Trivia
Jodie Foster was interested in this movie as early as 1995. After initially deciding to drop out, her interest was resparked by a new revision of the script.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Ralph Fiennes was considered for Palmer Joss, but not cast.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
George Miller was slated to direct until Warner Bros. offered him the rights to Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome to pull out and let Robert Zemeckis take his place.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Francis Ford Coppola filed breach-of-contract suits against Carl Sagan's estate and Warner Brothers, halting the film. He claimed that Sagan had developed the "Contact" premise for Zoetrope Studios (possibly for a Children's Television Workshop program).
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Author and producer Carl Sagan died during production of the film. He was reportedly taking great care to ensure that "science" was accurately depicted in the film.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The dish at the beginning of the movie is the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, and is actually used for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) research.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Through the entire filming of the scenes at the Very Large Array, the array was actually collecting data.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
William Fichtner's character in the film, a blind astrophysicist with enhanced hearing as a result of his condition, is named Kent Clark, a play on the name of Superman's alter ego, Clark Kent. The character is based on a real-life blind SETI scientist, Kent Cullers.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Actors John Hurt (Hadden) and Tom Skerritt (Drumlin) also starred in Alien, about a hostile extraterrestrial intelligence.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The character of Dr. Arroway was modeled after two of the pioneering radio astronomers of the 1930s and 1940s, Grote Reber and John Kraus; both men were ham radio operators at an early age. Another model for the character's work was real-life SETI researcher Jill Cornell Tarter.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (featured in the film) has a club station which acquired Grote Reber's old call sign "W9GFZ" earlier in 1997. Robert Zemeckis, learning of this tribute, planned to use the same call sign for Arroway in the movie. In the end "W9GFO" was used.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Most of the sounds heard during the film's opening shot are chronologically arranged.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Argus Project, featuring 100+ radio telescopes, is named after a monster with a hundred eyes from Greek mythology.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The Dynamics officer, addressed only as "Gerry" in dialogue, is Gerry Griffin, who in real life was a Flight Director at Mission Control in Houston during the Apollo program.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The succession of colors in the space tunnel match the colors of the Chakra points as described in the New Age "religion", starting with red (materialism) and reaching gold (enlightenment).
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Director Robert Zemeckis had asked her to repeat the pod scene six times, each time with a different expression (intense joy, fear, sadness and so on) and then the SFX crew quickly morphed her face from one take to the next. For a moment they also used the face of Dr. Arroway as a child.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Jena Malone, who played the young Ellie Arroway, has brown eyes. Her eyes were colored blue (to match Jodie Foster's) by computer for the opening shot, which zooms into her eye.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Young Ellie's father calls her "Sparks". Sparks is a nickname given to early radio operators who used spark-gap transmitters.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Peter Jackson did some visual effects for this film, repaying the favor to Robert Zemeckis, who executive-produced his film The Frighteners.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The remark made throughout the movie by different characters that if humans were the only life in the universe it would "be a terrible waste of space" is a famous quote by author Carl Sagan.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Footage of a press conference by President Bill Clinton was re-edited and altered and caused some controversy. A few years later, CNN would ban the use of its logo in fictional movies, as well as bar its reporters from doing cameo appearances (although Larry King does appear from time to time).
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Dr. Arroway hypothesizes that the message could be an "Encyclopaedia Galactica", a concept envisioned by Carl Sagan and meant to be a database for all the worlds within the Milky Way Galaxy. The term originates from Isaac Asimov's science-fiction novel "Foundation".
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
At the time of filming, Conroy Chino was, in fact, a reporter for KOB-TV, the NBC affiliate in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Sidney Poitier was announced for this film but was replaced before filming.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The "UFO ABDUCTION INSURANCE" banner across an RV is from a real company that was paid by Warner Bros to use their novel idea in the movie.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The long shot of Ellie as a child running up the stairs to get medicine is a shot that is practically impossible. The shot was actually filmed as a normal shot would have been and then flipped and placed in the mirror which, at the time of shooting was a blue screen placement in the cabinet.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The vehicle in which Ellie Arroway travels through the wormhole system is a sphere surrounded by a dodecahedron, the fourth Platonic solid. This beautiful figure with twelve pentagonal faces was considered by some Greek philosophers to represent the structure of the Universe.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
President Bill Clinton's appearance was taken from an actual press conference on the White House South Lawn in 1997 - if you look closely at his hair, it appears brighter than that of the other people in the shot. His remarks were regarding the real-life discovery of an arctic meteorite discovered to be from Mars.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan began the concept in 1980 as a movie treatment that was never picked up. Sagan finished the story alone and in 1985, released the book "Contact" with no further assistance from Druyan.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Jenny McCarthy, when her popularity was boosted when she hosted Singled Out, tried to audition for the role of Eleanor.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Both co-writers James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg have worked on adaptations of "Peter Pan." Hart co-wrote Hook, and Goldenberg co-wrote Peter Pan.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
In the scene where Ellie returns to her apartment, just before receiving the first message from Hadden, as she enters the room we see her reflected in a mirror; at the bottom left of the mirror is a photo of Carl Sagan, the movie's writer.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Linda Hunt was considered to be President of the United States, but not cast.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
During the scene where Eleanor is pitching for funds at the boardroom, she is wearing the trademark turtleneck and beige suit that Carl Sagan is famous for.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Jodie Foster notes on her DVD commentary for the film that the first special effect seen is the changing of the younger Eleanor Arroway's eye colour to match hers. People have pointed out, however, that the opening cgi scene taking the viewer from earth to the outer cosmos would also technically be a special effect.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The MIT yearbook showed with Jodie Foster's character is the actual MIT undergraduate yearbook Class of 1983, and other photos are those of the actual graduating students.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
This was the last movie seen by Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace mere hours before being gunned down by stalker Andrew Cunanan.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
In order to make contact, intelligent life would likely choose such a "standard" cosmic frequency as hydrogen and multiply it by a transcendental number such as pi. Not only would this frequency be a common place to look for radio signals, it would be an unmistakable sign of intelligent life.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Hawks Nest Bay located on St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands is the location used in the scene where Foster's makes contact with the alien life form.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Gillian Anderson was considered for the role of Ellie Arroway.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The suicide pill scene is controversial. Carl Sagan claimed that such pills were made available on all NASA missions for use if astronauts were unable to return to Earth. Former astronaut Jim Lovell, commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, disputes this claim.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
All the beers in the Puerto Rico scenes are Medalla Light. It is produced by the only brewery in Puerto Rico larger than a brewpub, and Medalla Light was their only beer until they released a premium beer in 2011.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The UNIX Party button taped to a monitor in the signal analysis scene is geek humor. UNIX is a computer operating system originally created in 1969 at Bell Labs. At the time of filming it held a certain academic counter-culture mystique, being anti-Microsoft and anti-IBM.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
In the Cape Canaveral scenes, NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building is visible in the background. Its interior is vast enough to generate its own internal "weather," with rain clouds forming near the ceiling on humid days.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
More than 117,000 hours of computer CPU time were required to render the CGI in the opening galactic pullback scene. The servers crashed more than 25 times in the process. Shortest amount of time required to render one frame in the sequence: 12 seconds. Longest render time for one frame: 18.4 hours.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
In the Ellie's cabin in Puerto Rico, together the start chart she has to point the stars she studied with the radar, there is a poster of a planet with four suns, a quadruple solar system. When later she travels in The Machine across the galaxy, she observes too a quadruple solar system where she sees the planet of the alien race.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
After to receive the signal from Vega in the Nuevo Mexico's observatory, Ellie, Fisher and Willie have a discussion about it where Willie jokes about star ships with "laser blasters and photon torpedoes", a trademark from the Star Trek saga.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The movie establishes that the signal was launched from planet Earth in 1936, during the Berlin Olympic Games' opening. Since Vega is 26 light-years from planet Earth, the signal would have returned in 1988, not 1997. This should imply that the alien race was nine years working in the hidden message in the signal before to return it to planet Earth.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The SFX crew deliberately inserted contradicting images in the Pensacola scene at the end, to create a dreamlike feeling. So the beach is brightly lit with no sun in sight, the waves move backwards and the shadows slowly change from one scene to the next.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Cameo
Ann Druyan:
Carl Sagan's widow, makes a short cameo appearance, along with former United States Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine A. Ferraro.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Ken Ralston:
Senior visual effects supervisor is visible in the shot of scientists at VLA watching Ellie testify. Ralston is in the back row in the upper left corner of the frame, with mustache and beard.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
Spoilers
The trivia items below may give away important plot points.
People in the crowds at the end of the movie seem to be wearing the same exact shade of blue. It is the "machine consortium blue" (a blue used in the film by the corporate ID of the consortium which builds the huge travel devices, and suggests that those people believe in Dr Arroway's story.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
The Carl Sagan book "Contact" is different from the movie in several key places. First, the book had three machines built. The second major difference is that the book's machines held five passengers, and Ellie was accompanied on the voyage by four diverse intellectuals from around the world.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
When the signal's blueprints are revealed to be for a device to transport a human, the "unmistakably ... human figure" in the diagram is actually modeled after a line drawing that was attached to the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecrafts. This illustration was co-created by Carl Sagan.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
When Ellie and Palmer are in the Ellie's cabin in Puerto Rico, Palmer appears talking her about an experience where he felt the presence of God. A younger Palmer worked on fairground rides where one day he was struck by lightning and had a near-death experience.
Share this
Share this: Facebook
|
Twitter
|
Permalink
Hide options
See also
Goofs
|
Crazy Credits
|
Quotes
|
Alternate Versions
|
Connections
|
Soundtracks
if ('csm' in window) {
csm.measure('csm_TitleContributeWidget_started');
}
Getting Started
|
Contributor Zone »
Contribute to This Page
Edit page
if ('csm' in window) {
csm.measure('csm_TitleContributeWidget_finished');
}
if (typeof afc_data == "undefined") {
afc_data = new Object();
}
afc_data["SPONSORED_LINKS"] = { channel: "test01-channel",
client: "ca-amazon-imdb_js",
title: "Sponsored Links",
help: "What's This?",
hints: "science,alien,radio,scientist,astronomer"
};
generic.on_document_ready(function(){
generic.load_when_visible("sponsored_links_afc_div_SPONSORED_LINKS", function(){
jQuery("#sponsored_links_afc_iframe_SPONSORED_LINKS").get(0).contentWindow.location.replace("/images/a/ifb/google_afc.html#key:SPONSORED_LINKS");
});
});
setTimeout(
function() {
var url = "http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?width=280&show_faces=1&layout=standard&href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0118884%2F";
var like = document.getElementById('iframe_like');
if (like) {
like.src = url;
like.onload = function () { generic.monitoring.stop_timing('facebook_like_iframe', '', false); };
}
},
5);
ad_utils.register_ad('top_rhs');
ad_utils.render_ad_fast('top_rhs');
ad feedback
if ('csm' in window) {
csm.measure('csm_TitleQuickLinksWidgetRHS_started');
}
Contact (1997)
Did You Know?
Trivia
Goofs
Crazy Credits
Quotes
Alternate Versions
Connections
Soundtracks
Details
Full Cast and Crew
Release Dates
Official Sites
Box Office/Business
Company Credits
Filming Locations
Technical Specs
Literature
Storyline
Taglines
Plot Summary
Synopsis
Plot Keywords
Parents Guide
Photo & Video
Photo Gallery
Trailers and Videos
Opinion
Awards
FAQ
User Reviews
User Ratings
External Reviews
Metacritic Reviews
Message Board
External Links
Miscellaneous
Sound Clips
Video Clips
Photographs
Posters
TV
TV Schedule
Related Items
NewsDesk
Showtimes
Professional Services
Add posters & stills to this title
Get more at IMDbPro
Explore More
Show Less
if ('csm' in window) {
csm.measure('csm_TitleQuickLinksWidgetRHS_finished');
}
Share this page:
generic.monitoring.start_timing("facebook_like_iframe");
if (typeof uet == 'function') {
uet("bb", "RelatedListsWidget", {wb: 1});
}
if ('csm' in window) {
csm.measure('csm_RelatedListsWidget_started');
}
Create a list »
User Lists
Related lists from IMDb users
All U.S. Released Movies: 1970-2014
a list of 10000 titles
created 2 months ago
Top 25 space films
a list of 25 titles
created 11 months ago
Best Drama Movies
a list of 135 titles
created 22 Mar 2011
IMDb Top Movies at Most Recent Highest Rank
a list of 1269 titles
created 6 months ago
Movies
a list of 92 titles
created 27 Dec 2011
See all related lists »
if ('csm' in window) {
csm.measure('csm_RelatedListsWidget_finished');
}
if (typeof uet == 'function') {
uet("be", "RelatedListsWidget", {wb: 1});
}
if (typeof uex == 'function') {
uex("ld", "RelatedListsWidget", {wb: 1});
}
Home
| Search
| Site Index
| In Theaters
| Coming Soon
| Top Movies
| Watchlist
| Top 250
| TV
| News
| Video
| Message Boards
| Press Room
