Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren't as bad as they could be, but still distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully one-dimensio

Also, the standard Hollywood tropes weren't as bad as they could be, but still distracting. Does every film featuring the military need a painfully one-dimensional rude hawkish general who inexplicably wants to attack the enemy in every situation? It's been a long time since I've read the short story, but to me the alien contact part of the story wasn't really the primary point, it was primarily a tool to tell the actual story. However, in the movie adaptation, the alien contact story has been elevated in importance to be co-equal with the, umm, other part of the story. I think that's a reasonable thing for the movie adaptation to do. The downside of the alien contact plot in the movie, is, as you say pretty trope-y, but if you think of it as a plot device to get to the real meat of the story, then maybe that's not such a big deal.