Contact discussion

I just saw the movie for the first time last night, and I thought it was a pretty good interpretation of the book. All in all I preferred the book as I almost always do, but I'm curious to see what others think.

Tim wrote: "I just saw the movie for the first time last night, and I thought it was a pretty good interpretation of the book. All in all I preferred the book as I almost always do, but I'm curious to see what..."

The book most definitely.

I really enjoyed both versions, but I have to agree that the book is better. 99.9% of the time the book is better than the movie and I am still yet to find the movie that fits is that 0.1%.

I like them both a lot. I was probably more impressed with the movie just because I didn't have much confidence that it could be made well and still capture the essence of the book, which I think it did.

With the time constraints on movies it's quite impressive sometimes that even with the changes they make, that they are able to get the same idea or essence across that you got from the book.

I agree with Wayne a bit too, because even though both are generally the same, they're still very different. Either way, I think both were great and I recommend the movie and the book!

I usually like a book more than a movie, (mostly movies disappoint me). This time I saw the movie before reading the book and saw it a few times, it is one of my favourite. Just recently I read the book and I must say I like both the same, I will definetely read the book again.

I agree with most here, the book andmovie were both good.

I enjoyed both a lot. I agree with the posters above - it's difficult to compare books with films. They are very different media. For instance, I enjoyed the film of Coraline even though it was quite different from the book. Both were great fun, in their different ways!

I like the movie more.

I think this is one of those times when the movie has some lovely touches not in the book, but the book has some great ideas not expressed in the movie.

I prefer the movie's handling of the journey because it is simpler and tests the faith/science idea further... but I prefer the way the book expands on some of the ideas in the story. I really love the way the book ends.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed both, I tend to find i get more out of the reading experience than watching a flic.

As someone who read the book and watched the movie, here's two points to consider:

If you like heavy science fiction/fact and read it a lot, read the book.

If you're a casual reader who likes science fiction/fact but don't like the details of it, watch the movie.

I had to force myself through the book because I couldn't understand much of what was going on scientifically.

I prefered the book, even though I loved the movie and even though I don't even like science fiction.

I like the book better. Although, compared to other movies based on popular books, I must say, they did a good job in making this movie.

the movie suffers from too much zemeckis-kitsch for my taste.

books are always better than movies, but they did a good job with this one.

The movie was elegantly done, but in the end, the way the book got into Ellie's father issues, and her complicated paternal-esque relationship with her superior and ex-flame Drumlin, and how it tied into crossing the universe for emotional closure, played so much better in the novel than it did in the movie. Those elements of the movie were there, but I had to watch it 3 or 4 times to really see it all.

Each has its strengths, tho. It's a really good movie and a testament to Jodie Foster's talent. You never catching her "acting" per se, she lives and breathes Ellie and you forget it's a movie sometimes.

The movie was waaay better. The book spent alot of time going over the elaborate process of capturing the message and how we would deal with it and less time on how it would affect the general populous of earth. I never liked the encouter in either the film or the book but the films ending definitely was more enjoyable for me.

I had seen the movie many years ago and thought it OK. Then I read the book last year and liked the book a lot better than what I remembered of the movie. I watched the movie again a couple weeks ago and while I had forgotten some of it, rewatching it didn't change my mind that the book was much better than the movie.

The movie was enjoyable, but it conveniently leaves out a lot of important, relevant scenes. Heck, two characters from the book were merged into a single figure, thus removing a rather important suggestion about Ellie Arroway's future.

I liked the book better because it gave a lot more depth to the characters and I love the science piece of it. The movie gave me a different perspective on the characters, but it seemed too rushed. I generally prefer the process of a book's plot development to the condensed story of a film, though.

I choose the book over the movie!

They were both very good in many ways but the movie completely flopped when she went to the center of the galaxy. Whereas the book answered all sorts of questions about the aliens the movie left it as annoying mysterious as it possibly could. I know some people go for this kind of unanswered mystery but it makes me sick when they had a very good and easily film-adaptable conversation in front of them. If I were to advise a very lazy person who didn't want to read the whole book I'd highly recommend at least reading the journey part since the movie didn't even come close to doing it justice.

It's a matter of choice, but generally I prefer the books over the movies. You can't compare the plot and the depth of the phenomenon. The movies usually offer a more commercial and attractive persepective, depending on what the public consumes. Books, instead, expose the pure vision of the author.
If I reffer myself to Contact, the movie, I really appreciate the talent of Jodie Foster, which is an amazing acrice, but I stick once again with my statement. The book made me more aware of each character's shaped personality and I loved that!

Both are good, But Mathew Mcconaughey as a "Man of the Cloth" forced me to give the edge to the book. I mean...On a positive note, he did have only one scene where he was shirtless. So, I will take the small victories in that regard.

The book is by far better than the movie. The movie, while good in its own right, pushed a far more nationalistic/patriotic message about space exploration and its importance to the U.S. It also gave more weight to the religious aspect of the story. To me, the book sent a more globally inclusive message about space exploration and its importance to the world as a whole. The movie practically glosses over this issue that was elaborately detailed and represented in the book in the interest of a shoddy love story between Ellie and Palmer Joss.

The book contains and shows Sagan's passions for space exploration and the SETI project whereas the movie just kind of loses all of that.

The movie is possibly my all-time favourite. This is one of the few times the movie is better than the book. The book drags on a bit IMO. By making the movie's plot about one person instead of six it so much more exciting and powerful.

Also Jody Foster.

The movie is my all-time favourite!!!!!!
I also like the book.

For me the movie CONTACT and the book CONTACT stand nearly equal in artistic merit. The book is a solid, engaging science fiction novel that was a joy to read. But I must confess that over the years I have seen the movie many times (there are scenes I skip; and other scenes I re-watch over and over). Ashamed to admit that I have yet to re-read the book CONTACT, even though the level of writing is superior to most Sci-Fi writing (IMHO). In the movie, the "traveling" to meet the aliens was impressive (all that wormhole stuff), but the actual "meeting" didn't work for me. In fact, this thread has made me want to hunt down my book copy of CONTACT and read it again. Cheers! @hg47

I found the movie slow, boring and uneventful compared to the movie.

Tammy wrote: "I found the movie slow, boring and uneventful compared to the movie."

I think one "movie" needs to be substituted for "book".
Please explain, I'm dying to know (read: to add one more supporter to my camp ;-))

Tim wrote: "I think this is one of those times when the movie has some lovely touches not in the book, but the book has some great ideas not expressed in the movie.

I prefer the movie's handling of the journe..."

I found the problem with the movie polarizing science and faith, when the two can in fact coexist harmoniously.

The book was far better, not least for the far better ending. The movie was okay but like Allen (comment 33) I find its polarization of science and faith somewhat shallow and unnecessary.

I loved the movie - Jodie Foster deserved that lifetime award she just won; what an actress! But, that said, when I read the book, I loved it too. I don't typically read a book after I've seen a movie and liked it, but this time I did and glad I did so. If I had to vote between the movie and the book, I'd pick the book because it provided more than 2 hours entertainment!

Both are awesome but the book is better.

I think the book has an enhanced sense of realism, Ellie is 40+, Ellie has no real inclination towards relationships, The contents and the coding of The Message are different (polarity modulation vs between lines of video), there are 5 people travelling to Vega not just Ellie, the machine works differently, The entire last chapter of the novel was not included in the film. Just to be honest I like the book better, but the film is amazing!

The book is a little more detailed. I would recommend both though. Start with the book and then the movie.

I read the book first and then movie came later. One can imagine how disappointed I have been. Although Movie has one of my favorite actress Jodie Foster,But depiction is very weak. The details of Carl Sagan have been exquisitive.

I could not get into the book for the life of me. Too much science and not enough fiction. Also her childhood story and love interest did not help me much. I would say, I actually liked the movie better. Another book I enjoyed the move better was Cujo.

Tim wrote: "I just saw the movie for the first time last night, and I thought it was a pretty good interpretation of the book. All in all I preferred the book as I almost always do, but I'm curious to see what..."
There are few movies that can match the level of a book. In a single sentence you can imagine plenty of things that the movie can not portray due to lack of time. I always manage to scare myself tousands of times more than any movie by reading an horror book.

Sorry, but the movie was better. Carl Sagan is a great man, but his fiction is pedestrian. The book went into some interesting details, but it went on just a bit too long.

The movie quite rightly dramatised the salient points in SETI, although it was a little goofy in places (and had some bad reasoning), but the story did carry all the way with no slow parts.

The book is far better than the movie, they always are.

A movie cannot emulate what is in a book for the simple reason it is a different media.

A book is essentially dialogue plus narrative; a movie based on the book could, if the screenwriter/director chose to, use all the dialogue, or selected parts, but the narrative can be interpreted as a visual experience only - this is much more limiting than the author's use of narrative.

There are other techniques at the movie maker's disposale, such as 'voice over', but in general the narrative does not translate well to film.

Also, in the case of 'Contact', the film is a different story to that in the book. In the book there are several characters being transported in the alien machine; in the movie, presumably for the sake of brevity, only one passenger. Therefore it is not even the same story.

Both the book and the movie have their merits.

Long live Books.

I agree!!!

The book is better and has a slightly different ending than the movie - in the book Ellie plugs pi (3.14...) into her rasterizing program and gets a surprise that brings her a little closer to a higher power (just a hint of this, we know Sagan's position but its fascinating how he goes out on a limb with this teaser). I think this is awesome and sad that it was left out of the movie - belief in even science can be considered a religion..

I liked more the book, has more details, more inner work, and made my feel how little we are in the universe...

The book. The ending was one of those, "Oh, that's so damned clever" ones that I love so much. I enjoyed the movie, can kind of understand why they didn't have the "pi" ending, but still...kind of bummed they left it out.

I almost always prefer the book to the movie, but in the case of Contact I would rather watch the movie than read the book.

Ariska wrote: "I usually like a book more than a movie, (mostly movies disappoint me). This time I saw the movie before reading the book and saw it a few times, it is one of my favourite. Just recently I read the..."

The book was big as a phone book, and was different from the movie. I liked the movie version better.

I feel like the movie is far lighter and less philosophical than the book. I watched the movie first, and read the book many, many years later. I was surprised to see how different they were, even if the movie follows the book pretty accurately. It's just that the slight changes and differences made a huge difference in the end.

I prefer the book, since it goes deeper into the science part and the philosophy is, at least in my opinion, vastly different than in the movie.

I read the book before the movie came out. I thought the book was far better than the movie, which seemed a little shallow in comparison.