Contact: Robert Zemeckis

As soon as I finished watching Robert Zemeckis' Contact, I ran online and started to research SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). After witnessing the film that I had just seen, I had to know more about mankind's actual progress towards making first contact with another alien race. I now run a program that uses my computer's down time to crunch numbers and calculations for scientists involved in SETI. It's a small contribution, to be sure, but after seeing Contact, I knew that I had to do something. That's the kind of impact that Contact had. It's not just a film, it's an experience. Based off the novel by Carl Sagan, the film explores a possible future where we finally make contact with extra-terrestrial life. Jodie Foster plays Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a researcher who has spent her life listening to the stars for signs of other life. Miraculously, she is the first to discover a transmission believed to have been sent from near the star Vega, about 26 light years away. The transmission contains instructions for a vessel supposedly capable of interstellar flight that will transport ONE passenger to Vega. Ellie is eventually chosen for the mission. However, things don't quite go according to plan. Oh, she travels to Vega...but for reasons that I don't want to spoil, nobody back on earth wants to believe her. And therein lies the real heart and soul of the film: the conflict between science and faith. Ellie is a staunch Atheist who only believes in what she can see or scientifically verify. But her experience with Vega requires her to make a leap of faith. Of course, there are other reasons to watch the film. It is so expertly crafted by Zemeckis that even though it is two and a half hours long, it feels like it is over in a minute. The special effects carry on the grand science fiction tradition of such films as Forbidden Planet, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Star Wars. Contact is more than just another science fiction film...it is a reflection on the very forces that will one day shape mankind and its destiny.

9/10