, he ought to ''act fairly'' and thus help create one, instead of playing the system he acknowledges is unfair to his own advantage.

* HollywoodAtheist: Ellie, ever since her father died and a priest comforts her by telling her it's "God's will". Ellie tells him she could have saved her dad.

* InnocentAliens: Elle believes the Vegans are this without question, and gets frustrated when anyone considers otherwise, not even caring if [[StrawmanHasAPoint they have good points about being cautious or her being too trusting]][[invoked]]. Though she turns out to be right.

%%* EvilAlbino: Joseph.

* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: As well as the awe-inspiring sequence that contains the page quote (which even was a former {{Trope Namer|s}}[[invoked]]) -- a staggering symphony of visual effects and music built around Jodie Foster's note-perfect performance -- the movie opens with an amazing [[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 as the signal travels away from Earth at the speed of light.