Book vs Movie: Carl Sagan's Contact

After hearing several friends tell me how awesome Carl Sagan's fiction is, I decided to give it a test drive.  I had heard of Contact before, but I'd never gotten around to neither seeing the movie nor reading the book.  Over spring break I've done both.

Carl Sagan's story focuses on Ellie Arroway, an exceptional woman with a passion for radio astronomy.  While working on the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) program, her and her team discover a signal coming from the star Vega, 26 light years away.  Although cautious at first, this is no false alarm - we've made our first contact with life outside our planet.

In the book, first published in 1985, we meet Ellie at a young age and follow her as she is first showing interest in science.  She is driven to ask "why" and has a remarkable relationship with her father, who dies while she is still young.  Although she tries religion, she is pushed away from the church after being told that she asks too many questions.  However, Ellie triumphs forward; past her stepfather who thinks that, as a girl, Ellie should not pursue the science she loves; past a graduate adviser who sees little promise in her; and past a program will little radio time.

Her discovery of a signal that will irrevocably change the world comes near the end of the millennium.  Although the signal is quickly found to have multiple layers, the lowest layer, which seems to be plans to build something with over 30,000 pages of instructions, seems to be without a primer.  After months of work, the secret to building the machine is finally unveiled, and construction begins.  Although humanity has no idea what some of the parts do, much less the machine as a whole, a crew of five is selected to man the machine.

Because this message seems is such an unexpected shock for everyday people, there is much debate over the nature of the message and whether or not the "Vegans" should be trusted at all.  Some turn to God; to televangelists who fear the end of days.  Palmer Joss, an older minister with an interest in science, is one of the few to push for support for the project.  Ellie and Joss disagree on many things, but both believe that the search for truth is the most important mission there is.

In addition to the religious fighting that comes with the message, there is a question as to who will fund this vast undertaking.  S.R. Hadden, the richest man in the world, agrees that he will help to fund the machine.  Although he appears to be a good (if greedy) person overall, his company has been involved in many ventures that are considered by many to be amoral, including the massive pleasure city of Babylon.

Ellie's relationship with Hadden is as complex as her relationship with Joss.  All three of these characters brings a different core belief to the table, beliefs in science, money, and God that blend together surprisingly well.  That is what makes Sagan's book so powerful: it's not just a book about our first contact with aliens.  It's a book about Ellie.  On the whole, it is more about her realization that faith in something (not necessarily anything religious) is a powerful thing.  Just the phrase "I have faith" can be hard to say but extremely meaningful.

The 1997 movie, starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey, the basis of the plot and theme remains the same.  Of course there have been changes, first to update to the technology to what it actually was in 1997 (and politics, as the USSR is heavily involved in the novel and no longer exists), and second to make the movie "sexier" and more appealing to the masses.  Sure, there will be fiction readers not interested in radio telescopes that will pick up a book by the great Carl Sagan.  But there will be far many more that will go to a movie about alien contact than will ever read a book about it.

One of these appealing tactics was the addition of a Joss/Ellie romantic storyline.  In the movie, Palmer Joss is a smooth talker and immediately takes a liking to Ellie.  Although it adds plot for movie audiences, I disagree that the complete change in Palmer Joss' character were needed.  His character in the book still manages to make an impact on Ellie and affects her profoundly, even though their conversations are short.  Other changes, such as the machine holding one person in comparison to five, only take away if you've read the book.

All in all, I think the book was one of the best that I've read in a while.  The movie was also good, but it really pales in comparison to the book if you're interested in space and astronomy.  I would recommend either in a heartbeat, and will definitely be thanking the friend that first recommended it to me.