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posted by janrinok on Tuesday July 05 2022, @06:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the if-we-don't-destroy-ourselves dept.

About 25 years ago, July 11, 1997, Carl Sagan's and Ann Druyan's movie "Contact" hit the theaters. Vulture has a long read based on interviews with over a score of people who were involved in making the movie. Jodie Foster had the lead role. The co-author, Carl Sagan, died along the way and the production survived a series of lawsuits.

Ahead of Contact's 25th anniversary, we spoke to nearly two dozen people involved in its making, including Zemeckis, Foster, McConaughey, Druyan, Sasha Sagan, and veteran producer Lynda Obst. They disagreed on several aspects of Contact's development saga, but settled on some consensus: Contact was a lightning-in-a-bottle project, the kind of thing big movie studios barely made before and would probably never make again — intellectually challenging, emotionally messy, heavy with metaphor, wherein nobody shoots an alien in the face in front of an American flag. "We used to do that," said Foster. "We used to make movies that were resonant and were entertaining."

[...] Ann Druyan: This is 1978. Carl and I are still working on Cosmos. At the time, it was popular to say things like, "Well, if men are as smart as women, then how come there are no female Leonardos? No female Einsteins?" This made both of us furious. I had just co-written the part of Cosmos about the Great Library of Alexandria and the fact that Hypatia, who was the leader of the library, was a mathematician focusing on the Diophantine equations that Newton would later become interested in. Her reward for being the great intellectual light of the library in 415 AD was to be ripped from her chariot that she was driving herself and carved to bits with abalone shells.

People were throwing everything at Carl then. He was such a phenomenon in the culture, and everybody wanted to do something with him. So we knew we could get a book and a movie contract. We agreed one night, sitting in the pool at our little rented house in West Hollywood, that we were going to tell a story in which not only would a woman be the intellectual hero but, in the great tradition of Gilgamesh, she was going to go on the voyage and the guys would stay home.


[Ed's Comment: AC Friendly withdrawn. You can blame you-know-who for the spamming]

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:57AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:57AM (#1258182)

    I enjoyed Contact, and agree that only a few movies since then come close (recently saw "Arrival", that had a similar vibe).

    To me science fiction as a genre is often about humankind, and Contact knew to grab that on a right, and still relevant, spot. It made for me a good reflection on science and religion, as I was starting my STEM study, but was raised in a roman catholic family. For me it learned me that science and religion don't need to exclude each other.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dmbasso on Tuesday July 05 2022, @09:55AM (2 children)

      by dmbasso (3237) on Tuesday July 05 2022, @09:55AM (#1258201)

      I enjoyed both the book and the movie, but the religiosity aspect of the movie was too salient, imho. Clearly I'm not the intended audience of the movie, and that's ok, I'm glad it had the effect it had on you. The book is significantly different, and from what I recall (and without going into spoilers) nothing explicitly religious is discussed or has any important part on the plot. The very ending (again, no spoilers) could be argued as having some religious overtones, but even for an atheist like me it's probably one of the best book endings ever.

      --
      `echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sgleysti on Tuesday July 05 2022, @03:37PM

        by sgleysti (56) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 05 2022, @03:37PM (#1258279)

        Oh, I thought there was a very strong underpinning of naturalism and empiricism to the book. Whether you call that religion is another matter.

        Contact is either my favorite book or it's in the top 3. Really enjoyed the movie also, despite the differences. I think they did a great job in changing the story both to adapt it to the screen and to broaden its appeal (at least in the U.S., lol).

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:09PM

        by SomeGuy (5632) on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:09PM (#1258336)

        I vaguely remember that movie. It was one of the few movies that even acknowledged that atheism even exists. And then they pissed all over it with religious crap. The way it came across, it seemed like the important "one question" for the aliens that all the other characters would have asked would have been some crap about religion.

        Hi, space alien here. We got your message. Your message was: "Do you believe in god?".... Ummmm.. You do know you could have asked an open ended question rather than a"yes" or "no" question, right? You could have asked a question who's answer would let you leapfrog scientific advances, or understand the real mysteries of the universe. Well, I guess that would have been too much for your tiny little excuse for brains. I don't even want to know what sort of stupid things you will do with our answer. We were actually thinking about coming out your way some time in the far future, but I think we will just skip that.

        As for your question, no there is no such thing as god. The entire idea is just... stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Magical imaginary sky fairies? Really? You humans need serious mental help. Go fracking frell off, you unevolved smegheads."

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @09:56AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @09:56AM (#1258202)

      Interstellar

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @11:05AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @11:05AM (#1258215)

        Good and enjoyable movie, but the science fiction falls flat in some parts. IMHO the whole part with Matt Damon didn't add much to the story (could have been taken out completely without large impact) and the whole "post-black hole/5?th dimension" part was popcorn sci-fi, basically a deus ex machina to close the story. Afterwards it becomes better again.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:59AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @07:59AM (#1258183)

    What happened to Hypatia closely resembles what happened to our aristarchus, though without the blood. Christian conservative zealots.

    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @08:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @08:08AM (#1258185)

      A "Troll" mod here is only another cut to Hypatia's body, and another blow against science. Perhaps you would prefer a prayer network and some horse de-wormer?

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @11:45AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @11:45AM (#1258224)

    From the summary:

    "wherein nobody shoots an alien in the face in front of an American flag"

    Oh, Jesus! Enough with the America hating pussies.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @05:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @05:00PM (#1258303)

      Have they stopped the march towards christofascism? No? Go fuck yourself!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @01:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @01:32PM (#1258250)

    No, the movie adaption of Contact sucked for the Absolutely Forced religious themes that wasn't there in the book at the level it was.

    Also, the book was criticized for the lead character being "Carl with tits"-- her viewpoint and understanding was entirely male. Most suspected the gender-swap happened at the Editing stage.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @08:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 05 2022, @08:50PM (#1258370)

    Actually, Cosmos made some major blunders about the history of the Great Library and Hypatia’s murder. See this [blogspot.com] debunking or this [talesoftimesforgotten.com] one.

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