Event 3: Contact Screening

For my third event, I attended the screening of Contact, a film directed by Robert Zemeckis. This movie is about a space-enthusiast named Ellie (the protagonist) who deciphers a signal from an extraterrestrial species and establishes contact with them.

The cover of the movie we watched, Contact.

This movie is most related to our Week 9 discussions on Space + Art. Scenes from the movie, like when Ellie travels through a wormhole (which I doubt we could visually perceive as an actual tunnel), often triggered memories of various facts about space I learned from the lecture videos, readings, and guest lecturer. I'm curious about how scientifically accurate the movie is (excluding all the science we can't yet confirm or refute).

Throughout the movie, I often felt an unusual, sublime sort of fear. I think I felt so because I was constantly reminded of how insignificant humans are in relation to the universe, and how little we know about it. I had a similar reaction when Ellie meets the apparition of her late father near the end of the movie. The idea that a conscious being could be powerful enough to directly access and manipulate our thoughts was at the same time awesome and terrifying, as it reminded me that we are blissfully unaware of how capable other life forms can be.

The surreality of this scene at the end of the movie, especially when her dad is talking, somewhat spooked me.

I often wonder whether we will establish contact with extraterrestrial beings in my lifetime. I’m not sure that we haven’t already discovered alternative life and just failed to notice it - our notions of life could be too restrictive. There’s an interesting idea called the Fermi paradox that highlights the contradiction between the high probabilities we assign to finding life and our apparent inability to do so.

An interesting, simple video about the Fermi paradox.

“Contact (1997 American Film).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 31 May 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(1997_American_film).

“Contact (Movie).” SETI Institute, www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/sci-fi-movies.

“Fermi Paradox.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 May 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox.

Kurzgesagt. “The Fermi Paradox - Where Are All The Aliens? (1/2).” YouTube, YouTube, 6 May 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc.

Sherefkin, Jack. “Hubble and the Sublime: The Fear of the Infinite.” The New York Public Library, The New York Public Library, 20 Dec. 2017, www.nypl.org/blog/2015/09/10/hubble-and-sublime.

Vesna, Victoria. “8 Space pt3 1280x720.” YouTube, YouTube, 29 July 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WOqt_C55Mk.

Vesna, Victoria. “Space pt5.” YouTube, YouTube, 30 May 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnSUHMXBmdg.

“‘Contact’ Is Still 'Okay to Go' 20 Years Later...” Musings of a Middle-Aged Geek, 11 Oct. 2020, musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog/2017/09/09/contact-is-still-okay-to-go-20-years-later/.