Obviously, for the purpose of the film, events were compressed into a much shorter time frame, especially from when the message is discovered, to building the transport machine, and the actual trip through the wormhole. How many years passed for these same occurrences in the book?
Contact (1997) - 3 questions
Directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring David Morse, Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt
The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!
Obviously, for the purpose of the film, events were compressed into a much shorter time frame, especially from when the message is discovered, to building the transport machine, and the actual trip through the wormhole. How many years passed for these same occurrences in the book? How did they film the scenes where real historical figures (President Clinton, for instance) made speeches and comments they didn't make in real life? [They used real footage and used careful editing to make it appear as if they were talking about the events of the film.] Answered by Tailkinker If you read the book version of Contact you know that the stuff about transcendental numbers and the Artist's Signature was left out of the movie. This makes no sense to me, since it's not only the real ending, it's the whole POINT of the story. Without this information, the story's fundamental question (does God exist?) is not answered in the movie. Does anyone know why this was left out? [The film chooses to focus on Ellie's personal journey and how she deals with and comes to terms with what happens - it doesn't really involve God at all, other than the inclusion of Palmer Joss as a religious advocate, choosing to restrict itself to the much less theologically controversial theme of a straight first contact scenario, without the religious overtones. Given the depth of feeling on religious matters in the US, it's hardly surprising that the filmmakers preferred to leave this particular hot topic out. While Carl Sagan died during production of the film, he both co-produced and was involved in the story process, so he was clearly not concerned about this change.] Answered by Tailkinker