4 ms·

Yeah - it's cliche to say the book is better, but in this case it's not just better - the movie is an inversion of the book’s core idea. In the book they send

Yeah - it's cliche to say the book is better, but in this case it's not just better - the movie is an inversion of the book’s core idea. In the book they send an elected representative group in the ship. She's gathering evidence at the end to confirm her story and persuade others that it's not a mass delusion (of which the mathematical discovery is a part). In the movie Jodie Foster cries and says they have to take it on faith - basically the exact opposite of the book's message.

branko_d 6y ago
> In the movie Jodie Foster cries and says they have to take it on faith. Except they don't have to... there are hours of static from her camera, something that should not be possible if she spent only a fraction of a second out of contact.
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  This tiny scene ruins the movie, IMHO. I have a personal edit which simply cuts out the scene where they discover that the camera ran for hours, and it vastly improves it.
  - SeanBoocock 6y ago
    Oh wow, I have always considered this scene a blight on an otherwise perfect movie. I have often speculated over the years that it wasn't in the original script and was a pickup after test screenings or inserted because a producer was scared audiences couldn't handle the ambiguity. One way of reading the film is as an epistemological exploration of modern society and how one character evolves their belief systems in the face of both ordinary and extraordinary events. I love the movie far more than the book because it doesn't neatly resolve the "truth" of what Ellie experiences, and it leaves the audience, minus this scene, in the same place as the protagonist.
- mjevans 6y ago
  Yes, of "static". Which just reuses the signal from space plot-hook from the start of the film. Presumably that static, either in raw data or a display encoded form, could also contain a similar bit of vital data that will eventually be useful.
hindsightbias 6y ago
I think the movie ending is better. Sagan wanted some ambiguity but then copped out with the math thing. If Ellie had instead spent decades pursuing another "crazy" idea (like SETI was) and found the answer much later, then it would have been more satisfying (proving life, proving creator mystery - which is somewhat a contradiction for Sagan). At around the same time, a group of religious NASA contractor folks I knew and had had faith conversations with where getting satellite imagery of Mt. Ararat. Those of us unbelievers somehow lacked "faith" but true believers like them were hunting for the Ark...
- hirundo 6y ago
  I think Sagan's ending is highly -- perhaps uncharacteristically -- religious. It practically proves the existence of an intelligent creator ... a watermark stamped on reality. It suggests that it was the creator that reached out to Earth, and Ellie, and cared about her feelings. The ending is Ellie the devout modern priestess of a cold clockwork universe coming face to face with an animate aware personal universe. It's the mathematical version of Palmer Joss's message. This is Sagan attempting to reconcile Ellie and Palmer, a dream of a scientific theology.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    I get what you’re saying, but I’d argue it’s not “religious” in the normal way we use the word. In Sagan’s book a scientist uncovers evidence that the universe was built and she’s working to leverage the scientific method to understand it. In that universe that appears to be what’s going on, but it’s the evidence that leads them in that direction. I don’t buy that the “creator” cared about her feelings. In the book, the aliens she meets are just a more advanced inhabitant of the universe, they don’t know its origin either. Religion usually does away with evidence to rely on faith based reasoning (which is basically what the movie does). The reason I don’t like the movie is it distorts the book’s point to be the opposite of what it was.

branko_d 6y ago

> In the movie Jodie Foster cries and says they have to take it on faith. Except they don't have to... there are hours of static from her camera, something that should not be possible if she spent only a fraction of a second out of contact.

LeoPanthera 6y ago
This tiny scene ruins the movie, IMHO. I have a personal edit which simply cuts out the scene where they discover that the camera ran for hours, and it vastly improves it.
- SeanBoocock 6y ago
  Oh wow, I have always considered this scene a blight on an otherwise perfect movie. I have often speculated over the years that it wasn't in the original script and was a pickup after test screenings or inserted because a producer was scared audiences couldn't handle the ambiguity. One way of reading the film is as an epistemological exploration of modern society and how one character evolves their belief systems in the face of both ordinary and extraordinary events. I love the movie far more than the book because it doesn't neatly resolve the "truth" of what Ellie experiences, and it leaves the audience, minus this scene, in the same place as the protagonist.
mjevans 6y ago
Yes, of "static". Which just reuses the signal from space plot-hook from the start of the film. Presumably that static, either in raw data or a display encoded form, could also contain a similar bit of vital data that will eventually be useful.

hindsightbias 6y ago

I think the movie ending is better. Sagan wanted some ambiguity but then copped out with the math thing. If Ellie had instead spent decades pursuing another "crazy" idea (like SETI was) and found the answer much later, then it would have been more satisfying (proving life, proving creator mystery - which is somewhat a contradiction for Sagan). At around the same time, a group of religious NASA contractor folks I knew and had had faith conversations with where getting satellite imagery of Mt. Ararat. Those of us unbelievers somehow lacked "faith" but true believers like them were hunting for the Ark...

hirundo 6y ago
I think Sagan's ending is highly -- perhaps uncharacteristically -- religious. It practically proves the existence of an intelligent creator ... a watermark stamped on reality. It suggests that it was the creator that reached out to Earth, and Ellie, and cared about her feelings. The ending is Ellie the devout modern priestess of a cold clockwork universe coming face to face with an animate aware personal universe. It's the mathematical version of Palmer Joss's message. This is Sagan attempting to reconcile Ellie and Palmer, a dream of a scientific theology.
- fossuser 6y ago
  I get what you’re saying, but I’d argue it’s not “religious” in the normal way we use the word. In Sagan’s book a scientist uncovers evidence that the universe was built and she’s working to leverage the scientific method to understand it. In that universe that appears to be what’s going on, but it’s the evidence that leads them in that direction. I don’t buy that the “creator” cared about her feelings. In the book, the aliens she meets are just a more advanced inhabitant of the universe, they don’t know its origin either. Religion usually does away with evidence to rely on faith based reasoning (which is basically what the movie does). The reason I don’t like the movie is it distorts the book’s point to be the opposite of what it was.